Travelogue

And so I did. I asked if I could help, but Lila just said, "Oh, I got this." Lila's skirt swirled around her ankles as she bent to lead Shirley inside. Shirley was crying pretty hard, still scared by the big fall.

Lila got out band-aids and put one on Shirley's knee—she didn't really need it, but it seemed to make her feel a little better. She cleaned grass off the front of Shirley's dress, attentively. Shirley was still sobbing.

So then Lila led Shirley to that same empty bedroom that we'd been in the day before. She put Shirley on the bed and cuddled her. I stood at the door, a familiar station for me.

And then, more déjà vu.

I could scarcely believe what I was seeing: Lila was unbuttoning the top buttons of her lavender blouse. Was this ... what was she doing?

Shirley, still whimpering, laid herself down and rested her head on Lila's lap while Lila finished unbuttoning. Then, Lila opened one side of her blouse and quickly undid a latch near the top of her bra cup. She was somehow able to peel the center of the cup down, revealing most of her breast.

I stared at it, oval and creamy-pale, standing away from her chest, defying gravity. Her nipple looked long and bumpy, a deep pink. Her areola, which was on the large side, was dark pink as well.

I had a split-second to wonder: what was she going to do? Was she ...?

But then Shirley opened her little mouth, and Lila cradled her head and lifted it and pushed the nipple to her lips. Shirley closed her mouth around Lila's breast and suckled. Lila cupped her breast, holding it to Shirley's mouth.

I was beyond stunned. I knew Shirley was about five years old. That was a little old for breastfeeding, I would have thought—even by her own mother. And Lila wasn't even really breastfeeding, right? But that seemed all the more strange.

My face must've been registering shock, because Lila looked at me and smiled. "Sometimes this is the only thing that will calm a child down," she said, matter-of-factly. "It's something all us girls will do to take care of the young ones."

I just stood there, speechless.

"I mean the girls who are, you know, of age," she said. "Old enough to have boobs."

"Um," I started. I'd wanted to ask her about this, about what she'd done with Zack yesterday. Now seemed like it might be the right time, if I could find the words.

But Eliza hurried past me, into the room. She hadn't been out front, and had apparently just heard what happened. "Oh my gosh!" she said to Shirley. "Are you all right, Sweet Pea?"

Shirley took her mouth off Lila's breast and turned to look at her mother. She must've been talking, but I didn't really hear. I was looking at Lila's breast again; I couldn't help it. The nipple had already grown longer, and it had turned red again, along with her sizable areola. I noticed that the areola seemed to have become puffy, a tiny bit swollen. And, it was quite wet. Well, naturally, it would be wet with Shirley's saliva. But the wetness didn't seem clear, transparent; it seemed sort of cloudy.

I snapped back to reality. Eliza was saying to Shirley, "Do you want Mommy's boobie, honey?"

Shirley shook her head, and said, "No, Auntie's boobie."

Eliza didn't seem insulted by this; she laughed and said, "Awww." And then: "OK, Sweet Pea, you let Auntie take care of you. I'm glad you're all right."

She left the room, and as she passed me, Eliza smiled and said, "You can probably go sit down if you want."

Lila looked up at me and said, "Yeah! Come here, Billy, don't feel like you have to stand all the way over there." She patted the bed next to where she was sitting.

So I went over and sat down, and Lila put Shirley's little legs on my lap so I could squeeze in. Shirley was shifting to get comfortable in front of Lila's breast again, and Lila was putting her nipple back into Shirley's mouth. Once she was suckling, Lila looked up at me.

"I suppose this might seem strange to you," she said.

"Um, well," I started. "New to it, I guess."

Right then, Esther and Judith walked in, chatting and laughing.

Judith said, "She's all right?"

Lila nodded. "Just a bonk. I think it scared her more than anything."

Esther said, "That's what it looked like to me, too." She gave Shirley's back a light caress.

Judith and Esther both turned to go; Esther looked at me and then Lila, and cracked, "You know, every time Billy comes 'round, Lila's found some reason to have her titty out."

Judith guffawed, but Lila didn't look very amused.

—

I didn't really say much to Lila while we sat there. Her attention was fully on Shirley, and on the breast that was in Shirley's mouth. Lila seemed blissful. Sometimes she would give her breast some light strokes or a little push on the top, but most of the time she just cupped it from underneath and held it to Shirley's lips. If she was aware that I was staring, she didn't seem to mind. And I certainly was staring at her breast. Sure, I'd seen thousands of naked girls on the Internet, but this was a lot more exciting. I'd had a girlfriend back home in Illinois, and we'd fucked (she was my first). That was Katie. Obviously I'd seen her tits, but they weren't very big, nowhere near as big as Lila's. And Katie's didn't have the wonderful shape that Lila's did.

So I stared, trying to memorize how it looked: the soft contours of its teardrop shape, the way it stood out and away from her body, the tiny mole on its left side, the light patch of freckles near the top of her chest.

I watched her face, too; Lila was so beautiful. I was pretty sure she didn't wear any makeup. I didn't think any of her sisters or cousins or the girls I'd seen in town did, come to think of it, although maybe they were just so good with it that you didn't notice. But being right next to Lila I could see for sure that she didn't use any. And she didn't need any, as far as I was concerned. She just had this natural prettiness and glow. Her lips pouted in a totally cute way, even though she wasn't really pouting. They were soft, too: I knew that from personal experience, but you could just see how soft they were, sitting next to her.

Well, just like that, Shirley pulled her mouth off Lila's breast and announced, "All better."

Lila grinned and chuckled. "You gonna go out and play, darling?"

Shirley was saying "Uh-huh!" but she was already running out of the room.

Lila gave me a furtive glance, and then looked down at her boob; its swollen end was red and gleaming. It had that same cloudy wetness that I'd noticed before, all over the wide expanse of her areola.

I tried not to stare too much; self-conscious, I looked up at Lila's face.

She turned to me. "Well," she said, "I better go get myself cleaned up a little." A beat. "Why don't we meet out back, and we can go for our walk."

Then she leaned over and gave me a peck on the lips, and the warmth of her wet breast pushed against me for a moment. That kiss might've seemed strange or awkward, given the circumstances, but somehow it wasn't.

—

When Lila emerged from the house, she was all buttoned up, and was carrying some kind of a small tote bag—the snacks, I guessed. I noticed how nice her outfit made her look; she was still wearing that lavender (or light purple? whatever) blouse with sleeves that ran to her elbows. The skirt she wore was dark in color, and it ran to her shins, which was actually pretty racy as local fashion was concerned. She wore a happy smile as she looked my way.

"Ready?" she bubbled.

"Totally," I said. I hoped I didn't sound over-eager.

Lila took my arm, and we walked off the property.

Lila started talking about school, of all things. The high school she'd gone to was actually between two towns, and took in all the students from Watley and the neighboring town Bakerton, and a bunch of other people from the whole rural area. "It's more than 300 people, and I know, that's not a lot for some big city guy like you"—I chortled—"but when you think about it, that's almost as many people as we have in Watley, total."

"You liked it there?"

"Yeah," said Lila, her soft, slightly throaty voice sounding especially pleasant. "I mean, it sucked sometimes because we only have so many teachers, and so you'd get the same teacher for math or geometry or whatever, every damn year. But it's a good place. It was like my home."

Lila stopped. The dirt road we had been following had led us farther south of town than I'd ever been, and we had entered a forested area, dense with pine trees.

"You have a seat and stay here," she ordered, pointing to a big log. "I'm gonna be right back. Stay here, don't you move, no peeking."

Lila glanced around, and then ran into the trees, her tote bag swinging at her side, and eventually disappeared. I sat there and listened to the high-pitched buzzing drone coming from all around me—insects.

I figured she was probably going to change—why else would she say "no peeking"? After a few minutes, I saw a figure emerge from the trees, and I scarcely recognized her.

She was a different girl. Lila was wearing a strapless, stretchy yellow tube top that clung to her chest, practically skin-tight; it was cropped, revealing her entire midriff. That top was so clingy that I could see as much of her breasts' shape as I had when they were bare. I loved it. Lila had changed into jean shorts, and they were cut off at the top of her thighs; I could see the entirety of her legs. I felt a small thrill, because it was almost like seeing her naked or something.

As she walked back, all I could think about was what a nice body she had. She was really hot. Lila wasn't voluptuous like her sisters (Esther was almost Rubenesque); she was more slender and proportioned, with nice curves. Her hips had a gentle swell to them, her (now bare) waist was trim and flat, and the way her breasts pushed out her top was sublime. She looked super-cute. I noted that she'd switched out her shoes (usually a more formal-looking button-up leather kind) and was wearing cheap-looking flip-flops.

"I was hiding this in my bag," she announced to me, still 20 yards away, holding up her tote. "You like it?" She did a little twirl with her arms in the air.

I clapped. "Love it!" I yelled back, and she gave me a big, white smile.

When she made it back to the path: "I swear my parents would kill me on the spot if they ever found out I even owned these clothes. So, no telling!"

"I'll keep it secret," I told her.

"So you like the way I look, dressed like this?"

It's funny that she needed so much assurance, given how totally hot she looked. Girls, go figure. "You are really pretty," I said. "And you'd look good in anything, in a potato sack or whatever. But yeah, I really like the way this looks on you."

Lila was smiling. "Yeah, well, you can see a lot more of me in this than in one of my dresses," she said, her hand over her bare tummy. "That's kind of the point of those things, really—modesty and all that shit. I mean, I'm OK with being modest, but there are times you just don't feel it."

I felt like I was blushing, sitting there.

Lila said, "And you know, I feel like I've known you my whole life, somehow." She paused. "Anyway, so I wanted you to see me dressed like this. I'm glad you like it." She shook her hair off her shoulders. "God, I do feel so much more comfortable."

She was standing near me. I just sat there, looking at her.

She reached into her tote bag and pulled out a hair clip. "My daddy made this for me," she said, starting to put her hair into a ponytail. I didn't blame her; it was an especially hot, humid day, and Lila had longish hair that ran halfway down her back.

I watched as she reached behind her head to try to organize her hair into that small wood-and-leather clip. I realized that I could see small, brown tufts under her arms; like Esther, she was unshaven. The difference was that Lila's armpit hair was light and feathery, soft. Like in the case of her sister, somehow it wasn't disgusting or unwomanly on her. She was just so attractive that the hair didn't matter; it was sort of cute that she had it.

Lila wasn't even looking my direction, still focused on clipping her hair, but she said, "You don't mind my body hair, do you?" She finished tying her hair back and looked at me. "I know girls in other parts like to shave themselves, but we don't do that."

I noticed now that Lila's legs were covered with a thin, light-colored fuzz—again, a bit cute, and somehow feminine. It plainly visible in the bright sunlight; the scant hairs on her upper thighs were slightly darker than the rest of her leg hair. I saw that she had a small line of longer, wiry hairs below her belly button, too (her "trail to love," she called it later). It was all blondish brown and—maybe you think I'm crazy—kind of attractive in a way. The hair didn't diminish her femininity in the slightest, which made her seem all the more bewitching.

"You're beautiful," I said.

She turned to me and put her hands on her hips. "All right," she said. "So. Maybe I'm some kind of hick country girl and whatever, but you know, I do know how to shower and I do have deodorant. I promise I don't stink." She smiled at me, adorable. "It's safe, so stand up and come over here."

I laughed and got up. "You always smell really good," I told her, putting my arms around her and letting my face rest on the side of her head, breathing in the scent of her hair.

"You smell good to me, too," she said, her face at my chest. She sighed.

As we stood there, embracing, Lila said in a whisper, "You like us country girls anyway, I can just tell. Hair and all."

"I like one girl in particular," I whispered back. "A lot."

"You think you might want one for a girlfriend?"

I took a breath and tried to feel brave. "I want you to be my girlfriend, if you want to be." I pulled away for a second to look her in the eyes. It had only been a couple days that I'd known her, but it felt like so much longer.

She smiled at me, demurely. "I think I want that, yeah."

And then we kissed, and we were holding each other. I noticed, again, how tightly she would press her body to mine, and how I could feel the swells of her breasts as they pushed into me. And, this time I was sure that I could feel her pointy nipples poking at my chest. I loved that feeling. It felt like a promise.

Finally, Lila broke the kiss, sighing heavily. "Whew!" she said, giving me a quick peck.

She picked up her tote, and we started walking again.

"Now listen," she was saying, "I'm leading you someplace secret. You thought we were just out for a walk, didn't you? We're going to a place that we don't ever talk about—unless you went to my high school, I guess," she laughed. "But it really is kind of a secret. And it has one rule. I'm not gonna tell you what that is, yet, though."

I smiled at her. I sort of liked her secrets.

—

It turns out that doing actual, technical hiking when you're wearing Converse All-Stars (me) or even rubber flip-flops (Lila) isn't very easy. Lila had a hard time with sticks and rocks getting caught under her feet (and her swearing would get downright vulgar when it happened).

That was bad enough, but I was having traction problems, especially when we had to cross the giant granite slabs that lay across the path. Lila's flip-flops did OK there—they were "stickier," as she pointed out—but my Converse slipped a lot. And one time, while I was in the lead, my footing gave way altogether on a huge slanted slab. I slipped and fell.

Now, I want to say that it wasn't really all that bad. I mean, falling isn't fun, and I did hit the rock pretty hard, mainly on my left leg, and I did turn my ankle enough to hurt. I do remember landing at the base of the rock, and groaning. But don't imagine I was seriously hurt, because I wasn't.

Lila wouldn't say that, though. She was in a full panic, yelling my name and rushing (sliding) down to me. She dropped her water bottle, and it went rolling past me. "Ohmygod, ohmygod," she kept saying. "Are you OK? Are you OK?"

I kept trying to tell her that I wasn't in any mortal danger, but it was like she couldn't hear me.

"Where does it hurt?" she asked me urgently, more than once.

I just pointed: there was a slight scrape on my leg, and I also pointed out my ankle, which was aching.

"Oh, god, you don't think it's broken, do you?"

I wiggled it, and then shook my head. "It doesn't feel broken. It's not swollen. I think I can walk on it."

I got up and tried to stand, but the ankle felt tight and it hurt a lot. Lila grabbed me and helped me stay up, and then she hobbled me like a human crutch over to a log that was big enough to sit on. She was holding me, and kissing me, and I couldn't convince her I wasn't in real peril.

"I don't have any band-aids with me," she lamented, examining the scrape on my calf.

"It's not bad," I told her. "It's not even bleeding."

"It is too bleeding," she said.

She was technically right, but it wasn't bleeding very much at all, and it didn't even hurt. I said as much.

"Well," she said, "just rest here for a minute."

She made me lie on the log with my head in her lap. I had to admit that this was more comfortable than sitting. "You need to stay off that ankle right now. Just rest a sec," she said.

I liked the view from her lap; I almost forgot about any pain I might have been in. She had me lying face-up, and so my line of sight was quite obstructed by the jutting bulges in her tube top. She was looking down at me, smiling with concern, stroking my forehead. I was looking in the direction of her face, sometimes meeting her eyes, but I was also sneaking glances at her boobs. It must have been obvious, but she didn't seem bothered.

From underneath, her breasts made wonderful round swells in her top; it was hard to keep myself from looking for too long. Even when I was gazing at her face, the pointy bumps her nipples made in the fabric were really distracting.

She leaned down and kissed my forehead; some strands of long hair that had escaped her hair clip landed on my face, and the softness of her breast pushed against my shoulder. She smelled like flowers and sweet grass, a nice, soft, Lila smell. Lila kissed me on the lips, and then my forehead again. I smiled up at her while she softly stroked my cheek with her fingers.

Everything around us seemed hushed and still: the forest had grown quiet, and even the insect buzz had faded. The ache in my ankle was already subsiding. I felt like Lila and I were cuddled together in our own silent, still world of humidity and heat. She hugged me, then leaned down to my face again and gave me a long, sensual kiss. "You'll be OK," she whispered at my lips.

I was about to tell her that I was absolutely going to be OK, but I didn't get the chance.

Without any warning, Lila sat up straight. I could see her tugging at the sides of her tube top, and before I knew it, she'd pulled it down to her waist. Her breasts popped out, jiggling a little, just above my head. Naked and from this close up, they seemed quite big, almost the size of Esther's. They were sticking straight out from her chest, round and bubbly.

I couldn't really figure out what she was doing until she cradled my head with her arm. Then she was pulling me up to her chest, and she was holding one of her boobs from underneath, and I realized that she was directing her big, long nipple to my mouth. The nipple looked swollen and slightly damp. I remember being in awe of it, elongated, bulbous, and deep, dark pink. She aimed it to my lips, and pulled me to it.

Reflexively, I simply opened up to accept her. I didn't lick or kiss her breast, just opened wide to let her in. I felt Lila give a deep sigh as the nipple pushed into my mouth and my lips closed around her breast. I started sucking a little bit; it felt natural to do that. The nipple and the areola felt warm and sort of rubbery in my mouth, and I explored them a little with my tongue. Lila let out another sigh as I did that.