Spring weather in Melbourne Australia is notoriously unpredictable. Cold wind was humming through the taut string lines as a young couple stood side by side on the lawn and gazed at the building site.
The girl stepped forward and bent to playfully twang on one of the florescent-pink strings. The rugged-looking man covertly studied the way her jeans moulded her nicely rounded backside. He smiled to himself, tapped her with a folded plan then shoved it into one of the many pockets of his work pants.
He waved his hands about. "Okay Cathie, what do you think?"
The girl straightened up and pulled her knitted beanie cap closer about her pale face and over her ears.
She looked at him and rolled her eyes. "Chris, you may think I'm clever because I managed to squeak into Uni, but the reality is I'm just a dumb eighteen-year-old kid. You're my big brother. You're the carpenter. Please explain."
She waited, staring at the place where her flat was going to be attached to the back of their parents' home. Try as she may, to her the strings remained a cat's-cradle-puzzle, but she knew Chris was already visualising the finished project.
"We are standing in your kitchen," he enthused. "Bedroom over there with the en-suite in between. I'll do every bit of the work myself to make certain it's perfect."
"I feel like a bit of a charity case." Cathie muttered. "You're donating your labour and Mum and Dad are donating the money for the materials plus half their back yard."
"No need to think like that." Chris went over the reasoning behind the project. "Your health scare has made us all realise how much we need to keep each other near. You'll have security and privacy here as long as you want and the flat will add a lot of value to the property. Everyone wins."
"I definitely like the idea." Cathie agreed. "I can't live with our parents forever and when I move in here I'll be more or less independent but still close."
Chris chuckled. "You or I would never be able to afford to rent a flat here in the inner suburbs, much less buy one. Mum and Dad will be millionaires one day when they sell up. As soon as I finish this, you do know I intend to build a big garage there in the driveway with a flat above it for myself...and my girlfriend?"
Cathie laughed at that. "What girlfriend?"
"She's out there somewhere." He grinned. "Like your boyfriend."
Suddenly serious he gestured at the string lines. "Now getting back to this stuff here, just imagine how nice it will look."
Cathie couldn't imagine it. She believed him, but simply couldn't picture it.
Chris held out his hand, "Come on over here into your bedroom."
She allowed herself to be lead over the strings into the 'bedroom'.
Chris put his arms around her and pulled her close. "We're all alone in your bedroom," he whispered and kissed her cheek.
Cathie pushed him away. "I know you just feel sorry for me and think you're helping by pretending I'm some hot chick you're hitting on, but you don't mean it. Nor should you. Have you forgotten I'm your sister?"
"No of course I haven't." Chris blustered, becoming somewhat annoyed. "I do feel sorry for you, but I...aah, forget it."
Cathie was becoming angry too, because she actually enjoyed her brother's flirting and knew she shouldn't. "You're acting all weird,"
"If you say so." He snapped as she scurried away into the main house.
Moments later he heard her bedroom door slam.
The weekend was filled with his furious hammering and sawing and the frame of the building project was completed by Sunday evening.
Mid-afternoon Monday, Chris arrived home from work and found Cathie studying with books and laptop occupying the entire kitchen table.
"Hello Sis, I'm gonna do some measuring on the framework out there," he greeted, hoping they were on good terms again, "but first I'll make us a cuppa if you move some of that crap out of the way," he added, intending it as a joke.
Cathie looked up, her lip trembling, eyes full of tears.
"Jesus Sis," he hurried across the room to hug her, "I'm sorry. I was just fooling about. Didn't mean to upset you."
"It wasn't you," she shook her head.
"What then?"
"I don't want to go into it with you Chris," Cathie sniffled, "and I haven't got anyone to talk to. Mum won't be home for ages and she's too busy anyway."
"So..." With his arms around his sister Chris patted her back, hoping the contact was comforting for her, because it was doing something else entirely for him.
"Look," he continued, "obviously I'm no expert, but they reckon talking about problems helps. I'll listen. You talk. Maybe that'll help."
A tiny smile lightened her sad face for a moment. "I don't know...'
Chris's erection began to make it's presence known to him as he enjoyed the off-limits intimacy of the hugging and back patting. "Try telling me. I won't judge you or anything."
Cathie drew a ragged breath and looked away again to hide the tears that threatened to overflow. "The hospital said I'm almost back to normal and the probability of a full recovery is around 90%. It's the 10% who don't make it that frightens me,"
"Well of course it does Sweetheart." Chris performed a little shoulder massage. "I know the odds are in your favour but I worry too. We all do, but I'm sure you'll be alright."
"And I'm tired of being thought of as sick," Chloe continued. "People don't see me any more, don't think of me as a real woman, I'm just a...an illness."
"You're not that to me," he reassured her. "I absolutely see you as a woman."
Chloe hid a tiny smile, thinking 'I guess he actually does, judging by that bulge in his pants,' but saying, "I'll make that tea for us. You go do whatever you were going to do. I'll bring yours out to you and you can tell me more about the flat. I've got to think positive haven't I? Be happy. Look to the future."
"That's my girl."
The next day was wet and windy so at mid-day the builder Chris worked for called it quits for the day and sent his crew home early. Entering the family home Chris was concerned to hear Cathie crying in her bedroom and knocked on her door. "Hey! What's up now? Are you alright?"
Her voice sounded raw. "Go away Christopher! Leave me alone!"
"I don't think so! I'm coming in!"
"No! Don't!"
He dropped his back-pack and went in anyway. He guessed she had been moping about all morning as she was still dressed, or should it be undressed, for bed. She lay on top of her tangled bedding with her face buried in her pillow, wearing an old tee-shirt and panties. He grinned at the sight of her bare shapely legs, and despite the fact that she was so obviously upset, he took a long moment to drink in the view.
Cathie's night-shirt was hiked up at the back and the panties were tiny old ones she must have had for years, because they so clearly belonged to a much smaller, younger Cathie. They were threadbare, a faded pink colour, with a picture of a teddy bear on the back and they were way too small, exposing the lower half of her smooth well-rounded bottom cheeks and the top of her butt crease. His balls tingled.
Chris almost managed to suppress his partially-formed evil thoughts. Almost. "Cathie, come on. What's the matter? Can I help?"
He sat on her bed next to her and put a hand on her back. Because of her history he initially feared for her health, but she didn't feel hot, so he guessed she wasn't sick. His next thought was: 'No bra. Yeah, yeah, a sinful thought, but I'm a horny young male, so I can't help thinking dirty.'
Cathie's teen-angst reply was muffled by the pillow. "No one can help! It's not fair! I've got no friends. All the girls are nasty and all the boys think I'm an ugly freak!"
"Oh Cathie, it isn't that bad."
She kicked her feet then raised her head and turned her teary face to him and wailed. "It is, it's worse!"
He started rubbing her back and waited. He'd heard that just letting the silence draw out was a good technique to get someone to talk. It worked.
Cathie unloaded some of her concerns. "Girls at the Uni, they know about my cancer. I've explained over and over that I didn't have my breast off, just a bit of surgery then the chemotherapy, but this morning on Facebook they're saying 'Cathie's got one tit,' and other stuff like that."
"Who?" Chris snapped, his anger rising. "I'll slap those bitches silly."
"Don't be silly." she sighed, then continued. "That won't help will it? It's not just what people say, it's how they look at me. Like I told you yesterday, it's how I feel, so unattractive. Ugly. Not at all, um, not sexy, if you must know! No boy would want to come near me." She finished with an odd mixture of hopelessness and defiance as if daring him to contradict her.
"What? Now who's being silly? Chris said. "You're really pretty, a very sexy girl."
"Maybe I was once, but not now." Cathie's lip quivered. "The surgery and chemo have messed me up."
Chris shook his head. "Well, even though you think it's weird of me to say so, I find you very attractive. Hot, I believe I'd call it."
"Easy for you to say!" Cathie raised her voice. "You can't possibly imagine how I feel!" Then she finished despairingly. "And I've got a big ugly scar on my, um, my tit!"
"Yeah, well I knew you had surgery, so I suppose you would have a scar. Just how ugly is it?" He made a funny lecherous face. "Show me. I'd sure as Hell like to see it."
She managed a sad little smile. "Not in this life you dirty boy, and that's not the worst of it. I feel such a freak. Look at me." She tugged her knitted beanie cap off. "I've got no hair. Anywhere."
"Well it was obvious your head is bald, but no hair anywhere?" He laughed. "Now you're talkin', I'd really like to see that too!"
She responded with an actual grin and a feeble little slap at his arm. "Stop it."
