Talking to Jenny

4:13 P.M., Saturday, February 28, 2015

Honolulu, HI

Paula Akron did continue giving any boy who cared to look up-skirt and down-blouse peeks. It always made the little girl happy, and since it made the boys happy, well wasn’t that a good thing? Paula smiled every time it happened, because it was fun, and because it felt good to do a good deed.

But now she had been caught. Fortunately, it was her friend Jenny who had caught her. After a couple of half-hearted denials, Paula told the other little girl about that first time, with the pebbles and how Paul Macon had stared right down her T-shirt.

Jenny Inoguchi could feel her eyes growing wide. “And you knew he was looking?”

“Yep. Sure did,” Paula said, with as much nonchalance as somebody too young to know the word “nonchalance” could muster. “He told me so.”

Eight year old Jenny’s mouth fell open. Paula felt so cool, so naughty, so ... sexy. Yes, sexy. She didn’t know an eight-year-old could be sexy, but now she knew better.

Jenny found her voice. “Wow, Paula. You are BRAVE!”

Paula beamed. Brave? Yeah, brave! But Jenny had another question for her brave friend.

“Did you really let Sam look at your panties?”

“Sure did,” Paula nodded, feeling way too satisfied with herself. “But he thinks it’s an accident. All the boys I let look think it’s an accident, except Paul.”

“All the boys?” Jenny asked. “How many boys are you showing off to?”

Paula blushed a little, but she was smiling. “Almost all of them. It’s so much fun, Jenny! It’s like ... It’s like when you ride your bike down a steep hill and you feel like you’re gonna wipe out any second but you don’t and your heart’s beating a million miles an hour and you’re scared outta your gizzard but it feels so GOOD!”

Jenny laughed a bit at that. More of a tomboy than Paula, Jenny understood all about scaring herself to have fun. Paula had a tiny bit of tomboy to her, too, so Jenny knew she could take her friend’s explanation to heart.

“Paula, is Paul your, um ... your boyfriend?”

Paula was getting used to this question.

“Not really. Maybe when we get bigger or something. I mean, I ain’t ever kissed him or anything.”

“Would you kiss him? I mean, if he wanted you to?”

Paula had thought about this herself, the last time somebody had asked if the little boy was her boyfriend. She had to be careful how she answered, because she didn’t want Paul to think she was after him that way, but she didn’t want him to think there was no chance. And whatever she said it WOULD get back to him, Paula was sure of that.

“I ain’t never kissed a boy before,” she started, “but if he really wanted me to, I guess I would, just to see what it’s like. I mean, if he really, really wanted me to. But we don’t HAVE to kiss, either.”

There; that should cover all the bases.

Jenny leaned forward and grinned. “Would you have seeeexx with him?”

This wasn’t a serious question; Paula could tell by the way Miss Inoguchi was grinning at her. Miss Inoguchi is what she called her friend when they would play the “we’re rich society ladies” game, and that’s how Paula answered her friend’s question.

“Well of cose, dahling,” the eight-year-old cooed as she threw an imaginary stole over her shoulder. “I alllllllways have sex with alllll the gentlemen; it makes a girl popular.”

Paula sounded like a mix of Zsa Zsa Gabor, Marilyn Monroe, and Ms. Fishbeck their teacher. Or rather, she sounded like an eight year old girl doing a poor imitation of Zsa Zsa Gabor, Marilyn Monroe, and Ms. Fishbeck their teacher. Jenny replied with an equally poor imitation.

“Oh yes, me too, Miss Akron. The gentlemen, they appreciate it evah so much.”

The two girls had to pause for a giggling fit, and when that was over they talked of other things until the sun began to set and Paula had to ride her bike home.

Talking to George

4:08 P.M., Saturday, February 28, 2015