If Brooke Hurley had breasts, Ben Tel would be staring at them; and were it not for the presence of the Holy Ghost, the almost-hips of 13-year-old Brooke Hurley might at that moment be brushing against Ben's boner. But the man in the brown robe belted with rope -- a priest, or a monk, or maybe the pope, Ben didn't know, some kind of Catholic, the man tasked with the spiritual health of the 45 teenagers of the St. Agnes summer program and their very special interfaith guests from the Young Judaeans Mountain Experience -- this Grand Inquisitor had placed his hand on Ben Tel's shoulder as Ben leaned into the potentiality of Brooke Hurley's future bosom and said: "Leave some room for the Holy Ghost, son." Then he had swiped a hand between them.

So it was that the Holy Ghost received the benefits of Ben Tel's enthusiasm. His boner. "My hard on," thought Ben Tel. (He hated that word, he wanted it to sound like something from a "men's magazine.") He tried again: "My hard cock." Then he wondered if he had thought these dangerous words or said them aloud. He looked up at Brooke Hurley, his blood draining from said unit and up into his considerably softer and redder cheeks. Ben Tel was as yet no more than five foot three, half an inch added by his docksiders; Brooke Hurley stood 5’8; much added by the high heels Ben Tel so envied.

He had worn his mother's heels before. His feet, hers -- identical. Once, he'd painted his toenails red and then covered them with socks at the sound of his mother's car in the driveway. The polish had smeared his feet like the blood of ten mosquitoes bursting, but he didn't care and didn't worry about the mess he'd have to clean up later. Instead, he volunteered to massage his mother's feet; they both called them her "tired puppies." She accepted. With a half-smile that encapsulated her gratitude and concern over her only child's unseemly attention to her feet, she'd slipped off her sandals and relaxed onto the couch and into her son's knowing hands. Kneading each pressure point with small circles. Mona Tel closed her eyes and Ben Tel opened his wide, seeing nothing but his mother's brilliant red nails, the ideal he dreamed of for his own ten little piggies.

Ben Tel knew what homosexuality was and knew that he did not have it; knew, further, that it was NOTHING TO BE ASHAMED OF. His worried mother had told him this more than once. She had also told him acne was nothing to be ashamed of. The difference was that Ben Tel had the latter (acne) and not the former (homosexuality). He had, in fact, as he danced with Brooke Hurley and the Holy Ghost, serious wood.

"Son…" the brown-skirted Catholic rabbi sliced his hand between Ben Tel and Brooke Hurley, palm Ben-side as if giving a blessing or shoving him away. Ben Tel wondered if his boner offended Jesus. For that matter, he wondered if he himself offended Jesus, for wanting so much to rub his boner against one of Christ's daughters. And, if things really worked out between them, to try on her shoes. He didn't know. He knew very little about Jesus, less about Catholicism, and nothing about Brooke Hurley.

They had been matched, just like in Fiddler. Brooke's friend Terri Phelps (5’2, by Ben's estimation, and a b-cup) danced with Steve Rabinowitz (5’9 and going up); her friend Anna Puglisi (5’3? Definitely a c-cup, and word was she was not a virgin) danced with Rick Stark (six foot one! And not circumcised by his good-looking hippie ex-kibbutznik parents, thus adding crucial inches elsewhere, or so he claimed); Debbie Pryzblack (an ass so perfect, thought Ben, God himself must have poured her into those jeans) danced in a far corner with Jude Weiner, and no Holy Ghost between them. Which left Brooke Hurley towering over the refuse of even semi-considerable Jewry (the Catholic boys dismissed as all entirely gross and none likely to be rich), and Ben Tel with no qualities to recommend him from this rabble other than the fact that he was there: When Terri Phelps swept her gaze over the Jews, this end of the bunch to that and back again like a metronome, she chose Ben.

"Chose" is what she did, but "chosen" would be too strong a word for what he was. "Him," Terri Phelps said, nudging Brooke toward the shrimp. "Dance with him. He's cute. Ok?"

What could Brooke do? Captain of the field hockey team by virtue of her height, member of the best group of friends one could possibly have at St. Agnes by virtue of her captaincy, she was in all other regards hopeless as a girl. She knew it, Terri knew it; Brooke was titless and too tall.

So she danced, but she did not speak. She stepped from side to side on her unfortunate heels, shoes she knew she should not have worn. Shoes that, even if she had had breasts, and a reputation for handjobs, and feathered hair, would have still made her ineligible for all but maybe six foot one Rick Stark – not a chance, anyway – and the little Jew holding her hips and making a tent in his pants (yes, she knew all about Ben Tel's boner). The little Jew was, she also knew, sneaking peaks at those very same shoes. Why couldn't he stare at her chest? Make like there was something to see? Something for other boys to want? Something that would cause Terri Phelps to feel gross and fat and sweaty beneath her breasts, ashamed and envious of Brooke's perfectly petite and feminine figure.

"This song sucks," Ben said.

"What?" Brooke looked down at him fully for the first time.

"Um, this song?" he said.

"Whatever."

It was true, Brooke thought, that this boy was a good dancer, within the limited possibilities of such a mixer -- they rocked back and forth, his hands on her hips, hers on his shoulder, and the Holy Ghost between them. But unlike the other boys, even Rick Stark, who shifted left-right left-right with all the pleasure of a buoy bobbing in the lake, Ben Tel had a little bit of a ripple in him. There were signs of movement in his hips, and he even seemed to guide her with his hands, and, despite the fact that he stared at her feet, he never stepped on them, nor looked at his own. Leading her to believe that there was more to his fascination than the search for rhythm.

"Um, what do you like?" he asked.

"About what?"

"I mean, um, who's your favorite -- band?"

"How. Original."

Brooke was known for sarcasm, but not by Ben, who lost a little more pressure down below. Brooke noticed that he no longer flagpoled his pants. Apparently, not a total retard.

"Um, okayyy," Ben said.

"Uh-huh. Ok."

"So… I'm not original."

With grace unforeseen by Brooke or himself he slid his left hand into the small of her back, and, fingers lacing her spine, guided her in a circle – not a spin or a dip, just a circle, but still.

Terri Phelps gawked for a second before jerking Steve Rabinowitz around in a forced dosey-do. Brooke was grateful. She would not have to acknowledge Ben Tel's innovation.

"Evidently, you're not original," she said, nodding toward the other couple.

"Evidently," Ben echoed. He said it without inflection – he couldn't risk open war – but he squeezed in closer, cutting off his view of her shoes but bringing his resurgent, recently bar-mitzvahed boner – "my manhood!" he thought -- to bear.

"Holy Ghost," Brooke said.

"Never met him," Ben said. Then he spun her, a real spin, his arm up, up, not yet high enough but augmented first by his tippy toes (which were still smeared red between the digits) and then -- as centrifugal force drew Brooke toward the arch – with the help of a hop his elbow looped high enough for five foot eight of Brooke Hurley to pass like a ship beneath the arm of Ben Tel.

Brooke's face flushed. "Asshole."

Ben looked at her open-toed shoes. Her ten little piggies were all curled into each other; then, they flexed and spread as if running in different directions, and Ben saw his mother's feet and his own, and he knew exactly what was going on. "You're welcome," he said, and ignored Brooke's rolling eyes as the Holy Ghost glided out from between them and she pressed into him, her hands sliding up his shoulders to his neck where her fingers ran ever so briefly through Ben Tel's curly Jewish hair.

Jeff Sharlet teaches journalism at NYU, where he edits The Revealer. He is also a KtB editor-at-large.