Terence Fitzbancroft

My Sister, My Sin

ONE

One morning in the summer of my fourteenth year I woke up with a much stiffer and thicker erection than any my young loins had ever before sustained.

I knew it must have some link with my sister, whose arrival the night before had made it difficult to get to sleep. I had scarcely seen her for five years, for after our mother and father separated we had been shuttled about from school to camp and back again.

But I knew as soon as we had rushed into each others' arms on her arrival that the slavish love for her I had felt as a young boy-when we had taken baths together and played tickling games, exposed ourselves and played house-was undiminished, even if she was now fifteen.

I slid out of bed, slipped on a bathrobe and headed for Sandy's room. Then I thought better of it and took off the robe as well as my pyjamas. What was the sense of covering up? We were going to have a whole summer together, under the half-blind eye of dotty grandma, while the parents wrangled far away in the city over the settlement and our custody. I looked at myself in the mirror. I had shot up in the last year, and even if I was a year younger than my sister, I was a couple of inches taller. I wasn't a skinny rail like most kids my age, either, but had begun to flesh out smoothly, and my erected standard was that of a man, not a boy.

I tiptoed into Sandy's room and closed the door silently behind me. She lay stretched on her stomach, facing me, still asleep. During the night she had wriggled free of the light covers, and either because she was too hot or too restless, had let her nightgown ride all the way up her thighs and halfway up her buttocks. I was amazed and excited by how much those perfectly round hills had grown, and how white they were in contrast to her golden, suntanned thighs.

I walked up to the bed and kneeled alongside her. She continued to breathe deeply in sleep. Her full red lips were parted in a sensual smile. Her long blonde hair lay strewn on the pillow, sparkling in the light from the open window.

Leaning forward, I brushed her lips with mine. She whimpered softly, but did not stir, so I laid my hand on her bare buttocks, marveling at their smoothness, and shook. She whimpered again.

“Wake up,” I said, and slapped her hard on her fanny.

She squealed, rose to her elbows, looked at me, looked down at her naked backside and with one motion covered it with her nightie and rolled over onto her side to face me.

Her breasts had grown alarmingly since the last time I had seen her with so little on. Their fullness pressed against the transparent silk of her garment and her sharp red nipples surrounded by their pink aureoles glowed through the fabric.

I vaulted onto the bed opposite her and stretched out in an imitation of her posture, chin in hand. Kneeling before her on the floor, my nakedness hadn't been visible to her, and now she let out another squeal, putting her hand to her mouth.

“Terry, you're naked!” she said, blushing a fiery red. “Put some clothes on!”

“What for? You've seen me like this a million times before. We're brother and sister, remember? Remember how we used to take baths together?”

“We were just little kids then. It was different.”

“Sure it was different. You weren't such a spoilsport then. Remember that time out in the woods when we stripped and I tied you to a tree and took those birch branches and-”

“No! I don't want to remember. Now put some clothes on.”

“Why don't you just take yours off?”

“I'm going to in a minute, as soon as you leave.”

“I'll stay. I'll put on something of yours.” I got up and went through the clothes piled on the chair alongside her bed. Picking out a pair of transparent bikini panties, I squeezed into them as Sandy watched me from behind. I turned around, and she started to giggle and blush again. I looked down and realized they were much too small and were slipping away, acting more like a sling than a garment.

“Terry, you're awful. You're a worse show-off than you were as a kid.”

“Let's take a bath,” I said.

“No!” She was off the bed, pushing me toward the door.

“It can be a bubble bath if you're afraid of showing your disease.”

“What disease?”

“Your skin disease. I knew there was something wrong with your body when you were so ashamed to be naked with me. You never were before.”

“There's nothing wrong with my body.”

“Then prove it.”

She let out a haughty grunt, wheeled around and pulled the garment over her head. I gasped at the sight of her naked buttocks again, now even more sensuous in their full context, in contrast to her girl's tiny waist, so smoothly flowing into the poised arch at the small of her back. Then she turned slowly, hands on her hips, inhaling deeply so that her ripe young breasts stuck out even more fully. The large, conical aureoles were of the smoothest, moistest pink flesh, and her cherry colored nipples were erect as two pencil erasers. The thighs, golden, which looked so firm from the side, were fleshly and round from the front, and converged on a thatch of peach-colored fuzz that only barely covered the two red lips of her sweet core.

I was quivering with desire now, and the chafing of the panties had agitated me almost to the point of explosion.

“God, Sandy, you're really beautiful!” I drank in the sight of her naked body, trying to cover every pore with my eyes as I walked up to her. “Wow! Can I touch you?” I stepped closer to her, and our bodies touched at three points.

“Skin disease, huh?” she sneered. “You'll pay for that remark!” She began shoving me toward the door. “You can take your bath by yourself, kid. Now get out!” She pushed me out altogether and slammed the door in my face.

Stunned and delirious with desire now, I staggered into the bathroom, stripped off the panties and began filling the tub. In case Sandy should change her mind I threw in some of the bubble bath she used to like and jumped into the steaming froth.

Two minutes later the door opened and closed and I looked up to see her standing beside me wearing a grin and nothing else.

“How's the water?”

“Hot. You change your mind?”

“Yup.” Facing me, she lifted a toe and lowered it into the water, spreading her legs as she did so. She pulled it back immediately.

“It is hot!”

“That's what I told you.”

Slowly, she lowered herself into the opposite end of the tub and leaned back, squeezing her buttocks between my legs and resting her feet in my lap. Her breasts were well above the water level, and when she began soaping them the nipples peeped through the lather like cherries in a wash of whipped cream. I wanted to eat of them, to bite into the pit.

“They're beautiful,” I said. “They've really gotten big.”

“What?”

“These.” I lifted a foot and pressed the sole softly against one of her breasts. I was surprised at how hot and hard the nipple was. “I can remember when they were just little buttons.”

She laughed and let the foot caress her as she breathed deeply and pushed into it. Then she brushed it away and let it drop into her hot lap. “I can remember when you were just a thimble,” she said. “You've gotten pretty big yourself.” With this, she slid her foot across my thigh until it rested squarely against the swollen, throbbing underside of my organ.

“That feels great,” I said, rubbing myself against her and shuddering with pleasure. She smiled slyly and slid her other leg across my thigh so that both feet now held me in a firm, fluid grip. As she played with me, so I began to play with her, sliding one foot against her abdomen, up to her breasts and back again and squeezing the other under her buttocks and coming up between her legs. I probed her with my wriggling toes until she began to sigh and gasp.

I had begun to move my pelvis rhythmically, up and down, in and out of the tight grip of her soft, soapy feet. The feverish excitement that had been building up in my loins since I awoke was now beginning to convulse my body with waves of pleasure infinitely exceeding anything I had felt in the wet dreams and dry fantasies of the months and years before. Sandy held on tight as I thrashed with her feet in the suds while against my feet she did a juicy dance of her own.

Suddenly I exploded in wash after wash of a furious ecstasy that shook my whole body and stiffened my arching back all the way. I howled with pleasure and then sank blubbering her name and relaxing back into the hot bath.

“What happened?” she asked. “Don't you want to play any more?”

“Of course I want to play with your-with you. That's all I want to do.” I began massaging her again with my foot.

“Let's rinse off and go into my room,” she o said, and stood up. She turned and began adjusting the shower spray, which came down in hot bullets. I stood up and pulled her to me, pressing myself into her buttocks. She turned, and we began pawing each other's body hungrily as the spray washed over us. I sank a sucking kiss into the crook of her neck and tried to kiss her mouth, but she slid out of my grip, giggling and bounding out of the shower. I caught her arm but she wriggled free and dashed back into her room.

I followed in hot pursuit, catching up to her alongside the bed and wrestling her down with me. We were a tangle of nude legs, arms, buttocks, breasts, bellies and genitals, rolling over and over in a sadistic tickling match that had both of us howling in tortuous glee.

At one point she had me pinned down-her thighs on top of mine, her abdomen pressing my organ against me, her breasts crushed into my chest, her forearms pressing down onto mine with all her weight. She tickled my ear with her mouth and her tongue-licking, biting, sucking, blowing hot and cold until it became unbearably exciting.

With all the strength my lithe young body could muster I heaved her over and rolled on top of her, grabbing her around the waist in a bear hug that enclosed her arms.

Then I began to tickle her. Raising my hips above hers and then lowering them, I began to brush my head back and forth across her lips, moving in ever so slightly and then withdrawing to tickle her some more.

I soon had her panting and writhing beneath me, begging me either to let her go or to give her all I had. I didn't know what she meant by giving her all I had, never having had a girl before, so I continued to tickle.

She seized the initiative. As I brushed once more across her and dipped lightly into her fold she thrust her hips up violently against mine and we were locked, belly to belly, thigh to thigh, pelvis to pelvis and bloodstream to incestuous bloodstream.

I didn't know what had happened but I had no time to be alarmed. My own delirious pleasure assured me the moans my sister was sounding into my ear had nothing to do with pain. And we began to move together, slowly at first and then more furiously, violently. We fit together perfectly, made of the same seed as we were, and our joint genes echoed in the rhythm of our thrust and counter thrust, in the way our hearts beat and our organs ground.

Young and impatient and utterly without experience until moments before, I drove away like a pile driver toward my own satisfaction. As I moved shudderingly toward the crescendo of sensation I could feel Sandy trying to hold me back but didn't know why and didn't stop but pumped and pumped until I broke into convulsions of blinding joy and stiffened my body into her as wave after wave of pleasure shocked through my bloodstream.

I collapsed onto her and then rolled away, sobbing with delirious satisfaction. I covered her shoulders and throat and breasts and face and feverish mouth with kisses. She seemed tense, unhappy, unsatisfied.

“What's the matter, Sandy?”

“Nothing,” she said, looking away.

“Was there something wrong? Did I hurt you?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“What, then?”

“I'll tell you later.”

“Shouldn't we have done that? Was there something wrong with us doing it?”

She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me to her breasts. She stared at me with those wide, stark blue eyes of hers, the pupils big and black, and kissed me with her open mouth. Then she leaned back again.

“There's supposed to be, but I think it's great. It's just-that it could have been better.”

“What do you mean?”

“I'll tell you later.”

“Tell me now.”

Our intimacy was busted into by the cracking, feeble voice of Grandma calling from the foot of the stairs below. “Children. Children! Time to get up. Breakfast is ready. You've slept long enough.” She rang her little dinner bell for several moments and then fell silent.

I looked for Sandy. She was gone. I got up and looked around. Under the bed. There she was.

“Get up. What are you doing under there?”

“I thought she was coming upstairs. I forgot all about her.”

“She hasn't come up these stairs for ten years. She's a cripple. You know that.”

“What if she heard us? She must have heard everything.”

“Sandy, what's the matter with you? She's stone deaf. What are you so ashamed of?”

“I'm not ashamed, Terry. I was just scared.”

She turned away. “You better go get dressed before she gets suspicious.”

TWO

I went back to my room, slipped on a pair of cut-off denim shorts and a tee shirt and rejoined Sandy. Still naked, she was brushing her hair, still wet, in front of the mirror. She told me to pick out a pair of panties and a bra for her. I chose the flimsiest and softest ones I could find and she told me to put them on her. I knelt in front of her and she stepped into the panties. She spread her legs and I slid them up her smooth thighs. Placing my head between the thighs I planted a long licking kiss there and pulled the garment up onto her haunches.

Next, the bra. Rising to one knee I began to suck and lick her breasts, nibbling on the nipples until she moaned and said, “Cut it out or we'll never get to breakfast.”

“This is all the breakfast I need, Mama.”

“Come on.”

I cupped her breasts with the skimpy bra and started fumbling with the strap. “How the hell does this work?”

“Go around the back and look, stupid little brother.”

I did so, and the bra fell to the floor. “The hell with it. You don't need it. You look better without it.”

Sandy, chuckling, threw down her brush and stepped into a pair of shorts and slid on a tight cotton Jersey that looked like an undershirt and we went downstairs holding hands.

“Well, well, well, my only baby's two beautiful babies,” Grandma said as we entered the dining room and kissed her in turn on the cheek and joined her at the table. “You both get a good sleep?”

I was very fond of the old girl. She was a wizened little old lady who, even though she lived alone, still dressed impeccably every day, powdered and perfumed-in honor, I suppose, of the TV game show celebrities in whose vicarious company she spent the day.

“Yeah, Grandma,” I shouted, “we slept great.”.

“Now pitch right in, and you can have cornflakes, and there's milk there, and more in the icebox and I'll make some eggs if you want some, and coffee. Do you drink coffee, Sandra? I know Terry hates it.”

Sandy nodded her head vigorously. “Yes, please.”

“I'll have some too, Grandma,” I yelled, not wanting to destroy my new virile image by looking like a kid who couldn't stand coffee.

“Well, I see your sister exerts quite an influence over you. I hope it's a good one.” Grandma mumbled these words unintelligibly. She had developed the habit many deaf old folks adopt, that of expecting those around her to speak in a yell, while muttering her own words and forcing the others to say, What? as if they, not she, were deaf.

“What, Grandma?” I yelled.

She repeated the reference to Sandy's example while pouring our coffee. Sandy and I exchanged a swift, naughty grin.

“I didn't want to take on the job at first. It's not like it was when you were little ones. With this arthritis it's enough of a job just to get out of bed in the morning, so I'm going to need your help around the house, Sandy. But your mother thought it would be good for my joints. I only agreed when she promised me you wouldn't be a nuisance to me. She said you knew how to take care of yourselves. I hope she was right.”

“Sure, Gramma, we know how to take care of ourselves,” Sandy shouted as I choked on a cornflake.

“Well, that's good. There's not going to be much entertainment around here-there won't be any going into town for movies and there's no neighbors. You're going to be mighty bored and restless. I hope you'll be able to amuse yourselves.”

“We'll think of something,” I yelled as Sandy covered her mouth with her napkin.

“What do you young folks do with yourselves nowaday, anyway? When I was a girl we had all kinds of games we played.”

“We have our own games, Grandma,” I said..

“Eh?”

“I said we have our own games!” I roared, and Sandy started to laugh.

“Well, Sandy seems to like them,” she said. “I'm glad of that. Won't have her sneaking off to meet some boy, I hope. That's what I was worried about with you, young lady, let me tell you. I told your mother, 'No dates, or no girl.' So if you've got boys on your mind you can forget about them for the summer.”

“That's okay with me, Grandma,” she said.

“I make sure of that Grandma,” I shouted. “I'll keep my eyes on her morning, noon and night. She'll never get out of my clutches.”

“Well, that's a relief. When I was young, a girl didn't go courting with a man unless he asked her to marry him.”

“Ah, go on, Grandma,” I yelled. “You're not that old. People weren't even that strict back in the old ancient Roman days.”

“Well, I may exaggerate a little to make my point, but anyway, I'm glad you're the kind of girl that's happy to play games with her brother and doesn't have to go chasing after every Tom, Dick and Harry that makes eyes at her.”

“Me, too, Grandma,” I shouted.

“So that's my sermon for this morning, and I'm glad we understand one another. Now you two go out and play, and I'll clean up the dishes.”

“I'll do it,” Sandy said, and bolted up with our plates.

“Don't you dare,” Grandma said. “You're not going to make me feel like a crippled old invalid on your first day here. You'll have plenty of work to do starting tomorrow. Not today.”

“That's okay, Grandma.”

“Do as I say, young lady, or I'll have your brother take you out back for a whipping.”

“Go ahead, help her,” I mumbled.

“Now run along with your brother.”

We bolted out the back door hand in hand and started to run fast, laughing as we went. It was a gorgeously warm summer morning-the bright sun halfway up to the zenith, cloudless sky, the rich air full of the odors of wildflowers, the damp grass and the heavy foliage of the nearby woods. Almost without pausing we pulled off our shoes to run in the thickening grass, and put them right back on when Sandy stepped on a sharp twig.

“Why didn't you disobey her? Then I could've whipped you.”

“Why do you need her to tell you to whip me? If you really want to, you'll do it yourself.”

“I'll remember that.”

“I hope so.”

She took off running and I chased after her. We came to the edge of the woods and slowed down. In the summers of our childhood we were afraid of wild beasts-bears, boars, lions, tigers and hyenas, and the woods still held unspoken mysteries for us. Holding hands, we proceeded cautiously, brushing low-lying branches out of the way and trying to follow the overgrown path so vaguely remembered which would take us to the stream.

After losing our way several times we arrived at it-a lazily winding spring-fed brook, ice cold, moving through patches of sunlight, shade and the leaf-speckled mixture of both.

“Let's go wading,” I said.

“Let's take off our clothes first.”

We stripped hurriedly, avidly, facing each other, and when we were both nude we embraced fiercely. I wanted her immediately and ground my need into her abdomen.

“Not yet, Terry,” she said, pushing me away lightly, “let's go downstream a ways.”

We laid our clothes in a bundle at the base of a familiar weeping willow and began wading downstream, our joined hands moving back and forth in front of us to tingle our arousal.

The water began getting deeper, and I remembered the spot she must have had in mind when she suggested we wade downstream. There was a natural dam which formed a little pool deep enough to swim in, and alongside it was a gently sloping rock overgrown with mossy grass, as soft as a bed, with the rich texture of a golf green in need of a little cutting.

The water was nearly four feet deep now, and we pushed out into it, swimming gently in the breast stroke, our arms and legs lightly intermingling as we swam. There was the rock. It hadn't budged, and nobody had manicured the moss. Sunlight played upon it through the wind-rocked leaves.

I pulled myself up and then reached out for Sandy, her white body shimmering through the clear swirls of the water.

We huddled together and rolled over on the moss to dry ourselves. I kissed her hungrily on the mouth and felt her lips and tongue, cool from the cool water, melt into mine and heat rapidly. I sunk my mouth to her throat and embraced her breast feverishly, feeling the nipple, also cold and hard from the water, go hot and hard.

“Aren't you going to ask me the question?” she said.

“What question?”

“Don't you remember? From this morning? About what was wrong?”

“Oh yeah. What was it?” I said, preoccupied with biting and licking her nipples.

“Did you enjoy yourself this morning?”

“Jesus, I've never been so happy in my life. It was so beautiful, Sandy. What's the matter. Didn't you like it?”

“I loved it too, Terry, you're so good with me, you're perfect, you just fit and it touches every part of me, and you're so beautiful, but-”

“But what? I'm your brother and you're not supposed to?”

“No, Terry, it's not that, it's just you're too damn fast and greedy to get to the end of everything. It takes a girl longer to get there. You have to hold your horses. Didn't you know that?”

“No, I didn't.”

“Think you can?”

“I think I could do anything for you.”

“Kiss me, Terry,” she said. She lay flat on her back, her beautiful young body spread out on the moss, her legs wide, her breasts heaving. I rolled on top of her and kissed her a long, hot moment until I felt her hands pushing my shoulders down. I slid along her and seized one of her breasts, kneading the nipple with my lips and teeth until she squealed with pleasure and I took the other one.

“Kiss me again, the way you did this morning when you put on my panties.”

I moved down further and buried my face in her thighs. She thrust up her hips as I kissed and bit, licked and sucked and licked, drinking in the sweet warm scent of her girlhood.

“Take me now, Terry, take me now,” she sobbed, and I needed no pulling to spring forward so that we met mouth to mouth, nipples to nipples and toe to toe. She had me in her hand and guided me to her into her.

I thrust slowly and probed deeply, wriggling in circles and withdrawing almost to the point of separation, then thrusting even more deeply. At times our sweet, juicy rhythm would pick up in speed and then I would ease off slowly and pause to probe her if I felt our act of joy had a chance to end inadvertently then and there.

Moaning and gasping on the moss, by the brook, in the sun, in the morning, in the woods, our bloodstreams and our bodies and our nervous systems interlocked, we made love joyously, totally, innocently and incestuously. In this way we built and built and built to such a point that when it came — and I knew it was coming then, knew too from the gasping of her breath and the frenzy of her loins and claws in my back-it came in such a shuddering torrent of convulsive ecstasy for both of us that the waves of orgasm seemed to last as long or longer than the many minutes (or was it hours) of delicious wrestling and diving that we had spent building up to that explosive, blinding shock wave.

We lay together for a long while after that with our bodies still interlocked, heavily breathing, gasping, murmuring all the words of love and enslavement, exchanging warm, slow kisses of a lassitude and tenderness that was beyond passion.

Then I withdrew, and slid along her body to nestle my head on her breast. We stroked each other and sweated against each other and listened to the brook slide by.

I fell asleep, and when I woke up saw Sandy asleep too. I slid off of her and alongside her and she woke up. She smiled, the freest, happiest smile I've ever seen. I returned it. I was so overcome with joy that I threw myself against her and started to sob. I pulled away so I could see her face again and she was crying too. For once in our lives, we were happy.

We talked for a long time about nothing, about the birds and the moss and the leaves and the sun and the brook and the mosquito which landed on her ass and which I killed with a sharp whack, making Sandy scream and raising a beautiful pink splotch on her behind.

I kissed it, and sucked on the insect bite to try to reduce the swelling, but only succeeded in leaving teeth marks and another bruise.

“Was this your first time with a girl?” she asked. “This morning?”

“Yes. Your feet received my virgin seed.”

“That sounds like a poem.”

“What kind of books have you been reading?” I asked. “What about you? Have you ever done it before?”

She nodded her head. My face dropped a mile. She saw this and stroked it. “Now don't get jealous.”

“Who was the bastard? If I ever meet him I'll tear his guts out. My own sister!”

“Just a boy I met while I was at school. He took me out a lot on weekends. To drive-ins and stuff. He had a car.”

“You can always walk to drive-ins.”

“Don't get funny. His name was Don and he had red hair, a red face and freckles.”

“He sounds ugly.”

“He wasn't. He was very good-looking.”

“I'll bet.”

“If you don't want to hear about it, Terry, I'll shut up and, you can go back to Grandma.”

“I'm listening.”

“Well, we moved from the front-seat sitting position to front seat horizontal. Then to the back seat vertical to back seat lying on my back. In the process, according to the accepted rules, we went, date by date, from kissing to light petting above the waist with shirts on to light petting below the waist outside the clothes to heavy petting above the waist under the clothes to heavy petting below the waist under the clothes to heavy petting above the waist with our shirts and my bra off to heavy petting with masturbation with our clothes on to heavy petting and mutual masturbation with all our clothes off to coitus interruptus-you know what that is?”

“No.”

“It's when you pull it out before anything happens.”

“Oh. What was the next step?”

“Screwing. Just plain screwing. He used a rubber the first time, and by the time he got it on he couldn't get it in. The second night he put it on beforehand.”

“So what happened?”

“It hurt him so much he had to take it off.”

“And this was your big love?”

“I haven't finished yet. Finally one night he got it on and got it in but after about five minutes a cop car came by and we crouched down in the seat so they couldn't see us but Don got scared and couldn't do anything more so we went home. I never saw him again after that.”

“True love always ends in a tragedy.”

“Ha. Ha.”

“Did he mean anything to you? Did you like him?”

“In an offhand sort of way. He was somebody to go out with. He was nice to look at, he had a car and plenty of money to spend on me. But by the time he went through the whole crazy routine of touching one part of me one night and the next part the next I got so frustrated I could scream. I don't think he even wanted me as much as I wanted him — he just wanted to prove himself on me. And what a miserable flop he turned out to be.”

“Was he the only one?”

“Until you. You're the first one, Terry, the first one to make love to me like that and make me feel like a goddess. Boy, did you learn fast. I can't believe you never did anything with a girl before.”

“I've never been much interested in them, I guess. Between you and Mommy, you make other girls look so dull and grubby. Maybe I've been saving my hymen for you.”

This broke her up for some reason I didn't understand.

“Hymen! Boys don't have hymens, that's what girls have.”

“What do boys have?”

“They don't have anything. They just squirt it all over the place from the minute they're born.”

“Oh.” I paused for a moment, wondering if I should dredge what was on my mind out of the past, or not. “There was one other thing that happened to me. I don't know if I should tell you or not.”

“What is it?”

“It happened so long ago, I'm not even sure if I want to or ought to…”

“Tell me, Terry.”

“It happened just before Daddy and Mommy busted up. He came into my room one night and he was drunk. He snapped on the light and told me that I did something wrong or said something wrong — I don't even remember what it was. He yanked me out of bed and made me take off my pyjamas and lie in his lap, face down. Then he spanked the living shit out of me. And a funny thing happened- I got very excited and had an erection. When he let me go he saw it and made me lie in his lap again- only this time, face up. And he took me with his mouth. I was scared to death. It felt good, but I was really scared he was going to bite it off. Finally he got tired, kissed me good night, apologized, made me promise not to tell anybody what happened, and he left.”

“Oh, my God, Terry. What did you do?”

“What could I do? I got scared, that's all.

Scared and ashamed. And when Daddy left I was sure it was my fault.”

“How could it have been your fault?”

“It couldn't have been, but that's the way kids think. Everything's their fault.”

“Poor Terry,” she said, and laid her head on my chest, kissing it. Her warm presence wiped away the ugly odors of the past.

“So that's my wonderful sex life. Except for one other thing.”

“What's that?” she asked.

“I used to play with myself a lot.”

“When did you stop?”

“Today.”

She ran her hand across my belly and downward. “You better stop. You've got to save it all for me.”

“Know what I thought about?”

“I don't know. What did you do? Read dirty books?”

“Nope. I thought about you.”

“You're kidding me,” she said.

“No I'm not. Everything we did today was like right out of a dream. I used to think about us on this rock all the time.”

“That's fantastic. I don't believe it.”

“Suit yourself, but it's true.”

“What about the first time? In the bathtub with the feet?”

“I never thought of that before,” I said.

“See? Look at the sun.”

“It's right overhead, just about.”

“That means it's noon, and Grandma's got lunch for us.”

“All you ever think about is eating.”

“Yup,” she said, and rolled over on top of me, pressing her breasts into my thighs and grabbing me with both her hands. She let her tongue and lips lick and brush against the red erected tip while I lay back moaning. Then she entered it into her mouth all the way to the back of her throat, running her tongue along the length of it, and withdrew, tickling the tip. She repeated the motion, repeated it again, her speed and suction increasing as she gathered momentum. Digging her nails into my buttocks she pulled me up into her and I responded by thrusting and withdrawing to her rhythm until I stopped, stiffened all the way up into her with the sun beating down onto my head.

She drank deeply of me until I had relaxed and then slid snakelike up my body to kiss me full, saltily on the mouth.

“Oh, Sandy, that was so good.”

“Did you like it?”

“Jesus, yes. What brought it on?”

“Can't I do anything I want with you?”

“Anything.”

“I never did that to a boy before. But I wanted to do it to you because of what you said.”

“What do you mean? About eating?”

“No, about Daddy. I didn't want you to think it was so bad all by itself just because he did it to you.”

“We sure make one hell of a family.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Nothing. I'll race you back to our clothes.”

THREE

My blood was so hot and throbbing, my body still so sweetly aroused, that when I hit the water it felt as though I were diving into the contents of an ice pack. Sandy squealed as she came up, and began swimming like Tarzan. She had opened up a ten-length lead on me by the time we reached the shallower part of the stream, and when she lifted her naked body out of the water and began to run upstream I gave up all hope of catching her and just trotted along, content to watch the resilient twitching of her pink buttocks.

Then, with a squeal, she fell. I raced up beside her and helped her to her feet.

“You all right?” I asked.

“I don't know,” she said a little breathlessly, “I guess so.” I looked over her perfect body. Her knee was chafed and there was a cut near the nipple of her quivering left breast. Cupping it with one hand I put my mouth to the wound and licked it free of blood; then sucked some more of the hot, salty red juice from her body.

“I want to drink some of your blood too, Terry,” she said.

“I want that too.” I picked up a sharp-edged rock and handed it to her. She cut a shallow wound in my chest, beside the nipple, over the heart, and then began to lick the blood and suck it from my body.

She lifted her head, her eyes sparkling in the sunlight. “That tastes good,” she said.

“It ought to. It's the same as yours.”

She brushed her nipples across mine-both pairs were red, erect and prickly-until both wounds were touching and our bloodstreams mingled.

“Just like the Indians,” I said.

“Now we really are brother and sister,” she said.

“And married, and friends, and everything!”

So she wouldn't see me starting to cry like a kid again I pulled her mouth to mine and kissed her fiercely.

Then, holding hands tightly, every sensitive center of our two bodies throbbing with excitement again, we waded splashing up the chill stream in mottled sunlight to the weeping willow where our clothes were piled.

“Let's not put them on yet,” she said. “I want to stay naked with you.”

“Me too.” I picked up the heap of clothes. Hanging on to each other as if our bodies had grown like vines from one root, which they had, we headed back toward Grandma's house.

Everything around us now seemed so much friendlier than ever before, as if we really were creatures of the forest, as if we finally understood- with our bodies and our hearts-the deep mysteries we had so feared as children. The birds-wrens, white-throated sparrows, goldfinches, red-faced warblers, Bohemian waxwings, blue-gray gnatcatchers, red-eyed virios, black-eared bushtits, bluebirds, tufted titmice, little chickadees, larks, yellow-bellied flycatchers, yellow-bellied sapsuckers, hairy woodpeckers, red-shafted flickers and ruby-throated hummingbirds all seemed to forget their predatory preoccupation with worms and bugs in order to sing for us. Squirrels, chipmunks, a rabbit-rodents all- twitched their upper lips and greeted us with big, vegetarian front teeth. The wildflowers-white pus-sytoes, yellow tickseeds, pansies, sneezeweeds, goldenrods dripping with pollen, blue monkeyflowers, cowslips, forget-me-nots, nightshades, milkweeds, violets, rose-pink gentians, bearberries, one-flowered wintergreens, hemlock, marsh-mallows, wild-lettuce, orange touch-me-nots which didn't scream when Sandy picked a handful, flax like her hair, the white bloodroot poppy, and in the sun as we neared the clearing, wild strawberries with ripe, red fruit-all offered up their succulence and carpeted the forest floor for our naked feet.

“Look at all the strawberries,” Sandy said.

“Let's eat some. They want us to.”

We knelt down and picked handfuls of the plump, luscious berries, stuffing them into our mouths. Like my sister, they had just reached their first full ripeness.

“I can think of a better way of eating these things,” I said.

“What's that?” she asked, and a bright look of curiosity infused her sly smile.

“Lie down on your belly,” I said. She complied, giggling, and I joined her. “Now squirm around and roll over a few times. Get them all over you.”

She giggled more, and squealed as we writhed and rolled in the soft fruit. When her body was bloodied with red pulp and seeds Sandy lay panting on her back. I crawled over toward her and straddled her thighs, my knees pressing into her buttocks.

“You look delicious,” I said. “Some dish.”

“You can eat all you want.”

I grabbed a handful of berries and put them between her lips, then leaned into her mouth. Our tongues and lips thrashing together crushed them, and together we drank of their juicy sweetness, licking each other's lips and tongues and gums clean.

I moved my mouth down along her white throat and began to lick up every drop of syrup and suck up every morsel of crimson pulp on her round shoulders, licking downward to the sweet hollow between her breasts and sliding upward over each mound, doing my best at each point to suck up the hard strawberries of her nipples.

Slowly I moved downward across her flat belly, where the juicy pulp was rich and thick. Some of it had impacted into her navel, and I lingered there lovingly, emptying that sweet hollow of every last seed.

I lapped all across her abdomen and down across her hip bones to the soft resiliency of her upper thighs. Licking slowly inward across the smoother and smoother skin of her inner thighs, which now began to spread invitingly, I reached home.

Sliding my arm out sideways, I picked a handful of strawberries with one hand while spreading her red erected lips with the other. I crushed the fruit with my hand and gently pushed it up into her hot vagina.

I kept both lips spread with my hands and lowered my mouth to them while Sandy moaned and clasped my head with her thighs. I sucked, and slid my tongue inside her, lapping up the juice of the strawberries and her own intoxicating succulence.

The more of the fruit I retrieved from her cunt, the more juicy she seemed to become, until I could feel her start to quiver and buck under me. She cried out and stiffened up into my mouth and I could feel all her new juices come carrying her ecstasy into me.

I started to pull away, but she said, “Wait, Terry, stay just like that.”

I stopped.

“Now just spin around. I'm hungry too.”

Pivoting my tongue, I moved my body around so that my stiffened cock was brushing her mouth.

“Roll over,” she said, and we did. She picked more berries and smeared them on the insides of my thighs, over my balls and up and down my prick, up and down and up and down and up.

Cupping my balls lightly, she lapped around underneath them, then took them into her mouth and sucked them clean. She slid her tongue to the base of my cock, then licked all the way up its throbbing underside. When she reached the tip she said, “Look at this big strawberry” and took the head into her mouth, sucking fiercely. She slid her mouth down to the base and back up and down and up and then, holding the head with her hand, licked the rest of the strawberry pulp and seed from every pore with her furiously active tongue.

I had become so excited licking and lapping her that I was near the point of climax when she stuffed me back into her mouth and I could feel her beginning to come again too. As I felt her force her pelvis down juicily into my face, pinpricks of pleasure started to stab me all over the loins and I thrust up toward her throat only to feel her withdraw her mouth and use her pistonlike hand to pull me up to a blazing climax.

She had pulled her thighs away from me and was milking the last droplets onto my strawberry-smeared belly and abdomen.

“Now for dessert,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“A strawberry sundae with whipped cream.”

She bent over me and, starting at the base of my abdomen, licked upward, not missing a morsel of the strawberries nor a droplet of the cream.

When she reached my mouth we kissed long, fluidly and peacefully, as if our bodies were one, which they were.

“We better get back,” she said.

“What for?”

“Grandma must have lunch by now.”

“I don't want any more lunch.”

“She'll be hurt.”

“It'd be like-I don't know-I just wouldn't want to spoil the feast I've just had.”

“What would it be like?” she asked tauntingly.

“I don't know-it'd be like going to some old second-hand stale bread store to eat after you've just had a huge wedding banquet.”

She laughed, got to her feet and dragged me up with her.

“You've still got mush on your ass and your back,” I said.

“Do I?”

“Yeah. I better lick it off.”

She turned around and I started at her ankles, working all the way up around her ass and through its furrow up to the back of her neck. Then I turned around and she did the same for me. Only she lingered a little too long at my backside and when she inserted her tongue into my anus I shot up with excitement all over again. When she finished at my shoulders she put on her panties and shorts. I just stood there.

“Come on, Terry, get dressed.”

“I don't feel like it.”

“I can see what you feel like. Save some of it for later. We've got all afternoon, all night and all summer.”

“I want you now. Besides, there's plenty more where that came from.”

She pulled on her jersey and slipped on her sneakers.

“Well, if you're so excited you can stay here in the strawberry fields and play with yourself forever. I'm going back.” With this she took off running.

“Hey, wait,” I yelled, pulling on my shorts, grabbing my tee shirt and sneakers without putting them on and dashing after her. “Wait for me!”

FOUR

Halfway to the old brick house Sandy suddenly stopped and wheeled around. I hated her for a second as she stood there doubled up with laughter at my expense, and I felt like a fool, running like crazy with my pants falling down, with a shirt in one hand and my sneakers in the other.

“What did you have to run away for?” I said as I pulled up to her, panting. “I was coming.”

“I know you were coming. That's why I ran away. Now get dressed, silly. Grandma's going to see you.” She pulled up my pants, tucked in my cock and zipped my fly as I pulled on my tee shirt.

“You're a real bitch,” I said as I pulled on my sneakers.

“Come on, let's look real innocent now. Hold my hand.”

We walked briskly up to the house swinging our joined hands between us and smiling cherubically.

Grandma was in the kitchen when we entered through the back door. She was fussing around the stove with a wooden ladle in one hand and a pot-holder in the other.

Sandy walked up alongside her and shouted, “Can I help you with anything, Grandma?” The old lady jumped several inches off the floor, held her heart, then turned around and beamed.

“You're back!” she said. “Just in time. No, no, it's not quite ready yet, but you can help me take it up when it is. You want to get washed up or anything?”

“No, Grandma,” I said, “we feel just right as it is. We don't want to spoil it.”

“Where have you been all morning?”

“Out in the woods,” Sandy said. “Down by the stream.”

“That's nice. You look so rosy-cheeked and healthy, both of you. The fresh air is good for you.”

“Sure is.”

“Now you go in the living room, Terry, and Sandy and I will have lunch in a jiffy.”

I wandered where she said and flicked on the TV. A twelfth rerun of I Love Lucy. Trk. A giveaway show. Trk. Cartoons. Trk. A soap opera. Trk. The educational channel had basket weaving. Click.

I picked up a magazine. Worse crap. Some meaningless election they were having. The paper. All ads for ugly off-the-wall clothes that would probably fall apart in the first rainstorm and for big “last chance before the hogs get it” sales at the local supermarkets. I looked at a couple of the new bestsellers Grandma was reading but after flipping through them I figured they were written for old dried-up people like her, so I picked up an old copy of the Sunday New York Times Magazine and looked at the dirty pictures.

Dinner was served, or luncheon or lunch or brunch or whatever Grandma chose to call it that day. Grandma had made a soup, her own secret blend of vegetables and stock, but I wasn't hungry at all. I nibbled on a roll, dunking it into the soup occasionally, but all I wanted to do was to steal infatuated glances across that table at Sandy.

“What's the matter with you, sonny? A growing boy like you has got to eat more than that. Where's your appetite? I thought you were running around in the woods all morning.”

“We were, Grandma,” I yelled.

“Then what's the matter? Something wrong with my soup?”

“Soup's great, Granny. I just can't eat.”

“You can too eat,” Sandy said.

“Can I?”

“And how!”

“Yeah, but this is different, I mean this is soup. It's not the same thing as you…”

“Well,” Grandma said, “if he doesn't want it, take it away, Sandy, we've had ours.”

They both got up, Sandy to clear the plates, Granny to fetch the next course. I picked the strawberry seeds out of my fingernails and ate them. The ladies returned.

The food looked pretty good-rainbow trout, poached or something, and chilled in tomato aspic; potato salad and sliced cucumbers and tomatoes in a garlic and vinegar sauce. She heaped my plate high and told Sandy to fetch some wine from the icebox.

“They call this chablis, but I think they make it out of lemon peels. Your mother let you drink wine?”

“Sure,” we shouted.

“No wonder, the way she puts away the hard stuff.” She poured each of us a goblet of the chilled wine and settled down to eat. I sipped at the wine and poked at the fish, pretending I didn't know how to take out the spine.

“Terry, stop playing with your bone,” Sandy said.

I laughed.

“Sandra, will you tell him to eat?” Grandma said. “He won't listen to me.”

“Terry,” she said with a bitchiness that must have rivaled the first Queen Elizabeth's. “Eat!”

I started to get up, as though to climb across the table at her.

“Your food, you jerk!”

I sunk back into my chair, pulled the bones adeptly out of the fish like a zipper and, given an excuse to glut my appetite, immediately began to do so.

“Amazing,” Granny said, watching me stuff my mouth. “You know, Sandy, he was just like that when you were little.”

“What do you mean.”

“He wouldn't listen to anybody but you. He was like a little sweet-faced Lucifer with your mother and father. He wouldn't do anything they said. In fact, if your father told him to do something he'd refuse to do it on those grounds alone, even if it were something he wanted to do. The only one he would listen to was you. He'd do anything you say. He followed you around like a slave. And you took full advantage of it.”

Sandy sat there gloating over this and I kept on eating, pretending not to hear, but I was getting a hard-on just listening. It proved that what I felt for my sister had been there all along.

“What did I do?” Sandy asked.

“Oh, you made him wait on you like one of Cleopatra's body servants. You made him wash you and bathe you and-” she caught the flush on both our cheeks, and blushed slightly herself. “It was all very innocent, just brother and sister, you were both very young.”

“Sure, Grandma,” Sandy said. “What else.”

“Oh, he'd have to dress you and brush your hair and follow you around and carry all your things. And if he did anything the slightest bit wrong you'd take down his pants and give him a good spanking, sometimes with your hairbrush.”

“What did I do, Grandma,” I said, “did I like it?”

“You loved it. You loved her. I've never seen a brother and sister so close. That's why it's a shame you had to be separated for so long.”

Sandy and I exchanged a long look of longing, for each other and for our lost childhood. “We can make up for all these lost years this summer, though, can't we, Sandy?”

“We can try.”

“Well, I hope your parents decide to keep you together, I hope they don't split you up again. It would be a shame if either of you had to go with that drunken father of yours.”

“You don't think there's a chance of that, do you Granny,” I asked, slightly panicked. “You don't think they'll split us up?”

“I don't know, dear, but I wouldn't worry about it. Your mother will watch out for your interests.”

I wondered about that. “When will we know?”

“Probably not until after the summer. These things take a long time when they fight them out in court, which your father is determined to do.”

“Tell us more about when we were kids,” I said, offering her my glass to be refilled.

“Well,” she said, pouring the wine to the brim, “there was the summer you thought you were Tarzan.”

“Tarzan?”

“Tarzan, or his Boy, or someone like that. You'd seen a movie to that effect and you decided that's who you were. You paraded around in some kind of a loincloth you made out of old rags and you insisted on calling your sister 'Jane.' You built a tree hut out in the back-” she pointed out the window to an old cherry tree ”-and you kept on prodding your mother to let you sleep out there at night with Sandy. She got into the spirit of things herself and started walking around in old rags until your mother made her stop.' You rigged up some kind of a rope from the tree and you used to swing on it, shouting like Tarzan.”

“Gee, I think I remember that. How long did it go on?”

“About a week. The rope broke one day and you went bawling into your sister's arms. That was the end of Tarzan.”

“Too bad.” I finished the last my wine, offered my glass for more, but Granny wasn't giving. “What's for dessert?” I asked.

“I've got a special treat for you.”

“What?” Sandy asked.

“It's a special treat because you're such lovely children and you cleaned your plates.”

“Well what is it?” I pleaded.

“Close your eyes,” she said as she pulled herself up from the table, “and I'll bring it to you.”

We closed our eyes, and then I opened mine just before Sandy opened hers. I wiggled my tongue from side to side somewhat obscenely, and she stuck her tongue out at me like a little brat. Then Grandma started shuffling in and we went blind again.

I heard her set the two dishes down in front of us. Then she said, “Open your eyes!”

I looked down. “STRAWBERRIES AND WHIPPED CREAM! WOW!”

“Grandma,” Sandy squealed, “how did you know?”

“You always liked that. It was your favorite food.”

“I know I can never get enough of it,” I said.

“Me neither,” Sandy said.

“Look, Granny,” I went on, “you've been talking so much about us when we were kids, would you mind if we did something like that?”

“What do you mean,” both Grandma and Sandy said.

“I mean, would it look funny to you if Sandy fed me these? Like she used to when we were kids?”

“Well, you're only young once.”

“Come on, Sandy, sit in my lap.”

She brought her dish around while I manipulated my stiffening cock against my abdomen so she wouldn't crush it. She sat down in my lap and I laid my hand in hers. She scooped up a big spoonful 9f strawberries and cream, told me to shut my eyes, and placed it in my open mouth. I closed my mouth on the spoon and sucked as she pulled the spoon out.

I purred my pleasure as I chewed and swallowed the sweet pulpiness.

“You're dripping,” Sandy said, and darted her tongue across my chin.

She fed me the entire dish in this way, and then we shifted positions-I sat in her lap and fed her.

Grandma looked on dotingly and sighed. “You children are so lovely,” she said. “So many of our youngsters today grow up too quickly. It's so nice to see young people clinging to their innocence.”

Sandy, who had laid her hand in my lap, clung firmly to my innocence.

FIVE

When the meal was over, when we had licked the last of our dessert from the dishes-dishes drastically less interesting than the ones from which we had eaten before-Sandy and Grandma started to clean up and I took off for my room.

Away from Sandy for the first time since I had woken up, I realized how tired I was, how much energy I had expended in our uninhibited pursuit of the joys of love.

I stripped off my clothes. I smelled my body. It smelled of Sandy's aphrodisiac odor. The scent itself excited me. I thought that if you could bottle her body odor you could sell it for a million dollars an ounce.

I lay down. I played with myself casually and was amazed to feel how ready I was-after all the workouts I had had that morning. I felt more hard-up now than I did when I woke up. If only I could take my mind off Sandy, for just a few minutes!

The room, southern exposure, was hot as hell. I felt like getting up and closing the shutters to block off some of the sun, but I was too tired, and besides, that would have eliminated whatever little breeze was forthcoming.

I sweated. I stopped playing with myself, putting my hands under my ass. This served a second purpose of preventing my now sweaty ass from sticking to the sheets and letting a little air circulate down there.

I fell asleep.

The jungle was very hot, even though it seemed to be morning. A steamy mist rose from the thick panoply of jungle flowers and dense, boa-draped verdure. Monkeys were chattering, lions were screaming, elephants were trampling, hyenas were laughing, but Tarzan was serious.

“Boy,” he said to me. Tarzan had a face that looked something like my father's, but a body that looked like Nureyev's. He wore a loin patch held up by a shoestring. “I want you take care Jane for me today. She still asleep inside.” He pointed to the little shelter in our tree hut high above the primeval jungle. “I must go to U.N. conference in village. You take care Jane. OK Boy?”

“OK, Tarzan,” I said, and he swung off on his vine into the jungle.

I started to tremble. I was alone with Jane for the first time. I couldn't even remember what she looked like. What would she think of me? I'd never been alone with her, it seemed. Tarzan must have kept us apart, jealous of us both. Plus, I was practically naked-all I wore was a loincloth smaller than Tarzan's, and I was outgrowing it.

Dazzling Jane emerged from the hut without noticing me and strolled to the other side of the platform. She held her leopard skin g-string in her hand but wore nothing. Her body was Sandy's, but her face-whose was it? — was my mother's.

She stretched languidly to the morning mist, her hands on her head, sticking out her coral-tipped breasts and arching out her pelvis so that, from the side, her pink-lipped clitoris was fondly silhouetted against the morning sky through the peachy thatch of her pubic bush.

She turned and saw me and said, “Oh,” casually draping her g-string across her privvy parts. “Boy!” she said, “I didn't know you were here! I hope I wasn't too-too provocative when I-” she wiggled her breasts around ”-stretched.”

“Oh, no,” I said, feeling my cock shoot up and push away the loin cloth. I crossed my legs in an effort towards false modesty and started to rub myself off between the thighs.

She walked up to me and I blushed when I found I couldn't take my eyes off her naked, shaking breasts.

“Where's Tarzan?” she asked.

“He went to the village.”

“What for?”

“U.N. conference.”

“When's he coming back?”

“I don't know,” I said, re-crossing my legs and shoving my stiffened prick between them.

“What did you just do, Boy?” she asked.

“I said Tarzan was at the U.N. He probably won't be back until late. Those things sometimes go on all night.”

“With your legs, though? What was that you did with your legs?”

“I was just crossing them.”

“Do it again.”

“Aw, come on, Jane, let me be.”

“Let's see.”

I uncrossed my legs and let my stiff prick point up the accusing finger of desire at her.

She passed across it teasingly with her g-string and didn't bother to cover herself again, letting the string part dangle across the red, throbbing head. “Oh, Boy,” she said, “you look better than Tarzan.”

“Don't say anything against Tarzan,” I admonished.

“Tarzan! That creep! He's such a prude. You'd think he was a boy scout or something. All he cares about are his goddamn apes and his U.N. conferences. He hasn't fucked me in years. I think he's making it with Cheetah.” She rolled her g-string into a ball and threw it against the wall of the hut. “The son of a bitch!”

Her face was looking more and more like my mother's and I was becoming more and more scared of the situation, embarrassed at my nudity and guilty for my blatant desire.

“Look, Jane,” I said, “let's go pick some mangoes.”

“Mangoes?”

“Yeah. You know, they taste pretty good.”

“I can think of better things to pick.”

“Come on, Jane, I haven't had any breakfast.”

“You can eat me.” She stepped up against me and started to breast-beat me.

“Gee whiz, Jane, what would Tarzan think if he heard you say something like that.”

“Fuck Tarzan.” 'Let's go eat some mangoes.”

“Where the hell are these mangoes?”

“Down in the mango grove.”

“It's so far!”

“No it's not. I know a shortcut.”

She pulled me into her but I maneuvered her, belly to belly, to the edge of the platform. I made the mistake of looking down. We must have been at least five miles over the jungle. The elephants looked like mice, pygmy mice. I was scared, but even more scared to let Jane know I was.

“Hang on to me,” I said, and grabbed a vine. She grabbed me around the neck and we took off.

“Boy, I really dig being naked against you- Tarzan always makes me wear that ratty old g-string.”

We were soaring high over the jungle. While Jane clamped her arms around my neck, she locked her legs around my thighs. I could feel the pressure of her wiry pubic hair rubbing against my prick, which was getting so unbearably hard I knew I'd have to stick it into something soft soon.

But Jane knew what she was doing. As I adeptly shifted from the upswing of one vine to the downswing of the next, and onward (these were very long vines, for we were at least five miles up and getting higher) Jane hoisted herself a little higher on my haunches and then jammed herself down onto me, all the way down to the balls.

And so we swung through the air, our bodies interlocked and bucking. We swung in long arcs like trapeze artists, her body dropping inches, inches, inches away from mine as we fell miles, miles and miles, and then as the arc reached bottom and we swung up I jammed up and she squashed down, down, down into me as we rose for miles and miles and miles over the jungle until we reached to the top of the arc and switched to the next descending vine.

Carrying both our squirming, gyrating bodies and having to switch from vine to vine every so often, my arms began to tire, and in the midst of my delicious ecstasy I felt a core of panic begin to open in my gut.

I couldn't hold on any longer and we fell.

We were falling but still fucking, tumbling, and then I glanced down and saw to my surprise that the earth wasn't coming up at us after all, we weren't falling-soaring instead, propelled by the very thrust of our bodies. Each time I pumped my piston into her we'd shoot ahead like a jet and then soar on with each near withdrawal.

I don't recall how long we flew this way, but all of a sudden something happened to intensify infinitely the quality of my sensations-I don't know how it came about, but suddenly I was lying flat on my back and Jane was riding me as if I were a magic carpet. She was rocking the boat but I was keeping us aloft by swimming the backstroke through the air. The action of my hips as I swam did strange, delicious things to both of us and as I neared a climax I could hear the squealing and squeaking of the wild animals many miles below us.

“Jane, Jane!” I cried out as I began to come. The sound of my voice woke me and I looked up into Sandy's wildly excited eyes as she sat in the very position Jane had wiggled into in my dream. I didn't-couldn't-stop, and I still heard the wild animals-reduced to bedsprings-screaming still, and stopped swimming to grab Sandy's flank as I pumped my sperm up into her loins.

She lay alongside me on the bed.

“That must have been some dream,” she said. “Who was Jane? What did she look like?”

“You know-Jane, Tarzan's girl friend, like, grandma was talking about before.”

“Yeah, but what did she look like?”

“Just like you, stupid, what did you think?” I kissed her gently on the mouth and tried to forget that Jane's face was Mother's, and when I finished the long, warm, satiated kiss I had almost erased the unsettling thought from my mind.

“And who were you in the dream,” she said when we broke the kiss, “Tarzan?”

“Nah. I was Boy.”

“Where was Tarzan?”

“At some U.N. meeting.”

“Oh.” She turned toward the window. “Look, Terry, it's getting cloudy.”

The giant, sculpted cumulus clouds that had hung so whitely in the sky all morning had begun to move across the sun. The sky darkened, and the few blue patches were quickly covered with more grey clouds. A wind started rustling the cherry tree outside the window, and cooled the room suddenly.

“That feels good,” I said, raising my arms over my head and letting the breeze play about my body and evaporate the film of sweat from my sex-hot skin.

I looked down at Sandy. Her eyes were closed, her head lay resting on my chest, her breasts pushing warmly against my ribcage. One of her legs was draped between mine. Our toes touched. She had fallen asleep. I lowered one arm around her, down her back, and rested the other hand on her hip.

I shut my eyes and joined her in soft unconsciousness.

SIX

A long, rollicking thunderclap woke us up:

Bababadalgharaghta kammnarron-nkonnbronntonsrronntounnthunnt-hunntrovarrhounawnskawntooho o-hoordenenthurnuk!

The house shook.

“What was that?” Sandy asked.

“Thunder.”

“I'm scared,” she said. “Hold me tight.” I held her so tightly I nearly knocked the wind out of her. She buried her head in the crook of my neck. I looked at her golden hair sprawled across her shoulders and smooth back and watched it sparkle as lightning illuminated the gloomy room.

The eye of the thunderstorm rumbled away southward, the intervals between thunderclap and lightning flash lengthened and it started to rain. There was no decent graduation between light drizzle and downpour-the rain came down in heavy torrents from the start, straight down at first and then in glassy, windblown sheets.

A fresh gust of wind drove the wet barrage through our window and I disentangled myself from Sandy to shut it.

“What do you feel like doing now?” she asked, still lying on her back as I perched on the sill.

“I'd like to run around naked with you in the rain and then fuck in the flowers.”

“They'd be muddy.”

“That would make it better.”

She smiled, considering this. “I'd be scared of the thunder and lightning.”

“You wouldn't have to worry. I've got a lightning rod, and I'd ground you.”

“Grandma would see us and tell.”

“Yeah, the old bitch. Maybe we could drug her.”

“What else can we do?” she said, turning over on her belly and resting on her elbows, forearms flat under her so that her nipples grazed back and forth across them.

“Let's go up in the attic,” I said.

“The attic?”

“Sure. Remember how we used to hide up there when it rained? You can hear the rain pounding right over your head, and it's all warm and dark up there, and there's all kinds of musty old smells.”

“Okay,” she said, swinging around and sitting on the edge of the bed. “Think we should get dressed?”

“What for? Nobody's going to come up there.”

“Just for the fun of it. We could dress up like Tarzan and Jane.”

“Okay, but what can we wear?” I got up and she did too, melting against me.

“What did they have on in your dream?”

“Oh, some kind of leopard skin stuff. You don't have anything like that, do you?”

“I don't think so. Let's go see.” We went into her room and started rummaging through the drawers.

“Here's something,” I said, taking out a handful of her old hair ribbons. I found a long one, an inch wide-yellow, with black polka dots. I tied it around her hips, looping over one strand so it dangled down amid her fuzzy bush.

“There,” I said. “Now you've got to be decent on top too.” I picked out a very narrow black ribbon and turned Sandy around so she faced the mirror. I placed the ribbon right below her nipples, on the smooth, moist, pink flesh of her conical aureoles and tied it very tightly in the back so that it squeezed the lower part of her breasts and forced out even further the strawberry-colored spikes of her nipples.

Flushed at the picture she made in the mirror, Sandy turned on me and took a long scarlet ribbon, moving behind me. She held up my balls with one hand and put the ribbon under them like a sling and drew it around behind me. Folding the ribbon over itself once, she tightened it so that my testicles were pushed upward and outward. Then she moved around in front of me and tied the ends in an elaborate bow around my erected penis, an inch below the head.

“There,” she said, patting her handiwork.

“Merry Christmas,” I said, brushing up against her.

“Come on,” she said, taking my hand, “let's go up in the attic.”

Our bodies bedecked, we tiptoed down the hallway to the attic door and creaked up the worn, withered stairs. The heavy rain pounding on the uninsulated roof had cooled the air up there considerably. The place was a mess of old mementos that brought back-through our sensitive noses first- the whole atmosphere of our nearly forgotten childhood.

Toys, dolls, picturebooks, pillows. Old shoes, old clothes, yellowing comic books and warping, forgotten hit records. A book of snapshots: Sandy on a bear rug with an ass poking up that hardly hinted at the fullness of the one I was caressing and poking a finger into now; me in a short-pants Fauntleroy outfit looking very sophisticated and distinguished save for the gap where my two front teeth should have been; the two of us together, Sandy smiling gleefully into the camera and me smiling adoringly up at her.

The grey light from either end of the attic was dim, but it was enough to see by, and enough to smell by as we moved from trunk to trunk, digging up and fondling the most trivial and worthless objects, each of which was charged with a glowing aura of remembered, or imagined, joy.

One of the trunks was locked, but I pried off the lock with a screwdriver. None of our things were in it. Everything was our mother's, and bore the stamp of her college days-pennants, textbooks, dried-up flowers, love letters. Sandy wanted to read them but I told her it was none of our business. I was about to close the trunk when out of curiosity I took a large, unmarked, sealed envelope from the back. I opened it, found another, slightly smaller envelope, which I opened. It contained a stack of about a dozen eight-by-ten color photos of our mother in the nude, taken when she was perhaps eighteen or nineteen. I blushed crimson with embarrassment and excitement as I looked at them. She was posed at every angle, in all kinds of light, indoors and out. Her body was ravishing, and her face was exquisite. She resembled Sandy a good deal, although she didn't have my sister's catlike sensuality-her mouth wasn't quite as heavy and pouting, her breasts weren't quite as full, her hips were a little slimmer-but I couldn't remember ever having seen a more gorgeous woman.

“My God, she's beautiful,” I said, spreading out the pictures and darting my eyes from one to the other. I couldn't get enough of her. I waited for Sandy to say something and when she didn't I looked to my side. She had disappeared, had walked away and stood with her back to me and her face in her hands. I sprang up to her and encircled her from behind with my arms.

“Sandy, what's the matter?”

“Nothing,” she sobbed. I took her by the shoulders and turned her around with a good deal of difficulty. She still hid her face in her hands. I tried to pull them away as gently and as firmly as I could, but she resisted.

“No! Don't look at me! I'm ugly. She's been telling me that all my life and letting me know it every way she could and now I know it's true. Go look at her! She's beautiful! Let me alone!”

“Sandy, please…”

“Everything we've done today I know you'd have rather done with her, so let…”

“Oh, Jesus, are you wrong!” I pulled her hands away from her face roughly and looked with anger, pain and longing into her big, helpless, tear-stained blue eyes. “This is the only happy day I've had in my life since they busted us up. If you don't believe me I'll drown. Don't look away Sandy, look at me. You're beautiful. I worship you! Everything…” I licked the tears from around her eyes. “I love everything about you, even your tears taste good.” She cracked a smile. “You have the most beautiful face and hair and shoulders and tits and legs and cunt and feet and ass and eyes and everything. She doesn't compare to you. She's cold and skinny and flat-chested and you can't even tell what's behind her eyes. Besides,” I added, “she's too old for me.”

This got a quick laugh and a longer, trusting smile and she bounced back from vain, temperamental fishing-for-compliments female to sexy, friendly, purring feline. She kissed my salty mouth and squeezed her tits against my chest.

“I'm sorry, Terry. I guess all this kid stuff just piled up in me. You must think I'm a jerk.”

“I know how she treated you. She was jealous because we were so close.”

“You'd think I was the kid sister and you the big brother.”

“I grew up today.”

“Even your voice is getting deeper.”

“I guess my hormones got a workout.”

“I love the way your voice is getting, Terry. Read something to me.”

“What?”

“I don't know. Something spooky and scary. To go with the weather.”

I rummaged through a stack of books and found an old edition of Poe. I looked around for Sandy and couldn't find her.

“Where are you?”

“Over here,” she called from the other end of the attic. “In the playpen.”

I walked over toward the sound of her voice and saw her lying in our old playpen, posing on her side like a baby doll, sucking her thumb. Her unbabylike breasts precariously bulged from the confines of the tight black ribbon while the ribbon around her hips had fallen away from the open, inviting pink folds of her fuzz-rimmed sex.

“What are you doing in there?”

“Sucking my thumb. Come on, get in. It's still big enough for both of us.”

I climbed into the playpen and lay down against her, leaning my back against her soft thighs and resting my arm along her hip as I opened the book. She ran her long fingers up and down between my thighs.

I flipped the pages and stopped at a story whose name was familiar but which I had never read. It began: “During the whole of a dull, dark and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.”

The story seemed appropriately goose-pimply and harmless until the undertow of the tale started to drag us to a direct, if not wholly conscious realization that Roderick Usher and his sister, Madeline, were expiring, had expired, would expire, were doomed, by their passion for one another.

By the time I finished reading the story my voice had become funereal and the darkness (though it was still mid-afternoon) had so thickened I could hardly see the print.

“Terry, I don't like that story,” she said, pulling me down alongside her.

“Neither do I.”

“What's going to happen to us, Terry-are we going to wind up like them? Drying up together in an old house?”

“Don't think about it, Sandy-it's all too far off. Kiss me and black it out of your head.”

“Undress me first-take off these damn stupid ribbons-I don't want anything between us.”

I ripped off the two strands of silk from her body as she unraveled the bow from my penis and then pulled the ribbon off altogether.

She lay back, her eyes burning into mine with longing, lust, love, vulnerability and beauty. “Fuck me, Terry, please, fuck me and don't ever stop.”

I lowered myself onto her and slid my painfully hard, throbbing prick slowly into her hot, resilient vagina while we both gasped for air and shuddered with the first foretaste of the joys that lay locked between us now. When I had sunken in all the way up to the balls and our pelvic bones kissed lightly we began to move our bodies together and I felt as though my whole bloodstream and nervous system were immersed and thrashing there, and they were.

The rain was pounding on the roof right above us. We weren't in any big hurry to get anywhere- dessert could wait, we were concentrating on the meat. Our genitals-like a hand in a heavily lubricated rubber glove-fit perfectly and, fully immersed, touched at every point. We knew instinctively, to the last millimeter, how long we could withdraw without losing touch, did so at every stroke and never broke away.

She had drawn her legs up around my waist as a kind of restraint against my too violent sallies which threatened to end the game on the spot. My hands roved around and into her ass, up her back, around her breasts, up to her throat and in her hair. We kissed, moaning, until I couldn't tell the difference between her mouth and mine and our blended saliva tasted distilled. We sweated against each other, heavily, until my body was anointed with her sweet secretions and her body with mine.

I wanted to go on fucking her forever and never have to stop, or face anything else in the world again. But after about an hour or two or three — I have no idea how long it was except that the rain was letting up-I felt a tingling like pinpricks overtake my whole body and especially my prick itself, and I knew there was no way to keep from coming home.

“Sandy, it's happening, my whole body's on fire.”

“Mine too, Terry, don't hold anything back, give me everything.”

I went after her like an epileptic pile driver and she responded like an earthquake. After a few minutes of mounting intensity punctuated by warning gasps and yelps, we both came at the same instant, howling each other's names to wake the dead, kissing to suck out each other's tongues, one moment with pelvises grinding hard together, spines arched to the snapping point to savor what I thought must finally be the last quivering throes of complete orgasm; the next, wriggling together again and squeezing out yet one more full minute of shock-wave pounding through the blood, so good our groans would have sounded like agony to a blind virgin.

The rain had stopped. I lay a long time on top of Sandy, whimpering her name and my love and still feeling little ripples, like scattered brush fires, igniting through my nerves.

Later, when we had both caught our breath, I started to withdraw. Sandy's hands flew to my ass and held me in place.

“Not yet, Terry, please, don't leave me yet, let me have you there a little longer.”

I kissed her ear and told her again I worshipped her.

“Terry, it'll never be better than this, nothing will ever be.”

“It will too. We can make it better. We can do anything we want.”

“I don't think so, Terry, I'm scared of what will happen.”

“I don't care what happens, as long as you let me love you and you love me back.”

“Hold me, Terry, squeeze me to death!”

SEVEN

We lay there the rest of the afternoon, dazed and sated, our naked, sweating bodies loosely interlocked, occasionally exchanging long, slow, fluid kisses and caresses. Sandy's flesh was delicious to look at, to touch and to taste, so charged with beauty I kept on wondering if I were awake, or asleep and dreaming.

We didn't say much, we were so glutted with pleasure there wasn't much to say. A touch, a groan, unblinking stare said it all.

Grandma's dinner bell interrupted our lazy ecstasy. We jumped up and yelled that we'd be right down.

“Where did all the time go?” Sandy asked as we headed down to our rooms.

“I don't know. We must have been up there for hours. It doesn't seem possible.”

“We must have been asleep for a couple of hours,” she said.

“Not me.”

“I wasn't either.”

We dressed hurriedly and joined Granny in the dining room.

“Your mother called this afternoon,” she said as we sat down and began slobbering our food.

We both grunted disinterestedly. Mother was the last thing either of us wanted to think about.

“She's having a lot of trouble with your father's lawyers, it seems.”

We grunted again, not looking up from our food, not wishing to be reminded of the bitter, vicious legal battle that our two loving parents were engaged in.

“She's getting very tired of the whole mess.”

We nodded. We were getting pretty tired of the whole mess, too.

“She's also getting tired of being in the city this summer. Says she may come up here for a while. I don't blame her, that city is awful this time of year.”

Sandy and I sprung into alertness. “When?” I shouted out. “When is she coming?”

“She didn't specify. Just said she'd be coming up before the holiday.”

Sandy and I exchanged an ominous look, which Grandma spotted.

“What are you two looking so glum about?” she said. “I should think you'd be glad to see your mother. You don't get to see her that often. Why, I don't think either of you has seen her more than a few months out of the year since you were little ones, when you used to…” She looked back and forth between us again, caught the resigned sneers and shut up for a long minute.

“Well,” she went on after she'd finished her soup, “I won't pry into it. I guess you kids have enough problems as it is-with that awful father of yours, and the divorce…”

“We'd rather not be reminded of it,” Sandy said.

We finished the meal in silence.

Sandy helped the old girl clear the table and wash the dishes, while I went into the living room, turned on the TV and spread out on the couch. As usual, there was nothing worth watching and I nearly fell asleep.

When they had finished in the kitchen, a weary Grandma said goodnight and retired to her room. Sandy joined me on the couch, waking me up.

“What do you feel like doing tonight?” she asked, sliding her hand under my tee shirt and rubbing my belly, my chest, and then sliding her tingling fingers down under my belt.

“I want to turn out the teevee, turn out the lights, go up to your room and fuck all night,” I said.

“You've got a one-track mind, Terry,” she said. “You're a sex maniac.”

“Oh, am I? Well, what did you have in mind? What was it you wanted to do?”

“Same as you. You made a sex maniac out of me today.” Her hand grasped me so firmly I practically came in my pants.

Her tone changed suddenly: “Do you really think Mommy's going to come?”

“Ah, she won't be here for a while. We'd better take advantage of all our privacy, though. Sure you don't want to watch this great teevee show they've got on?”

“No.”

“What do you want to do, then?”

“Go to bed with you, Terry.”

I rose and kissed her fiercely. We switched off everything in the living room and went upstairs to her room.

While she went into the bathroom I stripped off my clothes. Then, impatient, I pursued her and sat on the tub alongside her as, stripped to the waist, she washed her beautiful face. When she had finished I moved to embrace her from behind, managed to grasp her breasts momentarily, but she slipped away and headed back into the bedroom.

I washed, brushed my teeth, relieved myself and after some time, returned to her room. She lay flat on the bed, still wearing her panties. I walked up next to her. She must have fallen asleep the minute she hit the sack. I touched her gently on the shoulder and she didn't move, merely let out a low moan that sounded like a cat's purr. I slid my hands under the elastic of her panties, pulled them down over her hips and dropped them onto the floor.

I sat on the side of the bed, staring dreamily at her naked body. Now that everything had come to a halt all of a sudden, I found it hard to believe that such beauty was mine to love and to possess-that my sister, whom I had loved above everything else all my life, was mine to do with as I pleased. It seemed incredible, and when I started playing with myself I realized it was time to go to sleep with her.

I switched off the light and lay down alongside her, draping my right arm up her belly and resting my hand on her breast. I lay sideways, facing her, and the feel of her smooth thigh against my stiffening cock was too much to bear. I had to plunge it into her or I would burst.

But she was asleep. Would that be rape? Would she be mad at me? I decided to do it as gently and slowly as possible, without using any unnecessary force at all.

I slid quietly over on top of her body, sucking softly on ore of her nipples. She purred again, and the nipple stiffened in my mouth, but she didn't stir. I moved up slowly, planting soft kisses along her breasts and throat until my hips were in position over he's and her soft clump was brushing and tickling me to the kindling point.

Guiding myself with my hand, I slid in the head between her sweet, yielding folds. A sigh escaped her: still asleep. Moving with tortuous caution I slowly slid up all the way into her. When my thighs were sweating against hers, when I could rub my sensitive abdomen against hers, I relaxed and buried my head in her long hair loose on the pillow.

I began slowly to move out, and when I had slid well away from her, to push back in. After a few smooth, long, delicious strokes I relaxed into her again, not at all desperate for immediate satisfaction after all the glorious climaxes I'd already had that day. I felt tired, as tired as Sandy must have felt when she plopped down onto the bed and fell asleep. I lay there for a long while on top of her, plunged all the way into her, moving only the slightest bit with our breathing. Then I joined her in sweet sleep.

What I dreamt was this: I dreamt I was fast asleep on top of my sister, we were both naked, and that we made subtle, juicy languorous love all night. My eyes were shut, I was fast asleep and dreaming, but there was no difference between the dream and the reality, they were identical.

Then, in the dream, I fell asleep again and dreamed I had the same dream. And like a flower that endlessly opens to new buds and fresh flowers I kept falling asleep inside the dream only to dream once more the sensual reality that Sandy and I, both asleep, were performing on her bed, in the flesh.

As dream of sleep was followed by dream of dream; dream of dream of sleep followed by dream of dream of dream of love, the locale changed. At first we were in Sandy's room, there was no tampering whatsoever with reality. Then, as the mirrored reflections became more elaborate we were in my room, in the forest, among the flowers; we were making love in my room at school, at my room in the city; then the locales became more fantastic and elaborate-jungles, beaches, royal boudoirs, harem rooms, Roman orgies, opium dens of the east, clouds of flowers, pure shuttering rainbows of light; in the flames of hell, and among the gorgeous copulating angels of heaven.

Then the whole process began to reverse itself as I began to wake up, stage by stage. In every case I would wake from the previous dream, only to finally find myself, in a wash of ecstasy, actually fucking my sister after all.

With each awakening, as I moved closer and closer back to reality, this ecstasy intensified. I began to move a little less languorously, a lot more passionately, and I noticed that Sandy had begun, from dream to dream, to move with me.

At last the original dream, the first dream of Sandy and me, in the dark, in her room, returned and I thought I was finally awake, that the dream was true after all.

Then I awoke from that dream as well. I opened my eyes to the greyish red light of dawn and looked down to see Sandy squirming rhythmically under me, looking up and glowing with shock, surprise and the same furious joy I felt.

“Am I really awake now?” I moaned. “Is this really you, Sandy, in the flesh?”

“Yes,” she purred.

“Prove it to me, I've been dreaming too much. Pinch me or something.”

She responded by digging her fingernails into my buttocks and pulling them into her furiously. For added measure she bit my ear, and when I cried out in masochistic glee, she lowered her teeth to my neck.

I responded by attacking her like a mad rapist or a jack-hammer. She began to come immediately, bucking like an unbroken filly. We crashed together in a head-on orgasm that packed into several minutes all the pleasure, all but unbearable, that we'd been building up to all night long.

When our howls and moans and vows of total adoration, slavish worship had begun to level off into deep, satisfied breathing, I asked Sandy when she had woken up.

“Just before you did, almost at the same time. That's how come I had that funny look on my face.”

“How come?”

“Because I was surprised,” she said.

“How come?”

“Because I was dreaming about you.”

“So was I,” I said.

“Well, everybody dreams about themselves, stupid.”

“No, I mean, I was dreaming about you. And me.”

“Me too,” she said.

“That's quite a coincidence.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah. How many people have the same dreams at the same time?”

“Well,” she said, “if more people slept the way we just did, maybe they'd have the same dreams, too.”

“You've got something there,” I said. “So have you.”

EIGHT

We talked and played with each other until the burgeoning dawn light was shining in our eyes. I was tired. I buried my head in Sandy's delicious breasts and started to go to sleep.

“Hey, what are you doing?” she asked.

“Going to sleep.”

“Why don't you go to your room for a few hours?”

“What for?”

“Oh, I don't know. Somebody might come in, and catch us sleeping together.”

“Boy, you've really got snoopers on the brain. What are you scared of?”

“I don't know. But why don't you, Terry?”

“I don't want to leave you, ever!” I said, holding her very tight.

“You need some sleep.”

“I can sleep on you.”

“You know what'll happen if you sleep here. In five minutes we'll be fucking again.”

“So? What's wrong with fucking?”

“It's beautiful, the way you do it. But I need a rest. I'm sore. You must be, too, after all you did last night.”

“I'm not sore,” I said, and pulled a leg back to let her see my unbruised, semi-roused and gamy cock.

“You will be, if we go at it again so soon. Now go to bed. Please.”

I kissed her goodbye as though we'd never see one another again, sheepishly left her bed, went to my own, fell face down on it and went immediately to sleep.

A few hours later Sandy woke me up by slapping my bare ass vigorously with both hands. It hurt at first, but once I was awake and aware that it was she doing the slapping I felt a surge of excitement ripple through my loins.

“Come on, get up, Terry, it's time for breakfast.”

“I'd rather lie here and have you spank me,” I said. “It feels good.”

I looked up at her. She was obviously enjoying it as much as I was. She was half-naked, having put on a pair of short-shorts, but still topless so that her breasts jiggled and bounced as she beat me.

“Can't you hit any harder than that?” I said.

She complied. “You must be some kind of a masochist,” she said.

“What's a masochist?'

“That's a guy who gets a hard-on when people kick him around, especially girl people.”

“That's me, all right. What was that word again? Massachrist?”

“Massachusetts. Get up now.” She ended the spanking with a flourish. “Come on.”

“No.”

She bent over and slipped out a thick, black leather belt from the loops of a pair of my pants, dangling it between my buttocks.

“Are you going to get up, or am I going to whip you?” she hissed.

“You're going to whip me, I guess, because I'm not getting up.”

She raised the belt and lashed it across the rosy cheeks of my ass. I squealed with sharp, excruciating pleasure and felt my cock stiffen even harder. She raised it again and whacked me again, then moved her lashing strokes up my back and down again to the backs of my thighs.

I looked up into her eyes. They glowed with a fierce delight at the pain she was inflicting and the-pleasure she was providing. When she returned my gaze for a moment and saw how delirious with excitement I was, another gleam came into her eyes and she grabbed the leather end of the belt, dangling the heavy buckle between my legs.

“You like that, huh?” she said.

“Yeah.”

“See how this feels.”

She raised the buckle and let it fly down into the meat of my ass. It hurt. I squealed and jumped up, wresting the belt from her and enclosing her in a bear hug from behind. With my hands I wrapped the belt around her waist, enclosing her arms in it, and wrenched it tight, pulling it far enough to close the belt around her. It pulled her arms and shoulders back as far as they could go, severely cinching her waist and making her breasts stick out so blatantly I wanted to eat them.

I pushed her onto the bed, and straddling her helpless body, drunk in the sight of her. Then I lowered my mouth to her squirming breasts and bit.

She squealed and struggled, trying to wiggle free, but I held her down easily and proceeded to suck and bite her breasts savagely. The harder I bit her nipples, the harder and hotter they became.

She was screaming and squealing and finally I relented and began to lick. She moaned. I rose to my knees over her. A large, blood-sucked bruise surrounded her left nipple; above and below the bruise were distinct teeth marks.

“You must be a sadist,” she said.

“What's that?”

“That's a guy who gets a hard-on from trying to bite off girls' nipples.”

“That's me, all right,” I said, sliding up along her body and pushing the evidence of my sadism toward her face until the head brushed against her lips. She licked all the way up and down the length of it and then rose up slightly to suck it into her mouth.

Then she bit.

I screamed and pulled out of her, rolling over to sit on the edge of the bed and examine any possible damage. Still laughing, she rolled over too and sat alongside me.

“You hurt it,” I said. “It doesn't like to be bitten.”

“Ah, the poor thing,” she said, bending over to kiss it.

“I guess it's okay,” I said. “You'd have been cutting off your nose to spite your face if you'd have bitten it off.”

“My what?”

“I don't know.”

“Get me out of this damn belt,” she said. “Let's go eat some breakfast.”

“You had your chance for breakfast and you nipped it in the bud.”

“Come on, Terry, for Christ's sake.”

I unbuckled her, slipped on a pair of white-shorts without bothering to put on a shirt or shoes and watched Sandy wiggle herself into one of my tee shirts. It hugged her torso like spray paint and through the well-worn cotton I could make out not only her nipples, but the teeth marks and the bruise I had sucked into her.

We went downstairs for breakfast and when that was over and Sandy had cleaned up for Grandma we walked outside and headed for the woods again.

We took off all our clothes and left them at the same spot we had the day before, wading down into the chill water of the stream and then, when we reached the deep water, taking a long, languid swim among the trout, the guppies and the water lilies.

We crawled up onto our moss-covered rock and stretched out to dry our bodies in the sun and against each other. The warmth of the sun's rays and the heat of Sandy's body began to excite me, but when I pressed myself against her she suggested we go deeper into the forest.

Holding hands, we walked on into deeper reaches than we had ever explored before. The pines and oaks gave way to maples and birches. The birds were different, too. Instead of the black-eared bush-tits and red-shafted flickers there circled around us and alit singing before us all kinds of other birds-scissor-tailed flycatchers, thick-billed kingbirds, horned larks, red-breasted nuthatches, skylarks, catbirds, bluethroats, white wagtails, painted redstarts, scarlet tanagers, indigo buntings, hoary redpolls, white-collared seedeaters and all manner of birds I'd never even seen before. The forest floor was carpeted for our naked feet with soft, lush wildflowers like agrimony, wild beans, bastard toadflax, bed-straw, bee-balm, black snakeroot, wild bleeding heart, blue cohash, brooklime, bunchberry, climbing fumitory, watercress, buttercups, foam-flowers, hemlock, hemp, honeysuckle, hog-peanuts, goldenrod, snapdragons, wormwood, wild ginger, wild carrots, water-willows, wild cucumbers.

We stopped at a spring surrounded with milkweeds and we lay down to drink from it. A small clearing several feet away was overgrown with tall, green grass, and we rolled over toward this natural bed.

Sandy lay on her belly and I kissed her ass, darting my tongue upward and exploring an orifice that all of a sudden began to arouse my curiosity. Each time the tongue went in she spread her legs a little further and I could feel them quivering with pleasure.

I planted a trail of kisses up her spine and wound up sucking on her ear. I lay on her back and by now my stiff cock was resting between her buttocks.

“Are you still sore?” I whispered.

“Yes,” she said.

“Maybe we can do it some other way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe we can do it backwards. Some of the guys at school talk about that all the time.”

“What do you mean, backwards?” she asked.

“You know, you just lie there the way you are and I'll… we'll… proceed from there.”

“In other words,” she said, “you want to fuck me in the ass?”

“Yeah, I guess that's the term.”

“That sounds terrific, Terry.” She spread her legs even more and wiggled her ass against me. I didn't need any more prodding. I had to have her at once. I massaged her soft, resilient, pink buttocks and began inserting one finger, then two into her asshole until I felt confident to take the plunge myself. I did so, spreading her cheeks with one hand and guiding myself with the other until I had managed to squeeze in the head.

Sandy tightened up and I could feel her suppressing a moan of discomfort and pain.

“What's the matter?” I asked.

“It hurts.”

“So what?”

“Put something on it, Terry, make it smoother.”

“What is there?” I said, looking around. “Strawberries?”

“Milkweed,” she said. “Get some of the milkweeds.”

I dismounted and picked a half dozen of the thick milkweed stalks that grew alongside us. A smooth, milk-white cream oozed from the broken stems and I squeezed a handful of it out, applying it to her ass and heavily anointing my prick with a juicy, generous application of the fluid.

Then I lowered myself back down onto her and gasped with delight as I felt myself slide all the way into her asshole until the tops of my thighs were squashing her upthrust buttocks.

I slid my hands underneath her to cup, squeeze and squash her breasts, began slowly to withdraw and then to plunge back into her. At first she was tight, controlled, in pain, too obviously suffering me without complaint because she wanted me to enjoy myself. But the longer I thrust and withdrew, the more she relaxed and began to breathe more deeply, more pleasurably. Her nipples expanded and got hotter and hotter. She began to move with me, slowly at first and then with more and more abandon.

My own hungry poundings became less and less gentle now, as I felt her responding to me, as I felt the pain in her nerves transforming into pleasure. I let myself go, and savagely drove into her, going further and further every time until I must have reached within inches of the membranes of her vagina.

As I reached my climax she was wrestling under me like a hand-held fish, and when I riotously, joyously, roaringly came, she must have done something like that too because she stopped all of a sudden, howling, and pushed her ass all the way up into my gut.

After I had withdrawn and she had rolled over I broke off some more of the milkweeds and massaged her breasts and belly with the spermlike juice.'

“Did you like that?” I asked.

“Yeah. It hurt at first, but then it started to feel great.”

“Did you, like, have a thing, whatever they call it?”

“An orgasm?”

“Yeah, an orgasm.”

“I had something like that.”

“Spectacular.” I kissed her and then rolled over on my back to soak in the sun.

“This is really going to be a terrific summer,” she said.

“It already has been.”

“Only time I've ever been happy in my life,” she said.

“Me too.” We pawed away at each other some more.

“I hope the old bitch doesn't show up,” she said.

“Mommy?”

“You think she will?”

“Nah, she doesn't care about us,” I assured her. “All she wants is to get Daddy's money in the divorce. What does she want to come up here for? She hates her mother as much as she hates us.”

“I hope you're right.”

“Me too.”

NINE

As we approached the house, though, on our way back, a lady was standing on the patio, looking directly at us. Drink in one hand, the other pressed in a defiant fist at her hip, she had to be the old lady, we knew this before we could make out her face.

She was wearing a short summer dress, silk apparently, and it showed she still had the same figure of the girl in the pictures we'd discovered in the trunk the day before. Her hair, the same dark blonde as Sandy's, was longer than it was the last time I'd seen her-almost a year ago-and was blowing in the wind.

We instinctively stopped holding hands when we saw her, but once I'd let go I didn't know what to do with my hand. I looked for a pocket but my tight shorts didn't have any. Mother's presence there on the patio, the arrogance of her stance, intimidated me and made me feel like a helpless, childish jellyfish.

By the time we could make out her mouth it was set in a frown and when we could see her eyes they were alternately glaring at our faces and giving our bodies the once-over.

In spite of the fact that neither of us had seen our mother for so many months there was no rush to embrace, not even a cheerful hello. We walked up to her warily and braced ourselves for the worst.

“I've been waiting for you two,” she said.

“When did you get here, Mommy?” I said sheepishly.

“Apparently right after you two left for your romp in the woods. Where have you been for three hours?”

“Just around,” I said. “Looking at the places we used to go when we were kids.”

“Well you're not exactly kids any more, at least physically. What do you think this is, a nudist colony? How dare you two dress like that!”

She darted the icicles of her stare over Sandy's body, nude under tight short-shorts and a see-through tee shirt, and turned to me, also visibly naked under thin cotton shorts and nothing else. What made the situation worse was that our bodies were still wet from the last swim we'd taken, and showed clearly through the thin fabrics.

“What difference does it make?” I said. “There's nobody else around here. Why should we have to dress up?”

“It's not a question of wearing formal attire. It's a question of being clothed rather than unclothed. And I classify you two as unclothed right now.” She turned to Sandy. “Now go up to your room immediately and put on the following: a pair of panties, a bra, a decent pair of shorts and a blouse that isn't transparent.”

Sandy, flaming with rage and shame at being so viciously humiliated, took off running.

“And as for you,” she continued, “what do you think you're posing for-a pin-up boy's magazine? Your body's developed a lot more than you realize in the last year. It could be pretty disconcerting to have you prancing around…”

“What's that mean, disconcerting?”

“Never mind what the hell it means. Go up and put on some underpants and stop showing yourself off so much. And put on a shirt. And don't wear such tight pants.”

I stood there, waiting for the rest of the sermon.

“Go ON!” she screamed. “Do I still have to dress you and undress you?”

I looked into her eyes and seemed to have caught her off guard, because she blushed and turned away, glugging some more of her drink. I bolted upstairs.

I found Sandy in her room. She had already taken off the tee shirt and was stripping off her shorts as I entered.

“I hate her!” she said with furious tears in her eyes.

We came together and embraced. I kissed her eyes.

“She won't be here long,” I said. “She'll be gone before you know it.”

“She's going to ruin everything, I know that.”

“No she won't. We'll just have to be a little more careful.”

I heard footsteps in the hall and whirled around. Mother stormed into the room. “What the hell's going on now!” she screamed. She walked up to Sandy and slapped her hard across the face. Sandy pulled away and feebly tried to cover her nakedness. “You little whore, how dare you flaunt your naked body like that!”

“But he's my brother, what difference…”

“I don't care what he is. You're not little brats any more, you're both past puberty.” She turned to me. “Now get out of here and don't let me catch you in here again.”

I started to leave.

“I can see the two of you are going to need a lot more supervision than you've been getting.”

From then on, we got plenty of supervision. Mother's bedroom was directly across from Sandy's and right next to mine. There was no way we could possibly get together undetected at night, even if we had dared to try.

In the mornings, she would personally waken us, personally select Sandy's outfit for the day and accompany us down to breakfast. She kept Sandy busy with housework all morning and sent me off to play by myself. I would wander off into the woods where my love and I had been together. I would swim in the stream, lie naked on the mossy rock, drink of the milkwoods by the spring and roll in the strawberry fields, my mind awash with memories and fantasies of Sandy. After a few days of frustration, though, after I had begun to use my hand to manipulate myself into an artificial and deeply unsatisfying orgasm, I stopped going to those places and sought out deeper, gloomier parts of the woods in which to brood and daydream.

After lunch, if the weather were clear, Mother would take us to the lake where there was a public beach. At least there I could see something of Sandy's body and we could always manage to sneak a few furtive embraces under the water when Mother wasn't looking.

One day, when Mother, lying face down, seemed to be asleep, Sandy suddenly pulled down my trunks and hastily, violently thrashed my hypersensitive cock to an almost instant ejaculation.

Unzipping her one-piece suit from behind, I slid my hands in over her breasts and then moved my right hand downward, over her smooth belly and abdomen and down between her legs. I tugged her suit down enough to allow me to insert two fingers up inside her as far as they would go. She rode my hand desperately, moaning and gasping as I slithered up and down and around and worked her rapidly-for she was as keyed-up and hungry for satisfaction as I was-to a purring, biting, clawing orgasm.

We separated, readjusted our suits and swam innocently back into the beach to take our respective places on either side of drowsy Mama.

Even the use of the bathroom after these outings was a carefully programmed bit of business. Sandy would use it first, and I would follow her. While I was showering, Mother would again select Sandy's outfit for the evening and have her safely dressed by the time I emerged.

Sandy, of course, resented being treated like a pre-school child and fought Mother every step of the way. The more Sandy fought her, the more vicious and spiteful Mother would get. Their yells and screams and catlike hisses, their curses, accusations and threats rocked the house day and night.

Dinner was always a stormy affair, with one or the other or both of them usually bolting out of the room in a rage before the meal was over. Grandma did what she could to make peace between them, but it was a hopeless cause. Hate was the only thing that bound them, and if they had suddenly started loving one another like a nice mother and daughter neither would know what to do with herself all day.

Mother's main ace in the hole in threatening us into submission was this: “If you don't do what I tell you to, I'll drop the custody fight and you can go live with your father. You think I'm so bad, just remember what he's like. And if you think he was rotten before, you ought to see him now.”

One night Grandma asked her how the case stood. She refused to discuss it in front of the children, she said. Besides, she wasn't too clear about all the lawyer's fussy points. It was all too complicated.

“Well, what's going to happen to us?” I asked.

“Who knows?” she said. “It's all in the hands of the lawyers.”

“Who gets the furniture in the apartment?” Sandy hissed.

“Who knows or cares? Same as with you.”

“Yeah, we're just a couple of pieces of furniture to you. Why don't you auction us off and split the profits.”

“How do you split a nickel?” Mother replied. “Well, maybe we could get upwards of six cents for you on the white slave market.”

“I'd rather live with King Farouk than you anyway.”

“Does Daddy want to own us?” I asked.

“Yes, dear, he does. That's what we're fighting about. I want my two precious darlings, too.”

“So you can warp our minds and make us as sick as you are,” Sandy added.

“Wood warps, dear. Your mind, as far as I can tell, isn't composed of wood. As far as I can tell, it resembles a marshmallow. Marshmallows don't warp.” She lifted her glass. “A toast to your mind, my dear.”

Sandy's face flamed. She scooped a tablespoonful of mashed potatoes from the bowl in front of her and hurled them at Mother. They splattered over her face.

“Toast you, lady!” she yelled and stomped from the table. Wiping the mess from her face, Mother jumped up and dashed up the stairs after Sandy. The battle was on.

Grandma and I exchanged a resigned look and went on with our dinner.

Our evenings were dull and miserable. Usually, the three of us would sit around the TV set watching stupid, boring inanities. It wasn't so bad for Mother, because by the time evening rolled around she was always looped and flying high, and she had Sandy there to throw barbs at and start arguments with whenever she got bored.

The only way Sandy and I managed to survive those evenings was to exchange long looks of longing as frequently as possible without being detected, and to work our way out into the kitchen at least once so that we could paw each other desperately and exchange deep, sucking kisses that succeeded in working up our desire to the unbearable stages, only to have to go back to the TV set and burn.

Occasionally we'd hop into the car and go into town or to the local drive-in to catch a movie. The drive-ins were the best, because Mother, who usually brought a thermos of martinis with her, would sooner or later have to make a trip to the girl's room. Sandy and I, meanwhile, were prepared, each of us having made a trip before to remove our underpants.

The minute Mother left the car Sandy's skirt would go up and my pants would go down. We fondled and manipulated each other until Mother was out of sight. Then she would jump onto my lap, straddling my naked thighs with her own and leaning forward on the dashboard as I surged up into her. We allowed ourselves sixty strokes-about a minute-and because we were both so worked up to the event and so attuned to each other's bodies, we always managed to come simultaneously on the sixtieth stroke, whereupon Sandy would dismount, pull on her panties, add a little of the perfume she'd been wearing and try not to look too pleased when Mother returned.

But these moments were few and far between, and the boredom and frustration of our lives was wearing down our nerves. Mother, too, was beginning to feel claustrophobic. Because of the gossip concerning the divorce she hadn't called or visited any of her friends in the town, but it was impossible to avoid bumping into them on the street or in the supermarket.

Friends began calling her and inviting her to parties. She decided against going out at first, then changed her mind and told us one afternoon we'd be going to the Bridges for a party that night.

TEN

Jack and May Bridges, old friends of Mother's since her childhood, lived in a large, lakeside Victorian house about five miles from ours, with their son, Johnny, who was eighteen, and their daughter Kitty, who was about sixteen. Years ago Sandy and I had played with them, but neither of us could remember what they looked like.

When we arrived the party was in full swing in the house and on the patio in the rear. May Bridges greeted us at the door, bestowing gooey kisses and “How wonderful to see you all!”

She was a few years older than Mother, but looked about ten years older. Her face, which had once been attractive, was lined and creased and she had let herself get a little plump.

“You're looking wonderful,” Mother said to her.

“Nowhere near as good as you. But I have other consolations,” she added, turning to grasp her husband's arm as he joined us. Mother winced at this first snide reference to her divorce.

“Ava how wonderful to see you,” Jack said to Mother. “You're looking terrific.” He gave her a puckered kiss on the lips. “She looks great, doesn't she, May?”

“Yes, and so do the kids. My god, how they've grown. How the hell did you and Kurt ever spawn two such gorgeous hunks?”

“It was easy,” Ava said. “Where are your two kidlets, anyway? They must be pretty large themselves.”

May escorted us toward the patio, where the younger crowd was dancing, and summoned Johnny and Kitty. Johnny, like his father, was over six feet tall and oozed with charm. I never had liked him, and still didn't. He was a good-looking guy with straight black hair, but was all greased down and looked horrible.

His sister was something else. Her hair was dark and long, around her shoulders, framing a face that might have been too pretty if it were more innocent. But it had an animal quality that appealed. to me-her dark eyes were darting over at me and laughing. She was shorter than Sandy, and rather slender, but well-stacked for a girl of sixteen. I avoided looking at her. I didn't want to start anything with her, even a mild flirtation. All I wanted to do was wait for an opening for Sandy and me to depart from the crowd for a few minutes. It had been over a week since our last trip to the drive-in, and I was boiling over with desire.

“Why don't you kids come out with us and dance?” Johnny said to us. “No point in hanging around here with the corpses.”

That sounded like an excellent idea, and Sandy and I moved with Johnny.

“Just a minute,” Kitty said. “I'm sick and tired of dancing. I wanted to go for a swim but nobody wants to go with me.”

“Terry will take her,” Ava said. “Won't you, Terry?”

I hedged. I didn't want to be separated from Sandy for even a second. But Mother had put me on the spot. I shrugged and stammered, and Kitty took this for assent.

“Good,” she said, taking my arm. “Let's go.”

“I really can't,” I said. “Look, I don't even have a suit. Besides, I'm a lousy swimmer. And I just ate. I might get a cramp.”

“Excuses, excuses. Number one, you can wear one of my brother's suits. Number two, I'm an excellent life guard. If you get a cramp and start to drown I'll give you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”

“What's that?” I said.

“It's like what Prince Charming did to Sleeping Beauty. You kiss them and they wake up.”

“Go ahead, Terry, for Christ's sake,” Mother said. “What kind of a lousy guest are you, anyway?”

With this, Kitty led me away, and as we went I looked over my shoulder and got a pained, sharp, accusing, resigned glance from Sandy.

“I remember you when we were kids,” Kitty said as we mounted the stairs to her room. “You sure have grown.”

“So have you.”

“You two kids must get lonely over there, all by yourselves. You ought to come over here more often.”

“Maybe we will,” I said.

We reached the top of the stairs and she led me into her bedroom. “You can change in here,” she said. “Let me go get you a bathing suit.”

In a moment she was back with a small pair of bikini briefs made of white silk.

“They're racing trunks,” she explained.

“Should I change here,” I said, unbuttoning my shirt, “or should I go…”

“Unzip me,” she said, offering me her back. I unzipped her dress down to the base of her spine. “Unhook my bra for me, will you?”

Trembling with a desire I didn't want to feel for her, I unhooked her bra. She stood there for a long moment as though she wanted me to reach inside the dress and inside the bra, to grab her breasts. I stood there.

She moved toward the dresser and pulled out two halves of an orange bikini. Then she reached under her short dress and pulled off her panties, giving me a generous view of her round ass.

“I guess I better go change in the bathroom,” she said. “I'll be right back.”

I pulled off my shirt and sat down on her bed to remove my shoes and socks. Hot lust for this little sexpot was burning in my loins, lust made almost unbearable by the frustrations I'd had in the last weeks.

I pulled off my pants and underwear, feeling an even more intense throbbing of lust and longing for satisfaction, any kind of satisfaction as my stiff prick stood up free and unencumbered by any clothing. If only Sandy were here!

I looked around for my briefs and found them just as Kitty reappeared in the doorway. She wore her bikini bottoms, the size of a g-string, and held her bra at her nipples, leaving her breasts otherwise naked. I made a feeble attempt at covering myself by cupping my balls, but this merely emphasized my nakedness by shoving it straight up and outward.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” she said. “I thought you'd be dressed by now.” But she didn't make any move to leave.

“Would you mind snapping me up?” holding the bra out at arms length and baring her budding young breasts. I moved toward her, no longer making any effort to cover myself. When I neared her she turned around and pulled the bra back under her beasts, without, however, covering the nipples, which by now were red and large. I cupped them from behind, pushing down the cloth.

“That's not my bathing suit, silly,” she said. “I can't go around wearing your hands.” She pushed them away and covered her breasts.

“You're a little bitch of a tease,” I said, pulling down the lower part of her suit far enough for me to be able to rub myself against her buttocks.

“You're a real charmer, Terry. Where'd you ever come up with a line like that?”

“Look, we're both naked, or almost. We both want each other. Why wait?”

“Wait for what?” she said.

“Wait to fuck. Let's do it right now, on your bed. I'm ready.”

“Another great line,” she said.

I was getting sick of her already. I wasn't in any mood to play any games or beg her for anything. I wanted to be with Sandy, anyway. This was pure diversion, which I'd have a hard time rationalizing to myself afterwards.

“The hell with it then,” I said, and let go of her turning away and looking for my clothes.

“Boy are you a prima donna,” she said, throwing her bra at me and hitting me in the back. “You expect a girl to put out for you just like that, boom, no questions asked, no affection, no nothing. Just stick it right in the first time you meet.”

“We didn't just meet,” I reminded her, “we've known each other since we were kids. Besides, it wasn't my idea to go swimming, or to come up here, or to start dressing and undressing you. And I didn't walk in on you when you were naked.”

“You really are a bastard!” Something else hit me in the back. I looked down. There lay a pair of orange bikini panties. Kitty lay on the bed, stretched out on her back, completely naked, her legs spread slightly, her hips rotating subtly.

“If you're going to call me a tease, I might as well get my money's worth.”

The sight of her lasciviously spread body was too much for my sex-hungry young body to take. I pounced on her, pinning down her legs with my own and stretching her arms over her head.

“Terry!” she squealed. “Don't. The door's wide open. Anybody could come in any time they wanted to.”

“Let them,” I said.

“Not here, Terry, please. Not here in the house. If my father catches us he'll kill me.”

“So you really were just teasing me. I ought to rape you right here.”

“I just wanted to get you excited so when we went outside-oh, don't, Terry.”

I had slid my prick up between her legs, found the spot, and jammed it all the way into her. She struggled and squirmed under me, which of course increased the pleasure.

So excited after such a long layoff, and by Kitty's machinations, so ready for her and so used to frantic, hungry speed contests with Sandy, I began to come almost instantly, pounding down into her and then arching up in the abandon of a climax.

The whole thing had taken little more than a minute. I dismounted, got up and put on the swim trunks.

“You still want to go swimming?”

“You're a prick,” she said.

“If you don't want to, I'll ask my sister. I feel like a swim to cool off.”

“I hate you,” she said.

“Oh well, you can't please everybody. I'm going to get my sister. You got a shirt I can wear with this so I don't look so naked?”

“No.”

“Okay, I'll see you then.”

I started out the door. “Wait, Terry,” she said. “I want to go with you.” She got up and slipped on her panties, again asking me to fasten the bra. I didn't have any trouble with it this time.

We went down the back stairs and out a side door to avoid the crowd. I also decided it would be better now if Sandy weren't to see me with Kitty like this. Something about the flush of her skin, the glow, and the easy, abandoned way she wore, or nearly wore, her bikini gave everything away.

I also felt guilty. While Sandy was burning with unsatisfied desire I was living it up with a hot little number I didn't care a damn about, and who didn't even satisfy me-at least not the first time. Maybe it would be better later.

We reached the water's edge, and before I could even suggest it, Kitty had stripped off her bikini and dove into the water. I divested myself of my briefs and dove in after her.

She was a good swimmer, and it took me a dozen strokes to catch up with her. At last, I grabbed her smooth, struggling body from behind, one arm around her breasts and one at her thighs. I spun her around. She locked my buttocks with her legs in a scissorlike grip that pushed and rubbed our genitals together.

Without further ado I pushed up into her. Her leglock tightened and she began to move with me, digging her fingers into my back.

My mind was wandering. I wasn't interested in this girl except as a receptacle. She was a pretty, sensual receptacle, but I didn't really care what she was like as long as she rubbed me the right way in the right place, as she now was doing so ably.

I thought of Sandy and how it had been with her. Unadulterated joy, pure concentration, the flow of love. No fantasies, no mental tricks, no nostalgic evocations.

I wanted to get this over with quick and get back to Sandy.

So I thrust savagely away at her, feeling her body start to quake and listening to her moan and gasp as she reached her long-awaited climax. One more thrust, three in a row, two more and-boom — I was home.

I withdrew and floated away.

“Do you like me?” Kitty asked, swimming up to me and running her hand up and down my chest.

“Sure.”

“I wish you had come over earlier in the sum- mer. It's almost over now. All those guys around here-the ones up at the party-are such a bunch of drips! They're scared to do anything.”

“Maybe they think you're too young.”

“You don't, do you?”

“How could I?” I said. “Look, we better get back in. They're probably talking about us already.”

“Let them.”

“I have to take care of my sister. I'm her chaperone.”

“That's all you think about is your sister.”

“What's wrong with that?”

“Nothing, I guess,” she said.

I started swimming back in toward shore with Kitty alongside. We emerged dripping from the lake, put on our suits and then hopped back in to wet them and make it look as though we'd actually worn them.

Then we joined the party on the patio. Kitty's body, in and out of the bikini, caused a mild sensation. A crowd of young admirers formed around her and I was able to search for Sandy.

She was nowhere to be seen on the patio. I moved inside, where the older people were getting smashed. I felt slightly out of place in my wet, clinging jockstrap-sized bathing suit, among the blazers and blazing summer dresses, but none of the drunks seemed to take notice.

Sandy was sitting on a sofa, talking to Madge Kimberly, a friend of Mother's. She spotted me, grinned, excused herself and joined me.

“Hi! How was your swim?”

“Okay,” I muttered, looking down guiltily. “Where's Mom?”

“In the kitchen, completely looped, ready to pass out. She's been talking about her divorce for the last hour. Every dirt disher in town is taking notes.”

“I better go up and change. You want to come with me?”

“Yes.”

We mounted the stairs and entered Kitty's room.

“Oh, you changed in here,” she said, unbuttoning her blouse. She noticed Kitty's panties on the floor and picked them up with forefinger and thumb. “And changed together. Must have put on quite a show.”

“No, she went into the bathroom.”

“Ah, you don't have to kid me, Terry,” she said playfully as she pulled off her blouse. “How was she? Did you make it with her here, or in the water?”

I laughed, relieved, and blurted out: “Both. She wasn't much good, though. She doesn't compare to you.”

Her face dropped a mile. She turned red as boiled crab and hot tears collected and burst from her eyes. I stepped toward her, wanting to cut out my tongue, to go back and unsay what I had said, undo what I had done.

WHACK! Her hand cracked across my face with full force and full venom.

“Sandy, please, I thought you…”

“You thought I what? You thought I was serious? You thought I took it for granted you'd jump into the first cunt you run into, and joke about it?”

“I don't know. I wasn't even serious about it. That's why I blurted it out. It just happened. It didn't mean anything. She teased me and practically forced me into it. I didn't even kiss her. I wasn't even nice to her.”

“The last part I can believe. That's you, all the way. Love 'em and leave 'em.”

We went on this way for a long while, with Sandy doing most of the talking. How could I explain? I felt stupid, guilty, horrible, disgusting, untrue, unfaithful, unloving, unloved anymore, lost, helpless and, after she had slapped me again and stomped out, utterly alone.

I dressed quickly and hurried downstairs. Mother had passed out. Sandy had gotten a couple of men to carry her to the car. They put her in the, back seat. I got the car keys from her purse and drove off, with Sandy sitting in the front with me, as far over on the other side as she could get.

I tried desperately to think of something to say, could think of nothing. We passed the ride in stony silence.

Once home, we helped Mother up the stairs. Sandy undressed her and put her to bed.

When she had finished she came back in her own room. I was waiting for her.

ELEVEN

“What the hell do you want now?” she asked.

“You.”

“You had me. I've been had. You're nothing but an alleycat, Terry. The only reason you made love to me was because I was here. If you'd been here alone with Mommy, you'd probably have made it with her. Or for that matter, with Daddy.”

“Don't say that, Sandy.”

“It's been said. You'd probably fuck anything with a hole in it.”

“It was a mistake, Sandy. You know how worked up I've been the last week. I've been walking around with a hard-on for you all day every day, going to sleep with one at night even if I jerk off, and waking up with one in the morning, stiffer than ever.”

“That just proves what I've been saying. You've got some kind of a constitutional defect. You're a sex maniac.”

“It doesn't prove anything, except that I'm in love with you in a way that's driving me crazy. If you want to call that being a sex maniac, go ahead. I was never like that until we started making it together. I'll never be able to get enough of you- and if I have to go for a week, and some little drip comes along…”

“It only proves you've got satyriasis.”

“What's that?”

“A male nympho.”

“Well, if I have it, you gave it to me.”

“You can keep it.”

“She just walked in on me, Sandy. I wasn't wearing anything and I had a hard-on as usual, which I got from sitting next to you in the car on the way over. It was sticking out like a flagpole. She had on half a bikini and wanted me to put the bra on her tits. When I started to, she dropped it and when I called her a tease, she took off everything and spread her legs out on the bed. I couldn't help myself. I wanted you so much, and I didn't think. I'm so weak, Sandy.”

She was sitting on the bed, and I had been standing. Now I walked up to her, fell on my knees in front of her and lay my sobbing head in her lap, expecting her to shove me onto the floor.

Instead, she held my head gently and ran her fingers through my hair.

“Terry, there's no future for us. Why don't we quit while we're ahead?”

I lay my head sideways in her lap so I could talk. “There's a present. They'll probably blow up the world tomorrow anyway. Besides, we're not ahead. We're behind a week. We haven't made love in a week, and we haven't slept together since that first night.”

“I don't think I want to do that anymore. You can go play with your little wimp, whatever the hell her name is.”

“Pussy or something like that. I don't want her. I didn't in the first place. She foisted herself on me. All I want is you.”

“Besides,” she went on, “Mommy's right across the hall.”

“She's dead to the world. Two elephants mating in here wouldn't wake her up.”

“Thanks for the compliment,” she said.

“I wasn't talking about us. We sound more like an air raid test.” I got up from my kneeling position and lay on the bed, resting the back of my head in her lap and looking up at her.

“Your eyes are bloodshot,” she said.

“So are yours.” She stroked my hair again and sighed, still looking into my eyes.-,

“I hate you, Terry,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because you're so damn lovable and there's no reason for it and you don't deserve to be loved. By anybody.”

“I love you. That's a good reason to love me.”

“No it's not. Most people don't love somebody back. When somebody loves them they just take it for granted.”

“Most people don't love each other, period.”

“Besides,” she said, “I don't think you love me in the first place.”

“I love you in both places.”

“You've got a filthy mind.”

“How can I prove it to you?” I said.

“That you've got a filthy mind, or that you love me?”

“Both.”

“You already have, a few hours ago, when you raped that poor innocent girl.”

“I didn't rape her, she raped me.”

“It amounts to the same thing.”

“Look, Sandy, this isn't getting us anywhere. We've been waiting for weeks for the old girl to conk out like this. Now she finally ups and does it and we sit around shooting off our mouths like an old married couple.”

“Can you think of anything better to shoot off?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, unzipping my fly.

She unbuckled my belt and pulled off my trousers and underpants as I kicked off my shoes and socks. I rolled over and unbuttoned her blouse then ripped off her bra, sucking and biting her nipples after I had done so and pushing her back on the bed while she pulled off my shirt and I unzipped her skirt, slid my hands underneath her panties and pulled off all the rest of her clothes. We exchanged a long, hot, sucking, biting, fluid, savage kiss into which we poured almost as much energy as we were momentarily about to expend among our genitals.

These we joined and began to move hungrily- twisting, probing, pounding, pausing, gyrating-exploiting every nuance, every little trick we had developed over the weeks. I roved her body with my hands, inserting fingers into her asshole and wringing her buttocks, pinching and kneading her nipples, letting my hands play loosely up and down her thighs and sides and in her hair. Her nails were all over my back and buttocks, tender and tickling at times, tending to dig when the rhythm and depth of my thrusts intensified. My mouth was all over her mouth and ears and throat and hair, and she picked on my ears with her teeth, licked them with her tongue and sucked on them savagely. It was so good, I wanted it to last forever.

Then the light went on. We jerked up our heads. It was Mother, standing in the doorway, looking very woozy.

“Oops, wrong door,” she mumbled, and shut off the light.

Two seconds later she was back, instantly sober, wide awake, holding onto the light switch for support.

“What the hell is this? What is this shit? Get off her!” she yelled at me. “Get the hell off!” I dismounted and fumbled for my clothes.

“I figured you two brats were up to some foul, vile, revolting crime like this but even I didn't want to admit it to myself. Jesus Christ!” Drunkenly, she slapped herself in the forehead. “How could you do it to me? What kind of filth have I spawned?”

“Filth a few notches higher than the filth that spawned us,” Sandy hissed.

“You fucking bitch!” Mother yelled, and lunged at Sandy, but the effort was too sudden and she fell on her face.

“You're getting out,” she muttered as she pulled herself to her feet. “Tomorrow, slutface. You're going to camp and from there straight to the strictest boarding school I can find. I never want to see you again.”

“Gosh, Mom,” Sandy said. “That's the nicest present you could give me.”

“As for you,” she said, turning on me, “I ought to have you castrated.”

I ignored her, keeping my head down.

“Did you hear that? Castrated! I could have it done tomorrow!”

“Whatever you say must be true, since you're my mother,” I replied.

“Get out of here now, and go to bed.”

I turned to Sandy. “Good night, beautiful.”

“Good night, dear,” she said.

Mother was flying into another rage as I left the room, slamming the door behind me. I went into my room, undressed and lay down on the bed. I considered the following possibilities: killing myself; entering into a suicide pact with Sandy, killing Mother; committing suicide with Sandy after killing Mother; killing Mother and running away with Sandy; burning down the house; crying; going to sleep.

TWELVE

Sandy was shipped off early the next morning. I would have slept through her departure if she hadn't snuck into my bedroom while Mother was showering.

She threw herself against me and we wrapped our bodies around each other and kissed ferociously. Both of us were sobbing and I could taste our hot salt tears as they mingled at our mouths.

“Where is she sending you?” I asked.

“Camp Climax, I think. I'll write as soon as I get there.”

“She can't stop us,” I said, trying to convince myself as well as her. “We'll find some way…”

“I think she can, Terry. I don't see how it's possible for us ever to see each other again. She can prevent it.”

“She cannot. The first vacation-Christmas for sure. We'll be able to figure something out.”

“Christmas is such a long way off, Terry. Look what happened last night at the party. How can I trust you? It's bound to happen again and again.”

“I love you, Sandy. Trust me.”

“If only we weren't brother and sister. It would be so easy.”

“But it mightn't be as good as this.”

The shower stopped.

“Kiss me goodbye,” she whispered.

I took sick that afternoon and for the next few days I ran a high, delirious fever. I didn't leave my room at all. I refused to eat the food Mother brought to my bedside, dumping it into the bedpan.

The first day she was suspicious and refused to believe I was really sick, insisted I was faking, which I was at first. But I did such a good job of convincing her that I convinced my body as well.

She called in a doctor. Out of the depths of his scientific knowledge he prescribed that I stay in bed and get some rest. He got twenty-five dollars for this advice.

Mother's attitude changed. She forgot how mad she was supposed to be with me for catching Sandy and me in bed together. She became kind, solicitous, maternal, soft, feminine, tender.

The illness provided me with something to occupy my mind and body and served to lessen the jolt of losing Sandy so suddenly and unexpectedly.

After four or five days I started to eat and within a week I was back on my feet. Instead of using my health as an excuse to start attacking me again, Mother laid off. If anything she was more affectionate than she had been when I was sick. I grudgingly admitted this change in her, admitted it to myself, but remained sullen, irascible and aloof.

I kept to myself most of the day and she didn't bother me. I spent most of my time walking in the woods, swimming, dreaming of Sandy and the few joyous moments we'd had together.

One rainy afternoon I hid myself up in the attic, dozing off and daydreaming of the afternoon we'd spent on the mattress up there. I reread the story about the Ushers and didn't like it any more than I did the first time. I rummaged around some and came upon the packet of nude shots of Mother when she was in her late teens. The resemblance to Sandy seemed even more striking than it had the first time. I cursed the lust that rose in my loins, put the pictures away and went downstairs. But the next day and the day after that I made the trip back up the creaky stairs to ogle the pictures.

In spite of myself I began to look secretly with desire upon Mother. I began to accept the affection she offered, and began to return it. She stopped referring to Sandy altogether, after having spent weeks trying to run her down. She seemed more womanly now than in the haggard weeks in which she'd done nothing but argue with her daughter. The sun had improved her color and lightened her hair some and she looked younger now.

I hated myself for feeling anything toward her after the way she treated Sandy, but it seemed I couldn't help myself. It had been two weeks since Sandy's departure, and I hadn't been near a girl or even touched myself.

Evenings, while Mother sat drinking before the TV set, I would go to bed early, sometimes to read, most often to lie in the dark on my bed and look out the window, thinking of what it had been like with Sandy and dreaming of what it might be like.

One night, feeling especially sorry for myself, I lay there on my belly in the dark, before the open window, sobbing into the pillow. It must have been getting late, because I heard Mother come up the stairs and start to get ready for bed. I tried to stifle my sobs, but only wound up choking on them.

She knocked softly on the door, opened it and stood in the lintel. I looked at her through tear-stained eyes. She wore a loose, transparent negligee which flowed nearly to the floor. The light behind her in the hallway silhouetted every line and curve of her body. Her figure hadn't changed. It was the same as in the pictures.

She walked up to the bed.

“What's the matter, Terry?” she said. Her voice was thick with intoxication and from several feet away I could smell the alcohol on her breath.

“Nothing,” I said, turning away from the unbearably exciting sight of her naked body through the sheer fabric.

“You oughtn't to lie here without any clothes on by the open window. You're liable to catch cold.” She knelt down on the floor beside me. “I don't want my baby to catch cold. He's been sick.”

“I'm okay,” I said, sniffling.

She began to run her hand up and down the groove of my spine. Her long fingers were soft and very hot and made my flesh tingle. Then she patted me on my naked ass and I tingled quite a bit more.

“What's the matter with my baby?” she said.

“Nothing, nothing,” I said. “Just a bad dream.”

Her caresses roved all over my back now, up my neck, through my hair and down again. She was driving me wild. I didn't know what to do. I was afraid to move, to do anything, to say anything. I wanted her to go away, but I wanted her to stay even more.

“You used to have bad dreams when you were little,” she said, in drunken wistfulness. “And you know what you did then? Every time you had a bad dream?”

“No, what?”

“You'd come knocking on my door and tell me all about them, and then, to make sure you wouldn't have any more like that during the night, I'd let you sleep with me.”

“And I was okay then?”

“Yes, Terry. You can still do that if you want — tonight,” she said.

“What's that?” I said, my heart beating like a jackhammer.

“You can come sleep with me tonight if you want.” Her hands seemed to be getting hotter and more active on my back.

I was panic-stricken. I stammered and managed to get out: “I don't think I better. I think I'll just stay here tonight.”

“Are you sure?”

I mumbled something noncommittal.

“Well if you change your mind, baby,” she purred, “don't hesitate and don't be afraid. Now kiss me goodnight.”

I turned my head to her and she brushed her soft, wetted lips against mine and held them there. Without locking tongues it was as sensual a kiss as possible. I watched her stand up, thrilling at the sight of her naked flesh, watching her firm, high breasts jiggle slightly as she stood and turned. She walked into the hall and left the door open behind her. She left her door open as well.

I was scared stiff. I lay there motionless for minutes, listening to the beating of my heart as it pounded the blood through my arteries. I listened to the rustling of her clothes as she got into bed.

Then I got up. I didn't decide to. In fact, I kept telling myself, “Don't, don't,” but it wasn't any good to tell myself anything. I couldn't be anything but passive to my passions.

I tiptoed through the hallway into her room, and she let out a little purr of pleasure as I walked in. Cautiously I walked to the other side of the bed from where she lay and slid in under the sheets. I lay on the edge of the bed, careful not to touch her with any part of my body.

“Terry,” she whispered.

“Yes?”

“You weren't so stand-offish when you were younger. You used to like to cuddle up to me.”

“I guess I've gotten older now.”

She slid alongside me. I gasped when I felt her body against mine. She had removed her nightgown, and her nakedness pressed against me from the tips of her breasts to the hollow of her thighs. She fondled my stiff, throbbing penis.

“You have grown up some,” she said.

I couldn't restrain myself any longer, and rolled over on top of her, sucking on her breasts as I had during my first days and weeks in the world. I didn't remember what they were like then, but now they tasted like ambrosia to my lips.

Her hands were hot all over my back and buttocks, urging me toward her. I felt slightly inhibited with her, still felt reluctant to take the final plunge, until she grabbed me around the back with her legs and pulled me to her, sliding her hand between us to guide me back to the womb.

We moved slowly and slitheringly at first, and the words, “Motherfucker, motherfucker, motherfucker,” reverberated in my head until I shut them out by repeating the syllables “ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma ma-ma.”

The pace got rougher, sweatier, louder and more wild as we went on and I didn't want it to stop, didn't want to have to face myself in the aftermath.

Like all things, though, this came to an end and I withdrew from her. I slid down along her until I rested my head on her breasts. Taking a nipple into my mouth, I fell peacefully asleep.

When I awoke it was still dark and Mother was still asleep under me, breathing heavily. I didn't want to face her in the morning, so I got up and tiptoed back into my room. No longer the captive of my lust, I felt wretched, horrible, and guilty, not because I had fucked my mother, not that in itself; but because of what it implied about my loyalty to Sandy. And I remembered what she had said about me in relation to Mother, that I would go to bed with her, given half an opportunity. If she were ever to find out, it would be the last straw for her. It would end everything between us for good.

I slept late in the morning, not having been awoken as usual by Mother. Her door was closed, and when I went down to breakfast Grandma asked me how come both of us had slept so late and how come Ava was still in bed.

“I guess she's not feeling too well,” I said. “Maybe you better go see if something's wrong with her.”

“You know I can't get up those stairs any more. Why don't you go see what it is?”

“I'd rather not.”

“Why not, Terry? She's your own mother. Have you two been fighting again? You seemed to be getting along so nicely recently.”

“We were. It'll probably be different now, though.”

“How's that?”

“Nothing. I'll go see how she is.” I walked slowly upstairs and knocked on her door.

“Who is it?”

“Terry.”

There was dead silence for what seemed five minutes. I finally said, “Grandma sent me up to find out if you're all right.”

“I'm dandy. Look, will you get a pot of coffee, a bottle of brandy, a bottle of aspirin and my cigarettes like a good little boy?”

I got what she asked for and knocked again. This time she told me to come in. She was still in bed, but had put on a nightgown and held the sheets up to her chin. She looked dazed, hung-over, sheepish and guilty and never once met my darting, furtive looks at her.

“Look, Terry,” she said, and then trailed off into silence.

I was relieved. I had expected her to be furious with me. Instead, apparently, she was all girded up for my hate for her, which I didn't feel.

I said what I had planned to say. “Maybe it would be better if I went away for the rest of the summer. I wouldn't mind spending a little time at camp.”

“It would do you some good, probably, Terry. Because I'm going back to the city today, anyway. It'd be pretty lonely for you up here by yourself with Grandma.”

“I thought maybe Quivering Pines.”

She shook her head. “That's too close to where Sandy is. I don't want you two that close together after what happened…” her voice trailed off again as she realized she no longer had much of a moral case against us. “Anyway, that's all boys there. I think the way you're getting you'd rather go to a co-ed camp, like Camp Interplay.”

“Sure, wherever you like,” I said. “You're footing the bill.”

I started out the door. “Oh, Terry,” she said. I turned to her. “About last night. I hope you'll just forget about it and not let it bother you. I guess I've been up here too long, and then seeing you and Sandy… I hope you won't make too much of it. It happens more often than you think.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, relieved that she was trying to toss it all off as lightly as I was inclined to do.

“I guess you'd better start getting your things together. Oh, and go get me the telephone number of Camp Interplay.”

THIRTEEN

The first thing I found in my luggage when I started to unpack at the camp was a packet of letters from Sandy. One had been mailed from Camp Climax every day, and they had all been opened. Each one became successively more erotic, more desperate and each one asked why I wasn't writing.

The bitch of a Mother! She'd opened every one, confiscated them, kept them for herself and progressively got the hots for me through Sandy's eyes. And didn't even have the nerve to give the letters back that morning and admit what she'd done. Instead, she had to sneak them into my luggage, not having the guts to throw them in the garbage, as she probably wanted to do.

I sat down and wrote a long letter to her explaining everything (except what had taken place in Mother's bed last night), mailed that and spent the rest of the evening replying to each of her letters in turn.

The summer passed with excruciating slowness. I spent most of my energy waiting for Sandy's letters reading them and writing to her. We wanted to see each other before we were shipped off to our respective schools, but we couldn't figure out any way to do it. I asked my counselor, Matt, if he knew of some way I could get together with a girl friend of mine at the end of the season and he said we could use one of the cabins in the camp-only a few counselors, he among them, hung around for the week or two after the camp closed, and he'd be more than willing to look the other way if I was sure the girl and I could cover our tracks. I told him we'd stay in hiding the whole time and wrote Sandy, giving her the dates.

The camp was pretty much of a bore-but pleasant enough. The kids-most in their early and mid-teens-seemed attractive enough and the counselors-in their late teens and early twenties-seemed free-and-easy.

I managed to avoid most of the organized activities, preferring instead to take off by myself every morning in a canoe and explore the area, sometimes taking along a couple of sandwiches and staying out all day.

This had its advantages, since no one paid much attention to where I was, or what I was up to.

On one of my first mornings out, a girl was sitting on the pier when I came for my canoe. She couldn't have been much more than thirteen, but she was dazzlingly pretty, with long, shiny brown hair and amber eyes that sparkled mischievously when I said hello to her and asked her what her name was.

“Dolores,” she said.

“I'm Terry. What are you doing today, Dolores?”

“Just sitting here.”

“Feel like going for a ride in my canoe?”

She nodded her head. “Uh-huh.” She hopped into the canoe and sat opposite me at the other end. We talked about how much we hated the camp, how much we hated our parents, how much we hated school. We got further and further away from the camp; the sun was getting higher and hotter.

“Let's get out of this sun for a while,” I said, moving the canoe toward the tree-lined shore.

“Why don't we go for a swim?” she said.

“Do you have your bathing suit?”

“Who needs one? We can go bare-ass. There's nobody around.”

“Do you like to do that, Dolores? Swim bare-ass?”

“Yeah.”

I beached the canoe, pulled off my shorts and watched her strip. She had a perfect girlish body, with smooth, skinny legs and hips, a light, fluffy pubescent thatch, breasts the size of small saucers but with big, pink nipples that made my mouth water.

She smiled wryly at my lustful stare and at my burgeoning erection. She stood there waiting for me to make a move toward her. I did. She jumped into the water.

We swam well out into the lake, playing sexy tickling games and dunked one another. During the course of our sporting I managed to kiss, bite, suck, pinch and feel just about every inch of her vibrant young body, and my excitement was getting the better of me.

“Let's go back in,” I said. “I'm getting tired.”

“What's the big rush?”

“Come on,” I said impatiently.

Once on shore we lay down on the grass alongside the canoe. Dolores crawled into my arms and started nipping at my ears.

“Are you a virgin?” I asked.

“That's for me to know and you to find out.”

“How do I find out?”

“Try me.” She pulled me over on top of her and I covered her mouth with mine. I loved the feel of her soft, girlish skin and her small, firm, butting breasts.

She spread out her smooth thighs to receive mine and the head of my penis brushed her delicate clitoris. I pushed inward. She was tight, very tight, but she was pushing up avidly at me as though she knew what she was doing. I slid further and further in, encountering no obstacles, until I had plunged as far as I could go.

“Does that answer your question?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Now I have one.”

“What?”

“Are you?” she asked. “What?” “A virgin.” “Not exactly.”

“Then prove it to me.” I did my best to prove it to her for the rest of the afternoon. She was tremendously energetic and imaginative and I would have had a deliciously satiating time-if I had been able to stop thinking of my sister.

The letter came a few days later, saying she wouldn't be able to make it down on the dates I'd specified because her camp ran a week longer than mine and there was no way she could get away; and that Mother was picking her up on the last day and driving her directly to the boarding school.

I called her person-to-person at the camp, and after about a fifteen-minute wait I got her on the line. After a flurry of exclamations we settled down to business: when could we get together. She didn't think we could. We have to, I told her. She couldn't think of anything.

“Don't you want to see me?” I asked. “You know I do.”

“If I don't see you soon, Sandy, I really will go crazy. Don't you have any free time? Nights or anything?”

“None,” she said. “They supervise every minute.”

“What about the last few days? Don't they ease up then, just a little?'

“Only on the day we leave. Mommy's coming sometime after lunch. We have the morning off to pack.”

We arranged to meet that morning, on an island in the lake a mile or so from her camp. She gave me explicit instructions on what roads to take, where to park the car, where to enter the lake and exactly the spot on the island where we would meet.

Finally the operator came on asking for another quarter, which I didn't have, and I had to hang up.

The next problem was to convince Matt to lend me his car. I explained the situation to him, leaving out the fact that the girl was my sister, and pleaded with him to let me stay on the extra week by myself, then borrow his car for the day. He was a little wary at first, particularly since I didn't have a driver's license, but he finally agreed. I suppose the intensity of my urgent desperation convinced him he'd never get rid of me otherwise.

I spent the final weeks ticking off the days and dreaming of what it would be like with Sandy again. Occasionally the girl, Dolores, would accompany me in the canoe and we'd play a little in the water or on the shore, but mostly I just kept to myself, nursing all the nuances of my obsession.

The night before we were to meet I got the keys from Matt, packed my canoe on top of the car and took off shortly after midnight. It was about a four-hour drive, and I wanted to get there in plenty of time. I was willing to wait for three hours on the island if necessary, rather than risk the possibility of missing one moment with Sandy.

It was just as well that I did, for I got lost several times, not used to driving any long distances and unfamiliar with the roads. Finally, around four in the morning I arrived in the town adjacent to Camp Climax and began hunting for the roads Sandy had told me to take.

After following a succession of dusty, bumpy dirt roads lined with dumpy summer cabins I arrived at the shore of the lake at the spot she had suggested.

I parked the car, unloaded the canoe, set it in the water and paddled toward our island. After about a half hour the sun started to come up and I could make out on the far shore the white buildings and tents of the camp. I began hunting for the island and spotted it sitting like a green jewel in the middle of the lake.

Steering around to the far side I found the clump of tall white pines where we were to meet and grounded the canoe. I stripped and dove into the bracing, ice-cold water of the lake, rubbing the highway grime from my face and body. After the long, tense drive and the five-mile paddle in the canoe the water felt gloriously refreshing. When I came out and lay down on the soft grass in the rising sun, I felt so relaxed I fell asleep.

Sandy's lips on mine woke me up. I looked up into her fierce blue gleeful eyes and grabbed onto her for dear life. She had already taken off her clothes, and I pressed her naked body against mine, blubbering exclamations of joy.

“Don't say anything yet, Terry,” she said, pulling me on top of her as she lay back. “Take me right now, you can't believe how much I need you.”

I took her, thrilling again at the hot, juicy, knowledgeable, intimate, yielding, contracting, loving grasp of her cunt around my penis. We worked swiftly and hungrily, both of us desperate for immediate satisfaction and release after so many weeks of separation. There would be time for more languishing joys later.

With the quick, simultaneous precision of our days in the drive-in, we drove each other powerfully home to torrential climaxes.

“It's been so long since I've felt this way, Terry. You can't imagine how rotten I've been. I've gone so much to pieces, I wasn't even sure if you'd like me.”

“I love you, remember?”

“The time is going by so fast, we only have a few hours here and I have to go back. When are we going to be able to see each other again?”

“Jesus, don't rush it. It's short enough as it is.' You're talking as though our time's already up.”

“How many girls have you had at that place?”

“None,” I said.

“You can't kid me. Come on, how were they?”

I learned my lesson the last time. “Nope, you're wrong there. After that horrible experience with Kitty I've sworn off all girls but you,” I lied.

“Do you think they'll let us be together at Christmas?” she said.

“Why do you keep jumping ahead. Let's talk about the future later on. It's kind of a depressing subject.”

“I know. I had so many things I wanted to say, I guess I'm kind of crazy, jumping around-I can hardly think. I wanted so much', waited so long to see you and now we wind up talking about the dismal future and getting depressed.”

Her eyes glazed with tears, her exquisite, innocent, girlish face looked so sad suddenly. I licked her eyes but the salt tears kept on flowing. “It's crazy for me to cry,” she bawled. “I'm so happy!”

“Me too,” I said, but for some crazy reason I was bawling too. I guess we knew what society had in store for us if we persisted in the crime of love. We'd already had a generous sample from Mother.

“We really know how to enjoy ourselves,” I said through my tears, and started to laugh. So did Sandy. We laughed uncontrollably, hysterically, rolling over and over in the grass, and yet somehow still crying, rolling over and over until we locked genitals, locked our gazes briefly in an anguished look of longing and then passionately poured out all the love we had and all the love we could muster up into each other's bodies.

When we finished it was noon. We felt so perfect together in our love now it seemed a murderous waste to part. We had spent hours working back into each other, working out all the kinks and tensions and pain and frustration of the weeks behind, and in a flash it was over.

“I don't think they'll let us get together at Christmas,” I said.

“You don't?”

“Not if Mommy has anything to do with it. And she sure won't let us stay with him, unless he wins custody of the both of us.”

“What can we do, then?”

“Why don't you fish for an invitation from one of the kids in your class to go to then- place for Christmas-some place in New York or Boston. Then I'll get some guy in my class to alibi for me- say I'm going to his place out west, or something. Instead, I'll go where you are and we'll have two weeks together.”

“Oh, that'll be terrific. How did you ever think of it?”

“Kids do it all the time. It wasn't me who thought of it. It was that guy Matt, who lent me the car.”

“Write to me, Terry,” she said as we were kissing goodbye. “And call me. I'll give you my, number at school.”

“We'll figure out some way to make it work,” I said to her. “They can't stop us if we want to love each other.”

“I hope so, Terry.”

“I know so.”

With great difficulty, with final kisses that turned out to be next-to-last, we parted, she got into her little canoe and paddled off. I walked around the island, following her and sat on the other shore watching her move slowly toward the camp where Mother waited.

When she was gone I walked back to where we had made love and lay face down, drinking deep of the odor of grass, flowering clover and her body.

Then I dressed and abandoned the island, wondering if it really were possible for us to love one another for very long.

FOURTEEN

I was looking forward to getting back to school. At least I'd have something to occupy my mind. And the absence of girls-this was a boy's boarding school-would reduce my temptations and cool off my sexual temperature considerably. I'd be able to concentrate on studies and wait for Christmas.

Unfortunately, though, I wasn't able to concentrate at all. I spent most of my time daydreaming about Sandy and cooking up schemes to abduct her from her school and take off for Mexico or parts unknown. I wrote long letters to her nearly every day and lived for hers to me. By the time the quarterly grades came out I was just barely squeaking through on C's and D's.

To complicate matters, my roommate had a crush on me. Not that it bothered me. I'd had crushes like that on other boys, too, before last summer and Sandy. And I liked Michael, could talk to him for hours on end. If I'd been in that bag, he'd have been the kind of guy I would go for. About two inches shorter than I was, with a lean, well-shaped body, he was extremely good-looking without being overly pretty or effeminate. His black hair was long and straight, his eyes dark; a smooth, fair complexion and heavy red lips.

I enjoyed his infatuation, it flattered me. If anything, I encouraged it by spending almost all my time with him, going to movies in town with him during our free time, showering with him and wrestling in the nude in his or my bed until he'd have to quit to hide his erection. He did this by lying on his belly, leaning on his elbows and sticking up his ass.

If I was susceptible at all to him, it was when he lay stretched out like that. Seeming to sense this, he seldom wore any clothes around the apartment and did his studying in that position. Several times he caught me eyeing his round, rosy buttocks and a gleam would come into his eye. I'd simply look away and go about my business. I never expected anything to come of my mild desire for him. I simply accepted it as natural, inevitable and harmless.

One day, though, it came to a head. I was in the shower, thinking of Sandy and wishing that my aching erection would go away. Michael came in. I turned away.

“Wait, Terry,” he said, placing his hands on my hips and turning me back toward him. Before I realized what was happening he had cupped my balls with one hand and was ardently licking my prick. I took two handfuls of his hair and started to push him away, but by then he had inserted it into his mouth, all the way to the back of his throat, and had begun to move along the length of it, tickling the tip with his tongue, grazing his teeth along it, sucking and licking demonishly.

I still held onto his hair, but instead of pushing him away I found myself pulling him towards me and into me. He worked fast and deliciously, and my dammed-up need was so great that within minutes I felt my seed rocketing into his mouth in shock after shock of pleasure. He hung on, drinking deeply of me, and when it was over I raised him by his armpits to his feet.

“That was good,” he said, smiling up at me. “Wasn't it?”

“I guess it was.”

“Can I kiss you?”

I considered this for a second. “Sure, why not?”

His tongue was soft and salty and when I broke away from him he said, “I love you, Terry.”

I pushed him slowly away from me by the shoulders. “Look, Michael, what we just did was fine with me, but don't bring love into it, will you? You'll just spoil it.”

He looked hurt. “I've got enough problems as it is,” I explained.

“But I love you,” he said.

“Well, if you do, you can show it by not talking about it or pestering me with it.”

I stepped out of the shower and into the bedroom. I was just getting into bed when Michael emerged. He dried himself and lay on his bed in his favorite position.

“What are all these big problems you've got?” he asked, offering me a cigarette and lighting them both.

“Oh, they're too complicated to go into now.”

“You never told me about them.”

“The main thing is, I'm in love with my sister.”

He looked incredulous.

“The old lady caught us in bed last summer and she's trying to break us up.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don't know. We're getting together over Christmas and I guess we'll figure something out. By the way, can I have an invitation to your house for Christmas?”

“Sure, I'd really love to have you there. That'd be great.”

“No, I mean just an invitation. I need an address to give to my parents so I can meet Sandy.”

“Oh. Well sure, yeah, you can use my address.”

“Thanks.” I put out the cigarette. “Might as well go to sleep, I guess.” I shut off the light.

“Are you mad at me for what happened in the shower?” he said.

“No, why should I be?”

He paused and then said: “Terry, can I sleep with you tonight?”

I turned to him to tell him I didn't want to. Then I caught a glimpse of his ass in the dark, gleaming from the faint light off the quadrangle. I weakened.

“I don't want to get involved in something like that, Michael. We're such close friends, it might wind up getting all sticky.”

“It doesn't have to. We can just enjoy each other's bodies and still be friends.”

I knew this would be the case with me, but not with him. I needed somebody, though, and he was only three feet away. “Come on then.”

He got up, pulled back the covers on my bed and lay alongside me. We wrestled playfully and pawed each other for a while, kissing, and then I turned him over on his belly, rubbing my stiff penis in the furrow between his buttocks.

He reached in the drawer of the night table, pulled out a tube of vaseline and handed it to me. I squeezed some out onto my hand and greased my prick with it, applying the residue to his ass and wriggling a finger into his anus.

He spread his legs wide apart, arching up his ass as I lowered myself onto him. I entered him a little too forcefully, I guess, because he stiffened and o took in his breath sharply, constricting himself around me. I proceeded more slowly, withdrawing slightly whenever I felt him stiffen, until I had plunged myself all the way down into him. I lay there for a while, rocking gently, my arms around his chest, until he relaxed, and then began to move. He lay motionless at first and then started to pick up the rhythm, pushing his buttocks up into my thighs as I pounded into him, and pulling them away alternately.

As the climax approached I became more aggressive, and he started to buck under me like an unbroken colt, writhing and twisting his ass with utter abandon, to wring out the last drops of pounding pleasure from me.

I lay quietly on top of him for a while and then ' withdrew. He pulled over onto his side and I lay down on my back where he had been. I felt a warm pool of sperm on the sheet.

“You too?” I said.

“Yeah. It was terrific.”

“How did you do it?”

“You did it, just by being inside me. It got me so excited, and the rubbing. When I felt you come, I did too.”

“That's great,” I said.

“Was it as good as with a girl?”

“It was different. But it was good.” He rested his head on my chest. “Let's go to sleep,” I said.

In the weeks that followed we usually wound up sleeping together every night, but as Christmas approached I started to get more nervous, edgy, touchy, irritable and nasty, and tended to take out my tensions on Michael in somewhat sadistic ways.

I called Sandy several times a week. Our plans were hatched. She'd be staying with a friend in New York who understood that if her brother showed up in town she'd probably want to spend all her time with him.

We'd both notified Mother of our respective plans for the holidays, and took her silence as an indication that she didn't care a damn what we did as long as Sandy and I were a thousand miles apart.

Then I got a letter from her:

“Dear Terence,

The divorce is now final, and the settlement is in effect. As of today, you're in the custody of your father. Sandra will stay with me. Any plans you made for the holidays had better be checked out with him. You probably understand the reason why I stopped fighting for your custody.

Love,

Mother.”

I dashed to a phone and called Father collect. He answered the phone. I told him I'd gotten the news.

“Fine, Terry. I'm looking forward to seeing you over the holiday. We've got a lot of things to discuss.”

“I've already made plans, Dad. I'm visiting my roommate. It's been arranged for months.”

“They'll just have to be cancelled, then.”

“I can't cancel them. It's too late, now.”

“I'm sure they can be. This boy must have a family of his own who'd rather have him to themselves during Christmas. When does your term end?”

I told him the date.

“I'll be there to pick you up, then, first thing in the?”

“But, Dad…”

“No buts, boy. This is final. I'll see you then.”

I hung up and dialed Sandy's school. As soon as she got on the line I blurted out the news. She'd been informed of it too, and Mother had made her cancel out as well.

“Where will you be staying?” I asked.

“At Grandma's. What are we going to do, Terry?”

“I don't know. We'll figure out something. I'll call you there. Stay close to the phone and try to answer it yourself. If Mother answers it and complains the other party hung up, you'll know it was me.”

“I'm scared, Terry.”

“Don't be. They can't break us up.”

After I hung up I started to tremble with rage and panic.

FIFTEEN

I hated the sight of my father as he walked into the lobby of the administration building, hated his handshake and slap on the back and “Hi, Terry,” hated the leer he gave Michael when I introduced him and then said goodbye, and hated myself for going along with him, getting into the car and heading for his house.

I said as little as possible to him on the way, replying to his questions with grunts and letting what little conversation there was lapse into dead silence at every opportunity.

Once we had got to his place-a house in the New York suburbs where Sandy and I had lived briefly before they split up-he started to get tanked up while I made myself a couple of sandwiches.

I slumped into an easy chair in the living room while he made another drink. He sat down on the couch opposite me and gave one of his serious, appraising looks.

“Well, Terry, we've got a lot of ground to cover. It's been almost a year since I've seen you. You've grown quite a bit, becoming quite the handsome lad.”

I grunted.

“How are you doing in school?”

“Fair to poor.”

Instead of being irritated he seemed amused. “Well, maybe you need a change of scenery. I know I do. This whole divorce mess has taken a lot out of me.”

I really felt sorry for him.

“What I had in mind was a little trip to Europe, maybe for a year or two.”

“I don't want to go to Europe.”

“Wait a minute. Hear me out.” He went on to explain how he'd like to take off as soon as the winter term was over, pull me out of school and head for the Mediterranean until the warm weather came, then head north and wind up in England for the autumn. He'd enroll me in a public school there and it would be a grand old time. “How does it sound?” he asked.

“I guess it's okay for you, but I'd rather stay here. I wouldn't want to be away that long. I have friends here, and you're not my only parent, even if you do have custody. And there's Sandy. We've been pretty close, you know.”

He leered. “Your mother mentioned something about that. She didn't specify exactly what happened, but I've got a pretty good idea. Quite the cocksman, eh?”

My face burned. I glared at him. “You son of a bitch!” I hissed.

He gagged on his drink, a little taken aback at my ferocity. “Easy, son, I didn't mean to step on your toes.” He regained his composure. “And watch your tongue with me or you'll regret it.”

He stormed out for another drink. “Anyway, you might as well forget about your sister,” he said when he had returned. “That's part of the agreement. You're not to see her. As a matter of fact, the European trip, even though it was my idea…”

“I don't want to hear about it.” My heart was sinking, my heat thumping, I was starting to feel delirious. “About your slave trade deals. You'd think we were a couple of pieces of livestock.”

“Well, if you don't want to hear about it, then we won't talk about it,” he said testily. “We'll change the subject. Let's talk about you. Tell me about yourself. I've been out of touch with you for so long.”

“What do you want to hear?”

“Oh, I don't know-your likes, dislikes.”

I hated his guts. He was playing with me, toying with me the way a big, hulking tomcat toys with a bird whose wings he's trapped. I shot a bitter glance at him. “I don't feel like talking about what I like, with you. But I can tell you one of the things I dislike: I detest you.”

His face turned crimson with anger. He clenched his fists and tried to control it. “What the hell is it with you, for Chrissake. You've been acting like a little brat since this morning. All I get from you is hostility. You haven't done a goddamn thing all day but grunt and snarl. What the fuck's wrong with you?”

“You spoiled my plans. I told you I had plans for the holidays. You twisted my arm and made me come here. I didn't want to spend two weeks with you. How do you expect me to feel?”

The leer crossed his face again. “I can imagine what kind of plans you had with that roommate of yours. I got a load of him this morning. He's quite a hot number. I imagine you've been making it with him, too.”

“You fucking cocksucker!” I screamed. “You can't get away with that! I still remember the night you snuck into my room and tried to suck me off when I was a little kid. You're a fucking child molester, you bastard!”

He growled like a wild beast and lunged at me drunkenly. I was quick enough to dart out of his way, and he went staggering into the armchair. I reached out for the first thing I could find and picked up an ashtray stand, which I smashed into the back of his skull. He went limp, slumped in the chair, and slid face downwards on the floor.

I ran around in a panic like a chicken with his head cut off until I managed to pull myself together and call Sandy. My hands were trembling so much I could hardly dial the number. After three unsuccessful attempts, wrong numbers, no numbers, I finally got the right one. Sandy answered the phone. I started babbling gibberish, totally incoherent, until she managed to calm me down and get me to start from the beginning. I told her everything that had happened.

“I think he may be dead,” I said.

“What are you going to do?”

“I don't know.”

“You better call the police.”

“What for? That's not going to do any good. I want to see you.”

“But it's an eight-hour drive up here. How would you…”

“I'll take his car now. I'll leave right now. I'll meet you out in the woods, on that rock we used to go to, as soon as you can get out. Right after breakfast.. Tell them you're going for a walk.”

When I had hung up the phone I went back to Father's body and rolled him over onto his back. I was afraid to check whether or not he was dead. I reached inside his jacket for his wallet. He had five hundred dollars in cash. I got the car keys from his room, put on my coat, and left.

SIXTEEN

With the adrenaline shooting through my bloodstream, bug-eyed, I drove all night with only one stop for gas and hardly a blink, arriving within shooting distance of the house by six in the morning. I stepped at a diner and had breakfast; then headed for the woods.

Parking the car off the road, behind some trees, I walked the mile and a half down to the stream with the frozen ground crunching and crackling under my feet. The stream was frozen, too, and the moss on the rock was a yellowish brown. I waited for perhaps an hour before I saw Sandy running down the frozen stream.

I dashed up to meet her, and the force of our embrace knocked us both off our feet onto the ice. When the heat of our kisses threatened to melt the ice we got up and made our way back to the rock.

“You look tired, Terry.”

“I feel it.”

“I didn't get any sleep either. I couldn't. I was worrying so much about you. What happened to Daddy? Is he dead?”

“I don't know. I was afraid to check. I just took his wallet and left.”

“What did he say to you that started the fight? You never told me on the phone.”

“A lot of things. For one, he implied that Mother told him about us, and it was part of the settlement that we were never to see each other again. He wanted me to go to Europe with him for a year or two. That was part of the bargain, too, I think.”

“The bastards!”

“Yeah. Did the old bitch tell you anything?”

“Nothing like that. She wants me to go to a college on the West Coast next year. Oh, Terry, what are we going to do now?”

“Let's run, Sandy, as fast and as far as we can.”

“What good would that do? They'd only catch us in the end.”

“Maybe not. At least we have a chance this way. Do you want to give up so easily?”

“I'm so weak,” she said. “I don't know what to think. If we were older…”

“In other words, you don't feel secure with me because I'm a kid-is that it?”

“Don't put it that way, Terry. It's just that- what kind of a life could we have together? There's no place we could go, no place we could live. We'd just be outcasts. And criminals.”

“We could go live with the hippies in San Francisco. They'd take us in. We've got enough money to last a year out there. They wouldn't care if we're brother and sister.”

“But what kind of a future…

“Future, future, future, that's all you ever talk about. I don't give a damn about the future. I don't have a future, except whatever minutes or days or weeks I have left with you. After that, I just don't give a shit.”

“Oh, Terry, we do have so little time left. Let's not argue.”

“We have to argue. We disagree. How else are we going to settle it. Flip a coin?”

“Hold me Terry, tighter. I didn't wear any panties down here, can you feel?”

I could feel.

“Unbutton my blouse,” she said, and I did. ''No bra, either. Feel them, Terry, kiss them. Your pants-I can't undo the buckle. Help me.”

I pulled the buckle free and, kneeling, pulled down my pants. Then I lay back down on her and locked my hard, hungry prick into her undulating cunt.

We made love for an hour in the freezing air, on the hard, crackling moss, and when it couldn't be prolonged any further and we exploded into each other, I asked her to come with me.

“I wish you'd have gone before we had that. Now I can't leave you.”

“Let's go.”

SEVENTEEN

I started the car, pulled it out of the woods and with Sandy's warm body pressed against mine, we hit the open road.

It was a bright, clear, winter day, and we were free. We were leaving behind the parents, the schools, the future, the past, the society that made our love a criminal act. We were heading west for the Golden Gate.

We played the radio loud and didn't say much, didn't have to; for the time being at least we understood each other perfectly, were with each other completely, we were totally happy.

After sundown I began to get a little tired from the thousand or so miles I'd driven since last night and suggested to Sandy we stop at a motel.

“I'd love to,” she said. “I've been waiting for an hour for you to say that.”

“I wish you'd spoken up sooner.”

“You know,” she went on, “after all we've been through we've only spent the whole night together once.”

“That'll change, though.”

The first place I stopped, the clerk took one look at me and said he was all filled up, even though the “vacancy” light was on.

The next clerk wanted to know if I had a girl with me. I told him I did, but that she was my sister.

“That makes it kind of worse, doesn't it?” he said.

I stormed out.

I asked the next clerk for two rooms.

“You over eighteen?”

“Yes.”

“Proof?”

“No.”

“What about your girl friend?”

“She's my sister.”

He laughed. “I've heard that one a million times. You kids ought to be more imaginative.”

With each stop and each story, I could see Sandy getting more agitated, more worried.

She finally blurted out: “I knew this was going to happen, Terry, I knew it. There's just no place for us to go in this country.”

“Wait'll we get to San Francisco. It'll be okay then.”

“I doubt it. What are we going to do, Terry?”

“Drive on, I guess, until we find a place to stay.”

“Maybe we should turn back.”

“Are you out of your mind?” I yelled. “Look how far we've gone! Don't you feel great to be free like this, at last? Out of the nest and on our own? God, I love you! If we go back, we'll just be killing everything we've done, admitting that we were naughty children and didn't really mean it after all. If they want to kill our love they'll have to catch us first.”

“I'm sorry, Terry. Don't pay any attention to me when I get like that. I need you so much, I'm nothing without you.”

She snuggled against me, under my arm, and a new warmth suffused between us. It seemed as though every moment we spent together was better and richer than the last.

“Maybe the best thing to do would be to take a bus,” I said. “We could pull into one of these towns and ditch the car. They'd never get us then.”

“Do you think they're after us?”

“If they found Daddy, they must be. They probably have the license number. Anyway, we crossed the state line hours ago.”

“Couldn't they have one of those all-state alarms?”

“I doubt it. Anyway, those cops must have thousands of them on file.”

“Look, an exit!”

I started to slow down and glanced in the rear-view mirror. I saw the flashing red light just before the siren sounded and the state police car gunned in on us.

Content

Terence Fitzbancroft
My Sister, My Sin

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN