"Who's there?" said Veronica, peering into the woods from the sandbar.
I ducked behind a bush.
"I know you're there, Sam!" she said. "Stop spying on me or I'll tell Mom!"
It was a ridiculous thing for her to say. I was 18 years old and my mother had long since refrained from intervening in our disputes. But Veronica was 4 years older than me and still thought of me as her bratty little brother. In some ways I still fit the part.
"I wasn't spying," I lied, emerging from the bush.
"I can't believe you followed me here," she said. She regarded me with suspicion, but did not seem angry.
"I found this place years ago," I said truthfully. I'd discovered the pristine swimming hole when I was 13.
I thought I detected a mischievous smile on her face.
"I know," she said, "I've followed
you
here a few times…"
I started at this, though it merely confirmed my suspicions. I had had a distinct feeling of being watched during my last few visits to this spot. Still, when Veronica announced that morning at breakfast that she was going for a hike, I dismissed the notion that my secret swimming hole was to be her destination. I decided to follow her anyway.
When her trail led here, I rationalized that it was possible she had discovered it by herself. But her confession erased all doubt. I pondered the ramifications.
How many times had I come here in search of privacy? How many times had I gone skinny-dipping? How many times had I laid naked in the hot sand at the water's edge? How many times had I--
"You seem surprised," she said at last after waiting for the news to sink in.
"Wuh--I mean, no…"
She laid her blanket out on the white sand and sat down, then began removing her shoes.
I sat on a rock at the head of the sandbar and stared at the waterfall as it emptied into the deep swimming hole, feeling a mixture of disappointment and dread. Disappointment that I had missed an opportunity to see her naked--the one consolation to the breech of my private haven--and dread at wondering just what she had seen when she followed
me
here.
"Well, are you going swimming or what?" she said.
I turned to see her unbuttoning her cut-off jeans. She pulled them down to reveal the bottom of her yellow one-piece bathing suit.
I didn't answer. Instead, I grabbed a fistful of small pebbles and began pecking them into the water.
"Aww--don't start sulking on me, little brother!" she said in a patronizing tone I'd come to hate. She still talked to me like I was a child. Couldn't she see that I was a man now?
At 6'1", I was at least 3 inches taller than her, with a muscular, athletic build and not an ounce of fat. I had a mop of sandy-blond hair I was constantly brushing out of my face, and bright-green eyes that all the girls at my high school ogled at. But by all appearances, Veronica still saw me as her annoying little brother.
I stood up abruptly and removed my sneakers and tee-shirt. I tossed them in the sand and made my way up the steep rock face beside the waterfall.
"Where are you going?" Veronica called after me. I ignored her and continued my climb until I reached a perch about 20 feet up that extended over the swimming hole. I stood at the edge and looked down at her.
"You're not going to jump, are you?" she yelled over the roar of the waterfall. "Sam! That doesn't look very safe! I really don't think you should--SAM!!"
I dove off the edge in a swan dive, tucking my head at the last moment as my body sliced into the seemingly bottomless pool. The cold water felt exhilarating.
I decided to have a little fun with Veronica. Rather than coming up right away, I swam upstream a little and surfaced behind a rock on the opposite side. Veronica was calling my name.
"Sam! Sam! This isn't funny!" she yelled in a voice of genuine concern that immediately made me feel guilty. I swam out from behind the rock, smiling sheepishly at her.
Her expression changed from worry to relief, but she wasn't about to indulge my recklessness by seeming impressed. She sat back down on her blanket and removed a tube of sunscreen from her bag, then removed her tee-shirt and began applying it to her arms and legs.
I swam over to the sandbar and stepped out of the water. Standing at the foot of Veronica's blanket, I leaned my head over her and sprinkled her with a few drops of water that ran off my drenched body.
"Don't even think about it," she warned, expecting me to shake the water out of my hair and shower her. This had been my intention, but I obeyed her and took a step back. I continued to stand in front of my sister, however, with the pretense of rubbing the water out of my eyes but with the dual purpose of presenting her with a close-up view of my body.
I was keenly aware of my flimsy white running shorts clinging to me in their drenched state. I rarely wore underwear during the summer and knew that they were now essentially transparent. And though the icy water had its usual shrinking effect, my penis created a significant bulge nonetheless.
When I opened my eyes at last I could see that Veronica was taking notice. She quickly glanced away.
"How's the water?" she asked.
"Perfect," I answered, "are you going swimming?"
"Maybe later," she said. She put the cap back on the lotion and put it back in her bag, then lay back on her blanket. She placed the back of her hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun and I took this opportunity to examine her body.
Her facial features were strikingly similar to my own and nowadays we were often mistaken for twins. She had long blonde hair and bright green eyes, a cute little button nose and full, sensuous lips.
She was tall and thin with an exceptional athletic body. She was an avid swimmer with the toned arms and shoulders to prove it; long, gorgeous legs and an ass that barely yielded to the tight elastic hem of her bathing suit; perfectly round, medium-sized breasts whose nipples, perhaps responding to the cool breeze in the river valley, had become erect.
This was the body that had kindled my awareness of the female form. When we were kids, bathing suits were unheard when we swam off the dock in front of my family's secluded lakeside summer cabin--my younger brothers and sisters still shunned them.
I distinctly remember the summer I turned 14. I had entered puberty a good year before and by then my transformation to manhood was well underway. My voice had begun to change and my boyish fat melted away to reveal the already-impressive musculature of my arms and abdomen. Hair sprouted from my armpits and pubic area. My penis, while not yet as big as it would get, was no longer merely a tiny mark of my gender but the perpetually swollen appendage of a teenager on the cusp of manhood.
However, I had not yet acquired modesty. The first day my brothers and sisters and I ran down to the lake upon our arrival at camp that summer, I shed my clothes along with the rest of them and plunged into the water, naked as the day I was born. Veronica had trailed behind us and I found myself peering back as she descended the stairs to the dock.
Though her transformation into womanhood had taken place a few years before, she had continued to swim in the nude. I had been utterly indifferent before; now I found myself staring at her with eager anticipation. It seemed that at that moment I became aware of a woman's charms.
My attention was riveted to Veronica's long legs, her perky breasts which jiggled beneath her tee-shirt, and her behind, whose contours were visible through her tight-fitting shorts. When she quickly shed her clothes and stood completely naked for a moment on the edge of the dock, I felt a fire in my loins I had never felt before and despite the cold water of the lake on that day in early June, my cock was fully erect by the time she dove in the water.
That was the last time I saw her naked. She must have noticed my rapt attention and from then on she wore a bathing suit. And given my own propensity for spontaneous erections, I began to wear one too.
I sat down in the sand next to Veronica and dug my feet and hands into the sand as the hot sun began to dry me off.
"Decided to keep your shorts on this time, huh?" said Veronica suddenly.
"Huh?" I replied. I had no idea how much she'd seen, so I decided to call her bluff for as long as possible.
She just smiled coyly and went on sunning herself. Eventually she spoke again.
"Don't feel like you have to wear them on my account," she said.
"What are you talking about, Veronica?" I replied, trying to sound miffed.
"Well, I know you probably expected to have this place all to yourself. I feel bad…"
"Then why don't you just scram," I said, "I found this place first!"
