The early afternoon sun beat down, warming his bathing trunks, heating his crotch. The restless tide retreated slowly, as though the ocean water were evaporating, and the shock of the breaking waves was muted—crash, splash, like the breaking of a vigorous orgasm against a taut diaphragm. Prior Gross reclined on the burning sand, squirming until it shaped to his feet, palms and buttocks. He kept his knees elevated in an awkward effort to conceal the unprovoked erection that had been trapped at half mast beneath the unyielding cloth.

There was really no reason for it, but the tumescence refused to subside. Girl-watching here was fair-to-poor. Prior's field of vision embraced grandmothers and children with scarce nubility between, and that critically flawed by obesity, sag and blemish. He was disappointed and bored—yet his member strained valiantly against the fabric, pushing it out throb by throb, and no matter how covertly he shifted about it only aspired higher. It felt as though the glans had been caught in the crotch-netting and was too stupid to realize that it could never clear the hurdle without first slacking down a little.

A fat-bellied sun-skinned executive type ambled by, glancing at Prior. Had the busybody seen? Prior's trunks bowed out marginally farther while he fought to keep a flush from his face. He could not stand up, of course, and the proximity of a hawkeyed matron prevented him from unhooking the obstruction by hand. He suffered a mental picture of the matron lumbering across the sand to the nearest lifeguard, screaming about the indecent act that man was performing, while a crowd gathered around to look and police sirens drew nigh. No, he couldn't lay a finger on his crotch!

His eyes wandered desperately about the beach, as though he could prevent others from watching him by watching them first. But nobody was paying him any attention, yet. He saw two toddlers playing near the water's margin, using a toy shovel and fingers to shape a crumbly sand castle. The little boy was burying his legs at the same time, scooping gouts from the wet castle wall to his sister's frustration.

Full-blown, the solution came to Prior. He could bury his legs in sand, right up past the crotch! It might seem to be a childish game, but it was not entirely out of place for any age. That would hide the pulsing bulge until the situation abated. Maybe by then it would be late enough to find some action in town, to reduce his member to a lower level of chronic readiness and spare him further embarrassments.

Prior began sweeping sand in over his feet, piling it up under his lifted knees. The surface grains were hot, but those below were cool, and the sensation on his thighs goaded his penis to even more strenuous effort. It took a lot of sand to cover him, and he quickly encountered rougher gravel below. The job promised to be tedious, particularly since there were numerous sharp shell fragments embedded in the solidly-packed understratum. This was not child's-play after all! He would have slashed fingers if he didn't watch it. He tensed his jaw muscles and kept working, using the task as a mental distraction.

A shadow crossed him with a sudden soft coolness. Prior looked up to spy a phenomenal pair of legs slanting into an opaque knee-length skirt. Above that the blazing sun made vision difficult, but the silhouette was strikingly feminine.

Prior's member had been showing signs of retirement, but now it tugged frantically at its anchor. There was hardly any chance the woman could overlook it.

"Building a castle?" she inquired, her voice low and sultry.

"Um," he agreed, edging his knees together. The laboriously mounded sand collapsed defiantly, uncovering the castle's main tower further.

"Let me see," she said, squatting before him and prying his knees gently apart with her cool hands.

The cloth covering his crotch rose up eagerly to stand inspection. Prior could see between her handsome, well-fleshed thighs now, inside the skirt that had slid over her knees. That firm and rounded vista was obscured only at the deepest cleft by an annoying wash of shadow.

"You don't have enough sand," she pointed out. He still couldn't make out her face because of the sun, but his eyes had adjusted enough to penetrate the shadow beneath her skirt. He saw now that her posterior was innocent of panties or other defense. Open to the breeze.

"Give me time," he said, scratching feebly for more sand. Time? Sand? He could see something else he wanted! If only this weren't happening in mid-afternoon on a public beach.

"I'll bury you," she said suggestively, and a muscle rippled inside one thigh. What legs she had! She began hauling in sand from a wider semicircle, those thighs flexing as her balance shifted, and piling the sand about his trunks. "Lie down." She patted sand about his crotch.

Lie down? It was about to launch toward the moon!

Oh—she meant him. Prior lay back, feeling the tension between his legs increase to the point of pain. She spilled cool sand entirely over him, patting it solicitously in key places. "You don't lie very well," she murmured. "What's your name?"

On that score he could accommodate her. "Prior Gross."

She laughed, her bosom bouncing. She had an excellent upper torso; the lower distraction had prevented him from noticing it before. "For Priapus, god of sex! You are a find! No wonder I was drawn to you. I thought it was only your condition."

What did she mean by that? That she sniffed out men with erections? "How did you know? Uh, about my name." He tried to make it sound bantering, but he was curious too. She had traced his name correctly. Most people knew almost nothing of mythology, and she hardly seemed the scholarly type.

"I'm a succubus," she said matter-of-factly. "We all worship Priapus."

Prior forced a laugh of his own, though it jogged the knot in his trunks and caused the packed sand there to crack as though a miniature earthquake had passed. "A succubus! A female demon?"

"Who visits sleeping men and harvests their seed," she said. "It's all quite straightforward. When I have a good load, I transform into an incubus and go in search of female companionship. If I find a sleeping girl soon enough, I can even get her pregnant—and the man I had first is the biological father. That can lead to some interesting situations, in this age of blood typing and semen analysis."

"Artificial insemination with a vengeance!" Prior said, not believing any of it but intrigued by her pose. She was obviously on the make, and he would be well satisfied to get made. "So that's why some men claimed they've been framed even when blood tests and such give them the lie. They've fornicated by proxy!"

She had a fair mound of sand around him now. "I can see you don't really believe me, so I'll demonstrate. I'll knock up a girl by you, right here on the beach, right now." She moved forward to sit on his crotch, spreading her dark skirt out over the mound. Prior's member, stimulated by this suggestive pressure, was almost ready to spurt spontaneously.

"You do that," he said. What a line, and by a woman, yet! And she was structured like a center-fold. She could have her will of any man she wanted, just by showing him what she had shown Prior.

Which was suspicious. Prior was no bronzed beach bum. He generally had to pay for what he wanted—and a dish like this was way out of his price range.

"You have to be asleep," she said, touching his eyelids. "That's the law."

"What law?" He had half-expected her to demand a hundred and fifty dollars in advance.