An appointment for pleasure

Tuesday 15 September

We've all heard the expression 'self pleasure' and we all know what it means. What I don't understand is why it's such a terrible thing to admit. Oh, sure, I don't think we should reveal all the details. There is such a thing as having dignity and good taste. But I'm sure most of us have done it, to some degree, and so I don't see why it's such a big deal to admit it when it's appropriate to admit it.

There are exceptions of course. I knew two of them at HOH. One was a very sweet, very friendly girl in Jessy's class. She was a good Christian and kind of shy, and once in a casual conversation when someone said 'Oh everyone does it' she got very red and admitted that she didn't. We all immediately felt very bad about having assumed that and apologised to her, and one girl in the group actually suggested that she didn't have to try doing it just because everyone else seemed to have done it, and I really do not think she has done it since either-- which for her would be a good thing. There really is no point in converting someone when it's not something that 's so necessary to life, you know.

The other girl was a funny, outgoing sort of person, in the class below Jessy's-- so at the time this would have been like 8th grade. She carried a certain notoriety round the school because in her ethics class she had delivered a paper on masturbation-- its definition, reasons for and against, religious and cultural aspects, plenty of Wikipedia sources, and her own opinion (that is, experiences) included. Fortunately this was an all-girls' school. The other girls in the class were all either aghast or else all in giggles. The teacher was not amused and our friend was sentenced to one-on-one counselling during seventh period once a week till the end of the school year. She was NOT asked to leave the school however and is still there (in what the US would call 10th grade), but she probably keeps her intimate opinions more to herself these days.

Then, of course, there are the rest of us. As sad as we were to leave HOH, Jessy and I have acclimated ourselves pretty well to a big regional high school in the eastern US. There are things that are done and not done here, just as in an independent girls' school in England. For example, you don't mention masturbation in mixed company. You don't say the word 'orgasm' in a classroom. And, apparently, you use the word 'pleasure' as a verb. (You won't see me doing that one... ever.)

Jessy would clear of her time on Monday night and on the way home from school (in the Regal-- I drove) she admitted she had been feeling 'rammier' than usual recently. ('Rammy' is our stepmother's word for it-- apparently it's Australian for 'horny'.) 'I don't why,' she said, 'but I just can't wait for this to be over.'

'Are you going to celebrate?' I teased her.

'Oh, you'd better believe I am.'

I got a little red then. But I knew what she meant and could well imagine her 'celebrating' on her own.

'Don't you ever get like this?' she asked me.

Now we do talk about absolutely everything. Aside from a few mild fantasies and whatever I choose to chat about online, I don't keep anything from my sister-- and even those things, if she were to ask about them, I would tell her. She is my best friend and, in a way, my soulmate-- we know each other better than anyone else knows either of us. So I can admit anything to her. 'Sometimes,' I told her.

She thought. 'We should plan something, then,' she said.

'Plan something?'

'Like, when we get home tomorrow. What we can do about it.'

I was ready to laugh. 'What,' I said, 'we're going to make a date to indulge ourselves?'

'Yes!' she said excitedly, and turned half sideways in the car. 'Can we? Come on, Janine-- it'll be fun.'

I made a face. 'So, we're going to plan to come home from school tomorrow, strip off, and--'

'Yes!' she said. 'I thought we could take our chaises out back somewhere nice and just... have fun.'

'Um... you do mean you would do it and I would do it, right?'

She made a face then. 'Ew. Of course. I mean-- ew.'

I laughed. 'All right,' I said. 'Well-- I suppose we could do something like that.'

'Good!' she said, and turned back round in the seat and shifted impatiently.

All day today she was a little too eager for it. We met eyes once at lunch and then she gave her head a pretty toss and blurted out, just as though it were apropos of nothing, 'Oh, I can't wait to get home today!' Other people looked at her and, of course, thought nothing about this. I knew exactly what she meant, and I blushed.

On the ride home (I drove again-- there was no way I would let Roger drive us today) she was practically bouncing in the seat. She kept coming up with cute little details-- where she wanted to put her chaise, how far from the house it should be, what she would wear, and then take off, you know. I laughed at her, but she didn't seem to care.

The day was stupendously beautiful, warm, sunny, with fair breezes and no clouds. It was ideal sunning weather. Tuesdays Mother goes to take Lisa to ballet practice and then she and J.J. sit and wait for her, so they are never home before 4.00. Daddy was working at the studio in Delaware, as he often does in the middle of the week. As I pulled up in front of the house Jessy raced up the front steps, discarding her clothes as she went through the foyer. I followed her purse, skirt, shirt, tanktop, and bra to the back doors. Out on the terrace she was already dragging a chaise out towards the garden gate.

'Come on!' she cheered, and stopped at the top of the steps to wait for me.

I laughed. 'Are you serious?'

She caught her breath and stood still for a moment. 'Janine, I have been waiting for this for like eight days.'

I laughed again. 'So? It's been longer for me.' My period is almost always a few days before hers, you know.

She smirked at me, her hands on her hips. 'Well, you're not as rammy as I am right now.'

I smirked back, from thirty feet away. 'Who says I'm not?'

She giggled. 'Really?' When I just shrugged at her she squealed. 'Then come on!' And she picked up the chaise and, in her low-heeled black pumps, her multicoloured stockings, and her bright red panties she carried the chair down the steps to the lawn.

To tease her I took my time, gathering a pitcher of cold tea with ice and two glasses on a tray and then leaving it on the side table of the back parlour as I got out of my things. Like her I kept on my stockings and panties and shoes. Then I stepped out back with the tray.

Jessy was just taking the other chaise over to the steps. 'Oo, good,' she said, of the tray, and I followed her down and out the gate. Out on the side lawn she arranged both chaises about five feet apart in bright sun along the outside of the garden wall, not over by the trees where we usually sit but where no one would see us from Lisa's window, the back of the house, nor even from the gate without stepping out. The tall marsh grass just beyond our shoulders screened us from the bay and the boaters (mostly fishermen) out there. Even as I settled into my chaise a pair of jetskis zinged by. They would not see us here in (almost) our altogether.

'Mmmm,' Jessy sighed loudly, exaggerating her comfort. 'This is lovely.'

I poured out and then set the tea tray on the grass between our chaises. For a long while we just lay there soaking up the sun. Neither of us had put on tanning lotion-- we are both so well tanned by now that an hour or so in the sun won't make much difference either positively or negatively.

'I wish we could do this all morning,' she said.

'But we've done that.'

We were both lying there with our eyes closed, sighing again and again. 'Mmmm, I know,' she said. 'I just love summer I guess.'

I smiled. 'I do too,' I said.

She started first, just caressing herself. I heard her sighing in little whimpers and would not have to open my eyes. I began then too. She was right-- it was a lovely opportunity to savour such sensations and neither of us would rush.

I won't give all the details except to say this. Once I read a romantic little novel, a long time ago now, where the author referred to the way the girl knew just when to lift her bottom to have her panties taken off. At the time I did not get it-- I had imagined they were standing up kissing and it seemed like lifting your bottom a little then would make it harder for someone else to push off your panties. I hadn't realised what the author had meant till I had begun exploring myself in my own bed, and I can say that after a certain point, peeling down your own panties has got to be the most erotically-stimulating thing in the world. For obvious reasons it's a threshold that, once it's crossed, you haven't got anything else stopping you, and knowing that makes all the difference in the world.

I imagine that for two people making love in bed it's the same kind of threshold... though I can't speak from experience on that one.

I do not know which of us arrived first, for we were both pretty well into ourselves by the time I did. Jessy isn't afraid to make noise, if it's only a natural reaction-- I tend to be a little more guarded. As I have written before, she also doesn't mind watching me or even encouraging me, and I find that a little tacky and embarrassing sometimes. I have seen her do herself, but it's not as though I have been watching. She will do herself if I'm in the room and think nothing of it, so it's a little hard to overlook sometimes. I tend to at least begin on my own, quietly, though as I have written also she has come in and discovered me like that and then stayed to watch me go on. I really have learnt to not mind that so much. She is only my sister, and she loves me. It's only self-pleasure. And I'm sure most of us have done it, to some degree, and so I don't see why it's such a big deal to admit it.

...