It's hypnotic, really. The way the sun reflects off the surface of the water. The lake turns gold, then white as the day wears on and then gold again as the sun goes down. It looks like a giant sheet of aluminum wrap, poked through a million times.
We were always out there. We were always in the water or on it. It's the first thing I remember. We had an old pontoon that drifted around all day, a great metal beast, tethered to the dock and perfectly happy to float forever.
Years went by. We sold that first one. I couldn't believe it. That thing was my every connection to our summers. It put me out in the water. It took me home. It let me become one with the slow roil of water. Gone.
We bought a new one when I was 16. The new one had outdoor green carpet. It settled in as the family water-beast in no time. The metal was clean and showed not one ding. The poles were straight and polished. Above them was a strong, patch-free tarp. I was having a hard time remembering the first one after two days with our new skiff.
Dad died when we were just starting to see him enjoy his retirement. He opted for early retirement, and had all manner of grand plans for his time off. It started as a mild burn of indigestion. By the time he felt it creep across his chest, it was too late.
Mom held on for a while, but she didn't make it. They were both late in having children. As old as some of the grandparents of our friends, they did their level best. Mom just didn't have the strength to be alone. She never did.
Where as mom and dad were nearly 45 when I came along, and almost 50 when Linda entered the world, my sister was only 18 when she had little Elizabeth.
I was sitting in the driveway of the house. It was my house now. I had bought it from mother after dad died. She didn't want to be there without him, but she couldn't bear to let it go. When I offered to buy it and live there, she was, for the first time in two years, happy. She knew I would keep it. The money I paid was far below what it was worth, but she said it was all she needed. She moved into a nice, safe condo and that's where she died.
I thought about everything and nothing as I sat in the pontoon in my driveway. It had come with the house. I had just paid to have it brought out of storage and delivered there.
I guess it was habit. Summer was coming up. When mom passed, the small house at the lake went to me. Linda was never much for the place after dad died, and she was more than happy to have me take it over.
Dad started a prosperous company when he and mom married. We weren't millionaires, but he was smart enough to sell the business off for a decent chunk of money, plus an annual salary to be paid to a trust. The trust was signed over to me. I could do nothing and be paid handsomely for it. Dad never got to enjoy his efforts.
I was with a girl the night I got the call about mom. I dropped the phone and sat there on her bed. She reached over and picked up the small cell-phone. She asked me what was wrong. I told her. She held me all night in that bed.
Linda pulled up with her sweet little girl.
"Uncle John!" Elizabeth came running up to jump on my lap.
"Oh my gosh! Is this my niece? It can't be. My niece is just a little girl. This is a big girl!"
"Uncle John," she drawled. She was giggling and running off again at once.
"How does she like being out of school?" I asked Linda as she came up, smiling and carrying a small bag of groceries. She squinted into the sun and smiled a sweet, lopsided grin.
"I think she's more excited about being a 4th grader next fall than to be out of school." She climbed up and sat in a folding chair across from me.
"I can't believe she's growing up so fast."
"Tell me about it. I can hardly keep up with what she likes and what she doesn't like anymore."
"You'll manage."
"Thanks." She looked around the old raft and looked again at me. "So, what's with this? You're not selling it, are you?"
"Actually, I was hoping you and Liz would come up to the lake with me. She hasn't been there since she was four."
"I don't know." She ran a hand through her long, blonde hair.
"Come on. It's tradition. It's better than sitting around the house watching re-runs on cable for an entire summer." I was suddenly excited about it. We'd put off the family summer for too long.
"Really?"
"It'll be good for her. Get away from all this concrete for a while." She considered it, and then smiled.
"You're right. Why not? I can show her all the things we did as kids."
"Great!"
Floating on a sea of dimpled aluminum. Heat coming up off the water. Cool underneath. Rolling and rolling. Splashes along the side of the big, metal floats. Ice rattles in a small pool of water in the fat, yellow cooler. Laughter comes from out on the lake. Small, high-pitched exclamations of glee. Stronger, carefree laughter follows.
"Uncle John!"
"John! Come in!"
I looked out over the nose of the pontoon. Shimmering in the lake, small and shining in the sun, Elizabeth called to me waving her arm. Her mother was bobbing next to her.
I pushed myself out of the folding chair and walked to the edge. I jumped in, slicing the cool water and swam out to meet them.
We sat out on the porch at night. Liz was asleep. Content from the long days of sun and activity. Her soft sounds of slumber came out from her room. Linda and I sat in silence. A small radio played perfectly forgettable music. Somewhere across the lake, someone was having a party. Tiny flickering light from a bonfire could be seen from over the dark water.
"You're really good with her, John."
"She's a great kid."
"She's lucky to have an uncle like you." She didn't say how Liz needed a man around after her father left. No one had heard from him in years. I didn't like thinking about him.
"It's nice to be back here, isn't it? I mean, it's different without mom or dad, but it's still nice."
"I wish Elizabeth had someone to play with. Someone her own age. We always had each other. Or cousins. Something."
"She seems to be having fun."
"I know. I just wish she had someone her own age to share all this with. Do all the things we did."
"Everything?" I smiled and sat back.
"What?" She looked at me a moment and then her eyes widened. "Oh, God, John. That was one time and it was like that," she said, snapping her fingers.
"Actually it was all afternoon."
"I was curious, and you were the only one at the time who could...help me out."
"I remember it like it was yesterday."
"I'm sure you do, you perv." She laughed softly and swatted at my leg.
"As I recall, you seemed to like it yourself."
"Yeah, well, I was a kid. I didn't know any better. That seems like a lifetime ago."
"I can still smell the water from that day."
"I remember smelling wet wood," she said wrinkling her nose. "That rickety old skiff dad built us? But it was nice. It wasn't the pontoon, but it was ours. We could float out there all day. Find that one spot that was so far out, drop the anchor and just forget everything."
"You were so tan then."
"It was like being in a vacuum. There wasn't any sound. Everything had this right-up-close sound. I used to sing to myself just to hear what it sounded like."
"You're almost that tan now. You never had tan lines back then, though."
"If I close my eyes I can picture how thick the sun was. There was no shade. Water baked right off your skin."
"How often did you sneak out to sun naked?"
"I miss those days."
"Why did you kiss me?"
She looked at me. Her eyes seemed only half with me.
"I hadn't ever kissed a boy before."
"You said I was the best kisser."
"You were the first. Easy to be the best." She smiled and drank from her beer.
"I don't know why I did any of it."
"When you said we should take off our suits, I nearly flipped."
"You did it, though."
"Only because you did."
"I never told anyone about that. Did you?"
"No."
Out in the middle of the lake. She was sitting in her faded, yellow bikini. She was so lovely. Even as her brother, I knew that. She had her dark blonde hair tight into two pigtails that stuck out and dripped from swimming. Her face was tanned and scrunched up in the sun. She had sharp, smooth features, even then. She was so slender. Her eyes literally sparkled.
She said we should take off our suits and lie in the sun. She was already untying her top. I watched her pull it down, exposing her breasts. They were bigger than I thought they'd be, especially after seeing her in a small bikini. She had dark nipples and smooth, tanned skin. Dark. Like toffee.
I asked her why she didn't have any tan lines.
She told me that she would come out on the skiff and get some sun by herself. She started untying her bottom piece when I stood up and pulled down my shorts. My cock was soft, but thankfully hadn't completely retreated. I wasn't yet comfortable with showing anyone my body, but my sister seemed like a safe first time.
She just smiled at me as she squinted into the sun. Her suit now lay in a small pile and she was completely nude. She had a wonderfully sleek body. We had done nothing but roam the woods and swim all day for over two months.
She lay down and patted the floor of the raft next to her. I walked around and lay next to her. My feet stuck out past hers. The sun was behind us so we could look up into the sky and watch the clouds.
She asked me if I had a girlfriend.
No, I said.
She asked me if I wanted to go to college the next year.
Sure.
I pulled my suit around and folded it under my head to prop it up.
She turned over, laying her head sideways, her cheek on her forearms. I watched her turn. Her pussy was nearly bare. The shaved regions making it seem somehow more exposed than had it been completely bare. She caught my glance.
I have to trim it, she told me. She couldn't wear a small bikini like the yellow one without shaving. Not much, she assured me lazily, but just some.
I murmured that I understood. Her tight buns were perfect hills of flesh with a deep cleft between the cheeks. In the sun, still moist from the water on the raft, tiny peach fuzz hairs showed on her arms and her neck.
She asked me if I had ever kissed a girl.
Once, I said.
She asked if she could kiss me. I told her to go ahead. She scooted her body next to mine. She was hot and solid against me. I turned my head.
We kissed gently. Her lips were hotter than her body. She pulled her head away and laid her cheek on her arms again.
I turned back to the clouds.
She asked me if I liked it.
Sure. It was nice.
Did I want to do it again?
I turned to her again. This time she crawled over my body and straddled my stomach. She held herself up over my head. Her long brown arms were like columns of cocoa butter on each side of my face. I looked at her breasts as they hung down. I turned my eyes away.
It's okay, she told me. I could look. I did. They were like big, upturned teardrops when she was standing, but they became like rounded cones as she leaned over me.
