Approaching my 40th birthday, I had no real relationship with my father or his wife, my stepmother Melinda. I have maintained to my wife, to my friends, to the extent appropriate with my young children that it is because I had no use for my father or his wife. It is an explanation readily accepted by anyone who has witnessed any of my interactions with my parents. At our most cordial, the conversations were stilted. More frequently, they were openly hostile.
The explanation for the estrangement was also very true of my father. A stern, domineering man, he made no attempt to hide his displeasure when my mother's inability to remain sober and mental health issues resulted in me moving in when I was about ten with him, Melinda, and Melinda's daughter, Catherine.
Melinda hardly showed me any more kindness or compassion than my father did. But it is something very far from disdain that compelled me to keep my distance from Melinda all those years. Melinda was my first, for many things my only. For just a handful of days 20 years ago, she thawed toward me. In many ways those precious hours did more to form my character than all the years before or since. For two decades, I have sought to return to that place.
***
I was very much the outsider in the house. I do not think anyone would have called Melinda warm, but she doted in her own way on Catherine. A popular honor student, athlete, and cheerleader, it was easy enough for Melinda to heap praise on Catherine and reward her many achievements. Likewise, my father was always ready to boast about his "daughter" - never stepdaughter.
Mostly though, my father and Melinda were passionate about each other. Both owned their own businesses - him a textile plant, her a realtorship - to which they devoted enormous energy. Their workaholic lifestyle was interrupted periodically by winging off to elaborate vacations together. Moreover, both were attractive and athletic, and Melinda had the added allure of being a decade younger than my father. If I had had any friends at school, I am sure they would have teased me about having such a young, attractive stepmother. As it was, those who tormented me were happy to make the point in less jovial fashion.
I was very much the misfit in what would have otherwise been a model family. On the shorter side - only about 5' 8", no taller than my stepmother and stepsister - and rail thin, I had no physical gifts to speak of. Nor was I much of a student in those days. In fact, the year I went to live with my father, it was all I could do not to spend my days hiding in the school bathroom crying, and I was held back a year. Adding to the embarrassment, Melinda had had her daughter at a very young age. Thus, although Melinda was considerably younger than my father, Catherine was a year older than me - and two years ahead of me in school. Which meant two arduous years of high school in her shadow.
Making matters worse, it was Catherine for whom I carried a torch in those years. She had flaming red hair, blue eyes that shone from a lightly-freckled face, and one of those perfect, youthful bodies with a wasp waist and an almost boyish frame that somehow supported stupendous breasts and a round, muscular bottom.
Naturally, she would literally not give me the time of day, a ride to school, the courtesy of a "good morning,"
etc
. I worshiped her from the bedroom next door. That devotion would lead my world to change.
***
In due course, Catherine went off to college on scholarship, of course. In some ways, her absence relieved some of the tension in the house. I did not have to try in vain to hide my attraction to her, and my father and Melinda could simply ignore me to the extent possible, rather than comparing me with disdain to Catherine. As my 18th birthday passed and the end of my junior - what should have been my senior - year approached, I was quite content to be left on my own most of the time, while my father and Melinda redoubled their efforts to grow their respective businesses.
The day everything changed, my father was on some sort of business trip. Catherine was at college. I had scarcely seen Melinda since my father had left two days before. It was a lazy Thursday afternoon in spring. I was, as customary, alone in the house. Bored with my books and music and television, I wandered, as I not infrequently did in her absence, into Catherine's bedroom.
Seemingly untouched since her departure, it had an air of a shrine to her. But, I was not there for anything holy. I went to her dresser and opened her top drawer. Neatly stacked inside were her panties and brassieres. My young cock became aroused merely looking at them. I had gazed on them many times before, but this time, I noticed another silky roll at the back of the drawer. I started to unravel them and realized that it was a pair of thigh-high stockings.
I ineptly rolled up the stockings and shoved them back into place. But, I could not help but start caressing my swollen dick through my jeans. Then imagining my cock sliding against Catherine's silky undergarments. And how good it would feel to be on top of her. And if I could not lay my cock atop her panties....
In a moment's inspiration, I slipped off my jeans and undershorts. Then, lifting a pair of cream panties from the drawer, I stepped into them and eased them over my raging erection. I loved the way my at-best average-sized penis strained against the silky material. Almost immediately, my precum began to soak through the undergarment. Just running my fingers along my cock, through the panties, felt heavenly. I tossed off my t-shirt and threw myself face down on Catherine's bed.
The comforter felt silky and cool against my cheek, as my pelvis began to grind against the mattress. I delighted in feeling my hard shaft and tight balls shifting inside Catherine's panties. I knew I could not dare to come right there, but I could not help and raise my buttocks into the air and begin humping the mattress. I remember thinking if only Catherine, or anyone, could have been beneath me.
"What. Do you think. You are doing?"
Melinda's icy words stabbed into me, halting me in mid-thrust. For a split second, I kept my eyes slammed shut. She was not due home for hours. I prayed that, when I opened my eyes, I would awake from a terrible dream. But it was not so.
"Answer me," she demanded.
Opening my eyes, I slowly got up and sat hunched on the corner of the bed with my eyes to the floor, unable to speak.
"Do you want me to tell your father what a little sissy his 'son' is?" Melinda asked.
"No, ma'am," I said anxiously, fear filling my chest. I was very afraid of my father in those days.
"If you don't want me to tell him, then you are going to do exactly as I say."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Stand up when you speak to me."
But, I was afraid to stand up. For all the terror coursing through me, it had done nothing to arrest my erection. If anything, my cock was straining even harder against Catherine's panties. Not helping was the fact that Melinda always took care to dress professionally, but alluringly, for her clients. As always, she was in heels just shy of being overly provocative in height. Stockings disappeared into a tight, above-the-knee skirt. From the skirt rose a form fitting blouse partly obscured by a short, tight jacket. Her dark, wavy hair was pulled back. Her normally cool blue eyes seemed to project both fire and ice my way.
"That's it," said Melinda. "I'm calling your father."
