— Can we just sit by the water and not say anything? she asked. She was content to stop at the kiss. The kiss was illicit enough to be good material.

The writer's knees cracked as he lowered himself onto the creek bed. — Come here, he said. He pulled her into his lap and slowly undid her braid. She stiffened and watched the water. What did his fingers think of her hair? Didn't he feel her desire to sit in stillness with him? To be still, like a painting? To be silent?

The writer licked her earlobe. He urgently nibbled the back of her neck. She was getting wet, becoming the thing in his arms being kissed. At the same time, she felt entirely detached from the scene. She noticed a box turtle swimming under the surface of the water and had an impulse to smash it with a rock.

The writer cupped her breasts from behind. She noticed a pine cone being carried downstream. The writer pinched her nipples through the cotton of her summer dress.

— Your breathing just changed, he narrated.

Had she quickened her breath to excite him or was she genuinely excited? She didn't know. Whatever the case, a growing wetness spread between her legs. She pondered this.

— Turn around, he told her. She obeyed. He pulled her against his groin. She wrapped her legs around his thick middle and hooked her ankles at the base of his spine. She noticed their long, four armed shadow working itself over the exposed roots of a fallen tree. He ground into her and groaned deeply, like a bear might groan. Swiftly, he stood, carrying her up with him, his hands supporting her rear. He rocked her from side to side, to prove her lightness.

— Little girl, the writer said. He buried his face in her chest and for a moment she thought he was crying.

Then his back spasmed. A dying pine creaked in the wind. He put her down.

— Are you all right? she asked.

He put his finger to her lips. — Shhhhhhh, he said.

He slid his right hand under the skirt of her dress and up her inner thigh. He cupped the mound of her crotch as if he owned it.

— You're dripping, he whispered.

He snaked his right hand under the elastic

of her panties and slowly inserted his first and second fingers. He was skilled at this. He scissor-kicked his fingers and rotated his thumb knuckle over the bud of her clitoris. He did this for a full two minutes, troubling the carpal tunnel syndrome in his wrist. When she moaned and trembled, he fisted her unloosed hair and jerked her head backwards to bare the chords of her long brown throat.

He wanted to watch her face contort when she came. — Come for me, he said, kicking his fingers inside her, faster and faster.

She pretended to, and in pretending halfway did.

A woodpecker castanetted its beak against the trunk of a nearby tree.

— Feel how hard you make me. He grabbed her wrist and placed her hand on his erection.

His penis was smaller than that of other men she'd been with. He pushed her hand down his pants to touch that disappointing bulge of flesh. Repulsed, she pulled back. He undid his belt in a hurry and exposed himself. It couldn't be avoided. She witnessed its violent pink color thrusting from a mass of brown hair and knew he expected her to suck it. It was pointing at her, the color of an earthworm after the rain, with one white drop of pre-come glistening at its tip.

Feeling a little sick, she knelt before the writer. A twig snapped under her knee.

— Say it, he said, withholding it from her mouth. His testicles had given in to gravity. — I want to hear you say it.

He is the cliché of a lecherous man, she thought.

— Say it, he begged.

She did not say anything. She thought, Why should this be a story about a black woman kneeling before a white man in a muddy summer dress?

It was cold for August. His penis began to shrink into itself. She watched it become a snail.

— If you won't say it, I will, he said, gripping her shoulders. — I love you, he lied.