Gap Creek by Robert Morgan

around the edges of the pool, showing how pure the water was.
    Hank took the coconut shell off the stick by the spring and dipped out a drink. He offered it to me and I shook my head. He drunk the water slow, like he was savoring the flavor and the coldness. “This here water tastes like it comes out of rock,” Hank said, “like it’s been running through rubies and emeralds.”
    It was pretty the way he put it.
    “I wish I had a ruby; I would give it to you,” Hank said.
    “I don’t need no ruby,” I said.
    Hank dipped up another drink, and then replaced the coconut shell on the stick. “Now my mouth is sweet,” he said. He looked into my eyes and stepped closer. He took my hands and raised them, first one and then the other, to his lips and kissed them. Nobody had ever kissed my hands before. Then he put his hands on my elbows and pulled me closer to him.
    “You are an unusual person,” he said and looked right into my eyes. I couldn’t think of any way I had been unusual except to splash coffee on his britches, but I didn’t say that. He leaned closer and nudged my lips with his lips. It tickled, and made my lips tingle. He rubbed his lips sideways across mine, and I thought how gentle and careful he was, for such a big, strong man. I wondered if Mama or Rosie or one of my other sisters was watching us from the back porch. And then I remembered the laurel bushes was between us and the house. Hank pressed his lips to mine and the feeling was sweet, sweeter than the fresh water from the spring. Then he nibbled at the edge of my lip, at my upper lip and the corners of my mouth. He run the tip of his tongue along my upper lip. It was a feeling I’d never had before.
    When Hank put his lips full against mine and placed his arms around my shoulders, I felt I was being gathered up in a spin and cut off from the air and light around me. It was like his arms made a separate world around me. His arms and lips and the feel of him against me made us apart from the woods and spring and bushes. We was our own world just by being together.
    The feeling of the kiss went all over me. The kiss went through my arms and legs to the tips of my fingers and toes. That was the strangest part. Hank kissed my lips and run his tongue around my lips, and I felt the sweetness in the back of my head and down my back. So this is what kissing is, I thought. And I thought, This isnot me. This is better than me. This is better than I deserve. And I thought, No, this is what I have been waiting for; this is what the future is going to be like.
    Hank kissed me and we turned around like we was dancing real slow. We stepped around, but I wasn’t hardly aware of stepping. I felt the trees and laurel bushes and the spots of sunlight was all circling. Everything was turning as Hank kissed me. My eyes was closed and I floated with the turning.
    When Hank took his lips away and breathed, I caught a breath too. I took a breath and opened my eyes. And looking over his shoulder at the woods I seen somebody standing among the bushes above the spring. It was the oddest feeling, to open my eyes after my first kiss, after an otherworldly kiss, and see somebody staring at us from among the oak trees. It was like waking up from a sweet dream and finding somebody studying you.
    I knowed it was one of the Willard boys. I think it was Clarence. He must have been watching us all that time. I couldn’t know how long he had been watching. But if he was watching us, the rest of them must be watching us too. There might be half a dozen Willards spying on us.
    “I want you to be careful,” I said to Hank. I didn’t mean to spoil everything by telling him we was being watched.
    “Careful about what?” he said.
    “You just be careful as you go down the mountain,” I said.
    And then I heard a squirrel bark. But it wasn’t a regular squirrel. The bark was too steady, and a little too loud. It was one of the Willards making the noise, teasing us. And then I heard