Chapter 1

This is a cautionary tale. My father told me to say that as soon as he found out I was going to write a book about what happened to our family when we went on vacation at Palm Cove, when I was sixteen.

This is a very complicated story, too. I didn’t realize how complicated until I tried to put it all in order. As you live life, you don’t know what’s going to happen. That ignorance gives you the freedom to make decisions and go off in one or another direction without worrying too much about where it might lead. But writing about things is different, because when you remember trying to make one of those decisions, you already know where it led ... and why it might have been better to have made a different decision. You want to whisper to the character in the book, “No ... bad idea!” but of course, you can’t.

The other thing Dad said was to change all the names and tell people the story is fiction. You know that blurb that’s in all the books on one of the first few pages? It’s the one about how any resemblance to real people is purely coincidental?

Yeah, I can’t remember it exactly, either. And there are two (real) people who it’s pretty hard to hide from anyone who is willing to do even basic research on the internet. That’s because what happened to them is on the public record, and will be forever.

But I’ll say what he told me to say, even if it isn’t in the right words: This story is fiction. It never happened for real. And if you decide to check that public record and find those two people and read about them ... and some other people they were involved with ... that’s not my family. It’s just a coincidence.

There. That’s done.

Now, about my family, which is ... I mean isn’t ... what this story is all about.

My name is Bobby. I’d put a last name in there except since it’s not my real one it wouldn’t matter, so why bother? That’s not my real first name, either, but I’ve always kind of liked it, and I have to call myself something. I come from a large family, consisting (besides me) of a brother and three sisters. And my mom and dad, of course. I don’t know how literary people do this, so forgive me if it seems stilted. Deciding to write a book magically makes you an author, but it doesn’t make you an experienced or good one.

I’ll just go in age order.

My dad, Chuck, is thirty-six and is a computer geek. He made a ton of money by writing the code for a famous video game that he says I can’t put the name of in here. He did that while he was working for somebody else, but got ideas for another game while doing it. He formed his own company and now I guess we’re rich. I never thought about being rich as I grew up. I think that was part of the “problem” that developed, and which this story is about.

My mother is Amanda and she’s thirty-five. She and my dad were high school sweethearts. He got her pregnant when he was seventeen and she was sixteen. I guess they had some hard times at first, but he was a genius and made things work out.

My older sister is Valerie, who was seventeen at the time all this took place. I was sixteen. My next younger siblings are the twins, Samantha and Rudy. They were fifteen. Last is Tawny, who was fourteen.

As you can see, my parents were sex fiends when they were in their late teens. Of course us kids didn’t think about it like that when we were growing up. We just grew up, pretty much like any other kids.

There were differences, though. When Dad struck it rich, he didn’t spend that money frivolously. He did find us a nice, big house, but we stayed in public schools and they didn’t spoil us in any way I can remember. We rode the bus just like everybody else. We kids didn’t have our own credit cards, emergency or otherwise, and when we went shopping, it was at the mall, just like anybody else. Mom was always with us and just as frugal about things as any of the other moms around. We got good quality clothing and all that, but not stupidly expensive stuff.

We had an allowance, but it was earned by doing chores. If you didn’t do your chores, you didn’t get your allowance. And it wasn’t a crazy allowance. I got ten dollars a week. That’s how I learned that clothes (especially shoes) can be stupidly expensive.

What I’m trying to say is that while we (Dad) had over a million in the bank, our neighbors had no idea. My dad drove a Mustang, but it was a 1973 fastback somebody had restored. My mom drove a Honda Odyssey, to fit us all in it.

There was one other difference between us and our neighbors.

Mom and Dad were closet nudists.

What I mean by that is they liked being nudists, but just at home. There was no modesty whatsoever as I was growing up. We wore diapers until we were potty trained and after that, the only reason for putting clothes on was if we were going to go outside, or were chilly. I even remember seeing the strings, sometimes, protruding from my sister’s pussy lips when they were on their periods.

You can understand, then, why our parents might not have thought it necessary to “have the talk” with us as we charged into puberty. As far as they were concerned, nudity had exposed us to the things that other kids might be tormented about, or obsessed with or whatever.

Wait. I have to stop and think here. I have to remind myself, from time to time, that anyone who reads this probably didn’t grow up in that kind of environment. So I have to try to think about things like they ... you ... might.

I understand (now) that the average person might think that, what with a bunch of hormone-filled teenagers running around each other naked all the time, things might get sexual.

Nope.

Sorry. That’s just not how it was. I guess we were so used to it that ... well ... we were used to it. When I had some interaction with one of my sisters, I didn’t look at her breasts, or pussy or whatever. I just looked at ‘her’. It was the same with my brother. I didn’t check to see if he had a boner. We got them sometimes, but our parents explained that was just a biological process that meant things were working down there. It wasn’t anything to worry about, and it would eventually go away. And our boners did go away.

There was only one odd part (from my present point of view) about all that erection stuff. Neither Rudy nor I ever wondered about what caused those boners in the first place. Of course one part of every male’s life may have contributed to our casual acceptance that a boner didn’t particularly mean anything. I’m referring to “piss boners” or “morning wood”. Every guy experiences that, and as soon as you relieve your bladder, your penis deflates. It just happens. Nothing to it. No sex involved.

That said, there came a time when a boner did mean something. To both Rudy and me. That was when we got one around some girl (or girls) out in public, at school or wherever.

But we never talked to anybody about those boners. And ... they always went away, sooner or later.

Okay. All this has been to set the stage for what happened on our vacation when I was sixteen. It’s going to sound like we were all stupid, but I don’t think we were stupid. We were innocent, maybe. Unprepared for life, maybe.

But everybody is unprepared for life, and I think it’s not unfair to say they’re in that situation most of the time.

At least when they’re young.

The reason our parents chose Palm Cove for vacation is because it’s a clothing optional resort. They wanted to be nudists somewhere other than home, I guess. Had they chosen to join a nudist colony, or naturist group or whatever they are officially called, it might have been different. But they chose a public nude beach instead. The beach was public, but was associated with the Palm Cove Resort. It wasn’t a nudist resort, exactly, but they were really relaxed about guests running around naked. There was a sort of unofficial frowning about people going to the restaurant nude, or sitting at the bar that way, but if you were using the sauna, or one of the big hot tubs scattered around, or on your way to or from the beach, nobody frowned at all, unofficially or otherwise.

The beach had a public entrance, as well. It had huge signs warning people they were entering a clothing optional beach area. Public, of course, means anybody can show up. That’s why we ran into Tom and Jerry.

I know, I know, if you’re older than forty or something “Tom and Jerry” conjures up cartoon images. This pair wasn’t anything like that, though, so try to put that aside.

Tom was the dad and Jerry was his son. I don’t know how old they were, except that as events played out, they were both over eighteen. That’s because they were tried in adult court. Spoiler alert.

We first saw them after we got to the resort, unpacked, and were told we could go off and explore. We already knew everybody on the beach was naked. By that I mean we looked out the window of our room and saw naked bodies everywhere. It turned out some people weren’t naked, but that didn’t matter to us.

So we took off with only towels and flip flops on and went down to the beach. Mom and Dad said they’d be there but had something to talk about first.

Right. Talk about. We fell for it back then.

Anyway, I think it was just natural for us to stay together as we walked onto the beach. We were used to being nude at home, but not out in public, I guess. There was surf, but not high enough for a surfboard. There were some people playing around on little foam boards that skimmed along right at the edge of the water. Most people were just laying out in the sun. There was no lifeguard.

We went into the water and let the surf smash against us. There was some splashing and stuff like that.

We got out and began looking for stuff in the sand. We thought there might be shells or whatever. That’s how we ended up moving down to what we thought was the end of the beach, where a low hill sort of merged with the water. It turned out there was more beach beyond that. We shouldn’t have been surprised, I suppose. We were on an island, after all.

That part of the beach was rockier, with gravel mixed into the sand and large boulders scattered around. Later I would wonder about that, because it was so different than what we’d just left. Maybe it was all that way, originally, and they used big machines to clear the beach where they wanted to build a resort.

Anyway, these boulders were dark gray and very rounded. They’d been there for who knows how long, maybe millions of years, and been worn smooth by storms or whatever. It became a kind of game to try to climb up on them. They were so smooth it was hard to get a grip, so the game was to see who could climb the tallest boulder.

We were doing that when Tom and Jerry wandered along. Tom was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts. Jerry had on a Speedo.

“Howdy,” said Tom, all jovial like.

“Hi,” said Samantha. She’s very social and friendly.

“I’m Tom,” said Tom. “This is my son, Jerry.”

“Hi,” said Rudy and I, together. We didn’t introduce ourselves.

“I see you’re having fun,” said Tom.

“I guess,” I said. Val was older than me, and usually took any chance to “be in charge” but she’d been pretty relaxed on this outing. She didn’t say anything, now.

“I thought it was interesting to find five teenagers off climbing rocks,” he said.

“We’re all brothers and sisters,” said Sam, who seemed to feel the need to explain.

“Really! How interesting,” said Tom.

“Why is that interesting?” I asked. Something about this was making me feel ... itchy ... between my shoulder blades. I should have paid more attention to that warning sign, but I didn’t.

“I have a brother and sister and we never played together like this,” said Tom, smiling.

“It’s a nude beach,” said Rudy.

“It is, at that,” said Tom. “So, obviously, you all get along. When I was your age I fought tooth and nail with my siblings.”

“We don’t do that,” said Sam. “We like each other.”

“If only that was true of all brothers and sisters,” said Tom. “The world would be a better place.”

He turned, as if to leave, and then turned back.

“Hey. I wonder if you’d mind if I took a couple of pictures of you climbing those boulders,” said Tom. He held up one hand, which had the strap of a camera in it. The camera swung slowly back and forth. “The juxtaposition of your pale bodies against the gray rock would be very interesting,” he said.

I looked at Val, who was looking at me. She was maybe twenty feet away, beside a big rock she had been trying to climb. I was standing on a smaller one. She shrugged.

I looked back at Tom.

“It’s a public beach,” I said.

He grinned and brought up the camera.

“Just go on doing what you were doing,” he said. “I’ll walk around and see if I can get some interesting shots.”

Apparently we were very interesting. He kept clicking.

Then he asked Sam and Rudy to climb the same rock, side by side. They made a contest out of it. It was only by accident, I think, that I was looking at Tom instead of the two competing siblings, when I saw him squat, angle the camera, and take a picture. When I followed the line of his camera’s sight, I realized he’d been taking a picture between Sam’s legs.

I went over to him and touched his shoulder. When he turned to look at me I asked him if he was a pervert.

I didn’t know what to expect. For sure I didn’t expect him to laugh, but that’s what he did.

“Aren’t we all?” he finally said. “Us men, I mean. Your sisters are quite beautiful. Don’t you agree?”

“I guess I never thought about it,” I said.

He looked surprised.

“Really? Even with them naked like this?”

“We run around like this all the time at home,” I said. “We always have.”

“Ahhh,” he said. “That explains it. Familiarity breeds indifference.”

“Besides,” I said. “They’re my sisters.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” asked Tom, his face the very picture of surprise. “A woman is a woman. Her charms and beauty are enjoyable by any man.”

I felt like I was being painted into a corner. That’s because I had appreciated the beauty of my sisters, occasionally. I had figured out by then that not a few of those boners we all ignored were attributable to one of them, lately. Just because we were nudists didn’t mean I wasn’t interested in sex. But my circle of friends, both male and female, was fairly small. It’s pretty hard to have a friend come over when it’s quite likely there will be naked people lounging about or performing chores or whatever.

“But they’re my sisters,” I complained.

“Are you a religious man, Bob?” asked Tom.

It felt good to be referred to as a man. “Not really,” I said.

Chapter 2 »