Under Covers Investigator – Chapter 3 – A Pokémon Fanfic

As soon as his sister entered the kitchen, Max developed a sudden interest in the yellow cereal box. The table of ingredients seized his focus as movement blurred in his peripheral vision. He must’ve read the riboflavin percentage fourteen times and still couldn’t recite it if you asked him right then. The chair across the table scraped along the tiled floor. He furrowed his brow, doubling down on feigned concentration.

“Pass the cereal.”

Max heard her perfectly but murmured, “Hm?”

“Why are you even reading that? You on a diet or something?”

Or something. Two somethings. Two big somethings.

“Gimme that.” May stretched from her seat to snatch the cereal box. Little did she realise she’d uprooted the one thing saving him from ogling her chest. His eyes wandered to the protrusions in her yellow pyjama shirt. Goddammit, Max, quit looking! He dropped his gaze into his cereal bowl and scooped up another bite. “It wouldn’t be the worst idea, you know?”

“What?” he spat fragments of cornflakes.

“Going on a diet.” She poured herself a bowl. “Before you finally set off on your pokémon journey, it wouldn’t hurt hanging back and putting a little meat on these bones first.” She squeezed his non-existent biceps.

“Hey!” He recoiled in pain. “That hurt.”

“Really now? You’re going soft in your old age, dear brother of mine.” She crunched a mouthful of cereal. “The Max I remember shook off Thunderbolts and Water Gun attacks to the face!”

He flinched at the memories. ‘Shook off’ was being generous but, yes, way too often he had wound up on the wrong end of pokémon attacks during their adventures with Ash and Brock. How could he forget? She’d never let him.

The geek he was back then drew excitement from the pain, basked in every opportunity to analyse pokémon attacks even through first-hand experience. A little older, and a whole lot wiser now, he intended to stick to non-crippling methods of research. Besides, he probably wouldn’t have the same bad luck travelling without Ash or Brock, or even May for that matter.

“Need I remind you, you’re three years older than me, dear sister of mine?” He wagged his milky spoon at her. “You’re in no position to be calling me old. Or soft.”

“Well, I just did!” She stuck her cornflake-tipped tongue at him.

Ah, yes, just about how every debate went with his insightful big sister. “Seriously, May?”

“I’m just saying,” she spoke out the half of her mouth that wasn’t churning her breakfast, “Without Ash to guide you, Brock to feed you, and me to hold your hand through everything, how are you going to make it out there on your own? If you looked a bit more, uh, intimidating, it might make some people think twice about messing with you.”

“That’s what my pokémon are going to be for.” He didn’t need to look like a Machoke if he walked around with one in his pocket. “And you didn’t hold my hand through everything! I looked out for you way more.”

“No way!”

“Yes way! You were afraid of your first pokémon, May.”

“You didn’t even have one.”

Only because he’d been too young for a Trainer’s license; Max had had more knowledge than half the older kids they came across. Why was she trying to talk him down anyway? It was her idea he started his own journey. “So, you still don’t think I’m ready?”

“It’s not that.”

“Then why are you trying to hold me back?”

“I’m not.”

“Then –”

“Duh! Isn’t it obvious?” May kept her puzzled brother waiting while she chewed her food, almost as if what she wanted to say was too important to dish with a mouth half-full. She gulped down her nerves. “I’m going to miss you, Max.”

All the tension in his face withered away. “Oh…”

“I know we’re probably not as close as we were when we’d travelled together,” she said, “but you’ll always be my little brother. Seeing you bigger and all grown up and ready to go out on your own is… I dunno, kind of a weird feeling, I guess.”

He knew what she meant. While he wasn’t ‘all grown up’ by any stretch of the imagination (he was still a gangly teenager after all), he didn’t depend on her guidance like he once had. “Yeah, well, you can’t hold my hand forever, right?” He winked.

She half-smiled. “Definitely not. And I’m proud you gave up that… ‘hobby’ of yours. Whatever comes next can’t be worse than the path you would’ve strayed down.”

Right…

It had been three days since Max retired from private investigating and he was already running out of ways to distract himself. Nothing could replace the thrill in skirting the shadows of unwitting adulterers, the mental exercise in scouting points of interest, the guile in digging up dirt, the adrenaline in breaking, entering and bugging the scene of a crime, the fulfilment in catching offenders on camera, and then… well, everything that came after that. Over and above loving every minute of it, Max had found a sense of purpose, a feeling he’d been making a difference to the world. And now? He’d gone from staking out deplorable human beings on the brink of adultery to staking out… his big sister.

Inadvertently! But still…

After witnessing her in the throes of indecency, he couldn’t help but peer around the cereal box, glimpse at the swells in her shirt that had been a lot less covered and a lot less inert while her body was taking a good ramming from behind. He didn’t know his sister could make such sounds. Naïve, perhaps; she was a young woman after all, a young woman who enjoyed pleasures of the flesh as much as the next apparently. He just never thought he’d have to hear it. Her sinful moans still echoed in his head like a reoccurring nightmare.

He tore his gaze away from her chest. Looked down in his cereal bowl. What the hell is wrong with me? He couldn’t shut his ears to May’s chewing, the slosh of milk and cereal oddly reminiscent of something else she’d done with her mouth that day, something that involved a much bigger utensil than a teaspoon. The sound of Norman grunting his satisfaction haunted Max, too.

But that was not all it did; his pyjama pants pitched a tent under the table.

He shuffled his thighs in an attempt to hide it. May didn’t have x-ray vision to see through the table, but the thought of her discovering his incestual curiosities mortified him more than said curiosities themselves. In his head, she wasn’t just eating cereal; she was licking the spoon clean with long, sensual strokes, and the milk seeping out one corner of her moist lips looked like –

“What?”

Max jumped at her abrupt notice. “Er, you’re making a big mess,” he said quickly, praying she wouldn’t look deeper into his staring. “Nice to know your table manners haven’t changed since you were three.”

His light jab diverted her from whatever she might’ve been thinking. “Hey! I’ll have you know –” She pulled the spoon out her mouth so quickly, milk flicked back on her face and shirt. Before he could even laugh, she chided, “Oh, shut up, you!”

“What?” he said between chuckles. “Thanks for proving my point.” He really should’ve been thanking her for breaking the tension. But as she patted the splotches on her chest, he found his mind wandering again. Max slid the cereal box back between them to obscure temptation.

Yeah, he was going to miss May, too. More for the tongue-in-cheek banter only siblings could share than anything else. Although, truth be told, distance was probably the best thing that could happen to their relationship right now, one less moral dilemma walking in and around his vicinity.

After breakfast, May got up to take a shower and Max lingered at the table prodding the lonely, soggy cornflake at the bottom of his empty bowl. Would things between them ever go back to normal?

How could they? When somewhere upstairs, stashed in his drawers, in his very room, at this very moment, was a flash drive harbouring an explicit video of the girl he’d just had breakfast with engaging in seedy, unprotected sex with a man at least twice her age. A married man at that. A man that once dated their mother. A man that once saw her as his own daughter. Heck, a man that had almost become her father.

It was enough to make anyone puke, and yet, the two had played on it throughout their sick tryst, Norman spanking his teenage sister while she called him ‘daddy’. And Max had caught everything on camera.

He’d discarded all records he’d kept as a PI but, for some inexplicable reason, he couldn’t bring himself to toss the flash drive. The temptation to watch it again hadn’t overpowered him. He had no intention of reliving the precarious ordeal, nor of using the damning footage to incriminate the participants. By all accounts, he had no reason to hang on to it at all. And yet…

He sighed.

What am I going to do with myself?

He skulked back to his bedroom but stopped outside the door when the patter of a hot shower caught his attention. One room down, May’s pyjama top and bottoms were visible through the crack of her door, discarded on the floor as if she’d hopped right out of the garments and into the bathroom. He was drawn to her echoey shower singing and not because she had a great voice. Tiptoeing, he crept to the bathroom door.

I bet if I just looked through the keyhole…

Max turned his back to the door and ruffled through his hair. This was crazy.

Albeit, probably not as crazy as the bright idea he’d entertained yesterday, of bugging his sister’s bedroom while she was out, of possibly catching a glimpse of her getting in and out of clothes. At least as a PI, he’d fathomed justifiable reasons for smuggling surveillance equipment into people’s private spaces; but this? It would’ve been straight up perversion. Even without the moral justifications, his compulsion to spy on others persisted, and so too did the excitement of seeing things he shouldn’t have been privy to.

Maybe May had been right after all. Maybe it had never been about bringing people to justice.

Max slowly turned to face the bathroom door again. As a carefree May hummed to the beat of drumming water, Max lowered his head towards the keyhole. A tight knot formed in his throat. But his eye would never reach the peephole before the sound of a door opening jolted him upright.

His mom looked as equally surprised to see him standing in the hallway when she exited her room. “Oh, good morning, honey.”

“Morning, mom! Was just about to come ask you if you’d like some breakfast?”

“Oh, really? How very sweet of you.” Her big, bright smile told him she bought his story. “You’re only being this nice because you’re about to leave on a journey, aren’t you? Well, I guess I’ll get what I can take.”

Max wasn’t in any mood to prepare breakfast, especially after just leaving the kitchen, but rather that than risk his mother wondering why he’d been lingering next to the bathroom door while his sister was taking a shower. “Eggs and bacon?”

“That would be lovely.” Caroline was more of a morning person than him and May combined. She’d already done up her makeup and put on a floral sundress that matched her big orb earrings and deep lavender eyes. “And after that, I was thinking we could go shopping for your travelling gear and Trainer supplies.”

Ever the doting, supportive mother; how could she trust him to adventure on his own if she couldn’t even trust him to buy his own stuff? “Thanks, mom. You don’t have to, though. I’ve already made a list of everything I’ll need and I know where to find them.”

“Already made a list?” She looked him over as though she didn’t recognise the man he’d become. “That’s my boy. You’ve learned from the best.” She squeezed him in a warm embrace. “I couldn’t be prouder. And hey, never forget – if things get tough out there or you ever need anything at all, you’ve always got a home.”

“Thanks… mom…” He wheezed in her stranglehold.

“You’ve got me and you’ve got May. You can always rely on family to have your back.”

Family. Was she referring to the same son who’d turned down the opportunity to crush the man who’d once crushed her heart? The same daughter who’d fucked said man behind her mother’s back? That family? Max was grateful the hug hid his guilty face from her wholesome optimism.

He was just as bad as May, wasn’t he?

“Guess I’ll see you in the kitchen then?” She beamed brighter than the sun before prancing downstairs singing a song about eggs and bacons.”

“Yeah…” Max muttered weakly after she’d gone. “I guess.”

With the hallway clear, his thoughts strayed back to what could be on the other side of the keyhole. Images of his naked sister showered his mind, her big-breasted, teenage body soaked and dripping wet. Why had the urge grown stronger? It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen her stripped down already – when Norman had brusquely pulled up her top; then again playing back the recorded footage hours later. Well, seeing big, naked titties on video had been an enticing prospect from the day he got his first boner but, Max was starting to realise, seeing big, naked titties in person was a whole other world…

An excitement corrupted him like he’d never fought before. The horny teen lingered outside the bathroom door still contemplating a sneaky peek.

Yup, he needed some serious help. And fast. From a professional.

. . .

“You’ve come to the right place!” Brock’s emphatic grin filled the Xtransceiver’s screen.

Oh, man. Max already had doubts about this. He picked up six Super Potions from the Poké Mart’s shelves before turning his attention back to the video call. “I’m serious, Brock. Every single day feels like I’m losing it more and more.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa there! Slow it down, buddy. Hold your Ponyta!”

Funny, he’d been feeling hotter than the fire pokémon’s tail lately. He eyed the row of Burn Heals and wondered if they worked on humans. Granted, the fire festering inside him wasn’t exactly of the sticks and smoke variety. “I don’t know how much longer I can hang on. You seem like the kind of guy who’d know what to do in this situation.”

“Oh, yeah,” he laughed. “Been there, done that, got the wet t-shirt.” He winked.

Oh, brother. Max hadn’t sought the former Gym Leader for his glowing track record with women, much rather for the opposite; if painful, unrequited sexual frustration had a face, it would have slits for eyes and spiky hair – and it would be named ‘Brock’. No matter how many times he got shot down, Brock never let one girl cripple him from moving on to the next, a master at powering through ill-fated infatuation.

“How do you do it?” Max wondered aloud.

“Hm?” Brock frowned.

“How do you get over someone you want so badly and accept you can never have?”

As Brock pondered on the conundrum, Max spotted a rack of Lure Balls packaged in sixes going at discounted prices. A trio of foreign Trainers shovelled several bundles into their shopping basket. This was the third Poké Mart Max had visited promoting specials on Lure Balls, and the second had offered sales on Net Balls, too. That was weird.

“I can’t believe it!” Brock suddenly exclaimed. “My little Max is finally having sex!”

“Shh!” Max smothered the Xtransceiver’s speaker. “Mind saying that a little louder?” he whispered bitterly. “I don’t think the people in aisle seven heard you!”

Brock gave a guilty chuckle. “I don’t see what the big deal is,” he said, much quieter this time. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

Well…

Max glanced around to make sure no shoppers were within earshot before muttering close to the Xtransceiver. “I’m not having… I mean… I’m still a, um, a –”

“Virgin?” Brock whispered.

Max gave a silent nod.

“Oh! Now I see what the problem is.”

“You do?”

“Totally! I know it’s hard to look at me now and imagine, ‘this guy used to struggle to get his fair share of poontang??’”

Actually, it wasn’t hard to imagine at all. Mostly because Max had been there, dragging him away from unsuspecting girls by the ear. “Er –”

“But not too long ago I was a virgin, too.”

“Five days ago then?”

“No,” Brock said flatly. “…Five minutes ago.”

“Wha!?! I was only kidding!”

“As am I!” Brock put on a smug expression. “That’s your first lesson. Develop a sense of humour. Ladies dig a guy who can make them laugh. You do know that, right?”

“I do. And you do know there’s a difference between laughing with someone and laughing at someone?”

Brock quirked an eyebrow. “What are you getting at?”

“Never mind.” None of this had anything to do with why he’d made the call in the first place. “Listen, all I want to know is how to get over someone that’s stuck in your head. And I know you’ve had plenty of practice with that.”

A straight-faced Brock suddenly lost his sense of humour. “Well then, the best way to get over someone is, well…”

“…yes?” Was he expecting a drumroll?

After much unnecessary ado, Brock said, “Get over them.”

“Huh?”

“You heard me right. The best way to get over someone is to get over them… if you catch my drift?” He winked.

Oh, Max caught his drift just fine, but it was not a drift he’d be riding anytime soon. “I… can’t do that.”

“Why not? Can’t get it up?”

“No, I can! But… I can’t.”

Brock looked stumped. “Okay…? Just who is this special lady anyway that’s got your knickers in a bunch, hm?”

Max couldn’t tell him that. He couldn’t tell anyone. This whole call had been a stupid idea. Brock’s answer to everything was probably ‘sleep with them’ anyway. “Doesn’t matter. Er, thanks, I guess. Gotta go now.”

“Hold o–”

Max hung up. Well, that was no help at all. He leaned against the rack of Lure Balls with a heavy sigh. You’ve got this, Max. By the end of the week, he’d set off on his pokémon journey and all this folly would be behind him. All he had to do was hang in there.

And not dwell on the notion Brock implanted in his brain.

. . .

Max sat at the back of the café on his own like a jilted sap that had gotten stood up on a blind date. May had never been scrupulous about keeping time, particularly when shopping was involved. He’d waited 20 minutes already. Such lack of consideration would usually be enough to start brewing the choice words he’d spew at her the moment she walked through the door, but not today. Today was May’s last day in Petalburg City.

She was only leaving tomorrow because he was leaving tomorrow. Although she hadn’t admitted it, Max was certain that was the actual reason; it would’ve been awkward for her to hang around at home with Mom after what she’d done. Apparently, May’s conscious hadn’t walked away scar-free from her little escapade with the Petalburg Gym Leader.

But Max hadn’t invited her to pass judgement. No, he intended to keep her dirty little secret to himself, even more so now that they probably wouldn’t see each other for months after parting ways tomorrow. He could spend their last afternoon together calling her out (after incriminating himself in the process), or enjoy the drama-free brunch he owed May after that rowdy woman ruined their last attempt. It was a no-brainer.

Max gulped down the last of his orange juice. He could probably order another before his tardy sister showed up. 23 minutes now. Typical May.

His attention drifted to the group of six teenagers yammering at the table in front of him, a conversation as loud as it was foolish. Judging by their backpacks, the mud on their trainers and their general state of unkemptness, they were Pokémon Trainers, probably passing through town hoping to win a Balance Badge from Norman. Max doubted they’d succeed, doubted there was a competent Trainer amongst them; all the pokémon stats they touted were dead wrong, and Max thought he’d overheard one of them ask if their freshly caught Wailmer could learn Surf before the end of the day. He scoffed. Amateurs.

There was one thing they had that he didn’t however: comradery. His experience travelling alone was going to look a lot different. Part of him had been tempted to ask May what she thought of them journeying together. They were setting off from home at the exact same time; why not combine their travels? But the shrewder part of him knew such an arrangement was bound to cause more harm than good. How was he supposed to get over his big sister if she was the first thing he saw every morning?

Max needed this pokémon adventure more than he realised.

The next patron to enter the café pulled his gaze from the babbling Trainers. Her protruding bosom came through the glass door before the rest of her, wrapped in a snug red dress accentuating the curves of her tight, athletic body. She left her chic leather jacket open where prying eyes might feast on her low-cut outfit, on the tops of her scanty-clad breasts bulging out of their confines. A measly pendant sank into her crammed cleavage. The dress ended where her thighs began, smooth legs pouring into tall, black boots that tried hard not to kick the plethora of shopping bags swinging on either side of them.

Max hauled his eyes back to her face and barely recognised May with her bandana off and her makeup on. She’d let her hair down in layers, long brunette locks framing her dolled-up features and glossy lips. Heads turned as she strutted her way to his table. Max forgot she’d taken half an hour to get there. Nearly forgot she was his sister.

“I’m so sorry I’m late.” May set down half a dozen shopping bags before pulling out her chair. “Kinda lost track of time.”

“You don’t say?” Max checked his wristwatch to stress the point.

“Oh, come on. Cut me some slack will ya? It’s not like I was shopping all day!”

Max glanced at the bags, then at her, then raised an eyebrow.

“Seriously,” she insisted. “I had a couple of friends to say bye to, you know.”

Well, it wasn’t completely farfetched as far as excuses went; May certainly knew more people in their neighbourhood than he did. Max hadn’t even considered who he’d bid farewell to aside from their mom. In all likelihood, no one would notice he’d left.

“What about you?” May asked. “All set to go?”

“Yup.” He’d finished all his shopping yesterday; Poké Balls, check, Poké Nav, check, sleeping bag and camping supplies, check, extra set of clothes, check, Potions, Antidotes, Burn Heals, check, check, check. He was as ready as he was ever going to be. Probably not as ready as she was though. “How are you even going to carry all that stuff? And why would you need… however many outfits you bought today?”

“Cute, right?” She clutched the lapels of her leather jacket and posed left and right in her seat, batting her long eyelashes, making pouty faces for non-existent cameras.

Yeah, she could pass for cute, but Max would never say that aloud and risk it going to her head. Besides, it wasn’t exactly the jacket he’d been assessing for cuteness. More like everything underneath it. Her little, red dress screamed ‘sexy’ and something told him she’d have an easier time winning over Contest judges if she carried it along with her. Not that his beloved sister would use anything but pure talent to secure Contest Ribbons, of course. “Um, are you a serious Pokémon Coordinator or some flimsy model?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You know most people would just say ‘ah, you look nice today!’”

She did look nice. A little too nice, but, “I’m not most people.”

“Gee, you think?”

A server came to take their orders. May took full advantage of her brother’s offer to cover the bill, ordering three starters, a couple of crispy wraps and the priciest cocktail they had on the menu. Max expected as much.

He ordered another orange juice wondering how May trained her body to hide her love for food so well. Granted, youth was on her side (probably in tandem with a fast metabolism) and, coupled with her active lifestyle as a Pokémon Coordinator, contributed to the trimness of her figure. Her ample breasts commanded attention, as full of vivacity as the rest of her, their perkiness extending over the table as she tucked her seat in.

Max drummed his fingers, turned his face to the side, anything to avoid falling into the generous portions of cleavage on display. “So, um, heard anything from Mom yet?”

“Nope.” May shrugged, oblivious to his restless digits. “You?”

“Nope.”

“She didn’t have to go all the way to Oldale Town for turkey.”

“Yeah, but you know Mom. Once she made her mind up about making her signature ‘going away feast’ for us, it’s pretty much a done deal. And only the best turkey in all of Hoenn will do.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I guess I can understand it – this being our last dinner all together and all.” May gazed at the grey, quiet street outside the large window, focused on nothing in particular. Her mind drifted to places far away from the café.

Was the same memory afflicting her as was him? If anyone had peeked into their dining room that night, witnessed the wholesome meal, the wholesome smiles and laughter and banter, they’d have seen the picture-perfect family of four. None the wiser to the slime behind Norman’s pearly whites, or the schoolgirl curiosities brewing inside a young and impressionable May. Max was of innocent mind back then, enjoying one of what he’d assumed would be countless family dinners, he and his mother none the wiser to the game of footsie under the table. A game he’d now watched play out in its sordid entirety.

“Hey, it’s you!”

Max woke up to the emergence of a very pregnant woman standing over their table.

May buried her face in her palms. “Not again,” she murmured. “This seriously can’t be happening right now.”

Max braced himself to take another splash of tea to the face, but the pregnant woman set her cup down on the table, and brandished a huge smile. “Thank you so much!”

May was still murmuring in anguished disbelief and stopped to replay the stranger’s words in her head. “Wait, what?”

“If it wasn’t for you, I’d still be stuck with that no-good loser,” the woman went on as Max listened with befuddlement in his expression. “I’m glad I found the courage to seek out your services. I’d always suspected something was off, but… it was only with your help I got all the ammo I needed to kick him to the curb! It was only through your help I could… could… find love again.” She fought back tears while rubbing her pregnant belly.

Max and May looked at each other, sharing in their amazement.

“Anyway, I didn’t mean to interrupt your date –”

“Date?!” they rebuked at the same time. “No, no, no, we’re not dating!” May scrunched her features in horror. “We’re siblings!”

“Oh…” The woman blushed. “I’m so sorry. The way he was looking at you, I just thought – argh, never mind. Silly me! I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I just wanted to say ‘thank you’ to your brother.” She picked up her coffee cup. “Keep up the good work.” She winked at Max. “Oh, and consider your meal on me. Bye-bye now.”

“Wow.” May gave the woman’s back a onceover as she returned to her table. “That was unexpected.”

“No kidding…” Under less awkward circumstances, Max might’ve appreciated the glowing review. A date? Really? He didn’t need anyone shining light on an already dubious situation. His leering eyes would be his undoing.

Max worried the awkwardness of having their brunch mistaken for a date would hang over the table like a bad smell, but his sister had moved on from the woman’s ludicrous misreading as briskly as she’d come and gone. May laughed off the idea of having the hots for someone like him; being lanky, geeky and unfashionable was not a winning combination for the ladies – at least none of the ladies Max had ever found himself sexually intrigued about, a list that grew longer the deeper he trudged into puberty, a list that now included a member of his family. What was he thinking?

It seemed ridiculous to take offence to May not looking at him the same way she might’ve looked at Norman, what with his dorky shorts and dorky glasses posing no competition to the Gym Leader’s towering and shredded physique. Max remembered how May pinched his bony arm and made fun of him at the breakfast table. Then he remembered how she cried in ecstasy when Norman held her in the air like she weighed nothing and impaled her down the middle. Max doubted May would’ve ever looked at him even if they weren’t related; heck, no other girl had either.

By the time their orders arrived, the pregnant woman and her worrisome suggestions were cast aside. Drinks and wraps filled up their stomachs and steered the conversation back towards normalcy. They engaged in casual sibling banter whilst recounting humorous tales on their last journey with Ash and the others, which felt more and more like decades ago every time they brought it up. Max teased May about being scared of Sableye and she laughed at how he’d once been blasted off with Team Rocket. Minutes turned to hours and soon plates and dishes lay clean upon the table.

Max reclined and belched, nursing a belly as bloated as the pregnant woman.

“Gross.” May chucked her last French fry at him.

He swatted away the salted projectile with an awkward flailing of his hands. “You’re so predictable.”

“Whatever.” She burped in a counter twice as loud and obnoxious as his offense.

Max was equally disgusted as he was impressed. Now that was something May would never do on a date. He got the privilege of seeing sides of his sister he often didn’t appreciate. Still, he couldn’t help laugh at the unexpectedness of it all, and she in turn laughed at his reaction. Apparently, no matter how old they became, they’d never stop acting like children towards one other.

“Oh, shoot.” May baulked seeing the time as though she’d missed an appointment. “I better get going now.”

“No dessert?” Since when had she been capable of passing up the opportunity of chocolate pudding?

“I wish I could but I’m not done saying bye to everyone.” She stood from her seat and gathered her shopping bags. “Thanks for this, Max. It was really great. We should do it more often. Meet you back at home?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Max was reluctant to see her go but didn’t mind watching her leave. Her leather jacket floated above the rear of her snug red dress, where his eyes fell prey to the roundness of her ass, to the creases formed under her vivacious cheeks as she swayed her hips out of the café. Orange juice dribbled down his chin when he’d suddenly come across difficulty holding a glass and keeping his eyes open at the same time. He wasn’t the only one to suffer impaired concentration either.

At least three other males twisted their necks for a cheeky glance the second she strutted past their tables, and one earned a punch in the shoulder from the girl seated right in front of him. He deserved way more than that, Max thought, ashamed to be dining amid a potential cheater.

And yet, May weaved through the sea of thirsty Carvanha with uninterrupted grace, oblivious to the leers drinking in the sight of her, to the warped imaginations bending her over many a café table and taking full advantage of the easy access afforded by her daring little number.

Either paranoia was consuming him or half the café would leap at the chance to consume his sister. The thought of dirty hands on her soured the orange juice dawdling on the tip of his bitter tongue.

Funny how he’d never developed that brotherly urge to protect his sister from the scum of the male species; never once when they were kids, never once on their adventures, never once after they’d come into puberty, never once.

Until now.

. . .

Norman comforted his defeated opponent with a shoulder squeeze. The kid had battled hard, but it would take more than ‘hard’ to overcome Vigoroth and, even if he had, there was a fully fit and ready Slaking lying in wait, certain to dish the finishing blow to the challenger’s wounded Makuhita.

Another day, another attempt at the Balance Badge thwarted without having to call upon his strongest team member. Norman was on a roll. He lifted the young boy’s chin up, advised him not to rely solely on pokémon type advantages to win battles and promised to accept a rematch whenever he felt strong enough to challenge the Petalburg Gym again.

It had been a long time since Norman felt this good about battling. Sure, he’d rarely faced difficulty dispatching hopeful Trainers who dared step into his Gym unprepared, but years and years of trampling through challengers had turned a lifelong passion into a humdrum profession. Despite the rumours going around, he didn’t much enjoy watching the hopefulness in Trainers’ eyes dim two minutes into their Gym Battle, nor mopping the puddle of tears staining the battlefield after their entire team had been obliterated. No hard feelings. It was a job and Norman happened to do it with indifferent proficiency. But lately, something had changed.

Something that had abandoned him midway into his stint as the Petalburg Gym Leader – his smile, the excitement bursting inside when he’d first set off on a pokémon journey three decades ago, the thrill of meeting new faces, of winning badges, the sportsmanship of healthy competition, the fun in doing something he always loved.

He treated Vigoroth, along with all his other pokémon, to a generous helping of Pokéblock and congratulatory petting while they awaited their next opponent. The amiability of his rekindled passion spilt over to his pokémon and bolstered their performances. If this string of flawless victories continued, he might just get a call for try-outs to join the Elite Four. What a promotion that would be. His wife would certainly approve.

She, too, enjoyed the merits of his rejuvenated spirit. Their marriage felt like a marriage again. Norman no longer dreaded going home to be greeted by vitriol and accusations at the door. Hot dinner awaited him and sometimes he was lucky enough to get a backrub to go with it, often leading to great sex.

Life was easy. Almost too easy. What he needed now was a new challenge to sink his teeth into. A challenge that might’ve just waltzed through the Gym’s doors.

Norman stood up from petting his pokémon, his back facing the entrance, and cracked his neck on either side. “So, another one eager to bite the dust, huh?” He put on a threatening tone. The first test of the Petalburg Gym was often a phycological one. “Tell me, Trainer, what is the name of my next victi-” Upon turning around, Norman realised he already knew the comer’s name. “May…”

“Victim, huh? Well, there’s a warm welcome if I ever heard one.”

Norman dropped his ‘Gym Leader voice’ like an abashed dictator caught practicing in the mirror. The young lass gracing his archway didn’t carry the appearance of someone looking for a battle, not unless her strategy involved swinging her arsenal of shopping bags at his pokémon. Her attire packed a different kind of punch, one that aimed to knock the breath from men’s lungs and dislocate the part of their brains responsible for rational thought; her weapon of choice was glaringly red, dangerously short and criminally tight, accenting twin bazookas pointed his way. Norman strained to keep his eyes from falling below her collarbone and into the trenches he’d already succumbed to once.

“I don’t suppose you’re here for a Balance Badge?” There was a whimsical tremor in his voice.

“Not today. You’re safe,” May joked. They chuckled, though neither of them found the remark particularly funny. Uneasy laughter quietened the trampling elephant in the room and, when their forced reactions petered out, the awkwardness grew louder than the crimson of her figure-hugging dress.

The Gym seemed to have shrunk around them standing at the centre of the battlefield. Perhaps nothing emphasised May’s foray into womanhood more than the expertly-applied cosmetics drawing a sultry glow from her features. No matter how deep Norman delved into her ocean-blue eyes, he no longer recognised the step-daughter he might have had, but a girl in mascara batting her long, faux lashes with mystifying intent. It didn’t matter if he avoided ogling her bountiful chest; wherever his eyes fell – be it her bare, athletic thighs or her full, glistening lips – a battle of wills raged inside him and threatened to show its ramifications at the front of his sweatpants.

Far be it from him to assume she’d walked into his private place of business to seduce him – a married man old enough to be her father – but why was May here?

The last time they were in a room together, things happened that his wife wouldn’t be too pleased to learn about, and Caroline wouldn’t have appreciated hearing what muddied waters her teenage daughter had dipped her toes into, or rather – given just how down and dirty things had gotten – what muddied waters her teenage daughter had splashed about in stark naked.

Norman hadn’t regretted their coming together per say but he presumed their shared silence after the fact was of mutual understanding such a rendezvous could never happen again. They’d gotten away with murder and it would be inconceivable to stick their hands in the cookie jar again, no matter how tempting she dressed up her perky pastries.

Was he being silly assuming her intentions?

Maybe she just came in to say hi. Granted, the last time she came in to say hi, her shorts soon found themselves on his floor, and her feet high above her head. So wild and unrestrained in their drunken lust, they could barely look at one another with sober eyes, an air of shame clouding the awkward silence.

He tried to push the racy images to the back of his mind and assumed she was attempting the same. Every awkward second felt like a millennium. Crap, one of them had to say something about it! Or anything at all at this point. Even his Vigoroth was befuddled by their fidgety stand-off, looking to Norman as if to ask, ‘Are we going to battle or what?’

Norman and May’s patience for the silence ran out at the exact same time:

“About the other day –”

“I’m leaving tomorrow –”

They were both stunned by the other’s words. “What?” they cried in unison.

“You first,” Norman decided.

“No, you,” May argued.

“I insist. Ladies first.”

“Oh, don’t give me that –”

“May.” His curt response shut her up immediately, not unlike a stern father getting frank with his combative daughter. Without raising his voice, the single utterance of her name commanded obedience. If Norman had sounded a little short with her, it was not out of annoyance, but alarm and impatience for more details on her revelation.

“Okay, fine.” She conceded with a sigh. “Yeah, I’m setting off for another journey tomorrow morning.”

“Really?”

“You know the shtick. Forest bathing, city travelling, region hopping, winning a Ribbon here, a Grand Festival there. It’s no big deal, really. Just thought I’d let you know in case…” She stalled with uncertainty on how to finish that sentence before giving up and ending with, “Anyway, yeah. It’s gonna be fun!”

“I see…” Her genuine love for travel didn’t quite match the pallid enthusiasm of her words. Something wasn’t being said. She really intended to leave, just like that? Like nothing had happened between them? Norman hadn’t known what to expect of the inevitable conversation, but not to have it at all? He hid his mixed feelings behind a mask of resounding support. “That does sound like a lot of fun! Not one to stay put for long, are you? Ha.”

“I love it here. Petalburg will always be my home. But nothing beats the freedom of the great outdoors, ya know?”

“Oh, I know.” Norman had practically been reminiscing about his Trainer days before she walked in.

“So… Yeah. Anyway…”

“Anyway…”

“Um…” She rubbed her upper arm shyly. “What did you want to say?”

“Me?” The truth was he didn’t know. Was it worth saying anything? They probably wouldn’t see each other for months after today. Maybe years. Then again, maybe that was exactly why he should’ve said something. Jeez, was he actually feeling nervous? She’d leave and he’d go back to his darling wife, what did it matter?

“You were saying something about –”

“Ah, yes. That.” He ruffled his hair sheepishly. Vigoroth tilted his head in confusion. What was it about this girl less than half his Trainer’s size that had him all flustered? Great, now he was losing face with his pokémon, too. Norman dropped a sigh that said ‘here goes nothing’. “Look, May, I just thought you should know that –”

“A storm’s coming,” shouted a new voice.

May and Norman jumped like a couple of criminals caught colluding; even though they hadn’t been engaging in any licentious behaviour (this time), their recent history had Norman paranoid about anyone seeing them together, lest rumours began stirring the sleeping public towards the truth.

Their heads swivelled towards the gate-crasher, a gangly boy leaning in the archway, arms folded across his chest, one foot on the door, the self-assured posture of someone who thought they owned the place. If he had been anyone other than May’s little brother, Norman would’ve kicked the scrawny teenager off his doorstep with the warning never to return until he developed some manners. The Petalburg Gym Leader, who actually did own the place, had a subdued reaction to the interruption, helped by the relief it had been someone harmless as opposed to someone like his wife.

“What the- Max?” May didn’t sound impressed by her brother’s timing either. He frustrated her burning desire to hear what Norman had to say. “Did you follow me here?”

Max walked into the Gym and right past her question. “I thought we were supposed to meet at home?”

“We are, duh. That’s where we both live, Max. Thought I’d mentioned I had to say bye to a few friends first.”

It was at this point Norman began to suspect Max held some sort of resentment towards him, probably inherited from the poison his mother fed him after their nasty break-up. While May had matured to consider things didn’t always work out between adults for one reason or another, Max hadn’t learned to apply his own thinking to the circumstances.

Still, his loyalty to his mother was commendable, if not a little disheartening. Norman might’ve broken up with Caroline, but not with her kids. He still saw them as his own in some ways. The good rapport he’d built with May had been strong enough to survive the separation (her schoolgirl crush on him might’ve fed into it, too) and he’d hoped it would be the same when he re-united with Max. Well, nope. Not even a little bit.

The youngster scanned him head to toe and back again, disdain in his eyes every inch he observed, as though a tall stack of Copperajah manure had been stood beside him. “Him? He’s a friend?”

“I- I- I mean, he’s –”

“Mom said not to talk to him anymore, May.”

“I know what Mom said,” May bit back.

“Then why are you –”

“Mom and Dad’s problems have nothing to do with us, Max!”

He baulked. So did Norman on the sidelines. “He’s not our dad.”

May rubbed her forehead while hiding embarrassment behind her hand. “I know,” she said softly. “I meant Mom and Norman, obviously. Point is – you know what? Forget it. I’m going home.” She picked up her shopping bags. “I’m sorry about this, Norman.”

“Don’t be!” said the Gym Leader. Watching the siblings bicker took him back in time, a noise he never realised filled the house until he heard it no more. He rarely got involved, rarely had to; the kids never stayed at odds for too long. Besides, being the focal point of their conflict, Norman didn’t have the privilege to speak without coming across as bias. May was better off walking away. This threesome of clashing emotions would not be settled in one sit-down in the middle of his Gym. “I appreciate you coming to say goodbye. Farewell. I wish you the best of success on your travels.”

May nodded then took her leave.

He and Max continued staring out the open doors after she left, a hostile silence thickening the air between them.

“I don’t want you anywhere near her.” Max refused to give him the courtesy of eye contact as he issued the cold words. “You’ve done enough damage to our family.”

The kid was not completely wrong but Norman wanted to believe there was still room in his heart for forgiveness. “Look, Max, I don’t know what I ever did to –”

“You know exactly what you did. And I do, too.”

Norman furrowed his brow at the bespectacled boy, who still wouldn’t look at him. Just what exactly was he intimating?

“That’s right,” Max said, as though he could hear the confusion straddling Norman’s silence. “I know what you and May got up to in your little ‘Secret Base’.”

What…?! But how could he –

“And I have proof of the whole thing. Down to the second.”

No! He had to be bluffing. But how else would he know about his private pad? And that May had been there? Norman wiped his face from the brow down, but the single hand movement could not wash away the shock and terror bulging his eyes to their fullest. With a frog in his throat, he croaked, “How?”

“That doesn’t matter. What matters is I have solid evidence. I saw it happen with my own eyes, too. You’re lucky the whole world hasn’t. But, if you so much as breathe the same air as my sister again, that’s all going to change.”

Norman saw it happening all at once: the Gym’s walls crumbling all around him, the Balance Badge dissolving like ash between his digits, the gold vanishing from his ring finger, his name taken off the Pokémon League’s official Gym Membership register, every hard-earned title stricken from his record, his Trainer’s license card cut in half with giant scissors, all his possessions crammed into one box and dumped alongside the curb that now became his home…

“I trust you get the picture?” Max asked.

He did. Loud and clear. The word ‘yes’ trickled from his deflated tone.

“Great!” Max chimed as though he’d just signed a lucrative contract. “Sayonara.” He left the Petalburg Gym with his hands in his pockets whistling a merry tune.

Norman hung his head, unable to face even his own pokémon. No more Gym Battles for the day. Heck, the way he was feeling, he might just close his doors for a month. The hardest part was accepting he’d done it to himself. Things could’ve ended a lot worse for him, but it was hard to see the silver lining whilst the dark clouds were hanging over his head. He needed a drink.

. . .

Max slouched at his study desk propping up a vague expression on his palm while light rain tapped on his bedroom window. The night cast a thick blanket over Petalburg City, putting to bed his hometown on an evening he’d be putting to bed his lifelong routine of the place, too.

His rucksack lay slumped against his bed, bulging with every necessity he could think to stuff inside it, so much so he wasn’t sure it wouldn’t keel his spindly frame over when he hauled it on his back come morning. He put aside khaki cargo pants and a green t-shirt to set him off, and had purchased a pair of hi-top trainers suitable for whatever harsh and wet terrains his journey may demand of him.

Max was almost ready. Only ‘almost’ because of the little stick of technology rotating between his fingers.

What to do with the final vestige of his old life?

His unexpected run-in with the Petalburg Gym Leader only added to the conundrum. Suddenly, the footage adopted value in the way of blackmail material. The revelation had struck Norman so hard and abruptly, it left him no room to scrutinise anything Max had claimed but, knowing the shrewdness of the slimy man, it would only be a matter of time until he called Max’s bluff.

If he disposed the evidence now, he’d lose the only leverage he’d probably ever get over the powerful man with connections, the only means to stop him from slithering any closer to May.

The USB drive glinted in his spectacles while he turned it lazily in front of his computer screen. His favourite anime had become a garbling blur in the background. He dared envision the unscrupulous images sure to liven his screen should he plug in the flash drive, the images he fought so hard not to see again, the images that flashed across his mind’s eye brighter and brighter the more he tried to dim them out of memory. What would one more peek hurt?

The creak of his bedroom door sent a jolt up his spine.

“What you got over there?” came May’s unexpected voice.

He caught the flash drive from slipping out of grasp. His heart was pounding scared as though she’d somehow figured out the content on the device from her single glimpse of it. How could she have? He’d been wise enough not to inscribe ‘May’s Sex Tape’ on the little stick. Taking a breath to recover from his shock-induced paranoia, he diverted the attention from his problematic behaviour to hers. “Ever heard of knocking?”

“Your door was kind of open.”

Possibly but, “Really, May? That’s your excuse?”

While she was distracted spewing her rebuttal, he slipped the forgotten flash drive into the top drawer of his study desk. Max was relieved the interrogation was short-lived.

“Anyway,” May said, after rambling on about why it had been okay for her to invade his privacy without knocking, “Mom just called. Looked like the signal’s pretty weak where she was. She said she’d call us back in about a minute.”

The word ‘us’ stood out for Max. Mother must’ve had something very important to say if she needed both of them to hear it. He didn’t spend more than ten seconds wondering what that was before May’s Xtransceiver rang with the familiar buzz of a video call.

“Hi, sweeties!” Caroline’s zoomed-in face wore a smile stretching across the width of the screen.

“Hey, mom,” they said in unison.

“Great, you’re both here.”

“More than we can say for you,” May pointed out.

Sadness creased their mother’s brow and a heavy sigh fell from her lips. “I’m so sorry, honey. I know I promised to make you guys something special for our last night together as a family, but…” Another sigh. She zoomed out and brought the white walls of her room into view, draped with charts of pokémon anatomy and medical infographics, some of which Max recognised from the Pokémon Centres they’d spent nights in on past adventures. Darkness painted the window behind her left shoulder, though sporadic flashes of white highlighted the blobs and streams of rainwater trailing down the tinted glass. “There’s no way I’m going to make it back home in this storm.”

That much was obvious. The faint murmur of thunder had been grumbling beneath her voice since the call began.

“Damn,” Max said. “That’s a real bummer.”

“Yeah,” May added, “I was seriously looking forward to that turkey, too!”

“Mom is stranded on the other side of town and all you can think about is food?” Typical May.

“Trust me. One week on Route 104 scoffing down canned chili every day and you’re going to wish Mom could’ve fit in your backpack, especially with no Brock out there to do the cooking for you.”

She had a point. But “meh” was all the recognition Max was going to give it.

While Mom had them on video call, she showed them the scene outside her window, rain dropping like Meowth and Poochyena. Lightning flashes revealed glimpses of the street below, empty save for parked cars with their tires half-submerged in water; if the downpour continued through the night, they could be floating come morning.

Authorities advised against travelling, which left Caroline stranded in the faraway Pokémon Centre, high and dry until conditions turned kinder. She admitted regret for not having water pokémon to Surf on after witnessing several foolhardy Trainers brave their way through the storm, but Max and May reassured her they were relieved she hadn’t.

“You’re way better off safe where you are,” said the older sibling. “No need to feel guilty about it. No one could’ve seen this coming.”

Max nodded in agreement. “We’ll just hang out here another day or two until you can make it back.”

“No!” Caroline looked horrified at the idea. “You can’t do that.” She shook her head vehemently. “I know how excited you’ve both been to start your journeys tomorrow. It’s bad enough I can’t be there to say goodbye – I won’t be the one to hold you back either.”

“Come on, Mom, it won’t kill us to –”

“No, Max. I mean it.” She put on a brave face. “If conditions allow, you and your sister should set off in the morning just like you’d planned. It’s not like it’s the first time you’ll be away from home. Not like you’ll never visit, right? We can have our family dinner then. I promise I’ll make it up to you! And hey, you could even invite all the cool people and good friends you’ll meet on your adventures.” Mom smiled a hopeful smile, her optimism stretching from ear to ear. She was so desperate to appear sunny and cheerful in the rainy and bleak circumstances that it almost felt disrespectful to give any pushback. Max and May slipped into an obedient silence, a learned acceptance they could never win once she brought out her ‘Mommy knows best’ tone of voice. “Promise me?”

“Yes, Mom…” they surrendered in unison. Though neither of them wished to leave without giving her a proper goodbye, they had no choice but to respect her wishes.

“Splendid!” Caroline beamed. “You both make me so proud. My babies are practically all grown up now.” Her eyes began to quiver as she pored over the screen. “Oh my gosh, I’m not gonna…” She stopped a runaway tear from escaping with the back of her finger. “I have to go now. Goodnight. I love you both.”

“Love you too, Mom,” they said together.

As soon as the call ended, May let out a heavy sigh. “Well, that sucks.”

“Yeah,” Max said solemnly. “Guess we’re making sandwiches for dinner?”

“Orrrr… I could whip us up a mean –”

“Sandwiches it is!” Max decided. Sister dearest was a lot better at eating food than preparing it. The last thing he needed on his first day as a pokémon Trainer was a bad case of the shits.

“Heyyy!” May took offence. “Are you implying something? I know a lot of good recipes you know!”

Max tried not to scoff. “For Pokéblocks, maybe, but my stomach isn’t as strong as your Munchlax’s.”

“Pfft! When’s the last time you even tried my cooking?”

“Round about the last time I got diarrhoea.”

“Oh, come on! That was a coincidence! Doesn’t count.”

“Why are you still in my room, May? The call’s over.”

“But this discussion isn’t.” He rolled his eyes. “What exactly is wrong with my cooking, huh?”

“Forget it, May.”

But she wouldn’t. She followed him all the way downstairs and into the kitchen trying to sell him on her merits as a chef.

. . .

A couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches later, Max bid his big sister goodnight after she’d announced her retirement for the day. The big, wide world of pokémon awaited them early in the morning. While the rain drummed harder and the sporadic flashes of lightning became more frequent, the storm inflicting Petalburg hadn’t reached the state of misery holding their mother hostage. Max peeked outside the window ever so often to check the roads and nothing more than the odd puddle might make for an inconvenience come morning. All systems remained go.

Max turned off the lights downstairs and then headed up. Yawning and scratching his lower back, he stopped outside his bedroom when he noticed the door a few steps down the corridor had been left ajar. Apparently May hadn’t gone straight to bed like he’d assumed. He craned his neck to peer through her open door.

Her scarlet dress lay in a heap close to the entrance, seemingly abandoned in careless haste. If the crack of her open door was a little wider, he might’ve caught a glimpse of his sister in some state of undress. An indecent excitement coursed through his veins…

Lightning struck! A shiver-inducing bang of thunder zapped the thought out of his mind, and evoked a feminine shriek.

To Max’s surprise, the panicked cry hadn’t come from inside May’s room. Rather, on the opposite side of the hallway, warm light was glowing from under the bathroom door. The patter of rain disguised it pretty well but, listening intently now, Max could hear the patter of a running shower.

Yikes, May wasn’t exactly the brightest bulb in the bunch, but showering in the middle of a thunderstorm? Seriously, sometimes he wondered if they were really related.

Hopefully she was okay. Seconds after the flash of lightning, an echoey humming noise joined the pattering shower. She sounded pretty okay to him, merry even; her shriek must’ve been out of surprise as opposed to electrocution. Still silly of her to be in there in the first place, but alas, not even a thunderstorm could get in the way of her nightly beauty routine. Life could be funny sometimes.

Funny, like how Max, yet again, found himself in front of the bathroom door while she showered. And this time, no one else was in the house to interrupt his curiosity. Unlike before, it didn’t take aeons of inner conflict for Max to figure out what he wanted to do.

His right lens inched a millimetre away from the keyhole. One eye shut and the other bulging wide-open, he peered inside the bathroom occupied by his older sister, her naked body silhouetted in the shower curtain. She stood in the bathtub wielding the showerhead like a hose, dousing the curves of her hourglass frame, humming a carefree tune, completely unaware she could be heard, and seen.

Completely unaware she’d made her little brother instantly hard.

Max swallowed the knot of nerves in his throat. The thrill of stalking his prey, of catching them in a compromised position, of catching them with their pants down, the fire of ‘private investigating’ brewed in his belly as if he’d never snuffed it out. Old habits died hard.

Albeit, this was as new as it was old; no one was paying him to spy on his own sister, no good underlying cause informed his desire to watch her through the keyhole. Max knew he shouldn’t have been there. And yet, it wasn’t his feet that moved, but his right hand that slithered to the front of his protruding pants.

Max refused to blink, rubbed himself over his trousers. The shape of May stood out against the translucent-white of the shower curtain. She had her side facing his peephole and raised the showerhead above her so the water trickled through her cascading hair, the dripping locks hovering but an inch above her round rear. The arc of her back made her butt stick out and her large breasts protrude even further past her chin.

What a body. Was it just him or did it look womanlier every time he saw it? Whether accentuated in a little red number or silhouetted in all her nakedness, she looked grown and ripe for the taking. Watching May water her melons grew his sneaky bulge behind the door –perhaps the only barrier stopping him from doing something shameful, as if ogling his sister in the shower wasn’t shameful enough. What he wouldn’t have given to march right in there and wrench the curtain aside…

She’d probably scream. Shock and horror on her face. Probably throw her hands over her mouth. Or her arms across her chest. Whatever panic or flailing or swearing might ensue, it would probably end with him getting decked on the spot.

Sister or not, Max never made his inclinations towards any female that obvious. The probability of rejection was just too high. They would take him down and embarrass him, tear off what dangling threads of his self-confidence remained. It had happened once, and once was plenty enough to learn his place in the pecking order, to learn his limits as the gangliest, geekiest kid in class. Why else did she say no? Then ‘yes’ the next day, to the boy who sat next to him, the boy who couldn’t pass a Math test to save his life.

The fairer sex didn’t sound all that fair to him. Max learned quickly his self-esteem was their playground. But their judgement couldn’t reach him through the lens of a hidden camera, or through a monitor in a dark room miles away, or through the shield of a bathroom door.

The young voyeur clinked his glasses against the keyhole, not realising how close he’d already been to his window of depravity.

May’s nude form was like a moving work of art shaded against the canvas of shower curtain. A big lump of shadowy sideboob rolled and slipped out of her hand. She was probably lathering her bosom with soap but, for all Max could see, she might as well have been groping herself. May roamed over her breasts enough times to make Max jealous, almost as if she was taunting him, as if she knew her thorough, circular motions were the very same Max longed to enact on her abundant chest.

She made him thirsty, the back of his throat dry. At some point, Max had stopped hearing the rain, his heart drumming louder than the thunder. He couldn’t hear her humming anymore either and soon realised it was because she wasn’t.

May strayed to a region seemingly requiring her undivided attention. The showerhead lowered a short distance from her waistline and aimed its hot torrent at her nether regions, all whilst she scrubbed with her free hand. Or so it appeared. Compared to the rest of her body, this ‘scrubbing’ carried on for a suspiciously long time. From gentle beginnings, she worked herself into a frenzy, rubbing down there like she was trying to start a fire, droplets spattering from her crotch like hot sparks. Then, very softly, almost inaudible beneath the manic waterworks, came a coy grunt.

It was so faint and faraway he might’ve imagined it. Granted, the noise would’ve certainly matched the visuals. Could he really be watching her doing what it looked like she was doing?

Another grunt.

His suspicions were confirmed.

Max found himself rubbing the front of his pants with the same feverish need she ‘scrubbed’ her pussy. Sneaky, sneaky May… what’s going on in that corrupted head of yours? He doubted it was anything resembling what was going on in his. On opposite sides of the door, so too were their fantasies far apart, no matter how desperately Max wanted to merge them right there and then. She couldn’t possibly be pining for him to scratch her itch, could she?

Max dared not open the door to finding out. He let his dear sister pleasure herself in peace, as peaceful as one could look at war with their aching pussy. Her pink little clit was probably engorged with lust at this point, probably relished the hot bullets of water fired upon it from close quarters, enjoyed the two digits wiping left and right in blurred fury.

“Yes, May…” he whispered shakily under his breath, not unlike the way he’d spoken to his targets on screen. “Rub it good… real good… you dirty little…” Dirty little what? It was not like he was eyeing her in the midst of illicit passion. If anything, he was on the wrong side of the peephole this time. And still, he reached into his tightened pants, tempted to bring out what he grabbed. Would it be so bad if she saw exactly what she did to him?

He’d seen her naked so… fair was fair?

As Max wrestled with the absurd thought of exposing himself to his sister, she wrestled with an oncoming orgasm, a match she quickly lost with her loudest grunt yet. He witnessed the exact moment, too, when her silhouette twitched and became rigid for a second, before her chest slowly deflated releasing pent-up tension.

Dang it, she’d beat him to it, left him idling outside the door like a loser cradling his junk in one hand. Not only was she done masturbating, she turned off the running shower, too. His stomach jumped from a pang of fear and excitement, knowing she’d soon pull aside the curtain and reveal her nakedness in full colour and all its dripping glory. He pulled off his glasses and wiped the sweat coating his visage before putting them back on and bending down at the keyhole once more.

Dick in hand, he anticipated beating himself off to the sight of her nude body in the short time it would take for her to find her towel. If there was one thing Max never struggled to do, it was cum quickly.

No way he’d step away from the door without getting his fair share of the fun, too, even if it meant he ended in his trousers. Pants could be washed but this moment, seeing her naked for the last time, would not be so easily scrubbed from memory. The show she’d inadvertently put on for him deserved an explosive applause from his gonads.

He gulped and braced himself as she grabbed the shower curtain. Facing the door, she’d positioned herself to gift him full-frontal nudity, her breasts so fat and rotund they formed outer curves in her silhouette. His peeping eye gravitated towards her tits on instinct. Any second now, their unveiling would set him off in a fury of masturbation. He gulped again.

May pulled the curtain from the right. His eye bulged in the peephole. The veil revealed an inch of her outer breast when a bang of lightning killed the power.

In an instant, the entire house was plunged into pitch-black.

“Damnit!”

“Huh, Max…? Are you there?”

He threw a hand over his mouth. Oh, shit.

. . .

A bright light flashed on. May scrunched her face at the sudden luminosity. “Hey!” She turned from the brightness. “Don’t shine it in my eyes, numbnuts!”

“Oops, sorry!” Max averted his phone’s flashlight. “Not like I knew you were standing right on top of me.”

She huffed. The blackout put her in an irritable mood. What did she have to complain about? At least she got to finish!

Granted, he had heard her stub her toe on something whilst rummaging for her towel in the darkness. She’d emerged from the bathroom with water dotting her fresh face, and her drenched hair trickling down her bare shoulders. Max fought the urge to dip his eyes below her neckline, knowing full well the bountiful traps awaiting him in her snugly wrapped towel.

If May had any suspicions of him standing near the bathroom when the lights went out, she didn’t show it. The blackout cursed him with one hand but blessed him with the other, hiding the evidence pitching his trousers.

May sighed at their power-less predicament. “Let’s just try to get the lights back on?”

“Sounds good to me.” The sooner they moved away from the scene of the crime the less likely she’d start putting two and two together. “We’ll probably just have to reset the breaker panel.”

“Yeah, exactly. Let’s try that! Um… where’s the breaker panel again?” She laughed nervously.

“Seriously?” He wasn’t a handyman extraordinaire by any stretch of the imagination but at least he knew where the breaker panel in their own house was located. “I worry about you sometimes. Sure you’re going to be okay out there on your own?”

“Very sweet of you to worry about me,” she said in a tone devoid of any sweetness, “but I’ll be just fine. How about fixing our little situation here before casting disparaging remarks at one another, hm?”

“Already on it.” Max led the way downstairs using his phone light to illuminate the steps. The breaker panel was in the hallway along the wall lining the staircase. He opened it to a series of black toggle switches which overwhelmed May (“whoa, do you know which one to press?”). Ignoring the chirpy bird over his shoulder, he flipped the one switch lying in the opposite direction to the others, and then –

“Voila!”

The lightbulbs upstairs clicked back on.

“Yay!” May cheered. “Good going, Max.”

“Hehehe, easy-peasy.” Although, with the ongoing thunderstorm, it could only be a matter of time until they found themselves back here.

As soon as they shut the breaker panel and stepped away, a knock on the front door rattled them both. They glanced at each other and the same thought came to mind.

“Mom?!”

Like little children frightened of the dark, they raced to the living room door, already thanking whatever miracle had safeguarded her arrival. Max looked through the peephole first and the turn in his demeanour was so poignant it furrowed May’s brow.

“What is it?”

He drooped away from the door, lacking the energy to describe his disappointment.

May peered through the peephole after him and turned back with eyes full of shock. “Uh, Max… why the heck is Norman standing on our porch?”