In my growing, so I changed. A moodiness would come upon me often. At mornings I would sit upon the lawn and pick at grass or gaze between the border-shrubs and wonder at the mystery of the small spaces in between the plants where the earth was darker, drier, than the rest, and peopled with a curious enchantment, as I thought, by reason of its solitude, its utter quiet. Leaves rustle, stir. The earth does not. It waits for that which is to be-the iron claws of the rake, or petals falling on its silent crust.

Mother would not come out until Bertha, Adelaide and Papa had ridden off, my sisters' bottoms perched like ripe plums on their saddles.

“What are you doing, Harry?” she would ask. Mothers ask the same things always of their children, young or old. It has long been my belief that all mothers have a secret book, replete with phrases, that they pass to one another and the which no man has ever seen. Thus, frequently upon my entering the house, my mother would look outwards to the hall-look straight at me-and ask, “Is that you, Harry?” even though she saw me clear. I have known other mothers say and do the same. Their phrases are identical-the intonations all the same.

Or, seeing me in a mood of sullenness that I did not even wish to have, she would ask, “What is it that you want?” and I forever saying that I did not know.

“That, then, is to the good. Beware of what you want, for you might get it,” Mama would reply. I did not know the sense of that, but later learned it, to my cost. My pleasure also, I would add. One must not be a hypocrite.

In that first moment, on that afternoon, I knew only the inexpressible delight of having Adelaide near-naked under me and I attending to her mouth while Caroline licked slowly at her quim.

My hands cupped Adelaide's face. For a few seconds she had fretted her hips. I had felt her do so in between our heady kisses, heard a slap and swallowed down her squeal. Caroline had smacked her thighs to make her open them. I cared not, for our tongues were lick-a-licking then, her saliva warm and broody to my lips, my hands shaping in wonder the proud bulbs of her hard-nippled breasts that I had never dreamed to see. O bleary wonder of it all, in all its suddenness!