The Last Straw (new 12/20)

[Cerulean]

I'm never not tuned! It's a daily habit to check now

Same!

[neverdoubted]

Remember when I said I learned many valuable life lessons that summer? This was not one of those times. When Mary made a heavy, defeated sigh and said, "Ok, I'll do it. Just hurry!", I had every right to call foul. She had already rejected my first offer as ludicrously unfair. But I guess, after having some time to consider the alternative - touring a cave in the nude with a group of eager explorers crowding in close and watching your every move - my jacket continued to skyrocket in value to her.

If my negotiation and people-reading skills had been a little savvier, I would have recognized Mary's increasing desperation and forced her into an even more extreme trade. I'll never know how far she was truly willing to go in exchange for that jacket. But the speed at which she changed her mind did give me something to ponder. I guess you could say, though I didn't learn anything right away, my unique ability to negotiate the dignity away from desperate, naked girls did spring from this moment.


At first, I only said, "Really?". But then I recovered and shrugged the jacket off. With no changing rooms around, she could only turn to face the wall and reach back with her hand to receive it. I handed it over and she slipped it on without a moment to lose. Seconds later, a father and son walked down the hall and got in line with us for the tour.

My jacket, being designed for an older boy or young teenager, was not built to accommodate the feminine curves and bulges of a healthy young lady. Mary tugged it down her legs like she would a too-short dress, but that just stretched the material too tight over her ripe bottom. As soon as she let go, the hem shot right back up. She had to accept that the band wanted to settle in that tantalizing crease at the very tops of her legs, right where her bottom officially ended, and her legs began.

As more new arrivals trickled in, I got a kick out of watching their brains malfunction when they saw my stepsister. Rules of civilized society told them the pretty thing had to be wearing something under that jacket. But because so much of her legs and thighs were showing, they had to assume it was just an especially skimpy mini-skirt or extra short shorts. They also couldn't understand why she continued to face the wall when everyone else kind of stood in a friendly circle waiting for the tour to begin.

I didn't know why she was being so shy. After all, she was a million times better off now than she had been just a few minutes earlier. As long as she kept hold of the lower hem, she should now be able to make it through the cave in a relatively modest manner.

When I noticed she still hadn't zipped up the front and was still wrestling with the zipper, I figured out the issue and smiled to myself. Finally, she had the bright idea to shuffle over to me, the true owner of the jacket, and whisper in my ear so the other explorers couldn't hear her.

"I can't get this zipper to work," she hissed.

"Yeah," I replied, barely masking my amusement, "I forgot to tell you. There's a trick to it."

The zipper really was partially broken. If you wanted to zip it, you had to leave it open at the very bottom and start at a little gap just above the starting point where one of the teeth was missing. If not, it would always get hung up right there at the broken spot and refuse to zip.

One glance and I knew I couldn't help her. In her rush to recover her precious modesty, she had yanked too hard and gotten the zipper jammed sideways. To her dismay, I informed her that, until I could get to some pliers, the zipper would be stuck in its lowered position with the front of the jacket fully unzipped.

Mary huffed out a stressed sigh. This was a setback. Seeing she couldn't really blame me for not warning her about it, she made the best of things, gathering both sides and holding them closed over her ample bosom with her left hand. At least the front panels, which were more forgiving than the lower hem, had adequate material to conceal the fact that she didn't have a blouse or bra on underneath. Unfortunately, without a working zipper, she would have to keep her hand right there over her chest for the duration of the tour if she didn't want anyone to discover her topless secret.

At the designated start time, the tour guide arrived and escorted us into an adjoining room for some basic safety instructions. He introduced himself as "Ben", and had us sit in two rows on long, wooden benches. There were eight of us explorers, all men and boys…and Mary.

Ben was a ruggedly handsome young man in his early twenties with a strong jawline and a muscular physique. I noticed Mary was unable to look at him without a blush forming on her cheeks and turning away. With one hand keeping the fabric of her chest closed, and one still gripping the lower hem just in case, she sat on the bench beside me and studied every part of the room except the good-looking tour guide.

It didn't take Ben long, as he made his way around the room welcoming us, to notice the exceptional beauty sitting gingerly on the edge of the bench to avoid splinters with her jacket stretched as low as she could make it, and her beautiful, curvaceous legs completely exposed all the way down to her delicate, bare feet. After taking a moment to enjoy the sight, he regretfully informed her that he could not allow her to go on the tour without shoes.

"I'm sorry miss, but it is a park requirement, I'm afraid. It's just too dangerous because of the slippery, uneven surfaces we will encounter. The main tour is paved, though. So, if you hurry, you can still catch them in the theater hall."

Mary looked up, her eyes staring wide at him in dismay. Going on the main tour with Frank meant giving up the jacket she had worked so hard to acquire.

Not sure what to do or say, she looked over at me helplessly. I realized I couldn't send her wandering off through the great hall by herself completely naked in search of our family. I had taken responsibility for her and assured her mother that I would take care of her. If Mary got kicked off the explorer's tour, I would have to leave it and accompany her back to our family with my reputation wounded and my tail between my legs.

I learned lots of things about lots of things on that trip. But I think what happened next taught me the most valuable lesson I learned all summer. It has to do with authority. You don't have to actually have any, you just have to sound like you do, and people will obey you. Project it, even if you don't possess it. Remember that one, kids.

Thinking I might as well give it a try, I stood up tall, channeled my most convincing Sargeant Frank Askis attitude, and barked out with a firm voice, "SHE HAS A CONDITION!"

Wouldn’t you know it, it actually worked! Ben apologized and backed off just like the man at the front door had done. In his mind, I must have sounded like I knew what was best for Mary. If I demanded she be allowed to go despite whatever condition prevented her from covering her legs or feet, she would go - park requirements be damned! If the park ranger at the front door had let her in like this, who was he to question it?

After the safety brief, Ben handed out hardhats and showed us how to strap them securely under our chins. Human brains and stalactites are a dangerous mix, and in the darker rooms we were headed, you could easily walk right into one and knock yourself out. He also handed each of us a flashlight. It was the big, rectangle kind with a heavy, six-volt battery inside. I guess they didn't want to risk us running out of light deep in the spooky, unlit parts of the cave.

Having finished the briefing, our experienced guide led our crew into the cave mouth. One of the first rooms on the tour was called "The Devil's Pool", an underground pool of the clearest water you've ever seen! At first, I thought it was just a depression on the ground full of air until Ben dropped a rock in with a splash and ripples began spreading out like magic. If all the rooms and formations were as impressive as this one, I knew I was going to have a great time!

Mary preferred to lag at the back of the group. Because her hand was doing double-duty holding both the flashlight and her jacket hem, her light stayed down by her waist and spent the whole tour shining off at odd angles and pointing at nothing. She still preferred this to having nothing to wear even though she kept tugging at the hem as if willing it to grow a little longer. It wasn’t hard to catch her doing it because, thanks to the other curious explorers, at least one or two beams of light were always pointed directly at her naturally sculpted legs. The jacket never did grow any longer, but at least I never had to look very hard to locate her.

Just as I had feared, I found the air a little chilly. It wasn't unbearable. A light jacket would have made it just perfect. But I could live without mine knowing I would soon get to watch Mary ride all the way to our next stop completely naked with her hands trapped under her and her busty treasures totally bared. The thought alone kept me plenty warm.

As she grew more comfortable with her covering, I saw Mary gawking at a few of the more impressive formations. Whenever Ben was speaking – reciting information about the various rooms, for instance – she would gaze at him with a dreamy look on her face. But if he ever looked directly at her, she would avert her gaze bashfully.

There were many interesting rooms, too many to mention. One crowd-pleaser was called "The Devil's Disco". If you're wondering, there were more than a few groans when Ben announced its name. While we were understandably deep in the Earth where the lord of the underworld supposedly ruled, the infernal theme gimmick was wearing thin.

Patricia was the most religious member of our family. I'm pretty sure that’s what she already called discos and wouldn't stand for such a name. I just had to hope for their sake that the people naming these places weren't complete idiots and kept the diabolical references out of the family tour.

Heavy-handed name aside, The Devil's Disco was actually one of the most impressive rooms we encountered. When you entered, the sound of the dripping water made a distinct drumbeat on the floor. If you used your imagination, you could turn it into a groovy beat. But what really made it cool was a large quartz crystal growing directly out of the ceiling in the middle of the room. When Ben instructed everyone to stand in a circle and point their flashlights at it, the crystal was transformed into a unique, rainbow disco ball!

The quartz cast shimmering beams of every color across the walls and floor in a dazzling manner. Even Mary was temporarily awestruck by the psychedelic display. But once Ben pointed out that the water had eroded the floor into a mirror finish, she quickly scurried out of the room. She had to get out of there before someone thought to use the mirror to see what the pretty female of the group was hiding under her jacket.

Speaking of water, we did come across several slippery spots. Ben hadn't been exaggerating about the treacherous nature of our journey. Even my usually surefooted shoes slipped more than a few times. I still have no idea how Mary managed to do it in just her bare feet!

For the tour's grand finale, Ben brought us to another wonder which he called...The Devil's Abyss! You may be rolling your eyes right now, but believe me, if you saw the narrow ledge running beside what looked like an endlessly deep crevasse and heard Ben say we would all have to cross it to get out of the cave, you might whisper a small prayer instead, whether you believed in all that devil stuff or not.

This was to be the final test for all aspiring spelunkers to prove their worth. Having supposedly crossed it many times before, Ben bravely stepped up and demonstrated how to get across. Because there wasn't enough space to take regular steps, you had to shuffle your feet inch by inch, hugging the wall. The rock had been so smoothed by dripping water that there were no handholds anywhere.

After watching him talk each of the other explorers across, my sense of pride would not let me chicken out. Treading anxiously onto the terrifying ledge, I listened to Ben's steady voice coaching me. It kept me from losing my nerve. Once I was close enough, he reached out to physically guide me over the last little bit.

Once I was safely across, Mary was the only one left on the other side. Remembering my promise to Patricia to keep her daughter safe, my heart started racing. If her bare toes struggled to find purchase on the impossibly slick ground, she could fall into the bottomless pit, never to be seen again!

Inching her way onto the ledge, as she raised her arms to hug the wall like Ben had demonstrated, everyone else's heart started racing. But this was for a different reason. Unable to hold the jacket down, the hem started to creep up her legs. As soon as the other explorers noticed it, they all immediately trained their beams of light high on the backs of her thighs.

It must have been agonizing for her to not only be the center of attention with her jacket threatening any second to expose her bottomless secret, but to also have to cross a dark and terrifying chasm while only able to move at a snail's pace. If she moved too slowly, everyone in the group would find out that, not only wasn't she wearing shorts or a miniskirt, she didn't even have panties on! But if she moved too fast, she might slip up and die a horrible, lonely death in the sinister caverns of the deep.

Despite all that pressure, with Ben's encouraging voice lending her strength, she made slow, steady progress. She was nearly across when she made the mistake of taking too confident a step and her foot landed on a particularly slippery spot. Adjusting her stance, she lost her balance and cried out in alarm. Watching her flail on the edge of disaster, my heart leapt into my throat. I thought for sure this was the end of Mary Jane Conyor. She was going to fall into the bottomless pit never to be seen again. But Ben came to the rescue! Jumping into action, he boldly lunged out onto the ledge, catching her by her wrist and pulling her the rest of the way to safety.

While I breathed a sigh of relief, Mary swooned at his heroic act. Safe in his protective, muscular embrace, she gazed adoringly into his eyes. But he wasn't looking back at her. Rather, he wasn't looking at her face. Throughout her crossing, and during her flailing rescue, she had been unable to hold the top of her jacket together. And now, as he held her close to him, it gaped open and revealed way too much of her bulging breasts than any proper young lady was supposed to be showing. If the heroic and hunky tour guide did not know the salacious truth of her toplessness by then, he at least had to presume Mary to be wearing a scandalously low-cut top. How else could she be showing so much of her bare cleavage with no sign of a bra?

She rushed to pull the jacket closed before any of the other explorers could catch a peek. But I knew from the look on Ben's face that he was now under the mesmerizing spell of Mary's extremely ample bosom. I knew because I had been under that exact spell for years and made the same face whenever I looked at it.

Releasing his rescued damsel, Ben cleared his throat and continued the tour. He could contemplate the loveliness of my stepsister's impressive display on his own time. Right now, he still had a job to do. And now that we were all safely across the chasm, he got to reveal his big surprise. He led us down the gently declining path and around a sharp U-turn. Doubling back, we approached the same ledge from a lower angle. Everyone was shocked to find that the ledge was no higher than two feet off the ground! It had all been an illusion, another trick of the cave!

We had all been fooled and some still couldn't believe it even after seeing the ledge from below. Ben received a round of applause for the way his acting skills had convinced us of the ledge's faux danger. And as we exited the cave through a different opening than the one we had entered, many chatted excitedly about the amazing wonders of the cave. Everyone agreed the explorer's tour was worth the extra price.

We entered the remotest corner of the great hall and started across its far end. While our tour was over, Ben had asked us to help carry our equipment back to the starting room to get it ready for the next group. That's when disaster struck poor Mary. As we came around some free-standing exhibits, she suddenly gasped and skidded to a halt. Just ahead of us, not twenty feet away stood Frank! He was standing at ease, looking through the glass at an exhibit.

Fearing for both our sakes, I spun and looked at Mary who had a look of sheer terror on her face. She absolutely could not afford for Frank to catch her wearing clothes without his permission. So even though she was still surrounded by her fellow explorers, not to mention one handsome tour guide, she made what must have been an impossibly difficult decision.

Because he hadn’t seen her yet, if she stripped naked as quickly as possible, there was still a chance he wouldn’t notice her wearing my jacket. I can only imagine how traumatizing it must have felt. Fighting against every instinct to remain covered, but with no time to waste, the frantic teenager scrambled to get out of her clothes. Unfortunately, because the stuck zipper made removing my jacket in a modest, ladylike fashion impossible, her only option was to wrestle it up over her head, revealing her entire naked body to everyone in the process. But time was of the essence. For the next five seconds, she didn't have the luxury of modesty.

My jaw dropped as she intentionally lifted the hem of her jacket up over her naked pelvis. Having never before seen what girls have between their legs, I was intensely interested in studying every, vivid detail of Mary’s privates. Sadly, my eyes never made it past the soft, light-brown patch of pubic hair at the very top. It was so out of place that it just didn't compute. My brain refused to process what I was seeing and forgot to look at anything else.

In as much as a hurry to get naked as she was, Mary should have been finished by now. Unfortunately, she hadn't considered that she was still wearing a hardhat. She got the jacket up above her shoulders, baring her beautiful breasts to the whole group of explorers in the process. But because the helmet was still securely strapped under her chin, the jacket just got tangled up when she tried to lift it over her head. Her fertile, hourglass figure was nicely presented as long as her arms were entangled like that.

For a couple tense seconds, she stood with all her intimate secrets lewdly on display and fought with the jacket. Finally, a violent heave broke the chin strap free, and she was able to get both articles off her head. Still more worried about Frank than even her own modesty, she dropped everything she had, including the flashlight, at her feet with a deafening CLANK, and backed warily away from the heap.

Looking down at her newly bared body, she then sucked in a loud gasp, as if she hadn’t expected her strip show to leave her naked, and quickly reverted to her former, embarrassed, nude female pose. Everyone nearby who heard the clatter turned to look and was rewarded with the unbelievable sight of a well-endowed seventeen-year-old girl standing right out in the open, completely naked.

The only thing Mary could do in response to all those eyeballs was lower her head in shame. With no way to cover her rear at all, the traumatized girl had to stand there with her bottom completely exposed. After being clothed for two glorious hours, she had been lulled into a false sense of security. And every sliver of dignity she had built up over the past two hours had been ripped from her in one humiliating moment.

After seeing her clothed for the last two hours, her intrepid band had to be shocked by the speed at which their fellow cave explorer had undressed. Girls weren't usually capable of stripping all their clothes off so quickly like that. But I didn't hear anyone complaining. On the contrary, finally able to see clearly what they had spent the whole tour fantasizing over, many of them happily turned their flashlights to bathe her pristine, teenage rump in a bright, amplifying spotlight. The erotic exhibition of her trembling, naked body truly was a sight worthy of the great hall!

[Freesub]

I loved it! It just gets better and better!
But now it's time for Mary to pay up. An anatomy lesson on the way!

[Davvy]

Really great stuff
I love how a large group of random strangers watch her lustfully the whole time and are kinda teased without knowing the full extent to which she's actually undressed, then eventually being able to completely see almost everything.

Really excited to possibly read more in the future
Please keep going

[student]

This chapter had everything--and everything was revealed. Good work! Thank you, sir.

[Skylar21]

Mary is the star whether she likes it or not . Now she has to fulfill her side of the deal, riding on down the road, sitting on her hands, exposing it all to her brother. No more hiding!

This continues to be a great story. As always, looking forward to the next installment.

[Cerulean]

Just wandering through to say I’ve been checking this story every day, hoping for an update soon! Very curious if Mary was seen with the jacket by dad and if so, what consequences might await her!

[perseus]

I too am hoping for an update soon

[neverdoubted]

Just wandering through to say I’ve been checking this story every day, hoping for an update soon! Very curious if Mary was seen with the jacket by dad and if so, what consequences might await her!

All will be revealed (see what I did there?) someday. Unfortunately, this was always meant to act as a sneak peek of the full story. Until it is fully funded, I will not be posting any more of The Last Straw publicly. If you want to support it or me as a writer, consider making a donation directly towards this story and/or vote for it to receive self-funding in the free, monthly poll on my website. The faster it gets to 100%, the sooner it will be released for everyone to read for free. So go vote!

There is much, much more to this amazing story, and I can't wait to share it all! Until then, you'll just have to use your imagination.
~ ND

[SensoryOverlord]

"I even have a plan for old, great-uncle Herbert, may he soon rest in peace."

The poor man dies of a heart attack when he sees Mary, and so Mary has to attend a funeral naked?
I'm looking forward to developments as 'Junior' gets further into the holiday without opportunity for relief. For that matter, there'll be a similar effect for the girls too, especially Mary. Just less stand-out obvious.

That 'illusion of precipice' was cool. Having done plenty of real spelunking, the 'bottomless black pit that's easy to fall into' and sometimes you just don't have the gear to rig safety, really had me sucked in too. I was wondering how the hell a public tour of any kind could get away with that risk. A: they don't.


"I have a plan for e v e r y t h i n g."

You have a plan, I have a Plan Crash.
(Yes, the next chapter is coming along, very slowly as always with my stories.)