“Can you eat any of this?” Wright asked as he enjoyed the food and drank from a brown bottle of beer.
I smiled. “No, but I think I must have known people who ate things like that because I recognize them. Right now, I’ll get some water. That’s all I want.”
“Until you want to chew on me again, eh?”
I got up to get the water and touched his shoulder as I passed him. It was good to see him eat, to know that he was well. It made me feel relieved. I hadn’t hurt him. That was more important to me than I’d realized.
I sat down with a glass of water and sipped it.
“Why’d you do that?” he asked after a long silence. “Why’d you let me undress you like that?”
“You wanted to,” I said.
“You would let anyone who wanted to, do that?”
I frowned, then shook my head. “I bit you—twice.”
“So?”
“Taking my clothes off with you is all right.”
“Is it?”
I frowned, remembering how badly I had wanted to cover myself when I was naked in the woods. I must have been used to wearing clothes in my life before the cave. I had wanted to be dressed as soon as I knew I was naked. Yet when Wright had taken my shirts, I hadn’t minded. And I hadn’t minded taking off the jeans when he asked me to. It had felt like what I should do.
“I don’t think I’m as young as you believe,” I said. “I mean, I may be, but I don’t think so.”
“You don’t have any body hair at all,” he told me.
“Should I?” I asked.
“Most people over eleven or twelve do.”
I thought about that. “I don’t know,” I said finally. “I don’t know enough about myself to say what my age might be or even whether I’m human. But I’m old enough to have sex with you if you want to.”
He choked on his sandwich and spent time coughing and taking swallows of beer.
“I think you’re supposed to,” I continued, then frowned. “No, that’s not right. I mean, I think you’re supposed to be free to, if you want to.”
“Because I let you bite me?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“A reward for my suffering.”
I leaned back, looking at him. “Does it hurt?”
“You know damn well it doesn’t.”
He drank a couple of swallows more, then stood up, took my hand, and led me to his bed. I sat on the bed, and he started to pull the T-shirt over my head.
“No,” I said, and he stopped and stood looking at me, waiting. “Let me see you.” I pulled at his shirt and unbuttoned one of the buttons. “You’ve seen me.”
He nodded, finished unbuttoning his shirt, and pulled his undershirt over his head.
His broad chest was covered with a mat of brown hair so thick that it was almost like fur, and I stroked it and felt him shiver.
He kicked off his shoes and stripped off his pants and underwear. There was a great deal more fur on him everywhere, and he was already erect and eager.
I had seen a man this way before. I could not remember who he had been, could not recall a specific face or body. But all this was familiar and good to me, and I felt my own eagerness and growing excitement. I pulled the T-shirt over my head and let him push me back onto the bed, let him touch me while I petted and played with his fur and explored his body until, gasping, he caught my hands and held them. He covered me with his huge, furry blanket of a body. He was so tall that he took care to hold himself up on his elbows so that my face was not crushed into his chest.
He was very careful at first, afraid of hurting me, still afraid that I might be too young for this, too small. Then, when it was clear that I was not being hurt at all, when I had wrapped my arms and legs around him, he forgot his fears, forgot everything.
I forgot myself, too. I bit him again just beneath his left nipple and took a little more blood. He shouted and squeezed the breath from me. Then he collapsed on me, empty, spent.
It bothered me later, as he lay sleeping beside me, that I had taken more blood. If I didn’t find another source of blood soon, I would weaken him too much.
I got up quietly, washed, and put on his T-shirt. I would not let myself be seen, but I had to go out and look around. I had to see who and what else might be nearby.
Four
Wright lived in an area where houses were widely scattered along a road. They sat well back from the road, and sometimes they were surrounded by trees. It was as though the people in each of these houses were pretending they lived alone in the woods. Most of the other houses were much larger than Wright’s cabin. His closest neighbor was one of these larger houses—a two-story house made of wood, painted white, and now full of light. This must be where Wright’s aunt and uncle lived. I could hear people talking downstairs and music coming from upstairs. Best to let these people alone, at least until they slept.