Three naked bodies hit the water simultaneously and disappeared. A moment later, three heads broke the surface screaming in unison "Yow, it's cold!" Their traditional yell was truer than usual: notwithstanding the unseasonable heat of Indian Summer, October was pushing the limits of the season for their favorite swimming hole.

"Why did I let you two talk me into this?" yelled Jill, her teeth chattering, mostly for effect.

Holly's jaw dropped, also for effect. "Who talked who into what?"

"Funny," said her brother Terry, "I seem to remember saying 'No way in hell am I going in that water, Indian Summer or no.'"

With a glance at each other, brother and sister began splashing their friend for all they were worth. Jill gave back as good as she received, but she was outnumbered four hands to two, and finally surrendered by diving under the water. She surfaced near the bank and climbed out, saying "Okay, I'm done."

"The hell you are!" Holly and Terry clambered out as fast as the water would let them, and proceeded to chase the laughing Jill up and down the bank until they outflanked her. Still giggling, Jill found herself taken by hands and feet and swung ceremoniously back into the swimming hole. When she surfaced, the two siblings were grappling, trying to throw each other in. Holly was victorious, and no sooner had Terry hit the water then he was scrambling out again, friendly vengeance on his face. But Holly was already jumping in, accepting the inevitable. "Spoilsport," said Terry, making a face.

"Oh, kiss and make up, you two," said Jill, and when they had, she added "Am I forgiven too?"

"Well, just this once," replied Holly, kissing her.

"Only if you promise never, ever to do it again," said Terry, completing the circle by kissing Jill. But this last kiss lasted rather longer than the first two, and neither saw Holly's face as she turned away and climbed out.

"It is cold," said Terry. "Enough?"

"Enough," agreed Jill, and they joined Holly on the bank. The three stood shivering, hugging themselves, though the setting sun was still hot.

"I don't suppose..." began one, "That anyone thought to bring..." continued another, "Towels?" finished the third.

None of them had figured on swimming when planning an overnight camping trip in October. Bathing suits were no problem; they probably wouldn't have brought them even in July, as the trio had been skinny-dipping together since grammar school. But the question of how to dry themselves hung in the air until Terry suggested running around and let the wind do it. The motion passed for lack of a better one, and they raced all through the trees around the swimming hole until they dropped with exhaustion.

As they lay panting on the ground, Terry gazed at the two girls ('oops -- young women' he reminded himself) who had been his best friends since forever: Jill with her blonde hair, her slender body whose secrets he had just recently begun to know, and a face worth dying for; Holly with hair and eyes the same brown as his own, her face so much plainer than Jill's, but to Terry no less beautiful, her body comfortably plump, especially her breasts, those wonderful breasts that a part of him longed to touch, even as the rest of him shied away from the forbidden temptation. Terry was suddenly aware that he had an erection, and no graceful way to hide it. Too late, the girls had already seen it. "Oops," he said sheepishly, blushing furiously.

Holly got up. "I'll get the fire going," she said, "and leave you two alone."

Terry and Jill watched Holly hurry away, and looked at each other uncomfortably. That fall they had started college, choosing the same one more by coincidence than by design. Knowing nobody else in their new environment, they had clung to each other for support, and it was both a profound shock and the most natural thing in the world when their intimate friendship of so many years blossomed into romance. By the time they had been in school a month, they had given each other their virginity.

But Holly, a year older, had entered a different college, and they couldn't all be together as often as in high school. And when Jill and Terry became lovers, though nobody said a word, Holly knew it. And that was when the trouble began.

"We can't go on like this," said Jill as she sat beside Terry, their backs against a tree.

"I know. It's tearing her apart." He sighed. "I wish we could make her understand. It doesn't change anything between her and I, or her and you."

"Well, I'm afraid it does."

"Well, it shouldn't." They sat in silence for a while.

"I love you both so much," said Terry, "And I'd never do anything to hurt either of you. Not if I knew it was going to."

"I feel the same way. But now we know, don't we? I feel like I've -- betrayed her, by taking you as..."

"Your lover?"

"Yeah. Terry?" Tears were filling Jill's eyes. "Do you think we could... go back to..."

"Just being friends?" Terry nodded slowly. "But I love making love with you. I don't want to give that up."

"Oh god, neither do I, but is it worth losing Holly?" The tears were running down her face now. "She'll always be your sister, but I don't think I can stand to lose her -- and I am!"

Terry took her in his arms and held her while her tears fell, and some of his own as well. At last, when their sobs had ceased, he said "Okay, Jill. What we did was a wonderful thing, and I'll never regret it. But it was a mistake. Are we still friends?"

"Oh, yes!" Jill cried, and more tears fell.

As they watched the sun disappear behind the distant mountains, Terry remarked, with a catch in his throat, "You know, I feel like the sun is going down on our friendship."

"It's not."

"I know. But that's how I feel." They started back toward camp, close together but not touching. "I guess we better stick to the 'official' sleeping arrangements, huh?"

'It's ironic,' Holly said to herself as she set about starting the fire. 'Jill could have had any boy in high school -- goodness knows they were all chasing after her. All except Terry. I guess that's why they've been such good friends, because he never tried to put the make on her. Of course,' she grinned at the thought, 'He always figured he never had a chance with her anyway, with her being so beautiful, and him with his face as plain as mine. Not ugly, mind you, but nothing that would turn a girl's head.' She sighed sadly. 'How nice it must be to be beautiful, to never have to go on diets, to always have everyone looking at you, admiring you.' She stopped in her tracks, the skillet she was carrying forgotten. 'I'm jealous! Jealous of Jill's looks, and I've never been jealous of her before. And I'm jealous of her romance with Terry.' Thinking about the way they looked at each other, Holly knew she had never felt that way about anybody. 'At least, not about any of the boys I went out with. Certainly nobody's ever felt that way about me. And when they look at each other like that, I feel so -- so left out, so alone, so superfluous.' Brushing away a tear, she set the skillet to heat on the fire and sat staring into the flames until Terry and Jill returned.

Dinner was a somber affair, with nobody speaking much. When all the food had been eaten or put away or tossed into the woods for the scavengers, Jill spoke. "Holly, Terry and I have something to tell you."

Holly forced a smile. "You're getting married?"

There was an uncomfortable silence.

"Not quite," said Terry. "No, Jill and I have been talking, and we've decided -- Jill and I thought that you -- I mean that we -- " he looked helplessly at Jill.

"What Terry's trying to say is that we've realized that we made a mistake."

"A mistake?"

"All of us were happy together when we were just friends, and that's how we want it to be again."

Holly said nothing, but looked from Jill to Terry and back again.

"What she's trying to say," said Terry, "Is that we realize how left out we've made you feel, and we..."

"No!" Holly interrupted, "Don't do this because of me! You love each other, and I can't -- I won't -- " her words failed, and she burst into tears.

"Of course we love each other," Jill said, putting her arm around her, "We'll always love each other. But we love you too, and to break up our friendship..."

"It's too high a price to pay -- just for sex." Terry's words left a bitter taste in his mouth. 'It not just the sex,' he thought.

But after the tears there were hugs and kisses (short ones between everyone now), and when Terry and Holly brought out their dulcimers, it was just like old times as they talked and laughed and sang the evening away. And when they sang "Julian of Norwich", the words seemed to have been written just for them:

"Love, like the yellow daffodil is coming through the snow,

Love, like the yellow daffodil is lord of all I know.

Ring out, bells of Norwich and let the winter come and go,

All shall be well again, I know.

All shall be well, I'm telling you, let the winter come and go,

All shall be well again, I know."

"I wish I had a face and a figure like yours," said Holly to Jill as they made ready to sleep in the larger of the two tents, Terry having retired to the smaller.

"Whatever for?"

"Oh, don't give me that crap. Look at this face. Plain as cheap vanilla pudding. Look at this body. Flab everywhere. My ass is too big. My boobs are too big."

"Well, I think you have lovely boobs."

"They're awful, they get in the way, I can't run without having them bounce like basketballs. How would you like to carry around weights like these? Feel this." Reaching into her nightgown, Holly bared a breast and held it up with her hand. They did tend to sag when not supported by a bra, Jill observed, but not all that much. "Go ahead, feel this weight."

Jill reached out and let Holly's breast fill her hand, feeling its weight. She shivered, and took her hand away. "I still think they're lovely. Look at me, I'm flat as a board." Which was not quite accurate, but the only use Jill had ever found for a bra was for accentuating what little she had.

"Wanna trade?" said Holly, blushing.

"Sure!" said Jill, and she blushed too.

'Well,' thought Terry, 'Old Morpheus is definitely nowhere to be found in this tent, and it doesn't look like he's going to come visiting any time soon.' He sat up and stared out of the tent. 'Guess I'll take a walk and see if the god of sleep is lurking about in the woods.'

As he wandered he thought about how strange life was, and how unfair. How odd that of the few people he considered his best friends, one should be his sister, when just about everyone else he knew considered their siblings, younger or older, to be nuisances. Not that they never had fights, but whenever one of them needed someone to celebrate with, or a shoulder to cry on, or a leg to pull, the other had always been there. How odd that another best friend should be the most sought-after girl in high school, when he wouldn't have dared even try to get her to go out with him. But he had shared secrets with Jill that none of his girlfriends had been privy to, and Jill in turn had trusted him with confidences that only he and Holly had shared. And how unfair that when fate had joined him and Jill closer than ever before, it had threatened to destroy the trio. 'It's really ironic,' he thought, 'That of all the women in the world that could be my lover, the two I love most should be the least appropriate.'

Terry was not the only one to be abandoned by Morpheus. Jill had been lying in her sleeping bag, her thoughts not far removed from Terry's, seeking the gift of unconsciousness that Holly had already received. Turning on her side, Jill gazed at her friend as she lay half in and half out of her sleeping bag. Holly's breasts rose and fell under the thin fabric of her nightgown like swells on the Sea of Dreams, and Jill remembered the icy thrill she had felt when she had, just for a moment, held one of them. She pushed the thought from her mind and looked away, out into the night, but her eyes and thoughts returned to Holly, to Holly's breasts. The longer Jill looked at Holly, the more she wanted to reach out and touch her. And then Jill's hand began to move, and she scarcely breathed as she let it reach slowly across the short distance between them. As it rose with her breath, one soft mound filled Jill's trembling hand and a shiver of excitement made Jill's entire body tingle. Carefully she caressed her friend, fascinated by the liquid texture of the other's flesh. When her fingers encountered a little bump and felt it grow under their touch, and Jill shivered again. Holly sighed, and Jill glanced up at her face.

Holly's eyes had opened.

As they stared at each other through that long frozen moment of time, Holly's eyes showed only an intense awareness of Jill's presence, and Jill unable to even think, let alone move, until at length Holly whispered, "You really think they're pretty?"

"I -- " Jill swallowed " -- I think they're beautiful. I think you're beautiful." Jill felt that she couldn't have broken Holly's gaze if her life depended on it. 'No,' she thought, 'I feel like my life depends on holding this gaze forever.' Holly's face seemed to grow until Jill couldn't see anything else, until all she could see were Holly's brown eyes, full of uncertainty and trust, until at last she felt their lips touch, and Jill's eyes finally closed as their kiss branded their souls with an affirmation of their friendship and their love.

"Nothing," Jill whispered, "No one can change how I feel about you." Holly's only reply was another kiss, but her eyes were full of tears. She looked down to where Jill's hand still held her breast. Jill felt the blood rush to her face and looked away, withdrawing her hand. But Holly took Jill's hand in hers and held it, saying "No, wait."

Jill waited.

"Please -- " Holly's whisper was almost inaudible. "Please keep touching me?"

Jill cupped Holly's trembling breast with her hand, squeezing it gently, and kissed Holly once more. This time their lips parted, and the kiss took them beyond mere friendship to an intimacy Holly had only dreamed of. 'This,' thought Holly, 'This is what they must feel.' When their eyes met again, Jill saw reflected in Holly's eyes her own uncertainty about what was happening, and her aching need that it keep on happening. Then together, moving so slowly that neither could be sure whether she was leading or following, they drew off their nightgowns.

Now four hands touched four naked breasts, large and small, amid kisses and hugs. And the kisses moved from lips to cheeks, from necks to shoulders, from arms to hands to fingers, and then to the breasts beneath the fingers. Gasps and sighs were exchanged as lips discovered the taste of nipples, and fingers tangled in brown hair and blonde. Jill's hand was the first to dare straying between pair of thighs not her own, to find the hidden moistness there; a moment later she felt Holly's palm press against her own mound. Sighs gave way to moans as two friends shared new secrets. Legs moved to make room for questing fingers, which moved gently, tentatively at first, then more quickly as they grew wet with their spiralling passion.