I gave him a pouty look.
“That's because you haven't seen it up close,” I told him. “Or with my shorts off.”
Ray looked over at that, then just shook his head.
“Keep fishing,” Jack told me, looking away. But I could tell he was smiling. “Your father doesn't want us looking at your butt, anyway.”
“Like I'd tell him,” I said, putting the worm on my hook. “Whatever happens on the boat, stays on the boat. Except when one of you pees off the side, thinking no one can see-some old lady on shore's probably getting all worked up watching your wieners through binoculars.”
“That's funny,” Ray said.
“Thanks,” I told him. “I try to be.”
“Wieners,” Jack laughed. “Is that what kids your age call them?”
I just shrugged my narrow shoulders.
“I could tell you what we really call them,” I told him. “But then you'd have to wash my mouth out with soap. That's what my dad always says if I use a dirty word, like cock…”
“Damn,” Ray laughed. “Amber, you really are a funny kid.”
“Thanks again,” I nodded. “I appreciate your appreciation.”
“But you really shouldn't use a word like that.”
“I know. Sorry.”
Ray was a great guy, after all, and I'd nightly imagined doing some great dirty stuff with him, too, but I'd still always liked Jack best.
Jack was in his late 30's, like my dad, about six feet tall and handsome, in a rugged way. He was married and he didn't say much, but I could always tell that he liked me, especially whenever we wrestled around. By that I mean: I could tell by the bulge in his jeans.
That was mostly when my dad wasn't around and I'd just jump right on top of Jack, landing in his lap or on his back, hanging onto him while we both laughed like crazy. He always called me a 'spider monkey' as he tried getting free of me.
And I always ended up breathing hard.
Of course, during our playful wrestling, I was always sure to wrap my skinny legs around one of his, sort of humping his leg and somehow pressing my elbow or my knee or my forearm into his crotch, accidentally on purpose. I'd felt the shifting hardness of his erection through his pants more than once.
But I'd always apologize with an embarrassed little laugh, and grab onto him in a more appropriate place.
“You're impossible!” he'd laugh, trying to pry me loose, his hands often ending up on my little butt or even between my legs as I squirmed and held on for dear life. “Oops, sorry, Amber!”
“Don't touch me there!” I'd laugh right back. “That's one of my good spots-you're getting me all excited.”
And my panties would be thoroughly soaked in the crotch by then.
“Are you going to leave your wife and marry my when I turn 16?” I'd always ask him, giving him a look that meant I was kidding, but maybe not so much. “I think I'd make a great wife.”
He'd give me a look, but usually ask, “Amber, why would you be a great wife? Are you a good cook?”
“You know I'm not,” I laughed. “I mean in the bedroom.”
“Making the bed?”
“No. You know.”
“I don't know,” he'd insist, like daring me to say it. His gray eyes would be smiling at me. “Sweeping and dusting in the bedroom, you mean?”
Pure shyness on my part always caused me to break up giggling and never quite answer, both of us kidding each other that way but knowing exactly what we really meant: sex.
Just good clean sex, between a fully grown man and a little schoolgirl who thought about it constantly. Dreamed of it, even. Fingerfucked herself over it.
And always wanted it.
At the cottage that late afternoon, after we got back from fishing, and having the same back-and-forth kidding conversation with Jack about why I'd be a great wife, I looked around first.
To make sure Ray couldn't overhear.
And then-with a burst of sheer nerve-I said it.
“Not sweeping or dusting. Fucking.”
And Jack just about had a heart attack right in front of my eyes, the shock on his face almost comical. It was as if the world stopped spinning for him right then, a huge dead spot opening in place of the life we were both so easily living only a moment before.
A black hole, actually, that he could easily fall into with horrible consequences if he wasn't super-careful.
I'd stunned him that much.
“Amber!”
“Didn't you think I knew that word?” I asked him, all little-girl innocent. “Fucking? Or knew how to do it?”
He just shook his head.
“Amber, you're a sweet young virgin and you know it,” he said to me. “No way a kid your age has done that.”
I just shrugged and looked away, without really answering. But then Ray walked in, killing that particular line of conversation. He, of course, had another cold can of beer in his hand.
“Hey,” he said, looking to each of us. “You both look guilty.”
I laughed.
“Jack told me a dirty joke,” I said. “With the word fucking in it-”
“What?!” Ray looked shocked. He'd never heard me use that word either and couldn't believe Jack would say it in front of me. “Jesus, Jack, she's just a kid-she's still in elementary school, in the 5th-grade.”
“I'll be a 6th-grader,” I corrected him. “In the fall. And I did already say cock in front of you both.”
“Right. But you're still just a kid.”
Ray was good-looking, too, a little shorter and heavier than Jack, and a lot more talkative. But Jack was ready to defend himself. He gave me a dirty look, then turned back to his friend.
“I'm not an idiot,” Jack told him. “Amber said it, not me.”
“No, she didn't.”
“She did. I swear, Ray, she said fucking, just like that.”
And he snapped his fingers, as if to demonstrate how easily I'd said it. That worst of all dirty words. Except for maybe cunt. In any case, I was highly amused at their argument by then.
“You guys!” I laughed. “I may be a stupid little kid, but I know what fucking is-a girl in my grade already got pregnant. A girl my age, named Mary.”
That shut them both up.
“Seriously?” Jack asked me. “Man, that's messed up.”
I nodded in agreement.
“It sure is,” I said. Then looked to both of them. “All the girls in my class know how to not get pregnant, so it was stupid on Mary's part.”
“Right,” Ray nodded. “Just don't do sex.”
I exhaled slowly, like I was dealing with a couple of idiots. “No, Ray, I mean having sex, fucking, but not getting pregnant.”
They both looked to me then, shocked all over again but clearly intrigued by the direction the conversation was heading-and uncertain whether to pursue it. After all, Ray was right. I was just a little kid, still in elementary school.
And my father was their best friend.
But, finally, taking another sip of beer, Ray asked, “Okay, so how do girls in your class have sex but not get pregnant? In case I ever meet a girl in your class.”
And he looked to Jack with a smirk, his idea of being hilarious.
“Ray, you're not as funny as you think,” I told him. “There's another girl in my class who had sex with two of our teachers, a man and a woman teacher, both just as old as you are.”
They got very quiet at that.
“You're lying,” Jack finally said. “You're making up stuff to shock us. I know you, Amber-you think it's real funny.”
“I'm serious,” I told him, then looked to them both. “They'd take her into the teacher's lounge after everybody was gone. And they'd both use their mouths on her, and she'd do it to them.”
“This is crazy,” Jack said. “A little 5th-grader?”
Ray waved for him to just listen, but I nodded: yes, a little 5th-grader.
“And while the woman teacher licked her in front, between her legs, the man teacher screwed her, fucked her, in her asshole-so she wouldn't get pregnant. That's how the girls in my grade do it.”
They were both stunned into silence, clearly disturbed by the story I'd just told them, an absolutely true one, by the way. About me, of course. I folded my arms in front of me and nodded, as if I'd just proved I was no little liar.