in a
different way it was the first time for me too." His hand opened and
closed around mine, and his mouth opened and closed too, but nothing
came out. The light was green; he noticed, and started moving, but it
turned red again. This time he kept watching it.

"I don't suppose anybody ever told you about the birds and the bees
and the butterflies," he said.

"Told me _what_ about them?" He didn't answer right away, so I thought
about it. "All I can think of is they all have wings. They all fly."

"So do I. So does a fly. What I mean is ... the hell with it!" He
turned off the highway, and we went up a short hill and through a sort
of gateway between two enormous rocks. "Have you ever been here?" he
asked.

"I don't think so...."

"They call it The Garden of the Gods. I don't know why. I like it here ...
it's a good place to drive and think."

There was a lot of moonlight, and the Garden was all hills and drops
and winding roads between low-growing brush, and everywhere, as if the
creatures of some giant planet had dropped them, were those towering
rocks, their shapes scooped out and chiseled and hollowed and twisted
by wind, water and sand. Yes, it was lovely, and it was non-intrusive.
Just what he said--a good place to drive and think.

Once he came to the top of a hill, and stopped the car, and we looked
out over the Garden, spreading out in every direction, with the
moonlight shadowed in the sagebrush, and gleaming off the great rocks.
Then we turned and looked at each other, and he reached out for me and
kissed me again; after which he pulled away as if the touch of me hurt
him, and grabbed hold of the wheel with a savage look on his face, and
raced the motor, and raised a cloud of dust on the road behind us.

I didn't understand, and I felt hurt. I wanted to stop again. I wanted
to be kissed again. I didn't like sitting alone on my side of the
seat, with that growl in his throat not quite coming out.

I asked him to stop again. He shook his head, and made believe to
smile.

"I'll buy you a book," he said. "All about the birds and the bees and
a little thing we have around here we call sex. I'll buy it tomorrow,
and you can read it--you _do_ know how to read, don't you?--and then
we'll take another ride, and we can park if you want to. Not tonight,
baby."

"But I _know_...." I started, and then had sense enough to stop. I
knew about sex; but what I knew about it didn't connect with kissing
or parkin