Chapter 7

Amanda’s turn:

Poor Ben.

And make no mistake. I have consciously changed HIS status in our relationship.

Something just sort of clicked.

Oh, my thoughts started going in that direction when Bink carried on about me living with my ‘hot’ uncle and how she might handle the situation differently.

The switch really flipped, I guess, when she confided that she really did ‘handle the situation’.

“I played with Ben’s thing last night.” Indeed.

I love Bink, but sometimes subtlety isn’t her strong suit.

In the back of my mind, after we moved in together, I had dreamily envisioned a long period of growing closer and closer together with Uncle Ben until we inevitably fell into each other’s arms.

Bink’s announcement did away with that ‘long’ time qualifier.

Don’t misunderstand – Bink and I ALSO have a special relationship, just like me and Ben. She’s my normie friend, but after being almost Siamese twins our whole lives, I think we exchange brain waves and she gets some of my weird ones.

My first real kiss was from Bink. We sort of learned on each other. Learned some other stuff, too. All that stuff about ‘fluid sexuality’? We learned where the ‘fluid’ comes from. First orgasm I didn’t give myself? Bink. And vice versa.

Doesn’t make us lesbians. Her fondling Ben, MY fondling Ben ... Definitely not lesbian. But what’s that phrase I read? “Any port in a storm”?

And Ben says it’s a ‘receiver’. And he’s got a transmitter.

THE transmitter.

Now I ask myself how I’d feel if I and Ben succumbed to the inevitable and had a full-blown sexual dimension to our already perfect arrangement.

Oh, my! ONE sentence and I already referred to ‘suck’ and ‘blow’. More food for thought. Or just plain ‘food’.

But back to the possibility of Bink and Ben. Bink and I have been sharing since birth. Mom used to suckle us both, she tells me. Bink’s mom didn’t breastfeed, but my mom did. So me and Bink, we’ve been sharing.

And Ben likes Bink. What if Ben liked Bink THAT much? Why am I smiling?

“I played with Ben’s thing last night.”

Click.

I mean, Ben’s gotten used to the fact that we sleep together now. That’s every night since the big disaster. And the night Bink came over for my birthday, I guess Ben thought Bink and I would stay in MY room. I’d thought about it – Bink and I haven’t had private time in a while.

But no. We spent the night in bed with Ben.

So Friday night, and Ben knew that I knew about Bink’s exploration.

Late night. My turn. It IS interesting. So interesting. So alive. Almost magical, too. Just the touch of my fingers and I got a real-time demonstration of what happens. Ejaculation. Didn’t see it, but I FELT it, got some of the result on my fingers.

You just know I had to taste it. Girls my age have been talking about blowjobs and now I haven’t exactly put his thing in my mouth, but I know what it tastes like.

Made a mess of his shorts, so he knows something happened. He came right out and asked me. I admitted to my transgression. We had a boat trip planned, a Saturday cruise to a nice spot to anchor, spend the night, come back Sunday.

I played ‘penitent little girl’, asking if we were going to cancel the trip. We didn’t.

I went on that trip with a goal in mind.

We had a leisurely cruise out. If you know about the hydrodynamics of displacement hulls, you’ll know why this boat is a lot faster than his other boat, twenty-five feet on the old one, forty on this one. The engine’s down below in a sound-proofed engine room, so it’s pretty quiet.

I was properly charming, as is natural when Ben and I are together, and I was attentive when he discussed the hows and whys of operating THIS boat. I need to learn this stuff. It’s fun, though.

By mid-afternoon we were anchored. Not having the forced breeze caused by us motoring more or less into the wind, the heat was uncomfortable unless you were in the shade, and even there, well, late summer on the Gulf Coast. It’s not quite as hot as mid-summer, but hot enough.

I know this water. It’s brackish and silty, but it IS water, so, “Let’s swim.”

Ben countered with, “Lemme start the generator and get the A/C going so the cabin’ll be cool when we get out.”

I brought my favorite bathing suit, not quite a bikini, a neat two-piece thing. I dressed in the front cabin while he changed into his baggy board shorts in the master cabin. Maybe I should’ve pushed him to get a pair of speedos.

The boat’s got a swim step across the stern just a bit above the water. A ladder leads over the stern and down to that step, so if you’re swimming, well, they do call it a swim step, okay?

So we swam. Warm water, but still cooler than the late summer air. We bumped together a lot. I know I was enjoying every touch, but I wasn’t being aggressive, just playful.

We stayed in the water for an hour, sometimes holding onto the swim step, sometimes swimming, sometimes drifting in the tidal current. We trail a knotted line behind the boat, just in case you can’t or don’t feel like swimming against the current to get back to the boat, so you can just sort of hold the line, drift out, climb your way back.

One time I was doing that, climbing back towards the boat when I collided with Ben, drifting on the line in the opposite direction. Face to face, full body contact. Brief, but I noted how good it felt. Could’ve stayed that way. Didn’t.

Eventually it was time to get out. I offered to go get towels and to turn on the freshwater pump so we could rinse off after the swim. If you just towel off, you leave a sticky film of salt from the water. At the swim step there’s a hose with a sprayer to rinse off.

I grabbed the towels, flipped the switch, went back to the ladder and looked over. Ben was washing himself down and was completely NUDE!

Choice here: Freak out? Or move forward?

I moved.

“So this is the way to do this?” I said.

He acted shocked. I ignored that, climbed down, stripped, taking a bit of time to examine my naked Ben.

Got him to wash hair out, then sluice off my back. Washed his. I think back and that was a pretty smooth move, getting a bit of actual physical contact out of this. I made a sort of obvious deal out of washing off my little tootie. And then, another thoughtful move, I climbed the ladder ahead of him. Slowly.

Inside the screen, toweled off, noted his protests. Made statement about nudity. His erection comes and goes. Oops, that’s fertile ground for another double entendre, isn’t it?

Truth. It does feel good on strictly a tactile sense.

Other truth. If I spend much time looking at him he gets erect. I’m taking that as a sign that at least part of him thinks I’m attractive and likes this. Shifted conversation to his orgasm last night.

“Between Bink and you, I was primed.”

“Bink was really excited about it.”

I told him that Bink might just have designs on him. Let him process the thought that at least ONE fourteen year old girl is thinking about his body.

“She thinks you’re more than an attractive and possibly accessible diversion, Ben.”

No. not UNCLE Ben.

So we’re talking and it dawns on him, “You’re playing me.”

“I’d never play my best friend. Or benefactor. Or man of my life.” There! I said it. And I said it in a fashion that leaves room for interpretation if he kicks. “So! Dressed? Or not?”

He tossed it back to me. “Your thoughts?”

“Not. Unless it gets awkward.”

He watched me. “You’re getting an eyeful.”

“Got a handful last night.” Almost said ‘yum’ but considered that might be a little too much, too soon.

“See?!? That’s why this makes me uncomfortable.”

I rearranged my legs as I lounged on the settee opposite him. “Would it really be so horrible?” Direct approach. Just one step.

“What would be horrible?”

“Us having a sexual relationship.”

Got the ‘too young’ and the ‘incest’ and the ‘I don’t want a sexual relationship. I want more’.

“Don’t you see?”

“See what?”

“Us. Me and you. We’re tossed together by events and we find out that WE are the ones we’ve been looking for.”

“You’re fourteen. You shouldn’t be looking yet.”

“I, sir, in addition to being on the spectrum, am rather precocious. I’ve been told this. And my socialization skills ... You know about those...”

“Non-standard,” he admitted.

“Forever,” I said.

“Family,” he countered. “Of course it’s forever.”

Soliloquy. “So maybe neither of us is supposed to go out and track down and develop a relationship with anybody. We just formed together, me and you. Even when I was just barely old enough to remember, I loved you.”

Got that ‘uncle-niece’ argument again.

“So that’s one of those immutable conditions. It doesn’t change.”

He sputtered.

“So! Sexual?”

“You make it sound clinical.”

“It’s not.” I explained how I loved him from the beginning when I was a toddler that he babysat and paid attention to, how he’d been resource and refuge, and love changes as it grows and last night showed me that there was another component to being held in his arms. I got up.

He looked almost scared.

“I love having you in my life, Mandy. I’m scared to mess that up.”