Anna lay back, watching the interlacing of leaves on the tall trees, her head nestled against the pillow of a boy’s jacket. On top of her the boy, whose name was Steve, kissed her neck and pulled up her sweater. She’d met him that morning, and he seemed nice.

 

As she gazed at the green swirl above, he bit one of her breasts. It stung like raspberries. Anna felt him sucking at the blood underneath her skin. He bit her neck again, then pulled back so he could see what he’d done.

 

“I’ve given you a couple major hickeys,” he said.

 

Anna raised herself on her elbows to see: blue bruises. After she settled herself against the bed of leaves, he returned to kissing her, his tongue darting in and out her mouth.

 

“I better get back,” Anna said after awhile, and Steve pulled himself off her. She pulled her sweater down.

 

“Can I see you later?” he asked.

 

“We’re leaving tomorrow,” she said. “So I don’t know.”

 

They stood up, and he brushed off her sweater and jeans, then gave her one more long kiss. It was a little boring but okay. Steve didn’t seem to have very much to say.

 

“See you,” Anna said, and walked back to her parents’ campsite, where she ate three hot dogs and laughed at her father’s corny campfire stories.

 

Afterwards, Anna crawled into her sleeping bag and zipped up the cocoon. She went over the whole thing. Her mother had told her to be careful around boys, and she’d said it with a  frown as if boys deep water. Her mother hadn’t said anything that matched what Anna felt under the trees. She hadn’t said how nice it was to lie back and have some boy kiss you up and down your body. She hadn’t said it would feel good. This seemed to be a major piece of missing information. That leaf-laying, body-touching felt as great as baseball.

 

Anna listened to her parents as they clanked pans and talked before nestling into their own tent. Soon the murmuring dwindled to nothing. Then Anna closed her eyes and stuck her hand down her jeans. This was her bedtime secret: the slow rolling of her pearl, back and forth, as she drifted off.

 

Anna thought about the warm sucking, the light through the trees. She felt a buzz under her fingers and drew up her knees to increase the pressure. She hoped nobody would pass by their camp and see her jiggling . But she couldn’t stop, and she thought of what her mother had said: “Once a boy gets started, he can’t stop.” But that was wrong too. Steve had knocked it off when she told him she had to go. She felt a loosening below her belly and opened her eyes in surprise. If this was what boys felt, no wonder they wanted to do it all the time. No wonder. She’d found the key to the universe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sex

by Cathleen Calbert

issue 51

August 3rd, 2009