Better Late Than Never

“Get down from there you idiot! If that branch snaps, you’ll fall and break your neck!”

“Remember when we used to climb up here when we were kids? We thought we could see forever…well, as far as Palmerston North anyway.” I looked out over the rolling Northern Manawatu hills, yep; Palmy was still there.

That was in the careless, fearless days. It is donkey’s years since I climbed up here and I am a lot heavier. Just as I have grown, the big old Oregon Pine has put on another four metres above where ten-year-old E. and I, two years older, carved our initials in the trunk. ‘E M’ and ‘R M’ for Esther and Richie McLeod, the letters are still faintly visible just by my hand, although almost overgrown by bark. It looks a long way down to where she is stood on the ground.

“All I remember is, you used to make me climb up first so that you could look up my skirt at my knickers…”

“Never! I was just making sure that if you slipped I could catch you…”

“Ha! Ha! Bloody Ha!”

“Why on earth would I have wanted to look at my kid sister’s knickers?”

“Not so much of the ‘kid’, buster! I’m only two years behind you!”

The branch I was stood on creaked ominously.

“Come down Richie, it’s too dangerous…”

The branch creaked again, only this time it was more of a loud groan. Hastily, albeit reluctant to admit she was right, I scrambled down to a more solid perch. I looked down into E.’s sparkly green eyes and grinned. Gee, I was over the moon that she was home for a few days, but I was not about to let her know that in a hurry! Overt shows of affection in our family are not ‘the done thing’; a product of Mum’s Calvinistic upbringing in Scotland before Dad married her and brought her out to New Zealand.

“Just look at you! Who would think you are a responsible general manager in charge of six farms with a combined value of several million dollars.”

Trust my sister to be sensible! She never has been a big life risk-taker, preferring to study food technology at Massey University and then going to work for a big international manufacturer in Auckland, instead of pushing the limits in the farming business. Dad invested wisely, buying up neighbouring farms in our vicinity when they became vacant. When he retired, he put me in charge, so an injury that put me out of action for any length of time could seriously affect the operation.

“Thus spoke the city-girl! Loosen up, kiddo, you’re back in the country now!”

“Come along Tarzan, you were going to take me over to see the new flock of stud Romneys.”

“Slave Driver!”

I swung down a few more metres then jumped from where I was, but landed awkwardly, dragging us both in a tangled heap to the grass. E. let out a hoot of laughter, “I told you to be careful, you dork!”

I love the sound of my sister’s laughter, and the way she laughs, tossing her hair and closing her eyes. And the way she tilts her head to expose her throat makes her seem so open and vulnerable. I got up on one elbow, looking fondly down at her; at the way her dark hair was swathed on the ground like one of those shampoo commercials on the TV; at the faint dusting of freckles still visible across her snub nose; and at her soft, wide, made-for-kissing lips.

“Why would I have wanted to look at your knickers anyway? You were only a little girl.”

“And you were a nosy little boy!”

“You were never interested in me…”

“I watched you peeing a few times while we were out playing and you thought you’d hidden yourself away…fascinating…and once, when we were a bit older, I watched you in the shower relieving something else…are you blushing…?”

Feeling the heat rising in my cheeks from the knowledge that she had watched me jacking off, I looked away, down her prone body. E.’s bent knees were raised and clasped tightly together. The skirt of her soft cotton summer dress had fallen down to around the tops of her long slim thighs and she was swaying her bare legs gently from side to side, somewhat like the arm of a metronome. The sun glinted on her downy fine leg hairs.

“See…you’re doing it now…!”

But she made no effort to cover herself.

‘I’m glad you don’t shave your legs…” I turned back to her and grinned sheepishly, “Your turn to climb the tree…bet you twenty you can’t get half as high as I did.”

“Ha! You only want to look up my skirt. Why should I pay you to let you do that? Give me twenty and you can look at my knickers where we are…”

“No cash with me…IOU?”

“Can you afford the interest…100 percent an hour?”

“You really are an Aucklander! No discount for family?”

“It’s double ‘cos it is family!”

She was laughing, with a fierce, wildness in her eyes that I hadn’t seen in her for years.

E. mock spat in her palm and held her hand out for me to shake, “Deal…?”

I did the same and took her hand, laughing with her, “So, you’ve gone into the oldest profession as well as usury…Done!”

I scooted down so that I was propped on my elbow about level with her waist. E. pulled her dress up almost to her navel. The lacy material of her pants formed a stark contrast with the richly smooth, lightly tanned skin of her belly and thighs. I sucked in my breath in admiration.

“Aaaah…white…my favourite colour…”

“White isn’t a colour…”

“I remember pale yellow with blue teddy-bears…and pink with red rose-buds…”

“See, you did look! I must have been about eight when I had those…”

“You were eleven…”

“Mum never wanted me to grow up…you even used to look up my legs when I wore shorts…”

“What do you mean?”

“The one time I really remember was when we were on holiday up at Port Jackson…”

I remember that vividly as well. E.’s shorts were very short and very close fitting!

“I was about…”

“Fourteen…”

“Right…do you remember when we got caught out by the tide coming in and we had to get over those rocks…?”

Did I remember? I can still call up the image of her tight little bum just inches from my face as we climbed! When she had to stretch her leg out wide for her next foothold, I could see up the leg of her shorts and got more than a hint of her podgy sex lips and dark pubic hair where the inner joint of her thigh met the edge of her panties.

“You were so close behind me, I could feel your breath on the backs of my legs. I thought you were going to bite my bum!”

“No, I certainly didn’t want to bite you…”

“Oh…” She sounded disappointed.

“I almost kissed you though…on the backs of your legs…right at the top… Moving right along…talking about growing up, does Mum ever say anything about Justine shacking up with you?”

“Justin…!”

“Oh ok, Justin! It’s a pooftah name anyway…who’s ever heard of a friggin’ Maori called ‘Justin’ for crissakes!”

“He’s not a girl…or a poof…”

“Good in the sack, eh?”

“I have no complaints…Mum just doesn’t speak about it…but you sound as if you disapprove…”

“Dad’s not happy, he reckons you’re sleeping with the enemy…”

“Because Justin is Maori?”

“Nah, because he works for one of the syndicates trying to steal the America’s Cup off us…”

“Bloody hell! Justin only crews on a support boat!”

“Enough for Dad…”

“What about you?”

“Just being protective… Oh, bugger! He’s sleeping with my sister …Justin could be ‘sky blue pink with lime green spots’ for all I care…I am ‘anti’ any guy sleeping with you…”

“I never thought of you as the jealous type. You don’t have a girlfriend at the moment, do you?”

“Not right now…and never anyone meaningful…but like you, I’ve got no complaints about getting my end away…and, yes, a couple of them have been Maori too…”

“Nobody special you have your eye on?”

“Nah! But, according to Mum, I am an ‘eligible bachelor’ and plenty of the local sheilas have their eye on me…and I suppose you should know…seeing as I am having this fascinating discussion with your knickers…or rather, what’s inside them…I’ve always fancied you to bits…”

“God! Now he tells me!”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I am hosed off with you telling me that after all this time.”

“How so…?”

“If I’d have really known that when I was intent on losing my cherry…!”

“You would have chosen me to do the dirty deed? Your brother…come on!”

“You’d have been high on the list. In fact, a prime candidate seeing as all the guys I really fancied weren’t in the least bit interested in me…”

“Well, you were a bit flat chested…”

“Still am…”

I ran a blade of grass down the back of her thigh, making the hairs on both her legs stand up like thousands of little sentries. “Nothing to get too worked up about…”

“We’ve been talking about implants…Justin has offered to pay…”

“Oh, Lord no! Don’t mutilate yourself like that…and what if they leak after a while…bloody dangerous!”

“It’s nice to know you care…I feel so inadequate sometimes…”

“You feel inadequate, or he makes you feel that way?”

“Hmmmmm…”

“I think it’s bloody criminal…the Yanks have got a lot to answer for…the ‘big tits means sexy chick’ culture, I mean. If you’d had a couple more inches up there, those guys you liked would have been slavering at your feet like a pack of horny farm dogs around a bitch on heat! I think Justine needs his head read…”

“Justin…!”

Just a hint of testiness perhaps? But she was rubbing her thighs together slowly.

“Are you going to marry him?”

“He hasn’t asked me…”

“Hell, I thought you city chicks didn’t bother with that shit nowadays…you want your man, you throw him on his back and twist his nuts until he says ‘yes’…”

A long silence from Up North.

“He doesn’t touch me…if he did he’d find I go off like a firecracker…”

“A lot of chicks with small boobs do…they must be ultra sensitive or something. Have you told him?”

“I don’t think it would happen if I told him…spontaneity all gone…”

“Anyway, who did you waylay at the crossroads to take your cherry in the end?”

“Edward Seymour…”

Shocked, I looked up at E.’s face for the first time in many minutes, “Not Teddy Four-Eyes!”

“The same…”

Teddy Four-Eyes was an overweight blob who wasn’t any good at sports or anything at school except maths and sucking up to the teachers.

“Bloody heck! Why him?”

“I was getting desperate. I was over sixteen and I was the only virgin left in my class at school!”

“But, Teddy Four-Eyes!”

“He was gentle and considerate, and as scared as I was. And it was totally boring…but at least I got the job done…”

“But, Teddy Four-Eyes…!”

“I still see him in Auckland occasionally…all plump and sleek. He’s an investment banker now…drives a big Mercedes…has the obligatory Remuera-blonde wife and two spoiled rat-bag kids. He blushes bright pink whenever we meet…I often wonder if his wife notices…”

“Blimey, you really should have asked me…!”

“I would have, but you didn’t seem to be all that interested…just curious about my panties. By the way, have you had your fill of looking at them yet? Had all your wildest dreams fulfilled?”

“Mmmmm, bit of a disappointment really.”

“What…!”

“Oh a personal hang-up…you’re wearing one of those panty-liner thingys…I can’t stand them! Has it got wings?”

“They are a feminine hygiene aid…”

“Bollocks! They’re another thing we should declare war on America for…everything has to be deodorised and sterile…can’t have your women smelling like women…!”

E. hoots with laughter again. Her legs open slightly. Wow…even with a panty-liner in place!

“Well, it’s true! I read this story on the Internet the other evening…”

“What’s this, my big brother looking up dirty stories on the Web and pulling his pud?”

“I look for erotica…don’t find much of it though, but lots of b-grade porno scripts…got so pissed off I even wrote a couple of stories myself and sent them in…”

“Aaaah, the lonely shepherd cuddles up to his favourite ewe and they compose steamy tales together for the Internet…how sweet!”

“Baaaa! But seriously though…this story was about a guy with a lesbian sister who fixed him up to screw with three sheilas for his 30th birthday present…wouldn’t you believe a blonde, a brunette and a redhead! Anyway…they’ve all got big tits, of course, and he spends about three pages sucking them. Then he gets to go down on these three chicks…gives one of them 35 orgasms in ten minutes…yeah right…but not a mention of taste or smell with any of them. I tell you, the Yanks can’t bear the thought…that’s why they invented vaginal deodorants and now these bloody liner things!”

“Jeepers Richie! I’ve never heard you so eloquent about anything other than wool prices and stocking rates! Why read that kind of story in the first place?”

“Morbid interest…that particular site has a ranking system based on readers’ votes…I wanted to see if the ‘top’ ones were really any good. Anyway, smell is central to sex…go out among a mob of ewes at tupping time and tell me it isn’t! We humans are no different!”

“Tell you what…look away for a second…close your eyes…promise?”

“Ok…”

I heard a faint rustle, then E. saying, “Right! Is that better you grumpy bugger?”

She was perfect! The lovely girl had taken that damned pad out of her panties and she looked just right, with the soft cloth outlining her mound and the start of her mysteries. And in the process, E. had pushed her panties down a little way, so that a few strands of dark hair strayed above the waistband. I didn’t ask where she had secreted the offending object!

On a sudden impulse, I ducked my head and clasped some of her errant curls between my lips, giving them a gentle tug.

“Hey! Down, Tiger!” she exclaimed.

In a mock innocent voice, I murmured, “All the way down here…?” and pressed my lips to her panties, right at the fork of her thighs.

The expected slap around my ears didn’t eventuate. Instead, after what seemed like a very long pause, I heard her saying faintly, “Richie…stop doing that, please.”

I pressed my lips against her again and then withdrew.

“The other ridiculous thing about that story was that the guy’s lesbian sister became his cum-slut…”

“His what? What on earth is a cum-slut?”

“A sheila who eats sperm. He masturbated in front of her and she caught his cum in her mouth and swallowed it…enjoyed doing it…scraped up any bits she missed…”

“She’d be the first lesbian in history…”

“My thoughts entirely…he never did anything for her…I would have thought any dyke could dig a guy going down on her…but not a thought of that…”

“I’m not so sure that a man would even be satisfactory, but I’m no expert…I know a couple of girls who are in a relationship and they talk quite frankly when they’ve had a couple of drinks, but they’ve never said anything about that… A man’s sperm though…definitely vomit country for a lesbian I would think. Maybe that story is so popular because it draws a picture of gorgeous females, even a lezzie, subjugating themselves and servicing the dominant male…?”

“That sounds a bit too deep for me…did you know your panties are starting to get a damp patch…?

“Now you know why the panty-liner…”

“Incontinence…?”

“Don’t be a complete prat…you started me off when you said you wanted to kiss the tops of my legs up at Port Jackson…Then there’s you being down there like that…I can feel your voice in my belly…”

“I never knew I was a ventril…”

“Richie! If you don’t stop talking and start doing something, I’ll soon be climbing that tree without using my hands or my feet…!”

So, I started ‘doing something’; pulling the soft cloth down to unveil the damp ringlets; parting her to expose her dark-lipped, richly inner pink, simply magical gash; and lowering my face to meet her urgently lifting abdomen. She tasted and smelled like a woman should. And then we had skyrockets – the kinds of rockets that scream like banshees on the way up and then explode in thousands of stars.

Later, back at the home paddock when we separated, she going to the main house and I to my own cottage to wash up before joining our parents for dinner, E. kissed me on the cheek and forgave me the twenty…and the interest.