From: jubal@flash.net (Jubal Harshaw)
Subject: (A.S.S.) "Passages of Life" (M/F, M/F, Teen, First Time)
Date: 1997/08/24
Standard disclaimers: This story is a work of fiction, no character
within is a depiction of any real person, living or dead. No event
described within exists outside of the writer's imagination. It
didn't happen. But it could have.
Copyright retained by the author and this post is for private use of
the reader only. It is not to be published in any form whatsoever,
including being made available on BBSs, without the express prior
consent of author.
If this piece of fiction is indeed considered illegal for you to read
or possess in your jurisdiction, please destroy it immediately.
Passages of Life
Chapter 1
I knew I was driving to fast. I just didn't care. The old
Ford was never designed to slide around the back road curves this way.
I wasn't paying attention to where I was going while taking turns at
random. I'd been driving these roads long before I actually put some
slight stain of legality on the whole thing by getting my license.
Growing up in the 'country' had some positive aspects, and learning to
drive at the age of twelve was one of them. All those years of
practice had left me able to anticipate the corners and turns without
actually thinking about them. Most of the time, that is.
After nearly turning the car broadside coming around a sharp
corner, my sense of mortality reasserted itself and I stopped my Speed
Racer imitation. A Ford XL coupe simply isn't the Mach 5, after all.
Trying to push triple digit speed on these roads was going to cause me
to wind up as a greasy streak on the road. I didn't have a clue what
to do about the situation I was in, but I knew that wasn't a
particularly clever solution. Eighteen years of life had left me
completely unable to handle what was happening. What had happened at
the party, to understate the situation, was not what I expected.
After four years of high school, sex was as much a mystery as
it ever was; although, in my defense, spending my adolescent and
teenaged years in a small town outside of Pittsburgh probably had that
effect on most people. And it wasn't actually sex per se, but
everything that surrounded it. Much to my adolescent disappointment
high school never turned out to be the sexual free for all that I had
been led to believe. I was shocked and dismayed in high school to
find out that there was a complicated series of tribal rituals that
preceded any potential sexual encounter. Not that I've ever found
anonymous one night stands to be an enthralling prospect. Why sleep
with someone I wouldn't want to talk to? OK, so I was a weird
teenager who was made weirder by parents who would answer any serious
question I asked, whether it had to do with religion, sex, or anything
in between. They never treated me as anything less than an
intellectual equal, and never ever tried the old ploy of "Believe this
because I tell you to believe." All in all, it added up to a male
high school student who, while interested in sex, wasn't all that
worried about it. I knew that it would happen when it happened, and
until then, The Widow Thumb and her four daughters were the cheapest
dates in the world.
I knew I had to sort this out, and I couldn't do it while I
was driving. But I didn't feel like going home quite yet. Passing a
small intersection, I slowed enough to be able to read the signs. To
my surprise, I realized that I was only a few miles from one of my
favorite spots to sit and think. I threw a quick left, pulling off
the road I had been driving on for the last 20 minutes. A few more
miles brought me to an almost invisible turn off. It wasn't exactly a
dirt road, there being a good deal of gravel mixed in as well, but it
was deeply rutted and very rough going. A series of 'S' curves
climbed a steep hillside, and as I crested the top, I slowed and
pulled to the side of the road. The road looked out over a broad
shallow valley, dotted with homes and a few farms. If it had been
better known and the road a little better maintained, it would have
been the ultimate "Parking Place" for my fellow students. As it was,
hours would go by without a single car passing; you'd never know you
were less than 30 miles from a metropolitan center. Pittsburgh might
as well be on the other side of the moon, both from the surroundings
and from the attitudes of most of the residents. I turned off the
engine, sat back in the corner of the bench seat and driver's side
door and tried to think my way through everything I knew about sex,
love and all that came between.
Chapter 2
I learned about sex the way I did almost everything,
unconventionally although at first glance it sounded so stereotypical
as to be laughable. The previous summer, I had been browbeaten into
doing a favor for one of my numerous cousins on my mother's side of
the family. This particular cousin, James Lathan, was thirty years
older than me, more an uncle than cousin, and was also the minister at
our church, a situation that complicated my life enormously. My own
religious beliefs were not profound but my parents and I attended
church services without fail. It was 'expected', and so we were
highly visible members of my cousin's church. Since he was my cousin,
James felt quite at ease cornering me after the service one Sunday in
late May. Our church, along with a number of others, ran a summer
camp about 50 miles away in the Pennsylvania 'mountains'. Called the
Rocklands, I had made the expected journey into exile for one week
every summer from the time I was in first grade until the end of
junior high. It was, I assumed, an average camp, with acres and acres
of old growth forest, streams and steep valleys dotted with huge
boulders dropped when the glaciers retreated eons past. Rock
climbing, hiking and assorted outdoorsy activities made up the bulk of
the entertainment. This year, however, there was a problem. When
James told me the camp was scrambling to find enough counselors, the
warning lights flipped on in my mind and I started to look around for
an avenue of escape. Unfortunately, he had thought this out quite
well, calling me into the changing room while he got out of his
vestments. As I listened, I realized it wasn't quite as bad as I had
initially thought.
The camp wasn't very large, with perhaps 250 campers and 25 to
30 counselors in residence. The kids would come for a week, arriving
on Sunday afternoon and staying through Saturday morning, giving the
counselors one night off each week. The majority of the counselors,
in fact, would be volunteers, staying for two or three weeks before
being replaced by others. I would be one of ten or fifteen paid staff
members who would be there the entire summer. And the money was
something I could certainly use. I didn't have an after-school job,
and had been unhappily contemplating a daily forty-five minute commute
to the nearest mall in order to work retail during the summer. The
salary for counselors was three thousand dollars for the summer, more
than I would make working retail for forty hours a week for three
months. An added benefit would be that there simply weren't many
places to spend the money I would earn. The camp was out in the
middle of nowhere resulting in an enforced fiscal responsibility. All
in all, it sounded like a pretty good deal. Still, I hesitated.
Although I didn't have many friends, there were a few people I wanted
to spend time with over the summer, and being exiled to Gaul would
make that virtually impossible, no matter what the financial rewards
were. And there was one other point to clear up. "Aren't you afraid
I might lead the poor innocents from the path of righteousness?" I
asked. James and I had gone head to head in quite a few discussions
over the past few years. Sitting around a dinner table and talking
over current events, theology and the like was a favored past time in
my family. I liked and respected James, even though I seldom agreed
with him. We usually argued more for sport than any real attempt to
sway the other person. But since it was a church related camp, there
might be conflicts. "Not really, Dave" he replied with a smile.
"There are plenty of others who will be happy to lead the Bible
lessons, even if they won't be quite as interesting as yours might
be."
I told him I'd think it over and give him my answer within a
couple of days. Over the next few days, I mulled the possibility
over, talking with those few friends I would truly miss and asking my
parents advice. Everyone seemed to be in agreement. It was a good
opportunity to salt away some extra money of my own. And my parents
thought, in the way of all parents, it would be 'a good experience'
for me. That was probably enough to seal my fate. So after school
ended for the summer, I spent a week getting ready for my adventure.
I packed and gathered together what little outdoor equipment I had. I
debated with myself about whether or not to take my car or have my
parents drop me at the camp. I had no idea how many others were going
to have cars, and I wasn't thrilled with the possibility of being the
camp chauffeur. Oh well, I could always be a prick and say "No!"
When I arrived on Saturday morning, I was greeted and directed
towards the dorm. Since the counselors would be moving from cabin to
cabin throughout the summer, we kept most of our extra belongings in
the dorm. We were assigned two to a room, and I quickly dropped my
things in my room. I found my new roommate already unpacked and
relaxing in his bunk. I made my introductions and found that his name
was Paul Randall and he had just finished his junior year at Ohio
State. We were pretty well matched, surprising me a little. His
motivations for working at the camp that summer were an echo of my
own. He needed the money and he had attended the camp when he was
younger as well. He was something of an outdoors enthusiast, but I
told him I wouldn't hold it against him. Paul was a fair example of
the other counselors as well. Most of the rest of the staff would be
made up of college students and recent graduates. College aged,
perhaps studying child psychology or a related field, they enjoyed the
outdoors and liked the idea of spending a summer (or two or three or
more) as a counselor. This was Paul's second year at the camp, and he
warned me that the volunteer counselors who would be joining for a
limited time were something different.
"Most of us are our here because we enjoy the outdoors and
such," he said as we waited around for everyone to trickle in. "The
fact that it's a church camp is basically incidental. If we weren't
here we'd probably try to get jobs at some other camp, it's just not a
big deal to most of us." I could see where he was leading with this.
If I really thought about it, I could even remember the difference in
some of the counselors I'd had from year to year. "The people who do
this part time, though. They're much more wrapped up in the religious
part of it. They can be a royal pain in the ass, you know?" He
paused and reached into the small night stand that stood by his bunk.
He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered me one. "We're not
supposed to smoke in front of the kids. We're really not supposed to
do it at all, but nobody bitches if we do it in here."
I shook my head and reached into my duffel bag to draw out my
own pack. I had been a little worried that I was going to have to
spend my time sneaking away for a cigarette every once in a while. He
grinned and went on, "Well, it's good that they've put us together at
least. The thing about the temps," he said, referring to the part
time counselors, "is that as long as you let them do their thing, they
usually stay off your case. When they get that funny gleam in their
eye, just give them a wide berth."
We spent the rest of the morning getting to know each other
and greeting people as they arrived. By late that afternoon, everyone
was there and we all convened in the mess hall for the first of many
staff meetings. The first week would be spent actually getting the
camp physically ready for the invasion of campers. Although there was
a small staff, which was responsible for the upkeep of the grounds,
there was still plenty of work left to go around. It turned out that
there would be a total of 16 full-time counselors, 8 guys and 8 girls.
I quickly realized I was the youngest of the permanent staff and after
a rather formal talk with the camp administrators, that this was the
first time they had ever hired a 'minor' for the position. The
administrators, a painfully earnest middle-aged couple named Sam and
Lydia Brown, made it clear that "Reverend James" as they called him,
had done a great deal of convincing to get me this job. I realized
the cupboard must truly be bare for him to put this much effort into
circumventing the standards of the camp. During the interminable
staff meetings, which highlighted each day, the assignments were
hammered out. Although there was a state law that precluded me from
being a 'lead counselor' due to my age, it really didn't affect our
situation much since there were always two counselors for each
campsite.
The Rocklands was a coed camp, with campers broken into three
groupings by age. Each sub-group was composed of between ten and
fifteen campsites, with boys and girls grouped together, but sleeping
in separate accommodations. Glen Rock was composed of campsites with
two Adirondack-style lean-tos, one each for the boys and girls. The
lean-tos were wooden shacks that had one wall replaced by a heavy
plastic covered canvas curtain and held up to 15 kids each. Each
campsite was named for a bird, Eagle, Rave, Osprey, etc. Being the
camp for the elementary school aged kids, it was located closest to
the center of camp, nearest to the nurse's office, mess hall and pool.
Further out came Castle Rock, the camp for the junior high
kids. Unlike the younger children, these campers slept in actual
tents, albeit semi-permanent ones with wooden floors. The tents were
large, and included bunks for up to 10 people. These campsites also
included a picnic table near the enlarged fire pit. Castle Rock was
more spread out and further away from the main buildings than Glen
Rock, in the case of some campsites, up to a half-mile away. I was
not looking forward to being assigned to one of the outlying sites,
envisioning a long trek up for breakfast every morning. Just as Glen
Rock had, there was a naming convention for these campsites, but
instead of birds, they were named after mammals, Wolf, Bear, Antelope,
Deer and others.
The oldest campers stayed at The Tribes, a group of campsites
over a mile distant. The campsites were made up of crude, but sturdy
log cabins and, of course, were named for American Indian tribal
names. Since they were so far out, they were largely self-sufficient,
cooking both breakfast and lunch for themselves. At the center of the
Tribes was a small outbuilding that held a large refrigerator and the
cooking utensils they would need. It also included a telephone to
allow them to get into contact with the main camp in case of an
emergency. In addition to the tee-pees, each campsite had a canvas
tent that covered the picnic table, so they wouldn't become soaked
eating lunch; and also a large sink and faucet so they could clean up
the dishes. Like Glen and Castle Rocks, The Tribes' campsites each
had their own shower and bath facilities.
It was something of a surprise to think that I could actually
end up as a counselor to someone my age. I seriously doubted the
likelihood of that event though. Sam and Lydia were far to concerned
about the 'propriety' of such a situation for it ever to come about.
Almost all of the counselors were scheduled to work with one age group
during the entire summer, because of either preference or educational
background. Since I was both the newest and youngest counselor, I had
been designated as one of the 'utility infielder' of the staff. There
were four of us, and we would fill in wherever needed, depending on
the demographics of the campers in any given week. By the end of the
week, the camp was ready. Physical labor has never been one of my
favorite activities, but at least I'm good at it. The fields had been
mowed and raked and were ready for the campers arrival. Volleyball
courts had been reconstructed and the pool had been cleaned and
readied. It was early June and the sun hadn't had much of a chance to
heat the water yet. It was still decidedly chilly. Being big, strong
and, most importantly, lowest in seniority, I had been stuck with one
of the more distasteful tasks, along with the grounds staff. I had
spent most of the week riding round in with them in one of the camp's
dilapidated pick ups, spreading several tons of bark along the main
paths that wound their way between the camp buildings. The pine bark
smelled much better than what I was used to shoveling with a
pitchfork, but it was still exhausting. The groundskeepers were
friendly and didn't laugh when I showed up in the morning stiff and
sore from the previous day's labor. Well, they didn't laugh much. By
Friday, I was exhausted, thankful that I wasn't looking at a whole
summer of that type of work. Saturday was spent finalizing everything
in anticipation of the impending arrival of the first campers. I'm
sure the topics they covered in the meetings were of vital importance,
but I couldn't testify to the fact. The previous week had really
tired me out and I found myself dropping off into sleep throughout the
meeting. Fortunately, I didn't advertise by snoring, and if I did,
Paul was there to kick me in the leg before it got too loud. Because
I had spent most of the week with the grounds-staff, I hadn't had much
of an opportunity to get to know many of the other full-time
counselors. I had usually finished the day by five o'clock, eaten
dinner and gone directly to the dorm to try to catch up on some sleep.
Paul had tried his best to make sure I at least was introduced to
everyone, going to the extremes of bringing them all back to our room
on some pretext, simply to introduce me. Unfortunately I was usually
too tired to do anything but murmur a greeting and collapse back down
onto the bunk. Hopefully, things would change tonight. With the
arrival of the first batch of temps, (even I had come into the habit
of referring to the part time counselors in that way) Saturday night
was given over to a social mixer in the mess hall. Although I thought
it was charmingly anachronistic, who was I to argue? It wasn't
really, it was nothing more than an opportunity to gather after dinner
to talk and get to know one another. Hell, it sounded like a good
idea to me, I just hoped I'd be able to remember everyone's names.
After the meeting broke up, I headed back to my room to put together
my stuff in order to move it down to my first assignment; Bear Camp in
Castle Rock. Not one of the camps furthest out, but far enough so I
knew mornings were going to be a pain in the ass. I put together a
week's worth of clothes and gathered together everything else I
thought I'd need. Then, since I didn't have anything pressing to do,
I decided I could really use another nap. The chairs in the meeting
really didn't have enough back support to be comfortable. And,
besides, who could really sleep with Sam and Lydia going on and on and
on all morning?
I didn't wake up until Paul came in after dinner, I had been
tired enough to sleep through it. Oh well, camp food was nutritious
but hardly a gourmand's delight. I had enough food squirreled away
that I knew I wouldn't starve. I needn't have worried. Paul noticed
that I was missing at dinner and had brought a plate back to the dorm
for me. I had about an hour to eat, shower and dress. Plenty of
time. Paul had told me previously that it was definitely a 'come as
you are' event, very low key, so I took him at his word. However, I
did make certain to put on a decent shirt and the best pair of shorts
I had brought. I checked myself in the mirror. It wasn't a terribly
impressive image, but not an embarrassment either, which is about as
good as I could have hoped. I grabbed a pair of docksiders and we
headed out. Most of the people had already arrived, but there were a
couple of stragglers walking along the path with us. Jenny and
Melissa were roomed next door to us, so I had been able to get to know
them just a little better than most of the others. They were college
friends who had decided to work at the camp together during the summer
break after their sophomore year at Penn State. Jenny was short, no
taller than five feet. With night black hair and olive complexion,
she wasn't fat or heavy, so much as well rounded. No matter what she
wore, it seemed as though she had been poured into the clothes instead
of pulling them on like us mere mortals. Melissa was almost a foot
taller, with a slim athletic build and bright blond hair. Unlike her
companion, Melissa was quiet, seldom saying anything, although her
bright friendly eyes suggested that there was much going on behind her
shy exterior.
We caught up to them quickly and made our way to the mess
hall. Someone had done a nice job in arranging the lounge area.
There were several couches in the room, each with accompanying arm
chairs so people could sit and talk. A table along the wall held
refreshments, a simple selection of chips, dip and soda. Everyone
seemed to have arrived, including the new temps. Sam and Lydia
introduced the temps to us, after which people broke up and started
the process of getting to know each other. The new counselors were
older, by and large. Most of them were in their early thirties,
although I saw an older couple, introduced as "Mr. and Mrs. Weaver"
who were probably pushing fifty. There were also a few who looked
about the same age as most of us. I'm not very good at 'pressing the
flesh' but I did my best, wandering around, trying to make sure I
introduced myself and have a few words with everyone. Most of the
volunteers knew my cousin and I was able to use that as a starting
point for some social chatting. While moving from one group to
another, I saw Paul standing in the corner, talking to Jenny. He
seemed to be keeping her entertained, although I started to get a
little curious about just what he was saying after she burst out
laughing.
After about an hour of this, I was satisfied. Finished making
my loop, I was ready to grab a big glass of coke and find an unused
corner somewhere. I had done what I had come to do; I could now put
names with each of the faces, and had some rudimentary idea of what
each one was like. I wasn't too worried about the temps; they'd be
gone in three weeks in any case. But knowing the names of my
permanent coworkers was definitely in order. I realized that it had
taken well over an hour and that I was in dire need of a cigarette. I
looked around but couldn't find Paul, who was the only other smoker I
knew. He and Jenny seemed to have disappeared when I wasn't looking.
It wasn't a tremendous surprise. Even though I had spent most of the
week either busting my ass dumping pine bark or asleep, I was aware
Paul had been after her since 10 minutes after she had arrived. I
slipped out the door onto the porch. Darkness had fallen, unnoticed
by most of us as we were occupied inside. I walked to the railing,
looking out over the paths that wound their way up to the mess hall.
Fumbling in my pocket, I pulled out a cigarette and lit it quickly.
The feeble glow of the matched was enough to light up a huddled shape
a few feet away. Oh shit. I held my breath, hoping it wasn't someone
who would give me problems about smoking in 'public'. When the person
turned to look at me, I could make out Melissa's face in the dim
light.
"You're not supposed to do that," she said lightly. She was
sitting on the steps up to the porch with her arms wrapped around her
legs. I hadn't noticed before, but it was getting chilly.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I responded. "I know. But after spending
an hour working the room, I need it. What are you doing out here?"
She looked back over her shoulder at the doorway, "I just wanted to
get away for a minute. Too many people in there." She grinned. "You
looked like a pro in there. Going to be a politician when you grow
up?"
"Not hardly, I think I could get used to the lying and
corruption, it's this part I that I'd have a problem with." That
garnered a deep rich laugh. Hey, any time you can make a woman laugh
a happy laugh has to go down as a win, particularly a beautiful woman.
"But considering my position here, I've got play the game. Sam and
Lydia are less than thrilled about me being hired, even I can tell
that much.
"How'd you like that introduction? 'And this is our newest
and youngest counselor, David Taylor.' I felt like the newest exhibit
at the zoo!" I blew out a cloud of smoke. "I'm going to kill James
when I get back home."
"Who's James?"
"My ever loving cousin. He's the minister at our church and
he's the one who got me into this mess. He convinced me to come up
here a couple of weeks ago, and I assumed that there wouldn't be a
problem. He's got a nasty habit of leaving out the bad news. Even in
his sermons," I finished with a laugh. I field stripped the butt and
stuck it into my pocket. No sense leaving any evidence.
"You'll probably do all right. This is my third year, and it's not
all that tough. The kids are pretty good, for the most part. Where
are they starting you off?"
"In Castle Rock. Sam said he thought that would be better
than Glen Rock, less worry about nightmares and homesickness." I had
to agree with him there. "And besides, I'd rather deal with snotty
seventh graders than a homesick third grader. At least I know how to
stomp on them. Hell, I remember when I was one of them!"
She giggled. "It's really not that bad." She paused for a moment,
and then slid the knife in, "Most of them don't have your imagination.
Or sense of grandeur, I'd imagine."
"Huh?" Perhaps if I hadn't spent the previous week in
mind-numbing physical labor I could have lied my way out of it. As it
was, I didn't stand a chance.
"My older brother Kerry used to be a counselor here, before I
started. He was your counselor at least twice that I know of, maybe
more. And he used to regale the family with his descriptions of your
adventures."
At that point, I started to get a funny feeling. "Kerry?
Kerry Blackman?" Oh god, don't let it be Kerry Blackman.
"Bingo."
Oh no. "Please tell me you're the only one who knows."
Please, please, please. As a seventh and eighth grade camper I had
been, well, something of a handful. A handful my ass, I was a
nightmare. During those two years, the Rocklands had experimented
with kids staying more than just one week. It varied from camper to
camper, and depended on how much room there was available. I had
spent a month and a half at the camp each summer during those two
years, and after about the second week, I started to get bored. I
suppose I could blame it on seeing Meatballs too many times, but I
knew better. I was just that kind of guy. The experiment didn't work
out. For the first time, I wondered if it was partially my fault.
"Well," she drawled. "I'm probably the only one who knows that you're
the same person, but there might be one or two of the temps who were
here that long ago."
I breathed a sigh of relief. It was over four years ago, and
I didn't really look much as I did back then. I was several inches
taller and almost fifty pounds heavier. It looked as if I might be
able to escape by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin.
"But," she added, almost as an afterthought. "Some of the
tricks you pulled are legendary. If you hadn't been sleeping the
whole time, you would have been around to hear us talking about them.
That stunt with the administrator's cabin is particularly well
respected."
I groaned. "You're really enjoying this aren't you?" I hadn't
planned on any of this. Everyone was pulling stunts like that back
then. Admittedly, mine were a little more spectacular than most, but
I really hadn't counted on them being incorporated in the
institutional mythology.
"Hey, I'm just letting you know what's going on." She was
enjoying it. She had a huge smile on her face. I wasn't so
distracted by my impending doom that I didn't notice she had a
beautiful smile. Her face was one of strong features, all angles and
planes. She missed being beautiful by less than a whisker. But when
she smiled all those too strong features softened into something
breathtaking. "I really want to know how you pulled that one off.
Kerry talked about it for weeks after he came home that year."
I lit another cigarette to stall for time.
"Got an extra?" she asked. "I didn't bring mine. I was
planning on quitting this summer, since I don't have a car; it's
pretty far to pick up another pack. I thought it would be the perfect
time."
"Yeah, sure." I shook another one out of the battered pack of
Marlboros. "Let me know if you need a ride somewhere, I did bring my
car. And let me know if you want to snag a cigarette. I buy them by
the carton so I don't have to leave every day."
"Thanks," she said exhaling. "But you didn't answer my question."
Damn. "It wasn't all that tough. The administrator, Jim, always left
the camp on Saturday nights. And since half of the counselors also
got time off, they were spread a little thin. Six of us slipped away
in the middle of the night and did it in less than four hours. We
were back in our bunks by six in the morning."
"I know all that. I want to know how you did it."
"You've got a nasty streak of curiosity in you, Melissa, you know
that?" It wasn't a big secret, but still. You're never supposed to
give away how you did a trick. And I wasn't about to reveal my
secrets here. "All right. Let's go for a walk. I don't like the
idea of someone overhearing this. It's bad enough as it is." She
agreed and we started walking down away from the mess hall, not really
in any direction in particular, just away from everyone gathered
inside. While we walked, I started my story again, this time with all
the details. "I had planned this for about two weeks. Jim always had
a meeting with the counselors who would be staying on the grounds that
weekend on Friday evening, right before Vespers. Another guy, Tony,
and me cut out of Vespers on the Friday we were going to pull this.
We headed into the woods from the chapel, and worked our way back to
the camp. We were from different cabins, and had guys ready to tell
our counselors that we were sitting over with the other guy's cabin if
they asked.
"You're dead-set on getting this whole story, aren't you?" I
asked. She nodded and slipped her arm through mine. "OK, we went
back to Jim's cabin and went inside. He never locked it except when
he was going away for the night. So anyway, we went in and checked
the windows. They were all locked as well, but we found one in the
back room that didn't look like it had been opened for five years or
more. We unscrewed the slide lock, but left it in place so it looked
as if it was still locked. I doubt he even checked it before he took
off for the night.
"The roving patrols the counselors made after lights out were
stretched a little thin because so many of them had the night off.
After we got back to our cabins, we just waited until everyone was
asleep and then slipped away. There were six of us who actually did
the work and about ten more who were in on it and acted as lookouts.
If the counselors woke up and started getting suspicious, they were
supposed to distract them. That part was a little shaky." I paused
for a minute. "Hell, it didn't work, we just got lucky, which is just
as important. In any case, we got to the cabin and sent the smallest
guy through the window. It worked as pretty as you please. He snaked
up through the window and then opened the locked door from the inside.
The furniture wasn't as hard as it sounds. It was hardly Chippendale,
was it? The only hard part was getting the dresser out of the door.
After that, it was easy. Tied a couple of canoes together to ferry
everything out to the swim platform and then put everything in the
right position. After that we went back to the cabin, fixed the lock
on the window, locked the door from the inside and we were done.
Everyone got back into their own cabins without getting caught and,
voila! The perfect locked room mystery."
I stopped dead, finally realizing something. "Kerry told you,
didn't he? That's how you know!" In the morning when our dastardly
deed was discovered there had been absolute pandemonium. Everyone
assumed I was responsible, because of my previous track record, but no
one could prove it. No one but one. During one of the trips from the
cabin, carrying the furniture, I saw a shape standing back off the
path in the woods. At first, I thought it was one of our lookouts,
just keeping out of the way. After I looked the second time, I knew
we were toast, unless of course, one of our lookouts had sprouted an
extra foot and grown a beard in the last twenty minutes. It was Kerry
Blackman, my counselor. We looked each other in the eye, and I
started to sweat. Then he just smiled, shook his head and turned
away. I waited all day for him to say something to Jim. It never
happened. I don't think anyone else saw him standing there that night
and he never mentioned it to me afterwards, but there wasn't any doubt
that he knew exactly who was responsible for that one. "That son of a
bitch," I laughed. "He kept his mouth shut at camp and then gets home
and spills his guts. Oh lord."
"I told you, he really admired that one." She was laughing along with
me as we strolled along the paths. "He told me about seeing the faces
of the other counselors when they strolled up to the lake that
morning. It must have been priceless."
"I wouldn't know," I said catching my breath. "I was so
damned tired I slept in and missed all the fun. By the time I got up
there, everyone was just sitting around admiring it. I just sat down
with everyone else and started asking dumb questions. Fortunately,
none of the other guys felt like boasting, at least that year. It
didn't matter, really. Everyone knew who had been in on it, they just
couldn't prove it." As we walked, I looked around to figure out where
we were. During the last week, I had gotten reacquainted the main
paths of the grounds and I immediately realized that we had made a
large loop, and were now nearing the dorm again. "I just hope I won't
have to deal with anyone quite that... enthusiastic, especially in my
first week." For the first time, I became aware that we had been
walking for quite a while, and her arm had remained comfortably in
mine the whole time.
"You won't," she said with some certainty. "You're going to get
mostly sixth graders for the first couple of weeks. They're not as
stupid as you might think. Well, not quite. Sam and Lydia want to
make sure that you can handle yourself before they throw you to the
wolves, so to speak. You're going to have to actually pay attention
to what's going on, and not bury yourself in a book."
"And just how do you know that? What the hell is going on around
here? And how do you know what kind of kids I'm getting? Sam didn't
even tell me what cabin I'd be in for this week until this afternoon!"
Things were going very badly for me. I'm not used to people knowing
more about me than I do about them.
She smiled a knowing smile. "You really don't remember me, do
you?" I stopped in my tracks, almost pulling her off balance.
"Sorry about that," I apologized immediately. I was wracking my
brain, trying to figure this puzzle out. I hate puzzles. I turned to
look at her, "How about a hint? C'mon, this isn't fair. My brain is
fried from this week."
She was definitely enjoying this. And enjoying it way, way
too much for my comfort. "A hint? OK, I'll give you a hint. Are you
ready? The hint is: Linda."
"Linda? Oh God," I groaned. Linda Lathan was James' oldest
daughter. All of a sudden, it clicked. Last Thanksgiving. One of
our family traditions was to have a huge get-together for both
Christmas and Thanksgiving. On this occasion, Linda happened to bring
home her roommate from school. Guess who. Back then she had been a
brunette with her hair cut very short. She had also been wearing
glasses which, in combination with everything else, served to change
her appearance markedly.
"Well... shit." I shuddered when I thought of what she must
have been told.
The look on my face must have been a winner, because Melissa
once more dissolved into gales of laughter. She tried to say
something but it was a lost cause. We must have made a helluva
picture, the two of us standing there in a pool of light, me with a
look of dumbfounded horror on my face and Melissa in overcome with
hysterical laughter. "Oh God," she moaned after another moment or
two. "I've been wanting to do that for the last week, and hadn't had
a chance. I knew that you didn't recognize me right away, but I
thought you'd catch on before this." She was still giggling in fits.
"Once you told Rev. Lathan that you would be working here this
summer, he called me directly to tell me. When I got here, I talked
to Sam and Lydia right away, suggesting I be paired with you for at
least the first few weeks, just to 'show you the ropes' and all.
They've been watching you pretty closely the last week, just to
satisfy themselves that you'd be able to handle yourself. Today they
told me that we were going to be paired until further notice," she
finished proudly. Well, that sounded good... and bad. Tonight had
proven, at least to me that we could get along. For all the laughter
and tricks that she had played on me; she hadn't been malicious at
all. It was 'all in good fun', except that this time, it really was.
But I was just a little nervous about what else she might be holding
up her sleeve.
By the time we started on our way again and actually made it back to
the dorm, we found that the 'meet and greet' at the mess hall had
broken up and most of the people had trickled back to the dorm.
Everyone, at least all those who had made it back seemed to be
gathered in the common room, sitting around and having a general BS
session. The topic of the evening was the new temps that had arrived.
We had spotted some possible problems in the group this evening.
There were a few who seemed to be determined to turn what we, and most
of the kids, thought of as a simple week of summer camp into an old
fashioned spiritual revival meeting. For those who had been here
before it was expected, but I was still surprised, even with the
warnings from Paul. We spent a while talking about the best way to
deal with it. The general consensus was to cross your fingers and
hope you weren't assigned with one of them. Not terribly helpful, but
it was the best we had. From across the room Melissa caught my eye
and gave me a wink. I was more thankful than ever that she had pulled
that rotten, underhanded and sneaky trick to get Sam and Lydia to put
me under her wing. After that, the discussion moved on to the latest
trends on the various college campuses they all attended. Since I
wasn't going to have to worry about that for at least a year, by which
time the information would be hopelessly out of date, I didn't pay
much attention. After a few moments, I made my way quietly back down
the hall to my room.
It didn't look like Paul had made it back at all. I hadn't
seen him in the common room and our room seemed undisturbed. I
shrugged and hoped he wasn't lying on some patch of poison ivy
somewhere. I knew that love was supposed to hurt, but I didn't think
it was supposed to itch. I shook my head and got ready for bed. The
afternoon nap I had taken had gotten me through the mixer, but I was
fading fast. Morning would come soon enough, and with it would come
my first experience as a counselor.
Chapter 3
When I woke, it was to Paul's rather abrasive voice. Well, at
least he had made it back at some point during the night, which was
nice to know. I changed my mind about the thought I had the night
before, I hoped he had spent at least some of the time in a poison ivy
patch. I don't wake up particularly gracefully in the best of
circumstances, and this definitely wasn't the best of circumstances.
Muttering a few vile imprecations in Paul's general direction under my
breath, I dragged myself up out of bed and went in search of caffeine
and nicotine. The latter was easy to find while the former required a
short walk to the nearest soda machine. I never developed a taste for
coffee and Coke served as my morning wake up call. After a cigarette
and a Coke, I decided that I might want to live after all, and hauled
myself into the shower. That improved things to the point that I was
feeling vaguely human again. Paul looked about as bad as I felt,
although I assume he had more cause. On our way out we stopped and
picked up Jenny who couldn't seem to yawning. Melissa met us on the
porch and we trouped towards our awaiting breakfast. Unlike the three
of us, Melissa seemed absolutely full of energy and enthusiasm. And
much less reserved than she did yesterday. I made a mental note to
ask her if she had been so quiet just to make it more difficult for me
to recognize her. From what I knew of her, it seemed likely. After
breakfast, we broke up into the groups we'd be working in for the next
week. We got a list of the campers we'd be responsible for in the
next week, along with an itinerary for group activities that would,
with minor modifications, be in place for the rest of the summer. The
next few hours were spent by having the permanent staff move our gear
down to the individual campsites, a quick planning session with Castle
Rock's Head Counselor, Raymond Boyd, and getting ready to greet and
sort the kids. The first cars pulled in right around noon and after
that, it was a steady effort simply to keep track of all the new
faces. The grounds crew had the responsibility of directing parking,
but each of the counselors took their turn, while their partner pulled
double duty of not only gathering the new arrivals, but also keeping
track of those they had already managed to round up. Melissa and I
were fortunate in that all of our kids were there by three in the
afternoon, which left us several hours to have all the kids settled in
by dinner. Some other counselors weren't so lucky. One pair was just
hustling their kids into their campsite when we passed them on the way
to dinner. Those are the breaks. Dinner was a revelation. I never
realized as a camper how little a counselor actually got to eat. We
were far too busy trying to make sure that the salt stayed in the
shakers and not in someone's drink and that the food stayed on the
plates and didn't end up flying through the air to become an
interesting, if temporary piece of abstract art. If this was an
indication of what was to come, it was obvious that I would be losing
a lot of weight. My own camping experience was recent enough to
remember all the nasty little tricks that people had played on each
other, although I had never been one to go in for the low level
terrorism that passes for practical jokes among adolescents. I was
always after bigger game. But perhaps I was just a special talent.
We managed to get through dinner without any major mishaps,
and even back to the campsite in relatively good order. Watching
Melissa interacting with the kids throughout dinner and afterwards was
impressive. Our styles in dealing with kids were very different. She
had the gift of being able to convince them to do almost anything she
wanted. She had them eating out of her hand within an hour. I think
her physical attractiveness was a definite asset when it came to
dealing with adolescent boys in particular. After about an hour of
getting to know each other and basically goofing around it was time
for evening services. Generally, they lasted between a half hour and
forty-five minutes consisting of a few songs and a 'sermon'. Very
informal, it was mostly just a gentle reminder to the kids that this
was, in fact, a church camp.
After Vespers, we returned to the campsite, making sure that
everyone could find their way, even in the dark. Unusually, the
majority of our campers were making their first trip to the Rocklands
and they weren't familiar with the layout of the camp. From my own
experience a few years ago, most of the kids were veterans and knew
the camp better than the counselors. It was a minor additional
headache with which we had to contend. The kids had been surprisingly
well behaved, considering how worked up they all were. We had a
couple of hours left till lights out, and to occupy the time we fell
back on the old camping standards: a roaring campfire and songs.
There was some rowdiness to be worked off, but that was to be
expected. By 10:00, everyone was pretty much ready for bed. The camp
rules were that campers had to be in their cabins or tents and in bed
by 10:00. They didn't say they had to be asleep by then, and it would
have been laughable to try to enforce it in any case. The campfire
itself was within earshot of both tents, so Melissa and I sat on the
logs surrounding the fire, talking quietly and listening for either
too much noise, or too much quiet from the tents. Either one could be
a sign of something going on.
The first week passed in a blur for me. The morning schedule
for the Bear campers included summer camp standby of arts and crafts,
swimming and sports, where the kids had their choice of volleyball,
archery and canoeing, among others, depending on what interested them
on that day. The sports period also served to give the any counselors
who weren't acting as instructors time away from the kids each day,
which I found was more important than I had realized. After breaking
for lunch, the afternoon was usually taken up with long hikes along
the extensive trails that looped through the hundreds of acres of
forests. The trails were clearly marked, but since many of the kids
were unfamiliar with The Rocklands, keeping track of everyone required
our attention. At some point in the afternoon, we were supposed to
have a Bible lesson of some kind. For us, it usually consisted of ten
minutes of reading a particular passage and then asking them "Does
anyone have anything to say about this?" Since the kids were even
less interested, there were seldom any takers.
After dinner, there were usually activities of some kind.
More sports or even a huge game of Capture the Flag that incorporated
most of the Camp. With all the land at our disposal and the number of
participants, the game could continue for hours. The counselors were
normally drafted as umpires, making sure the players didn't stray too
far down the valley in their attempt to sneak past the enemy lines.
Melissa and I usually volunteered to take the position furthest down.
We spent the time talking and listening for the crash of kids moving
through the underbrush. As long as they weren't heading too far down
the hill, we left them alone. If, on the other hand, they were making
a beeline for the river, we gently mentioned that they might be far
enough down already, although very few of the kids ever made it to our
position.
Our conversations had grown increasingly personal as the days
went on. Although she already knew a great deal about me, she, in
turn, opened up and told me about herself. At 22, she was a year
older than most juniors were, having taken a year off following high
school. Her college major was psychology with minor in child
development, which helped to explain both why she was here, and why
she was so damned good at it. Her senior year was coming up in the
fall, and she wasn't sure what she wanted to do afterwards. She was
torn between the urge to get out of the academic setting and get to
work, returning at some point for her masters, or continuing straight
through without a break. I was at a loss. She actually seemed to
want my opinion on the matter, much to my surprise.
"What the hell would I know about it," I asked in amazement.
"You seem to forget that I'm still in high school!" It was Friday
night, and the kids were already in the tents. We had talked about
this before, but that was the first time she had come right out and
asked me my opinion.
"No, I haven't forgotten that," she said quietly. "Well, not
in the last fifteen minutes at least. And that has nothing to do with
it anyway. Linda is one of the smartest people I've met, and after
rooming with her for three years, I should know. And she's told me
time and time again that you're about three times smarter than she is.
That means something."
"Shit. Linda talks too much." It was embarrassing. I knew I
was intelligent, but this was different. I was used to the strange
looks I got at school and I could even absorb the half-insulting,
half-admiring label of 'geek' I tended to hear as I passed people in
the halls. Even though I could more than hold my own in almost any
conversation with 'adults', I couldn't imagine one asking me for
advice about their personal lives. It was as if my cousin James had
asked me if he should take the new job with a larger congregation.
What the hell did I know about it?
We were sitting together on the ground in front of the fire,
using the log benches as back rests. I wasn't exactly uncomfortable
sitting so close, but I wished I had a better idea of what the hell
was going on. When she reached over to take my hand, I got even more
confused. Of course, I was aware of exactly how attractive and sexy
she was, but it hadn't overwhelmed me. I was more confused about
where the conversation was going than anything else was. "Dave, the
fact that you're in high school doesn't have anything to do with it.
You're not exactly the average high school kid, anyway, are you?" I
had to agree with that. So far, three years of high school had done
little but demonstrate just how weird I was in comparison to everyone
else. "And even if I didn't already know from what Kerry had told me,
the little details Linda provided, once we figured out that you were
the same person, convinced me," she giggled. I wanted to take the
time when I got home and have a nice long talk with Linda about this
entire situation, preferably one that involved some measure of revenge
for her good-intentioned indiscretions. "When Linda invited me home
for Thanksgiving, I wasn't planning on coming, until she mentioned
that it would be a full family gathering and that you would be there.
How could I resist the opportunity to actually meet you in the flesh,"
she asked coyly. "And you didn't exactly disappoint."
I thought back to what had happened during the dinner. By our
family's standards, it had been comparatively uneventful. But the
after-dinner discussion had been more in keeping with the family
traditions. As I recalled, James had made an offhand remark about his
disagreement with a newspaper article that dealt with the possibility
of a genetic cause for homosexuality. Once the gauntlet was thrown, I
could hardly restrain myself. He and I had gone head to head once
again on the causes, effects and morality of homosexuality. Not the
average discussion for a holiday, but we weren't an average family.
James and I had gone back and forth, with most of the other adults
sitting back and tossing in leading questions whenever it seemed as
though the conversation was slowing.
"Well," I said slowly, "that wasn't exactly a typical example.
He got on my nerves that night. He does that fairly often," I said
with a snort. As I thought about it, it actually was a typical
example. I liked James, he was intelligent, well read and well
spoken; but he had a tendency to be lazy in his thinking, and that
drove me nuts. He was too willing to accept the teaching of the
church without considering the ramifications for my tastes.
"Hey, you would have convinced me," she laughed, "if I hadn't
already agreed with you! I won't say that I had a crush on you, but I
did seriously wonder about what might have happened if you were a
couple of years older." She said that very quietly, almost as if she
was the one who should be embarrassed. Turning towards me, I saw the
light from the dying fire dancing on her face. "And this week hasn't
done anything to change that." With that she leaned over and brushed
her lips across mine.
I simply sat back and enjoyed. I didn't have a clue what was
going on and for once, I didn't try to act as if I did. I allowed her
to take the lead, since I wasn't sure what I was even supposed to do.
No matter what the childhood memories might tell you, a few times
playing Truth or Dare and Spin the Bottle does not prepare you for
what to do when the kiss actually becomes meaningful. And I was quite
aware that this was, in fact, a 'meaningful' kiss. Even though I
didn't quite know just what it did mean, it didn't stop me from
enjoying it. We kissed more deeply, her mouth opening slightly to
take my lower lip between hers. Following her lead, I started to kiss
back, instead of just receiving. I was simply trying to duplicate
what she had been doing to me while my mind was racing to catch up.
Our tongues began a gentle exploration of each other's mouths, moving
and drifting to our own rhythms. Unfortunately, I was making it up as
I went along, not having any previous experience at it. Things seemed
to be proceeding fine, although I didn't really have anything with
which to compare it. I raised my free hand and reached across to
stroke my fingertips along her face as we kissed. My other hand was
pinned between us, tightly gripped by hers. I was rewarded by a small
moan that escaped her lips while my fingers moved along cheek and down
her jaw. Her arm snaked back around my neck, pulling us tightly
together while her mouth began moving with more urgency. Since my
first attempt at trying something new went so well, I decided to
continue. My hand drifted back along her cheek, slowly dragging my
fingertips along her skin. I slid it down along her neck, just
brushing the collar of her heavy sweatshirt and then back to the nape
of her neck. Her long blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail,
exposing a soft crescent of skin. It was one of the few areas on my
body that was ticklish and I hope that she was just as sensitive.
She was. I started kiss more softly, jumping from one part of
her mouth to another, brushing my lips along one corner, then nibbling
at her bottom lip. Her breath began to come in short gasps and her
tongue flicked out, trying to anticipate where my mouth would be next.
It was that night that I developed a habit I doubt I'll ever break.
With very few exceptions, I always kiss with my eyes open, watching
how my partner reacts to what I'm doing. How else can I know whether
or not I'm doing it right? From what I could see, I was. Her eyes
were tightly closed, and when I pulled away slightly in order to move
from place to place, her lips stayed slightly parted, waiting for the
next touch of my mouth.
We broke our clinch for a moment and I drew in a ragged
breath. I knew that, traditionally, one is supposed to speak
eloquently about how wonderful the first kiss was, but I was in no
condition to form coherent words, much less a full sentence.
"Mmmmm," she replied. "I've been wanting to do that for two
weeks."
"You're kidding!" I couldn't believe that. I was painfully aware of
exactly how charming I was, or more accurately, wasn't. I had some
difficulty imagining why someone as impressive as Melissa would get
this interested in me.
"Well, maybe a week and a half. It was hard to know just what
you were like when you were sleeping fourteen hours a day." She
flashed a quick grin and gave me short kiss. "And it was worth it,
sport."
"But why -" Before I could finish the obvious question, we heard a
loud thump and a muffled groan floating out from my tent. We
scrambled up and hurried to investigate. Tommy had tried to get up to
go to the bathroom and hadn't bothered with a flashlight. The result
was one skinned knee and a few tears. It wasn't anything serious but
it did serve to bring Melissa and I back to the real world. While we
were getting the kids settled back down, our eyes met. In unspoken
agreement, we knew that things had gone far enough for one night.
Maybe if we hadn't had 25 kids to worry about, things might have been
different. But, to be completely truthful, I was just as happy that
they weren't. Being a virgin wasn't exactly like carrying around the
Mark of Cain, and I wanted to be much more certain about things than I
was before things went too much further. Climbing into my cot, I
tried to sort out my feelings. Melissa was everything I had ever
thought I would want in someone. I should have been head over heels
in love with her. But I wasn't. That confused me more than
everything else did. I liked her, a lot. Of that, there was no
question. I loved spending time with her, both working with the kids
and also any time we could snatch away from our camp duties. I had
been attracted to her from the first time I saw her and I lusted after
her. That, however, wasn't anything new. Nor was it a big deal, at
least to me. I had learned to live with unrequited lust. It helped
keep me warm on all those cold teenaged nights. The age difference
could have been part of the problem, but I doubted it. The
realization that we were in two different places in our lives was a
rationalization, not a reason. Besides, I was a sucker for futile
causes, and the idea of pining away while she went back to college
really wouldn't have given me much of a pause. These thoughts tumbled
through my mind for most of the night. I finally dropped into a
fitful sleep a few hours before dawn.
Chapter 4
The morning itself brought a hectic rush to make sure everyone
was packed. The kids were supposed to be picked up during the morning
leaving the counselors to our first free day in two weeks. There were
a number of tearful good-byes among the kids when the parents began
arriving. I remembered going through the same thing myself. The week
had passed in a flash for me, but when you're twelve years old, a week
of summer camp can seem to last as long as a month. The little knots
of campers continued to dwindle as parents returned to pick up their
children until by 1:00 we waved as the last car passed down the gravel
driveway on its way home. Sam and Lydia called us together for an
impromptu meeting. They congratulated everyone how well the first
week had gone and reminded those of us who weren't going to be
spending our first night off in the dorm to be back by 10:30 the next
morning. They dismissed us with a smile and everyone seemed to
scatter. Because I had been a little rushed that morning, I hadn't
had time to gather my gear together, it was still sitting in the tent,
spread out all over hell and gone. By the time I got back from the
dorm after the long detour to the Bear campsite, almost everyone had
already left.
Paul was on his way out as I walked into the room and dumped
my gear at the foot of the bed. He called a quick goodbye and
virtually ran out the door. I smiled to myself and shook my head.
Melissa had related to me that he and Jenny had some rather
significant plans for that night. I doubted I'd see any more of him
for quite some time. And he'd probably look just as ragged greeting
the new campers the next morning as he had the week before. It seemed
as thought I was going to be spending a quiet night alone. The
closest town was about 20 miles away, and I knew I was going to have
to make a quick run to the supermarket there to pick up some supplies.
Getting away for the occasional cigarette had proven as difficult as I
had feared, so I still had plenty of smokes, but unless I got some
laundry detergent, I was going to be a rather fragrant counselor next
week. Home was only a couple of hours away, but it would have meant
getting up at an ungodly hour the next morning in order to drive back.
After a week of being woken by adolescent boys who were entirely too
enthusiastic to GET UP and attack the day, the thought of being able
to sleep in won out over the temptation of a home cooked meal. I was
still as confused as ever about last night. Obviously, we hadn't had
time to talk about what had happened, the morning had been far to busy
for that. I realized with some surprise that I didn't even know where
she was going to be that night. We had talked about a great deal that
week, but the subject of Saturday night hadn't come up. Then again,
it hadn't seemed terribly important to me, prior to the night before.
I gathered up my wallet and headed outside. As I stepped off the
porch, I saw her walking up the path from the mess hall. She waved
and hurried her pace, breaking into a trot. "Where are you off to?"
she inquired as she drew closer.
"I thought I'd run into town. I need to pick up a few
things."
"Great," Melissa exclaimed. "Can you give me a ride? Remember you
promised! I need to run a few errands."
"Sure, no problem," I agreed.
She hurried inside to get her purse while I waited on the
porch. I lit a cigarette and thought about the situation. I hadn't
come up with any answers by the time she returned. She had taken a
moment to change, donning a casual short skirt and blouse combination
in place of the ragged work shirt and shorts she had been wearing. My
eyes must have revealed my appreciation of the outfit and she broke
into a smile as she came outside. She grabbed my hand as we walked up
the hill to the parking lot. To be completely accurate, it was just a
section of the front field that had been set aside for cars, but we
all played along and referred to it as a parking lot. The car
started right up, much to my amazement. It didn't look like much, but
it was good basic transportation for a high school student. We were
driving down the main street of the small town within a half-hour. We
stopped in at the supermarket, picking up the few things we needed.
At one point we got separated and I spent five minutes wandering the
aisles before I found Melissa heading for the checkout line. A stop
in at one of the gas stations that clustered around the interstate
exit ramps completed our mission. We grabbed some dinner at the
McDonalds across the road. After two weeks of camp food, we were both
ready for a junk food splurge. The conversation had remained light,
not touching on what had happened the night before. I knew, at some
point, we'd have to talk about it, but for that moment, I was just as
happy to leave it alone. I was too much fun just being with her to
risk screwing it up with that discussion. She seemed very relaxed,
talking about what was currently going on in the world, jumping from
one topic to another as we ate. She wanted to know which colleges I
planned to apply to in the fall and what I wanted to study. I told
her the truth; I simply didn't have any idea what I wanted to major
in. Far too many things interested me at that point. I simply hadn't
given the matter much thought. The conversation soon moved on to
high school in general. By the time we dumped our trays, we were deep
into comparing the expectations of college life with the realities.
On the way home, she slid across the long bench seat to lean against
me. I snaked my arm around her shoulders to the startled realization
that the afternoon had been the closest thing to a date that I had
ever experienced. It knew that it wasn't exactly the same, but it was
close enough for me. Feeling her long slim body up against mine was
wonderfully comfortable. We rode in silence, her head resting on my
shoulder as we drove the winding back roads to the camp. All too
soon, at least from my point of view, the camp came into view, and I
turned into the dusty driveway. I parked the car, and we carried our
light loads down to the dorm. Figuring that it wasn't going to be any
more fun if I did it later, I picked up my clothes and headed towards
the laundry room. Fortunately, there weren't all that many and I was
able to use all three of the machines at once. Melissa wandered in as
I was switching the sodden clothes from the washers to the dryers.
"Here you are!" She exclaimed when she saw me. "I went into my room
to drop of my stuff and when I came back out you had disappeared. I
thought you had gone back to the car for something."
"Sorry," I apologized.
"You should be," she retorted with a smile. "I walked the
whole way up there on bare feet!"
"Poor baby." It was hard to sympathize. The bottoms of my
feet were like leather, a legacy of my mother who never wore shoes
when she could get away with it. She passed the tradition on to me.
I had spent most of the previous week without shoes, putting them on
only to come to dinner or to take some of the longer hikes through the
rocky paths.
"Smart ass," she accused. She walked over to me as I stood
and wrapped her arms around me. Pulling me tight, her lips hungrily
sought out mine. Her hands moved up and down my back, then I felt one
move to my head and she intertwined her fingers in my hair. I moved
my hands low on her sides, resting them in the hollow where her hips
started to flare out into her gorgeous legs. Staying with a proven
winner, I fell back on the tricks I had learned the night before,
teasing her mouth with mine, drawing her tongue deep into my mouth and
then nipping back along her bottom lip. Within seconds I could feel
breath coming in quick gasps and hear the quiet little moans escaping
her throat. As this went on, we were both growing more and more
excited. I could feel myself getting hard, my cock pinned between our
bodies as she ground her hips against me. Her nipples were hard
buttons, pushing through the thin cloth of our shirts into my chest.
And as incredible as it felt, I knew I was going to have to stop it.
I had to know what was going on. It was better that I ruin things
before they go too far than screwing them up later. But, now or
later, I was afraid ruining things was something I couldn't avoid. I
slowed the tempo of our kisses, brushing my lips over hers one last
time before pulling my head back.
"Melissa," I began.
"Yes, baby," she breathed against my cheek, "what is it?"
"There are a few things we've got to-" She interrupted me before I
could even start screwing things up.
"Don't worry, baby, there's no one in the dorm, I checked
already." She paused and planted another deep kiss on me. Her kisses
were almost enough to make me forget my worries and just enjoy myself.
Almost.
"That's not what I meant," pulling my mind back to the matters at
hand. "I don't have a clue-"
Again she interrupted me, saying, "I already took care of that. Where
do you think I was hiding at the market? I've got them back in my
room. Don't worry about it."
My eyes bulged at this news. I hadn't realized that she had
been planning things to that extent. The idea sort of frightened me.
It's one thing to have one's good sense overcome in the heat of the
moment, but to actually plan this... I didn't even know how to refer
to it in my mind. A tryst? An encounter? A one night stand, with
all that it entails? I was fairly certain that the last was simply my
own mind running in gibbering circles. I'd gotten to know Melissa
well enough over the last week to realize she didn't do things like
this casually. But it was now even more important to find out just
what this was. I blew out an explosive breath, trying to get a grip
on things. She wasn't making it easier for me to gather my thoughts,
her head resting on my shoulder and nibbling at my neck. I had to
get a little distance between us, or I was never going to get through
this. I tightened my grip on her sides and lifted her up to sit on
the dryer. She gasped at the unexpected movement.
"Melissa, listen to me. As wonderful as this is, I still have
some questions that I need answered before anything else happens." A
somewhat confused look came over her face.
"What's wrong, don't you like this?" She asked in a surprised voice.
Her face fell and she lowered her head. "But I thought. I mean after
last night..." I took her chin in my hand and raised her face so I
could look her in the eye.
"Melissa, I don't like this. I love what's happening. But I still
need to know what in the hell is going on!"
"I'm trying to get into your pants," she snapped angrily with her eyes
flashing in unexpected heat. "Without much success so far." She
shifted her weight to slide off the dryer. I kept my hands on her
hips, effectively pinning her in her seat.
"Thanks awfully, but I was able to figure that much out," I
said dryly. "That's not what I meant, what I meant was 'Why?'"
"Because I like you, you dipshit!" She had moved passed being
embarrassed and was on heating up to serious anger. Being the coward
that I am, I leaned forward to place one of those thorough kisses she
had taught me about on her lips. I wanted to stop her from working up
to the cussing out I probably deserved. "Don't do that," she said
when we parted after a few moments. Her soft voice belied her angry
words. "That's cheating."
"And I like you too, Melissa. Very, very much. But you have
to understand. I wasn't expecting this, any of this to happen." I
looked around and drew in a deep ragged breath. "I'm not used to
this," I finished quietly.
"Well, I'm not used to this either," she snapped. She paused
for a moment, seeming to gather her thoughts together. "I've told you
about Roger, right?" I nodded. Roger had been an upperclassman when
she was a freshman and she had fallen desperately in love with him in
her first weeks at school. They had spent a wonderful winter and
spring together, but when it came time to talk about visits during the
summer, he had become strangely reticent. Within a couple of weeks
they had broken up, not all together amicably, I gathered from the way
she referred to him. We had talked about it earlier in the week, in
one of our late night fireside conversations. "What I didn't tell
you," she continued, "was what it did to me. I didn't sleep, I didn't
eat and I certainly didn't study. I almost failed my finals because
of what a mess I was. During the last two years I've made sure, that
I didn't end up in that situation again. I haven't been out on a date
in two years, because I tried to stay as far away from a relationship,
any relationship, as I could." Her face twisted into a grimace as she
continued, "And anyway, I'm not into the one night stand scene, which
is all most of those morons are looking for.
"And then, in the last week and a half, I've gotten to know
you. You're good, intelligent, sweet... 'Finally,' I thought,
'someone I could spend some time with, someone who was worth spending
time with, someone who would actually talk to me, not just try getting
me into bed.' And after last night, I realized that I wanted to do
more than spend time with you. Last night felt so good. It's been
two damned years, after all! So last night I lay in bed and figure
out a plan to seduce you." She jerked her head back and her eyes
focused in on mine. "And now that it's been shot completely to hell,
I'm going to go back to my room."
"Like hell," I muttered as I pulled her in close. Everything
she had taught me about kissing went into the kiss I gave her at that
moment. Every ounce of feeling and energy I had was wrapped up in it.
Once her breath started coming in those familiar little gasps, I knew
everything was going to be all right. She spread her legs and wrapped
them around my back, pulling me into her while her hands slipped up
around my neck. I learned then just how easy it was to lose track of
time in a kiss like that. When we finally broke free of each other's
mouths, I whispered in her ear, "You're not going anywhere without me.
Not unless you can convince me that's what you truly want." I paused
for a few seconds. "And it will take a lot of convincing after a kiss
like that!"
She pulled her head back to look at me again. "But I
thought... You said..." The confused look was back on her face, her
eyes questioning me.
"I said, I needed to know why. And now I know." I smiled at
her and leaned in for another kiss. It wasn't quite so passionate as
the last one, but it would do in a pinch. "And right now, I can't
think of anything I'd rather be doing."
"Then what was all that about?" She really didn't understand.
"I told you I wasn't used to this. I've never done this before," I
said quietly.
"Well, I've never done this before. I've always gone out with
guys before I ended up in bed with them. It's not as if-"
"That's not exactly what I meant."
"Oh my God. You mean...?" She trailed off as I nodded my
head.
"Surprise," I said with sardonic amusement. "I've never even had a
girlfriend," I added ruefully. "Now do you understand why I was so
confused? What in God's name would you, of all people, want with a
high school virgin?"
"And you still stopped me to make sure about what was going
on?" She was absolutely stunned.
"We're going to be working together, rather closely for the
next few weeks at a minimum. I figured it was better to ruin the
chance to be with you this way, than to go ahead and take the risk of
ruining that."
"Jesus, you're something else. If you were only a couple of
years older," she said wistfully, "I could really fall for you, you
know that?"
"Trust me, I know the feeling," I muttered as I moved in for
another kiss. The grip of her legs around my waist hadn't loosened
appreciably while we talked, but now it grew even tighter. As our
mouths danced together, she pulled herself to me tightly, grinding her
hips into me. The tumbling of the dryer added an interesting
vibration to the exercise, one I could definitely appreciate. I felt
much better about the whole situation. Maybe it was the age
difference that was holding me back from flinging myself headfirst
into falling in love. But, by now, I was far beyond the point of
caring. Glancing out the window, I was almost surprised to see that
it was still light out. We had gotten back around six, and it had
been less than an hour since I had walked in here ostensibly to take
care of my laundry. If I had known that it was going to turn out this
way, I probably would have done laundry every day for the last week.
Looking at the sky, I realized that we would probably have a couple of
hours alone, anyone came back for the night. Besides, I wasn't all
that sure I cared if they showed up early or not. I kissed my way
down her chin and along the side of her neck. Her skin was smooth and
silky as I brushed my lips down to the hollow in her throat. Her legs
relaxed slightly and my hands slid down over her things. The skirt
she was wearing had ridden up, and looking down I saw a thin strip of
white covering her mound. I slowly slid my body down through her
legs, mouthing her nipples through the thin covering of her blouse on
my way. Kneeling between her legs, I dragged my lightly tongue up and
down each leg in turn, eliciting a shiver that I could feel run
through her body. I may not have ever been here before, but I did
have some idea of what I was supposed to do. My heart was bounding in
my chest and my head seemed to want to abandon my body and float away
on its own. Leaning forward slightly I licked quickly at the thin
band of silk in front of me. She had already soaked through her
panties and I savored my first taste of her. A deep guttural moan
from above told me that I wasn't doing to badly so far. My tongue
moved more insistently against the soft flesh behind the silk
covering. I could feel her clit, hard and inflamed, standing out from
the yielding lips surrounding it. Rolling her hips toward me, Melissa
arched her back, forcing her clit against my mouth in the process.
Using my own lips, I traced the folds and curves of her pussy through
the thin fabric that was rapidly becoming translucent from a
combination of what I was doing and the effect of what I was doing.
'So this was what it was all about,' I thought to myself.
Being able to do something so enjoyable and to get responses like this
had definitely modified the ideas I had about sex. I was sure the
physical sensations would live up to their reputation, but this was
completely unexpected. I was enough of a control freak to admit to
myself that holding this power was a huge turn on. Burying my face
into her pussy with abandon, I wondered distantly what other surprises
there were in store for me. I couldn't wait to find out. I felt one
of her hands at the back of my head, pushing me against with great
insistence. Raising eyes to look at her I saw her head thrown back,
with her eyes closed. She was mumbling something under her breath,
but with her legs locked around me I couldn't make out what she was
saying. I was pretty sure it wasn't anything intelligible in any
case. My mouth was locked around her, all traces of subtlety thrown
to the wayside. My hands spreading her legs further apart, I ground
my face into her, trying to force my tongue through the thin barrier
that separated us.
Slowly, the rhythmic movement of her hips ground to a halt,
she pushed her body forward, balancing on her hands and lifting
herself up off the dryer. I looked up, worried that something was
wrong. Her legs were thrust straight out behind me and it seemed as
though every muscle in her body was contracting at once. Her voice
grew louder, but I still I couldn't understand what she was saying.
Somehow, I doubted that it really mattered.
A tremor ran through her body as she hung suspended on my
shoulders and her arms. Her voice dissolved into moans, growing
louder as her body began to jerk and twist in what I hoped was an
orgasm. Everything was new to me. It was one thing to watch porn
actresses on a tape, it was quite another to experience it in real
life, knowing that you were causing it. I redoubled my efforts,
burrowing my tongue even deeper into her pussy, trying to draw out and
extend her reactions.
"Yes, god... Yes. Oh please, keep going, just like that.
Just like that, just like that, just like that..." For the first time
I could actually hear something coherent. Her voice was vague and
unfocused, but the desire was obvious. Her pleading trailed off into
another series of moans that again grew louder as I continued.
Eventually the moans reached a frenzy as she pushed and forced her
body into my mouth, trying to extract the last traces of sensation. A
huge shudder ran through the length of her body and she collapsed back
onto the dryer.
Her breath came in quick little gasps, trying to recover. As
she gathered herself and basked in the glow, I kept my mouth busy,
covering her silk clad pussy with long light strokes of my tongue.
"Mmmmmm," she groaned, seeming quite pleased. "You lied," she
accused, looking down and me.
I quirked my brows quizzically, since I didn't particularly
feel like stopping to ask what she was talking about. "You said you'd
never done this before, you had to!" I shook my head, which must have
caused a rather interesting sensation, judging by her reaction.
"Ohhhh... God..." Sighing deeply, she continued, "If you're
telling the truth, where in the hell did you learn how to do that?" I
shrugged.
Tearing my mouth away, I rested my head on her mons and answered.
"Just because I'm a virgin, doesn't mean that I don't have some clue
of what's supposed to happen. I've seen enough bad porn movies and
read enough bad stories to at least figure that much out. I'm not
completely stupid, you know," I finished virtuously.
"I've noticed that, from time to time," she said laughing. "Come up
here." She reached down to pull me up again. She pulled herself
upright, flowing into my arms as I stood up. She wasted no time,
bringing her face close and driving her mouth against mine. Our
tongues danced and fenced with each other's, playing at the entrance
of our mouths and then driving deep.
"Now what?" I asked her.
She looked at me in amazement, "I thought that would have been
obvious!" She broke into giggles for a moment. "There's no way
you're getting away without finishing what you started."
"Um, that's not exactly what I meant. Let me try again; where, when,
and most importantly how long?"
"Hmm, wherever, soon, and all night, if we can manage. Does
that clear things up for you, sport?"
"Not particularly, no," I said dryly. She was looking at me,
her eyes dancing with amusement. She was starting to enjoy my
discomfort just a little too much. I leaned forward to kiss her,
hard. It took her mind off my confused ramblings. At least for a
moment or two. She moaned in disappointment when I pulled away, but
first things first. "I meant, are we going to stay in the dorm
tonight? I don't know about you, but I'm not thrilled with the idea
of people starting to wander in while we're in the middle of
something."
"What's the matter, ashamed of me?" She teased. "Hardly. But how do
you think Sam or Lydia or one of the temps would react? We are
supposed to be working together, not sleeping together," I reminded
her.
"I know, I know. I've been thinking about it, because I do
want to stay with you tonight." She paused and then continued on
hesitantly. "I don't want to just fuck and then go on our merry way.
I told you, I'm not into one-night stands."
"How about a three month stand?" I asked quietly.
"What?" I think I finally managed to surprise her. "What are you
talking about?"
"Well, I'm going to be here the rest of the summer, and I
couldn't help but notice that you are going to be here for the rest of
the summer. And it does look like we're going to be working together
for the foreseeable future. At least the next three weeks, that is.
And, well, it just seemed like a good idea."
She peered into my face, rather intently and her face took on
a strange expression. "Dave," she asked, "are you in love with me?" I
knew that the answer was very important and I had to be completely
truthful, and very careful.
"No, I don't think so actually. I think I could fall in love with
you, very easily, but I'm not. I was thinking about it last night,
actually." I paused for a moment, trying to find the right words to
express what I was feeling. "It's not the age difference, believe it
or not. Four years isn't that much. It's..." I was grasping for
something. "It's the fact that, no matter how I might feel, it's not
the right time, for either of us, to have this kind of relationship.
I knew that even before you told me. And there are other reasons..."
I trailed off.
"There's someone else, isn't there?"
"Yes and no. Not exactly. There might be someone, but it's a
very weird situation." I thought it over, and decided that Melissa
deserved to know the truth of the matter. "She's just someone at
school. It's one of those 'worship from afar' things. And to make
things even more fun, she's in love with my best friend." I laughed
an unhappy laugh. "If we threw in a few blind old women, we'd have
the perfect Greek tragedy.
"But none of that really matters, and I know it. I'm not in
love with you, at least at the moment. If you're still single after
next year, I'll probably have to rethink things, though," I added
slyly. She smiled and kissed me thoroughly. Apparently I had passed
the test, thankfully. The kiss quickly became serious with Melissa
trying to wrap herself around my body. I snaked my arms around her
and squeezed her tight. I may not, in fact, be in love with her, but
I knew that having her in my arms was a feeling I could easily become
used to.
"We're getting off the subject again," she murmured after a
little more time had passed rather pleasantly. "How are we going to
do this?"
"Well," I started, thinking quickly, "There's one option we
might want to look at. We could spend the night down at the
campsite." It was remote, and without any kids in the camp, it was
doubtful that anyone would be roaming around late at night. More
importantly, to me at least, we would have the opportunity to spend
the night together without any worries about having about being
interrupted. She thought it over, and a smile spread across her face.
"Do you think we could fit two of those bunks side by side in those
tents?" She asked with a twinkle in her eyes.
"Oh, I'm pretty sure that we could figure something out," I
laughed in return.
She turned, cast a glance at the dryers, and then looked at me
with a speculative look in her eye. "Do you want to wait for your
clothes, we can take them down with us."
"It would save a trip tomorrow morning," I admitted. "And I
think I know of a way to pass the time." Kissing seemed to be the
traditional way to start things off, and who was I to argue with
traditions? Her lips were soft and sensuous, yielding and active
against my mouth. Emboldened by what had gone before, my hands ranged
over her body, cupping her small firm breasts and using my fingertips
to tease her nipples through her blouse and thin bra. I busied
myself, undoing each button down the front of her blouse, following my
hand with my lips, brushing across the skin of her chest and kissing
the top of each breast as it swelled over her small lace bra. I had
some trouble with the bra. It was the first one I'd ever been
confronted with and the front snap stymied me for a few seconds. I
eventually got it figured out, slipping the clasp open to reveal two
small but perfect tits. They were absolutely beautiful, sitting high
on her ribcage and topped by hard, rose colored nipples. I cupped
them again, this time without coming between us. I used my thumbs to
rub against those nipples, feeling them crinkle up and grow even more
erect under my touch. Her hands dropped down from my shoulder to
cover mine, squeezing them closed. A small moan escaped her mouth as
I gripped her tits more firmly. Her hands slid up my arms and around
my neck, guiding my mouth to each nipple in turn. I sucked and licked
each of them and discovered that if I dragged my teeth over them
gently, I could produce a shiver and moan of satisfaction each time.
She pressed my face against her tit, trying, it seemed, to force as
much of her into my mouth as she possibly could. I opened my mouth as
wide as possible, circling her nipple and flicking my tongue over it
in feather touches. She arched her back even further, moaning in
frustration, trying to force me to suck it up into my mouth. Instead,
I moved to her other breast and gave it the same treatment.
After several minutes, she was literally whimpering, "Please, David.
Please suck it. Oh God, baby, please, use your mouth." I finally
relented, sucking in as much as I possibly could up into my mouth and
using my tongue on her nipple at the same time. "Oh, yes, yes, Oh God
yes. Oh, that's better. Mmmm, thank you, baby, thank you." After
repeating on her other nipple, I moved lower, licking the underside of
her tits, moving back and forth from one to another trying to cover
every square inch I could, without allowing my movements to fall into
a predictable rhythm. I moved my hand between our bodies and slid it
down, covering her mound with it. Pushing and rubbing back and forth,
I could feel the warm wetness that we had produced earlier, making her
panties a sodden mess. Dropping down to my knees once again, I
reached up to slip my hands through the waistband of her underwear,
pulling them down her long slim legs. She quickly raised her ass up
off the dryer, helping me to get rid of them as quickly as possible.
I dropped the soaking panties into the open duffel bag sitting beside
me, not wanting to forget them and leave any evidence behind. Her
skirt was pushed up over her hips, and she spread her legs as I leaned
forward. For the first time, I was able actually to see what I had
tasted.
Her pubic hair was as light as the hair on her head. It was closely
trimmed, a narrow blond 'v' that started from just above her clit. My
mouth closed over her bare mound drawing her up into my mouth. The
lips of her pussy were very full-fleshed and pouty, but incredibly
soft. As soon as my lips touched her, it felt as if an electric
current had shot through my body. She moaned and thrashed about above
me sliding forward until she was seated on the very edge of the dryer.
I looked up to watch her, while my mouth continued its exploration.
Her bra kept getting in her way and she was getting more exasperated
by the moment. Eventually, she let loose a curse under her breath and
slipped the blouse of her shoulders and quickly removed the offending
item. It soon joined her panties, wadded up and dropped in the duffel
bag. She slipped the blouse back over her shoulder, just in case. I
pulled my mouth back an inch, allowing the tip just my tongue to slide
over the supple lips of her pussy. Melissa raised her legs, which had
been draped over my shoulders, and placed her feet astride my neck.
Spreading them even wider, she leaned forward, balanced precariously
upright. By contorting my neck just so, I could raise my eyebrows and
catch glimpses of her as I licked and sucked her soft tender pussy.
Her head was bowed, looking down at me with unfocused eyes while her
hands cupped her tits, rolling the nipples between her fingers. Her
change in position made it easier to pay attention to her clit than
anywhere else, so I did. Far smaller than anything I'd ever seen on
the grainy and poorly lit porn movies I'd seen so far, it was tiny.
But it also seemed to be exquisitely sensitive. The lightest touch of
my tongue or lips seemed to send jolts of pleasure through her body,
causing her to jerk her body in shock each time my tongue moved. Each
spasm was accompanied by an abortive moan that seemed to be ripped out
of her from somewhere deep inside. I buried my mouth over her mound
sucking in as much as I could. The clitoral hood surrounding that
hard little button was fleshy and as soft as foam. I rolled the
delectable morsel in my mouth, sliding my tongue back and forth across
the tender surfaces. When it slid back out, my teeth accidentally
brushed against her erect clit, causing a startled exclamation from
Melissa. I looked up, questioning. I was afraid I had done something
wrong.
"Oh God," she gasped. "Do that again!"
As if I would ever refuse such a plaintive request from a
lady. Keeping my jaws slightly separated; I inhaled her clit into my
mouth, causing my teeth to drag along both top and bottom.
Apparently, it was close enough, causing her to go wild. Her hips
started to buck in fits and starts, trying to mash her pussy against
my face. She threw her head back and moaned, a long rising note that
climbed into the upper registers. I noticed her fingers were not
simply rolling her nipples any longer. She was actually pinching and
twisting them, her fingers pulling on them until they looked
distended. She came with very little warning. Suddenly her hands
were at the back of my head once again forcing my mouth forward
against her. The movement of her hips shifted into high gear, moving
faster and faster which made it difficult to keep my mouth on her
clit. I took it in between my teeth, not biting but simply holding it
still. I flicked over it with my tongue, alternating quick light
touches with long slow strokes that pressed it against my teeth.
Her moans changed pitch and became actual shrieks of
incoherent pleasure while her body moved faster and faster, finally
reaching a crescendo together. She suddenly became very still, the
muscles of her body tight with concentration. Her moans had trailed
off into silence broken only by the quick gasps of her breath. She
held absolutely still while I continued to draw her clit in and out of
my mouth, through my teeth each time. After only a few seconds her
voice seemed to reassert itself and she uttered a series of high
pitched noises with each sharp intake of breath. Her body softened
suddenly and a low moan escaped her lips.
"That's enough," she said weakly, her hands on my shoulders
for support. I could feel her legs shaking where they rested on my
shoulders next to her hands. She was leaning forward, barely able to
support herself for the moment. I lavished a few long, soft strokes
of my tongue over her engorged pussy, savoring the subtle changes in
her flavor after her orgasm. After all, isn't a cool-down period
advised after exercise? Each stroke seemed to cause a small shiver to
run through her. I didn't want to push my luck, so I slowed to a stop
and looked up at her with an incredibly self-satisfied smile splitting
my face from ear to ear. The dryers had finished spinning at some
point while we had been distracted and I was suddenly aware of how
quiet the room was.
"So, how'd I do for my first time, coach?" I asked a little
impudently.
She opened her eyes and looked down at me with a wan little
smile. "Well, sport, it certainly looks as thought you've got some
native talent there."
I slipped her legs off my shoulders and stood up for another
one of those stellar kisses. After the kiss she slipped down off the
dryer and ran her fingers through her hair, which was in complete
disarray. I picked up the duffel bag and went down the line of
dryers, tossing the warm clothes in. I probably should have asked if
she wanted her panties and bra, but I didn't really care at that point
and the idea of her walking through the camp in that condition excited
me even more. I was still new to everything that was going on, and
the little things can be quite interesting at that point. By the time
the duffel bag was slung over my shoulder, she had already made
herself 'presentable' and was ready to go. We embraced for a quick
kiss before showing ourselves to the outside world.
Chapter 5
We stopped briefly in our rooms to make sure we had everything
we would need, not only for our night together but also for the week's
work together. Satisfied, we walked out the dorm on our way to the
tents. It was the gloaming, after the sun had set and while there is
still enough light from the sky to see the colors start to blend
together, ending up as a muted monochrome. The camp still seemed to
be deserted as we made our way down the path past the mess hall. The
Camp Administrator's cabin was situated just off the path, and I could
see from the lights on the front porch that Sam and Lydia, at least,
were probably still around. As we walked, Melissa slipped her arm
around my waist, almost knocking the back from my shoulder.
Readjusting the weight, I wrapped her in my free arm, my hand resting
on her hip as we walked. I could feel the smooth flexing of her
muscles under my palm with each step she took. Although I knew I
probably shouldn't but there was no way I could resist and we were
screened from any prying eyes by the lush undergrowth. I decided to
hell with it, and dropped my hand down under the hem of her skirt,
caressing the smooth skin of her ass.
My touch startled her and she let out a little gasp of
surprise and almost lost her step. She adjusted quickly though.
"Mmmmm," she murmured, tilting her hips and pressing back against my
hand. Her ass was firm and supple, barely yielding as my hands ranged
over it. After walking for several minutes, I cast a quick look over
my shoulder. Even if there was someone wandering around, the path had
a number of twists and turns and we were well past the buildings of
the camp. I took a breath, trusted my luck and slipped my hand lower,
sliding my finger between her thighs to tickle her still wet pussy.
"Uungh," she moaned deeply and leaned against me, off balance. "Oh,
god. You're cheating again." We stuttered to a halt, standing in the
middle of the path. She didn't really seem to mind that much. Her
hand dug into my side as fingers continued to trace the folds of her
slit lightly. Her hand closed in reaction where it rested on my side.
She had surprisingly strong hands, and the extra flesh I tended to
accumulate there served as an excellent handle. I pushed my fingers
between her lips, touching lightly on the entrance to her cunt with my
middle finger. She moaned again, then pulled away from me with a
jerk. I was terrified. I thought that perhaps I had overstepped some
unspoken boundary and look at her with more than a little trepidation
in my eyes.
I shouldn't have worried. Grabbing my hand, she pulled me
towards the woods the side of the path. In the hustle, I dropped the
bag from my shoulder. When I slowed to pick it up, she yanked on my
hand, urging me along. "It's not going to go anywhere, Dave. It will
be there when were done," she said breathlessly, dropping her small
bundle on top. I shrugged to myself. If she wasn't going to worry
about it, neither was I. She led me along, seeming to be looking for
something as we walked, until, several yards off the trail she found
what she wanted.
Want she wanted, apparently was a large tree, almost a foot
and a half in diameter. She leaned back against it and drew me to
her. It was very dark underneath the canopy of leaves, but I could
make out a feverish gleam in her eyes. Crushing her lips to mine, she
drove her tongue deep into my mouth. When I responded similarly, it
seemed as though she was trying to rip mine out by the root. I
lowered my hand between her leg to resume my explorations. Pulling
her mouth away she said, "No, not like that baby. Like before." With
that she drifted her lips across mine again, and with a mysterious
smile, turned to face the tree. She put her arms out to steady her
and bent over at the waist. I stood next to her, one hand reaching
under her shirt to cup her tits. My other hand slid down the curve of
her ass, sliding slowly across to slip between her legs. I slid my
finger between her lips, drawing a deep furrow in her flesh. "Oh,
yes," she almost whispered. "Just like that, put it in me, baby... I
need it in me." She seemed to be making an effort to be a little
quieter now. It rapidly growing dark, even out on the path, and the
underbrush completely blocked anyone from possibly catching an
accidental glimpse from walking by, but a shriek of pleasure could
definitely give us away in the unlikely event that someone was out and
about.
Using my other fingers, I slowly spread her lips, pushing them
back to expose the actual opening of her pussy to my searching finger.
I eased my middle finger inside, slowly pressing into the warm wet
entrance. She was having none of it. She arched her back, thrusting
her hips into my hand and forcing my finger deep inside. As the palm
of my hand pressed into her ass, she actually purred in satisfaction.
The feeling was incredible. It was hot and wet and engulfed
my finger, pressing in upon it on all sides. The walls of her cunt
were smooth and slick as I slid it in and out. Instead of the deep
throated moaning I had become used to, Melissa pursed her lips
together and whimpered in pleasure as I thrust deeply in and out with
my finger. I could feel her wetness running down my finger, slowly
spreading out and moistening the back of my hand. I was jerked from
my reverie by her hand, coming down off the trunk of the tree and
grabbing a hold of mine. She took it and placed it over her breast,
pressing up strongly and grinding it into her body through her blouse.
I may be new at this, but I can take a hint as well as the next guy.
Probably better, in fact. I remembered how she had worked over her
nipples when I had gone down on her in the laundry room, and did what
I could to emulate what I had seen. I played my fingers over her
nipple, rubbing with my thumb, then taking it between two fingers,
squeezing and twisting gently. I moved my hand back and forth between
each of her tits, playing with one for a few minutes before turning my
attention back to the other. With her arms raised over her head to
help support her against the tree, her breasts were pulled taunt,
smooth firm mounds of flesh pressing out through the silky fabric. My
other hand was still busy between her legs. I slid my finger out
until only the very tip remained inside her, holding it there for a
few seconds before slowly pushing it back in, repeating it again and
again, moving faster each time. Soon my hand was actually making
'slapping' noises and I pumped in and out of her slit. Within a few
moments, it was obvious, even to me, that she was quickly approaching
another orgasm. It didn't seem quite as intense as her previous
examples, but when her hips started to buck in that almost familiar
rhythmic motion, pushing back to meet my hand on each thrust, even I
knew it happening. I looked towards her face and saw she had sucked
her lower lip into her mouth, gripping it with her teeth in an effort
to keep herself quiet even at the height of orgasm. Her trembling
slowly eased as I slipped my finger out of her, cupping her mound
gently with my hand. As she pushed herself up from the tree, she
stretched languorously, raising her hands high over her head and
working the tightness out of the muscles in her back. Standing, she
turned so that we stood back to front, and reached back with both
hands she caught my head and pulled me tight up against her. I
reached around to her front, running my hands up and down, flat
against the curves of her body. She turned her head to kiss me, a
slow gentle kiss without demands.
"Thank you, baby," she said with our lips on an inch apart.
"I really needed that."
"Glad I could lend a hand." She rolled her eyes at this
incredibly obvious pun. "I told you I was new at this. I can't be
good at everything."
She broke up laughing. It felt very good, very comfortable,
standing there. I was incredibly turned on, looking forward to the
rest of our night together, but at the same time I was also strangely
content. If nothing else happened tonight, I'd be satisfied. At that
point, I learned what sex was all about. At least to me. I knew that
actually having sex would be incredible, far outstripping
masturbation. But at the same time, I had had orgasms before. They
would probably be better, stronger and more intense, but they would
still be orgasms. But this, this was something completely different.
To be with someone, and feel her orgasm and knowing that I was the one
who was causing it. That was mind-shattering, if only for the fact
that I had never suspected it. Orgasms were fun, they were nice and
they were enjoyable. But this was heady wine, indeed. The feelings
of power, the ability to affect someone on a level this deep, combined
with the enjoyment I felt from being with Melissa were threatening to
overwhelm me.
"I'm sorry, honey, what did you say?" I had completely missed
what she had said to me, lost in the new discovery. She giggled.
"I'm the one that just came, you shouldn't be floating out in la-la
land, it should be me!"
I grinned and kissed her again. "My apologies. I'll try to
be more attentive from now on."
"Oh no! If you get any more 'attentive' I'm going to pass
out!"
"You say that as if it's a bad thing." I slid my hands low and began
to lightly tease her pussy in response to the idea.
"Mmmm," she answered, grinding her ass back against me. My cock,
which had been hard for most of the night, answered the call once more
and sprang to attention. Nestled it in the hollow between her cheeks
and started moving to the same rhythm. After only a few seconds,
however, she gave a little toss of her head and pulled away. "C'mon,
if we don't get moving we're never going to get to there." Grabbing
my hand once more, she led me back through the darkness to the path.
We hadn't spent more than 15 minutes in our little wilderness tryst,
but the transition from dusk to dark is quick, particularly deep in
the forest. I grabbed the bag we had left at the edge of the woods,
and we made our way down the path in good order. We had walked the
path several times a day, and night, for the last week, so we didn't
fumble around much, and since we didn't have to ride herd on a group
of sixth graders, we made it in five minutes, instead of the normal
15.
There was a moment of confusion when we arrived at the
campsite. We had decided to spend the night in 'the tent' and each of
us naturally assumed that we would be sleeping in the same tent we had
been for the past week. We laughed and I dumped my bag in 'my' tent,
exchanging it for my sleeping bag. I hurried across to join her in
the girls' tent. She already had the lantern lit and had begun
arranging the beds. Another five minutes and we had two bunks pushed
together near the front of the tent, but we found to our
disappointment that the wire springs and steel frames didn't leave a
very comfortable surface. We dithered for a moment, and then Melissa
came up with the idea of overlapping the extra mattresses on top of
the frame. It wasn't perfect, but it was infinitely better than what
we had. We quickly spread the sleeping bags open and everything
seemed ready. All of a sudden, I was nervous. Fortunately for me,
Melissa wasn't, or at least she didn't show it. She pushed me down
to sit on the edge of the bed, then climbed on top of me, straddling
my legs. Leaning forward, she took my face in her hands and kissed me
soundly. A kiss like that can do wonderful things and it managed to
banish any nervousness without a backward glance. My hands slid along
her legs, moving back to hold the globes of her ass. I gently
squeezed, pushing her soft mound into me. She quickly unbuttoned her
shirt, shrugging it off without her lips ever leaving mine. Reaching
down, the side buttons on her skirt were quickly unfastened and it
joined her shirt, lying empty on the floor. For the first time I
could actually see her, all of her; and the view was absolutely
magnificent. I'd seen the various parts already, but the simple fact
that she was actually naked made all the difference. Her fingers
didn't rest, after disposing of her clothes she quickly went to work
on mine, almost ripping my shirt over my head. Climbing off me, she
pulled me up to stand with her, her hands working feverishly to open
my shorts slide them down my legs. I kicked them off my feet, quickly
followed by my underwear. As soon as they were gone, Melissa slid up
against me again, pressing her body to mine from forehead to feet, or
as close as we could get. And it was wonderful. All that exposed
skin against all my exposed skin; my body felt as if it was on fire
where we touched. I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her down
with me onto the heavily cushioned bed. We scrambled around a little,
getting comfortable until we were lying, side by side on the bed
facing each other. Propping my head up with one hand, I looked at her
in the glow of the lantern. She was incredible. Her bright lively
eyes were gleaming in the light, and the warm glow lit up her skin
like a halo. I reached out and trailed my fingers along her body from
just under her arm down as far as I could reach. I could feel the
shiver follow my fingers down.
In turn, she reached down and wrapped her fingers around my
cock, causing me to jump from the shock of the contact. She pulled
herself closer which trapped both her hand and my cock between our
bodies. Moving my hand across her back, I slid it down between her
legs and began to massage the warm wet folds of her pussy. After a
few moments, our hands growing more and more insistent, she sat up
with a start. Leaning across me, she reached over the side of the
bed. I could feel the firm bulges of her breasts pressing into my
stomach. I ran my hands over her back while she busied herself
rummaging through something on the floor.
"Got it," she muttered. Rolling back over top of me, she
kissed me again in passing. In her hand was the glistening form of a
condom. She quickly unrolled it over my erection, with only minor
fumbling around. The lube covering the rubber was a little cold, but
it didn't last long. Hastily she gave it a few quick strokes with her
hand, making sure it wasn't going to go soft without any warning. Not
bloody likely. She clambered atop me, and while looking down into my
face, slowly lowered herself over top of my cock. At that point, I
became very grateful for the rubber. Without it, I would have cum in
a matter of seconds from the feeling that engulfed me. I had come
close enough to spontaneous combustion earlier, but was able to hold
off because I was too fascinated with what I was doing to her. This
was completely different. Without that little sheath protecting me,
our lovemaking would have turned into one of the more painful clichés
about first encounters. And I would have been absolutely mortified.
As it was, I was worried. I knew I wouldn't be able to last very long
at all. The sensations, both physical and emotional, were contriving
to make my first actual experience a short one. I just hoped I'd be
able to hold on long enough to keep from disappointing her. At that
point, however, she certainly didn't seem to be disappointed. She had
her legs spread wide and was rhythmically rolling her pelvis back and
forth, not only forcing me deep up inside her but also grinding her
clit against my crotch at each apex. As she was sitting upright, I
was able to reach up and pull her nipples between thumb and
forefinger, pinching and rolling them around as she continued her
gyrations.
"Oh, yes..." She wasn't moaning anymore. Her noises could
only be described as quite screams. Sharp and piercing, they weren't
all that loud, at least not yet they weren't. I started to rock my
hips along with hers, timing it so I pushed up each time she rolled
forward. Her slow thrusts quickly increased pace, they moved faster
and faster, grinding against me with greater abandon than the one
before. Suddenly I realized that I was going to cum, and it was going
to happen soon. The familiar feeling started, by balls feeling as if
they were contracting and trying to draw themselves up into my
stomach. I grunted a warning as my hands flew from her nipples to her
hips and I began pumping in and out of my own volition. I seemed to
be lifting her almost completely off me with each thrust, then pulling
her back down with my hands. It seemed just the trick to push her
over the edge as well. With shuddering groans we moved against each
other, completely lost in the sensations we were causing. Within
seconds I could feel myself exploding, and it seemed to go on much
longer than anything I had ever experienced by myself. I fell back on
the bed, completely spent. My legs were trembling, along with most of
the rest of my body. With a rippling moan, Melissa collapsed down
atop me, limp. I couldn't speak quite yet, so I contented myself with
wrapping her up in my weak embrace.
After a few moments of recuperating, I finally gathered enough
strength to whisper into her ear. "Sorry about that, love. I hoped
to last a little longer." I paused for a few seconds, hoping for a
response, but she remained silent. "And thank you, very, very much."
I kissed the top of her head affectionately. It was the only place I
could reach without moving, and I wasn't nearly ready to move. After
several more seconds of silence, she finally began to stir.
With a long-suffering groan, she lifted her head to look at
me.
"Sorry? Thank you? Sport, what the hell are you talking
about?"
"Well," I began uncertainly, "the thank you should be fairly obvious,
shouldn't it? And the 'sorry' was for... Well, I just thought that
maybe it was over a little umm, quick. I didn't want you to be too
disappointed."
Her eyes widened and she dropped her head, burying her face in
my shoulder. Her body started to shake, but I had no idea if she was
laughing or crying. When she raised her face, it seemed like a little
of both. "You idiot," she said with a smile. "What the hell were you
expecting? Were you going to just go and go and go and go until you
decided that we'd had enough?"
"Well...."
"Oh god, you did, didn't you?" She buried her head in my
chest and dissolved into laughter.
Apparently my ideas about sex had been a little too influenced
by those bad porn movies and cheap 'Dear Penthouse, I never thought
this could happen to me' letters and not enough by reality. . It's
not that I thought of them as realistic depiction's, I somehow doubted
that most wives would react to finding her husband in bed with her
best friend by saying 'Move over, dear, I've always wanted a piece of
Mary's ass myself.' But, at the same time, the idea that 'if they
could stay hard for as long as needed and cum on command, why couldn't
I' had insinuated itself into my head at some point? Now that she
mentioned it, it did seem just a tad naïve. I suppose it's one of my
failings, if I can visualize it, I figure I should simply be able to
do it. There's an annoying tendency to overlook the niggling details
of reality.
"So I didn't do too badly, then?" I asked hesitantly.
"You putz," she said softly. She could tell that it was important to
me. Not that she tell me that I was the best lover she'd ever had,
but simply that I had managed to give back a small portion of the
pleasure she had given me. "This is one of the best nights I've ever
had. Is that good enough for you?"
"Just fine," I said, immensely relieved. I had slowly grown
soft as we talked and with her shifting around, I slid out of her with
an audible 'plop.' We got up long enough to clean ourselves up a
little and to turn out the lantern and thankfully, Melissa remembered
to set her little travel alarm clock, just in case. The reaction, if
someone was forced to come hunting for us the next morning, wasn't
worth contemplating. With everything that had gone on, we were both
exhausted and were soon asleep in each other's arms.
Chapter 6
That night changed everything, and nothing, between us. We
grew closer together, both as friends and lovers. We learned about
each other's bodies and reactions, each Saturday night a new voyage of
discovery about what worked and what didn't. In spite of her
aggressive pursuit of me, something I still could not fathom, Melissa
didn't have a great deal more experience than I did. There had been
her relationship with Roger, of course, and a guy in high school, but
she didn't offer many details about him, and I didn't press. From
what she did say, however, I could figure out for myself that it
hadn't been a pleasant way to lose her virginity.
The summer went on, and we went with it. Although we didn't always
work together at the same camp, there were always a few opportunities
to be together for a few stolen moments during the week.
Unfortunately, there was never enough time to do anything in those few
moments. Those weeks, our Saturday night rendezvous tended to be a
little more intense than usual, both of us desperately needing the
physical and emotional release of the tensions the built up over the
week. There were a few questions from the other counselors about the
fact that we seemed to disappear each Saturday, and didn't reappear
until the following morning. We ignored them. After that first
night, we never stayed in the tent or cabin in which we had been
working that week. We picked one, virtually at random, the only
caveat being that it must be isolated. All in all it worked out quite
well and I was deliriously happy with the situation, over all. We
both knew the summer wasn't going to last forever, and as we neared
the end we both grew a little somber. I don't think either of us
expected the bonds between us to grow as strong as they did that
summer. Although we still weren't in love with each other, I knew for
my part that it was going to tear me apart to be separated from her.
Our last week together was very quiet between the two of us. We were
working in two different sections of the camp, not just different
campsites, and it severely interfered with our interaction. Even when
we did manage to talk to each other face to face, she was strangely
reticent, deflecting my attempts to talk about our last night
together.
Smiling a sad, mysterious little smile, she'd shake her head
and say, "We'll see, sport, we'll see."
After the fifth time, I simply shrugged my shoulders and
resolved to wait until Saturday, when we'd have more time together.
She might not feel the need to talk about our situation, but I
certainly did. The last Saturday finally arrived, and after getting
through the circus of the parent's arrival, pick up and departure, I
went in search of her. Unfortunately, I had been forced to spend two
hours waiting on a parent whose car had broken down. Kara, a little
girl was in the third grade, was sitting there all alone after all her
friends had left. I did what I could to help pass the time. I had
just about exhausted my repertoire of funny voices, games and songs
when the station wagon finally pulled in. Her father apologized
profusely and thanked me warmly for looking after his daughter before
throwing her bag in the car for the return trip. When I finally was
able to try and catch up to Melissa, I couldn't find hide or hair of
her. I spent several hours wandering through the camp, trying to
track her down. Finally returning to the dorm around five, I found an
envelope sitting on my bunk. It was addressed to me, and I
recognized her handwriting.
Picking it up, I suddenly got a very cold feeling in the pit
of my stomach. It couldn't be what I thought it was. Most of the
counselors were planning on staying the night and attending the end of
year party planned for tonight, but I knew of at least two who had
already packed and left. One of them, Kevin, had been heading for
Melissa's hometown. If she had gotten a ride from him, and left me
with this note as a way of saying goodbye I was going to have a
tantrum. My tantrums, unfortunately, had a tendency to be very
spectacular. And very destructive. I thought that perhaps it might
be a better idea if I left the room before reading it. There were far
too many breakable things in the room. The windows, the mirror...
the door. I stalked outside and off the porch. If I was about to be
given the 'kiss off', I was damned if I would happen in where anyone
could see. A brief walk past the parking lot and I found the swimming
pool area completely deserted. It was close enough. With trembling
hands I peeled open the envelope and read. It was short and to the
point:
'Meet me at exactly 8:00 in the snake room. Don't come early,
or you'll regret it."
It was written in block letters, but I knew. I had worked
myself up into a froth for nothing. I laughed when I re-read the
directions. 'The snake room' meant the cabin at the Sioux campsite
out in the Tribes. She had worked the campsite a couple of weeks
before, and had told me about one of her campers. He had informed the
rest of the campers that the word 'Sioux' actually meant snake.
Whether or not it was true, I had no idea. And I really didn't care.
It was simply a safe way to tell me where to meet her, just in case
someone was snooping through the room before I arrived.
Well, there was certainly no way I was going to miss this,
whatever 'this' was. But I might not do it quite the way she
expected. Thrusting the note into my pocket, I hurried back to my
room. I had spent most of the morning in the sun and spending the
afternoon running all over the camp hadn't done much to improve my
fragrance. I grabbed a quick shower; whatever she had planned, I
didn't think that showing up smelling like a polecat would improve the
mood. I grabbed my keys and ran up to the car. A half an hour later
I was wolfing down a Big Mac and fries on my way back to the camp.
Instead of pulling into the main driveway, however, I continued down
the narrow road for another mile. I pulled off the blacktop onto a
rutted dirt road that led back down through the forest to the Tribes.
It was slow going. The Ford, after all, was not built with
off-roading in mind. After about a half mile, I realized that my car
was never going to make it the whole way without running the risk of
punching a hole in the oil pan or some other equally vulnerable part
on the underside. I was able to make it to a small clearing, where I
was able to pull off and would at least have room to turn the beast
around. The thought of trying to back the car out of the road gave me
the shivers. I had to reorient myself to the geography since I wasn't
used to coming in this way. I hurried down the trail, trying not to
break an ankle in the deep furrows. When I was within a few hundred
feet, I broke off the trail, circling around to the right through the
woods. I wanted to come up on the cabin from the rear. I figured she
would automatically chose the girls cabin, just as she had the first
night. It took me a little longer than I had expected and I didn't
near the cabin until almost 7:00. It was cutting it tight, but I
hoped I'd be all right. I moved very slowly once the cabin came into
view through the scrub underbrush. Walking carefully, I found a small
thicket that would conceal me, while at the same time giving me a good
view of the trail and the front door of the cabin.
So it was a sneaky, dirty and underhanded thing to do, I'm
like that sometimes. Besides, I owed her. And I really wanted to
know what the hell was going on before I stumbled into it; I'm like
that sometimes too. I settled down into my little spot and relaxed,
trying not to think about what she had in mind. I didn't have long to
wait. I saw her come into view down the trial from the camp. She was
carrying a rather large bag over her shoulder and seemed to be
distracted as she hurried down the path to the cabin. She stopped and
gave the area a quick look. I laughed to myself, nice to see she
trusted me. Well, I was proving her right. I waited and watched.
She went into the cabin and I didn't see her again for almost ten
minutes. I could hear her moving things around and assumed she was
arranging the beds. After a few moments of silence, I saw her walk
back out of the cabin. She was dressed in a robe and had a towel
slung over her neck. The showers were only a short distance away, but
the sound of the water would definitely cover the noise of my retreat.
Once I heard the water start, I left the little thicket and moved back
the way I had come. Another fifteen minutes and I was standing next
to my car, wondering what the hell the night had in store for me. I
probably smoked half a pack of cigarettes over the next half-hour,
waiting for the appointed time to roll around. When my watch finally
read five to eight, I squared my shoulders and, like any good soldier
following orders, marched down the road to my fate.
I timed it rather well, even if I do say so. At precisely
8:00, I knocked on the door of the cabin.
Chapter 7
"Come in," she called. She sounded almost as nervous as I
felt. I took a deep breath, exhaled and walked in.
"Oh my..." I tailed off. Candles, dozens of them, lit the
room. Spread over every available surface, they cast a warm even glow
throughout the room. I saw something out of the corner of my eye and
turned to look. She stood in the corner of the room, wearing a white
negligée that seemed to glow in the candlelight. It was long in the
back, but seemed to come together in front, just below the tops of her
thighs. The top seemed to be made out of lace, held up by two thin
straps over her shoulders.
Yes, it was a little staged, and a little contrived; even I
could recognize that. But it didn't matter. All the effort that she
went through only served to demonstrate, extremely vividly, just how
much meaning she put on what happened tonight. She stood there,
uncertainly, shifting her weight from one foot to another, searching
my face for my reaction. "Do you like it?"
My face wasn't showing much of anything at that moment, I was too
stunned. "Yes, Melissa, I love it." I crossed over to her quickly
and wrapped her up in my arms. Standing there in ratty shorts and a
polo shirt, I felt completely out of place, like a man who arrives at
a cocktail party dressed as a pirate. I kissed her tenderly, not
quite believing what was going on.
"I wanted it to be special. Since we don't know when..." she
paused for a second, a brief pang of pain passing over her face, "or
if we'll be together again. I just wanted it to be special."
"It is special. Very special. Any time with you is special, this
just makes it more so." My heart was in my throat. It's a stupid
cliché but it fits how I felt. I was having trouble forcing up the
words.
After standing there for a moment, we walked together, over to
the bed. She had been busy. The mattresses were stacked up on the
bed in what had become our trademark, with the sleeping bags spread
out over top. As we reached the bed, she stopped and turned to face
me. Without saying anything, she slowly pulled my shirt up over my
head and removed my shorts. There didn't seem to be any rush to
things tonight. Everything important would happen in its own time.
After removing my clothes, she climbed onto the bed, and motioned me
to join her. Once we quickly settled into the bed, we lay there
together quietly. We continued to kiss, enjoying simply being
together. After a few moments passed in this pleasant fashion,
Melissa seemed to make a decision, gently pushing me to roll onto my
back. She reached down to wrap her fingers around my cock. Leaning
over, she kissed me one last time, and slowly trailed her lips down my
body. She lay there, slowly stroking me with her hand, her head
resting on my stomach.
To say that I was shocked would be an understatement. I was
dumbfounded. In the last three months, she had shown absolutely no
interest in going down on me. I had eaten, licked and sucked her
until I was giddy with power, and we had brought each other to
simultaneous orgasms with our hands on any number of occasions, but
she had never come close to performing oral sex on me. And I hadn't
pushed. Hell, I had barely given the matter much thought at all. I
was too busy exploring her body and what I could do with it to worry
about anything that trivial. It was an understandable mistake, the
kind of mistake someone without a great deal of experience would make.
We stayed like that for quite a while. Every few minutes she
would make a small abortive move towards the tip of my cock then lay
her head back down on my stomach. After this happened three times,
even I knew that something wasn't quite right.
"Melissa, what's wrong," I asked, laying my hand on her
shoulder.
"Nothing, baby, nothing." She answered in a husky voice so quiet I
could barely hear her. "Nothing," she repeated in a broken voice.
That was enough of that. I gently pulled her back up to lay next to
me. When I looked at her, I was stunned to see that she was crying.
"What's wrong?"
She just shook her head and continued crying, not trusting
herself to speak.
"Melissa, damn it, what's wrong?" I was starting to get a
little scared. This didn't seem like simply an overflow of sadness
because we would be leaving each other tomorrow. "Talk to me,
Melissa, honey, please talk to me."
"I'm sorry, David, I'm so sorry."
"Sorry about what? Melissa, what's going on?" Unfortunately,
all this accomplished was to cause her to burst into sobs. 'Well,
asshole,' I thought to myself, 'you're handling this really well.' I
was at a loss. I pulled her into my arms, holding her tight. She
buried her head against my neck, repeating over and over that she was
sorry. Hell, I still didn't know why she was so sorry. I did the
best I could.
"It's okay, honey. Everything's going to be okay. Shhhh.
Everything's going to be okay." Yeah, I knew it sounded ridiculous,
and was probably the next best thing to useless. But it's all I could
come up with on short notice. I just kept repeating that, and
variations of it, over and over again, drowning out her repeated
apologies. Eventually it actually seemed to do some good. Her sobbing
quieted, and although I was already soaking wet from all the tears she
had shed, I thought I could feel it start to slow. I reached down to
put my fingers under her chin and lifted, forcing her head up gently.
Looking her in the eye, I slowly leaned my head forward and kissed her
softly.
"Melissa, honey, what's wrong?" I asked again.
"I tried, David, I really tried. But I just can't." The tears had
slowed to a trickle, but she was still sniffling, the crying not
really over, just on hold.
"I don't understand Melissa, what are you talking about?"
She drew in a deep shuddering breath, "I'm talking about going down on
you, about sucking your cock. I just can't."
"Is that all?" I asked in amazement. "Melissa, if you don't
want to, there's no reason for you to do it. It doesn't matter to
me!" I couldn't believe she was getting so upset over such a small
thing.
"No! You don't understand," she almost shouted. "I do want to! I
can't!"
She's right, I didn't, couldn't understand what she meant. So
she explained it to me. She used words of one syllable, so I would be
sure to understand.
"I told you that I'd been with two guys, right? Roger and
Tony, the guy in high school." She hadn't mentioned his name before,
but I nodded for her to go on. "That's not quite all the truth.
There was another guy in between the other two. He was a friend of a
friend. He was older, about 20 and I was a junior, 17. He hung
around after school with some people. He looked, and acted about as
cool as you could get, the whole 'bad boy' cliché, but at that point I
was really impressed by him. I thought I was in love." She stopped
and I gave her another gentle kiss. I could see that this was very
difficult for her. The tears had started to flow again, although she
was keeping her voice very calm and controlled; I knew what it was
costing her.
"Just take your time," I said quietly. "We have all night."
She smiled a sad smile. "Our last night, you mean." Taking another
deep breath she continued, "Anyway, one day, right out of the blue, he
asked me if I wanted to go to a party on Friday night. He called it
the 'ultimate blow-out', and I thought he should know. I said yes,
and thought about it the whole week. He had completely overwhelmed
me. He was handsome and older than I, everything that I thought I
wanted a guy to be. On Friday, he picked me up and we went to the
party. We hung out for a while, just having fun. There was beer, but
I wasn't paying much attention, since I knew I had to go home
afterwards. He didn't. Anyway, after a couple of hours, we left, and
on the way, he asked if I wanted to stop and park for a while. I
thought we were just going to, you know, make out and have a little
fun. But after we had done that for a while, he told me he wanted
something else..."
"I think I get the picture." My stomach had started doing flip-flops
halfway into her story. By this point, I was worked into such a rage
that I had trouble seeing clearly. It wasn't a new story, even to me.
It had happened to a friend of mine earlier that year, although I
don't think it went quite as far with her. That time, I had been able
to do something about it. This time, I could only sit and grow
angrier and angrier.
I let out a long slow breath, trying to keep control of
myself. I didn't think a personal demonstration of my temper would
help things. I got a grip on myself and looked at her again.
"Melissa," I began, "you have absolutely nothing to be sorry
about. Nothing at all." I paused, trying to think of something,
anything to say.
"Why do you think you should feel sorry?"
"Because I can't. And I want to. I want it so bad it hurts. I love
you so much and I..." She trailed off, her eyes growing wide as she
realized what she had said. Looking scared, she continued on in a
rush, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I remember what we said." She
looked embarrassed, as if she had let a state secret slip.
"Melissa," I tried to interrupt.
"I mean, neither of us need this. It's not right. I didn't
mean it, Dave." She wasn't paying any attention to what I was trying
to say. She couldn't even look at me directly.
"Melissa," I said, a little louder than necessary perhaps, but
it got her attention. She turned her head back to face me, looking
worried about what I was going to say next. "Melissa, I love you
too." Whatever she was expecting, that wasn't it. The tears that had
almost stopped flowing started up yet again. But there was a
difference this time. Her face split into a smile and she flung her
arms around me, squeezing me tight. It was ridiculous. We both knew
that a relationship would be impossible. My parents probably wouldn't
have a large problem with it, but through our talks, I knew hers would
throw a fit. But more importantly, I didn't think either one of us
were ready for one. Not at that point. A long distance relationship
is possible, at least in theory, particularly if they are both
seniors; but not when one of us is in college and the other in high
school. That was pretty much impossible. And we both knew it. We
talked about those things and more as we lay there, resting together.
We concluded that while there was no doubt we loved each other, we
weren't in love or at least, not that much.
As we talked, our caresses became less abstracted and more
intimate, and our kisses grew steadily more passionate. Before long,
the worries about the future fell away and the only thing concerning
us was the present. Her negligee was slowly removed by common
consent, and soon our hands were ranging over each other's bodies.
After one particularly good kiss, she asked, "Ready?" It was my turn
to give her the 'Look' I'd been receiving for most of the last three
months. The look that said, "You IDIOT, of COURSE!" I'd been waiting
quite some time for that to happen, and I took great satisfaction in
it. I'd honed that look for weeks, hoping against hope that I'd be
able to use it, and finally I was. She laughed a little sheepishly,
recognizing it immediately for what it was.
"Payback's a bitch," I whispered into her ear. "Where are the
rubbers?"
She just shook her head, threw her leg over mine and with a
shift of her hips, I was inside of her. I gasped in shock, not only
at the feeling, but also at her decision. I knew she was on the pill.
I had seen her 'Dial-a-Candy' dispenser often enough, but that had
never been the sole reason for using a condom.
Then I remembered one of the late night, fireside chats we
had. Being a virgin, I hadn't had the opportunity to pick up any of
the embarrassing social conditions about which one normally worries.
And as for AIDS, I had gone through a stomach operation some years
before, one that required a small transfusion. As a result, first at
my parents insistence, and then mine, every physical included a blood
test, just in case. Melissa's physicals included one as well. I
relaxed. It was as safe as it would ever be, and there was no sense
worrying about it.
That left me only one thing to worry about, whether or not I
was going to reach orgasm in the next 60 seconds. Fortunately, she
realized what a change it would be, and we simply lay there, not
moving, giving me a few moments to adjust to it. There was a
mischievous little twinkle in her eye, and just as she started to
move, she leaned forward and whispered, "Surprise."
She had no idea. The absence of that thin barrier changed
everything. It was incredible. We slowly started to move together,
our bodies sliding back and forth in counterpoint to each other. With
an effort, she lifted herself and slid over top of me so that she was
perched above me, lowering herself down over top of me. Our eyes were
locked to each other. What was happening to our bodies had become
secondary. It was still there, of course; the feeling of surging deep
into her could hardly be ignored. But it wasn't as important as what
was going on between us. We built up slowly, trying to make the night
last as long as possible. During the summer there had been several
Saturday nights that consisted of nothing but trying to bring each
other off again and again and again. This, in turn, had caused some
very sore Sunday mornings. We both knew, however, that this night was
different. It wasn't a night to keep score, the number of orgasms
were completely irrelevant We exchanged positions several times,
staying in one for a few moments then easily shifting back. This was
our goodbye. Tomorrow morning, we would cry and hug, but this night,
this endless moment would be where the hurting started, and the
healing began.
Chapter 8
Opening my eyes, I found myself sitting in my car, perched on
top of hill. The memories had seemed so real, so immediate that it
took me a moment to realize where I was.
"Shit," I said with some disgust. This wasn't solving
anything. The dashboard clock told me I'd been sitting here for over
an hour, lost in the mists of the not too distant past. If anything,
I was even more confused now. In the last 9 months, I'd been able to,
then at least contain the feelings that had I had developed for
Melissa. But they had been contained, not conquered. And the
confusion I felt over what happened tonight was simply added to the
turmoil. Melissa and I had parted on that Sunday morning with fewer
tears than I had expected. There were some, of course, for both of
us. We had promised to call and write, and unlike most of those
promises made at camp, we had actually kept them. In fact, she had
returned with Linda for Thanksgiving last November. I had a sneaking
suspicion that Melissa had not only taken Linda into her confidence
but also enlisted her aid at some point. We were able to find
entirely too many opportunities to spend time together for it to be a
coincidence. Melissa simply gave a mysterious little smile and
changed the subject whenever I asked.
We had talked about being counselors again this summer, but
that idea had died a fairly early death months ago. She had a chance
to work with one of the doctoral candidates on her dissertation, and
although it would be a great opportunity for her, it would also mean
that she would have to work through the summer. So much for camp. I
wasn't so in love with the place that I wanted to work there without
her.
I had planned to spend the summer as a bum. I had plenty of
cash saved up, enough for both the summer of indulgence and for 'beer
money' at school. The fact that I couldn't choke down a beer if my
life depended on it was immaterial. It was the principle of the
thing. And besides, calling it 'tequila money' didn't have the same
ring to it. After three months of R&R came the joys of higher
education. I had already received my acceptance letter from Penn
State. And a combination of my SAT scores and my stated desire to
take Japanese to satisfy my foreign language requirement had been
sufficient to make me one of the few freshmen at College Park. Lucky
me. Lucky hell. I sat up more than a few nights trying to figure out
the best way to ensure that I would be able to attend the main campus
as a freshman, the administration was notoriously reluctant to allow
them on campus. Fortunately, this had done it. The next year was to
be the time where Melissa and I discovered whether or not we could
actually work as a couple, day in and day out. At least, that had
been the plan until tonight.
Chapter 9
I hadn't even planned on going to the party, although it had
been widely circulated in school over the past couple of days. It was
basically a "come as you will party" with everyone reputed to be
invited. A couple of my 'buddies' had dragged me there, threatening
prolonged physical violence if I didn't, and I quote "get up off my
fat ass and enjoy the last moments of the best days of my life."
Considering the fact that Jerry was 5' 4" tall and weighed 120 pounds
immediately following a full meal and being dunked with all his
clothes on, I wasn't terribly worried about his threats of bodily
harm. Allen just stood there and giggled. He wasn't a great deal of
help, to either of us.
The three of us held a somewhat unique position in the school.
We fell so far outside everyone's expectations that we could move
relatively freely throughout the stratified levels of high school
society. We weren't exactly accepted, but it did give us the
opportunity to interact with just about everyone, as long as we
remembered the unwritten rules. By and large, we didn't have any
interest in overstepping the bounds in any case, so it wasn't terribly
restrictive. We could be out back smoking a joint with the burnouts
one moment, then get asked to help cram with one of the preps the
next, or anything in between. It was a comfortable little arrangement
that allowed us to do what we felt like, without the low-level
terrorism with which most of the population was force to undergo.
Even taking our strange social position into account, the idea of
spending an evening crammed into a house with a couple of hundred
drunken teenagers didn't exactly fill me with anticipation. There was
a grain of truth to what he said though. I hadn't been much of a
social animal during the 4 years of high school. The student body was
pretty well divided into two distinct groups: those few that I
actually hung out with after the school day ended, and, with two
notable exceptions, everyone else. The group I spent most of my time
with could be termed the "Brilliant Underachievers". Jerry and Allen
and myself made up the core trio, although there were a few others
that floated in and out. High school bored us to tears. We knew we
were smarter than most of the teachers. Unfortunately, we had a nasty
habit of acting that way as well. We did the minimum, mostly.
Whatever it took to keep them off our backs. I don't think any of us
had a G.P.A. higher than a 2.5 or so, but when we got together to
compare notes when our SAT scores came in, we found out that we had
all scored over 1500. We simply weren't interested in what the high
school teachers had to say.
Unlike the other two, I didn't have a single interest that
absorbed all my waking moments. I was a lazy man's jack of all
trades. I could kibitz with Jerry about computers, although when he
started thinking in binary he left me far behind. I could also stay
with Allen long enough to get the general gist of whatever chemistry
hobbyhorse he was riding at that particular moment. However, I did
have a nice little sideline of my own in those days. In any school,
there are always those who would rather have the grade than the
knowledge. For those poor souls, I had a 'Writing on Demand' service.
Given a week's lead-time, I could produce a paper on whatever topic
they wished. All the service, for a nominal fee, of course. I
actually enjoyed it, for the most part. It gave me the excuse to
spend most of my time reading or doing research, and put enough cash
in my pocket that my simple needs were met without having to resort to
anything as distasteful as getting a 'real job'. By the time senior
year rolled around, I could bang out a 5 page paper on almost any
topic inside of two hours, and charge between $25 and $30 for my
effort. Term papers, depending on how long and involved could garner
up to $100. It wasn't too strenuous. First come, first served, and I
kept the amount of traffic in any one class limited so the teacher
wouldn't be able to pin down a definite writing style.
I had allowed myself to be convinced the party wouldn't be a complete
disaster. My parents watched with tolerant amusement. It would have
been so much easier to have their disapproval as an excuse. There are
times they truly disappoint me. Jerry had worked himself apoplectic,
trying to convince me that this was going to be the 'ultimate, can't
miss, gotta be there' party of the year, while at the same time trying
to couch his rhetoric so as not to let the old people know just how
wild the party was supposed to be. He needn't have bothered. My
parents aren't stupid, it's just the sleepy look that fools people.
They knew exactly what the party was supposed to be like, but since
they have an unnerving level of trust in me, they were comfortable in
letting me go, simply warning me about the 'house rules'. Considering
the fact that the only 'house rule' that applied here was not drinking
and driving, it wasn't a big deal. Even if the fear of winding up a
mangled mass of flesh, dead in a ditch somewhere wasn't enough to give
me pause, the threatened punishment from my parents certainly was. I
don't know about the average teenage male, but I think my testicles
look much better on my body than they would hanging from the fireplace
mantle, a shiny electroplating of bronze making them glisten gently in
the light of the fire. That settled, we were off with great fanfare.
Jerry and Allen both wanted to do some drinking when we got
there, so I 'volunteered' to drive. Since today had been the last day
of class, there weren't any worries about getting up for school the
next morning, even though it was Thursday night. They lived on the
other side of town, but within 25 minutes, we eventually ended up in
the midst of one of the end-of-year blowouts for which high school
students are justifiably infamous. There were probably 100 people
packed into Jeff Whitmore's house. The poor bastard had made the
mistake of mentioning that his parents were out of town for the
weekend, a mistake I had noticed, and made sure not to repeat. That
had been enough to make him instantly the most popular guy in the
school. It's not as though he actually needed the help. He ran with
the prep clique, probably the second most influential group, at least
for the male half of the student body, in school.
I knew before I was there more than 10 minutes, it wasn't my idea of a
fun night. There were far too many people who had had far too much to
drink and were far too intent on acting like the inebriated idiots
they were. The kitchen was crowded with jocks, completely absorbed in
some sort of titanic drinking contest. The table seemed to be
reserved for the "nobility" of jock society, those four or five guys
who were on the Varsity squad for two or three different sports. Most
of them didn't have anything interesting to say when they were sober,
and I highly doubted that 12 or 15 beers would have a salutary effect
on their conversational skills. Since there was little in the kitchen
to keep my interest, I continued on the tour. I figured on doing a
circuit of the house, just to see if there was anyone worth talking to
who wasn't dead drunk already. It was obvious that the party had been
underway for quite some time. Hell, for all I knew, some of the
revelers may have come here as soon as classes let out that afternoon.
From the bloodshot eyes of some of the guys in the kitchen, it
wouldn't have surprised me in the least. Today had been the last day
of classes for seniors, and this was the opening salvo of a very long
weekend of partying. Most people had done what they could to clear
their schedules completely for the weekend, calling out of work in
order to take full and complete advantage.
The dining room held more of the same. Only the participants
and the quantity of beer were different. In here, the preps were
holding court and there were at least as many girls as guys sitting
around, waiting for the quarter to be passed to them. I nodded to a
few of the people I knew, and received bleary greetings from them in
turn. I could exactly call them friends, but perhaps friendly
acquaintances would cover it. I was on friendly terms with enough
people that I could move around the edges of most of the cliques in
the school without too many difficulties. They never mistook me as a
member of their groups, but I did receive a sort of benign
indifference. I didn't linger in the dining room for very long,
quarters not exactly being a riveting spectator sport. The living
room had become neutral territory, gathering a strange combination of
serious drinkers who wanted the combination of comfortable furniture
and the proximity to the keg, which was parked in the corner and
covered in rapidly melting bags of ice. There was also a random
sampling of members of the other readily identifiable cliques, the
"music" group, and the "theater" group who had gathered in the front
room in order that all new arrivals see that they had been there
first. For some reason, the rest of the people appeared to be an
assortment of hangers on who liked to think they were part of the
various cliques, as well as people who were only invited in the spirit
of the end of school celebration.
There was nothing of consequence happening in the living room.
The upstairs, if I could read anything into the way people were moving
up and down the stairs was limited to trips to the bathroom and
couples trying out the bed. As I passed the front stairs, I glanced
up the stairs and smiled to myself. Apparently, Jeff was smarter than
he looked. He had dragooned someone to stand at the top of the
stairs, acting as a traffic cop cum bouncer. He was making sure the
people who need the bathroom actually used the bathroom, and those who
were looking for the bedrooms actually found them. Two points for
thinking ahead. There were lots of wonderful opportunities for
embarrassing situations implicit in the arrangement and I was actually
impressed that Jeff, or someone had enough sense to try and limit
them. The stairs to the basement were back in the kitchen, and it
took me at least five minutes to work my way back the way I had come,
through the living and dining room. I headed down the stairs after
pushing through the jocks in the kitchen. I knew, from overhearing
the conversation as I wandered around the house that the lower level
had been finished into at least a family room and office for Jeff's
mom, who apparently worked at home. I hadn't seen Jerry or Allen
since we split up on arriving. It didn't really matter, on the way
over, they had both said they would probably end up crashing in some
corner until morning. They'd be able to mooch a ride off someone in
the morning. I had driven the three of us over, so there was no
problem with me picking up a ride, and I was planning on cutting out
pretty quickly in any case.
The family room was packed. Someone had found an old porn
tape and thrown it in the VCR. Fortunately, the sound was left down
to a manageable level, although it blended into the blasting stereo
from upstairs and made conversation well nigh impossible. Although
conversation seemed to be the last thing on everyone's mind. Most of
the people were kissing cousins to the ones upstairs in the living
room. Kids who had received invitations through the spirit of
generosity or who had simply crashed the party, counting on not being
tossed out. There were a few others, but the majority were what was
quaintly termed "geeks and dorks" by the ruling class, i.e. normal
people. The few girls that were scattered about were dividing their
attention between what was going on up on the screen, and trying to
fend off the advances of hordes of drunken teenager males. In the
corner I noticed Sean McKee, standing and glancing around the room. I
gave him the "high" sign and caught his eye. He grinned and waved me
over. If there was such a thing as a Big Man on Campus in the
mid-80's, Sean was it, he was also one of the 'two notable exceptions'
I mentioned earlier. Seamus Michael McKee. That's his full name,
and as Black Irish as they come.
Our families had moved into town less than a week apart the
summer before first grade, ending up as neighbors across a small alley
from each other. Since it was the summer, we were a little lost when
it came to finding playmates. Had we moved in during the school year,
the enforced introductions would have obviated the need for that first
fearful "Hi, my name's Sean." We spent elementary school as
neighbors, spending as much time in each other's house as we did in
our own. Neither of us had any siblings and we ended up as close as
any brothers. I moved outside of town in Junior High, but we managed
to remain very good friends. We didn't talk as often as we had in the
old days, but there was still an unshakable bond there.
He was the starting halfback and linebacker on the football team, he
batted clean-up and played first base on the baseball team and was the
point guard on the basketball team. If we had a swimming pool, I'm
fairly certain he would have excelled there as well. He was also the
odds-on favorite for valedictorian. He had been the Homecoming King,
almost unanimously, and was generally regarded as the most popular
person in the school. All in all, he was a walking propaganda poster
for the Red Blooded American Boy Next Door, Leader of Tomorrow
stereotype we've all seen portrayed but rarely if ever see in real
life. He was so damned impressive that in my weaker moments, he made
my teeth hurt. Fortunately, I was used to him.
He was big. At least 6'4" and weighing exactly 200 pounds. He always
weighed exactly 200 pounds. Always in perfect physical shape, he
probably didn't have more than 10% body fat. Although Sean and I were
as close as brothers were, there was little 'family' resemblance. He
was three inches taller than I was, even when I remembered to stand up
straight. And where his 200 pounds was all muscle, my 225 pounds was
built much lower to the ground and covered with a layer of padding.
He was the bodybuilder, while I was the power lifter. A luxurious
crop of dark black hair topped his head, while I knew, simply by
looking at my family line, the dirty blond hair I had wouldn't stay
with me for much longer. His eyes were bright and green. Mine were
gray and a little spooky. I think it was our noses that distinguished
us far more than any other feature, however. His was straight and
proud. Mine, on the other hand, had a curious bump right at the
bridge and a distinct, albeit slight, bend to the right. I believe
that Sean looked upon that nose as his first, and possibly finest,
work of art.
Like all adolescent boys, we were occasionally given to brief
but violent disagreements. And, on one particular day in the summer
of our 10th year, Sean had the audacity to play Godzilla to my
carefully constructed city of Matchbox cars. Naturally I was appalled
and went up to do battle upon the evil invader. Unfortunately, if you
watch all of those old monster movies, Godzilla had a nasty habit of
beating the hell out of whichever forces offered up resistance to his
brutal attack. And so it was with this all to brief battle. One
swift swing and I was lying on my ass, with blood gushing from my
nose. I truly think that Sean was even more surprised than I was. He
stood there, with his mouth open in astonishment. This of course,
gave me the opportunity I needed. I slowly clambered to my feet, and
quite deliberately booted him between the legs as hard as I could.
Once my nose had been set, and his swelling had gone down, our parents
forced us back together to apologize to each other. Although now that
I think back upon it, there seemed to be some snickering going on
behind their stern faces. Within two weeks, we were back destroying
Tokyo together. We'd been best friends throughout school. We weren't
'buddies' anymore, since he had his own social groups and obligations,
as did I. But it didn't matter. We may not hang out together much
anymore, but we were still best friends.
Sean was everything everyone thought he was. And more. You
see, Sean was, as far as I knew for certain, the only gay student in
the entire school. Or, as he liked to phrase it in his unguarded
moments "Queer as a three dollar bill." And I was the only one in
school who knew. He showed up one-day last fall with a strange,
stressed look on his face. Over the next couple of hours, he
eventually told me the story. He had just broken up with his first
serious lover, a freshman from the nearby college. Apparently, his ex
was going through a bout of latent heterosexuality. He was pretty
broken up about it, and needed to talk with someone. And I had been
elected. I asked him why, even though I knew the reason before I
asked.
"You're the only person who I knew wouldn't freak out." That
was true. My dad's sister had come out of the closet a year before
and he had seen, first hand my family's reaction. His revelation had
been surprising but not exactly a shock. I can't say why, other than
knowing that he was gay didn't make much of a difference to me. He
was still the same guy that I had grown up with; the only difference
that I could see was that we probably wouldn't be going out to a strip
club on my 21 birthday. No big loss. After that first discussion
last summer, we'd been almost as close as we were when we were young.
"This your idea, or Jeff's?" I asked over the background
noise as I walked up. It was obvious he was acting as the
protector/guardian down here. A logical choice. He could pick up and
snap virtually anyone in the audience in two without breaking a sweat.
He didn't drink, so the ongoing battle of the livers upstairs wouldn't
interest him in the least.
"Mine, and his," he replied. "I wandered down about an hour
ago, right after the first video went on. I let Jeff know what was
going on, and he asked if I could sort of keep an eye on things down
here. He's going to send someone down to give me a break eventually."
He laughed and continued, "He even gave me the remote, so I could
're-run any of the parts I really liked.'" He rolled his eyes in
conclusion.
"Oh, you poor thing," I laughed. I turned to take in the
screen for a moment, and was immediately glad I hadn't been paying
attention in the first place. Filled with women in their thirties
desperately trying to like teenagers and skinny guys wearing black
socks and outlandish sideburns, you could tell in seconds that it
wasn't one of the more flattering examples of adult movies.
"Any news?" I asked.
"Yeah, actually," he replied. He was trying to be clever. I
hated that. He had applied to over a dozen schools from Penn State to
Harvard. Although he was a shoe-in for almost any school he choose,
he was waiting for the final word on financial aid before making his
decision. Unlike my parents, his were in no position to pay for 4
years of college out of pocket, and he didn't want to take an athletic
scholarship as anything but a last resort. Although he looked like
the quintessential jock, sports had always been a tool to get where he
wanted to go; they were a means to and end, not an end in and of
themselves.
In the end, the choices had come down to Oberlin College, and
Penn State. As of the day before, Penn State was in the lead, since
they had come across with an athletic and an academic scholarship,
which when combined would put him through school. Oberlin, which was
his preferred choice, had proven reluctant to offer more than a
partial academic scholarship. They had offered to close the gap with
low interest student loans, but Sean was loath to take on debt when he
had an alternative close at hand.
He just sat there looking smug, until I broke down and asked,
"OK, fine, what is the news?" I really hated it when he started
playing these games. I think he did it just to annoy me. I know I
did the same thing to him. He knew exactly why I was so damned
curious. He might end up going to Penn State with me, and while we
wouldn't exactly be roomies, it would still be nice having a friend
like him around.
He finally relented. "Oberlin came through," he said. His
face lit in a huge smile. "It means an on campus job, but, shit,
that's not going to be a big deal."
I was happy for him, and told him so. I was also just a
little disappointed, which I didn't mention. "Anything interesting
going on around here? I've only been here a half hour and it's
already getting old."
"Not really. If I hadn't already told Jeff I'd stick around
to help make sure everything stays under control, I'd probably bail."
He paused and seemed to wrestle with something. "Karen's floating
around somewhere," he said neutrally.
"Oh shit." It wasn't bad news, but it wasn't exactly welcome
news either. Karen Russell was the one person in the school who could
probably have gotten me to engage in all those "useless tribal
rituals". She was the perfect complement to Sean. She was just as
good looking as he was, had been voted Homecoming Queen by
proclamation, and was one of the two or three other students who
actually had a chance to beat Sean out for valedictorian. If life had
been a bedtime story, they would have fallen in love in Junior High
and married right out of college and gone on to live happily ever
after. So much for happily ever after. Had I been less of an
egotistical son of a bitch, between the two of them, I would have
ended up working up a nice inferiority complex. Karen was the
'someone else' that Melissa had asked about. But, I could recognize
the way she felt about me. And I had been able to bury my feelings
for her almost completely. Certainly better than I had contained my
feelings for Melissa, but then again, I didn't have to see Melissa
every single day, and know that she was out of reach. For most of
high school, Sean, Karen and I had been mixed up in some sort of
twisted triangle. It went something like: boy one likes girl, girl
likes boy two, boy two isn't interested in girl, girl goes and cries
on boy one's shoulder calling him "a great friend", which sends boy
one into convulsions of frustration. I think what caused the biggest
problem wasn't the fact that Sean wasn't interested, but that Karen
had no idea why he wasn't. If he had explained why, she probably
could have handled it, or at least that was my opinion. I had
mentioned it to Sean, and he agreed, at least in theory. But then
again, it wasn't my ass hanging in the breeze if she decided to
confound both of us and get vindictive.
"You know she applied to Oberlin too, don't you?" I said.
This could be a tremendous complication.
"Yup, as well as Penn State, Princeton and UCLA. And as far
as I've heard, she was accepted at all of them."
"Shit, shit, shit." I was running out of intelligent things
to say. "You're going to have to tell her. Or something ugly is
going to happen when you get there."
"I can't! You know what would happen if she went ballistic."
"I know. I know. Shit." It was rapidly becoming a staple of my
vocabulary. "But she has to know what's going on. If she hasn't
already started the paperwork, she's got a chance to decide on
somewhere else to go. If she gets there, and finds out do you think
she's going to react any better?
"Oberlin's deadline is in less than a week. She's got a right
to know what the hell is going on!"
Sean closed his eyes and thought about it. I could see him
wrestle with the decision. It wasn't exactly fair to brace him about
it in these circumstances, but Karen deserved the chance to avoid the
situation if at all possible. If she found out that Sean was gay by
watching him walk across the quad holding hands with another guy, I
doubted it would enhance the rest of her academic year. "I'll tell
you what, Sean. I'll tell her. That way, if she does go ballistic, I
can tell her that I made the story up, just to get into bed with her."
That made me stick to my stomach, but I was ready to do it.
"What? No fucking way. She'd hate you." Sean was the only
person I'd ever talked to about her. Considering the situation, it
was only fair. Why should I be the only one who choked on the
delicious irony? "Better me than you, Chief." I tried to grin, but
it didn't exactly work.
"Why?"
"Think about it, Sean. You're parents aren't exactly ready to
learn about this are they? How do you think it would go over if
someone called them in the middle of the night and told them
'anonymously'? Look, she'd be pissed at me, but she'd get over it.
Eventually. And anyway, I don't even think we'll have to worry about
it." Boy, I could talk a good game, but the prospect of actually
lying to her about this, even to protect Sean, had me weak in the
knees. I can lie with the best of them, truly. But not about this.
It would be a helluva feat to pull off.
"You're nuts, you know that, don't you?"
"Yeah, but let's see them try and prove it in court," I
grinned as I replied. "OK. I'm going to try and find her in this
mess. Do you have any clue where she is?" It wasn't going to be fun
weaving through the crush of people trying to find Karen. He gave me
a grim look and jerked his head towards the front of the room. I
turned to look and noticed for the first time that the room had a
sliding glass door that looked to lead out onto some sort of patio. I
could make out some people sitting out there, but it was too dark to
get a count or tell who they were.
"She went out there about 15 minutes ago, right before you
came down," he said.
"All right... I'll go see what I can do." Since giving him a
hug probably wouldn't have gone over well in front of the drunken
horde, we grasped hands before I headed towards what felt like my
impending doom.
Chapter 10
I carefully threaded my way through the crowded room, stepping
around and over the people who had filled up the floor when the
couches ran out of room. No one really paid much attention to me,
their attention was locked on the pumping bodies up on the screen. I
was used to it. For all my physical bulk, I didn't stand out the way
Sean did. And I'd been playing the fringes of high school society for
so long that it was normal.
I finally made it to the door and slid the door open. Cool
clear air, devoid of the smoke and smell of spilled beer and too many
people spilled in as I hurried through the doorway. It was a beautiful
evening in early June, with a sliver of the moon burning brightly just
above the horizon in the clear sky. That made me feel a little better
at least. It was what Chinese Mythology called the Dragon Moon, and
it had always seemed to be lucky for me. Or at least, nothing
horrendous had ever happened on a night of the Dragon Moon. But then
again, there's a first time for everything.
I stepped aside from the door and waited for my eyes to adjust
to the relative darkness. Someone had lit a few candles and spread
them around the patio. They had the funny citrus smell of citronella,
something to help keep the bugs away. Four or five people were
grouped around one of the larger tables, passing around a pipe, which
probably helped keep the bugs away as well. From the red glow I
recognized Jimmy Spence. After glancing up and catching my eye he
waved me over, I shook my head and kept looking. I was tempted, but
getting through this was going to be tough enough, and being stoned
wasn't going to add to the experience. If it blew up in my face,
however, I resolved to go back and inhale until I passed out form
anoxia.
It was much quieter out on the patio. I could still hear the
party, of course, but it was a much lower, more muted sound. I could
feel the vibrations more than actually hearing it. I looked around
and made out the shape of a couple of people passed out in the chaise
lounges. Smiling to myself, I thought they were going to be in for a
chilly night if no one thought to wake them. Oh well, they'd survive.
I finally saw her sitting on the very edge of the patio. She
had dragged one of the wrought iron chairs away from the nearest table
and sat on it, staring out into the night. I walked up behind her and
crouched down. "Want some company?" I asked cautiously.
"Sure," she said turning and smiling up at me. "Grab a chair." She
motioned over to the table where she had gotten hers. When I looked
at her face, I knew this was going to be even more difficult than I
had thought. She was so beautiful sitting there. The bright slice of
the moon cast enough of its special light to make her light skin
almost glow and the warm flickering glow of the candles were caught in
blond highlights in her hair. There are times that being a 'good
friend' really sucks canal water. Love Canal Water, to be precise.
But I knew what I had to do. Or at least I thought I knew. I heaved
myself to my feet, walked back to the table and returned with another
chair.
"Did you talk to Sean?" I hadn't even gotten into my seat
before she asked.
"Yeah, he told me the news," I answered guardedly. "I think
he's going to take the offer. He doesn't really have much desire to
play football if he doesn't have to."
"Well, you should know." She laughed mirthlessly, "So,
weren't the two of you going to be going to school, together?" She
asked with a narrowing of her eyes.
There was something seriously wrong here. "We were thinking
about it. What about you, have you decided where you're going?" I
felt like I was dancing in a minefield. It wasn't something that I was
used to doing. Karen and I had always been able to say almost
anything to each other, and now something had changed. I was not
happy.
"Well," she snapped, "I thought I knew where I wanted to go. But now
I'm not so sure." She jerked her head around and glared at me, and
there was pain in her eyes.
"What's wro-"
"You know, I always thought of myself as a pretty good judge
of people. Even back then, I always thought we could tell each other
everything." Uh-oh. This was bad; this was very, very bad. "I
couldn't figure it out for the longest time. It never made any sense.
Until tonight. Tonight when I came downstairs to see Sean, there was
something wrong. Everyone else in the room was at least interested in
what was on the screen."
"Oh shit." It just slipped out, because I had finally figured
out what was going on. Or so I thought.
"That's right. Even if they weren't staring at the screen,
they'd still look to see what was going on. Everyone except Sean.
And then it all started to fit together. Why he's never been
interested in me. I've been after him since junior high." My eyes
widened in surprise at this revelation. "No, I didn't tell you. It's
only lately that I stopped being... subtle. And never once did he
show even the slightest interest. At first I thought he wanted to
date one of the older girls, a senior or something, instead of someone
his age, back when we were freshmen. I thought that for a long time.
Then I thought it was me... that there was something wrong with me.
Over the last couple of months I'd finally managed to realize that it
wasn't going to happen. But it didn't make any sense!
"And now I finally realized what was going on." She paused
and then went on in a rush, "It was killing me, and you knew it! You
could have told me, you bastard! But you decided to let me make an
ass of myself for your amusement." At some point, she had started to
cry. Her voice was still steady, but there were tears running down
her cheeks. "I hate you for that," she trailed off, starting to sob.
"Karen, don't you think I wanted to tell you? But I couldn't. I
spent hours trying to convince him to tell you himself. He was too
scared of what might happen. Can you imagine what this place would be
like if people found out? Hell, the only other people that know are
my parents."
"You told your parents, but you couldn't tell me, even when
you knew what it was doing to me?" she raged quietly. "You evil
bastard. I hate you! I hate you!" She turned in her chair and
started swinging at me as she kept repeating it over and over and
over. She was a helluva lot stronger than her small frame would lead
you to believe, and some of those punches hurt. I grabbed her wrists
and held them tight. She stopped struggling after a moment and sat
back sobbing. I looked around to see if anyone had noticed what had
gone on. The other people were at least 30 feet away, and were far to
involved in packing the bowl and passing the smoke to have realized
what was going on.
"You can let me go now," she said quietly between the sobs. I
released her and sat back to try and collect my thoughts and figure
out what to do next.
"And, for your information, Karen, I didn't tell my parents.
Sean did. He asked me if they would be able to handle it, and I told
him that they would. It was his decision, not mine." I felt like
shit. Karen was hurting, badly. And I was the one, who caused it.
She didn't seem to blame Sean for being gay, which was a relief. But
she did blame me for not trusting her enough to tell her. Which hurt.
"Whatever." That wasn't terribly encouraging. "Whatever. I just
hope the two of you will be happy together," she said with her eyes
burning.
"Hey, it's not like we don't know each oth..er." I trailed
off. And it finally hit me. OK, so I'm not particularly fast on the
uptake. Particularly when it came to interacting with other people.
I may have been the most socially graceful of the "Weirdo Geniuses"
running around the school, but hell that doesn't really mean much,
does it? In the Kingdom of the Blind, the one-eyed man is King. When
I finally realized what she was saying, and thinking I sat back in
complete astonishment. And then I did something I probably shouldn't
have done. I laughed. I tend to do that at the most inopportune
times. I couldn't help myself. Maybe I should have been insulted,
she obviously thought I was gay too. She watched me go through this
in total confusion. My reaction was so unexpected that even the tears
stopped. At least for her. I was laughing so hard that I started to
cry. My outburst only lasted a few minutes. "You thought I was..." I
said gasping. "That Sean and I..." I caught my breath and finally
regained my senses. Fortunately I had been smart enough to keep the
gales of laughter somewhat muted. "I hate to burst your balloon, but
Sean is gay, not me. He's my friend, not my lover." As I ran through
it, I thought about how Sean was going to react when he heard the
news. That would be a good one.
"But I thought... I mean, I just assumed," Karen mumbled.
She bent her head down and it seemed as though she was starting on
another round of sobs. After only a few seconds, however, I realized
that she was laughing almost as hard as I had been. "I'm sorry, but
it made sense. It was the only thing I could think of that made
sense. You never date, I've never seen you with a girl and you even
turned down Kristine when she asked you to go to the prom! I just
thought..." She trailed off in another burst of relieved giggles.
"That's why I couldn't tell you! If we were lovers, then I could have
told you, because it would have been my secret as well. But I didn't
have the right to tell his secret, no matter that I thought you
deserved to know! He didn't want to tell me in the first place, and
I'm his best friend."
"You're not gay?" she giggled under her breath.
"Surprise," I said quietly. "You know, this is why I came out looking
for you tonight. I talked to Sean and finally convinced him that you
needed to know... And look what happened." I let loose a big sigh,
"I finally convinced him, and you had already figured it out."
"What made him change his mind?"
"I was worried about you. I knew you had applied to some, if
not all, of the same schools he did. How would you like to find out
about him because you saw him walking through the quad, hand in hand
with his new lover?"
"Ouch." She winced at the idea.
"Exactly. At least tonight, you had someone to beat on," I
said with a rueful grin.
"I'm so sorry!" She exclaimed. "I was just so mad..." I
caught her hand in mine and gave it a quick squeeze. "It's all right.
I don't blame you, I think I had it coming for a while. I should have
convinced him to tell you long before tonight. And if that failed, I
should have beat the hell out of him until he agreed," I said with a
smirk.
I took a deep breath. "So, do you still hate me?" "No! Of
course not. I was just so mad. Now that I know I was right about
Sean, it's actually not that big a deal." I let loose an explosive
breath of relief. "You were really worried about that?" she asked in
some surprise.
"No," I answered quickly. "Not really. I knew you'd handle
it, but still. There's a lot of damage you could do if you decided to
become vindictive. He's not ready to come out of the closet yet. Not
here, at least."
"Finding out he's gay isn't that big a deal. It didn't
actually hurt that much and at least now I know that it wasn't me!"
She smiled briefly. "That wasn't why I was so upset." She paused,
and it looked like she was searching for words. "I actually realized
that he was gay, and then my mind went through and filled in the
details, they were the wrong ones, but they seemed to explain so much.
And that's when things started to go to pieces." Her eyes gleamed in
the darkness. "I was so mad at you both. I thought you had stood
there and let me go along, while the two of you sat and laughed."
"Never happen," I said intently. I reached out my hand and laid it
aside her cheek, gently forcing her face around to look at me again.
"I'll be here forever and a day. One way or another." I wiped the
tear tracks from her cheeks and noticed for the first time that my
hand was trembling, and jerked my hand back. I had been in love
with Karen for so long that I had gotten quite good at controlling
myself when I was around her. I could listen to her describe the
details of her latest date without wanting to run screaming into the
hills from frustration. But this was overwhelming me.
"In any case," I stammered, "I'm not gay." I gave a nervous grin.
"Feel better now?" Yeah, it was stupid and inane. But I had to get
the conversation off of this topic or I was probably going to
embarrass myself even further. And then something went 'CLICK' in my
head. "Wait a minute! You knew I wasn't gay! All right, maybe you
could have thought I was bi," I allowed. "But I told you about what
happened last summer." Sean and Karen had gotten fairly accurate
versions of what had gone on at camp the previous summer. The only
thing that I had glossed over was the intensity of my feelings. I
couldn't very well tell them what I didn't know myself. Her face took
on a faintly surprised look, well it had been going around most of the
night.
"Oh, that." She didn't seem too pleased that I had brought it up.
"Well, umm, to tell you the truth, it wasn't all that hard for me to
convince myself that you were just making that up. You know, to save
face?"
Apparently, my face spoke volumes. "Come on, Dave. A girl at
camp? An older college girl? Could it be any more of a cliché?" Part
of me was could understand. When she said it like that, it did sound
a little... contrived.
"I don't know what bothers me more," I said. "The fact that you
thought I could lie to you like that, or the fact that you thought I
was that bad a liar." Only part of me could understand. Another part
was fuming. "I can't believe thought that I would concern myself with
'saving face' in front of you. Especially about something so fucking
trivial." Until that point, I had either been scared or relieved.
For the first time in the discussion, I was mad. And she knew it.
We were quiet for a few minutes while I calmed down. It was a
stupid thing to get that upset over, and I knew it. Eventually, I
reached out and squeezed her hand, and flashed a quick smile. It's
the smile that you give to someone to smooth things over, the one that
says 'Don't worry, it's no big deal.' She wasn't convinced either,
but she was smart enough to let it lay.
"I do have a question, though," she said.
"I've probably got an answer."
"If you're not gay, why haven't you ever made a pass at me?
That's part of the reason I thought that you and Sean... All this
time, you never made a pass at me, you never asked me out, nothing..."
Oh shit. I had buried these feelings a long time ago, and I really
wasn't in any mood to have an autopsy. I waited a long time before
answering her question, hoping that she'd realize I didn't really want
to and withdraw it. No such luck, she wanted an answer and, by God,
she was going to get it.
"What would you have done if I had?" Maybe I could still
finesse my way around this one.
She took just as long to answer my question, as I had to
answer hers. "I don't know."
I had a chance, depending on how the next round went. "And,
no matter how you reacted, you never would have looked at me the same
way again, would you?" She hesitated, not wanting to say the obvious
answer. "Would you?" I pressed.
"No," she admitted grudgingly. "It would have confused the
hell out of me, I guess. Especially with the way I felt about Sean.
It probably would have freaked me out."
"Exactly. I've known how you felt about Sean for a long
time." I laughed, "Maybe not since junior high, but long enough. And
it wasn't hard to figure out how you'd react, even if I didn't wind up
with a slap across my face." I took her hand and squeezed it tight.
"I'm so sorry..." she tried to apologize again.
"Shhh," I interrupted her before she could get started. "I
know. It really is all right. From your point, it was
understandable. I don't blame you for it. It just surprised me,
that's all. I mean, imagine one of your best friends thinking your
gay. It's a bit of a shock to the system." I managed to grin and
keep it lighthearted. I was even rewarded by another giggle. It was
wonderful to make her laugh again.
"Thanks Dave," she said.
"Thanks? For what?" I was confused again.
"For coming out here to talk to me. For convincing Sean to
tell me what was going on. You guys could have just ignored things
and let me go on the way I was."
I tried to shrug it off. "It was the right thing to do, you
deserved to know. And, although I didn't know it before, there is no
way that I could have let you go on, the way you were. Not after I
knew what it was doing to you."
She reached across and gave me a hug, a nice tight one. It
felt good. I knew that whatever might have happened tonight, disaster
had been averted for the moment. It also seemed like a good time to
make a graceful exit. No sense in tempting fate. The feelings that,
just a few moments ago, I thought were so well buried were threatening
to break out of their confinement. Things were weird enough right now
without that added baggage.
"Karen, are you okay now?" I wanted to make sure things were
back on an even keel before slinking away.
She nodded and murmured, "Yes, I think I'm all right now."
I pulled back and looked into her eyes, "Sure?"
"Uh-huh."
She seemed more together. More like what I was used to
seeing, without the guarded hostility that was so evident just a few
moments before. There was also something else. Something I should
have noticed. But, it had been a rough night and I wasn't as attuned
as I should have been. "All right, I think I'm going to take off.
This really isn't exactly my thing. Allen and James dragged me here
tonight. Well, you know what I meant," I finished, in reaction to the
questioning look on her face. "Give me a call tomorrow, okay?" She
nodded a little vaguely and I pulled away. I grabbed the chair I had
been sitting on and carried it back to the table. She joined me and
we walked back into the house. We stopped to talk to Sean for a
moment, letting him know what had gone on. His reaction was almost as
good as mine must have been. Sean and Karen hugged, to show there
were no hard feelings. Although I think Karen was still hurt by what
had happened, she wasn't going to be petty about it. She understood
why, she just didn't like it. I said goodbye to Sean, promising to
talk to him the next day, as did Karen. I knew they had a lot more to
talk about, but the middle of the party probably wasn't the best arena
in which to air that discussion.
I headed up the stairs, somewhat surprised to find that Karen
was following close behind. I figured she had decided to circulate
upstairs and dismissed it from my mind. It wasn't my first mistake of
the evening, but definitely one of the larger ones. There were even
more people crammed into the house than when I had arrived. Leaving
now was a good choice. If I was jammed in here for very long, I was
going to go very nuts, very quickly. Making my way through the crush
in the dining room, I glanced back and saw that Karen was still there.
I reached back and she took my hand. We slowly pressed through the
people, eventually making to the front door. The front porch was only
a little quieter than inside, and I had to raise my voice to be heard.
"Are you leaving too?" I almost shouted.
She shrugged and brought her face close to mine, "It depends."
"On what?"
"On this," she said and pressed her lips to mine. Everything
seemed to fade away. My heart was like a trip hammer in my chest.
This was the moment that I'd been waiting to have for six years. It
seemed to go on forever. Our lips met and danced together, sliding
against each other, questing and tasting. I felt myself getting light
headed. At first it I thought it was simply an overdose of hormones,
but it got worse and worse. I finally realized what was happening. I
was so totally focused on the sensations that I actually stopped
breathing. I forced myself to break away, my only other option was
fainting, and that probably wouldn't have been a good choice. In
retrospect, perhaps it would have.
I pulled away, gasping to recover my breath. There were spots before
my eyes, and I could barely stand on wobbly knees. And then something
clicked, I actually realized what had just happened. For years, I've
been on the outside looking in. After she started chasing Sean, I
started to pull back. I started to bury that stuff, down deep where I
thought they'd be safe, somewhere where they couldn't hurt me anymore.
And then I met Melissa. For the first time, I realized that I could
love someone else and the world wouldn't come crashing down around me.
All of a sudden, all those emotions came storming to the surface. But
they were mixed up with my feelings for Melissa. Like some goddamn
witch's brew, bubbling and percolating through my fucking head. I did
what any red-blooded American coward would do. I ran. I did not pass
'GO'; I did not collect two hundred dollars. I just ran. I was in
the car and pulling out of the driveway inside of a minute, leaving
Karen standing on the porch with a look of shock that quickly faded to
indignation. There was going to be hell to pay, at some point in the
very near future, but at that point, I had to get out.
Chapter 11
The drive had been an adventure, but I'd made it up here to my
own little spot on top of the hill. And I still wasn't any closer to
figuring things out than when I initiated my inglorious retreat a
couple of hours ago. I had never been as happy as those months with
Melissa last summer, but tonight had cast everything in a different
light. It hadn't been the fear of 'cheating' on Melissa that had sent
me screaming into the night, figuratively if not literally. It had
been the implications of what had happened between Karen and I, and
what it meant for the future, be it long or short term. Melissa and I
had exchanged no promises, no vows, both of us realizing that was a
little premature, considering the situation. It might have been nice
to promise eternal love and fidelity, but we were both too smart and
pragmatic to fall into that trap.
No, the events of tonight and my less that impressive reaction
to them had nothing to do with Melissa, not directly at least. No, I
realized that I had done this to myself. It stemmed from years of
adolescent schoolboy fantasies, which I managed to find a way to bury,
but no exorcise. Holding them at arm's length didn't seem to be a
viable option anymore, but I hadn't been able to come up with an
alternative yet.
The flash of headlights playing over my face interrupted my
unproductive musings. I hadn't even noticed the car pulling up in
front of me, and I wasn't pleased. Just about the last thing that I
needed was company. The headlights went out and I could recognize
Sean's beat up old truck sitting there. Sean I could handle, although
why he thought I'd be here was a bit of a mystery to me. It slowly
dawned on me how he knew when I realized that there were two figures
in the truck, and I was afraid I knew who the other one was. Sean got
out and walked between the cars sitting nose to nose, and came over to
my window. I rolled it down and waited resignedly.
"Heard there was a little adventure out on the front porch tonight."
He certainly didn't waste any time. Then again, we knew each other
far to well to have to engage in verbal fencing for anything other
than our amusement. And this was definitely not the right time.
"Uh, yeah, you could say that," I managed. "Let me guess, Karen?"
"Got it in one. She said the two of you have unfinished business and
wanted me to give her a ride to your place." He rolled his eyes and
continued, "Once she told me what had happened, I figured you'd be
here, instead of home."
"Gee, thanks," I said dryly. "You couldn't have played dumb
just this once, could you?"
It was a joke, mostly, but he answered seriously anyway. "No,
actually, not this time. I think the two of you need to talk, at the
very least."
The tone of his voice told me more than his words. "Oh no."
"Exactly. She's not that drunk, but she was on her way." He paused
thoughtfully. "And I don't think it would have been good to have her
drunk off her ass in the middle of that part, not with everything that
went down tonight," he finished meaningfully.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah... I know." He was right, and that was the bitch
of it. Things had been going along just fine until I screwed things
up and it was up to me to put them right again. But I didn't have to
like it, and I didn't.
He slapped my shoulder and walked back to the truck, stopping
at the passenger door. Karen got out, and they spoke for a moment.
Exchanging a hug and kiss on the cheek, she headed to my car while
Sean climbed into the truck and pulled out.
His horn sounded as he passed and I watched his tail lights
disappear down the hill. The car door opened and Karen slipped in on
the other side of the front seat. I had cursed that huge bench seat
earlier in the evening, while trying to take those turns at 70 miles
an hour, but at the moment, that wide expanse of ugly brown vinyl was
a huge comfort to me. The silence stretched out between us. Even
though 'we needed to talk' neither of us was anxious to be the first
one to speak.
Finally, after what seemed like an hour of nothing but the
sounds of the night wafting in through the open windows, she broke the
silence. "I thought you said you weren't gay." As an opening gambit
went, it wasn't bad.
"I'm not," I sighed. "I promise."
"Then what the hell were you doing?" Her voice was flat and
more than a little hostile. "Was the kiss that bad?"
"Hardly. Let's just say that it was a little more than I
expected. Okay?"
"No, it's not okay." She paused and took a deep breath. "I
finally figured out why Sean isn't interested in me, and now this
happens. It's not fair!"
I had no idea how to reply. I didn't think the idea of
proclaiming my love, as much of a relief as it would be, wasn't really
an option. No matter what had happened on the porch, I was still
pretty certain that she didn't feel the same way about me.
She was impatient, as usual, and decided to prod things along
in her own, inimitable way. She flowed up against me, her lips
pressing against mine as her tongue slipped into my mouth. I did what
I could to keep up. Apparently, it was enough.
"Wow," she murmured. Obviously, she recovered faster than I
did. Well, that's fair, she wasn't taken by surprise. All I could do
was nod vigorously in mute agreement. "I guess she did teach you a
few things," she said a little archly. Another warning sign missed.
"Are you going to run away this time?"
"Mmmmm, I doubt it."
"You know," she drawled slowly, "my parents aren't home
tonight." She smiled a wicked little grin. "They had a banquet in
the city and decided to stay for the night."
Without saying a word, I unwrapped my arms from around her
long enough to get the car started and moving. Keeping one arm on the
steering wheel, I guided the car carefully down the rutted road,
trying to fight the part of my brain that sat in the corner screaming
"Faster, faster, faster!" It was a losing battle.
For her part, Karen didn't seem willing to wait the few
minutes to get to her house. As soon as the last of the gravel road
fell behind us, she moved away slightly, her hand running over the
hard bulge in my pants. I had been hard since the moment the first
kiss had ended and I was actually capable of understanding what had
happened. "You've got it all nice and hard for me, don't you?" she
asked teasingly. Without hesitation, her hands were busy unbuttoning
my pants. She slowly dragged the zipper down, while I slipped my arm
free arm around her shoulders. Spreading my pants apart, she lowered
the elastic band of my underwear down. Released from its confinement,
my cock sprang upright. She emitted a little sigh of pleasure and
gripped it tightly. It wasn't all that large, falling just barely
above 'average', if Kinsey was to be believed. Karen, however, didn't
seem to be too disappointed. After a few seconds of stroking the
shaft, she bent her head and sucked the head into her mouth. The
sensation was startling, to say the least. After a minor bobble, I
got the car under control again and kept going, albeit at a reduced
speed. Thankfully, I hadn't been going very fast in the first place.
She hadn't even twitched when the car had swerved, seemingly
completely absorbed in her task. I managed to find my way back the
twisting roads without killing us in the process, although Karen
wasn't a great deal of help. She seemed intent on playing, her tongue
running over the tip, then sliding her lips down over it in a taut
tight circle. She made little humming noises as she did so, and her
legs flexed rhythmically, which convinced me that she was enjoying it
almost as much as I was.
There was plenty of room between my lap and the steering
wheel, a feature of the huge car that I had heretofore been completely
unappreciative. She shifted positions and showed me, directly, the
folly of my ways. Rolling over so that she lay facing the seat with
her head in my lap, she proceeded to play the tip of her tongue on the
underside of my cock, running it along the length of the shaft from
the glans to my balls. Gasping at the new feeling shooting through my
body, I took a tighter grip on the steering wheel. We were within a
few hundred yards of her driveway, and I didn't want to end up dead in
a ditch when we were so close. I felt like my fingers were making
indentations in the hard plastic, my knuckles white because I was
squeezing so hard.
That last stretch of road before the turn seemed to go on
forever, drawing out in front of me like the hallway in Poltergeist.
There was nothing supernatural about this effect, however, and we
eventually reached our destination. Pulling to a stop in front of the
garage, I didn't know whether to be thankful for arriving safely or to
be disappointed because it was all going to end in a few seconds. I
compromised by simply sagging limply back against the headrest,
completely absorbed in the feelings that were radiating out from my
cock. No sooner had the engine died away, Karen began to get serious
about what she was doing. The sense of play was gone immediately, and
she engulfed me, drawing my entire length into her mouth with
deliberate slowness. Inch by inch it went, and there were far too few
inches for my liking. But she didn't hesitate. When her lips
encircled the base of my cock, she simply reversed herself, raising
her head as slowly as she had lowered it. It felt as if I was on
fire. She pulled her mouth away, replacing it quickly with two agile
hands, that worked together to drive me to the very edge. I knew,
without question, that I wasn't going to last very long and told her
so.
"Oh yes," she said in return. "Cum for me, Dave. Cum for me.
I want to feel it shoot into my mouth. Cum for me. Cum for me. All
hot and sticky..." she trailed off and lowered her head, hovering over
my trembling hips with her mouth wide open. Her hands increased their
tempo, and I felt the muscles in my legs tense, and knew she'd get her
wish in a matter of seconds. When it finally happened, I felt like a
fountain, pulsing jets of semen up into her mouth. As soon as the
first drops hit her mouth, she moaned and dropped her face down
closer, catching ever bit of it. My hips began to buck, and she moved
her head in response, sucking each drop off as it emerged. When the
shudders finally subsided, I was completely drained both literally and
figuratively. At least for the moment. My first ever blowjob and it
had been worth the wait. After tucking things away, I reached into my
pocket and pulled out a cigarette. I really didn't smoke that much,
but at that moment, I truly needed one.
"Mmmmm." She seemed quite peppy, and I hoped she didn't
actually expect an answer yet. It was taking all my strength just to
keep the lighter still enough to light the cigarette. "I'm going to
go inside and get ready. Come downstairs when you're done. You can't
smoke in the house, my parents would freak." Then she was out the
door and walking away towards the house. She stopped after about ten
feet, whirled around and made her way back to the car. She leaned on
the door next to me, dropping down to bring her face level with mine.
I was almost afraid of what was coming next. Sometimes my instincts
are right.
"Thanks for coming back with me tonight. It's really
important, after everything that happened. When I finally realized
about Sean... I didn't know what I was going to do. And then you came
out to talk to me and made everything all right again. And I realized
what I wanted, what I needed. I needed to be with someone tonight."
She swayed a little, and I realized that she was just a little drunker
than she looked. "I'm really glad it's you."
I was starting to get a nice warm feeling; no, it wasn't a
declaration of eternal love, but it was something. And then the duck
fell from the sky and hit me on the head.
"And besides," she giggled. "I really didn't want to go back
and find someone else at the party to fuck, they're all to drunk!"
With that she leaned in to give me a quick kiss on the cheek and
danced back up to the house.
I watched, stunned, as the lights come on as she made her way
slowly through the house. A fuck. All she wanted was a fuck. My
heart was again hammering in my chest, although it was very different
that what I had been feeling even a few moments before. I thought I
was going to throw up. All those dreams that had been raised from the
dead were now dying again, twisting in the wind while she danced
along; completely unaware of the havoc she wreaked. I wanted to get
out of there, as fast as possible and as far away as possible. The
idea of going in there was more than I could handle. The ember of my
cigarette, burning uncomfortably close to my fingers brought me out of
my unpleasant thoughts. I wasn't going to run away again. Not this
time. Maybe I really am that stupid. Maybe I'm just a glutton for
punishment. Maybe it's the only time I'll ever get the chance. And
maybe, just maybe, there's a little tinge of revenge to it. If she
wanted a fuck, maybe I'd be able to give her one that she'd remember
for quite a while.
I just wondered if I could do it. For that matter, I wondered
where she had learned the technique, which I had just experienced.
From what I had heard of the school gossip, none of the guys had been
bragging about having gotten anywhere with her. Although she had been
chasing Sean, she hadn't refrained from dating. She'd worked her way
through most of the 'upper echelon' of guys over the last few years.
Never more than a few dates in a row with any of them, she'd go weeks
before saying 'yes' to the next guy. But none of them, as far as I
was aware, had been able to go any further than a 'make out' session.
She had a reputation as something of a "look but don't touch" kind of
girl. Either the guys were much better at keeping her mouths shut
than I had believed possible or she was getting her tutoring from
other avenues.
I crushed out the cigarette and followed her, somewhat
belatedly, into the house. I walked through the house, moving from
one room to another. In each room, I found a piece of her clothes.
The front hall had her shoes while the living room held her shirt,
draped over one of the overstuffed easy chairs. Her panties were
hanging on the railing on the stairs down to the basement. She didn't
waste time; I had to give her that. There was a dim glow that lit the
foot of the stairs. The basement itself was the standard finished
family room. It even came with a pool table, which stood a few feet
behind the sofa. A floor lamp, situated deep in the corner was the
source of the warm glow I had seen from the head of the stairs.
Eventually, my gaze found its way to Karen, lying languidly on the
couch. Fortunately, it wasn't the first time I'd ever seen a woman
naked, or I may have fainted dead away at the sight. Her black hair
was spread almost like a fan over the pillows. As she lay there, my
eyes played over her body, revealed for the first time, at least to
me. Her breasts were every bit as full and firm as they had seemed
under the fuzzy sweaters that had first captured my attention in
junior high. They had grown since then, but then again, so had I.
Wide dark nipples contrasted sharply from the pale flesh around them,
even in the dim light of the room. She opened her eyes to look at me,
almost in faint surprise.
"I wondered what was keeping you," she breathed. "I had to
start without you." Legs spread slightly, she was keeping both hands
busy, running through the deep triangle of dark hair that covered her
pussy. She swung herself into a half-sitting position on the couch
and opened her legs, giving me a better view. "Like what you see?" I
hoped that was a rhetorical question. "Come over here and show me
what you can do. Show me what you learned."
Damn right, I would. I covered the short space between us
with studied casualness. As far as she was concerned, this was just
another fuck, and she'd never know different, not from me. I leaned
over her and gave her a kiss just as she had given me, searching and
demanding with my mouth. Trailing my tongue down her chin and neck, I
stopped and ran my mouth over her full breasts. They stood up as firm
and proud as eighteen-year-old tits should. Her nipples were
something new, though. They stood out from the areola like two dark
erasers. They were long, hard and appeared to be very sensitive.
Dragging my teeth across them cause her to squirm underneath my
weight.
"Come on, fuck me, Dave. Put your cock in me and fuck me."
She was actually pleading. That brought me up short. I certainly
wasn't ready to start fucking, and I was shocked that she would be, at
this point.
"Are you in a hurry to finish up?" I asked sarcastically.
"If I'm keeping you up late, I can always leave."
"NO! I want you to fuck me! I'm ready for you to fuck me!"
She was almost panting in her eagerness. "I already sucked your cock,
didn't I? What are you waiting for? I want your cock in my cunt,"
she demanded.
Well, that answered at least one of my many questions.
Whomever it was that she had been practicing on, he wasn't very eager
to go down on a woman, the poor bastard. "What am I waiting for?" I
repeated. "I'll show you." I slid down her torso, continuing the
journey I had started before being waylaid by her gorgeous tits. Her
pubic hair was thick and tightly curled, lying in ringlets close to
her skin. She moaned in surprise as I ran my tongue down the length
of her slit for the first time. She tried to utter a half-hearted
protest, but it was quickly smothered by an even stronger moan when I
slid my tongue between her lips. She wasn't kidding about being
ready, either. I could taste the juices that flowed out of her pussy
when my tongue entered. Describing how women taste is a futile
exercise, maybe the most futile anyone can engage in. The closest I
could come to defining her taste was to compare it to Melissa. Where
Melissa was fruity, with an almost citrus taste, Karen was muskier,
reminding me of cinnamon. Suffice to say it was delicious and I
proceeded to enjoy myself. Pulling back the hood to expose her clit,
I brushed my tongue over it lightly.
She actually screamed in reaction to the touch of my tongue.
My head jerked up of its own accord. "What's the matter," I asked
worriedly. I wanted to give her the fuck of her life; that would be
revenge enough for me. I actually had no desire to hurt her. Well,
not much of a desire.
I smothered my grin by burying my face back into her wet
snatch. Now that I knew she was so sensitive, I wanted to be very
careful to start easy and build the intensity slowly. I spread her
tight little lips with my fingers and used my tongue to sweep long
slow strokes over her exposed pussy, sliding my tongue a little deeper
between the lips on each pass. At the top of each stroke, I very
lightly flicked her clit. Each time my tongue touched her clit, she
let another moan out and her hips gave a sharp twitch. If possible,
she was getting even wetter that she was when we started. I could
actually see her fluids running down her swollen pussy, forming tiny
rivulets as they wound their way down the folds of her cunt.
Opening wide, I slid forward and covered all I could with my
mouth, sucking her lips inside and gently nibbling on them. Her hips
strained upwards, following the pull of my mouth. Suddenly, her hips
were bucking wildly. She started screaming in earnest as I sucked
harder and harder at the tender morsel in my mouth. Certainly more
vocal than Melissa, she also seemed much easier to bring to orgasm,
which was going to make my job a lot simpler. The screams put me
rather on edge, until I realized, somewhat sheepishly, that, at least
tonight, we didn't have to worry about being overheard. Although I
hadn't had a great deal of experience, it was clear even to me that
she was cumming. Her body was rigid, touching the couch only enough
to support her head and ass. If she was wet before, suddenly she was
flowing like a river, inundating my mouth with the hot warm evidence
of her orgasm. For a fleeting moment, I thought she had lost control
of her bladder, but the lack of the characteristic odor quickly
overrode my worries. She was just cumming, in buckets. I kept moving
my lips over her, trying to extend the orgasm as long as possible. It
was a heady experience to taste the results of my exertions in such a
direct manner.
Eventually, though, her movements and noises began to slacken,
and I started to slow my ministrations, resuming the long gentle
strokes along her now sodden slit. All that, without ever really
working on her clit, and in such a short time. Collapsing back onto
the couch, she opened her eyes and pulled me, by my hair, up along her
body. I began to tease her with kisses. Brushing my lips along hers,
letting her tongue catch my lips for a second, then pulling away. It
was enough to start her moaning in frustration.
"Kiss me, damnit. I can smell my cum on you. I want to taste
it. Let me taste my cum."
Well, now that I knew she wanted it that bad... I kept
teasing her, staying close let her get a good taste every so often.
Even with all the teasing, it didn't take her long to clean every last
drop from my face. I rolled over to recline next to her on the couch.
Leaning on one elbow, I ran my free hand down her body, trailing my
fingers down to her pussy once more. Spreading her lips, I slipped my
finger inside. She immediately pushed her hips up to meet the palm of
my hand. I slid my finger back and forth inside her, drawing it out
until it was just barely resting between her tight little lips.
Pausing for a moment, I drove it back inside her, the palm of my hand
actually slapping into the blistering flesh of her pussy. Her hands
gripped the cushions of the couch, grasping so tightly that her
knuckles actually started to turn white. She spread her legs wide,
draping one over mine as we lay next to each other. For the first
time since I knelt in front of her, I realized that I was still
completely dressed. I hadn't even taken the time to kick off my
shoes.
Karen's moans were growing louder and louder, accompanied by
her bucking hips. She was getting close, again. Releasing her
death-grip on the couch, she covered my hand with hers, forcing my
hand tighter against her and sliding her hips back and forth against
the pressure of my hand. I managed to force my thumb under my palm
and into contact with her clit. As if I had flipped a switch, the
effect was instantaneous. The low throaty moans slid up the register,
ending up as staccato screams of pleasure. She used my hand as a
dildo, timing the strokes to coincide with the thrusts of her hips.
Within seconds of the change, I felt the now expected flood of her
juices leaking past my finger and down her lips once again. I slipped
my hand from under hers, while she continued slowly massaging her
mound. Holding my fingers up to catch the light glistening on her
wetness, I saw her eyes immediately locked onto the sight. I thought
that perhaps it was a good time to find out just how much she did like
the taste of herself. I slowly moved my finger up to her face,
causing her eyes to widen in anticipation.
"Oh, yes," she murmured. "Give it too me... Let me taste my cunt...
My hot sticky cum covering your finger. I want it." She was begging,
almost whimpering under her breath. I had to strain just to hear what
she was saying. I rubbed my finger over her lips, giving her a taste,
but pulling it away whenever she tried to suck it into her mouth.
Each time I drew my finger back, she moaned in frustration and the
quiet begging began again. After repeating this a number of times, it
finally dawned on me that she wasn't trying to turn me on by talking
dirty; she was turning herself on.
Her hands moved faster and faster over her clit as she mumbled
the words to herself over and over again. It became a litany, the
words tumbling over themselves as she spoke faster and faster. At one
point, she apparently licked off all the fragrant residue, and wanted
more. Without missing a beat, she spread the lips of her pussy.
"More, I want more. Give it to me." I could hardly hear her; but
then again, it wasn't very necessary. I could figure out what she
meant without the words. I quickly slipped my hand down, away from
her face and started toying with her spread lips. "Oh yes. Put it in
me. Fuck my cunt with your fingers. Get them nice and sticky for me.
Fuck me... Hot sticky cunt..." It had gone past turning me on, and
had now started to get distracting. She lay there, muttering over and
over to herself. I was starting to feel like a six-foot tall dildo.
But, I intended to try to fulfill all those demands. Her hands were
still holding her apart while she moaned insistently. I pushed first
one finger, then another inside. I could feel that she was even more
relaxed now than when we had started, so I tried slipping one more
finger into her pussy. It went in easily, meeting almost no
resistance from her slick flesh. Bunched tightly together, I moved my
fingers back and for the inside her, sliding around in the wet tunnel.
I pushed into her as deeply as I could go, causing her eyes to roll
back and her moans to grow louder. This time I didn't need to figure
out for myself when she was about to cum, she told me. And anyone
else in the time zone. "Oh yes! I'm cumming, again. Make me cum
again," she urged. Her body bucked back and forth along side me.
"Again, again, again, again..." She finally ground to a halt, her
voice trailing of as her body slowed its shudders. I pulled my
fingers from her, pulling against the suction created by her strong
muscles. When they popped free, they were literally dripping wet.
Slowly moving them up her body, they created a trail of small
droplets, glistening like dew on her pale skin.
I realized that she had done almost all the talking since I'd
come inside, and that was going to change. "Do you want it, all nice
and wet," I asked with a smirk, holding my fingers just out of her
reach. "Come on, Karen, tell me how much you want that hot pussy
juice." I wasn't sure how'd she react, but with what I had seen so
far, it certainly seemed reasonable.
If I had hoped for an effect, I wasn't prepared for what I
got. Her eyes snapped open and stared at me. For almost a minute,
she lay there, her eyes traveled between my face and my fingers
sitting only a few inches from her lips. I thought I had somehow
crossed an unknown line and taken a step into no man's land. My whole
world was knocked off its access with that first kiss tonight, and I
hadn't been able to get it back. Everything had been so unexpected,
so unplanned, so... surprising, this shouldn't have been, and wasn't,
any different. But it felt like I was trying to dance a waltz in the
middle of a minefield.
After the long pause, I expected her to read me the riot act.
Once more, I proved myself to be almost incompetent in judging people,
as though the court needed any more evidence. She closed her eyes
again and started to speak very quietly. "Please, Dave, let me taste
my cum. I want to taste my cunt juices. Please let me have it. I
want it so bad." Her voice had the same almost dreamy quality to it,
still speaking more to herself than anything else. But her eyes told
me that something had changed. They opened again, glittering in the
dim light. She looked at me expectantly. I didn't know if she was
waiting for my fingers or more words. So I gave her both.
"Lick them clean, Karen," I said, sliding one finger into her mouth.
"Lick it nice and clean, baby." She pulled it into her mouth, sucking
it like a miniature dick. She played with it, the same way she had
played with my cock in the car. Pushing the other two wet fingers
between her lips, I filled her mouth. Without hesitating, she took
all three of them and continued sucking greedily. After a few
seconds, I pulled my fingers out, causing her to emit a small moan of
protest.
"What's the matter, Karen?" I taunted. "A little while ago,
you couldn't wait to have my cock inside." Kicking off my shoes, I
unbuttoned my pants and slipped the down while I teased her. Pulling
my shirt over my head, I continued "Don't you want it anymore? Isn't
your hot little cunt ready for it yet?" I knew it was, and she kept
her fingers sliding in and out of it as I talked. "Come on, Karen,
show me how much you love that tasty little cunt. Clean off those
sticky fingers." She hardly needed the encouragement, but as soon as
I uttered the words, her hand was out from between her legs and her
tongue was running over it, trying to lick it clean. While she was
busy, I fumbled in the pile of clothes at my feet, triumphantly
pulling my wallet out, like a rabbit from a magician's hat. Even
though I hadn't run the risk of using it before tonight, I carried a
condom tucked into one of the folds of my wallet. I carry it for the
same reason my dad carries a twenty-dollar bill folded up behind his
driver's license. Just in case. It was a deeply strange feeling,
pulling the little foil wrapper from the circular groove it had worn
into the leather. The lubricant was cold when I rolled it open over
my cock, and it gave me a tiny shiver that ran up the back of my neck.
I stroked myself a couple of times, making sure things were secured
and turned back to Karen.
She was still lying back on the couch, with her fingers in her
mouth, but her eyes were staring at me, apparently entranced by my
preparations. "Oh yeah, come here and fuck me, David. Stick that
gorgeous cock in my hot sticky cunt." She spread her legs as she
talked. Her thighs were shiny from the flood she had unleashed so
far, and the light fabric of the couch highlighted the darkened patch
where her wetness had soaked into the cushion.
Moving in between her thighs, I knelt down and spread her legs as far
apart as I could. "Do you really want this nice hard cock?" I asked,
placing the head between her labia. I grasped the shaft and rubbed it
over the hard nub of her clit. It was just as sensitive now as it had
been before. She jerked at the contact, trying to force her hips down
over my cock.
"Oh god, give it to me, you bastard. I want that cock. I
need it. Fuck my hot little cunt with it. Shove that prick into my
cunt. Fuck me. Fuck me till I scream," she demanded. That shouldn't
be too difficult, considering how easy I had been able to get her to
scream already. I slid the head of my cock down along her slit, from
top to bottom. I pushed my hips forward, running the underside of my
cock between her puffy lips, the thick veins rubbing against her clit
as they went past. "Stick it in me, you fucking bastard," she growled
in frustration.
After teasing her for so long, I was barely able to restrain
myself. I centered the head of my dick on her pussy and plunged into
the warm wet depths for the first time. Although my three fingers
had, only moments before, been stretching her wide, it was warm and
tight, and surrounded me completely. Grinding my hips against hers, I
leaned forward enough to make sure her clit was caught between our
bodies. Her legs wrapped around my back, driving her heels into the
small of my back. She pulled me in with her legs, loosing my balance
I fell forward. Well, I had been considering it anyway. I held
myself up with one arm I while I leaned forward and ran my tongue over
her nipples again. Holding one magnificent tit in my hand, I sucked
on the pointy little knob, dragging my teeth across the pebbly
texture. It was enough to start her on another litany of talking
dirty.
"Suck it. Oh, I love seeing you suck my tits. Fuck me
harder.... Pump my cunt with your cock." I dug my teeth in a little
harder and received a shriek of pleasure for my efforts, as well
additional encouragement. "Oh God, yes. Bite them. Yes. It's so
good. You're cock is so good."
Looking up at her while my mouth was busy on her tits, I saw
that was staring back down at me, apparently intent on what she saw.
Her breasts, although firm, were pliable enough to allow me to pull
them up closer to her face. Right before her eyes, I ran my tongue
over her nipples and dug my teeth in deep enough to cause her eyes to
widen in a combination of surprise and arousal. Arching my body, I
made enough space to slip my hand down between us to her pussy. She
was still soaking. I ran my fingers over the sopping folds of her
lips, getting them nice and wet for what I was planning. I also made
sure to give her hard little clit some attention while I was in the
neighborhood. Unfortunately, well perhaps not 'unfortunately', I gave
it a little too much attention, and she was soon in the throes of yet
another orgasm. It was getting ridiculous, I knew I wasn't that good.
Although I loved every minute of it, I knew that I couldn't let it go
to my head. She was getting off so easily because it was simply the
way she was. Even I could tell that much. But, God, it was a
wonderful spectacle to witness.
I tried to time my thrusts into her with her own motions,
increasing the force with which I entered her. As our bodies slapped
together, I could hear quick little exhalations that were pushed out
of her from the force of the collision. However, I was forced to
remove my hand from her clit. Otherwise, I was risking a broken wrist
from both the contortions I had to go through to reach it and also the
force of the impact of our bodies. I quickly brought my hand up and
rubbed it over her breasts, making sure to smear the juices over her
nipples. She watched me closely as pushed her tit up close to her
face once more, and slowly, slowly lowered my head to lick off the
juices I had deposited there. "Yes, yes... Lick it off my tits. It
looks so sexy like that." Which of course brought to my mind,
something that I thought would look sexy.
"Mmmm, wouldn't you like a nice taste of your pussy right now,
Karen?" I asked tauntingly. "It's so good and sticky." She looked
shocked at what I was insinuating. But it passed quickly from her
face and she leaned her head forward, sticking out her tongue in an
effort to reach the nipple, I held so tantalizingly close. It was
just out of reach. If she strained, she could just barely get the tip
of her tongue to touch that hard little cylinder sticking up from the
surrounding flesh. I could feel that she was easily flexible enough
for me to pull her tits up close enough for her to get a good lick and
perhaps even allow her to get her lips around it. But I wasn't going
to let it happen that easily.
"Come on Karen, tell me how much you want it. Tell me how
much you want to feel this hard little nipple in your mouth. You do
want it, don't you?"
"Give it to me, you prick. I want to suck my tits. I want to
taste my cum. Damn you, David. Give it too me. You're driving me
nuts. I'm so hot. Your cock is so good in my cunt. Please, let me
taste it... let me suck my tit."
Finally relenting, I pushed her tit forward, bringing it
within reach of her greedy little mouth. Initially, she merely
flicked her tongue over it, bringing it in contact with my own. I lay
on top of her, absently sliding my cock in and out of her pussy while
both our tongues traveled over her nipple. I released her breast,
causing her to sigh in disappointment. She had forgotten, however,
that I had already prepared the other one. Bringing it up to her
face, I held back, allowing her to have it to herself. This time,
instead of just her tongue, she was able to get her mouth around it.
As soon as she sucked it up into her mouth, I started to pound into
her pussy with increased speed. Her hands slid beneath mine, nearly
tearing her tit out of my grasp and pulling it even closer to her
face. Deprived of my prize, I straightened up, placing my hands on
her knees and forcing them apart as far as they would go.
It made for an impressive image, one I knew I would carry with
me to the end of my days. Her head bent forward, she paused only long
enough to urge me to pump harder before continuing to suck and bite at
her nipple. I could feel the familiar sensation starting at the base
of my balls. I was amazed I had lasted as long as I had. The
combination of intense concentration, a previous orgasm and the condom
had been just barely enough. If I didn't do something very quickly, I
was going to cum, long before she was finished. It'd be a lousy way
to end a stellar evening. I drove deep into her and held myself,
pressing against her while I wormed my finger down between us to
stimulate her clit one more time. It was enough... just barely. The
bucking of her hips drove me over the edge in a matter of moments, but
the sensitivity of her clit allowed me to bring her right to the
precipice before my body started ignoring what my mind had to say. It
wasn't mind numbing, but it was a good one. The blowjob in the car
probably drained me more than I had realized. Remembering the suction
that had built up with my fingers, I made sure to keep a hold of the
condom when I finally pulled my softening cock out of her. She seemed
to be in a daze, so much so that I was unsure if she realized that I
had cum. I felt a little smug. Hell, I felt very smug. It seemed
that I had done what I had set out to do.
"Karen?" I spoke quietly, leaning over to kiss her one more
time.
She stretched and let loose a long sigh, I hoped it was one of
contentment. "That was great," she murmured.
I smiled back down at her, trying to match her nonchalance. "Yeah, it
wasn't too bad, at that." Standing up, I started to pull on my
clothes, much to her surprise.
"You leaving now?" She asked incredulously.
"Karen," I replied patiently, "your parents are gone for the weekend,
not mine. They expect me home tonight at a decent time. Or I'm
screwed." I smirked at the unintended pun and she smiled as well.
"Besides, I seriously doubt I'd be able to get it up if I had a gun to
my head, not after two in a row." It was one of my weaknesses, I'd
found. I could normally go quite a long time without cumming, but one
orgasm was usually enough to wipe me out for the night. It balanced
out.
"Well, I thought you might want to stay for a while, you know,
just lie here together for a little bit," she finished hopefully.
"No, I don't think so," I said, buttoning up my shirt. "I'm not
really in the mood. Besides, it was just a fuck, right?" Yeah, it
was mean and cruel and underhanded and viscous. But I'm like that
sometimes. And it got my point across. Her eyes widened in surprise
and pain. And then, like watching the sun come up, I saw the
realization dawn across her beautiful face.
I bent over and kissed her quickly. I wasn't about to give
her a chance to start apologizing and drawing all those feelings out
into the daylight. Being with her, in just that way, had allowed me
to bury them, there would be no more questions of 'what if' trailing
along behind me as I lived the rest of my life. "Thanks for tonight,"
I murmured. "It was great." I stood and walked quickly to the foot
of the stairs. "Goodbye, Karen," I called on my way upstairs. There
were a few tears as I drove home alone. It was a huge part of my life
that I had left behind me in that house. After you live with
something that long, the absence of it is painful, even when you know
it has to go. Like an infection that had been excised, it hurt like
hell, but I knew that once it stopped hurting it wouldn't start again.
Chapter 12
When I got home, my parents were, sensibly, in bed. On my
door was a Post-it note, telling me that Melissa had called while I
was out. After the phone bill topped two hundred dollars in calls to
State College in one month, my parents had, somewhat
uncharacteristically, given an ultimatum. Even though I offered to
pay for my own calls, they set a limit of two calls a week. Of
course, they couldn't stop her from calling and, to their credit,
didn't try. I hadn't tried to hide what was going on. I can't say
they were thrilled at the idea of their high school son going out with
a college senior, but they weren't the types to raise a fuss. The
real reason behind the phone limits was to make sure that I didn't
become too withdrawn from my already limited social life. I
understood that, and appreciated the gesture even though I sometimes
chaffed at the strictures. They were hardly in a position to complain
loudly, since my mother was three years older than my dad was. Of
course, they actually waited until they were both in college to meet,
which, to them, made all the difference. I thought it was a fine hair
to split, but since they didn't make an issue of it, neither did I. I
think my father was secretly rooting for me, but he had enough sense
not to mention it in front of my mom.
It was far too late to give her a call tonight, and I wouldn't
be capable of coherent conversation in any case. The night had taken
much, much more out of me than I had expected, not only physically but
emotionally as well. I collapsed into bed, just barely remembering to
set the alarm to get me up early enough to call her in the morning.
Sleep came so quickly I barely had time to close my eyes.
When I talked to Melissa in the morning, I found out that the
surprises weren't over quite yet. Her answering laugh was normal, but
still unfair. She had always had the distasteful habit of being
bouncy and perky, right out of bed. On the other hand, I was
philosophically opposed to mornings on general principle. I could
force myself to function, but the birds were always a little too loud
and1 the sun was always a little too bright for my comfort. "Yeah,
yeah, yeah," I replied to her warm, throaty laugh. "You always did
have a nasty streak in you, sweetie. Have I mentioned how much I
admire that?"
"Of course you have, sport. I wouldn't be the same without
it."
"So what's up? I got the note last night, but I rolled in around two,
so I didn't think I should call."
"Oh really, late night, was it? Gonna tell me what happened?"
"Yeah, I will, but not right now." I wasn't in the mood to play 'Bare
my soul' at eight in the morning.
"Well... um," She sounded completely flustered. "I was
wondering about something. Your classes are over, right? What I mean
is, do you have anything planned for the weekend?"
I thought for a moment. "No, I don't have anything going on
this weekend. Why?" I could see where it was heading and I wasn't
sure if I was ready for it, not after last night.
"Well," she continued nervously, "Stephanie is going home for
the weekend. And I was wondering... I was wondering if you'd like to
come up for a visit. There are a couple of parties going on that we
can go to..." she trailed off.
I turned the possibility over in my mind. It would mean a
confrontation with my parents. This, in truth, meant a confrontation
with my mother. My father wouldn't have a problem. Unfortunately for
me, he was at work and I'd have to clear it with mom before I even got
to that point.
And then I wondered whether I was actually ready to deal with
the situation, considering everything that happened the night before.
I knew I would have to talk to her about it at some point, and it
probably wasn't going to get any easier the longer it went. But I was
scared out of my mind about how she would react. Taking the bit
between my teeth, I told her I'd love to come up, but, in the manner
of teenagers everywhere, I'd have to clear it with my parents first.
I told her I'd call her back in fifteen minutes, before she left for
work.
"I don't have to go to work today," she replied. I could
visualize the smile lighting her face when she told me this piece of
good news. "Toni is going home to her parents this weekend. I don't
have to go in until Tuesday." Toni was the grad student with whom she
was working this summer. If she was going home for the weekend,
there'd be nothing for Melissa to do.
"Better and better," I murmured under my breath. She heard me
and giggled in response. "OK, I'll call you in fifteen minutes
anyway. The screaming should be over by then." It was supposed to be
a joke, but her silence told me that she took it too seriously. "Calm
down, Melissa. I was kidding. She almost never screams at me
anymore."
"You idiot. Don't do that."
"Sorry," I said. "Talk to you in a few."
I hung up, and then prepared myself. To put it bluntly, I
girded up my loins for war, because it was going to be a pitched
battle if ever there was one. I went out in search of my adversary.
Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on one's point of view, she
was easily found. She sat out in the garden, vengefully ripping out
the weeds that encroached on her sacred soil.
"Mom, are we planning anything special this weekend?" It was
the safest opening gambit I could think up. So what if it wasn't
particularly inventive, it got the job done.
"Not that I know of. Why, honey?" She didn't look up, and I
knew I had to be very careful, lest her gaze fall upon me. It has
frozen the hearts of better men than I.
"I just got invited to go away for the weekend," I answered
neutrally. "Think there'd be a problem if I went?"
"Well, where would you be going?"
"Penn State."
She stopped pulling weeds, and turned that baleful gaze on me.
I don't want to give the wrong impression, she was a great mom, and I
considered her not only a parent but a friend as well. But she was
a... forceful personality in the best of times. Right was right and
wrong was wrong, and God help you if you ended up on the wrong side.
She was widely feared among the kids with whom I had grown up. If you
hung around my house at all, and many people did when I was in
elementary school, you would eventually run afoul of one or another of
her rather strongly held beliefs. Eighteen years of close proximity
had burned away most of the terror from me, but most of the others
still got a haunted look in their eye when her name came up. On the
other hand, they all knew that if they were ever in trouble, if they
ever needed anything from a comforting hug to a bed to sleep in, she
was the one to go to, without any doubt. She was force of nature unto
herself.
"And just who would you be staying with?" I could actually
see the venom dripping from the fangs.
I knew better than to answer that question. She was masterful
in laying traps for the unwary. "Mom, you know very well who I'll be
going to see, who I'll be staying with, and why I'll be going."
"That's true enough, David. Now tell me, since you're so good at
telling me what I already know, why should I let you go?"
"Because, Mom," I said carefully, "you know you can trust me not to
engage in any typical teenaged stupidity." Not when I could engage in
some really spectacular stupidity, like last night, instead. I wasn't
in the mood for the ritual fencing that always accompanied these
negotiations. I had turned eighteen two months ago, and although she
really couldn't forbid me from going she could certainly make things
difficult for me if I chose to defy her pronouncements. "And there's
no logical reason not to let me. I'm not going to play the game about
this one, Mom. Either you let me go, or you don't, and you give me a
reason why I'm not allowed."
"You sound just like your father, you know that don't you?"
She sighed.
"I learned from the best, Mom." Carefully and attentively, I
learned, for eighteen years. "Well?"
"You can go. When are you coming back?"
"Probably Sunday night or Monday. She had Monday off," I said
by way of explanation.
"When are we going to get to meet her?" Mom asked. "Mom!
You've already met her! You've met her twice already. At
Thanksgiving both of the last two years!"
"I know, but some things are traditional. You're supposed to
bring your new girlfriend home to meet your parents."
"She's not my girlfriend, Mom." I paused to consider things. "At
least not yet. That's part of what this is about."
"All right. If you say so." She turned back to her holy war on the
invading weeds, muttering under her breath. Any time I could cause
her to talk to herself, I had to count it as a win. I hurried back to
the house and grabbed the phone. I was a few minutes early, but I
doubted she'd be upset. She wasn't. I had to get some directions, my
only experience with the State College having been one school trip in
the eighth grade. That taken care of, I asked her when the best time
was for me to show up.
"The sooner the better, babe. It's about a three and a half-hour
drive. When are you going to leave?"
"Ohhh, in about ten minutes, I think. Damn near an eternity.
So, expect me anywhere between, say 10:30 and noon, depending on how
many times I get lost."
"I'll be here, with bells on," she laughed back at me. "See
you in a couple of hours, right?"
"Bank on it, sweetie."
We exchanged good-byes, and hung up. I spent the next eight
minutes running around my bedroom, throwing clothes into a beat-up
overnight bag. After thinking about if for a whole ten seconds, I
also grabbed a suit from my closet. I decided I was going to take her
to a decent dinner, come hell or high water. The closest thing we'd
been able to manage at camp had been fast food on our ritual Saturday
afternoon drive into town. This time-, by God, I was going to take
her to a restaurant that actually had silverware. I had plenty of
cash, since the semester had been very profitable. The fear of making
it through four years of high school and then not graduating because
of failing a single course had caused the money to flow like water
from those who were balancing precariously on the edge.
I carried everything out to the car, and waved goodbye to Mom
who was still committing creative atrocities on the unassuming plant
life. "You're leaving now?" she called in surprise. "I didn't think
you were going to be leaving until this afternoon."
"Yeah, Mom, I'm leaving now. Was there something you needed me to
do?"
"No, but you could have told me."
"You didn't ask that. You asked when I was getting back," I
said carefully.
She tried to give me the Glare, but it didn't work. I could
see her fighting to hold back the laugher. She fought and lost. "OK,
you little shit, get on your way. Have fun." She paused, and I knew
what was coming, "And, David, be careful."
"I always am, Mom." Well, not always, but she didn't really
have to know that, did she?
As I pulled out of the driveway, I checked the fuel gage and
winced. A 26-gallon gas tank is nice when you're driving a long way
and don't want to stop. But it costs an arm and a leg to fill. That
accomplished, and only a few pounds lighter in my wallet, I settled in
behind the steering wheel for the journey. It's amazing how
perceptions can mutate over the course of one drive. The minutes
seemed to take hours as the first few miles fell behind, but the
closer I came, the faster things went. I wasn't exactly sure about
what I was doing. I knew I wanted to see Melissa, more than anything
else in the world. But I was also scared out of my mind. How was she
going to react to what I had to tell her? No, I didn't feel some
irrational urge to confess my sins and receive my penance. I didn't
think I had sinned. At least, not in any sense of the word that I
understood. True, most theology couldn't be stretched to cover what
happened last night, but I had never let that bother me before this.
Besides, that was the Catholic's shtick. Melissa deserved to know
what happened, before we did something she'd regret. It felt like
last night all over again. Going to someone to let them in on a big
secret and then hold my breath and hope things didn't explode. But
this time the secret was mine. And the stakes were much, much higher.
Chapter 13
With summer break in full swing, the campus and town that
surrounds it was all but deserted; though, I certainly couldn't tell
the difference at first. The memories of my one and only previous
trip here were vague at best. We had been having far too much fun
tormenting our faculty chaperone to pay attention to the scenery. The
lack of traffic did allow me to muddle through the streets, tracking
down the correct address. It turned out to be a little bungalow,
looking completely out of place among the older Victorian houses that
seemed to be the norm. The area was obviously dominated by students.
The large houses that lined the streets had four or sometimes five
mailboxes on the front, revealing that had been split up into student
apartments. The alleys behind the houses provided access to the
greatly expanded parking areas. Most of the houses had given up
backyards altogether in favor of concrete or gravel. Melissa's place,
uncharacteristically, still retained a respectable portion of grass on
the postage stamp sized lot. There was just enough room for me to
park the big behemoth next to a VW Bug. That brought a smile to my
face. The prototypical college student's car, right here in the
flesh, so to speak.
I had barely pulled my belongings from the trunk and started
towards the back door when it burst open and Melissa came out at a
dead run, as if propelled from the bore of a cannon. She hadn't
changed much. Her hair was a little different, longer and more styled
instead of being pulled back into the ponytail she habitually wore
when we were at camp. It seemed she had thought up something special
to commemorate things though. She wore the same ivory blouse and
short skirt she had been wearing on our first night together. I
barely had time to wonder if that's all she was wearing before she hit
me. I was smart enough, surprisingly, to drop the bags on my own,
before she launched herself into my arms. As soon as I stopped
rocking from the impact, both literally and figuratively, I felt
something 'click' deep inside. And I knew everything was going to be
all right. It may not be pleasant or easy, but it would be all right.
The feel of her body pressed up against me was distracting, but in a
wonderful way. I could tell, quite easily that, in fact, she wasn't
wearing anything else. I ran my hand down her back and underneath the
thin fabric of her skirt, cupping one cheek of her ass in my hand.
That brought me up short. I shook off the urge that arose from the
feel of her being so close. It was time to talk. And afterwards,
maybe, it would be time for other things.
After a long kiss, she peeled herself away from me and took my
hand. "Come on in side, sport," she urged, damned near yanking me off
balance. I stopped long enough to grab the bag at my feet and then
allowed her to tow me up into the house. It wasn't too bad inside.
It was just as small as it looked, with two bedrooms a kitchen and
dinette area and a living room stuffed inside the white clapboard
exterior. It was a step up from the typical college dorm-room, or
even apartment, but it wasn't luxurious.
Dropping my bag next to the couch, I collapsed into the soft
cushions, relaxing after the long drive. I was trying to think of how
to broach the subject, and I couldn't come up with a decent opening.
Holding with tradition, however, she took things into her own hands.
She sat down on top of me, straddling my legs and unbuttoning my
shirt. I moved my hands up quickly to stop her. "Hang on, Melissa.
Hang on a second."
"No, I don't want to stop. It's been too long." She covered
my lips in tiny quick kisses. "I want you so badly."
As if I didn't feel the same way. It was a losing
proposition, either way, but something inside stopped me. I had to
talk to her about what was going on first, before anything else
happened.
"Melissa, don't you think I want this as much as you do?
Think for a moment, for God's sake. I need you right now. But
there's something else I need more. And that's to talk to you about
something. And I don't know how you're going to react to it."
"Damnit," she sighed. "That's why you came up here, isn't it,
to say goodbye." She looked as if I had just slapped her across the
face.
"What?" I was dumbfounded. "Jesus Christ! No." I shook my head to
clear the cobwebs; it didn't help much. "God, no," I continued
quietly. "No, Melissa, you should know better than that. No, this
has to do with that "long night" I had last night. The one I didn't
want to talk about this morning. I couldn't talk about it, not over
the phone." I proceeded to give her a truthful, if somewhat
abbreviated account of the last night. She listened in silence,
absorbing what I said without much expression. When I finished, she
sat for a long moment, without saying anything.
"And now what? What are you telling me? Are you saying that you
don't know which one you want to be with? Is that what this is all
about?"
I wanted to scream in frustration. "No, I thought I made that
clear. I'm not in love with her. I don't think I ever really was...
Fuck," I said under my breath. This wasn't going the way I thought it
would. "Melissa. I love you. I'm head over heels, completely,
deeply, tragically in love with you. I've known that since the minute
I saw your face last Thanksgiving. When I came through the door and
saw you standing there, completely unexpected..." I trailed off.
"When I saw you, I realized what was missing.
"But last night was... It was something I had to do.
Something I had to do to be free of her. Not of her, but of my images
of her. Ahhh, fuck it. I can't explain this to you. I'm not sure I
even understand it myself."
"So, basically, what you're telling me is that you had sex
with someone else, someone besides me?" she asked incredulously. That
hurt. I thought she was going to be upset, but there wasn't any need
to insinuate that I couldn't possibly convince anyone else to go to
bed with me. Granted, I wasn't going to give Paul Newman a run for
his money, but I hardly ever scared small children with my looks. It
was unfair, and I said so.
"No, no, no," she said quickly. "That's not what I meant. I
what I meant was; that's the reason we had to talk? Because of that?"
"Well, yeah," I answered lamely. "I thought it was
important." I thought about it for a moment before continuing. "I
know we never promised to be 'faithful' to each other. And hell, if
this had happened a few months ago, or it had been someone else, it
probably wouldn't have been a big deal. But..." "But, what?" she
asked.
"I had to tell you about it before... before we made love.
If you were going to hate me and throw me out, I wanted it to be
before... If I had told you afterwards, then you might have regretted
making love. And I don't ever want to make you regret being with me,"
I finished seriously. It made perfect sense to me. But then again,
it usually does. It's when I try to explain it to everyone else that
things usually go to pieces. Like they are now.
She closed her eyes and looked in askance at the ceiling, and
then she said something that chilled me to my bone. "Why me, Lord?
Why hast thou forsaken me?" Her tone of voice was so much like what I
hear from my mother that it was scary. Looking back down at me, she
resumed her normal voice. "You idiot," she sighed. "You know, I've
spent the entire year waiting for you to tell me that you'd been with
someone else! Augh!" She sounded as frustrated as I felt only
moments before. And I was more confused than ever. She rolled off
me, throwing herself onto the couch before continuing. "Okay.
Promise me that you're not going to get mad at what I'm about to say."
I nodded quickly, not wanting to go into the impossibilities of the
request. "When we said goodbye last summer, I didn't know what to
think... not about you, or me, or even us. Last summer was...
incredible. It was the happiest I can ever remember being. If things
had been different, if you had been older, I wouldn't have hesitated
to tell you how much I loved you. Or how much I wanted to be with
you. But... when we said goodbye, you were, forgive me, a
seventeen-year-old high school kid, who had been with one girl in your
whole entire life. One! And what we had was very very different from
the normal every day first time.
"I hoped that you would go back to school and actually go out
with some other people. Not that you'd forget me, or that you'd fall
in love with someone else, but that you'd get a little more
experience." I started to protest but she overrode my objections, "Not
sexually, sport. God knows, I can't complain about that. You're the
best lover I've ever had." Even though I had no clue where this was
going, I took a lot of heart in that last statement. My smile must
have been blinding, because she reached out to caress my cheek as she
continued. "But I wanted you to go out and have a chance to date.
With the way things were... are, between us, you deserved a chance to
find out what you might be missing, before you wound up with me. I
didn't want to be in a relationship with you, not while you were
wondering about what you might have missed." She took my hand in hers
and squeezed it hard. "I knew it was a risk, not pinning you down
before, but it was a risk I had to take."
I opened my mouth to argue then closed it again just as
quickly. She had a point. Well, from her point of view she had a
point. "So what do we do about it? Where does it leave us? In the
same sort of limbo that we've been in?" It wasn't a satisfactory
conclusion in the least.
"Not on your life. You're here now, and you're mine," she
said with a predatory grin. I reached across and pulled her over onto
my lap. The kisses were as good, even better, than I remembered, and
far, far better than whatever Karen had been able to muster. We stayed
together like that on the couch for what seemed like a very long time,
kissing and holding each other after such a long absence. There was
no hurry, for either of us, anymore.
The End.