7:18 A.M., Monday, June 22, 2015

Just Outside Honolulu, HI

When Paul Macon woke up, he found that his girlfriend, Paula Akron, was already awake.

“Shhh,” she whispered, “I think there’s somebody in the house with us.”

The nine year old boy kept as quiet as he could, straining to hear. He was about to tell Paula that there was nothing there when he heard a voice. It was an adult voice, male, but he couldn’t make out the words. He put his arm protectively over the girl.

The children truly didn’t know what to do. If they got up and tried to sneak out they risked making noise, and if they didn’t get up and walk out they risked getting walked in on. Silently they each cursed themselves for sleeping nude; it would be faster and quieter if they didn’t have to dress before leaving. They couldn’t just leave naked. A couple of kids walking around Oahu during summer vacation was no big deal, but a couple of naked children walking around would fetch police and other unwanted adults.

Paula very slowly and quietly began to dress, and Paul followed suit. Still unfamiliar with putting on a dress, he was a little slower getting dressed. ‘Bruce’ was just tucking the T-shirt into the waistband when a man and a woman walked into the room. Two adults and two children stared wide-eyed at each other, unmoving, until ‘Lucy’ gave a very girlish shriek and crossed arms over exposed nipples.

“DON’T LOOK AT MY CHEST!!” the ‘little girl’ shouted.

Immediately the two adults looked away, and ‘Lucy’ finished dressing. The only way out of the room was past the two adults, so there was no break for freedom. The children did use the momentary visual privacy to mouth a couple of words at each other. And at least half of what each tried to say was understood by the other, which is impressive when you consider that they had no training and little practice in silent covert communication. Writing notes in simple code, sure, but not lip-reading.

‘Lucy’ spoke first. “We’re sorry; we thought the house was some abandoned ghost town thing. I mean, not a whole town, but like a ghost house. Not a haunted house, but ... oh you know what I mean. We thought it didn’t belong to anybody.”

“We know what you mean,” the woman nodded, “but why are you here?”

‘Bruce’ had an answer for that. “We were ... looking at each other. Well kids do that sometimes.”

The child in the dress knew how to play along. “I never saw a boy’s ... never saw a boy before. You know ... well and she, he ... he never saw a girl, you know, naked before.”

Paul Macon, looking very feminine in the hat and sundress, didn’t have to fake a blush. Paula Akron, in the jeans and baseball cap and looking more masculine due to the lack of a shirt than one would expect, didn’t blush. She was trying to think how to get out of this and she thought she knew how.

“Please don’t tell our parents!” the shirtless child pleaded. “They think we’re at the park, but there’s no place there to ... look at each other.”

The woman was rolling her eyes. What was wrong with kids these days? It was probably the Internet; not like back in the late Eighties. Of course, she had done this sort of thing herself at the age of eight or nine, but that was only her and one or two other kids. She was sure things were worse today.

The man was trying not to laugh. Every kid did this sort of thing, or at least they all had back in the mid-Eighties when he was ten or however old these two were. They probably deserved a solid grounding, but he wasn’t going to be the one to rat them out.

“Well the house isn’t haunted,” he chuckled, “but it does belong to somebody: me. And I’m trying to get this nice lady here to remodel it. So, get out and don’t go into houses that don’t belong to you.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry sir,” the shirtless child said as the two children grabbed their few belongings and rushed past the two adults and out of the house. They could hear laughter behind them, and they didn’t stop until they were out of sight of the house, and of the car they found parked outside of the house.

The boy in the dress spoke first. “So much for House Base.”

“You don’t think they’ll call the cops, do you?”

“I don’t think so. You ever heard of the cops arresting kids for playing doctor? That’s what they think we were there for.”

Paula giggled. “We do a little bit more than play doctor.”

“Yeah but I wasn’t gonna tell THEM that!”

The little girl giggled again. She looked up at an imaginary adult and used her most innocent voice. “Actually, Mister, we just needed a place to fuck. You don’t mind, do you? How old? Nine, why?”

The boy laughed and soon his lover laughed with him. It had been a narrow squeak, but they were, for now at least, still unfound.

Returning to House Base was no longer a possibility, but there was still a chance to get into the Cliffside Estate, as they started to call the target property. It took the better part of an hour, but they found exactly what they needed: a place where the solid fence and shrubbery were gone, a simple pair of wire strands standing in for the more robust barrier which the kids had encountered everywhere else. Even here, either of them alone would have had a hard time getting up the short rock face and through the makeshift fence. However, with assists from each other it wasn’t so hard. Within another twenty minutes they were into the woods and had found a little clear stream. A quick look around and another half-minute found them out of their clothes and in the water.

Paula’s voice was all dreamy and romantic. “We never took a bath together before.”

“I never been skinny-dipping at all,” Paul answered.

“I did.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” the girl said as she waded over to him. “I was at a friend’s place and we were having a sleepover and I was seven years old and she had a pool and I snuck out after everybody was asleep and took all my clothes off and swum around for a little bit.”

“Wow Paula. Somebody could’ve seen you.”

“Somebody did.”