So he was known, he was desired, he had friends, and now, just like that, a lover. He was not a conqueror. He was an initiate—he’d been admitted to a mystery and saw inside the rosy recesses of it, red as the flesh in a mouth. He understood now what was allowed, and knew the wonderful truth: his innocence of girls had been ignorance—what he wanted, they wanted too. That was the solemn secret. No wonder they smiled, no wonder Rhonda wanted more.

Not experience delivering him to maturity—sexual desire made him a child again, a happy boy, free to do as he wished. And now he knew that the girls weren’t afraid. They were like him, his equals. It was play, it was joy, it was the childhood he thought he’d missed, to be lived again.

11

Surf Bunnies

They wagged their okoles and fluttered their fingers and did mocking hula on the beach near the lifeguard stand and called out “Joe” to him. They watched him surf and met him as he came ashore. They brought him bowls of poke and rice or Spam musubi as presents and watched him eat under the palm trees. They challenged him to take smaller waves and sometimes surfed beside him with more grace than he could muster. They were not strong and so they needed to be more agile, they were light on their boards, they were gleaming mermaids in the water, they knew their limits and so stayed out of the monster surf and rode like nymphs on the waves they chose—surf bunnies.

Unexpectedly, they were his friends. He did not have to pretend to love them, yet he desired them. It was a relief to him that he did not need to woo them or contrive a reason for meeting them secretly—and when it happened, which was after work, most days, they were as eager as he was, and more straightforward.

Snatching his hand, one said, “I stay hanawai.”

He pushed her hand aside and hugged her.

“My period.”

“Want to forget about it?”

“Plenny other ways.” And she laughed softly, groping him as he had just groped her and shoving his hand onto her okole.

Most of the time it was hurried, a swift grappling and then a convulsive gasp, and when it was over, giggles. They knotted her pareu, lit a joint, and talked about the surf. No memory of what had just happened—it was mutual relief, a frantic hug.

This was the life he craved. It did not matter whether he excelled at riding the wave—he was relaxed, surfing when he was off-duty or on his free days; he found a rhythm in his climb into the wave, a way of appraising it, jamming his board onto it, and planting himself on it, so that the wave and the board were one. And why so smooth? Because he was happy.