By Una
Ann brushed my reddened, tear-streaked cheek, kissed my sweaty forehead lightly and tiptoed back to her bed. She was gone before I knew. I lay listening to the whispering tide as it swished outside our window.
I couldn’t sleep after my excitement. Every part of me was tingling. In a trance, I put a hand on my chest. The damp patch showed it hadn’t been a dream: my sister’s mouth had been there, minutes ago, my nipple glazed with her saliva.
Her bed creaked. I wanted to whisper, to ask if she, too, was unable to sleep, but Mum and Dad were in the next room. The walls were thin. I put a finger and thumb on the wetness of the t-shirt. Oh my God. I never knew a nipple could feel so nice. No one had ever told me.
I pressed a finger and thumb on the hard bud through the damp t-shirt. My body reacted instantly. A flush started somewhere behind the ears, seeped into my cheeks, trickling down to warm my neck.
I relaxed my grip, astonished by the chorus of tingles. I squeezed again, cautiously, lightly — not expecting that strange response to be repeated. I’d never touched my nipple before — anyhow, not like that, pressing it sinfully between finger and thumb.
The reaction was so intense, I snatched my hand away as I squirmed in reflex action. Lying perfectly still, I tried to make sense of the combination of pulses that throbbed within me.
Slowly, the surging heat between my legs became an ache. I parted my thighs and raised my knees, then slipped a hand down. A curious middle finger traced the puffy lips. Suddenly it slipped between the soft segments. Inside was hot and slippery, but it was magic. A silken fairy elixir enticed my finger to further exploration.
I felt the raised dot Ann had fingered earlier. It was stiff, snuggling under the slick folds of my inner self. I parted the fleshy layers. Just a passing brush was enough.
The body music started again. Delicious sensations were simmering everywhere. I placed a hand on my chest and caught the nipple in a finger and thumb. I squeezed hard, then harder. How hard I could go before it became painful?
This was incredible. The finger between my legs seemed to have frozen all feeling in the nipple. And yet it was alive — and tingling. I pressed firmly into the juiciness down below.
Oh God! Pressing the dot between my legs harder only seemed to animate the nipple. The two were interconnected: the nipple and the secret bump floating in its magic elixir were sending unseen messages, urging each other to greater heights. No one had ever told me about this, not Mags, not Ellie, not Ann.
I stayed absolutely still. Ann’s bed creaked. I listened intently: she wasn’t asleep. For ages I lay quietly, hoping she’d think me asleep. I didn’t want her to know I was touching myself like this. I knew that this was the sin the nuns had warned us about.
My thoughts turned to Hell. I tried to stop. But the enchanted place held my finger like a magnet. Ann’s bed creaked again. And then I heard it: that distinctive sound she made. It was a barely audible sigh, almost a whimper. Then another sigh and a sudden intake of breath.
I was concentrating so much on the sounds from Ann’s bed that I hadn’t noticed how my fingers had started moving again — faster now. The right finger was circling, like a tiny machine out of control.
My t-shirt had ridden up. My fingers were squeezing the nipple, twisting, like tuning a radio. Oh my God, I can’t stop. Something out of this world had captivated me. There was another sigh. It was mine. My head tossed on the pillow, trying to escape the intensity of these sensations.
Something touched my forehead. Ann’s cool hand was calming, drawing me back to reality. She put her lips to my ear and hissed, “For Christ’s sake, Una! Be quiet or Mother will come!”
The moon through thin curtains showed her silhouette. Dim white light caught the contour of her bare breasts. She was only wearing knickers.
She leaned over, hand under the bedclothes. When she caressed my tummy it was reassuring. For a moment I thought I’d been having a dream. Then she was crouching at the bedside, asking, “Are you all right?”
I whispered, “Yes.” Suddenly, we seemed so close, my sister and me. It was as though, here, in this secret darkness, we were one and the same person.
Her hand moved lower, below my belly button. We were silent. She stroked my lower tummy. It began to tickle — rather, to tingle rather than tickle. The intense sensations that had made me swoon earlier were back in force.
The moving hand went lower. It reached the bump — my legs opened. I didn’t tell them to open, they seemed to have a mind of their own. I was amazed. What if I had told them not to part, would they have obeyed? I wanted to be in control, but wasn’t.
Ann’s palm was cupping the puffy lips of my sex. She put her mouth to my ear. “Did you get satisfaction, then?” she asked. As she spoke, her finger slipped into the wet cleft. Oh God. I squirmed like a trapped animal.
I said yes. I didn’t know what she meant, but at that instant I was wonderfully satisfied.
Ann whispered once more. “I didn’t — I didn’t get satisfaction. Not yet.”
She had taken my hand from under the bedclothes. The dim moonlight showed a thumb hooked in the waistband of her knickers, tugging them down. She widened her legs and guided my hand. I knew now what she meant by satisfaction.
Her knees bent against the bed. I was up on an elbow. She took my finger, steering it into her unseen thatch. The hair was sparse and silky, the sudden heat of her a shock.
My finger was squelching in her warm wetness. She was pushing it deeper into the juicy hole, until it could go no further. She held it there as she began to move her hips. They were rotating. Ann was working herself on my finger.
And then she stopped with a sudden shudder. She breathed deeply and sighed once. We stayed there, transfixed, my hand trapped between her clenched thighs. She gave another sigh, then bent to kiss me — and then she was gone.
*****
When my sister Ann and I headed to the dunes next morning, neither mentioned the night before. It was as though nothing had happened. Perhaps it hadn’t, it had been a dream, I thought. Mother was babbling while no one listened, Father was reading a book, Ann was staring out at the mountains sweeping down to the sea, blue in the far distance. Her eyes didn’t meet mine.
Was it all a dream — or had it been real and was she now immersed in shame or regret?
Although we’d been like two peas in a pod since childhood, there were some things she was unable or unwilling to talk about. I was never sure if it was simply because she thought, at two years younger, I was too juvenile, or that she had dark secrets she was unwilling to reveal.
She sat in the window seat, her face inscrutable, staring into space. I’d have given anything to see into her mind, to ask if she’d really regretted last night. I didn’t.
Ann walked ahead as we stepped onto the beach. Viewed from the back, there was something marvellously attractive about her perfect shoulders and long, light brown hair. I loved her hair — always fresh, with a hint of the apple-fragrant shampoo we used. It smelled different on her.
We were wearing sun-dresses, swim-suits under. It was too cold for the sea, too overcast for sunbathing, but we were prepared in case it changed. Ann swung the bulky shoulder-bag holding our picnic rug, snacks, drinks, towels and fresh undies, in case we had a swim.
She flopped down on the sheltered side of a high dune with a view of the empty beach and mountains. I followed suit. In the distance, we could see Mary and her mother approaching across the wide, flat, deserted beach. Ann and Mary had struck up a friendship two days earlier. They were both fourteen. They tried to exclude me because I was only twelve, at least that’s how it felt.
Mary sat beside us in the sand. Her mother said hello and went some distance off, setting up an easel and art pad to sketch. Mary chattered aimlessly. She was like her mother, I thought — empty-headed. I wanted to tell her to shut up, to go away, but Ann seemed delighted she had joined us.
I needed to talk to Ann, to steer the conversation to the events of last night. There were so many questions I had to ask.
Mary’s presence made me angry. I didn’t want a really serious talk with Ann — just a few words to reassure me about what happened between us. In my mind, I could still feel that special wetness, the silken-smooth hair between her thighs. Did I really hear her sigh as she squirmed on my hand, showing me where to touch, pressing my finger into her sinfully moist folds?
The sun came out. We took our dresses off and lay out, worshipping the radiant heat. Mary took off her polo shirt and shorts, lying back in her undies. She looked disgusting. Her bosom was too large for the bra she wore, and her tummy bulged over the top of faded, baggy knickers.
I disliked her. She was an intruder, and yet my eyes were drawn to the rounded form where her tummy met her legs. I wondered if she was like Ann down there — wispy and soft. I dragged my thoughts away. Why did I have to be so curious? What did it matter how Mary looked? I gazed out to sea.
My mind was racing, filled with unimportant thoughts about Mary and her mother. I desperately wanted not to think about last night, when Ann and I had touched each other in the dark, still bedroom.
I excused myself and walked down the deserted beach, collecting shells, paddling in the tide’s edge. The feelings of last night had melted away. I didn’t need Ann, I decided, not that way. Yes, it was nice to have her as a sister, to be with her, close to her. But I didn’t need to do the sort of things we’d done last night — not with her, not with anyone, not even with myself. Ann and Mary could chat until dark for all I cared. I was perfectly content to be on my own.
Here, in the morning sun, with a pleasant breeze wafting on my bare legs, the idea of touching someone like that seemed strange. I should really forget it all.
I collected some shells. Not many. I had nothing to carry them in.
Finally, I made my way back to the dunes. Mary was leaving, brushing sand from her legs, bent low. Her cleavage revealed that her bust was not that large after all. Who cares? I thought.
We opened our snacks, had a drink. Ann’s mood had changed with the arrival of the sun. She said she was sorry, that she hadn’t meant to sulk at breakfast. I pretended she had nothing to apologise for.
We lay silently. I needed some way to open the conversation, to ask about last night. I pointed to a plume of white smoke on the far mountains. We speculated about it. Casually, I asked if she had cramps. She’d had them before, bad enough to stay off from school. Mum kept her in bed with a hot water bottle.
Ann said no, that it wasn’t her time to have cramps. She was using her grown-up voice. I posed a few related queries about how her friends were affected by them. I already knew. She’d told me before, in whispers. But I was stalking my sister, taking her down a path I suspected she didn’t want to go.
I said I thought she’d had tummy pains last night, late. I’d heard her moan. She flicked a towel at me. We both laughed. The ice was broken. I pressed on. “Well, you were moaning!”
She laughed again, then called me a little bitch. Between us, it was a term of endearment. Mother would have been apoplectic if she’d heard. To her, bitch was an expression worse than one of those really rude words in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which Mags and I had partially read — the naughty parts, anyhow — up the field one afternoon.
I fixed my gaze on Ann’s sparkling green eyes. They were her most unusual feature: Dad’s eyes. They didn’t match the rest of her. But they were beautiful beyond words when they flashed. She was flashing them now, projecting her smile with the intensity of a theatre spotlight.
Suddenly, the sun seemed warmer, the day brighter. The clouds over the mountains had drifted away and the sky was cobalt blue. I brushed loose sand from my legs and moved closer to her. Ann jumped up quickly. She was going for a dip — was I coming?
She took my hand as we rushed into the ice-cold water. I guessed it had been her way of cutting short our chat. She was so nice to me — and yet there was that gap between us. We were so close. We used to be able to talk about anything. But now, sometimes, she treated me like a child.
We were shivering when we reached the dunes again. Mary and her mother had gone. A lone car at the far end of the beach was the only other sign of human life.
Ann was towelling herself vigorously, teeth chattering as she faced away from the breeze. I dabbed myself dry. My wet shoulders and legs were cold, but I was happily immune. An inner heat was present that warmed me from within.
Ann took down her top, patting breasts and tummy dry, shielded from the chill breeze — and my hungry gaze. Her back was perfect, long and willowy. I could see vertebrae under smooth skin as she stooped. She was nature’s perfect creature. I knew I would never look like that.
When she turned, it seemed as if we’d stepped back in time to when we bathed together years ago. But she had changed, and so had I. This was not how it had been in the past, when we’d frolicked naked before bed.
As she wriggled, struggling free of the wet swimsuit, her full form was displayed — from pink buds on upturned breasts, to the dark triangle where a flat belly met her long legs.
I don’t know how long I stared at her. We both stood transfixed. The beetroot blush on my cheeks had spread to my throat. I was glad Ann couldn’t see my other parts. The tight, damp crotch of my swimming costume was uncomfortable and hot. This was all so new to me.
Ann transfixed me with her gaze. She looked so composed, two hands behind her head like a young Greek goddess, holding back wet hair. Her breasts were pushed forward, as if flaunting the allure of the rosebuds that were her nipples.
“You look scared,” she said at last. “You’d think you’d never seen me without clothes, Sissy.”
It was just one word, but it changed the scene. Ann hadn’t called me Sissy for ages. It was a pet name, used by no one but us. Sea-birds were wheeling and crying. The breeze died, shifting away from the mountains, becoming warm breath bearing the tangy scent of the Mother God of the Sea.
Ann staggered sideways, struggling on the shifting sand to step into her knickers. We giggled. Then her undies were sliding over her hips. It was like a slap on the face for me. This was not at all what I thought would happen. She was getting dressed. Had I read too much into the display of her nakedness?
She picked up her tennis shirt, shook sand from it and stretched it above her head. As she was about to pull it on I found my voice.
“Let’s sit down for a while,” I said, trying to sound off-hand. I really wanted to say, before you get fully dressed, but hadn’t the nerve.
Wordlessly, still topless, Ann shook the big tartan rug and spread it out neatly. I lay beside her, hardly daring to believe that this might lead to something intimate. My ache was intense. I had a hunger for something I couldn’t explain. I wanted Ann to hug me, that was all. Wasn’t it?
We lay with our hips touching. I was still in my wet bathing suit. The outside had been sun-dried, but the heat of the day and the closeness of my sister had it wet inside instead.
“Why don’t you get out of that suit?” Ann said, casually as anything. “I bet you’d feel better without it. Don’t worry — if anyone approaches, we’ll see them long before they’ll see us.”
Without a word, I sat up. Ann undid the halter-neck. I knelt up on the rug and struggled out of the clinging discomfort. I lay with a towel covering from waist to knees. I was breathing hard — I hoped Ann thought that was from the exertion of removing the swimsuit.
We were being bold as brass, stretched bare-breasted beside each other. But I wanted to be bold! It made me feel so free, so alive.
I glanced sideways. Ann’s buds were like raised pink buttons. Oh my God. A rush of sinful thoughts seared through me, flooding like a torrent into my swollen valley. Some devil’s urge made me want to touch one of Ann’s nipples, to smother it in kisses.
The sun was scorching. Ann rolled towards me. She pulled the side of the tartan rug over her upper body. I turned to face her. She covered mine as well, protecting us both from the burning rays.
We put our arms around each other — it was the most convenient way to lie. But this was about more than comfort or convenience. My arms were around Ann’s neck, drawing her face towards mine.
Her fingers were stroking my back, sending shivers along the spine. We hugged tight and wriggled closer. Her bare breasts pressed the swellings on my own chest. Soft and warm, this naked embrace was making me simmer down below. I raised my knee, pushing it against her closed legs, pressing upwards to part her thighs. It was instinct, pure and simple. I wanted to know if she was simmering too, like a juicy, aromatic casserole spreading an appetising aroma.
Suddenly, Ann was pushing me away. We parted, our faces inches apart, breathing as though we’d been playing tennis rather than hugging. She looked at me with troubled eyes. I wanted to agree with her when she said, “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
It was the whispered suffix which betrayed her, showed that she didn’t mean what she said. Just one word, moaned in a plaintive voice — “Sissy.”
Then my head was gripped with frantic intensity. She was twisting it, drawing in close, guiding my lips to hers.
When it came, the kiss was more than a kiss. Her tongue entered my mouth like a dart. The tip circled my gums, dancing, exploring inside, settling into languid, deep, penetrating thrusts, repeated again and again.
I’d never been kissed like this. Mags had given me a passionate kiss, shown how lovers fenced with their tongues. It had been thrillingly new. But this was beyond anything she and I had done, beyond anything I could have imagined.
Sis sucked my lower lip, then bit playfully, nibbling like a rabbit. Without even thinking, I was returning her kisses, my tongue joyfully engaging with hers.
As we kissed, Ann stroked my tummy. A finger poked my belly button playfully, symbolically attempting penetration. Then her hand slowly moved lower. When it cupped my mound I jumped, startled at the intimate touch.
She put her lips to my ear. “I love you, Sissy.” I couldn’t reply. I was overwhelmed by affection for her and with the excitement that we had discovered, for this wonderful, special way we now knew to make each other happy.
I could feel it arriving, the Yellow Brick Road stretched ahead. Happiness was down there, and I was speeding ahead, breathless. Her hand pressed between my legs, opening a way for the finger I knew was going to follow.
The picnic rug rose as my knees went up, legs parting wide. When Ann’s finger swept into the wetness, I wanted to squeal with pleasure. Carefully, tenderly, she explored my childish slit. Her finger squelched, and squelched again, moving around until it touched the little man in the boat.
Every muscle in my body froze from the ecstatic effect. I was paralysed with pleasure. Nowhere else existed but this magical place where Sissy’s finger was circling my pink pearl. I knew then that for the rest of my life I’d be unable to go without this sweet intoxication.
Licking my earlobe, Ann whispered: “I want to satisfy you. Will we do it together?”
“Yes,” I breathed. She put my hand on her breast, placing a finger on her stiffened bud. I teased it with my middle finger, marvelling at its springy firmness.
Ann sighed — and sighed again. At another time, these could have been the sounds of boredom or unhappiness. But I knew now that her sighs were a song of pleasure. I was giving her the same deep thrills that were pulsing through me. I felt so close to her. It was as if my body and hers were one, as if our secret hunger was similar as the facial characteristics we shared as siblings.
Suddenly she drew away. For a moment I thought someone was approaching. But her hands were under me, raising my bottom, moving me to the centre of the rug.
She rolled on top, tugging her baggy knicks down her thighs in a one-handed frenzied move. Even that was erotic. This frantic lowering of her pants, her need to bare her downy cleft — it amazed me.
Our eyes met as she struggled into position. With palms on my hips, she lowered her mound until it was touching mine. Oh my God. This is so wicked — our bare cunnies are touching! She pressed into me again — harder this time.
My arms were around her neck. Her thigh went between mine. We rolled sideways, delirious, our legs meshing like scissors. Soft, silk hairs pressed against my naked cleft. My mouth found hers. I was sucking her lip, as she had done with mine.
Her pushing got harder. Each thrust sent a wave of electricity rippling through me.
My sister was in the throes of manic passion. She was clutching my bottom, a hand on each cheek, drawing me towards her with each shove. “You bitch, you lovely, teasing bitch, Sissy.” Her voice was fierce, yet sweetly tender. “I love you. You know that. You make me want to creep inside you — to be part of you always.”
The moisture between us would have been uncomfortable if we hadn’t been distracted by our passion. I felt at one with Ann as our secretions merged. Some had oozed into my groin as we writhed in loving affection. Years later, what I would remember most of all was the wetness of our embrace.
Ann’s strangled cries brought me back to earth. She was transfixed, her soft, puffy peach pressing hard on mine, motionless. I felt her shiver uncontrollably. Sighing, she whispered: “I love you, Una. I really, really love you, Sissy. Forever and always.”
We lay together in silence for several minutes. I could feel her soft breasts heaving against my bumps as Ann slowly got her breath under control. My tingles had gone. Her excitement had been enough to satisfy me.
My skin felt sticky when Ann rolled off. I closed my eyes. The sound of the seabirds and hissing, gentle waves reflected my magical mood.
I never wanted this moment to end.
I opened my eyes to the tickling on my forehead. Ann was leaning over, twirling a long piece of marram grass, teasing me. I remembered that I was still naked and hastily wrapped the rug around me. Her hand slipped underneath, cupping a budding breast, stroking the pale pink nipple with a slow, gentle finger.
I turned towards her. She leaned down to kiss me. Her voice was a barely audible. “I want you to be satisfied, too, Sissy. I’m sorry I was so selfish.”
I knew instantly what she meant. I no longer needed it explained in words. I had felt her being satisfied, shared her exquisite bliss as her naked body writhed against mine.
Now her hand was between my legs, travelling an open road into that special place where the fleshy pearl was to be found. My ache had returned. That inexplicable hunger had me in its grip. I needed to be touched, but was frightened of the intensity her touch would bring.
I wanted to study these things, to stay in control and observe what happened. But Ann was driving me headlong down the road to beautiful madness, determined to whirl me into space where I could share her experience. She wanted to satisfy me, the way I had satisfied her.
When she penetrated me, I felt shock. Not at her finger pressing into the opening, but the way that part of her body had entered mine so easily. One minute, the finger was dancing in the folds of my overflowing desire. The next, it had slipped inside.
She wriggled it into my entrance, creating the most delicious stretching sensation I’d ever known. It went deeper, deeper into the secret tunnel as if pathfinding for a future visit.
Ann shifted nearer. Lowering her face to my chest, she drew a nipple into her mouth and suckled, her tongue swirling around the tiny, incredibly sensitive bud. She purred with pleasure as she nursed from me. I felt like the most sinful girl in the world as I arched my back, thrusting my chest into her face.
Her finger was pleasuring me with slow caresses. At another time, I would have been embarrassed at the distinctively wet sounds it made. But the squishing only raised my hunger to new heights. My magic spring was overflowing.
Her voice was in my ear. “Let it go, Sissy… let it go! Let me take you somewhere only women can go.”
I was shivering, shaking, shuddering — my senses seem to have been invaded by some alien force. My head was thrashing from side to side. I wanted this to stop. I longed for it to go on forever. It was too much to accept, too powerful for any human to cope with.
Suddenly I was crying. Not sobbing tears of sorrow or hurt or anger or frustration, but weeping with joy and the sense of fulfillment that only a woman can give to another. It would be years before I knew the word orgasm, years before I was challenged by a male who, to boost his ego, aggressively wanted to know if I’d “come.”
But what did it matter? Here in the secret place, with my soulmate sister, she’d taught me what satisfaction meant. I’d shared my satisfaction with her. We didn’t need any other word for it.
In later years, women who spoke to me of coming, or getting off, of orgasms and climaxes, would scoff at the simple childish word which my sister and I used to describe our sexual and emotional gratification. But it suited us — and it seemed appropriate for our relationship, which we thought was unique.
Continue on to Chapter 5