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
