Foreword
Childhood is the time of learning, the time when every new human first meets the experiences that will guide his course throughout life. To those of us who have passed beyond it, childhood years seem a treasured memory-one we are reluctant to give up. Most of us can remember the truly exciting events of our early years-the first trip to another city, an adventure, even the friendships formed in school.
But the time comes when childhood is past, when we are adults. And now we are embarked on the productive years of life, the time when many of us will marry, have children of our own. Yet we will never forget those first joys, we will pass them on to our own offspring.
Although there are those who would not like to admit it, one of the strongest memories of childhood is the introduction to the sexual aspects of our own bodies. Even small children, infants, instinctively know how to masturbate, how to give themselves strong pleasure. By the time children are in school they have learned to experiment with each other, playing doctor, or Show Me.
This is innocent pleasure, but important pleasure-for it is during these formative years that the life-pattern is set. The child who learns that there is pleasure in natural sexual functions will grow to be an adult who is capable of taking the full measure of life. Those who are repressed, on the other hand, slapped down by perhaps ignorant parents, taught that sex is dirty, are to be pitied. Sex is not dirty-otherwise it would not be the basic force driving every form of animal life yet known.
Sex is the most necessary part of life, for without its urgings, its drive, there would be no reason to propagate-and soon no more people, either children or adults.
We all learn about sex early, from our playmates and from our sibling. It is not at all surprising that children close in age will experiment together, learn together. And when a strongly sexed adult is forcibly separated, for whatever reason, from his normal outlets, he will find sex elsewhere-even if, as in the case of Dan Sanborne, central character of this novel, he has to turn to his own young daughters.
Dan and his wife have two beautiful sets of twins-Jimmy and Janet, and Les and Liz. But they are experiencing difficulties in their marriage, and have separated for the summer months, hoping to work out their problems. Trish has taken the boys to the beach for the summer, while Dan has the girls at home.
But he cannot take being separated from Trish. He finds solace in drink-and while drunk, finds the release he needs right in his own house, in his own children.