Am I one day late? :D
Here's to you the second part of Showdown. The playlist continues. Guys need to talk and far it be from me to make them wait.
Chapter 20 – Showdown (2 of FOUR)
Part 4 – Kiss
November is a kooky month. It already looks like winter but it can effortlessly trick you with a halo of springtime on its best sunny days.
The sun was setting and oblique sunrays cut through the nude trees of the neighbourhood. It was such a beautiful afternoon! So clear, limpid and bright. The air chillness was still stingy but it was nothing a good hoodie – like the one Chris was wearing – couldn't screen.
Propped against the wooden column that sustained the indigo slate porch's roof, the big boy absently puffed his cigarette, intently staring at some vague point in the neighbour's garden past the street with a poorly feigned interest.
With the front door shutting behind himself, Leon cupped his hands before his mouth and struck the sparkwheel of his zippo to light a cigarette. While sucking in to ignite the combustion, Leon looked at his friend. Even from behind he could read his deep thinking. Leon stalked to the other column and joined Chris's silent staring. He rested his shoulder against it and pretended to be counting the cognac fallen leaves sticking out of the front lawn's viridity.
The porch had just embellished itself of two new handsome Caryatids.
Temporarily averting his eyes from the messy autumnal ground, Leon side glanced at Chris. He knew that thoughtful gaze of him and he knew it was all just about giving him the time he needed. He only had to be there and wait.
Likewise, Chris was aware there was a truckload of things that needed to be talked out between them and he didn't feel like postponing it – albeit he didn't feel like talking either. He imagined the amount of questions that stormed in Leon's mind and he knew he was incapable of stopping them. He somehow had foreseen the conversation coming on as bound to happen in the very moment his friends had sat their asses on his couch.
The sooner, the better.
"If you're wondering, I'm the one you kissed on my veranda." Chris rumbled and went straight to the sore point, before taking a deep drag to replace all the breath in his lungs with as much smoke as he could. Nicotine. Nicotine. Nicotine.
Leon ducked his head and snorted.
He had already guessed that but to hear it from Chris's very lips and voice… it was so insane! That kiss – if it can even be called that way – was unforgettable. But not as he wished. Not as a kiss with Claire would surely be. Actually what was arrogantly vivid in his mind, wasn't the softness of her lips or the scent of her skin, rather it was the memory of Clai-… well, Chris's glare through Claire's eyes. No wonder the fake girl had wished to kill him on the spot 'cause it was no girl at all!
Although… there was a detail he couldn't manage to get. The last puzzle piece.
"Why did you look at me that way though?"
Chris huffed out a rough chuckle. "Dang, Leon! How was I supposed to look at you?! I was my sister and my fucking best friend had just kissed... us!"
"I didn't mean that look, dumbass!" Leon tittered. "But the one before I kissed you."
Chris was confused. He failed to recall the detail his friend was referring to, so Leon briefly described the intensity that had spurted out Claire's blue eyes and he swore he had read flaming desire in it. "Otherwise I'd have never dared to kiss your sister, you know it! I believed she was just shy or so… but now it turns out it was you and I don't know what to think!"
Chris side-glanced at him and burst out in a hearty laugh. He had to hold his chest for how hard he laughed.
In front of the offended scowl on Leon's face for that lack of tact and disrespect towards his feelings, Chris eventually apologetically shook his head and, with the pad of his thumb, he wiped away the tiny tears his outburst had smeared through his dark eyelashes. "Keep your shirt on, Kennedy! You're not my kind, you lecher!"
"Uff, you know I don't think you're gay, Chris!" Leon eyerolled. "I'm just confused and I wanna know if I was seeing things."
"You weren't hallucinating. I think I really might've looked at you... uhm... in need...?" Chris grimaced. "You had a fucking cigarette tucked in your mouth and I hadn't touched one in days!" He slyly gruffed.
Leon took a drag and chuckled in self-pity. Not only Claire had never really kissed him, but not even her mere body had looked at him in want! Was in the world a girl more impossible to get? "Christ. I'm a dweeb even with fake girls!"
"No, my friend, you're not." Chris mumbled, assuming a serious expression. He turned to face him and slanted his back against the column, planting one foot on the lower step for balance. "You are a nice guy. Okay, I wanted to punch the shit out of you back then, not gonna lie 'bout that... but I gotta admit you were a true gentleman." He continued, pushing his renewed jealousy aside for a moment. "To you, that girl was Claire and your respectful apology is all I need to remember to know you are one of a kind. Had she really been there with you on that day, I could've never hoped for a better dude for her to turn down." He concluded, with a sly smirk, just not to be overdramatic.
"Oh thanks!... I think." Leon giggled. Not even in a hypothesis the sister-rule could be broken. "God… I fucking literally flirted with danger that day!" he snorted. "Phew! Now I really can't believe I survived a kiss to you inside your sister!"
Indeed, Leon had gone down in history that day in the veranda. He had succeeded into getting Chris to the ultimate stage of destructive wrath with the combo brotherly jealousy plus homosexual shock!
"You're welcome." Chris sassed.
"Kudos to your self-control." Leon deadpanned, and hooked the butt of his cigarette between his lips just that enough to suck a long puff.
"Don't thank me. Thank Claire instead. If I never freaked out it was only for her sake." Chris muttered, trying to muffle the rising memory of Wesker's harassment with a keenly inhaled drag of smoke. Nicotine!
"Does that count as a near-death experience?" Leon joked.
"Well… considering how bad I wanted to erase you from the planet, yes." Chris laughed.
Leon snorted derisively. "Then I guess it goes straight up into my resume."
Chris blew out a hoarse laugh.
"Oh, it's such a pity I can't tell Piers I kissed you!" Leon laughed, flicking the cigarette to shake off the ash. "He kinda ships us together!"
Chris cackled and commented Nivans' twisted imagination and his eagerness to acquire a new cousin apparently, but the mention of him, suddenly brought back the memory of another weird event that had involved fake Chris and Leon.
"Wait a moment…" Leon gushed, waving a pensive hand to unravel his sudden discovery. "So Claire was you at Carlos's! AHAHAH! Now all that passion makes fucking sense! Man, that stool was on fire!"
Among his amused laughs, Leon couldn't help but inwardly quirk a brow at the memory of that scene and at the other time he had discussed about it with the real Chris down in the RPD. Apparently, the only way to survive a kiss with the real Claire was to be as gay as Piers, since any other kind of guy was purely a threat to neutralize and keep away, at least in Chris's opinion. But Leon wasn't sure he wouldn't have traded his heterosexuality for a hot necking with Claire like the one he had witnessed. If she moved, moaned and touched as hotly as fake Chris had done in front of him… Leon pushed away those kinky thoughts with another drag before they could be read on his face.
"Yeah… Claire was wasted as fuck and… well, still not so expert of boners!" Chris matter-of-factly observed, noticing too late how his answer was diverting the discussion towards... dangerously pervy subjects. The last thing he wanted was Leon wondering about everything concerning sex in a sibling's body. But it was too late.
"Why? Is she now?" Leon naively asked in the spur of the moment, before really realizing he had indirectly asked Chris about his sister's sexuality and bit his tongue for it.
That candid question, although it subtended a legit curiosity, rocked Chris back on his heels.
The most logical thing – that would've aroused fewer suspicions – was to simply glare at his friend and grumble to watch his tongue when talking about his sister like that. In other words, he had just to act like the usual douche-brother-Chris and the thing would've passed unnoticed. Leon would've thought that Chris preferred to ignore what his sister had done with his body and he'd have changed subject.
It was linear. Mathematical. Infallible.
Conversely though, Chris was anything but rational. Then again the typical panic of who has a guilty conscience, assaulted him and compelled him to babble a cacophony of nonsensical sounds, the most intelligible that came out his mouth was only his repetitive clearing of his throat. He desperately looked away as if the answer would magically sprout from the lawn. He was at his very wits' end.
Leon was rather surprised by that sudden outburst of embarrassment and he swore he saw Chris being in a cold sweat.
He ought to have thought about it. Until that moment, Leon hadn't considered the strictly physical aspect of all that story. He had been so worried about his friends' mental health that he simply neglected to consider that both had had the possibility – if not the necessity – to watch each other's nude body. No wonder they'd have explored that nudity. Leon himself was fairly sure that he'd have glanced down on himself as well, albeit the thought of observing the wholly naked hypothetical sister he hadn't, made him cringe at the very least. But until it happens to you…
"Sorry, buddy." Leon briskly apologised. "I didn't mean to upset you. My bad."
Chris had to say something. Anything. Absolutely.
Think fast, Redfield!
He fumbled for words a little before he had a stroke of genius. It'd have required all his best acting skills. He couldn't hide his embarrassment anymore, but he didn't need to, maybe it would even make his play more credible. He reckoned that avoiding the matter wasn't the smartest move – especially when you have to protect a secret that instead is all about that matter.
Instead, if he proved Leon that he was fine even with the most twisted sides of that mishap, his friend wouldn't have questioned it as he couldn't really understand how it feels. Chris only had to play it cool and shift the focus on the most physiological aspects. After all, erection isn't necessarily synonymous to masturbation. He only had to make him believe the only boners Claire had had to deal with were simply natural, involuntary morning woods.
Let the show begin.
Chris laughed it out a little and covered his face with a hand, feigning to be amused beside embarrassed. "It's just so crazy! You know?" he giggled, with a strangest, wide, bashful smile, that brightened his face, softening his features into an enticing expression. "To talk to you about my sister's penis! It's so damn twisted!"
Leon joined him in the laughter and shook his head. "It's crazy that you lent her yours!"
"It is!" Chris exclaimed. "It was hard for her to learn how to deal with it at first. You know how cocks work after all. Especially in the morning." Chris continued, playing his role masterfully. "And mine didn't stop working only because she was inside my body! Just like her uterus did."
Leon awed under his breath. Uterus! Damnit, it was still so hard to metabolize that Chris had been a girl for real to consider that it involved everything girls normally experience. "Jesus..." He gushed lowly. "You had periods." He observed.
"Yeah. Twice!" Chris bemoaned, happy to talk about something else.
"How's it?" Leon asked, suddenly a slight blush popped over his cheeks as if he was asking a real girl about her menstruation.
"It's insane, man!" Chris breathed wide-eyed, not pretending anymore. He poked his temples and widened his eyes as to look for some clever way to describe what womanhood is like, but he failed. "It's some very crazy shit! Girls must have some guts to survive that every damn month! It's like living in a splatter movie for four days straight."
Leon raised his eyebrows and blinked in horror. Chris dealing with female hormones must've been a real threat.
"I mean, I know it's the most… natural of things, it's life, but…" Chris continued, suddenly unwilling to stop talking about it. "…but it's so strange! And it hurts. Jesus Christ if it fucking hurts!"
Leon listened in silence. Frowning. For some reason.
Lastly, he tilted his head back until his nape rested against the column, closing his eyes under furrowed brows. His mild Adam's apple jumped as he gulped down sad thoughts.
Relishing in the successful move, Chris peeled off the other slim white pillar and sat down on the first of the few steps that faced his front door and waved at his friend to take a seat as well. They simply sat in silence for a while and smoked their cigarettes, each one lost in their own thoughts.
Leon quickly forgot about those last bloody observations and took his mind back at Claire. He just couldn't push away the thought that she had never turned him down for real. It had been Chris to vicariously do it for her. And that didn't mean she'd have done the same… even though… she'd never showed any sign of interest towards him either. Maybe it was just the emotion of the moment that impelled him to wonder but what if…?
Leon cursed.
Why was she now back to haunt him? Just leave me be. Claire.
Chris, instead, was sinking in an unfamiliar feeling. He'd approached it cautiously, tasting the waters at first, then taking stock of how it affected him, to lastly let it embrace him and cradle him. Having someone to talk about that hellish absurdity was strangely comforting and restoring and it made him yearn for more. Hell, how many were the chances that being sussed out would eventually come in handy? Maybe he and Claire were finally turning the corner!
Chris blew out a puff and watched it briefly ascend to the sky before dissipating. Yeah, he thought, maybe that saying is true… maybe really every cloud has a silver lining.
Part 5 – Can't get you out of my head
Meanwhile, in the living room, the girls had carefully listened to Claire's story by her point of view. Finally all those oddities had found an explanation!
Sitting on the couch facing the broad windows that flooded the living room with abundant daylight, they were entangled in a huge warm hug. It was hard to tell where one's leg ended and the other's calf started, or whose feet were those, as intertwined as they were. Only a bottle of nail polish and some hair curlers were missing, otherwise it was a perfect sample of a female friendship bonding scene from a whatever teen movie. Only the mirth of their girlish chatters broke the quietude of the house as Claire's parents had gone outside in the backyard.
Claire couldn't hug them enough. With an arm looped around Jill's waist and the other hand laced with Rebecca's, she dispensed smiles full of happiness and bubbling giggles all around between a tiny shed tear and a joke.
"That's why you always stared at girls' butts!" Rebecca chortled.
"Or at Sheva's tits." Jill pointedly added.
"Yeah… Chris is such a perv!" Claire joked.
"Moira had begun to hope you'd go for another wild ride with her." Jill tongue-in-cheek commented.
"Oh, now even that time you turned down that hunky hottie makes sense!" Rebecca continued.
"Yeah… Chris is such a straight guy! Poor thing." Claire giggled.
Chris was such a lot of things, allegedly.
The warmth of their company had totally pushed away the disgusting memory of the filthy hands that pig of Wesker had laid on her back in the morning, that Chris's cuddles had already managed to mollify. Claire was on cloud nine. Nothing like human touch could make her feel so good, regardless of who was the human, whether her brother or her girls. She was so unwinding in her nirvana of cuddles that she felt comfortable enough to reveal a little secret.
"You know, girls… as we're in the mood for opening up, now I can tell you a thing." Claire said. "When you believed that Chris was checking on a girl at school… well, I was staring at the real Chris. Sorry Jill. Sorry not sorry Ash!"
"No biggie." Jill replied, once and for all obtaining the official confirmation to have been right all the time about the fact that Chris wasn't even slightly thinking about her. A fairly petty satisfaction that left her with a sour taste in her mouth.
"It was just to find the strength to go on and to check if he was alright… then it became a habit." Claire remembered, growing emotional as she spoke. "It helped me. It became the only reason I got to drag me through the morning. Those few minutes of… of… us."
Jill gulped down a gasp. Suddenly, a veil fell off her eyes and she figured out the real, wider implications of all that story.
Chris, the real one, had been with them… all, the, darn, time.
He was there, right next to them, while they all commented "the Chris", "the body", "the shoulders", "the eyes", "the measures"… he was there while they all bickered over who was the lucky damsel he had set his sights on… he was there even that time fake Claire had smirked at her when she – no wait – he had caught her staring at "the ass". Jill's eyelids clenched as to hold back the small dignity that still remained her. Chris knew. And she was in his very house and it right away became the most awkward afternoon of her life.
"Okey dokey, sweetie. I get it." Rebecca smiled, resuming her customary smart attitude. "Fake Chris had her reasons to watch, and I'm glad it was of some use to you. But! But there's a but!"
"But what?" Claire asked.
"But your Daddy said he fixed the shit like two weeks ago!" Rebecca observed, totally not inclined to give up and accept that discredit so easily. "And I clearly remember Chris staring at our table until yesterday!"
"Well, if he keeps doing it he has his reasons to, but trust me, it's not what you think." Claire muttered, defensively.
"He can't just have inherited the habit. It's illogical." Rebecca concluded, unaffected by Claire's miserable defence. "So stop covering his ass, darling!"
"Can we just leave him alone?" A heating up Claire yelled. "He's still too… hell, I don't even know how he's! But I can bet my life on it that he's not looking for any romance right now!" She uttered, without really getting the gist of her own words. She was right, Chris wasn't looking for a girl, he was looking at the girl. His girl.
"Maybe he's just grown fond of someone while he's been with us!" Rebecca insisted, although softening her impetuous enthusiasm.
Those words were ignored by Claire as she exasperatedly waved a dismissive hand and surrendered, determined to do not give any more shit about their stupid theories from now on. If they wanted to be disappointed by a useless waiting for the absolute nothing, she'd have let them be.
Simultaneously though, those words were just another thing to gulp down for the unfortunate Valentine. A sigh this time. Her blank face managed to hide the… something… that rose within her. What if Rebecca was right? What if Chris had grown fond of one of the girls while he was so close with them? Like a thunder, a bunch of words resonated in her skull. "What if I want you to kiss instead?". What was that supposed to mean now if Chris knew about her… her! Had it been "just a game" like he said? Had he meant to make a move on her? Or had he used her to test some other girl's reaction? What if the damsel was Ashley? Guys love the blondes after all. And the bitch was even a natural blonde!
"Yeah… maybe Ashley got to impress him with all those squeals." Jill joked, more to reassure herself than to alleviate the tone of the conversation.
"Tsk! Ashley couldn't impress him not even if she turned into a stamp!" Becky sassed.
"Sorry to prick the bubble but…" Claire murmured, failing her previous determination but willing to put an end on that totally out of place bullshit. "Chris actually looks at me."
"Why on Earth…? If now everything's fine why should he even continue to do what you did when you were him? That doesn't make any sense!"
Claire's eyes saddened incredibly, she scraped her ear and began flicking her earlobe in worry. Was she strong enough to say it? "Because everything is not just fine." Allegedly, she was.
"What do you mean?" Jill asked in concern with a softest whisper. "You seem the same old Claire now!"
Claire shifted a little upwards in Jill's arms and took a deep breath. Again, to mentally relive their anguish was overwhelming her, she wanted to run away from that conversation. But she resisted. After all, the girls already knew the cause of her suffering… why shouldn't she confide them the consequences – at least the confessable ones. There were too many thorns pricking her heart and to unplug one or two would certainly do her no harm.
"We're still licking our wounds, I think." Claire despondently mumbled, wringing her hands. "Mommy says we need time to overcome the trauma… And to know the other is fine is just so helpful. Chris just needs me. Just as much as I need him."
A shaky sigh strangled those last words of her, and it blurred into the silence they shared for some moments.
Both Jill and Rebecca wanted to continue investigating their friend's sorrow to see if they could help anyhow but, eventually they preferred to divert the conversation to lighter matters. They couldn't push it too much. Claire had endured enough stress so far. They'll talk it out when she'll be ready.
In the turns of a few minutes, Claire had regained her bright smile while commenting how hanging out with Chris's gang was fun or how lame were Carlos's antics sometimes – but he was so perfect for Sheva, "they're so cute together!". She narrated many details and anecdotes about each boy, not without some kind of nostalgia in her words. In spite of how hard had been to pretend all the time, she had grown fond of them alike Chris had of the girls. But speaking of guys… it naturally shifted the conversation towards one guy. The guy. And Claire didn't see it coming. Poor thing.
"Now, there's just one more thing I want to know by you, Claire." Rebecca said, lowering the tone of the conversation to a very solemn one.
"I'm all ears." Claire innocently smiled, resting her head on Jill's shoulder.
Rebecca took a deep breath and looked at her dead in the eyes. "Why didn't you tell me that Leon kissed you?"
The dopey grin on Claire's face gradually dissolved until only a faint grimace still pursed her lips. She ought to have expected that Rebecca knew about the infamous kiss by then and that she'd ask her to make her case for her own actions.
"Because Leon never kissed me." She replied.
"Chris seemed pretty clear on Friday night. Leon kissed you in the veranda." Rebecca retorted, by no means approving what it appeared to her to be just one last senseless and desperate attempt to deny the truth. "And Leon confirmed me everything so, darling, don't you lie at my face." She smarmily smiled.
"I'm not lying. Leon kissed Chris." Claire said, returning the malicious grin and laughed along with Jill.
Rebecca wished to join their amused banters but she was still doubtful.
Claire hoped that revelation would have finally appeased the girl's jealousy but, instead, she had actually misunderstood he friend's chagrin. Rebecca couldn't care less if Claire knew or not what it feels like to kiss Leon. It wasn't about jealousy. It was about sincerity.
"Well, I'm happy for Chris." Rebecca said crossing her arms, not lightening her serious tone. "But Leon kissed Claire. And you knew about it."
"It doesn't seem it turned out bad for you, Becky. Ok, he kissed Claire in the veranda, fine, you got a point on that! But he kissed you in the pantry!" Claire lamely observed to defend herself.
"Claire, you should've told me."
"How?! I wasn't even me!" Claire exclaimed, exasperation edging her voice. "How could ever Christopher Redfield come to you and tell you that the crush he wasn't even supposed to know you have had just kissed the sister he's so jealous of? How could I ever make it sound normal?!"
"Oh, I'm sure you could find a way to tell me the truth if only you wished! You could do it that day in the hallway, for instance, when you were again yourself!" Rebecca retorted.
"Enough!" Claire yelled, raising her palms nervously. "It was already so fucking hard to lie every day to everyone, mirror included! Not even placating Chris and his shitty jealousy was easy when that fucktard decided to make a move on me! Chris made a scene for something I didn't even take part in!" Claire barked, while the quivering in her voice rose to a cry-broken stutter. "What did you expect me to do? You wanted me to break your heart? Well, sorry Becky! I just preferred to leave all that shit behind and forget and spare you a useless heartbreak!"
Claire's lips were shaking as she gulped down her jitters, her teary eyes glimmered flickeringly. Her best friend was accusing her for a stupid little mistake when she had always put Rebecca first, ignoring how much she was attracted by Leon as well! She had even felt so damn guilty when she orgasmed to Leon while mating with Moira – like two years ago! – as though she was cheating on Becky or something when, instead, she owed her absolutely nothing! Nevertheless, Claire had always repeated herself that he was Rebecca's crush and she better not think about him even if he was such a catch. And she hadn't. Never. All that grudge now was really undeserved!
As two big tears threatened to run down Claire's cheeks, Rebecca leaned forward and held her tight. "Sorry, my friend."
"No, I am sorry." Claire sobbed. "I didn't want any of this to happen and if I messed it up... it's 'cause I wasn't ready."
"How could you ever be?" Becky whispered.
They hugged tightly. Jill's arms sealed that emotional reconciliation by enveloping both and cradling them sweetly.
"Leon's not a fucktard. I didn't mean it." Claire apologised at last. He's an angel.
Part 6 – What it feels like for a girl
"C'mon, ask me anything." Chris incited, leaning forward on the step he was sitting on and rested the elbows on his knees. Now that boners, vaginas, nudity issues in general had already been tackled and put off, he felt more comfortable in talking about the body switch and God knows how much he needed it!
"Ask you what? I don't even know where to start." Leon said, shaking his head. He leaned back on his palms and reclined his neck as to sunbath. The questions that had worried his mind for the past three days were so many that now clogged his brain. "If you were in my shoes, what would you ask me?"
Chris forced a laugh and his imagination.
If his friend would've ever confessed to him he had been for a freaking whole month inside the body of a girl, the first thing he'd have asked would've been how it feels to have boobies. But that's what the old Chris would've asked before he experienced the answer on his very own skin. Today Chris instead would rather ask if the boobies felt swollen during periods, if menstrual cramps assaulted only his lower belly or also reverberated through his backbone, or how he preferred to stimulate the clitoris, how often did he had to wax, how he'd deal with clumpy mascara, which bra cup size he wore and how damn much he hated it on a scale of one to Vickers.
"I'm tired of walking in someone else's shoes." Chris lastly sighed, blowing out an evanescent cloud of smoke.
Leon nodded. "No shit. I reckon it wasn't easy to be a girl for all that time."
"It wasn't easy being Claire." Chris despondently said, although a rising sense of sweetness mollified his voice.
It wasn't easy being that thinner and shorter, neither it was being so incredibly delicate and feminine or so upset and emotional when blood dripped out his vagina. Nor it was pretending to reason like a girl, or to discover all the most intimate dirty little secrets Claire had kept from him. It wasn't easy to talk with her about masturbation and to pretend it was just alright if she jerked off with his penis. It wasn't easy to part from her every day at the bus stop to face a brand-new school day of pure angst.
Finally he could look at those memories as something that belonged to the past and this heartened him a little, although the pain still lingered in there. "It wasn't easy watching her suffer so bad every day. Nothing was easy."
"I see… It wasn't easy watching you suffer either." Leon sighed, joining Chris's sad meditation.
Now that he knew it had been Claire, every remembrance of a downcast look on fake Chris's face, of a panicked gaze, of a stuttered word, of a sigh of exasperation, of a pained nod, it all stung sharply his heart with sorrow. Although… alongside those hurtful visions, a heart-warming thought aroused in his chest and Leon was caught in the middle of despising it and cherishing it. He remembered real Claire reaching out for his hand and grabbing it tightly during that panic attack on the balcony. She had needed him. That meant she relied on him and she had sought relief in his embrace – perhaps she'd even found solace in the end. She did consider him. It had been the closest he had really gotten with her. And now he replayed that scene in his mind over and over again, restlessly.
"I felt so useless." Chris sighed.
"Welcome to the club."
"I wanted to help her, Leon. You know how damn much I wanted it but I couldn't even help myself."
"How is she now?" Leon asked, sincerely concerned. To have a better look at his face as he answered he leaned onwards, emulating Chris's same posture but, after tucking his cigarette between his lips, he crossed his hands instead of letting them dangle freely as the other boy did. Everything about Leon's gestures was simply so comforting.
"Better." Chris replied and after a pensive pause he added "apparently it's not easy to return to normality either. She still has her moments… but I'm taking care of her all the time."
Leon smiled, took a drag and sighed. "I never doubted you would. Not even when I told the fake you to get your shit together for her, back at Kevin's." He took another drag. "She promised, you're keeping the word."
Chris stretched a smile. "Claire always refused to tell me what happened back then, you know? She'd always brush over that you were a really good friend and nothing more. And I couldn't ask you overtly." Chris murmured. "She panicked, didn't she?"
Leon closed his eyes. "Yes." Three hurtful letters. "Had you panic attacks too?"
"No." Chris reassured. "Guess she looked after me better than I did to her."
"I'm sure you did your best, Chris. She seems so fine now." Leon said. "What 'bout you?"
Chris wasn't ready for that question. He didn't know what to say. Perhaps he didn't even know how he was. He couldn't deny he was still having some shocking nightmares but he couldn't neither admit that half of his worries derived from the apprehension of hiding the crime he was committing since a dozen of days – dammit, now that he knew some of his friends were ready to violate the law to discover the truth, his anxieties had suddenly triplicated. But anxious was only half of the answer. He was also in love, head over heels in love and it elated him immensely. He lived every day just to see her smile and to relish in her kisses. His whole life now orbited around her, more than it ever did. She was the only star to brighten his days. The only guide in his darkest nights and he'd let her lead him anywhere, blindly, like a sailor to the North star. Chris's vocabulary didn't include a word able to define such an inner contrast of feelings. Thus, he simply dodged the question with a shrug albeit without lying. "Dunno, buddy."
"Well, Chris. Call me when you'll know, ok?" Leon said. "Now you got no more reasons to keep your sorrow a secret. Promise me you'll reach out if you'll need help."
"I promise." Chris muttered, certainly not foreseeing the implications of such an oath. He was too overwhelmed with the sorrowful memories of Claire suffering now and he needed a break from all that. Hence, he rested a sound pat on Leon's shoulder and changed the subject. "Enough about me. It's your turn now. You and Rebecca seem to be hitting it off, don't you?"
Leon coyly smiled and accepted his choice to divert the discussion, he reckoned he had worried his serenity too much. "Yeah, she's nice!"
"She likes you. A lot." Chris stated, becoming serious. "Trust me. She's yours."
Part 7 – Dirty Little Secret
"Are you telling me you really saw Chris naked?!" Jill asked, looking at Claire utterly astonished.
"Envious?" Rebecca insinuated, prodding Jill's side with her toe.
"The alternative was stinking as shit." Claire bluntly shrugged.
"And how was it?" Jill questioned.
"Woah, the girl wants details!" Rebecca exclaimed.
Jill's only answer was an annoyed eyeroll, nevertheless she continued staring at Claire in expectation. Her curiosity was far beyond the spicy details about the physique of that god-like beefcake of Chris – albeit she was super curious about it too. It doesn't happen every day that a woman can tell she's been inside a man's body, actually, Jill was fairly sure it had never happened before in the whole world since the Big Bang! She wanted to know everything, obviously!
"It was pretty hard and embarrassing at the beginning. And awkward. So awkward!" Claire began recounting, her blue irises shuttling from a spot to another as she tried to collect memories and make order in her feelings. "The first time I showered I kept my eyes closed all the time! But it was useless. I couldn't… uh… escape the feeling of it…"
Rebecca hardly curbed a cackle but she urged the redhaired to go on and get it all off her chest regardless of her funny reactions.
"As time goes by you get used to it eventually." Claire continued. A sweetest smile bloomed on her face as she thought of all the wise, tender, lovely words Chris had told her weeks before. "Chris used to say it was my body now and I oughtn't to feel uneasy in it. And he was right. In the end, showering was easy-peasy. And I felt ever so comfortable inside him, at least when home. Oh, I'll miss his brawns! I even lifted my real body, you know? Like it weighed nothing! That was incredible! Damn... I'll miss even peeing standing up!" she enthused.
"And… did you… did you ever play with… uhm…" Rebecca stammered, maliciously mimicking something dangling with the hands.
Claire couldn't hold back an luscious grin. Thus she covered her face with her hands and giggled. Oh, if only they knew! They had no effin' clue!
"Oh my God, Claire!" Jill shouted, awestruck. "You jerked off-"
"Shhh! I don't want my parents to know I touch myself!" Claire said, looking around to check the adults weren't nearby.
"But he is your brother!" Jill gushed in a chiding manner.
"Jill's right… I mean, it's Chris's penis." Rebecca agreed. "That's gross."
"Oh, c'mon girls! Don't you come telling me you wouldn't do the same if you had the chance!" Claire protested.
"You're right." Rebecca mumbled, absently staring at the ceiling while she mentally tried to get inside a man's body. "Yeah. I'd totally touch my penis all day. Nonstop. What does it feel like?"
Claire curled even deeper in Jill's hug and, closing her eyes to recall, she moaned through her nose. "It feels so good."
Jill was perplexed.
While Claire meticulously described the feeling an erected penis gives a man, or how masturbating as a boy required a little more… organization – unless you accepted the risk to stain clothes and spray semen all around – or, lastly, how doing it in the shower was the best option, Jill couldn't get it out of her head that it was her brother's penis they were talking about. Alright, the girls had always commented Chris's sturdiness and wondered about what laid inside his boxer-briefs even in front of Claire, but that was a whole different thing! Now Claire was saying she had had her brother's dick in her very hands and had drained pleasure from it, like he would do, stroking it, whacking it, spilling it. That was sick. Jill's perplexity was plainly showing on her face.
"Jill? Are you still with us?" Rebecca asked, waving a hand before Jill's grey eyes to draw her back from la-la-land. "Fine, we lost her!" She stated addressing Claire.
"Maybe thinking about Chris mother-naked and wet is getting her wet too!" Claire joked, kissing Jill's cheek affectionately.
"Are you wet, Jill?" Rebecca insisted. "Are you ovulating? Are you feeling hot? You want some dick? Wanna date him? Ask him out!"
"Easy, girls. My hormones are under control." Jill replied, breaking her thoughtful silence and giving them a pointed look. "But I really can't understand how you can be so outspoken about whacking your brother's dick."
Claire shrugged. "I told you. You get used to having it after a while."
"Alright. But now everyone is back into their own bodies and doesn't it embarrass you to know that he has seen you naked?" Jill asked, quirking a brow. "Not even a little bit?"
"Sincerely? Not at all." Claire replied, and it was the truth. Or better, it was a part of the truth. She couldn't really say that, actually, Chris's hungry looks turned her on as fuck and that she allowed him to "see her naked very closely" basically every night! But her body had been his for a month, and it was still his somehow. And vice versa. They'd got it back, but there was an invisible, subtle thread that would evermore connect their souls to the other's body. They were as one. "To be honest, Chris even played with my pussy and I'm totally fine with it." She lastly added to corroborate her statement.
"Are you serious?" Rebecca gushed.
"Yup." Claire replied, naively. "What did you expect? That he'd keep his hands in his pockets for a whole month?! Dammit! I didn't resist myself, let alone would a horny boy like him!"
"Horny." Jill muttered, at loss for words. "To his sister."
"Hey, hold up! Hold up! Hold up! It was his body back then! Just as I had to feel comfortable in my boyish one, he had the right to do the same." Claire purposefully stated. She had no intention of letting anyone judge her. The fact that Jill was now criticising her was infuriating her. "And… and you have no idea how hard it's been! At the end of every damn day we were broken. And to have a tug was the only way to get some relief! Ok, I touched his cock and jerked it off, so what? I'd do it all over again if that would've helped me to face another fucking day of everybody asking me what the hell was wrong with me!"
Her flustered voice was quivering again, out of anger this time, but not only that. Beside the sorrow of remembering, there was also the fear of having talked too much. Maybe the two smart girls her friends were wouldn't take long to put two and two together and eventually accuse her she fucked her brother – for unlikely that sounded, she couldn't take anything for granted. Claire feared she had taken the umpteenth misstep that would've gained her another reproach from Chris. And she'd have preferred a punch right in the mouth rather than giving him another reason to be anxious.
"Claire's right." Rebecca mumbled, scratching her chin. "I don't think we can really understand, Jill."
Jill was still of the idea that their behaviour hadn't been that healthy, but she decided to don't meddle at last. If it had been alright for Claire, then it'd be alright also for her.
Therefore, she hugged her and sighed. "Ok, Gingerhead." And, to try to alleviate a little that state of renewed tension her friend had fallen back into because of her, Jill dared a joke, well aware it would lead her to a new wave of comments about her (not) inexistent crush the two other girls were so much fans of. "Well, I can't deny I'd not like to have a shower as Chris. Especially in your bathroom. It must be so sexy to watch yourself in that huge mirror!"
"Oh well, showering as Chris is impossible now, I think. You heard my Daddy." Claire laughed, appreciating her friend's effort. She knew how much Jill hated talking about such intimate things as her obvious crush. "But a shower with Chris… well, you already had one honeybee!"
Jill gasped.
Oh, fuck… she had indeed!
I gotta warn you at this point. Next (and last) part is gonna be super-long. So long it should be quite parted in two and it will be. See you next week.
Just in case anyone wondered, the artists of the subheading-songs are (in order): Prince, Kylie Minogue, Madonna, The All-American Rejects.