Box Jewelry

Preface

Albeit misguided, this is a coming of age story. It offers a view into the life and mind of an 18 year old girl named Katelyn as she embarks on a vacation with her somewhat dysfunctional family. Throughout the story, her thoughts and feelings become increasingly erotic. This causes her to act in ways she never imagined, and do things she never thought she would. The story culminates in an encounter she never expected, but had always secretly desired.

Although still a short story by definition, this one is a bit longer than the typical Lit story. There weren't distinct breaking points that would warrant splitting the story into chapters, so it's one long piece.

A quick note on story format. Within this story, a character's inner thoughts are denoted by using italics wrapped in a single quotation like this... 'Hmmm, I wonder if readers would have figured this italics thing out without this instruction... Probably.'

As usual, reader comments are more than welcome... positive or negative. I hope you enjoy this story.

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Just as cool crisp nights giving way to warm sunny days signals the coming of summer, Katelyn's life as a child is giving way young adulthood. This late spring holds a special milestone for Katelyn. This is the year she is growing up. This is the year that she graduates from high school. A day she thought would never come.

School was never easy for Katelyn. She seemed to struggle with every subject. Because of these struggles she often wondered if she would ever graduate, or be stuck in some sort of perpetual high school purgatory. But through hard work and diligence, she did it. She actually graduated.

The morning after her cap and gown ceremony Katelyn is lying in bed, well passed the time she would usually be on the bus. She is wide awake. Staring at the ceiling. Feeling a bit uncomfortable about herself. Wondering what her future might hold.

Katelyn has no idea what she wants to do with her life, but she is sure she doesn't want the life her mother seems to have carefully planned out for her. Katelyn's mother, Laura, excelled in all things scholastic. She had always wanted her daughter to follow in her footsteps, but with Katelyn's distaste for school work, it just didn't take.

Katelyn's older brother Jason was different. Laura managed to push him along until he was a carbon copy of her high achieving book smart self. Sometimes it seemed to Katelyn that Jason inherited all the smarts in the family. Other times it just seemed like her mother was just bragging about how mature and successful Jason was because he was her favorite. Most of the time Katelyn just felt that her mother treated Jason like an adult and her like a child.

Katelyn had to admit it. Her brother did seem grown up. In fact, Jason seemed to have this whole adulthood thing figured out well before he graduated from high school. He even had three full ride academic scholarship offers by the time he graduated.

On the other hand, Katelyn had to apply to just about every college she had ever heard of, hoping to find at least one that would accept her. Well it was her mother that sent all of those applications. That was okay with Katelyn. Without college, surely she would have to live at home until she got married. That is, if she ever got married. Katelyn wasn't all that comfortable around boys.

Turns out Katelyn wasn't the complete dullard her mother thought she was. She did get accepted into the nursing program down at the state college. Even though nursing wasn't what Katelyn dreamed of doing with her life, there was no way Laura was going to let her pass up the chance to further her education. So now Katelyn has just one short summer left to be a girl, before she begins attending classes in the fall and becomes a woman.

Laura was surprised when Katelyn got accepted at State, with it being a four year college and all. Because she had always resisted her help, Laura thought Katelyn would have to attend a junior college. Being a teacher of gifted students at Rockville Academy, Laura never could understand why Katelyn didn't like school, or why she always resisted her help and guidance.

It was probably because Katelyn was more like her father Mark, who was more of a doer than a thinker. Because of this, Katelyn naturally forged a tighter bond with her father than with her mother. This bond with her father was something that her scholarly brother never quite had. Parents aren't supposed to have favorites, but in this family it seemed like Mark was closer to Katelyn, and there was no doubt that Laura's favorite was Jason.

Maybe Laura didn't really favor Jason. Maybe her way of showing love was to share her scholastic achievements. To Katelyn this felt more like her mother was trying to compete with her instead of love her, and this was a competition Katelyn wanted no part of. At times this caused Katelyn to outright resent her mother, which made the father-daughter bond between Katelyn and Mark all the stronger.

Mark was oblivious to the tension between Katelyn and Laura, but always enjoyed the closeness he had with his daughter. She was always his little girl and he could hardly believe she would be going away to college in the fall. To him, she certainly didn't seem old enough to be in college.

It felt to Mark as if it was just yesterday that he was helping her fix her bike, or happily choking down one of Katelyn's failed attempts at cooking. Mark wasn't the only one who didn't quite think Katelyn was ready for college. Most people that looked at Katelyn... Anyone that didn't know her true age. Would probably guess that she was about to enter high school rather than graduating from it.

This perception of her age came mostly from the fact that Katelyn is quite short, at just a tic over five feet tall, and a late bloomer. Her light blond hair and the glasses she wears on her cherub like face add to the younger look, as most girls her age have opted for contact lenses. To top it off, she has always been kind of different, awkward, and nerdy. This shy, nerdy awkwardness was something that most saw as immaturity, further hiding any evidence of her real age.

Katelyn didn't see herself as being younger, and she certainly didn't think she was childish. In fact, she feels she has never done anything but act her age. Yet she often was treated like she was younger than she was. She resented this, and like most teens she desperately wished she was years older than she was.

Katelyn didn't ever really feel young. She also didn't feel old. Sometimes she didn't feel much of anything at all. Most of the time she just felt sort of weird about herself. Of course looking up to her older brother didn't help. Her brainiac of a brother took great pleasure in pointing out how weird she was every chance he got.

But now, in her mind, all of that awkwardness and being weird is in her past. Everyone says that being eighteen is the mark of adulthood. Now she desperately wants to show the world that she is not a weird little girl anymore. She wants to show how different she is. She wants people to notice she has grown up.

Of all the people she wants to notice, she especially wants to show her brother that she isn't just his weird little sister anymore. She wants him to notice just how she has matured over the past year while he was away at college.

Even if her brother doesn't see how she has matured, Katelyn definitely does. For months now she has spent hours standing in front of the mirror in her bedroom tracing her fingers along her breasts, and then down along the curves of her hips, admiring her developing body.

This particular day, she is doing just that. As she admires herself in the mirror, she wonders if boys are going to like her new shape. Then her thoughts drift back to a time when her budding young body had just begun to develop, and the teasing she regularly took from her brother. Jason wasn't necessarily mean, but oh how he loved to tease his little sister.

Katelyn stops what she is doing and thinks back, remembering just how her brother used to tease. With their parents both at work the first volley of teasing would usually come from Jason...

"Hey Bumps." Jason had nicknamed his sister that, referring to her under developed chest. "Are you going to hang out with your boy Brandon and his stupid brother this summer?"

"No, and stop calling me Bumps."

"That's too bad. At least you would have a couple of boobs to look at if you hung out with those two idiots." Jason finishes his verbal jab with a chuckle.

Katelyn instinctively crossed her arms over her chest at her brother's insinuation about her underdeveloped breasts. "I do too have boobs. I just don't like tight clothes that show them off is all."

"No you don't. And I'll bet you don't even have one scrawny little pubic hair to play with in the bathtub either"

"Damn you Jason, I do too have hair down there. Now stop it."

"No boobs and no bush. No boobs no bush. When your boyfriend's car breaks, you'll have to push!" Jason teasingly rhymes.

"Jason, I do too have those things. Now cut that out."

Jason grins and grabs his sister's shirt tail, making like he's going to pull it up. "OK Bumps, then show me. Show me those little bitty titties and your peach fuzz coochie."

"I'm not showing you anything." Katelyn swats her shirt back down and sticks her tongue at Jason.

"Why not, you showed your idiot boyfriend Brandon everything you've got last summer." Jason gets in another jab, referring to the rumor that Katelyn and Brandon had gotten naked together.

"I did fucking not, asshole. And Brandon was never my damn boyfriend."

Jason knew he had touched a nerve with Katelyn. She rarely swore like that unless she was mad. But that was his goal when he started to tease her. To touch that very nerve. Now she was coming after him with her fists clenched, which was another goal of his teasing. Jason found the way she awkwardly flailed her tiny fists at him when she got mad exceptionally funny.

"Damn Bumps, why are you so weird?" Jason says laughing at his sister as he quickly leans back just in time to avoid being struck by Katelyn's tiny flailing hands.

This day was no different than most days that summer. Jason would tease Katelyn until she started to get mad. Then he would put in one more little jab and lean back knowing she would come at him flailing those tiny clenched fists. Of course Jason could easily overpower her, and he rarely got struck.

Then, the tickling would begin.

Katelyn was very ticklish and Jason knew this more than anyone else in the family. Katelyn would squeal and squirm while Jason's tickling fingers would find every sensitive spot on her body, and the more he tickled her, the more intense it became.

Being tickled anywhere also made Katelyn feel a tickle between her legs. No one else knew this. Not even Jason. Finally when it became too intense, and she could barely cry out through her squeals of laughter. She would cry out for mercy between those squeals of laughter... and she knew just what to say.

"Stop it Jason... Aaaa, ha, ha, ha... Stop it... Yeeee, ha ha ha... Stop it. Stop it, or I'm going to pee."

"Okay! Okay! I'm stopping! I'm stopping." Jason would exclaim throwing his hands in the air as if Katelyn had pointed a gun at him.

The threat of her peeing on him always made Jason stop. When they were younger, Jason didn't heed that warning and his little sister actually lost control and peed in his lap. So now when Katelyn yelled she was going to pee Jason would instantly stop tickling her, push her away. Of course as brother's do, Jason always tried to have the last word.

"Dang Bumps, you're weird."

"I am not weird, and stop calling me Bumps."

Then when all of the teasing, swatting, and tickling was finally done, Katelyn would run off to her room. Her brother thought she was just escaping to her safe place, but Katelyn had another reason to retreat. Being tickled always made her wet between the legs.

Katelyn wasn't exactly sure what caused all this wetness. It wasn't like her brother ever touched where he wasn't supposed to. It could have been urine. It also could have been from arousal. Getting tickled had always turned her on. Whatever it was, she nearly always needed to change her panties after being tickled.

So that's the way it went the whole summer before her senior year. Katelyn would hang out with Jason and bait him into teasing her. They would exchange some verbal jabs, and then he would end up tickling her until she was wet. Katelyn didn't really like the teasing, but she loved how horny the tickling made her.

Now a full year later, Katelyn is looking in the mirror and admiring her developing breasts. As she fluffs her soft blond pubic hair, she wonders if her bush is finally full enough to peak out from the edges of her new swimsuit and will require trimming. As she stands there she thinks to herself...

'This summer is going to be different. This year I'm not wearing those baggy shirts anymore. Jason is going to see that I really do have breasts and he won't be able to call me Bumps anymore. And if he wants to see my boobs, I'll show them to him. If he wants me to, I might even show him my coochie hair.'

Even though she has grown over the past year. Even if she ends up showing herself to her brother. She is hoping Jason will still find a reason to tease and tickle her. She secretly loves that.

That evening Katelyn wandered down from her room to find out when dinner was going to be ready and found her parents sitting at the table. The smell of lamb filled the air. Roasted lamb wasn't Katelyn's favorite by any means, but would eat it anyway. She was just thankful that she hadn't been assigned the job of cooking the family dinner. That task was off limits for her since the day she burned a meatloaf and ruined her mother's favorite baking dish.

Katelyn sits at the table next to her mother, who is already well into some story about her brother. Katelyn looks at her father as she quietly listens in. The look on his face tells Katelyn that her mother has been telling this story for some time now. That didn't surprise her. Her mother was always talking about Jason.

It seems that Jason has been selected to take part in a summer science internship on a research vessel. Her mother is explaining, in way more detail than necessary, how Jason was selected from hundreds of applicants for this project. Katelyn only pays half attention to what her mother is saying as she balances a spoon across the tip of her finger.

Katelyn doesn't feel that she is missing much by not really listening. Her mother will repeat herself. Right now Laura can't seem to say enough about how smart Jason is to have beaten out all the other young scientists. Once again Katelyn is reminded that Jason is her mother's favorite child.

As Katelyn starts spinning the spoon she has balanced on her finger, she wonders what her father ever saw in her mother. She wonders if she was always like this, or did this happen after Jason the wonder boy was born. She wants to talk to her mother about their upcoming trip to the beach house, but she doesn't dare interrupt her mother when she on one of her Jason rants. So Katelyn just quietly sits and spins the spoon.

Laura's praise of Jason is nonstop. It's much worse today than most days. She goes on and on. She doesn't even pause in her story as she gets up from the table and takes dinner from the oven.

"You know that your brother will only be home for a couple of days before he has to go be a scientist on that research ship." Laura crows to Katelyn about her brother's success.

"You mean he will be gone all summer?" Katelyn asks, trying not to sound too disappointed. It seems that her plans for the summer just got wrecked. Now who was going to tease and tickle her?

"Yeah, he's going to leave from Bridgeport next Wednesday, and he gets back just before the spring semester starts in January." Laura proudly explains as she sets the roasting pot on the table.

Mark passes his plate to be filled and asks, "Doesn't this mean Jason is going to have to put off graduation because he's missing a semester?"

"Don't be silly Mark. You know how smart Jason is. He's almost ready to graduate now. And he gets class credits for doing this internship." Laura continues to crow while she dishes up Katelyn's dinner.

"So he's going to miss vacation?" Katelyn asks as she shakes her head looking at the huge portion of lamb and vegetables that her mother just put on her plate. "And you know I can't possibly eat all of that."

"Eat what you can. Oh, and about vacation sweetie. We decided to cancel our trip to the timeshare this year." Laura casually drops this little bomb of information as she scoops some lamb and vegetables onto her own plate.

"We? What do you mean we decided? No one asked me if that was okay to skip vacation." Katelyn whines.

"Yeah, when did we decide that Laura?" Mark stares bullets at his wife. "I don't remember ever talking about this."

This kind of lone decision making was something Laura did all the time. She had always seen herself as the smart parent, having been to college and all. Mark generally let it pass, but this time Laura's decision has set him off. Finally, Laura breaks the silence and ends the stare down between her and Mark.

"Don't be mad at me Mark. It only makes sense. Jason will be gone, and you have that kitchen remodel to finish."

Laura pauses, raises her eyebrows and cocks her head a bit, looking for some sort of concurrence from Mark, who continues to sit and blankly stare at his wife. Not getting the agreement she wanted, Laura continues to justify her decision.

"Besides, we've been trying for months to sell that timeshare. We all knew this day would come. With Jason gone, I figured I could teach in the summer gifted students program at Rockville this year. You know the extra money will come in handy when Katelyn starts down at State this fall."

Katelyn was openly upset, and could no longer hide her frustration. "That's not fair mom. You know the timeshare hasn't sold yet, and we already have the week reserved. This will be my last chance to go to the beach house. I can't see why we can't go this one last time."

"I told you why sweetie. Your father and I are working hard to put you through college. We just can't this year..."

"Now hold on Laura." Mark interrupts. "Let's think this through. We've already paid for the place, so not going isn't saving us a dime... and I actually think we can make this work."

Mark massages his chin between his thumb and forefinger while he pauses to think for a moment. Then he carefully lays out a plan.

"What if Katelyn and Jason go down right after he gets home from school. They can spend a couple days there. Bridgeport is a lot closer to the beach house than here. It would make perfect sense if Jason went from there to catch his ship."

"What happens after Jason leaves, Mark?" Laura tries hard to toss a wrench into the works of her husband's plan. "Katelyn will be all alone. She can't be there all by herself for a whole week."

Mark thinks for a moment then counters. "The kids aren't children anymore Laura. You do realize that Katelyn is eighteen now, right? Besides, I'll be done with my job and down at the beach house by mid-afternoon on Wednesday."

"And what is Katelyn supposed to do with herself until you get there on Wednesday?" Laura's contrary tone weakens a little, along with the validity of her argument.

"Look. Someone is going to have to drive Jason's car back from Bridgeport. It might as well be Katelyn. She's a good driver Laura. Besides, my best guess is that I'll get to the beach house before she gets back from Bridgeport. She will barely be alone."