Friday nights are like this.

When she jumps, suspended in midair, sometimes she sees the world slow down, roll to a halt, and move thickly forward through honey-colored time. She can hear the sudden swell and roar, the sound behind her coming quickly towards her, hitting her back like a wave, knocking the air out of her, and a second later she's back on the ground and everything's quick and dizzy and shrieking again, back to normal.

She knows he's scored again. They stand up for him now, watching him with their eyes aflame; when her eyes follow him, she blanks out the sounds of the crowd, the raining and rustling of the poms, Brooke's confident voice next to her.

She pretends complete silence, in which she can hear only the sound of the ball hitting the floor and his feet hitting the wooden floor. He floats before her, his body so oddly angled and smooth, sliding between them all as though they were planted, dipping, rising, soaring, sideways, and then,

Air.

His body, just pinned there in time like hers; she jumps at the same moment, feeling the exaltation of takeoff, the hard slam back down to earth.

The crowd is deafening.

She always does a little dance for him now, teasing, smiling, moving quickly and subtly, her hand brushing the back of her skirt and rising up languidly to her stomach; a rapid switch to the other hip to make the skirt flip, a little shimmy. She always cops out at the end, unable to hold back her laughter and he always grins widely and shakes his head at her. They always both quickly check to make sure no one has noticed.

She's never felt so golden in her entire life.

So priceless.

She remembers a long lost thought from the beginning of this.

Midas.

The crowd roars again.

The game is ending

She doesn't tell Brooke about what happened by the lake, in the porch. She closes it all up inside herself and tries not to think about it during the day, or when she sees him. It's hard not to-she's never known just how hard before. Never had to be silent.

Because this, this is not before.

This is clean. Pure. Secret.

She marvels at the power he extends just by his presence. The fact that he can make her body violently betray her without the drawn-out effort other boys had to put it; all he has to do is come close just so, touch her neck just then, part her legs just like, and the pressure builds erratically, the warning twinge announcing itself.

She's afraid of her own invincibility, but even more so at his selflessness.

He hasn't asked for anything. Yet, she says to herself, willing herself to see him like all the others. Yet. It's a matter of time, she tries to convince herself, because she is afraid that he could be different. That he really won't shove her face to the wall or maybe push her head down into his lap in a movie theater. Like Nathan. Like all of them.

That he won't be that way, and when he isn't, that she won't know what to do.

But worst of all, that she'll despise him for it.

Try to provoke him out of frustration and fear.

Try to tell herself that he is like all of them.

But all along, she knows she'll hate herself if she does this.

They are lying on the old futon he dragged out onto her porch. Her air conditioning broke this week, and no one is home to fix it or pay for repair. She sleeps outside here at night, with a mosquito net hanging from the ceiling around the bed like a white harem cloud. It curtains ghostlike around them, and hangs still and transparent and full of heat and privacy and something vaguely feverish. When they crawl onto the cotton sheets behind the gauzy walls, it feels like another world

"And then……."

"Then Lila's dad went and sat out on the patio where Brooke was swimming in the pool. She was wearing red lipstick and a red ruffly bikini and red heart-shaped sunglasses. We were twelve."

 "Wow, how Fast Times at Ridgemont of her."

"Yeah, that's what she said too when she took a look at herself in the mirror. Anyway, she did the whole Phoebe Cates comes out of the water thing. He's watching, and his expression is odd; it's puzzled, and afraid, and amazed, and secret. He looks uncomfortable, but he looks so sad, yearning almost. He tells the maid to bring the iced tea, sits back and crosses his legs. Brooke's standing there like Miss New Jersey with the crown and the boquet, dripping water on the parquet."

"Parquet?"

"I know, right. Lila's mom is such a nut to have the living room wood floor extend out past the French doors and to the pool. She did it to make a dance floor for her cocktail parties, so she can light tiki lanterns and waltz by the water."

"Crazy," he murmurs, leaning his head into her neck.

It's evening outside. The crickets are starting, but it's still inside the veranda. They lay there, covered in a light sheen of moisture, half-clothed and barely touching, tangled in the billowy white folds of the soft net. She thinks of a tropical place, like India, the dark night waiting outside and a candle flame flickering in a palace.

His head is perilously close to her neck, his eyelids half closed with heat and drowsiness and heavy with something still and secret. Her heart beats out a hard, measured little rhythm, as though she is holding her breath. He shifts a little, and she can feel the heat rise off his body. The lady- of -the -night flowers are unfolding, poisoning the air with a heavy fragrance.

Their arms are lying next to each other, millimeters away.  Damp skin next to damp skin. His fingers brush her wrist.

"Crazy," she forces herself to reply evenly. " She flicks her hair back, and smiles this big, red, strawberry-jammy smile and he crosses and uncrosses his legs again, still looking at her. Lila's standing there holding the drink tray and her face is so strange; I remember noticing this goldy down on her upper thighs, baby hairs,  catching the sunlight a little. She pushes right past me and she's being loud and screechy and laughing, and she grabs Brooke and jumps in the pool and drags her right in. Mr. Slater sits forward suddenly like so, startled looking, shocked, petrified."

His eyelids seem to lift a little in anticipation.

"And then…?" he prompts again.

"Then he looks at me, and sees me watching him. His face goes still, and he gets up and stands there for a second, as though he doesn't know what to do with himself."

"Does Brooke come up?"

"She tries, but when her head pops up, Lila pushes it under, and she's laughing."

His eyes open now, watching interestedly.

"So Mr. Slater just turns, and walks back into the house. Brooke's head breaks the surface again, and she has hair in her mouth and she's spitting water. She pulls herself out of the pool and so does Lila, giggling sashaying towards the drinks; she's acting like nothing's going on. She sips from her dad's bourbon glass. Brooke's just standing there, looking at her, dripping and shivering. Then she raises her hand and slaps the glass out of Lila's hand and it falls and breaks in just about half a million pieces."

He props himself up on his elbow now, watching her face. She makes her features still and blank, looking straight up at the net ceiling.

"And then Lila just looks right back at her, stiff and quiet, and her face gets really ugly and she just turns on her heel and walk right into the house and shuts the door. And me and Brooke walked home in our swimsuits for a mile. And we never got invited over again."

They're both quiet, him looking at her, her looking straight ahead. She steals a glance at the gleam of his skin along the line of his jaw, the cut of his cheekbone. The edge of his downy blonde hair at the neck is darker with moisture, and there's a sheen on his bare shoulder. His eye catches hers, and they both look away, feeling the quick jolt of recognition.

"Brooke does that to you a lot, doesn't she," is all he says at last, and then curiously, she feels a sort of heat and wetness behind her eyes. A stinging, itching, blurring.

"Yeah," is all she can manage to say after a few minutes, but she knows.

She knows he understands.

He lies back down next to her. It's unbearably hot. The netting flutters a little with a dying breeze, and then stands still as death.

"That's an awful story," he says after a while, and she knows it's true.

"Yeah," is all she can manage, again.

She wipes her neck with a weary hand. She can feel a bead of sweat forming between her breasts, her thighs sticking together. She tries not to think of his hands, those broad, flat palms and musician's fingers curving around the edge of her thin shirt and pulling it up slowly, slowly, over her head.

He groans.

"It's hotter than hell," is all he says abruptly, but she knows they are both thinking about the same thing.

She closes her eyes.

In her memory she remembers the sunlight sparkling erratically on the surface of the strangely blue pool. Brooke's wet, browned skin and cherry red smile. She remembers her own twelve year old voice whispering uncertainly, "Quit it. Quit being like that." She remembers Brooke lifting her chin up high, ignoring her, and diving cleanly under the cool water, coming up like a red arrow or a flower blooming on top of the surface, her hair like a red sea anemone, skin slick with water like an otter.

How afraid she was.

How persistent, unafraid, calm Brooke was. How silent and insistent and honest, standing there in her red ruffled bikini, dripping water on the parquet, looking at the sad, yearning, afraid Mr. Slater with those big, demanding, accepting, unassuming eyes. Not accusing. Just understanding. Proud.

She opens her eyes again. He is watching her from under those half-dropped eyelids, silent, amazed, quiet, torn, afraid. A little sad, yearning. Half shadowed in the dim light coming from the other end of the porch.

She closes her eyes and again and sees the cold, sparkling water.

She feels that same fear, but there is a surge of excitement, and she feels her heart stop in shock quickly, shock like diving into a cold pool.

This is what Brooke must have felt like, is all that comes to mind.

To be watched like this. To be wanted.

She opens her eyes again, and blinks twice, as though she is waking up from a dream. He looks away quickly, but her hand goes to his face (as though it is not hers, as though it is separate from her body, moved by its own yearning) and she grasps his jaw lightly and turns his face towards her, his eyes to face hers.

Obediently he looks at her, and both of their hearts stand still, frozen in that paroxysm of time.

She sees the same things there. Want. Need. Yearning, restraint, desire, suffering, control. Something washes over her, intoxicating like power, a sudden want to please, to fulfill, to give something.

She sees Brooke's understanding eyes, locked with Mr. Slater's.

A gift.

Her hand uncertainly leaves his face. She looks at his half-shadowed face, asking nothing, pale with heat and watching her intently.

Her hand moves over his arm, sliding down to his wrist, laying there between them. She moves dizzily ahead, before the fear can catch up with her, and she feels the hard thump of her own heart.

"Peyton," he whispers suddenly, and she knows he's going to give her a way out and do the nice thing. She sits up beside him, and her other hand quickly clamps over his mouth.

When she finally lifts it, he is silent, watching her with darkly gleaming eyes.

Her other hand moves to his belt buckle and she feels his body suddenly contract and go still. Her elbow brushes against his arm and she is surprised at the hardness of it. Curiously, she touches the muscles under the skin, feeling their steely rigidity, and thinking with a certain abstract horror how he could break her into pieces if he wanted to.

She goes back to the belt buckle. Her slender fingers rapidly skim it, then hesitantly undo it with a measured precision as though she is completing a minute, detailed task.

A button. Then a zipper. She feels him move, and suddenly shy looks away. He freezes again carefully, and she looks back quickly, fascinated by his reaction. She's never done this without merciful, blinding darkness, without a stereo playing, or without being rushed and pushed, a hand over hers.

She hooks her hands in the waistband of his jeans, and eases it down. He lifts his hips slightly, and she pulls them down a little further; she watches the muscles on his stomach become rigid at this movement, two sharp lines cutting dizzily downwards at his hipbones, into the cotton that remains the last barrier.

She bends her head slowly and kisses one of the lines.  She lifts her head in time to see his eyelids fall half closed, and his head fall back, a small sound trapped in the back of his throat. It makes her suddenly tremble. She studies the line of his neck, his clenched jaw.

A gift. The power she wields makes her blood race, her skin electric. The dampness of their skin, the muted shadowy light, the dark stillness of the heat all make this seem like a dream.  She can feel his body responding, stiffly, proudly, uncontrollably. His lips are pale and pressed into a thin line, almost as though in pain.

"Peyton," he says hoarsely.

Her hand slides under the cotton waistband of the boxers. She moves them down slowly, following the cut of those two lines, the shift of muscle under skin and hard-wrought bone, the beauty in the narrowness, lankiness of his hips. Then there is nothing. His eyes flicker open a little, watching her; a calm glance.

He wants to know what she's thinking. A flicker of defiance, of questioning.

She feels the newness of it, of the raw emotion, of her mind suddenly inside his, watching the newness of it to him.

"You're so perfect," she answers then, a little quiet and bewildered.

It's all she can say, because it is simply what resides there, the first true thoguht. The lean, long cut of his torso. The sharp jut of those bones. The proud, new, secret lines of him. The well formed fluidity and smoothness and length of his body extends to all of him, from the jungle cat curve of his back to the chiseled cut of his calf.

Her hot mouth is on his then, an assurance. The rest of him is pressed against her bare stomach. Her hand searches it out.

He kisses her back slowly, mouth opening gently, to touch the electric tip of his tongue to hers, like children playing a game. She feels every nerve in her body jump.

Her hands play over him, now fierce and determined. Steel under skin and heat and darkness.

She moves over him, her hair a curtain over his head, her damp mouth over his, closing him in. His eyelids, his neck, his forehead, her kisses fall thick like night rain. Her hands are relentless. She hovers over him and dives, miles of skin against skin and damp downy hair and muscles clenching and unclenching jerkily, and she is everywhere and nowhere at once like a ghost tangled in the filmy netting the shadowy darkness. The only sound is their erratic breathing, a groan tearing itself from between his lips, muffled, the half-insane, bewildered gleam in the eye, his face nestled into her neck, pressing down into it, hidden, betraying him. She feels his body suddenly lift violently, a hard, quick movement as though her whole weight  wasn't on him at all, as though she were as light as a shadow. She understood the quick collapse then, and her hands stilled.

They lay there, covered in a sheen of sweat. Tangled in the soft net. His face buried into her neck. Her hands trembling.  Still. Quiet.

The wonder and gratitude, disbelief, surprise in his eyes. The dark, liquid gleam in hers. Head bowed to hide the delirious wonderment at her own throb suddenly present now, waiting, pulsing, knotted, wanting inside her. Both considering the emotion. She says nothing.

This is just him. A gift. She forgets herself in watching the stillness, the contemplation on his face. Eyes looking at her as though he is seeing something for the first time.

Thanking her. Sharing an understanding.

An overwhelming intimacy from the thing she has just done.

A gift. A bourbon glass breaking into a thousand pieces. Brooke's hair blooming like an anemone. She understands all this now, understands everything, the power she holds, the power of a gift like this.

To give love. Make love. Not just take, not just to be owned.

To own.

There is a sound above them now.

She listens closely to the erratic taps. Pitter-pats. The grass stirring. A cool breeze blowing in.

She pushes aside the netting and steps closer to the screen. She sees him out of the corner of her eye sitting up, assessing the situation, and looks away to provide some privacy. She looks out into the heated darkness coolly, and feels a sudden gust of fresh air hit her. The smell of wet air, clean air, river.

The drops are coming down now, the tapping sound, and she realizes it's begun raining.

Deliriously, she steps towards the porch steps as though blind. She walks out barefoot onto the cool, wet, grass, smelling the sweet scent of crushed green and white nightflowers. She senses him close by, and turns to him, and her eyes are full and her heart is hit by a wave of something strange and heavy, beautiful, and then light, cool, floating.

Happiness. Love. Sadness.

Her hair is wet now, clinging to her face, and he looks up to the sky, grinning. Raindrops slide off the end of her eyelashes.

And she's laughing.