Laurie shook her head, backed away, but the girl was already lifting up her dirty dress, exposing clean white underpants beneath, and Laurie was looking. She didn’t know what was going on here, but the tight cotton and clearly outlined private parts were somehow arousing, and she was unable to turn away.

The girl laughed, a high child’s giggle that segued halfway through into a woman’s throaty chuckle. She turned around in a circle, still holding up her dress, exposing her pantied buttocks.

Laurie was frightened more than anything else. She did not know what was happening, but she had the sense that she should, that she was supposed to know who this child was and why she was doing this.

The girl was once again facing her, and she smiled knowingly. “Do you want to see my pussy?”

Laurie turned and ran.

She was almost to Union and could’ve walked around the girl and out to the street, but even the idea of running back through the shadowed alley and perhaps meeting up with Matt seemed preferable to moving any closer to the child and risking accidental contact.

She was out of breath when she reached the sidewalk, but she turned left and kept running, past Matt’s unmoved car on the other side of the street, past businesses and houses, up the hill, not stopping until she was home.

She locked the doors, drew the drapes.

She dreamed that night of the girl, and in her dream the child was naked and in bed with her. She was kissing the girl on the lips, and those lips were soft and knowing, the girl’s smooth body warm and deliciously sensual, the feel of her budding breasts achingly erotic. Laurie had never been this aroused before, and though she became aware at some point that this was not real, that she was dreaming, she did not want it to end and she purposely tried to prolong the dream, to manipulate its specifics in order to draw it out. She was rubbing herself against the girl, feeling soft femininity between her legs, and she was wet, wetter than she had ever been in her life, her lubricating juices dripping down her thighs, smearing the skin between them. There was no penetration, but she was already reaching orgasm, and she bit her lip to keep from crying out, involuntary spasms wracking her body as wave after wave of pleasure coursed through her, spreading outward from between her legs.

When she awoke, her period had come.

THREE

Norton

Fall had arrived early this year. It was the end of August and school had just started, but already the trees outside the classroom window were a red and yellow rainbow against the flat gray of the Iowa sky.