Dominion by Fred Saberhagen (spiritual books to read TXT) 📗

superior gesture, as if he had too many pressing things to think about and had already had to go on to think of something else. Saul and Vivian were basically among the castle-owners, not the dwellers in the huts below.

   Simon said: “I dunno what part of the family I’m really in. The poor part, I guess.”

   “I dunno either.” Saul meant about himself. He sounded suddenly worried about it.

   Now Simon was past the islands, he could see the castle landing dead ahead. There were no boats at the tiny floating dock. There usually weren’t.  “Hell,” said Simon. “Go start up your own family. That’s the way I feel about it.”

   Saul’s expression seemed to say that it wasn’t that simple, but he didn’t want to argue about it, at least not right now.

   Simon stepped out on the floating dock, after bringing the canoe neatly alongside. To his surprise, Saul only changed seats once more and reached for the paddle.

   “I’m just gonna goof around in the canoe for a while, Si,” the younger boy said. “You go on up.”

   “Oh,” said Simon, not knowing what else he ought to say. He was going to be alone with Vivian. A pulse inside his head began to tap, lightly and quickly. Inside his trunks he could feel himself shriveling up completely, as if with fear.

   When Saul had paddled out ten yards or so from the dock, he turned the canoe and let it drift. Now he regarded Simon with a look in which he let some wicked amusement show. “Hope you’re ready,” he called back. “She had a kind of funny look today. Like maybe her pants were a little hot or something.” And he continued watching Simon carefully for some reaction. Watchful, that was the word for Saul Littlewood at twelve.

   Simon was past caring about, or even knowing, what reactions he might display. He turned dazedly and started along the lightly worn path that wound upward from the shoreline, into the trees that covered the face of the bluff. Mosquitoes greeted him as he entered the shade. Even nearly naked as he was, he hardly noticed them.

   The pulse in his head tapped on. Halfway up the switch-backed path, he scraped a toe raw, stumbling on one of the carved stone steps, and barely felt it.

   Saul had said that she was at the grotto, and when Simon came to the branching path he turned that way. His breathing was shallow and quick, and sweat trickled under his armpits newly grown with adolescent hair. He was distracted from other difficulties by something in the way that Saul had delivered that last remark. It had begun to raise a horrible suspicion in Simon’s mind: suppose Saul was screwing his own sister, or wanted to? Looking back on certain things that had been said and done last summer hinted at confirmation of the grotesque thought. Ugh. Of course he, Simon, was some kind of a cousin to her too. But that wasn’t like a brother and sister. God.

   On silent feet Simon rounded the last shoulder of limestone rock before the grotto, and there he stopped. The thought came, almost calmly, that imagination had taken over completely, that his mind had at last given up reality. Vivian was sitting totally naked on the edge of the stone table at the center of the little paved court before the grotto. Her back was turned to Simon, and, as Saul had said, she was working on a painting. One slim, tanned arm was extended, holding a small brush to an easel set up just beside the table. Beyond the easel was the tall, pale stone statue serving her as model. There was a set of paints beside Vivian on the stone table, as well as two parts of a discarded green bikini and a crumpled red garment that might be a beach jacket. She was sitting sideways on the edge of stone, right foot on the lower paving, left leg raised and bent on the tabletop. In the faint breeze, leaf-shadows slid over her bare back.

   This was not imagination. Suddenly the pulse in Simon’s head was pounding hard. His heart and lungs were laboring as if he’d run up the whole hill. His hands and his knees were trembling violently.

   Saul had known she was sunbathing, he’d set this up. Or else Saul hadn’t known. It didn’t matter. Simon turned for an instant to look at the ascending trail behind him. He couldn’t see Saul on it, and Saul couldn’t have sneaked up through woods and underbrush without Simon’s hearing him before now.

   Simon stared at Vivian again. She was real, not imaginary. He had to try to see her from the front, see everything. In a trembling frenzy he tiptoed off the trail, then went down into a crawling crouch, heedless of occasional sharp twigs. If he could move behind bushes and the low wall to the other side of the court, then look up over the wall carefully, he’d be able to see Vivian from in front. Heart in mouth, Simon made a scrambling, desperate progress. He was as silent as he could be, but still things crunched and snapped faintly under his hand, his knee, his foot. She had to hear the noise he was making, oh God, she had to be alarmed. But when at last, with enforced slowness, he raised his head beside a tree to look, Vivian was still calmly painting, she gave no sign of having heard a thing.

   He had a perfect view of two small breasts, their tan softer than that of the surrounding skin, imaging a bikini top. The nipples were richly brown, exactly as his imagination had formed them for him a hundred times. He saw her spread thighs, the left knee raised and sharply bent. The foot was placed on the table exactly where it prevented his observing the central mystery. But he could see that that