I wasn’t pleased, but with Pops off fighting the war -- well, guarding the Panama Canal, anyway -- and the web-strap factory coming to town, it made sense to rent out our house and the three of us move in with Aunt Ginny and her three girls, Uncle Rupert being in Africa, though he couldn’t say where. Their place had room enough for them plus Mom, Andrew and me.

Aunt Ginny said that cooking for seven would be as easy as cooking for four, though with two nephews now on board, it might be like cooking for ten. Mom would be working 40-plus at the factory, but could spell her on weekends. And with Andrew signed up for the Navy after graduation, we’d really be just two extra.

Well for starts, I’d end up with all the boys’ chores while Andrew tried to graduate. Half his class thought the Army would be more fun than geometry, and signed up right away. As Andrew wanted the Navy, however, he needed to stay in school till June. He figured maybe he’ll see Pops guarding a lock when his cruiser steamed by, but as Pops never wrote, we weren’t really sure where he was.

The problem I foresaw was the girls. Susan was Andrew’s age, and right off it was apparent that she was hot for my brother. Betty and Aida, the twins, on the other hand, seemed like little girls.

After a bit, though, I had to admit that it wasn’t so bad.

I’d of course seen my mother naked -- what boy hasn’t? -- but not in recent years. As for her breasts, though, I still was scoring. She thought nothing about me being up against her, even if she were still in her nightgown.

With Aunt Ginny, I wasn’t going to get away with that much, but I still sometimes saw her breasts, and a few times even managed to bump up against them without her notice.

Susan was Miss Big-Britches in her sisters’ eyes. Cheerleader, lipstick, heels, fags in her purse lining, boyfriends. She’d help with my math at first, but never volunteer, maybe because I was getting to be better at it than her.

I’d lots of opportunities to peek and bump into her, as well — what happens when you live under the same roof– and if she’s your cousin, maybe she’ll even play around with you a little.

But there was Andrew. Susan and I would be on the porch swing, her grinning at my joke about Hans the Hun, when he’d get home from baseball, and zap! she’d forget I was even there, asking him things like how many stripes he’d get when he enlisted.

The rally squad said it helped school spirit if they hugged the team after a victory. Susan had her steady to special hug, of course, but also Andrew because he was her cousin. Plus, to make her steady jealous, the twins figured.

Once when I’d come home, -- how quickly the place became that -- Mom was still at work, Aunt Ginny was off somewhere and the twins were at the piano. Aunt Ginny had them share lessons to cut expenses. For duets, Miss McCray would assign Betty three hands to play, Aida, one, their talents being such.

I knew that Andrew and Susan were home, too, by the ball glove and pompoms at the door. He must have had practice canceled.

I was almost to my room when I heard her giggles, and a minute later, my brother stuck his head out her door. “Spying?”

“Just got home.

“Better keep your trap shut.”

“About what?” after which Susan darted out and gave me a big kiss, me pleased she’d do such a thing.

With the two younger ones, I’d sometimes play Monopoly. We’d go to their tree house and smoke. When we all admitted we didn’t inhale, though we laughed and laughed, cousins not having to pretend things.

When the two of them and I raked leaves — not that big of a task for a trio — we’d play King of the Mountain and bury each other, the two letting me rub their fronts and goosing me back. Not for that long, usually, except for the time when our mothers came out on the porch and both of the twins goosed me until they went in. Just being silly cousins.

It was those two who told me more about our older siblings, the three of us playing poker in the tree house. Strip poker, to be precise. I was down to my underpants, as far as I’d have to go. Being girls, they got to keep on one more thing.

“Susan and Andrew. Know what they do?” asked Aida, nipples identifiable under her chemise, puffing up to look older.

“What?” pretending to look elsewhere.

A giggle. “They go all the way,”

“Yeah,” hoping it might sound as if I’d known and it wasn’t that much of a thing.

But wow! With Andrew, though, maybe I wasn’t that surprised, as he was going into the Navy. But Susan?

“There’s a peephole where we watch,” Aida’s big toe against my underpants, as I’d lost the hand and when you’re down to the minimum and again lose, the winner gets to get you for the count of five, except eight if you wiggle.

“Honest?” getting a boner as her sister counted her down.

“You can watch with us,” maybe giving it an extra footsie to pay me back for when I’d used her chest my pillow, us watching for hawks.

“No way!”

“We’ll come and get you,”

When a shake awakened me a few nights later, “Barefoot,” I was instructed. I couldn’t tell at first which twin it was, but the blue nightgown meant Betty.

It was dark in the linen closet, but the girls had an EverReady, moving aside a stack of towels, removing the shelf, and popping open an access to a crawl space below the porch rafters.

Betty went in first. Aida followed, then me, the three of us hands-and-kneeing to where there were two nail holes in Andrew’s room. Betty claimed one for herself and pointed me to the other.

The vantage was toward Andrew’s bed and I could see his bare butt in the air, Susan under him, naked as could be.

Aida pulled me back to look herself and the two of us took turns.

The sounds of sheets, bedsprings and gasps made it through the wall, the seeing helping the hearing, and though my hole would have been but a spot on the wall to Susan, I’d the impression that her eyes found mine.

When we got back to the linen closet, Betty gave me a kiss. Aida gave me one, too, maybe a little longer.

Later that night, into my room like a shadow came Aida.

Did I have any say regarding losing my virginity? Or taking hers, for that matter? Not really, other than to warn her not to play around with me too much, her answer being that she’d felt my boner a million times. It was definitely not a million times and it had always been through my pants.

Susan and Andrew made it look so wild, but as the two of us were starting from scratch, we’d things to work out, how to line ourselves up, for example.

I’d the idea that I should be on top, but realized she might be flattened. Andrew was larger than Susan, but her being a cheerleader and all, she was pretty strong for a girl. Aida solved it by saying that Susan gets on top lots of times.

I’d try to pull out before the end, but with her on top, it wasn’t my fault.

The twins would take turns visiting me after we’d watched our older siblings, but then it got that they didn’t bother to wait. Aida would assume control, while Betty was more about taking turns and Aida sometimes had to sneak in to wake her up before morning.

I could tell that Susan knew we were spying -- maybe they told her to get even for being the big sister -- by how she began to treat me like someone more her age, maybe up against me when I helped her with her homework.

But she at least waited for Andrew to ship out before she, too, was in my room. The first time, she just marched in, did sort of a strip tease, and laid me. If I got good at it, she was why. I wished, though, my first picture of her, so to speak, hadn’t been through a nail hole.

Perhaps our mothers suspected, as they might have seen forgotten panties by my bed, but it didn’t get mentioned.

It was not much longer until I had encounters with both my mom and my aunt. With Mom, we’d been moving furniture and her chest pinned my arm against a stuffed chair. With my aunt, in steadying me on the ladder to repair a lighting fixture, she’d been against my calves.

When Andrew was lost, Uncle Sam said that one son per family was enough and let me go on to college and get my start with electronics before the GI Bill was pumping out more-deserving graduates.