By Cassie
A week passed by before Helena brought up the subject of the photos once more. We were both sitting downstairs watching nothing much on TV and nibbling on some popcorn. Dad was in his study and Mom had already gone to bed. Helena was sitting at one end of the sofa and I was lying back on the other end, my legs crossed over her thighs. Helena was trailing her hand lazily up and down my feet and lower legs.
“We need to talk,” said Helena, quite suddenly.
“Uh, huh,” I said, fumbling blindly at the popcorn bowl.
“I, uh, I spoke to Sasha today.”
“Sasha?” I said, not paying my sister much attention.
“Yeah, you know; the photographer. The woman we saw last week.”
“Uh, yeah. Right.”
There was a moment or two of silence.
“Well, she was telling me that the photos she took of us together have gone down a real storm.”
“Uh, huh? Cool.”
It took a few moments for my sister’s comments to sink in.
“Went down a storm?” I said, looking away from the TV to give my sister a look. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean? I thought you said these were just private pictures, to get over your weird thing for erotic photos.”
Helena squirmed a little on the sofa, and let her hand fall away from my leg. “Well, I, uh. I wasn’t exactly telling the truth,” she said, offering a lame smile.
I swung my legs off her lap and sat up. “You mean you lied to me,” I said, sitting upright.
“Cassie, no! Well, not like that. I, uh….” Helena trailed off and sat up with a sulky look. We both sat in uncomfortable silence as the TV blared on. Suddenly, Helena turned toward me and shuffled across the sofa until she could reach for my hand. She took it and I let her twine her fingers around mine.
“Cassie, I’m sorry. I should have explained. Sasha makes her money by taking pictures, and overlaying them with paints, making original artwork pieces and selling them. That’s what she did with one of our pictures. But she paints it so you can’t recognize who it is. Really.”
I humphed back at her, but let her carry on playing with my hand. “Which picture?” I said.
“The first one; of you and I in a clinch, kissing,” said Helena, smiling over at me. She squeezed my hand as she said it, as though she were pleased with it.
I waited a few more seconds, pouting and looking angry. Lena was now trailing her fingers up and down my arm, trying to placate me.
“So did she sell it?”
“Uh, huh. She made enough to pay for the costs of our photo shoot, and to invest in a little more.”
“Invest in a little more? What does that mean?”
Helena brought her hands back to mine and clasped them, being serious. “Cassie, Sasha spoke to a friend of hers who runs an erotic website. He gave Sasha space on his site to show the painting she made. She said it was so well received, the guy would pay for the original picture. Cassie, the guy said he’d pay for a whole photo shoot of just you and me. And that money would come to us!”
“We’d get paid to go on his website?” I said, screwing up my face.
“Yeah! It’d be so cool! We could take false names and do our make up and hair differently! Wear lots of clothes and really sexy lingerie!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said, pulling my hand away from hers; hating myself for not picking up on something once more. “Did you say this guy had an erotic website? Like porn?”
“Well, yeah,” said Helena, slightly offended. “Where do you think pictures of two sisters getting off together would be popular?”
“We weren’t getting off, we were—”
“Cassie, the pictures look like we’re getting off together. That’s what people want to see. That’s why it’s such a good act. Remember, I said it was only role play?”
I nodded, but remained unconvinced.
“Cassie, we could do a photo shoot for this guy next week and it would pay off our credit bills!” Helena said, taking up my hand again. I sat there, thinking about what Helena was saying, and trying to work out my answer.
“So what does this guy want; more of the same pictures? You and I hugging, play acting?” I said.
“Well,” said Helena, becoming quite cagey. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I mean, if this is what we want to do, we’ve got to work out what we’re prepared to do, right?”
“Right.”
“Okay, so there’s an opportunity for us to make money. And there’s a really big market in the adult industry for two hot sisters, right?”
“If you say so.”
“I do. So, the question is, how far are you prepared to go? As play acting?”
“I, uh… I, I don’t know,” I said.
We sat there quietly for a moment or two. I got the feeling that Helena had said the hard bit but was now facing a new challenge.
“Listen, Cassie. Let’s be honest with each other. No false modesty. We’re pretty sexy, right? As a couple of girls.”
“Okay…”
“No, I mean it, Cassie. Look at us; we’re both young, pretty and in good shape, right?”
“Well, yeah,” I said, automatically beginning a critical checklist of my physical shortcomings.
“Okay. And we’re hot, right? I mean, you are way hot in your cheerleader stuff. If I were a guy, I’d be tight in my shorts at the sight of you. I’m telling you, I would. Cassie, even as your sister, I can see how hot you are. Imagine how hot we must look to other people.”
“You think I look hot?” I said, throwing her a look.
Helena raised her eyes heavenward. “Cassie, we’ve got an opportunity to make something big out of this, but we’ve got to face facts. Guys want to see us getting it on, and we’ve got to work out what we want to do to make that difference.”
I nodded my head but didn’t say anything. On her usual impulse, Helena jumped off the sofa and grabbed some paper and a pen from the pad near the phone.
“Okay. What about this?” she said. “We both write five things that we’d do with each other as a play-acting role in a photo shoot. Make them five things from the thing you’re most comfortable with, to the thing you’d be prepared to do for a million dollars, okay?”
I looked at the excitement in her eyes and sighed. “Okay,” I said. “Give me the pad.”
“Uh-uh,” she said. “We do this separately. And read each other’s notes before talking about it again, okay? I’ll post mine under your bedroom door in ten minutes, and you slide your note back out to me. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said, suddenly amused by the thought of posting secret notes to each other, the way we used to do when we were very small. I took the pad and got up.
“Remember,” said Helena, “this is truth or dare stuff.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said, walking up the stairs to my room. I got in and closed the door. I sat down at my dresser and looked at myself in the mirror. What was I doing? Pandering to yet another of my little sister’s crazy plans. But this plan is chance to make some money, a little devil said in my ear. So let’s take it seriously. I picked up the pen and started doodling on the paper. What would be first? Well, if we’ve already done it, then I suppose it’d be the most comfortable. I wrote:
1. Hug you in a tight clinch.
I thought about what else we’d done, and thought of number two:
2. Kiss you on the lips.
I then tried to think about what would really turn guys on about seeing two sisters together, and though back to the other week when Lena came to wake me up:
3. Us rolling around naked on a bed.
I had two left, and tried to be creative and daring. What would make someone pay to see us? I remembered an old Playboy film I’d seen years ago and thought of number four:
4. Soaping each other down in the shower.
I got a writer’s block at number five; split between something very daring, and something tame. I heard a noise outside the room and saw a slip of folded paper slide underneath the door. Knowing the person my sister had so recently become, I quickly wrote:
5. Undressing each other and playing with sex toys.
Then I got up, retrieved the note and slid mine the other way. There was a whisper from the other side.
“My room. Five minutes.”
“Okay,” I whispered back. I got up off the floor and padded back to my chair. I sat down, holding my sister’s note-list in shaking hands, realizing that my heart was thumping like it would do if I’d received a love letter. I licked my lips, took a deep breath and opened the note, reading my sister’s answers.
1. Kiss you (with tongues)
2. Caress you (naked).
3. Share a strap-on with you
4. Lick your pussy
5. Finger and lick your asshole
I looked at the note, a little dumbfounded. I put it down, picked it up and read it again, then folded it carefully and put it back down. I stared at it; this inert little piece of paper sitting on my bedroom dresser that could have huge implications for my relationship with my sister. Sure, we’d always been frank with each other; even about sex — as a joke for her sixteenth birthday, I’d given Lena a vibrator; it backfired a little when she opened it in front of our grandparents. We’d talked to each other about our feelings for other people, even our wishes and desires — some of them — but this seemed like nothing we’d ever done, or shared, before. Not even close.
After a few minutes, I heard some movement outside my door, then Helena’s gentle tapping.
“I said five minutes in my room!” came the urgent whisper.
Suddenly I was angry that Lena thought I would dance to her tune this time. “Go away,” I said, loud enough for her to hear.
There was a pause and I saw Helena’s shadow move. “Hey,” came the reply, softer. “Hey, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”
Still incensed, I got up and threw open the door. “What’s wrong?!” I whispered loudly. “Am I okay?! No, I’m not okay, Helena. And how can you say, ‘What’s wrong’?”
Helena looked nervous, even apologetic. I stood there for a moment, letting her see that I was angry, then turned away and walked back to my dresser, leaving the door open. Helena let herself in and closed the door quietly. She walked over to me and stood next to my chair.
“Is it the list?” she said, as if it could have possibly been anything else. I choked back a reply, then picked up her list and held it up, still folded.
“List?” I said, shaking it at her. “This isn’t a list, Lena. This is disgusting.”
“Hey, it’s not disgusting. I said we’ve got to be honest about this, and about what we’d be prepared to do. These are boundaries that—”
“These aren’t boundaries,” I hissed. “These are sex games, Lena. Dirty sex games with each other!”
“They’re not!” Helena said, kneeling down to hold my hand. I drew it away from her. “Cassie, these are the things to show how much we trust each other. How much we could role play without hurting each other. It’s like the falling trick, right?”
Everyone knew the falling trick. As part of a group, you had one person blindfolded in the center of a circle, and got them to spin round and round until someone said, “Stop”, then you had to fall backward and trust the person to catch you. Very few people ever trusted the person behind to catch them, so never fell entirely, or without bracing themselves first. When I first did it with Helena, we were just into our teens and in summer camp. We never let each other fall. Not ever.
“It’s about trust, Cassie,” repeated Helena. “I wouldn’t trust anyone else to do these things with me in front of a camera but you. And I would never do anything to hurt you either. You do believe me, don’t you?”
Despite my anger, I nodded. But I was drawn back to the list my sister had written. I held it up again. “Licking my ass? Sharing a strap-on?”
“Sure. I wouldn’t trust anything that had been inside anyone else.”
I shook my head, not understanding. “Kissing? With tongues?”
Helena rolled her eyes and smiled. “That’s easy,” she said. “Actors do that. You can make it look real without it being like a kiss with your boyfriend. You kiss the other person’s lower lip, then lick it as you pull away.” I gave her a look of suspicion, but Helena rolled her eyes at me. “Cassie, some of that stuff is third-grade drama teaching. But you can tell the difference, you know. That’s why real actors use role play, not bad techniques, to make it look real. I mean, if I were going to kiss you, and make it look real, I’d actually want to kiss you, tongues and everything. Doing it fake would make it look fake.”
“So you use role play,” I said.
“Exactly!”
“And how does this work?”
“Well,” said Helena, moving away from me to sit on the edge of my bed, “I’ve been thinking about this. As far as I can see, there’s three ways it could work. If we both want to take this forward and get something out of it for ourselves.”
She sat for a moment, collecting her thoughts, then ticked off one finger with the other hand.
“First way — and these aren’t in order of preference, or anything, just in case you ask — is to do it the fake way. We stage manage each photo shoot, each individual photo, to make it look as though the two of us are in erotic positions together. I don’t think that will work, as I’ve already said.
“Two,” Helena ticked off another finger, “is to use role play and work ourselves into positions where we can interact naturally in front of the camera. We can use blindfolds, alcohol or all kinds of ways to give each other a different personality if we’re going to do sexual play together.”
I winced at the term “sexual play,” but tried not to let it show.
“Three. And this is something quite different. Three is that we have fun naturally.”
There was a pause as I waited for further explanation. It didn’t seem to be coming.
“Naturally?”
“Yeah. Like we just have sex with each other because we like it and because we trust each other.”
“Right.”
“Hey, you wanted my opinion, sis.”
“Yeah, I know. They all sound a bit weird to me.”
“Of course they do. But that’s the fascination of seeing two sisters together.” Lena got up, all of a sudden. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”
I took my sister’s hand and followed her out into the hall, then into her room. I sat on Lena’s bed while she fired up her computer. While it waited to warm up, I glanced around me and noticed that Helena had a framed picture of us in our cheerleader outfits beside her bed. I smiled, then saw that there was something smudging the glass and went to pick it up. I stopped myself as I recognized what the smudge was. A perfect lipstick kiss, right between the two of us. Why would Helena kiss our picture?
“Okay, here it is,” said Helena, double-clicking on her mouse. I got up, leaving the picture alone, and walked over to her desk, kneeling on the floor beside her.
“Here’s what I’m talking about with fake,” she said, pressing the “play” icon on her desktop. A new window fired up and a video appeared of two red-haired twin sisters undressing each other in a bedroom. The two smiled and giggled at each other, drawing fingertips over each other’s arms and shoulders as they undressed. At one point the two leaned together and kissed very lightly on the lips. The clip ended, and Lena clicked into a new electronic folder.
“Okay now look at this,” she clicked another “play” icon and let the video run. A window sprung up and I saw a slightly more grainy video start with two different twin sisters, both with identical long dark hair, walk into a motel room and close the door. Almost immediately, they closed in for a very intimate embrace. They kissed for a minute or two, not holding back at all, and then moved onto the bed. The camera zoomed in to the two of them kissing again, then panned down and stayed on the shot of one twin reaching into the panties of the other, moving her fingers around as her sister moaned. I was fascinated, and slightly annoyed when Helena clicked the mouse and the scene jumped.
“Watch this bit,” she said, sitting back. The image jumped to the two sisters, fully naked on the bed, with one crawling up the other’s body to kneel over her sister’s face. The one underneath began to use her tongue between her sister’s legs, licking her pussy and playing with her ass at the same time.
I looked away, realizing that my heart was beating faster than it ought to. “Jeez, Lena. I didn’t know you were into this kind of stuff,” I said.
Helena turned off the computer and looked at me. “Cassie, I wanted to show you the difference. Those first two girls only did that video. No one wanted a sequel. But that second one. That second one had thousands of hit on its website within the first couple of weeks. Hundreds of thousands. All pay-per-view. See the difference?”
I nodded, my head reeling with images of the videos I’d just seen, of my sister’s picture of us with a lipstick kiss on it, of the two of us being photographed together. Having lesbian sex.
“I, uh, I need to think about this,” I said, getting up. I walked to the door but Helena stopped me and turned me to face her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, closing in for a hug.
“What for?” I said, my voice muffled by her blonde hair.
“For upsetting you,” she said, running her hands up and down my back. “If you want to forget about all this, just forget it. It’s no biggie.”
We stepped apart and Helena smiled at me. I smiled back.
“Love you,” she said.
“You too,” I replied. I turned and left, went back into my room and went to bed. Surprisingly, I slept well.
Continue on to Chapter 3
Looking forward to the next chapter!