the one to undo the buttons. The waistband of his boxers
peeks from his jeans. Beneath the denim his cock had
throbbed, hard and hot, moments before.
I know him now, though not as wel as I wil eventualy. He
doesn't know me very wel at al and never wil. Yet this is
different, this coyness as he scrubs his hand over the brush
of his hair and grins.
'Wel. Yeah.'
'Do you?' I pul down the bottom of my sweater and
cross my arms over my stomach.
He laughs low. I've known him for years, since elementary
school. I've watched him become a man. He sounds like a
man when he laughs, al low and growly deep. Rough-
edged.
'Wel, yeah,' he says. 'Al guys do.'
'But you don't think al girls do, too?'
'I'm not asking what al girls do. Just you,' he points out.
He knows how to work me. And, because I want to
believe I'm the only girl in his thoughts, I answer his
question honestly. Later we'l both lie.
'Yeah. I do it.'
He clears his throat. 'Realy? I mean, you realy—'
'Wank? Masturbate? Pet my pussy?' I guess I'm trying to
shock him. Make him blush. He's not the blushing sort.
'Is that what you cal it?'
We're whispering, though his parents sleep a ful two floors
above us and we haven't bothered to keep our voices
down about anything before. He leans forward and so do
I. He smels faintly of cologne and more like fabric
softener. His mother does his laundry. Mine doesn't.
'Jerking off, I guess.'
'I don't cal it anything,' I admit. 'I just do it.'
'How often?'
I laugh, then, and look to the movie for strength. The
couple in the film are fucking in what looks like a clock
tower. Their hands scrabble at each other as they pul off
their clothes.
'Whenever I feel like it!'
He laughs. 'How often do you feel like it?'
I don't want to tel him about the nights I've spent with
other boys' hands on me, revving me up without finishing
me off. Or the blank-fronted books I sneak from the
shelves of the family down the street who pay me to watch
their kids while they go bowling. I've learned a lot more
about sex from those books than I've ever learned from a
boy. Until him, anyway.
'Do you feel like it now?' he asks when it becomes clear
I'm not going to answer.
