Illustration from Surrealizations

"You're cold," he said, moving his face in on hers.

She squinted, trying to block out the oddness of his face with hair all over it… then opening her eyes and studying it and…

"We can wait, 'til I change back, but the reason why it would be so… interesting, now, is because I am able to feel the rhythms of things… and I feel everything more intensely."

Barbara froze in his arms. "What will I feel?"

His slanted green eyes slanted more in a smile. "Okay. I'm a virgin, but I have… you know…"

"While you were…"

"Well, it was really intense for me."

Time passed. They sat in the woods together, waiting for the transformation. Barbara bounced her thumb on her lips, the most of her feeling cold except for the area around the back of her neck where Walt's arm not-so-casually draped.

Well, nothing happened, if that's what you're curious about. He got her bra undone, and it actually was a relief for Barbara, being the well-endowed type, to hang out for a few minutes. She shimmied with his fingers brushing over her nipples–very much like being caressed by a fur coat. She looked in his eyes, which were still sparkling in that intelligent way (she could romp through outer space a long time with–she fancied).

But he did not feel like himself.

Why am I being so cautious? she asked herself.

He does not feel like himself.

In the next couple hours, Walt waited in the woods while Barbara fixed him several ham sandwiches that were followed by four cans of pork-and-beans that she had no idea how she'd explain to her mother this insatiable midnight craving.

She also brought him a blanket so that he could stay warm after he changed.

"No, I drove–" he said, pounding the crushed white envelopes of meat and mustard into his maw like there was no tomorrow.

"Mmmm, what I wouldn't give for a little horseradish, eh?" he burst between bites.

He did all manner of acrobatics for her–amazing leaps between the boughs of larger trees. He yodeled with Olympian – or Promethean? – lung capacity. He tried Herculean stunts, like lifting Barbara above his head with a single hand.

"Now I'll do the three-tiered bamboozle!" he shouted with genuine glee. Barbara cheered him on.

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