This series makes more sense if you've ready Chapters 1 to 5, but in case you haven't, here's a summary of the characters and plot.
18-year-old Caylee lives in a gilded cage, over-protected by her parents and sheltered at her all-girls religious school. They live in a huge house in the suburbs with a backyard pool (Caylee is involved in extra-curricular swimming and diving). Her parents are spending the summer in France and have asked Caylee's cousin Matt to "babysit" her. Matt is 20 and just finished his second year at university. His sister Hannah was supposed to join them for the summer but is spending time with her secret girlfriend instead. Caylee has asked Matt to help her catch up to her peers a little by learning from him about social, romantic, and sexual situations.
N.B.
In Canada, our legal age for alcohol and similar products are much lower (18 or 19) compared to young adults in the U.S. who wait until they are 21.
Chapter 6
Day 9 -- Friday:
For supper on Friday Caylee and I got take-out as a special treat. Instead of having supper at the table before our movie night, we got everything ready on the coffee table in front of the TV and watched a movie while we ate. Usually we also changed into our pyjamas for the movie (T-shirt and boxers for me, soft old T-shirt with little shorts for Caylee) but we hadn't yet.
I also took out another of the coolers from the grocery store to give to her. I had bought two packs of four so there were enough for the whole week (plus one) if I continued to give Caylee one with supper. I figured I'd let her have the extra one tonight; after all, I had been buying my own alcohol at her age. All in all, it was a nice kick-off to the weekend.
After the movie, we settled back in what had become our pattern of post-movie discussions. I felt like I had succeeded in creating a space and time when Caylee could feel free to ask me anything she wanted. She often waited until this special time to really open up, changing the subject when I asked her at breakfast if she'd had any success getting herself off the previous night for example! Maybe it was still too hard for her to talk about this kind of stuff in daylight, to acknowledge she was a woman now at age 18, that her feelings and desires were completely natural.
But when it came to this time of night, Caylee would eagerly soak up any info I could give. Unlike her, I'd had the full teenager experience back when I was in high school (and continuing into my university years - 2 of those so far). I'd talked about my girlfriends, my male friends, sex, masturbation, parties, drinking, drugs, you name it. Caylee hadn't experienced
any
of it, not one single sip of wine at one of her parents' fancy parties, not one damn kiss, nothing. It made me really sad for my little cousin and angry at my aunt and uncle for the extreme over-protection; it especially made me determined to get her caught up before some jerk came along and took advantage of her innocence. I'd sometimes become preoccupied with the nightmare scenario of Caylee having a bad experience when she lost her virginity - these thoughts always made me want to run out and punch that future asshole before he could even look in her direction. If only I could predict the future like that!
"So, give me a homework report!" I ordered with an encouraging grin, rubbing my hands together and making her giggle. I passed her a second cooler and she opened it, getting settled and gathering her thoughts by taking a few deep breaths with little sips of her drink in between. This made me very glad she wasn't wearing her soft old PJ T-shirt yet. It often made it challenging to keep focusing on Caylee's face and not on the curvy breasts I could plainly see the outline of. Sometimes in our discussions about sex and masturbation, I could even see the barest hint of her nipples. Yep, despite her innocence and inexperience, Caylee was definitely a woman with desires and needs to rival any of us horny young people; she clearly got turned on by our chats, also evidenced by how quickly she'd run off to try my latest tricks or tips to help her with her `homework' at the end of the night.
If she had been wearing that while breathing deeply like that, I'd be in trouble... or maybe not. Right from the first moment I saw her for the first time in many years, I was distracted by her new sexy all-grown-up body, very curvy but very fit. Caylee had never seemed to notice though, and instead seemed perfectly comfortable hugging me and touching me casually as we went about our day. It made things a bit challenging for me though; I was a pretty typical 20-year-old guy with a sex drive to match - my body did not seem to want to accept the `calm down, idiot, that's your cousin' messages from my brain.
"Um... I tried the stuff you got me at the grocery store. The- the lube. It, uhh, definitely made things easier. Like, on a physical level I mean." Her face turned serious and she bit her lower lip, her blue eyes meeting my gaze with a worried expression. "I think it's really mentally that's more the problem."
Hmm, just as I had originally suspected. And it was really no wonder, given all the crappy attitudes about sex and sexuality that Caylee had absorbed through her parents and school environment. "How so?" I took a swing from my own drink, acting as casually as possible. Like in so many previous conversations, I wanted to project an attitude of complete acceptance of her needs and sexuality, with zero judgment. I kept my body open, arms loose and relaxed, completely
laissez-faire
.
"I think part of it is, like you were saying right at the start, the shame from my strict upbringing and influences from my super-religious school. Feeling like sex isn't natural, `good' girls shouldn't want it, messages like that. And I just... I find I get distracted and lose my progress. Like, I don't get into it enough. I don't get in a..." she lowered her voice and looked down at her drink. "...in a sexy mood, I guess?". She wiggled her mouth in a really cute way (almost certainly unconsciously) as she fought to express her feelings. She was definitely embarrassed, still working on using the right words to describe sex, but she was making the effort and gaining confidence.
"Even with the story stuff we were talking about starting with? Picturing your celebrity crush or some guy you like?" I reminded her. I'd been sure there was some Hollywood hunk she could imagine to kick-start her fantasy. Unfortunately there was little chance of her being able to picture a guy she'd met in person. The other guys she was exposed to were boyfriends of her female friends, and even then, she hadn't been allowed to socialize with them much at all. She certainly wasn't allowed having any boys over to hang out, even in a completely innocent and supervised situation. That was one rule her parents had left me with that I was considering breaking because it was so ridiculous.
"Even that. I don't have enough to go on. Like, I try to imagine that he's the one..." she hesitated, glancing up at me for a split second before looking back down, fiddling with the label on the bottle. A pink blush was spreading over her cheeks. "That he's the one touching me, instead of myself. He takes off my clothes and gets me ready. I pretend he's doing all the thing you said to do to myself - touching other places, building it up. And then I picture
him
undressing and... that's when I stop because I can't picture that!" She looked so annoyed with herself and there were tears swimming in her eyes. "I've never seen a... you know, the thing that guys have..." the blush, the tears, and the fact that she couldn't even meet my gaze all gave away how hard this was for her to try to vocalize.
"It's OK, I understand. Try to use the words if you can though, Caylee." I said gently, trying to be as encouraging as possible. I kept my face serious enough that she would feel certain I wasn't laughing at her, but not in an angry or disapproving way.
"OK, right. Since I've never seen a... a penis." She almost spat the word out, pushing it so quickly through her lips it was as though she worried the word itself would taste bad. She looked up as if to gauge my reaction. I made sure my face remained free of any negative reaction and even gave her a little smile and a thumbs up. Encouraged, she continued, "So when the guy in my fantasy gets naked I can't fill in the blanks. And