Olivia and Owen

6. In the bath

We sat together in silence for a while. Then I said, "They were sitting just like this. Owen and Olivia, I mean, on a love seat in their tiny house. Their father saw them holding hands, feared the worst, and sent Olivia off to Winchester. I wonder if his doing that planted the idea that they could be lovers."

"Maybe so," he said. "But I'll bet they always wanted to, even if they didn't know it. Something was going to trigger the conscious thought and the act. If it hadn't been the dad sending Olivia to Winchester, it would have been something else. Everything they did tempted fate."

I was intensely aware of the way we were touching - his skin seemed hot, and it was an effort not to take my hand away. Something was moving inside me, under my breasts.

After perhaps a minute of silence Frank said, "Do you think it was an accident, the way Gina died?"

"Of course it was," I said, surprised by the sudden change of subject. "She was distracted, talking on the phone, and crossed the center line . . ."

"She never used her phone when she was driving," he said, "especially on these country roads. It was a rule with her. There's no way she would have lost control of her car, right there on a straight stretch of Rockfish River Road where you can see what's coming a half mile away. I was glad the insurance company believed it was an accident, but I never did for even a minute."

I turned towards him now. "No, Frank. She wouldn't do that. She wasn't like that."

"We had a nice friendship masquerading as a marriage," he said. "It was pleasant, and polite, and cool, and it wasn't enough for her. She knew she'd thrown her life away on me, because the only woman I was able to love was the one I could never, ever have."

"No, Frank," I said, but I knew that what he was saying was true, because the same was true for me. It was my tragedy and his. Back in 1927 it had been the death of four people. Suddenly it seemed perfectly likely that it had been the death of Gina in 2014.

"Yes, Angie," he said. He turned to me and caught my hands in his. His eyes held mine: I couldn't look away. "Let's tempt fate," he said. "Let's do the things they stopped us doing when we got too old. Let's take a bath together and sleep in the same bed."

I was frightened. "No, Frank," I began, trying to pull my hand away, but he held it tighter.

"It doesn't have to be sexual," he said. "It can be perfectly innocent. And no one will know. How many secrets have we kept together over the years? That business with Mr. De Luca's roses, the time we tried to learn to smoke . . ."

I laughed. "The Homecoming caper, the ding in Mr. Wilson's windshield . . ."

He leapt up and pulled me to my feet. "One more secret," he said. "Let's take a bath." He towed me into the house, up the stairs, through his bedroom and into the adjoining bathroom, where he sat on the rim of a big claw-foot tub - the kind that's comfortable on both ends - and turned on the water. I stood watching, awkward and nervous.

"Bubble bath," he said. "That's what we need, but I don't have any."

"Shampoo," I said.

He took a bottle from a wire rack under the shower-head and drizzled some into the stream from the faucet. Soon there was a thick white layer of bubbles on the surface of the rising water.

He looked at me and said, "Now we take our clothes off."

I stood there, frozen, as he took his shirt off. His chest was strong and trim, with a spray of black hair - he had a hiker's body.

Numbly, with clumsy fingers, I unbuttoned my blouse and took it off. He took off his pants and stood in front of me wearing nothing but briefs.

I couldn't make my fingers do the next thing. He said, "What if I step out of the room for a few seconds. You can finish undressing, get into the tub, and then call."

"Okay," I said. He left the bathroom: knowing he was standing just outside the door, I was still self-conscious, but quickly took off my pants, bra, and panties, got into the tub, and when I was sure I was covered by the layer of bubbles, called, "Okay, Frank."

He came in and stepped out of his briefs. I saw his nakedness for just a few seconds: his fine, strong body - and his penis, which had been so tiny and kind of funny when we were small and now looked so big and dangerous.

And then he was in the tub. I was sitting with my feet drawn in, arms around my knees. He leaned back, toes touching mine.

"I wish we had some toys," he said, smiling. "Remember the little animals that squirted?"

I laughed and relaxed a little. "We made them do battle. And there were the boats of course, and the letters we stuck to the side of the tub . . ."

"The tea set - so much stuff! But no rubber duckies."

"We were so rich, compared to Owen and Olivia," I said. "I wonder if they even had a bathtub, let alone a big bucket of bath toys."

"I bet they washed in a basin in cold weather. In the summer they'd swim in the Rockfish River. They couldn't afford swimsuits - they skinny dipped."

I said, "Down, boy. Enough naughty thoughts."

"What naughty thoughts?" he said. "It was all innocent, swimming naked. Just like it was innocent when we bathed together. Just like it's innocent now."

The shampoo bubbles hadn't lasted long - there were just patches here and there, scarcely concealing our nakedness. He looked into my face as he spoke, and I forced myself to hold his gaze, but at the edge of my vision I could make out the patch of his dark hair, ghostly under the milky water. I wondered if he could see my hard nipples or, down lower, my warm, insistent sex.

"It's not innocent, Frank," I said, "what we're doing now. You're grown up. You're naked. You're . . ."

I was tongue-tied. What came to mind was that no man in the world was more compelling, that I was mesmerized by his fit, well-muscled body, that his naked manhood, so close to me, made me faint, and his brown eyes seemed to be looking right into the center of me - but I couldn't say such things, so I settled for lamely concluding ". . . a man."

"Yes," he said, a little deflated. "I can't escape that, being a man, and you can't escape being a woman - a beautiful woman. I feel the gravitational attraction of you."

He looked down into the bathwater for a moment. Then he raised his head, features tense, eyes smoldering. He took my hand and stood up suddenly, pulling me to my feet. He clasped me to him with strong arms, and I was weak, with no power to resist. His body was hot - so much skin against my skin! The soapy water was slick and sensuous between us, and his manhood stirred and pressed against my mound. I raised my face to his: his eyes and mouth were so close - oh, his gravity was strong too! His tan skin, his clean, soapy smell mixed with a hint of sweat, the sound of water dripping from our naked bodies - all of it overwhelmed my senses. My heart raced, and I couldn't breathe.

I put my hands behind his head and pulled him down to me, fingers in his thick hair. We kissed, a kiss like I'd never known - warm, moist, and bursting with life, like long-ago summers. Excitement raced through every part of me: my nipples hard against his chest, my fingers slipping over his wet skin, my stomach, my damp sex . . . I was electrified, and I could sense the same passion in him, the way his lips moved, his hands in my hair, on my neck, my shoulders, exploring my back and - oh, yes! - my bottom.

I wanted him as I'd never wanted anything in my life. But we couldn't - we just couldn't. My desire terrified me. Didn't Olivia and Owen prove that it was death to go where both of us so badly longed to go?

I buried my face in his chest and sobbed, "Oh, Frank, what'll we do?"

"I want you," he murmured into my hair.

"I want you, too," I said, "but we can't . . ."

"We can," he said. "Put aside your fear. Do it for love, do it for fun . . ."

"It's not that simple," I said.

"It can be, if you let it," he said. "We love each other, and we're a man and a woman. Let's do what men and women do - what Olivia and Owen do."

In an instant, his hand on my skin seemed to scald me, and terror rushed up inside me. "No, Frank," I cried, pushed away from him, leapt out of the tub, and grabbed a towel.

Frank was calling, "Wait, Angie!" as I dashed out of the bathroom. I ran to my bedroom, locked myself in, and toweled off, breasts heaving with my sobs. Within a few seconds he was knocking on the door, saying "Angie! I'm sorry! Let's talk."

"I don't want to talk, Frank," I said, pulling on my robe. "Go away."

"I didn't mean it the way it sounded," he pleaded. "Open the door."

"Leave me alone, Frank," I said, picturing him naked and dripping in the hallway.

He must have gone away, because it was quiet after that. I flung myself on the bed and cried. I was shocked by what we both wanted to do, afraid for the future of our relationship - and, I have to admit, disappointed that he had given up a little too easily.

I crawled into bed; and as I calmed down, memories intruded of Frank's fine body, that dark patch half-hidden under the water, and the heady feeling of desiring and being desired. I was tense, aroused, and feverish. I tossed and turned for a long time before I finally fell into a fitful sleep.

7. Back to the graveyard

The morning light brought shame with it - for my taboo desires, for my fear, and for what now seemed a childish reaction to my confused emotions. I crept downstairs to the kitchen, hoping Frank wouldn't be up yet, but expecting to find him seething with anger at my irrational behavior.

He was at the breakfast table, hunched over a cup of black coffee. He looked up and said, "Forgive me?"

I said, "Yes, Frank, if you'll forgive me. I was just afraid. I'm sorry."

He said, "We came close to doing something crazy last night. It must have been the full moon."

I said, "But the danger is past, right? I'm feeling calmer now, and you look calmer."

"I am," he said. "Nothing like realizing you've been a jerk to steady the nerves."

"Stop beating yourself up," I said. "Besides, when you mentioned what Owen and Olivia do, that gave me an idea. They said it was Olivia who wanted to do it - she'd heard about it at secretarial school. But good girls didn't do oral sex in 1927 - maybe in the cities, but not here in the Virginia hills. I'm not sure I believe the girls at school talked about it, or that she would have volunteered to do it if they did."

"So you think he talked her into it?"

"No offense intended, but isn't that the way it usually works?"

"I guess it is at that," he said.

"But if he did," I said, "why didn't they tell the truth about it? And I'm still not satisfied about why Earl confessed to the murder."

"I guess you'll have to cross-examine them," he said. "Do you mind if I come along when you do? I'd like to meet your ghosts."

We spent a quiet day and evening at Frank's place - reading, walking, working in his garden. At a little before eleven o'clock that night, as we were walking the path to the graveyard, I said, "If you've just been humoring me, you won't see them. You have to be sure they're there, and even so, they'll probably be indistinct at first. When they've become real enough to you, then you can talk to them."

Frank said, "You've made a believer of me. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to see them."

"I'll touch you when they appear, so you'll know when to start looking," I said.

We sat together facing the place where Owen and Olivia liked to do their lovemaking. It was around a quarter of an hour before they arrived. They both smiled at me, glanced at Frank, and smiled more widely. They'd guessed who he was.

I touched Frank's arm, and he responded by taking my hand and holding it. The twins did what they'd done before, not embarrassed by Frank's presence. When they were finished, they came and sat with us.

"This is Frank, my brother," I said.

"I guessed," said Olivia. "The two of you looks a lot alike."

"Can you see and hear them, Frank?" I asked.

"I can see you pretty distinctly," he said, "and I can hear you fairly well. Did you say we looked alike?"

"Yeah," said Owen. "You look like brother and sister, same way me and Via do."

I said, "I have to go home to New York tomorrow, so this will be my last visit."

"I'll miss you, Angie," said Olivia.

"I'll miss you both," I said. "I've enjoyed getting to know you. Do you mind if I ask you one or two more questions?"

"We don't mind," said Olivia.

"It's about Earl," I said. "I still think it's strange, the way he took the blame and let the state kill him. I wonder if you have any more thoughts about why he did it."

Owen and Olivia glanced at each other; then Owen said, "We talked about it, but we can't figure it either. We don't know why he done it."

"Let me take a guess," I said. "Olivia, you said you heard the girls at the secretarial academy talking about giving oral sex, and that made you want to do it, but that's not right, is it? You got the idea from Owen, didn't you? You did it because he wanted you to."

Now their glances seemed nervous. Olivia didn't answer, but waited to hear what else I had to say.

"And, Owen, you got the idea from Earl. When the three of you walked out together, it wasn't Earl and Olivia, with you as chaperone, was it? It was you Earl was after: Olivia was the chaperone. And then when Olivia was away, you let Earl do it."

They hesitated, and I said, "You know, it's not a bad thing anymore, being gay - homosexual - what did you call it in 1927?"

"A faggot," said Owen.

I flinched at the word. "Anyway, it's not a bad thing the way it was then. You can't harm him, talking about it, or yourself either."

Owen sighed and said, "Yeah, I let him put it in his mouth. Earl was going to a boy's school in Richmond that first year Via was up at Winchester, and when he come back he was the same good fellow, but he wanted to do that thing, and other things, too, that I wouldn't let him do. At first I thought it was just horsing around, but then on that last day he told me he loved me. It wasn't him asking Via to marry him, the way we told it; it was him saying he wanted to be my girl. I thought that was disgusting, and I told him if he wanted to be my friend he shouldn't never talk like that again."

Olivia said, "That night Owen told me all about Earl, and we talked about love - like we told you before. And we kissed, and I pulled him out into the backyard like I said . . . and he asked me would I do what Earl did."

Frank said, "When Earl found you, he put it all together from the way you were lying. He had to be devastated, seeing the man he loved and a good friend dead like that, and he blamed himself because the two of you had been doing a thing he'd taught Owen. It's a classic reason for a false confession."

"That sounds like Earl," said Owen. "Everybody liked him, but he was always kind of sad."

I said, "When he figured out he was gay, probably during his year in Richmond, that must have been hard. Society was homophobic back then, and a lot of gay people hated themselves, too. Between the guilt and self-loathing, it's not hard to understand what he did."

"I hope he's at rest now," said Olivia.

"Poor little Earl," came a mocking voice from the direction of the graveyard. Startled, Frank leapt to his feet as George emerged from the woods. "What I want to know is what'll we do for these kids."

I said, "Frank, this is George, who has a way of sneaking up on a conversation."

Recovering quickly, Frank grinned and said, "Glad to meet you, George."

"Pleased to meet you," said George gruffly, and then turned to me and said, "You thought about what I said? You come back here to help these kids?"

"Help us how?" asked Owen.

"Learn you to poke that sweet sister of yours," said George. "She could learn you to do it. Maybe this here Frank could help out too."

"I can't do that, George," I said.

"You can't, or you don't want to? Afraid you're going to get a dose of the clap? Scared you're gonna be possessed by an evil spirit?" George waggled his hands on either side of his head and said "Woo, woo," playing the cartoon ghost.

"I mean I can't," I said.

Olivia said, "Be nice, Mr. Harrington: these folks is our guests."

Ignoring her, George said, "I get it. I heard tell about you city girls - a lot of you likes other girls. Are you one of them perverts?"

"Mr. Harrington!" Olivia scolded.

Frank stirred beside me, but I reached up, took his hand, and said, "Sit down, Frank." He sat: you can't win a fight with a ghost.

Angry, but keeping myself under control, I said, "That hiker who taught you the song convinced you that all modern women are whores, but we're not. I can't teach Olivia and Owen how to make love because I don't know how myself. They know more about it than I do."

Everyone fell silent at this. Then finally Frank said, "Jesus, Angie, I had no idea."

I said, "Don't make it sound like I've got the plague, Frank. I'm just . . . inexperienced, is all."

George said, "I'm sorry, ma'am. I didn't mean no disrespect . . ."

"Don't think about it, George," I said.

Frank said, "You haven't even done what Olivia and Owen do?"

I shook my head, embarrassed now that I'd told my secret.

Olivia, sitting opposite me in our little circle, reached over and laid her hand on mine. Her touch was strange: she was corporeal, and her skin was pliable, but as if made of some otherworldly metal instead of flesh. It was hot and cold together, and I could sense life under the surface, but not the life of warm, pumping blood. It was something else, intense and wild, like the whirling inferno inside a star. Her touch terrified me, but it was thrilling at the same time.

She said, "You've got time to learn, Angie. Lots of time. I'm glad I learned to do that one thing before me and Owen died. I didn't want to do it when he asked me - I thought it was dirty and wicked, and I felt like God wouldn't love me no more if I did a thing like that.

"But I made myself take it out of his pants. And when I looked at it, it was so big and hard and scary - I didn't never see anything like it before, with the skin sliding over the top of it like a mouth opening up, and a kind of pink wetness underneath. I thought it would be the death of me, like a poisonous snake. I was so scared of putting that awful thing in my mouth that I was breathing hard and my heart was pounding like to die. I couldn't have done it if it wasn't Owen, and I loved and trusted him."

She was speaking in an excited whisper now. "But I made myself do it, and when my lips touched the top of him, where he was so smooth and moist, it was like heat spread from where my lips touched him all through me, and my skin was hot all over, and my breasts tingled, and I got wet down in my private place. And when he sighed and moved his hips under me, it was like he was talking to me with his body, like his muscle and his hardness and all his life and strength was telling me he loved me."

"That was the truth, too," Owen said.

Olivia continued, "It was pure love pouring into me through my lips and tongue. I knowed then that I'd do anything he wanted, anything at all, and he'd do anything for me. We done the same thing every night since then. We kiss each other on the lips, and I kiss his willy, and it still feels the same after all this time, scary, but like love."

8. The lesson

While Olivia was speaking, my hand, which had been resting on Frank's arm, slipped into his. Her words aroused me, but filled me with shame, too. When I'd seen her doing what she was talking about, it had seemed beautiful, but when Frank had wanted me to do the same thing, I'd thought it was dirty and degrading. But now I remembered the brief glimpse I'd gotten of Frank's penis, so thick and manly: oh, why hadn't I overcome my fear! I wanted to feel the skin of it on my lips. I wanted the experience Olivia had had and the experience she yearned to have.