SOPHIE HAD INSTRUCTED her to watch his face crumple, majestic and startling like a damp sheet collapsing from the washline, but despite the girls' demands—Look, Madeleine, look!—her gaze never strayed from her hands, his helpless cock.
She wondered at the larger girls who claimed that they were too old, that the game had become dull. She could never outgrow this; she would be drawn back ceaselessly, her curiosity constantly renewed. This she knew: you never tire of decapitating a dandelion and squeezing out its milky entrails. The more the motion is repeated, the more irresistible it becomes. You have no choice but to desecrate a dandelion stalk. That is what it is there for.
His come smelled of the sweet and musty hay that he slept on. She would kneel down daintily and wipe her hands in the long grass. As she walked home from the secret place, the village dogs would nuzzle her palms, their hot tongues lapping up the fading scent.