It was a hot summer, and a frustrating one. I'd just finished my senior year of college and was working at my father's electrical repair shop before heading to graduate school for engineering. I'd done the job for years and, believe it or not, I enjoyed it. But even without four years of drought, summers are intense in Los Angeles, and spending all day climbing over a customer's roof because he's not sure what kind of cable setup he's got - while good exercise - can be a real headache. But that was a small part of my frustration.

For probably the last time, the whole family was living at home, and that included the lion's share of my frustration, my sister emma. She had just turned twenty and was home for the summer break, sweet as ever, keeping out of my parents' way and for the most part keeping to herself. It was unusual for her, who had usually been so outgoing, and for me to not see her leaving with her girlfriends or making plans with her latest guy. Instead she'd spent those first few weeks back from college in relative quiet, rearranging her room, sunbathing in the backyard, or sitting on the couch watching Netflix.

My parents said nothing, and it was possible they hadn't noticed or were just happy to have her home again. But I noticed. My sister and I had always been close and I couldn't see her new behavior as anything but a slump.

And, if I'm being honest, that was not the only thing I saw.

Again, it was hot that summer, and all of us were making due, but my sister especially seemed to eschew her normal clothing for a very different style. It wasn't just that she wore less; it was how she wore it. Often I would come home from a long day outside, grab a beer, and pass the living room to see my sister staring at the television, oblivious to the world around her. She wore the same t-shirts she'd always worn - the ones she felt comfortable wearing in the house - but seldom with a bra. And while I normally consider myself pretty good at minding my own business, my sister did not have the kind of body it was easy to ignore.

Perhaps she had always been this way and the heat had brought it more to the fore. Perhaps it was the handful of pounds she'd gained at college that brought out her full figure. And perhaps I'd never really seen her wearing a bellyshirt without a bra, or shorts that were so short she couldn't have worn anything underneath. That was the other distracting element I noticed while passing her on the couch that day. She had her fist pushed into her temple with her elbow propped against the couch, her knee up and the other crossed under her and pointed at the television. Her long, smooth legs practically shined in the afternoon light and met together under the ragged hems of her shorts. The position she was in, her lap was pointed toward me, and the shorts were loose enough that I could see where one leg ended and...she...began. Smooth pink lips shaved bare, resting in the barest shadow of what could barely be considered clothes.

Meanwhile, the shapes of her breasts under the tight shirt were unmistakable, and they were full enough that they jiggled with even her smallest movements. Case in point, the way she turned and smiled at me where I stood in the kitchen. "Hey," she said.

I nodded, and raised my glass to my forehead. I felt even hotter now.

"Busy day?" she asked.

"Yeah, dad's got us replacing the wires in the high school. It's weird being there and not recognizing anyone but the teachers."

"You're getting old, John."

I drank ruefully. "Tell me about it."

"You look good, though. You running again?"

"When I get up early enough. It's too hot otherwise."

"I know. Look at this." My sister stretched out her shirt. I'm sure she meant for me to look at the long trail of sweat that ran down to the hem, but it was impossible to ignore the way her cleavage gently bunched up in the neck.

Was I really that horny? I asked myself. Kim and I had broken up in the middle of last year; we still saw each other occasionally, still slept together, but that happened less as the year went on and I hadn't been with anyone since. Not really. I tried to make myself feel better by telling myself I just appreciated that my sister was a beautiful woman.

And she was, all five feet and few inches of her, sassy and cute, with her upturned nose and bright eyes that weren't quite green, her mess of dirty blonde hair. Her skin was just a shade under the pale that would have made the sun unbearable. She can, and did, tan. There had always been something much bigger about her than her height. Her smile was as prominent as her bust, but that, I now saw, was all the more noticeable for how small she was elsewhere.

"I haven't seen you off that couch much," I said, trying to change the subject. "Are you and Rob still seeing each other?"

She shrugged, which told me nothing. "I just...I dunno."

"What?"

She shook her head. "It's nothing."

My big brother instincts kicked in, overriding my more lecherous thoughts. "If something was wrong, you'd tell me, right?"

"Mmhmm."

And that was that. I went about the rest of my day, and things went on as before, for another week.

But little things started becoming clearer to me. How long she'd stay in her room, how nervous she seemed in general. And every time I passed her, no matter what she was wearing, I just had the impression that something was at work, something was gnawing at her, bothering her...

One morning, the two of us were in the kitchen, mom and dad were upstairs, and I was doing my damnedest not to notice emma was wearing nothing at all underneath a loose, button-up blouse. Perhaps half of the buttons were actually buttoned.

I was reading up on the day's itinerary and she was absently munching on toast. More accurately, I was trying to stop myself from stealing glances right down her shirt and she was staring out the window like a zombie.

Finally, I coughed, and she turned to me, mid-munch, her cheeks still full of toast. "Hmm?" she murmured.

"emma, your, uh..." I tried to point anywhere but directly at her. "I can almost see your-"

"Wha?" For a moment, it was as if I'd actually pulled her out of the atmosphere and forced her back to Earth. She stared at me, uncomprehending, until she finally followed my wiggling finger down to her cleavage. "Oh!" she said, a bit of toast flying out. She cupped her hand over her mouth and began to giggle.

I sighed.