It wasn’t often that Emma ever went out shopping. Normally she ordered her groceries or whatever on the internet. But it wasn’t always possible to get everything you wanted that way, and so, despite her reluctance to wear any kind of clothing, she set off during her lunchtime to visit the shopping mall. Others may not have been convinced that Emma was making a concession as she walked along wearing nothing but sandals and a long skirt hanging from her waist, but even this minimum of clothing had to be borrowed from one of the sex actresses in a production of updated Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales that Emma was working on.

She eventually found the bookshop she was looking for: one quite large enough to have everything she might like to buy or browse. There were several floors to the bookshop, a cafe on the top floor from which she’d once been evicted for immodesty and a crèche for children near the entrance. Emma knew what she wanted though, and anxiously scanned the displayed index of book categories to find it. After some deliberation, she decided that Sex and Family Matters was probably the right section. Modern and Ancient Pornography, Sexual Art and Photography and Education were probably not right. Eventually she found the section she was looking for: very discreetly hidden in amidst Baby Care, Pregnancy and Teenage Angst. The classic book of child sex: The Intimate Family.

The book was written by a Delia Cook, pictured naked on the back cover with her arms around two naked children - a boy of about twelve and a girl of maybe fifteen or sixteen - who Emma supposed were her own. The pictures were taken full-frontal, in keeping with the whole spirit of the book that was, as its flyleaf promised, frank and explicit. It also had a very coy front cover giving no hint of what it might be discussing. Which of course was entirely to do with practical incest and child sexuality.

Emma looked through the frontispiece:

These days, people are always asking for practical and unsensational advice with regard to leading a happy and harmonious intimate family life. My intention is to provide readers with just this. I will make no attempt to moralise or preach, but I have spoken to and taken advice from families, and indeed individuals, who have practiced intimate family relations and where appropriate I have broadcast their opinions and advice. Much of what I discuss has, naturally, been based on personal experience, for which I must thank my very understanding husband and my two loving children. Naturally some research has had to be done elsewhere, and again I have tried not to shirk in my duties.

Emma flicked through the pages of the book, which was a very expensive and weighty hardback. There was a mixture of line drawings and black-and-white photographs supporting the text, which made the book seem bizarrely academic. It was with a certain amount of apprehension that she took the book to the cash desk because its reputation was such that it was pretty much a confession to the world that she practiced either incest or child sex. Or both.

However the middle-aged shop assistant who frowned so severely and unsympathetically at Emma as she wrapped the book up as if it was a bundle of dried faeces was less concerned about the book, of whose reputation she was thoroughly ignorant, than about Emma’s toplessness. In fact, the eyes that Emma felt like cloaked daggers as she walked along were not at all aware that she’d even bought a book at all. Bookshops were still places where semi-nudity was generally confined to the bookshelf.

Emma knew that there was no likelihood that she’d ever be able to read the book at home, where Maisie would be forever demanding her attention. And even if Maisie were not there she still felt sufficiently embarrassed about her relationship with her not to want to be seen reading a book on the subject of such intimacies by her flatmate and guests. She therefore walked to a nearby park and sat down to read it as discreetly as she could. She deliberately chose to lie down on her front on the warm summer grass, so that her breasts would attract rather fewer in the way of lascivious stares. How to Bring Intimacy into Your Family was the title of the next section she looked at. There was a line drawing of a small boy’s erect penis being stroked by the hands of a substantially older woman.

When and How to start intimate relations in the family is a tricky question which I’ve often been asked. I think the honest answer to that question is to ask the questioner just why they are asking the question. I don’t believe it is right to start an intimate relation with your nearest and dearest unless the entire reason for doing so is to do with wanting a fulfilling and close loving tenderness with them. And this is a view widely shared by those I have discussed the subject with. It is quite natural that as your children get older, you feel a stronger and deeper affection for them, and only natural that you should want to express this affection in the most intimate way possible. It must be remembered of course that your children (and indeed others in your family) may not feel that an intimate closeness should be quite as free and varied as you do.

In particular, it is worth mentioning that once you have started on the path of intimate family relations, it cannot be reversed. My daughter, Jennifer, would not now contemplate a relation with her father that did not include complete vaginal penetration - and already my son, Kevin, considers time spent with any of his family that does not involve fellatio or cunnilingus as wasted effort. But once started on this path, there is undoubtedly satisfaction and joy that brings a family closer together. For it is well said that the family that fucks together stays together.

After this preamble, there was a section that described techniques of introducing oneself and one’s children to the joys of sex. Throughout there were constant warnings about going too far to begin with, because this was a subtle and progressive process and as much attention must be given to psychological preparedness as to the physical. As regards to the physical, the advice was generally to do with precautions for anal intercourse and, indeed, vaginal intercourse with the younger member of the family.

In the heat of the moment it is always possible to forget the discomfort that your activities may cause to the younger or smaller participant. As a general rule, do not start any kind of penetrative sex until your partner actually requests it (and don’t worry, he or she will in due course: after seeing the fun other members of the family have!). Even then, judge your penetration appropriate not just to the age of the participant, but to their previous experience and their physical limitations. Even adult men and women may have very tight orifices, so don’t think those of children are going to be very different. The advice I would tend to give is: Stick to the oral sex for as long as possible. The younger child can get considerable joy from having his or her sexual organs caressed by the tongue, and they will never tire of stimulating the older family member’s organs - in particular the penis. A word of warning however - it is possible for a child to choke on a fully erect penis, so to avoid future distress in the family, gauge this behaviour appropriately.

Emma flicked through the pages until she came to a chapter entitled coyly Other Families and Yours. This chapter concerned itself with sex with other people’s children and partners.

It is always a delight to find other families that practice intimate relations as well as your own, and our family for one has always enjoyed inviting other families around for additional entertainment. Naturally, one has to be conscious of the very different mores different families may have. Martin, my son, was most distressed to find that the fourteen year old daughters of a colleague of mine from the infirmary did not practice either anal or vaginal intercourse. He protested that he and his sister had lost their virginity at a much earlier age. It was all that my husband and I could do to prevent him from taking the poor girl’s maidenhead. It is after all the right and proper thing that their parents have the prerogative on such matters. (If, indeed they feel, as my husband and I do, that children’s maidenhead properly belongs to those who have borne them). The embarrassment has of course also been the other way, when the ten year old son of a neighbour tried to urinate in my daughter’s mouth and wanted her to penetrate him with a dildo. I don’t wish to proscribe such behaviour (it is perfectly acceptable if all concerned are in agreement) but our family has set its own limits.

Emma found all this very interesting, but she wasn’t sure how especially relevant much of it was to her relationship with Maisie. She turned to the index to see what other sections there were. This proved to be promising. There was a section on Single Parents and the Single Friend, Group Sex and Children, The Growing Child and Techniques for Appropriate Physical Intimacy. Some of the illustrations showed various kinds of intimacy, in which the two children on the flyleaf and some others had penises and dildos inserted inside them, and others where the children were shown applying their tongues greedily to clitorises, anuses and erect penises. There was even a section concerning the swallowing of semen, with a photograph of the girl, Jennifer, splattered with semen from several penises of quite differently aged males.

However, this was Emma’s lunch break and she had to get back to the studio fairly promptly before filming was due to start. Emma closed the book and discreetly slipped it into her bag. Guiltily looking around her, she stood up and made her way back.

After work, Emma wandered into a nearby naturist cafe, where she knew she wouldn’t be disturbed as she sat down with a pot of tea and continued reading Delia Cook’s book. She wasn’t too sure what she expected to achieve by this exercise. She wasn’t at all sure that her relationship with Maisie really had a great deal in common with the typical relationships described in the book. There was no real family intimacy involved at all now that to all intents and purposes Maisie was no longer living with her mother but was more or less a permanent resident at Emma’s flat.

She poured some milk into the cup until the tea went the right shade of brown and, this time, managed to avoid the usual puddle of milk on the saucer as it fell awkwardly out of its pot. She wasn’t at all sure how Maisie felt about sharing a flat with older women, but the girl never complained and Emma was happy that she seemed to get on so well with Charlotte’s lovers, Josephine and Susan. In fact she seemed to get on with them as if they were girls her own age.

Emma carefully flicked through the pages of her book - careful to obscure a view of the cover from any prying eyes (though most eyes would have concentrated on her naked body) until she came to a section about gradually introducing a child to sex.

It would not be for me to advise this for all readers - indeed many may find it distasteful - but I recall one method that appeared to have sterling results where a young girl was weaned from infancy not only from the breast but also from the penis. She soon came to associate the one with milk and the other with semen. The justification is that semen is a very nutritious, high protein addition to a child’s diet. This may be so - but it gave her father and other males in the immediate family a great deal of pleasure, which by all accounts was shared by the girl. It had the additional benefit that whereas the breasts soon lose the ability to provide milk, the penis remains productive for very much longer. When I met the girl she was almost in her teens, but was delighted to entertain us by demonstrating her skills at milking my husband’s penis.

Emma found the subject of penises quite revolting, and flicked through the pages to see if there was very much on the subject of love between the younger girl and the older woman. There did seem to be a great deal about penises however.

There is a certain amount of impatience in all families to introduce daughters and sons to the joys of anal sex. My own advice is that generally it is best that one take advantage of the smaller but still active organ of the younger male. In this way, novices of either sex to the delights of such intimacy can be gently enticed towards it not inconsiderable pleasures.

This section of the book was enlivened by a black-and-white photograph of a boy’s penis completely engulfed by an immature vagina, with the caption: Martin demonstrates his gentleness with Jennifer.

Emma flicked through the pages while nonchalantly sipping from her cup. She frowned disapprovingly at the faint smell of tobacco wafting from the smoking tables at the far end of the cafe. Her eyes caught the heading Naturism and Clothes Policy. This surely would be of interest to her, Emma told herself, comfortably opening the pages open at a picture of Delia Cook’s family sitting in an open field having a picnic and wearing no clothes.

Different families have different attitudes towards what are the appropriate clothes for the intimate family to wear. My own preference (and one which I hold firmly) is that whether or not one is considering the intimate family or just one’s own contentment there is nothing that matches a naturist disposition.

Emma warmed quite visibly towards Delia Cook at this piece of advice.

However, there are those who for one reason or another believe that naturism by its very simplicity and naturalness doesn’t truly express the nature of the intimate family as they themselves perceive it. And indeed, this may actually be the more honest view of those who don’t feel completely comfortable in just their own nakedness. One family I know of brought up the two sons such that until early puberty they dressed and were made-up as girls. The boys had taken to it so thoroughly that one of them opted to remain a transvestite into his adult years. The reason for this preference was that both parents enjoyed the contrast of the boys’ apparent and actual genders.

Emma wasn’t at all happy to consider such perversions, and flicked randomly through the book.

There comes a time when the intimate family has to fully face up to the fact that the children have a life and friends of their own. In particular, there is the necessity of being aware that many of their friends will have a certain amount of unease and distrust concerning intimate relations between those whose family bonds are so tight. It is therefore necessary for the parents and even the siblings, at least initially, to exclude themselves from any physical intimacy (even those which are not penetrative or do not involve bodily fluids) unless expressly invited to join in. It is to be hoped that in a well-adjusted family that soon all the family will be able to share in the physical pleasures offered by the friends of one’s children. In fact, some of my best intimate experiences have been in the company of my children and their school-friends once the stigma that some children attach to fucking Mummy has worn off.

The distinct impression inculcated on Emma from reading this book was how natural and normal child sex and incest seemed. Why, she wondered, didn’t everyone try it? She looked around her at the naked bodies of other people in the café, and spotted a mother and father with two children. They were both girls about seven or eight years old. Emma tried to envisage the family making love together. She concentrated on the image of the father’s penis rammed inside the younger girl’s immature vagina. She really didn’t find the image at all pleasant. She then thought of her own parents (whose naked bodies she’d so rarely seen) and the thought of them having any kind of sex with her at any age (and especially at the ages they were now) really didn’t inspire any desire in her at all.

Emma turned to the final pages of the book where the publishers advertised the other books that they published in their series of sex manuals and treatises. At the head of the list was InterSpecies Lust, which promised to be a book that revealed the truth of sexual practices between people and animals, particularly in agricultural communities, and gave discreet advice on the practical problems that participants might confront. Another book was entitled Faecal Fantasy, and as its title suggested it dealt with the benefits and health hazards of a sex life that included defecation and urination as standard features. Some of the books seemed fairly tame in comparison: TransSexuality for Pecuniary Gain, Suicide and Sex, The Extended Sexual Partnership and Computer Stimulated Sex: Better than the Real Thing?

Emma didn’t feel inclined to buy or even read any of these books - and having seen enough videos in her job concerned with sex of every kind she had a fairly precise knowledge of what it might be that she would be missing as a result. However it did force her to concentrate her mind on what it was that she considered to be desirable in a relationship. And the only image that sprang to her mind was of Maisie’s naked body stretched out below aching for Emma’s tender caresses.