"Um," he agreed, edging his knees together. The laboriously mounded sand collapsed defiantly, uncovering the castle's main tower further.

"Let me see," she said, squatting before him and prying his knees gently apart with her cool hands.

The cloth covering his crotch rose up eagerly to stand inspection. Prior could see between her handsome, well-fleshed thighs now, inside the skirt that had slid over her knees. That firm and rounded vista was obscured only at the deepest cleft by an annoying wash of shadow.

"You don't have enough sand," she pointed out. He still couldn't make out her face because of the sun, but his eyes had adjusted enough to penetrate the shadow beneath her skirt. He saw now that her posterior was innocent of panties or other defense. Open to the breeze.

"Give me time," he said, scratching feebly for more sand. Time? Sand? He could see something else he wanted! If only this weren't happening in mid-afternoon on a public beach.

"I'll bury you," she said suggestively, and a muscle rippled inside one thigh. What legs she had! She began hauling in sand from a wider semicircle, those thighs flexing as her balance shifted, and piling the sand about his trunks. "Lie down." She patted sand about his crotch.

Lie down? It was about to launch toward the moon!

Oh—she meant him. Prior lay back, feeling the tension between his legs increase to the point of pain. She spilled cool sand entirely over him, patting it solicitously in key places. "You don't lie very well," she murmured. "What's your name?"

On that score he could accommodate her. "Prior Gross."

She laughed, her bosom bouncing. She had an excellent upper torso; the lower distraction had prevented him from noticing it before. "For Priapus, god of sex! You are a find! No wonder I was drawn to you. I thought it was only your condition."