After the negative comments I got on "Heather and Michael Ch. 03", it took me a long time for me to feel in the mood to write. I published this on October 22nd, 2014, slight a year after "Heather and Michael Ch. 03". I really like this story. I feel like it was a big step forward for me, but I can't put my finger on exactly what is so different in this story than my earlier writing. The character of Nicole really makes me smile. This is the first story for which I published extended Author's Notes. This story got me my all-time favorite comment, where someone accused me of being their close friend and posting what he had done.
I took this and all my other stories down in January 2023. I'm republishing it now as it was originally published with the exception of this intro and the author's notes.
I was shocked. It was like that magic trick where the magician has the the girl walk through the door and closes it after her, and then when he re-opens it, there is a tiger instead of a girl. Except this time, instead of a girl having morphed into a tiger, my sister had gone from being a chunky wild child to a good-looking woman.
Yesterday, I had driven my sister Ashley from our hometown to my apartment here in Madison, Wisconsin. She had graduated from high school the day before and was looking to start a new life here. During the drive, she had had black rim glasses, two nose rings, a lip piercing and multiple ear piercings. Her hair had been dyed a bright purple. She had been dressed to hide her chunky body in baggy sweatpants and an over-sized sweatshirt that came down mid-thigh. She had always been chunky. Her boobs had been two small bulges on a body with lots of bulges. This was how she had looked when I left my apartment to go to work for my Monday evening shift.
This morning when I came into the living room, she looked completely different. The glasses were gone. The piercings were gone. Her hair was a pretty dark blond. She was wearing a T-Shirt that had been cropped a few inches below her tits. Below that was a firm tummy and a nice pair of legs. I stood there stunned at the transformation.
My sister smiled at my befuddlement. "I look a little different than yesterday, don't I, Ryan?"
"Uhhh, yeah. No glasses?"
"I'm wearing contacts."
I don't think I had ever notice my sister's eyes before. They were a pretty blue with long light-brown eyelashes and capped by full eyebrows that arched enticingly.
"What happened to the piercings?"
"I removed them and threw them away. It will take several weeks for the holes to close. They were all small piercings, so I hope they'll all heal without a leaving a mark."
"And your hair?" Her hair was parted down the middle and came down like a waterfall to an inch below her jaw. It looked fuller than it had yesterday.
"I switched to temporary hair dye two months ago. I washed it out last night."
"And...and..."
"My body?" She did a quick half-spin to show me her back side. Being 5'8", she had long legs that were now firm. Her ass looked
good
. She had a little bit of flab and she didn't have the body of an athlete or a cheerleader, but no one would call her chunky. Her feature that I liked best were her broad shoulders. She spun around to show that those broad shoulders supported two large tits. She looked amazing compared to how she'd looked when I had seen her at Christmas.
"Eating right and lots of exercise. I have been doing lots of aerobics at home. All of my old T-shirts were tents on me, so I cropped them all."
My sister wasn't model beautiful - her nose was a little too large and some of her teeth weren't straight, but her full lips curved easily into a dazzling smile. Prior to this morning, her weird hair color, glasses, piercings and chunkiness had made me overlook that she had a pretty face.
"Ashley, you look really good."
"Ashley is no more. Good riddance. Nobody liked her. You saw what happened at my graduation." After the ceremony, nobody had spoken to Ashley. Instead, they had turned their backs as she walked over to join Mom and me in the gymnasium.
"From now on," she continued, "I am going to go by Nicole." Nicole was her middle name. "Oh, and thanks a lot for everything yesterday. You were such a big, big help. Can I make you some breakfast? Or an early lunch"
"Breakfast would be nice." I had just woken up even though it was 11. "I'll have a light lunch before going to work at 4."
"How does a half a bagel, a yogurt and some apple slices sound?"
"Much better than my usual cereal."
I watched as she worked in the kitchen. She was easy on the eyes.
"You asked me during the drive why I was so happy." I hadn't understood how she could be so happy when I thought her future looked so grim. "I told you that things were going just the way I was hoping. Losing the weight and getting fit went a lot better than I thought they would. Don't get me wrong - I had to work for hours every day to get into this shape and it is a challenge to eat well on a tight budget. But I did it. After blowing off school for three years, I busted my butt the last year so I would know something when I graduated. I have been accepted to Madison College" - the local community college - "and I'll be taking classes there this fall so I can be admitted to their nursing program. I came up with a plan and I have been sticking to it." She served me my breakfast. "The only big challenge left is to use this" - she gestured towards her body - "to get a dad for Owen."
As if he had heard his name, my five-month-old nephew cried out.
"Coming honey!"
Ashley went to get Owen out of his portable crib.
Owen was why I had thought Ashley's future looked so grim. She had only a high school diploma and no money. Mom wasn't going to give her any money just like she hadn't given me any money in the four years since I graduated from high school. Hell, I can't remember the last time she ever gave me money as the house, food and her beer habit took up her meager paycheck. Ashley wasn't going to get any money from Owen's dad as she didn't know who he was.
Owen was why Ashley had been shunned at her graduation ceremony. Pregnant girls in our small Wisconsin town were expected to drop out of high school and disappear. I only talked to my Mom when I spent Christmas at home and this Christmas had been an unusually tense visit. Mom constantly complained (which was why I avoided talking to her), but she seemed especially bitter at Christmas. She had told me that everyone called Ashley the town slut. Mom had told me that whenever people asked Ashley who the father was, Ashley told them that she had no idea and they would have to do paternity tests on half the boys in the senior class to determine who the father was.
Ashley sat down on the couch, lifted her cropped T-shirt a little bit, did something with her bra to make a nipple appear and then brought Owen's mouth up to it.
"I hope you don't mind me breastfeeding in front of you. One of the things that I have lost being a mom is my modesty about bodily functions. Pee, poop and nipples are just facts of life."
"It doesn't bother me. It's kind of interesting. I don't think I have ever seen a kid breastfed before."
"Breastfeeding is so much better for a baby than a bottle. I may have to stop when I go to college, but he will have gotten most of the value of breastfeeding by then." She looked down at Owen then looked back at me. "Oh, thanks so much for lending me your car yesterday. Could I borrow it again today? You'd have to get a ride home after work again..."
"I guess so. It worked out well last night. But you can't keep borrowing it every day."
"I know. I'm trying to get something in place, but I am going to need some wheels for the next few days. I'll fill the tank when I am done and I'll do something nice for you later, okay?"
"Okay."
"What did you mean by 'it worked out well last night'?"
"I normally come right home after working my shift. Last night, I stayed and hung out with my co-workers. I told them with Curt disappearing on me, I was on the lookout for a new roommate. One said he might know someone who'd be interested."
Friday morning when I had gone to my roommate Curt's bedroom to confront him about where his half of the rent money was, I had discovered that all of his stuff was gone except some crappy furniture. Later, I had called someone I knew who worked at the restaurant Curt worked at and I had found out that Wednesday he had shown up for work tipsy and had been fired.
With Curt gone, I didn't have to sleep last night on the couch like I had been expecting. I had been surprised when Ashley called me a month ago to ask me to come to her graduation. Then she explained that she wanted to move to Madison and asked me to move her stuff down and let her stay with me for a few days until she could find her own place. I had expected at the time that I would sleep on the couch while she slept in my room. With Curt gone, she had slept in his room and I had slept in mine.
"Just to be clear - this means you have even less time to find subsidized housing or whatever. I don't want a potential roommate scared off because you and Owen are staying here indefinitely. I am already late on the rent and I can't swing the whole month by myself. You can take Curt's furniture with you when you move out if you want."
"Look," said Ashley. "You've been great - far better to me than I expected. I'm grateful for all you have done for me, including cleaning up the apartment yesterday." When we had gotten to my apartment, I realized that what was clean enough for two guys wasn't nearly clean enough for a baby to live in. We had spent the two hours before I went to work picking up, vacuuming, sweeping until there wasn't any crap within Owen's reach. "Do what you need to do and I'll get out of your hair as quickly as I can."
Ashley finished nursing Owen, set him down on a blanket and gave him a couple of toys.
"Ryan, would you please watch him while I make lunch?"
"I'd be glad to."
I had played with Owen a little bit yesterday. I had never played with a baby before and I had been surprised at how fun it was. Owen was a happy little guy who constantly squealed as I played with him. He loved it when I gave him raspberries on his tummy. He wasn't looking to play right now. Instead, he looked like he was doing baby push ups.
"Ashley, what's he doing?"
"It's Nicole. Ashley is no more, remember?"
"Okay, Nicole. Give me a while to get used to the name change."
Ashley...err Nicole came over to the couch with a large salad that had pieces of grilled chicken mixed in.
"He's working on learning to crawl. He is building up his strength and improving his balance. Soon, he will be all over the place. Why don't you read to him?"
Several baby books were next to the blanket. I picked up one, sat down next to Owen and read. Owen kept doing his baby push ups as I read. One of his arms gave way and his head smashed into the blanket. He lifted himself back on his arm and gave me a big smile like smashing his head had been a lot of fun.
"It's super important to talk to him", said Nicole. "His mind is such a sponge at this stage. The number of words he hears now is a major factor in how big of a vocabulary he'll have when he's grown."
