Like the Leviathan

Michael stood naked in front of the mermaid, his older sister's hand on his right shoulder blade as they admired the creature, its hair flowing in waves, its features broad and solid, its breasts large and full with pink shells as nipples.

"Someone took their time with this one," he said.

"You just like the big boobs," Holly replied. She then lifted her hand from his back, held it up palm to him, and added, "If you even say she has a nice tail..."

But she knew he little brother wasn't clever enough to come up with that joke so quickly. Over the course of the summer she'd learned that he wasn't only innocent, but even simple -- not dumb but simple in the way a lot of good, decent men are. Entirely uncomplicated. No knots to untangle. No twisted strands to unravel. Perfectly naked in every way. And in that way, beautiful. She admired his lean body, his height, his cock hanging happily.

He'll be gone in few days, she thought. Back to college. And, in reality, this version of him will never return. Ever.

She put her hand back on his shoulder and leaned her head against his arm. The beach they were walking to was known by rumor more than anything else. Drive a couple hours south along the coast, look for a certain milepost, go a little beyond that, and you'll see a gap in the trees and maybe a few cars parked along the road. The trail to the ocean ran a mile through woods surprisingly thick, the second half of the tail opening a bit, a sandstone cliff running the length of it, the stone soft enough that people would carve names, faces, and sea goddesses into it.

When they had gotten out of the car, she told him that he should take his clothes off, which he did because she said to. She unbuttoned her shirt and revealed the bright red string bikini top she'd bought the day before. They left the clothes in the car. Along with their phones. She carried the beach bag and wore a pair of cutoff jeans.

Holly moved a hand down his side and cupped his balls. "It's been five days," she said. "Poor you stuck out on the couch in the den with no privacy." Their parent's cabin on the coast lived up to the title. Compared to their house in the city, it seemed of another generation and social class altogether. A kitchen and a common room, two bedrooms, and a tiny bathroom, and two closets. And nothing more. Thin walls, wood paneling, linoleum in the kitchen, a worn out carpet in a den filled with old furniture and a TV. Michael slept on a couch in that room. Any guests who spent the night made do with the rickety sleeper sofa across from him.

She massaged his cock and smiled watching it grow. She could feel his apprehension wrestling with his innate desire to cum after several days of having no privacy at all. "Hold on," he said. "What if someone comes?"

"Someone's going to," she said as she started pumping his erection. "Can't have you going out on the beach naked and feeling all pent up." He placed an arm around her, beathed deeply, closed his eyes, and let his chin drop towards his chest. She pumped vigorously, laughed when it started chirping, and then smiled broadly when a rope of cum leaped out of it, his hold on her tightening. He opened his eyes to the mermaid's stare. His cock deflated, the last drops falling from it.

"Your offering," Holly said, "To the goddess." She'd been stroking his cock all summer since finding him naked one morning in the kitchen when he thought himself alone. Any moment they had to themselves, anywhere in the house or out by the pool, she'd get him naked and treat him to an assortment of techniques, some of which absolutely transported him, left him quivering, and made her feel powerful. He was taller and stronger than her, but trembled at her touch -- which unlocked a need from within her to possess this kind of power. And use it.

Though Michael didn't know it, he wasn't the sole object of Holly's frenzy those summer months. Biding her time until she left for grad school, and not wanting to take a job offered at her parents' law office, Holly signed up for a temp job at some remodeling company, and at once, she realized that she'd been hired just to be the office girl. The idiot son of the asshole owner told her has much one afternoon. "The girl who normally works here likes to take the summer to be with her kids, so we get another girl to fill in." Really, she thought. He was in his early forties, a wife, a couple kids, and a hairline he was in denial about. He always showed up in the afternoon when everyone else was out at sites, saying he was just checking in, when it was more about checking out.

Never, she said to herself. Never with a guy like that.

Until one afternoon, she hiked up her skirt and pulled down her panties while he bent her over her desk.

"Do you have a condom?" she said. He stopped cold and said he thought he knew where one might be, and (surprise, surprise) he found one just where he thought it might be. It was ugly sex with grunting and his big dong thrusting into her like some dumb animal until the final grunt announced the session's end. Once dressed he started in on the spiel about having a wife and kids and how this was just something casual that wasn't meant to lead anywhere. "You got that right," she said, grinning at the flash of anger and disappointment at her agreeableness that crossed his face.

She let it go on a couple times a week solely because the old Holly never would have done anything like it. Of course, the old Holly never would have spent the summer getting her brother off, either. The Old Holly never would have studied up on ways to do it and things to say to get him going wild. She'd often tell him how heavy his balls felt from all the cum stored up in them -- she understood that he had no idea that his balls held only a small fraction of the cum he spurted, but that he loved hearing how big and heavy they were because, in truth, all he really knew about the semen he produced was how to shoot it.

And shoot it he did. In gorgeous streams, each of which she saw as a victory. The Old Holly never would have fathomed the idea of seeing her brother spewing cum in fits of ecstasy of her own making. But this Holly did. And liked it.

She and Michael turned from the mermaid and began walking down the trail toward the beach. They passed an assortment of figures and faces carved in the sandstone, most weathered and old.

"Feeling better?" she asked.

"Much," he said. An aunt and uncle had been staying with them all week at the cabin, sleeping on the pullout couch in the den where Michael slept. They were loud people, both of whom snored, and one of whom always seemed to need the bathroom whenever it was occupied. And the situation would only get worse -- more aunts, more uncles, and their kids were arriving that evening. They'd stay in tents in the cabin's tiny yard. Their mom had a big picnic dinner planned, so when Holly and Michael ducked away for the afternoon, she warned them to be back in time for dinner or else.

"And look out for the sneaker waves," she added.

The fucking sneaker waves.

Along the Pacific coast, at times, the ocean hurls forth a mini-tsunami that's renown for sweeping unsuspecting people out to sea or lifting driftwood trunks of dead trees off the sand and dropping them on anyone nearby. It's not entirely a legend -- they definitely happen, and people do get hurt. But their mother's fixation on sneaker waves is, to Holly's thinking, part of a kink her parents have built up around the cabin. When they go there, they transform. Holly's dad dons sandals, shorts, and a polo shirt. On chilly evenings, he puts on a sweater, sits in the recliner, and actually reads the newspaper. The only thing he lacks is a pipe. All the while her mom, the sharp-witted corporate lawyer, straps on a floral apron and buzzes about the kitchen perpetually fixing some meal or pouring their dad another drink. And this normally hands-off mom starts fussing over every detail of her children's lives. And seeing danger everywhere. Thus the constant and inevitable warning about the sneaker waves whenever she thinks they might actually approach the water.

It started the moment Holly and Michael arrived at the cabin. Instantly, the dad renowned for keeping his distance started warmly referring to Michael as his son and "my boy" and taking him out to fish or play a round of golf at the local course. And Holly? Her mom had a floral apron ready for her so she could "help out" with whatever meal needed prepping for.

The day before their trip to this secret beach, Holly's dad and his boy were off to the golf course as Holly and her mom were aproned-up and chopping vegetables in the kitchen. Holly looked at her mom and briefly wondered if, when she and Michael weren't around, if her mom only wore the apron around the cabin. She imagined her dad walking in and fucking his wife up the ass while she chopped carrots.

"What are you thinking about, girl?" her mom asked.

Girl. "Mike and I are going hiking tomorrow," Holly said.

"We got all your aunts and uncles and cousins coming tomorrow. If you go, you'll need to be back in plenty of time for that."

Holly nodded as she peeled a cucumber. Then her mom laughed out loud, put her knife down and said, "You know what happened last week?"

Dad face fucked you right here in the kitchen. "No," said Holly.

"I get home from work, and -- remember how your brother used to go around naked as a jaybird? Well there he was coming in from the pool totally in the nude." She laughed again. "I thought he'd jump out of his skin." She shook her head. "It was so sweet. She's such a nice-looking boy. And..." She help up her hands about eight inches apart. An exaggeration. "I shouldn't say anything, but a mom can be proud of her boy."

Tell me about it.

"Of course, I told him he should get dressed. Can't imagine you'd want your brother strolling through the house in the buff." She picked up her knife and started chopping again.

Holly and Michael had put off joining their parents at the cabin as long as they could. Their mom and dad had gone down on Friday evening, with Holly and Michael promising to join them Sunday afternoon. And that Sunday morning, as they lay in bed together, Holly had given Michael a blowjob.

She'd been lying next to him, her head on his chest, feeling the warmth of his skin and the steadiness of his breathing, her own eyes shut, a smile on her lips in a moment of peace. When, after a while, she opened her eyes, she noticed a grim look on her brother's face as though he struggled with something internally. When she asked what he was thinking about, he responded with a collage of words and bitten-off phrases that centered on her and what they'd done all summer and what it could mean and how it could have happened. When he finally managed to speak in complete sentences, he told her that he felt he should say something, so she touched a finger to his lips, not to comfort him, but because words complicate things, and what she wanted from him was the simplicity she'd been feeding off from him all summer. He'd never understand that in the remotest sense. So to ease his mind and dispel the demons, she gave him a simple sweet blowjob that put an end to his concerns.

They reached the end of the trail and the bold Pacific Ocean lay on the other side of an expanse of rippled sand. Bands of clouds hung in the sky above the horizon, the sun high enough to be unaffected by them. Hand-in-hand, Holly and Michael stepped out onto the beach, which stretched to the north, the slight haze in the air making its end unseeable. They noticed a few figures in the distance either lying in the sand or walking along the water, but they seemed nothing more than silhouettes.

Also in the distance at the water's edge seemed to be the remnants of a tree, its roots flaring at one end, the rest of the trunk pointing to the horizon.

"Well," an older woman's voice said, "Aren't you two just the cutest?" Two other voices cackled joyfully.

To Holly's left, seated in beach chairs surrounded with a sprawl of bags, towels, and coolers, sat three tanned topless women wearing sunglasses and hats. Two were built like fertility goddesses, the other -- the one who had spoken -- thin and boney, her hair silver and long.

"Aren't we?" said Holly, taking her brother's arm. "Or, at least, isn't he?" She ran her hand over his chest and abdomen, bringing down to his groin. The women watched her hand move.

"Oh, no complaints," said another of the women. "Most the men coming here are older and saggier than me. Getting to see a nice young man in all his glory. Once or twice a summer, maybe?" She looked at the other two women, who nodded in agreement.

"You two lovebirds just out for the day?" asked the silver-haired woman.

"We're escaping from his family," said Holly. "We haven't had a moment to ourselves in days." She stood on her toes and pecked Michael on the cheek. Her hand grazed his cock. "Not that we're sad to meet you ladies."

"Don't mind us," one of them said. "We're old as time. We could be one of them sculptures you walked on by."

"We're a living history of this beach," the middle one said. "You two don't mind us. Take what time you have. Be with each other."

Holly and Michael nodded and said their goodbyes. When they turned to leave, one woman whistled. "Not too bad from this side, either," she said to another round of cackling.

"You have admirers," Holly said to her brother as they walked away. "More than just me." She leaned into him as they walked. "I never asked you," she said. "Did you like what I did Sunday morning?"

"Yes," he said, "I really did."

"Of course, you did."

"Seriously," he said slowing his pace and looking at her, "I really did."

Holly squeezed his arm, felt her heart quicken then return to normal as she leaned into him again. She spotted a patch of sand near the tree line and said they should spread out the blanket there. Michael glanced back at the three women, all of whom were still watching them, then said, "We're not that far from the ladies. There's a lot of empty beach here."

"I like that spot," Holly said.

So they spread the blanket there. She looked back at the ladies. One of them waved, which Holly acknowledged with a nod. As Michael evened out the wrinkles out of the blanket, Holly undid the button and zipper on he shorts, let them drop, and then kicked them off to the side of the blanket next to where she'd placed their beach bag.

The bright red of the bikini contrasted with the fairness of her skin, but its strings complimented the slimness of her body, her breasts modest, her curves graceful, even subtle -- no part of her body shouted for attention. She was impossible to assess in pieces. Michael looked at her and apprehended all of her at once -- her shoulders, slender throat, her navel, inward and shadowed, the hint of her nipples apparent, her nails colored like her swimsuit. The longer he looked, the more he recognized aspects of her that had always been in front of him but had been entirely missed. He had never envisioned her like this before and wondered how that could be. She approached him. He placed a hand behind her neck, leaned forward, and they kissed. She lowered her gaze, put her head against his chest. He placed his other hand on the small of her back and held her like that until she said in a whisper, "Let's go down to the water."

They waved once more to the three women and walked hand-in-hand to the water, the same silhouettes of what they assumed had to be people off in the distance laying in the sand or standing by the water. And the fallen tree, more than a silhouette but still far enough away for its details to be indiscernible.

"It looks like a whale," Michael said gazing at it. "Like the leviathan."

Holly laughed out loud. "Leviathan?," she asked, "Where'd you get that word?"

Her brother shrugged. Holly nudged his shoulder, placed a hand on his cock and, with a grin, said, "Leviathan."

"Right," he said.

"Mom made it sound that way," she said. "She told me about catching you naked out by the pool. She was like --" Holly held her hands two feet apart. Her brother laughed.

"It made her proud, she told me."

"Well, of course."

She pressed her body into his, kissed him quickly a couple times on the lips, then backed away.

"Let's go in," she said.

"Don't we have to keep an eye out for sneaker waves?"

"Shut up," she laughed.

The water was cold, the Pacific running deep not far from the coast. Waves rolled in gently, each breaking into foam thirty feet from the shore, the view down the beach being row after row of white crests, evenly spaced, slowly approaching the sand. With a couple deep breathes, Holly and Michael summoned the fortitude to run into the waves and take the plunge, each surfacing with a howl and a laugh. As though doing so would help warm them, they brought their bodies together, arms around one another, Michael running a hand through her wet hair, tucking it behind her ear, noticing how much darker it looked. They kissed again, this time more deeply, their tongues touching. As they continued to kiss, their grip on each other tightened. When their lips separated, they each kissed the other's neck before stopping and gazing into each other's eyes.

Under the surface, he held her waist, then her butt. Both of her hands massaged his cock and his balls, and then his ass. They kissed some more, a wave breaking against them. Michael lifted his head intending to say how cold the water felt, but his sister thrust her mouth against his, holding his head in both hands. He brought her body closer to his, held her firm, the muscles of his arms hardening, making her back arch, her kiss more intense.

He stood up, her body tightly wrapped around his, he lifted her from the water, stood waist deep in the surf, holding her, kissing her. Without a word, only a simple nod in agreement, he put her on her feet, and they marched out of the water, the air feeling warm, they walked briskly over the sand, the three women watching them, their faces expressionless. When Holly and Michael reached the blanket, they embraced and kissed, then Holly stepped back from her brother, reached behind herself with one hand and undid the knot holding her bikini top together. With the other hand, she pulled it forward and then dropped it to the sand.

Her breasts hung firm and motionless, the small pink nipples tight and sharp.

She undid the string on one side of her bikini bottom, and when it had fallen to her feet, she stepped out of it and toward her brother. She guided his right hand to her breast, the nipple tracing a pattern on its palm has he caressed it. His other hand cupped her ass cheek while both her hands stroked his growing cock until it stood hard and full. They kissed, Michael gently holding her head, her grip on his cock tightening.

Then his right arm swept down behind her knees, and at once, he lifted her, his left arm supporting her shoulders, her own arms draped around his neck, their lips never parting. She felt weightless in his arms. Slowly, he lowered to his knees, and with them on the edge of the blanket, he placed Holly on her back, gazed at her a moment, then gently parted her knees. "I owe you this," he said, lowering his head to her pussy, as trim, tight, and elegant as her breasts.

Holly's heart pounded, less from the touch of his tongue than from the fact that she was allowing this to happen. Her eyes glazed over. Her hands trembled above her breasts. She turned her head toward the three women, all of them watching astounded, absorbed, and seeing the silver-haired one give a subtle nod, Holly looked down at her brother, moved her hands to his head, and closed her eyes.

So different from having that idiot son slamming his cock into it. Her brother, though, was lost down there, his every motion tentative. He kissed her inner thigh, her mound, furtively touched his tongue to her labia. She stroked his hair, breathed deeply and slowly, and meditated on the summer and this urge that erupted to the surface of her being to break every rule she ever held, push every boundary, and how this urge terrified her, but inspired her. How it controlled her. Pushed her toward her brother. Bent her over an office desk. Why? she wondered, Why? All the precession that had guided her until now, gone. Abandoned.

She lifted her back from the blanket, raised Michael's head, and told him lie down face-up. They shifted positions, she climbed over him, sat astride his body, bent forward and kissed him deeply, his hand rubbing her breasts. Her left hand reached back, propped up his cock, and then lifting herself with her knees, she brought her body down on it, its full length sliding into her. Now she felt it. What his tongue had stumbled trying to do, his cock did instinctively. She gripped it tightly as his could, her body vertical, she rode it up and down, each time feeling like the first. She held her breasts, pinched and twisted the nipples, all but unaware of her brother other than of his cock, hard, thick, insistent, widening her, filling her with each thrust. She glanced at the women, then turned away from them and immersed herself in this feeling of bounds shattered, her breathing becoming labored, her ribcage expanding fully with each breath, a thin layer of sweat breaking on her skin. She swayed her hips as she rode it, felt it grew inside her.

It arrived like a veil so delicate that it disintegrate at the moment of contact. She experienced it as an instant memory, the moment of it lost to her. No screaming. No moans. Just a revelation that it had happened, that the climax had taken her somewhere she'd never been, and she had returned.

Michael still thrust himself upward into her and she grasped that he hadn't cum yet, so she let herself fall forward, her elbows locked, her arms holding her body at an angle, she thrust back against his cock, picking up the pace, grunting as she did, riding it forcefully, gripping it tightly -- until she felt the warm blast within, and each that followed it, his cock throbbing, emptying itself into her until it went still.

She saw the fright flashed across his face, and put two fingers on his lips. She lifted herself off his cock, then laid next to him, her head on his chest. She thought to assure him that it would be fine, but, instead she shut her eyes, felt his arm holding her, and stayed silent.

---------

When Holly awoke, the sand to the side of the blanket had a pink hue. During their nap, she and Michael had disentangled themselves. She sat up, saw him lying on his back, unconscious, his arms to his sides, his penis once again erect and levitating above his groin. Though not yet sunset, the sun hung low in the sky behind a band of clouds that tinged its light pink. The water line had moved forward. Glancing to where they had been sitting, she saw that the three women were gone.

Holly stood up. Her bikini lay tangled in the sand. She stepped past it and walked nude out to the middle of the beach. Fewer silhouettes. None she could see lying in the sand. Two walking together beyond the beached tree, which now lay surrounded by the sea, the waterline just beyond its flared roots. She continued on to the water's edge, a slight breeze in the air touching her skin. White crests of waves rolled in as they had earlier. She stopped at the water line. She examined the clouds sweeping across the horizon. The last remnants of a wave rolled over her toes.

Someone touched her shoulder from behind. Turning, she saw the silver-haired woman wearing a white coverall, her feet still bare, her eyes grey.

"Didn't mean to scare you, dear," the woman said. "Just saw you here and wanted to tell you goodbye."

Holly nodded okay.

"My companions already left," the woman continued. "They were impressed with what a good girlfriend you are."

"oh," said Holly.

The woman placed her fingertips on Holly's chest. "But, I know the truth," she said. "I know you're a good sister."

Holly took in a breath and held it, her mouth slightly open, and her eyes wide.

The woman smiled. Her hand moved to Holly's cheek. In her other hand she held a white flower that she placed behind Holly's ear. "Don't worry, dear," she said. "We like to think we lead life, but more often it leads us." She bowed her head as a way of saying goodbye, turned to the tree line, and walked away.

Holly regained her breath, looked out to the horizon, and then back to the woman, whom she saw disappear into the trees. She took the flower from her ear and held it with both hands. She then turned towards where the tree lay and walked towards it. The two silhouettes she had seen moments before were approaching and had resolved into a man and a woman, each who looked to be her age, both fully clothed, even wearing jackets. As she approached them and they approached her, the male tried to look away from her naked body, but not the woman. She cast a gaze of scorn and judgement, her eyes narrowing as they passed her.

But once they passed her, they were gone. Holly didn't look back.

The tree was bigger than she thought, its roots woven and tangled, looking like veins that had been torn and fossilized. She stepped into the water and waded to the midpoint of the trunk. This tree hadn't been cut down. Something had ripped it apart and then pulled it from the earth and flung it into the ocean to float long enough to bleach it plain gray and lodge itself on the shore.

A wave bigger than all the others that proceeded it swept forward, splashed against Holly's thighs and caused her to stumble. But it moved the tree not at all. Regaining her balance, Holly put her hand on the trunk, felt its texture, its firmness, its mass, its age.