Mom walked downstairs and into the kitchen just as I was heating up two sets of hot dogs for an easy dinner. Mandy told her that, following our afternoon at the mall, the two of us were going to stay in and watch movies while she and Dad were heading out to his Elk's Club.
"Oh, cute, the two of you spending the evening at home? Oh John! It's just like when you would babysit your little sister!"
I know she misses us being close as a family, so it didn't surprise me that she was glad to see us spending time together. Her enthusiasm did make me self-conscious, though. What would she think of how I had been staring at my little sister at the mall, modeling a slinky adult dress? It struck me that I would forever have to keep secret from Mom the feelings - never mind the lustful images - that I was having for her daughter.
What did surprise me was that she had changed from the flattering new pants that she had worn to work, now back into a rather frumpy and familiar dress. Dad didn't seem to notice, however.
An hour later, popcorn bowl filled and sodas refreshed, I plopped down on the couch just as Mandy walked back down. I was still in jeans and t-shirt, but Mandy had slipped up to her room while I was shaking the noisy pan of popcorn kernels, and now wore a pair of close fitting corduroy pants, a purple color that my mind couldn't help noticing were similar to the edging on the panties I had bought as a gift for her. I was struck by the ironic coincidence between mom and daughter today, both in tight pants. Above them she wore a loose-fitting, cream-colored top, the satiny-finish looking slick in the reflected in the glow from the t.v. screen. I pulled my eyes away before I had worked out whether she was wearing a bra underneath.
"Hey there John, you get hold of Alison?"
"Yeah, I did."
"And?"
"We're meeting Sunday afternoon. Going for a walk over at River Park."
"Good," Mandy responded, and at that moment saw me reaching for the remote. She lunged at the couch, and pretty soon I had lost the tussle over the channel changer, in part because Mandy pulled it against the loose-fitting cloth at her chest. She smirked, taking advantage of my self-prescribed out-of-bounds area. We sat side by side and drifted through a handful of predictable sit-coms, none of which I was able to pay much attention to, distracted by my sister sitting next to me in clothes which I guessed were chosen to get my attention and yet not sure what to do about it. Suddenly she had switched over to cable, which Dad had always defined as 'parents only television', and I realized she had either stumbled on, or navigated to, the erotically charged Spartacus series on Starz. I must have gone a little stiff, my mind swirling with a mix of reactions, because Mandy turned around and peered over at me with a grin.
I reddened a bit. I'd seen three of the episodes before, over at a friend's house in my senior year at high school. He'd invited a bunch of us from the track team over to celebrate the end of Spring Training. His parents had generously gone out and left us alone - pretty different than our Dad would have reacted - and apparently ignored the two six packs in the garage fridge. It had been fun to feel like we were really becoming adults. And the raunchy historical fiction of the Roman Spartacus series - gladiators and slaves and the like - had been pretty eye-catching. I think the other boys were like me, though. Not quite sure what to do with the idea of getting turned on in front of a bunch of other guys. A couple of them tried being crude, but that wasn't really our scene, so we ended pretty much watching through it in silence. I was left with a secret hard on, and an undefined sense that such soft-porn images were designed more for men than women.
"Really, you wanna watch this stuff?" I said now, once again grabbing unsuccessfully for the remote.
My sister eyed me coolly, easily fending me off by burying her hand in the soft folds at her breasts. I tried not to stare.
"What, girls aren't allowed?"
"I didn't say that. Just, you know...aren't you into, like, the romance novel stuff? I thought visuals were more kind of what men went for."
"Wow, bro. You really think that?"
"I dunno. Just haven't heard girls talking about the visuals much I suppose."
Mandy was looking sideways across at me, seeming to be evaluating something. Finally she spoke.
"Would it surprise you to hear that I can get turned on by visuals?"
I didn't answer this in words, but made a noncommittal face. Truth was I hoped she would continue.
"Wanna hear one image that really turned me on?" she finally said softly.
My throat was too clenched to speak, but my expression must have given me away, because she continued even more softly, so I could hardly hear her over the volume of the t.v.
"Last summer when you ran the 5,000 meters. And I sat up in the bleachers. You remember?"
Of course I remembered. Final race meet of the year, and I was favored with a good chance at that distance. Dad told me afterwards that I blew it, coming in second, but I believed that I was just unlucky with the competition. I felt that I had run the fastest race I could on the day. But it was disappointing. For a start, it hadn't helped any on my scholarship application. And also, I knew that Mandy had taken time out from Music to watch me. She had greeted me with a wrap around hug in front of all the teams before the starters gun and had perched herself up in the stand to see the whole of the field. But at the end she had kind of disappeared. Maybe, I had reflected sourly at the time, as disappointed as Dad.
Oh yeah, I remembered. Now I was all ears.
"Do you recall towards the end, when you got stuck behind that pack of runners? I guess they were from Valley, right?"
Wow, she had really paid attention. I nodded, unable to see where this was going.
"And then you pulled ahead? Got past them on the outside? Left just that one guy, the one who ended up going on to State, ahead of you?"
Again, I nodded, remembering viscerally the effort it had taken to make that pull into the open space behind the leader. Dad was wrong. I had truly given it my all.
Mandy tweaked the button on the remote and the sound quieted. She continued almost in a whisper.
"Did you notice that I moved? That I left the middle of the benches?"
For sure I had. First thing I had done when I had pulled across that line and fought for breath was look up to seek her shining smile and been stabbed with disappointment that she was no longer there.
Words came tumbling out of Mandy's mouth. "It was from watching you, John. Watching you take them on. Watching your legs power through and your arms pump past them, chest out front and the wind pulling your hair back. It was too much. I realized I was sitting on the hard bench squeezing my thighs together like I was riding something. I just had to move before someone noticed. I walked to the end of the bench against the side railing, and everyone's eyes were on you making your break, and I just couldn't stop myself. I sat in the shadows and pumped my wrists down between my jeans in the same rhythm as your strides. I couldn't get myself to come, but it felt so good, humping myself while I was watching you."
Mandy finished, the dark pools of her eyes on mine the whole time. I felt...I don't know what I felt actually. Stunned I guess. And then aware of how the wheels in my mind were turning, rewriting history, taking this moment that had been turned into a kind of let down, even though I knew it should have felt like a personal success. Rewriting it to include...wow, my little sister watching me and recognizing that I was trying my hardest. Not just recognizing, getting turned on by it. Really turned on. Suddenly it hit me like a blow. The visceral image of her leaning into the shaded side of the bleachers, pumping her wrists between her thighs with a sexual energy that matched my all out effort. Her arms and my legs literally pistoning in unison. I felt something begin to shift inside with this rewrite of the past.
At that moment, my peripheral vision was caught by the flash of skin. My attention was drawn back to the screen, where one of the slave girls was standing in the center of the shot - and being stripped of her full-length toga. Her long hair cascaded down as the dress was pulled away, her head downturned. I was rivetted. The truth was I had seen some porn, but not that much, and the sight of a naked woman was compelling. I knew that the cable series was a hokey kind of history, mostly an excuse for the erotica, but the high-end production visuals made it look like a public broadcasting history channel, and so this sudden nudity was shockingly impactful. My jaw dropped when, as her dress slipped down to the tiles at the buxom slave-girl's feet, instead of the usual network t.v. pull-away, the camera moved in closer to linger on a full frontal of her heavy breasts and triangle of bush. Despite the awkwardness of my younger sister sitting next to me, I couldn't pull my eyes away.
I heard a giggle beside me, and before I could react, Sis had slipped over my thigh and between my legs, pushing them a little wider so she could land her tight bottom between them and lean back against her older brother's right arm and chest.
"Hey, I thought we were talking?" she teased.
I felt as if she had caught me red-handed. And immediately realized two things. She was definitely not wearing a bra. And, despite the heavy denim of my jeans, there was no way I would be able to hide my growing erection from her.
But rather than continue talking, she turned around and faced the big screen, effectively nestling between my thighs to watch the unrolling of the scene. I was vague on the plot line, but basically the slave girl, now once again dressed in a loose flowing toga that revealed as much as it covered, was being led down toward the arena, where shirtless gladiators were being lined up in the sun, presumably to fight for her as prize. Raw sexual energy permeated every shot as sweat dripped along the muscled limbs.
Mandy pointed the remote at the screen like a power tool, and punched up the volume a couple of notches. Then she leaned back, her supple body curving against my own muscled legs and chest, in a way that somehow implied that my limbs were as equally powerful as the gladiators she was ogling. I had never felt so aware of my physical strength, as if my thighs and arms could crush her light frame between them. And aware that this was the last thing on earth I would let them do.
She craned around to gaze up at me.
