A Step Too Far?

by Suzie Dalkin

This was written without any idea where it was going. As a result, readers may find it funny or offensive – or neither – or both.

Edward Arley was a very organised young man. His parents were staid pillars of the community who for many years had run a successful estate agency business in Sutton Deering, an old market town about 50 miles north of London.

Edward had known the business since before he’d started at primary school, and he probably knew the staff in the shop better than his own parents did. So much so that by the age of thirteen he could do any task required in the business, even if he wasn’t allowed to – clients may not like their upmarket properties being valued by a schoolboy!

Edward had been sent to Sutton Deering Grammar School at the age of eleven, where he excelled, especially at maths and science and everyone thought that Oxford or Cambridge University would beckon.

Edward’s life changed completely when he lost both of his parents in a horrific accident on the Sutton Deering by-pass. He moved to his grandparents' house nearby but despite the trauma continued to excel at school. However, being immersed in it, he decided he could run what was now his business.

He was so organised that before he was sixteen he had bought up two other estate agencies to make Arley Estates a business that was going places. His grandfather, who had founded the firm, was able to do all the legal stuff that Edward wasn’t allowed to by law, but wouldn’t interfere unless he saw something that could be catastrophic – which he never did.

Edward continued growing the business while studying for his GCSEs, in which, as you’d expect, he did very well, but decided to leave school without staying to study for A-levels, despite many attempts from various quarters to change his mind.

In recent years the area had become a haven for politicians and media people, who all socialised together and were known as the Sutton Deering Set, That meant rich pickings for the local estate agencies and Edward continued expanding his money-making machine.

Then, a few years later, Edward, the successful businessman, decided that he needed a wife to give him a child to whom he could eventually pass on the business, and he treated it like one of his business takeovers. Accordingly he looked out for opportunities, did the due diligence, made an acceptable offer, and acquired a wife. And of course the lure of his fortune meant that she was beautiful.

So he carried on in much the same way, making more money, but making time in his busy schedule to produce an heir.

Now that heir, young Teddy, wasn’t a lot like his father. He was studious and diligent without being very dynamic, was always polite, neat and tidy, and had inherited his mother’s looks but not his father’s ruthless business brain. Edward was greatly disappointed with his investment.

So, being a businessman, Edward soon disposed of his underperforming assets, ensuring that a generous settlement went with them (he wasn’t utterly ruthless), before re-entering the acquisitions market again.

Teddy then found himself, at the age of four, in a village near Sutton Deering, living in a small cottage with his mother, who cried a lot for some reason. And, being a sensitive soul, he would often feel the need to comfort her.

But then in the autumn he began attending the village school, which he didn’t like at first, but soon found that it wasn’t so bad. Every day his mother would take him to school and chat to the other parents at the school gate. Soon she wasn’t crying so much, and he noticed that she would often be talking to Siân Carson’s dad. Siân was a bossy girl in his class.

By the time December arrived, Teddy’s mum wasn’t crying at all, and was calling Siân’s dad “Uncle Bill.” And she invited Uncle Bill and Siân to stay at their cottage for a couple of days over Christmas. The cottage only had two bedrooms so Teddy wasn’t sure how that would work but he was told that Siân would have to use the other single bed in his room, presumably meaning that Uncle Bill would have to sleep on the sofa as the other bedroom only had one bed.

Siân and Teddy were sent to bed on Christmas Eve and naturally were so excited about Santa’s visit that they couldn’t sleep for ages. And then of course they woke up really early to find – nothing. So they sneaked quietly downstairs to find a big pile of Christmas presents under the tree, but Uncle Bill was nowhere to be seen.

They’d been warned not to open any presents until all four of them were there so Teddy and Siân rushed upstairs to look for their parents – and Uncle Bill was in Mum’s bed with her! Teddy assumed that Uncle Bill must have been too cold on the sofa.

Soon after Christmas, Uncle Bill and Siân moved back in again, temporarily, while Teddy’s mum and Uncle Bill sold their cottages in order to all move into one large house with four bedrooms – one for each of them. But as spring, and then summer arrived before the removers did, their parents would still be sleeping in Mum's bed. So Teddy realised that maybe the theory about Uncle Bill finding the sofa too cold was wrong and that he must really just be frightened of sleeping on his own!

But when he mentioned this to Siân, who was a couple of months older than Teddy, she laughed and said “Well, you’ve got a lot to learn – they’ve been having sexial integers for months.”

He wished now that he’d been concentrating when his father had told him all about integers.

“And you must have heard their bed creaking!”

Teddy just said “I thought it was the water pipes knocking. Surely doing sums doesn’t make the bed creak, does it?”

“I see that I’m going to have to give you some lessons,” said Siân.

So she proceeded to educate him from her much greater experience of the world, and he soon knew about babies and how men push them into women’s letterboxes with their pens, which is why people say that babies are ‘delivered’ when the baby comes out again.

And she told him that a man’s pen was stuck to him and, unlike a ballpoint, you couldn’t just throw it away and get a new one when it ran out. She’d also heard that some boys can use their pens to write in the snow. There hadn’t been any snow yet, but she would make one of them show her when there was some!

And she told him that ladies have to wear things called bars, which squash up their chests into two lumps, but she didn’t know why they didn’t just leave their bars off.

And she told him about high-heeled shoes, which men can’t wear because they’d fall over.

And ear-rings, which are needed to fill the holes that girls have but boys don’t.

And sentry towels, but she hadn’t yet found out what sentries would be doing with towels. Cleaning their guns perhaps?

So pretty soon he knew everything there was to know about sexial matters. But not quite as much about female clothes.

One night Teddy said to Siân, "Don’t you find your nightdress a bit cold?"

She said “No, it’s the duvet that keeps you warm, not what you’re wearing. Why don’t you try one of mine and see?” So he did, and realised she was right.

The next night he asked her if her thin knickers were cold, and she let him try hers.

After a week he’d tried out her thinner socks, her leggings and her tights and found all of them comfortable and not cold as he had expected.

And then over the next week or so, in their own room, they each tried out all of the other’s clothes that would fit. Sometimes they’d swap less obvious things like socks, under their jeans, to see if their parents would notice, which they never did.

When they eventually moved to the new house, after Teddy and Siân had excitedly chosen their new rooms, they soon found that they missed sharing the one room together, and their parents would find them each morning in Siân’s room and, more often than not, in her double bed. Uncle Bill and Mum didn’t worry about it too much for now, though.

A few months later their parents made an announcement. They were getting married, so Siân and Teddy would become step-brother and step-sister. And everyone was happy and kissed everyone else.

And then they announced that Siân would be a pretty bridesmaid and Teddy would be a very smart page boy – and there was silence!

“We thought you’d be pleased,” said their parents, “Most children would be.”

“But I don’t want to be a page boy,” said Teddy.

“Ok, we could swap it round so you could be a bridesmaid, Teddy, and you’d be the page boy Siân. We won’t mind as long as you’re both there!”

“But I wanted to be a bridesmaid too”, said Siân.

“Then we have a bit of a problem. Why don’t you two think about it and tell us tomorrow what you’d like to do,” said Mum.

Now this wasn’t as big a surprise to the adults as the children thought, bcause parents are not as easily fooled as five-year-olds think, and they’d known exactly what had been going on and they would have a quiet laugh about it when the kids weren’t around.

So when the question came up the following day, the parents thought they knew what would be proposed. They would be having two bridesmaids, but one would look after the bride's dress and carry a posy while the other would carry the cushion with the wedding rings. And they were not wrong, as that's what was decided.

That precipitated some officially-tolerated cross-dressing, so Teddy could get used to walking and sitting in a dress, in shoes with slightly higher heels than he was used to, but he'd have to remember to be ladylike at all times.

The wedding went off without a hitch, and Siân and Teddy loved it.

But a few years later it was felt that the children were now of an age at which they shouldn't both be sleeping in the same room, let alone the same bed. So they both, begrudgingly, had to sleeep in their own rooms but, whenever new clothes appeared, they both would try them on.

Then mother nature took a hand and modified Siân’s body, and her knowledge. And Teddy began to notice Siân’s boobs and widening hips and was amazed when she told him what happened each month, and Siân also began to notice what Teddy had that she didn't.

And then a further complication arose. Siân discovered that she liked boys that weren't necessarily her step-brother. And as they had always done things together, Teddy announced that he liked boys too.

But Siân said "You can't. Older boys should like older girls or they'll become home sexials."

"I've been a home sexial for ages," he said, "Ever since I found I could get a nice feeling by rubbing my underpants. Siân said she knew what he meant but left it at that. And she told him that they had better stop talking about such things as brothers and sisters mustn't do naughty things together as it was against the law.

And soon they reached the age of sixteen when boys and girls can have sexial relations, as long as they aren't actual relations! And as she was his sister, she told him he ought to watch it as she didn't want to become pregnant, thank you very much.

But Teddy knew more than Siân on some things and he pointed out that if step-brothers and step-sisters don't share any grandparents, then they aren't relations so can have sexial relations, but it was all a bit complicated.

But then their parents decided the family would all go to Canada for the whole of August, to visit Siân's uncle and aunt, but the kids said they'd prefer to stay at home as Canada is a bit cold. They got their wish as they could now look after themselves, and they were given a bank card with £1000 on it.

So they decided to do things their way for a few weeks. Siân had been given some little pills to take every day by Mum before she had left and was told they'd stop her getting pregnant so she took that as an excuse to do some investigating.

So she let Teddy move back into her bed and allowed him to wear a nightie like hers, which permitted easy access for both of them to have nice feelings at the same time and to explore how to make the feelings even nicer. And within a week they'd explored quite a lot of ways, even if some were a bit messy or tasted funny. They would also dress in each other's clothes all the time except when they left the house, Teddy wearing makeup and everything, and they had such fun.

So pretty soon they'd learned all about sexial relations between girls and boys, and started thinking about girls with girls, and boys with boys.

But that required some other people.

Now they knew two others in their year-group at school who were just like them, step-brother and step-sister who didn't share a grandparent. Siân told Paula and Philip what she and Teddy had been doing and Teddy explained it was nothing illegal now they were all sixteen. Siân got them to come over on their bikes one day, having first ensured that Paula was also taking the little pills.

Teddy and Siân demonstrated the various ways that they could get a nice feeling and then let their friends try. And they were amazed and soon were taking to it like ducks to water, while Teddy and Siân looked on jealously.

But soon they got bored and so the two girls had a go together and then the two boys and pretty soon they had a good orgy going with sticky stuff everywhere.

But sadly, that was the point at which their parents came home unexpectedly early from Canada, found the orgy going on in Siân's bed and put an end to it straight away.

Their friends were sent home and Siân and Teddy were expecting a stiff talking to from their parents.

"Just what did you think you were doing?" said Mum.

"We weren't doing anything illegal" said Siân, "we're all over sixteen, and we were just doing research about sexial relations."

"Really? And what have you learned?"

"Well, we've learned that there are 92 ways for girls to get an organism and 84 for boys, and every one of them is nice," said Siân. Mum spat out the mouthful of coffee she'd just taken in.

"That many?" she said, as she wiped herself with a tissue that was lying on the bedside table, a tissue that seemed rather stiff for some reason.

"... But that's just for boys and girls, said Siân. When you sent Philip and Paula home, we had barely started our research on home sexials." Luckily Mum hadn't taken another mouthful of coffee.

So that put an end to the research project and Paula and Philip weren't allowed to visit any more. However the two pairs of step-siblings would still see each other at school and would socialise together with other sixth-formers at weekends. All of which helped to make their sixth-form years very harmonious. Even if that particular sixth-form group seemed to experience a boom in teenage pregnancies.

Eventually Siân, Teddy, Paula and Philip passed their A-level exams and all four went off to university – the same one – and shared a flat for three years. That allowed them to not only collect degrees but also to complete their sixth-form project which had been so unfairly interrupted.

And they all live together still and are now very rich thanks to the phenomenally successful manual about weird sex co-written by the four of them, which allowed them to further continue their adventures in the world of sex. And that in turn paid for some very expensive surgery which led to them all changing their names slightly to Paul, Philippa, Sean and Edie.

Now, whenever they go home to visit their proud parents, Sean and Edie always sneak a look at the bedside table in their parents' bedroom to find out how much more well-used the signed copy of their book seems to be this time! But with the two of them having a new step-sister, they expect that, once she starts to read, the book will probably be slightly less conspicuously located, but will be no less used.

And since volume two will soon be published, Edie and Sean wonder if it will be too risky to even give their parents a copy of this one!

A Step Too Far? ©2025 Suzie Dalkin