Ahhhhh.

Sunday 28 September 2008

The aftermath of the northeaster has been fading, leaving us with thick, humid mornings and everyone has been holding onto summer with shorts and skirts and tanktops at school. For church I wore my good white linen skirt that I got in England and a navy-blue sleeveless top and my soft cotton shirt with pale blue and gold and grey stripes that I wear as a jacket. When we got home Mother announced she was yielding to Princess Jessy's need for more makeup and taking her down to Target. At first Lisa wanted to go and then chose to stay home because J.J. had got into the Legos and she wanted to play with that. Daddy promised to keep an eye on them-- which really meant he would play too. So I went up to my room, only long enough to take off everything but my pretty white cotton panties, and I descended for a stroll out in the garden to take in the day.

The humidity of the midday was soft and dull, like a sweaty woollen blanket cast over everything. With deep breaths and long sighs I strolled out past the pool and leaned on the railing of the garden wall at the back of the property, gazing out at the haze of stubborn sun upon the Bay. There was a breath of breeze wafting in from my left, and I realised that out on the barrier island the surf must have been pumping. Jessy and I should really pay another visit to Chincoteague. I would love to get Roger to meet us at school with the sticks on the roof, and we could get changed in the back of the car on the way and paddle out as soon as we got to the beach. I have met a few kids at school who surf and that would really be the envy of them if we were to do that. I would only wish that those kids wouldn't be there to actually see us doing it. I am so out of practice in surfing that I would probably look like an idiot. Then again the water is still warm enough that I wouldn't need any kind of wetsuit, and surfing in a bikini is usually worth any mass quantity of mistakes.

I did not go out the gate and out onto the jetty but turned and wandered back through the garden and went out the north-side gate to the yard. The damp grass was soft and cool on my feet. Feeling indolent I dragged my chaise away from the side of the house to the middle of the lawn and settled down on my back, sighing to feel the welcome sun on my skin.

After maybe half an hour I did not feel any drier for having sat in a damp place and got up, having to rearrange the panties on my skin, and returned to the garden. Without waiting for anyone to see them clinging to my bottom I dove into the pool and then actually swam 20 laps, as Jessy and I started doing on about the second day we were here in Virginia. The panties stayed on and I made pretty good time.

By the time I got out little Lisa had got bored with playing Legos with 'the guys' (Daddy and J.J.) and wandered out to see me swim. I stopped in the shallow end of the pool and said hello.

'Hey,' she said. 'Whatcha doing?'

I shrugged, pulling back my hair with both hands. Lisa is five and ever curious, but fortunately there is really nothing Jessy and I don't share with her. If she has to learn about older girls, she could do far, far worse than to learn from her own two sisters who never ostracise her and will always explain anything in terms she can understand. 'I just wanted to take advantage of the day,' I said.

She smiled, standing there in her little lavender shorts and a white tanktop, looking down at me. I waded to the ladder and arose from the pool, shaking off the water and pulling back my hair again. As though it mattered I carefully adjusted the wet panties on my hips. Lisa met me, still smiling. 'You went swimming in your panties,' she giggled.

I shrugged. 'It was what I had on,' I said.

Lisa laughed. Of course this has happened before. She's seen me in even less. No worries.

We went into the house through the small back parlour and I was able to avoid Daddy and get up to my room. In my bathroom I towelled off while Lisa watched and prattled on about what they had made in J.J.'s room with Legos. Still in the damp panties I sat on the towel at my table and started to type a little in this. But Lisa wanted to stay and I hate having anyone watch while I type, so she sat on my leg and we looked at some of my pictures from HOH and this summer. There were a few of Lisa being cute, swimming with us during our 'Olympics' which we had done 'original style', meaning naked as the Greek men had done in the first days. Jessy and I had helped Lisa refine her crawl stroke and had her swimming laps of the 12-1/2-metre pool within a few days. Mother had been impressed-- so much for paying for swimming lessons. Though we do watch her cautiously, it is with less and less anxiety to see her paddling two or three lengths of the pool nonstop. She wants so much to please Jessy and me, and we want so much to be her best role models.

'With great power comes great responsibility.' Lisa is a responsibility I take very solemnly, and very happily. That doesn't change if she happens to have seen me swimming in my panties after church.

...