It's time for Jessie's debut.

Leon's imagination ran wild listening to the sound of water from the other room.

An angel is naked beyond that door, and at this very moment her soapy hands are traveling across every inch of her body... God, if only those were my hands. In his mind, at least, he was there with her. Helping her wash every fleshy hill and wet crevice. The sound of a blow dryer starting up behind the closed door snapped him out of his fantasy.

Should I really just be accepting my desire for my sister? If we really were to get intimate, then she might never feel like family. Wasn’t that the whole reason I sought her out in the first place? To try to fix my family? Why would I risk that, when the System could help me be with somebody safer like Lily instead?

"This bra is definitely going to be a problem.” Leon nearly had a heart attack at the unexpected interruption of his thoughts. Jessie was peeking her head out of the bathroom door.

“Oh, uh... Why?”

“You okay there? You sound a little lost.”

“I’m fine. I was just thinking about... all the things that happened today.”

“I was too, in the shower. It’s crazy that all of this is happening so fast.”

“Crazy bad, or crazy good?”

“It’s so crazy that I’m not sure yet,” she said, but she was smiling.

“Well, until you make up your mind, let’s see what’s so crazy about this bra,” he said, and with only a moment’s hesitation, she stepped out of the bathroom.

The outfit looked outstanding on her.

Curves he never knew about were revealed and triumphantly highlighted by the tightness of her form fitting jeans, and the effect of her red sweater—by itself not particularly sexy—was complimented by how much attention it brought to the white bra underneath.

Instead of putting her hair back in a messy ponytail like he thought she would, it instead fell straight down her back, stopping halfway and hanging loosely behind her. Her bangs swept sideways across her forehead, like golden threads weaving a tapestry across her face.

“Wow,” he said out loud.

This time when she blushed, he had to make an effort not to throw himself across the room at her. He’d known she was beautiful from the little bit he’d already seen of her, but this was unreal.

“I was worried because you didn’t tell me what to do with my hair, but I figured if I left it down we could style it however you wanted.”

“You’re perfect,” he said, beaming ear to ear.

She looked like she wanted to disagree, but settled with, “Thank you.”

They stood there awkwardly until Leon finally said, “I see what you mean about the bra.”

It was beyond hot to see his sister’s bra so clearly, but it wasn’t ideal from his photographer’s viewpoint.

“Guess we’ll have to focus on your bottom half,” he said.

“Only if you want to die,” she retorted sweetly.

“Easy killer, I’m only messing with you.”

“Well you just keep in mind that I’m not used to being seen like this and I’m feeling especially ****. One wrong move and they’ll never find where I bury you.”

“Noted,” he laughed. He motioned toward her and said, “May I approach?”

“Permission granted, but I’ve got my eye on you.”

Never a dull moment, he thought.

When he approached, he tried his best not to stare at the inviting cleavage that the small holes of the sweater gave him glimpses of, and switched into work mode.

The problem with the bra wasn’t that too much of it showed. To someone looking at photos, the only part of the bra that would be noticeable was the whiteness of it. Which was exactly the issue.

He’d pegged Jessie’s most marketable features to be her alluringly smooth ivory skin and her brilliant golden hair. That wasn’t to take away from her other exceptional features, but models generally needed one or two rarer selling points to establish appeal. Or, as unique as one could be in the world of modeling.

He’d chosen the red sweater for a few reasons—one of which may or may not have been to get a better look at his sister’s chest—but the foremost reason was that the deep red color would undoubtedly contrast flatteringly with her skin. And it did, to great effect. Except that the artificiality of the white bra robbed her from getting the full potential out of the outfit.

I can’t ask her to take it off. If she doesn’t have fun tonight, she’s going to dread next time. A black bra would have been perfect because it’d blend with the small shadows from the holes of her sweater, but she doesn’t own- wait! This could be salvaged.

“I’ll be right back!” he said in a hurry, and commenced a combination of speed and stealth to get to his room and back that would put even a snake to shame.

When he returned in front of her, he had one of his black shirts in hand.

“You want me to wear a t-shirt under this? I’m no expert but...”

“No no no, you’re right. That would look awful. Do you have a pair of scissors?”

“I think I have some from last year in my desk drawer. The drawer on the left.”

They were exactly where she said they’d be. He grabbed them and moved close to her.

“This‘ll be a little awkward, but it’ll be quick,” he said, and started lifting off her sweater from behind.

“Whoa, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” She hit him in the head with the heel of her hand. Hard.

Leon staggered back from the **** of the blow and she whirled around to face him. Rage distorted her normally pleasant face.

“Don’t you ever try to take my clothes off like that. What are you thinking!?”

“I’m sorry I-“

“Yeah you’d better be.”

“-thought of a way to cover up your bra without ruining the outfit. I was so absorbed in seeing if it would work that I... got a little carried away I guess.”

“A lot carried away. Extremely, rudely, cruelly carried away,” she retorted.

So much for making sure she has fun tonight, he thought, bitter with himself for making such an obvious blunder.

“I told you I was dealing with stuff. I told you. And in record time here you are trying to take my clothes off!”

“That wasn’t what I-“

“Just shut up. I’ve clearly made a mistake!” She sat on the edge of her bed, facing away from him.

He stood in the middle of the room feeling like a tool. He’d been so absorbed in his idea that it didn’t occur to him to communicate with her or ask permission. Jessie’s emotional scars aside, a photographer still can’t just start stripping his models like a madman.

She’s already way past her comfort zone, thanks to the System. Taking that for granted and abusing it was irresponsible of me.

“Jessie... can I sit next to you and explain? Please?”

“You can explain just fine from where you’re at.”

“Okay,” he said stoically.

“I wasn’t trying to... do anything to you. I got this idea that if we were to cut off a piece of my black shirt and wrap it around your bra, we could cover up our problem.”

“Oh right so that makes it totally okay to take off my clothes.”

“No! It doesn’t make it even a little okay. I’m the photographer. It’s my job to communicate my intent to the model. I got too absorbed in what I was doing and fucked up.”

If nothing else, at least she was facing towards him now. “That’s an understatement. And why did you need to be anywhere near me to cut a piece of cloth anyways?”

“Err well... I needed to fit it to you.”

“So not only were you going to take my shirt off, you were going to mess with my chest too.”

“Strictly to see if this solution would work. I didn’t have any bad intentions, I swear.”

“It doesn’t really matter what your intentions were, now does it?”

He definitely disagreed with that. Intentions did matter, a lot. Still, that wasn’t the hill he wanted to die on right now.

“I guess not. I’m really sorry, Jessie.”

The room fell quiet.