Lord, she was a tease, flashing me the barest glimpse of her unclothed privates beneath the hem of a summer dress one size too small for her. Last year's favourite, resurrected for the first days of summer until something new could be found. I remembered it vaguely, from the family barbecue this time last year. It had fitted her better then. But no longer. Now, it was obscene, and I... I was thankful, truth be told. Grateful for the way the thin cotton hugged her hips, pleased by every glimpse of her rounded bottom poking at the fabric, leaving nothing to the imagination; pleasantly surprised by the lack of bra-strap next to shoulder strap. Her recently budded breasts, unhindered, poked out in perfect counterpoint to her pert bottom.

She sat opposite me, on a little bench with her brother, the less than agreeable Dane. Hideous name, fairly unpleasant boy. Which made Alice all that more wonderful because even ignoring my unhealthy obsession with her looks, Alice was comfortably the nicest kid there; she was the kindest, most gentle of the off-spring my siblings and cousins had managed to deliver into the world. She genuinely cared for people, and though not necessarily the brightest kid (and as such overlooked for praise by her grandmother, the matriarch), she had a manner which singled her out in my mind.

I intended, nervous though I was of any contact with the kids lest my intentions become realised, to make an effort with Alice that year. To make a breakthrough, so that I became the trusted uncle and she my surrogate daughter, at least for the week we would both be trapped at my parents' ridiculous lakeside retreat. The family event. One week each year where those of us with an independent bone in our bodies railed against the fact that, though we might hate to admit it, we would succumb to Mother's wishes and book the week off work, and make our way to Broadoaks, and pretend that we really did get on with each other.

I've rather made it sound as though we were a rich family used to extravagant holidays in our second home, haven't I? Well, I'll admit that mum and dad were pretty well off, but that's as far as it went. They held onto their money, apart from lavishing a decent education on us all, and then expected us to be eternally grateful and drop everything to return to the family home. Broadoaks wasn't even much of a home - the location was OK, but with three children, their partners (where it applied) and a host of nephews and nieces, and their own siblings, and then all the third generation lot... well, it got pretty crowded for a week each year, let's just put it that way.

I, of course, helped in my own little way with the overcrowding issue, by being fundamentally unattached. There had been a girl once, a lovely little thing by the name of Karen, but she was rather simple, and rather beneath me, at least according to my mother. One week of the family holiday convinced Karen she didn't want to be with me, no matter how I protested that I wasn't like the rest of them. Since then I'd had a few flings, but nothing which would have stood up to 'The Week', and so I turned up each year to face the disappointed look of my mother, and the increasingly uncomfortable chats with my father about how, if I did have anything to tell them, it would be OK, they would still love me. I almost didn't have the heart to tell my mother that I was simply a failure in love, rather than a homosexual afraid to bring his boyfriends home. It might have made it easier for her to cope, I think, if she didn't just think of me as a bit of a sad case. Still, it was probably all her fault for sending me to an all-boys school in the first place; no social skills when it came to the opposite sex, see?

What did draw me back year after year, other than my mother's curious ability to provoke sufficient guilt in me, was watching Alice grow. Truth be told I loved her long before I was attracted to her. I wasn't so naive as to fail to recognise my lust for the younger, more lissome female form, but when I first fell for Alice she was young enough that even I could not feel physical attraction for her. She would have been eight that summer, and only there at the house for the weekend. Her mother, my sister, had a truly artful knack of being busy enough to avoid the week, but appearing wonderful enough to find time for a couple of days, usually at the beginning when everyone was still having fun, and not trying to kill each other.

I'd known Alice before, of course. She was my niece, and though I was a bachelor I took a reasonable interest in her upbringing. But something had clicked that summer, and the shy little girl who'd always hung onto her mother's apron strings was suddenly vibrant and full of life, a real chatterbox, with a great deal more interesting line in conversation than most of the adults around her. A new school, apparently, had been the making of her, and she had blossomed in the few months she had been attending. I lavished her with attention, and then she was gone.

A year later I saw her again, though I had made some effort to contact her in between. But there was something special about the summer holiday, about the gathering by the lake. It was a magical place, despite my cynicism, and it brought Alice alive. She was a different girl, even more confident than she had been, but with a maturity borne of another year of school and all the experiences that brought. I tried to break into her world, but she was far more interested in her cousins than her mouldy old uncle, and I was left very much on the fringes.

Another year passed and she was a bubbly ten year old whose body had begun to elicit feelings in me which didn't at all tally with the image of the doting, protective uncle I wished to portray. She was not yet fully formed as a girl, not yet into that alluring stage which prefaces puberty, where the limbs are as lithe as they can be, and more shapely than the finest artist can hope to capture. Still a thing of wonder and beauty, of that there can be no doubt, but not yet a temptation for the wilder colours in the spectrum of my fantasies. It was the first time I saw her in the dress, too, though at the time it was no more significant than any other item of clothing. Alice reminded me many years later that she wore it the following summer simply because I had complemented her on it, though I have no recollection of having done so.

Fast-forward twelve months and you would find me sitting on a bench, watching whilst trying to appear not to, as Alice, in the self-same dress and devoid of underpants, occasionally offered me a glimpse along the gloomy tunnel between her thighs to where her unencumbered sex sat waiting like a treasure buried in the deepest, darkest part of a cave. I glimpsed the prize, and then it was gone again. She knew when to hold off, and when to reward. I was hers utterly, and she knew I watched.

Feeling the dull heat of the day bringing prickling sweat to the back of my neck, I stood and wandered on unsteady legs over to the drinks table and began to reach for a beer. Suddenly there was a tug at my elbow and a piping voice from the somewhere in the same area.

"Don't, uncle Zack, you'll get drunk and then you'll be all boring like all the other adults."

It was Alice, and there was a pleading look in her eyes which immediately forestalled any prospect of arguing.

"Hey sweetie. I get boring when I've had a beer, do I?"

My tone was mildly reproachful, but she knew I wasn't really angry with her.

"Come on, come to the lake with me. You can row me out on the water in the boat!"

"Uh, OK, sure."

I finished with a smile to reassure her that my hesitation was nothing to do with the fact that it was she who had asked. Truth be told, I was nervous about being seen disappearing with her on our own. My feelings coloured my judgment - after all, she was my niece, and there was nothing apparently untoward in us going off somewhere and playing. But my mind played host to a myriad of inappropriate thoughts, and made me feel guilt which I had no need to feel.

Perhaps, though, guilt was reasonable. I can't deny that I wanted something to happen, that I wanted the chance to molest Alice. I could use euphemistic language to describe my desires, but what's the point? That's what it amounted to: abuse, clear and simple; abuse of the trust she placed in me as an adult to consider her welfare above my base desires. At the time I didn't consider that for a moment, but had I known what was to happen perhaps I would have made a different decision that day.

But we went down to the water, Alice skipping along next to me, the epitome of innocent and beautiful girlhood. She was, I realised, very pretty indeed. A smattering of freckles adorned a button nose which sat between two of the bluest eyes I'd ever seen. Top that off with soft, red lips and she qualified as beautiful in anyone's reckoning, let alone that of a latent paedophile. Her golden hair lifted in the slight breeze coming off the water, and created the effect of a halo. Oh, she was no angel, not all the time, but just in that moment I could have believed she had fallen from heaven. And an insistent little note kept playing at the back of my mind - she has no pants on, she has no pants on, she has no...

We found the boat where it always lay, pulled out on the shore. It never ceased to amaze me that it was never stolen - even though it was quite a simple little rowing boat it was really rather beautifully made, and can't have been cheap to purchase. Alice climbed in at my request, and sat in the prow watching me labour to free our transport.

Once afloat I applied all my efforts, weak and misguided as they were, to putting a bit of distance between us and land. I was beginning to get the vague notion that something was afoot, that Alice had something on her mind. She had a curious smile curling the corners of her mouth, and I noticed the fingers of her left hand twisting in the hem of her dress, just above her knee. She said nothing, though, as I rowed us out into the placid waters of the lake.

"How about Smuggler's Cove?" I asked, keen for something to aim for. Smuggler's Cove was our family nickname for a little beach on the far side of an island not too far from the shore, or just for the island itself. We occasionally landed there and spent the day on the island, though there were faded and paint-peeling signs that the rock was private property. We never paid them heed, and we never saw anyone else there.

"No, not today." She shook her head gently, and looked demurely down at her feet. "We could go round the island, though."

"OK," I replied, and she raised her head and smiled at me, lifting my spirits.

As I rowed she loosened up a little, chatting about this and that. I also couldn't help but notice that her knees, which to this point had been clamped firmly together, began to drift ever so slightly apart. A fold of her dress hanging between her thighs hid her jewel from sight, yet it was enough to set my heart racing. She giggled dirtily when she detected my efforts to circumvent the mask, and with reddened cheeks I rowed us resolutely forward, desperately forcing myself not to look.

When the house at last disappeared from sight behind the raised rocks of Smuggler's Cove it seemed a tether had been released from Alice. She visibly relaxed, and leant back, bracing her hands on the edge of the boat. Her legs, too, lost their fight with gravity, spilling apart so freely that her dress was lifted all the way to her hips, and her immature femininity was brazenly displayed to my sight. She did not smile when I looked this time; no, now her eyes were lidded, her expression wanton. It shocked me to see such a display from a girl so young.

Time stretched out to an eternity. I had stopped rowing and we were drifting, my gaze locked at her hip height, my mouth dropping open at the sight of her. I remember little but impressions - she was reddened there, and it contrasted starkly with the whiteness of the skin all around. I remember thinking that it was the most perfect sight I had seen, such a contrast to the malformed adult genitalia I had experienced, with their ugly, crinkled skin and uneven patches of hair. No, this was something altogether different, a conch shell, pink at the divide and perfectly smooth. It confirmed every suspicion I held about my true sexuality.

The sun dipping behind a cloud broke the spell. She snapped her legs back into a more ladylike position, and I fumbled for the oars, grateful that the rowlocks had held them in place and they weren't drifting off across the water. I made no attempt to apologise for staring, or indeed for having been so obvious, though I felt it to be clearly my fault. She stared away over the side of the boat toward where the house would be, still hidden behind the rocky outcrop which harboured our private beach.

"I think we should go back now," I said, and she simply nodded in reply, not looking back to meet my eyes. She looked so desperately sad in that moment that I wanted nothing more than to scoop her into my arms and reassure her that everything would be alright. But I could do no such thing without tipping us both into the water, and so I contented myself with reaching a hand out to alight on her bared knee. She smiled slightly at the touch, but still did not look round.

---

Alice stayed close to me for the rest of that day, sometimes chatting with me, sometimes just sitting there, but always present. For my part I spent a large part of that time in a heightened state of tension, not knowing what to expect of Alice from one moment to the next. But she acted like an entirely normal child, showing no signs of the little tease who had displayed herself to me so lewdly earlier that very afternoon.

As evening began to fall, Alice's mother finally came and found her. Maria was a little the worse for drink, which to be fair to her wasn't often the case, but it was easy to see the disappointment on Alice's face.

"Come on, Alice. You need to go upstairs with your brother and your cousins and get ready for bed."

The little girl didn't seem at all impressed by the idea.

"But mum! Can't I stay somewhere else? They always argue, and they smell. I don't want to be in the same room with smelly boys. Can't I stay in the other bed in Uncle Zack's room?"

"No, sweetie, your uncle doesn't want to have you disturbing him, do you, Zack?"

I shrugged, wondering with half my mind how Alice knew there was a spare bed in my room.

"Wouldn't bother me," I replied.

My sister's mouth opened as if to say something, but then a change came over her. She was being offered a way out of a situation which would almost certainly have ended in a fight between Alice and her brother and cousins, a fight she would have to referee. In her drunken state there was no artifice to her, and her thoughts were plain to see on her face.

"Well..." she said, not perhaps as nonchalantly as she might have imagined, "well, I suppose it would make things easier trying to get the boys into the room. It would have been a bit of a squeeze. Are you really sure?"

I'm sure I answered that in the affirmative, but honestly I can't remember what I said, because my mind had turned inwards. I was, in the confines of my head, doing cartwheels, backflips and all manner of other athletic little acts of celebration I would not dare attempt with my real body.

---

Alice and I knew the game was afoot, and if the level of nervous energy she felt was barely a fraction in me then she must have hardly been able to contain her hammering heart. I was so nervous that my whole body shook with uncontrollable shivers, so severe that my stomach convulsed at times.

She stayed up late in the end - all the kids did, actually - so by the time she was heading up to bed it seemed reasonable for me to do so also. I let her go first, of course - she wanted to shower, and made no signs that I could detect that she wished me to be there while she did so. I gave her a tactful half hour to get cleaned and into bed, and then went up myself.

She was lying in her bed, on her side, facing the door. Her eyes were wide, but she watched me with a complete lack of expression. I picked up the shorts and t-shirt I wore to bed and disappeared into the en-suite to change - yes, she had teased me, and yes, she had asked to share my room, but those things might have been nothing more than the actions of a girl with a childish crush. For now, modesty prevailed.

I made it to bed and turned the lights out, having bade her goodnight. I lay in the dark, unable to sleep, wondering what was meant to happen next. I couldn't just invite her into my bed. There was no telling quite how interested she might be in joining me for some really rather adult activities, and I didn't want to freak her out if I had misread the signs.

Our saviour was literally heaven-sent. As I lay there pondering and discarding strategy after strategy, the weather was conspiring to assist me. The thunder which had threatened all afternoon finally broke in the darkness of night, and a monumental peal of thunder shook the house to its core. The same thunderclap brought a shriek from Alice, and suddenly room-mate became bed-mate, as she scrabbled under the covers and hugged herself against me.

My first instinct was one of protection - I soothed the frightened girl, calming her until her breathing had returned to a more normal level. Alice had shown before that she was frightened of thunder, so I didn't think for a minute she was making it up. I held her close to me, gently stroking a hand up and down her back until her breathing was normal.

"Thanks, uncle Zack," she whispered when she was calm, raising her eyes to meet mine in the gloom. I could barely make out her features, but on impulse I craned my neck forward and bent to kiss her soft lips. Only a mad, uncontrolled impulse could have led me to do such a thing, but nonetheless my lips touched hers.

She came alive, pushing into the kiss, forcing her mouth against mine. It was clear she was inexperienced, but what she lacked in technique was more than made up for in passion. I rolled her onto her back and loomed over her, kissing her still while my hand played gently with her flank, feeling the soft skin glide beneath the cotton of her nightdress.

It then became a seduction, pure and simple. I did not pause to consider how I should proceed with such a young, innocent partner. Our lips remained locked together as my free hand sought ever more of her form to caress, slipping low over her hip and trailing up along the tops of her thighs. Those remained clamped shut to begin with, but gently parted as I passed over the lump of her mound at their apex.

Our lovemaking was simple, basic. Her soft flesh yielded to me, and was more pliant than I might have hoped. Fingers dipped into a hot, tight channel, meeting little of the resistance I had expected. I glided into her silken depths with little effort, and the brief spasm of pain which passed over her face quickly melted away to reveal lust. Her eyes, closed while I raped her digitally, came open when I shifted above her, but showed no reproach as I pushed her thighs apart and lowered myself between, nor when I pressed the bulging head of my manhood at the tight entrance to her body. It would not go in so easily, but with effort we were coupled, writhing about as I forced myself repeatedly into her, determined to find my own release. As the last echoes of thunder died away on the hills I pulled free from her and reached for a tissue to clean the semen from between her thighs.

---

In the morning I tended to her needs, gentle lovemaking replacing the passionate rutting of the night before. Our moods reflected the weather - in the depths of the storm we rolled in desperate union, but in the crisp, clear dawn I offered her love instead, and she accepted it, writhing beneath the onslaught of first fingers and then tongue.

Her eyes gazed upon me in wonder as we showered together, and then closed in lust as my fingers molested her on the pretext of cleaning. She fell against me, clutching at my arm to stay upright as I took her closer than ever to her first climax. Still she cried off before the ultimate pleasure could overtake her, afraid perhaps of losing control. I had no such qualms, and sprayed her chest with ribbons of semen as she manipulated me in kind.

The new dawn was fresh and clear, a stark contrast to the previous day's muggy heat. We were almost the first to rise, and walked barefoot across the dew-laden lawn and through a ring of trees to where the rowing boat lay. In my hand was a bag full of all the provisions we would need for the day, and on the kitchen table was a note to Alice's mother explaining our plan to take the boat down the lake and explore some of the more hidden inlets and islands. It all seemed a bit Swallows and Amazons, but I got a bit of a kick out of that, and I could see Alice did, too.

---

That morning was wonderful, though my aching arms did their best to remind me that I'm no oarsman at the best of times, and I certainly wasn't at peak fitness. We explored the slow-flowing river just along the shore from the house, finding reed-strewn tributaries where we could hide among low-hanging willow branches.

Alice loved to be hidden whilst in public, and at one point asked me to stop while we were under cover.

"I bet I can get your willy all hard," she proclaimed with a dirty little smile.

"Oh yeah?" I retorted.

"Yeah," she replied huskily, and with that flicked the hem of her dress up to reveal her innermost sanctum. Without ceremony she eased a finger fully into herself and then withdrew it and sucked it clean. God knows where she learned the trick, but she was right - within seconds I was at full mast.

She teased me with other little acts of lewdness as the day went on, getting more and more extreme until, with her mouth warming the tip of my passion, I exploded. She coughed and spat, and watched in fascination as my seed drifted down through the dark water until it was out of sight, then grinned at me as if to say "aren't I clever for making you squirt?".

I sat and stared at her in awe.

"Alice, where did you learn all this stuff?" I asked, fascinated and horrified, turned-on and disturbed in equal measure. For the first time that day she blushed and looked demure.

"Do you like it?"

Well, I could hardly say no. I nodded.

"It's my friend, Mary. She found all this stuff on the internet and showed me some of it. There was this website where you could ask questions about sex stuff, and there were loads of questions about getting boys to like you and it told you to do all sorts of sex stuff with a boy then he'll like you. I practiced and everything."

I groaned silently in the confines of my mind. My God, the internet really had messed with her perception. I suppose that at least explained why forcing myself into her immature passage had been so easy.

"Alice, you don't have to do those things to make me like you, you know. You're too young to be doing those things with me. I shouldn't have let you."

She looked down at her feet, nervously twisting the hem of her dress in her hand.

"Am I in trouble?" she asked.

I almost laughed, not because I found the statement funny, but rather because it was absurd.

"No, you're not in trouble. If anyone is, I am."

She looked up at me with fear in her eyes. "Why would you be in trouble, uncle Zack?"

"Because I'm an adult and you're a child, and I shouldn't have had sex with you. It's really, really wrong. What if you hadn't wanted to do it, but did so anyway just because I wanted to do it with you? What if you'd been really hurt?"

She frowned at that, not comprehending. "That's not right though. I wanted to do it with you. It didn't hurt very much either, 'cause I practiced lots. It's not very sore now. You can do it again later if you want."

Oh God. How could I possibly deal with this? I know what I should have done, but right then, as I felt myself engorge at the prospect of joining with her later that day, what little remained of my pathetic resolve faded. I smiled at her, a warm smile but with overtones of desire.

"Yeah, that would be really good," I replied.

---

In a secluded spot later that afternoon she slipped free of the confines of her sun dress and disappeared over the side of the boat into the freezing water. No amount of cajoling would encourage me to join her, not even the promise of another release in the hot sweetness of her mouth. So instead she swam around the boat flashing me glimpses of her wondrously lithe body.

Eventually enough was enough, and with the tension palpable in my voice I ordered Alice back into the boat and rowed us to Smuggler's Cove. Having checked as thoroughly as possible that no-one else was on the island I dragged her to the side furthest from the house and bedded her on our picnic blanket on the mossy ground amongst a stand of poplars.

She moaned beneath me - in pain or pleasure, I couldn't tell - as I roughly pounded into her until almost the whole length of me was sheathed by her tunnel on the in-stroke. When finally release came I filled her so thoroughly with my essence that it gushed from her obscenely gaping hope when I withdrew.

Even as I held her close to me in my bliss I could feel the need growing uncontrollably again, and so we danced the dance once more, this time a gentle waltz rather than a fiery tango, until she tapped her heels on my lower back and coyly asked me to do it hard. I granted her wish, rutting like a wild animal, and gloried in the gasps and moans I forced from her lungs with each thrust. I drove her hard into the ground, possessing her tiny frame, spearing her until I had nothing left to give and she was quite exhausted. She bathed again in the cool water to rid herself of me and to soothe her tender girlhood.

---

Upon our return the house was in uproar. One of the cousins, Michael, had broken his leg and people were rushing to and fro in panic, trying to decide what to do with him until the ambulance arrived. I felt sorry for the kid but there was nothing I could do to help, and so I left Alice to enjoy the excitement with her peers and wandered out to the promontory which overlooked the lake, sketchbook and pencil case in hand.

A happy four hours was spent in the warm sunshine, drawing in order to release my mind from the maelstrom of erotic imaginings which taunted me in every moment spent with Alice. Just being near her left me a quivering wreck of desire, and the only way to think normally was to spend time apart from her.

---

All was quiet when I returned to the house. The kids were all playing a game of cricket on the lawn with my brother in law, and a delegation of adults had departed for the hospital, apparently led by my mother. The news surprised me not one little bit.

I took up an apparently innocuous position in the field near Alice, somewhere about deep mid on, if I can remember my fielding positions correctly. She flashed me a smile filled with such luscious desire that I prayed no adults had seen. For several minutes the game proceeded as normal, until a well-hit boundary sent Alice and I scampering into the deep, dark overgrowth at the bottom of the garden, hunting for the ball.

No opportunity to touch Alice ever escaped me that week, and as she bent forward to search in a clump of bushes I ran my hand up her thigh and right onto the crotch of her knickers. I felt the soft, pliant lips of her girlhood yield beneath my fingers until I could press hard against her immature bump and elicit a barely constrained squeal. Had we had longer I would have braced her against a tree and opened her up with my rapidly inflating manhood, but we were expected back in the game, so I pulled my fingers free and set to hunting myself.

---

Dinner that evening was a rowdier affair than usual. The kids were still buzzing from the excitement of Michael's accident, and without my mother around - she was still running things in the hospital, probably making life hell for some poor junior doctor - there was little reason to be restrained and civilised. So we ordered in pizza (something Mother would never allow) and sat around in the garden eating wherever we wanted, rather than going inside into the dark, stuffy dining room and arranging ourselves around the table there. My father, especially, seemed to relax for once, and not for the first time I wondered what held my parents' marriage together.

I led Alice up to bed as my lover that night, knowing that once the lights were out nothing could prevent our sinful activities. Her mother shot me a strange look as we went, but though my heart hammered in my chest at the possibility of discovery, I returned her stare as evenly as I could muster, daring her to say something.

We were both filthy, and so I ordered Alice into the shower and told her to stand still as I washed her from head to toe. My soapy hands caressed every square inch of her smooth skin, eliciting gasps and moans when sensitive nipples and swollen labia passed beneath my fingers.

Her overworked sex could not accept me again that day, not without considerable pain on her part, so instead I soothed her with my tongue, oh so gently. As another storm broke outside the window I finally coaxed her to a tempestuous peak, her first with me, and gloried in the timing of the lightning which tore the sky asunder above us, coinciding with the uncontrolled scream she emitted as the contractions ripped through her body. Once again nature had conspired with my molestation of her juvenile form, giving innocent cause for her outburst.

---

She slept late the next day, exhausted I had no doubt. I, on the other hand, was full of life, and took the boat over to the nearest town to raid their bakery and buy them clean out of pastries. The feast I laid upon my return was greeted enthusiastically by everyone present, even my mother, who had large bags under her eyes from a sleepless night before. Alice appeared at the doorway to the dining room fifteen minutes later, while we were in the middle of a noisy breakfast, and smiled demurely at me before slipping away again. Her mother noticed the exchange and looked oddly at me, but said nothing.

I looked everywhere for her that morning, but she was nowhere to be found. I expected Maria to be a little more concerned by Alice's absence, but she showed no sign that she was worried; apparently this was something which Alice did from time to time when she needed to be alone and think. The expression on my sister's face when she said the world 'think' spoke volumes of her thoughts on the matter. Maria was always rather practical, and I don't imagine for a second she understood the need to be alone, nor indeed to ponder life.

Alice came back at lunchtime, just in time to sit down next to me and tuck into a hearty meal. She gave me a warm smile when she came in, and ran her bare toes up the side of my calf beneath the table, but said little.

---

The afternoon was spent on the only complete family outing of the entire week - we could only manage one because of the monumental level of planning and foresight needed to control such a rabble, and it was probably only due to my mother's steel fist that we managed it even once. A local crazy golf course was hired out for the afternoon, and we spent a merry few hours arguing over who was cheating and whose ball was whose. Alice wasn't really that keen on the game, but she played along just to avoid an argument with her mother, who was determined that Alice would be involved as much as possible. I think she saw the same signs of independence in Alice which I exhibited, and didn't want her daughter to end up like her loner brother. Either way, Alice was relieved when we could get back into the car and head back to the house. All the way home she teased me with glimpses up her skirt from the back seat while her brother sat beside me in the front, suspecting nothing.

---

We retired early that evening, all exhausted from the effort of having fun. Alice snuggled into bed with me, pushing herself back and wriggling her behind in my lap, giving a delicious little giggle when she felt me stiffen beneath her rump. I was hers to do with as she pleased, just as long as that warm little bottom stayed where it was. We'd never coupled like this before, but with my hand on her hip guiding her motions we eased slowly together, then lay there fused, the occasional twitch in me making her jump. The gentlest rocking of her hips would make me gasp as the sheath which clutched me so tightly squeezed a little harder. Alice kept going with the little motions until she realised she could tense herself without moving at all, and proceeded to lie there breathing heavily as she gently milked me with increasing skill. She laughed when I groaned and flexed inside her, but the laughter was stifled as I rolled her onto her stomach, still attached to me, and was less than gentle for the remainder of the act, the only sign of her appreciation the lifting of her bottom to meet my strokes.

---

I'm not proud of what I did to Alice that week. Part of me will always feel the most searing guilt that I robbed her of her innocence so young. But another side of me can see that she was far from innocent in the first place, corrupted not by me, but by her schoolfriend, and by the desires produced by her burgeoning sexuality. As her always-single uncle I was a bit of a cliché as the target for her affection, but lust pays little heed to such dull practicalities, and her lust and her curiosity were at a peak that week. I should have been sickened by the sight of her reddened, gaping sex as she lay spreadeagled in her sleep, but I wasn't. Quite the opposite in fact - I thickened in appreciation. She moaned in her sleep as I gently attacked her with my fingers just so I could see how she reacted.

---

We mated again in the morning, a passionate affair with her above me for the first time, controlling the tempo. Being in charge was something she reveled in, and with her newly learned muscle control she was able to bring me, metaphorically speaking, to my knees. She laughed again as I arched my back in unbearable pleasure, and giggled when I swore at her for making me feel that way.

She found her pleasure on my fingers as I washed the residue of our lovemaking from her in the shower, throwing her head back and collapsing onto the floor as her legs gave way. She sat there for a moment unable to comprehend quite what had happened, a dazed look in her eyes as she stared up at me accusingly. I smiled and reached down to pick her up - feeling a stab of guilt at how easily I lifted her little frame - and planted a kiss on her lips. That revived her, and with a naughty grin she reached between us and found my tumescent shaft, lifting it so that it lay on her chest, where she held it with both hands, the tip of it just beneath her chin. From there she let me gently rock my hips, feeling the most intense pleasure in the hot, soapy tunnel formed by her nascent breasts and elfin hands. She giggled again when I groaned and squeezed out a meagre load onto her skin.

We had reached the midpoint of the week, and one by one families would be leaving us. It always happened this way, whether planned or not. Sometimes the tensions grew so great that an emergency of some kind would be engineered just to give someone a chance to escape. Today all three of my cousins and their families would be leaving, though as my mother said quietly behind their backs that meant just core family members left. Since some of those leaving were the more interesting individuals, I couldn't echo her pleasure. Crucially, though, Alice was staying for three more days, and so our illicit affair could continue.

The families who were leaving were by and large shoved out of the door by my mother by midday, leaving the remaining twelve of us with a day to do nothing. As the weather closed in and fat drops of rain hammered into the earth, we all took to the 'study', which in effect was a fairly impressive library where my father, the only one of our close family as excited by literature as I, kept a decent stock of books by any private collector's reckoning. More importantly, though, the study was where the board games lived.

---

Not everyone can play Monopoly when there are twelve of you, but by pairing up we managed to end up with four teams and four spectators - not everyone was keen to play. Alice always loved the game, and would accept no partner other than me, and so for an afternoon which stretched out into an evening we played.

At one point, as a crucial and entirely illegal merger was mooted by a fellow team, Alice decided we needed to have a tactical discussion in secret. She dragged me from the room and locked us in the coat cupboard beneath the stairs. Immediately she was in my arms, and out lips were locked together. We kissed for a moment before she dropped to her knees and inexpertly but lovingly relieved the tension which had been building within me all afternoon.

"I've been thinking about doing that for hours!" she admitted with a lewd grin after she had wiped her mouth on the sleeve of some poor soul's coat.

We made the merger, and won the game, but it hardly mattered to me.

---

We snuck out of the house that night. It was a clear night with a bright moon, but still warm, and with a blanket tucked under my arm we made our way up the hill, away from the house and the lake beyond. Alice held my hand, hers tiny in mine, wearing the little ring I had bought her as a devotion earlier that day. It was a cheap token given the scale of my affection for her, but she treasured it anyway. I spread the blanket on a thicker patch of soft grass in the upper meadow, surrounded by wildflowers, and we lay back looking up at the stars, whispering our thoughts to each other.

"Zack," - she had dropped the 'uncle' now, and I was glad of it - "what are we going to do when we're not on holiday any more?"

My heart leapt into my throat. I didn't want to even think about the holiday ending. We would have to do something, because I couldn't bare to be without her. I took her hand in mine as we continued to gaze skyward.

"We'll work something out, OK? I can't imagine not being with you. I love you."

A tiny tear escaped from the corner of her eye and made a dark track down the side of her face.

"I love you too," she replied, turning her head to face me. I raised myself onto one elbow and leaned down to softly kiss her. We traded tender kisses while the stars revolved above us.

Pushing me away, Alice sat up and pulled her dress over her head, exposing her naked self to me. She lay down again, eyes closed, and in the silvery moonlight I raised goosebumps on the hills and valleys of her body with the tips of my fingers. I concentrated on tracing and memorising every last detail of her - the shape of her collarbone, the soft swell of her barely-there breasts, the pointy, hard nubbins which adorned them, the gentle hollow of her sternum, the almost imperceptible crease which ran down to her shallow belly button, and then the soft sweep of tummy from which protruded the rounded, bulging mound of her sex, cleft down its centreline by the divide which had so fascinated me only days before, and now marked the border of my private playground.

I let my fingertip dip into the dimple at the top of the crease and she shivered and moaned beneath me. Featherlight touches to her thighs made my intentions clear, and I was given the access I desired. Her parting legs opened her to me, a glistening treasure trove with a pearl at the top, smooth and round and protruding from between the upper folds of the cleft. I stroked it gently, watching fascinated as it swelled and protruded even further. I tweaked it with thumb and forefinger, watching with a sadistic delight as pained pleasure flooded her features. Her hands flew to mine and I relented, releasing it from my grip.

My attention was diverted elsewhere, though - she was not free of my ministrations. My fingers traced downwards, parting her lips as I went until they were caught by the dip at the entrance to her most sacred place. Two fingertips entered as one - no mercy for my little lover now - and she moaned as I forced them within her, the silk-soft sides of her cave grabbing and squeezing as I went.

I bent every bit of my will to making Alice feel the most intense pleasure possible. I kissed down her cheek, her neck, across her collarbone, and then made love to her breasts with my mouth. She clearly loved this dual assault, writhing beneath me, switching between pushing her hips and her chest skyward. In the end she settled for her hips, letting them take their own rhythm until with a stifled cry through clenched teeth and a violent clamping down on my fingers she reached her climax.

---

We lay in the moonlight for who knows how long after that, Alice draped over my body, my hand holding her there by the small of her back. A leg thrown across my lap would occasionally move the tiniest amount, holding me in a permanent state of arousal by its slight motion, but for the time being Alice's libido was a spent force.

We slept at last, unable to stay awake, and I woke as the first light of dawn peeked over the hills across the lake. During the night I had wrapped us in our blanket, which was now dew-laden. I found Alice's dress, mercifully covered by the blanket and not soaked through, but thoroughly cold, and dressed the sleepy and complaining girl in it. She was too heavy for me to carry, so together we stumbled bleary-eyed down to the house and slipped into my bed, mercifully unnoticed. Neither of us made breakfast that day.

---

When finally we emerged into the world, it was straight into the accusing stares of her mother.

"Where were you last night?" she demanded, only a few notches short of a full-bore scream. It wasn't clear who the question was directed at, but it felt like a hot lead ball had dropped through my stomach. In those few, tiny nanoseconds that it took between question and answer, a thousand possibilities flashed through my mind. Should we deny everything? Or lie? Or admit the terrible truth? Did she suspect anyway, and would lying to her merely enrage her further?

It was while I stammered and procrastinated that Alice saved our lives.

"Mum, it's OK. I went sleepwalking. You know how I used to do it when I was little? Well it happened again last night. Uncle Zack came and found me."

The wind was entirely taken out of Maria's sails, but she tried to rally.

"But... but you haven't done that for years. Why would you start again now?"

"Um, didn't the doctor say it might come back when I.. when..."

At that, she stopped and leaned forward to whisper in Maria's ear. I saw the colour draining from my sister's face, and the panic returned at full force. What the hell had Alice told her?

"Um, Zachary, would you mind leaving us alone for a moment, please?" Maria asked. Not wishing to further inflame a volatile situation I immediately agreed, and left them in the corridor where Maria had stopped us.

Half an hour later Alice came to find me. She had a smile on her face which suggested that not all was lost.

"It's OK, she believed me," she said as she sat down on the garden wall next to me.

"What did you tell her?"

"That I started my period. The doctor we saw about me sleepwalking said it might happen again then."

I just stared at her open-mouthed.

"What?" she asked, the edge of laughter in her voice.

"Nothing, I suppose. it's just that's a hell of a way to get out of trouble."

She shrugged. "Did you have a better idea? No? Well, then it was the best way. And anyway, it'll probably be true soon."

I shuddered at the thought of all those times I had loosed into her without a thought for the chance she may get pregnant. She looked so young still that the possibility hadn't crossed my mind. Her sex played host to only the slightest scattering of hair, almost transparent unless the like caught it, and its lips were neat and undeveloped. How could she be so close to the beginnings of womanhood?

---

I took Alice out in the car that day, on our own. I'd actual asked everyone if they wanted to come with us for a trip up the coast to a wildlife reserve which I knew Alice would love, but no-one else was keen to come, so we set off together. For once my physical feelings for Alice did not overcome my desire to spend time with her having good, clean fun. Though we were out in public, there were plenty of chances for us to misbehave should we have chosen to do so, but instead we simply spent the day as uncle and niece. Or rather, nearly so; in fact I held her hand the whole time, and when I could be sure no-one was looking I hugged her to me and planted a kiss on the top of her head. She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed in reply, and just at that moment a red squirrel - the rare little mammal we'd come to see - hopped along a branch in front of us and sat down to shell a nut.

We didn't want to return to the house that night, as it would be another day gone, another day closer to our separation. Only two nights remained together, two nights which would never be enough.

---

Alice disappeared up to the room earlier than me that night, admonishing me not to follow her until she was safely in bed. I don't know whose benefit the statement was for, mine or her mother's, but either way I followed her instructions. I imagined fifteen minutes to be more than enough time, and so with anticipation building at what I might find, I made my way upstairs.

I was very far from disappointed when I walked into that room. It had been transformed. The duvets from the bed had been spread on the floor, and on top was a deep red sheet I'd never before seen. The lights were off, the only source of illumination a handful of large candles scattered around the room, and the centrepiece was enough to take my breath away. Reclining on the floor, one hand draped over a raised knee, was Alice, covered head to toe in shining oil, a glistening, angelic figure. I had briefly mentioned to her once my desire for an image I had seen on the internet of an oiled-up young girl, and here was my fantasy brought to life.

She smiled at me and crooked a finger. I don't even remember shedding my clothing, but I must have done because there I was kneeling on the floor as she poured massage oil over my chest and arms and began to work it into my skin. She ordered me to lie down, and then massaged me with her tiny hands, lovingly easing the tension from my muscles, making sure that every part of me was well lubricated.

When she lay down upon me the feeling was beyond exquisite. Skin glided past skin; she was a writhing animal on top of me, limbs intertwined with mine as we danced. The sport was simple - stay on top if you can - and she wriggled back and forth in a valiant effort to do so. All the time our bodies were stimulated, our passions heightened. I barely realised that the dull pressure I could feel at waist height was the sensation of becoming ensheathed in her body, encased in the warm centre of her being. It was not intercourse in any true sense of the word, but something on a different plane altogether. If our earlier unions had been animalistic, this was the other end of the scale, the ultimate evolution of lovemaking. My climax was so subtle in arriving, so gently brought about that I could not tell where it began, or indeed where it ended. I slept more deeply than ever before, with Alice in my arms.

---

I would have liked to spend the last day with Alice doing something on our own, but Maria, always the first to annoy me and the keenest to do so, decided that she hadn't spent enough time with Alice and Dane, and took them both off for the day. I tried to counsel Alice to remain calm about it, but she was one step ahead of me, coolly advising me that she had already planned to agree to her mother's wishes just so that there would be no issue with our last night together.

I moped around the house that day, not quite sure what to do with myself. My father joked about the loss of my playmate, not realising quite how apt was his description of Alice. I tried to find space to draw, but in front of the beautiful scenery there floated images of the girl, spectral, naked, alluring. I could never concentrate with that kind of distraction. I took the boat out to Smuggler's Cove, and found the spot where I had bedded her, the moss still broken and scuffed by the force of our union, and found onanistic relief, scattering my seed as a devotion to the act which had come before.

The sun was casting long, indigo shadows on the lawn when finally they returned. The children had managed to survive the day without killing each other, but the price was paid by Maria, who looked exhausted. Typically Alice and her brother would have a child minder during the holidays, paid for by their absentee father, because Maria had to work. She loved her children, but there was no way she was cut out to be a mother. As she sank into the chair next to me and looked out over the garden, I poured her a gin and tonic and received a warm smile of thanks.

"Hard day?" I asked, my voice full of false innocence.

Maria looked at me. "How do you do it, Zack? How do you drift through life without ever having to deal with all this crap?"

I shrugged. "Inveterate loner, perhaps? Or just unlucky in love, really."

"Not always unlucky though, eh?"

The look she gave me spoke volumes. I couldn't answer her, not without uttering either a barefaced and indefensible lie, or an admission of the awful truth. She gave me an ironic smile, and then polished off her drink in one long draught. She stood, fire in her eyes.

"Alice is too much like you to stop her doing what she wants, Zachary. She's too much of an independent spirit. But if I find out you forced her or you hurt her, so help me God I will destroy you. Understand?"

Without waiting for my answer she turned and strode into the house.

---

"There's a storm coming, isn't there?" she asked, leaning back into me as we watched the end of dusk becoming the beginning of night. The stars behind us were bright, but those dead ahead were obscured by an immense bank of clouds, which had earlier been lit beautifully by the dying sun. As if in answer to her question, a deep, distant rumble of thunder reached our ears.

"You know what I've always wanted to do?" I asked. "I've always wanted to run naked in the rain."

She giggled. "That sounds like fun!"

"Well then? Shall we?"

"It's not raining yet, silly."

I laughed. "No, but when it does, shall we?"

She nodded her head, then settled back to wait for the storm, no longer afraid.

---

Thick pellets of molten lead, but lukewarm, that's what it felt like. They hammered into our skin, soaking hair and drenching skin. We danced and span in the rain, eyes closed and faces cast to the skies, glorying in the feel of the heavenborne assault. I can suggest few greater pleasures in the world than dancing in the pouring rain with a naked eleven year old girl.

I chased her, tackling her to the ground and slithering along with her in my grasp on the ice rink-like surface of the lawn. She broke free and tried to run, but slipped and fell, and I was on top of her, pinning her arms to the ground either side of her head. I sat astride her hips, my engorged member prominent above her tummy. She panted beneath me, out of breath from running, but also filled with desire, reflected in her eyes. I leaned in to kiss her, and received the full force of that passion, pushing me by the shoulder and rolling me onto my back. She climbed on top of me, momentarily laughing in her victory, then becoming serious, her eyes locked to mine as her hips slid down my glistening, wet torso. She captured me easily, arching her back to raise her hips and grant entry.

We made love on the lawn, in the pouring rain, not caring who could see us. The week had come full circle - we first made love with the storm raging outside, and now we made love one last time with the storm all around us. Spent, she collapsed onto the ground beside me, panting heavily, my seed captured within her body. Still the rain hammered down on us, and for no reason at all we were both suddenly filled with laughter. I looked over at her and took her hand, and squeezed it as the storm washed us clean.

Behind her, in the direction of the house, a light went on in the kitchen, and the door opened silently. My mother's silhouette appeared in the doorway, and I could see her head shaking back and forth.

The door closed, and with a fitting sense of finality, the light turned off.