Ruth's hands began to tremble. She felt the sticky wetness spreading down from between her thighs as the boy moaned again. There was no mistaking what he was doing.

She leaned against the wall, her legs suddenly feeling too weak to support her weight, and decided it would be best to go quietly back down the hall to her bedroom. She didn't want her young nephew to suspect she had been furtively listening outside his door.

My God, she thought, sitting on the edge of her bed, her heart pounding, what's the matter with me? Why are all these crazy thoughts filling my head? He's my sister's son!

Ruth hadn't seen her nephew since his eleventh birthday. When her sister asked if he could spend the summer with her and her daughter Peg, she had been thrilled. Ruth hat been so lonely since her husband left her for that other woman – almost a year ago. Lonely and cheated. She would never forgive him for running out on her, leaving her to care for Peg, who was now Bill's age.

At times her resentment would burn like fire in the pit of her stomach and she would start to cry and be unable to stop. But in just a short time Bill had changed all that. It was like having a man around the house again. Ruth felt years younger and more assured of herself.

But now something else was happening. Ruth didn't want to acknowledge it – even to herself. Sooner or later she would have to give in to these strange feelings, as wrong as she knew them to be, and this frightened her. Excited her too. She had never felt such excitement welling up inside her before.

She had met Bill at the station. It had only been a week ago, but it seemed like much longer. It seemed now as if she had known the boy, all his life, as if she were his mother and not an aunt who hadn't seen him in four years.