INTO THE PALMS

by Holly Rennick 

AUTHOR'S NOTES

Hey girl!  Sunbathing on a nude beach, you drift to sleep.  You're awaked by something long and hard slipping into your wet pussy!  Oh my, it's little brother!  You'll pretend that you're still asleep.  Oh no, you can't hold still!

Does this story make you horny?  Like Wow?  Then get a life with people in it, honey.

"Into the Palms" has siblings on a nude beach, but it isn't that one, for goodness sakes!  Give me a break!

HAWAII

For the good part of a year, the family planned its Maui vacation.  Their folks had been to Hawaii for their honeymoon, but the fiftieth state would be new for Toby and Anne.  Dad locked in on an airfare, condo and car rental package.  Mom became "Ms. Space Monster" for commandeering the kids' luggage, replacing duplicate clothing and CD's with snorkels and sensible shoes.

"They have washing machines over there, you know?  And we're going there to listen to the waves, not this noise," she'd decreed.

"Radiohead's not 'noise'," they righteously protested.  Shoot!

They all knew that they'd have a great time.

The four loved Maui from touchdown.  Everything as promised!  Their Malibu was a small for four plus luggage, perhaps, but no hardship.  Their condo was beach view (opposed to beach front at twice the price), two level, with kitchenette, living/dining room and master bedroom downstairs, second bedroom and family room (translation: sofa bed and TV) in the loft.  Anne got the bedroom because girls always do.

Sunday and Monday were for the guidebook beaches, Halaekala Crater (thanks to having brought sensible shoes, they agreed) and the rain-forest state park.  Teenage years had led the siblings into different interests, but Hawaii mitigated their Mainland divergence.  Toby could be OK for a week, Anne conceded.  So could be a week without Radiohead, more weird than good, in her opinion, but what everybody talks about.

Snorkeling (oh, thanks again, Mom) near the five-star hotels, the siblings saw a sea turtle.  Anne pulled her brother's hand to point, flapping her elbow in what she hoped meant flipper.  The two sprinted on the beach, tumbling over each other at the finish line.  She pushed his butt up a coconut tree and let him stand on her shoulders to knock down a specimen.  They didn't know how to open it, but could hear the slosh.  Toby bought his sister a lei from Girl Scouts fleecing the tourists.  Anne wore it even after supper.

TUESDAY

On Tuesday, Mom and Dad wanted the day to relive a little honeymoon.  Kids take the car, whatever, they freely laughed.  Anne had caught at the rental desk that not being 21, she wasn't authorized, but Dad missed the detail and she knew she'd be careful.  After of breakfast mango pancakes, the siblings embarked for the smaller beaches southward.

To her brother's surprise, Anne pulled the Malibu into a vacant parking lot (easier to find early in the morning) and pulled her bra from under her T-shirt.  "Just getting comfortable," she justified.  She'd never do that back home, "but it's what everybody does here, best I can tell."  She didn't need the thing, just wasn't used to not wearing one.  Anne gave the undergarment to Toby to stuff in the glove compartment.  Toby didn't mind; brothers see sisters' bras.

Bras did seem be less common.  Mom was without at the breakfast table, even, her breasts swaying as Anne hoped hers would some day.  Anne liked how the twice-nursed nipples punctuated Mom's Save-the-Dolphins T-shirt.  As she and Mom didn't pretend a just-us-girls mother-daughter relationship (usually fueled by maternal voyeurism and offspring deceit, Anne's observation), Anne would never comment on the prettiness of Mom's breasts, but she affirmed Mom on the shirt's politics.

Kihei Beach, their first stop, was overpopulated, but southwards the crowds thinned.  Beyond Wailea Beach were rocks and surf, their sort of Hawaii, they agreed.  The two splashed in the surf, disturbed light-speed crabs, pocketed discardable shells and raced on the sand.  Anne could see her nipples when the wind plastered her shirt.  She presumed so could Toby, but what could she do?  She avoided the spray of wave on rock.

A mystery of more cars in the lot than visitors on the beach was resolved when the siblings noted the path over the pahoehoe lava outcrop (Toby remembering the geological term from the ranger yesterday).  There must be beach beyond.

Toby hauled Anne up the steep rock face, as he had on shoes and she, flip-flops.  When her neckline revealed a breast, if only briefly, at least he didn't stare, thought Anne.  Toby let his sister down the outcrop's far side and slid behind.  Returning, they decided, would be easier because they would see the footholds.

What were different on this side, they couldn't deny, were the nude sunbathers.

Confronting the situation at roughly the same moment, brother and sister exchanged uncomfortable glances.  Do we go on?  Had Mom and Dad been with them, the answer would of course be no.  But Mom and Dad weren't.  They saw others at least partially dressed, so that part wasn't obligatory.  Nobody would know them.  What's the big hang-up about nudity, anyway?  The siblings, however, kept on their shorts and T-shirts.

They proceeded without exchanging words, discretely threading themselves between the sunbathers who paid them no attention whatsoever.  It seemed more discrete to Anne to not be chatting in the presence of naked people.

Some bathers sat or lay alone, most were paired, and a few were grouped.  Anne noted that while women might lie side by side, a man tends to isolate himself with his female.  Couples unconcernedly lotioned both their own parts and those of their partners.  Tanning was a cooperative activity, Anne decided.  Two males never lie in familiar proximity and never share sun protection products.

Anne had never realized how insignificant appears a penis nestled in its pubic nest.  Not that she'd really seen one before, but in girl talk, they always sounded so large.

Likewise, she realized how flat a reclined woman appears.  Gender sometimes wasn't obvious without confirmation below.  She watched Toby furtively view two bouncy-chested lovelies rummage through their picnic basket.  Between them and a third on her back, they were black, brunette and blonde.

"Let's not hang around here," reluctantly conceded a nervous Toby.  "It's kind of a little too much."

"Depends on what you think is enough," wisecracked his sister, though she too was uncomfortable among so many naked.  She wasn't sure if she'd be less or more comfortable if she were part of the convention.  On the rocks' other side, her T-shirt made her feel risqué.  On this side, perhaps a bit stupid, but she wasn't that confident about it.

"Let's head up toward the jungle," urged her brother, motioning to the fringe of vegetation.  The walk wasn't far.

"Better," Anne declared, the siblings safely secluded between beachward-toppled trunks.  They'd spread their towels to lie side-by-side.  Anne rolled her T-shirt upward enough to tan her stomach.

At perhaps twenty minutes, "Time to flip."  Toby always trusted her judgment.  "Do my back, will you?"  She liked how Toby worked the lotion up under the cotton toward her shoulder blades.  She let him push her shirt as high as he could without popping it over a boob below.  If he had, she realized, she could just press herself against her towel and not show.

INTERLOPERS

They'd almost completed sunning their backs when, "Oh, didn't mean to step on you," apologized a woman's voice above them.  The siblings together looked up into the speaker's ample and intrusive breasts.  Sporting only hats, the speaker and her male companion stood just over the tree trunk.  Neither visitor was large, but with a half bottle of suntan oil slathered over them, both appeared muscular.  The strangers, probably in their late thirties, smiled broadly.

The bill-capped man was laden with a towel bag spilling a shirt with patterned flowers and what looked to be muumuu.  Tourist City, thought Anne, as if she weren't one herself.  Worse, Naked Tourist City.

Her hat was a straw affair adequate to shade her shoulders.  A nondescript ponytail sashayed below, probably a rubber band attempt to keep hair out of her eyes.  Her face showed the hint of smile.  Looking lower, veins showed where her breasts were beginning to stretch.  Her nipples reminded Anne of jawbreakers, almost spherical.  She obviously tanned topless.  Yet lower, her mound was as shaved as a ripe plum.  Generous labial folds were flesh unto themselves, not simply a crack into torso.  Though nothing about the woman was particularly erotic, this woman exuded the sensual.

The fellow's German forest of body hair framed a soft penis looped outward as if in counterbalance.  His organ seemed redder than his thighs.  Anne thought only to look away after a moment.  Where they'd walked, she'd seen men only in passing.  Now one was parked above her.

"No problem," mumbled Anne to be polite, flattening herself.

"Great place," beamed the male, obviously in the mood to chat.

"It's OK," terminated Toby.

"You two like a little weed?" offered the woman.

"No thanks."

"Busy, right?" suggested the man.

"Yeah, I guess."

The fellow winked at Toby.  "We're out of here, so there's the sandy spot back by those three coconuts," pointing with his head further into the vegetation.  "Nobody to step in on you," with a just-our-secret chuckle.

The woman added, "It's better in the shade."  She paused, then reflected, "We could show them where, right Stan?"

Better for what, thought Anne?  Just go away.

Stan, obviously his name, was guilelessly forthcoming.  "We could make it a foursome."  He again looked at Toby.  "The girls have their little ways that we never seen to get right."  He seemed to see little offensive about his insight, details provided upon request.

Anne was looking into the sand, waiting for Toby to intervene.  These people, she realized, were talking about things she didn't care to hear about.

"Thanks, guys, but not today."  It sounded to Anne as if Toby hadn't picked up on the significance.

"No?" from the interlopers, their intentions disappointed.

"'Fraid not," closed Toby.

"We could take you back into the palms, you know," said Stan.  It first sounded like a specific of the invitation, maybe a place where they'd see parrots.  But suddenly Anne was scared.  She pictured being led into the palms, her wrists bound to a rough tree, her clothes torn away.  Would they rape her brother too?  She paled.

Perhaps Stan recognized the misconstruction.  "Well, enjoy each other however," he offered with surprisingly good spirit.

The friendly adieu made Anne feel bad about misjudging.  Maybe there were parrots or something they wanted to show them.  But this Stan is sure making inappropriate presumptions.

Anne tried to make her glances inconspicuous, but this might be the best look she'd get at a male.  Unlike his buttocks, his penis already seemed tan, perhaps due to the blood circulation, she wondered.  The male organs surreptitiously inspected earlier were dark too, but she'd thought from being in the sun.  She sensed its heft, a characteristic to which she'd never given much thought.

Nudity obviously not being a circumspect subject for a naked couple, Stan offered some advice, "There's some law about lewd behavior over here, but behind this log wouldn't be a big deal.  Just not out where naturist families swim."  He enunciated "naturist" with precision, as if they were somehow not authentic.

His partner apologized, "It's cool to be naturists.  Just don't call it some pure lifestyle."  She looked toward their bag.  "You guys need any protection?  We got extra."  She realized and clarified her topics.  "Don't want little ones, right?  Plus, these days with AIDS and shit.  We got extra suntan oil too, maybe a gallon"

The interlopers seemed to feel little rejection in not being invited to stay, but to totally miss the possibility that sex wasn't an appropriate topic.

"Bye," encouraged Toby, embarrassed for his sister, a sand crab trying to become invisible.

"Have a good one," quipped the lady, smiling with her eyes more than her mouth.

When they were gone, Anne was shaking.  "What if they'd taken us back there into the palms?"

"They're just old farts, I guess," minimized her brother.  "They probably planned their vacation as much as we planned ours.  Their day in the sun, so to speak.  What's it to us?"

"Thanks for getting rid of them.  Did you see that guy's thing?" she asked, surprising herself.

"Hard to miss."

"They're so ugly!"  Anne didn't elaborate and reveal how much she'd noticed.

Toby reflected.  "She did have a couple of handfuls, though.  We better get moving," to sever comparisons.

"So I get to lead the way," Anne ruled, "since coming, you steered us by the chicks mainly."

They encountered a girl lotioning her partner to arousal just a dozen tree trunks away, the tree line obviously favored by those seeking more than sun.  The ministrations ceased as Anne and Toby passed.  Toby had smirked, but Anne had never seen an erection, other than in the magazines her girlfriends shared.  When Anne peeked the second time, the girl smiled and flipped it as if to ask, you get yours?  Anne wondered about Stan's lewd-behavior warning.  This couple was out of sight from those not walking, anyway.

Neither sibling looked at the audible re-initiation behind them, but Anne suspected that they'd see intercourse if they turned around.  Surely this couple would get under a towel, but who knows?  Having no experience in the matter, what she'd seen was exciting, she admitted.  In movies, she liked the woman on top, but usually she wasn't, she figured, because they keep breasts covered in PG-13.  She's easier to drape on the bottom.  She thought of telling Toby she'd left her hair band behind, but she didn't.

The carelessly-engaged couple wouldn't be a subject of sibling discussion.  Anne suspected that Toby already had sex.  Claire Craig and Toby spent a long time with his door locked one afternoon.  Anne had never asked why and even misled the folks about who'd visited.  Toby never said thanks.

Her thoughts returned to Stan's penis.  Stan's wasn't hard like this last guy's.  She speculated on the differences, how it must feel when it grows.  Did it get bigger after it's inside?

Driving home, Anne admitted, "Those creeps didn't wreck if for me.  How 'bout you?"

"I guess vacation makes people more talkative, you think?" Toby thought.

"It's not my business," he ventured, "but why shave?"

"Beat's me."  They'd sure never say this at home, she admitted to herself.

EVENING

Neither kid saw fit to mention their beach's clientele to the folks, glad that the two had seen more of the island; that's why they'd come.  The folks had come to remember when it was new, Anne suspected, evidenced by their sheets being already in the washer.  Mom still was braless when they'd returned, but she'd quickly disappeared and re-emerged dressed like Mom.  Asked if they'd found many shells, Mom admitted that they'd just been for a walk after lunch.  Hearing the waves is enough for us old folks, she laughed.

Queried about their beach as a family possibility for tomorrow, Toby warned that Mom might find the rock descent pretty tough.  There were better beaches up the coast.  Sister shot brother a nod for quick thinking.  Without the kids, though, she could imagine Mom and Dad there.  There were old people, maybe also second honeymooners.  When asked why the smile, Anne said that she was thinking about what a turtle must think of snorkelers.

When the folks retired, Anne noted the click of their bedroom latch.  She wondered what they slept in here.  Back home, you needed something flannel, but here, probably about nothing might do.

The kids watched a video jettisoned by a past guest.  The plot involved a fat cop and a skinny cop (white and Afro-American, per formula) versed in one-liners.  During the pyrotechnic showdown in a hijacked nuclear submarine, Anne gave up and went to shower.

While the fat cop was severing the detonator wires at t-minus-3, Anne emerged in matching bra and panties.  Passing between Toby and the screen, she giggled and alternated her shoulders.

"Jesus!" he blurted.

She turned with her best "what me?" look, taut panties plastering her curls.  After as if sorting through factors which might induce such a profanity, she casually noticed, "Oh, yeah, I guess I'm not in my PJ's yet."  She ambled, minimally hipped, but still a saunter, into her room.

Her ten-second parade left her breathless.  She'd pulled it off perfectly, or at least as she'd rehearsed in the bathroom.  At their beach she couldn't feel the breeze.  This little bit affirmed her fantasy.

It wasn't that she wanted Toby to see her underwear, though she didn't mind his attention.  She wanted him to know she didn't mind.  It might be different with strangers, she realized, but wasn't sure which way.

If Toby had followed into her room, it wouldn't have been a sexual predicament, but rather a problem of inarticulate admission.  But brothers don't demand reasons.  He wouldn't want to chat about her underwear any more than he'd want her to critique his.

In her bed, Anne couldn't escape recurrent thoughts of Stan.  She'd seen enough that day to decide that while Stan's seemed big, it wasn't remarkable.  Standing nearly above her, as he'd been, she'd sensed something more internal: the guy was comfortable, neither flaunting nor dismissing his manhood.  His disciplined matter-of-factness impressed Anne.  If anyone had predilections, it was the woman.  Anne's middle finger found encroaching moistness.

She knew that Stan had measured her glances.  He'd winked, she thought, while Toby was terminating the brief conversation.  It seemed to Anne that introductions were something for the other two to work through.  Stan already knew her.  Her touch perambulated her secret spot, bringing on that special shiver.

What if they took them into the palms, she wondered?  Stan wouldn't tie her to a tree, but might want her to be naked with him.  She'd never!  She wondered how non-erect length relates to full extension.  She'd not want to see the slob again, but if, say, she were by him on their beach and he went to sleep, she might check how spongy it felt.  Anne pretended that the finger now controlling her was another's.

Whoever the couple was, they seemed not malicious, but just vacationing.  She'd never want their likes for friends, but after reflection, wasn't totally displeased that they'd crossed paths.  He had stood where she could see, at least.  Anne drew her finger up and down, inducing her hips into comforting counter rhythm.

She wanted to visit their beach again, she decided, falling asleep before orgasm.

WEDNESDAY

The next day involved too many destinations and too little time.  The restored plantation had raw sugarcane, complements of the management.  Anne and Mom perused the attire of an island era when fabric tropically unsensible made sense for a Victorian lady.  Toby and Dad inspected the coral foundations of an earlier royalty.

When Mom opened of the glove compartment for the map, Anne realized that yesterday's bra was still stuffed on top.  Mom didn't appear to notice, thank heavens, shutting the latch quickly, and Anne retrieved her item at the viewpoint.

Before lunch, Anne casually asked if Toby wanted to head back to their beach tomorrow.  The possessive came naturally and was understood.  He deliberated a moment and nodded.  Mom thought it OK; she and Dad might just sleep in, she mentioned in a far-too-offhand manner.  Mom's realizing that she washed those sheets too soon, suspected Anne.

The four returned at dinnertime, unanimously electing an hour at the condo community pool before Pizza Hut, the global vacation fallback.  The pool was relatively unoccupied, enough so they had the Jacuzzi to themselves.  Mom and Dad hopped out from under the bubbles, though, when the kids slid in.  Mom's blush might be from the hot-water jets, but maybe not.  Anne realized from yesterday's observations that inspecting Dad might tell, but she refrained.  She wouldn't feel right spying.

They'd go swim some laps, said Dad, but they just dogpaddled around the shallow end.  Anne fluttered her fingers and Mom fluttered hers back.

The siblings compared sunburns, none serious, but evidence that they'd been out more than they'd thought.  Anne slipped down her shoulder straps to show where she was a little pink.  Anne was thinking, though, that she'd not go back to their beach just to strip to her bra like she practiced.  Her tank tops showed that much at home.

The Jacuzzi sides were elevated enough, Anne determined.  She surveyed either side to confirm the absence of viewers and beneath the water popped one breast and then the other free from her swimsuit.  From above the surface, she appeared rippled.

"Hey, Toby," she whispered as though neighbors might be eavesdropping.  "Look!" as she lifted herself just high enough for her nipples to gulp air and resubmerged.  She looked around again, just in case.

"Anne, don't," Toby protested, more alarmed than titillated. 

"I'm practicing for tomorrow and you're somebody I don't know," she assured with another ascent and descent.

"Just don't," Toby repeated, now also watching for others between ascensions.

"I'm topless at our beach tomorrow," she announced, this time drawing her breasts, small and pale, still conical, to the surface.  The pinker tissue surrounding her nipples was the diameter of a quarter.  The nipples were pencil erasers ready to erase.

"I'll need lots of lotion," not predicting if this was a provisioning fact or related to the application.  "You don't have to look."

Toby had little choice but to nod in conspiracy.  He of course kept looking.

During movie time that evening, Anne emerged with only a towel wrapped about her waist.

"My towel's my pa'u.  Mom and I learned how to at the plantation.  You just wrap a cloth around your butt.  Suppose they loose it doing the hula?" she speculated.

She let Toby watch her mosey.  Where was her good comb?  She wished she had a little jiggle, but thought it would look weird if she jumped around.  She must have left her comb somewhere!  She felt a bit guilty when Toby crossed his legs, but she was pleased.  Probably Stan wouldn't cross his legs, also a pleasing thought.  She came over to kiss her brother goodnight, something they did back home, so her breast would be proximate.  She promised that if the sofa bed ate him, she'd open it in the morning and let him out.

Behind her door ten minutes later, Anne was slippery.  What if Stan took her into the palms and she had to strip and Stan got hard?  She'd run away!  If he went to sleep, though, maybe she'd lift it to see how stiff it was.  Then she could see his balls.  She knew that testicles are very delicate, so she'd be careful not to wake him.  Stan was her man doll, ready on the toy shelf, for games of pretend.

Teasing herself into the first throws of a virgin's comprehension, she imagined another's hand rubbing her.  Was it Stan?  She thought it might be, but she pretended her eyes were closed so she'd not know.  Her bed squeaked as her fingers more rapidly attacked and retreated, lubricating each advance.  Was it Stan?  She peeked.  Oh, Stan, we shouldn't be doing this!

Afraid of what her brother might hear, she slipped off the bed and onto the condo-shag.  As she arranged her second pillow, she heard the rhythmic creak of the sofa bed.  Resting her head by the door helped her hear more, Toby's breathing even.  Her scenarios merged: with Stan on the sand, here listening to Toby, Toby at her door listening to her.  All seemed real.

She hoped that something as wonderful was transpiring downstairs too.  Mom seemed so happy this week.

She assumed the cadence of the creaking crescendo, at the end not even needing to stroke.

THURSDAY

Mom, tidying up the kitchenette, an automatic part of vacation or otherwise, waved them out the door next morning.  "Here, kids, for your lunch," handing them a packed Zip Lock.  Barefoot and a little pendulous, Mom looked to her daughter the way she'd want to look when she had teenagers.  Anne wished she could reach into Mom's floral muumuu to touch her.  Dad had chosen the anthurium pattern, unfortunately, but Mom loved it anyway.

Anne went outside to pick her an orchid.

Anne's nipples emerged like seashells pushed up from the sand when they darted into the store for junk food.  It was their lunch ahead, though the kids did like sliced carrots.  She'd already ditched her bra at a red light.

The Walgreen's clerk name-tagged "Suzie" wasn't much older than the siblings, but had the eyes of a surfer chick trying to pay her one-fifth of a two-bedroom apartment.  She flashed her sole customers a, "Heading south?"

"To get a little quiet," replied Anne while Toby chose their menu.

The clerk gave her customer a been-there smile.  "Over the rocks, the steep ones, old lava?"

"You know your customers," Anne nodded.  "Shameless tourists.  Suzie, is it?"

"It's really Susan.  My friends use my real name."  She then turned toward the boy.  "You might want to look at a shell chart.  Don't buy it, though, before you try inventing your own system.  7-B by the magazines.  I've never found a golden cowry, but they say they're there," she encouraged.

With Toby temporarily occupied, Susan lowered her voice.  "Everybody first thinks they're there for the sun.  Then it's to find some shade.  Then it's 'cause it's such a special day.  You prepared?" looking directly at Anne's still-erect nipples.

"We got SPF-20."

Susan motioned to Anne.  "Stand here while I show you a travel alarm so the camera's blocked," turning to a display of short-life electronics.  The non-clock customer was confused.

She herded Anne into position to demonstrate a dual time-zone model.  "If you're calling Ethiopia and don't want to wake them up, I guess.  You can lift a pack on the third shelf," Susan clarified while pulling out some tabletop models.  "Aloha, the Maui way, we call it."  Shelf three contained adult products.

As Clerk Suzie checked the battery in a timepiece suitable for the sight impaired, "Go ahead before I try to demonstrate the alarm.  Too many little buttons."

"It's not like I'd need them," reflected the embarrassed Anne, perusing the prophylactic spectrum.  She wouldn't use them, but she'd have them ready for a girlfriend.  She selected Tuxedos for their packaging.

"So put one in your pocket, just in case.  Don't worry about getting wet, 'cause it's in foil.  You can always put it back in the box later."

The clerk's failure to find a clock suitable for the customer completed the transaction as Toby returned with a Taiwanese magnifying glass "to look at coral," he explained.

"Piece of crap," ruled Susan.  "You guys coming back this way before 5:00?  OK, borrow this," reaching into her daypack below the counter.  "It's Swiss," with discrimination.

Toby inspected the cased lens, handle cracking but optically still mint.  "Thanks.  You guys sell electrical tape?"

"3-C, bottom shelf."

Toby fetched a roll.  "Add this to the bill," as he rejoined the handle.  He looked to Anne, "Maybe Dad will buy us one, you think?"

Susan showed another big-toothed grin, blushing.  "I mean I didn't know your were related," she apologized to Anne.

Anne waived it off, "Toby, go get me a Chap Stick, will you?"  Brother again dispatched, "Tuxedoes good ones?" as if she were Consumer's Report.

Susan brightened.  "Wow!  Ride the Kahoona, as the How-to-Surf book suggests we talk.  Wanna another look at our Indonesian digital?  That's why it's cheap, because nobody cares what time it is in Jakarta."

Anne laughed at the line.  "Hey, don't get caught profit sharing.  It's not like we..."  She squirmed as if caught.

"Promise to haul out your trash, you know?" interjected the environmentally concerned clerk.  "Seagulls swallow anything that looks like a little fish."

The brother was returning with mint and regular Chap Stick for his sister's selection.

"I'm Anne and this is Toby," a late introduction.  "We promise."

"So Toby, don't look for scientific stuff here except for our Saturday Sand Pail Set.  Made in some former Soviet place, probably.  Five times our price if they'd label it a two-liter specimen container with excavator.  Chuck the little rake, though, because you'll damage mollusks."

BEACH

Anne popped off her blouse as soon as they'd negotiated the lava.  "Like I can't take off my shirt?"  Toby looked for something not his sister and found a starfish for their specimen container.

"Take off yours, too, or you'll look like a dweeb.  We'll stay just a bit, since we're zero tan," she ordered.

The second-timers realized how much of their first-day recall was defined by nudity.  Anne could recollect nothing about the redhead again beside the turtle-shaped rock more than the fullness of her bush, undeniably the same.  From the depressions in the sand, she recognized where they'd seen a couple sprawled, hand in hand.  She speculated they stayed past sunset, as one depression was worn deeper.

Shielded between driftwood was a half-bikinied girl not much older than Anne.  She'd been there before, areolae of Coke-bottle circumference and Root Beer shade being her characteristics.  She looked up from a paperback with a castle on its cover, but avoided Toby's eyes.  "Morning."

"Great sand," volunteered Anne, as if the grains had much to do with anything.

"You were here Tuesday, right?" asked the girl.  "I've a good memory for attire," she deadpanned, then laughed.  "So few of us."

"Today," announced Anne, "tits meet nature, first time since I was six," touching a breast and wondering how the girl felt about Toby being there.  Perhaps not playing peek-a-boo relieved her of the worry.

"Know what you mean," agreed the sunbather.  "Monday I unbuttoned and showed bra.  You saw me second day."  She laughed at her bottoms, "Same outfit fourth day, so maybe my limit."

"You alone?" asked Anne, as only a female would address another.

"Yeah."

"Mind if we sit?  At least you don't seem like a stranger, though I suppose strangers are why this place works."

"Do.  It's a little spooky by myself.  I don't care about people looking, but maybe they think I'm odd, just me here.  I'm Hannah, anyway," she introduced herself, "from Seattle," to nail down which Hannah.

"I'm Anne and this is Toby.  Say 'hi', bro."

"Hi," mumbled Toby, unaccustomed to addressing a nearly-naked girl, a pretty one at that.  He quickly flipped out his towel and began to tan his back.

"No way!  You two are related?  I guess I could have guessed, but here's not where you'd expect it," Hannah grinned at herself.  "Well, maybe down here you might, but not where you were heading last time," nodding toward the trees.

Anne took it in stride.  "Honest, we don't know what's where.  Just want to avoid the hawkeyes."

Hannah absently lotioned a white strip where her bikini had crept downward.  "Better to be gawked than to be stalked," she said factually.

"Gotcha," agreed Anne.

"That's why I just talk to couples.  Safer.  So, you two headin' that way again?"

"Maybe," admitted Anne.

Hannah nodded, as if more had been said.  Then she changed the topic, admitting to her book, "I catch the bus and try to act like I'm meeting somebody," prudent but wistful.

Anne was about to invite their friend to walk with them, but wasn't quite sure where they'd end up.  "Tell you what.  If you're around later, it might be fun to swim."  Swimming might be the excuse she'd need to strip.  Why, she'd wondered, do people take swimming suits to a nude beach?

Sensing Hannah's disappointment at the conditionals, Anne amended, "So we'll leave our lunch stuff and be back, how 'bout that?  We'll decide about swimming then.  Plus we can give you a ride north."  Anne knew she'd done the right thing.  Hanna from Seattle was just looking for friends.

Hannah's eyes broadcast her answered prayer.  "God, thanks."  Whether this was just an inarticulate explicative or a verification of divine intervention wasn't clear.  If Hannah sported a little cross necklace, she'd shed it with her top.

"Extra Chap Stick in the bag, Hannah," offered Anne.  "And promise you'll eat the Hostess products that Toby bought."

Hanna turned toward the brother, still butt-upward.  "You get the swirley-do on the frosting if I get the surprise in the middle.  Deal?"

The girls laughed.  Toby grinned at the Hostess reference; all they had at Walgreen's were Little Debbie.

"See you, girl," said Anne.  "You in condition to get up, kiddo?" to Toby.

"Look at me," giggled Hannah.  "You think I'd do this on Lake Washington?"

TREE LINE

Bearing drink, towels and Anne's blouse, the siblings headed toward Tuesday's tree line.  The blouse made sense only in light of Anne's trepidation that some catastrophe might otherwise force her to drive home topless.

The place where the couple was mating was vacant.  Anne hadn't objected when Toby chose the route, but neither suggested that they stop there.  When they arrived at their Tuesday space, Anne announced in her factual voice, "We'll I'm going to."

"Do what?"

"Get a little more tan," Anne clarified with forced casualness.

"Naked?"

"Nobody cares," she confidently answered, but then qualified, "Well, maybe panties."

Stripped to yellow briefs, she felt the flat package in her pocket.  Her breasts already showed a hint of pink, but the tops of her thighs were seeing their first sunlight.  Toby would see more than she'd shown by the TV, she admitted, guessing that her tan tangles were probably the same as his own.  Being only in panties almost freed Anne of awkwardness.

"Come on, nature boy, just underpants too," she grinned, not dismissing his attention.  Toby yet wasn't sure.  "Jeeze," she protested.  In what she hoped to be an offhand manner, she seized her opportunity.  They could head into the palms and Toby could decide there.  That it was that Stan guy's suggestion made her nipples harden, but they'd been erect enough anyway.

"Well, it's kind of a new thing for me, I guess," dodged Toby.  "I don't want everybody looking"

INTO THE PALMS

There was no defined path through the shrubbery, but the three trees kept them on track.  The sandy space, when they at last found it, was pleasant with its transient crisscrossed shadows.  The combination of surf, wind and unseen birds balanced the silence.  The spot was protected on three sides by interwoven foliage, as if previous adventurers had hacked out a meadow in the deepest jungle.

It was soda time, so they shared.

The siblings didn't need to renew discussion of dress, or lack thereof.  Now deprived of excuses, Toby unsnapped his cutoffs.  "Are you sure nobody can see?" he fretted.

"Just some female seagulls."

Pushing down his shorts exposed the ridge in his checkered boxers.  Anne didn't pretend to look for starfish.  Toby's was bigger than she'd guessed, still associating him with peeing while she brushed her teeth, Mom already outside honking for them to hurry.

She thought about Stan's.  His was crudely larger, but not scary when he was just talking.  What if Stan brought her into the palms where it's so quiet and leaned her back into the soft sand?  Ugh!  She pictured the wiggled depression she'd seen earlier that day.  If Stan was working a girl's hips into the sand and she was walking by, would she watch?  It's just pretend, she justified.

If it weren't her brother's, she'd have found his burgeoning bulge disconcerting.  With her brother however, "Don't worry about it, buster.  Half the guys we passed were total," she exaggerated to put him a bit at ease,  "I'd be that way too, seeing all those boobs, Hanna's especially," giving their acquaintance the benefit of subjectivity.

Toby seemed to accept the reality of her knowing.  Being siblings helped more than it hindered.

It took ten minutes of sideways appraisal to make familiar each other's major nooks and crannies.  When their eyes met in passing, each would peer intently at a distant point of tropical interest.  Toby's underpants did little to mask his undisguisable hardness, but revealed little detail.  Reaching for her sunglasses, Anne revealed her sheep's footprint, but only for a brief moment.

Anne realized how Hannah must feel: small and wanting protection, alone and wanting proximity.  Anne too wanted someone close.  She'd ask her brother to lotion her back, she decided, before they rejoined their waiting friend.

Plopping down in front of him, she made it an easy task.  His fingers were the tentacles of a tiny octopus creeping down her fishbone spine.  She'd wondered if it being her brother might cheapen the application, but Stan for imagination and Toby for real was a good combination.

Her back oiled, she was relaxed enough to lean back and invite his wrists around her shoulders.  His hands came together over her collarbone.

"Go ahead," she said, her expectation perhaps suntan related; she had no real agenda more than continuing.  She acknowledged that having Toby close was perhaps neither about sunburn nor about vulnerability.  She'd started to ensnare him when she'd removed her blouse, no, much before that.  Bra and panties by the TV?  Surreptitiously synchronizing their masturbation?  It wasn't that important exactly when, even.  They were here.

Toby massaged the upper edges of his sister's breasts.  After a moment so close, his hands slid down her sides to enclose her lower ribs, thumbs tracing the boundary.  With his sister's head fully on his shoulder, he drew his palms up her compliant torso.  She inhaled in lithe acquiescence, at her door in last night's darkness.  In the leafy shade, the door was opening.

Her nipples jumped from finger to finger.  Her head was back far enough that he might have pulled a breast to his mouth.  The thought crossed her mind, anyway.  She floated, sensual.  When he impressed her breasts' so many softnesses and hardnesses, she backed against him until finding his erection, Stan's, she told herself.

She knew that Toby knew of her arousal, the endless regression making fondness a circular seduction.  She interpreted their press not as a step toward an act, though she'd not have resisted the argument, but rather as freedom.  Her brother knew her femininity, and she, his manhood.  How they'd extricate themselves from such progressing proximity, Anne wasn't sure, but gave thanks to Susan for having her bring along the prophylactic.  Let Toby decide.

Anne saw nothing misaligned in transposing her two males.  Stan was the herald, a memory to open her womanhood.  She thought of Stan taking her into the palms and kneeling between her parted thighs?  Would she let him push?  If she didn't escape, it would happen.  Escape might be impossible.  Picturing Stan helped the physical part of Toby's attention make sense.

Anne again visualized Mom waving goodbye, her own day also unfolding, the orchid in her hair.

ACCOSTED

Anne was beginning to involuntarily alternate her hips when the voice she'd put out of mind accosted, "So you did find our little place, after all?"  The other couple, today clothed in just baggy shorts, loomed in the entrance.

"Oh, Jesus," groaned Toby, drawing his sister to cover her breasts.  Before, it was a closeness of affection, albeit nonverbalized.  Now it was a closeness of concern.  Why the hell do these two keep barging in, Anne asked herself?

"We waited for you yesterday, but must have missed you," said the woman pleasantly, as if they'd confused a date.

"We weren't here," replied Toby evenly.

"No problemo," agreed Stan.  "We found stuff to do," wiggling his knees, some primitive sign of people moving together.  "So today we watched for you at the rocks," appraising Anne who in turn was nervously appraising sea grass tufted in the sand.

"Time for us to be moving out," offered Toby.

"You needn't hurry.  You were just getting active," the woman spoke with bright eyes.  "Plus we hiked all this way to chat.  We like meeting other couples."

"Come on Anne," said Toby.

The woman seized the advantage.  "Oh hi, Anne.  I'm Ruth and this is Stan.  Having a good time with...?  I guess I didn't get your name?"

"Toby.  So my sister and I are just leaving, OK?  We gotta give our friend a lift."

The couple exchanged a look.  "I said they were related, Stan, from their faces.  Plus being dressed then, not counting her bra."  Then back to Anne and Toby, "We're related too, but by marriage," as if that made the couples equivalent.

Stan added, "We checked out your girlfriend.  Got a book, won't think a thing of her ride being a little late."

Anne crossed her arms over her chest as Toby slid her to his side and reached for his trousers.  Ruth seeing his underpants bothered him, Anne realized.  Stan could see hers too.  But what choice did they have?

Ruth intervened.  "Let's just stay seated.  Maybe you can beat us in a dash, Toby, but we're in her way."  Ruth made being trapped a fate beyond her control.  "Stan would probably be glad to get rid of you, though."  Toby couldn't abandon Anne.

Then in a softer voice, "Anne, right?  We've got some girl talk to do.  Guys don't know shit.  Right, guys?"

No answer.

"So Anne, we waited for you.  You wouldn't have come back here if you weren't looking for us a little bit too."

Anne, silent as igneous stone, knew that she'd brought Toby, but why to where Stan had wanted to take them before?  She didn't know.

Ruth continued, "So what it is, Anne, is that we do some sex.  Why beat around the bush?  Everybody has a good time.  Trust me, sweetie, we're not into games where somebody doesn't.  Promise."

Toby spoke forcefully, "Well, we're not into that kind of stuff."

"Probably what kids think who don't know how it works," advised the older woman.  "Take your sister, there, hiding her tits like that."

Trembling at the reality, not fantasy, of Stan in the palms, Anne didn't drop her arms.
CHOICES

Ruth addressed the two.  "Three choices, as I see it.  Obvious one is for you two to just keep going, like we hadn't showed up.  We'll just watch.  How 'bout it?"

"Go to hell," replied Toby flatly.

"Figured so.  So second choice: we'll have Stan do her."

Ruth addressed Anne.  "Woman to woman.  Stan should probably diet, but he really fucks!  You OK with getting fucked in general right, just not in front of family?  You'll be surprised what it adds!" Ruth encouraged.  No verbal answer.

"Stan likes a take-charge broad."  Again nothing.

"Shit, Anne, Stan'll wear a rubber.  Kids today are so fucking dumb.  Not you guys, but the ones that screw in theaters and stuff," she offered.  "Don't need to have seen a rubber before to figure out how," in case that was part of the hesitancy.

What if, Anne thought, she knew I had one with me!

Ruth didn't pursue the fuller list of secondary objections.  She'd read the terror that men can't realize.  "Sweetie, it's time.  We'd never hurt somebody too young to know what hurts, but you're just waiting to do it."  Another pause.  "After you thought about what you saw before, it wasn't that ugly, right?  We're just women."

"So Anne, it's your choice.  I've seen Stan take 'em down a lot less ready than you.  I'm not all that proud about how we get our girlfriends interested sometimes, though," she admitted, looking at the jungle.  "And this is the honest-to-shit truth: every damn one of 'em cries at the start and every damn one kisses his ugly snout at the end."

She looked toward Toby disapprovingly.  "Most first fucks are sandpaper."

Anne didn't answer.

"Stan hurts you and your brother conks him with a coconut.  He won't, I already promised, but if he does, crack it open on his sorry head," Ruth guaranteed.

Ruth summarized with what she thought counted.  "Main thing, you'll like it."  There was frankness behind the crudeness, Anne realized.  Going with Stan her girlfriends would understand.  But Toby wouldn't.

Anne shook her head in demur, but not total refusal.

Stan looked deflated, defloration so near.  He shook his head as if to say, "These women!"

"You'd have liked his magic wand between those legs, sweetie," Ruth sealed it in the past tense, smiling at the metaphor.

"So we're the last choice, Toby," reasoned Ruth, as if x-ing squares on a grid.  "And here's the honest truth: She'll always treasure how you fucked an old bag to save her cherry."

Anne spoke for the first time,  "You said..."

Ruth interrupted, "You made your call, sweetie.  It's me and Toby."  Ruth wasn't backing down.

"It's rape, even with a guy," threatened Anne.

Ruth clarified, "Me arranging things makes it conspiracy too.  Stan, you up for the black dudes in Fort Madison?"  He shot her a disgusted look.  "It's just rape when we talk.  Toby can keep secrets."

The siblings looked hopelessly at each other.

Ruth brightened with a compromise.  "OK, we'll even do this.  Toby gives me his boy best, but holds on.  I can come in three -- world record, wrong way.  Then Stan and me leave.  That's it, kids."

She turned toward her husband.  "We'll find us a tree trunk they can see from down the beach.  Like our Hawaiian Holiday Package: getting ready for the hookilau, or whatever that pig is called."  Ruth was already rubbing her nipples.

"Hey, you guys," argued Ruth, already anticipating her challenge of coitus interruptus in reverse.  "We started with a double date and now we're down to a half.  Don't know what's a quarter."

The four sat in silence.

Toby broke the deliberations, "And you'll leave Anne alone?"

"We will," agreed Ruth, emphasizing the subject.

TOBY IN THREE

Ruth rose and walked the few steps to the boy.  "Hey, Toby," as if encouragement were the lacking ingredient, "your pants or mine?"  If this was supposed to lighten the mood, it didn't work for the siblings.

The seductress indicated where to spread the beach towel.  He did so nervously, needing several tries to eliminate the wrinkles.  Anne felt the onset of faintness, but only turned pale.

"I'll bet you know how to kiss?" Ruth asked, breasts now at attention.

"A little" suggested no enthusiasm, however.

"Show me," leaning until her lips found the boy's.  She didn't state it as an order, but rather as a favor.  Anne couldn't tell if her brother actually complied, but Ruth's hand encircled his head while she rocked her mouth side as if to unify their breathing.  Her other arm pulled him into her waiting bosoms.

Toby's arms hung limply at his side until Ruth began rocking her shoulders in concert with her mouth.  Without instruction, the boy put a hand on her hip and then balanced it with the other.  Ruth released the pressure on his back enough for their breasts to break apart and re-encounter.  Another time she did the same.  The third time, their return brought her hips against his underpants, causing him to pull back in evasion.  With an additional press or two, her thrusts were accommodated.  The kiss was not yet broken.

"Let's get down," Ruth said simply.  The pair descended to their knees to resume their caress, Toby's hands now cupping her butt.  So entwined, she toppled him sideways, forcing a knee between Toby's.  Again he recoiled, again she returned.

Ruth's teasing him with her thigh, Anne realized, was Ruth teasing her as well.  Ruth knew she'd remember being in her brother's lap.  Ruth thrust her hip against Toby's underpants, first hotly pursuing, then barely fleeing Toby's rigid excitement.

Ruth's amazed, "It's a man's!" was condescending to Anne's ears.  God damn that woman! Anne thought, her hand cupping her own womanhood.

Ruth drew around Toby, exacerbating his wantonness.  Anne touched the front of her panties and found them already damp.

With the boy at her beckon, the mistress pulled his hand to disconnect the snap of her shorts.  Her zipper was next.  She pulled her hips away enough to reveal ordinary white panties.  This, for some reason, surprised Anne.  Ruth's breathy moans were not totally convincing.

Toby was by now mastering the foundations, holding back just enough to keep Ruth rising toward him.  Assuming what Anne took to be the manly role, he seemed empowered by how his partner begged penetration.  Ruth was enjoying his newfound skill as well, raising her shoulders as if to push him off while demanding to be overruled.

Anne, alone against the wall of gargantuan fern, looked across at Stan.  He, not to her total surprise, was watching her, not the carnal seduction.

Forgetting her near nakedness, Anne rose, overstepped the central two and sat by Stan, who, as if expecting her, made room at his side.

Sitting on her brother's lap, she'd imagined Stan taking her into the palms.  Now sitting beside Stan under those same branches, she thought of her brother's lap.  She climbed onto Stan's, where he wrapped his arms around her taut breasts.  Through pants and panties, Anne could feel his assuring firmness speaking that today wasn't Tuesday.  The active pair sometimes roughly, sometimes delicately, teased the passive pair.

As the other two giggled at something unseen, Anne rolled her shoulders until Stan coroneted one tingling nipple, then the other.  He lifted each bosom to do so.

Ann flexed her hips to tell him yes, but he made no move to free his trousers.  When she could resist no longer, she reached behind to grasp his fabric.  Only when she squeezed fiercely did he drop a hand into her panties to comb through her mound until resting at her cleft.  He didn't enter her inner smoothness, where she needed him, but rather protected her clitoris until it unsheathed and emerged.  She hadn't imagined that a man would know.  This wasn't the intrusion she anticipated.  When her tiny organ found him, he touched it with a single finger.  How could he know, she wondered?  He fluttered her until she shivered

Anne's thoughts alternated between her brother and Stan.  What if they had taken them into the palms and she was under Stan and Toby escaped and Anne had to delay Stan's pursuit?  The only way to accomplish that would be on top, like in the movies.  If she did that, how long could she keep Stan occupied?

"Anne, honey," Stan murmured.  "You're plenty ready and plenty old enough, but you came here with Toby."

Ann saw the unspoken conclusion: through a whore's merciless foreplay, Toby was being set up to finish the act on her.  They knew that Anne would acquiesce.

Anne was crying again.  Stan at first wasn't sure of her kiss, but recognizing it as acknowledgement, kissed her back.  She didn't care if he tasted a little stale.

They'd missed a few moments of Ruth and Toby.  Maybe even now the woman would be satisfied and Toby would be released between Anne's legs.  She parted her knees.

The watchers had missed some steps; boy and woman were now naked together, Ruth spread, trying without avail to raise her torso.  Toby's erection, at last exposed, was red and rampant, emerging from Ruth and already re-entering with the fortitude of unabashed youth.

"Great, Toby!" the woman puffed.  "Three was perfect.  What a come!"  Anne spotted the lie: if she had already climaxed, she'd not be able to discuss it yet.

"You're still up, like we said?" queried the supine rapist.

Toby slammed into her again.  Then again.  Anne knew her pigheaded brother better than did Ruth.  On the soccer field he'd attack the whole backfield searching for their weakness.  As he wasn't the best dribbler, sometimes he'd lose the ball with an errant turn, but sometimes he'd score.

Anne detected the roll in Ruth's hips.  Knowing little of the mechanics, Anne yet recognized the descent into inferiority.  Damn it to hell, Anne thought!  Toby's run right past her.  The sexual aspect seemed almost insignificant; this was about conquest.  Her brother, against whom Ruth hadn't bothered to defend, had blindsided his rapist.  Take her down, Toby, rooted his fan.

"Christ," choked Ruth, but her body, beginning to tremble, then shake, was too involuntary to command authority.  Toby was a cougar clinging to an antelope, ruthlessly plunging and pulling.  As she bucked with less and less concern for anything but penis, Toby climaxed, his slickened throbs in turn propelling the recipient's orgasm.  The two collapsed into each other, gasping and fluid.

"My God, kid," was Ruth's assessment, pulling his buttocks to her until he slackened and slipped away.  She turned toward the girl.  "Shit, Anne, we had you ready and everything.  Don't count on guys for smarts."

Anne was dumbfounded.  As much as she didn't like the woman, her own heartbeat and wetness confessed her engagement.  Stan had brought her wetness on, but Toby had brought it out.  She'd wanted everything.  She weakly smiled at Stan.  She didn't want to let go, but she did.

Stan was more matter of fact, the joke of it all.  Gathering his spouse's clothing, he winked at the one virgin among the four.  If they had even five minutes without Toby, they'd make it zero, Anne thought.

AFTER

After the two departed, again shorts-clad, Anne, still in panties, waited for Toby to speak.  At last, an expressionless "You saw, right?"

"Yeah.  You scored, I guess," his sister admitted, sitting beside him.

"I'm sorry."  He covered her hand with his, making no effort to cover his nakedness.

"You couldn't help it," she hoped.  The rubber was right there in her short's pocket, right there where she could get it.

"I came here to do it with you, I think," Toby reflected.

"Maybe same for me.  Maybe she knew how things work better than she let on," suggested Anne.  Whether it was deception or reversal, really didn't matter now.

She touched his back.  "You need some sun-block," mothering so that too much wouldn't be said.

"We can't do it now, can we?" from her brother.

Was this a declaration or was it a query, Anne wondered?  Abandonment said the former; desire argued the latter.  She strove for an opening.  "Guys get worn down, I guess," hoping he'd refute.  She placed his flaccid member, damp and crumpled, on her palm.  She was still wet, so wet.

"Maybe there's something mental with me.  I did sex with that woman."  Then almost brightly, "She sure came," spoken of the past, not the present.

"Looked like it," absently giving him a few more flips to enhance her view of his balls.  He didn't yelp when she touched them, so maybe she'd misunderstood about their vulnerability.

"It didn't happen with Claire," he admitted.

Anne didn't want to know about another girl.  "So you got a better memory for nighty-night.  Both our beds squeak here, if you'd wash your ears."

Toby's turned red.

"Suntan oil the hinges, or something.  Place smells like coconuts anyway," she added, stretching his penis to see if it hurt.  Apparently not.  She'd never got to hold Stan's except through his pants.  She'd never opened the little foil package.

"You're burned and we gotta go."

HOMEWARD

When the siblings returned to where they'd left Hannah, a note stuck from their bag.

"Hi Ann and Toby," it read.

"Ruth and Stan found me OK.  Thanks for asking them to give me a lift.  Said to tell you they didn't stop at the tree trunk since I was waiting.  We'll wait for you at their place.  Your stuff still here proves that robbers don't go naked.  Peace, Hannah"

Long looks.  Hannah's fear and hope, thought Anne.  As if they knew where the couple was staying!

The siblings pulled into the Walgreen's.  "Hey Susan, here's your magnifier.  Thanks.  Extra tape fits here," suggested Toby, opening the case to show where he'd fit the roll.

Their morning's first acquaintance was rearranging the T-shirt table.  "Maui Madness," read one festooned with primary-colored sharks.  "They should at least get the colors right," Susan critiqued.  "These fish shirts are so flimsy that you might as well be at your beach.  Hecho en Mexico.  I got about six, even paid for them 'cause they're on sale.  Gotta wear this stupid store vest, though, to look like we're in Oklahoma."

Anne ventured, "Oh, by the way, did a couple come in, maybe in their thirties, maybe a girl our age with them?  Woman has a ponytail."

"Big hat?  Half hour ago, I guess."  She looked at Anne.  "Soluble gel and wine.  If they want blank videotapes, though, I try to get the girl alone.  But these ones bought good wine -- good for a drugstore, anyway."

"Oh."

"Friends of yours?" recognizing Anne's left-behind look.  It was a been-there-too sort of question.

"Were, anyway," admitted Anne, deflated.  The three would be showering away the day's sand.  "Come on in, Hannah.  Do your back?"  They'd drink wine and then make love on the hotel's king-size bed.  Though she didn't like wine and had flopped for only a moment in the master bedroom to listen to the waves, she sensed the connection.

"Well," commented Susan factually, "they took off already, so you'd have about a million rooms to check."  She looked at the register as if it might ring an answer.  "You two surf?  I'm off tomorrow."

"No ocean where we live," apologized Anne.  "Thanks, though."

"How about tide pools?  I'm going to be a marine biologist, maybe.  Got all the books, anyway."

Toby's attention abandoned a Timex diving watch with original price, X, and special sale price all printed at the same time.  "You are?  We saw this gigantic starfish," invitation so accepted.

"We don't pry them up," advised Susan.  "I probably know which, but you gotta learn how to use the book.  Let's say 6:45 to catch the tide.  Bring extra ones," noting Anne's flip-flops, "because they break.  Korean.  B-1, right behind you," as an afterthought.

She told them where to pick her up.  "They don't bother with our streets on your map because you never wonder where we sleep.  Not you, I mean regular tourists."

Anne felt bad, as she was nothing but a regular tourist and indeed hadn't thought about how people really live here.

"Hey, we're here 'cause we like it," explained the local.

Susan studied the two and then asked Toby to check if their car had enough room for a shovel.  Also, see if the jack is a good one in case they get stuck in the sand.  With his exit she asked, "The thing is, whatever happened with that old couple is your business.  That girl chose to go, right?"

"Well, to ride with them, anyway."

"Ride-schmide," observed Susan.  "Your brother make any choices?"

Anne nodded.

"That girl?"

"No, the woman."

"Oh."  Processing that fact, "More experienced, anyway.  You make any choices?"

Anne hesitated, "Lost the chance."

The unfairness of it irritated the resident.  "Your brother loves you.  Know how I know?"

Anne shook her head.

"The way he brought you the Chap Sticks to choose.  It's the little stuff."

Anne smiled, the first time since they'd entered.  "He bought me a really pretty lei."

"Told you.  Wish I had a brother.  Forget that old asshole and love what's real, girl.  Your folks still together?"

Anne nodded.

"Mom having a good time?"

Anne even grinned.  So did Susan.

"I love it here, except the income part," advocated Anne's friend before returning to the immediate.  "You've got the same Tuxedoes back home.  We just run it over the laser; don't even look.  You being young-looking, though, find a female clerk."  She frowned.  "I swear girls with as much tit as this countertop spend their allowances on Trojans," tapping her disapproval of squandered pre-pubescence.  "They burst their braces about some 20-year old boyfriend with his own car and I give them shit for fucking him.  They'll come back all goo-goo about some boy in their own class after they start noticing the little stuff.  That's if the ex-boyfriend hasn't knocked them up."

"So wear shorts tomorrow," advised the local.  "Sometimes a swimsuit is too much and nothing is too little.  We got mango fruit drink.  Florida.  Know what that tree is where you drove in?  You guessed it."

Alone in her room, the foil-wrapped acquisition seemed pretty obvious.  She returned the item to its box and secreted it in her suitcase pocket.

The parents surrendered the car for tomorrow when informed that the kids had hooked up with a naturalist doing mollusk research.  Mom, visibly pleased, offered to pack them a lunch so they'd have more time to collect fish.  Carrot sticks, telepathically predicted kid 1 to kid 2.  The two liked their Mom's home touch, though.  Anne liked how the honeymoon was working out.

Unleashed by the telltale click of the folks' bedroom latch, Anne repeated her shower-to-room towel trip and listened for squeaks, but detected nothing.

FRIDAY

Susan guided them to a beach not on the map and both girls shed their tops.  Susan's breasts, as tanned as her face, bounced when she jumped waves.  Her button-sized nipples celebrated the sea.

They had Toby sunscreen their backs.  When his sister said to do her front, Toby complied as if he'd done it more than once before.  When the other girl asked the same, it seemed OK with Anne.

The girls stripped to panties to wade to the outer rocks, but Toby waded in his shorts.  The pools were networks of miniature lakes and channels etched by lunar persistence.  The wave sequence was such that as the lowest pool drained, the next wave harbingered its replenishment.  When the highest pool filled, the subsequent slosh failed to match the outflow.  The three explorers tried to hinder, then promote nature's ebb and flow with one-wave success at best.

The three shared the magnifying glass to inspect tiny starfish in the barnacled alcoves.  Armored scavengers careened among pulverized shell at pool bottom.  When a characteristic challenged her recollection, Susan pursued the less-descript beach citizens in her book.  Anne, less astute to specifics, rediscovered the more-colorful creatures several times over with no less enthusiasm.  It was Toby who pointed out that Susan knew more than her well-thumbed reference.  Maybe not all the details, he granted, but the linkages.

When the girls tired of slimy rocks (risking retribution, Anne feared whenever near an eel-size cavern), Toby felt their glances.  The breeze was too strong, however, to hear their conversation.

Sea-wet panties clung between their female hips as seaweed wedged into its rocky roots.  Anne's tan triangle was camouflaged no more than saltwater disguises coral.  Susan's fuller swath puffed her briefs with feathery darkness.

"Some more stuff on my neck," Anne asked, suggesting her collarbone by the way she faced him.  "Susan's too."  Unlike his entrapment of yesterday, Toby today felt no coercion.

The pool between explorers and contiguous beach was again flooding and Toby at last waded in his skivvies.  Susan asked if he'd seen palm creeper.  No he hadn't.  "Come on then, let's go look."

As the tide began re-conquest of the coral, Susan on his left and Anne on his right led Toby into the palms.

EVENING

Dinner reservations for two -- from their table, Mom and Dad would watch the sun submerge into the vast Pacific.  Anne made Dad promise to order wine.  Mom protested that she hardly drank, then agreed that "just a little bottle" would make it even more special.

"And Mom, wear your silk blouse.  It shows how pretty you are."

Mom weighed the noticeable implications for a two-time mother, then ventured, "Sure, I guess you might want to look a little classy in a restaurant like that.  Plus," unintentionally forthright, "nobody will know me but your Dad."

Anne remembered her nearly identical reasoning.  Good for you, Mom!  I won't even need to give you a little pat on the back to make sure.  Click your lock when you come back, just so I know.

Anne offered to help with Mom's hair "for such an exciting evening."

Mom did Anne's in return.  "Big folks' evening out, but you be pretty too."

"How 'bout I get you another flower?"  Anne was already darting outside.

"Get two, then, honey."

As her parents left, Anne's restraint failed.  Kissing her elegant, beaming Mother goodbye, Anne slipped her the little have-a-nice-time pat on the back.  She'd known just by looking that Mom was "a little classy", as she'd called it.  She wanted Mom, soft and ripe, to guess that Anne was happy for her in a women's way too.  Anne sensed that Mom's little return pat acknowledged the absence of daughter's straps as well.

Mom, so frumpily sexually, so incapable of denying it, took Dad's arm to the rental car.

Anne took Toby to the folks' room.  Stretched out side-by-side, the siblings could hear the waves.  Toby had asked why she'd locked the bedroom door when they're gone?  That's just how she likes it.  "Same reason for leaving my flower in my hair."

From above, she drove him deep within.

SATURDAY

Awaiting their homeward flight, the guys watched baseball on the airport TV.

"Anne," ventured Mom, putting aside her Better Homes and Gardens after feigned perusal.  "Someday you'll appreciate how good it can be to get back to a place like this.  Things can come alive again."  She was embarrassed, but wanted Anne to know.

Anne knew that Mom's bra, like her own, was folded in her carry-on, ready for the lavatory just before landing.  Anne took her mother's hand.  "I could sort of tell."  They'd have to take off the violet fingernail paint they'd done each other with, Anne guessed.

Her mother gave her a squeeze in return, "I thought you might.  You're growing up."

"Someplace like this is good for that too," admitted the younger.

The two recognized in each other's breasts, different but the same, the current of reflection.

"I guess we're related," admitted the elder, looking into the lines of her daughter's palm.

Mom paused to formulate her next words, softly measured.  "Were those rocks really that hard to get over, the ones Toby said were too tough?" looking at her baby.

Anne felt the clamminess that descends when disembarking an unanticipated roller coaster.  In adding Dad's model outrigger to Anne's suitcase that morning, she realized, Mom would have looked in the pocket.  Hawaii drained away, the sand, the sea, the trees, the breeze.  She'd even stuck last night's spent one, still wet, back in the suitcase.  Susan had said don't trust a wastebasket others might use.  If you flush them, they end up in the ocean.  Anne was just trying to do it right.  Anne blinked back the tears before they spilled.

The tears, however, also spoke of having a mother.  The foil packages, Anne knew, would be tucked under the outrigger, seemingly unnoticed, when she'd unpack.

Anne didn't answer and Mom quietly held her hand till the guys returned to share their popcorn.

LANDING

As the cabin lights renewed at movie credits, Mom and Anne simultaneously rose to pull their carry-ons from the overhead.  They smiled.  During landing, Mom slipped her arm over Anne's until each nestled against the other.

"Looks like we think we're going to crash, I bet.  Damn things," giggled Mom, pulling Anne across stitching, wire and doubled cotton, "but it's how women dress here.  We were pretty with the flowers in our hair last night, weren't we, honey."

"A very special pretty," guiding Mom to her own give-away edges.  Anne really wasn't up to ones that needed seams yet, just something a little stretchable.  "At least I have tank tops," she wryly boasted.

"More smart talk and I visit school in Dad's favorite muumuu and ruin your social position."  The two laughed at the threat.

"I kept my flower in," her mother confessed, "for our last time."

Anne hesitated, but admitted, "Me too."  Then she added, "But I left it on the sand this morning."

Mom again paused.  "Toby's OK?"

In the departure lounge, Anne had fabricated a girl on the beach who'd asked her to hide the condoms till she returned.  Why would she do that?  Maybe an affair with a surfer?  She'd hardly ever been alone.  Anyway, Mom had found what could only be her brother's.  Mom knew she'd gone braless last night.  They hadn't been careful in the bed, perhaps.  They'd been too eager for their excursions.  Though they'd not made love upstairs, they could have.  Why bother to pretend that Mom's concern wasn't about intercourse?  Why devolve deception into a lie?

"He went along is all," Anne answered.  "A friend told me to watch the little stuff.  You see how they saved us some popcorn?  Toby's fine."

Mom seemed to be judging her assessment, not her transgressions.  She nodded.

"You know what, Mom, how you might understand?"

"How?"  It seemed genuine.

"Next time you go, get Dad to help you over those rocks like Toby helped me.  It takes a little getting used to, you know, but on the far side, everybody's nude.  You can sunbathe with everybody or go to some tree trunks for a little privacy or even go into the palms for just the two of you.  You'd understand."

Mom seemed to.  "You have to be naked?  I'm sort of old."  Anne didn't know if Mom really would, but she was willing to ask.

"By the second time, you want to be."

"What about sunburn, you know, where you're pale?" wondered Mom, always Mom.

"Keep putting lots of lotion on each other."

SUSAN

By the time she was Susan Bryce-Tellis, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Marine Biology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, she'd forgotten the names Anne and Toby.  Too many years.  Too many vacationers had come into the store when she was lonely.

Starting college at age 22 was the hardest step.  She valued her Maui C.C. Associate in Arts more than her UCSD doctorate.  What set her ahead in the academic world was her knack for spotting relationships not yet in the journals, a skill the surfer chick honed on the little stuff in tide pools.  She published it at Scripps using longer words.

Although she was a new faculty member, she'd had inquiries from both Florida and Texas hinting at accelerated rank.  She was partial to remaining in Hawaii, however, for the waves.  At last old enough to avoid the deceptive beaches, early morning breakers were still her escape.

She remembered that day with the sister and brother, deciding that she could write a book about starfish that could engage the casual beachcomber and satisfy the scientifically curious.  Now they even sell the damn thing at Walgreen's right by the primary-colored shark T-shirts.  The clerks don't have a clue that the author once worked that very register, but she never mentions it when running in for new flip-flops.

It was a day of other memories too.  Over those years, Suzie met other siblings capitalizing on family vacations.  Most pretended that they weren't related, but Suzie could tell in about four ways.  If they wanted her to think they were just lovers, she'd let them.

At the tide pools, the girl had told her how she'd felt the man's dick through his pants and then held her brother's for real.  These two were just siblings who weren't experienced enough to pretend, Susan smiled to herself.  That's why she'd trusted them with her magnifying glass.

She remembered how they got the brother to peer down a coconut crab hole and then, whispering "Palm Creeper," each crept a hand up his thigh.  Toby held very still.  They didn't pull down his wet cotton for the longest time.

Susan approved how the girl with pale and pubescent breasts made her eager brother wear the rubber she'd unpackaged.  And she was even a virgin.  Way to go, girl!

Their sibling fucking spoke of smoke and fire within a battle.  She would deflect some of her brother's forays, absorb others and then strike back with wide-eyed passion.  As the sister had forewarned, however, she'd loose.  He swept across the battlefield, demolishing.  The girl cried, but Susan knew it was a necessary sort of cry.  When the boy hesitated, Susan signaled him that it was OK.  The girl's shudder worked her hips further into the sand.

The expended siblings had drawn her back to doze with them.  Susan had kissed her friend, a woman at last.  When the girl lifted the beach blanket to see what sort of depression she'd made, Charlie Chaplin Susan pretended to measure the excavation, her own hips, the girl's, and a coconut, concluding that it must have been the nut.  The brother, enjoying the pantomime, didn't catch his sister's look of pride, albeit a bit tentative.

If the two had wanted to leave it at that, Susan would have understood.  But the girl wanted it to be the real thing for Susan, too.  As Susan fucked the boy, again and again she molded his frenzied exertions into common gains.  The brother at last submitted, letting Susan match their orgasm to the waves.  He looked up with realization.

The girl had approached to watch Susan's face.  Susan knew that she'd noted the little stuff, not just the climax that Susan knew everybody liked watching.  When she came, she'd flopped out her hand and the girl had held it.  It's not only about hormones, she wanted to tell the girl.

Afterwards, Susan hugged the sister as if she had one of her own.

They ate carrot sticks for lunch and hiked back to the car, brother and sister hand in hand.  Susan thought it was so sweet.  When the path split around a palm tree, it was the girl who tugged her brother back to her side.  How interesting, Susan thought now, that she can remember so much and not their names.

The girls kissed goodbye.  Susan could tell so much from a kiss.  If the girl ever came back, they'd sleep together, though the girl wouldn't have planned it that way.  But Susan knew they'd not come back.

Before she became serious about kelp, Suzie ventured into the palms many times.  Some called how she fucked, "Riding the Big Kahoona".  Susan didn't regret those years; college just got to be more important.

Now she enjoys just the tide pools.  She's re-taped her magnifying glass handle many times, but the Swiss lens remains good as ever.

THE END

****

Holly on the Web

Wherever you found this story on the web, thank you to the server.  My problem is that I've no systematic way to update the various servers.  As literary errors (or just poor word usages) are made known to me, I'll repair that which is salvageable on http://www.asstr.org/~Holly_Rennick/.  My website's not much graphically, I admit, but HTML isn't my native language.  If you take the time to read me, don't wade through older version.

You can contact me via the site's message form, that HTML code by the smart people at ASSTR.

Holly

