Doing it All over

Chapter 1

I was feeling stressed that day. That was why I said what I did to the old man. In retrospect it was perhaps the wisest thing I've ever said in my life.

I picked him up at a convalescent home in suburban Spokane; a withered, emaciated ninety year old. His race was indeterminable, he was so withered by time but his name on the bank of paperwork the con home staff had given me identified him as So Li, which, I was reasonably sure, made him Chinese. He was suffering from cancer, not just to one particular body part but throughout his entire body. I took one look at him and knew he wasn't long for this world. His breathing was ragged and irregular, his skin pale and feverish. His body probably weighed about seventy-five pounds if he was lucky. There was absolutely no muscle in evidence upon his bones and his flesh hung loosely from every extremity. Despite all of this he was mentally quite aware of his surroundings, something else I recognized almost immediately.

"How are you doing Mr. Li?" I asked him, bending over his form on the hospital bed.

"Can't…" He puffed softly. "Breathe." He finished.

I nodded, taking the stethoscope out of the leg pocket of my jumpsuit and putting it in my ears. I listened to his lungs, hearing nothing but bad news. He was barely moving any air at all. I'd been a paramedic for eight years but even a newbie could have seen that Mr. Li's survival on the trip to the hospital was in question. He needed a breathing tube placed in his lungs to help him.

The nurse (and I use that term loosely) was the epitome of white trash. Bleach blonde, sixty or so pounds overweight, and chewing a large wad of bubble gum as she peered at us. She'd placed a facemask on him but had only turned the flow to two liters per minute. The effect of this was to give him LESS oxygen than was available in the atmosphere, since the mask was a closed system. Business as usual in the con home. My partner, without being asked, switched the supply tubing to our portable tank and cranked it up to fifteen liters per minute. This helped Mr. Li a little, but not much.

"He needs to be intubated." I said to no one in particular, referring to the placement of a breathing tube.

"No, no, no!" The nurse yelled, startling me. "He's a DNR! You can't put a tube in!"

Mr. Li gave her a contemptuous glance and I grabbed her arm and pulled her out into the hall. DNR stood for 'Do not resuscitate', a physician order, commonly given to people like Mr. Li, ordering paramedics and hospital personnel NOT to use advanced life support measures to save their life. After all, what would be the point of bringing Mr. Li back from the dead only so he could continue to die of cancer? But she could have found a more tactful way of informing me of this fact.

"Do you have a copy of the DNR?" I asked her pointedly.

She dug through the file she had for a moment and then produced the form. I looked at it, making sure it was legal. Patient's name, the words DNR or NO CODE, and the Doctor's signature were all present. "Okay." I said, handing it back. "You might consider working on your tact a little in the future." I advised the nurse. "Mr. Li can hear everything you say."

She scoffed at this, giving me a condescending look. "He's a gork." She told me, using medical slang for an unresponsive person, or vegetable. "And a gook on top of that. What's the big deal?"

I turned away from her in disgust. As hardened as I've become doing this job, it never fails to amaze me how crass, incompetent, and tactless con home nurses can be. It was one of those situations where you had to figure that if they were any good at what they did, they wouldn't be working THERE.

I returned to my patient and looked at him. His breathing, temporarily relieved by the oxygen increase was now worsening once again. "Mr. Li?" I asked him, speaking loudly in case he was hard of hearing. "I have a doctor's order not to assist your breathing mechanically. Do you understand?"

Looking in my eyes, he nodded his understanding.

"Is that your wish Sir?" I asked him. "For me NOT to do anything?"

He smiled slightly. "Yes." He panted. "It's… " A pause to breathe. "My time."

"As you wish." I told him

We loaded him onto our gurney and wheeled him out to the ambulance. Once in the back I hooked him up to my EKG machine in order to allow me to watch his heart rate. I put my pulse oximeter on his finger, looking at the display for a reading. The pulse ox registered the amount of oxygen saturation in a person's blood. A normal reading for a person breathing room air was around 99%. Mr. Li was breathing one hundred percent oxygen and his reading was 74%. Yes, he was dying fast.

"Mr. Li?" I addressed him. His eyes creaked open to look at me.

"I'm gonna start an IV on you." I told him. "Maybe they can give you something at the hospital to, you know, help you with the pain and the discomfort."

He smiled, nodding at me.

I went to work, setting up a bag of saline and hanging it from a hook on the ceiling of the ambulance. His veins were so fragile that I was forced to use the smallest needle that we carried, the kind that is meant to be used on infants, in order to establish the line. I threaded it in slowly, cognizant of the fact that advancing it at this rate was probably painful for him.

"I'm sorry Mr. Li." I told him when I finally secured the line. "I don't like to do it that slow but your veins are not in the best shape. It's better to do it that way than to miss it and have to try again."

"Thank… " A pause. "You."

"No problem." I told him.

While I adjusted the drip rate I noticed him staring at me, a queer smile on his face. He took a few deep breaths, as if he was storing up oxygen, and then started to speak.

"You're a… good boy." He said, panting. "You treat me… with… respect… where… others don't."

"I'm just doing my job." I told him, returning his smile.

He shook his head. "Been taken… before… " He said. "Not all… like you. Not at… all".

"Well." I shrugged. "I try."

"What… " He asked. "Is your… greatest… wish?"

"My greatest wish?" I asked, raising my eyebrows. He nodded.

I laughed, thinking of my life. I was a thirty-two year old private paramedic that had been doing the job too long. I wasn't a dirtbag by any means but I wasn't at the pinnacle of success either. My job was constantly in jeopardy of being taken away by the Spokane Fire Department, who were just itching to get into the ambulance business. Like many fire departments around the country, they had initiated so many fire codes and regulations over the years that they no longer had any fires to put out. They knew that it wouldn't be long before the tax-payers started wondering just what they were paying these guys for anyway and, as such, their mission for the next century it seemed, was a take-over of the medical aid business. Private ambulance companies, who didn't have the political clout or the hero reputation to exploit, had already fallen to them in cities and counties all around the United States. It was a nationwide trend. Spokane FD had already tried twice, getting voted down by the city council once and then, having the same body approve them later, they were stopped by a superior court judge. At my age, I was too old to get picked up by them when they were eventually successful and I didn't know how to do anything else. I had an ex-wife and an ex-kid to pay money to each month. In short, I was in a rut that I saw no way out of and had been dwelling on that, as I'm prone to doing, that shift. For that reason I answered Mr. Li the way I did.

"I'd like to be fifteen years old again." I told him truthfully. "Knowing what I know now. How about you Mr. Li?"

He smiled, not answering my question. He simply said "Not bad." And then his eyes closed.

His breathing became rapid for a moment and then ceased entirely. I looked at him in alarm, knowing that I could do something about it but forbidden to by a doctor's order. I'd encountered this situation before in my career but it was never easy. I watched the heart monitor after his breathing ceased. His heart rate accelerated to more than one hundred and sixty for a few moments and then began to slow down. It slowed to less then twenty and then ceased entirely, leaving a squiggly line tracing across my EKG machine. The squiggles soon turned to a flat line. Mr. Li was dead.

I finished out my shift, not thinking too much about Mr. Li once I'd dropped him off at the hospital. I ran a few more calls, ate dinner from a greasy fast-food joint, and then went home to my cheap apartment in South Spokane. Once at home I drank a few beers while I watched a movie on HBO. I then put myself to bed, falling asleep and anticipating another twelve-hour shift the following day.

Music woke me up; the blaring of my clock radio. The song was "Heat of the Moment" by Asia. That was strange, I realized immediately. My clock radio was always tuned to a modern music station, the sort that played Matchbox 20, Alanis, Goo Goo Dolls, and other contemporary musicians. I hadn't heard "Heat of the Moment" in years, since I was a kid. I didn't remember tuning the radio to a classic rock station and, since I lived alone, no one else could have done so. I opened my eyes and froze solid in my tracks.

I was not in my bedroom; at least not the apartment bedroom I was familiar with. This was the bedroom of my parent's house in West Spokane, but at the same time, it WASN'T. I'd visited them just the previous week and I knew damn well that my old bedroom had long since been converted to a guest bedroom, complete with new carpet, new bed, and new wallpaper. This room was set up just like it had been when I'd lived there; wood-grain paneling on the walls (my parent's had done that back in the 70's), posters of rock musicians on the paneling. My old stereo, 8-track player was sitting on a shelf near a black and white television set. Dirty laundry was scattered everywhere along with record album covers (Van Halen, Journey, Led Zepplin) and other debris. I stared at this, wide-eyed.

Was I dreaming? I must be, I figured. But it sure didn't feel like a dream. I sat up suddenly and realized that I felt physically very strong and energetic. There was no ache in my lower back like usual. There was no congestion in the back of my throat from too many cigarettes. There was no faint headache from the beer I'd drank last night. I even, I realized, had a morning hard-on, something I rarely experienced anymore. I turned my eyes downward, taking in a sharp intake of breath. My chest, bare as always when I slept, was hairless, as if it had been shaven smooth. My stomach was flat, without a trace of the beer-belly I'd begun to develop. What in the hell was going on here?

I pulled myself out of bed, feeling almost high with youthful energy that I'd long since forgotten about. Behind my bed was a mirror with the emblem of Aerosmith etched on it. I'd won it, I remembered, at the county fair when I was thirteen (NINETEEN years ago! Part of my mind screamed). I looked into it. Instead of a face with a scruffy growth of beard and bleary red eyes I saw a smooth, unlined face with a tangled mess of long hair atop it. I barely recognized the face before me. It was ME when I was a teenager.

I stared at myself (and yet NOT myself) in this mirror, transfixed. What the hell was going on here? I was not dreaming, I could not even begin to convince myself that I was. Reality was too firm around me, too detailed. With a start, I remembered the old Chinese man last night. What is your greatest wish? He'd asked and I'd told him to be fifteen again, knowing what I know now. Well I was looking at a fifteen year old's face in the mirror right now. But that was crazy, impossible. Wishes weren't granted. Time travel wasn't possible. Was it?

A pounding on the door made me jump nearly to the ceiling.

"Bill?" Came my mother's voice. "Are you up? C'mon, you gotta get ready for school."

School? "Oh my God." I muttered, staring at the door.

"Bill?" The door creaked open, revealing my mother, only not as I'd seen her the previous week, but as I'd last seen her about seventeen years ago. Her blonde hair had not a trace of gray in it, her face without a wrinkle. She was about thirty pounds overweight, a period she'd gone through, I remembered, when I was an adolescent. Later she would shed all of those extra pounds. Her eyes locked onto me and I realized that I was standing in the middle of the room in my underwear.

"Bill? What are you doing?" She asked, looking at me suspiciously, her mind no doubt thinking about drugs.

"Uh… " I stared back, my mind whirring, "Uh… nothing Mom. Just trying to, uh, wake up."

This seemed to ease her mind a little. "Oh." She said. "Well, hurry up or you're gonna be late for school. Tracy's out of the shower now."

"Tracy?" I said, surprised. "You mean, Tracy, my sister?"

The look she gave me would have been funny under different circumstances. "Yes." She said carefully, her eyes telling me that she was worrying about drugs again. "How many Tracy's live in the house, Bill?"

"Sorry." I said numbly, full of elation. "Still trying to wake up I guess."

She nodded doubtfully and then, with a last worried glare, shut the door.

Tracy! I thought in disbelief. Tracy my older sister. She'd been killed on the night of her high school graduation when the car she'd been riding in, piloted by a drunken college student had plunged into the Spokane River. Tracy, along with one other teenaged girl, had drowned before she could pull herself out of the submerged car. Tracy was alive!

I sat back down on my bed, my mind now well into overload status. Part of me was refusing to believe what my sensory inputs were telling me; that I was a teenager in the early 80's instead of a thirty-two year- old, burned-out paramedic in the late 90's, that my mother was in her mid-thirties now, that my dead sister had just gotten out of the shower, leaving it free for me instead of resting, decomposed, in a sealed coffin in River View cemetery. But the cool, logical part of me was forced to accept the circumstances. I WAS a teenager again. Would I now have to live through the next seventeen years all over? Could I change things? Was I trapped here now? There were so many ramifications that I had to consider. What about Becky, my four year old daughter? What about her? She didn't exist yet. If I was able to change things, and I did so, Becky might never live. This was deep, very deep shit.

I was still sitting there thinking when my door burst open again, revealing my father. Like my mother, Dad looked considerably younger than I was used to. He was dressed in slacks and a sweater, obviously on his way to Milton Junior High School where he had (DID, my mind corrected) taught eighth grade English and Physical Education. He stared me up and down, probably advised to check on me by my worried mother (mom had always worried about me being on drugs, I remembered).

"Are you planning to go to school today?" He asked me after a moment.

I stared back at him for a moment. It was strange. I was unable to take parental authority seriously, so long had I been without it, but my father didn't realize this. Finally I responded. "Yes Dad." I told him. "Just heading for the shower now."

He nodded, seemed about to say something and then decided not to. He closed the door.

I dug through my dresser, pulling out some clothes, marveling over my high school tastes. It seemed I had nothing to wear but 501 jeans and sweaters or T-shirts with rock band emblems printed on them. What was the weather like? I wondered. Was it summer, spring, autumn, or winter? Should I wear the rock band T-shirt or the rock band sweater? A glance outside informed me that it was winter. There was snow on the ground and angry gray clouds drifting overhead. I found a robe (my old red robe!) in my closet and pulled it over my body, opening my door and heading for the bathroom to shower.

As I passed my sister's room I looked in and there she was. Seventeen years old or so, wearing a pair of Wranglers and a fashionable sweater. She sat before her mirror, combing her wet hair with a brush. She gave me a disinterested glance and started to turn back to the mirror but paused when she noticed me staring at her.

"What's your problem dickhead?" She asked me, her voice filled with the sibling contempt that had marked our teenaged years. Contempt I'd always felt sorry for after her death.

I stepped into her room, making her glare at me but I didn't care. "Tracy? My god it's good to see you."

She looked downright hostile now as I stepped forward and threw my arms around her, hugging her to me. Her body stiffened in alarm and confusion as I did this.

"What the fuck is your problem, asshole?" She barked, pushing me away.

There were actually tears in my eyes, I was so glad to see her again. I found myself speechless for a moment.

She looked at my face, disgust evident in her eyes. "You're crying? What kind of sick shit is this? Get the fuck out of my room dickhead."

"Tracy." I told her seriously. "You and I are gonna have to sit down and have a talk together."

"What?!" She said, amazed.

"Later." I told her. Then I asked. "What's the date today?"

"Huh?"

"The date?" I repeated. "You know? Month, day… " I paused. "Year?"

She gaped at me, not answering.

"I'm serious Trace." I told her. "I'll explain later. What's the date?"

"February 18." She said finally. "Wednesday."

I licked my lips for a moment. "And the year?"

"What do you… "

"Just tell me the damn year Tracy!" I commanded, making her jump.

"1982." She said finally. "Why the hell would you ask that?"

I did some quick mental addition. I was born February 10, 1967. That made me fifteen years old, but with the wisdom (such as it was) of a thirty-two year old that had already lived through the future. Tracy was indeed seventeen. She would graduate in June of 1983 and be killed later that night. That gave me a year and a half to save her life. I vowed that, if nothing else changed, I would change that. I would shoot the drunken college student dead before I allowed him to drive my sister around.

"Never mind." I told her. "I'll probably explain it to you later. It's good to see you Tracy. I love you."

"Get the fuck out of here you fuckin' pervert!" She screamed.

"And you love me too." I commented as I exited her room and headed for the shower.

By the time my shower was complete my mind had accepted the facts of the matter. I was fifteen again, it was 1982, and I had the next seventeen years to do over again. What should I do? What would I change? How many past mistakes could I rectify? Could I tell anyone? Would they believe me? And what about Becky? My future daughter preyed on my mind. Was it already too late to have her? I certainly couldn't go through another two years of marriage with that bitch that was her mother again. Could I?

Putting thoughts of Becky aside, I was cheery as I entered the kitchen and sat down to a bowl of cereal at the kitchen table. Tracy was already there, eyeing me suspiciously but saying nothing. My father, as had been his habit, was eating an English muffin and reading the newspaper. A quick glance assured me that the date that Tracy had provided was indeed correct. I looked at the headlines printed on the back of the paper.

SCIENTISTS SAY ALIGNMENT OF PLANETS PRESENTS NO DANGER, read one. Oh yeah. The planets were all scheduled to align this year, which had prompted many to predict that the combined gravitational pull would rip up apart or cause earthquakes or some other such nonsense. Nothing had happened, obviously. AT amp;T BREAK-UP LEAVES MANY WONDERING-WHAT NEXT? Read another. I smiled, thinking I could tell them a thing or two about what was next. REAGANOMICS WORKING-PROCLAIM ECONOMISTS, another declared. And it would continue to for another three years or so until the entire economy came to a crashing halt, signaling the beginning of the next depression, or recession as it would be termed.

I finished up my breakfast and found, after some searching, my backpack which contained all of my schoolbooks and papers. If my fifteen-year- old self was true to form, I knew my homework wouldn't be done and my assignments wouldn't be read. That was something I would have to rectify, I figured. One of the things I regretted later in life were my poor high school grades and study habits, which precluded me from getting into a top-rated college. How hard could the work possibly be now?

A knock on the door signaled the arrival of Mike Meachen, my best friend back in high school. Mike was a year older than I and had always been the dominant member of our friendship. From Mike I learned how to smoke marijuana, how to drink beer, how to smoke cigarettes, how to cut school. Mike would drop out in the eleventh grade and work a few menial jobs for a few years before taking his GED and joining the Air Force where he was eventually dishonorably discharged for marijuana use. I hadn't talked to him in years but the last I'd heard he was still living with his parents. Could I steer Mike onto a different path? I wondered as I went to the door and bade my family farewell.

Though I was expecting it, it was still startling to see him as a sixteen-year-old again.

"Sup?" He muttered to me, his version of 'what's up?'.

"Not much." I told him, careful to give no hint of the startling change in me just yet. I closed the door behind me and we started the two-mile walk to our high school.

I was surprised at the immaturity of his conversation as we trodded to school. It centered on his phony sexual exploits with girls I'd never met, which girls at our school he'd like to fuck, and other adolescent posturing. I had to remind myself that my conversation back then had been pretty much the same and that I now had seventeen years of maturity over him. I nodded and responded to his statements with appropriateness. He noticed no change in me. I'd always been quiet anyway.

As we got close to the school feelings of unreality washed over me again. I was seeing people that I hadn't seen in years. But I was seeing them as they were then, not as my mind was telling me they should look now (I had to keep reminding myself that NOW was THEN). They were in ones, two, and even groups of six or more, heading for school. Boys and girls both. I saw Steve Johan, who would join the Army after graduation and be killed in a helicopter crash. I saw Nina Blackmore, a skinny, nerdish, friendless girl who would go to medical school and work as an emergency room doctor at Spokane's trauma center. She would also acquire good looks early in college as her body filled out and marry a rich neurosurgeon. I saw Carrie Founder, one of the best looking girls in the school giggling with some of the other elite. Carrie I knew, would marry a loser and pump out four kids before divorcing. During that period she would put on nearly a hundred pounds. Eventually, she would end up living in a trailer park with some other white-trash loser. As I paramedic I would one day pick her up for overdosing on anti-depressant medicines and pretend I didn't know her. I saw lots of others that I hadn't thought of in years and others who's faces I recognized but who's names I could not come up with.

I would be lying if I said that my attention was not distracted by the girls. Like many men there was a special place in the part of my mind that controlled lust that was obsessed with the idea of bagging a teenager. It was no doubt because they were forbidden. It was something I'd never done or attempted to do before, knowing that the risks were not worth the benefits. But things were different now, weren't they? A horny part of my mind asked me. I was a teenager now! I could do it legally!

I had been shy back in high school, a phase I'd gotten over later in life. But as a result of this shyness, I did not manage to get myself laid for the first time until I was a senior in high school (and to be honest, it was late in the year at that). But I wasn't shy now, was I? My eyes began tracking through the crowds, taking in the lean forms of the fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen year old girls, their tight asses, their firm breasts. I began to imagine the possibilities and my fifteen-year-old dick began to stir in my 501s. Although I intended to do as much good with the gift I had been given; there were so many things I could change or prevent now that I had pre-knowledge of it; it certainly wouldn't hurt to have a little fun; would it? Of course not.

My musings were interrupted by Mike.

As we came to the front of the school he jerked my arm, pulling me backward. "We'd better go around the other side." He said, alarmed. "Richard Fuckface and his asshole friends are standing over there."

I looked where he was indicating and saw a real blast from the past. Richard Fairview was one of many bullies at our high school. He was about six feet tall and about as dumb as a person could get while still remembering to draw breath every couple of seconds. He'd been one of the terrors of our school, his scam, when he wasn't beating people's ass for the fun of it, to post himself at an entry point and rip off lunch money from arriving kids that were dumb enough to approach him. As always he had five or six companions lounging there with him. They were all smoking cigarettes and eyeing the approaching throngs, looking for targets. I'd had my ass beaten by him a time or two. Had that happened yet? I wondered, unable to place just when those occurrences had taken place.

A smile formed on my face. In the ensuing seventeen years I'd learned a lot both about psychology and physical combat. Bullies, I knew, relied mostly on the complacency of their victims. They relied on their size and intimidation to get what they wanted. Very few of them actually knew how to fight. I, however, had worked for years at a job where physical assault by one's patients or one's patient's family members was an almost daily happening. Though somewhat of a wimp in high school, life had taught me a thing or two about hand to hand fighting. The most important thing I'd learned was that, while getting hit by a fist was painful, it wasn't THAT painful.

"C'mon." I told Mike, smiling still, heading directly towards Richard and his co-horts.

"Are you high?" Mike asked me. "He's got his friends there. I could kick his ass any day one on one but his friends will jump in."

"No they won't." I told Mike confidently. "Just watch. Stand back and don't do anything. His friends won't get in on anything."

"Bill?" He said, alarmed, but I strode purposefully forward. Reluctantly, he followed. I had to give him credit. He was loyal, willing to back me up in the face of these six guys.

"Trust me." I assured him. "Richard's about to fall from grace, big time."

As we approached the gang of bullies Richard himself eyed us and stepped forward, blocking our paths. To our right were the chain- linked bike racks. To our left was the school's perimeter fence. It was Richard's kind of tactical situation all right, blocking his victim in.

"Hey Billy-fag." He hailed, his gray, stupid eyes boring into me. "You got change for a dollar?"

I stared back at him, barely able to suppress a smile. "Yeah." I told him, my voice full of mocking contempt. "But you ain't getting' it."

He looked at me in shock, almost stepping backwards at my boldness. I think that he would have backed down right there except for the fact that a group of junior and senior girls were happening by at that particular moment and, hearing my words, stopped to see what would transpire.

"What did you say you little fuckin' pussy?" He enquired toughly, in disbelief.

I had to search through my memory banks to come up with a statement that was suitably insulting to a high school bully from the eighties. After a moment I came up with one. "I said, why don't you suck my dick asshole, if you're not too tired from fuckin' your momma all night."

His friends, as well as the group of teenagers gave a collective gasp. "You gonna let him say that shit to you Richie?" One of them asked, goading him.

"You're dead motherfucker." Richard said, advancing towards me, his fists clenched and raised in a pseudo-boxing stance.

I snorted contempt, which again almost gave him pause. He threw a haymaker right at my face, which, had it impacted, probably would have broken my nose. But it didn't. I easily sidestepped to the left, allowing his fist to whiz through thin air and spin his body around. Once he was turned away from me I stepped forward and drove my right elbow into his back, right above the kidney, as hard as I could. There was a solid thump followed by the whooshing of air being ejected from his lungs and a startled, painful cry from his lips. His hands dropped instantly down and he staggered forward two steps, holding his back.

I raised my right foot off of the ground and slowly placed it against his ass. With a hard shove of my leg, he was propelled into the chain link of the bike racks, making a musical jing as the metal was struck. He bounced off and landed on his ass on the grass, a stupid expression of surprise on his face.

While his friends gaped, unmoving at this development, the girls all erupted in fits of derisive laughter, pointing at him. As I'd planned, this infuriated him. He leapt to his feet and charged me, meaning to grab hold of me and take me to the ground, I was sure. But he hadn't learned from his first attack. He threw his weight forward and, once again, I easily stepped around him. As he passed I kicked his feet out from beneath him. He became horizontal for a brief second before crashing to the pavement, scratching up his hands and knees.

As he tried to get to his feet I hooked my foot forward, as if I was performing a kick-off in a football game, and connected directly with his face. There was an audible crunch as his nose was shattered along with several teeth. I pulled my foot back and watched as blood began to pour onto the ground from his face. He seemed quite dazed, frozen in place, so I stepped forward and kicked once more, this time connecting with his rib cage. I felt the crunch of ribs fracturing this time and Richie finally collapsed unmoving to the ground, guarding his side.

I looked at his friends, who were staring at me, mouths agape in disbelief. They could have stomped me to death in less than a minute had they wished but, as I'd figured, they didn't. I locked gazes with them, putting on the meanest expression I could call up. "You guys want some of this too?" I asked toughly.

None of them answered. They averted their eyes from me, finding objects to peruse on the ground and in the sky.

"Get the fuck out of here then." I commanded and they instantly obeyed, moving quickly down the path to the school's entrance.

I looked up to see expressions of unbelieving awe on Mike, the junior and senior girls, and several freshmen kids that had approached. The freshmen would probably had been Richard's next victims had I not taken action. They were looking at me as if I was Jesus Christ right down from the cross.

I smiled shyly. "None of you saw anything, did you?" I asked.

From the ground Richard was moaning, snorting blood out of his nose and mouth, and holding his side. They all looked at him for a moment and then back at me. A chorus of 'no's ensued.

"Good." I nodded, heading towards the school entrance once again. I looked back at Mike, who was still staring, unmoving, at Richard. "You coming?" I asked him.

"Huh?" He nearly jumped. "Oh, yeah."

We entered the school, walking through the crowded halls, hearing the slamming of locker doors and the babble of thousands of conversations.

"That was un-fucking-believable!" Mike finally said, looking at me as if I might be hot.

I shrugged. "It was nothing. Those fuckin' scrotes don't know how to fight. They just act like they do."

"Scrotes?" Mike asked, confused. "What's a scrote?"

Oops. I'd just used a term that, while a common descriptor among Spokane's paramedics, cops, and firefighters in the nineties, had not been in general usage in high schools in the eighties. A small mistake but I instinctively knew that I would have to watch what I said. What if I suddenly started talking about the Persian Gulf War, or the Internet, or something like that.

"Uh," I said, "Something I heard on HBO the other day on a cop movie. It's short for scrotums. You get it?"

"Oh yeah." Mike said, grinning as he thought it over. "Scrotes. That's pretty funny."

"I thought so." I said.

Our lockers were next to each other. I remembered that much. The lock was dangling from the handle; a standard, school issued lock. As Mike began twisting the dial on his I simply stared at mine.

"What's the matter?" Mike asked, looking at me.

I glanced at him. "I don't suppose," I said slowly. "That you know what my combination is?"

"What?" He said, confused, staring at me.

I gulped again. I could see in his face that he was starting to pick up that something was different about me.

"I uh… " I said. "I can't seem to remember my locker combination. A brain-fart I guess."

"Brain-fart?" He said, cracking up. "Goddam you're full of 'em today. Was that in the movie too?"

I realized that I'd used another anachronistic term. Christ, this shit was getting complicated. I was going to have to really watch my words. "Yeah." I nodded. "It was. A pretty funny movie."

"What was it?" He asked, pulling open his locker and removing some books.

"I forget what the name was." I answered. "Lethal Weapon, or some shit like that. So, do you know the combo for my locker, or what?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "You remember you gave it to me that time so I could put that herb in it?"

"Oh yeah." I said, remembering that Mike, who used to sell joints for two bucks apiece, would occasionally store his supply in my locker.

"Anyway, it's 34-13-23."

"Thanks." I told him, grateful. "I remember now." I began spinning the dial.

"Brain-fart's over." He chuckled. "I'll catch you later."

He was already out of sight in the passing throngs of kids before I realized that I had no idea what class I was supposed to go to. I stood there by my locker as the halls began to empty before me, trying desperately to think. What was my class schedule in the tenth grade? It was useless. Even looking at my books didn't help. Seventeen years had gone by after all. That information had long since been purged from my memory.

While I was still trying to figure it out Tracy came tooling by accompanied by her best friend Cindy Kendall. Tracy was giving me a strange look as she passed, a suspicious look. So was Cindy for that matter; a cute blonde who's image I remembered masturbating to many times during my teenaged years. I remembered seeing a flash of Cindy's white panties once when she'd been staying the night at our house with Tracy, a brief glimpse when she gotten up from the couch while dressed in her nightshirt. I remembered being obsessed with that half-second flash of those panties for months, able to masturbate to nothing else. Had that happened yet? I wondered. I didn't know.

"Tracy!" I barked as she passed. "Come here a second."

She hesitated, obviously not wanting to be seen talking to her younger brother. But finally she came over. Cindy stayed a distance away, watching us.

"What's going on with you today?" She asked, glancing around. "You were acting all weird this morning and I just heard you got in a fight with Richard Fairview. And that you kicked his ass. Is that true?"

"Yeah." I nodded, dismissing Richard Fairview. "But listen, I need… "

"What do you mean 'yeah'?" She hissed incredulously. "They called an ambulance for him. They say he's all fucked up! Did you do that to him? You?"

"Kind of." I affirmed. "But listen Trace. I need to know… "

"Kind of?" She said. "We're talking about Richard Fairview. He's twice your size. How the hell did you… "

"Tracy will you shut the fuck up for a second." I commanded.

She blinked at me in surprised respect.

"Listen." I told her. "You and I need to sit down and talk about something. Something that will probably be the most important thing you've ever heard." I glared meaningfully at her, knowing that my face was showing an adult expression. "Things are different with me. Very different. And I'll tell you about them tonight."

"What are you talking about?" She asked, wide-eyed.

"Tonight." I promised. "But for now I need you to tell me what my class schedule is."

"Your class schedule?" She asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Yes." I nodded. "My inability to remember it is part of what I have to tell you tonight. But for now, where the hell am I supposed to go?"

She looked at me for a moment in suspicion, confusion, fear, and awe. Finally she began to speak. "First period you have math… "

She wasn't able to give me actual room numbers or anything, but she was able to supply enough info for me to get through the day. I arrived in Algebra class just as the bell rang. I had a moment of panic as I looked around the room, seeing all of the students at their desks, the teacher at his desk and opening his roll book. Where in the hell was my desk? Was I really in the right first period class?

The teacher, a middle-aged, dark skinned man looked up to see me standing there. I couldn't even remember his name. Something Arabic was all that came to me.

"Would you care to take your seat Mr. Stevens?" He asked mildly.

"Uh, sure." I stammered, heading for the first empty desk. I was given several strange looks from the teacher and my classmates, leading me to believe I'd chosen the wrong seat. But no one said anything.

A minute later, the class began.

I sat through Algebra without a clue as to what the hell the teacher (who's name, Mr. Ached, I was finally able to discern) was talking about. I'd always been placed in the college prep classes in high school, a result of my high placement scores on the tests. I'd always been a good test-taker on general knowledge exams with multiple choice questions. So I'd been placed in the college preps where I'd been stoned much of the time and only garnering enough information to pass with a C or even a D in some cases. Algebra was not something I'd used every day in life and I'd come in on it in progress after more than a decade of not using it. I was hopelessly confused by Mr. Ached's lecture.

My second class, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. American History. In my previous life (as I was coming to think of it) I had an associates degree and half of a bachelor's degree in History; a subject that had always interested me. A completely worthless degree, I agree, but it's possession coupled with the obsessive reading I'd done on the subject throughout my life made me an equal (or perhaps even a better?) to the instructor as she lectured on the causes of the Civil War. I found the lecture naive and boring; packed full of basic information that had been scaled down for easy digestion by high school students. She presented the information in black and white, not touching upon a single controversial issue of that time; the sorts of issues we'd relished back in college. Strange, until hearing that lecture, I'd never realized how much we'd been bullshitted and programmed in school.

Third period was Human Anatomy and Physiology. This was a little less boring for several reasons. For one, it was another subject that I was quite knowledgeable about since I'd been forced to learn it at near physician level in order to qualify for paramedic school. It was also not politically scaled down for high school, although it was somewhat more simplistic than what I'd been taught. The second reason was the instructor, Mrs. Crookshank. She was a very attractive woman in her mid-twenties, probably only a few years out of college. I remembered that she'd starred in several of my masturbation fantasies and had been a frequent discussion topic among my peers when the talk turned to teachers we'd like to fuck. As she lectured the class on the circulatory system I found myself watching her body move back and forth to the blackboard, watching her ass beneath the pantsuit she wore, her tits bouncing beneath her sweater. I was OLDER than her, I kept thinking, but yet I was not.

"Now we've been discussing the circulatory system for several days now." She said at one point. "So can anyone tell me the complete route a blood cell takes through this system?"

Obviously she was expecting no hands to go up. It was almost, but not quite, a rhetorical question. She was met with blank looks from her class of thirty or so until I, deciding to have a little fun, put up my hand.

"Yes Billy?" She asked impatiently. "Do you need to use the restroom?"

I smiled at her shyly. I knew she was expecting nothing from me beyond that. I'd flunked her class. "No." I told her. "I was going to answer your question."

Her eyebrows went up. "YOU know the route a blood cell takes through the circulatory system?"

The class was looking at me now, obviously expecting me to make a joke of some sort, although I was not even known for that sort of behavior.

"I think so." I said softly.

She gave a patronizing smile. "Well do tell." She said.

"Okay," I began. "Why don't we start with an oxygenated cell as it leaves the heart. Is that a good starting place?"

She raised her eyebrows higher. "Sure." She finally said.

I nodded. "Okay. An oxygenated cell will be pumped from the left ventricle, through the aortic valve, into the Aorta, which will then branch into the descending and ascending Aortas. Of course at this point it may be sent to the coronary arteries but let us assume for the sake of discussion that it is not. From the aorta the cell will be pumped through the arteries into the arterioles and finally into a capillary bed somewhere where it will then give up it's oxygen molecule to a cell and pick up a carbon dioxide molecule for transport back to the lungs. At the point of transfer the capillaries will become veinuels. The cell will pass through these into veins, eventually making its way to either the superior or inferior vena cava, depending upon what part of the body it just oxygenated."

Mrs. Crookshank was obviously in shock, as if she'd seen a monkey suddenly start to talk. "Go on." She said numbly.

I nodded. "The vena cava lead, of course, to the heart. Specifically the right atria. The cell will enter the right atria and will then be pumped to the right ventricle. From there the cell will be pumped through the pulmonary valve to the pulmonary artery, which, I might add, is the only artery in the body to carry unoxygenated blood. The pulmonary artery will take the cell into the pulmonary capillary system where it will drop off its CO2 molecule, which will then be exhaled by the lung, and pick up another oxygen molecule from the alveoli in the lung. From there the now oxygenated cell with pass through the pulmonary vein, the only vein in the body that carries oxygenated blood, to the left atria. The left atria will pump the cell into the left ventricle and the process starts all over." I smiled. "Takes a little over a minute I hear."

The class was completely silent, staring at me. Finally Mrs. Crookshank spoke. "That's exactly right Billy." She said. "Very good."

"I read a little bit on it." I said, casting my eyes back to my desk.

At lunchtime it became quickly apparent that I'd altered history, as it was, a little already. As I waited in the snack bar line, and as I found an empty seat on the quad, I could see that people were pointing at me and looking at me. When I would turn to look at them, they would cast their eyes away. I figured the word had spread about my fight with Richie. People were probably in disbelief. I could almost hear the conversations they were having. Him? That little wimpy guy? Kicked Richie's ass? Sent him to the hospital? How? Does he know karate or something? He must!

I didn't mind. Obviously the word on the fight had not leaked to the wrong set of ears. If it had, I probably would have been pulled into the principal's office to talk to the cops. After all, what I'd done was felony assault. Not that I was worried about that either. Would the cops really believe that I'd done such a thing?

Finally someone came over to ask me about it. It was one of the hard- core stoner crowd; a group that I'd sometimes hung out with but had never really been a part of. I remembered smoking grass with the guy, who was a junior, on occasion, but I couldn't remember his name. He had long, unkempt black hair and the beginnings of a mustache on his lip. I wondered if he knew how ridiculous it looked. He approached carefully, as if I might suddenly lash out at him.

"What's up dude?" He asked me.

I shrugged. "Not much. What's up with you?"

"Nothin'." He paused. "I heard you got in a fight with Richie Fairview today."

"You could say that." I agreed.

"I heard you put him in the hospital."

"Wouldn't know about that." I replied. "But I doubt he'll be rippin' off people for a while." I smiled. "And if he does decide to go back into business, he might just think twice about who he fucks with."

The stoner who's name I couldn't remember grinned. "You know karate or somethin'?"

I shook my head. "Nope. Just a little about psychology and life."

His eyes widened. "Trippy." He finally said, reminding me of a phrase I hadn't heard in a while. "Listen, me and Raisin and Debbie are gonna blow this scene and head over to Raisin's house. Smoke some buds and listen to some AC\DC. You wanna come with us?"

I didn't have the slightest idea who Raisin might be, but I knew who Debbie was, even without a last name supplied. She was a cute, though skanky redhead that hung out with the stoners. She always kept close to whomever possessed the little baggie, hanging all over them and flirting with them. But, if I remembered correctly, she very rarely gave up any pussy. The polite term for her would be cock-tease. And no matter how many times they failed to get laid by her, they still fell for it every time. Thinking of her made my dick stir a little in my pants again. She was older than I was, sure, but I was definitely more experienced. Could I seduce her? And even if I couldn't, the thought of smoking a little grass was appealing in and of itself. As a paramedic we were drug tested. I hadn't smoked any pot in the last seven years.

"I'm in." I told him, standing up and throwing the remains of my burrito in the nearest garbage can.

Apparently Raisin was the one with the pot. I remembered him when I saw him. He was a short, bleached blonde who, like many short people, had adapted humor as his defense. He was one funny motherfucker. We climbed into his car; an early seventies Ford Falcon. My as-yet- unnamed friend and I climbed in the back. Debby climbed in the front with Raisin, who was looking real hopeful about his chances.

As he screeched out of the school parking lot Debbie giggled. "Fire up a joint NOW Raisin." She said. "C'mon. Getting stoned always get me horny."

"Can't Baby." Raisin replied, turning a corner at near-suicidal speed. "Don't have any rolled yet. Just hold your titties for a few. We have to get some papers."

She feigned a pout at his words and I took a moment to appraise her. She really was pretty good looking in a future trailer trash sort of way. Her red hair appeared natural, her tits firm and jiggly. As was the style of the eighties, she had on too much make-up. But I felt I could live with that. She was a sixteen-year-old girl, fresh no matter how skanky she appeared. I was determined to bag her. I thought I knew how.

Raisin pulled the Falcon into the parking lot of a gas station/convenience store. He backed into a spot near the back corner.

"Okay, here's the deal." Raisin told my back seat companion and me. "Bill, how much money you got?"

I shrugged. "About three bucks or so."

"Good." Raisin said. "You go up to the counter and buy a candy bar or something. Lonnie," He turned to my now-named companion. "While he's got the clerk distracted, you swipe a pack of papers from the display."

"Man, I hate doing this shit." Lonnie whined. "Why don't we just use a toilet paper roll or somethin'?"

"Do I look like a fuckin' barbarian?" Raisin enquired. "I refuse to smoke out of something that used to hold paper that I use to wipe my ass with. Just get the fuckin' papers."

Lonnie exited the vehicle, still whining, and I exited with him.

"Why don't we just buy the papers?" I asked, following behind him.

"Cause," He explained, as if I was an idiot. "They won't sell 'em to kids."

"As far as I know it's not against the law to buy papers." I opined. "Let me handle this."

Lonnie was doubtful but obviously agreeable to anything that didn't put him in harm's way. I pushed through the door of the store, making a little bell chime. The clerk was smoking a cigarette and watching a small television set. He was about twenty or so and looked as if he'd been rolling up some herb himself. He eyed us suspiciously as we entered.

I pulled out my money and then pulled a pack of zig-zags from the display and put them down on the counter. The clerk looked at them for a minute and then looked at me.

"How old are you kid?" He asked, taking a puff off of his smoke.

"Fifteen." I said.

"Uh huh. And what are you going to do with those? Let me guess, they're for your father."

"Nope." I said simply, shaking my head. "They're for my friends and myself. You see, we just scored some killer bud and now we want to smoke it. That requires papers, as I'm sure you're aware. So, how much?"

The clerk stared at me for a moment, not saying anything.

"Now come on." I said reasonably. "Would you rather we came in and tried to steal them? That would be counter-productive for all concerned, wouldn't it? We're not asking to buy cigarettes, just papers. They're not controlled substances are they?" I smiled. "C'mon, didn't you used to cut school and get stoned? Help out the younger generation here."

He stared for another instant and then began to chuckle. "Fuckin' classic." He said, shaking his head. He picked up the pack of zig-zags and rang them up. "Seventy-nine cents." He said.

I started to hand him a buck and then paused, my eyes looking at a display behind him.

"Oh," I said. "And how about givin' me a three pack of those Trojans there? The unlubricated ones." I winked at him. "We got a girl with us too and I think I might find some use for them."

"That was fuckin' radical." Lonnie proclaimed as we left the store. "Totally!"

"Let me tell you somethin' Lonnie." I told him. "I've found that you'll get a lot farther in life using that approach then tryin' to sneak around the issue. Keep that in mind."

"Trippy." He said again. "But why'd you buy the rubbers? You don't think you're gonna get into Debbie do you?"

"You never know." I told him. "It's best to be prepared for any eventuality."

"Avent-you-what?"

"Never mind." I said, opening the back door. The condoms were in my pants pocket. The papers I tossed to Raisin. "Let's go get stoned." I told him.

As I suspected she would be, Debbie was putty in my hands. We went to Raisin's house, which was actually an apartment. I'd been in the apartment complex many times as a paramedic on calls. It was populated with various varieties of unemployed trash living off of welfare. It was strange being in them in a way. They looked exactly the same as they had\would in my when. Raisin's mom, a single mother, was employed and spent the day at her job. This made Raisin's apartment a favored locale for school cutting, pot smoking teenagers. The apartment was cleaner than most I entered on calls, but not by much. It was a two bedroom and there were dishes scattered everywhere but at least the laundry was picked up and there were no roaches in evidence. The entire place reeked of stale cigarette and pot smoke.

Raisin put on an AC\DC album, Highway to Hell, and cranked up the volume. He then went about the task of rolling up a fat one which he lit and passed around. Predictably Debbie sat next to him on the couch, cooing at him and flirting with him. By the time the third cut on the album was playing, we were all pleasantly stoned; me probably more so than the others since I'd been away for a while.

"Isn't Bon Scott the greatest fuckin' singer on earth?" Raisin asked the room at large.

Lonnie gave a concurring opinion and even Debbie agreed, although it was easy to read her face and see that she didn't give a rat's ass about Bon Scott. I tried to remember who teenaged girls had been into back in the early eighties and drew a blank.

The conversation traveled around the room for a few minutes, long enough for me to be appalled by its immaturity. Both Raisin and Lonnie were trying like hell to win Debbie's favor but their attempts were pathetic at best. Lonnie was talking about how many push-ups he could do. Raisin was talking about how many beers he could drink before he puked. Had I been like this once? I feared that I had. No wonder I hadn't gotten laid until I was nearly eighteen. It was time to liven up the conversation a little.

"Have you guys ever considered," I asked. "How much religion has fucked up our views on sex?"

That got their interest. They all looked at me, wondering if I was telling a joke.

"What?" Debbie finally squealed.

"Think about it for a second," I explained, knowing that when you were stoned it was real easy to 'think about it'. "The drive to reproduce is, aside from food and water, the most powerful urge in the human body. We want to have sex; we NEED to have sex. It's programmed into us, into our genes and chromosomes. If a species didn't want to have sex, which after all is for reproduction, it could not perpetuate itself."

"Per-what?" Lonnie, his eyes open less than a quarter inch, asked.

"It could not keep the race alive." I termed it. "If we were not programmed with the urge to screw each other, we would have died out long ago. So, the urge to screw is given to us by God or chance or whatever, so that we will survive forever. It's a natural urge that serves a basic function, right?"

"Yeah." Debbie said, her eyes twinkling a little. Lonnie and Raisin had to agree with my logic too.

"Now we all feel these urges. I myself feel them very strongly." I gazed meaningfully at Debbie as I said this. She blushed a little but held my gaze. "Sometimes it's all I can think about. It's a bitchin' thing really. For the most part, guys want to put their dicks into a girl's pussy. Girls want to have a dick put INTO their pussy. Am I right?"

"Fuckin aye!" Lonnie nodded.

"Hell yeah." Raisin agreed.

Debbie refused to comment, she just giggled.

"But then you got religion fuckin' us all up." I went on. "There's some other social factors in there too, but religion is the biggest one. Here you have a natural urge, the urge to reproduce. It's a function of your body. But you got religion tellin' you that it's dirty. They make people feel guilty for these urges which occur through no fault of their own. They tell you that sex is wrong. They tell you to NEVER do it before marriage, and then they tell you that it's okay to do it when you are married but not to enjoy it. If you enjoy it, you're sinning."

"Yeah!" Lonnie put in. "That's fucked up."

"And if that wasn't bad enough." I went on, watching Debby carefully now. She was staring with rapt attention. "Religious influence throughout our history has led to the passing of laws against certain types of sexual acts. Did you know that in the State of Washington it is illegal for a man to eat a pussy."

"What?" Debbie and Lonnie said together; Debbie blushing a little.

"Yep." I nodded, picking up the roach in the ashtray and taking another hit. I was really rocking now. "And it's also illegal for a woman to suck a man's dick. Its called oral copulation in the penal code and it's listed as a crime. Now here we have an activity that people enjoy doing to each other." I paused, smiling at Debbie. "At least I know I enjoy the shit out of eating a nice pussy. An activity that hurts no one but that if fact brings a GREAT deal of pleasure to people. At least when I do it anyway. But, thanks to religious assholes back in our history, it's illegal. I could be arrested for, say, eating out Debbie there. And she could be arrested for giving me a BJ."

"You've never eaten a pussy before." Debbie giggled, her eyes shining.

I looked at her meaningfully. "Debbie, I'm an expert at eating pussy. I bet that I could make you come in less than ten minutes using only my tongue upon your gorgeous body."

She swallowed nervously. "Oh really?"

"Really." I said. "Come here a second." I patted my lap.

"Why?" She challenged. Lonnie and Raisin were both speechless, watching this development.

"Just come here and let me give you a little sample of what my tongue can do for you." I chuckled. "Unless you're scared that is. Afraid I might make you lose control."

"You talk pretty bold little boy." She informed me nervously.

"Come here." I whispered, staring lustfully at her. "Let me show you a sample."

She hesitated for another second or so and then curiosity got the better of her. She stood and walked over to me. I patted my lap again.

"Sit down." I told her, reaching out and touching the side of her right leg. The denim of her jeans was tight. Tight enough to let me feel the muscle of her leg beneath it.

She sat on my lap, turning her face towards me, her eyes transfixed upon my face. "Well?" She said.

I reached up and took her face in my hands, feeling the soft skin of her cheeks. I pulled her forward, drawing her lips to mine. She came willingly, parting her lips. I kissed her softly, feeling her puffy lips meeting mine. I darted the tip of my tongue forward slowly, touching the inside of her lip and running it back and forth, tasting the smooth membranes and feeling the back of my tongue rubbing against her top teeth. I withdrew my tongue for an instant and then darted forward with it once more. Her tongue shot out to meet it this time. I swirled the tip of mine with hers, marveling at the fact that I was making out with a sixteen year old girl. My cock jumped to full attention.

I gave her my best kissing, sucking lightly on her tongue and lips, nipping a little at them. It was undoubtedly a far cry from what she was used to, which was probably some brute ramming his tongue down her throat. I used my tongue like an instrument, tasting her young mouth, and arousing her. She pulled herself closer to me, forgetting that two other people were in the room. Her sweater clad breasts pushed against my chest.

I kissed across her cheek to her neck, licking and sucking on it softly, working my way upward, nibbling at her soft flesh. When I reached her earlobe I nipped at it and then slid my tongue softly through the hollow of her jaw. I blew lightly in her ear and then began to whisper to her.

"Have you ever been kissed like this before?" I asked.

"No." She groaned, her hands moving up and down my back.

"Do you like the way my tongue feels against your skin?"

"Yes." She panted, trembling all over now.

"Imagine this tongue and this mouth sliding all over your beautiful body. Imagine it suckling your nipples like a newborn baby. Imagine it kissing your tummy, your legs, sucking on your toes, and finally going between your legs and licking you there. Eating you until you come in my mouth."

"Ohh." She squeaked.

"You want that, don't you?" I whispered in her ear. "You want to come in my mouth, don't you? Has anyone ever made you come before?"

"No." She shook her head as I nibbled her earlobe again.

"I can." I told her. "I can make you come until you beg me to stop. I can make you come until you scream. Would you like me to?"

"Oh god." She whined, loud enough for the other two to hear.

"Would you?" I repeated.

"Ohhhh." She was now trembling all over, her skin flushing.

I ran my tongue across the side of her neck, tasting the salt of her skin, until it was teasing the delicate skin in the hollow of her throat. I sucked a little and then raised up and kissed her again. Her tongue eagerly sought out mine, sucking it into her mouth a little harder than I liked, almost painfully. That was okay. I knew I had her.

I pulled her tighter against me, feeling her breasts push into my chest. They were firm and oh so young. My instinct was to pick her up and carry her to the bedroom. But I didn't want to do that. I wanted her to ask me, to beg me to take her there.

I put my lips back near her ear and began to whisper to her again. "You're getting hot from my mouth, aren't you Debbie?"

"Yessss!" She hissed, breathing rapidly. "I've never…, ohhhh!"

"I've gotten you this hot by just kissing your face and your neck." I whispered. "Imagine what else I can do for you. I can give you pleasure you've never dreamed of before. All you have to do is ask me. Ask me to show you."

"Ohh God." She moaned again, grasping me tighter against her. She was approaching the edge of control. I knew that she was now mine, that if I stood up and led her to the bedroom, she would come. But I wanted her to ask me.

"Just ask." I told her, nibbling her ear again. "Just ask me to show you and I will."

"Please?" She said immediately. "Show me. You have to show me!"

I smiled, breaking the kiss. I gave her butt a little pat, indicating she should stand up. She did so, ignoring Raisin and Lonnie, just staring at me with glazed, lustful eyes. I stood too.

"Hey Raisin," I asked, smiling. "You mind if I borrow your room for a while? Me and Debbie have to talk."

He was speechless, just staring at me. Though I didn't want to, I could see that he'd sprung a woody watching the two of us.

"I'll take that as a yes." I said, grabbing Debbie's hand and leading her there. She didn't even look back.

Raisin's room was suprisingly pretty neat. His bed wasn't made but the floor was free of laundry and there was little debris lying around. I led Debbie inside and then shut the door. It was latched less than a half a second before her mouth slammed into mine and her tongue was probing for my tonsils. She pulled me tight against her, grinding her crotch into mine, rubbing her hips in circles.

"Oh god," She said, breaking the kiss and licking at my neck. "I've never been this fuckin' turned on before. I can't believe I'm doing this."

"I have that effect on women." I said, kissing her back and leading her over to the bed.

We sat down on the foot of it and I kissed her again, running my hand up under her sweater. I felt her smooth stomach and the cups of her bra for a moment before pushing upward, lifting the hem of the sweater over her head. She raised her arms to allow me to remove it. I tossed it to the floor next to the bed.

I began kissing her smooth shoulders while my hands slid around her back, finding the clasp of her bra. With a quick flick of my fingers the clasp was undone, allowing the bra to sag free. I pulled it off of her and tossed it to the floor next to her sweater.

I leaned back and stared at her chest for a moment. Her tits were almost more than I take. I had to restrain myself from simply attacking them. Though large for a teenager, they were firm, unaffected by years of gravity pulling on them. The nipples were small but erect, standing out proudly. The flesh was slightly paler than the surrounding skin. Sixteen year old tits! My mind screamed at me.

She saw my gaze and flushed deeper, covering them with her arms. Obviously my eyes upon her embarrassed her.

Gently I reached out and pulled her arms back down. "Don't cover them up." I said softly. "They're beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

She was nervous, not saying anything but giving me a slight giggle.

I reached out and stroked them softly with my fingers, running the tips around the perimeter, feeling the young, springy flesh, testing the weight of them. She sighed a little as I did this. Again, she was probably expecting me to maul them as a normal teenager would. I let the tip of my fingers circle inward, finally just flicking her nipples. She shuddered at the contact.

She was actually trembling as I leaned forward and began planting kisses on her bare shoulder. I let the underside of my tongue slide downward along her flesh, across the top of her heaving chest until I encountered the swell of her tit. I began sucking and licking the delicate skin there, giving the occasional soft nip with my teeth. Her hands landed on the back of my head, trying to push me down to the nipple. But I refused.

I kissed and sucked my way all over her right breast, moving from top to bottom, running my tongue over the underside and her lower chest, relishing the taste of her young skin, driving her nearly crazy with my teasing, but avoiding the nipple. Finally I repeated the process on her left breast. I then slid my tongue between the two, feeling them pushing into my cheeks on either side. She was now whimpering, almost crying in her desire.

At last I moved my mouth to the right nipple. I flicked at it with my tongue, tasting and feeling it's texture. At the contact she pushed her chest forward, trying to force it into her mouth, but I backed away at the same rate she advanced, frustrating her. I began sliding my tongue around the perimeter of the nipple, making it swell further. Finally I took it in my mouth and began suckling it gently, just as an infant would do.

"Ohhhh." She moaned, her fingers running through my hair. I pushed her to her back on the bed and went to work in earnest.

I worked on her nipples for more than ten minutes, moving from one to the other, tasting them, sucking them, loving them, until her hips began to move up and down. As I did this I reached down with my hands and pulled off her shoes, letting them fall to the floor. Her socks followed this.

Once she was barefoot, I began kissing my way downward, paying particular attention to her flanks, which I'd realized in my mid- twenties was a powerful erogenous zone on women when a tongue and mouth is applied to them with the right pressure. When I reached the waistband of her jeans I kissed along it, heading for her stomach, darting under the hem with the tip of my tongue. Her tummy was a work of art in and of itself. It was as smooth as the proverbial baby's butt, unlined by stretchmarks or any other signs of time. I reached her bellybutton and teased it for a moment, making the muscles in that part of her body go into seizure. I then trailed the back of my tongue downward again, until I reached the top of her jeans.

She was wearing button-fly jeans. I reached up and slowly undid the first button, revealing just a hint of her lower stomach. The flesh there was even paler than that of her breasts. I kissed and sucked that which was revealed for a second and then undid the second button, repeating the process.

When I undid the third button the top of her panties came into view. They were sparkling white, a sharp contrast against her skin. I captured the cotton material in my teeth for a second, pulling them lightly away from her body briefly before releasing them. As I did this I caught the first whiff of her odor. It was fresh and musky, the scent of a teenager, and only touched my olfactory senses for an instant. But it was enough to make me pick up the pace.

I ripped open the rest of her buttons and disengaged myself from her, so that I was kneeling at the foot of the bed. I put my hands in the waistband of her jeans and began tugging.

"Raise your hips." I commanded.

She instantly obeyed, obviously eager for me to get on with what I'd promised her. I pulled the jeans downward, struggling a little but finally removing the tight material from her body. They joined the sweater and the bra on the floor, leaving her lying before me in only her white, cotton panties.

I paused long enough to take off my own sweater, leaving me bare from the waist up. She stared at me lustfully as I did this, her legs twisting this way and that, unable to come to a rest. They were very pretty legs, smooth as silk, lightly tanned. Looking between them I could see that the crotch of her panties was wet, sucking lightly into her pussy. My mouth began watering as I captured her legs and placed them on my shoulders.

I reached forward and grabbed the waist of her panties. She raised her hips without instruction this time and I pulled them off, tossing them to the floor and returning her legs to my shoulders. I was now looking at her pussy. An actual sixteen year old pussy. The lips were swollen and inviting, her clit peeking out of its hood. There was a growth of reddish-brown hair, thick on the top, sparse around the lips. Her odor was now strong in my nostrils, making me giddy, the smell of a teenager in heat.

"Have you ever been eaten before?" I asked her, letting my finger lightly slide between her wet lips, parting them.

"Yes." She panted, still trembling. "Once."

"How was it?" I asked.

"It was okay." She said. "Please, do it now?"

I smiled. "Okay? Did you come?"

"No." She shook her head and then repeated. "Please?"

"Then you were just licked before." I told her, sliding my finger into her about a half an inch, far enough to feel that she was TIGHT. "Prepare to be EATEN."

"Ohhhh." She moaned as I moved my head forward.

I licked between those wonderful lips, tasting her nectar, feeling her smooth membranes with my tongue. I probed in and out, lapping like a cat a bowl of milk. She moaned as I did this, spreading her legs wider. I ran my hands up and down her smooth thighs while I continued to lick at her.

Her pubic hair tickled my face as I sucked each lip in between probes with my tongue. When her hips began gyrating on the bed I began making stabs at her clit. The stabs took her breath away, made her squeal in delight with each one. I ran my tongue around her erect clit for a few moments and then finally took it between my lips and began to suck on it gently.

"Ohhhh!" She screamed. "What are you…? Ohhhhh!"

I increased the suction on it, stabbing rapidly with my swirling tongue as I did so. Her hips began moving up and down rhythmically. Her sexy legs wrapped around my back, pulling me closer.

"Ohhh Yesss!" She cried. "Ohhh Yesss! Oh God!"

Shortly her clit sucked back into its hood and her hips and pubis began slamming into my face. It became difficult to keep my lips where they belonged but I had experience reading the rhythm. I plunged two fingers into her, feeling that tight sheath contract around them. I almost came in my pants right there when I felt that tightness. Oh how good that was going to feel when I got my cock in there.

With a long, high-pitched scream she came in my mouth, her hips battering me nearly senseless and then finally slowing to a stop. But I wasn't done yet. I pulled my face away from her but continued to finger-fuck her. I looked in her eyes as I did it. Her eyes had a mad glint in them; an expression she wasn't supposed to wear for another five years or so. She was panting and licking her lips, her tits heaving up and down.

"Did you like that?" I asked her, driving my fingers in and out. Her hips already were picking up the rhythm again.

"Yess!" She hissed. "Oh god, I never knew anything could… " She couldn't finish. She simply closed her eyes and humped back at my hand.

I smiled and then lowered my face to her crotch once more.

"Again?" She cried. "Ohh God!"

It only took two or three minutes to pull the second orgasm from her. The third took even less time. By the time I pulled my face away and stood up, she looked nearly insane.

"Are you ready to get fucked now?" I asked her, opening the fly on my own 501s.

"Ohhhh!" She moaned, her eyes glued to my crotch.

"Answer me." I told her. "Are you ready to get fucked?"

"Yes!" She yelled, nodding vigorously. "Oh yes!"

I kicked off my shoes and socks and then dropped my pants, pausing long enough to pull one of the condoms from the pocket. I tossed the condom on the bed by her feet and then dropped my underwear, letting free my straining, fifteen-year-old cock. It wasn't quite as long and thick as it would eventually be but Debbie didn't seem to mind. She spread her legs wider.

"C'mon!" She told me. "Let's do it."

I picked up the condom and ripped the package open, letting it fall to the floor. I rolled it over my cock expertly, giving it a tug to make sure it was on correctly. It was. Debbie watched this all with aroused curiosity. It was obvious that she'd never seen anyone put on a rubber before, though I was sure, due to the lack of a hymen, that she'd been fucked. I understood. Teenagers didn't give a shit, didn't think about consequences. But I did.

I climbed back on the bed and positioned myself over the top of her. Our lips came together again, our tongues swirling back and forth once more. Her firm tits were against my chest and my outer thighs were against her inner thighs. I grabbed my cock in my hand and put the head against her wet lips, sliding it up and down a few times, wetting the condom.

"Do it!" Debbie yelled, pushing her hips upward.

Slowly I pushed forward, allowing the head of my cock to slide inside of her. Her tunnel grasped me tightly, feeling as if a hand was gripping me, and I could slide no further. I pulled out and pushed again, gaining a little more ground with each thrust. Finally I was all the way inside the tightest box I'd ever imagined, let alone been in. This was what fucking was supposed to be like.

I began to thrust in and out, feeling her clamping on me as I slid back and forth. After a few moments she loosened up a little, allowing me to pick up the pace. I then began to slam in and out with practiced strokes, being sure to grind my pubic bone against hers with each thrust. She moaned and clawed at my back with her nails as I fucked her, her hips rising and falling counter to my own. Her skin began to perspire heavily, making our bodies slide exquisitely together, as if greased. She kissed on my neck and my ears, her tongue strokes copies of what I'd done to her earlier.

I suddenly got up to my knees, putting her legs on my shoulders while I continued to fuck her. I was able to look down upon her supine body, to watch my cock sliding in and out her slit, to see her sweaty tits bouncing back and forth, to see her face, to watch the rapture in her eyes. I stroked her legs up and down, kissing on her calves for a while and then I began feeling those beautiful breasts, squeezing them a little rougher now. I slammed harder and harder into her, making her grunt and moan. When she came again she pulled me back down to her and thrust her tongue back in my mouth.

I was at the end of my rope by then so I went for the final push. I fucked as hard as I could, sweat dripping off my face, that tight pussy gripping and releasing me. I felt the sensation of pure pleasure starting in my groin and spreading quickly throughout my body from there. I began to groan myself, losing control of my thrusting rhythm, only battering her like an animal. The pleasure of orgasm assaulted me, had its way with me, completely took my body over for an indeterminate amount of time. It was pleasure on the purest level. My God, I could not remember when orgasms had felt like that. It made the ones I had as an adult feel like a little spasm in comparison. I shot blast after blast inside of her (inside the condom actually), continuing to pound away until I fell exhausted atop of her.

We kissed each other for a moment and then looked in each other's eyes. Hers were full of confusion and doubt.

"Wow." She whispered finally. "That was… that was awesome. Totally bitchin'."

I smiled, kissing her nose and pulling myself out of her so the condom wouldn't come off in her pussy.

"Thank you." I said, rolling to my back next to her.

She was still looking at me. "It was almost like…, I dunno." She shook her head.

"Like what?" I asked, grabbing the condom and pulling it off neatly, not spilling so much as a drop.

"Like you were, oh, I dunno, older or something. It didn't seem like I was doing someone younger than me."

I stared at her for a moment, holding the slick condom between my fingers. I chuckled. "I'm just wise beyond my years baby. That's all."

She looked at me doubtfully as I tied a knot in the condom and stood up. "What now?" She asked. "Are we like, going together now?"

Going together? I thought, accessing my memory again for what that term entailed. Finally I remembered. Boyfriend/girlfriend type of thing. Not supposed to date anyone else. I certainly didn't want that. "No." I told her. "We were just two stoned friends having a little fun together. That's all. Why does it have to be more complicated than that?"

Relief was evident on her face. She didn't want to 'go' with anybody either. "I guess it don't." She answered, then she soured. "But I guess I'll be the school slut for a while." She looked at me as I picked up my clothes from the floor. "You know, it was worth it though. Where did you learn how to, you know, like that?"

"Oh, here and there." I answered. "But there's no reason why you have to be the school slut you know. I'm not gonna tell anyone what we did."

Her smile was cynical beyond its years. "Sure you won't." She answered. "You won't tell anyone that you're the one to bag Debbie Walker."

"I won't." I said, pulling on my pants. "For what purpose would I do that? So all of you girls can talk about what a fuckin' blabbermouth I am? How will I ever get any pussy that way? No girl's gonna fuck a loudmouth. However, if you have the reputation as someone that can keep his mouth shut no matter what… well, where do you think I learned how to do what I did?"

She looked hopeful for a moment, wanting to believe me. But then she shook her head. "Even if you do keep your mouth shut, which I doubt, Raisin and Lonnie know what we did. They won't keep theirs shut."

I shrugged. "I'll tell them you wouldn't give it up. I'll call you a fuckin' cock tease when I tell them about it, kissing on me and lettin' me feel your tits a little through your sweater, but not lettin' me go any further. They'll believe it."

"YOU are going to tell them THAT?" She asked, looking at me as if I'd just explained that there really was a Santa Clause and an Easter bunny.

I leaned over and kissed her lightly on the lips. "Sure." I told her quietly. "You can trust me for that. You really can. I promise. And you don't even have to trust me. Just say you didn't do anything with me but kiss me. If I'm lying and I blab to everyone, how much worse off are you anyway?"

"I suppose." She said doubtfully.

"But do me a favor." I said.

"What?"

"Well, I know you don't believe me now, but when a few weeks go by and you find out that I kept my promise, just keep me in mind the next time you get a little horny. I can be very discrete."

"Discrete?" She asked.

"Never mind." I said, pulling on my shirt. "Just keep me in mind. And if you and some of your friends ever get to discussing things like sex with each other, and if one of them ever happens to express frustration that she can't get herself fucked without the whole school knowing about it." I smiled. "Maybe you could just mention my name to them. If you know what I mean."

She stared at me for a second and then started giggling. "Are you SURE you're only fifteen?" She asked.

"Yep." I nodded. "The best age of your life Debbie. Believe me."