
THE MEASURE OF MAN

An Epic by Gil Gamesh

Chapter Thirty-Five

As for you, Gilgamesh, fill your belly with good things; day and night, night and day, dance and be merry, feast and rejoice. Let your clothes be fresh, bathe yourself in water, cherish the little child that holds your hand, and make your wife happy in your embrace; for this too is the measure of man.

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CAST OF CHARACTERS:
Kieran Stuart, 43; Siobhan Stuart, 42; Kavan Stuart, 17; Arial Stuart, 15; Kerry Stuart, 12 

Kathryn Jenssen, 17

Brad Weaver, 17

TELLING THE STORY:
Arial Stuart

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(ARIAL)

After the wild week in the woods with everybody in the Stuart and Andersen families, I had my hair cut short. It had not been cut in years and it was almost down to my hips. Mom helped me find a woman who would do it so I could donate it to make wigs for women with cancer. I got it cut so short it wasn’t even down to my neck.

Mom said Kerry and I looked alike, since he hadn’t had his cut all summer. Then the next day he got his trimmed and restyled so it looked like Stuart’s. He said he thought Stuart’s hair was sexy and he wanted to look different when he started back to school 

The next week school started and Kavan and Kathryn and I went back to our usual routine. Everything was pretty much the same as last year except that our classes were a little different.

It was very different for Kerry, however. He started high school. He was the first eleven-year old ever to register as a regular student. Believe me; he got lots of attention because of that. He got a little article in the local newspaper and a big one in the school newspaper. He had scored so high on all evaluation tests that he’d started first grade when he was five. Then his elementary and middle schools had allowed him to do self-study on some classes and he did most of them in a few months. He had more than enough credits so they let him start high school when he was a month shy of his twelfth birthday. Even if he took four years to finish, he would be fifteen when he graduated. He was kind of funny about the whole thing. He acted more mature than most of the freshmen a couple of years older, like it was no big deal.

I had to ride the bus home with Kerry now. Last year, when it was just me and Kavan and Kathryn, we had ridden most of the time in Kavan’s old pickup truck. With four of us, we couldn’t all squeeze in. Dad didn’t want Kerry riding the bus by himself with the high-school kids so I said I’d ride with him. Kavan and Kathryn ended up working a couple of hours on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at the landscaping company so I’d have ridden the bus most of the time anyway.

In late September we had an Indian-summer heat wave. The school bus wasn’t air-conditioned so Kerry and I got home hot and sweaty every day. The first few days, he told me he was going to take a shower to cool off but he knew I knew what he was doing. On Friday, we came in and the house was hot so we both stripped and then made a big pitcher of lemonade. We were sitting out on the deck drinking it and he started telling me about how the high-school girls were treating him. He got a hard-on as usual. I kidded him about it and he said it was all the testosterone pressure. He started jacking off and I watched him and started doing it too. Not jacking off, I guess. That’s a boy thing. He kept his eyes on me doing it and I watched him doing it. We took a shower together afterwards to clean up and cool off.

On Tuesday of the next week, Kerry was naked as soon as he got in the house. He showed me his hard-on again and said he was taking it to the shower to cool off. I went to my room to get out of my school clothes. I wanted to get some flowers from the front yard to put in the house. I just wiped off with a wet cloth and then put on fresh panties and a loose sundress. The dress covered just enough so I could go outside. I went out through the front garage and the driveway was too hot for my bare feet. The grass next to the flowerbed was just warm and felt good.

I heard somebody coming up the hill and I recognized the sound of Kavan’s truck. I walked over to the shade of the hickory tree and waited for him and Kathryn. When they pulled in the driveway, there were three people in the truck. Kavan was driving, Kathryn was in the middle, and some guy I had seen at school was on the side of the truck next to me. He had his arm hanging out the window and, when he saw me, I think he had his tongue hanging out of his mouth.

They got out of the truck and Kathryn introduced him. She said he was Brad Weaver and then he said something when he should have kept his mouth closed.

“I know you. You’re the girl the jocks call the ice princess. I’ve seen you at school but I didn’t know you were Kavan’s sister. You’ve cut your hair short.”

That was a bad way to start off a relationship. It pissed me off every time one of those stupid jocks called me that. I gave him my best “if looks could kill” look and went in through the garage and to my room.

I found the book about Percy and Mary Shelley I’d been reading and lay down on my bed on my stomach. I tried to get over being mad but I had had too much of the “ice princess” crap at school last year and I really did not want anymore this year. 

A few minutes later someone knocked on my door. It was Kathryn so I invited her in.

“What’s the matter, Arial? Why were you so mean to Brad when I introduced him? He’s a nice guy.”

“Kathryn, I’m tired of jocks and their ‘ice princess’ shit. I had too much of it last year and I don’t want to hear it this year.”

“Brad’s no jock, Arial. He’s a brain. He’s about as far from a jock as he can get.”

“He looks like one, Kathryn. Are you sure? He’s tall and a little skinny but with those shoulders, he must be some sort of jock.”

“I’m sure, Arial. Kavan and I both had classes with him last year and we know him. He’s a great guy. Kavan wants you to meet him. Now come on in the family room and let’s start over.”

I apologized to Brad and he apologized to me and we started over. He asked me why I got mad when he said “ice princess” and told me he didn’t know what it meant.

“It’s what the jocks on the football team called me after I didn’t fall into their trap last year,” I told him. “The players on the football team had a drawing to pick a guy to be put up for Homecoming King. They knew they could get him elected. Then they wanted to pick a girl to be Homecoming Queen and were going to take bets on whether he could screw her. They even had it set up so they could take bets on how long it’d take after Homecoming was over. They asked me if they could put me up for Queen. I guess I was flattered but I was suspicious. I was just a freshman and usually the Queen is a junior or senior. Before I could decide, an ex-girlfriend of the team captain told me what they’d done. When they came back to ask me again, I told them that the Homecoming King could just fuck the football team but he’d never fuck me.”

“You told them that, in those words?” Brad asked.

”Yeah, they’re a pack of cretins. I thought they might understand the four-letter words.”

“That’s why they gave her the ice princess treatment, Brad,” Kavan said. “They think they can get away with anything. I thought you’d have heard the story. The rumor mill had it all over school a few days after she told them what they could do.”

 “I’m really sorry, Arial,” Brad said. “I heard you called ice princess a few times but I didn’t hear anything about why. You’d walk down the hall and all the guys would look at you. You’re probably the prettiest girl in school. I saw how you just held your head up and had that little smile on your face. Like you were sort of tickled about something and were trying to hold it in. I had no idea what the jocks had done. I don’t run with the jock crowd.”

“I’m sorry too, Brad. Now let’s forget it. What do you do for fun?”

“My main sport’s hiking. I’ve got some buddies I go with and we drive back up in the mountains and do lots of hard day-hikes. Lots of climbing. Not like rock climbing. Just up some steep climbs. I carry twenty-five pounds of water if it’s a steep climb, up to fifty pounds if it’s just level walking.”

I couldn’t understand why anybody would need twenty-five pounds of water to drink. “How do you carry water when you’re walking?”

“Easy. I buy some special plastic bags made for hikers. They’re each one-gallon size. Every gallon of water weighs a little over eight pounds. If I carry three bags in my backpack, I’ve got twenty-five pounds of extra weight. If I need to drink, I get it from a bag. If I don’t want to carry the weight back, I just empty them.”

“But why carry so much?” I still didn’t understand.

“Arial, have you ever carried twenty-five pounds for a six-mile hike? It’s my main way of staying in shape.”

I understood, finally. “You’re not one of those competitive sports jocks, then?”

“Well, the only person I compete with is me. I love to fish and I do that for relaxation. I’m learning to be a spelunker and that’s pretty damned good exercise.”

“What’s spelunking?” I asked.

“Cave exploring. My brother’s a student at the university and he belongs to a caving club. Their sponsor’s a professor who’s trying to map all the caves around here and then do sample digs to see if there’s anything worth excavating. Like Indian artifacts or maybe prehistoric animals. My brother invited me to go a couple of years ago and I liked it so much I asked if I could join the club. Professor Johnson let me join because I’m good at visualizing and drawing.” 

“That’s why I brought Brad home, Arial,” Kavan said. “Brad told me about spelunking and I told him about the caves on the Freeloft property. I told him you had lots of photos on your computer of the rock layers and the cave opening. He wants to borrow them and show them to the cave-club sponsor.”

I felt a little ashamed of myself. Brad did seem like a nice guy. If Kavan and Kathryn liked him, he probably was OK. I decided to check him out a little more.

“Kathryn, let’s make a pitcher of lemonade and then we can go out on the back deck and talk.”

We’d just started for the kitchen when it happened. Kerry walked into the family room - naked. He didn’t know Kavan and Kathryn had brought someone else home. He turned and ran back down the hall but the damage was done. Brad didn’t know what to do or say. Kavan and Kathryn were doubled over laughing. They rescued the situation. Kavan grabbed Brad’s arm and led him out on the deck. Kathryn took my hand and led me into the kitchen. 

When we carried the pitcher and glasses out on the deck, Kavan was sitting on the edge of his chair leaning toward Brad. Brad had a look on his face that was hard to fathom. He gave me a look that was easy to understand though. 

We told him we were nudists around the house when the temperature was warm enough, that we swam in the pool almost every day in the nude, and that we were part of a family and friends group of nudists at a cabin in the woods. We didn’t tell him anything about how Mom and Dad had raised us about sex. I thought we’d better just give him one barrel at a time, not both. Then I wondered why I even thought about giving him the other barrel. Was I looking forward to seeing him again?
 
Kavan and Kathryn excused themselves and went in the house. I don’t know if I noticed they were gone and I don’t think Brad did either.

I looked him over while he was talking. He had a close-cropped mop of dark-brown hair that might have been combed sometime earlier today. He had gray eyes and he looked directly at me like he was really interested in what I was saying. His face was almost a boy’s face, with no sign of whiskers except for faint stubble on his strong chin and upper lip. He kept smiling at me and I saw perfect white teeth. He had a slightly crooked smile that raised one side of his upper lip higher than the other.  I liked it. 

He had cheeks which were a dead give-away about how he felt. I suppose he was embarrassed about his ice-princess remark and he had blushed so bad they were almost red. Now, sitting talking to him, they had faded to a faint pink. I liked that too.
 
He was cute, even if I couldn't put my finger on exactly why. He was tall, probably taller than Kavan or Dad, with wide muscular shoulders and well-developed biceps. His hands were big with long fingers and were smooth and almost hairless on the backs.

Brad told me he had his own car, a Jeep Cherokee with four-wheel drive and he loved to drive it off road when he was camping and fishing.

I learned that his father was a doctor at the university hospital and that his mother was also a doctor with her own practice. He said his parents were divorced, that he had lived with his mother until she married again, that he had felt like he didn’t belong with her new husband, and that he had gone to live with his father. His father was good to him but, with his work, he didn’t have much time for him. He knew all the good take-out places around where he lived and he was planning on barbeque tonight.

He told me about a summer dig, his first, at a cave in the mountains about an hour away. I could tell he liked being a spelunker. He described the pit on the mountainside where the roof of one part of the cave had fallen in and how prehistoric animals had fallen in the pit over the centuries. Their bones were washed back into other areas of the cave and it was like a puzzle to dig them out when they were all mixed up. He told me how he’d been able to go down the chimney, a small opening next to the pit, where he could put his back on one wall and his feet on the other. He seemed proud when he told me how he’d learned to go up the rope in the chimney so quickly. 

I guess I relaxed too much around him and got a little careless about how I was sitting. When he asked to use the bathroom, I told him where it was. When he stood up to leave, I think I detected a trouser snake in his khakis. I assumed he had the same sort of testosterone pressure Kavan and Kerry had. He was gone long enough to get some relief. I looked for the snake again anyway.

I told him about the caves on the Freeloft property. I’d never been in them but Kavan and Kerry had been in just as far as they could see without lights. I told him Mrs. Freeloft had asked the boys not to go in them and then Lauren had said the same thing when she bought the property. He asked me if I thought she’d let them explore the caves if they had a professional spelunker, a geologist, with them. He was mapping the local caves and this one sounded like one the Indians might have used. I told him I’d ask Lauren about letting us explore the cave with Professor Johnson. Kavan and Kerry had been helping her contractors map all of the horseshoe-bend property and I guessed she’d like to have the caves mapped out too.

Kavan came back after a while and saw we were still talking. He asked me if we were going to fix homemade pizzas for supper and I said yes. I could see Brad wanted to stay so I invited him for supper. He jumped at the chance. I was glad. He was cute. And he did talk like a brain, not like some dumb jock. Boy, I was glad I went back and we got over the ice princess remark.

Mom and Dad came in and I introduced Brad. They were real nice to him and Brad was very respectful to them. Dad had on his Italian navy-blue suit with a white shirt and the stained-glass-looking tie I’d got him at the museum. He looked good all dressed up and I was proud of him. He’d asked me to pick his clothes because he was going to be meeting with Lauren’s bankers today. Mom was beautiful as always. She had on a skirt and a silk blouse because she’d just been working at the bank in the office she used part time with other agents. With her high-heels on and with her figure, I think Brad got a good impression of her. His eyes almost bugged out.

I guess they got a good impression of Brad too because Dad gave me a wink when they excused themselves to go get comfortable. I hoped they meant comfortable clothes. I didn’t think Brad would be ready for them to come out naked yet. Dad came back barefooted, in shorts and a shirt, and sat down on the deck with us. Mom came back in a loose dress something like mine and went in the kitchen with Kathryn and Kerry. Kerry just had on loose shorts, no shirt, and his underwear showing as usual. 

Kavan got up and I knew he was going to get himself and Dad a beer. I didn’t say anything but I was glad when he came back with three. 

“Brad, would you like a beer?” Dad asked. “Kavan’s allowed one during the week and a max of two on weekends.”

Brad smiled and took one. “I wish my Dad would put beer in the house. He leaves the bar with the hard stuff unlocked and leaves wine in the fridge. I’d rather have a beer any day.”

I told Brad he might as well get comfortable and take off his shoes. Kavan put his feet up on the little table next to Dad’s and wiggled his toes. Brad took a long swallow from the beer, pulled off his sneakers and socks, and put them up on the table too. His feet looked like he could water ski with them.

“Mr. Stuart, Kavan and Kathryn set me and Arial up,” he said.

I thought Kavan would spit his beer out. He started to protest or something and Brad held his hand up. Dad just sat there smiling.

“I’ve known Kavan and Kathryn for a while and I thought we were friends. He’d told me he had a beautiful sister and I’d seen Arial around school but I never made the connection. When he and Kathryn invited me home this afternoon, I suspected an ulterior motive.”

Dad knew he was teasing Kavan. “And what was that motive, Brad?”

“I thought you might have a daughter named Rapunzel hidden away in a tower and maybe you needed a prince to rescue her.”

“No, Brad, no daughter like that. We have a mischievous forest sprite that came in out of the woods and decided to stay.”

“Well, I think I could do a pretty good job rescuing sprites too. Let me know if there’s a need for a prince, will you? I think Kavan thought there was.”

I don’t know where the conversation would have gone but Kerry came out and announced that the first pizza was ready. When Brad answered, “Thanks, Squirt,” I knew Kavan and Kathryn had told him a lot about our family.

We all went to the kitchen and helped ourselves to pizza. I think Brad was surprised at our low-cheese, heavy vegetable pizza. It was my favorite and I was glad Kathryn had cooked it first. The Italian-sausage one the guys liked was in the oven for seconds.

I asked Brad what he wanted to drink and told him he could have his choice of tea or a soft drink. He surprised me when he asked for a diet soft drink. I showed him the one I liked and he nodded. I guess he saw the puzzled look on my face. “I don’t like sweets that much,” he said, “especially soft drinks with sugar and caffeine.” 

Brad didn’t know where to sit so I led him back out on the deck. Everybody else followed and I was glad they didn’t start picking on him with questions. They just treated him like he’d been around forever. When the timer sounded for the second pizza, Kathryn got up and brought it out for us to share.

We sat around talking for a while and Brad excused himself. I knew he knew where it was. He came back a few minutes later, looked at Dad, and said, “Thanks for the loan of the beer.” I knew he’d fit right in.

I was wondering about swimming. We hadn’t done it since Saturday afternoon but I didn’t want to bring it up with Brad here. Kerry solved the problem. He stood up and stretched. He was all long arms and legs as usual – and big grin. His shorts were too big and I guessed they were Kavan’s old ones. They were about to fall off his butt.

“Is it OK if I go swimming, Dad?” he asked.

“Sure, Squirt, go ahead.” I think Dad knew what Kerry was up to.

“Would you like to go swimming, Brad?” Dad asked.

Maybe Brad felt like he was in a situation he didn’t know how to handle. He sort of gulped a couple of times and finally said, “I don’t think I should. Maybe it’s time for me to go.” He stood up.

Nothing stopped Kerry. He slid his shorts off, full frontal nudity, turned and went out the screen door to the steps leading down to the pool. I watched his beautiful little butt as always. I think Brad was about to bolt.

“Sit down, Brad.” Kavan said. Brad looked at Dad. “Sit down, Brad,” Dad said. Brad sat.

“Did the kids tell you we run around the house in the nude? And that’s the way we swim when there’s no one else around,” Dad asked.

“Yeah, they did. This afternoon. I think that’s cool.”

“Would you like to join us?”

“I don’t think I can. Maybe I’d better go.”

Dad and Kavan knew what his problem was. It was a hard problem. I’d seen it when he stood up. I was afraid they’d tease Brad about it. They didn’t. 

“Arial, when’s the last time you saw a guy with a hard-on?” Dad asked.

“This afternoon. I saw Kerry. When we came in from school and he went to take a shower.”

“And before that?”

“It was last night, when Kavan and Kathryn started fooling around before bedtime.”

I didn’t think I needed to be more specific than that. Kerry and I had gone down to the basement to Kavan and Kathryn’s bedroom. We’d watched a movie on TV and Kathryn had fooled around with Kavan and got him hard. I’d fooled around with Kerry and got him hard too but that’s all we did. We had to get to bed after the movie was over because it was a school night. We’d all come back upstairs to the bathroom between my room and Kerry’s to pee and brush our teeth. Kavan and Kathryn always used that one with us because Mom asked them not to use the half-bath near the family room.

We’d all had to pee and Kavan had asked if he could go first because he had to go real bad. Kerry let me and Kathryn go next. Then he didn’t lift the seat when he peed and he sprayed the seat. Kathryn said she was going to make him sit in it. She tried to make him sit down on the commode and we ended up with a four-way wrestling match. Kavan got hard again and picked up Kathryn and carried her down the hall, through the family room and into the kitchen. Kerry and I followed them and Kerry opened the door to the basement for Kavan. I was afraid Kavan would drop Kathryn going down the stairs but he didn’t. 

“And before that?”

“Sunday night, when you and Mom were cutting up and you picked her up and carried her off to bed.”

I didn’t think I’d better tell Brad any more about that either. All six of us had been in the family room listening to music and talking. Mom and Dad were sprawled out on the couch and Mom kept teasing Dad and tickling him around his dick and balls. He kept trying to make her stop and she wouldn’t. So he’d picked her up and carried her to the bedroom. The last thing I heard from him was “Alright, you’ve been asking for it. Now you’re going to get it.”

Dad didn’t say anything else. Brad sat there sort of open-mouthed and bug-eyed. Kavan decided to help him out.

“Brad, that’s we way we’ve been raised,” he said. “We’re pretty open about stuff like sex. Mom and Dad have always taught us to be proud of what we are even when it comes to sex. But all Dad did was invite you to go swimming with us. We do the same stuff everybody else does in a pool, just having fun. We just do it without anything on.”

“Maybe you’re used to it,” Brad said. “I’m not.”

Kathryn finally had something to say. “Well, get used to it, Brad. If you want to get to know Arial, you’re going to have to get used to her family.” And she stood up, pulled off her shirt, dropped her shorts and panties together, and went down the steps. Full frontal nudity number two and Brad was open-mouthed again. Brad finally looked at me.

I stood up and held out my hand. “It’s been nice meeting you, Brad,” I said. Poor guy. “Kavan, would you drive him home?”

Yeah, poor guy. He looked like I’d hit him with a sledgehammer. He stood up and then just stood there. Finally he managed to give me a weak smile and pulled his shirt over his head. I pulled the sundress over my head and dropped it on the floor. All I had on was white panties. Brad’s eyes snapped right to them, then locked on my breasts, and finally found my face. I gave him a big grin and got one in return. He unbelted his pants and slid them off. He had on white briefs. Very nice, very sexy. I pulled off my panties and dropped them on my dress. Brad pulled his briefs off and dropped them on his pants. Yes, very nice. Maybe not quite as big as Dad and Kavan but very nice. And maybe it wasn’t really hard but it looked swollen. He just stood there for a moment looking at me while I looked at him. 

I liked what I saw. He had big feet, almost too big. He had narrow hips with almost no butt, long legs with dark hair down the outside of his thighs and on his calves. He was very nice all over - flawless skin except for the faint marks his jockeys had made around his thighs and waist. And of course, he had a quite-respectable dick, nestled against a pair of balls that were almost as hairless as Kerry’s, right there in front for all of us to see. Like Dad and Kavan and Kerry, he wasn’t circumcised and I liked that too. I wondered how big it would be when it was hard.

Mom and Dad and Kavan had been watching our strip tease and I guess we met with their approval. Mom stood up and put one hand on my shoulder and the other on Brad’s.

“You kids go on down and swim. Your Dad and I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

I held out my hand to Brad, he took it, and we went down the steps toward the pool. A naked Kavan passed us and did a depth charge in the pool close to Kerry. Kathryn gave Brad a big smile, a very appreciative smile, and waved up the hill to my parents. “Come on in. The water’s fine.”

It was fine. Brad lost his bashfulness and acted just as crazy as the rest of us. He got bug-eyes again when Mom and Dad came down the hill. Mom’s quite a woman. Voluptuous - I think that’s Dad’s word for her. We all played until almost eight o’clock. Mom reminded us it was a school night and we had to get to bed by ten. We all had a quick shower in the basement and Brad couldn’t quit looking around at all my naked family.

I went upstairs with Brad while he got dressed. He couldn’t take his eyes off me and I wanted him to look at me. Finally, I picked up his briefs and khakis and handed his briefs to him. He shook his head and grinned his crooked grin at me.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“I can’t believe it. I’m naked and getting dressed while you’re standing there naked. I feel sort of like I ought to go to the bathroom and get dressed and then come back out.”

“I’m glad you decided to go swimming with us,” I said. “I was afraid you’d be too bashful and would leave.”

He stepped into his briefs ands pulled them up. I watched while he adjusted everything. I handed him his pants and then his shirt. He sat down and put on his socks and sneakers.

Kavan came upstairs and dressed to drive him home. As Brad was going out the door, I put my hand on his arm and gave him a quick kiss just on the side of his mouth. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said. He just smiled at me. I knew he’d be back. And I knew I wanted him to come back.

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I wasn’t surprised on Wednesday when Brad found me for lunch at school. I usually ate with Kavan and Kathryn. They came through the serving line a few minutes later. I wasn’t surprised on Thursday either. 

On Friday, we were eating lunch together again when a pack of jocks came through the cafeteria. One of them walked behind me and said, “Looks like the ice princess found herself a big fag to play with.” I thought Brad would explode but I just put my hand on his and smiled at him.

“They’re just stupid and jealous,” I said. “If you let them hurt you with their words, they’ll just laugh. Ignore them.”

He finally got his breathing under control and then smiled at me. I opened my notebook to the section with all the jock comments, wrote down this new one and the guy’s name, and passed the notebook to Kavan. He signed and dated it and passed it over to Brad. Brad looked back through the half-dozen or so pages at the notes and witness signatures. When he finished skimming through them, he signed the latest one and passed the notebook back to me.

“Just in case,” I said.

Since it was Friday I expected to ride the bus home with Kerry since Kavan and Kathryn would work for a couple of hours. When I got to our bus pick up area, Brad was there waiting.

“May I offer you and Kerry a ride home?” he asked.

“Yes, but could we go by the grocery store on the way? Kathryn and I are in charge of dinner tonight. I was going to wait for them and get some kind of take out. If you and Kerry help me shop, I’ll have time to fix something.”

At the grocery store, I found some beautiful green beans and some real, honest-to-gosh vine-ripe tomatoes so I thought I’d do something I liked. I asked Brad if he liked salade nicoise and then had to explain what it was. I’d have been satisfied with the salad but I thought I’d do steak au poivre for the guys. I had to explain to Brad that it was just French for peppered steak. I couldn’t find the strip steaks I wanted so I got a guy in the meat department to cut me two steaks about an inch and a half thick. I knew Dad and the boys loved it and I thought Brad would too. I got two baguettes of bread and then went back and got two more for the guys to snack on until we had dinner.

We were going back to the car with the groceries when Brad popped the question. “Arial, will you marry me?”

I couldn’t believe he was serious. “Are you kidding, Brad? You don’t even know me yet.”

“Yeah, but, if you know how to cook like this, I don’t care. Will you marry me someday?”

“Silly. Wait until after you eat. Then ask me again.”

Kerry disappeared as soon as we got in the house and I wondered if he’d gone to relieve the pressure again. I got Brad to help me get out the other things I needed for dinner. Kerry was back in a few minutes. He’d taken off his jeans and sneakers and was barefooted and in shorts, with his underwear showing as usual. I went to change too. I put on another sundress and didn’t bother with panties this time. I stopped by Dad’s closet and got a pair of old shorts for Brad. I guessed they might be the same size. 

I walked in the kitchen and handed them to him. He kicked off his sneakers just the way Kerry did – hold the heel with the toe on the other foot and pull. Mom always fussed at Kerry when he did it. He asked me where he could change.

“Brad, remember where you are. Relax and get comfortable with us.”

He put his hands on his belt buckle and then stopped. He looked at me and then at Kerry and then at me.

“Sure, Brad,” Kerry said. “Get comfortable with us. Sit down. Get a load off – your feet.” 

From the way he was smiling, I knew what he meant. I decided that was what Brad needed. I took his hand and led him down the hall to the bathroom. I pushed him back against the counter and that brought him part way down to my height. I nudged his feet apart and then leaned against him. He knew what I wanted. He kissed me. I don’t think he knew much about kissing but I was no expert either. It was good enough for me. For him too. After a couple of minutes, I could feel something hard between us that wasn’t there when we started.

I didn’t know what to do next but I guessed he’d think of something. I was right. He pushed me away from him and reached down between my legs. I lifted my sundress and let him find what he was looking for. He teased my little lips apart and got one finger in me. I shut my eyes and let him play and then I remembered I’d brought him in the bathroom to help him get a load off.

I reached down and undid his belt buckle and I think that was when he started holding his breath. I pulled his khakis down and looked down to see what was underneath. He had on white jockeys again. I knew I could develop a liking for briefs like his, especially when they were filled out like his. I pulled his briefs down too. His dick had been bent down and it hadn’t gotten hard all the way. I put my hand around it and stroked it until it was hard. It wasn’t as big around as Dad’s or Kavan’s but it looked like it was just about as long. His worked just like theirs did; it poked its red head out of its foreskin when it got hard. I pushed his pants and briefs down further and he stepped out of them. He was cute in just his knit shirt and socks with his dick pointing up at my face.

“Breathe, Brad,” I teased. He smiled and started breathing again.

 “What are you doing, Arial?” he asked.

“I’m helping you relax, like Kerry said. I thought I’d help you get a load off, like Kerry did when we came in from school.”

I picked up the bottle of baby oil where Kerry had left it. He always did. I put it up constantly and he left it out constantly. I knew he did it so I’d know he’d been jacking off. I held Brad’s dick with one hand and squeezed some oil all over the head.

I turned him around so he was over the sink facing the mirror. I put both arms around him and leaned over to one side so I could see what I was doing. He held his arm on that side up so I was looking under his armpit.

He had a crooked little smile on his face and it just got bigger when I started jacking him off. It took maybe a minute before he quit smiling. I don’t know what the expression was but it looked the same as Kavan and Kerry when they come. He squirted a couple of white strings all the way to the back of the sink on the mirror and then the rest into the sink. He stopped breathing again but I let him figure out when to start again on his own. I held his dick while he quieted down and then milked it down a couple of times. When another glob oozed out, I used my finger and thumb to wipe it off. I was glad I had learned how to jack a guy off with Kavan and Kerry.

I pushed him to one side and handed him the wet washcloth Kerry had left. I turned on the water and started washing the little swimmers down the drain.

“You don’t have to do that, Arial,” Brad said. “I’ll clean it up.”

“Put these old shorts on, Brad. Leave your briefs off. I’m used to cleaning up. Kerry leaves the sink in a mess once in a while. I think he does it deliberately.”

He put on the pair of Dad’s shorts I’d found for him. They were a close fit, good enough. His dick was still hard enough so he had trouble bending it down to stuff it in the shorts. I could still see it bulging out down one leg of the shorts when he zipped them up.

“Jeez, Arial, your family’s going to take some getting used to.”

“Well, get used to us, Brad. We’re not like most families. Mom and Dad are honest with us about sex and we’re the same way with them. When Kavan and Kathryn started having sex, Mom and Dad let them do it here in our house. They lost their virginity with each other downstairs in the bedroom where they sleep.”

“Kathryn lives here now?”

“Yes. Her mother wanted to move to New York and Kathryn didn’t want to go. My parents offered to let her stay with us. Now come on, let’s go start dinner.”

Dinner at our kitchen table with all of my family plus Kathryn and Brad, all seven of us, was a big hit with him. For a while, I wasn’t sure I’d bought enough steak and bread but Kavan and Kerry were nice to Brad and made sure he got his share. I also wondered how long it had been since Brad had enjoyed a home-cooked meal. I knew I was going to make sure he had lots more.

<><><>

In October, Brad planned a day hike for us, up a river valley in a state park back in the mountains. He said he’d done it lots of times and it would be a good day trip. Dad rented a van that would carry all seven of us. We left home a little after six and ate breakfast on the road. All of us were dressed alike: hiking boots, shorts, shirt, floppy hat, and backpack. Brad said everybody had to carry a backpack with everything we wanted to eat or use in it, except water. He carried three bags of water and Kavan carried two. Kerry wanted to try so he carried one. 

The park ranger remembered Brad from the other times he’d hiked in the park. Brad talked with him while he filled out the form with our names and our hiking trail. The rest of us looked around the old log cabin that had been fixed up to welcome visitors. We used the restrooms at the park and were walking up the trail a little after eight.
 
Brad had planned the hike so we’d walk for an hour or so up a trail in a riverbed, stop and play for an hour, and walk about another hour and stop. We’d have lunch and play until one, start back and, with another break, be back to the park entrance by five.

At our first break, we came go a narrow spot in the riverbed with cliffs on each side and huge boulders scattered around in the riverbed. Two house-size boulders had fallen off the cliff somehow. One was in the center of the narrow spot and the river had carved out a channel around it. The other boulder was tilted with one end resting on the first. The path led through an opening underneath and there was a sign indicating a primitive camping area on the other side of the opening. Brad said there was a pit stop on the other side and started to go through the opening. Kavan stopped him and whispered something in his ear.

“You ladies go ahead,” Brad said. “You’ll find the facilities on the left.”

Mom and Kathryn and I went through the rock opening and left the guys standing. There was a small building made out of stones from the creek nestled up against the cliff to our left. It had signs for men and women on either end. I wondered why Kavan had wanted the guys to wait. When we got inside, we found out what the primitive part of camping meant. 

We went back through the opening to rejoin the guys for our rest stop. They were already lying around waiting for us. Brad and I walked around a little, looking at the rocks and the twisted trees that had managed to survive. He had a grin on his face and I asked him what was funny and he told me.

 He said Kavan and Kerry picked out a place for them to pee. He couldn’t understand why they couldn’t just use the restroom but they’d said he had to do it outdoors with them. They decided a big log lodged up against the cliff was the spot. They had all gotten up on it in a row: Kavan, Kerry, Brad, and Dad. Kerry had said, “Now,” and Dad and the boys had pulled out and started peeing so he’d done the same thing. When they were all finished, they all had made a show of shaking it off and putting it away. Then Kerry had made a speech. He’d said, “It’s great to be a man and take a good hot piss on a beautiful fall day like this.”

“That’s a male-bonding thing,” I explained. “Grandpa Stuart used to do that with Dad and Uncle Alan. Now Dad always does it with Kavan and Kerry when they go fishing. Do you understand what that little ceremony means? That they included you?”

He looked at me for a minute or so. If he hadn’t understood at first, I could see that he understood now. “I like your family, Arial. I wish my brother and I had been raised like this.”

When we rejoined the others, we saw Kerry had a pile of fossils he’d found. He said he thought they were all sea plants and he tried to remember the names from a paleontology book he’d read. Brad showed Kerry the rock layer they were coming from – about ten feet thick and twenty feet up the cliff wall. They found a spot where they could climb up and look. Kerry was all excited about finding real stuff he’d read about in books.

We stopped for lunch and the end of our upstream hike where two small creeks joined together to form the river. The temperature at mid-day was lots hotter than when we started and there was almost no breeze along the river. There was a deep pool just where the creeks met. Kerry asked if we could go swimming.

“I think we’d better not, Squirt,” Dad said. “Brad didn’t tell us to bring anything to swim in and I don’t think we should swim nude. This is a state park and somebody else could walk up at any minute.”

Brad gave me a big smile. “Nobody else’s on the trail we’re on. I left my cell phone number with the ranger. He said he’d call us when the next party set out coming this way. My cell-phone’s in my backpack and it hasn’t rung.”

Getting our hiking boots and socks off probably took longer than getting everything else off. Brad kept looking at me and then at something behind me. I looked, saw Mom and Dad watching us, and I decided I wanted to do something.

I grabbed Brad around the waist and pulled him up against me. He wrapped his long arms around me with his big hands on my butt. I reached up with one hand and pulled his face down to mine. In front of my parents, he gave me the same sort of open-mouthed kiss I’d been getting from him lately. We’d been doing lots of kissing for the last month or so but we’d always had clothes on before. I felt something getting firm against my tummy like it always does. When I turned him loose, he kept his back to the others. I saw him looking over his shoulder to see how my parents reacted. I looked too and saw smiles on their faces, as well on Kavan’s, Kathryn’s, and Kerry’s.

Some guys might have had close to hard-ons before we went swimming but the cold creek water took care of them. Everything was so shrunken they all looked like little boys. After a while, Dad waded over to the creek bank, checked his watch, and said we needed to eat because it was almost time to go.

We all got out and found a spot where the sun would dry us off. While we were eating, Dad started talking to Brad. I guessed we were about to get a lecture and I hoped it was a new one. It was. 

Dad told Brad how he felt the first time he ever saw Mom nude – how his hands were shaking when he brushed her hair. He told us how Mom’s breasts looked when she was twenty-five – before she nursed us three kids – and I thought he was describing my breasts or maybe Kathryn’s. Mom’s were still beautiful now but she did need to wear a bra when she wanted to dress up. He talked about the first time he got a good look at Mom’s pussy. He told us how he got a hard-on almost every time he saw her before they got married and he tried to hide it when he was at work. But the good part was when he told us he still feels the same way about Mom now, after being married to her for almost twenty years.

I wondered where he was going with all this and he finally got around to it the point. He’d seen Brad looking at them and trying to hide his hard-on. He wanted Brad to know he didn’t have to do that when he was with our family. He said a man shouldn’t have to be ashamed of reacting that way to the most beautiful creature he’ll ever see – a woman he loves.

When he got through, Kavan and Kerry gave him a round of applause and told him it was a good speech. Dad grabbed his floppy hat and tried to hit both of them with it. They ended up in a hat fight and Brad just sat there looking puzzled.

When we got through eating, Dad said it was time to get dressed and hit the trail again. Kerry called for a group hug. I knew that was something new to Brad so I thought I’d lead off. I hugged up against Brad, front-to-front and held out my hand to Kerry. He hugged up to me and held out his hand. By the time we got through, we were all in a group with our arms around as many as we could hug. Brad didn’t seem to mind. He was grinning almost as big as Kerry.

I hated to get dressed. For the second time, I watched Brad put on his white jockey shorts and arrange his package. I wanted to do it for him. Maybe he felt the same about me because he kept his eyes on me while I put on my panties. We kept our eyes on each other while we finished getting dressed. I didn’t realize the others noticed us until Kerry told Dad to throw a bucket of cold water on us. I’m glad Dad didn’t. I think I’d have sizzled. Brad emptied all of the water bags except one and I thought it’d take more than that to cool me off.

On the way back, we had another pit stop at the same place and this time we all used the indoor facilities. When we started walking again, Brad held my hand and lagged behind until we were the last ones on the trail. He wrapped his arms around me and gave me another big open-mouthed kiss with his hands on my butt again. When we looked up, everybody else was watching us. Nobody said a word and we started walking again.

When we started loading up in the van, Mom hugged Brad and thanked him for a very nice day. Kathryn hugged him too. I think he was surprised when Dad hugged him too. I told him to get used to it.

On the drive back, everybody was tired and hungry. Mom and Kathryn and I didn’t want to cook and nobody else did either. Brad came to the rescue. He asked if we liked Chinese take-out. He got six enthusiastic yeses. He didn’t even ask what we wanted. He called a place he knew and put in our order when we were about twenty miles from home. He told them when he wanted to pick it up and to be sure it was ready. It was and he put it on his credit card when he picked it up. He told me his Dad had given him the credit card as his meal ticket.

Kerry wanted to eat before he showered. Kavan wanted to shower before he ate. They started arguing and Dad told them to settle it peacefully. Dad sort of insisted because he wanted all of us to sit down at the table at the same time as a family. Kerry got a quarter and called heads. Kavan flipped it. Kerry won. We all ate at the kitchen table even though it wasn’t quite big enough for seven. Nobody minded that we were all squeezed together. It seemed like nobody could shut up talking long enough to eat. I wondered how Brad felt about it but he seemed to be enjoying it. By the time we got through there was only a half carton of rice and some little bits of other dishes left. Kerry just put it all in one carton, wrote his name on it, and put it in the refrigerator.

We all helped in cleaning up the kitchen as usual. Dad said shower time and Mom went in the laundry room, got a basket, and told us to undress in the kitchen. I told Brad we had to be careful about ticks. He said he’d never had one in all the hiking he’d done. I told him I’d had one this summer on my ankle and Kerry had two. I even told him Kerry’d had one between his legs. When he heard that, he was ready to shower too. We didn’t fool around or play in the shower this time. I guess everybody was too tired. We just scrubbed down and then checked for ticks. I checked Brad and I thought I’d found one about three inches above his dick, just inside his pubic hair. He got a big kick out of that and showed me it was just a dark mole. He said he was checking me but I don’t really think he was looking for ticks.

When we got back upstairs, Mom started the washing machine. Brad didn’t seem to mind that he didn’t have any clothes to put on and I certainly didn’t. We all ended up in the family room talking. Mom asked Brad about his family and he told them the same thing he’d told me. She asked him what time his Dad expected him home. Brad told her he wasn’t expected because his Dad wasn’t going to be home. He’d gone on a golf outing with his latest girlfriend. Mom invited him to stay with us. She said he could sleep on the couch in the living room unless I had other plans. I told her I didn’t have other plans – not yet anyway – and I’d make up the couch for Brad.

Kavan and Kathryn excused themselves a little after eight o’clock and said they were tired and ready for bed. They got a few good snorts and giggles out of that because we all knew what they were ready for. Kerry disappeared and I heard the computer in Dad’s office start up. I knew he’d probably play at something for a couple of hours. Dad seemed like he wanted to sit and talk to Brad and me. Mom probably guessed how I felt. She gave the same excuse Kavan had and led Dad off to bed. I turned out the lights and curled up next to Brad. He put his arm around my shoulders and we just sat there in the dark for a while talking about the hiking trip and about my family.

I was wondering what he was waiting for. Maybe he finally decided nobody was going to bother us. He lifted his right arm off my shoulders and pushed me a little so I was lying across him with his left arm holding me up. We’d done the same thing in his car but this was lots better with no steering wheel to get in the way. I pulled his head down so he could kiss me and his right hand slid down my stomach and started playing with the hair between my legs. I wanted him to touch me. I’d been wanting it all day. When I’d taken my panties off to shower, the crotch had been sopping wet. I knew Mom would see them when she put them in the washing machine. I guess it was one way of telling her how I felt about Brad. He still wasn’t any better at kissing than I was but I didn’t have any cause to complain. He kept playing with my breasts and then teasing me between my legs and finally I’d had enough. I grabbed his hand, opened my legs as much as I could, and put his hand down there and held it. He got the message. 

He had long fingers. He was slow about getting it into me but when he did it felt like he was trying to plumb the depths. I knew how hot and wet I was. I hoped he liked it. Last time, when we’d done it in the car, I’d whispered in his ear how I wanted him to do it. He remembered. He kept his finger either in me or rubbing around on my pussy lips until I started squirming. When I told him “Do me!” he knew what I wanted. He moved his finger up a little to my clitoris. It was too hot and sensitive for him to touch it directly at first and he just rubbed the hood over it. After a minute or so,  he stuck the finger back in me, pulled it out all wet and drew it up and up until he pulled the hood back off my clit. I exploded. He knew what he’d done. I almost sucked his lips off his face and his tongue out of his mouth.

After I quieted down, I got up and sat down beside him so I could reach his dick with my right hand. It was hot and hard and, when I rubbed my thumb around the head, all wet and slippery there. I knew he was ready too. I’d just started jacking him when he stopped me.

“Arial, we can’t do it here. I’ll make a mess and it might get on the couch.”

“Sshhh. It’ll be OK. I’ll go get a towel.” Just as I started to get up, Kerry walked out of the hallway into the family room. He was still naked and, for once, didn’t have a hard-on. He didn’t even slow down but I saw him glance at where my hand was. He said hi to both of us and then went in the kitchen and turned on the light.

Brad and I watched as he bent over looking in the refrigerator. He scratched on one side of his butt and kept looking. Finally he found the leftover Chinese food. He nuked it in the microwave while he poured himself a glass of milk. He scratched again, this time somewhere back behind his testicles. He walked back through the family room with both hands full, said goodnight to both of us, and went down the hallway to his room. He left the light on in the kitchen.

Brad shook his head. “Your family’s going to take some getting used to.”

I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Don’t go away. I’ll get that towel.”

“I think your Mom put our clothes she washed in the dryer. Would you bring me my shorts?”

“What shorts?”

“You know. My jockey shorts and my hiking shorts.”

“What do you want them for tonight? Are you going somewhere?”

“Arial, I can’t sleep on that nice couch in your living room without something on. What if I have a wet dream and mess it up?”

“Damn, Brad, I was about to do something to prevent that.”

“Yeah, last time you did something for me, I went home and had a wet dream in the middle of the night anyway. I had to get up and change the sheets.”

I came back with a towel and his shorts. I sat down again beside him and found his dick with my hand. He was still hard, rigid hard, the kind of hard-on with which Kavan said he could break a plate. I never did understand why a guy would want to break a plate with his dick. It was hot and swollen and he acted like it hurt when I touched him. I knew I had to do something. I threw a pillow down on the floor, pushed it between his legs and knelt down on it. I held his dick upright and started stroking it. Brad opened his legs wider and scooted his butt closer to the edge of the couch. I knew what he wanted and I decided to give it to him.

I leaned over and took the head of his dick in my mouth. I knew how to do it and I was glad I’d learned with Kavan and Kerry. I pulled down on the skin on his shaft and started sucking on the head. Down on the skin. Up on the head. Repeat as necessary. I didn’t feel like swallowing a load so I decided he’d have to be satisfied with a hand-job. That’s what I gave him. From the light in the kitchen, I could see his balls and they were drawn up so tight it looked about like half a tennis ball. I couldn’t make up my mind. Maybe a mouthful wouldn’t be so bad. I started sucking again. Brad put his hand on the back of my head and pushed a little and that made me decide. I took my mouth off, kept stroking him, and said, “Don’t do that if I’m sucking your dick, Brad. I don’t like it.”

He apologized. “I’m sorry, Arial; I’ve never had anybody do that before. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with my hands while you’re doing that.”

I changed my mind again. It’s a woman’s prerogative, isn’t it?

“Hang on to the edge of the couch. Just let me do it my way, OK?”

“OK.”

It didn’t take that long this time. I didn’t give him any breaks. I just jacked him with my hand and tried to suck the head off his dick. When he started coming, I didn’t try to swallow. I just held my mouth on him and kept jacking until I thought he was through. I straightened up and looked up at him with my mouth closed. I knew he was wondering what I was going to do. His come was like sticky globs mixed in with my saliva. I didn’t know what I was going to do. 

He leaned over, put his finger under my chin, and lifted my face up to his. I guess that was what made up my mind for me. If he could kiss me, I’d swallow it. I tried and some of it went down but I could still feel it on my tongue. Oh, fuck, if he wanted a kiss, I’d give him one. I opened my mouth and sucked his tongue in. He let me and then sucked mine into his mouth in return. When we quit kissing, the rest of his semen was gone and I don’t know who swallowed it.

We were putting a sheet on the sofa in the living room when he asked me again.

“Arial, will you marry me?”

“Brad, one blow-job’s no reason for a marriage.”

“I know that. That’s not why I asked you.”

“Well, why did you?”

“I wish you could know how I feel after this day with your family. Growing up, I had parents and a brother but we never had a real family.”

“Oh? You want to marry my family?”

“No, damn it. I want to marry you. I guess I’m sort of joking because I know we can’t do it now. We’re both a long way from being ready to marry anybody. But that doesn’t mean I can’t want to marry you. I guess I’m just trying to tell you how I feel.”

“You sure you’d want Kavan and Kerry for brothers-in-law?”

“Sure. Even if they did threaten me.”

“When? What did they threaten you with?”

“Not long after we started seeing each other. They said if I hurt you, they’d have my balls for souvenirs, one for each. I think Kerry gets the right one and Kavan the left. I don’t know whether they were kidding or not and I don’t intend to find out.”

I left him standing beside the couch with his jockeys in one hand and his hiking shorts in the other. I was tired enough to fall asleep standing up. The minute I went in my room, I wished I’d brought him with me but I knew I hadn’t been taking my birth control pills long enough yet.

The nights were beginning to get a little cool and so I pulled out a nightgown and put it on. I left the blanket on my bed and pulled it up to my waist. I think I was asleep within minutes.

I don’t know what made me wake up. I listened but I didn’t hear anything. I felt like there was something I wanted to do but I didn’t know what it was.

I tried to be as quiet as possible. My room was the one closest to the family room so I held on to the walls and felt my way into the family room. I could barely see but I could tell no one was in the room. I went in the living room. Brad was stretched out on the couch sound asleep. His hands were both about where his belly button is. He had the blanket pulled up so it just covered his crotch. I could see a strip of white across his stomach and I knew he’d put on his jockeys. He had one leg out from under the blanket. Long leg with a knobby knee and a big foot – it was beautiful. I stood watching him. Marry him? Maybe someday but I wasn’t ready for that anytime soon. I didn’t know what I felt. I wondered if this was what love was really like.

I decided to see if there was room for both of us on the couch. I eased one leg over him and put my knee down on the other side. It didn’t fit; there wasn’t enough room between his hip and the back of the sofa. It woke him up.

He didn’t say anything, just reached up with those big hands of his and pulled me down on top of him, then plunked one hand on my butt and the other on my head. He pulled my head down so it was beside his. “Marry me,” he whispered. I didn’t say anything. I was satisfied just to have him hold me.

I might have been satisfied but he wasn’t. The hand on my butt started moving around. He finally decided the thin fabric was a nightgown and pulled it up. When he put his hand back, it was in the middle of my rear and his fingers were curved around between my legs. I could feel his middle finger searching. It was close. He stretched his arm and felt deeper. He found what he was feeling for – something hot and juicy. I guess I’d have been content to go to sleep like that but he wasn’t. He stretched around me again and I felt his finger go deeper inside me. He was stirring up trouble. Maybe he decided he’d gone about as far as he could go in this position. He moved over close to the edge of the couch and rolled me off him at the same time.

 I ended up on my back, sandwiched between him and the back of the couch. This time he pushed my nightgown all the way up around my neck in front and put his big hand on my breast. He started kissing me again. Then he moved his hand down between my legs. I couldn’t open them enough for him to get his hand where he wanted it. He scooted back some more and I was afraid he’d fall off the couch. He didn’t. I spread my legs and he got his hand where I wanted it. He wiggled some more and got his mouth on one of my breasts. A couple of minutes later I found out what it was I wanted. My pussy seemed to be having convulsions and his finger was making them even better.

After I quieted down, I decided to help him get back to sleep. I pulled off his jockey shorts while he lifted his butt off the couch. I tried to pull them down and off his legs but it seemed like his legs went on forever. I threw his jockeys down beside the couch. His dick was bone hard again. I just used my hand this time and it was enough. A couple of minutes more and his dick started jerking and spurting. I didn’t worry about the couch. I just let it fly.

After he quieted down, I reached down and got his jockeys and wiped his stomach and dick clean. I milked it down a couple of times and wiped it again. I threw the jockeys back on the floor, curled up against him with one leg over his and my head on his chest. The room was a little cool but we were both still hot and sweaty. I think he asked me to marry him again before I went to sleep. I didn’t answer but it made me start thinking about being married some day and what it might be like with Brad.

I woke up the next morning to the sound of Mom in the kitchen. We were both covered by a blanket and I was warm and comfortable next to Brad. I had one hand on his dick and it was warm and soft. It felt good against my palm with my fingertips on his balls. I lay there and listened to Mom starting something for breakfast. I smelled coffee and decided I’d like a cup this morning for a change.

Mom came to the door a few minutes later. I lifted up my head and looked at her. Brad did too. He was awake. Mom walked over to us, bent over and kissed me on the cheek.

“Good morning, Princess.” She moved her face over a little and kissed Brad on his cheek. “Good morning, Prince.”

I yawned. “Thanks for the blanket, Mom. It felt good.”

“I didn’t do that,” she said. “Your father did it when he got up about an hour ago to go for a run.”

<><><>

Brad spent all day Sunday with us. A cold front had come through during the night and so we all just put on sweat suits to lounge around. I borrowed some from Kavan for Brad and they were a close enough fit. I tried to tell him all of us kids had to study and we wouldn’t be able to play but he wanted to stay anyway. We all got in the family room after breakfast and got busy on our homework. Kerry tried to start cutting up once and I made him stop.

Brad was trying to work some calculus problems and was having trouble with one. Kerry asked if he could help and Brad just looked at him like he was crazy. He asked Kerry if he’d taken the course already and he said no but he’d been working his way through it with Kavan. I’d seen Kavan and Kerry working on it more than once but I didn’t know how well Kerry really understood it. He understood it very well. He went back through Brad’s calculations by himself. He was able to find out where Brad was going wrong. There wasn’t anything wrong with the way Brad was working the problem. He’d just punched one number into his calculator wrong.

When we took a break, Brad and I walked around outside in the yard. He asked me about how smart Kerry was. I told him about the three intelligence tests he’d had so far in his life and how they all said he had a high genius IQ.

He asked me about my IQ and Kavan’s and I told him we were the family dummies. We’d just scored in the low genius range. When I asked him about his IQ, he didn’t want to tell me. He didn’t have to. With parents who were both medical doctors, I knew he had to have brains. Besides, I knew what his grades were like and they were about the same as Kavan's and mine.

Then I told him about our half-brother, Stuart, who had a high genius IQ too and how he’d already got his Ph.D. He couldn’t believe I had another brother old enough to do that and I told him about Dad and Lauren. That really floored him. He said it again, that my family would take some getting used to.

Mom made a big pot of soup for lunch. It was one we all liked. Ham with bean and barley, great soup on a cold day. We had hot tea with it and then apples with cheddar cheese for dessert. Mom liked to cook that way because it was healthy food for us and we didn’t think it was anything unusual. Brad acted like he’d never had anything better than homemade soup and I guess maybe he wasn’t acting since he’d never had any before.

We studied some more after lunch and then took another break. I wanted some private time with Brad so I asked Kavan and Kerry to let me go for a walk with Brad without them. We went down the hill to the trail that leads along the hillside. The leaves were falling and the sun was breaking through the clouds occasionally and the air was cool and dry. The day couldn’t have been nicer. We found a sheltered spot beside a big rock where a lot of pine straw had accumulated and stopped there for a while. We just did a little kissing and groping and lots of talking. Brad was the one who wanted to do the talking.

“Arial, I’m not a virgin.”

“I didn’t ask you whether you were or not, Brad.”

“I know but I want to tell you.”

“Dad always tells Kavan and Kerry that a gentleman doesn’t talk about what he does in bed with a lady.”

He sort of laughed. “Well, I guess that makes it OK because she wasn’t a lady. I think she got me to do it just so she could laugh at me.”

“She thought it was funny?”

“Yeah, she did later. It was when I was at the cave dig with the college bunch about a year ago. We camped there during the week. I was the little kid because all the others were college students. I didn’t know what she was up to until it was too late.”

“But you didn’t fight her off, did you?”

“No. We had little two man tents but she was the only one in hers. She talked me into sleeping in it with her one night and I guess I wanted to do it. The first time, I came too quick and she said, ‘Shit, kid, can’t you last any longer than that?’”

“Did you do it with her again?”

“Yeah, I was ready again in just a couple of minutes. I didn’t know it was supposed to take a guy a while to get ready again. The second time she got on top of me and I guess she got what she wanted. She rolled over after a while and let me do her. All she said was, “That’s a little better, kid.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound like she was laughing at you.”

“She didn’t that time. About a half hour later, I wanted to do it again. She laughed and acted like she thought I was kidding. I guess I did it better that time because we were at it for quite a while. That time, she said, ‘Damn, kid, I hope you sleep good tonight.’ She let me curl up naked against her butt and we went to sleep.”

“Did you sleep good?”

“Yeah, I woke up once during the night and I had a hard-on again. She was so sloppy juicy that I think I got it in her while she was asleep. That time she said, ‘Jeez, kid, don’t you ever get enough?’”

“Brad, that still doesn’t sound like she was laughing at you.”

“Well, maybe not, but the next day all the other college kids kept saying the same thing to me, ‘Jeez, kid, don’t you ever get enough?’”

I had his hard-on in my hand while he was talking and I wondered if he wanted me to get him off again but he didn’t seem to mind when I didn’t. We were walking back along the trail toward the house when he stopped me and just wrapped his arms around me and hugged me. He seemed like he was all choked up and I didn’t know why. When I asked, he said he was just happy. We walked on a little further and he stopped me.

“I didn’t tell you the whole story about what happened with Holly,” he said.

“Holly who?”

“The girl I did it with at the dig.”

“Well, what’s the rest?”

“I thought I’d caught something from her.”

That scared me. “Maybe you’d better tell me.”

“I started getting uncomfortable during the day on Sunday, you know, on my dick, especially on the head and foreskin. We didn’t have any way to wash until we got back home. When I showered Sunday night, my dick was all red and sore and irritated. Dad was home and I told him. He made me show it to him. I felt like a little kid caught doing something bad.”

“What did he say?” I asked.

“He said I’d rubbed it raw, that maybe I’d got a little speck of dirt or something in Holly and it was just scratched. He gave me some cream to put on it and that made it stop burning.”

“But you hadn’t caught anything?”

“No, about a month later, Dad made me come by his office at the hospital. He checked me again and ran a bunch of tests on me. I was scared stiff until the test results came back and everything was negative.”

“I guess that taught you a lesson, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, the night Dad brought home the test results, he brought me some reading material too - stuff about STDs and contraception. The part I liked was when he gave me a big pack of condoms and some lubricant. We talked for hours and I guess that was the first really good talk about sex we’d had. He told me I was a damn fool for having unprotected sex with somebody I didn’t know. He made me get tested again about six months later.”

“You could have just told me, Brad, you know, that I couldn’t catch anything from you.”

“I guess so. But I wanted to tell you the truth about it.”

I pulled his head down and gave him a quick kiss. He took my hand and we started walking again.

“There’s one more thing, Arial,” he said. “I haven’t used any of the condoms.”

“Don’t worry about it, Brad,” I said. “Mom took me to her gynecologist a couple of weeks ago. I had a prescription filled. If you can wait a while longer, you won’t need any condoms.”

He wrapped his long arms around me and held me tight up against him. He said my name and then stopped. I waited.

“Arial, I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

“The way I feel about you. Is this the way you feel when you start loving someone?”

“I guess so. It makes me scared too.”

When we got back to the house, I asked if he’d like to stay for dinner and help us cook it. He jumped at the chance. Mom had some crabmeat that Lauren had given us in the refrigerator. She’d got another cooler from Alaska from her daughter’s husband. We had some shrimp Luke and Rachael had brought us in the freezer. It was frozen in the shell in water and I knew it’d be like fresh when we thawed it. I put it under running water to melt the ice. Mom had suggested jambalaya and I found the recipe in Dad’s old Playboy cookbook. Dad wasn’t much of a Playboy fan but the cookbook did have some good recipes. Brad and Kerry chopped the onion and celery and red pepper. It turned out great but I still didn’t have enough cayenne pepper in it for Kavan. He had to add some Tabasco to his as usual. Brad must have liked it because he ate two bowls.

I walked him to the car when he had to leave. I really hated for him to go because it’d been a wonderful weekend for me. I kissed him goodnight and I think he knew how I felt. I went back in the house and I decided next time he came he was going to stay the night with me. And I was going to make sure my prince came again. I might even make sure he came more times than he came with Holly.


TO BE CONTINUED:
