Chapter 1: June 18, 1978

_She could raise me up.
She was my fantasy,
And the coming of age
Is every young man’s dream.
Every Young Man’s Dream – Nazareth_

“We have about an hour till we get to The Pines,” said Pop over his shoulder looking towards the back of the station wagon. “How about we stop for a potty break?”

“Daaaad!” whined my eleven year old sister, Magda.

My older brother, Roman, who was sitting next to her in the rear seat, rolled his eyes and scoffed out loud. I just shook my head. Even though Roman was only three years older than I was, he tried to act so grown up and pretend he didn’t like bathroom humor. I was in the far rear of the car. When we pack our Dodge station wagon for family trips, we always leave space in the rear where either Roman, Magda, or I could lie down.

It was the middle of June 1978 and I knew things couldn’t get any better than this. I was 14 years old, laying in the coveted position in the rear of the car, reading Jules Verne, and going to a nudist camp. Yup, I became a teenager two Christmases ago and felt that I was a man. We’ve been coming to the camp since I was six years old.

Pop was the head chef at our Armetti’s, a five-star restaurant in Baltimore. He believed in all things natural ... in his food ... and in his life. I once asked him why we came down to Aunt Susan’s camp every year. He talked for a long time about relieving stress, no pretenses, having a chance to unwind, and a couple other things I didn’t understand. All I really knew was that camp was a lot of fun for all of us.

“You need to go wee-wee, Stephanie?” asked Roman in a snide tone.

“Why don’t you can it, No-Name?” I shot back angrily.

“Steve Zaworski! Behave!” said Mom firmly.

“But he...”

I bit off my words and gritted my teeth. Complaining to Mom that Roman started it would’ve been as effective as me using my body to stop a runaway train. Superman wouldn’t have stood a chance against her. It wasn’t that Mom was big or muscular. She was tall and shapely with nice size breasts, a narrow waist, and attractive hips. (Yeah, yeah, yeah ... I looked, but I only got two things to say about that ... nudist camp and horny teenager.) Mom had a presence, though. The type you couldn’t ignore. She was gracious and pleasant to everyone with an air of Southern gentility. Her smile brought joy to Roman, Magda, and I, and a frown spoke more of her displeasure than any amount of scolding could do. I loved her, but the soft spot she had for Roman ticked me off at times.

“No-Name ... No-Name ... No-Name...” chanted my sister.

“Magda!” admonished Pop before Roman could punch her in the arm. “Roman, stop teasing your brother.”

“Sure, Dad.”

“Until the next time,” I thought as Pop pulled into a gas station.

“Who wants a Coke,” asked Mom.

“I do,” said Roman.

“Me, too,” chimed in Magda.

“Mom, just water for me,” I said as I climbed out of the rear of the car.

I never really cared for Coke or soda. They were all too sweet and syrupy for me. I had unusual tastes growing up. Mom calls me a finicky eater. I prefer fresh, home-cooked food to prepackaged or fast food. I guess Pop’s cooking had rubbed off on me.

“Steve, I’m so excited!” gushed Magda, bouncing around to the rear the station wagon. “I can’t wait until we get to camp!”

“To meet up with your friends or to stare at the boys?” I asked teasingly.

Magda blushed right up to the roots of her coal-black hair. We all had black hair, except for Mom, who had rich, dark sable brown hair that hung down just past her shoulders. Magda’s hair hung down her back in waves to just past her waist. While Magda did get Pop’s hair, she did inherit her big, cornflower blue eyes from Mom. Roman and I got our china-blue eyes from Pop.

“I’m just teasing you, sis,” I told her.

“I know,” she said, giving me a tight lipped smile to hide her braces. My braces had come off last year and I was happy to be at camp without them. “Can I ride in the back of the rest of the trip?”

“Huh? Oh! I ... uh...” I stammered. I had laid claim to the rear for the final leg of the trip.

“Puleeeze?” whined Magda. “I’m about to go bonkers sitting next to Roman!”

I grunted in surprised as I realized that the two of them had actually been behaving themselves for the past hour or so in the car. Whereas, I liked Roman half the time and tolerated him the other half of the time, Magda loathed him. Roman was a chauvinist and lorded his ‘male superiority’ over Magda. I was sure that Magda was smarter than both of Roman and I combined, which really didn’t help matters every time Magda pointed out Roman’s mistakes.

Magda calls me her Peacemaker. When the three of us are together, I seem to spend most of my time trying to keep the bickering and fighting between them down to a dull roar. I looked at Magda and smiled.

“Sure, you can ride in the back,” I said to her.

“Thank you,” gushed Magda as she stepped forward to give me a tight hug. “You’re the best and I owe you.”

“Yeah, and one of these days I’m gonna collect.” I returned her hug, a little embarrassed by her display of affection.

Magda released me and went running into the gas station with a “Wait here!” drifting behind her. She soon came running back holding a can of Coke and a bottle of water. After she handed me the bottle, I took a swig, letting the cool liquid trickled down my throat. Grabbing a hold of my bookbag.I started to take it out of the back of the car, but Magda stopped me.

“Wait.”

I looked at her in confusion, but decided to see what she was up to. I took another swig of water and leaned back against the car. The hot metal scorched my back and I immediately jerked away with a small cry of pain. Magda smirked at me, but didn’t say anything.

Pop, Mom, and Roman soon came out of the gas station. After the car was filled with gas, the three of them climbed in. I looked at Magda, who held up her hand. As soon as Pop started the car, Magda nodded quickly and started climbing into the rear. I grabbed my bag and ran around to the driver’s side rear door.

“What?” asked Roman startled as I got in. “What are you doing?”

“I’m in, Dad,” yelled Magda from the back.

Pop put the car in gear and pulled out of the gas station. Roman opened his mouth and then shut it tightly. He shot me a dirty look before turning to look outside. I realized that if he had known ahead of time, he would have bumped Magda out of the coveted position.

The rest of the trip passed by quickly. It was late afternoon when Pop stopped the station wagon in front of the chain gate blocking the road leading back to the camp. Roman jumped out to unlock the chain, lowered it, and relocked it after the car had driven over it.

We drove on down to the clubhouse and I could see the lake through the trees. I knew there was a feeder lake, which supplied water to the swimming lake. The swimming lake was brick-lined and I knew no matter how hot it got during the day the water would still be ice cold from the mountain water.

“Aunt Susan! Aunt Susan!” cried out Magda, looking over the luggage to peer out the front windshield.

I looked up and saw Aunt Susan standing beside the clubhouse. She really wasn’t our aunt or any relation whatsoever. She owned and ran the camp. I think almost every kid there called her Aunt Susan. She waved to us and I blushed as I felt my dick become hard.

I had a crush on Aunt Susan for long as I could remember. She had the perfect hourglass shape, luxurious brunette hair, and I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. She was my favorite masturbation fantasy, and here she was in the flesh wearing her customary bikini bottoms and nothing else.

“Anton ... Brenda,” said Aunt Susan greeting my parents. “We’re glad you arrived safely. How was the trip down?”

“We ran into some traffic around D.C.,” stated Pop. “Other than that, it was uneventful.”

“Hello, Roman and... (oof) ... Hello, Magda.” My sister had rushed around from the rear of the car to give Aunt Susan a hug. Aunt Susan looked over at me for a second or two before saying, “Hello, Stephan. You’ve grown since last year.”

I felt my face heat up, became tongue-tied, and stared down at my feet. I had hit a growth spurt this year shooting up four inches to a height of 5’11”. The spurt had me tall, thin, and gangly. I felt awkward, not only because Aunt Susan was talking to me, but also because she called me by my name.

My first name is Stephan. With one uncle and three cousins also named Stephan, Mom started calling me Steve. The nickname stuck as a way to tell us apart.

“Let’s unload the food and then head up to the cabin,” said Pop.

We quickly unloaded the coolers onto our shelf in one of the refrigerators and place our bins of food on the shelves under the counter. We then headed up to the cabin. We usually stayed in a cabin instead of one of the motel rooms. Mom and Pop enjoyed the extra comfort afforded by it.

Roman snagged the upper bunk as usual, leaving me the lower one. Magda had a rollaway bed that had been placed into the far corner of the cabin. It went without saying that Mom and Pop would be sleeping on the queen-size bed. We unloaded the station wagon, unhooked the bicycles from the rack, and set the portable outdoor furniture on the front porch.

Magda threw her suitcase on her bed, opened it, and took out a large beach towel. She quickly stripped in a flying flurry of clothing, which landed haphazardly everywhere. Grabbing up the towel, she darted quickly towards the door.

“Magda, stop,” ordered Mom.

“ ... But, Mom, Erin Hughes is down by the clubhouse,” stated Magda. “I haven’t seen her since last summer!”

Mom looked at Pop, who gave a significant look at the clothes strewn all over the floor.

“You have two and a half weeks to catch up,” said Mom. “You can unpack later, but you need to pick up your clothing now.”

Magda rush back and picked up her clothes, placing them on her bed. It was then that I noticed that she had more of a shape than just the elbows-and-knees stick figure I was used to seeing. There are even seem to be a dark patch of downy hair between her legs. I guess that the past year had affected her as much as it had me.

Being raised in nudist, I wasn’t embarrassed about seeing naked bodies. I mean, we don’t practice nudity at home, but neither did any of us go screaming for the covers we saw one another in the buff. It was kind of relaxing, not having those awkward moments when you walked in on someone naked.

Magda finished piling up her clothes and made another dash for the door. Mom stopped her again, this time spraying her down with insect repellent and handing Magda a bottle of sunscreen.

“Go,” said Mom with a smile as Magda rolled her eyes and dashed out the door.

The rest of us undressed and then unpacked. To me, this seemed like a ritual we went through every year. I could feel the change come over us. Pop lost some of his tenseness. Mom seemed a little more at peace. Even Roman seemed to strut about less as we put things away.

“Glad we came?” Pop asked Mom as he pulled her into a hug.

Pop was a big man at 6’2” tall and big-boned. Mom’s 5’9” height seemed perfect as she laid her head on his shoulder.

“Always,” she told him.

“Mom? Dad? Do you mind if we head on out?” asked Roman.

“Let me sprayed you down first,” said Mom, breaking away from Pop and reaching for the insect repellent.

Pop looked at his watch and said, “Dinner at six o’clock. That’s two hours from now. Tell Magda if you see her.”

After Mom was finished spraying us down, Roman and I headed down to the clubhouse. Before we got there, we ran into a friend walking down the road from Aunt Susan’s house.

“Hi, Paul,” greeted Roman. “What are you up to?”

Paul Hughes smiled and said, “Same as you, I expect ... just having fun. My family is down here for the entire summer.”

“Man, that’s how I want to spend my vacation,” said Roman. He then spotted some friends that were his age. “Are the Coulters here yet?”

“In a couple weeks, I think,” replied Paul.

“Well, I gotta run,” and Roman took off to catch up with his friends.

“Sorry,” I apologized.

“For what?” asked Paul.

“Roman.”

“It’s alright,” said Paul. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

I looked at Paul and said, “You’ve changed since last year.”

Paul laughed and said, “Haven’t we all? Look at you. You’re what... 5 to 6 inches taller?”

“Four and a half,” I stammered.

“See,” stated Paul as he turned to leave. “I have to run, too. I’ll see you around.”

I looked around after Paul left and realized I was alone. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing from my viewpoint. Alone meant I wasn’t breaking up fights between Roman and Magda. It also meant I could have time for myself.

Thinking of time, I grimaced because I left my watch up in the cabin. I wanted to go down to the lake, but I also knew I’d better not be late for dinner. With a sigh of exasperation, I trudged back up to our cabin. I was kind of put out with Roman because I was expecting him to keep track of the time. I was feeling irritated when I pulled open the screen door to the cabin.