Free The Risen by Ron Rash

down on the quilt, flexed my knees and clasped my hands, mirroring her. My stomach calmed.
    â€œYou North Carolina boys,” she sighed. “I had tomake the first move with your brother. That’s not like the boys in Daytona. You give them a smile and they start unzipping their jeans. Then of course if you let them, they call you a slut or whore.”
    â€œI’d never do that,” I said.
    â€œGood,” Ligeia said. “That was a really cool thing about the commune. Girl or guy, if you dig someone and that person digs you, then you get it on. And afterward everyone’s cool and nobody puts you down because making it is about sharing.”
    â€œI get that,” I said. “Free love.”
    â€œI think you do, especially the sharing part,” Ligeia said, “maybe in a way your brother doesn’t.”
    I smiled.
    â€œI hope so.”
    The alcohol became an expanding glow, first encircling the two of us, then widening to include the sheltering woods. Ligeia leaned her back against the quilt and beckoned me with her index finger.
    â€œCome lay down with your mermaid.”
    I did as she asked. Ligeia freed her bikini strap and peeled the cloth away, revealing the pale breasts. I’d always imagined sex as a dim, slow exposure of bodies. Even here in the midafternoon, I’d expected a more subtle unveiling, a turning away, breasts covered with arms and elbows.
    â€œYou can look at them,” Ligeia said. “I’m not uptight about my body.”
    She twisted her hips and worked the suit bottom down her legs until she could kick one foot free of the cloth, then the other.
    â€œNow you,” Ligeia told me.
    My jeans off, I reached in the pocket for the condom.
    â€œDo you know how to put it on?” she asked.
    â€œI think so,” I said, but I was so flustered I couldn’t open the wrapper. “It’s just that I’ve . . .”
    â€œHey, everyone has a first time,” she said, and took the condom from me. “Lay on your back.”
    My eyes were open but with my head on the quilt I couldn’t see Ligeia, only a gap in the canopy where a single white cloud hung motionless under a blue sky. Her fingers worked the condom down until I was covered.
    â€œOkay,” she said, and brought me closer. “Think about something else, like the words to a song. Do that and you’ll last longer.”
    â€œFOR YOUR FIRST TIME, you were out of sight,” Ligeia said as she slipped her bikini bottom back on.
    â€œYou really mean that?” I asked.
    â€œSure, just as good as your brother, maybe even a bit better.”
    I pulled my cutoffs up and zipped them.
    â€œHow about helping me put my top back on,” she said.
    I kneeled behind her. As I tied the green strings I thought, now I know what those songs are talking about, I’ve done what they’re talking about. Ligeia leaned back onto the quilt and closed her eyes. I did the same but kept my eyes open. The beer and sex, the warm afternoon and the stream’s murmur, induced in me a dreamy satedness. I was quite a fine fellow, I told myself, one who wanted nothing more than to be here looking through green leaves at a now-cloudless sky. I was no longer who I’d been, and I’d never be that person, that boy, again.
    â€œSo what do you see up there?” Ligeia asked when she opened her eyes.
    â€œI don’t know. It just looks nice.”
    â€œI see the ocean,” she said. “I really must be part mermaid, because if I’m not at the ocean I don’t feelat home. Hell, I don’t even feel real, at least all-the-way real .” She laughed softly. “That’s a pretty weird thing to say, isn’t it? Damn, it’s been so long since I’ve gotten stoned.”
    â€œBut you’ll be living up here until your high school starts?”
    â€œMaybe longer. Now my old man’s threatening to make me stay up for my senior