Things are Looking Up

THINGS ARE LOOKING UP - EDITED

A while back, my wife Joan and I were working on painting the stairwell and upstairs hallway at our lake condo. It was mostly going to be straight-forward wall painting with fixing some "nail-pops" and drywall scuffs. However, the ceiling was another story. We'd had some leaks prior to re-roofing, and one was serious enough to leach through and make a hole in the ceiling drywall above the stairwell. It would take some patching and texturing before we painted. We decided to tackle the ceiling leak problem and paint it before we painted the walls for obvious reasons.

The ceiling above the stairwell is pretty high until you get closer to the top of the steps. I didn't have a "Little Giant" or other special extension ladder that are meant to use on stairs, so we needed to do some "jury-rigging" of our old regular wooden step ladder to make it fit on steps with the legs at different heights. This involved drilling holes and screwing some 2x4 extensions on the two front legs of the ladder to make it stand level on the stairs. This did not give us the most stable ladder in the world. We decided it would be best if Joan went up the ladder since she is a lot lighter than me, and that I would hold the ladder to keep it steady.

She went up the ladder to try it out while I held it. Then she wiggled around as she would when scraping and spackling. Even with my support, it wasn't as stable as we'd like for her safety's sake. We quickly concluded that we needed get some more help holding the ladder while she painted. It was a Saturday, so we'd likely have neighbors there for the weekend. We have two or three neighbors who have become friends and we often help each other on projects like this. Luckily, our next-door neighbors were home, and I asked Brian if he could help. He said he'd be happy to assist, and we made plans to tackle the job in a half hour so. This gave me time to stage all the tools and supplies and for Joan and me to change into cooler work clothes as the day was getting warmer.

Joan went to change first and came back wearing old paint-stained cut-off work shorts and a tee-shirt that she had also cut off to make shorter and cooler. The shorts weren't "Daisy Dukes" short, but they'd be short enough, and the legs flared wide enough to likely get a glimpse of her panties when on the ladder. While her top wasn't quite a full-fledged crop-top, it certainly showed some significant midriff. Also, I noticed that as typical on weekends, she wasn't wearing a bra. Being petite on top, 36A, she can get away with going braless most places most of the time, cold weather and arousing situations notwithstanding. She was well aware that our neighbor was coming to help, so I figured the "no bra" and her choice of shirt and shorts had to be intentional and certainly acceptable, if not arousing to her, and colossally enticing to Brian and me.

We both had heard credible rumors that our neighbor and his wife spent a fair amount of time sunning in the nude on their boat, including with any number of their friends from back home. They had invited us to join them several times but knowing their on-deck dress code we hadn't yet decided our willingness to participate. I wasn't sure if there was any connection between this and Joan's choice of attire today, though it seemed suspicious.

When Brian came over, we explained what we were doing, and that we needed help holding the ladder steady while Joan scraped loose paint and drywall and applied the first coat of spackle. This was at most a half-hour effort today, and something similar on Sunday if he was again available.

We gathered our things and went up the stairs where I already had the ladder positioned. Joan climbed the ladder, positioned her tools and asked if Brian and I were ready. She knew the limits of our contrived ladder. After she reached the right height on the ladder, she reached over her head and leaned forward to start scraping loose plaster.

With her in this angled position, her short shirt naturally fell forward and "accidentally" opened-up a gap big enough to give both of us a great "up shirt" shot of her lovely bare breasts. With her leaning forward, her tits hung away from her torso making them look larger and more pointed. Much more pointed, and since the room was quite warm, I had to assume she knew exactly what she was doing to Brian and me. I was the first to become aware of this wonderfully sensual opportunity, and I sensed Brian was just too self-conscious to overtly look. So, I made eye contact with him and nodded upward toward Joan.

When he looked up, he also couldn't help but see under her shirt. I don't think he knew exactly how to react. From my gesture, it should have been clear to him that I had no problem with him seeing her tits, but I think he was afraid she would catch us and then might somehow think less of him. He no doubt didn't want to do anything to turn her off to a possible future boating event.

We both continued to look up regularly, trying not to be too obvious. Spackling the ceiling was exacting enough that Joan might have been unaware of the show she was giving us. But the state of her nipples told me she was just being a great actress. We both got a real treat for at least a half hour, and no one was any worse off for it.

Brian said he'd be glad to help on Sunday. Smart man. After he left, we cleaned up the stairway, took showers and decided to share a good bottle of wine. We sat in the living room, me in gym shorts and a tee, and Joan in just a white eyeletted nightgown I really like. For a while it seemed neither of us wanted to talk about the beautiful display Joan had treated Brian and me to, but I was so filled with emotion, I had to speak.

"Joan, do you have any idea how much I enjoyed watching you on the ladder today? I can't think of a time I've been more aroused."

"How much could you and Brian see?" she asked cautiously, making it seem like she was oblivious to her accidental or at least unplanned exposure.

"When you leaned forward, your shirt left quite a gap. We got to see a really beautiful view of both of your breasts," I told her.

"Do you want me to wear a different shirt tomorrow?" she said playfully. I detected a subtle distinction between how she asked that question vs. "Maybe I should I wear a different shirt?" It seemed she was asking if it bothered me if she wore the same shirt again, vs. her having reservations herself.

"I loved the shirt you wore today, but it's your decision if you want to show off again tomorrow."

"I guess I'll see how I feel about it in the morning," she replied.

Brian showed up at 10:00 as planned, and Joan was wearing the same paint clothes as yesterday, much to Brian's and my pleasure.

We were treated to a repeat of Saturday's show, but with much less reluctance on Brian's and my part to look upward. I think Brian was tempted to say something to Joan about enjoying the view but was afraid it might make her self-conscious and ruin the mood.

In order to do the fine texturing of the top coat of spackle, Joan climbed up one more step on the ladder, so not only could we see up her shirt, but we could also now see up the wide legs of her shorts. If she'd had any suspicion that Brian and I would try to get a peek of her panties, she preempted our ideas by not wearing any. If I thought a stollen eyeful of her breasts was a fortuitous pleasure, this unexpected glimpse of much of her pussy was stunning. Neither Brian nor I made any pretense of inadvertently looking under her shorts. We both fixed our eyes on as much of her snatch as was exposed until she finished the work.

When we were done and Brian had left, Joan announced to me, "I really don't want to talk about this. I'm having enough trouble sorting out my own feelings. You know I've gotten a lot more comfortable with the idea of showing off "accidentally," but yesterday and today I crossed the line into exposing myself "on purpose." Give me some time. And I did.