Harri: Face the Slut Within Ch. 05

Another morning caught me by surprise. We woke to the ringing phone, grinned at each other like sated lionesses, and slowly realized one of us would have to get up.

Jess groaned. "I bet it's Matt."

I hid under a pillow from the sunlight. I felt ... done. And very sticky, everywhere. I bet the sheets were rank. I didn't care. I stretched beneath the covers. I thought about playing with myself, teasing her when she came back into the room, but I was a little sore.

Jess hopped on the bed, straddling me, pinning my arms to the side. Her head met mine under the pillow.

"Feel familiar?" She licked my earlobe. "It's almost ten. Matt can't believe we haven't fed him yet."

"Can't we just ... stay? For a little while?"

"Nuh unh, Little Miss Worker Bee. You know how early those new boxes arrive. If you want to sleep tonight, we need to get started fast."

"So who wants to sleep tonight? If we shower together we could ... stay ... in bed for another ten minutes ..."

We gave it a good go, but were both still too sensitive and finally settled for gentle morning kissing. Showering with another woman was ... interesting. Every time we looked at each other, our breasts were rubbing. Every time we turned for something it was our asses. Every time we brushed against one another, we giggled.

With great relish, Jess unveiled my outfit for the day - a short, black pleated skirt, a bright yellow low-rise thong, matching yellow bra, and a white little polo-collared shirt. "If you had longer hair, I'd have you in pigtails," she told me.

We picked up breakfast to go from a coffee shop next to a pet store. All in all, we were at Aunt Cathy's in less than an hour from Matt's phone call. Jess and I couldn't take our eyes off each other the whole way.

"About time -- wow," he said when we hit the driveway. He was outside, moving the new set of empty boxes. "Did it cross your mind I might have been joking about celebrating last night?"

Jess tossed him a muffin. "Did it cross your mind that if you'd finished, you'd have celebrated too?"

"Children," I warned. They both had identical smirks. "Matt, you going to impress us today?"

"Impress you? I have been up all night. Not only did I finish sports equipment, but I dismantled all furniture and even-"

"Where'd you get the tools? I had them in the bin out here with a padlock."

"I used your combination, sis. Duh. Think about changing it sometime. I also got a call from your boss? I thought you were on vacation. He said to call back around noon."

Jess ran in to try calling them back.

"Wow, Matt," I said, meaning it. "I am flabbergasted."

"Then if anybody needs me, I'll be downstairs on the crappy futon. Fast asleep. Adios."

I waded past stacks of disassembled furniture and found Jess hunched over Matt's computer, checking her email. I rubbed her shoulders. "He really did it."

"Pff. He takes credit. It was like legos. Hours and hours of legos, I'll give him that, but he's going to have to work harder than that to get my praise. And I can't get ahold of anyone at work."

"Puts us ... a day ahead?"

"It'll come down to her clothes, bedroom, and the kitchen." She gave me a peck on the lips. "Get to work, honey."

Noon rolled around and passed without Jess getting ahold of anyone. I disappeared into work for a couple of hours, digging through dusty drawers. Every time I finished one I swore to myself I'd do a better job on the next box, not make it so heavy for myself, not simply dump the contents into a fresh one. I always succumbed. Unbelievable. And to think I thought of myself as an ascetic.

"Harri?" Jess said some time later. She'd sounded ... nervous. Then she giggled.

"What? What's wrong?"

"Well, you might want to watch that skirt when you're on your knees, is all."

"Apparently -you- might want to watch this skirt." I snorted. "What's really wrong."

"N-nothing - well, I got through work. They know I'm on vacation this week, know it's super important, but they're in a huge whirlwind and promised to pay me overtime if I can run pick up a courier delivery from Seattle. The agents will only hold it for twenty-four hours unless a licensed company representative appears to sign for it. I-I'd have to leave for Seattle before this evening. And we're a tiny bit ahead here, and everyone else is much further away than I am. It's really the only chance we have to get the paperwork before it RTS's to China."

I put my arms around her waist. "I'll go with you."

She shook her head. "We aren't that far ahead."

"So send Matt."

"Licensed reps only, Harri. His machines can't fake that. Rules Jimmy out, too, even if he could get off work."

"It's only one night. We'll have plenty more, any way I can get them."

She smiled. "I know that."

"So what's with the nervous butterflies?"

She tugged me to two dining room chairs, where we sat. "You know I've been ... pushing you a little this week? I think it's - it's good for you, Harri. Don't you?"

I had to admit she was right. I had to admit I loved every second of last night.

"And I have one more thing, and it's big and, and I'm not going to be here. I'd hoped it would evolve ... naturally, when the opportunity ... presented itself."

"What is it, exactly?" I asked, a bit wary. Nightmare scenarios of whips and chains ran through my head.

"Well, you know how Matt and I grew up ... sharing everything? Even more than between Jimmy and him?"

I nodded, my stomach sinking.

"I know what we have is special, but I also know it's important for you, for the future of you, to make the most of this ... whatever this is. This time where you get to decide and discover. And if you wanted to try things, you know, with a ... guy, well, I'd be happy. And I'd be happy if it was ... Matt."

I felt a sick twist of revulsion and ... something else in the pit of my stomach. What did she want me to be? "You really want me to ... try?"

She put a reassuring hand on my knee. "Only if you want to. Only if you think it was right. I think it's a big question to be answered - what your identity means. If - if you didn't, well, that's an answer too, isn't it?"

"What have you told him? About this, about us?"

"Privileged sibling information." She smiled. "I may have rubbed it in his face a little that I got you. I also told him you weren't remotely interested by guys, that it made you really nervous, but that if you wanted to ... try something ... that I'd appreciate it if he was open-minded and helped you."

"Him? If -he- was opened-minded?"

"Harri, in a very real way, it's harder for us to forget who you were, what you went through, than it is for you."

That gave me a lot to think about.

She kissed me goodbye. "I'll make sure he's still moving."

I finished up the last couple of drawers in the kitchen. We really were going to finish this whole house in time. I found Matt taping boxes in the basement. His hair was still wet from a shower and a shave after his nap.

"Ready to start moving these to the garage?"

He jumped. "You startled m- uh, yeah. I mean, sure. Just about."

I watched him while he finished taping, watched his muscles slide under his beautiful tattoo. Then, one by one, and occasionally two and three in Matt's case, we shifted the boxes up to the garage. We finished as the sun started going down over the mountain.

I sighed at the view. "I think we're done. You ready to head out for the day?"

"Uh - you know Jess made me promise to look after you tonight."

I shut my eyes. "She told me a little something of her plans, yes."

"She left me an ... overnight bag for you? I just gotta say, I don't know if I can ... go through with it."

"You can't!" I'm turning into a slut and you don't want a piece? "I-I- you know what? I'll drink to that."

He laughed. "You got a place in mind?"

"Better."

I made him bring me to the best liquor store in town, where I picked up a bottle of my celebration scotch with all the cash I didn't spend last night. Matt never had more than his white undershirt on, so I had to leave him in the car. I flashed my ID and pretended it was for my dad. The owner was patronizing and bought the whole act.

An hour and a half later, Matt and I, chinese delivery consumed and at least two sheets to the wind, sat companionably in his loft. It was another of those giant old sofas, just like Jess's, but in beat-up leather. He had it smack in the middle of one of his partitions on a giant white, faux fur rug. Like Jess's, the sag in the middle forced us shoulder-to-shoulder, hip-to-hip, but with purpose. Heads back on the slumping cushions was the perfect angle for the projection overhead, a time lapse series of Matt putting together his masterpieces.

It was a series of progressions that started with a single empty frame and stepped through the subtle degrees of layer after layer of laminate transparency. Matt himself appeared in fits and jerks through the whole thing, usually a blur. It looked like he showed up, day or night, every couple of hours, in all manner of dress, to transfer blocks from the automated machine onto the frame. There was one where he was just in a towel, and another at the end where he didn't even bother with that. Yes, for a second I was looking at a life-sized image of a naked Matt hovering overhead. I blinked. Then it was finished, an ran even more quickly in reverse. When eventually the presentation ticked to a end, we didn't move.

"This is good stuff," he said about the scotch, ending another round of silent contemplation.

Given the disparity between our weights, he'd been hitting it a little harder than I had, especially the last few rounds. And he'd only slept three or four hours today. I think we'd still arrived at the same place.

"I find it isn't always easy to tell the good days from the regular days. It helps to have a little something extra."

"Something extra," he mumbled. "You know? I really admire you."

"Me? What brought that on?"

"It's just ... your whole life. There's all that, back in the past. Not so back in the past, and now you're reinventing yourself without losing yourself. Peripateo. Ascending to something ... it's just really something I admire."

I laughed with a bit of a bitter twinge. "I didn't exactly walk through the fire on purpose."

"No, but once it happened, you did it with gusto."

Gusto. "I like that." I thought about the last week, about how things had been getting easier for me, easier to accept who I was. "It's all Jess. She's ... amazing too. You ... know about that, right?"

"Uh, she, uh, admitted she succumbed to your ... feminine wiles. That you're adjusting to who you are now. Growing up."

I groaned for comedic effect, but flushed for real. I could talk about being a slut and it was just ... growing up. Adjusting to who I was.

"No, I mean. I don't think I could've done that, even."

"Matt, she's your sister. I don't think anyone would've blamed you."

He slapped me on the bare leg. "You're disgusting. I didn't mean that ... I can't even talk about this. I don't know how you do it."

"I think you're making it too complicated. You wake up one day and your entire life has changed. It may not look like it, but I've been wallowing for almost a year." Fighting being a slut. Was I still fighting? "You don't think you'd do any better? You don't think you could ever, ever take a step forward?"

"Harri! You're talking about my sister!"

I poked him on the leg. "Move on from that. It's you. It's, I don't know, a year from now. Everybody you know died in some tragic accident. You couldn't go to a bar with someone?"

"I'm still me, right? I don't have to change my whole appearance like, like you ..."

"Well that's the trick. It doesn't matter what happens to you - whatever arrives on the other side, that's what's really you."

He thought about this for a bit, leaving me with my recollections. I had a flashback to Jess's face between my legs. My nipples tightened. I missed her.

"Yeah. I think I see what you're saying. But it's still me, looking like me in my head, regardless of what I look like on the outside. Is it like that with you? Do you still think of yourself like you ... used to be?"

"That's Jess's theory, by the way, what she's pushing me to figure out. She thinks bodies are deep ... roles, for lack of a better word. They aren't ... who you are, and all things within normal human behavior - fears, desires, hopes - those don't define the essential 'you'. 'You' are what's outside of all that. So when I'm here, now, it's a little easier to put aside the ... baggage of real me."

"Just like that? It's really ... openminded."

Now it was my turn to ponder. "Sometimes - I mean, I know it's easier to go the way I did, turn from a troll into a princess, as it were. Going the other way I think you'd absolutely cling to every shred of princess, keep this image of yourself. And ... I think I do the same thing. I look at myself ... and it's still wrong, not me. It's been coming on a year and ..." Yet, after everything I'd done the last two days, was that still true? "Still, there are things about the new me I can't deny." Like being a slut, like having breasts.

"So many things - I mean, a lot of obvious things to anyone who knew you before, but more than that. A whole life full of new things. I can't imagine looking down my life and never having thought about having kids before. Can you imagine you - pregnant? I mean, and that's just a tiny example. We used to feel so sorry for you - well, not just used to."

Pregnant! Shit! "Fortunately, fortunately I don't have to worry about the kids part. Not for years and years, not until maybe they believe I'm really going to stick healthy." Thank God. "But I get what you're saying, and impossible things have happened to me. If you'd asked me a year ago, I'd've said me having breasts was as likely as you." I giggled, drunk slut. "And then it's the way people treat me, and maybe when I'm getting used to that, Jess dresses me like this." I sighed, looking down at myself. "The clothes do help me separate now from then. I do have to admit that." The clothes made it easy to love the way she looked at me.

He glanced down. "That shirt? That skirt? She's got a bit of a naughty streak, my sister."

I was conscious of the hem of the skirt on my thigh. I'd been keeping it tugged down all night, but it was still shorter than my dress from the night before. "She threatened me with pigtails if my hair was any longer, and you should see what she picks for ... nevermind." I fought the rising blush. "That twin thing you and Jess have." I looked closer at his face. "You two really are a lot alike. What was it like, growing up? I'm kind of one person who looks like two - kind of exactly the opposite. She said you were nearly identical."

"Nearly - we were identical up until about age twelve, except for one obvious difference. And, when she started ... developing, people would pull me aside and reassure me that girls developed at different times. That takes a bit for a guy to get over. Setting us apart was half the reason for the tattoo. I think that's why Dad never said anything about it."

I thought about that. "Maybe you do have a bit of an idea what it's like to be me right now."

"Still, Harriet, all that talk of acclimation and roles and jumping my sister last night and ... still no guys? That's the line?"

"Matt, call me Ha-" and there it was, the line of me. Who was I tonight? What did I want? "Harri." It just came out that way. Just a name. "I'm not saying no ever no guys. Maybe. A sliver of a possibility. But right now, going out in public feels like walking down a catwalk and every guy's got a stuffy, eying me for the best hole. I'll admit - it's a hangup. With Jess it's different." I didn't even want to broach the topic of my feelings on sluts and men - I'd be forced to reconcile what I did last night with who I was.

"Really? You don't seem that nervous to me. I'm one of these 'shady guys' just out for your body."

"No you aren't. Well, you're no shadier than 99% of everyone out there, it's just you're ... more familiar? And, I mean this complimentarily, and I know you're a man, but you're so much like Jess that ... well, it's safe. She's right, I think. If it was going to be anyone, it'd be you."

"Or not me. It just seems like not that big a step. I mean, if you took everything else in leaps and bounds, it seems like, if you're in the ... throes of passion, it's just ... a little something extra."

"You asked for this, Matt." I poked him hard in the leg. "I will admit, provisionally, that when -your sister- rocked my world to high heaven there were moments when I might, might I say, have ... welcomed a little ... something extra. But that is an entirely different continent than starting out with a man. That's a whole different ... construct, a different paradigm of activity."

He was blushing. Just like Jess. "It just doesn't seem like that big a deal. I mean, yes, alone, rrraaah, but along with everything else?"

"Not that big a deal. This from the guy who, I might add that Jess told me, simultaneously couldn't stomach the thought of doing anything with me."

"That's completely different! Do you know what it's like? Looking at your from the outside, still seeing that poor, sad little girl. And you weren't ever as ugly as you thought you were, but you certainly wouldn't listen to us about that. You were just so ... frail. So ..."

"You're looking for pity from the wrong place, pal. It's supposed to be so easy for me to just slip into another role, leave the past behind, and you get to haul mine around with you?"

"It's easier for you! You're on the inside. You even said the clothes help."

He was blushing bright red. He glanced down at my chest. I knew my nipples were hard - I could feel them strain against my bra with every breath. Slut.

"The clothes don't help you?"

"I - I -" he stammered, then looked away. "Fine. You pushed me to it. And it's just because I'm a little drunk that I'm telling you this. You're hot. You always had this ... intensity about you. It's who -you- are. And sometimes tonight I look over at you and - and think -" He looked back at me. "Jess is really lucky."

I lowered my eyes.

"But you don't have to worry about me!" He said. "I mean, this is far from the most masculine thing I've ever done, but, I - I think I've had too much to drink. Definitely not enough sleep. It's fantastic, and I'm totally lucid, almost floating - maybe that's why it's so easy to say this - but I can't - couldn't - get it up right now to save my life. I - I'd like to, I could still do stuff, but -" he shrugged.

I threw my arm around his shoulders. "Thanks, Matt. That is absolutely the most reassuring thing you could possibly tell me. But the answer is no."

"No I - I wasn't -"

"Yes you were. And let me be blunt. I don't mind. I'm flattered. But if your sister were here I'd have kicked you out a long time ago." Because I wanted her between my legs. Desperately.

He was silent for a time, coming to terms with himself. I let him. If he left right now I'd jam my fingers into my pussy until I squealed.

"She isn't here, but you could ... pretend, if you wanted to. Pretend I was her - you said it yourself, I remind you of -"

He was right. And it was true I didn't mind. And was it that different? From Jess? I could see the whole thing laid out before me. I squeezed my thighs together. "Okay," I said in my little voice. "You're right. It's a fair little step. I'm okay with that."

"You are?"

"Don't talk. You're Jess. Just - just let me."

I climbed up and sat on his lap with my arms around his neck. He had one arm behind my back and his other hand on my bare thigh. My skirt flared out so, while he couldn't see anything, it was my bare ass on his lap. I readjusted, gingerly. He was right, no sense of life no ... firmament. Just his idiotic belt buckle digging into my skin. His face was so close to hers. I closed my eyes, leaned up, pressed in and ...