The Book of Knowledge by Doris Grumbach Page A

sideways on hers, he was able to cup her small ear in his. It was in this way that he envisioned the soft, webbed creatures in the attic coupling. So strong was his vision that he could sense the gauzes connecting his arms to his body and then to Kate.
    â€˜Like tissue paper,’ he whispered. ‘Now open your eyes and stare straight ahead, as they do.’
    Caleb lay relaxed upon his sister. His cock—he enjoyed thinking of the new term he had learned from Roslyn—swelled downward, becoming hard and straight between Kate’s buttocks. Wishing to recreate the private pleasure he had long ago discovered he could obtain by rubbing this part, he began to move gently from side to side.
    Kate, obedient to his instructions, did not move. She concentrated on staring ahead as she had been told to do. She thought his movements were in emulation of the bats he had observed. Unsurprised, she continued to lie still. Then, after a time, he began to weigh heavily on her. She pushed up against him as hard as she could and felt a warm jet of liquid between her legs, in the area from which she peed. Not wanting to disturb the bat trance she thought he was in, she said nothing.
    Nor did he. There was a fine satisfaction, a strange novelty, in using Kate’s lovely tight buttocks and soft thighs for the pleasure he had hitherto given himself. It was as if she were joined in some magical way to his marvelous release. He heard her sigh and realized that his weight was oppressing her. Moving onto his side, he looked into her eyes. They both smiled, a long, knowing, identical, loving smile.
    â€˜Is that what you saw the bats in the attic do?’
    Caleb said nothing. Kate waited and then she asked:
    â€˜Do you think we will have babies?’
    â€˜Bats, I’ve read, have only one. Sometimes, but very rarely, twins.’
    â€˜Well, then, one baby?’
    â€˜No, I don’t think so.’
    â€˜Too bad. I think it would be fun, don’t you?’
    â€˜No. Not yet.’
    Tired from the strain of looking at each other, they closed their eyes and lay still, pressed close, wet, weary, and very comfortable. Caleb was filled with a contentment he had never felt before. He wanted never to leave Kate’s bed.
    He whispered: ‘I love you, Kate. I want to marry you.’
    Holding her underpants against the wet that covered her upper legs, she said: ‘I accept.’
    At summer’s end, as if to anticipate the approaching separation, the Flowers children drew even further apart from their friends. There were no more croquet games and very few excursions to the beach, which by now had lost much of its allure. The air and sand, even the ocean, having cooled a little, none of them went racing down over hot sand to be refreshed in the surf.
    The summer parents talked vaguely about a farewell party to be held the day before they returned to the City. Their children looked forward to ice cream from Huyler’s and cake baked by the Hellmans’ maid. But somehow, like so many adult plans for children, in the press of packing and eagerness to get back to the City, it never came to pass.
    In early September, before Labor Day and the last time the children would be together in the country, Roslyn and Lion went to Larch Street. Roslyn wanted to collect acorns from the bare spaces under their oak trees to take home as souvenirs.
    Caleb and Kate came down from their veranda to join them, bringing wooden pails they always used for the collection of what Caleb called specimens. The four crawled about, gathering only prime acorns, the best examples of green and brown, polished-looking seeds, each one set upright in a woody, stiff, brown collar.
    During the collection process, Caleb and Roslyn became competitive, trying to outdo each other in locating the biggest, most splendid specimens, pushing against each other when they thought they had spotted them. At one point, Roslyn held up a true beauty, perfect except