CWB

I almost missed the call.

I had my headset on listening in on another Teams conference call, and just happened to see the face of my silenced phone blinking out of the corner of my eye. I muted my microphone, slipped my earbuds under the headset and glanced at the caller ID before I pushed the answer button. I recognized the area code, but not the number. Wary of the myriad of spam calls I'd received recently, trying to sell me Insurance, or "Free Trips to Las Vegas" or similar, routed through spoofers that made it look like they were "local" calls, I was ready to push the button again to hang up, but instead I heard a female voice, and not a sales pitch.

"Hey-ya Cuz! Got a minute?"

The voice was familiar, but yet... not. I didn't immediately place the voice, but the wheels in my mind clicked and whirred, trying to decipher the familiar, but unplaced voice, until suddenly it hit me.

"Stacy?" The giggle on the other end confirmed who had my attention, just as I recognized the interminable meeting that I was listening to had finally moved into something that I needed to participate in. "Gees, Stacy, I'm on a conference call, I'll call you back in 10 minutes, OK?"

"Ok, thanks Ricky."

Ricky. I admit I'd been Ricky most of my life but graduating from college and entering the business world had changed that to Rick. I managed to push Stacy out of my thoughts long enough to chime in, right on time, when I was asked a specific question.

I hadn't been called Ricky by anyone in several years, but hearing it from her, remembering the last time I'd seen the cute little teenie-bopper that had then been my 15-year-old cousin, made it seem perfectly normal. Now, my participation done for the moment, my mind returned to my cousin's greeting of "Ricky".

Of course, she was no longer 15, I just hadn't seen her, or talked directly to her, in at least... what was it, 4? Almost 5, years? That would make her 19, nearly 20, or perhaps she already was 20? I remembered seeing a graduation notice hanging on the refrigerator on one of my trips home but couldn't remember whether it had been there quite a while ago, or if it was still there. Of course, that was no longer "my" home, but my parent's home, as I had no intention of ever living there again. I remember stopping in front of the refrigerator to look at the pic of the cute brunette in the cap and gown standing arm in arm with two other cute graduates, wondering if the body hidden by the robe was as cute as the face and smile that was visible. The one friend was obviously quite busty; her significant assets unable to be hidden and showing through what was otherwise a sexless graduation gown which fell practically straight to the floor on my cousin and her other friend.

15 minutes later, conference call ended, I pulled off the headphones, rubbing my ears. Lockdown started nearly a month earlier for me than for most of the nation as our international arm got hit hard, early, in Spain and Italy. Our US management jumped the gun on the rest of the nation, setting up those of us that could work from home to do just exactly that, and mandating safety precautions already in place in Europe even as our narcissistic and clueless President Trump was saying the US "only" had 15 cases and would be "Virus Free" in a just a few days.

With everything I needed available at the touch of a mouse click, I didn't have to go out very often. With the internet I could research, order, and Amazon would deliver practically anything the next day, so why would I?

Suddenly, without having to fight my way downtown, I found myself with zero commuting time and, except for the occasional face to face Skype or Teams call, I didn't really even have to get dressed during the day. I usually did, just because I never knew when someone would want the camera on, but there were times when I swung out of bed at 7:56, took a pee, grabbed a bowl of cereal and was "in the office" of my one-bedroom apartment at 8 am, stark naked or only wearing boxers. The drawback to isolating at home was that with no real office time, no mingling with co-workers, and taking the mandates of our management that we should 'try' to refrain from physically socializing particularly in the bars and clubs that had just a few weeks later gone into lockdown themselves, my social life had gone to zero. No beers with friends, no hitting on cute girls, and especially no occasionally hooking up with anyone.

I was curious about what Stacy was calling me for; almost assuredly it was bad. Why else would a long-lost relative (even if she wasn't lost) be calling out of the blue? Had someone died? I doubted it, Mom hadn't called, so that made no sense. As I pushed redial on the phone, I found myself wondering just where exactly Stacy had called from. If she was truly 20, she had to be in at least her second year, maybe third year of college? Come to think of it, just exactly where was she going to college? I was sure she was going somewhere; she was a smart cookie and had her head screwed on straight, I just hadn't heard where she was going.

"Stacy? It's Rick," I said when she picked up after just one ring.

"I know. There's this new thing called 'Caller ID.' Ever heard of it? It's really easy to tell who's calling."

"Well I see you're as sassy as you ever were."

"Just with you. It's in the bylaws of how to treat your favorite cousin."

"Yeah, uh -- no. If I were your favorite cousin, I would hear from you more than once every four or five years."

"That goes both ways, you could have called me." I know I rolled my eyes, but she was absolutely correct, I could have. Our families used to see each other all the time, my mom and her mom were sisters, and had always been very close. Up until I went away to school, that meant we'd been quite close -- and then life interfered.

I wasn't supposed to stay away, but when I got the summer internship as a sophomore, and then was rehired the summer after my Junior year, and then when they offered me part-time work all the time and full time work during the Christmas holidays - I hadn't been home for more than a few days at a time since my freshman year -- nearly 7 years previously. By the time I was getting ready to graduate, I was sure they were going to make me an offer when I graduated. Surprisingly they didn't, but rather than let me think I was out of whack between reality and what I thought I was making, they told me to go out and interview elsewhere first, everywhere I thought I might want to work, and then come back and see them before I accepted any offers. I went through the interview process, with several other firms, and when I got three job offers, I went back, and they made me go through an interview with them. When the boss came in with HR and asked what I'd been offered, and they not only matched the offer but gave me 20% more to start - it was a no-brainer for both of us. They had a "new" employee with three years of OJT, I hit the ground running and never was really a "new" employee. From a poor starving college student subsisting on Mac and Cheese and student loans, I found myself suddenly employed and making good money.

Unlike many of my other former student friends, I didn't go out and get a bigger apartment, and a new car, and a big-screen TV, and spend all my money chasing beer and girls, but instead moved into a modest one bedroom apartment fairly close to the train so I could commute to work and then concentrated on paying off student loans that had seemed exorbitant when I started. And now, just two years later, I had nearly paid them off and had money in a 401-k to boot.

About the only thing that I regretted of the last couple of years was losing my girlfriend from college. She'd also graduated, gotten a job offer she couldn't refuse, and now lived 400 miles away. We'd tried for a couple of weeks. I'd helped her move and find an apartment, where we'd christened her kitchen table properly as well as every other room in the apartment. Two weeks later she came back to see me, and we'd done the same "sex in every room" play time again at my place, and then she'd gone back. I was supposed to go see her in another two weeks, but the call came in before we got there.

"Ricky?" is all my girlfriend had said, the un-ease in her voice setting off warning bells in my mind, and somehow, I knew. We'd been apart for a month after graduation, seeing each other for exactly two days in the previous 28, and that time it had been mostly about sex. Surprisingly after several years together, I wasn't that upset. After just a month apart, although sexually we were very compatible, that we were not meant to be together was obvious, and I was now an unattached bachelor in a downtown apartment. I had spent some money on beer and chasing girls and getting laid (I was frugal, not dead), but since the lockdown had started for me, at least a month if not six weeks earlier than most, sex had been limited to mostly self-satisfaction supplemented by my favorite porn sites.

"Do you think I could come stay with you for a few days?" Stacy said after I'd asked her what was up. "They closed the dorms at school, probably just for a week or so until they figure out this virus thing, and mom suggested maybe I could stay with you for a week or two instead of going home? Maybe I could sleep on your couch?"

One of the things that our family has always done is to respond when family calls. Now, even before I thought about the repercussions, I immediately said, "Of Course." It turned out she was attending the same University as I had, so although I figured she was a bit further out than I was, when I asked her when, the answer of 'right now?' caught me a bit by surprise saying she was at a Starbucks just a few blocks away. I assumed that meant she had expected me to say yes before asking, but I didn't say anything.

It was definitely Stacy; but standing by a small suitcase and wearing a backpack when I opened the door the gorgeous coed greeting me was a far cry from the cute pre-adult, boy crazy, teeny-bopper from several years before. She immediately stepped forward, her arms going around my shoulder, an "Oh Ricky! Thank you, thank you, thank you. You're a lifesaver," she said in greeting me.

She hadn't brought much; her laptop, a few changes of clothes, and more books than anything. She seemed to think that this would only be for a few days, that 'they'll get the dorms re-opened', but I had my doubts. It was only going to be "working from home" for a couple of weeks when I started, but there was still no end in sight for me. She thought she'd just live out of her suitcase, but I told her although my apartment was nice, it wouldn't do to have her suitcase constantly hanging around and underfoot. I told her that I had an open drawer, the bottom one in my dresser, that she could put her things in, and we'd put the suitcase into a closet. I told her I had another meeting in just a few minutes, showed her where everything was, and told her to make herself at home while I "went back to work."

~

"That's a really nice set-up," she complimented that evening, "dual screens, headphones... what's with the second laptop?"

"That's my personal laptop," I explained, "They've got all kinds of security stuff on the work laptop, and we're never supposed to access anything except the company intranet or certain allowed sites. I can't even look up the scores from the NBA games or my Fantasy Leagues without it locking me out as being a 'prohibited site' which is really a pain when I'm having to research other companies. If I get to a locked-out site, I have to call IT and get them to approve and release it, so anything personal, I don't even try. It just takes a second, and when I'm done for the day, I just plug in my own laptop and the same keyboard and dual screens makes it really nice. I never realized what a pain a tiny laptop screen is until I got the larger setup." I didn't even consider telling her that "something personal" might be something I didn't want to tell her about.

"Wow, that's really nice," she said, "do you think it will work with my laptop? If I needed a bigger screen?" I said I thought it would, but when she handed it to me it wasn't the same brand and we didn't have a dual screen adapter, but I could see that if I just unplugged one monitor we could easily make at least one display work. "Why don't you just use mine?" I said, showing how fast and easy it was for me to swap computers. "If you need to have an on-line meeting or whatever, it's all set up, we just swap it out and you're there! As long as I'm not working, you can use it whenever you want."

Admittedly it was a bit awkward, that first day, having a woman in my apartment again. I showed her where the extra towel, as in "THE" only extra towel that I owned, was. It had been my girlfriends, and luckily it was clean as I now had a tendency to use both towels before I washed either one. When I went to take a shower, I had to stop myself and realize that Stacy was in the living room, so had to actually remember to put some pants on before walking to the bath to take a shower as I'd gotten in the habit of undressing in the bedroom and just walking out naked to the bath. Luckily, I had some sheets for the couch, and although it didn't fold out into a bed, at least it was long enough for Stacy to sleep there.

Complications arose the very first day. I had to go to work, but Stacy wasn't an early riser. With the computer in the living room, the camera was pointed to me but had a clear shot of the couch, and Stacy sleeping on it, in the background. I saw immediately that this was a problem and went and roused her. "Stacy, I've got a conference call and you're going to be on camera. Why don't you go in and crawl into my bed until you're ready to get up?"

"Are you sure? I can get up."

"No, that's fine." Problem solved. Whenever I had a morning conference call, she got up and went into the bedroom while I went to work.

The immediate change I noticed having a second person living with me again full time, besides needing to put on clothes occasionally, was that everything disappeared twice as fast and, especially, everything got dirty twice as fast. Food, toilet paper, dishes, glasses. I had gotten to where I was washing everything every couple of days, but by the time Monday rolled around, I knew I was going to need to do wash and do some housekeeping. Stacy apparently was ready also, and when she started collecting her bedsheets and towels and said she'd do it, I told her where the laundry was and how to use it. I wasn't paying much attention, but when I went into the bedroom a couple of hours later, my bed had been stripped, presumably the sheets were currently in the washer. That evening when I went in again, there were clean sheets dumped on the bed, and Stacy's call from the kitchen where she was working on her laptop was "Sorry, I didn't get the bed made."

"Are you kidding?" I responded, "This is wonderful!" I began to make the bed, and seconds later she came into the bedroom without asking and helped with the opposite side of the queen size bed, one of the few "splurges" I'd made when I abandoned my school apartment.

For Stacy, school had totally shut down for the remainder of that first week, and the next full week. Supposedly it was to reopen on the following Monday, but later in the week the word came down that campus was closed, and would remain closed, until further notice. All classes went to on-line; the semester had been extended by one week to make up for the lost week, and suddenly the week or so stay of my cousin was going to be more. How long we didn't know but I was betting more towards a month than another week.

The first few nights that she was there when it came time to go to bed I just went into my room, closed the door, and went to bed. It was the middle of the next week that one evening I realized perhaps I should take a pee before I actually called it a night and, stepping back to the door, I opened it and stepped out only to find Stacy had taken her shirt off, had just unhooked her bra, and at the noise of the door had grabbed her bra cups to hold them in place. I think I was as startled as she was. "Sorry Stacy, I had to go to the toilet," I said, purposely looking away from her as I sidestepped to the bathroom door.

"It's OK, my bra doesn't show as much as my bikini." I pulled the door closed, reached for my cock, and felt myself swelling to the thought of my gorgeous, almost naked, cousin just outside the door. In my mind I could see she had just finished peeling her bra off, imagined seeing her standing there topless, reaching for the sky as she slipped her t-shirt over her lithe frame, my cock swelling to the thought. I peed while I still could and squeezed my cock, feeling the almost firmness of it, and realized I hadn't masturbated in almost 4 days. Surely that was a record for me, at least since puberty, and certainly since I'd moved into my apartment. My norm was to masturbate at least every night, usually while enjoying the hard-core porn available on the internet, but since Stacy had been there, I hadn't even thought about trying to view anything illicit. Actually, it had been quite nice having her there; having someone to eat with, having someone to talk with, having someone to just play cards with, and I hadn't missed regular masturbation at all. But now, with the image of her partially covered or totally uncovered breasts stuck in my mind. I wondered if her nipples were as sensitive as my girlfriends had been and found myself getting harder by the minute. I suppressed the urge to masturbate as I knew she was right outside, washed my hands while willing my erection to subside, and finally stepping back out.

I knocked on the door and said, "Coming out," before I did, her giggling response of the "coast-is-clear" letting me know it was safe. Or at least I thought it would be safe. The bra on her body had been replaced with a large oversized t-shirt, but the bra wasn't gone, it was just folded and on the end table by the couch. Although I didn't stare at her bra, I couldn't help but notice as my vision swept across it that it was thin and lacy; if she hadn't been covering her breasts with her hands I would have seen her nipples through the thin material, exposing the little white lie of "her bra showing less than her bikini." She was spreading her sheet onto the couch as I stepped out, and without hesitation I reached over and took the opposite end to help spread it out. "God I'm sorry about that Stace," I apologized. She straightened up, from smoothing the sheet and as she did, it pulled tight against her breasts, two sharp points against the cloth of the t-shirt catching my eye. I managed to keep my eyes on her face, but I could see them with my peripheral vision.

"It's OK Ricky. Don't worry about it."

"I'll try and remember to warn you next time."

Stacy shrugged her shoulders. "Really, it was no big deal."

I nodded and went into my bedroom and closed the door, my mind knowing that I was going to be jacking off momentarily, my cock growing harder even as I walked to my bed, and the woman that I was imagining being with was going to be right outside on my couch. My mind wandered to the two little points showing through her shirt. Although I'd seen those points come and go occasionally since she'd been here, I couldn't help but wonder if they were hard right now as I'd nearly seen her exposed.

I was fully erect before I even got into bed. Dropping my boxer shorts beside the bed, my cock was pointing at the ceiling before I sat down and rolled onto my back. Not having masturbated or cum in several days I knew I had a huge load that would soon be all over my belly. Thinking back on the two pinpoints of pleasure poking out of Stacy's shirt; thinking back on the two partially bare, almost grapefruit sized breasts she'd been holding in her bra cups when I'd first seen her, I couldn't hold myself back and found myself wondering just what exactly her nipples looked like? Were they small and perky, almost pointing up like my girlfriends had been? Or were they like the woman that I'd hooked up with several weeks before, large half dollar size areolas with equally large and sensitive nipples that would almost allow her to cum from sucking and playing with them alone? My girlfriend had liked it when I sucked and played with her nipples, but it was her clit that got her off. That woman had really gotten worked up as I played with her tits and had almost instantly cum when I touched her clit.