My Hot Pretend Girlfriend

Reader Warning! - This is quite a long story and it is a while before there is any sex. If you enjoy reading a few pages of plot and character development before the 'action' starts, then this story might be for you. If, on the other hand, you prefer more instant gratification, then I won't be offended if you click 'Back' and find another story that has a faster pace.

_______

It was a beautiful June day and I was really glad that I had made the trip back from college for the weekend. My uncle had invited the whole family over for a barbecue and drinks around his pool and we couldn't have been luckier with the weather. I lay there in my sunglasses and trunks, sipping on a slushy while I watched my younger brother and some of my cousins messing around in the pool. Every now and then one of them would bomb into the water and I would get slightly splashed, I would pretend to be annoyed and they would laugh. It was a really relaxing afternoon, spending time with the family.

As fun as it was watching them play around and tease each other, and as much as I was enjoying the sun and drinks, there was something else I was here to do. Something important enough to me that it was worth making the five hour drive back to my home town for just two days. It was all to do with my oldest cousin, Holly. I watched her in the pool, sometimes joining in the general play with the younger ones, while other times going off to swim lengths on her own. She was on the swim team at college, which was hardly surprising given how effortlessly her athletic body cut through the water.

I watched her swim over towards the side of the pool, right where my lounger was stationed.

"Are you not coming in Steven?" she asked, smiling.

"No way, I'm enjoying the sun too much!" I replied

"Okay, well I'm going to grab a drink, maybe I'll drag you in later," she said playfully.

Holly put her hands on the side of the pool to pull herself out and I realized that this was my chance. I grabbed my phone and quickly opened the camera. As Holly lifted herself out of the water I managed to zoom in and get her in focus, making sure that the picture encompassed everything. I wanted it to show her pretty face, her long, dark, wet hair and also her small blue bikini top showing off her lovely tits. It was tricky to get it all in one shot with so little time, but I just about managed it. Then I received an unexpected bonus. Just as I took the photo, she looked up and smiled at me again -- a beautiful, natural smile. Perfect, this would be the best one so far!

"What are you doing on your phone?" Holly asked inquisitively, as she picked up a towel and started drying herself off.

"Nothing much, just sending a text to one of my buddies," I replied, trying to act as cool as possible, while surreptitiously putting my phone back on the table next to me.

"Oh okay," she said, looking a little confused. "I was sure I heard the camera go off that's all, I figured you must have taken a picture."

"No, although if you had fallen back in it would have been tempting," I said, hoping the fairly lame joke would side-track the conversation.

Holly didn't respond. She stood there for a couple of seconds, drying herself, looking at me with a kind of half-smile then, before I could react, she darted forward and grabbed my phone from the table.

"I don't believe you, let's see what you've been photographing!" she said, nimbly skipping away from the sun lounger to avoid my desperate grasp.

I jumped up and tried to grab my phone from her, but Holly had already anticipated that move and had put some distance between the two of us while she tried to view my pictures. Shit, why hadn't I kept hold of the phone, or better yet locked it? I sincerely hoped that she wouldn't be able to work out how to open my photo gallery. If she had trouble, I could offer to 'help' and maybe do some speedy deleting. But as I approached, I saw her face turn from a playful smile to a sort of puzzled frown and I knew she had found the photo. I tried not to panic. It's okay, I could still lie my way out of this, it was just a picture of her getting out of the pool. Family take pictures of each other all the time right?

"That's a good picture," she said, giving it a critical view. This phone must have a neat camera on it.

"Yeah, it's pretty sweet. It's a Samsung Galaxy S, it has a five megapixel camera. Pass it over, I'll show you what else it can do." As well as trying to change the subject, I desperately wanted the camera back. I didn't want her to see what else was on there.

"So why did you lie about it?" said Holly, sounding suspicious and serious all of a sudden. She had a point, I should have just showed her the picture when she asked, rather than make out I was sending an SMS, but it's easy to be clever with hindsight.

"I was just trying to get pictures of all the family, so I could make some kind of online album or something and share it with everyone."

It was a weak and stupid lie. I had never shown any interest in photography before, and I had never made much effort in doing things like that for the family. Nor did it explain why I had to conceal what I was doing. I could tell from the look on Holly's face that she saw through the lie immediately.

"Okay, in that case let's have a look at the other family photos you have been taking," she said, pressing more buttons on the phone.

I made another snatch at the phone, but once again Holly was too quick for me and stepped away. There

were

other pictures on the phone, but I definitely didn't want her to see them. Slowly her face turned an ashen shade and any remnants of humour left in her expression disappeared. She looked up at me, her big brown eyes betraying a mix of hurt and anger.

"Every single picture is of me Steven," she said, simply. She wasn't shouting, in fact her voice was barely above a whisper.

"Look, I can explain..." I started, desperately hoping that I could.

"Here's me in the pool, and here's me sunbathing, and here's me holding a drink, and here's me indoors on the sofa," she said, flicking through the photos. "I

wondered

why you always seemed to be messing with your phone."

"Okay, let's not make a scene, if you just let me explain..."

"Explain what?" she scythed back. She didn't raise her voice much, thankfully it seemed she didn't want to create a scene either, but her words contained venom. "Explain that you've been secretly taking photos of me? Explain how you're going to jerk off looking at them in your room later? We're cousins for fuck sake!"

"No, it's not like that! Listen, I..."

"You're a sad, pathetic, perverted piece of shit Steven!"

She threw my phone onto the grass and stormed off in the direction of the house. I paused for a while, not knowing whether I should go after her or not. I looked over to the pool and nobody else seemed to have noticed our altercation. That was something at least! Eventually I decided that I had to try and talk to her. If she told her parents or, worse,

my

parents about this it would be an absolute disaster! And it's not like I could really make things any worse. But what could I tell her? I was fresh out of lies, nothing I could think of sounded even remotely convincing.

Maybe I would try telling the truth.

_______

So what was the truth?

By now you are probably thinking exactly the same as Holly; that I am some pathetic loser with an incestuous infatuation with my cousin, trying to get some good jerk-off material. I'll admit that

some

bits of that are partly true. I guess you could call me a bit of a loser and I do acknowledge that Holly is smoking hot. I will even admit that several years ago, during those difficult puberty years, I did knock one out while thinking about her a couple of times. But that was in the past and the photos

weren't

for jerking off to. I had something much different in mind. Not something I was particularly proud of, but not nearly as bad as she thought.

I guess to explain properly I have to take you back several years. At school I was a stereotypical geek. I was skinny and spotty and bad at sports and into a bunch of things that were definitely not considered cool, like roleplaying games, science-fiction and math. I had a few friends, but they were mostly other geeks, and we were not-so-affectionately dubbed 'the loser gang' by some of the cooler kids. I won't exaggerate and say that my school days were horrible, I'm sure a lot of kids had it much worse than me, but suffice to say I wasn't exactly Mr Popular. I studied, got good grades and got a place at a decent college, but what some people call 'the best years of their life' were rather forgettable for me.

I certainly had no luck with girls. This was partly because they weren't really interested in a geek like me, but also partly because I didn't make much effort with them either. Don't get me wrong, I was a red-blooded teenage boy and had 'urges'. But the girls at my school seemed a bit unattainable to me. I couldn't even have a decent conversation with most of them, let alone figure out how to 'take things further', so I made do with internet porn and jerking off and tried my best to convince myself that I was happy with that. I didn't have a date for my senior prom and went with a couple of my geeky friends who also didn't have dates. It was a fitting end to my high-school days.

When the time came to go to college I was really looking forward to making a completely fresh start. I decided I was going to stop being a geek, reinvent myself and try to join the mainstream. Over the summer I got myself a proper haircut, spent a large amount of savings on some new clothes and ditched all of my geeky hobbies. I even watched enough sport that I could at least bluff my way through a conversation on football or baseball. And the amazing thing is that it worked! Well, sort of anyway. I didn't magically become cool overnight of course, but I was broadly accepted by my peers at college and wasn't considered a geek. I made some 'normal' friends, who did the things that most ordinary students do at college, like get drunk, party, go to gigs, join societies and try to get away with doing as little academic work as possible.

Another thing we did a lot was try to get laid, which was definitely new territory. Women were like a completely alien species to me and I didn't really know how to talk to them, so my early efforts to get some tail had predictable results. I didn't have the confidence or the chat up lines to just ask for a date (or more), so instead I tried making friends with several girls with the hope of eventually taking it further. Unfortunately most guys reading will know where that leads - I always ended up as their friend while they went out and banged some other guy. It seemed that the only times I actually came close to achieving my goal was when I was very drunk and imbued with the false confidence that brings. Unfortunately, being drunk I was never in any position to say or do the right thing and always managed to mess things up. The end result was that I was now coming towards the end of my freshman year at college and my virginity was still in the wrapper it came in. My only action all year had been a couple of drunken kisses with girls at parties, which hadn't lead anywhere.

This was bad enough in itself, but the worst part is that over time it became more and more obvious to everyone that I never got lucky. It became a running joke on the dorm and, in a world where men are measured largely by their virility, I found myself drifting towards the bottom of the social hierarchy once more. Of course, I didn't admit to anyone that I was a virgin (you

never

do that at college) but it was suggested countless times that I was, or even that I was gay, and I earned the unfortunate nickname of 'Shrinkwrap' (as in, the shrink wrap was still on my dick). With hindsight it wasn't

that

bad, most of the teasing came from just a handful of spiteful guys. But after trying so hard and having a taste of being popular, it was difficult to see it all slipping away for what seemed like such a stupid reason. I felt that if I could only score with a couple of girls, or even just one, my 'reputation' would grow and I would become more popular again.

All this was weighing on my mind going into spring break. When I came back to college for the summer trimester I did something that, with hindsight, was pretty silly. I pretended I had hooked up with a girl during the spring break and we were now dating. The thinking behind this was twofold. First, I would get some kudos for getting laid. Second, I would have the perfect excuse if I didn't manage to score with any other girls, because after all I wasn't really

trying

, I already had a girlfriend. And if I did get the opportunity to get some

real

sex then I could always 'cheat on my girlfriend' or fake a break-up or something. It would be a very nice problem to have.

The flaw with this plan, which even I should have learned in high school, was that stories of 'vacation hookups' are always treated with a healthy dose of scepticism, especially when the person telling the story has never shown any ability to pick up girls. When I mentioned I had a girlfriend, some people were immediately suspicious. They started asking probing questions about her and wanted to see pictures. Of course, my shifty and evasive answers to even the simplest questions raised suspicions even more. Rather than ditch the plan, I tried to salvage the situation by making up a few bits of information. She was a sophomore at another college, we met at a bar in my hometown, she was a brunette, she was into sports. I also tried to find some pictures on the internet that I could show off, but I couldn't really find anything suitable. After all, to pull this off I really needed several pictures of the same girl, fitting the above description, in natural-looking surroundings, that nobody would accidently stumble upon while surfing the net. This turned out to be extremely difficult, but it seemed that not having any pictures was really straining the credibility of my story. After all, everyone has some pictures of their girlfriend

somewhere

right?

Then, completely out of the blue, I got a call from Uncle Frank inviting me to his pool party. I was going to politely turn down the invitation, after all it was a long trip, but then a thought struck me. Holly went to a college close to home, so she would probably be at the party. She was a brunette and she looked quite sporty. She was actually a senior at college, but she didn't look that old for her age and could probably pass as a sophomore. And what's more, even though she was my cousin, I had to admit that she was extremely hot, which would really impress the guys at college. It was perfect really, all I had to do was tell my friends that I was going home for the weekend to see my girlfriend, then go to the party, subtly take some suitable photos of Holly, then come back and show off the results. Easy game!

_______

And that is the unfortunate series of events that led me to the giant clusterfuck in which I now resided. I was starting to realize that what I had done was stupid, but it wasn't nearly as bad as Holly thought. I eventually found her sitting in the summerhouse on her own. She had put on a sarong and was sitting there on a sofa, just staring at the wall, her face like thunder. She wasn't at all pleased to see me; in fact she jumped up and shouted at me to get out. After a lot of pleading and grovelling, I managed to persuade her to listen to my story, but I knew I was on a short leash.

I sat down and told her everything, right from the beginning. All my life I had looked up to Holly as my cool older cousin. When we were kids growing up she used to look after me, I used to tell her all my problems, and she would give me advice. But, as often happens with cousins, we saw less of each other as we got older. By the time I started college we only saw each other three or four times a year and we weren't nearly as close any more. In fact, until now, we hadn't really had a deep and meaningful conversation as adults before.

I laid myself bare and told her everything about school and also how I had tried to change at college in order to fit in. I was torn whether or not I should tell her about still being a virgin, but in the end I decided to lay everything out there and tell her that too, even though it was very embarrassing. Then finally I told her about inventing a girlfriend and why I was taking the pictures. Holly didn't say much while I told the story, she just listened intently. To begin with her stare was stone-cold and confrontational, but as I recounted more and more her expression visibly softened. When I told her that I was hoping to score lots of points with my peers because she was hot, she even smiled momentarily. I could tell she believed my story and I hoped she would understand.

"You're an idiot Steven," she eventually said. "But I do believe you. You're a terrible liar and there's no way you could have made all that stuff up."

"I promise you, I

swear

that it's all true," I said. "And for what it's worth I'm really sorry, I had no right to try and use pictures of you like that without asking. Look, I'm going to delete all the pictures now, and you can watch me do it just to make sure. And I promise I won't take any more, in fact you can look after my phone until I go home if you like."

I got up from my seat and sat down next to Holly on the sofa. I showed her my phone as I navigated to the photo gallery and went to delete all the photos I had taken of her that day.

"Steven, wait." she said. She paused for a few seconds before continuing. "Look, I know what it's like you know. I remember when I went to college worrying that I wasn't going to fit in. And I know that college guys can be really superficial and shallow." I didn't reply, I just grimaced and nodded and waited for her to continue. "Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that if this is important to you - the guys at college thinking that you've got some 'hot girlfriend' back home that is - then it's okay with me if you want to use the photos."

"Really?" I said, quite surprised.

"Yes really, if it's important to you that is. All I ask is that you delete this one," she said, pointing to a photo where she was sunbathing and her nipples were clearly visible through the fabric of her bikini. "I think that one is showing a bit more than I'm comfortable with."

"That's awesome Holly," I said, deleting the offending photo. "And again, I'm really sorry about what happened. Are we cool?" I said, extending a hand.

"We're cool," she said shaking my hand. "Besides, it will be fun thinking about all those young college boys looking at bikini shots of me!"

She laughed as she said it and I laughed along too. I was so relieved things had turned out okay and it was extra lucky that I was able to keep the photos and even had Holly's blessing to use them. Holly was really cool, it was a shame we didn't see as much of each other since we got older. I bet she could have taught me tons about girls, and maybe I would never have become a geek in the first place. I wondered briefly about asking for further help, but I had just pulled myself back from the brink of calamity and I didn't want to push my luck at this point.

"I'll see you back at the pool," I said. She smiled and waved in return, but stayed in the summerhouse as I walked back down the garden to re-join my family. I really needed a cool drink after that heated confrontation!

_______

Initially things went really well on my return to college. I showed my friends the pictures of Holly and their eyes nearly popped out of their head when they saw how amazing my 'girlfriend' looked. One picture especially, the one of her getting out of the pool, drew particular admiration and a couple of guys begged me to give them a copy. I played it cool, saying that I didn't think Holly would like that (I finally decided to give my girlfriend a name). However, I made a point of making that photo the background screen on my phone, which I would 'accidently' show people whenever possible. Life was pretty good for... maybe a week or two.