Unspoken Pleasure

After three days of staying in the house doing next to nothing, Lexi felt gross. At first, lying around in bed all day was about all she felt like she could do. And, since no one was bothering her to get up except for meals, that's all the tall brunette did. Eventually, though, even Lexi got tired of sleeping all the time, so she'd wandered downstairs to the couch. She was gratified to find her ankle didn't even ache as she walked. At least one part of her was fully healed.

Lexi tried watching TV, but it felt oddly loud, even with the volume down. She'd never noticed how many shows were about sex. Even the ads, sometimes for very non-sexy things, seemed positively horny from this new perspective. On the other hand, books weren't distracting enough. She'd read the same line over and over again while her brain focused on far more entrancing material. She'd settled mostly for lying out on the chaise lounge in the backyard, soaking in the sun and staring at her phone -- reading brain dead articles about Desperate Housewives yelling at cats -- and doing her best to avoid eye contact with anyone.

Lexi kept waiting for her Mom to grab her arm and pull her off the couch. For her father to suggest going on an errand the way he always was with Molly. Heck, why couldn't one of her siblings come save her? It didn't happen. Lexi just sank further and further into the cushions, until she realized the only person who was going to rescue her was herself. Like always.

She remembered the phrase she'd thought of before all this had started: Apex Lexi. Yes. That was what she was aiming for. That's who she would be again. And that meant getting back on the treadmill and grinding her body down to a sharp point. Already, after a break of only a week, Lexi swore she could see the beginnings of a little gut as she stared at herself in the mirror. Sure, it was kind of cute now, but she knew better than to encourage that kind of thinking. Lexi thought about driving to school to use the gym there. It wasn't that far to go. The thought of being around all those sweaty college kids made her nervous, but she had to move on sometime, right? Then she remembered that they had a gym setup in the basement, in a little room off the man cave where her father had been sleeping. No one had used it in years, but that made it seem even more attractive. A quiet place to build herself up again by beating herself down. Lexi rolled off the lounger, slid open the glass doors to the kitchen, and went up to her bedroom. She changed into a pair of gray sweat-shorts and a hot pink tank top. She'd usually put on a sports bra before working out, but her tiny titties didn't need the support and she figured she wasn't going anywhere public, so what was the big deal?

After she got dressed, Lexi went down to the kitchen to grab a banana for a pre-workout snack. As she peeled the fruit, she saw her mother sitting on the couch in the nearby living room, reading, looking very serious. "Where's Dad?" Lexi asked, idly.

"Errands," Christine said, not even looking up from her iPad. She absently twirled her short blonde hair behind her ear.

Lexi assumed that meant Molly was out, as well. This was the third day in a row that they'd gone out together to get supplies. With how often those two ran out, the house should have looked like a mid-sized Costco. Yet there seemed to be less food in the house than when they'd first arrived. Were they eating all that much?

Lexi didn't even bother asking her mother about Austin. The siblings had focused on avoiding each other since that talk the night they got home. Lexi appreciated how kind her younger brother had been in that moment. How concerned. That also made it far harder for her to trust herself around him. It was better this way. Safer. She could avoid her oh-so-fuckable male sibling for the next few weeks. Then she'd be back at school, he'd be back at work, and then... Then she supposed she would just miss him forever.

Lexi forced herself to take a deep breath and clear her mind. She finished the fruit, filled a water bottle, and went downstairs to the basement. As she walked down the steps, savoring the idea of some private workout time, Lexi heard the clangs and bangs of weights echo around her. Well, that answered what Austin was up to.

Lexi skipped around her father's depressing bachelor bedroom, past the washing machine, and turned the corner into the home gym. Her blond brother was in there, all right. Lost in his own world as he did pull-ups, his muscles straining. She stared at him, pumping up and down in a way that was almost hypnotic. Then he glanced back at Lexi and nearly fell off the bar.

"Hey!" he said, then settled, "I mean, um, hey." Austin was wearing a pair of workout shorts and nothing else. His defined pecs and abs glistened with sweat. He was panting, the pull-ups had clearly been part of a much larger workout. Apex Lexi was her goal, but Ultimate Austin was quite a sight to behold. The older sister tried to take interest in the cold, bare concrete floor. "I'm almost done down here if you can wait. Just have to do some squats and then I'm going to hit the shower."

"It's cool, I'm going to use the treadmill if that's OK," Lexi said. She put the water bottle down on a bench and started pushing buttons on the machine. It was a small room, tight, with enough machines for a full workout all crammed into the tiny space. It smelled like must, dust, and old sweat. Kind of in a good way.Exclusive © content by N(ô)ve/l/Drama.Org.

Lexi heard a grunt and saw that Austin was doing squats while facing the wall. It looked uncomfortable to work out that way but was probably necessary considering their shared past. Lexi felt a little honored by it, actually. It was nice to know she wasn't the only one who needed to control her perving. The fact that Austin cared enough to at least try to respect her privacy, well that was pretty nice, too.

Lexi turned on the little flat screen over the treadmill and started running. She didn't even pay attention to what was on the screen. Just focused on the movement. The way that feet pushed knees and thighs. How her arms swung tight at her sides. Her little breasts popping up and down with each movement (maybe she should have worn that bra, after all?). She had her brown hair tied up in a ponytail and it swung in time with her run, like a metronome counting her movements. She heard a loud groan.

"Jeez, sis, what are you trying to do to me?"

Lexi slowed and looked back at Austin, but he was gaping up at the flat screen. It was some teen drama thing, but the characters were making out more like it was Cinemax.

"Whoops! Sorry," Lexi said. She grabbed the remote off the edge of the treadmill and flipped the channel till she found a kids' cartoon show. Talking ducks should be safe enough, she hoped. Austin went back to his weights and Lexi picked up the pace again. The room filled with the hum of the treadmill, the slaps of Lexi's footfalls, and Austin's low grunts as he lifted.

A few days ago, having that scene come up on the TV while she and her brother worked out would have had a far different result. Austin would have made fun of her and she'd have said something smart back and that would have been the end of it. Actually, she would have said something rude and then he would have said something stupid and then they would have argued and fought till someone -- usually Molly -- broke them apart.