"Hi, pervert," David said, as he stepped into the cool of the
cave. "Pervert" was Davey's new nickname for him, and he had a finely
honed way of delivering it so that it dripped with contempt. "Did you
have sex with your *girlfriend* today, *pervert*?"
Allan turned away from him and helped E-F-G take off his shoes and roll
up the cuffs of his pants so that he could go down to the lake in the
middle of their father and wade in the shallows, listening to Father's
winds soughing through the great cavern.
"Did you touch her boobies? Did she suck your pee-pee? Did you put your
finger in her?" The litany would continue until Davey went to bed, and
even then he wasn't safe. One night, Allen had woken up to see Darren
standing over him, hands planted on his hips, face twisted into an
elaborate sneer. "Did you put your penis inside of her?" he'd hissed,
then gone back to bed.
Alby went out again, climbing the rockface faster than Doug could keep
up with him, so that by the time he'd found his perch high over the
woodlands, where he could see the pines dance in the wind and the
ant-sized cars zooming along the highways, Doug was far behind, likely
sat atop their mother, sucking his thumb and sulking and thinking up new
perversions to accuse Alan of.
#
Saturday night arrived faster than Alan could have imagined. He spent
Saturday morning in the woods, picking mushrooms and checking his
snares, then headed down to town on Saturday afternoon to get a haircut
and to haunt the library.
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