I stood at the end of the gate waiting for everyone to disembark from the plane. When Laura finally came out after a long string of people, she was radiant. Her long chestnut hair was tied back in a braid that fell to the middle of her back. She wore a pair of kahki shorts and a white collared shirt tied at her waist, with the collar open to mid-chest just above where I imagine her bra would have crossed her chest. When she saw me, her full lips opened with a tremendous smile and her green eyes sparkled as she spread her arms and ran to me, jumping up to wrap her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist, she hugged me tight and then planted an excited, but sisterly, kiss on my cheek and hugged me tightly once more, before letting go and standing again on her own two feet.
It had been over a year since I had seen my younger step-sister, I was twenty years old and she had recently turned eighteen and graduated high school just one month before. Laura had been accepted to the same university that I was attending and, since she had barely enough money to pay tuition, I had offered to let her stay at my house. I had been in a similar situation to hers just two years before, but my grandfather had died and left me a large sum of money. Not wanting to squander it the way I imagine most college men might, I took the bulk of it and invested it in a rather nice home near the university. The money left over I left to the bankers to manage for me and give me a quarterly stipend to get through school on. It wasn't enough money to live on forever, but it would keep me in good status all through college and provide me with a good headstart thereafter.
Laura talked excitedly all the way home about looking forward to college and life on her own and how much fun we were going to have this summer. She really had changed since I last saw her. She used to be an attractive young woman, though a bit on the chubby side, and a bit of a nerd, wearing conservative clothing and hanging out with chess-club types. During her senior year, however, she had become a knockout. After dieting and exercising for a year, she was lean and trim, with a figure to die for and her taste in clothing changed, too. Now she was every man's dream.
I have to admit that even before that summer, I'd had somewhat of a crush on her. Even before she'd lost weight I had been attracted to her, and over the five years we lived together after our parents were married, we'd become good friends and confided in each other about nearly everything. Anything but brotherly love had been taboo between us, though.
Now, as I watched her running at the mouth and gesturing with her hands, I remembered why we had always been such good friends and why I had been secretly attracted to her for years, now. We were best friends, reunited.
We got home that night and as we walked through the door I was apologizing that the bed I had ordered for the guest room had not yet been delivered. I explained to Laura that I would be happy to give her my own room until it showed up and I'd take the couch.
"Why don't we just share your bed?" Laura asked, "You have this huge king-sized bed, we can both sleep in it until the new bed shows up! It's not like we're kids anymore, we can handle it."
Yeah, I thought, it's not like we're kids anymore... We had shared a bed once or twice as kids when relatives came to stay, but that was before puberty hit and things seemed a little different to me now, but as long as she was o.k. with it, why should I care?
"Are you sure?" I asked, incredulously, "I really don't mind sleeping on the couch. I don't want you to feel uncomfortable."
"Why would I feel uncomfortable?" Laura asked, "You're still my best friend. Don't worry about it."
And that was it, Laura would share my bed until the new bed arrived for her. We had dinner and sat to watch TV for a while, then Laura took a shower to wash off the sweat from the day. I sat in front of the TV for a while longer, then went into the bedroom to go to bed. I hadn't heard the bathroom door open a second time, so I was really surprised to walk into the room and find Laura standing in front of her suitcase wearing nothing but a pair of french-cut black panties, rummaging around for a nightshirt. At first I just stared, like a deer caught in the headlights. Laura reached an arm to cover her chest and gave a surprised yelp.
"Uh, excuse me," I said, turning my eyes away and going out the door. This was the first time I had ever seen Laura completely nude, even in a swimsuit she always had worn a one-piece. I felt embarrassed, but also had a growing firmness in my crotch as I remembered the sight of her plump, firm breasts.
A moment later she came out the door, this time wearing a pair of mint-green pajamas.
"Sorry," I said, as she walked into the living room and sat next to me on the couch. "I thought you were still in the bathroom."
"That's o.k.," she said, "it's nothing you haven't seen before, I'm sure." We both sat there in silence for an awkward moment, neither quite knowing what to say. Then Laura turned to me, "So, since you did see, what did you think?"
"Excuse me?" I asked, suddenly feeling cornered again. How was I supposed to answer that?
"Well, I've lost 30 pounds in the last year, I've been working out and eating right. The last time you saw me I was a balloon in comparison. So what did you think, did you like what you saw?" Laura smiled. She was having a great time watching me squirm.
"Ahh," I stalled, not sure how to respond, "well, I think you looked, ahh, just fine. Great job." I laughed nervously, I'm sure my face was beet red by now.
Laura laughed, "Omigosh! You'd think I was your mother or something! You don't have to be embarrassed, Keith, it's not like were blood relatives or something."
I just smiled back at her sheepishly. Laura reached an arm around me and rubbed my shoulder with her hand. "Come on, Keith, lighten up! I have an idea, why don't you take off your shirt, and we'll call it even!"
I looked at her with a comic smile, "You're kidding, right?"
Laura just smiled back, "C'mon, I'll give you a back rub, loosen you up a bit! I don't remember you being quite such a prude."
"I'm not a prude," I objected, "it's just that you're the closest thing to a sister I'm ever likely to have and I've come to think of you that way. But I'll never turn down a back rub," I said, pulling my T-shirt over my head, "so have at it!"
Laura had me lie on my stomach on the couch and she knelt on the floor to rub my back. I would never turn down a backrub from Laura, she was awesome, she always knew just where to dig in her thumbs and really knead the muscles. It felt great.
She rubbed my back for a while, though it didn't seem nearly long enough to me. As I lie there with my eyes closed and Laura's magical hands stroking my back, I started to feel really aroused. It suddenly occurred to me that she was going to finish soon and might ask me to get up and give her a back rub as well or just sit with her or something, and if I stood up, she'd see the firm outline of my erection through my shorts. It felt just like high-school when the teacher asks you to come write something on the board at just the wrong time. Sure enough...
"Okay, you lug, it's my turn now, get up off the couch and give me a turn!" Laura gently patted her hands on my back to punctuate the statement. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to get up and embarrass myself, but at the same time, I couldn't think of what else to do. So I rolled over off the couch and knelt next to it, waiting for Laura to lie down in my place.
I was hoping she hadn't noticed, and maybe she didn't, but before she lay down in front of me, she had an odd smile on her face, and I felt as if all my secrets were exposed, as if she knew what I was thinking without my saying, all my feelings for her in the past, my arousal as she rubbed my back, the excitement of walking into the room and seeing her exposed chest for the first time. I looked away from her gaze shyly as she lay down before me.
I began to rub her back through her pajama top, my shirt still off, but I had been so preoccupied with not letting her see my erection that it didn't even occur to me that I was still naked from the waist up. I tried to knead her muscles through the pajama top but was obviously not doing the primo job she had done for me. After a few moments she finally said something.
"Here," she said, reaching to the bottom of her pajama shirt, "help me pull this up to my shoulders so you can rub my back without it." I reached down to help her pull up the shirt on her back, but it wasn't loose enough to stretch over her shoulders without slipping past her chest, which I didn't attempt by any means.
"I can just slip my hands under," I said, "it will be fine."
"No, it's too uncomfortable this way. Why don't you go look in my bathroom bag, I have some massage oil in there, and while your getting that, I'll situate myself a little better here."
"O.k.," I said. I stood up and walked to the bathroom to find her bag, fighting myself mentally over whether to take my time and give her a chance to 'situate herself' or rush as fast as I could to see if I could catch sight of her without a shirt again.
I decided on the former, as any gentleman would, and waited in the bathroom until I heard her call me.
"Did you find it?" She called, "or did you get lost in there?"
I had found it upon the first glance into her bag, but had been waiting for her to call me. "Yes, I think I found the right bottle," I replied, then walked out of the bathroom into the living room once more.
Laura had completely removed her top and was lying facedown on the couch, her shirt crumpled underneath her in such a way as to cover what would have been the exposed side of her breast. This might have worked fine for her if she had been slight of chest, but she had a rather large pair of breasts and the cloth fell away from her side before I even got the oil warmed up in my hands.