~~~~~
In the morning Praba was often the first to be moving around the village; as a senior tribesman he felt duty-bound to rise early, like his father before him. His wife frequently wanted some young coconuts for their sarapan, and so just after the sun broke the horizon he scanned the nearby coconut palms to see that many suitable fruit grew on a palm with good footholds in the trunk. It was a tall tree but one that he could just about climb.
Laboriously pushing and pulling his way up the long cylindrical trunk, Praba ruefully reflected on how his two younger brothers seemed to walk up these things without much thought. But there again he was more heavily built and as he knew, far stronger.
At last he reached the crown where coconuts nestled in the middle of the wide spray of feathered leaves. Locking an arm over the base of a thick stalk, he took a breather before he began tapping lightly on the coconuts to find some of just the right maturity. A certain sound told him that the water and flesh was of just the right sweetness for his taste.
At this juncture, from his elevated position he noticed though a gap in the leaves that Agung had added a tall bamboo wall that curtained off a small area at the back of his house, right behind the shutter to the tandas room. He could look down inside this area since it had no roof; on the pebbled ground inside there was a large container.
Praba was a little puzzled at this discovery, but not particularly interested. Just then Agung approached his house from the direction of the stream, carrying two large vessels; pulling back a corner of the bamboo wall, he entered and topped up the container with water. Praba continued to watch, digging the toes of his bare feet firmly into the footholds.
Agung then tapped on the rear shutter of his house, promptly leaving and closing the bamboo wall after him. He then sat down quietly on a log at the side of the house. Very soon after that the shutter was pushed up from the inside and propped open.
“This is interesting!” mused Praba to himself, using his free hand to push back wayward hair. Now he could see first one and then two feminine legs appear as someone climbed out of the opening. It was Lyana.
A tingle of pleasure ran through him. She was dressed in a loose fitting sarong; frayed at the edges it was thin enough to see her figure underneath. She looked around for a moment or two, checking that the bamboo curtain was secure, before reaching out her hand to help her younger sister who was climbing out to join her. Lela too was dressed in a tatty old sarong, contrasting with the girl who wore it. This was something that Praba had only dreamed about – seeing these two in their night attire.
Praba glanced nervously about and realised that they would not be aware of him, nor it seems was anybody else. He was deep in the shadows of a mass of leaves that hung about the tree and even the large cluster of green and ripening fruits helped to disguise his presence. Swallowing hard even though his lips felt dry, he kept watching.
The sisters chatted quietly as Lyana reached inside through the opening to bring out a few items. He couldn’t make out what they were saying but he saw sponges in her hand and a tremble started in his arm, still locked fast around the stalk. “I don’t believe it!” he mouthed in silence as Lyana unwrapped her sarong. Pulling it off, she tossed it on the top of the shutter. The surprise and excitement nearly made him forget where he was, making him grip onto the tree to prevent himself slipping, and as the hardening took place in his groin.
Squinting through the gap in the leaves, he watched as Lela scooped up shellfulls of water to pour over her naked sister, who began soaping and sponging. With great appreciation Praba studied Lyana’s nubile figure. She had firm rounded breasts with dark tips, a smooth stomach and shapely hips. He caught sight of a small dark triangle of hair and a pair of wonderful legs that were turned this way and that as she bent over, cleaning herself.
Almost unable to believe his luck, Praba saw that Lyana was now helping her younger sister to disrobe. The still naked and wet Lyana poured water over her sister as she lathered and sponged herself down. Praba’s lascivious eyes poured over Lela’s innocent figure, sylphlike with pert breasts and small nipples, smooth flat stomach and youthful hips. Yet he could not see the expected dark triangle? “There’s no hair!” he gaped in wonder, since it appeared that there was little, if any, at the top of those trim athletic legs.
Meanwhile Agung sat patiently on his log, keeping guard.
Praba’s body shook with ecstasy and a wicked leer crossed his face as he allowed himself to revel in this glorious spectacle of two virginal, naked sisters; their brown skins glistening as they bathed each other in the dappled sunlight. From the unselfconscious manner in which they bathed, Praba came to beleive that they had been bathing together since they were children. “I bet no man has seen them naked since they were babies,” he thought. He wondered smugly to himself if they would enjoy their bathing even more if they knew they were being watched. Considering the sister’s relative merits he decided that, on balance, he found Lela even more exciting than Lyana. “Agung,” he mumbled under his breath “You’re a lucky man if you get Lyana, but I will be luckier with Lela.”
The girls dried themselves and each other by patting handfuls of cloth over their bodies. He watched as they wrapped their sarongs loosely around themselves again, and then climbed one after the other back through the open shutter. Only at that point did he feel the aching pain in the stiff arm that had been locked tight all this time over the hard stalk. A severe pain now came from the prolonged stress on his toes.
But still he couldn’t move for fear of alerting Agung. After what seemed an age, the big man stood upright, apparently in response to a call from inside. He then walked around to the front and into the house.
With an achingly-numb arm, sore feet and sweating hands, the climb down from the tree was very painful, yet Praba glowed with the secret memories of his pleasure. The yearnings unleashed would influence the future for everyone in Likupang.
The Tropical Sun - Belief, Love and Hate Page 32
