With the confidence of a much older individual, Donny looked directly into the girl’s seemingly bashful brown eyes and fixed his gaze there. He recognized that it would make her uncomfortable; he wanted to make her uncomfortable. Her comfort was a shroud over her visible skin (and she was always conscious of her visible skin): a pleasing, anesthetizing coating, but a thin layer––a pea sized dab of lotion spread smoothly and evenly across her face and décolletage. Like this he considered her a baby still covered in natal detritus. He considered washing her clean of her comfort, both clarifying the skin and baptizing her in a public fountain. There was no place nor reason now for him to hide. His staring was neither malicious nor investigative, it was purely position and intent: fully, spiritually there. Now his presence was entwined with hers. No fluttering blink, no lengthening of shadow, no slight gestural accommodation to the web of textured feeling could cause any hesitation now. Two minutes passed this way.
She noticed; she couldn’t not have. What’s this? Another eager sheep? She smoothed her hair with one hand, not because she was self conscious about her bangs, which she’d cut on impulse a few days previous with a pair of yellow embroidery scissors, but because she’d actually had the urge to pick at a scab on her collarbone, but had also the good sense not to do that sort of thing out in the world, especially not in the presence of a very keen ogler. For the first few moments, the gaze did feel penetrating in the sort of way that freezes a girl from the inside: she was suddenly encased in a thin, icy shell, conscious of the crackling sound that accompanied even the slightest shift in her face or frame. She wanted to maintain whatever illusion kept him watching, to show that, yes, this is true: the smallest challenge of the day. She was disgusted by her own willingness to entertain a stranger. After a significant time had passed, though, being watched didn’t stir the usual sensations for her. Gone were the compulsive twinges of awareness—an altogether new game possessed her. She was no longer pinned to the cork board, her delicate wings entrapped by glue and time. Now she batted her lashes and escaped.
An unexpected pitch drowned them both in stark interim. Contact lapsed. Set forcibly aside from their miniature quests, both children’s mouths opened slightly in anticipation of the next block, the forward coming motion of sequential events, marked by a relentless, connective ringing.
It was time for recess.