Babes in Paradise

The nice thing about being a kid is you don't even have to pretend to be fair. You can have a favorite grandmother or a fun uncle that you really love and nobody blinks an eye. You're kids; the family expects you to be brainless and impulsive. Nobody gets their noses out of joint if they aren't the champions of the Harper family popularity contest.

Which is good, because there'd be a lot of unhappy losers out there, because aunt Anna was hands down, year after year, the favorite Harper for me and the other kids. Moms and dads certainly couldn't compare. Grandparents? Major bore. Even a number of the adults in the family judged Anna their favorite relative.

The reason for this popularity is simple: Anna doesn't fight fair. Other adults hold various mundane positions: businessperson, dentist, school principal, and other boring boring boring jobs.

But Aunt Anna is a writer. She got the bug early and never looked back. By the time she was 17 she had published her first novel ('Otherwise Tales,' science fiction). Fiction, nonfiction, scripts and screenplays, all kinds of genres and even a little songwriting; she writes it all.

I'm told she's good at it. She always makes deadlines, her work doesn't need much in the way of editing or revisions and her stories sell well. Since she loves what she's doing, she lives a pretty relaxed lifestyle.

Anna being a writer is pretty cool to us kids, too. She works when she wants, on whatever she wants. She doesn't sweat about keeping her job or kissing the boss's bottom. And when she's not in the grip of writing-fervor, she's always ready with a lap, a cuddle and a good story.

It's a nice lap, too. Anna is Dad's older sister and she keeps herself in good shape, for an oldster. Let's see, Dad is coming up on thirty-eight, so that makes Anna about forty. Old, but not ready for the grave yet.

She tends to go into her creative fits at night, so she has plenty of time for hiking, bicycling, swimming and even a little surfing. So again, she looks pretty good... for an oldster.

Which brings up the other reason everybody loves Aunt Anna.

She lives in Hawaii.

To be specific, Maui. About the time Dad married Mom, Anna went to Maui for a writer's conference and never left. She went, as she describes it, "...From a brutal winter in industrial Illinois to a place that tourists think is Paradise..." and found that for her, it actually was.

Of course, when you move to paradise, everybody wants to visit, and that was fine with Anna. She loves us kids and she likes visitors. "They help get me out of my head," she says. One of the favorite experiences of everyone visiting isn't the ocean or whatever cultural junk, but just talking to Anna.

She's a great listener. She loves listening to people tell stories, "for source material," she claims. Also she says it's good for blackmail.

So Mom and Dad and my sister Amelia and I have been frequent visitors to aunt Anna. Sometimes it feels like a mob scene with our cousins sleeping in piles on floors, in hammocks or air mattresses, adults on couches, etc. Aunts Sofia and Mara both had three kids each, throw in Mom's in-laws dropping in sometimes and you're looking at kid chaos.

Anna took it all in stride. She got good at organizing kids into work parties (that actually did feel like parties), that would throw together meals, clean up the morning mess, do yard work or anything else she could think of to keep little hands busy. "Y'all are getting so good at this," she would bellow, "that I might hire you out to the neighbors. Anna's Kiddie Chain Gang!"

I have to say, I miss it. The kids, the noise, the energy. It was fun, much though we complained when Candice and Janie were fighting, or when Jonathan stole Amelia's bikini top and paraded around the beach in it. Thinking back on it, I have to admit he probably filled it better than she did back then. At least her breasts have managed to fill out quite a bit since.

But now, here it was summer in Maui, and I was bored and alone. How did that happen? We'd never been by ourselves at Anna's before. Where were Karl and Bessie; where were Judy and Lonna and Pete-Ronnie-Jayne-Louisa and where were everyone?

Who'd ever believe there was an off-season at Anna's? But there was, and we had hit it. "The girls are still in school for a couple weeks," explained Aunt Mara.

Aunt Sofia said, "we're saving our vacation days for when we come out there at Xmas." So no cousins for company.

Even our being at Aunt Anna's was unexpected. I had just graduated high school a week ago (and had just turned the magic age of eighteen a week before that), and Amelia, a year older, wasn't due back at university until October. We were both expecting to laze the summer away.

But Mom was suddenly invited by a good friend of hers to go on a river and bicycle tour across Europe. The sleaze ball husband of her friend had backed out at the last minute, evidently after he suddenly realized that for the next two weeks he would be forced to screw nobody but his wife on a romantic tour. He left instead for a resort in the Bahamas, bringing his secretary along for company. What a cliche.

So Mom was headed for a month touring Europe and trying to salvage the broken spirit of her friend. Dad was understanding; he liked Mom's friend too. "Hey!" he said, "Why don't we go see Aunt Anna? It's going to be a month anyway before school renovations are done." Dad was the school principal I'd mentioned.

An inspired solution, all agreed. Airfare on short notice threatened to sink the whole idea, but some diligent work on the internet and we had three cramped peon-class seats on a late-night flight into Kahului Airport. As we all raced around the house getting our stuff together, my sister did a sexy little dance with her hips and chanted, "I'm goin' O-G-G, I'm goin' O-G-G." I didn't care if she was my sister, Amelia could sure dance. Some serious butt shaking.

Twelve hours later we were at Aunt Anna's, tired, sleep-deprived, and feeling like Guantanamo escapees. In other words, like typical Hawaiian Airlines passengers. Anna knew and understood, from long practice. "You all get yer butts into bed! I don't want to see or hear you before lunch. And I mean late lunch!"

We were all in much better shape after rest and food, including Anna who'd gotten half a chapter of work knocked out. Then she showed us around her new house.

Like I said, in the past things could get pretty crowded around Anna's. Not any more. After years of writing different genres, Anna had discovered romance novels and the romance fiction community in turn had discovered Anna. The result was financial security like she had never known before. Book sales, the love of her fans... and a roomy new house in Wailuku.

"Actually, it's an old house," explained Anna proudly. "Built in the 1920's before they ruined houses with air conditioning. They laid it out so every room keeps comfortable as long as the wind is blowing... and on Maui the wind is always blowing."

What interested me were all the rooms. The house was shaped almost in a spiral, with the kitchen and living room in one arm of it, a bunch of bedrooms, guest rooms and bathrooms in another wing, and Aunt Anna's refuge in a whole separate arm, joined by a covered walkway. "I've got a great old door," chortled Anna. "You kids can go as crazy as you want, and I can't hear any of it. I can sleep, I can write and you can't stop me!"

And I had a door too. Until Aunt Mara and her girls showed up, I had a room all to myself. Amelia too, and Dad, we all had our own spaces. With just the three of us, even sharing a bathroom wasn't bad.

One thing Aunt Anna didn't have was electronics. A serious lack for a teen, and anywhere else it would be a deal breaker, but at Anna's it was expected and you dealt with it. No games, no social apps, no video or television or anything. Life in the Stone Age!

"I sympathize kiddo, I really do," Anna had explained, back when I really was a kid. "But if I have any of that stuff around my productivity goes down the toilet. I get sucked into a screen just as bad as anyone else, so I just don't have it around."

I wasn't convinced. "I've seen things you've written, you know, the real-life stuff."

"Nonfiction?"

"Yeah, that stuff. You gotta know things to be able to write all that. Where do you look it up?"

She looked around conspiratorially. "Okay, you got me. I'll let you know how I do it. I get on the bike and pedal my butt down to the public library and steal one of their computers and use it to actually look up facts. Research. My "stuff," as you say. For some reason, using their computer to actually look up things makes the librarians really, really happy. They love it when I come in, even if I don't play games or download video."

No deathmatch combat. No trading insults with my friends back home. I grumped off to lose myself in a book, resigned to weeks out of touch and out of practice.

But I could never stayed bored for long. I'd never admit it to her, but unplugged life was kinda fun. Because at Anna's, the entertainment always was people. Our crazy family, or the gang of neighborhood kids, or the guests Aunt Anna would have over from all over the island. Everyone "from Saints to Surfers," as she liked to say, would come for dinner or luaus or long, drunken parties that went far into the night. I don't remember ever falling asleep at Anna's without the sound of loose, happy people laughing and telling tales.

Except tonight. Oh, we had a lovely time at dinner, telling the latest gossip from Maui and Illinois. My sister Amelia broke us all up recounting a disastrous date with a wannabe filmmaker from Davenport who wanted to live-stream their entire night, complete with making her sign releases before he would open the car door for her.

But it had been a tiring day and we were still living on Central Time, so the night wove down quickly. Amelia went off to take first shot at the shower and Dad went to clean up in Anna's own bathroom. "Still no internet access here?" I asked hopefully. "Ah well, I guess it's hitting your book collection for me."

Aunt Anna's eyes sparkled mischievously. "Tell you what Ty, you're eighteen now. I'll slip you a little present. Let's go in the library."

My spirits rose, but no, it wasn't electronics. She pointed to a set of big, heavy bookcase units that had followed her from home to home across the island. "I'll show you a little secret that you kids never figured out."

She knelt down by the base of a unit. "When you pull both the little drawers out all the way and pull here... Ta-da! Secret bookshelf!" She winked at me. "Don't let your Dad know."

No, it wasn't games. It was better. The hidden bookshelf in each unit was filled with erotica. Everything from bound copies of Henry Miller and Anais Nin to a coffee table book showing 'How To Do Gay Sex' ("Grease it up and SLAM it in!"). Photo books, literature, erotic fine art...a hidden sex treasure chest.

Aunt Anna grinned. "Have a good time, Tyler," and went off to roust my father out of her bathroom.

I made a couple of selections and hid the bookshelves again. I was so turned on glancing at them that I jerked off the whole time I was in the shower, even while washing my feet.

I was playing a game with myself that I'd started; kind of like strength training for sex. Or maybe it's interval training. Anyway, that's what I got for listening to Anna's friends; the idea that most men are shitty lovers and only out to nail a girl as quick as they could, roll off and go to sleep.

I could sympathize with the guys; there was a long list of girls I wanted to nail as soon as I could. But that wasn't any reason to hurry through it. I mean, you're a guy. It's not like there's any doubt you're going to get your nuts off.

I figure that if I can stretch things out in bed and make it last, maybe girls will appreciate it. And who knows, it may even be more fun for both of us.

So I was trying to train myself to stretch it out; I mean masturbate hard and still not come. Still enjoy the jerking and rubbing, but not all the way to that tumble into orgasm.

It was hard. I didn't have any real idea how to do it; I mean, who teaches you this kind of stuff? But I'd found a few techniques that seemed to work with me. I figure if you can experience something 'Really Exciting', like peeling the clothes off a horny girl, and still keep it together, then good.

The trick was finding a horny girl to try it out with.

In the meantime, Aunt Anna's secret erotica library was the definition of 'Really Exciting' to practice with. Okay, I came the first time inside ten minutes. I mean, I'm not Superman, okay? But I got hard again pretty quick, and this time I'd stretched it to almost an hour.

I took a break to take my thoughts off of Samuel Delaney and his sex forays through lower Manhattan. I mean, I'm pretty hetero but DAMN. So I put his memoir down and wandered out into Anna's yard, still idly stroking myself. It was beautiful out, the endless wind rattling the palms overhead and hordes of stars filling the black, black sky. I thought of losing my clothes and masturbating naked in Anna's yard, but I knew that would finish me pretty quick. Instead, I circled the house as the wind tugged with little fingers at my shirt, as though saying, "C'mon baby..."

A sound caught my attention, a slow, rhythmic "creak... creak... creak..." Curious, I moved toward the house. The sound was coming from a long narrow window, high up on the wall. Blue light spilled from the window and I realized it was a TV, lighting up Aunt Anna's room.

Hey, wait a minute. TV? She was holding out on me! I moved below the window.

The window was too high to show anything except the TV-lit ceiling and one of the tall, carved bedposts of Anna's ornate bed. As I watched, the bedpost undulated in time to the creaking and for the first time, a moan sounded. A deeper voice, a man's voice murmured something in response.

My head swam with excitement and I moved beneath the window. In the dark, my knee bumped into something. A meter, a large gas meter protruded from the wall.

I hesitated. Another moan sounded. Interestingly, my erection had disappeared as all that blood had rerouted to my dizzy head. I climbed up on the meter.

The top of a large wardrobe cut off part of my view, but other than that I had a perfect view into the bedroom. The four bedposts moved in unison, but all my attention was locked on the naked, glistening back of Aunt Anna as she slowly rode the man on her bed. Clutching the headboard, she pulled herself up as the hands and mouth of the man worked at her breasts. She groaned and sank back down on him. A drop of sweat ran down her spine toward the untanned skin of her bottom.

Her buttocks flexed as she pulled herself up again and the man's strong hands came around to grab her bottom. My jaw dropped and I clutched at the windowsill in shock. I knew the tattoos on those arms, knew them as though I had stared at them all my life, because they were the arms of my father.

I burst into my sister's room. "You have to come quick! Dad and..." My jaw dropped as I took in Amelia dressed in a long T-shirt, took in the book she clutched and her hand dancing between her legs. "Tyler!" she squealed as she pulled up her legs to shield herself.

"Uh, sorry." I stared at the book, a volume of Anais Nin erotica. My aunt had said, "'A secret library, just for you Tyler,'" Just for me, my ass.

I shook myself. "You have to come quick. Dad and auntie Anna are fucking!"

"What do you think you're doing comin... Dad and Anna are WHAT?!"

Minutes later, I led her through the dark to Anna's window. She didn't even have to climb up to know; the bed was creaking faster and Anna's moans were louder. Grabbing Amelia's waist, I helped her up onto the gas meter and stepped up next to her.

They had changed positions and I struggled to make sense of the moving shapes. The first thing I locked on were two feet raised in the air, waving atop the haunches of my father. The light of the TV illuminated Dad's buttocks and the tattoos on his back, but the wardrobe blocked sight of their genitals. I didn't know whether to feel frustrated or grateful.

We watched Anna's fingers sink into Dad's strong back and his thrusting sped up in response. Her legs spread wider and she began quiet little cries, "Ahh! Ahh! Ahh!" My sister's hands clutched my arm tightly.

Dad's voice rumbled something and Anna cried out, "Oh god, here I come again! Fuck me, little brother!"

He did, pounding her hard as she squealed out her orgasm into his shoulder. A minute later he joined her with a cry, "Oh god, Annie!" He stiffened and held deep in her pussy as her quivering legs spread wide for him.

My sister Amelia's hands clutched my arm so hard it almost hurt, except for her breasts pressed against me. A shame she was the same height as me; a bit taller and she might have gotten a better view. The full Monty, as it were.

"God, Ty..." I heard her breathe. I could feel her thundering heart against my bicep. Dad rolled off of his sister as they both groaned in exhaustion. Not wanting our aunt to spot us at her window, I pulled Amelia back down.

We heard Aunt Anna chuckle, "Damn! Twenty years we've been doing that. I thought it was supposed to start getting old?"

"Not with you, Sis. Check with me when we hit sixty." Their unseen kiss was filled with little happy murmurs.

"We better get back," I whispered in my sister's ear. She held my hand all the way back as the endless wind blew us across the yard. Just before the door she hissed at me, "You didn't tell me... about the television!"

By unspoken agreement we went back to Amelia's room. She climbed across the bed to her previous spot and I sat next to her. Even though we knew Dad was still across the house in Anna's room, Amelia and I talked in whispers, as though we were the ones with a secret to hide. My erection had subsided earlier, but watching Ami's panty-covered bottom undulate across the bed brought it right back again.

"Ty, I can't believe what I've seen tonight," whispered Amelia. "Auntie and Dad in bed together!"

"They weren't 'in bed together,'" I corrected. "They were FUCKING. They were fucking like crazy."

"They were, weren't they?"

"Yeah! And you didn't see them before when Anna was on top. She was climbing him like a tree!" I lowered my voice again. "I wish you could have seen how she looked. The muscles of her back just, just... rippled as she rode him. She was so fucking hot..."

I cut myself off. "No, she wasn't. She wasn't 'hot.' She wasn't 'sexy.' She was more than that. She was... beautiful. She was so beautiful." I shook my head. "And what they were doing, it wasn't fucking... it was making love. I think it kinda twisted my head because I've never seen two people making love before. Porn doesn't show you that. It just shows you the fucking part."

Amelia leaned over and kissed my cheek. "Little bro, you just might be starting to grow up."

"Thanks, I think. Boy, it's funny how one little walk in the dark can change everything."

"No kidding! I can't figure out what we are going to do about Dad and Aunt Anna?"

I looked at her in puzzlement. "Do? Why should we 'do' anything? We keep quiet and enjoy being in on their little secret and maybe sneak a peek at some sex. But I don't know what you mean about 'doing' anything, I mean about them?"

"Well we've go to do something! I mean, even skipping past the sister-brother thing... he's cheating on Mom!"

"Is he?" I asked. "Maybe Mom knows. She and Anna are good friends. Maybe they have some sort of arrangement, you know, like you see in the movies."

Amelia rolled her eyes in derision.