The hot sun glinted off the roof of a distant building, mostly concealed by gigantic live oak trees surrounding it. The Old Place! Built by the first Forsythe on the plantation, several years before the Civil War, the Old Place was now boarded up, though once or twice a year Aunt Minerva and Aunt Clarinda and a few very trusted servants would open up the place and clean and dust and make sure everything was in good shape. Them was even talk of declaring the old estate a historic monument, and creating a tiny state park around it.
Ghosts roamed the Old Place, spirits from the family cemetery that lay tombstoned between it and the New Place where the Forsythes now lived. Or so people in Maxwell claimed. From time to time the sheriff checked the place for security, purely as a routine. Nobody dared to perpetrate any vandalism on the stately old property, although occasional lovers had sneaked in through an unlocked door or window. But they didn't stay long. Ghostly voices and hideous laughter quickly drove them out.
Strange, Sue Robin mused. Two or three of her high school girl friends had confided to her that they had gone there to make out with their boy friends. They had scored all right, but soon after that, the weird noises and wild laughter had scared them out, wide-eyed and passionless. That was strange, Sue Robin recollected, because she and Bobby Lee had spent the night there in their sleeping bags, when they were about fourteen, and they had heard nothing.
She smiled comfortably. That was the first time they had fucked, really fucked. Staying in the "haunted house" had been their initiation test for admission in the Alligator Club, a very exclusive little group organized by some high school students. She and Bobby Lee were a bit young for membership, but already Bobby Lee was big enough for junior varsity football and basketball, and Sue Robin was tall and just developing. That was the year Mary Beth moved to Maxwell, and the following year she was pledged, too.
"You've got to spend the night – all night – in the Old Place," the president of the Alligators told the twins. "Maybe the haunts won't bug you, since you're in the family."
Saying nothing to their father or Aunt Minerva, the twins had quietly slipped out of their rooms at nine o'clock and gone downstairs and outside to where they had earlier hidden their sleeping bags. Bobby Lee went in front, a flashlight in his hand, but he didn't turn it on because he didn't want to attract any attention.
The president of the Alligators and two senior members were waiting for them by a magnolia tree on the weed-covered lawn of the Old Place. Plainly they were nervous at being in the area after dark.
"Go on in. We'll wait around here for a while, and others will check through the night to make sure you're still here. Somebody will give you the final check at five-thirty in the morning. If you've made it then, you're members."
Bobby Lee clicked on his flashlight then, and followed closely by Sue Robin, he made his way to a downstairs window that was unlocked, and not covered by boards. He helped her in and crawled in behind her. By the circular spot of the flashlight they saw they were in a small bedroom. White sheets covered the bed and the few pieces of furniture in the room.
"Here?" Bobby Lee asked, struggling to keep his voice from trembling.
"No, it's too scary here. Let's see what's in the next room," his sister replied.
The next room was a spacious room with a high fireplace to one side. The furniture was pushed against the walls and covered with sheets and tarpaulins.
"Hey, Buz, look at the candles!"
On the mantelpiece over the fireplace were two candelabras with candles in them.
"Let's light one of them, so we'll have a little bit of light tonight," Sue Robin said in a half-whisper.
"Okay." Bobby Lee took down one of the candelabras, and placed it on the brick deck before the fireplace. He lighted two of the three candles.
"Not enough to keep us awake, but enough to see by – if we have to see!"
Spreading their sleeping bags in the middle of the floor, they stripped down to their underwear and crawled in. They talked in low whispers for a few minutes, but both of them were healthily sleepy, so they fell asleep.
It seemed to Bobby Lee that he was being dragged out of the depths of a dark but not unpleasant cave, somebody gripping him by the shoulder and pulling hard. Protesting, he woke up.
"It's me, Buz. I'm cold."
He felt the trembling hand against his shoulder.
"Okay, Sis. I'll light the other candle, and you can crawl in with me." He slid out of the sleeping bag, and the chilly air of early winter struck his bare legs and arms. Shivering, he quickly lighted the fresh candles; the other two were almost burned out. Then he slid back into the sleeping bag, behind his sister.
"Now I'm cold," he muttered.
Her back was to him, and he pressed close against her, spoon-fashion, and put his arms about her so they would get warm again.
"You really were cold," he said, feeling the chill of her smooth thighs and her bare back and shoulders. "Even your fanny is cold."
"You're warm," she said happily, and snuggled back against him, wriggling her cold buttocks into his groin.
They lay still for a while, waiting, for sleep to come again.
Practically orphaned when their mother died at their birth, the twins had grown up much closer than most brothers and sisters. Their father was already in early middle age when they were born, and their mother, had been in her thirties. The parents had married late. Tyrus Forsythe was a busy man, taking care of the vast plantation and his hardware supply house and various other properties, and Aunt Minerva was much too old to romp and tumble with the growing children, so it was only natural that they should become inseparable playmates. Even when they started to school, their friends and playmates. Even when they started to school, their friends and playmates recognized that the two were very close, and one was never invited to anything unless the other was invited too.
Beginning with their early discovery of the pleasure in playing with each other, especially the game of lollipop Sue Robin played with Bobby Lee's peter, they continued fondling and experimenting as natural urges impelled them. When other little playmates showed them how to play doctor, they adopted that game, and developed imaginative variations.
But by the time they hit twelve, they drifted into more boy-boy, girl-girl relationships, and their little sex games seemed juvenile, so they put them away with their other toys. Sue Robin hardly noticed that her twin brother was growing into a handsome young giant, and Bobby Lee was barely aware that his sister was beautiful, and that her body was changing shape dramatically. She started wearing bras and sheer bikini panties.
As he lay in the sleeping bag, drowsy with the returning heat of his body and the growing heat of Sue Robin's body pressed against him, he became acutely aware of the considerable curve of her firm buttocks and of the crevice between them, not at all shielded by her nylon panties. His groin became warmer, and he realized that he was beginning to get a hard-on.
His arms were still around her, and her hands were on his, pressing him to her. He felt the lightest pressure from her hands now, and it seemed as if she were nudging his hands downward to check, he moved his hands downward an inch or two. Sure enough, the pressure was still there.
Not only that, but he was now touching the top of her bra. He moved lower still, gently cupping her tits through the fabric, and her hands pressed even more firmly on his. Waiting no longer he began to squeeze the unfamiliar mounds and found the sensation pleasant.
Her head turned slightly back toward him. "Unfasten my bra, Buz," she whispered.
He moved away from her enough to reach between them and unsnap the bra, and Sue Robin slid it off. He put his hands back on her breasts, now bare, and squeezed the spongy flesh. They felt like oranges in his hands.