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the world was giving them privacy.
    Eva crossed her arms behind her back, and out came her breasts again. They could not be resisted. He put a hand on each, in the most natural way in the world. They were substantial and resilient but amazingly weightless all the same. So palpable in flesh, to his vision she was just a shadow now. His wide body blocked such light as came from the streetlamp.
    She was looking at him. “You’re fresh.” It seemed a simple statement, devoid of moral judgment, and required no answer. Tony’s experience with breasts was limited. He had thus far in life managed only a few gropings, all of which had been fiercely resisted by the owners of the target organs, and when it came to whatever females possessed between the waist and, say, midway between knee and groin, he might not be so ignorant as those who were sisterless, but he had never been there even as a tourist.
    Eva asked, in her softest voice, “Why did you ask me to dance? Because you thought you could get fresh with me?”
    He still held her breasts. He finally said, “Huh-uh.”
    “Then why? “
    She certainly liked to talk. “I guess I liked the way you look.”
    She said, “What I meant was, you’re a senior, aren’t you?”
    Tony found it embarrassing to converse while in such an intimate situation. “Sure.” He wished she would stay quiet so he could figure out what to do next. Try to kiss her? Or continue in the same area where he was being so successful: open her dress and invade her brassiere? But they were in a place of which the privacy could at any moment prove illusory.
    Then for too long an interval she was silent, and not having been able to conceive a plan, he spoke next. “What are you, a junior?”
    She chuckled in a deep note. “I’ll just be a freshman!”
    “This coming fall? “ he asked. “You just got out of the eighth grade? How old are you?”
    “Fourteen,” said Eva. “In just a couple of weeks.”
    “You’re thirteen right now, though?”
    “Not for much longer.”
    Now, and only now, did he at last remember to take his hands from her breasts. “I’m sorry.” He stepped back a pace. “How was I to know? You look as old as me. I guess you’re growing up faster than usual.” She seemed to be smiling serenely. He said, “Listen, I got to go.” It would have helped had his hard-on lessened, but it had not, and it weighed him down, slowed his movements.
    She followed him out of the alcove. “Are you coming to the dance next week again?”
    “I don’t know,” Tony said. “Maybe not. Maybe I’ll just stay over in Hornbeck and do something with these guys I know: lift weights or something.” He had never known a Hornbeck girl of thirteen to have had such a big milk fund: it was weird and made him feel lousy. Could she be lying about her age? But that was usually done in the other direction, so as to seem older for the purpose of buying cigarettes or beer. He wasn’t a sex maniac.
    “I really hope I can see you again,” Eva said plaintively. “You’re very nice.” All at once she departed, walking at a rapid, almost military pace and not looking back.
    Tony felt both relieved and bereft. He wondered what she meant by calling him “nice”: because he had felt her jugs? Or because he had stopped there? The sad thing was that he really liked her: face, voice, eyes, hair, and, of course, body, the works. But even if he waited a year and neither of them had anybody else by the end of that time, he would be out of high school while she was just a sophomore, and so it would be as weird as ever and no more decent. Any way you looked at it, this had been a punk experience. From now on he intended to ask a girl’s age before he danced with her. Thirteen? He could only hope that if anybody noticed them together—even just dancing, let alone running out into the dark—that such a person would not be aware of the discrepancy in their ages. He could be ruined by the kind of derision that