I was only about a foot away from her. I didn’t have very far to go, to go to her. I took a step forward. She put her hands around my waist.

“You’re a real man,” she said.

“Technically, yes,” I said.

“Those other boys in there, they’re boys, not men.”

“They seem like nice guys,” I said.

“Boys,” she said. “Not men.”

Now she was pressing against me.

“I want you to kiss me, Arnold.”

What the hell, I’ve always aimed to please people. I kissed her. It didn’t kill me to do so. And for once I surrendered, and I fell, and it was as if a great part of me finally opened up to life. Previously I had felt that nothing could be quite as pleasant as lying in bed on a cool afternoon with nothing to do, staring at the ceiling and dreaming of a world beyond this world, but now I was not so sure.

We disengaged; she laid her head on my chest. I had an erection. Perhaps I was not completely out of the norm after all.

And I had a thought.

“Wait,” I said. “Elektra, aren’t you Rocket Man or Gypsy Dave’s girlfriend?”

“I have been,” she said. “Sort of. With both of them. We — don’t dig these labels.”

“Ah,” I said, “I see.” Although I really didn’t. But I also didn’t want to be rude and ask further questions.

“Do you want to go to bed?” she said.

“Oh,” I said. “Yeah, it is getting a little late, I suppose, but I don’t usually go to bed quite this early –”

“No,” she said. “I mean go to bed with me. Here. Now,” she said.

“Oh,” I said.

“I can tell you want to,” she said, pressing her hip against my erection.

“I — this is really embarrassing,” I said, “but I’m a practicing Catholic. I don’t believe in extra-marital sex.”

“Oh, give me a break, Arnold. You can’t really believe all that crap. What good does it do you? You just had a complete mental breakdown you said. Give yourself a break. Sex is natural, man. You think the priests don’t have sex?”

She had touched on a delicate subject. In my work as a parish usher and as a CYO boxing coach I had heard rumors. Many rumors.

“Arnold,” she said, hugging her body close to mine. “I can feel you.”

And indeed I could feel myself. I knew of course that it was the marijuana, the wine, my own barely controlled insanity, but I felt all of myself now suddenly within my erection. It almost felt as if it were pushing me away from her. She had my back against the rail now as she leaned herself against me and it almost felt as if this damnable erection I was suffering was, as I say, pushing me back, trying to push me up over the railing and off the porch, perhaps even up and out above the trees and house-tops behind me.

I took a breath.

“I think we should go inside now,” I said.