Doing it All over

Chapter 15

My suspicions were correct. Nina had been just a little too innocent in her inquiries about what time Tracy left for her appointment. At 8:50 the next morning, less than ten minutes after the ambulance carted my sister away with Mom and Dad following in the car, the phone rang.

"Care for a visitor?" Nina asked me playfully.

"I don't know," I responded, "I had plans."

"Plans?"

"Yep," I answered firmly. "I need to go over my stock certificates and calculate my net worth. Also, Sesame Street starts in ten minutes."

"I LOVE Sesame Street," she told me.

"I'm sure you do," I replied. "But watching Sesame Street is meant to be a transcendental, solitary experience, wouldn't you agree?"

"I would," she chuckled. "But do you think that maybe just this once you could make an exception?"

I sighed, exaggerating the sound. "I suppose."

"See you in ten minutes," she told me.

I smiled as I hung up the phone, feeling warm inside as I contemplated the prospect of Nina and an empty house. Usually on workdays I didn't shower until about 11:00. But something had told me that an earlier shower might be a good idea on that day. I was already squeaky clean and dressed in shorts and a tank top.

When the doorbell rang exactly ten minutes later my warmth kicked up a few notches as I saw her standing there. She was dressed in a light yellow summer dress that came down to just above her knees. Her legs were bare. It was readily apparent by the way her small breasts jiggled beneath the dress that she was not wearing a bra. Her face was made up lightly and her brown hair was loose and flowing over her shoulders. Her eyes were twinkling as she stepped into my arms, giving me a soft, very erotic kiss on the lips.

"Mmmm," I said, letting my hand slide slowly across her chest, confirming the suspicion I had about her brassiere.

She slapped at my hand. "I didn't tell you you could do that," she teased.

"I think we've gotten to the point," I teased back, "where they are now possessions of mine and I can touch them whenever I want to."

"Is that so?" she giggled, breaking free of my embrace and walking inside. I had a Rolling Stones album playing softly on the turntable and the voice of Mick Jagger was telling us about how we should have sympathy for the Devil.

"Yes," I nodded, admiring her legs, the way they moved beneath the hem of her dress. They were tanned and toned from our frequent excursions outside and very pretty to behold. "Did your mother see how you were dressed when you left?"

"Are you kidding?" she asked, sitting on the sofa. The hem of her dress rode up considerably. She made no effort to push it back down. "I had a bra on when I left the house." She smiled seductively, "but it was really uncomfortable, you know. So I just left it in the car." She patted the sofa next to her.

I sat down, letting my fingertips touch her exposed thigh. "If I didn't know better," I said, "I'd swear you have evil intentions."

"Me?" she asked. "I'm young and innocent."

"Uh huh. Did you leave anything else in the car?" I asked hopefully.

"No," she said indignantly. "I did not leave my panties in the car if that's what you were implying. What kind of girl do you think I am?"

"Bummer."

She leaned over and kissed me softly on the ear. She whispered, "I didn't leave them in the car because I seem to have forgotten to put any on this morning. How absent-minded of me."

My penis, which had been semi-erect from the moment I realized she had no bra on, suddenly stiffened to a diamond cutter. Realization struck me. With it, sexual excitement and doubt. She was completely naked under her dress! She hadn't come over here to merely fool around a little. She had an agenda. Were things moving too fast?

"Nina?" I said, trying to concentrate, to think this through as she ran her tongue up and down my neck, leaving wet trails of saliva. Concentration was difficult. Nina, despite her inexperience, had learned volumes about the art of pleasuring my flesh with her tongue.

"Let's go upstairs," she whispered to me. "Let's enjoy our time alone together. We don't have much time before you have to go to work."

I gulped. "But what about… you know… uh… protection?" I asked her. "I don't have any… uh… condoms." Actually I did. There was still a small stash of them in my Bible along with a joint that Mike had given me at some point. But I didn't want Nina to know that because I wasn't sure how she would react.

Her hand slid down my chest, coming to rest on the bulge at the front of my shorts. It began to twist slowly back and forth, putting delicious pressure on me. "You don't need any condoms," she said, still whispering in my ear, letting me feel her breath on me. "I'm on the pill."

The pill? I turned my head sharply at her. "You're what?"

A smile, a very wicked one came to her face. "I went to the family planning clinic way back in January. After the first time we made out. I knew back then that we would eventually work our way to this point. They give the pill to minors you know, without telling their parents."

I was speechless as I stared at her. She seemed to be enjoying the reaction she was giving me.

"You remember the pimples?" she asked, "the sore boobs? That's why I had those problems. It takes a little while to get used to the hormones in the pill. But I wanted it to be safe when we finally made love. I wanted it to be perfect. And today is perfect. We have the time, we have the place."

"Wow," I finally muttered. "You never fail to surprise me."

"And hopefully I never will," she smiled.

"But are you sure you…"

"Oh for Christ sake Bill!" she shouted, exasperated. "Why do you treat me like a child sometimes? I'm older than you are. I'm more than ready. I'm more than willing. I've been ready for a long, long time. Do you remember the day you first asked me to come over to your house to study?"

I looked at her, confused. "You mean, the very first time? Back in eleventh grade?"

"Yes," she nodded. "It was the first day of eleventh grade and you asked me to come to your place and study." She gave me a shrewd look. "I KNEW what it meant when you asked a girl over to study. I KNEW the kind of studying that went on at your house. We've already been over that point, right?"

"Uh… yes," I said slowly.

"And you'll recall that I said I would come over. I thought you were asking me over to STUDY with you. And I said yes. I wanted to STUDY, wanted it bad." She laughed, shaking her head. "Of course, the joke turned out to be on me when it became clear a few minutes later that you just wanted to study with me. To REALLY study."

"I… uh… well," I stammered, "back then I was still…"

"Hush," she told me, leaning in to give me a kiss on the mouth. "That's the past and the past is forgiven. My point is that I've been ready to feel you inside of me since then. The reasons I want to feel it have changed, and changed for the better, but I still want it. I want it today. I want it NOW. So quit trying to be gentle and considerate. Quit trying to protect fragile little Nina from the evil world. Show me the evil world Bill. Take me upstairs and fuck me. Right now!"

She stood, pulling on my hand, beckoning me to rise from the couch. I got to my feet obediently, still shocked but also terribly turned-on by what she was saying. She began to lead me to my room.

As we mounted the staircase she turned to me and said, "but first, you've just got to show me what the vacuum cleaner treatment is all about."

"That can be arranged," I told her.

We went to my room, which was spotless and neat, the bed neatly made, all of the rock music posters and other teenage memorabilia long-since removed from the walls and replaced by tasteful but cheap paintings and photographs that I'd acquired here and there since my recycling. I paused long enough to flip on my stereo and quickly tune it from the rock station it usually was set on to a college classical music station. Mozart was playing and I thought it fitting for the occasion. We turned and looked at each other.

"Love me," Nina said softly and I stepped into her arms.

We kissed standing up, her arms dropping down to my ass, feeling the cheeks through my shorts while my hands slid slowly down the back of her dress until I encountered her bare thighs. I stroked the skin softly for a moment, relishing the feminine feel of her legs, and then I began to slide them upwards, under the hem of her dress.

She had not been lying when she'd told me she had no panties on. My hands slid up her legs until they were moving across the smooth skin of her naked buttocks. I squeezed gently, pulling her body tighter into mine, caressing her, letting my fingertips dig lightly into her flesh. Her breathing quickened as she felt me touching her intimately. Her own hands slid upwards, under the back of my shirt.

"Take it off me," she commanded. "Make me naked."

I nodded, speechless and backed up a step. I moved my fingers from her rear and grasped the hem of her dress, lifting upward. She raised her arms to assist me. A quick pull upward and it was over. The dress was dropped indifferently to the floor at our feet and Nina stood naked before me.

I will always remember that moment, no matter how long I live, no matter how many lives I inhabit. The first moment my eyes feasted upon the sight of Nina in the flesh, in the bright daylight. I had undressed many a girl before, had looked at many a naked female form, but never had it been so sweet, so anticipated, so fulfilling. She was beautiful, all I ever wanted, her treasures revealed completely at last. I realized that I'd been waiting a long, long time for this experience and I savored it.

Nina's body was the type that looks it's most alluring unclothed. Her bra and her pants and her shirt tended to hide her curves, hide the swell of her breasts, hide the smoothness of her skin. Girls like Cindy and Maggie and the many others that I'd bedded tended to look better in clothing, their charms accented by under-wire support, tight denim, tight sweaters. They made you fantasize about what they looked like naked but when you finally removed their clothing you would always find that reality was not quite as good as the fantasy. Their boobs would sag, their stomach would have a pooch to it. But Nina's body was the exact opposite. Freed of restraint, her attributes were shining. Her stomach was smooth as silk, without a line marring it anywhere. Her breasts stood proudly revealed, their small size guaranteeing not a millimeter of sag. Her lower curves were starkly outlined, making a distinct hourglass shape. And her pelvic region was without the slightest hint of bulge, her tuft of brown pubic hair accenting the pouting lips of her vagina, which were barely seen.

"Nina," I said, in awe. "You are truly beautiful."

A shy smile from her. She looked as if she wanted to cover herself with her arms and hands, wanted to hide what I so desired from my eyes, but was restraining herself. "Thank you Bill," she said quietly. "I'm all yours."

I put my hands to her shoulders and slowly let my fingertips move downward, across her upper chest to the swell of her breasts. They glided across the nipples, swirling around each for one revolution before continuing onward, over the bottom-swell and down to her lower rib cage. I passed over the slight protuberance of her ribs, across her smooth stomach to her navel, where the fingertips touched each other for a brief second before separating and continuing south to her hips. They then slid around to her buttocks once more.

"Come over to the bed," I told her.

She gave me a nervous smile and let me propel her to my bed, lying her on her back near the middle, her head resting on my pillow. She kicked her sandals off as she lay down. She kept her legs tightly together, depriving me of a good view of her sex but this did not concern me in the least. I traced my fingertip from her knee to her crotch, letting it pass slowly through her pubic hair on its way to her breast. I eased myself down next to her, dropping my head to her right breast.

I licked from the bottom upward, working my way quickly to her pencil-eraser sized nipple, which I took into my mouth and began to gently suckle. It grew considerably in my lips and her hands came up to the back of my head. My hand began to slide up and down her thighs, right in the space where they came together. After a moment they parted slightly and I began to catch whiffs of her aroused odor in my nose.

I kissed downward, licking and sucking my way over her stomach, paying particular attention to her navel, which I plunged my tongue into, making her squeal in ticklish delight. I continued downward, kissing her lower stomach, moving more slowly now, tasting the soft skin with both my tongue and my lips.

When my chin touched the top of her pubic hair, felt it tickling me, I diverted to the side, kissing my way down her hip, to the outside of her thigh. I bathed her upper leg with my lips and tongue, moving downward to her knee. She continually tried to pull me back upward but I resisted her tugs, moving undaunted at my own pace. When I reached her knee her legs had spread of their own accord. I began moving back upward again, this time kissing the skin of her inner thigh, interjecting my body between her legs.

I could see her sex now as I homed in on it. I could see her lips pouting outward from the curtain of pubic hair, could see her clitoris, erect and waiting for me, bulging from its hood. Her lips were glistening with moisture, secreting her scent into the air. Her legs opened wider, her hands at the back of my head tugging harder, more insistently. I felt her calves and feet rubbing against my flanks.

I kissed all the way up her inner thigh, until my tongue was licking in the crease between her leg and her crotch. Her odor was powerful in my nose, making me giddy, making me want to rip off my clothes and drive ruthlessly into her body. Instead, I let the tip of my tongue lightly slide through her nest of hair and track up the side of her lip. I tasted the faint bite of her secretions on my tongue.

"Bill!" she begged, her legs opening wider, her hands pulling on my head.

I quit the teasing and went to work, sliding my tongue between her lips and licking, gathering her juices, feeling the sexy slipperiness of her inner membranes.

"Ohhhh!" she moaned at this first contact.

I licked up and down, staying away from her bulging clit and then began to slowly probe into her with my rolled up tongue, forcing my way inside. She was very sensitive to this treatment and her hips began to rise and fall the second I made contact.

"Yesss!" she groaned. "Oh yess!"

I lapped at her more rapidly, drenching my face in her juices, feeling her thighs rubbing on my cheeks. I probed in and out as if I was fucking her with my mouth. Finally I began to lick softly around the perimeter of her clit. Her hip motion became more rapid as I did this so I began to apply soft licks to the surface of her most sensitive area. The motion began to lose conscious control. Her moans increased in volume, became higher in pitch. I looked up the length of her body, across the heaving breasts to her face, seeing that her eyes were tightly closed, her faced scrunched in the grimace of ecstasy.

I began to gently suck upon her clit, at the same time probing between her moist lips with a finger. Her clit grew in my mouth, her motions losing all semblance of control. My finger could only penetrate a short way before coming to the barrier of her maidenhead. I could have pushed past it if I'd wished but I didn't want to, knowing that another part of my body was tasked for that job and looking forward to it.

Her orgasm started slowly, building tempo as it hit her. Her hips rose and fell so fast that I had trouble maintaining the lock I had upon her. Her thighs squeezed painfully into my neck, threatening to cut off my blood supply. Her whine became increasingly high-pitched, eventually inaudible to my ears. Every muscle in her body tensed as I continued to suck on her, as her pubis continued to mash into me, wetting my face. Her fingers pulled at my hair, ripping some from my head but I barely noticed as I brought her to her peak and she began to slide back down.

I continued sucking softly until her body relaxed and a sigh escaped from her lips into the air, until her fingers relaxed and untangled from my hair.

Her legs dropped from around me, coming to rest on the bed. Slowly I raised my head from her crotch, seeing her lying there with her legs spread, her vagina drooling juices onto my bedspread, her lips red and swollen, her nipples standing proud and erect, her eyes shining with lust. She was panting.

"My God," she proclaimed breathlessly. "I've never felt anything like that before."

I gave her a weak smile, wiping some of her juices away from my lips with the back of my hand. "I try," I told her.

"Get those clothes off," she ordered. "Get them off and get inside of me. Do it Bill."

I stood quickly and ripped my shirt free from my body, tossing it across the room. It landed on the stereo. I was just reaching for the button on my shorts, ready to rip them and my underwear down, intending to be naked in less time than it took for me to take my next breath.

From downstairs the telephone began to ring. I stopped, everything stopped.

Call it ESP, call it intuition, call it whatever you want, but there are times in everyone's life when you simply know that the ringing of the telephone is a signal for important information. It could have been Mike calling to shoot the shit. It could have been Nina's Mom asking her to pick up some milk on the way home from my house. It could have been one of Tracy's friends calling to check on her. It could have been a friend of one of my parents. But it was none of those things and I knew it by the time the second ring came drifting up the stairs. I simply knew it.

Nina looked at me, I at her. She knew the same thing I did, that whatever information was waiting on the other end of the call was going to mean an end to our encounter.

"Alexander Graham Bell was an asshole," I told her.

Still panting, still flushed with arousal, she asked, "are you going to get it?"

"I don't want to."

"I think you should," she sighed in frustration. "Try to get rid of whoever it is."

"Right." I said, heading downstairs.

My precognitive flash, or whatever it was, was strengthened by the fact that by the time I made it downstairs to the phone it was well into its eighth or ninth ring. Whoever was on the other end wasn't giving up easily.

"Hello?" I asked, fighting to make my voice sound pleasant.

"Hi," said my Dad. "Took you a while to get to the phone."

"Sorry," I mumbled, anything but.

"I figured if I let it ring long enough, you would answer. Sorry to uh… bother you."

"That's okay," I said, wondering if my Dad somehow knew what I'd been doing.

"What's up? Is Tracy okay?"

"She's fine," he assured me. "But the doctor can't complete his examination of her until he gets some recent X-rays. She was supposed to go over to the radiology clinic for that but the radiology techs are in the middle of some sort of labor dispute and they're having a sick-out today. So basically, this whole morning was a waste of time and the ambulance guys are putting her back in for the trip home right now."

"Right now?" I asked, glancing upstairs.

"Right now," he confirmed. "We should be home in about fifteen minutes or so. Just thought I'd give you a little… uh… warning."

"Okay," I said, feigning nonchalance. "Too bad for Tracy. I'll see you when you get here."

"Right," he said, hanging up the phone.

I set mine back down, feeling frustration, feeling my erection wilting in my shorts, but most of all feeling relief that my Dad had some foresight and common sense. He must have strongly suspected what I was up to or he never would have called. Dad was not the type to drop friendly little warnings that he was on his way home. I could only imagine the embarrassment for all concerned if they had come home while Nina and I had been engaged upstairs. Would we have heard them come in? Seriously doubtful.

Time was short so I rushed back upstairs.

"Who was it?" Nina asked, sitting up on the bed, still naked.

"My Dad," I told her, "they weren't able to complete Tracy's appointment. They're on their way home right now."

"Right now?"

"They'll be here in fifteen minutes," I nodded.

"Damn," she exclaimed, standing quickly up. "Stupid interruptions."

"I know," I said regretfully, looking at her naked body, knowing I'd been less than a minute away from finally entering it.

"Oh well," she shook her head sadly, as frustrated as I was, probably more so. "The best laid plans and all that." She took a good look at herself, at her dripping body. "I need to get cleaned up before they get here. I can't go home smelling like this."

"No," I said, paling as I thought about Mary Blackmore getting a whiff of the odor of sex on her daughter. Sure, she probably suspected that Nina and I were intimate with each other, that was one thing. But to have physical proof of it was quite another. "That wouldn't do, would it?"

"I need to use your shower," she said, gathering up her dress. "I'll be out before they get here. Can you go out to the car and get my bra?"

"You bet." I said. "And I probably oughtta brush my teeth too."

She giggled. "Probably oughtta," she agreed, heading for the bathroom, her dress trailing out behind her.

By the time the EMTs dragged Tracy back into the house and deposited her in her bed Nina was dried off and dressed once more, her bra properly in place.

Everyone greeted her warmly, not expressing any surprise at her presence. I did notice a few knowing looks from both Tracy and my Dad however. If they had anything to say, they kept it to themselves.

Nina and I chatted with Tracy for a while and then Mom and Dad, who had assumed their places before the television set. I kept up my end of the conversation but I couldn't recite a single thing we talked about. My teenaged hormones were surging through my body and I was having a difficult time keeping my erection from returning as I thought about Nina just sitting there, talking normally, while under her dress she had no panties on. My balls were aching fiercely.

We went up to my room about a half-hour before I needed to start getting ready for work. This was nothing unusual, we often spent time up there alone. Usually we did nothing more than kiss.

"Got blue balls?" Nina asked me, a smile on her face.

"In the worst way," I nodded.

"I'm sorry," she told me, sitting on the edge of my bed once more. "I really meant to let you make love to me. I wanted it Bill. I still do."

"I know," I told her. "It's okay."

"I guess fate just doesn't like you for some reason."

I had to laugh at what she said. Fate like me? Probably not. "No," I said, "I don't believe that fate likes me at all."

She gave me a puzzled look for a moment and then her eyes took on a little shine. "So what are you gonna do about the blue balls?" she asked. "Play with yourself after I leave?"

"Probably before your car even starts," I confirmed. "I can't go to work like this."

"Maybe I can help," she said softly. "Come over here."

"Why?" I asked suspiciously.

She reached out and grabbed the waistband of my shorts, tugging me to her so I was standing between her legs. Her mouth was right at the level of my crotch. "You ask too many questions," she told me, reaching for the button and undoing it.

"Nina," I said, feeling myself coming to full erection once again, "my parents…"

"Would never come in without knocking," she put in. She unzipped me and pushed my shorts down. Another push to my underwear and my cock was waving in her face. "Just be quiet and let me do my work."

"If you insist," I croaked as her mouth slid over me.

My mom was in the habit of leaving me a plate of whatever she'd cooked for dinner that night in the refrigerator so I could heat it up when I got home from work. That night was no exception. I was gobbling up a large bowl of her beef stew and turning a thought that I'd been having over in my mind when the doorbell rang. I heard my Dad answer it and a moment later say, "he's in the kitchen." A few seconds after that, Mike came in, wearing a T-shirt from the fire department.

"What's up Mike?" I greeted, putting my thoughts on hold for the time being. "How's the new job?"

"It's cool," he answered, grabbing a seat. "I spent most of the day filling out the forms and all that crap. Then one of the captains that works days took me out in the truck to show me what I'd be doing. I'll start tomorrow on the normal route."

I offered him some of Mom's stew, there was plenty in the fridge, and he declined. While I finished up he continued to tell me about his new career.

When I was done eating and had put my dishes in the sink, we went out front.

"I'm off the buds now," he told me seriously once we were out of my parent's earshot.

"You?" I asked, raising my brows, "off the buds? What's up with that?"

He shook his head sadly. "I'll be driving a courier truck for the fire department. They have a policy. If anybody driving any vehicle gets into any accident of any kind, they have to get drug tested. It's some lawyer shit they have there. I wish I would've known about it a few weeks ago. I smoked some the other day with Maggie. Now I have to hope and pray I don't have some asshole crash into me in the next six weeks."

"Hopefully fate will be kind to you," I said, suppressing the joy I wanted to express. When I made my crack about fate I hadn't even been worried about it. Mike had already beaten fate. He had been forced to choose between marijuana and a career and he had chosen the career with hardly a second thought. Remarkable when you consider what had happened to him in his previous timeline, when he'd continued to smoke pot knowing that he would eventually be drug-tested and caught. He just hadn't cared. Now, at eighteen, he was much more mature than "the other Mike", as Tracy would have put it, ever was or ever would be. "Are you gonna miss it much?" I asked him.

"Oh yeah," he admitted, nodding. "There's nothing like getting stoned. Well, almost nothing. But I'll live. I hope Maggie understands. She likes to smoke a little bit with me. But I don't think it'll bother her that I quit. And the minute I make captain and don't have to drive anything anymore, I'm gonna go score me a fuckin' ounce and smoke it all in one night."

I grinned. "Be sure and invite me over," I told him. "How's it going with you and Maggie anyway?"

"It's goin' great," he assured me. "If she wasn't at work right now I'd be over there instead of bullshittin' with you." He grinned lasciviously, "I'm tellin' you Bill, that chick really knows how to fuck."

"What?" I asked, surprised at his words although I really shouldn't have been.

He nodded knowingly. "And she can suck dick like you wouldn't believe too. The other night she finally gave it up for the first time. Goddam she was hot. We started out in her living room. We were watching some TV and then we started kissing a little. She let me feel her tits, she has nice tits, and then she unbuttoned my…"

"Mike," I interrupted.

"What?" he asked, looking confused, wondering why I was intruding upon his sex story.

"Have you told anybody else about this?" I asked him.

"About fucking Maggie?" he asked. "No, you're the first. Why?"

I shook my head. "Don't take what I'm telling you the wrong way," I said, "I'm telling you this in friendship and to help you, just like when I told you about the Air Force recruiter, remember?"

"Yeah, but… what are you talking about?"

"Don't tell people about what you do with Maggie," I advised sternly. "Don't tell anybody a damn thing. Not even me, not even if they ask. Keep it to yourself. I know it's hard to do, I know that a guy's instinct is to share his conquests with everyone, to let other guys know he's a man. But it's a bad idea. A very bad idea."

He looked at me strangely. I could see the old immature hostility at being contradicted wanting to come forth. "I'm just telling you," he said. "Maggie doesn't know. And she wouldn't care anyway."

"Wrong." I said. "Now I don't know Maggie as well as you do, but I know women pretty well. And I know guys pretty well. If you tell me, you'll tell others. But even if you don't, you can't even trust me. Suppose I passed on what you said to Tracy. Tracy might run into Cindy, who is her friend. Cindy is also a friend of Maggie's. Suppose Maggie hears from Cindy exact quotes from what you just told me. She wouldn't be very happy. Her unhappiness will increase with each person that the story passed through before it got back to her. It really is a small world and if you are in the habit of blabbing your exploits to people, word will get around and get back to her. Women will break up with you in an instant if they find out you're telling people about what you do with them in bed. Worse than that, any other woman that the story has passed through will not have anything to do with you because they know you'll tell everyone. Are you following me?"

He looked a little shell shocked by my words. "Yeah, I see. But you won't tell Tracy anything."

"You can't know that." I told him, "You can't know that about even me and I'm your best friend. All it would take would be a few beers with Tracy, a little loosening of the tongue, and then out pops the story. You definitely can't know that about other people. Trust me on this. Keep you mouth shut about it if you want to keep her. Fuck the shit out of her at night. Enjoy it immensely. But don't tell a soul about it. Why even take a chance on her finding out? What's more important Mike, continuing to get the pussy and not having anybody know you're getting it or getting it a few times, letting everybody know, and then losing the pussy because you blabbed? Myself, I gotta go with continued pussy every time. No contest."

He was looking thoughtful at my speech but didn't say anything.

"Besides," I went on. "After it becomes known that you and Maggie are together, everyone is gonna know you're fucking her anyway. They'll know you're a man, they'll know you're taking her home and boffing the shit out of her. So why provide them with details? Let them just think about what you're doing with her and they're not. Let the fuckers be envious."

He nodded a little, brightening to what I'd said. "I see what you're saying."

"So if I come up to you and say, "Mike, you been fucking Maggie or what?", what are you gonna say?"

He smiled. "I'd say this:" He shrugged, "Maggie and I are just good friends."

I grinned. "You're learning Mike. You're learning."

"You know where I learned that line from?" he asked me.

"Where?"

"From you," he told me.

"From me?"

"Over the last couple a years," he said, "I used to see you with girls from school all the time. They used to be around you at lunch, around you after school, around you before school. Whenever I'd ask you about one of them, that's what you'd say. That you were just friends."

"And friends were all that we ever were."

He shook his head in wonder. "You sly motherfucker," he said respectfully.

The next morning, shortly after breakfast, Tracy and I were playing a game of cribbage in her cave. Tracy was not a happy person being eternally trapped in a den of her parent's house. She was suffering from a full-blown case of cabin fever and was very cranky at best. I was twenty points ahead of her and had just slapped down a double card run, fouling her mood even more.

"You lucky asshole," she said in disgust, throwing her cards at me. "This is a stupid game."

"And I'm about to skunk you at it," I added. "Which means you'll owe me fifty cents instead of a quarter, plus double points."

"Fuck you and deal," she told me. "And please turn off whatever crap that is you've put on the turntable. It reminds me of taking car trips with Mom and Dad when we were little."

"It's the Beatles," I told her. "This is the most classic rock and roll there is. How can you not like it?"

"It's old fogey music. Put on one of my albums, they're much better."

"Eighties music is an atrocity. You can't compare the freakin Thompson Twins to the Beatles. It's not even the same category."

"I LIKE the Thompson Twins," she said. "And I HATE the Beatles. And I'm the one that's injured and you're the one in MY room. So put on the fucking Thompson Twins."

"All right," I gave in, setting the cards down and heading for the stereo. Just then the phone started to ring.

"You got that Bill?" Dad yelled from his perch in the living room. Mom was off at work.

"Yeah," I said, changing course and heading for the phone. "Hello?"

"Bill?" It was Nina and she sounded very excited. "Have you got your mail yet?"

"I don't think so," I said, already intuiting what she was talking about. "Nobody's gone out to get it anyway. Why? Did you get a letter from the college?"

"Acceptance and full academic scholarship!" she squealed happily. "I'm in Bill. I'm in! And I'll be able to afford to go!"

"That's great Nina," I said, getting excited myself. "Let me go check the mail and see if mine's there. Here, talk to Tracy." I handed the phone, actually tossed it, to my sister and rushed out of the room.

Still wearing my sweat pants and no shirt I rushed by my Dad, who looked at me curiously, and out the front door. I went directly to the mailbox by the curb, throwing open the door and peering inside. There was a stack of mail in there. I grabbed it, shuffling quickly through the envelopes, magazines, and junk mail, looking for a return address from the University of Washington at Seattle. I found it near the bottom.

Standing there, holding it in my hand, I was suddenly scared, suddenly afraid to open it. Inside was either a yes or a no. If it was yes, Nina and I would be going to college together. If it was a no, who knows what would happen. I took a deep breath. With hands that were shaking, I finally tore open the envelope. One quick glance told me all I needed to know. I returned to the house.

I tossed the rest of the pile of mail at my Dad as I rushed by him once more. I went back into the den and ripped the phone out of Tracy's hands.

"Me too!" I said happily to her. "Acceptance and full academic scholarship!"

We talked for a few minutes excitedly to each other about our plans, about our excitement, about how much we loved one another. During this, Tracy seemed to actually cheer up and Dad wandered into the room to see what was going on. When I finally hung up Tracy was the first to congratulate me. She gave me a big hug and even a little kiss on the cheek.

Dad was next. "Congratulations," he told me. "I'm very proud of you."

"Thanks Dad," I said, still trying to accept the fact that everything was working out for me.

"Be sure and call your mother right away and let her know."

"I will," I promised. "I'll do it right now."

"It seems," Dad said, "that the mail is full of good news today." He handed me a small folding piece of paper, an announcement. On the front of it was a picture of two bells clanging together.

I opened it and read what was inside. The text was written in tastefully printed calligraphy.

THE STEVENS FAMILY: YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO THE BLESSED NUPTIALS OF JACK JACOB VALENTINE AND ANITA LYNN BROWLING SATURDAY, JULY 28, 1984 AT BLESSED SACRAMENT CHURCH, SPOKANE WEDDING CEREMONY 1:00 PM FOLLOWED BY RECEPTION AT ENDERS HALL PLEASE COME JOIN US IN THIS CELEBRATION OF LOVE

It was that evening, long after work, shortly after Mom had gone to bed. Tracy was in the den sleeping the sleep of narcotic intoxication. Dad and I were sitting in front of the television, each of us drinking a beer, the coffee table littered with empty bottles. This was something we did with fair frequency since I'd shared my secret with him and I valued these talks with him. Being treated like an adult by your father, with all of the respect due from such a relationship, is something that I believe every boy strives for whether unconsciously or consciously.

"So what do you think about Anita's wedding?" Dad asked me, taking a sip out of his fourth beer. We were making short work of the twelver he'd purchased the day before.

"I'm so happy about it," I told him, feeling my own buzz loosening my tongue, "that I could shit. Do you know what this means? It means that I was right. That I actually did something right. That one of my plans actually worked. Wouldn't that make you happy?"

He nodded wisely. "It would," he said, "but sometimes I think you sell yourself short. You have a keen head for hatching schemes and putting them into motion. You have a gift for it. When you told me all the trouble you went through just to get them together," he shook his head. "You did good Bill. You should be proud of yourself. But what I wanted to know was if you thought we should go to the wedding. Your mother and Anita haven't really spoken in quite some time. I think you know why."

"Yeah," I nodded. "My fault. And I'm sorry for that. I wish I could tell Mom how sorry I am that I hurt one of her friendships."

"Don't worry about it," he told me. "From what you've said, the relationship pretty much died after they got married anyway, didn't it?"

"Yeah," I said. "It did. Anita left the area and never looked back. I'm glad she's back on track."

"And the wedding?" he persisted.

"I want to go." I told him. "Whether you and Mom go or not, I still want to. It'll give me closure to this whole thing with her."

"Closure?" he said, puzzled.

"Sorry," I chuckled. "Buzzword from the nineties. I used to hate it then but here it is slipping from my mouth now. It means that once I see that Anita is happy, that she is content with her husband, I'll be able to put the episode with her behind me once and for all. To close it."

"I see," he nodded. "Closure. I like it."

"Don't like it too much," I told him. "It'll be horribly overused and you'll hear it so much you'll want to puke eventually."

"I'll take your word for it," he said, draining the last of his beer. "And I'll feel your mother out about going to Anita's wedding. But for now, I think I'm gonna call it a night."

"Me too," I said. "Oh, and by the way, can you do me a favor tomorrow?"

"What's that?"

"Well, earlier tonight, after dinner, I was going over my net worth. Do you know that I now have more than twenty thousand dollars in stocks?"

"Not bad," Dad said, impressed. "Almost like you were psychic, huh?"

I chuckled. "Almost. Anyway, I figure I can afford to cash out about six hundred dollars worth."

"What for?"

I told him.

He listened carefully to me, not speaking.

"I think that's a good idea Bill," he finally said. "I'll do it as soon as I get up and around."

The next day at work I told Mindy my good news. She expressed sadness that she would be losing me as an employee come August 30 but was very happy for me. I asked her if she would give me a letter of recommendation and by the time I left that night she handed me five copies of the most glowing, syrupy letter you could ever hope to read. According to her words, a hospital would be committing financial suicide by not hiring me as an employee. She assured me that any central supply supervisor would hire me on the spot once they read it. I thanked her and went home, filing the letters away.

The next day I went to the bookstore and bought copies of the two major Seattle newspapers. I began pouring through the want ads, looking for central supply tech positions. I found two. I called the numbers listed and gave my address. They promised me that applications were on their way to me.

The day after that I took the money that Dad had cashed out for me and went to downtown Spokane. It took me three hours but at last I found what I was looking for. I still had more than three hundred dollars left over. Some instinct told me not to put it back into stocks. I listened to my instinct, stashing the money in my checking account instead.

On the Fourth of July Nina, Maggie, Mike, and I took Dad's boat out to Lake Pend Oreille again. We left early in the morning, stocking up with two cases of beer and another onslaught of food courtesy of my mother. The lake was very crowded and it took us nearly an hour to launch once we hit the boat ramp. We spent the day water-skiing, drinking beer, hanging out on various islands, and generally just enjoying each other's company.

Maggie and Nina seemed to lose the awkward relationship they had with each other and worked their way to chatting happily about school, future careers, and even female problems. They had a long, drawn-out conversation about the pros and cons of birth control pills, which eventually led to the discussion of period cramps and water retention. Mike and I put in the obligatory male chauvinist pig comments when they seemed required but basically just kept out of the conversation. I was glad to see Nina developing a friendship with another girl. She had so few friends.

As the sun started to sink in the sky we loaded up the boat and worked our way northward on the lake, heading for the resort town of Sandpoint, which had a fireworks display each Independence Day that drew observers from all over the Pacific Northwest. Nine o'clock anchored us about a half mile offshore amid hundreds of other boats. At ten o'clock the fireworks began.

It was truly a spectacular show and I'd chosen our observation platform well, maybe a little too well. They burst right over the top of us for more than twenty minutes. The explosions were loud enough to hurt and the debris rained down all around us, instilling a sense of danger to the show. When it was finally over we began heading back towards the south end of the lake, a trip of nearly thirty miles.

It was well after midnight before we pulled the boat from the water. Like before, I'd ceased drinking more than three hours before so I'd be sober enough to drive home. Like before, everybody else was asleep before we even reached I-90. As I drove us towards home I remembered the last time we'd taken the boat out, the news that had awaited me when I got home. Irrationally, I worried as I drove, wondering what bad news would be there when I arrived.

But there was none. My house was darkened when we pulled up to it at 1:30 the morning of the fifth. We parked the boat and everyone went home. Well, almost everyone, Mike decided he would see Maggie safely back to her apartment. And so ended a perfect day.

Nina and I had no real opportunities to be alone long enough to do what we so badly wanted to do. Tracy had her appointments but they always seemed to be during my work hours. Sure, we could have torn one off on the boat trip, Maggie and Mike had, taking "a little walk" on our island and disappearing for an hour, but both of us, by unspoken agreement, wanted our first time to be in an actual bedroom.

She never left me with blue balls when we went out. She became quite accomplished with her mouth and hands whenever we went out to the movies or on some other date. I received several blowjobs from her while parked in my car at the local make-out spot near her house. Once she even wore a dress and I was able to return the favor, eating her to orgasm in the back seat while Journey played on the tape player. But as for intercourse, we bided our time, knowing that eventually the perfect day would come.

I was sent the applications for the central supply tech from the two Seattle hospitals and I filled them out, sending in an impressively constructed resume that Maggie, who had a flair for such things, had done for me along with copies of my letter from Mindy. It was the University of Washington Medical Center, the hospital that Nina would eventually train in, that responded first. They offered me an interview on July 23 at 11:00.

I didn't want to drive to Seattle for the interview since it was four hours by car so I looked into plane tickets. I was quite appalled by how much a round trip across the state cost on the cheapest airline.

"I'd better get this fucking job," I muttered, mostly to myself as I reserved a seat on an airliner. Dad, who had been nearby, overheard me and asked me what the problem was.

I told him how much I was spending for the ticket and grumbled about the goddam airlines for a moment. He looked kind of thoughtful for a second, and then said, "why don't you give Ron a call?"

"Ron?" I said, knowing whom he was referring to. Ron Valet was the private pilot who worked with Dad and a good friend of our family. It was Ron and his wife Karen that Mom and Dad went to the space needle with every day after Thanksgiving. I'd been up in the plane with him several times during my life, although not since my recycling. He happily jumped on every opportunity to display his skills.

"Why not?" Dad asked me. "He's off work for the summer, just like I am. If you paid for the gas I'm sure he'd be happy to fly you down there and back. Hell, he'd probably even pay for the gas if you couldn't afford it. He was bitchin to me the other day about how he hasn't done any flying lately."

"That's a good idea Dad," I told him. "You really don't think he'll mind?"

"If he's not doing anything else, he'll be more than happy," Dad assured me.

Unfortunately, when I talked to Ron, it turned out he WAS doing something else. "Sorry Bill," he told me with genuine regret. "Karen and I are purchasing some investment property up in Idaho and we have an appointment that day to sign all the papers at 11:30. I wouldn't be able to fly you back."

"That's okay Ron," I replied. "It was just a thought."

"I'd be happy to fly you down in the morning," he told me. "And if you didn't mind staying overnight or something, I'd even be happy to pick you up the next morning. Still might save you some money."

I considered for a moment, my mind going over the figures in my head. I could rent a motel room in Seattle for about forty bucks. The cost of gas for four flights would be only about fifty bucks. That was still quite below what the cost of a round trip airline ticket would be. "I think that's a good idea Ron," I finally said. "Are you sure you won't mind?"

"It would be a pleasure," he assured me with complete truth.

I was flipping through the latest copy of the Seattle newspaper later that day, looking for something to occupy myself with during my overnight stay there. I'd considered and then rejected the idea of asking Nina to come along with me. As much as her parents were growing to like me I did not think they liked me quite enough to allow their daughter to accompany me on an overnight trip. It was as I was perusing the sports page that I happened across a couple of advertisements that got my attention. I looked at them carefully, considering what I was thinking about. Was it possible to take care of two things at once on the Seattle trip?

I made a few long distance phone calls, putting my name down for reservations and promising I'd have checks in the mail the very next day. If my plans didn't work out I could always renege on these promises. I called up Ron again.

"Would it be a big problem," I asked him, "if you picked me up in Seattle around six o'clock at night instead of in the morning?"

"None at all," he assured me. "Got some plans?"

"Something like that." I said. "And would there be any problem with a passenger on the way up and back, and with, oh, say forty pounds of cargo or so for the return leg?"

"None at all," he repeated. "That's well within the weight limit of the plane. What do you have in mind?"

I told him and he assured me again that there was no problem with anything. Smiling, I hung up and then dialed Nina's number. Jack answered the phone and recognized my voice immediately.

"I'll get Nina," he said.

"No," I told him, "it's you I wanted to talk to."

"Me?"

"Yes," I explained. "Jack, you're on light duty right?"

"Yeah."

"Any chance you could take off the 23rd and the 24th of this month?"

He snorted. "All they have me doing is busy work. Besides, I've been there for thirty-three years. I can take off whenever I damn well please. Why do you ask?"

"A friend of my family is flying me to Seattle that day for a job interview," I told him. "And I'll be forced to stay overnight for various reasons. Now I was flipping through the paper and happened to notice that the Mariners are playing the A's on that day at four o'clock. I've managed to get my hands on a couple of home plate tickets. Interested?"

"You want to take me to a baseball game in Seattle?" he asked, surprised.

"Not only that," I went on, "but I also have a couple of reservations on a deep sea fishing boat that leaves the waterfront at 6:30 the next morning and stays out for eight or nine hours. I know you like fishing so I thought that maybe you'd like to come along. Ron, that's our friend, will pick us up at the airport at six o'clock that night and have us home by 8:00."

There was a long pause. Finally, "Bill, why didn't you ask one of your friends to do this with you?"

"I did Jack." I replied.

A slight cough. "Bill," he said, "you've got yourself a traveling companion. Thank you for inviting me. Of course you'll let me pay for…"

"Negative," I interrupted. "It's all on me. I can afford it. Just be packed and ready to go at 7:00 that morning."

"Thank you," he repeated, seemingly touched.

Of course, being me, I DID have an ulterior motive.

I picked Jack up at his house at 7:00 AM on the morning of the 23rd. He carried a small suitcase with him and seemed quite excited to be going on the adventure. Nina accompanied him out and gave me a hug and kiss before we drove off to the small, private airport.

When we arrived, we found Ron already there, performing the pre-flight checks on his small Cessna. Ron was sipping a cup of coffee and dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. Aviator sunglasses were perched on his nose. He was a short, terminally joking man and I'd always liked him. He'd given me fifty bucks as a graduation gift.

The introductions were made and Ron noticed that Jack was giving nervous glances at the aircraft.

"Not afraid to fly are you?" he asked Jack gently.

"I was a paratrooper in the war," Jack replied. "The last time I flew it was over Berlin and I had a parachute and an M1 on my back."

"Well have no fear," Ron assured him. "I go along with the smart pilot's credo. There are old pilots and bold pilots, but no old bold pilots. I've been flying for more than twenty years, including a stint in A-1 Sandies in Vietnam. I've logged thirty-six combat missions and more than six thousand hours total. You are perfectly safe with me at the stick."

"That's good to know," Jack put in.

We roared into the sky shortly afterword, Jack sitting in the front next to Ron, me sitting in the back. The two older men exchanged tales of their war experiences as we soared over the gentle rolling hills of Eastern Washington and finally over the Cascades where the unstable air bounced us around quite frightfully. We landed perfectly normally at nine-fifteen that morning and caught a cab to the motel where I'd made reservations.

I changed into my suit and caught another cab to the medical center, arriving twenty minutes early. The interview went well, outstanding in fact. I was all but assured that the job was mine if I wanted it.

We went to the baseball game and spent a pleasant four hours just shooting the shit and drinking beer and eating hotdogs. Jack bought my beer for me and no one ever questioned the fact that I was drinking it. The Mariners, despite horrible odds to the contrary, beat the A's 4-3, coming back with a two run homer in the eighth just when things seemed hopeless.

We went back to our motel room and crashed hard, Jack in one bed, me in the other. Jack, I found, snored like a chainsaw.

A wake-up call at 5:30 the next morning got us up and around. The day was beautiful for fishing, with no clouds and no rain. Summer is the best part of the year in Seattle. We scored some coffee and a light breakfast from the motel restaurant and then caught a cab to the waterfront. I had a large ice chest with me, the same one I took on boat trips, and we filled it with ice and beer. We obtained our one-day fishing licenses, rented our equipment, and at 6:40, the seventy foot fishing boat headed out of Puget Sound for the open water.

The sea was very rough, with fifteen-foot swells bobbing us up and down like a cork in the Pacific Ocean. There were sixty fishermen and women on the boat and well over half of them became completely incapacitated with seasickness. Bodies were laying everywhere, on every bench, on every table.

The bathroom was flooded in vomit, it overflowed the toilet and ran across the floor.

Jack and I did just fine. Both of us had been deep-sea fishing before, Jack many times throughout his life, me on five consecutive years as part of a company function in my previous life. Of course I didn't tell Jack this and he admired my stamina. Those of us that remained un-sickened managed to catch the limit for everyone else that was unable to fish. We no sooner dropped our lines in and let them sink to the bottom than we were pulling them up with three fish on the hooks. I caught twelve rock cod and Jack caught ten. He also managed to hook a lingcod, an ugly, dangerous looking fish, which the first mate gaffed and drug aboard with a long pole.

Jack and I basked in male bonding throughout that day, becoming closer and closer to each other, becoming friends despite the differences in our ages (which wasn't quite as great as Jack thought it was). We drank beer and ate the sandwiches we'd bought at the waterfront deli before departure. We gave contemptuous glances and comments to those that were too sick to fish, even though their non-participation was a blessing because we rarely got our lines tangled with another fisherman.

By the time the all the lines were pulled in for the last time and the boat began heading back towards the protected water of Puget Sound, we were pleasantly exhausted, sunburned, and sore all over. We found a relatively clean spot near the stern of the boat and sat down, both of us cracking open a fresh beer. Jack surprised me by producing a couple of cigars from his belongings. He offered one to me and I took it, seeing with pleasure that it was a genuine Havana.

"These are illegal in this country," I said with mock sternness. "And you, a government employee, has them in your possession."

He burped, firing his up with a disposable lighter. The fragrant smoke drifted off behind the boat. "Yep," he commented, unconcerned that he was violating a federal law. "A buddy of mine makes a trip up to Calgary every couple a months and picks me up some. That little shitpot country ain't good for much but goddam do they know how to make a cigar."

I took his lighter and, after considerable work in the wind, managed to get mine burning. I'd never been much of a cigar smoker but Jack was right, there was something about a good Cuban. I had a sudden vision of offering him a few tokes off of the illegal smokeable that I had stored in my bible and the image of Nina's father getting stoned was so amusing that I had to suppress a grin.

We smoked in silence for a few minutes, feeling the stern of the boat go up and down, left and right in the swells, watching the sea sick people that were still laying out on every available surface. I was gathering my courage to bring up the subject that I wished to talk about. Jack, perhaps sensing my mood, simply sat there.

"Can I show you something Jack?" I asked him finally.

"Sure," he told me, tossing his empty beer can into a garbage can six feet away; a fairly remarkable shot I might add.

I reached into my pocket and took out a small box that I'd carried with me the entire trip. Inside of it was what I'd purchased downtown the other day. Wordlessly, I handed it over to him. He looked at the felt-lined box for a moment, his eyes narrowing. Finally he opened it and beheld the diamond ring that sat inside.

"That's an engagement ring, isn't it?" he asked, snapping the box shut and handing it back.

"It is," I agreed.

"I'm already married," he told me. "And I don't think I'm your type. But I'm flattered."

I laughed nervously. "I think you know who the ring is for," I told him.

"I guess I do," he nodded, opening the ice chest. "Why are you showing it to me?"

"Because I'm asking your permission to marry your daughter," I said. "A little old-fashioned maybe, but I know how much she means to you and I thought I owed you this."

"You're asking me permission?" he asked, considering this while he pulled two beers from the ice and handed me one. "And suppose I say no? What are you going to do then?"

"Are you saying no?" I asked, cracking open my beer.

"I'm not saying anything just yet," he answered. "I'm just curious as to what you're going to do if I say no."

"Ask her anyway," I admitted. "I think you know that."

He chuckled. "Then I guess this whole conversation is pretty much meaningless then, isn't it? No matter what I say, you're still going to do it."

"But I'd feel better about doing it," I explained, "if I had your permission, which would necessarily include your blessing. It also would make you a co-conspirator when we tell Mary."

He laughed harder. "Mary scares you a little bit does she?"

"A little," I admitted.

"Good," he nodded. "Maybe that fear will keep you in line." He looked meaningfully at me. "I'd be proud to have you as a son-in-law Bill. You have my permission and you have my blessing." He held out his hand to me.

I shook with him, feeling relieved that this conversation had gone well. "Thanks Jack, thanks a lot."

He nodded, puffing his cigar. "But those threats I made to you that one day, remember those? They still apply. Even more so now."

"I'll keep it in mind."

"When are you going to ask Nina for HER permission?" he asked next.

"Soon. Very soon."