Olivia and Owen

Olivia's hand still lay on mine: I seized it and cried, "Let's learn to make love, Olivia! We'll do it tonight, the four of us together."

Frank said, "I don't know if that's a good idea, Angie."

"Why not, Frank?" I said. "You wanted it last night; what's changed your mind? You're not going to be the over-protective brother, are you, now that you know I'm a virgin? And look - these kids need our help. Isn't that right, George?"

He nodded. "That's what I been trying to tell you," he said.

I leapt to my feet and pulled Olivia up with me. "Come on, Via," I said, starting to unbutton my blouse. "Let's show these boys what we've got for them."

Olivia giggled as she reached for the top button of her dress: meanwhile George cleared his throat, said, "Well, I guess the missus'll be wanting me back home," and reluctantly shuffled away.

I stripped for Frank, who was looking stiff and nervous. Looking him in the eye, I shrugged out of my blouse, kicked off my shoes, and peeled off my pants. Meanwhile, Olivia, standing right beside me, was pulling her dress over her head, stripping for a wide-eyed Owen. Had they never gotten naked before? Within seconds she was wearing only bloomers, while I had on bra and panties.

I slowly approached Frank, who was as still as a waxworks figure. "We're going to do it this time, brother," I purred. "You're the Don Juan of this group; you used to cut through the girls like butter, back in school. You're our Casanova, our Cyrano. It's up to you to show us how it's done."

I reached for his belt and unbuckled it, saying "Do what I do, Via. Undress Owen." I pushed Frank's pants down so they puddled around his feet. I unbuttoned his shirt and ran a hand over his firm chest. Beside me, Olivia was unfastening Owen's suspenders and letting his pants fall.

I unhooked my bra and took it off. I pressed my body against Frank's, enjoying the warmth of his skin, and said, "Kiss me, Frank."

He hesitated a few seconds, dark eyes staring as if he didn't know me. But then his resistance gave way and he kissed me hungrily: soon his tongue was searching my mouth, and he was straining me to him. Lightheaded with the sensation of him against my nipples, I let my hands go where they wanted, down to pet and squeeze his bottom; then my right hand moved around to the front of him and grasped his hardness. He sighed into my mouth.

"Teach me oral sex, Via," I said, thrilled by my own boldness; I sank to my knees just as Olivia was doing the same beside me.

Now it was my turn to breathe hard and feel my heart pound as I watched her take Owen in her hand, slide the foreskin back, squeeze a shining drop from the head, and, smiling, lick it up before closing her lips around him and drawing him into her. He closed his eyes with the pleasure of it.

I turned back to Frank, took him in my hand again, and gazed up into his face. Looking worried, he whispered, "You don't have to do this."

"I know," I said. But, oh, I did have to - for Frank, for Olivia and Owen, and most of all for myself, because I wanted to feel his skin slipping between my lips and taste his love on my tongue.

I slid the foreskin back as I'd seen Olivia do. Underneath was terrifying but beautiful: I was mesmerized by his damp little slit, made dizzy by the clean, musky smell of him: my mouth watered. I leaned forward and let my lips slide over the big, engorged head - past it, down the shaft as far as I dared.

And I sucked my brother's cock. It was a thrill, a torrent of sensation surging through my torso, heating me up, turning me on. Somehow I knew just what to do - to make my mouth tight around him, circle the head of him and massage him with my tongue.

"Oh," he groaned, and I looked up at his face, transported with love and lust: now he was more to me than he'd ever been - lover and brother.

I looked sideways at Olivia, who was embracing Owen's thighs and taking him deeper, impossibly deep. I wanted to do that, too: I put both hands on Frank's ass and pulled him closer, driving him deeper into me, till I choked and had to back off. I didn't stop, though, but pulled him to me again and again till finally he stopped me by bending down and kissing me.

This was as much as the ghostly twins knew how to do. I said to Olivia, "If Frank and I make love, do you think you can copy us?"

She shook her head and said, "I'm sorry, Angie. I don't know why, but it don't work that way."

"What if we trade partners?" I said.

"You'd do that?" she asked.

"I'm willing if you are. I promise I'm not trying to steal your guy."

"What about the men?" asked Frank. "Aren't you going to ask us?"

"Frank," I said, "are you willing to make love to this beautiful young girl?"

"Since you put it that way," he said, looking at her appreciatively, "and if it's all right with Owen . . ."

"I guess," said Owen, "since it's for learning."

Frank said, "And are you willing to make love to my beautiful sister?"

Owen glanced nervously at Olivia, who said, "I want you to, Owen."

"Okay, I guess," he said. "I mean sure," he added, smiling at me shyly.

Relishing my role as emcee, I said, "Via, say hi to Frank."

"Hello, Mr. Frank," said Olivia sweetly, and offered her hand.

Frank took her hand, gave it a surprised glance, recovered quickly, and said, "Just Frank. May I call you Via?"

"Yes, sir," she said, "and you can kiss me."

Frank kissed her on the lips politely, and I said, "You can kiss me too, Owen." He kissed me, shyly and tentatively, and the touch of his lips sent chills through me: again I felt the strangeness of these ghosts: the cold heat, the otherworldliness of their flesh, the alien life force. I returned his kiss with more than a little conviction, and nearby I could see that Frank and Olivia were kissing again and clearly enjoying themselves.

I was panting when I pushed myself away and said, "Via, I think these men need to repay us for the oral sex we've given them."

"What do you mean, Angie?" she said.

"Cunnilingus," I said.

"What's that?"

I said, "Never mind. I'm sure Frank can show us how it's done."

"Okay," said Frank, whose cock was still standing straight out. "You women lie side by side on your backs, and I'll show Owen what to do."

Via and I lay down together. She took my hand and whispered, "This ain't going to hurt, is it?"

"I'm not sure," I whispered back, "but I don't think it's supposed to."

Frank knelt beside Olivia and gestured for Owen to do the same. "It's best," he said, "if you approach slowly, kissing her body all over. Certain areas are more sensitive than others: the ears, neck, nipples, tummy, the insides of the thighs. The mouth is home base: always start there and come back there when you're done.

He kissed Olivia while Owen, who glanced at Frank every so often for cues and reassurance, did the same to me. Then they began to work their way downwards, so slowly it was a torture of delight: kissing and licking everywhere they went, sometimes backtracking to revisit a favorite place, bypassing our mounds and kissing all the way to our feet, where they nibbled and sucked our toes.

They worked their way upwards again, with agonizing slowness: our calves, our knees, up the insides of our thighs. They tenderly kissed our labia, lips on our wet pussies . . .

Olivia gasped, and a few seconds later I did too, as Owen's tongue probed into my cleft, not touching my clitoris yet, but how good it felt! Already turned on by his kisses, I had to move my hips, thrust against his mouth, yearning for more stimulation.

I knew nothing about cunnilingus, but I knew what I liked, and I liked this. Owen's mouth was sweet and hot, and it set my whole body on fire. With one hand I rubbed one of my nipples, while with the other I seized a handful of his hair and pulled him to me. His mouth closed over me, his tongue found my clitoris and licked gently, the first time anyone but me had touched it. I cried out, then caught myself, thinking about the boys who were probably drinking over on the logging road.

I looked at Frank, who was absorbed in his task, while Olivia, with a dreamy look, was tweaking both her nipples with shapely fingers.

"Go do this for Olivia," I said. "Then we'll go on to the next thing."

Owen got up, grinned at me, and shuffled over to where Frank was moving aside and sitting down to watch on the other side of them.

Still on my back with my legs spread, I raised my head and gave him a stern look. "Oh, no, Frank," I scolded. "Over here."

"As my lady commands," he said, rose, came around the ghostly couple - Owen's face was already firmly planted between his sister's thighs - lay beside me and kissed me.

"Strange," I whispered, "you don't taste like pussy."

"It's strange that you think so," he whispered in return, "because I can taste it."

"Never mind," I said, making a mental note to think about this later. "Just take up where Owen left off."

He gave me a wicked smile, moved to between my legs, and kissed my wetness. And if Owen's mouth was sweet, Frank's was magical - as if he knew every nerve ending in my body, where I was most sensitive and what I'd like most. He was gentle and his lips and tongue were warm and wet, and sensation spread from between my legs and blossomed into emotion, as if our love were some unearthly drug rushing through my veins to my farthest extremities.

My orgasm took me by surprise. It was a bigger, wilder thing than any of the puny ones I'd given myself masturbating, and I howled and howled - I couldn't help myself or stop. If the drinking boys heard me, they probably thought I was some wild animal.

When I came to my senses, Frank was still between my legs, nuzzling my pubic hair, while Olivia and Owen had stopped what they were doing and were staring at us.

Olivia said, "Was that an orgasm?"

"Was it ever," I said between gasps. Have either of you ever had one?

Olivia shook her head and Owen studied the ground.

I got it: Olivia had never even masturbated, but Owen had at least a little more experience.

"Frank," I said, "do you think you can teach Olivia how to have an orgasm?"

"I don't know," he said. "I can try."

"Come here, Owen," I said, and the men traded places again.

Still on my back, I drew Owen to me and talked him through the process of guiding himself into me and beginning to thrust - till instinct took over his body and he needed no more coaching.

You hear that ghosts are dangerous lovers, hungry and cruel, but Owen wasn't like that: he was tender and considerate, and he kissed me lovingly and watched me carefully and tuned his force and rhythm to my needs and responses. Granted, I'd never had a man in me before, but I could already tell this was a sex act such as few living people ever experience - the sensations vast and beyond intense, as if my body filled all time and space and my nerves were galaxies and quasars. And it went on and on, my soul flying upwards, till I came, a supernova orgasm that I thought would burn me up with all the world.

Owen came too, just seconds later, and the rush of his semen seemed to spread heat all through me in an instant and become part of me, changing me.

I panted beneath him, and he looked at me with concern and asked, "You all right, ma'am?"

I said "Thanks, Owen . . ." but then was interrupted by a screech from Olivia, who, I guessed, had just learned to come from vaginal penetration.

"I think we're all okay," I said, "and the lesson's over. Do you need time to recover before you can have sex again?"

"No, ma'am," said Owen with a shy grin.

"Then go and make love to Olivia. Share what you've learned."

"Okay, ma'am," said Owen, withdrawing from me.

"And Owen?" I said quietly.

"Yes, ma'am?"

I pulled him to me and whispered, "I know you came in Earl's mouth. You can do that with Olivia, too, you know, and I'm pretty sure she'll like it."

"Yeah?"

"Ask her first, and if she says no then forget about it - but I think she'll say yes."

"Thank you, ma'am," said Owen, and crawled the few feet to where his sister was lying on the soft moss, white thighs open, sex glistening, face radiant with love and invitation, waiting for her lover to come to her.

I sat next to Frank, and we watched them make love. The passion that had been born on that night eighty-seven years ago was new again, and unbearably beautiful. Their lithe arms and legs were tangled up, lips pressed together, Owen already inside her: the sight filled me with longing. Oh, who wouldn't have a partner you've loved for every minute of your existence?

"Frank," I whispered, hardly able to catch my breath.

"Yes?" he whispered back, as breathless as I was.

"Fuck me," I said, and he moaned and turned towards me. Within seconds I was on my back and he was in me. If Owen was a spirit of the sky, Frank was an earthly man, pulsing blood and thrusting muscle. A perfect fit, he felt right inside me - the body and the lover I'd been holding out for all my adult life.

9. Partings and reunions

I gave myself to Frank, and he took me there on the forest floor, and when we were done and looked around, Olivia and Owen were still making love on the mossy patch that was their bed; but their shapes were becoming misty - colorless, ill-defined, and translucent. We were withdrawing to our separate worlds from that fragile place where ghosts and the living can interact. The forest was closing in around us, and mosquitoes were starting to bite. We put on our clothes and hurried away along the path.

Back at Frank's place, we went to bed and made love again. We showered together, I soaped and washed his body, and we gave each other oral pleasure on the floor of the shower stall. We slept little that night.

In the morning Frank drove me to the Amtrak station in Charlottesville. We were tired and didn't say much. But as we approached the city, Frank said, "The things we did last night - I suppose we'll never do them again."

"Probably not," I said. "But I'm not sorry. We don't have to carry around that secret longing anymore: we've gotten it out of our system." I wondered, though, if you can ever really get your secret longings out of your system.

"I'm not sorry either," he said. "The things we did - you and me and the ghosts - I guess they're things you do only once in your life. But I think I'm better off for having done them."

"Just don't go looking for more sex with ghosts," I warned. "They're not all as harmless as Owen and Olivia."

Frank helped me haul my bags to the platform, and I extracted a promise from him to visit me. I slept much of the way to New York.

* * *

How could I not be changed by that night in the graveyard - the night I lost my virginity to a ghost and made love to my brother? It was as if some evil spell, which had long imprisoned me in unhappy chastity, had been broken. In August I met a man at a luncheon for university donors - a lawyer, wouldn't you know it, who looks a bit like Frank. He's a good man and a good lover, and he seems pretty serious about me. He even took a liking to Frank when they met at Thanksgiving. Maybe I can love him, and maybe we can make each other happy.

He doesn't need to know about that Monday night in the graveyard. Why should I burden him with fabulous tales of sibling love and ghostly twins?

Nor do I have to tell him what has happened every week since then. On that night, Owen left something of himself in me, when he came inside me, and Olivia left something of herself in Frank, when he savored the womanly moisture between her legs; we left something of ourselves in them, too.

Those exchanges of ourselves bound us together, so that every Monday night, the ghosts of Schuyler come to us in our sleep, to Frank and me, and we make love, the four of us, in all combinations. We're there in the woods again, on the bed of moss, it's always July, the moon is always full, and the air is humid and sensuous on our naked skin. All night long we take delight in our bodies, joyfully making new discoveries together.

When I wake to the world on Tuesday morning, I'm sweaty and exhausted. Sometimes the flavor of Olivia lingers on my tongue, or Owen's or Frank's semen drips from me as I run to the shower. Later in the day I try to find an hour for a nap, and sometimes I call Frank to talk of the pleasures we shared in the night.

Oh, there's no need for my New York lover, a good and kind man, to know that these spectral lovers of the woods are more real to me than the people of the world we share - solid, sure, and eternal.