After School Job
Lubrican
After School Job
by Robert Lubrican
Bookapy Edition
Copyright 2014 Robert Lubrican
License Notes
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Table of Contents
Chapters: One | Two | Three | four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten | Eleven | Epilogue
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Chapter One
We all think of ourselves as normal. Well, maybe people like Donald Trump and Madonna think they're special. But take away their money and what's left?
Anyway I always thought I was normal. And I thought my family was normal too. I'm not particularly popular at school, but I have some pretty good friends. I'm not a jock, but that's by choice, instead of body type. I like working out, and I like having muscles I'm proud of. But I guess I'm a little lazy too, in terms of not wanting to spend all that extra time in training for football or wrestling or whatever.
I think I look pretty normal. Girls look at me, and I can usually get a date if I want one. Can't afford one, actually. You can't take girls out if you have no money. But it's not like I'm a hunk or anything, and girls fight over me, or will pay for dates just to be seen with me. Don't laugh. A couple of the popular guys at school are in exactly that situation. Sometimes girls can be really stupid.
And that's important about girls sometimes being stupid because my sister, Addison, did something stupid that I got sucked into, and my perfectly normal world suddenly got all fucked up.
Well I guess it wasn't sudden. But it seemed like it, later on. It's still confusing to me how things ended up like they are.
Maybe I should just start at the beginning, and maybe putting it all down on paper will entertain you and help me figure out how everything happened.
Actually, I'm pretty sure it will entertain you. It entertained the crap out of me while it was happening. I'll admit that. And that's part of the problem. I shouldn't have been entertained. I shouldn't have even done anything. But I did, and now I have to live with it.
But I was supposed to start at the beginning, so here goes.
For our purposes, the beginning was on a September evening, after supper, while we were doing homework. Our parents are funny about homework. I think it has something to do with how they were brought up or something. The rule is that we have to do our homework after supper, and we have to do it at the dining room table. If the computer is required, they got us a laptop, but it still has to be used at the dining room table. If both of us need a computer, Dad loans one of us his. No TV, no video games, no nothing, until homework is finished. Addie - that's what we call Addison for short - was working on biology, which she asked for some help with. That's allowed. We can help each other, but not do each other's work. It was about the difference between DNA, which is deoxyribonucleic acid, and RNA, which is ribonucleic acid. I explained macromolecules, and proteins and carbohydrates and nucleic acids, and how DNA was double stranded, while RNA was usually only single-stranded, and her eyes kind of glazed over. Dad walked through the dining room about then and she stopped listening to me and spoke to him.
"Daddy? Can I get an after school job?"
"What kind of job?" he asked.
That surprised me a little bit. Usually Dad is the one who free wheels and goes along with everything. One of his favorite sayings is "Be an existentialist! Explore life!" He usually says that when one of us has to do something new and is worried about it. Like he said it when I was all worried about going to high school the first day. And then he said it again the first time I went on a date and was all nervous. It was usually my mom who interrogated us and wanted to talk about everything. Her favorite phrase was "Let's examine the options." Maybe Dad adopted her attitude because she was off on an archaeological expedition in Peru and would be gone another six months.
"It's modeling clothes," said Addie.
"Modeling? Really?" He looked surprised. I could understand that, because I was surprised too. Modeling? She was pretty, but she wasn't, like gorgeous or anything. Like me, she had some friends okay a bunch of friends but I'd never thought of her as a model.
I blinked. I knew guys lusted after her. She was a cheerleader, after all, and all guys lusted after cheerleaders. It was like one of the rules of nature, completely normal. But modeling?
"What kind of clothes?" asked Dad.
She looked at him like he was mentally deficient. That was normal too.
"Clothes, Daddy. You know tops? Pants? Outfits? Clothes?" she tugged at the blouse she was wearing.
"What's the name of the agency?" he asked. That word, agency, came out of his mouth funny, like he had just remembered it. Maybe he was trying to restore his station as a non-deficient adult.
She dug into her book bag and pulled out a sheet of paper. She handed it to him.
"Zharkov Photography Associates L.L.C.," he read out loud. "Never heard of them."
"Cindy Jenkins told me about him. She works for him. It's only two or three hours a night, and only a couple of nights a week. And he pays twenty dollars an hour, Daddy. Please? I need to earn some money." Addie was a pro at the puppy dog eyes thing, and she employed them now.
"Why do you need to earn money?" he asked. "If you need something, let's talk about it."
"I can't ask for money to buy you a Christmas present, Daddy!" she complained. "I'm not a little girl any more. And what if I just want to blow a little bit on some luxury? Come on, Daddy. Cindy says it's perfectly safe and Vlad is a nice guy. He employs lots of girls."
Maybe she saw the frown on his face. For whatever reason she rushed to add, "Boys too, Daddy. It's not just girls who model for him. Cindy's boyfriend works for him too, and some other guys."
The way she said that last part was classic Addie for "I think" but she didn't actually say it. I knew her. She couldn't lie to me. But she still pulled it off with the parents now and then.
And Dad had only been half listening, as he read the paper.
"This is a release for a minor to be employed by the company and take pictures which would then be 'sold for public consumption in various advertising and entertainment venues'," he said. "What does that mean? Advertising I get, but public entertainment venues?"
"Cindy says he does some video work for a company that makes video games. I think she called it live action capture, or something like that. She says they turn what she does into the movements a character does in some video game or something. She has to wear all these sensors and wires and stuff."
"I don't know," he said. I reached for the form and he let me have it. I looked it over. It was written in that legal speech that would scare the crap out of anybody, you know, with words like "Indemnify" and "shall be held free from all blame" and stuff like that. I would say it looked normal, except I had never seen anything like this, so I had no idea, really, whether it was normal or not.
"Cindy said you get to keep some of the clothes," said Addie. "I wouldn't have to ask for your credit card and go shopping as often."
She knew how to dangle the carrot in front of the plodding mule, I'll give her that.
"Maybe I should call your mother and discuss this with her," he said.
"And he'll hire somebody else and I'll have to flip hamburgers for eight bucks an hour, and work fifteen hours a week and smell like grease and get kicked off the cheer squad," she whined. She was a good whiner, though I had learned how to be impervious to it. Dad? Not so much.
"You can do it under one condition. Your brother has to be with you," he said. "As your chaperone." He folded his arms to show her how serious he was.
She frowned at him, and I saw the thunder clouds building on her face. No girl in high school wants to be chaperoned by her big brother. Even I could imagine the snickers if it got out that she was under my supervision.
"They're not going to pay us both," she complained, unconsciously obviating her argument that this agency hired males too. "Besides, he won't do it. He's a dickhead."
"He'll do it if I tell him to do it," he said, with authority.
He looked over at me as if we had discussed this and I had already agreed that it was a good idea. But I didn't think it was a good idea. Not because I didn't think she should be a model. Somehow I had already gotten used to the idea that she could pull that part off. I just didn't want to be saddled with the whole mess. Even if it was only a couple of hours, that was a couple of hours I could spend doing something fun, instead of babysitting my sister. The problem was that I didn't have an after school job myself, and I wasn't involved in any extracurricular activities. In other words, from my father's perspective, I had nothing better to do with my time than escort my sister to her new job.
And I knew my father. He might be a mild mannered CPA these days, but when he met our mother, he rescued her from a bunch of Taliban who had taken the archaeological team she was working for as hostages. He was Special Forces and she was doing post graduate work, documenting antiquities that the Taliban were destroying. Anyway, she was appreciative of being rescued, and one thing led to another and I was conceived. So, having gotten a hostage pregnant, he got out of the Army and went to college.
One of my father's old buddies, a guy on the same team that rescued my mother, came to visit us a couple years back. He was still in the Army and he looked like he could kill you just by looking at you. He and Dad sat in the living room and slaughtered a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label, which my father had had sitting on a shelf ever since I could remember. Mom was sitting in there with them until the guy looked at her and said, "You know, Buck, I never could understand why you cashed in your chips, but seeing Stephanie, here, I get it now. I really get it, Buck."
And my father, who I had never heard say a mean thing in my entire life, looked at his Army buddy and said, "I know what you're thinking, Chuck but is she worth dying for? Because if you make a move on my woman, Chuck, I'm going to have to kill you."
And they all laughed. Except he sounded funny somehow, and there was this look on Chuck's face that said, "And I know you could do it," and my mother suddenly got up and said it was bedtime, even though there was half an hour left before bedtime. And pretty soon we heard the front door open and close and we never saw Chuck again. And my dad opened the good Scotch for him!
So once in a while, when our father said something in that special tone of voice he had used with Chuck that night, we didn't ask questions. We just did whatever he told us to do.
"Sure," I said. "No problem."
"Daddeeeeeee," whined Addie.
"Let me hear you ask if I want fries with that," said Dad. "See if you can make me want fries."
She would have stormed off, except we weren't finished with homework. That gave me an idea.
"What about homework?" I asked.
He didn't bat an eye. "On days when she works, homework gets done as soon as you get home from school. Then supper, and then she can go to work. Two hours on those nights, and no more." He reached for the paper in my hand and looked at it again. "And Mr. Zharkov has to agree to all that."
Now she didn't want to storm off. The negotiations had begun.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
In the end, this is the deal she got. Since this Zharkov guy ran a business, and might have set hours because the business demanded it, he agreed to let us do homework before or after she worked, or both, if necessary. She also got dispensation for supper, which was usually a sit down meal where everybody who was in the house had to be there. On work days we could "eat out of the refrigerator", as Dad called it. He made us both promise not to tell Mom about that. She was the one who was big on family meals. He said that by the time she got back, it would either have worked out, or "other arrangements would be made," which I knew meant he'd make her stop working, but which she thought meant he'd let us get fast food on the way home.
And I thought all this was stupid, because she didn't even have the job yet, and had no idea what hours this guy might require her to be there.
So it was possible there might not even be a job for her, the first time we went to the house.
Zharkov Photograph Associates L.L.C. was located in the basement of a really nice house in the fancy part of town. It was in Pine Bough Estates, which was where the rich folks lived. The houses were set on two or three acre plots, and there were lots of swimming pools, and nice cars and all that.
Addie was driving. Dad had fixed us up an old VW Bug. We had to actually help him rebuild the engine, so we'd know now much work went into it, and how it worked and how to fix it if it broke and all that. It was part of his explore life philosophy, I guess. Anyway, there was a regular driveway that led to a two car garage at the front of the house, but the driveway also went off to the side, around and behind the house. Addie had been told to go that way, and when we got to the back yard, there was a parking apron big enough for three cars. There was one parked there, and I recognized it as Jerry Thompson's. He was Cindy Jenkins' boyfriend.
There were garage doors in the back too, on the lower level of the walkout basement. They were both closed, but right beside it was a people door, so we went to that. There was a sign on the door that said, "Come in if you've been invited. Stay out if you haven't." I looked at Addie, who looked at the release Dad had signed. While he was signing it he said, "You take care of your sister and protect her from anything bad. That's your job, and I expect you to take it seriously."
I was about to ask if we had been invited, when she reached for the door knob, turned it, and walked in like she owned the place. I couldn't do anything other than follow her inside.
We found ourselves in what looked like a family room, except there were racks of clothes all over the place. They were the kind with wheels that you sometimes see in a movie set in New York City, where people are moving racks of clothing down a sidewalk, or across the street. That seemed normal. At least until I realized some of the clothing looked odd. Like I saw what was undeniably a pirate's outfit, hanging on a hanger, with the pirate hat balanced on top of a shelf built into the top of the rack. I also saw a long white robe, with angel wings above it.
I realized it looked kind of like the costume room at the high school I went to. I was in all the musicals, because that was the best way to be near all the hot, popular girls, who got all the lead roles in the productions.
There were a couple of windows in the wall that had the door in it we had come through. The far end of the room had a fireplace in it, and the wall to our left had a door in it that obviously went into the garages. A staircase went up into the rest of the house right next to that wall. On the long remaining wall there was only one door. The rest of that wall was taken up by shelving units that were stacked with boxes. It looked like they held more costumes.
I was wondering what to do next, still unsure that we had actually been invited in, when the door flanked by shelves opened and none other than Kerry Watson, a guy in my Trig class, came through it. His upper torso was bare. He didn't see us, going to a rack of clothes, where he started moving hangers around. He finally pulled what could only be called a peasant jerkin from a hanger and shrugged into it. He was heading back to the door when he saw us. He looked startled.
"Hey," he said, looking uncomfortable.
"Is Mr. Zharkov here?" asked Addie.
"Yeah," said Kerry. He looked at the door. "I'll tell him you're here."
"Can we just come with you?" asked my sister.
He shook his head. "Not right now," he said. "He's kind of busy. Stay here. I'll tell him you're here. Okay? Don't come in until he says you can."
I thought that was kind of odd. Kerry wasn't one of my friends, but we knew each other, and he was acting kind of squirrelly. For that reason alone, when he went back through that door, I started to follow him. Addie reached and grabbed my arm.
"He said to wait," she said.
"Something's not right about this," I said.
"Why?"
"I don't know. He's just acting funny."
"They're obviously modeling in there," said Addie. "Don't screw this up for me, Bobby."
"I'm not screwing anything up," I said. "I just want to see what's going on in there."
"I told you, they're modeling."
"Who models an old timey outfit like that?" I asked. "He looked like he belonged in a play about the middle ages."
"That doesn't matter," said my sister. "We wait until Mr. Zharkov comes out here. If he hires us, then we can go in there."
The argument was broken up when the door opened again and a guy who looked like Grizzly Adams came out. He was big, with really wide shoulders. He had on a shirt that looked like it was made of satin or something. It was open to the middle of his chest and he had a bunch of gold chains lying on top of more hair than any guy should have on his chest. He grinned at us with the biggest, whitest teeth I'd ever seen in my life.
"Children!" he brayed, coming toward us. "Welcome to my humble home!"
Addie's hand was still on my arm, and I could tell instantly that she was just as unhappy about him addressing us as children as I was.
"A flower of femininity!" he yelled, looking Addie up and down in a way that made me ball my fists. Then his eyes shifted to me. "And a stout young man. Less handsome than craggy. You look like a surfer boy, yes?" Instead of offering his hand, he stopped, standing on feet spread shoulder's width apart and set his huge hands also hairy on his waist. Suddenly he looked like an overgrown, very hairy Peter Pan, getting ready to crow. Except he looked nothing like Peter Pan. But you know what I mean.
"I am Zharkov!" he bellowed. He rolled the R. "And who might you be?"
Addie let go of my arm and shoved the paper towards him.
"I'm Addison Stapleton, and this is my brother, Bobby," she said. "I'd like to be a model. Are you hiring?"
I expected him to snatch the paper out of her hand, crushing it in his paw, but he plucked it, instead, almost daintily from her fingers. He glanced at it, and then turned his eyes back to us. Again, they went to Addie. His eyes fell to her chest and stayed there a long time. I got that. Most guys wanted to stare at her chest. Even I had to admit she had a really decent pair. But she was my sister, and I started getting hot under the collar again because this guy wasn't sneaking peeks at her boobs, like everybody else did. He just stared at them.
"Hmmmmm. Addison. You are maybe the girl Cindy Jenkins told me about?" He looked at me. "She said nothing about a brother."
"He's just here to ..." She stopped. I could imagine what she was thinking. That's because I could imagine what she'd been about to say, that I was just there to babysit her while she put on clothes she couldn't afford and let somebody take pictures of her. But, of course, she didn't want to admit I was her chaperone. That was why she'd stopped.
"I'm here to take care of her," I said, somewhat heavily. I tried to sound dangerous.
Zharkov wasn't intimidated. In fact, he laughed. "You think you can take care of her?" He looked her up and down again. "I have much experience in this business, and I can spot a hellcat when I see one. I think you might fail in the attempt." He grinned. I know both Addie and I looked at him stupidly, because what he said made no sense. Addie had a temper, and she could scream and yell with the best of them, but I could take her over my knee and spank her if I wanted to. In fact, I did that fairly regularly, just to piss her off. But it also showed her who was in charge. She'd only gone whining to dad once about that. He'd looked up from the paper and said, "I suspect you needed it." He had looked past her to me, where I was trying to peek around the corner to find out if I'd gone too far. "Be nice to your sister, Bob," he'd ordered me. She'd tried that line on me after that, saying "Be nice!" whenever I needed to remind her what the pecking order was. Eventually she just gave up and moved to the "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" gambit, trying to make me stop before I left my handprint on her butt. I never actually hit her hard, though. It wasn't about hurting her.
"Never mind," he said. "It is too soon to explore that. Perhaps there are things Cindy has failed to notify me of. A brother and sister. Interesting. You know Kerry Watson and his sister Natalie?"
We both nodded.
"They work for me," he said. "Cindy, of course, knows this. Perhaps this is why she suggested your name." Suddenly he was all business again. "So. What kind of modeling do you wish to do?"
Addie looked confused. "Clothes?"
He smiled. "Outer wear? Casual? Formal wear? Swim wear? Winter wear? Hunting, fishing, and outdoor outfits? Underwear? Are you interested in commercials, or only in clothing sales? Do you want to pose alone, or in a group? When one begins in this business, it is not wise to attempt too many different kinds of work. Each requires a particular look, or attitude, and while you might be very well suited for one, others might not work for the camera. I must admonish you both, if I can't use the photographs I take of you, I cannot pay you for posing."
"Oh," said Addie, a little breathlessly. "I had no idea it was so complicated."
"Let us do this," said Kharkov. "Today is Tuesday, yes? I have a full schedule tonight and tomorrow. Come back Thursday and we will do some test shots. Then, perhaps, we can see what the two of you are good for."
The way he said "good for" made the hackles stand up on the back of my neck. I didn't like this guy too much.
"Okay!" said Addie, blurting it out excitedly.
"Maybe," I said, guardedly.
"We'll be here!" said Addie, more in control of herself. "Thank you. I really need this job."
He grinned again, showing those amazing, white teeth surrounded by all that bristly black hair.
"I look forward to it. I love shooting hellcats. They are always so vibrant and exciting." He abruptly turned, heading back to the door he had come from, and behind which at least Kerry Watson, dressed like a peasant, was waiting for him. I wondered if Natalie, his sister was in there too. This Zarkhov character had said they both worked for him. I knew Cindy Jenkins, of course. She was a sophomore, and was Jerry's girlfriend. Since his car was there, maybe Cindy was too. I didn't have to wonder why Cindy might have mentioned my sister to this Kharkov character. They were both cheerleaders.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Knowing Addison was excited, I made her give me the keys. In the mood she was in, she'd treat traffic signs like they were all elective, rather than compulsory. I, of course, could both drive and talk at the same time safely.
"I don't like that guy," I said.
"You're a boy," she said, dismissively. "Everybody knows boys have brain damage."
"Brain damage has nothing to do with it," I said. "Did you see the way he looked at you?"
"Of course I did," she said. Addie had gotten used to men looking at her within months of becoming a cheerleader. Cheerleaders thought they were in complete control. They teased the crap out of all the men in the stands, and then went to stand in little groups of girls their own age, talking about clothes or Facebook or musicians or whatever the fuck girls talk about. While they did that they apparently believed the men stopped undressing them with their eyes. I knew better, of course. "He looks at women all the time, Bobby. It's his job. He has to figure out how to use their assets to sell the product. He has to look at women like that."
"I'm a guy, Addie," I said. "I know what guys are thinking about when they look at a girl like that. Want me to tell you?"
"You're brain damaged," she sniffed. "And gross. I don't need to know what my brother is thinking when he gawks at my friends."
Then, in that infuriating way girls have, she changed the subject.
"You know, a bunch of my friends think you're hot. I don't get it. Did you know Charlene Sisson actually asked me what you looked like naked?"
Charlene was another cheerleader. She was also a senior and hot as a firecracker. And I didn't have a date for homecoming yet.
"Really!" I said.
"Like I'd want to look at you naked, just so I could tell her," she snorted. "Ewwwww."
"I'll take a picture," I said, smiling. "And you can give it to her."
"Ewwwww!" she squealed again.
We didn't talk about Mr. Zharkov again the rest of the way home.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
When we got home Addie preempted me by gushing to Dad about how professional everything looked and how Mr. Zharkov was even interested in taking some test shots of me. I still had these kind of creepy feelings about it all, but I couldn't put my finger on anything. I was pretty sure if I raised doubts, our father would put the kibosh on the whole thing. But I also knew that my sister would be mad at me for maybe ever if I did that.
So I kept my mouth shut.
And that led to, well, it led to a lot of things. But I can't tell you about them right up front. If I do you'll think I'm the bad guy. And I'm not. At least I wasn't. And most of the people who actually know what happened insist I'm not. And I had my own doubts.
But just let me tell the rest of the story, and then you can make up your own mind. But please, wait until you know everything before you jump to any conclusions.
The next day, at school, my sister was thick as thieves with Cindy Jenkins and Natalie Watson. And on the way home, she was uncharacteristically quiet.
"What's up with you?" I asked.
"Nothing," she said.
"Don't lie to me. I can read you like a book."
"A third grade book," she said. "That's the highest grade level you can read."
"Attacking me won't work," I said. "What's wrong?"
We rode on in silence for another block. Finally I said, "Maybe you'll tell Dad what's wrong."
She shot me a look, and then finally spoke. "They won't tell me what it's like to work for Mr. Zharkov," she said.
"Why not?" I asked.
"They said they signed something that says they can't talk about it to anybody who hasn't also signed it."
"A non-disclosure agreement," I said.
"Yeah. That was it," she said.
"But they like working for him?"
"They love working for him," said Addie. "They said I will too."
"What did they say about me?" I asked.
"That's the funny thing," she said. "They said you'd love it too, but they wouldn't tell me why."
"They said I'd love working as a model," I said.
"Yes. But they wouldn't tell me why. Because of the non-discrimination clause or whatever."
"Non-disclosure agreement," I reminded her.
"I don't get it," she said. "Cindy was the one who said I should work for him. But now she won't tell me anything about it."
"A non-disclosure agreement protects the company from you giving away secrets," I said.
"What kind of secrets?"
"I don't know. Who his customers are, maybe. Or how much he pays you. Stuff like that."
"He pays twenty dollars an hour," she said. "Cindy told me that."
"Maybe the pictures he takes are of clothes that aren't on the market yet," I said. "So whoever hires him doesn't want any of the designs leaking out before they are on the market. There are knockoffs all over the place. You know that."
"Sure," she said. "That's all I can afford to buy."
"So you know there's a huge market for secrets like I'm talking about."
"Yeah," she said. "I guess so."
"We'll find out Thursday," I suggested.
She looked over at me. "Thank you," she said.
"What for?"
"For not telling Dad you don't like Mr. Zharkov."
"You know Dad wants me to keep an eye on you," I said.
"I don't need a babysitter!" she snapped.
"I know that," I said. "But he worries about you. All fathers worry about their daughters going out into the big, wide, dangerous world."
Her shoulders slumped. "I know."
"And I don't want anything bad to happen to you either," I added.
She reached and put a hand on my leg.
"Thanks," she said. "For such a huge dork, you can be really sweet sometimes."
"Be still my beating heart," I said, theatrically. "Addison just gave me a compliment!"
"You are such an asshole sometimes," she said, taking her hand back.
But she didn't sound actually mad.
Chapter Two
Thursday night she was all fired up. We went back to the house and this time there were no cars parked behind it. The sign was still on the back door, but this time it was locked. There was a doorbell, and Addie pushed it. It didn't take him long to answer it. This time he was in jeans and a sweat shirt.
"Come in, come in," he said, flashing that toothy grin of his.
We followed him straight to the door in the wall, and he opened it, walking in and leaving it open for us to follow.
What we entered was a studio. I realized it was basically about two thirds of the basement. It was brightly lit, and there were various bits of equipment all over the place. The floor was a nest of snakes, made by wires that went everywhere. Lights like they used in musicals at school hung from the ceiling. A mural had been painted on the far wall. Then I realized it wasn't a mural at all, but a backdrop, also like we had in the plays I did in high school. This one showed a rural scene, with trees and sheep in the background. There was a green carpet spread in front of it, a strip maybe twenty feet long and ten feet wide. It could be imagined as grass, but it looked like carpet. There was even a fake tree, positioned by a big, fake boulder.
Further down was a smaller set. This one looked more like what I expected. It had a tripod kind of thing that had what looked like an old fashioned movie screen on the top. But it wasn't a movie screen. It was a pull down colored sheet. The one that was down was a sort of medium gray. It was really long, and part of it was lying on the floor. I realized that from the position of the camera that was set up in front of it, you wouldn't be able to see the floor at all, just a mass of gray background. There was a stool sitting on top of the sheet that covered the floor.
A rack of clothes had been rolled next to the camera, which was also on a tripod. Zharkov went to it and pushed clothes around on it. He pulled a frilly blue dress off a hanger and held it out to Addie.
"This should fit you. You can change in there. Take your hair down, too."
He pointed to an alcove that was covered by a black sheet. It wasn't a dressing room, really, but it provided privacy. He turned to me when she took the dress from him.
"There is work for boys too. You want me to take some test shots of you too?"
"In what?" I asked.
He went back to the rack and pushed things around on it again. He pulled down a silk shirt. It was black, with a super wide and long collar. There were two pockets on the chest, with white stitching on them in a design that looked vaguely western to me. It wasn't a cowboy shirt, or at least not like any western shirt I'd ever seen anybody wearing, but it looked interesting. He handed it to me.
"Sixteen neck, thirty-two arms?" he asked.
"How'd you know that?" I asked, taking the shirt. It was lighter than it looked.
"I do this for a living," he said, flashing me another of those grins. "The jeans you have on are perfect to go with that. You can change out here, or wait until she gets back."
I looked at the sheet covering the "dressing room." Addie hadn't been very careful about closing it, where there was a slit down the middle. I saw her back as she held the dress over her head and let it slip downwards. She had on a beige bra and matching panties. I hadn't seen her like that in a long time, and I was amazed at the hourglass figure she'd developed. Then it was gone as she tugged the dress down and covered everything up.
"Do I need shoes?" she called out.
"Not for the test shots," said Zharkov, fiddling with the camera.
I pulled off my T shirt and slid my arms into the shirt he'd given me. I'd never felt anything so smooth and light before. It fit me like a glove. There were no buttons for the first two or three inches down from the collar. I saw a full length mirror standing against the wall the door was in and took a look. It didn't actually expose my chest, but it was clear there were no buttons there.
"It's a little big," said my sister, coming through the sheet.
"We can solve that," said Zharkov, going to a table.
I looked at Addie. The dress was a summer type dress, very light and flowing. I had to admit she looked really good in it, with her pony tail gone and her blond hair falling all down on her shoulders. Zharkov came back with something on his left wrist like a bracelet. It turned out to be a pin cushion.
"Once I get these pins in there, be careful how you move," he warned.
I watched as he put his hands all over her. Except it didn't look like he was groping her or anything. He pulled and folded and pinned until the dress fit her curves like the shirt fit my body not quite skin tight. Suddenly, my sister had curves like a woman. It was amazing. The whole time he hummed, while his fingers smoothed the material here and pulled it there. His hands slid right down the sides of her breasts, but before I could object, he was pulling the material and putting in pins. It was weird. He touched her in places that I thought of as sexual places but it didn't look like sexual touching.
And she didn't complain so how could I?
And then he was helping her up on the stool, and touching her again, this time all over her legs, as he put one of her feet on one rung of the stool, and the other on a different rung. He put her hands in her lap, and then stood back and looked her over. He didn't like that for some reason and moved her hands to one side, on only one thigh. He ended up with her right hand on her thigh and her left hand up just under her hair, like she was getting ready to flip it back, like girls do all the time. Our social studies teacher called it a "grooming behavior," and said it had to do with trying to make yourself look good to prospective mates. That got lots of giggles, let me tell you.
"Hold that pose," he said.
He moved to the camera and picked up something that looked about like a cigarette lighter with a thin cord coming out of it.
"Tilt your chin down," he said. Then, "Now turn your head to the right, just a little ... perfect! Hold it right there."
The whole room seemed to flash, and I realized it was a bunch of silvery looking umbrellas on stands that had lights in them.
"Think of your boyfriend," said Zharkov.
"I don't have one," said Addie.
"Impossible!" he brayed. "A woman as beautiful as you? Surely the boys fight over you constantly."
I thought the asshole was flirting with her, and her smile bloomed and the lights flashed and I realized that he wasn't flirting with her at all. Instead, he had manipulated a look on her face that she probably couldn't put there on purpose.
He told her to stand, and then made her walk around. He gave her all sorts of instructions about what to do and which way to turn and how fast to turn, all the while snapping pictures. Then he took the camera off the tripod and held it, making her go through all the moves again, while he walked around moving the camera up and down and taking close-ups. By the time he was finished, she was laughing and smiling and I had to admit she looked I don't know just good.
Then it was my turn, and I realized how difficult all this was. He changed the sweep of my hair and then used gel to keep it that way. It was hard to sit the way he wanted me to sit, and do the things he wanted me to do. It didn't feel natural at all. And when he had me turning around and jumping at him and stuff like that, I felt stupid. But Addie wasn't laughing at me. She did have a smile on her face, but it was more like she was just having a good time watching the guy put me through my paces.
Then, suddenly, he put the camera back on the tripod and popped out a card.
"You can get dressed in your own clothes while I pull these up and take a look at them," he said.
"What about the pins?" asked Addie.
"Your brother can help you," he said, apparently uninterested in removing what he had so lovingly put in. "Just stick the pins back in the pin cushion."
Addie headed for the dressing room.
"Hey," I called out to her.
"You can take them out in here," she said.
So I followed her in. She was jumping up and down, she was so excited.
"That was so much fun!" she whispered. She turned her back to me.
"Hold still," I said, looking for a pin to remove.
He'd used dozens of the things, and the tiny silver heads were hard to see against the pale blue of the dress. She got fidgety after a bit.
"Hold still!" I ordered her.
"Wait," she said. "Help me get it up over my head. Then you can take the pins out while it's not on me." She held her arms up.
"I can't take it off of you," I objected.
"Why not?"
"Because you're my sister?" I suggested.
"It's not like I'm naked under it," she scoffed. "You've seen me in my bikini. That's much worse than what I have on right now."
She was probably right about that. I had seen her in her bikini, and she was extremely hot looking in that. Not that I would ever admit that to her, of course.
So I started tugging the dress up, past her hips, and then past her breasts and up her arms. At one point I had a heck of a good view of some extremely fine cleavage. The bra turned out to be a lacy one. And the front of her panties had this interesting bulge in them that sort of drew the eyes. It was unsettling, because I had some very un-brotherly thoughts while this was happening.
Then it was off, and she turned and reached for her clothes, like it was no big deal. About then I found a pin the hard way and pulled it out. By the time I'd found three more she was dressed and took the garment from me.
"Your turn," she said. She looked at me critically. "You look good in that shirt. He has a good eye."
"Thanks," I said.
I unbuttoned the shirt and took it off. My T shirt was out in the room, so I pushed through the curtain.
"What do I do with the shirt?" I called out.
"Just hang it back up," he said. "The dress too. You didn't wear them long enough to sweat in them."
Addie came out, still examining the dress and pulling pins out of it. She had the pin cushion on her arm like he had.
I waited until she was satisfied and had hung up the dress. Then we both wandered over to the computer in the corner of the room, where he was reviewing the shots he'd taken on a huge monitor.
When we walked up behind him, he had one of the first shots he'd taken of Addie up. It was the one right after he'd told her guys must be killing themselves to be with her. The camera had caught her at first blush from the compliment, with her smile only barely formed. As we watched he did something with the mouse and her skin tone changed, making her tan look darker than it was. She was beautiful! He did something else and her eyes changed, making them look like she was hungry for whoever she was looking at. Even I wanted her to look at me like that. I'd been around her my whole life, and had never seen that look on her face. Not looking at me, anyway.
"Wow," I said.
"You have a very beautiful sister, young man," said Zharkov, without a trace of shame. Then again, why would he be ashamed of saying she was beautiful. He was in the beautiful business, after all.
"I have to admit you are correct," I said.
"Thank you!" she said, laughing happily. "I finally got a compliment from my brother!"
"It won't be the last," said Zharkov.
I thought that was a funny thing for him to say, but then the picture changed, and we all examined that one.
It took another half hour to go through all the pictures he'd taken. He didn't play with them all. Some were obviously no good. A few were blurry, but most of them were bad for other reasons. There were a lot where the look on our faces was all wrong. I couldn't tell you why they were wrong, but it was obvious. At least after seeing a few where everything was right.
And there were some where everything was right. I was amazed at how good the camera made us both look. He used his computer to enhance this and that in a few of the shots, always improving things. Finally he flipped a switch and the monitor went dark. He swiveled around and sat, looking up at us.
"Both of you will do quite nicely. If you want to work, you're hired."
Of course there was more to it than that. We had to fill out forms for withholding and all that kind of stuff. We even filled out non-disclosure forms.
And, I admit that, as we went home that night, we were both a little giddy that we were actual models.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Now maybe you, being an adult, have seen warning signs in what I've described thus far. But to me, other than my initial dislike of Vlad - that's his first name - I didn't get any more vibes that made me worry. Especially after a month and a half of going to his studio and having photographs taken. We went twice a week and everything seemed completely normal. He had us dress up in various kinds of clothing and took pictures, hundreds of them. There were different backgrounds and all that, and everything seemed just as normal as pie. He even gave us some of the shots to take home to show Dad.
Even when he started posing us in swimwear, I didn't think too much of it. He put Addie in some suits that our parents would have killed her for wearing, but then everybody's parents are old-fashioned. You know the deal. And if he had her in a thong bikini, he didn't pose her bent over from the back, or anything like that. He might have her turn so that one ass cheek was partially visible, but that seemed normal too. And he put me in Speedos and posed me holding a fake Styrofoam surfboard and stuff like that.
I guess what I'm saying is that it all seemed pretty normal. Addie and I always went into the changing booth to change outfits, and he just took lots of pictures of us.
At first I thought it was kind of strange that we never worked with any of the other kids. They worked on different nights than us. Vlad had us working on Thursdays and Mondays. But after I realized how much time it took to take all those hundreds of pictures, I figured having four or more models in the studio would be difficult to make work, logistically speaking.
I do know that Addie was disgusted when she told Cindy that she'd signed the non-disclosure agreement, and all Cindy wanted to talk about was how to move and hold your head and how to get the right look on your face and stuff like that. There weren't any juicy details after all.
Well there were but Cindy didn't tell Addie about them. It was too soon for that. And, as it turned out, we found out about that stuff on our own.
But the point is that for us, at that point in things, we felt like everything was going fine. We were friends with Vlad. He joked around and laughed with us. He continued to put his hands all over Addie, and me to a lesser degree, but it always seemed like it just went with the posing.
And we both suddenly had a lot more spending money than we had in the past.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Remember those juicy details I mentioned? About two months into things something happened that should have made me wonder, but it didn't. We showed up on one of our regular nights and Vlad said he had something to talk about.
"I've sold quite a few of your pictures," he said. "And one customer has taken a real liking to you, Addison. He has asked me to take an extensive set of you in his line of swimwear. But he wants a boy in the pictures with you."
"Really?" I could hear the excitement in my sister's voice at the thought that she was actually known to somebody.
"Indeed," he said. "So we need to talk about the poses, and which boy you want to do them with."
"What kind of poses?" she asked.
"Well, they're a bit sexier than what you've done in the past," he said, easily. "The boy would have his arm or arms around you, and his hands on your body."
"Oh," she said. "Like how?"
"I'll show you," he said. He looked at me. "Can you stand in for her future partner for a couple of poses?"
"I guess so," I said.
"Excellent!" He flashed us his signature mile wide smile.
What he did was have me stand behind her and reach around her, placing my hands on her hips, but forward a bit, so that my fingertips were on her abdomen. Then he had me lean my face down like I was kissing her shoulder.
"That's an example," he said. "Of course you'd both be in swimwear, but I have to tell you up front, this company targets an adult customer, so some of it is pretty racy."
"Oh," she said again. She turned her head to look at me and her cheek ran into my nose. "I don't know. Who would I pose with?"
"There are several boys on the payroll who would be delighted to pose with you," he said. "Remember, you're a knockout. In fact, I could probably get some boys to pose with you for free." He grinned, to show he was kidding.
That was when I felt something in the pit of my stomach that I should have recognized as a warning sign. But I interpreted it as jealousy. Or something. I didn't want some guy pawing my sister in a string bikini you know?
"I don't think so," she said, slowly.
"It's a lot better money," he said. "I charge more for this genre of shots, so I can pay you more too."
"How much more?" she asked.
"Triple your normal fee," he said, calmly.
And it was then I learned something interesting about my sister.
It turned out that it was one thing for Addison to flaunt her stuff in front of bleachers full of men and boys she went to school with. It was another to agree to let some amorphous male put his hands on her. She didn't mind it when Vlad touched her, because she had gotten used to that. And we were both convinced all that touching was harmless. But we knew what posing was like now, and if she agreed to do this with somebody else, it could get personal.
On the other hand there was a boy she was sure she could be with and things would not get personal.
"Could we do these poses with me and Bobby?"
His million dollar smile flashed.
"Absolutely!" he said, happily. "The customer need not know you are brother and sister."
He went to the table on the wall and picked up a big cardboard box.
"The merchandise is in here," he said. "We'll need to catalog it and match up outfits for the two of you to wear, but that won't take long."
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Looking back on it, he was slick. I'll give him that. He was a professional, after all.
First, he had her put on fake fingernails that were long and painted with scenes of palm trees and sand beaches. He glued them on and said, "It will take an hour for the glue to dry completely, so be careful. You may have to have some assistance getting dressed."
"From who?" she asked.
"Well, of course I could help you," he said, casually. "But you might be more comfortable if Bobby did that."
We looked at each other. She shrugged.
"Okay," she said.
The first suit she had to put on was woven out of some kind of yarn or something. If you held it up to the light, you could see through it, but it was thick enough that it hid the skin it covered.
Which wasn't much, as it turned out.
The bra covered the tips of her breasts, but that was all. And the bottoms were basically a triangle that covered her ... well, her pussy, I guess. The rest of it was just yarn that held that on her hips.
How do I know this?
Because I had to help her put it on. Vlad said it was too likely that her fingernails would catch in the yarn, and get pulled off.
So we went into the changing booth. I was holding the suit. Actually, it was hanging from the fingers of my right hand. It looked about like a fancy handkerchief.
"I can't wear that!" she whispered.
I spread it out on my hand.
"You can't really see through it," I said.
"Yes, but you're going to see me totally naked!"
I know it's sad, but by this time I had admired enough pictures of my sister that the thought of seeing her naked didn't seem objectionable?
"Come on," I said. "We took baths together until you were like eight."
"I didn't have these when I was eight!" she hissed, cupping her breasts.
"What are you worried about?" I asked. "You afraid I'll make a move on you?"
"I'll be naked!" she moaned. "All the way naked!"
"You think I want to ogle my own sister?" I asked. "All I'm going to do is put the stupid suit on you. It won't take but a second."
It was then that I learned something else new about my sister.
"You better not laugh at me," she hissed.
Turns out that no matter how beautiful a girl is, or how many times somebody tells her how beautiful she is, she still doesn't quite believe it. Or maybe she just concentrates on self-perceived flaws or something. Anyway, the point is that she thought I'd think she was ugly if I saw her naked.
The long and the short of it is that, eventually, she agreed to wear the suit. And she agreed to let me put it on her.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
I had to undress her too, because the glue on the nails wasn't dry yet. If you're a guy, you've played out this scene in your mind a thousand times. The undressing a girl part, I mean. You've imagined unbuttoning things, and pulling things apart and exposing more and more skin. Eventually you get to the good parts and, in your imagination, the girl is just letting you do all this. This fantasy is usually a prelude to masturbation when you're a teenager.
Except most of us don't imagine that girl to be our sister.
But I was confused about all this. And I think it was because I was so used to seeing her as a good looking girl posing for the camera instead of as my sister.
So I may as well just admit it right up front that, by the time I got to the good parts I had a boner to be proud of.
Well except for the fact that I had a boner for my sister. Which you're not supposed to be proud of. I worked through all that eventually, but let me tell you I was all twisted up there for a while.
Anyway, while I saw her, you didn't, and if you're normal, you wish you'd seen her too, so I'll tell you what I saw.
The first thing I did was unbutton her blouse. She had on a plain, white, cotton bra that day, which wasn't so sexy, but it was a bra, you know? She was looking at me with this half frown, like she was trying to be mad at me. I remembered her warning about laughing, but I hadn't figured out what I told you earlier yet.
"I have freckles on my chest," she said, for some odd reason.
I looked, and there was, in fact, a spray of freckles across her chest. They looked kind of neat, but I figured I probably shouldn't say that.
"Yeah, you do," I said instead, trying to sound uninterested. "Should I take off your bra now, or your jeans?" I didn't know what to do.
"Jeans," she said, her voice tight.
I knelt and undid her jeans. They were surprisingly hard to get down past her knees.
"I have a fat ass," she said.
I was in front of her.
"I can't see your ass," I said.
"It's fat," she said.
"If you say so," I replied. I admit I was a little preoccupied. While her bra was plain, her panties were not. They were wispy blue ones, lacy, in a cut I later learned was called "boy shorts" style. As I pulled her jeans down, the panties sort of wanted to slide down too, exposing the beginnings of very blond pubic hair. Don't ask me why, but I tried to keep them up while I got the jeans down. That was when my Johnson started acting up.
When I finally got the jeans down, I realized I hadn't taken her shoes off. So I had to pull her jeans back up to get to her shoes. She had to put her hands on my head for balance while she lifted a foot for me to take her shoe off. Don't ask me why, but somehow it felt different than my sister gripping my head.
I finally got her down to bra and panties. Her hands had gone from my head to cover the front of those panties when I stood up with her jeans in my hand.
"I'm going to see you naked," I pointed out, staring at her hands.
"I know," she said. She was breathing hard. "Nobody's ever seen me that way."
"Don't even try that," I said, almost laughing, but remembering at the last second not to. "Girls in the showers at the gym? Girls at your sleepovers?"
She tossed her head. "I meant boys, of course."
"Greg Haskins?" I said, reminding her of the guy she'd gone with for six months before having a fiery breakup. "Danny Wilson?" He was the guy after that. "Paul Buckminster?" I opened my mouth to go on, but she cut me off.
"I never got naked with any of them, you asshole!"
"That's not the way I heard it," I said.
"Give me my jeans," she snapped. "I'm not doing this if you're going to be a prick about it."
I thought about the video game equipment three times our normal fee would buy me and held up my hand.
"I'm not trying to give you a hard time, Addie. I'm just telling you what I heard."
"And you believe them over me?"
"Of course not. But it was possible they were telling the truth. If you say I'm the first, then I believe you."
She relaxed a little.
"And I'm glad," I added.
"Really?"
I nodded.
"Why?"
"You're my sister. None of those guys was worth even getting a kiss, much less getting to see you like this."
I was astonished when she laughed.
"You are so full of it. Let's go. Vlad's probably getting antsy."
So she turned her back to me and I unhooked her bra. She shrugged it off like it was no big deal and started to reach for it, but then stopped with it hanging on her wrists.
"You better do it," she said, turning to me.
I missed the bra on my first try. Her breasts were astonishing.
Imagine a big, ripe, cantaloupe, maybe eight inches across. Now cut that in half and lay each half gently on a flat chest. Magically make them into skin and perch the pit from a Bing cherry on top of each one. You can also paint a dark pink landing pad for each of those cherries if you want, about an inch in diameter. I would not find out until later that those nipples could lie just as flat and lifeless as a piece of paper, or that she was, like me, excited about the first time a boy was going to see her completely naked. She was conflicted too, but her emotions were driving her body's responses, and her nipples responded by becoming erect.
I finally looked up to see her watching me watching her boobs. Don't ask me why. Maybe it was just my training to be polite, but whatever it was, I felt compelled to say something.
"They're really nice," I said.
"Bobby!" she said, properly scandalized.
"Well they are," I whispered. "What'd you want me to say? That they're horrible bags?"
She slapped my shoulder, which made those breasts jiggle only a little. They looked remarkably firm. I would later find out they were.
"Of course not!" she whispered back. "But you're my brother!"
"That doesn't mean I can't recognize a prime rack when I see one," I said, without thinking.
There was one of those things my literature teacher calls a "pregnant silence" before she finally said something.
"You think I have a prime rack? Really?"
Again, don't ask me why, but I did something really crazy. I leaned forward, very quickly and kissed the inside of one of those fabulous breasts. As I pulled back she pulled back too and almost lost her balance.
"That convince you?" I asked, staring right at her.
"Are you crazy?" she gasped.
I knelt on one knee and crooked my finger at her, pointing at her panties. She stood there, her chest heaving, but finally came to me.
I didn't do it slow. I just grabbed the waistband and tugged them down in one pull that took them to her knees.
I've seen lots of pictures on the internet. But seeing things in real life is different. My imagination about seeing the start of those pubes I mentioned was pretty fired up by then, and the reality of things hit me pretty hard. She had this beautiful, short, curly carpet of very blond hair, perched above where I expected to see pussy lips. But she didn't have pussy lips. Not really. Her skin just rounded in to form a slit that was tightly closed. When she lifted her left leg to step out of the panties, that cleft spread a little bit, but it was still closed.
"I can't believe I'm doing this," she panted.
"Me either," I agreed.
"Please don't laugh at me, Bobby," she moaned, one hand coming to try to hide her pussy, and the other going to try covering her breasts.
I got it then. She wasn't just trying to be modest, though that was part of it. She thought she was ugly. I know how stupid that sounds, but I have since learned it happens all the time. Madison Avenue makes a business quite literally from telling girls over and over that they aren't beautiful or desirable, unless they enhance their natural assets. And that sinks in by the time a girl is in her teens.
Of course I wasn't in business. And I knew my sister was completely wrong. So I stood up and told her.
"Addie, you're beautiful."
Her eyes were wet, but they hadn't formed tears yet.
"I mean it," I said. "I wish you weren't my sister right now."
That got her attention.
Chapter Three
I think that comment about wishing she wasn't my sister was what really convinced her I wasn't going to laugh at her. And my opinion really mattered, for some reason. The point is that, from that point on, instead of being freaked out that her brother was looking at her like well not her brother she was more or less comfortable with being naked in front of me. But more than that her own curiosity about boys was allowed to come to the fore.
The first indication of that was after I got the mesh suit on her. That was, by the way, both ridiculously easy and astonishingly difficult at the same time.
Getting each piece where it belonged was the ridiculously easy part. I went in reverse order, doing the bottoms first. It was just big enough to cover all her curly short ones. The hardest part of that was figuring out how the strings went. She bent over and pointed at things to help me spread it all out. I glanced up and saw those fabulous breasts, just hanging like ripe fruit on a tree, and my cock got even harder. She stepped daintily into the arrangement and I pulled everything up.
Then it was hard to get all those strings tight enough but not too tight. And then there was the part that went between her ass cheeks. It was elastic, but I had to spread her butt cheeks to get it to lie right so it would pull the bottom of the front panel to curve over that tightly closed cleft between her legs. It worked best if the cord around the waist was high in the back and the side strings went high over her hips.
The bra was easier to get on, but then it needed to be tugged and moved all over each breast to present an even appearance. I realized she had tiny, fine hairs on her upper torso that I would never have been able to see unless I was this close to her body.
I finally stood back.
"Wow," I said.
"I look okay?"
"They're going to sell a million of these suits," I said.
"You really mean that!" she sighed.
"You're damn straight," I admitted easily.
"Thank you."
"You're most welcome," I said.
This was when her curiosity bubbled up to the surface.
"You need to change into your suit too," she reminded me.
I thought about my rock hard prick, and how what was shaping up to be a very comfortable relationship might take a completely different turn if she found out I had a boner for her.
"You can go on out," I suggested.
"No way," she said. "You saw me. It's only fair I get to see you too."
"That's crazy," I said.
"Crazy or not, you got to see all my flaws. I get to see yours too. Fair is fair."
"You don't have any flaws," I said, somewhat heatedly.
"Shhhh," she said, quietly. "Hurry up." She stuck her head through the curtain and told Vlad we were about ready. I heard him say, "Take your time," which should have registered as odd, but did not. I had other things to worry about just then.
My sister stood there in that incredibly sexy "swim" suit, oblivious to the fact that she had turned my penis into a bar of tungsten steel, and waited for me to expose that fact.
"I can't," I said.
"Why not?"
"I have a problem."
She didn't get it at first. I could see her turning it all over in her mind, trying to figure out what kind of problem I could possibly have. I could also see when she did get it. Her face changed from a frown of concentration to The Joker's face as he laughed at Batman.
"You're kidding!" she whispered, leaning toward me and covering her mouth as she giggled.
"You said I couldn't laugh at you!" I reminded her.
"I'm not laughing," she insisted while laughing.
"Come on, Addie. I couldn't help it. It's not something a guy can control when he sees a beautiful girl. And you are beautiful."
"Change!" she hissed.
It was obvious she wasn't going to cut me any slack.
"Look away," I said.
"Don't be ridiculous. You saw everything I have!"
"It's not the same!" I insisted.
She finally turned around, folding her arms over her chest.
"Okay then. Just hurry up."
If I'd have thought about it, I'd have realized she could have just left. Assuming she was no longer going to even the score. Which, of course, she was.
She must have had eyes in the back of her head, because as soon as I was naked and reached for Vlad's Speedo, she turned around and bent over to stare at my manhood.
"Good grief!" she gasped, like there was something horribly wrong with it.
"What?" I asked, looking down, expecting to see bleeding, or boils or something horrible.
"It's huge!" she said, weakly.
"It is?" It was an automatic response. I'm not suggesting I didn't know what size I had.
She looked up at my face, but only for a split second.
"Not that I've seen any," she said. "But I can't help but imagine and that looks way bigger than I expected. It looks scary. They say it hurts the first time. I can sure believe that!"
Guys look at that prospect differently. We know it's happened zillions of times, and nobody was killed by it. Plus we all assume we'll be good enough lovers that the girls will all say, "Pshaw," at whatever pain there might be and beg for us never to stop.
"It's never killed anybody yet," I said, with typical teenage bravado. It was an instinctive thing to say the kind of thing I would have said if I were talking to a guy. Maybe I was trying, unconsciously, to stop lusting after my sister and put her on the level of a guy friend. I don't know.
"You've done it?" she said, loud enough for our father to hear, clear across town.
Vlad called out. "Is there a problem?"
"No!" I called back, shushing my sister immediately after.
She looked mad for some reason. Or maybe she was just shocked and disgusted. In any case, I saw things going south in a hurry, so I fessed up.
"I've never done it!" I hissed. "Guys just talk like that, okay?"
"You're a virgin?" she said, more softly. "Really?"
"Of course I'm a virgin," I said. "Just like you are."
There was a split second delay before she answered, and when she did her eyes sparkled. I saw it, but was unable to react to the cues when she said, "Who says I'm a virgin?"
Instead, I shot back, "You better be a virgin, or I'm going to have to beat the living shit out of some guy."
She giggled again.
"Of course I'm a virgin," she said. "I'm glad you are too."
That confused me.
"Why?" I asked.
"I don't know. Get your suit on, before Vlad charges in here to find out what's wrong and he sees your monster thing."
"It's not a monster," I growled.
"Sure looks like one to me," she giggled.
I grabbed the Speedo and stepped into it. I looked ridiculous as I pulled it to cover my boner. And there was nothing I could do about it. In the end, I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around my waist. I hoped I looked professional or something.
When we stepped out, I think we both expected to find a frustrated Vlad waiting, wanting to get the fuck on with things. We'd been there more than half an hour by then, and he had yet to take a single picture. Of course we didn't know then what we know now that he was grooming us for bigger and better things, and that, from his point of view, however much time it took for us to get used to seeing each other naked was worth it.
"Very nice," he said, casually. "I knew that suit would look good on you."
He ignored me, which didn't surprise me at all. If I were in a room with some guy and Addison, and she was dressed like that, I wouldn't look at anybody else either. He took her to stand in front of a backdrop that was all sand and sun and palm trees, like the scenes on her nails, and stood her there while he fiddled with light meters and exposure settings and all that kind of thing.
"We're going to have to oil you up," he finally said. "Your skin is so fair it bleaches out. The oil will refract the light and give your skin a more golden tone."
It took no imagination at all to envision what "oiling her up" meant, and it sounded like he intended to do it himself. That was unacceptable.
"I'll do it," I said, firmly.
"Of course," he said, flashing his perfect teeth. He went to the table and picked up a bottle, which he handed to me. I realized I was about to rub my oily hands all over Addie's skin. My cock twitched under the towel.
"Should we go back in there?" I asked, looking at Vlad for some reason.
"No," he scoffed. "Is just oil. No big deal, right? She is your sister, after all, yes?"
"Of course," I said, knowing that was what I was supposed to say what any normal brother would say.
That was when I found out how firm her breasts were, as I had to slide my oily hands along the sides and tops of them, where the suit didn't cover. It was insanely tempting to slide my fingers under the cloth too, but I managed to resist doing that.
It did not help that she kept saying, "That feels nice, Bobby."
* * * * * * * * * * * *
I do not remember dragging out the oiling up of my sister. She later told me I did that. I denied it, but then she said, "I didn't mind." I didn't know what that meant, so I just dropped it.