Read Spanking Shakespeare for Free Online Page B

intense. Ten more minutes of experimentation, and I hit on something that made me gasp and push away from the wall.
    So began my first love affair, and as the summer wound down, all the indignities and injustices of camp life faded away, and I lived each day in feverish anticipation of my time in the pool.
    I was too young to be self-conscious, and I was too enraptured to be discreet. One day I actually yelped in pleasure, and a group of older boys stopped what they were doing. “Look,” one yelled, “he’s humping the wall!”
    Most of the kids in the pool were too young to be interested, but this group surrounded me and began to cheer me on.
    “Do it again,” one of them said.
    “Yeah, show us how you hump the wall.”
    And all of them began to thrust their hips back and forth and make moaning sounds.
    It felt weird and scary being surrounded by all these older boys, and I looked around for someone to rescue me.
    “You know what would make it feel even better?” one of the boys said, and before I knew what was happening, two of them were holding my arms while a third pulled off my bathing suit.
    “Stop!” I screamed, kicking and writhing and contorting my six-year-old body in an effort to get free.
    “Look at how tiny it is,” one of the boys said. “I dare anyone to touch it.”
    And then a lifeguard was there, saying to leave the kid alone and giving me back my bathing suit and telling me to calm down and saying it was all just in fun. He took me out of the pool and gave me some candy, and when I had stopped crying, he told me to go back in the water and this time to make sure that I kept my bathing suit on. But the pool would never be the same. I spent the final few days of camp staring longingly at my spot on the wall and wondering whether I would ever find such happiness again.
    Toward the end of the summer there was talk that the camp was facing a lawsuit, and my parents started asking me a lot of questions about our day-to-day activities. I did not understand exactly what it was all about, but I gathered it had something to do with a popular activity the counselors had invented for the younger campers called the Coma Game.
    Earlier in the summer, my counselor explained to us what it meant to be in a coma—no moving, no sound, basically being dead. What we had to do was to imitate someone in a coma, and the person who could do the best imitation for the longest amount of time would be the winner. Usually while we played, our counselor would wander off with the warning that he was watching us from a secret hiding place. If he was in a playful mood, he might come around and make funny noises, and we would have to struggle against laughter because people in comas never laughed.
    The problem came when Sammy Levy’s grandfather went into an actual coma. Apparently Sammy had started making farting noises when he visited his grandfather in the hospital, and then asked his mother if Grandpa could come with him to camp to show everybody how good he was at the Coma Game.
    My parents seemed more amused than upset by the things I told them, and although they never sent me back to Camp Greenwood, the Coma Game became a staple in our household until I was old enough to realize how sick and twisted grown-ups really are.

NOVEMBER
    When I get my first report card, there are no real surprises: Bs in history and Latin, B-minuses in science and math, a B-plus in American literature, and an A in Mr. Parke’s writing seminar.
    When my parents see my report card, they just shake their heads.
    “I don’t understand why someone as smart as you is getting Bs and B-minuses,” my dad says.
    I shrug. “Most of my classes are boring.”
    “Do you even care about getting into a good college?” my mom asks.
    “I got an A in my writing class.”
    My mother gives me an exasperated look. “Good colleges expect you to be getting As in all your classes.”
    “Well maybe I won’t go to a good college then,” I say. “Maybe