Petunia leaned over to Tilroy and said, “Let’s go over there for some peace.” She stood and began to pull him up.
“Uh, yeah, it’s a nickname.”
“What’s your real name then?”
“Lawrence.”
“Lawrence Bight. That ain’t a bad name. Why they all call you Skeeter?”
“My momma started it on acounta me bein a small baby.”
“What’s that mean? Skeeter?”
“Mosquito, I guess.”
Levona paused to think things through, then burst out laughing. “I get it—Skeeter Bight.” She laughed some more until she saw that Skeeter was stone-faced. She choked her cackle into a cough and inched even closer to him to show she didn’t think it was a very funny name either, secretly pleased with her ability to puzzle out the shades of nickname giving.
Petunia ignored her and pulled on Tilroy again. This time he got up. He reached in the bag for two more beers and followed her over toward our hiding place in the crag hole.
“What bout my secret?” Skeeter complained. “I ain’t tole yet.”
“I know all your secrets, Skeeter Bight,” Petunia dismissed as she laid out the blanket on a filthy old mattress ten feet in front of us. Buzzy and I took a step back into the darkness.
“I gotta tell my secret, y’all know that,” Skeeter complained.
“So tell your damn secret, then,” Petunia said. She and Tilroy were sitting on the mattress now, leaning against the cave wall. She was so close I could smell her perfume and watched, entranced, as the flame from the fire danced over the contours of her body.
“How long you an Cleo Fink been friends?”
“Me an Cleo been best friends since kids. I played on his hundert-pound team. Blocked for him.”
Petunia was even more impressed. Not only was she about to rut with a man killer, but a man killer who hung out with the cool seniors. Kendra and them were gonna completely freak. And with Levona as her witness, they couldn’t say a damn thing.
Levona was watching Petunia with one eye and keeping up nervous conversation with Skeeter. “So you gonna tell?” she asked.
“All right but you gotta swear you ain’t tellin nobody. Got that?”
“I ain’t tellin.”
Skeeter seemed satisfied. “You know when someone stole my momma’s car last year?”
“Yeah, I remember that.”
“Well, it warn’t stole. Me an Til wrecked it an made like it got stole. It’s in a ditch over to Big Spoon all covered up.”
Levona’s face squinted up. “What kind a secret is that?”
“That’s my secret.”
“That ain’t no proper secret.”
“Is too. You dint know it, did you?”
“It’s gotta be bout sex. Like the first time you done it or somethin like that.”
“No, it don’t.”
While Levona and Skeeter argued, Petunia leaned over and kissed Tilroy on the lips. He kissed her back, awkward and hard, like he was trying to strip her lipstick with mouth suction.
“Take it easy,” she said and shoved him backward. She leaned forward and kissed him softly. I looked over at Buzzy, whose eyes were cue balls.
“Ain’t that right, Petunia?” Levona called over to seek support for her argument with Skeeter.
“Hmmm,” Petunia answered onto Tilroy’s slavering tongue.
“Skeeter’s secret’s gotta be bout sex, don’t it?”
“Hmmmmmmm.”
“Right. Petunia… Petunia!”
“What, girl?” Petunia shouted back.
“Skeeter’s secret gotta be bout sex, don’t it?”
“Right, now will you shut up for once?” she said and went back to Tilroy’s quivering, drizzled lips.
“Tole you,” she said and laid a hand on Skeeter’s leg. Being right seemed to put her in a lascivious mood.
Buzzy and I were focused on the wondrous show on the mattress in front of us—Petunia Wickle and Tilroy Budget locked in a furious embrace. She pushed him back on the mattress and straddled him, pinning his arms above his head.
“You’re crazy, girl,” he said, losing whatever stickle of confidence was left in him.
“You don’t even know,” she said and ran her hand through her hair, raised her arms toward the ceiling to stretch, then pulled her T-shirt over her head, revealing a bright white bra one size too small. The edges of the bra were frayed; a safety pin connected a broken strap to the bra body.
Despite its age, the whiteness of Petunia’s bra made it look like she was wearing two full moons. She reached behind herself with one hand. The bursting bra came loose and she slowly pulled it away. Her grapefruit breasts jiggled at their newfound freedom. I couldn’t tell who was happier: Petunia’s breasts or me.
She leaned down to kiss him again, detoured to his neck, and slowly made her way over his big belly. I looked at Buzzy, who gave me two thumbs up. Tilroy’s face was shut tight, like he was about to undergo a painful medical procedure.
Petunia was at his crotch now. She unloosened his belt buckle, unzipped his pants, and slid them down. Tilroy was wearing white brief underwear pulled high to his navel and tight across his belly.
“You ain’t even hard yet, Tilroy,” Petunia said, looking up in frustration.
“You gotta touch it some,” he replied, voice coming out as a guttural panic.
She pulled his underwear down and her face disappeared in his crotch, hidden by her long black hair, which draped across his belly. We could see her head bobbing up and down ever so slightly. On the other side of the cave Levona and Skeeter were entwined on the blanket, perilously close to the fire.
After a minute or so, Petunia looked up from his crotch. “It ain’t…”