Michael Malone - Weebly

under his arm, close by, brushing against him, pressed
against a body alien in its male youth (thinner, harder
than her father's body) and alien in its odor (like a
secret escaped, objectionable and compelling).
She became very aware of her own sweat, sticking
her shirt back to her skin. The feeling had always been
a clean, pleasant sensation.
Now she worried that her sweat might have an
odor, or might look "gross," as she would have said,
and meant by it too unfeminine, too physical, too
symptomatic of sex, that natural force overrunning
reason, which she had said would never have such
power over her.
Luke had been startled by the physical shock that
shot from where she pressed against him down his chest
to his groin. It was her breast that had touched him. She
had breasts beneath that baggy shirt. Her hair smelled
like lemons. She walked on, he ducked and let the
branch swing out. They went without speaking farther
into the woods.
In the shadow of a rotted tree trunk they came
upon the cigarette butt that Ernest Ransom had