pretzel knot
lepetitsaboteur via Creative Commons

“What were you like as a little boy?”

“Normal, I guess. You know, average. Kind of a daydreamer.”

She made a sandwich of her hand between his bare chest and her chin. “What kinds of things did you dream about?”

“You know, stuff I saw in comics; swords and laserguns and adventurous animals.”

“Did you read books?”

“Not really.”

“Tell me one of your daydreams.”

“Like what?”

“Tell me about these adventurous animals.”

He inhaled; breath held. “I used to pretend I was this hero: Roper Raccoon. I had a lasso, and I could tie up bad guys with it. I looked up raccoons in the encyclopedia, found out they were nocturnal. So I’d sneak out at night with my lasso and look for bad guys to catch.”

“That’s cute. Did you catch any?”

“I caught my next door neighbor, few years older than me. She was sneaking in her upstairs window after curfew. I snared her foot and she fell.”

“Wow, I bet she was pissed.”

“I don’t know, the fall killed her. I unhooked my lasso and went back to bed. I never told anyone that before.”

The silence was excruciating. “You should have kept it to yourself.”