The Fortress

Okay, so I was laying it a little thick, but she seemed to be eating it all up. I figured I was probably the only one who ever told her about her physical features being attractive.

"Besides you have the hair to die for. Once people see you with your hair down, it's no contest."

She seemed very excited with my comments. She giggled with each remark and I could see her face getting more colour into it with each sentence. I was enjoying her excitement. I decided to go even further at the spur of the moment, "Come to think of it, a belly like yours is probably best suited for a pierced bellybutton."

She became agitated with that last comment. She jumped off of the bed, lifted her shirt up, and said, "You mean, like this."

She was giggling as she bared her stomach to show me a stud in her bellybutton.

The kind of clothing my sister usually wears around the house makes it impossible to see anything other than her hands and face. I do see her hair because she usually doesn't cover them around the house; but I have never seen her cleavage or belly or legs. When I feasted my eyes on her milky white stomach that day, I had a reaction that can only be described as arousal.

She usually wears a long shirt that is formfitting on top and hangs all the way down to her knees. Underneath she wears a loose fittingshalwar that is tied around her waist with a cord. The cord runs through the material and wraps around her hips to be tied like a shoelace in the front. Usually the extra length of the cord is tucked inside theshalwar and hangs down between or in front of her thighs. She then drapes adupatta (a long scarf) around her neck with the ends hanging behind her and the middle part covering her breasts so they are not visible to the men in the house, like my father and I.

The view that I found myself looking at when she showed me her pierced bellybutton was a very rare occurrence. There she was, holding the front part of her shirt up to her chest, theshalwar around her waist hanging considerably below the bellybutton, the curve of her stomach disappearing down into hershalwar, and the yellownala (cord) appearing and disappearing behind the folds. Hershalwar fit snugly around her hips and thighs, despite being a loose garment. I could make out a trace of her pubic hair visible around the top of hershalwar. That surprised me because we are required to shave them regularly. It also excited me.

She must have seen that gleam in my eyes as I ogled that little bit of skin shining at me like the moon. She was nervous and giggled embarrassedly. I got hold of myself quickly and whispered, "My God, Shamila! Does mom know about this?"

She laughed, "Yes, she does. It took almost a year of begging before she consented. I am not supposed to show it to anybody, but I've been dying to show it to someone ever since I got it pierced."

"Well, it looks very sexy, and I was right, you do have the best stomach for it."

She dropped her shirt down and sat back on the bed. Her giggles continued to erupt now and then. She finally got up to leave and said, "I am shaking. I better go and calm myself down."

This is what happens when a person is unduly repressed from expressing herself.

That was a significant development between the two of us. She was so excited that she had to leave and calm herself down. I didn't know why she was so excited, but she was excited nevertheless. I guess I was excited myself by that small peek at her body, and I shouldn't have been. Even though it was my sister's belly; the fact that it was a rare thing for me to see had elicited my response.

As subtle as that interaction had been, it did have one lasting effect on us. We became a lot freer with each other.

Adupatta is used to cover one's chest to keep it hidden from males in the house, but it is a very clumsy item of clothing, especially the way my sister normally wears it. It tends to slip and slide and usually gets in the way of any serious work. One result of our being freer around each other was the disappearance of herdupatta when she came with fruit and water in the evenings. That in turn made her long and beautiful hair even more prominent every time I saw her, and yes, it also brought her breasts in the open.

She was a bit "slender" in her chest area as well. She didn't have big breasts, or even medium sized ones. She had small breasts, which went well with her body. The fact that they were small meant that she didn't have to wear a bra most of the time. The top that goes with ashalwar, known as akameese, usually hides them adequately, so I couldn't really see her nipples pushing through the material, but I knew there was no bra underneath it from the way her chest shaped thekameese.

The other result of our being freer was that I didn't rush to put my shirt on as quickly as I used to when she came into my room. Being a male, it wasn't required that I cover myself completely in the presence of a woman, although modesty dictates that I should. She had come into the bathroom while I showered and had seen me a few times with only my undershirt, so it became a routine for me to have only my undershirt on in the evenings during our chats.

As a natural consequence of that, I wasn't too concerned when one morning she came in and found me standing in front of the mirror, brushing my teeth, with my upper body exposed. I was still in my pants but I had no shirt or undershirt on. The water was running as I was trying to get the hot water to start flowing. She came in thinking that I must be in the shower. I noticed a slight hesitation when she found me standing in front of the mirror, but she casually walked in as was her routine, placed the towel on the bar, and went out.

She was rather nonchalant at seeing me half naked, but she did hesitate at the door. Of course that is a natural reaction to seeing someone where they are not expected to be. There was, however, that one look she gave me as she walked by on her way out. What made it significant was the fact that it was an averted look. It was a quick look in the mirror to see my reflection but when she realized that I was looking at her as she was leaving, she quickly looked away. I was looking at her because I was waiting for her to leave before continuing with my brushing. I didn't want her to see me foaming and spitting so I had to know when she was gone and I could safely resume my activity.

It was okay for her to look in the mirror because everyone does that when passing in front of a mirror. But when she saw me looking at her while she was looking at me, she seemed unprepared for it. It was as if she was doing something she shouldn't have been doing and the fear of getting caught made her look away quickly.

Of course I may have been mistaken. Maybe she didn't look away too quickly; she just looked away as she was supposed to do anyways. There was no way for me to really be sure---unless---I were to re-enact the event. I don't know why but I wanted to be sure.

She looked at me again the next time, but she did not avert her eyes. As she was about to leave the bathroom, I called her back. She stood in the door looking at me to find out what I wanted. I couldn't think of anything to say, other than, "You don't have to bring me a towel every morning. I can get it from you the night before."

She didn't look me in the eyes; instead she was looking at my chest. She replied, "It's okay. I don't mind."

I paused as I tried to think of something else to add, but I couldn't come up with anything. She continued looking at my chest while waiting for me to dismiss her. My pause was long enough to give her the time to drop her gaze down from my chest to my belly and further down. Then it happened. She looked away very quickly.

I was one hundred percent sure that she looked away because she was afraid of getting caught looking at me. I didn't know why she was afraid of getting caught looking at me. There was nothing wrong if she looked at me but there must be something wrong with why she looked at me.

I found that to be very exciting.

I started to talk to her every morning after that. It wasn't too difficult, once I thought carefully about things, to come up with a topic or two each day. She became more comfortable in my presence and our interactions opened us to each other in ways that we had never done before. For one, we had never actually talked to each other as much as we started to do then. She also started to spend more time around me.

One Sunday as we were eating our breakfast, she tried to hand me something. I was busy with the comics, so I lifted my hand to grab it without looking at where it was. My hand was off the mark, so she held it with her other hand, directed it towards the item she was handing me and placed the item on my palm before releasing my hand.

I don't know how to tell you about the heat that I felt emanating from her hand. Her hand was very soft and very warm. We had never had that kind of contact before. As a matter of fact, it was the first physical contact between my sister and I since we became adults and there was definitely some electricity running between the two hands. I do think that she held on to my hand longer than it was necessary, probably to verify the affect.

I had to look up because the effect was very strong and when I looked into her face, I realized that she was also feeling the same effect. Our eyes met and there was an undeniable understanding of the nature of that contact. We looked away quickly and busied ourselves with other things, but the contact did register very strongly in our minds.

I was amazed at the sexual charge in our contact, even though a sexual encounter with my sister would be impossible. Just the thought of such an encounter was impossible. There was no way for us to even dream of such a thing without worrying about the terrible repercussions. On the other hand, there was no denying that the contact was stimulating, to say the least.

The effect of our touch was not so much an effect of my sister touching me or I touching my sister; it was an expression of just being touched by a person of the opposite sex. In this case, we were brother and sister, but the touch itself was between a male skin and a female skin. Because there was no one else for my sister with whom to experience the kind of feelings we were experiencing, those feeling kind of spilled over with the first outlet that came along. I guess the feelings were so bottled up that they were waiting to be expressed through any channel that became available.

It was the awareness of the nature of the contact that was more important than who the contact was between.

I was sitting in the back garden that afternoon, taking my tea while skimming through the magazines I had brought with me. My mother and my sister joined me. My sister is not a tea drinker so while my mother and I drank tea and ate cake, she took one of the magazines and moved some distant away from us to read it. My mom couldn't see her because her back was to my sister but I had a clear view of her as I chatted with my mom.

Once in a while my eyes would turn towards her and come right back because she seemed so immersed in her reading. It was during one of those fleeting looks when my heart skipped a beat as I saw her looking back at me. It wasn't as much her looking at me as it was the way she lookedaway when our eyes met.

She acted like she had been caught. Her breathing had become a little uneven as her chest heaved a couple of times before she took a deep breath to even it out. I tried to figure out the reason for her reaction and failed to concentrate because my mother was talking a lot. I did keep an eye on her to see if she would repeat the look.

She didn't and finally she got up, brought the magazine back to me, and went inside without looking at me.

Her not looking at me seemed even more significant than the look she had given me earlier. There was definitely something in her mind that was unsettling her.

I asked her that evening, "Shamila, you seem a little jittery lately. Is something the matter?"

"No, there is nothing the matter," was her reply. I felt a little disappointed because I was hoping for her to say something different. I couldn't pursue the issue any further so I let it drop, but I decided to keep an eye out for that look again.

It came the next evening as we were eating our supper. My father and mother were busy with their food as were the two of us. It was during one of those quiet moments when the silence felt rather thick that I looked towards my sister. I found her staring at me. Our eyes met and I gave her a faint smile. She quickly looked down to her plate, where her food seemed hardly touched.

Her looking away reminded me that I had seen that look before. I couldn't recall exactly when and where, but in the back of my mind, I remembered another person looking at me the same way as my sister was looking at me from across the table or room. Even her response to my smile seemed familiar.

I did something that evening that I would have never done in the past. I asked her to show me her bellybutton again. She was a little shy at first and showed a lot of reluctance but when I urged her on by saying, "Well, I have seen it once before. It won't be a big deal if you show it to me again," she relented.

She stood away from the bed with her shirt pulled up and her bellybutton in full view. It was as arousing as the first time, if not more. I took a good and deep look. She couldn't hold her shirt up for too long and dropped it. When she came back to the bed, her face and neck were red.

"You look very good." My lips were quivering under the stress of my emotions as I said that.

She looked at me and our eyes held together for a brief moment before she lowered them and whispered, "Thanks."

I tried very hard to stop myself but I couldn't help saying, "You should never wear those clothes that show your midriff. You'll drive people crazy."

"Yeah, like I'll ever have the opportunity to dress like that in front of anyone," she retorted.

It was clear that I was flirting with her. Whether she realized it or not, I couldn't say, but I was flirting with mild sexual undertones in my remarks and gestures. It actually felt good and she seemed affected by it; but it wasn't clear if she felt the way I did or whether she felt embarrassed by the fact that it was her brother and not someone she could actually flirt back with.

Our eyes started to meet on more occasions after that. I would see her looking at me or she would see me looking at her; we would exchange a quick, shy smile and look away. It was clear that we had accepted the nature of our contacts and had given approval to each other that it was okay to be that way with each other. There was no clear definition of "that way" and there was no way forward either; but it was enjoyable just the way it was.

Our acceptance was comfortable enough that one evening I asked her without worrying about a possible negative response if I could see her with her hair down, and she obliged without any hesitation. She went to her room and came back with her long hair flowing behind her in a film star style. Her pose reminded me of Ashwaria Roy---that Indian vixen from the movie Devdas, who has become sweetheart of the Western world. I noticed that her shirt was also a bit tight as she twirled to give me a full view. She must have seen my eyes blazing, because she seemed to be pleased with the affect her hair were having on me. She looked really beautiful and I told her so.

There was definitely something happening between the two of us. We just couldn't bring it out in the open because of our relationship, but there was some expression of it in our demeanour in each other's presence as opposed to in front of others. Her hair started to stay loose in the evenings when she spent time with me as my compliments continued with more and more frankness.

One evening, as we sat across from each other, I noticed that she seemed lost in her thoughts, with an occasional half-smile thrown in. I let her continue for a short while before asking, "What are those smiles about?"

"I am thinking something---something rather naughty."

"Well, then let's hear it."

"I don't know if I should say it." She smiled more openly at her own thoughts.

"Well, with a smile like that, you have to say it."

She paused for effect, then said, "I noticed you don't shave your armpits."

"I do," I protested. "Occasionally. Usually I am either lazy or forget to do it."

"It's okay if you don't. I don't mind. Actually I think it is kind of exciting to see a man with hair under his arms."

"Well, that's not what our elders would agree with."

She laughed again, but it wasn't at my statement. I just looked at her inquisitively. She was sitting cross-legged in front of me. She did something that I found to be a little too much. She placed her hands a little distance away behind her, extended her chest slightly outward, shook her head to let her hair fall off of the bed, and looked at me rather mischievously.

She said, rather seductively, "I don't shave my armpits either."

"Really!" I exclaimed as I took in the view. "Does mom know about it?"

"No, that's something mom doesn't know."

"God, Shamila. You are becoming a rebel in more ways than one."

She looked at me; actually she looked right into my eyes and held her gaze. I wanted to look away, but didn't, thinking that she was about to say something I probably wanted to hear. She asked, "Wanna see?"

She wanted to know if I wanted to see her armpit hair. I am not one of those people who like the European look, but there she was, almost proud of her unconventionality. Of course, I had to say yes. I couldn't lose the opportunity to see more of my sister.

She giggled and jumped, very excited, and ran out of my room. I was more intrigued by the idea of how she would show me her armpits than actually seeing them. I mean, as far as I knew, she didn't possess any sleeveless clothing, so she would have to somehow lift her shirt up or something. Otherwise she wouldn't be able to show me anything. I was curious to see if she would go that far.

She came back wearing her nightgown. Her face was red as she gave me an embarrassed look. I waited like a spectator to see what was about to unfold. I didn't expect her to be naked under that gown, but for a brief moment, I pictured her dropping the gown to bare her shoulders and holding it on her chest as she lifted her one arm and then the other.

She did drop the gown, all the way down to her feet. I found out that she did have sleeveless clothing. Underneath she was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt that fit snugly around her bosom and jeans that hugged her long legs, slim ass, and small hips rather deliciously. She held her arms up and crossed above her head as she posed for me; slightly bent at the knees, hips pushing one way while arms leaning the other. For the first time in my adult life, I actually saw my sister's arms and shoulders.

The view was exciting, merely because it was a view I had never actually expected to see. But the fact that she made the jeans look good was a big bonus. I could see the snug fit around her crotch, along with the slope of her thighs and the length of her legs. My sister was looking real good as a woman. I couldn't remember anyone else in my past that had looked that good.

"So, what do you think?" She asked while trying to keep her eyes looking down. She couldn't look at me because she looked very embarrassed.

I looked at the hair in her armpits and almost laughed. There were hardly any to see. There were enough to show that she wasn't shaving, but the colour was so light and her arms were so white that they almost didn't even register in my mind.