Page:Jay Little - Maybe—Tomorrow.pdf/324

 helped, but the creek seemed vacant. He watched a bird fly skyward … it seemed so free … so happy … now, he remembered Blake and with it came a confused emotion. He turned and looked at Rogers, leaning against the end of a tree stump.

"Glenn," he said slowly.

"Yeah?"

"Let's go swimming."

"I was just going to ask you if you wanted to … I think you caught the only fish in here." He threw his pole on the sand … "Come on … I'll beat you in."

Rogers threw his shorts on the sand and ran naked for the water. He was not embarrassed here. This was his hide-out from the outside world. The spot he loved best. There in the quiet running water under the trees whose roots reached down into the sandy soil and fixed themselves in the bank like a protecting hand, he had swum many times. Lying at their base he had looked up into the sky and dreamed of being twenty-one and of all the things he would then be able to accomplish.

Gaylord's eyes traveled over Rogers' body, he felt that there was in Rogers a memory of Blake which expressed itself in the flesh, in Rogers' skin, and in his eyes and hair, especially in the warm light of his eyes. The body reminded him of a graceful tree that had sprung up adventitiously, from the chance dropping of a seed.

To rid what he was feeling Gaylord drew off his shorts and splashed through the water. For some reason or other he wasn't ashamed for Rogers to see him naked.

In the water, a few minutes later, Rogers swam over to the cliff and scampered onto a log that extended over the water. Rogers stood naked there on the end of the log, his hands on his hips, his eyes on Gaylord and the dimples in his cheeks were very deep.

Gaylord looked up at him and grinned … Well, he thought, you've got your wish … Gaylord Le Claire … There's Glenn right before you and he's as naked as a newborn babe.

Gaylord watched and admired the developed naked body. He wondered what was going on behind the smiling eyes … wondered what was going through that handsome head. He wondered all this, as he watched the muscles of the arms and legs expand with each 314