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Show 44 have been more polite to invite her inside the cool house but the mere thought of it terrified me, what with neighbors only a half mile away, my family due back in two or three hours, and the debased thoughts I had sometimes had about her. Not too long ago, in fact. In fact, just after my family had left. Being left behind to weed the garden was not the worst punishment, for it left me alone, and that summer almost any time I was left alone, my penis jumped up and demanded attention. I nearly always gave in, and afterwards I nearly always remembered Sir Galahad, whose strength was the strength of ten because his heart was pure. I knew what that meant. I also knew that unless I stopped my secret and shameful habit, I would crumble as a guard on the football team. 110 pounders would be able to pin me in 30 seconds. These were deeper waters all right, a mess. So before she could follow me inside, I dropped that damned hat off, got a glass of water and zipped back outside. She had come up to the back steps and was sitting on them in the shade. She smiled and thanked me as if I'd been polite, and I turned to her tire, walking crabwise around her to keep my rear away from her eyes. While I was pumping the tire back up, she stood too, brushing her fanny off and thanking me in a way which seemed to say that, though there was no way she could ever repay me, she would do anything to try. I gulped and gasped. I wanted her gone, gone, and yet when she stepped up on her bike seat and rode off down the driveway, and I watched those shorts disappearing forever, I knew that something terrible had happened. It had not once occurred to me to ask about what she was doing that summer, just to sit down on the porch steps beside her and talk. That was the real sin. In early August she was Rodeo Queen and I stood on Main Street for the parade and saw her on horseback for the first time. Kate Bradley was the first attendant, I forget who was second, but I'll always remember how great |