Lessons in Observation

Most of the time we're a pretty unobservant lot -- us humans, I mean -- and that is especially true when it comes to noticing how the passage of time changes people. We just don't recognise how even those who are close to us alter, how they grow, how they age, how they develop. And the more time we're around them, the less we see.

Looking back now, I guess it was this observational blind-spot that was at the root of all that happened. In fact, I'm sure it was.

It all started during the summer before I went to university. I had taken a couple of years after my A levels to travel, party and generally see a bit of the world before returning to my studies, and I was taking a well-earned breather before I left for the uni. Billy, my brother, was eighteen, almost two years younger than me, and had just finished his own A levels. Our parents both work so we ended up spending quite bit of time alone at home, and it was kind of strange at first because in the previous two years I had hardly seen Billy because of my travelling and we were almost strangers.

Despite this strangeness, I still didn't really notice Billy. To me he was just my kid brother, the same as he'd always been, and the fact that he'd just bought his first motorbike didn't mean anything more to me than being a sign that his toys were getting bigger as he got older.

I just didn't see him as anything more than a boy who happened to be related to me -- and by 'boy', I mean kid.

We hadn't really had much to do with each other for so long that for the first two weeks of the holidays we barely spoke. Billy was off most days with his little gang of friends and newbie bikers, and I spent a lot of time on the phone to my friends and down at the mall where I spent more than just time choosing my university wardrobe.

Soon though, our various friends disappeared off on holidays abroad, or started jobs, or just generally moved on to other things, and Billy and I found ourselves at home at the same time. Before long we were bickering just as we'd done years before, and arguing about the most ridiculous things -- also just as we'd done years before. And yet, even as we got familiar with one another again, I still failed to notice that Billy really wasn't just a boy anymore.

So far during the holiday, the weather had been that of a typical English summer style -- in other words, wet and dreary -- but in the fourth week, the sun came blazing through. It lightened our moods wonderfully, and the bickering became a little more playful, a little less personal.

Billy, though, had always been mischievous and at times he could take things a little too far. What would start out as a well-intentioned joke or tease tended to develop into something meaner or just plain rude.

I should have been more aware of that, just as I should have been more observant about how Billy had grown. But I wasn't.

On the Wednesday afternoon I came back from the local store with a fresh supply of ice-cold sodas from their fridges and offered one to Billy who was sitting in the kitchen out of the heat. As I bent over and set the other cans onto the shelf in our own fridge, Billy pressed the freezing can onto the top of my arm. Naturally, I yelped and dropped the two cans I had in my hands. I straightened up and turned on him.

"Billy, you little shit! You know I hate that!"

"Sorry, sis, but I thought you needed to cool down a bit. You look hot."

"Of course I look hot. It's ninety degrees out there and I've just been and got us both cold drinks which you've now bounced all over the floor. And you can pick them up."

Billy shrugged, "Take it easy, sis. No need to get all bossy."

I snorted and took my own drink over to the back door. I popped the can and took a long swallow, the cola sending spears of ice into my brain, making me shiver deliciously in my little summer dress. I closed my eyes, basking in the heat of the sun, relishing the chill of the soda settling inside me. I sighed happily.

And then squealed as a pop close to my left ear was followed by a spray of icy cola across my face.

It took me a few seconds to get over the shock before I turned slowly and faced my little brother.

"You just have to take things too far, don't you? You're a total prick, Billy!"

"Well you still looked like you were overheating."

"Yeah, right! Look at this!" I run my fingers through my hair which was already becoming sticky, "Prick!"

"There's no need for-"

"There's every need you little shit. Your trouble is you've got no respect and you can't just have a little joke and let it be, can you?"

"Jeez you sound just like mum."

"I'll have you know I've got every right to. In case you've forgotten, I am the oldest and I can still handle you, no matter how old you get."

Billy gave one of his sly grins, "You reckon?"

That was the moment that it hit me. My little brother wasn't quite so little any more. And that grin wasn't the grin of a boy... Even, so I was still determined to assert the authority of my birth-right. "You can't intimidate me, Billy. You're not so big that I can't still tan your butt."

His laugh sent a strange shiver through me. It was the laugh of a mature male. A confident male.

"Sis? Don't kid yourself. If there's any butt-tanning to be done, that'll be me doing it."

"You wouldn't even dare try!"

"I wouldn't dare me if I was you."

I stared at Billy and tried to block out the thought that my position as elder and fitter and better was suddenly under threat. "Don't push your luck, Billy. You really wouldn't, and you know it."

I may have sounded confident, but the second he lunged towards me, I squealed and dodged him, dashing around the opposite side of the kitchen table. "Quit it, Billy!"

"No way, sis," he grinned at me, feinting one way then the other, trying to reach for me. "It's time you learned that you can't bully me any more, and I think it's about time you come to terms with that."

"I have never bullied you!" I was feeling cornered, both physically and emotionally, "But even if I had, you're still way too chicken to try anything like that."

Billy stopped dodging back and forth and stared at me for a few seconds before hanging his head. "I suppose."

I breathed a sigh of relief, gave a snort of contempt, and strode towards the door, content that normal service had been resumed. I had only taken two steps into the living room when my bubble of arrogance and complacency was not so much burst as exploded.

Billy's arm closed around my waist and with a strength I never would have believed he possessed, I was lifted bodily off me feet. I didn't even have a chance to do anything more than squeak a protest before I was flying through the air, the plump cushions of the sofa rushing up to meet me.

Before I had a chance to scramble to my feet, Billy was beside me and he dragged me onto his lap, my face buried in the cushions, my legs kicking frantically. I had just managed to lift my head enough to start yelling warnings at him when I felt his hand grab the hem of my dress.

In shock at what I now realised he was about to do, I didn't even struggled as the bottom of the dress was yanked up my legs. Only when I felt cool air wafting over my panties did I even think to struggle. And boy did I struggle.

"You just stop that right now, Billy!" I yelled at him, trying to set my hands on the cushions, bucking wildly, kicking my legs. His hand gave another yank, the hem of my skirt now under my belly as it slid over my hips, "Oh my god, Billy! Don't you dare! Don't you fucking dare!"

I made a serious, desperate effort to force my arms straight, straining for all I was worth to lift myself off of the cushions and Billy's lap. When I realised that his strength was more than a match for mine, I suffered a serious few moments of panic. It would have been more than a few seconds, but it stopped being panic and started being something even more scary when I felt Billy's fingers slip under the waistband of my panties.

My brain did one of those double-takes, and I suddenly had a vision of the view that Billy now had -- my dress halfway up my back, my white, cotton panties completely exposed... And then I had another. One of what he was going to see if he didn't quit right now. But then...

But then, before I could so much as scream at him to stop, this incredible sensation washed though me. As his grip tightened and he started to pull, I felt a surge of something deep down in my belly, a 'something' that I couldn't identify at first. When it become obvious that there was nothing I could do to stop him, that strange sensation intensified, and when it settled at my groin I had to choke back a cry of shock. With a dull sense of wonder and a much sharper sense of disbelief, I felt myself growing wet. I told myself that it couldn't be happening, but as my butt was exposed to the cooler air, as my panties slid unstoppably down my legs, the heat grew and the dampness spread.

I needed to tell Billy to stop, needed to make it clear that he was taking things too far. I needed to, but I just couldn't. For a start, I couldn't seem to draw breath, and in any case my body refused to co-operate with what my brain was telling it. Yelling at it.

The combination of the cool air over my bared ass and the feel of Billy's jeans -- and the strong legs that they covered -- under my hips, my groin... it was driving me to places I'd never dreamed existed. I simply couldn't deny that I was suddenly, and without the slightest warning, incredibly aroused.

When Billy's palm landed on my bare butt with a resounding smack, I squealed with a mixture of pain and pleasure. As I wriggled, panic settling in and a desperate need to escape taking over as my confusion mounted, I could feel the growing hardness of Billy against my hip. The knowledge that I wasn't the only one getting so terribly aroused sent my heart into my throat, and a second stinging slap sent my excitement levels through the roof.

Confusion, panic, excitement and a growing fear that I was going to lose control completely -- that I might even climax right there on my brother's lap -- had me struggling like never before.

I tried wriggling forward but his grip across my shoulders made it impossible. As I felt the first flutterings deep within my belly, I reversed my direction. I skittered backwards, pushing myself as hard as I could with my arms. Billy hadn't been expecting me to try freeing myself that way -- and as my dress snagged on his legs, pulling up even further -- I could see why. I didn't care, though. I was too close to orgasm, too desperate to get away before that happened, before my body turned traitor, that I would have done pretty much anything to escape.

Billy, sensing that I was going to free myself, grabbed the back of my dress at my neck, halting my slithering bid for freedom. My whole body was trembling on the verge of meltdown of the most intimate kind, and I let panic guide me. I drew my arms together, managed to get my knees under me, and pulled backwards as hard as I could.

My head slipped through the neck of the dress, my arms through the shoulders, and I tumbled backwards from the sofa onto the carpeted floor. I was up on my feet in a flash -- quite literally as I stood there for a second or two in nothing but a skimpy white bra. As Billy's eyes took in the view, hungrily devouring every inch of my nakedness, the last dregs of my control started to fade away.

The first spasm of my climax shuddered through my belly and I dropped my hands to my groin, spun on my heel, and staggered out of the room. As I reeled up the stairs I prayed that Billy wouldn't follow, that he wouldn't see just what an effect his actions had brought about.

By the time he had got over his shock -- or whatever kept him from coming straight after me -- I made it to my room, slammed and locked the door behind me, and dropped to my knees as an intense, deep orgasm shuddered though me.

The more I thought about my brothers hand smacking down onto my bare ass, his erection pressing against my hip, his eyes roving over me, the sheer badness of what I felt... when I thought of all of those things, that kaleidoscope of crystal clear images, the harder I came. Wave after wave washed through me as I knelt there, my fingers probing my hot, moist centre, my breath coming in ragged gasps.

I half expected Billy to hammer on my door at any second, maybe pleasing with me to let him in, maybe demanding. It just made it worse... or better.

It was an age, or so it seemed, before I was spent and I all but collapsed onto the carpet. It really was a full ten minutes before I could hobble over to my bed and lay there, my mind whirling.

I stayed in my room for another hour before I dressed in fresh clothes -- jeans this time -- and finally plucked up the courage to venture out. I didn't have the faintest idea what I could possibly say to Billy, or how we could even face each other. I was just hoping and praying that he hadn't realised how turned on I'd become, that somehow he had failed to notice.

But even if that were then case, then how would he, or we, deal with the fact that the episode had given him an enormous erection? He must know at the very least that I was aware of his body's reaction to mine... More to the point, how the hell was I going to explain to myself my own body's reaction?

The only thing I was sure of was that I would never view my 'little' brother in the same light ever again.

My footsteps were leaden as I descended the stairs, prepared to face whatever music there was. It was the toughest few yards I'd ever walked.

And it proved to be three minutes of needless worry -- Billy was nowhere to be found.

My brother didn't return home until very late that night and was gone from the house by the time I woke (after a night of weird dreams) the next day. When we did finally come face to face that evening, he wouldn't meet my eye and muttered something about a headache before diving into his room and locking the door.

By the end of the following weekend, I had managed to put the whole incident down to some sort of trick of the planetary alignments (carefully avoiding any references to moons or Uranus). It had just been one of those freak events that happen between people from time to time; something totally out of character and never to be repeated.

I had even managed to come to terms (of a sort) with my own reaction. I had thought long and hard about it and the more I considered things from every conceivable angle, the more I had come to realise that it was juts a sort of extension, or representation, of an old fantasy I used to have when I was about 16. Although the cast and location often varied, the fundamental fantasy involved me being coerced into stripping, or being stripped, in front of someone that should never see me that way (one of the earliest 'stars' of my little mind-films had been a rather dishy business associate of my father who had come to dinner one evening). The incident with Billy was surely just a weird extension of that old fantasy? Of course it was. Obviously it was.

I was still believing that on the Monday morning when Billy, in an old gown, walked into the kitchen where I was in my favourite old nightie and a robe, having a late breakfast after mum and dad had left for work. One glance at him was enough for me to know something was wrong -- and even though I had convinced myself that the spanking incident was just some freakish one-off event, I knew immediately that this was the cause of Billy's obvious discomfort. Before I could say a word, he started to talk quickly.

"Look, sis, I am like so sorry about the other day. I just don't know what happened okay? It just like, you know, happened before I knew what was like happening. I was like totally out of order and I'm like really sorry, I mean like really, you know? It was just totally un-smart and totally wrong and..." his voice caught in his throat, "Oh, sis, I just gotta tell you but..."

"Hey, Billy, look, it's okay, no problem. All forgotten, okay?"

"No!" Billy's eyes were close to tears, "Sis, please, I just gotta tell you. I'm sorry, really I am, but well... when... when it happened it... really turned me on." He waved me into silence when I went to say something, determined to have his say, "And I know that's wrong but fuck, sis, you're so fucking hot and I've been thinking about something happening like that for ages and I know it's pretty fucking weird and I know it shouldn't really happen and everything like that but, sis, I just can't help feeling like that and I thought that if something like that did happen then I'd get it lie out of my system and that would be that and it'd all be cool again but I haven't, I can't and now all I can think about is the sight of you like that and me slapping your butt and how turned on I got and... and..." Billy's voice rose to a wail, "I am just so fucking sorry!"

As tears started rolling down his cheeks my mind whirled. Sure I heard what he'd just admitted to, and sure that was a shock, but he was my little brother no matter what his age and what his desires. If it had been anyone else I would have kept my mouth shut about my own feelings, but I couldn't with Billy because it just wouldn't be fair to him. I didn't give myself a chance to think and stood up, wrapping my robe around me, and crossed to where he was standing, shame-faced and crying softly.

"Oh, Billy! It's okay!"

"No, sis, it's not-"

"Billy, listen to me." Still without giving thought to what I was going to say, I started to talk, "Billy, it wasn't just you that felt... well, that felt turned on." My cheeks began to burn, "Billy, it really did a number on me as well. I couldn't believe it when it happened -- can't even really believe it now -- but it got me way worked up."

"You don't mean that. You're just trying to make me feel better."

"Billy, no! I can't explain it and I don't understand it, but there's no way I can deny it either. And there's no way I'd lie about anything as serious as that."

He lifted his face to meet my gaze, his eyes still full of doubt, "I just can't believe it."

"You have to, Billy, because it's the truth, really it is."

A flash of something passed across his face, but I couldn't read it, could only listen to his next words. "I want to believe you, sis, but I know how kind you are to me."

It was horrible -- my poor brother suffering like that -- and I was desperate to get the truth through to him by now, "Oh, Billy, please! You have to believe me; I really, honestly wouldn't lie about something like this!"

Billy sighed, "You're so nice at times, sis, and I really do appreciate you trying to make me feel better, but well..."

"But well nothing, Billy." My mind, already desperate, supplied me with a solution that owed much to that sense of desperation. But also to something deeper and darker that crept into me unawares, "Billy, I swear if you tried anything like that again and actually watched my reaction you'd know I was telling the truth."

He was still for a few seconds before finally shaking his head, "Nice try, sis, but you know I wouldn't dare now."

A little bird seemed to be fluttering around my insides. I ignored it completely, "I guess not if you've lost your nerve. I guess you're still my little bro after all."

No, I don't know what made be goad him like that. I really, really don't.

Without so much as a blink of warning Billy lunged at me, one arm snaking behind my back and encircling my waist, the other gripping my robe and the nightie beneath at my hip.

The full enormity of what was happening struck me like a hammer strikes a peach and panic flared. No matter what my subconscious might have desired, I knew exactly what Billy wanted right then and the thrill I felt rising within me scared me badly. To make matters worse, with what I'd just told Billy there was no going back, no respite possible -- he now knew that I had been enjoying the first time even while I was yelling him to quit. Which left me with nothing that I could say now as he dragged me into the living room.