The Kingdom of Childhood

The air was still summer-warm, at least what would qualify as summer-warm in New Hampshire. As she drove, she hummed along with Joan Baez on the radio; he popped a piece of gum in his mouth and endured the music. When the roads grew smaller he offered directions, guiding her through the subdivision. They parked at the edge of the lot, not far from the metal gate that stood between the end of the road and the woodland path. He slid the books out of his backpack and shouldered it so they would have a means to collect whatever they found.

“Up this way,” he told her. He hiked up a steep embankment into the woods and heard her footsteps behind him. As they wound their way between the trees, he added, “They say there’s a guy in a rabbit suit who haunts all around here. They call him the Bunny Man.”

“The things people come up with,” she said. “It sounds like a German children’s book character. When I was a girl they would have put him in a story to warn us about the perils of sleeping with stuffed animals for too long, or eating too much Easter candy, or something.”

Zach laughed. “It’s definitely not for kids. He’s supposed to carry around an axe.”

“All the better. The one we had in the book I read as a child was a boy with claws and ghoul eyes. ‘Der Struwwelpeter, here he stands, with his dirty hair and hands.’” She wrinkled her nose at him in a jesting sneer and raised her tensed hands. “Don’t forget to cut your fingernails, boys and girls. If you don’t, you’ll turn into a monster.”

“That’s messed up.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” she said, but her voice was light. “I think it scarred me for life.”

Zach replied with a broad grin. They had crested the hill and had to brace themselves for a descent toward a creek in the distance. The trees became farther apart, the brush thinning to almost nothing. When the land leveled off, Zach slowed and indicated the ground with a wave of his hand. “Here you go. All over the place.”

She made a sound of delight and set to work scooping acorns into her palms. He set his backpack against a tree and crouched to help her. Before long the pack was half-filled, and Judy, now on her knees, still avidly swept acorns into her hands. He asked, “How many do we need, anyway?”

She peered at what she had collected. “Oh, that should be plenty. I’m so used to finding none that I didn’t realize we’d gathered so many. And you still have leftovers from the playhouse roof, don’t you?”

“Some, yeah.”

“Well, this should certainly do it.” She set her hands on her hips and surveyed the ground with a look of satisfaction. He took the last few acorns in his hand and, rapid-fire, chucked them at her back.

“Hey, now,” she said. She picked up a few and threw them back at him. He retaliated with several more, and then, dodging hers, slipped a handful down the back of her jumper. When she chased after him he took off, diving behind a tree just a moment too late to avoid catching one on the forehead; and then, with mock indignation, grabbed her around the waist and hauled her, squealing, back in the direction of the car. She was so small, barely more than five feet tall it seemed, and a hundred pounds at most. But she could kick like a girl gangbanger in a street fight, and got him in the shin so hard he winced.

“Damn,” he said, setting her down. “You’re strong for a midget.”

She turned to face him and laughed. Her fingers were hooked in his belt loops—perhaps for balance, perhaps for the excuse to touch him, but either way, they were there. The sun, piercingly low in the sky, threw rays of light against her cheek. When he tipped his head and kissed her, he could not be sure who had instigated it. He knew only that her mouth felt as ardent beneath his as it had the first time, and his touch met with no resistance just as before, and when her hands slid down the back of his jeans he knew there was no one around who would knock at the door this time and put at end to it. The end rested wherever Judy determined it to be, because he certainly wasn’t going to stop her.

Not a chance. Not when her mouth moved so quickly to his neck, his nipple, down the belly to—she wouldn’t, would she?—release him from his boxers into the liquid heat of her mouth. The sound that escaped his throat was somewhere between a groan and a whimper, and she raised her gaze to meet his. At the dark hunger in her eyes the pleasure zigzagged wildly through his nerves, and in deference to his wavering knees he leaned back against the tree behind him.

“Lie down,” she whispered.

He swallowed his gum and did as she asked. Leaves crackled beneath his head and heels. The aggressive sunlight needled through the trees. He laid his arm across his eyes, expecting her mouth again. But instead her palms plunked down beside each of his ears—one, two—and when he opened his eyes her hazel gaze locked with his, intent, calculating almost. Her dark hair blocked the sun like a tattered curtain.

She said, “If you want to say no, now’s a good time.”

He quickly recalibrated his expectations, wondering if his eyes betrayed his surprise. “I need to get a condom on,” he warned her, uncertain still of her intent.

“Do you have one?”

“Yeah.”

She smiled. “That answers my other question.”

He wedged his fingers into his pocket. “What was it?”

“Whether you’re a virgin.”

“Nope.”

“I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear that,” she told him dryly.

He felt his face break into a grin. Her nose wrinkled with pleasure, eyes squeezing shut, as she eased herself onto him, and he let the back of his head relax into his palms so he could watch her. The submissiveness alone was exquisitely relaxing; her inwardly drawn face changed endlessly above him, and its small movements mesmerized him, offering a blessed distraction. The weight of her body pressing him against the earth felt snug and comforting. Only when her back arched in the way he knew, tension shuddering, did he reach for her hips and allow his thoughts to narrow down to the sea-warm inner space of her, everywhere rounded, everywhere rose, into a guiltless and freely offered climax he couldn’t have stopped if he tried. At the end of it he let his hands fall exhausted to his sides, savasana, and he laughed, looking up at her grinning face in sheer elation. He felt ready