something of a success. Pulling on the chopped-off jeans he used for swimming, he reviewed
the afternoon with even a degree of satisfaction.
It was as good as yesterday. Again he had felt the new, the still heady mixture of the girl's
submissiveness and his own mastery, but today he had used that mastery. He bad discovered
that he could tie and untie her, himself. It changed a lot.
John did not think these thoughts out in sequential manner, but he understood what he had
learned well enough. For favors which he was able to give, she more or less had to consent to
being handled. For things he wanted which she could give; he could withhold his favors. That
the favor to be traded was the giving or taking away of pain-he had no doubt that she was
right: it hurt-was a very interesting bonus The most clear kind of power. As with yesterday, he
felt that he had lived through, been shown something terribly fundamental and important, not
simply about himself and Barbara, but about life itself.
Swinging out the kitchen door and jogging down the steps, he paused a moment at the bottom
loosely swinging his towel in one band. It was another burning afternoon, summer-humid and
hazy, the kind of day that usually produced thunderstorms in the evening but had not done so
now for over a month. At his feet, brown, hard-shelled insects jumped and buzzed through the
weeds, busy at trying to survive their baked existence. There wasn't a breeze nor the hope of
one. Everything seemed hanging and waiting, but he hardly noticed it.
Tomorrow he might leave Barbara gagged or he might not. She was a dumb person to talk to
anyhow: he preferred her muffled sounds and eye movements to her words by far. In any event
tomorrow he would bargain far more shrewdly. If she wished more freedom, she would really
have to beg for it: if she wished to be ungagged, she would also have to be kissed. And other
76
things. As the interesting details of these adventures to come eased through his mind, John
Randall understood that he was making progress. Progress toward what, however?
John's sex education had been sufficiently liberal and vivid that he knew-in theory at least-
exactly what the act of sexual intercourse involved. When in imagination, he approached
the matter flat-footed, straight out--call it fucking (a word that actually, somewhat
embarrassed him)-his mind imposed a near mythic taboo. He was not exactly afraid, but
the act was something that lay ahead in a not-now time. Moreover he expected that once it
had been done the first time, some cataclysmic change would come over the world and
that nothing would ever be the same again.
To ease the slight pall this thought brought over the otherwise successful afternoon, he
broke into a trot across the field, leaped down the sandy bank, crossed the river beach in
two strides and threw himself out across the water in a shallow surface dive. The brown,
tepid water closed over him and burst back again, cooling but not entirely erasing his mild
foreboding.
Afterward, p1easant1y winded from a short but furious swim, he waded up the beach and
stood toweling off near Paul and Bobby. "Aren't you going in?"
"We've been." "Where's Dianne?" ·
"She's putting the laundry in the dryer. We have to go pretty soon .... "
"Yeah. We'll have to move her again."
"That's easy." Bobby stretched out on his back and looked up at the sky. "She can't get
away anymore, anyhow."
"Yeah." Paul twitched unconsciously. John sat down and was quiet.
After a while, Bobby sighed. "This is boring." "What?"
"This. Her. AH of it," he sat up impatiently.
"I think it's neat." Paul twitched again. "How 77
many kids you know have ever done something like it?"
"What's the point, though? Move her here, move her there, feed her, and do the same
thing over again the next day."
"I think it's fun."
"What's fun? You don't have to sit up half the night every night."
"Well, OK. Not that part maybe." Paul leaned over and began to draw idly in the sand with
his finger. "But what'd be tough would be if we could do all the things you do to real
prisoners."
"Like what?" John said.
"Aw-w-w, like we used to pretend. You know.
Only really. Take off all her clothes ... and whip her and stuff like that." He let his voice trail
off nervously.
"We can't do that," Bobby said. "I don't know why not. Really."
"Yes, you do. We're in enough trouble as it is." "What do you want to do with her? Turn her
loose? Then you'd really find out what trouble was."
"Anyhow, how would you do it?" John said care-
fully.
-
"Easy."
"How?"
"Scissors." For all its pinched and twisted features, Paul's small face took on a look of
angelic radiance. He was imagining things.
"What?" Bobby said.
"Scissors. Dianne has it all figured out." Paul began one of his rapid-paced, squirming
explanations. The angelic expression faded to one of intensity. "When we come in the
morning, she's all spread out and tied up, right? And before we untie her, Dianne just cuts
the things over her shoulder and along the side and ... and ... opens her up." His pupils
seemed to grow tiny and bright.
"Aw, she wears underpants, too. I've seen 'em." "It's the same thing. Two sides."
"Yeah. Maybe." John admired.
78
"Then what? What'd Dianne say?" I
"Nothing. But we could think of the rest."
Bobby, looking at John, became suddenly unhappy. He assumed his father's thoughtful
frown again, more so because John seemed to be entertaining the idea. John seemed silly
and far off.
"But after that," Paul was encouraged by the silence, "we could do all other kinds of cool
stuff to her . . . " He stopped. They had all played together for several years. They knew
what he meant.
"No, you couldn't," Bobby said. "It'd make everything twice as bad as it already is."
"Why not?" All the world of his odd imagination seemed open to Paul at the minute. He saw
things the other two could not.
"Shut up," Bobby said. "Dianne said that-" "Shut up!"
"John?" Paul appealed for help.
John avoided his glance and scowled across the river for a moment. Since they had all first
become a gang together, he had been the leader. He was the biggest, strongest, and he
had lived in the neighborhood the longest.
Among the things John had gradually learned to accept, however, was that he seldom led,
that is, invented the things to do. The whole thing was really like following from ahead. You
sort of knew what everybody wanted, what was going to happen anyhow, so for better or
worse, you gave it a reason for occurring, helped it to become. Further, John had learned-