The girls were at the computer surfing porn in Melissa's bedroom when their thoughts evolved from fantasy. Melissa, who had recently turned eight, asked Sky, who was nine, who Sky would pick to fuck her if she had a choice.

"You mean anyone in the whole world?"

"No, just people we know."

"I don't know, who would you pick?"

"I would pick Mr. Johnson to fuck me," Melissa said at once.

Sky took this in with quiet respect. She would have named a boy, possibly one of the cuter eighth graders she and Melissa sometimes watched at recess, but Melissa was always braver than she was, and more fun. It was just like Melissa to pick a man.

"Want to put our suits on and go over to the pool?"

Sky saw the gleam in Melissa's eyes. She laughed. She felt the excitement of her best friend's dare. The Johnson's lived a few houses up the street from Melissa's house, a few houses down from Sky's house, and on summer Saturdays the big pool in the Johnson's back yard was open to neighborhood kids and grownups alike provided Mr. Johnson had put out the flag over the front door. It was mid morning on a Saturday in June. Melissa was banking on the flag being out.

The girls arrived at the gate to the Johnson pool fifteen minutes later and with a note waiting on the kitchen counter for Melissa's parents when they returned from golfing. Melissa was in her favorite bikini. She had two others which covered more of her than the one she wore, the reason for their rejections. Sky had borrowed one of the extras instead of going home for her own which had both speeded things up and avoided the risk entailed in running into her sometimes difficult mother.

Ben Johnson was on a lounge with The New York Times when his gaze rose over the rim of the newspaper and onto the visitors smiling at him from the other side of the fence. Appealing as was the little girl with her - at least an eight on any good scale of preteen pulchritude, Melissa Barnes all but captured the man's attention. It was she who chirped.

"Hi, Mr. Johnson. Can Sky and me come in?"

"Sure can," came the rich baritone. His voice all by itself made Melissa quiver.

It was still early for a crowd. Three boys, including one of the eighth graders Sky might have selected and two of the boy's high school freshman friends, were together in the water. The only other guest was Mrs. Stevens, a neighbor whose oldest daughter had once babysat Melissa, who reclined with a book on a lounge like the one Mr. Johnson occupied. Melissa and Sky came through the gate and planted their towels on vinyl chairs.

The boys observed their new pool mates with the mixed disdain adolescent males reserve for pretty little girls who are flat as they are. After a glance at Melissa, the oldest boy, whose name was Eric and who was the leader of the three if the boys could be said to have a leader, wondered aloud if "Shelia" would make an appearance that morning. His friends snickered at his use of Mrs. Johnson's first name. At thirty-six, Shelia Johnson was nearly the same age as the boys' mothers but Shelia was a piece of ass and none of their mothers still was if any had been. A few days before, the boys had shared a joint in a field in the woods where old man Pope grew his marijuana plants and high on weed they had circled jerked while thinking about Shelia and talking about fucking her and tempting her to suck them off. They had agreed this was not an unplausible long shot and with this in mind they had launched their payloads into the summer air.

"You know, I bet we could fuck them," the eighth grader, whose name was Lenny, said with forced nonchalance and a nod at the girls.

"What are you, crazy? They're little kids?," Eric sneered.

"Yeah, shhhheeezz," the other freshman, Jimmy Keene, sneered as well.

"Okay, okay," Lenny said.

"That Melissa is pretty cute though, I gotta admit. She's gonna be a piece of ass when she gets bigger," Eric qualified.

"Yeah, definitely," Jimmy agreed.

"Shit, they're both cute," Eric rebounded. "Wouldn't hurt to ask 'em. I know Sky pretty good cause of my folks. I bet she might go with us and then Melissa would go too."

"Oh, yeah?," Eric laughed. "Watta ya gonna ask em, 'hey girls wanna get fucked?"

"Ask em how about goin to the field with us. That's all. If they say ok, they'd know it wasn't just to look at it. They ain't as innocent as you think, Eric. I bet they been fucked before."

Eric and Lenny were waist deep in the water, Jimmy nearly up to his chest. The boys leaned closer, reading the excitement in each other's faces. None of them believed the third graders had really been fucked, not even Lenny believed it, but they could pretend it was so and that meant that if the plan for Shelia was distantly possible, which with equal incredulity they believed it was, the announced plan for Melissa and Sky would be a dead cinch.

"A fuck is a fuck, right?," Eric postulated.

"Fucking A," said Lenny.

"Yeah, it sure the fuck is," Jimmy concurred.

The girls were acutely aware of themselves in their bikinis as they stood by the pool chairs. In fact, they were posing and waiting to be noticed. Melissa was posing for Mr. Johnson across the water, but he was reading his dumb newspaper. Only once had she caught him stealing a glance at her. Sky was posing for the boys, and all of sudden it paid dividends. No poses were intended for Mrs. Stevens who had become absorbed in her book and wouldn't have seen them anyway.

"Those guys are looking at us," Sky whispered.

Melissa saw this was true. The boy named Eric, the only one who might conceivably interest her winked. She flushed and looked away.

Lenny climbed out of the pool. He dried himself with a towel as he walked. Melissa and Sky watched his approach, dumbfounded.

"Hey," he said.

The girls said hi. They looked up at him.

"Ah, we was wonderin, me and Eric and Jimmy, if you guys want to go the woods field with us. It's kind nice for a walk and all. You know where the field is, right?"

"That's where the pot plants are. I'm not going to smoke pot, Lenny," Melissa said, disguising her intrigue which was not at all about pot.

"Na, that's not the idea, Melissa. Just a walk cause it's so nice and everything. We'd have like a picnic out there."

"Yeah, you got a picnic blanket and food and things?," Melissa said.

"Ah, we got a blanket. I can get us one of them, no problem."

"What about food?"

"Got a jug of cider."

"Oh, great," Melissa mocked.

"So whatdaya say?"

"I'll go if Melissa does," Sky said.

Melissa frowned at her. She lifted her chin and looked straight at the boy. "Lenny, do you guys want Sky and me to go to the field to make out with us?"

"What? No, who said that?"

"Hmmm. You want to go with them Sky?"

"Yeah, I guess, since we were invited, Melissa."

The boys left first, Eric saying something to Mr. Johnson about a soccer game. A few minutes later, Melissa and Sky bid Mr. Johnson and Mrs. Stevens an awkward goodbye of their own and departed, chatting in nervous excitement once clear of the property. They linked up with their dates a quarter mile away by a line of pines. No houses were there but the group was in sight of the road and it made them conscious of passing cars until the path brought them safely in with the trees. Luckily it had been dry and hot for weeks and nary a bug buzzed the youngsters in their swim trunks and bikinis and sandals as they made their silent march to the field. Lenny led the way carrying a red and black wool blanket he had somewhere acquired, Melissa and Sky walked side by side behind him while Eric and Jimmy followed as if to discourage any change of mind. Soon they spied the field and then they were in the tramped, brown grass.

"This is good," Lenny said. They stopped on a smooth patch of ground a few yards beyond the end of the path, close enough to hear someone coming. Lenny spread out the blanket.