Like a Pulsing Star

As I realised that Anna was naked blood rushed into my face making my skin feel hot, quickly I looked down and blurted "Uhh I am uh sorry I was looking for Adam I didn't uh realise you were uhh..."

I tried to blink the image out of mind but it was etched on my mind as surly as the shadow of the son that lingers in the eyes. Soft pale skin with smooth muscle spread beneath. ...Slightly puffy lips, dirty blond hair that fell just past her shoulders and a triangle of fine pubic hair over a shapely mound amply supported by strong hips and long shapely legs. ...Light green penetrating eyes ...Full firm breasts. Anna was my friend Adam's sister and if one would describe her fraises like "almost perfect" "odd," "beautiful," "healthy" and "handsome" were practically obligatory and would necessarily pop up with annoying regularity. She was tall, about 6' her face had angular but feminine features and her eyes were bright. If I had tried to search for something I didn't like I would still be leering at her naked body.

Adam lived in the summer on the shore of a small lake about a half an hour from a small town and a great distance from anywhere that most people would think of as anywhere. It was a beautiful late spring day in western Canada and I had dropped by unannounced to shoot the shit and catch a few rays maybe take a swim and plan a going away party as Adam was eastern bound for employment in the oil rich areas of northern Alberta which obviously meant tedium and discomfort for him and he wasn't looking forward to it.

"He's gone for the day Karl... went to town this morning."

Anna returned with serenity that made me feel juvenile for my reaction to her nakedness.

I am Karl: about 6'2 200 pounds with hair and eyes just a bit lighter than Anna's. I have hair down to the bottom of my shoulder blades and a beard that comes to a point under my chin.

Anne calmly wrapped the large towel that defended her from the hot pebbles of the beach around her just above her breasts and tied it firmly, the way she did this made it seem obvious that she was doing this more for my comfort than for hers. She sat on a sun bleached wide white log that had gnarled roots stretching chaotically out one end. She sat in a hollow just on the log side of the roots and made herself comfortable broadcasting the intention of going back to her reading.

I was still looking forward to a day of relaxation and Anne seemed to expect me to stay but I thought that it would still be considerate to ask her.

"You don't mind if I stay, do you?"

"Not really, help yourself..." She said gesturing to the open vacant beach made up of pebbles less than an inch in diameter a slightly crooked smile above her pointy chin.

I walked back up to my small pickup truck, ashamed with myself both for walking in on her and also for being so awkward. I picked a case of beer out of the back and got my book and lunch box off of the passenger seat.

I tossed the six pack as far as I could into the lake sending up a splash and getting a surprised look from Anna. I didn't bother to explain to her that the sun only warmed the surface of the lake and under seven to ten feet of water it was a refrigerator. I found a seat against a nearby log and opened my book (100 years of solitude). As I began to read I got a funny proximity related feeling as the concept of a gorgeous almost naked woman less than fifty feet from me began to tickle my abdomen. I was twenty four Adam was a year younger and Anne was twenty two. Having grown up together the age difference seemed more than it had become. She had, had a crush on me when Adam and I first started hanging out elementary school she would grab my leg and plead for me to stay with her and not do whatever it was I was planning for the day. Anne was cute but she was also a twit. At sixteen, I had felt obligated to be condescending to her and in her own turn she had slapped me in the face with complex dishonesties and scorn that only teenage girls seem to have the ability to wield like venomous acupuncture.

I had actually not spent more than a week without thinking of her and I had probably had a crush on her the entire time between when I was fourteen and eighteen.

I couldn't concentrate on what I was reading anymore but I pretended to be absorbed as I looked passed the book at her. She was sitting as she had been her back propped against a large root her legs side saddle over in the direction of the water; she was reading "The Valley of the Horses". It was the way her nose pointed at the book and how her pale bare shoulders shone in the sun. The tingling feeling in my gut doubled and redoubled as I though about going over there and striking up some meaningless conversation. I almost did but my legs were feeling weak so I decided to hope she would initiate. I took my shirt off and my pants so that I only had my swimming shorts on and I stretched out on the pebbles enduring a few moments of discomfort as the pebbles burned my back. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the sound of the waves and the feeling of the breeze moving my long blond hair back and fourth.

"Wake up!"

I couldn't remember going to sleep but I was lying face down on the hot pebbles. There was a hand touching my shoulder as though testing to see how hot my skin was.

"You are so stupid sometimes; let me get some sun screen on you."

While I had been sleeping I had produced a throbbing erection on the warm pebbles I was grateful that I was lying face down.

"Mmm-hm" I replied actually quite eager not to get sunburned and surprisingly suddenly I flinched as I felt cold cream drop right between my shoulders. Fingers and hands slipped easily over my shoulders and down over my rib cage, my mind followed them. I was so excited that I started shaking a little my breathing became a little uneven. Her hands and fingers were strong and sure she was proud of her backrub and I had often seen her practice it on other people I had never experienced it though.

"Mmmm" I moaned half involuntary. The fingers traced the striated muscles in my shoulder blades and massaged my neck.

"Other side" Anne murmured, suggesting I roll over.

"Hmm" I refused, feigning relaxed laziness where in fact my muscles were tight and I was even more aroused.

"Have it your way you lazy ass!" Anne laughed.

She giggled through her nose as she finished protecting my last calf. Playfully she tucked her hands under my chest and pulled them out to apply some more cream, she spread her fingers between my abdominal muscles and I lifted myself slightly up on my elbows to allow her better access. She reached under my armpits and smeared my chest her hands sandwiched between the pebbles and me. Then she messily plastered my face and ears from behind laughing softly.

At this point I was sure she could feel me shaking with excitement.

"Thanks I said" sincerely the weaker part of me wanted to roll over and hug her to me.

"No problem, my back now?" she said.

"Umm... sorry."

"Why?"

"To uhh, comfortable..." I lamely excused myself.

"Lazy bastard!"

"Sorry." I really was.

"No really!" she laughed, I could hear the pebbles crunch as she rolled over.

"I can't reach and I like the sun on my back... Please!"

"Fine." I said trying to add a touch of exasperation to my voice I rolled away from her to hide my crotch from her line of sight walked around and kneeled beside her.

I picked the sunscreen out of her hand and kneeled beside her. She had closed her eyes, thank god. I spread an even amount of sunscreen on my hands put them on her shoulders her skin was soft and firm it reacted to my touch. I rubbed the stuff in evenly and returned to between her shoulders and pressed in firmly with my finger tips. I had never actually done this before but I thought I should return the favour and it felt like what she wanted. Flattening my long fingers against her back I pushed up and increased the force, I heard relaxed air come from her nostrils and blow against the beach.

"Yeah that's good keep going, she encouraged." I began massaging her with my thumbs. Then up and over her shoulders then to her lower back then I repeated this.

"I don't know about you but I am ready for a swim." Anna said after we had returned to our logs and snoozed for a bit.

I got up with my back to her and ran toward the water as fast as I could, when I reached the water I lifted my knees up to stride in the water and then I dived into the cold shallow water. I swam parallel to the bottom for a while as it dropped off deeper. Then I surfaced violently. As I treaded water I watched as she entered the water casually. You might think that immersed in cold water where an erection was impossible nothing would seem erotic, you might be wrong. As Anne walked slowly into the water the small waves lapped at her skin leaving it shimmering. Her belly, her chest, her neck.... She began to swim as her hair was still dry in places.

We swam down the crescent beach which was about one hundred meters. She was obviously a much better swimmer and more comfortable in the water, I had always been pretty bad at swimming being more negatively buoyant than people are usually supposed to be. I gasped a little for breath working to keep my momentum up. On the way back I finally gave up and rolled over on my back using my arms in a sweeping motion without breaking the surface. I tried to relax a bit as I felt my hair rush over my back (a wonderful feeling) and looked up at the clear blue sky marked by a few puffy white clouds. Suddenly I felt my hand brush along her breast, it felt soft, slippery and warm even with cold water rushing under it. The palm of my hand felt the tip of a hard nipple through her bathing suit.

"Fuck! Sorry, I blurted, I wasn't paying attention."

"Ill live" she laughed and started to speed up for the finish as we neared our place on the beach.

Feeling embarrassed by my ineptitude I decided to put in a real effort to beat her back and started an awkward but passable crawl.

The distance was longer than I had thought; I breathed hard and concentrated on my powerful legs. I inched ahead my arms began to ache and feel weak my breath began to come in gasps, close now. She had pulled ahead so that I was at her elbow by the time we got to shore and we both relaxed breathing hard standing on the bottom.

She stepped closer to me, she wrapped her arms around my chest and hugged me closely and I could feel her breathing through my chest, amazing. I could feel our buoyancy change as we inhaled. She rested her head on my shoulder the spot between her forehead and her nose pressed into my neck.

"Ahh thank you I needed that!" she said has she exhaled.

"You're crazy!" I said in a gasp.

"There is no way you needed that as much as I did." I think she was referring to the competition in the swim but I was talking about the embrace.

Anne nodded released me and walked up onto the beach. After recovering my breath I slid under the water and swam easily parallel to the bottom, I could swim like this better. I found the beer I had left here and pulled it to the surface and back to shore.

"Would you like a beer?" I offered holding up a bottle.

"Now who's crazy" she laughed "of course I would."

I handed her a green labelled bottle that said Nelson on it after a local brewery.

We sat on the log with the funny roots for a long time drinking quietly breathing in the fresh air and feeling relaxed from our swim. Sunlight warmed my skin and cool breezes kept us cool. Finally when all the beer had been consumed she spread her large towel out on the sand and offered me a side. Lying in the sun there next to Anna I couldn't imagine anything feeling better in its own way. It filled me with a giddy euphoric feeling as the exercise spawned endorphins rushed in to temper it and I laughed softly out loud. She laughed too.

"What's so funny?" she laughed smiling across her face.

"You probably think I remembered something funny, but I didn't I am just feeling so happy I couldn't help it, I can't ever remember feeling like this I'm just so happy I can barely stand it that's all. Thank you." My eyes were damp.

"Itisa beautiful day," she said looking across the clear blue water at the rugged dark green mountains some of them still under white snow loaded peaks.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"You aren't happy?"

"I am right now" her eyes flashed at me.

"What's wrong?" I asked concerned.

"What do you care?"

I wanted more than anything to tell her at this point that I had really liked her all along.

"You are an adult too." the frustration in my voice sounding a little too much like irritation.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" She looked at me confused and irritated.

"I never really disliked you...."

"It was all a bunch of teenage; friends kid sister... bullshit on my part." I elaborated, going as far as I dared.

She looked at me curiously like she was starting to guess at my real feelings I tried to fight blushing in vain.

"I am happy right now." She repeated.

"Not usually though?" She had alluded to something important and I was concerned and curious.

"Work, is tedious," she answered simply.

I knew she was lying to me by the way she looked away besides her job was good for her and every time I saw her there she seemed happy enough.

"...but that isn't really what's wrong? Is it?"

I saw fear in her face.

She reached out and grabbed my hand.

"Remember when I used to spread rumours about you. I said I saw you masturbate in your back yard in front of all my friends. You never defended yourself, why?"

"I couldn't talk to you"

"Why? I wanted you to talk to me."

I knew she was at some level still being evasive but I went with it, the possibility that she had felt the same way as I had made my gut clench.

"Ok this is a little bittooadult for me right now" I went on the defensive and trying to be funny.

We started to relax again and talked for a while longer in low voices about life, work, clouds and pain, safe subjects. Everything looked so beautiful and clear my lungs felt the cool air as though it had effervescence. I could feel her warm body beside me and she inched a little bit closer, we almost touched.

Hours could have passed the water lapped at the shore and I closed my eyes. When I regained consciousness Anna was gone and I half believed the whole day was a dream. The sun was still high in the sky and I realised the entire day that felt like a year worth of memory was only a few hours.

The next day was a Saturday and I returned to Adams cabin early in the evening, he was leaving the next day. A few people had come by to see him off, his sister and a couple common friends. Immediately we began working industriously building a fire. We would haul any driftwood or dry timber in a 300 meter radius that three people could carry and pile them into a high bonfire. For the sake of tradition we lit it with tufts of dry grass and twigs using only a match to make it more challenging. As the dusk settled around us the flames would leap forty feet into the air and we would take spots around the fire watching it and talking with interchangeable people on night subjects; fire, women, computer games, books usually involving space travel and fratricide... etc. I gravitated toward Anne and we began to talk about music we both listened to the same sort of hard rock, the sort that doesn't involve singers that impersonate deranged castrati or endless tables of boring power chords.

After exploring music for a few minutes and even gathering a few people around us that interjected occasionally the conversation went literate and I started explaining my fascination with Alistair McLain and how he brought back historical situations with vivacity that the original battles may even have lacked.

Anne said "I feel the same way about the earth's children books."

"I disagree; in fact I think it is vastly overstepping the bounds of historical fiction to even consider such books history. The idea that two people made most of the important discoveries of prehistory in less than five years is silly. A utopian existence in ancient Europe where isolated tribes that compete for resources: don't fight each other for resources that were precious thin during the last throws of an ice age is equally daft. If even medicine had continued at that rate of discovery there would have been antibiotics by 10,000 B.C." I ranted.

Anne contemplated what I had said for a few minutes; after my rant people left our circle in search of other conversations most of them hadn't read any Jane M Aule or Alistair McLain. Most of our rock music discussion people joined Adam who was almost furiously preaching how Satan was the hand of god and how a good/evil duality had no place in monotheism.

"How some people can convince themselves that the creator of the universe who is omnipotent omniscient and omnipresent, the alpha and the omega, that god would lose domain of the earth to Satan as it says in revelations...." Eric's voice warbled over the crackle of the fire and the steady hum of voices.

"I concede to some of what you said" Anna returned "I don't think the books paint quite as utopian a picture of prehistoric Europe as you seem to think though."

I had annoyed her a bit and it lit a fire behind her eyes that was fun to watch, she was more animated than anyone I could remember talking to.

"Also from a romantic aspect and just entertainment value... are you arguing with success?" She exaggerated her disbelief.

"I did find the first few books occasionally boner inducing" I returned naturally.

Realising what I had just said I chuckled nervously.

For a moment Anna gave me a look that said the opposite of "where have you been all my life Romeo".

Then, apparently no longer interested in conversation she reached out and grabbed my hand. We sat side by side cross legged on the pebbles facing the fire and looking into it. I looked at her face as she stared into the flames, blobs of colour and contrasting darkness danced on her and her eyes reflected the fire. Anna turned her head and saw that I was staring at her, I didn't look away. The dark contrast on her face ran exactly down the middle, my heart started to beat faster and faster.

"I thought I loved you. I never talked to you because I thought I loved you." I felt year's worth of weight come from my shoulders.

"Not anymore though?"

"I don't know. I try not to think about it." I swallowed still looking at her.

Finally overwhelmed I was about to look away when I realised she was going to kiss me. I almost laughed as she scooted a little closer to me, I felt giddy. She pressed her lips to me I felt them squish into mine and then it was over. Looking at her beside me with her arm around my back I wondered if I had just imagined this, was just imagining.... I licked my lips and kissed her cheek quickly leaving a little saliva. I could feel a dimple on her cheek, her smile with my face with my lips. I kissed her again on the lips this time and was about to withdraw when her hand at the back of my head prevented me, her mouth opened slightly and her tongue slid out and ran along my teeth. I opened my mouth and felt her tongue instantly invade it, I pushed into her with my tongue and grabbed her in my arms uncrossing my legs.

We fell backwards as if in slow motion as she fell against the beach I rolled on top of her we never broke the embrace, never stopped kissing. We made soft wet sounds with our mouths. Warmth from her body flowed up to me like a liquid and the shape of her under my weight hypnotised me. She giggled, I laughed, I wasn't the least bit uncomfortable I realised, surprised and that was probably partly because of that perfect disarming giggle. She kissed my cheek wetly, I kissed her deeply again and again we held together. I closed my eyes, concentrating on the sensations. Her mouth tasted warm and soft and thick my mind my whole self was in her mouth; my whole being tingled. I lifted myself onto my elbows to look at her face.