It was Friday night of Mardi Gras weekend, and Luke and several of his frat brothers had come to New Orleans for the festivities, the eight of them sharing a single hotel room they had booked almost a year in advance. Now, the guys were changing into their night-on-the-town clothes, and as they pulled off their T-shirts to put on cleaner ones, each of them at some point revealed the brand on their chest or shoulder that they had taken upon joining their historically Black fraternity.
"Luke, you ready to party for real?" his friend Marvin said. "It's gonna get crazy out there."
While Luke had been looking forward to the trip, he was not as excited as his brothers about every aspect of it. Seeing the parades and getting schnockered on Hurricanes and Hand Grenades would be great, sure, but some of the guys were even more excited about one of the less official, but no less traditional, aspects of Mardi Gras: girls flashing their boobs for beads and other thrown trinkets.
For Luke, the hardest part of this trip was having to pretend to share his frat brothers' excitement about seeing all those titties. Because while the guys might have understood if he were gay or deeply religious or something, Luke doubted very much that they would understand if they knew the truth about him: that he was attracted only to girls who were too young to have titties at all.
Now, as Luke walked down Bourbon Street with a half-dozen of his frat buddies, he laughed and grinned along with them whenever they commented on some fine-looking girl who passed by, or who waved down at them over the wrought-iron rail of one of the many balconies where parties were taking place.
At least they had almost reached their destination: a French Quarter bar that was having "college night," which meant that those who showed up in their college T-shirt or hoodie could get half-price long-neck beers, and Hurricanes in foot-tall plastic souvenir cups. One of those voluminous beverages, Luke hoped, would put him in a more celebratory frame of mind.
There were a lot of people in the bar. Unsurprisingly, most of them were college kids wearing their school gear. Schools in Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi were particularly well represented, being in road-trip range, but there were students from other schools who had almost certainly flown in for the festivities, like a group of laughing, bantering kids from Arizona State at a table near the one that Luke and his friends managed to snag.
"How's that Hurricane treating you?" Marvin asked between sips of his beer.
"Well," Luke replied, "it's no margarita, but it's not half bad."
Gesturing at Luke's tall, tubular plastic glass, Marvin said, "You think you can actually empty that booze-bong?"
"I'm sure gonna try," Luke replied.
Suddenly, it seemed that a scuffle had broken out all around their table. Luke shot to his feet as college guys began pushing, grabbing, and punching one another.
In the chaos, Luke found his vision focusing on the back of someone who had on a hoodie with a school logo he didn't immediately recognize. But Luke was mainly looking at the hooded person's right hand, which was holding a beer bottle by its long neck as he approached the table of seated ASU kids.
Just as the guy (Luke assumed it was a guy) pulled back his arm to swing the bottle at the blonde head of an unsuspecting Arizona boy, Luke shot forward and grabbed the wrist of the hand holding the bottle. He tried to wrestle the bottle out of the hands of the ASU kid's would-be attacker, and there were shouts and more scuffling all around as Luke's frat brothers tried to reach him to help.
Then, with a glassy *thunk*, something struck Luke in the head from behind, and the world around him went dark.
***
Luke looked around with puzzlement. He was walking down a sun-brightened sidewalk that was somewhere on the bank of the river but clearly not in the French Quarter. And then he was opening the door of some sort of warehouse.
"There he is!" an old man shouted, walking eagerly toward Luke the moment he stepped through the warehouse door. The man had a white beard and a straw fedora, and his face was like aged leather. "Fellas! Our king has arrived!"
Behind the old man, a crowd of costumed men, who were mostly Black and ranged from teenage to elderly, variously waved or shouted greetings. Several large parade floats sat in a row behind them.
"Hey, there, Luke," said another man, who was far younger than the first and who was in the middle of putting on a glitzy version of an East African tribal costume. Then the younger man turned to the older one. "I swear, Henry, three-hundred and sixty-four days a year, you're an old man playin' chess in the park. But come Mardi Gras, it's like you're ten years old again."
"It surely is, Francis, it surely is," Henry replied with a beaming smile.
Moving up beside Luke and slapping him on the back, Henry continued, "You're gonna be the first Maasai King of a whole new millennium, young man! Whaddaya think about that?"
This had to be a dream, or a hallucination, or a side effect of whatever a blow to the head could do to your brain. It didn't make any sense, otherwise. Not only did Luke have no idea how he could have suddenly become a member of a Mardi Gras krewe, or how the other members seemed to know him, but this wasn't the right place or even the right time of day. The last thing Luke remembered, he'd been in a Bourbon Street bar after dark; now it appeared to be mid-afternoon. And then there was what Henry had just said.
New millennium? Luke thought. What is he talking about?
He glanced over at an area along the wall, where a classic-car-themed calendar hung above a workbench. Below a picture of a bright-blue 1968 Shelby GT350, the date of the seventh was circled in red, and at the top of the page, the calendar read, "March 2000."
"Um," Luke replied, "that's, ah, unbelievable."
"You ain't wrong. Now get dressed, young man, it's almost time to roll!"
Henry practically shoved Luke into a room full of wheeled clothing racks. Only a few colorful costumes hung on them—not surprising, Luke supposed, since it appeared that most of the other participants in the parade were already dressed. This was helpful, because he had no idea what his costume was supposed to look like.
Luckily, Henry had called Luke the "king," which made it pretty obvious which of the few remaining costumes was his. On its own rack hung a toga-like garment that was bright red but festooned with golden decorations, plus a golden cape that, when Luke put it on, came down to his calves. On a small table beside the rack sat an enormous beaded and feathered headdress that was almost as wide as the span of Luke's arms. When Luke tried it on and turned to look in the mirror, he could turn his head only slowly because of the air resistance. Luke got the idea that the ensemble was based on a real Maasai ceremonial costume but had been given a wildly inauthentic level of bling.
When he emerged from the dressing room, Henry—who had since put on a bright-blue garment with the same cut as Luke's red-and-gold one, along with a mass of red necklaces and a beaded gold headband—led Luke to the front-most float. It looked kind of like a gigantic two-tiered cake; a band was set up to play on the bottom tier, while the top tier featured a wide, throne-like seat in front of an arching backdrop decorated in faux gold leaf and fringed with long purple feathers.
"Best take your throne, Your Highness," the man said with a chuckle.
Luke let Henry lead him up a few steps onto the first tier; then they climbed a short ladder up the center to the second tier. Luke sat down on the throne and saw several boxes at his feet, each one filled with strands of plastic beads and other prizes that Luke could throw to people in the crowd. The box directly in front of him held hand-size golden pineapples; many considered the Maasai pineapple to be the most coveted prize of Mardi Gras.
Henry and a few other fancily dressed paraders—the king's court—took seats around Luke. From somewhere beneath his robes, Henry pulled out a walkie-talkie.
"Franklin," Henry said, "start 'er up!"
Somewhere beneath Luke, an engine roared to life. It sounded big, like the hemi engine of his dad's pickup. Luke supposed that moving the massive float and its costumed riders required a lot of power.
Slowly, the float rolled out the big garage doors, followed by the other floats and groups of marchers on foot. When the king's float took a wide right turn onto the street, Luke felt more like he was on a boat than any sort of land vehicle.
They rode along the street for a few blocks. The police had blocked off the side streets, giving the krewe exclusive access to the route, and a patrol car pulled up in front of them to ensure that the way was clear.
In a couple of minutes, Luke's float reached the official start of the parade route, and the band on the first tier of the float began to play some cheerful jazz. Just beyond some barricades along the sidewalk, a dense crowd waited to see the parade. They let out a roaring cheer as the King's float approached.
Luke looked out at the crowd and found himself paralyzed with disbelief. Because although there were a few adults and teens in the audience, most of the onlookers, for as far as the eye could see, were preadolescent girls.
"Look, it's the Maasai King!" shouted a little blonde girl in a belly shirt. She stood with one foot on the base of a streetlamp to raise herself above the crowd, hanging off the side of the pole with one hand and waving at him with the other.
"Hey, King, over here!" shouted a small Asian girl in tight pink shorts, jumping up and down and waving both arms to get his attention.
"C'mon, Luke, wake up!" Henry said, prodding Luke from behind. "These girls ain't here to see the Zombie King!" Then, seemingly muttering to himself, he said, "Hmm, Zombie King…we could do somethin' like that for the Halloween parade…"
Just then, a girl of about ten, who had freckles and long, poofy red hair and who was right up against one of the metal police barricades that lined the street, shouted, "Throw me somethin', Mister!" Then, to Luke's astonishment, the girl pulled up her bright-yellow tank-top to expose her bare, freckled chest and pink nipples.
Shocked out of his paralysis, Luke found himself throwing a strand of beads at the girl, who shrieked with delight as she caught them and put them around her neck.
He spotted someone waving energetically at him—a little black girl who didn't look a day over six, with a pair of poofy pigtails and wearing what looked like a white ballerina outfit. She pulled down the elastic front of her top to show him her little brown nipples, grinning at Luke. He threw her a strand of beads, too.
Immediately, a White girl of eight or nine with curly brunette hair caught his eye, just a few yards down the sidewalk from the one who had just flashed him. She was dressed like a cheerleader, in a red-and-white sweater and miniskirt. When she saw Luke looking in her direction, she turned sideways to him, bent forward, and simultaneously pulled her white skirt up and her red panties down, flashing him her ass in profile. She straightened up just in time to catch the beads Luke threw her; then she jumped up and down in excitement, waving her prize in the air before putting it around her neck.
"Ha-ha!" Henry exclaimed. "This is one hell of a crowd!"
Luke barely heard him. He was too busy looking around, his head on a swivel as girl after girl screamed and waved to get his attention and then exposed herself to him, while other girls in the throng cheered and egged the flashers on.
And then it was as though something outside of Luke was turning his head in a particular direction, above him and to his right. His gaze was drawn as if by magnetism to one spot, at the end of one of the many wrought-iron balconies above the street.
In that spot, looking at him over the rail, was a little girl of perhaps eight, with tawny skin and dark hair that seemed to float in a cirrus cloud around her face. Her eyes were the warmest brown.
She wasn't yelling or waving or jumping around like the other girls. She just stood there, her hands resting on the iron railing, looking down at Luke as though she knew for certain that he was looking back at her. Her lips formed the tiniest smile.
She's like an angel, Luke thought. An angel only I can see.
And then, her eyes still fixed on him, the girl pulled up the skirt of her blue sailor-dress and lowered her matching blue panties, showing Luke her bare, bald, sweet little-girl pussy. Yet the gesture didn't seem lewd—far from it. It was more like she was showing it to him and him alone, wordlessly saying, I'll share this with you if you want me to.
It occurred to Luke that if there were any girl in this entire crowd who deserved one of the Krewe of Maasai's legendary golden pineapples, it was this girl. Snapping out of his trance, he grabbed up one of the shiny prizes from the box at his feet.
Luke might not have been talented enough to play football at the college level, but he'd been a decent quarterback for his high school team. So when he picked up one of the little golden pineapples, he held it sidelong like a football and snapped it in a spiral up and over the crowd—arcing it straight into the hands of the little girl, who caught it deftly. But instead of screaming or jumping up and down as the other girls might have done at having won such a coveted prize, she simply held the pineapple to her chest, smiling at him thankfully with that angel face.
Luke looked at the girl for as long as he could, trying to take in every inch of her. But then his float rolled past where she stood on the balcony, and she was hidden from Luke's view by the arching backdrop behind him.
A part of him wanted to leap off the float and go find her. But even though Luke had no idea how he got here, he still had a job to do. His krewe-mates and thousands of screaming girls were counting on him.
The float was approaching an intersection, and Luke looked around wildly for street signs so that he could come back here after the parade was finished. He spotted one sign, but he didn't have time to read it before the float rolled past it. Luke hoped that his sense of direction would be enough to find his way back.
***
Luke wasn't sure how long the parade lasted, but by the time it was over, he was almost delirious from the noise, the crowds, and especially the sight of all of those little girls showing him their beautiful young bodies. In his pants right now, he guessed, was the longest continuous hardon he'd ever had.
"Great job, King!" Henry said, slapping Luke on the back as the float pulled into the warehouse where it lived for the other 364 days of the year. "I think that was our biggest crowd yet. And damn, we ain't never had a king who could throw a pineapple like you!"
The other members of the Krewe variously shouted their agreement or made gestures of approval. Luke blushed a bit and thanked them all.
He was just thinking about how he would make his way back to the balcony with that special girl when Henry glanced at the clock and said, "Well, now, you'd better go get changed."
"Uh, yeah," Luke replied. "I'd look pretty crazy going into a 7-11 wearing this. I don't think this headdress would even fit through the door."
"I meant for the ball, ya knucklehead," Henry replied, chuckling. "Otis put your tuxedo in your dressing room. I think he even ironed it for ya."
Luke wasn't sure why, but he knew that he needed to go to the ball. Whatever that was.
"Oh. Uh, thanks," Luke managed. "To you and Otis, I mean."
Henry chuckled again. "Now go get dressed. You know how to tie a bowtie, dont'cha?"
Being from a steadfastly churchgoing family, Luke could tie any sort of tie with his eyes closed and one arm behind his back. "Yes, sir," he answered.
***
Francis drove Luke—now wearing an outlandish gold tuxedo with a sparkling purple tie and cummerbund—as well as Otis and several of the other Krewe members to the ball in his old Chevy Impala; Henry had gone home to change and pick up his wife and would meet them at the party. All of the guys were in tuxes that ranged from stately to gaudy. Luke hadn't been with a group of men this dressed up since he'd served as an usher at his big sister's wedding.
The ball, it turned out, was at a private home in the Garden District. It was a beautiful old house with classic New Orleans architecture: tall and stately, with a wide porch on the first floor and a broad balcony on the second, with one of those classic wrought-iron rails around it. There were great, curving bay windows on both floors.
When Luke and his new friends went inside, they turned right into a high-ceilinged ballroom with a light-wood floor and a crystal chandelier. On the left-hand side of the ballroom, a grand staircase curved up to a second-floor landing, and on the right-hand side, there was a raised area where a four-piece jazz band was playing. At the far end of the room was a bar, and a long buffet table laden with Cajun and Creole delights: red beans and rice, crawfish etouffee, and several kinds of gumbo, among other things. In the corner was a round table bearing a huge, rainbow-hued king cake.
"Our King has arrived!" a tall Black man said, rushing over to shake Luke's hand. His short, dark hair was liberally peppered with distinguished gray, and he wore a suit whose cut would have seemed conservative were it not for the bright-green fabric and gold trim. "I'm Harris Clayton, and I welcome you to my home."
"And I'm Esther Clayton," said a woman in a sequined red dress as she came up next to her husband. "Welcome, young man. Our daughter is very excited to have the Maasai King here."
"And I know she's looking forward to dancing with you," Mr. Clayton added.
"Thank you very much, Mr. Clayton, Mrs. Clayton," Luke replied. "It's…It's an honor. And I'll be glad to meet your daughter." Then, glancing up at the high ceilings and crystal chandelier, he added, "Looks like a real nice place you've got here."
"Why, thank you, son, thank you," Mr. Clayton said, clapping Luke on the back. "Now, why don't you head over to the bar and get yourself something? All that paradin' must make a young man thirsty."
"Oh, yes sir, thank you," Luke said.
He went over to the bar. The bartender, dressed in a black tuxedo with a red bowtie, was an older Black man whose perfectly shaven head gleamed in the ambient light.
"I won't even ask what you want, young fella," he said. "I can spot a margarita man from down the block and 'round the corner."
A margarita was exactly what Luke had been planning to order. "I guess you can," Luke replied, chuckling with surprise.
Moments later, the man handed Luke a glass that was filled with green liquid and had a crust of rock salt around the rim. Luke took the glass, thanked the bartender, and took a sip.
"It's perfect," he said.
"Thank you kindly," the bartender replied. "You need anything else, you just ask. I ain't goin' nowhere 'til the party's over."
"Thanks."
Just then, the band stopped playing, and Harris Clayton called out to everyone in the room.
"Ladies and gentlemen, now that our king has arrived, it is time for the traditional tableaux! King Luke, would you join me on the ballroom floor?"
Mr. Clayton walked out to the middle of the room, a spotlight following him. Luke, not knowing what was going on but not wanting to be rude to his generous host, went out to the middle of the ballroom and stood next to him.
"Our theme this year," Clayton called, "is the Judgment of Paris, with our king in the title role. For those of you not familiar with the story, the ancient Greek goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite asked Zeus, the king of the gods, to declare which of them was the most beautiful. But Hera being Zeus' wife, and Athena and Aphrodite being his daughters, ol' Zeus wasn't about to get in the middle of all that." The crowd laughed.
"So Zeus chose a mortal man, the Trojan hero Paris, to make the judgment of which goddess was the most beautiful. Hera approached him first."
The band played what sounded like a royal march, and a girl who could not have been older than twelve emerged from somewhere at the edge of the crowd. She was growth-spurt tall and slim, with dark skin that contrasted with the golden sling bikini she wore under a gauzy purple wrap, along with a headdress of fanned peacock feathers. The girl regally swept up to Luke, then moved around behind him to run her hands over his chest and put her lips to his ear.
"Hera promised," Clayton continued, "that if Paris chose her, she would make him ruler of all Europe and Asia."
The girl wafted away from Luke and stood at the foot of the stage, facing the crowd. Clayton continued his narrative.
"Then Athena came to him."
Another girl, as pale as the first was dark, with freckles and flaming red hair, came marching forth from the crowd as the band played a martial tune. She appeared perhaps ten or eleven years old, and she wore a silvery bikini-like garment that reminded Luke of the warrior women from old comic books. She carried both a spear and a wooden shield painted with the image of an owl. After she strode up to Luke, she put down her weapons and pressed her slim, nearly naked body against his and rose up on her toes as if to whisper to him.
"Athena promised Paris great wisdom, and unparalleled skill in battle."
Athena then moved away to stand next to Hera, both of them looking coquettishly at Luke.
"And then," Clayton went on, "came Aphrodite."
The girl who emerged from the crowd was mocha-skinned and had long, lustrous black hair and a fine-featured face. She wore no top at all—just a dusting of golden glitter that left her dark-brown nipples plain to see. Her only clothing was a light-pink, thong-like bottom and golden sandals. Luke felt himself start to go hard as the girl slinked up to him.
"Aphrodite," Clayton said, "understood the hearts of men better than any of the other goddesses. So she knew what Paris would desire most of all." He swept his arm up to point to the top of the house's grand staircase as he shouted, "The most beautiful girl in the world!"
A third spotlight appeared to illuminate the girl who stood at the top of the stairs. It was the girl—the one with whom Luke had shared such an intimate moment at the parade, despite the physical distance between them. She wore a sky-blue satin ball gown with a white sash, and soft white shoes that reminded Luke of ballet slippers. Her slender neck was adorned with a choker-style necklace of faux rubies (at least, Luke assumed they were faux; he couldn't imagine even the richest parents giving their young daughter a necklace that cost in the five or six figures), and a tiara was nestled in her wild hair, bringing a touch of splendor to its artful disarray.
Luke had seen a lot of little girls dressed up as princesses, but this was the first time he'd ever seen one actually pull it off. This girl might have been a child, but she descended the stairs like royalty. Even when she reached the bottom of the staircase and walked toward Luke across the wooden ballroom floor, she moved with an elegant grace that Luke would never have expected from someone so young.
But even more amazing than the girl's appearance and demeanor was the fact that she seemed to be focused entirely on Luke. Those warm-brown eyes held him in a steady, calm gaze as she moved to stand before him.
"Good evening, Your Highness," she said with an elfin smile and a curtsy.
"Good evening, my lady," Luke replied, bowing to the girl. She giggled.
Continuing the game, Luke asked, "Might I know your name, fair princess?"
"My name is Leticia," the girl replied. "And what is your name, my king?"
"I am Luke, and I am honored to meet you."
"The honor is all mine, good sir."
Just then, the band began to play an upbeat, jazzy tune. The various guests, who were already standing around the edges of the ballroom floor, danced in a circle around the room, waving their brightly colored feather boas, handkerchiefs, and parasols. Glittering hats and bowties caught the light everywhere.
Leticia took Luke's hand and led him to the edge of the floor, where they were swept up in the circle and danced along with it until they had completed one full rotation of the room. At that point, the circle dissolved, and everyone came out onto the dance floor. Luke, still holding Leticia's hand, turned to her.
"May I have this dance?"
She grinned at him. "Most certainly, Your Highness."
The difference in their heights was too great for her to put her hand on his shoulder or for him to place his hand on her lower back, as they would for any old-fashioned partner dance. So Luke simply took both of her hands in his.
They danced together for several songs. Luke knew he should probably dance with some of the other women and girls at the party, but he just couldn't move away from Leticia, or even look away from her.
"No lie," Luke said after they finished a slow dance, "you're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen."
Leticia blushed and looked away shyly as she replied, "And you're the handsomest man."
Still looking away, Leticia reached out her hand and took Luke's. Then she led him to the base of the elegant stairway. Only then did she turn to look at him.
"Will you come to my room with me?"
Only now did it dawn on Luke that Leticia was the daughter whom the Claytons had spoken of. So even though there was nothing Luke wanted more in all the world, he couldn't forget his manners.
"Are your parents going to be okay with that?"
"Oh, yes," Leticia replied. "They're expecting it."
Luke didn't question it. He'd experienced so many unbelievable things already; what was one more?
"In that case," Luke said, extending his arm to the stairs, "after you."
But she didn't go ahead of him. Instead, she took his arm and led him up the stairs.
As subtly as he could, Luke looked back and found Mr. and Mrs. Clayton in the crowd. He felt a jolt of internal alarm when he saw that both of them were looking directly at him. But he also saw the knowing smiles on their faces. They hadn't just been expecting this; they had been hoping for it.
When they reached the top of the staircase, Leticia turned left and led Luke down a wide hallway. She stopped at a door about halfway down the hall, opened it, and ushered Luke inside.
Was this her room? There was a shelf of dolls and stuffed animals, and a few posters of pop singers, but the bed didn't look like a child's. It was a tall, king size, four-poster bed with a white canopy that matched the elegant brocade duvet below it. It was like something a little girl who dreamed of being a princess would fantasize about having—not like something she would actually have.
But before Luke could give any more thought to that subject, Leticia did something that emptied all thought from his mind: She hopped balletically up onto the bed, putting her face just below his, and kissed him.
Her lips were softer than Luke could have imagined. Before Luke knew it, he was enfolding her in his arms and returning her kiss, gently but with underlying passion. Leticia embraced him, too, holding as much of him as her small arms could grasp.
When their kiss finished, she put her soft, smooth cheek against his, her lips just barely grazing his ear as she whispered into it.
"Make love to me."
In his mind, Luke was astounded. Had this girl, who didn't look a day over eight years old, really said that to him? Then again, this seemed to be a world of impossible things; maybe this was just one more.
As much self-control as Luke had—had always had, when it came to resisting his desire for young girls—it took all the force of will in his being to even consider refusing this utterly enticing invitation.
"I- I don't want to hurt you," he managed to say.
"You won't hurt me," the girl replied, her breath tickling his ear. "I was made for this. I was made for you."
Her slender arms released his torso and went around his neck, and she kissed him again. Luke inhaled and felt immersed in the scent of her. The warmth of her small body seemed to pervade his. Then she bent her knees and fell back onto the bed, using what body weight she had to pull Luke's top half down onto her.
They kissed again. Then she murmured, "Will you undress me?"
Suddenly, it didn't feel strange anymore—being in this time, in this house, with this very young girl. This, Luke somehow knew, was where he was meant to be right now.
"Sure I will," Luke said gently. Then he straightened up and touched her tiara. "Let's start with this."
The girl sat up and inclined her head. Carefully, Luke untied the slim locks of hair that someone—Leticia's mom, maybe—had gathered and used to secure the tiara to the girl's head. Her hair was soft and sweet-smelling, and Luke couldn't help but stroke it gently in between untyings.
Finally, the tiara was free, and Luke placed it on the girl's dressing table. Then, slowly, he ran his hand all the way through the girl's poofy mass of hair.
"It's beautiful," he said. "Like a cloud. The kind of cloud angels hang out on."
He felt a bit embarrassed by his ineloquence, but the girl's smile suggested that she had taken his words as the compliment they were.
Luke then reached behind Leticia's neck, noticing the softness of her skin against his fingertips as he unfastened her necklace. He laid it on the dressing table, then tried to keep from just exploding like a firecracker as he thought about what he was going to do next.
"Okay," he said. "Now, turn around."
The girl giggled and looked at Luke with obvious anticipation as she replied, "I am yours to command, my king."
Gracefully, she dropped down from the bed to the floor and turned around, allowing Luke to untie her white sash and then the laces that ran down the back of her gown. He undid them slowly, gently, as though he were untying the ribbon on a gift of untold preciousness.
When the laces were untied, Luke reverently pulled the two edges of the dress apart, exposing the center of Leticia's upper back. He leaned forward and kissed her there, making her giggle. It wasn't a ticklish giggle, though, but a happy giggle. So Luke kissed her again, a couple of inches lower this time.
"That's nice," the girl said softly. "Do it some more?"
There was only one way that Luke could keep going downward with the kisses, and Leticia must have known what it was, because she pulled the short sleeves of her dress off her shoulders, letting them fall down around her upper arms. Then she held still, waiting.
Luke pulled the dress down slowly, stopping frequently to plant another gentle kiss over the girl's spine, each one an inch or two below the last. He felt a strange but powerful sense of intimacy when he kissed the very center of the small of her back. Which was also when her dress fell to the floor in a blue pool around her ankles, revealing the satiny light-blue panties that were now the only clothing on her small body.
He might have kept going with his descending series of kisses—how far down he would have gone, he didn't know—but then Leticia turned around to face him. Luke resisted the urge to glance up at her face and instead kissed her navel, then kissed his way slowly up her stomach and then the center of her chest until he reached the base of her throat.
His first kiss there made her gasp. Leticia raised her chin, and he kissed her throat again, a little higher up. She gently wrapped her arms around his neck.
Luke moved his head upward just a little more, and now he was looking into Leticia's beautiful warm-brown eyes. Before he could even try to move, she leaned forward and kissed him. Leticia's lips were so soft, their touch so gentle and yet electric, and her scent was so sweet and intoxicating that Luke felt as though he were surrounded by her, immersed in her. The moment the kiss ended, all he wanted was another.
So he pulled her even closer, and he kissed her this time. She made an "Mmmm" sound, and it felt like she was melting in his arms.
The moment the kiss ended, Leticia pushed her shiny blue panties down to the floor and stepped out of them, along with her soft white shoes. Now, she was fully naked before him save for her blue stockings.
She was the most arousing sight of Luke's life. Her naked body was perfect—a paragon of preadolescent beauty. Her legs and hips were slim; her stomach was flat with an adorable, perfectly circular navel; her chest was just as flat; her nipples were petite and dark, and they came to little points as though to ensure that Luke could see Leticia's state of arousal; her neck was slender; and her face was so perfect in its features that Luke could not help but kiss her again.
They pulled each other close. Leticia wrapped her arms and then her stockinged legs around him so that he was holding her up. Never before had Luke felt so desired by anyone.
Then she put her lips to his ear and murmured, "Put yourself inside me…please."
Luke's cock had been hard before, and it was like steel now. Gently, he set Leticia on the edge of her high bed; then he nestled his cockhead between the simple folds of her prepubescent sex. The girl began to pant with desire.
"Remember," she gasped, "you can't hurt me. Just put it in."
Slowly, Luke pushed into her. Both he and Leticia sighed with absolute, unadulterated pleasure as he went deeper and deeper in, until his hips were snug against her thighs.
"Yes," Leticia breathed. "Yes…"
He pulled out slowly, then pushed back in again. The tightness of her channel around him was beyond exquisite, and it made being inside her feel even more intimate, like she was holding him close with every part of her body.
He continued to move within her, slowly. Her lips were parted, but her eyes remained open, her desire burning bright in them as she gazed up at his face. He could not look away from her face, either—not from its beauty, not from its naked want and need, not from its expression of pure adoration.
Luke didn't know how long they made this slow, intimate love. His sense of everything outside himself and this girl had receded, the rest of the world and all of time having faded away. There was only here, only now, only her.
But eventually, they both needed more. Luke worked his cock with increasing vigor inside his young lover's tight channel, and Leticia moved her hips with ever greater urgency against him. What had started as a mere stroll through the garden of their shared pleasure increased to a jog and then to a run as each of them worked harder and harder to reach that distant peak of pleasure, and to drive the other toward it at the same time.
In the end, the run became an all-out sprint. They moved together as if they were possessed by the same mad spirit, fucking, panting, sweating, grunting, moaning, wordlessly begging for more, struggling for more.
"Ah! Ah!" Leticia cried. "Ah! Ah! Aaahhhhhhhhhh!"
Her pussy squeezed him as tightly as her arms and legs did—so tightly that it only took one more thrust before Luke shouted loud and long and poured his seed into the young girl's body.
When it was over, they didn't speak; they didn't have to. They simply fell onto the bed and lay there recovering for a moment before Leticia climbed on top of Luke, and the cycle of their lovemaking began again. And so it continued, all through the night.
Only when Luke and Leticia were truly exhausted, and when the first pink of dawn began to shine through the window of Leticia's room, did they break their adoring silence.
"I wish I could stay here with you forever," Luke said, stroking her hair.
"Me too," Leticia sighed, snuggling closer.
Then, after a moment, she lifted her head to look him in the eyes.
"But we can't," she said, her tone oddly mature. "You have to get back to your life. You know that, right?"
Luke's eyes fell. He'd known all along that all of this was too good to be true.
"Yeah, I guess I do."
"I'll see you on the other side," she said. Then she kissed his cheek.
Luke opened his eyes, blinking from the fluorescent light that invaded the dimly lit room through the doorway. In that light, he saw in profile a tallish Black woman with braided hair who was standing near the door. She was in front of a computer on a little wheeled stand, typing something.
He was about to ask her where he was, but the white walls and the bed with metal side rails made it clear that he was in a hospital, as did the machine next to Luke's bed that just then inflated a cuff around his upper arm to take his blood pressure. For these reasons, it seemed likely that the woman was a nurse or a technician. So, sleepily, Luke asked the next most pertinent question.
"What am I doing here?"
"Hey, you're awake," the woman replied, turning to him. The plastic name tag on her green hospital scrubs read Ella. "I'm gonna go get the doctor."
"Wait," Luke said as Ella headed toward the door. "What happened to me?"
"You got a knock on the head, and from the looks of things got yourself a good old-fashioned concussion," the nurse replied. "Dr. Phan will tell you more."
Dr. Phan, an Asian woman with graying hair, arrived a minute later and shined a light in each of Luke's eyes. Then she tested his reflexes and the strength and sensitivity of his arms and legs. Finally, she gave him three words to memorize and repeat back to her. Once all that was done, she showed him a CT scan of his brain.
"You've got a bruise here," she said with a bit of a Vietnamese accent as she pointed to a dark spot on the surface of his cerebral cortex, "but no bleeding. And your test results are good. Even so, now that you're awake, we'd like to keep you here for a few more hours for observation."
"Okay," Luke replied.
"Good. I'll be back later."
After the doctor left, Ella returned.
"That was a brave thing you did, protecting that boy," she said. "A boy you didn't even know."
"How do you know what I did?" Luke asked.
"Your frat brothers have been stopping by every few hours. A couple of those Arizona boys, too. They left you that."
She pointed to the counter by the sink, where sat an expensive-looking bottle of tequila with a ribbon around it.
"No breakin' into that until your brain's healed up," Ella said.
"Don't worry," Luke replied. "This is all surreal enough as it is."
"Good. Now let me take your temperature."
As Ella took a thermometer from the same little stand that his blood pressure cuff was attached to, Luke noticed a tattoo on her forearm: an intricate design in plain black, of four curlicues that formed a corner-less square. Lines extended from the two side curlicues, ending in clusters of asterisk-like symbols, and the lines from the top and bottom each terminated in something that looked like an abstract pineapple.
"That's an interesting tat," Luke said. "I've never seen one like that. Does it mean something?"
"It does," she replied. Then she held up the thermometer. "Open."
After she took the thermometer from Luke's mouth, Ella said, "The university had your parents listed as your emergency contacts, so we notified them after you were checked in. We'll let them know you're awake." Then she left the room.
Luke thought about how his mom would react to the news that he had been hurt in a bar fight. Maybe remaining unconscious would have been preferable.
At that point, memories of his dream—or whatever it was—flooded into Luke's mind. What a wonderful, impossible world he had visited. And what a wonderful, impossible girl he'd met. And loved.
Sometime later, Ella returned to look at the numbers on the machine. Seeing her face so close up, Luke realized that there was something familiar about her. And then he realized what that might be. But the idea seemed crazy, so he would have to be as subtle as his bruised brain would allow.
"So, uh," he said, "how long have you been a nurse?"
Ella smiled at him slyly.
"Hmm, you're clever. If I tell you how long I've been a nurse, then you'll know more or less when I graduated college, and then you can figure out about how old I am—which, I'm guessing, is what you really want to know."
Luke blinked. Having been found out, he decided to ask the question that was really on his mind.
"Actually, what I want to know is…how old were you in the year 2000?"
"Well, let's see," Ella replied. "In March of 2000, I would have been eight years old. Didn't turn nine 'til June." Then she added, "I had big, crazy hair back then. My momma never could tame it."
Now it was Luke's turn to be deductive, or at least observant.
"Who said anything about March?" he asked.
She gave him that sly smile again. "Hmm, I guess nobody did."
Before Luke could reply, Ella went on, "I was a real dreamer back in those days. I used to look at those fancy houses in the Garden District, and I'd think about what it would be like if my momma and daddy were rich and we had one of those places, where I could live like a princess. I'd tell my momma about it, and she'd always laugh and say, 'Ella Leticia Clayton, you get your fluffy little head out of the clouds before you turn into a cloud yourself.'"
Wait, did she say Leticia? Luke thought. And Clayton?
Ella glanced at the clock on the wall. "Now, I best be getting to my other patients. You rest up, okay?"
"Wait," Luke said as Ella put the thermometer away. She straightened up and looked at him quizzically.
Luke didn't know a good way to ask what he wanted to ask, so he just plowed ahead. "When I was asleep, did you…make me have a, a dream? A dream with you in it?"
Ella looked at him askance. "Well, now, I don't see how anybody could do something like that."
She went to the door. Just as she reached it, she turned around and gave him that sneaky little smile one more time.
"Unless you believe in Voodoo."
Then she left.