Giving Thanks for Lingerie

Before Erica could respond, I added. "Alexa was absolutely right when she said that women are judged by their looks. To me, women are always insecure about their looks because it is how they are judged. As a boyfriend, I felt it was my job to make my girlfriend feel secure about her looks. I told Hailey all the time that I thought she was sexy and beautiful. I wanted her to know all the time that I was firmly in love with her because she was special, wonderful, and very attractive to me. Aaron is very lucky to be dating you. If he's not appreciative of how great a catch he has, if he's not telling you regularly that you're gorgeous and amazing, then you need to find someone who will."

"He does," said Erica defensively.

"How often?"

"Often enough," Erica said in a tone that implied she didn't want to discuss it anymore. "I'll go change back, and we'll make our purchases."

* * * *

Erica and I were quiet for most of the drive back to my parents. I felt bad. I felt like I had crossed several lines that I shouldn't have crossed. I shouldn't have talked my sister into buying lingerie. I shouldn't have bought her a sexy, expensive dress. I should have stuck with my original plan of buying her a nice sweater or blouse.

I pulled into an empty parking lot, turned off the car, and told Erica, "I'm sorry. I crossed some lines that I shouldn't have today. I seemed to push for you to break up with Aaron. That's not for me to do. If you want to talk to me about Aaron, I'll listen. But I should keep my big mouth shut about how Aaron should treat you."

"It's okay," said Erica in an I'm-not-really-here tone. "Everything you did at the mall was okay." She straightened up. "You're so open and honest about your love life, it's made me really think about mine. When I'm with my girlfriends, they bitch about the stupid things their boyfriends have done. I've always felt smug around them because Aaron doesn't do anything stupid. But I've felt far from smug talking to you." Erica folded her arms. "I feel like I'm one of the women you counsel, who has everything but is miserable. I see that as the 'Yes, but' trap. They have all these great things in their lives, but instead of enjoying them, all they can think is 'Yes, but someone else has more'. I have a job I enjoy, I've got a promising career, I'm living with a wonderful guy who loves me and doesn't do stupid things, and I've spent this whole weekend thinking 'Yes, but'."

Erica unfolded her arms and pointed to the lingerie. "On this car drive, I realized I'm a chronic fixer. When I dated all the bad boys, I knew at the beginning that they were hard drinkers, fighters, and not trustworthy. But I thought I could change them. A little love and a lot of sex, and they'd straighten up and fly right. They never did. I finally gave up on trying to find a bad boy I could fix and started dating Aaron. And again, I find myself trying to fix him. 'Oh, if I just buy some sexy lingerie and a tight dress, that will put some fire in him.' That's what I kept thinking today. And it's not going to make any difference in how he acts. I'm not going to fix him."

"Aaron does sound like a nice guy."

"Yes, but.... Am I making myself miserable by wanting too much? Is the person who needs fixing me instead of Aaron?"

"Good question. Damn good question. All of us need fixing, but it's a matter of how much."

"In many ways, I feel like I'm back where I started this weekend. I'm still disappointed enough with Aaron to be on the fence about staying with him. But I have a much better idea of why I'm feeling that disappointment."

"And you have some nice lingerie and a nice dress that you didn't have at the start of the weekend."

Erica laughed. "True! There is that."

* * * *

When Erica and I got home, I brought the bag of items we bought into the house.

"What did you buy?" asked Mom.

"Boxes of Ziplocs and a couple rolls of paper towels," I said as I took the bag upstairs. The lingerie and the dress were in one bag. Erica and I had agreed that I'd slip her the lingerie the next morning after most people had left, and I'd wrap her present then.

When I came back down, Mom was working in the kitchen. I asked her, "What are you making?"

"Turkey vegetable soup." She had a recipe on the table, and she and my two aunts were cutting up vegetables. "We're using up the last of the turkey."

I was not thrilled about having turkey again. "How about I make grilled cheese sandwiches for the kids."

Aunt Rose snickered. "Aren't you a little old for grilled cheese sandwiches?"

"I may be getting older, but not necessarily more mature." That brought out more snickers.

Mom said in a disappointed tone, "Check with William, Alexa, and Erica. William will probably want one, but don't count on Erica or Alexa."

"Okay. Will do." I went into the living room. William was up for a grilled cheese, and Alexa and Erica gave me a 'you're crazy' look.

I checked out the fridge and then ran to the store to get the sliced cheese and a few other ingredients. When I got back, I pulled out a frying pan and started cooking up six slices of Canadian bacon.

"What are you doing?" asked Mom in a shocked tone.

"Cooking up Canadian bacon for the grilled cheese sandwich," I said matter-of-factly.

"You don't use Canadian bacon for grilled cheese sandwiches."

"I do."

When the Canadian bacon was done, I slid them onto a plate and opened a can of pineapple slices. I melted butter in the frying pan, tossed in the pineapple, sprinkled brown sugar over them, and then poured soy sauce on top.

People wandered into the kitchen to see what I was doing. "What's that?" asked Uncle Grant.

"Dinner for William and me. We're letting you and the rest of the family polish off the last of the turkey." I couldn't help chuckling evilly.

"That smells good," said Dad with a hint of envy.

When the pineapple was done, I slid them onto a plate. I built the sandwiches by putting a slice of sourdough buttered side down onto a plate, putting two slices of Havarti on the bread, the Canadian bacon on next, then two slices of gruyere, then one and a half pineapple slices, two more slices of Havarti, and then finally another slice of sourdough. I made a second sandwich like the first and then popped them back into the skillet.

Almost all the adults were watching me cook at this point. "That looks really good," said Uncle Steve.

"It's quite yummy and sticks to your ribs."

The soup was ready, and everyone but William and I lined up to have a bowl. Alexa and Erica watched me do the final bit of cooking with bowls in their hands.

"That looks delicious," said Alexa enviously.

"If you want, you can have half of my sandwich."

Alexa's eyes lit up. "Really?"

"Sure." I turned toward Erica. "You want the other half?"

Erica eyed my grilled cheese longingly for a moment. "And then what will you eat?"

"I bought enough fixings to make two more." I smiled. "I hoped you and Alexa would change your minds."

"Okay," said Erica as she moved to put her bowl away.

I cooked up two more gourmet grilled cheeses. When I joined Erica, William, and Alexa at the Kids Table, William said, "This is really good."

"And a nice change from turkey," added Alexa. She gave me an adoring look.

I pointed to the extra sandwich. "Do you want another half?"

"No. The half I had with the side dishes your mom made filled me up."

I looked at Erica, and she was frowning. Jealous of Alexa fawning over me? "Do you want another half?"

"Oh, no. I'm fine with this."

William and I ended up splitting the leftover sandwich. While I ate, I gave the three of them the background briefing on the D&D campaign we'd be doing tonight.

After dinner, I played Hearts with the men for a while. At eight, I gathered up Erica, Alexa, and William for our session. We commandeered the dining room table. I set up my DM screen on the table and set the folder with my notes on a chair next to me. Erica sat on the opposite end from me, with William and Alexa to her right and left. They were close together, creating a space between them and me. They had their player sheets in front of them.

As I had already covered the campaign background with them, I immediately jumped into role-playing. I adopted a scared man's old voice and said, "Who are you? Why are you talking to me?"

Alexa and William looked at each other and chuckled over me changing my voice.

Erica said in a bold voice, "We are three adventurers who have heard that your village is in trouble, suffering from constant goblin raids. We have come to end those raids and to earn what we can in the process."

I had the group do a lot of talking to non-player characters at the beginning to establish the setting of the adventure. In between talks, they had some small battles to introduce them to D&D combat. I didn't have any miniatures to use to show where the players and their opponents were on the battlefield, so I used colored paper clips from the office. As the campaign progressed, Alexa and William got more and more into it. Erica did a great job as party leader, prompting Alexa and William for suggestions, proposing a plan based on their suggestions, getting their agreement to the plan, and then guiding them in the action.

Eventually, the party discovered the secret entrance to the final dungeon. They fought their way through the cobweb-covered passages until they finally reached the goblin's hideout. In the final battle, Erica backstabbed the villager who had been giving the goblins information to plan their raids. Shortly thereafter, William rolled a twenty and critically hit the goblin chieftain, killing him. Alexa took down the last goblin with her magic mace. The three of them high-fived each other while whooping and hollering.

"That was fun!" said Alexa in a slightly surprised tone.

"It was," said William. "A lot more fun than I was expecting."

"I had a great time," said Erica. "It's been a while since I've played D&D with you, and I had forgotten how good you are at making it fun for the players."

William looked at me. "Do you think we can play again?"

"No. It's already past midnight, I don't have anything prepared, and all of you are leaving in the morning."

"Oh," said William. He and Alexa looked disappointed.

"You know," said Alexa. "I wasn't looking forward to this weekend. You two would be showing off your future fiancées while I'm not dating anyone, and you'd be ignoring me. And it started that way." She gestured in my direction. "But then we talked about decorating your apartment, and it's been a lot of fun since."

"It has been a lot of fun," I said, feeling warm inside.

"I felt the same," said William. "I wish now that I hadn't talked so much about Alabama football and had instead talked about something that was interesting to everyone."

"But we did talk about dogs," said Erica reassuringly. "And we all had a great time with you tonight."

There was a sad silence for a while. "Maybe at Christmas?" I offered. "I don't have any Christmas plans. Mom and Dad haven't discussed anything with me. Maybe we could spend Christmas at your parents?"

William and Alexa's faces light up. "That would be great!"

I looked at Erica. "What do you think?"

"I'd love to go. Let me talk to Aaron about it."

* * * *

The next morning, Erica and I went jogging again. After we had jogged a while, Erica said, "I've been thinking..."

"Uh oh. I'm in big trouble now."

Erica punched my shoulder lightly. "I've been thinking that, as much as I love that dress, it's not an appropriate gift for a brother to give."

"Okay." Did she want me to take it back?

"I'll keep it, but I'll gift wrap a sweater that I never wear and put that under the tree for Christmas from you. Only you and I will know you gave me that dress."

"That'd be fine, as long as you wear the dress for me sometime."

"Sure."

After the jog, I took a shower. When I was done, I felt like slumming around the house for the morning, so I pulled on my sweatpants instead of my jeans and headed down to breakfast.

Around ten, Aunt Rose, Uncle Steve, Alexa, and William left in their rental car. Shortly thereafter, Mom and Dad left with Aunt Nicole and Uncle Grant to take them to the airport. There hadn't been space in Aunt Rose and Uncle Steve's rental car for Aunt Nicole and Uncle Grant.

"I'm going to take a shower," said Erica. "Aaron will be here in an hour."

A few minutes after she closed the door to her old bedroom, I went upstairs to the office. Once I heard the shower water running, I stripped naked, fired up a porn video site, and quickly found a stepmom-stepson-stepdaughter threesome. The stepmom was a big-tittied blond, all obviously artificial. The daughter was a brunette with smallish tits and several big tattoos. She made me think of Erica's tattoo again. Where was it? What was it of? I continued stroking myself, but I wasn't in the mood to finish myself. Erica would be leaving soon, and I'd have enough time after she left and before Mom and Dad returned to beat off. I checked that the shower water was still running, got dressed, and went downstairs.

I was playing a game on my phone when I heard Erica come down the stairs. When she reached the bottom, I minimized the game and turned to talk to her. "Wow!" I said as I stood up.

Erica was wearing the dress that I had bought for her. And she was also wearing the stockings and high heels. She was waiting for me at the foot of the stairs. I walked over to her. When I got close, she announced, "I've decided to break up with Aaron."

"You have?"

"Yes. I was leaning that way last night after the D&D session. I had a great time, and I want to do it again with Alexa and William. But I can't see Aaron playing D&D and enjoying it. And this morning in the shower, I decided to wear this and see how I felt about it. I loved putting it on and how I look in it, but I'm not excited about having Aaron see me in it. I don't think he'd react positively. I think he'd be more focused on the cost and feel it was too sexy to wear out in public."

"It is sexy all right," I said. I started to walk around Erica but stopped because she made a slow circle in front of me. "Spectacular. You look spectacular in that outfit. Are you wearing the rest of the lingerie you bought yesterday?"

"Yes." Erica's cheeks flushed, and she looked down.

"Show me some of the bustier."

"What? No. That'd be too much."

I moved close to Erica. "No, it wouldn't be. I've seen what it looks like in the package. I want to see what it looks like on you."

"I shouldn't," Erica said coyly.

"I've seen you in bikinis. Your bustier wouldn't show nearly that much."

I felt like Erica and I were playing a game. If all she wanted to do was to show me the dress while wearing the lingerie, she had already done that. But she was making no signs of leaving. It was like she wanted to show me the bustier but wanted me to ask in just the right way.

"Will you wear that on the drive back to your apartment?"

"No."

"So you'll show me some of the bustier and then change into boring clothes?"

"I'll change soon into boring clothes," said Erica without moving.

I moved closer to my sister. "But you'll let me have a peek of the bustier first?"

"You're such a bad boy," said Erica as she didn't move away from me.

"But you find bad boys exciting," I said as I lifted a strap on her dress to give myself a view of the bustier. "Nice. Very nice." I continued holding the strap away from her chest and admiring the shiny whiteness of the top of the bustier.

"What are you doing?" asked Erica in almost a growl.

"I'm looking for your tattoo."

Erica laughed low and sultry. "You won't find it there."

I looked down and noticed that Erica's nipples looked rock hard again. "Someone is excited."

Erica took a step back, ending my peek. "Maybe. So what?" She gave me a sly look.

I stepped back as well and folded my arms. "Your legs in those stockings look amazing." I smiled at Erica. "That's why you came downstairs in that outfit? To hear me tell you how great you look in it?"

A slightly embarrassed look came to Erica's face. "I promised to show you the dress."

"You did." I stepped closer to Erica. "But you chose to do it now when no one is in the house but us, while wearing the sexy lingerie I told you to buy, because the idea of showing it off to me excited you, didn't it?"

"No," said Erica as she turned partially in the dress. She turned some more, letting me see her delicious backside. She then slowly finished the rotation. "I did it strictly because I wanted to fulfill my promise." Her face lit up as she smiled, pleased at lying so boldly to me.

I felt that Erica wanted me to take another step. She had let me know that she was a single woman now and had greatly upped her flirting with me. I felt she wanted me to give her some excitement now that she had said 'so long' to boring Aaron.

"So, let me get this straight," I said as I stepped close to her. "You don't want me to do anything more to excite you?"

Erica batted her eyelashes at me and said coyly, "That's right. If you do anything more, it's not because of me."

Erica wanted me to be a bad boy. What would a bad boy say and do in this situation?

"So you don't want me to touch you?" I said as I reached out and put two fingers below her left nipple, which was proudly protruding.

"Matt," Erica said in a slightly shocked tone as she looked down at my hand while not moving. "I'm your sister."

I had been ready to apologize profusely if Erica reacted negatively, but she didn't. If anything, I felt like she was giving me the green light to do more. I began to move my fingers in a circle around Erica's nipple. I kept the pressure of my fingers very light. "I'm just seeing what the material of this dress feels like. It's technically still mine until Christmas."

Erica closed her eyes, tilted her head back slightly, and partially opened her mouth. Touching Erica like this was a crazy thing to do. I knew it was wrong to do, but at the same time, it was exciting as hell, and both Erica and I wanted some excitement in this small window of privacy before we went back to our respective sad apartments.

"Very nice material," I said soothingly. "Very pleasant to touch."

"You're making fun of me and the fact that I don't have big breasts."

I was about to reassure Erica about the size of her breasts, but I stopped myself. "I told you earlier that I liked the size of your breasts, but I'm not so sure now. I think more research is required. If you took off the dress and let me see you in only the lingerie I picked out for you, I could make a definitive judgment."

"I shouldn't, Matt," Erica said without a lot of conviction.

"Why not?"

"Aaron will be here soon."

With Erica saying no, should I stop? What the hell was I doing? What was my goal? We had moved beyond mere teasing. I was curious how far Erica would let me go, but at the same time, I didn't want to press my luck too far.

I dropped my hand from Erica's breast. A small pout came instantly to her face. I decided to keep going. I took a step to my left and said, "Time to check the material on the other side." I brought my fingers to her right breast and began circling her hard nipple there.

"You're so bad," said Erica. She didn't try to stop me or move away.

"I really like the feel of this material," I said as I varied how I made the circles. I'd go fast for a couple of rotations and then go slow. I stopped and reversed direction for a while before returning to make clockwise circles. The whole time, Erica closed her eyes, tilted her head back slightly, and partially opened her mouth. "Does someone like having their nipples played with?"

"You're not playing with my nipples."