Doing whatever it takes to be a good brother
This story is filled with British euphemisms for breasts. So, if you come across a word or phrase you don't understand, it's just another word for breasts, areola or nipples. For example, 'iced gems' is a term for a hard nipple that comes from the tiny biscuit topped with a small swirl of hard, colourful icing. Look up a picture and you'll see the comparison. Oh, and 'nuddy' means naked.
Because this is a reminiscence from 30 years ago. The sex descriptions are a little light, as it's unreasonable to expect perfect recall over all that time.
A special thanks to ChiefHal for helping to proofread and ensuring the story is in decent shape.
Thunderstorm
I was sitting on the deck of my wilderness cabin in the middle of the night. A thunderstorm was raging in the distance, and my granddaughter was curled up on my knee, half asleep and sucking her thumb. She'd run into my wife's and my bedroom, scared of the storm. Just like her mother at that age.
Again, just like with my daughter, I'd gotten up and shown her the majesty of the storm. The lights and sounds, I told her old legends of ancient gods battling in the clouds. OK, I made most of them up, but it distracted both girls, as they got wrapped up in my tall tales. But that was the point, after all, lull them to calm down and go back to sleep.
Anyway, I loved thunderstorms, but for an entirely different reason. Around 30 years ago; something happened that, even now, I still struggle with the mixed feelings it left me. My older sister, Meryl, is my sister by adoption, but I've always thought of her as my real sister.
Her mother was a long-time friend of my mother, who slept about and got pregnant, without knowing who the father was. After she had the baby, she was diagnosed with a terminal illness, and mum talked dad into adopting Meryl. I think I turned up as a surprise.
When I was 20 and still living at home with my parents. My older sister Meryl had just returned home to live, after splitting with her boyfriend. I didn't know the details, apart from it being something sexual, but I didn't need to know the details of my (two-year) older sister's sex life. We'd been close until I was about 12, and then I was just an annoying kid to her.
My dad was about to turn 60 and retire. He'd worked for the same company for 40 years and had his pension sewn up nicely. He'd had a fascination with Japanese culture ever since he watched the Monkey TV series in the 1970s. And hence my unusual name of Muska, which I believe means smile, in Japanese.
While it's good not to have a common name like John. Three of my mates growing up, were called John, and it got confusing. But after the thousandth time, explaining why a guy with no Japanese connections or heritage had a Japanese name. And how it all came about, from a cheesy 1970s TV show, was wearisome.
I blinked, with a splash of rain on my face and realised its time to go back inside. Setting my granddaughter back into her bed, I stuck my head into my daughter's room to check on her.
"Thanks Dad," she whispered.
"It's OK. She's just like you, until you grew out of it," I replied in a low tone.
"Who said I grew out of it? If my daughter hadn't run to you, I might have. But your lap was full, so I just had to pretend to be a grown up. Love you." I murmured the same and closed the door, but her comment reminded me of that storm long ago, with my sister.
Knowing I'd not sleep right away, I moved to sit silently in the kitchen, as my mind moved back through the decades.
For nearly a year before my dad's retirement, he and mum were planning a trip of a lifetime, to visit Japan for the first time. They had even gone to night classes to get some basic conversational Japanese, dragging me along, rather than leave me at home, playing video games. I only went to avoid an argument. After all, it was going to be a second honeymoon for them, and I teased them once about it.
Not a good idea, as mum came back with way more than I wanted to know about their love life; but it stopped me from ever doing it again.
When my sister turned up, less than 2 months before the big trip, I knew something else was up, from my parent's behaviour. But when I tried to ask, reluctantly on my part, I was shut out. At least until about 4 weeks before the trip, when dad had us all sit in the kitchen for a family meeting. I thought he was going to read us the riot act, if we were planning on trashing the place with parties while they were gone, but it wasn't that.
At mum's pleading, he'd changed the holiday to include Meryl and myself. Wanting us to have one special holiday together. The way she said it set alarm bells off in my head. But they were unnecessary as she just blurted out, she'd been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and wanted the memories before she became more forgetful.
I tried to talk to dad about it, when we were alone; but typically, he refused to talk. But Meryl talked to mum, who, after it was out in the open, talked freely to my sister. Who then told me most of it. It was detected early, so she could live another ten years, before it became truly debilitating.
It was fair to say I'd expected my parents to die before me, but setting a date on a calendar was depressing. But we were all decided to be upbeat around her and make the most of it.
My sister managed to get the three weeks off work, by playing up her break up and claiming depression. But for me, it was harder. I almost threatened to quit, until I broke down in front of my boss and told him about my mum and her illness. I felt like a fool, as it was probably years away, but he gave me the time off, unpaid, of course.
Japan was...
What can I say? Amazing, expensive, alien in culture. And yet one and the same. Parts were like everywhere else in the world. At least in the cities. When we got out into the countryside, was when we first really saw the real differences.
Again, I realise I'm distracting myself from that night of the thunderstorm. A bit like when you have a bad tooth and you know you shouldn't, but you keep poking at it with your tongue. OK, that makes it sound like it was horrible. It wasn't, just the opposite in fact, but that still, after all this time, didn't make it right.
We were in the country, in a hotel, on the steep side of a valley. It was a modest suite, with two bedrooms and a small living area. Meryl and I were in the room overlooking the valley, as it had two single beds, while our parents had the larger room. We had planned to hike up to a shrine in the hills that day. But the rain had not let up all day, and it was just after 9 pm.
Mum and dad had gone to bed and Meryl, and I were hanging out in our room. The walls were so thin the sound of the TV would have kept our parents awake. Assuming we could have found anything to watch.
It had been nearly two weeks since I'd had a chance to masturbate. I was wondering if I could wait until everyone else was asleep and slip off for a wank in the bathroom. Even if my sister was a heavy sleeper, I'd not risk tugging one out with her in the room. The teasing, if she caught me, would be merciless.
After about 20 minutes, there was a massive flash of light through the curtains and a huge boom. My first thought was an explosion, but you don't get terror attacks in Japan, do you? When the boom rolled on and on, I realised it was a thunderstorm, then the electricity went out.
I was already in bed, and Meryl had been sitting on the end of the bed fiddling with the TV when dad stumbled in. Flicking our lights uselessly.
"Powers out dad," I explained.
"Ah, oh well. At least you two won't keep us up with the TV half the night. Not that your mother stirred with that thunder clap." He closed the door and went back to his room.
"Crap! Now what do we do?" I asked my sister.
She moved to the curtain that covered the entire end wall and opened it. Giving us enough light to see and a view out over the valley. The wall was sliding glass panels onto a narrow balcony. Meryl stood with both hands on the glass, and I couldn't help noticing she was already in her sleeping t-shirt. Long enough to cover her bum, but not by much.
Not for the first time, did I have inappropriate thoughts about her long, smooth legs. But as always, I thrust that thought aside and wrote it off, as me just being horny.
"I'm going outside." She said, as slid the door open, and stepped onto the balcony.
The air had been oppressively humid and close; building up to the storm all day, so it wasn't cold. She rested her elbows on the railing and looked back at me.
"Come on, it's nice."
"Aren't you getting wet?" I replied, slipping from the bed.
"So? Haven't you ever wanted to run around in the rain?"
'Not since I was 5,' I thought to myself.
As I reached for my jeans, she stopped me.
"What are you doing? They would just get wet and then you'd complain about them being damp tomorrow."
"But I'm just in my underpants."
"So? I'm just in this." She plucked at the arm of her t-shirt.
I might be a little paranoid, but I checked the window frame was plastic and the balcony railing was wood before stepping out next to her. A little too paranoid, really, as there were at least three more levels of the hotel above us. Stepping over the threshold in just my underpants was surreal, but I couldn't make out any lights in any other buildings, I knew we'd be nearly invisible to anyone else.
Meryl was gripping the rail with both hands, her stomach against the wood, with her head tilted up and her eyes closed. Letting the rain fall onto her face and her chest. Damn, the thin cotton shirt was already plastered to her skin.
"Are you looking at my tits?"
"No!" I reflexively replied and tore my eyes from them.
Her areolas were puckered and her hard nipples fought against the material. But I saw she still had her eyes closed and pointed to the sky.
"It's ok if you are."
"Really?" I asked, astonished.
She finally looked over at me with a strange smile.
"Given how many times I caught you in the nuddy. I figure I owe you some payback."
I quickly looked away, but she was true to some extent. For a while, hardly a week went by when she didn't manage to catch me naked. Not that I was trying to let her see me. She'd walk in on me in the shower, or when I was dressing or undressing for bed. It was almost like she was planning to catch me. But I knew I was being paranoid. There was no way she wanted to see me naked. Except to try to humiliate me. That would fit her sisterly style, at the time.
When I looked back, she had her eyes closed again, but with her head leaning a little forward. My eyes dropped to her chest again and refused to look away. I'd be lying if I said I'd never thought about what my sister's tits looked like over the years. Not in a sexual way, I promised myself, just a teenage boy's imagination, which had me undressing nearly every female I met.
Given my sister was tall and slim, her tits were larger than I might have guessed. Her areola seemed scrunched up tight and her nipples...
For an instant, I felt my hand twitch towards them.
"It's OK," she spoke, without looking over. "I like to show off, and after Ryan..." She paused a moment, then continued in a more brittle voice. "I just need some reassurance that I look ok."
"You look amazing. You always do. Not many girls can pull off the wet and bedraggled look, but you can," a typical, backhanded compliment from her brother.
"Brrzz!" she said, imitating a buzzer from a game show, for a wrong guess. "Thanks for playing next player please."
"Sorry Mer..." I hastily added the 'il' knowing she hated me calling her Mer as she took it as a mare, or an old nag. Which was how I used it as a kid. Once I knew she hated it.
Not that she didn't lumber me with dodgy nicknames. Munch was the one from her that stuck. You might wonder how Muska becomes Munch, but it actually started from me playing Friar Tuck in a school play, when I was about 14. Only because I fancied the leading lady. Not that I had a chance.
