"So now you come to me!" The tiger eyes blazed at Sue Robin as she stood in the doorway of the little cottage, waiting for the old woman to invite her inside. "I know what you here for. Why you didn't come to me first? You chillun today think you know it all. Got no respect for us old people."
Sue Robin repressed a smile and waited patiently. Unlike everybody else in Maxwell, she was not afraid of the black witch, for the "witch" had been like another mother, or grandmother, all her life, and she loved her as much as she loved Great Aunt Minerva.
"All right. Come on in and set down." The muddy-gold eyes traveled over the tall shapely young woman, and the corners of her mouth twitched with approval. She'd done a fine job, bringing this one and her twin brother up.
"That brother o' yaurn ain't happy with his new bride."
"You knew already?" The astonishment was fake. Sue Robin was not at all surprised at the old woman's occult knowledge.
"Course I knew," the other snorted disdainfully. She pointed to the cane-bottomed chair next to her and Sue Robin came and sat beside her, towering head and shoulders above the gray mop of kinky hair.
"How long Bobby Lee gonna be in Atlanta?"
"Probably a week, Aunt Clarinda."
"We'll need more time."
"He'll probably call me tonight or tomorrow night. I can stall him, if you say so."
"I say so. Full moon ain't fill eight more days."
"I'll do it, Aunt Clarinda."
"I'll call a meetin'."
In spite of her education, Sue Robin felt a superstitious thrill shoot through her. She had heard vaguely of Aunt Clarinda's "meetings", though never from any whites. As a child, she had heard some of her black playmates whisper about "meetings", and always they looked over their shoulders with genuine dread as if afraid of being struck dead – or worse.
The eyes flamed yellow as they stared into the blue eyes of the young woman, reading to the very depths of her soul, Sue Robin felt.
"An' you won't talk about it, neither, y'heah? Nobody talks about it. You get a loose tongue, an' you won't just die; you'll come back as a zombie." The eyes seemed to grow larger and larger, and Sue Robin felt drawn into circles of luminescence, hypnotized, powerless to move or say anything.
The power was suddenly withdrawn, and Sue Robin took a deep breath. "You don't have to worry about me, Aunt Clarinda. You know I'd never talk."
The fierce eyes softened to mellow gold again, and a smile lifted the withered brown ups. "I know, honey. Don't worry no more. Everything's gonna be all right. You just keep that big dumb brother of yourn away." She shook her head. "Sometimes it seem to me that men ain't right bright. Git outta heah now; I got work to do."
Sue Robin stooped and kissed the wrinkled forehead, then turned and hurried out. She long-legged it across the fifty years of manicured lawn to the big house, smiling to herself at the fierce independence of the old woman. Her father had tried again and again to persuade her to take one of the extra rooms in the house, where they could keep an eye on her in case she should need help. At eighty, them was no telling what might happen. But so adamantly had Aunt Clarinda refused that Tyrus Forsythe had finally given up. Anything the old lady asked for – or demanded – she got, with no argument.
The early September sun was still well above the horizon, so Sue Robin didn't worry about hurrying to Mary Beth's house, which was down the road a half-mile. She stood and looked toward the river, winding a short distance away through willows and live oaks festooned with Spanish moss, zigzagging its lazy way to the ocean less than a mile to the east. She and Bobby Lee used to go down to the river as youngsters, to fish or swim if the tide wasn't pulling too strong. Sometimes they went alone, sometimes with other kids. A favorite playmate had been Sybil, Aunt Clarinda's granddaughter. Sybil was in Atlanta now, working and going to college. Let's see, Sue Robin reflected, I think she's majoring in anthropology.
The hot sun glinted off the roof of a distant building, mostly concealed by gigantic live oak trees surrounding it. The Old Place! Built by the first Forsythe on the plantation, several years before the Civil War, the Old Place was now boarded up, though once or twice a year Aunt Minerva and Aunt Clarinda and a few very trusted servants would open up the place and clean and dust and make sure everything was in good shape. Them was even talk of declaring the old estate a historic monument, and creating a tiny state park around it.
Ghosts roamed the Old Place, spirits from the family cemetery that lay tombstoned between it and the New Place where the Forsythes now lived. Or so people in Maxwell claimed. From time to time the sheriff checked the place for security, purely as a routine. Nobody dared to perpetrate any vandalism on the stately old property, although occasional lovers had sneaked in through an unlocked door or window. But they didn't stay long. Ghostly voices and hideous laughter quickly drove them out.
Strange, Sue Robin mused. Two or three of her high school girl friends had confided to her that they had gone there to make out with their boy friends. They had scored all right, but soon after that, the weird noises and wild laughter had scared them out, wide-eyed and passionless. That was strange, Sue Robin recollected, because she and Bobby Lee had spent the night there in their sleeping bags, when they were about fourteen, and they had heard nothing.
She smiled comfortably. That was the first time they had fucked, really fucked. Staying in the "haunted house" had been their initiation test for admission in the Alligator Club, a very exclusive little group organized by some high school students. She and Bobby Lee were a bit young for membership, but already Bobby Lee was big enough for junior varsity football and basketball, and Sue Robin was tall and just developing. That was the year Mary Beth moved to Maxwell, and the following year she was pledged, too.
"You've got to spend the night – all night – in the Old Place," the president of the Alligators told the twins. "Maybe the haunts won't bug you, since you're in the family."
Saying nothing to their father or Aunt Minerva, the twins had quietly slipped out of their rooms at nine o'clock and gone downstairs and outside to where they had earlier hidden their sleeping bags. Bobby Lee went in front, a flashlight in his hand, but he didn't turn it on because he didn't want to attract any attention.
The president of the Alligators and two senior members were waiting for them by a magnolia tree on the weed-covered lawn of the Old Place. Plainly they were nervous at being in the area after dark.
"Go on in. We'll wait around here for a while, and others will check through the night to make sure you're still here. Somebody will give you the final check at five-thirty in the morning. If you've made it then, you're members."
Bobby Lee clicked on his flashlight then, and followed closely by Sue Robin, he made his way to a downstairs window that was unlocked, and not covered by boards. He helped her in and crawled in behind her. By the circular spot of the flashlight they saw they were in a small bedroom. White sheets covered the bed and the few pieces of furniture in the room.
"Here?" Bobby Lee asked, struggling to keep his voice from trembling.
"No, it's too scary here. Let's see what's in the next room," his sister replied.
The next room was a spacious room with a high fireplace to one side. The furniture was pushed against the walls and covered with sheets and tarpaulins.
"Hey, Buz, look at the candles!"
On the mantelpiece over the fireplace were two candelabras with candles in them.
"Let's light one of them, so we'll have a little bit of light tonight," Sue Robin said in a half-whisper.
"Okay." Bobby Lee took down one of the candelabras, and placed it on the brick deck before the fireplace. He lighted two of the three candles.
"Not enough to keep us awake, but enough to see by – if we have to see!"
Spreading their sleeping bags in the middle of the floor, they stripped down to their underwear and crawled in. They talked in low whispers for a few minutes, but both of them were healthily sleepy, so they fell asleep.
It seemed to Bobby Lee that he was being dragged out of the depths of a dark but not unpleasant cave, somebody gripping him by the shoulder and pulling hard. Protesting, he woke up.
"It's me, Buz. I'm cold."
He felt the trembling hand against his shoulder.
"Okay, Sis. I'll light the other candle, and you can crawl in with me." He slid out of the sleeping bag, and the chilly air of early winter struck his bare legs and arms. Shivering, he quickly lighted the fresh candles; the other two were almost burned out. Then he slid back into the sleeping bag, behind his sister.
"Now I'm cold," he muttered.
Her back was to him, and he pressed close against her, spoon-fashion, and put his arms about her so they would get warm again.
"You really were cold," he said, feeling the chill of her smooth thighs and her bare back and shoulders. "Even your fanny is cold."
"You're warm," she said happily, and snuggled back against him, wriggling her cold buttocks into his groin.
They lay still for a while, waiting, for sleep to come again.
Practically orphaned when their mother died at their birth, the twins had grown up much closer than most brothers and sisters. Their father was already in early middle age when they were born, and their mother, had been in her thirties. The parents had married late. Tyrus Forsythe was a busy man, taking care of the vast plantation and his hardware supply house and various other properties, and Aunt Minerva was much too old to romp and tumble with the growing children, so it was only natural that they should become inseparable playmates. Even when they started to school, their friends and playmates. Even when they started to school, their friends and playmates recognized that the two were very close, and one was never invited to anything unless the other was invited too.
Beginning with their early discovery of the pleasure in playing with each other, especially the game of lollipop Sue Robin played with Bobby Lee's peter, they continued fondling and experimenting as natural urges impelled them. When other little playmates showed them how to play doctor, they adopted that game, and developed imaginative variations.
But by the time they hit twelve, they drifted into more boy-boy, girl-girl relationships, and their little sex games seemed juvenile, so they put them away with their other toys. Sue Robin hardly noticed that her twin brother was growing into a handsome young giant, and Bobby Lee was barely aware that his sister was beautiful, and that her body was changing shape dramatically. She started wearing bras and sheer bikini panties.
As he lay in the sleeping bag, drowsy with the returning heat of his body and the growing heat of Sue Robin's body pressed against him, he became acutely aware of the considerable curve of her firm buttocks and of the crevice between them, not at all shielded by her nylon panties. His groin became warmer, and he realized that he was beginning to get a hard-on.
His arms were still around her, and her hands were on his, pressing him to her. He felt the lightest pressure from her hands now, and it seemed as if she were nudging his hands downward to check, he moved his hands downward an inch or two. Sure enough, the pressure was still there.
Not only that, but he was now touching the top of her bra. He moved lower still, gently cupping her tits through the fabric, and her hands pressed even more firmly on his. Waiting no longer he began to squeeze the unfamiliar mounds and found the sensation pleasant.
Her head turned slightly back toward him. "Unfasten my bra, Buz," she whispered.
He moved away from her enough to reach between them and unsnap the bra, and Sue Robin slid it off. He put his hands back on her breasts, now bare, and squeezed the spongy flesh. They felt like oranges in his hands.
"That's nice," she whispered, and wriggled her buttocks delightedly. "Not too hard!" she warned after a while as he squeezed with increasing excitement. She put her hands over his again and guided his fingers until he was kneading her small pointed nipples between his thumbs and fingers. He felt them stiffening under his unpracticed fingers, and he heard her breath coming quicker.
By now his cock was stiff and straining against his shorts. Unwilling to turn loose his delightful handfuls of young tit, he thrust his hips forward and squirmed, trying to adjust his painfully slanted cock. Sue Robin responded by wriggling her buttocks against him, seeking to groove his rod between her asscheeks.
He felt hot all over now. Letting go one tit, he reached down and pushed his shorts down below his hips, freeing his bent tool. As he did so, Sue Robin squirmed and got her panties down, too. For the first time in his adolescent life, Bobby Lee felt his throbbing cock rubbing between the silky thighs of a young girl. It felt good.
Sue Robin had never been shy, certainly not with her twin brother. Now she assumed command of the situation. Reaching back, she shoved her hand between them and seized his swollen cock.
"Oh, Buz!" she exclaimed. "It gets so big when you get hard."
"Yeah," he grunted, and waited to see what would happen next. Fondling her boobs seemed a natural thing to do while he waited, so he grasped them again and squeezed them gently while kneading the turgid nipples.
Although she lacked experience, Sue Robin had, by surreptitious reading, learned a lot about her body and its workings. Gleefully clutching the hot staff in her hand, she rubbed the head between her thighs, from her asshole to the top of her youthful bush of cunt hair.
"Ooooooooooh!" she squealed rapturously. "This is great, Buz!" She kicked her legs until she had worked her panties down and over her feet. Widening her thighs, she massaged her slit more freely, with the bulging knob of his cock, checking with his cockhead the little nub in the top of her cuntlips that she had tested and tickled with her finger as she lay back in her bathtub in recent months. This felt much better than her finger, she decided.
Soon a flow of juice from her cunt walls spread inside the lips, and moistened the cockhead which she continued to rub between the folds of her pussy and over the half-concealed clitoris. Sue Robin squirmed and squeaked with joy.
"Hey, Sis, aren't you going to put it in?" Bobby Lee finally demanded. All this felt good, but he had the urge to bury his shaft as far inside her hot ass as he could drive it.
"Slide under a little more," she gasped as she tried to guide the pole into her chute. "You're up too high."
Obediently he curled under a bit more, and felt the head jamming its way through what felt like a tight rubbery ring.
"Easy, Buz. Your dick is so big! You might hurt me. Go slow, honey."
Bobby Lee had never thought much about whether he had a big peter or not, but Sis' exclamation tickled his pride. Also, it dawned on him that there was a lot more to fucking than just ramming his stiff dong into a pussy, no matter what some of his buddies at school said. He got his hands over her tits again and massaged them as before, enjoying the sensation of Sue Robin squirming and jerking against him as he rolled her hard little nipples between his fingers. Slowly he pushed until his entire cockhead was through the inner lips of her eager young cunt.
"Ohhhhhhhh, Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuz!" she quavered through chattering teeth. "I feel like I'm gonna faint!"
Instead of fainting, however, she squirmed back against him in little movements that slid her tight cunt up and down on the barely enclosed cockhead, while squeaky little cries of joy kept bursting from her throat.
A novel feeling of power surged through Bobby Lee as he realized how much ecstasy he was transmitting to Sis, while his own throbbing delight kept increasing, too. Feeling the tight passage getting more slippery, he eased his rigid cock on in, forcing aside the virginal walls of her cunt. In a moment his belly was flat against the smooth curves of her buttocks.
"Jumpin' Jupiter!" Sue Robin exclaimed. "Buz, it feels like you're coming out my throat!" She reached down through her legs to feel the thick base of his buried tool, then pushed on under to clasp his balls and fondle them tenderly.
Bobby Lee's head was spinning with the variety of erotic sensations shooting throughout his body. He felt Sis' hand come up and cover one of his, moving it down off her tit to the top of her pussy.
"There!" she grunted. "Touch me them." She guided his finger through the silky hair of her mound to her clit, better exposed now by the thick pole wedging apart her cuntlips.
He found the little pea-sized stub and rubbed his fingertip across ft.
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" she cried, her body convulsing and writhing as much as the confines of the large sleeping bag would allow.
The candlelight flickered against the ancient walls of the room as the twins gradually found an unaccustomed rhythm, Bobby Lee surging slowly into the firmly cushioned buttocks curved against him, and Sue Robin backing into his drives with joyful vigor. It seemed to him that his cock was growing ever longer and ever thicker as the soft lips gripped it and slid up and down the shaft. Jerking off had never given him such a thrill. It was too much.
"I'm coming, Sis!" he exclaimed as he felt the familiar stirring in his balls. "I'm coming!" He took his hand away from her pussy and clamped it again on her free tit, dragging on them to give him more leverage as he drove harder and faster and deeper into her.
"Me – me – tooooooooo!" she gasped, breaking the steady rhythm of her hips and jerking spasmodically. "Oh! Ah! Ahhhhhhhh!" A wail of exquisite agony ripped through her taut throat, and then she was laughing and sobbing at the same time while her body went limp. Her bathtub masturbation had never given her such a shattering climax.
They lay gasping and panting for several long moments, half-dazed by the passionate storm that had shaken them. Bobby Lee didn't try to pull his still-erect cock out of the hot snug clasp of Sue Robin's pussy, but his hands on her tits relaxed and he began to drift off to sleep. He was brought back to consciousness by his sister's whisper.
"Buz, do you hear somebody?"
He listened. A faint wind outside rapped a branch of a low-boughed tree against the roof near where they had crawled into the house, but that sound he recognized. He heard nothing else.
"No, Sis. I don't hear anything."
Maybe it's my imagination, she thought, straining her ears. Gradually it came to her that she hadn't really heard anything so much as she had felt something, a presence of someone or something that was watching them. But strangely, it wasn't a frightening feeling. In fact, she sensed something protective about the presence.
She also felt Buz's body relaxing in sleep, and she smiled. Lordy, that had felt good. So that was what real fucking was all about. Her sensitive pussy squeezed involuntarily on the softening peter still wedged inside her, and a renewed thrill shot through her loins. Maybe they'd wake up and do it again before the Alligators came for them in the morning.
These memories paraded swiftly through Sue Robin's mind as she stood facing the Old Place and the river beyond. Smiling, she turned and went on into the house.
Aunt Minerva sat in the western bay window of the huge living room, knitting away on some piece of clothing. She had watched her beautiful, long-legged grandniece coming away from Clarinda's cottage, and she knew what was going on.
"Hi, Auntie," Sue Robin greeted the little gnome-like woman. "You making something pretty for me?"
"Maybe for you, maybe for somebody else," the old lady replied tartly.
Sue Robin smiled, as unfazed by her great aunt's abruptness as by Aunt Clarinda's huffy tone. She went over, bent and kissed the gray-haired woman, then plumped down at her feet, sitting crosslegged on the polished pine floor.
The sharp old eyes looked at the handsome profile of the young woman, and she smiled. She knew what she knew!
"So Clarinda's going to call a meetin'?"
The blonde head whipped about, startled, and wide blue eyes looked into the faded gray ones. "How'd you know that, Aunt Minerva?"
The old face wrinkled even more as a broad smile spread over it. "Me and Clarinda's been close as kin for nigh onto a hundred years now. We're about as close – as close as you and Bobby Lee."
Sue Robin looked away hastily, to keep her great aunt from reading the question that sprang into her mind. Did the old lady know about her and her twin brother? Everybody knew how close she and Buz were, but they only thought it was natural for twins to be that way. She was sure of that. But Aunt Minerva. And Aunt Clarinda. Sometimes she was sure they communed with the long-dead, and that they had supernatural power. They saw things nobody else could see.
"Aunt Minerva," she said, looking down at the floor, "ever since I was a little girl, I've heard talk of-of things Aunt Clarinda could do. I know a lot of the blacks go to her when they need – something special. Like when they're having romantic problems."
"He! He! He!" The rusty cackle was full of amusement. "A lot of whites do, too. But they don't talk. They better not talk. She sure 'nough has extra powers, honey. You knew she was a root-worker, didn't you?"
Sue Robin had heard the term among her black playmates, and less frequently "conjure-woman". She knew, of course, they meant something like "witch".
"I guess so."
"Well, don't you worry your pretty head, honey. You're a sweet child and Bobby Lee is a fine young man, though no brighter than the bull-headed Pa of his'n. Everything is going to work out all right. Just leave it to Clarinda and me."
Clarinda and you? Sue Robin curbed the temptation to stare questioningly at her great aunt. What did this little aristocratic old lady, reeking of magnolia and moonlit traditions, have to do with voodoo?
"Now honey, go out into the kitchen and see if Josh is around. I want a mint julep."
"I'll tell him, Auntie. Then I'm going to run down the road to Mary Beth's for a little while. I told her I'd come. I might be late for supper."
She found the old man sitting outside the kitchen door, watching a fresh litter of puppies scrambling about the yard. After delivering Aunt Minerva's message, she hurried upstairs to her room.
She fumbled in the top drawer of the chiffonier and found what she was searching for, a long cardboard carton whose contents rattled as she picked it up. She dropped it into a large shoulder bag, hung the bag over her shoulder, and went back downstairs. She passed through the dining room, one corner of which was boxed in by a small bar. She ducked behind it and got a pint bottle of vodka, and this, too, she dropped in her bag. Then she went outdoors and climbed into her MG.