And Time and Time and Time

It's hypnotic, really. The way the sun reflects off the surface of the water. The lake turns gold, then white as the day wears on and then gold again as the sun goes down. It looks like a giant sheet of aluminum wrap, poked through a million times.

We were always out there. We were always in the water or on it. It's the first thing I remember. We had an old pontoon that drifted around all day, a great metal beast, tethered to the dock and perfectly happy to float forever.

Years went by. We sold that first one. I couldn't believe it. That thing was my every connection to our summers. It put me out in the water. It took me home. It let me become one with the slow roil of water. Gone.

We bought a new one when I was 16. The new one had outdoor green carpet. It settled in as the family water-beast in no time. The metal was clean and showed not one ding. The poles were straight and polished. Above them was a strong, patch-free tarp. I was having a hard time remembering the first one after two days with our new skiff.

Dad died when we were just starting to see him enjoy his retirement. He opted for early retirement, and had all manner of grand plans for his time off. It started as a mild burn of indigestion. By the time he felt it creep across his chest, it was too late.

Mom held on for a while, but she didn't make it. They were both late in having children. As old as some of the grandparents of our friends, they did their level best. Mom just didn't have the strength to be alone. She never did.

Where as mom and dad were nearly 45 when I came along, and almost 50 when Linda entered the world, my sister was only 18 when she had little Elizabeth.

I was sitting in the driveway of the house. It was my house now. I had bought it from mother after dad died. She didn't want to be there without him, but she couldn't bear to let it go. When I offered to buy it and live there, she was, for the first time in two years, happy. She knew I would keep it. The money I paid was far below what it was worth, but she said it was all she needed. She moved into a nice, safe condo and that's where she died.

I thought about everything and nothing as I sat in the pontoon in my driveway. It had come with the house. I had just paid to have it brought out of storage and delivered there.

I guess it was habit. Summer was coming up. When mom passed, the small house at the lake went to me. Linda was never much for the place after dad died, and she was more than happy to have me take it over.

Dad started a prosperous company when he and mom married. We weren't millionaires, but he was smart enough to sell the business off for a decent chunk of money, plus an annual salary to be paid to a trust. The trust was signed over to me. I could do nothing and be paid handsomely for it. Dad never got to enjoy his efforts.

I was with a girl the night I got the call about mom. I dropped the phone and sat there on her bed. She reached over and picked up the small cell-phone. She asked me what was wrong. I told her. She held me all night in that bed.

Linda pulled up with her sweet little girl.

"Uncle John!" Elizabeth came running up to jump on my lap.

"Oh my gosh! Is this my niece? It can't be. My niece is just a little girl. This is a big girl!"

"Uncle John," she drawled. She was giggling and running off again at once.

"How does she like being out of school?" I asked Linda as she came up, smiling and carrying a small bag of groceries. She squinted into the sun and smiled a sweet, lopsided grin.

"I think she's more excited about being a 4th grader next fall than to be out of school." She climbed up and sat in a folding chair across from me.

"I can't believe she's growing up so fast."

"Tell me about it. I can hardly keep up with what she likes and what she doesn't like anymore."

"You'll manage."

"Thanks." She looked around the old raft and looked again at me. "So, what's with this? You're not selling it, are you?"

"Actually, I was hoping you and Liz would come up to the lake with me. She hasn't been there since she was four."

"I don't know." She ran a hand through her long, blonde hair.

"Come on. It's tradition. It's better than sitting around the house watching re-runs on cable for an entire summer." I was suddenly excited about it. We'd put off the family summer for too long.

"Really?"

"It'll be good for her. Get away from all this concrete for a while." She considered it, and then smiled.

"You're right. Why not? I can show her all the things we did as kids."

"Great!"

Floating on a sea of dimpled aluminum. Heat coming up off the water. Cool underneath. Rolling and rolling. Splashes along the side of the big, metal floats. Ice rattles in a small pool of water in the fat, yellow cooler. Laughter comes from out on the lake. Small, high-pitched exclamations of glee. Stronger, carefree laughter follows.

"Uncle John!"

"John! Come in!"

I looked out over the nose of the pontoon. Shimmering in the lake, small and shining in the sun, Elizabeth called to me waving her arm. Her mother was bobbing next to her.

I pushed myself out of the folding chair and walked to the edge. I jumped in, slicing the cool water and swam out to meet them.

We sat out on the porch at night. Liz was asleep. Content from the long days of sun and activity. Her soft sounds of slumber came out from her room. Linda and I sat in silence. A small radio played perfectly forgettable music. Somewhere across the lake, someone was having a party. Tiny flickering light from a bonfire could be seen from over the dark water.

"You're really good with her, John."

"She's a great kid."

"She's lucky to have an uncle like you." She didn't say how Liz needed a man around after her father left. No one had heard from him in years. I didn't like thinking about him.

"It's nice to be back here, isn't it? I mean, it's different without mom or dad, but it's still nice."

"I wish Elizabeth had someone to play with. Someone her own age. We always had each other. Or cousins. Something."

"She seems to be having fun."

"I know. I just wish she had someone her own age to share all this with. Do all the things we did."

"Everything?" I smiled and sat back.

"What?" She looked at me a moment and then her eyes widened. "Oh, God, John. That was one time and it was like that," she said, snapping her fingers.

"Actually it was all afternoon."

"I was curious, and you were the only one at the time who could...help me out."

"I remember it like it was yesterday."

"I'm sure you do, you perv." She laughed softly and swatted at my leg.

"As I recall, you seemed to like it yourself."

"Yeah, well, I was a kid. I didn't know any better. That seems like a lifetime ago."

"I can still smell the water from that day."

"I remember smelling wet wood," she said wrinkling her nose. "That rickety old skiff dad built us? But it was nice. It wasn't the pontoon, but it was ours. We could float out there all day. Find that one spot that was so far out, drop the anchor and just forget everything."

"You were so tan then."

"It was like being in a vacuum. There wasn't any sound. Everything had this right-up-close sound. I used to sing to myself just to hear what it sounded like."

"You're almost that tan now. You never had tan lines back then, though."

"If I close my eyes I can picture how thick the sun was. There was no shade. Water baked right off your skin."

"How often did you sneak out to sun naked?"

"I miss those days."

"Why did you kiss me?"

She looked at me. Her eyes seemed only half with me.

"I hadn't ever kissed a boy before."

"You said I was the best kisser."

"You were the first. Easy to be the best." She smiled and drank from her beer.

"I don't know why I did any of it."

"When you said we should take off our suits, I nearly flipped."

"You did it, though."

"Only because you did."

"I never told anyone about that. Did you?"

"No."

Out in the middle of the lake. She was sitting in her faded, yellow bikini. She was so lovely. Even as her brother, I knew that. She had her dark blonde hair tight into two pigtails that stuck out and dripped from swimming. Her face was tanned and scrunched up in the sun. She had sharp, smooth features, even then. She was so slender. Her eyes literally sparkled.

She said we should take off our suits and lie in the sun. She was already untying her top. I watched her pull it down, exposing her breasts. They were bigger than I thought they'd be, especially after seeing her in a small bikini. She had dark nipples and smooth, tanned skin. Dark. Like toffee.

I asked her why she didn't have any tan lines.

She told me that she would come out on the skiff and get some sun by herself. She started untying her bottom piece when I stood up and pulled down my shorts. My cock was soft, but thankfully hadn't completely retreated. I wasn't yet comfortable with showing anyone my body, but my sister seemed like a safe first time.

She just smiled at me as she squinted into the sun. Her suit now lay in a small pile and she was completely nude. She had a wonderfully sleek body. We had done nothing but roam the woods and swim all day for over two months.

She lay down and patted the floor of the raft next to her. I walked around and lay next to her. My feet stuck out past hers. The sun was behind us so we could look up into the sky and watch the clouds.

She asked me if I had a girlfriend.

No, I said.

She asked me if I wanted to go to college the next year.

Sure.

I pulled my suit around and folded it under my head to prop it up.

She turned over, laying her head sideways, her cheek on her forearms. I watched her turn. Her pussy was nearly bare. The shaved regions making it seem somehow more exposed than had it been completely bare. She caught my glance.

I have to trim it, she told me. She couldn't wear a small bikini like the yellow one without shaving. Not much, she assured me lazily, but just some.

I murmured that I understood. Her tight buns were perfect hills of flesh with a deep cleft between the cheeks. In the sun, still moist from the water on the raft, tiny peach fuzz hairs showed on her arms and her neck.

She asked me if I had ever kissed a girl.

Once, I said.

She asked if she could kiss me. I told her to go ahead. She scooted her body next to mine. She was hot and solid against me. I turned my head.

We kissed gently. Her lips were hotter than her body. She pulled her head away and laid her cheek on her arms again.

I turned back to the clouds.

She asked me if I liked it.

Sure. It was nice.

Did I want to do it again?

I turned to her again. This time she crawled over my body and straddled my stomach. She held herself up over my head. Her long brown arms were like columns of cocoa butter on each side of my face. I looked at her breasts as they hung down. I turned my eyes away.

It's okay, she told me. I could look. I did. They were like big, upturned teardrops when she was standing, but they became like rounded cones as she leaned over me.

Her legs were bent along my sides. I could feel her smooth cunt against my stomach.

She leaned down and pressed her lips to mine. I felt her tongue gently touch my lips. I opened them. Farther in. Warm in my mouth. We kissed quietly for a minute.

She had small freckles on her nose.

She sat up. Licking at her lips. Tasting.

She kissed me again. She was getting better with each kiss.

You're the best kisser, she told me. Her teeth were perfect and brilliant white against her summer tan.

We kissed deeper. Her tongue filled my mouth. I kissed her neck.

She tells me, that's nice. I like that. Do it again.

Amazingly through all this, my cock is only a little hard.

Should we stop? she wonders. I shake my head.

"The world kind of went away that day," Linda told me. She slid down her chair on the porch. Her feet rested on the up-ended crate in front of her.

"I never told anyone, but I wanted to."

"God, why?"

"You were a pretty girl. To do what we did, they would have written songs about me in school."

"Oh, stop." She hid her face behind a final swig of beer. The can twanged sharply on the floor.

"I mean it. That was the best day of my teen age life."

"I have to get to bed. Liz wants to go hiking tomorrow morning." I tried to get her to stay, but she just squeezed my shoulder and went quickly to her room.

I swam up to the short ladder on the dock and pulled myself up. Linda lay on a towel, her eyes closed. I came up slowly and shook myself all over her.

She yelped and jumped up. We tore off down the dock and saw Liz running down the path from the house.

"Uncle John! Mom!" I thought something was wrong. She looked very excited. I came to a stop and knelt down to catch her.

"Whoa! Whoa. Calm down. What's wrong?" I asked. She swallowed hard and shook her hands in front of her as she caught her breath.

"Nothing. I met some kids. Two girls. They're in my grade."

"Where?"

"They were riding past the house. They saw me on the porch and waved and then I went down and -"

"Calm down, sweetie," Linda said.

"Okay. Anyway, they asked if I could go to their house to swim and eat and bomb fire." Bomb fire?

"Bon fire?"

"Yeah. Bon fire."

"I don't know, sweetie. I don't know their parents. I don't even know if it's okay with their parents."

"They wrote down their phone number. They said to call and let them know." She shoved a piece of paper, ripped from the pad in the kitchen, at me. I handed it back to Linda.

"I'll call, sweetie, but don't be too disappointed if you can't go tonight," she cautioned.

"Oh, no, mother." She lied like a pro. Linda went into the house. Liz and I walked over to the swing in the back yard. We sat down and kicked gently to start it moving. The thick chain gave a muffled clunk ever couple of sways.

"What are their names, Liz?"

"May and Jessie Tyler. They're cousins."

"Tyler? Do they stay in the blue house over there?" I pointed across the water to a far off house and dock.

"Uh-huh. That's theirs."

"I know them."

"You do?"

"I know one of their parents, at least. They've been renting that home every summer since before your mom and I were little kids." She kicked her little feet and shrieked.

"Then I can go?"

"We have to wait for your mom to say yes, but I think so." Not a minute later, she came out of the house and told Liz to get ready to go.

"Those were Mikey Tyler's daughter and niece."

"Liz said they were the Tylers. Mike had a girl? Never would have thought."

We dropped her off an hour later. We sat around for a while, talking about summers from years past. They were shocked to hear about our parents. We watched Liz run around with the girls while we all had a few drinks, and then left.

Things went famously. She had summer friends. Summer relationships can be important growing up.

We had been out on the raft for an hour. She had kissed me and I had felt her bare cunt on my stomach. It felt like two thick earlobes on my skin. Her yellow suit was still off in the corner of the raft.

We talked. Small things.

Wind easing through. Sun moving slowly.

Had I ever touched a girl's breasts, she asked. I told her, kind of. How? she asked.

Through a shirt.

The girl I kissed?

Yes.

Would I like to touch hers?

Oh, yes.

I propped up on one elbow on my side. She lay back and closed her eyes. I brushed my hand across her young skin. Her nipples turned hard and stuck up a bit as I touched them.

I squeezed the right breast a little. I could see the small shadows of muscle twitch in her smooth belly when I touched her. I loved how hot her skin felt. I ran my hand over her belly. I'd never felt anything like it.

Could she touch me, she asked. I told her she could.

I laid back and felt her run a hand over my chest. She trailed her finger down my ribcage to my belly.

Why does it do that? she asked me. I told her that I was starting to like it. She nodded.

She slid her hand down, and with the flat of her palm. She ran it over the length of my hardening cock. Her nails slid along my balls. She ran a thumb along the head of my cock. I almost came. I felt it pop a little in her hand. She rubbed at the clear drops that slid out. She asked me how big I got.

She told me that summer was almost over. She said that pretty soon we'd be going back to school.

I told her that there were still a few weeks before we left. She sighed and laid her head on my chest. Her hand stroked slowly along my dick. She pulled it up along my stomach and moved gently.

Her lips pressed now and then to my skin.

She didn't want to have summer end without trying something.

Try it, I said, dreamily. The sun was baking us into a sleepy ease.

I felt her move along my body. My dick tingled as I felt her lick along the side and then her lips covered the head. She sucked gently, making me tense and breathe sharply. She climbed on top of me.

Heat. Weight. A full burst of adrenaline that came sour through my mouth. Lips pressed against my cheek. Breasts grazed my chest.

My cock was covered and engulfed. Warm. Wet. I felt her butt sink down to my legs.

I looked up at her. She sat high on my body. Her face seemed a million miles away from me.

She was almost orange in the light of the late afternoon sun. Glowing. Her face was so calm. She looked at me. She didn't move. I looked down at her. I was completely inside her.

I thought there was, I started to say.

Hairbrush, she tells me while she runs fingers over her spread cunt.

Girls really do that?

I did. She shrugged and grinned.

I let her decide when she was ready. She started rocking up and down, finding a rhythm she liked. Her body glistened in the sun. Her head fell back. Sweat dripped from her nipples. She made only small noises. Grunts, moans, never words.

She stopped. Sliding off my cock, leaving it to slap on my gut, she laid back on her towel. I crawled casually over to get between her spread legs.

We rushed nothing. I slid my folded shorts over and put them under her head. She smiled at the gesture.

I slid in with no effort. I was desperate to fuck my sister out there on the water. But there was also a strange calm that seemed to take both of us.

She made exclamations of surprise and pleasure.

Tanned skin and freckles. Pigtails. Breasts, teeth nipping lips. Sweating, moaning. Taking me in. Sliding against me. Hands in my hair, legs around hips, feet held me tight. Sun. Heat. Water and water and water.

"Do you think she's okay over there?"

"I'm sure she's fine." I sat down across form Linda. The porch was warm that night. August had set in and we were feeling warm nights that were always the first sign of summer ending.

"I mean, we know them, right?"

"Mikey is a good guy. Family life may sound odd for him, but he's good at it and he's right for it. Liz is fine."

"She's never stayed over at a friend's house before."

I poured coffee into her mug and set the pot on the floor. Linda gently fanned herself with a magazine. Outside the screens, bursts of green lights surrounded us. Lightning bugs out for the night. Bursting light, fading out and drifting away. Pulsing and swaying in unison, the yard seemed peaceful and in order.

"She'll be fine, Linda. Relax. Enjoy the night."

A soft, lazy rumble floated over the lake.

"Rain?" she asked.

"Light rain all night, they said."

"I hope she's not outside in that."

"Me too. It's after midnight."

"Oh. Right." She smiled, embarrassed at her over protective blunder. I turned on the radio I'd brought out from the main room just that night. I'd wanted it out on the porch since I was a kid. It was a large floor cabinet model from the fifties. Dad had it restored. New parts and wires. The speakers were still weak by modern standards, but it had its charm. I found the local station. I had my theories that it was one man playing his private collection. It was eclectic. Sometimes it was jazzy. Sometimes it was blues. Country songs from before we were born (our parents as well in most cases) and the occasional smattering of soft classical pieces.