Moonstar by David Gerrold Page A

like it.”
    â€œI’m all through.”
    Jobe turned to face her. “Do my front too.”
    Potto hesitated, then decided to humor her. She poured some more of the coconut oil into her hand and spread it quickly on Jobe’s chest.
    While Potto had been touching Jobe and spreading oil on her backside, was she struck with recognition of Jobe’s approaching puberty? Jobe was skinny, undeveloped—yet the stretching of her body spoke, and that was sign enough. Did Potto recognize within herself the pleasures that she gave to Jobe? When Jobe had said, “Don’t stop,” did Potto know that Jobe had felt it too; was she embarrassed? Was that why she hesitated now?
    The threshold of the blush is highly sensual, the body grows attuned to mysteries of touch and magic. All the nerves become the messengers of sparkling and unspoken joys. The most intense experiences will breed intense emotions—and though Jobe didn’t understand the why of all her feelings, she still knew she needed something from her sister, the most intense and gentle strokes that were possible from Potto. Jobe knew—if only via instinct—the form of those attentions had to be physical and sensual. She needed something visceral to allay her trembling fears. But what was merely sensual for Jobe was something sexual for Potto.
    And yet, perhaps Jobe knew that too.
    As Potto touched her—was she trying not to think of her the way she had been thinking? Jobe was learning something new here. As she studied Potto, she was seeing not her sister, but the adult that she would be; the hands of change were on her.
    Potto’s chest was swelling with first blush; the muscles of adulthood were beginning to appear. The more perceptive of their aunts had recognized that Potto would go Dakka, and indeed, the signs were there already. Instead of softening with an extra layer of tissue, fatty, blood-infused, the onset of first blush, that moment when the coin awaits its final stamping, Potto had already passed beyond into the onset of her option. She had broadened in her neck and shoulders, subtly so, but it was there. And her stomach too had tightened, turning hard she had lost her soft pink fleshiness, she looked instead to have a mound of muscle, firm with tone. Tiny curlicues of hair were beginning to appear upon it.
    Curious, Jobe reached and touched. She realized that what she did was something very wrong, a breaking of the boundaries, the unseen ones that held you back. But, yet—as she waited, as she touched, knowing certain that her sister would most surely pull away, Potto didn’t.
    She stood there, hesitating, to see if she’d continue—or withdraw. Jobe’s hand remained where she had placed it. Her touch was brave and probing, moist with wonder at the feeling. What she touched was hard where she herself was soft. Strange, how very strange. Potto moved her along Jobe’s sides, pausing at her waist, then sliding down her hips.
    Jobe stared at Potto’s stomach, it was tense, as was her own. “You’ll be going soon,” she said. “Won’t you, Potto?”
    Potto nodded. “I guess so. That’s what they’re saying. It’s not decided. I don’t know. But even if I do go away, it won’t be for long. Just long enough to choose.”
    â€œYou’ve already chosen, haven’t you?”
    â€œNo—” she said. “I don’t think so. I mean, I thought I knew—but I’ve started thinking about what it might be like to be a mother. I mean . . .” she hesitated. “You only get to choose once. I want to be sure; I still have time.” She added, “Porro will have to choose too, you know. We’ve been talking.” And then, in a lower tone, she confided, “We’ve even slept together to grow closer than sisters—to help each other make her choice.”
    â€œWhat’s it like?”
    â€œSleeping