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.”
