We clutched hands, heat blooming on my face and scandalous danger welling in my chest as we left the house where Patricia was tending to her roses and walked quickly to the shaded grotto around the pond.
There, we stood awkwardly until Liam pointed at my summer dress with splashes of purple and pink and told me to pull it off.
I remember the rush of naughtiness even then, quickly swamped by shivers of fear.
Hiding my quaking hands, I grabbed the hem and jerked the dress over my head and stood bravely with just my white knickers on.
He nodded all business-like and the severest nine-year-old scowl I’d ever seen, then unbuckled his shorts, shoved them down his legs and ripped off his t-shirt.
I’d seen Ren naked many times—not so much recently, but I had memories of thick legs, hair-covered thighs, heavy flesh dangling between them, and a stomach and back rippling with light and shadow whenever he moved.
Liam was a sapling while Ren was the oak.
He shrugged in his white underpants, almost identical to mine. “Now what?”
“I dunno.” I shrugged back. “Where are your squirms?”
His nose wrinkled. “Squirms?”
“You know, the things that make mummies fat, and then birds deliver babies.”
“You’re weird.” Pointing at my knickers, he commanded, “Maybe you have squirms. Take them off and we’ll see.”
“You take yours off, too.”
He nodded sharply, hooking his fingers into his underpants waistband. “Okay. One…two…three.”
We both shoved down our underwear and kicked them away at the same time.
I stood barefoot.
He stood in his socks.
We stared at the differences in our bodies, moving closer in fascination.
“It’s so small.” I reached out to touch the worm-like thing between his legs. “Ren is bigger. Did yours shrink?”
He batted away my hand, poking his finger in my nipple. “You have no tits like Cassie. Did yours shrink, too?”
I looked down at my flat chest, so much like Liam’s and not at all like Cassie’s fullness. An awful pressure of inadequacy filled me, of fear that I was deformed, of terror that I needed what Cassie had to make boys like Ren notice me.
My shoulders slouched. “I don’t know how to get tits.”
Liam sighed. “I don’t know how to get a bigger worm.”
His melancholy matched mine, and I found a kindred soul. Wanting to cheer him up, I smiled. “It’s a nice worm, though.”
He returned my smile with a trace of self-consciousness. “Thanks.”
We looked at the ground, exhausting our ability of conversation and not sure what to do next. Then I had an epiphany which well and truly got us into trouble.
“Liam?”
He looked up. “Yeah?”
“Do you know about kissing?”
His nose wrinkled again, but this time his whole face joined in, scrunching up like a prune. “Eww. Mummy and Daddy do it, but it’s gross.”
“Cassie and Ren do it,” I confessed. “And I don’t like it.”
“I don’t like it, either.” He stuck out his tongue as if he’d tasted something nasty. “Yucky.”
“Want to try?” I gulped, cursing the words but also eternally curious.
“What?” He backed up again, his worm bouncing. “Nuh-uh. No way.”
“Just one. Don’t you want to know?”
“I know already. It’s gross.”
“I know but how gross?” I followed him as he stepped deeper into the grotto; his socks soaking up the damp ground and my bare feet skating over slippery leaves. “Don’t you want to know why they keep kissing if it’s so gross? Don’t you want to know why they seem so happy afterward?”
I rubbed at the fist wrapped around my heart.
Happiness was never something I’d begrudge Ren, but happiness from kissing Cassie drove me into a painful place that I couldn’t untangle.
“I dunno.” He finally stopped, not that he had anywhere else to go. His back pressed up against the weeping willow, its fronds all around us like a magical fairyland. “Why do you want to know?”
“’Cause I’m sick of not knowing. I want to know everything.” Brushing aside a frond, I stood directly in front of him.
He eyed me warily. “I want to go back.”
“We’ll go back after a kiss, okay?” I hated that I was the younger one, but I was the teacher in this. I didn’t like it. Here, I was seeking answers, and instead, I was giving them to him instead of the other way around.
“One kiss?” He looked at me sceptical. “Then I can go?”
“Yup.”
“And you won’t tell anyone my worm is small? ‘Cause if you do, I’ll say you have no tits.”
“Deal.” I stuck out my hand, glad he made us promise because I didn’t want that secret getting out. Tits were something older girls had, and I wanted so much to be an older girl.
I was sick of being in the dark and categorized as too young to know.
Liam placed his hand in mine, and we shook hard. Still touching, we brought our heads together while our naked bodies stayed put.
He puckered his lips.