Double Take
Chapter 27
“In the desert there is no sign that says, ‘Thou shalt not eat stones.’”
—Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale
25 JANUARY 2019
Why are relationships so difficult? You’d think that with the amount of experience I have, I wouldn’t do stupid things like forget a date with one woman in order to talk to another. Even if it was important. I didn’t set out to hurt anyone.
I’ve been forgiven. At least she says so. I really need to do something special for her and don’t know what it should be. It’s not like I want her to think we have a future together. We both know that’s not in the cards. But I also don’t want her to feel like she’s nothing more than a receptacle when needed. It’s changed somehow. She started visiting me to help me out, not expecting anything in return. But now, with other options potentially open to me, it seems more like me helping her out. And I’m willing—I’m excited to do that. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to have a basketball in your belly that keeps getting bigger every week.
But when I touch that bump, rub lotion on her, caress her curves, I have such a feeling of tenderness toward her that I’m near tears. I always thought girl hormones made them moody and emotional while boy hormones just made a guy horny. Maybe it’s my ‘old soul’ that is so emotional as I think about how many things I’m still missing because I fail to see their importance.
Tuesday, I did everything in my power to make Francie feel like a princess. Who came and came and came. I massaged her. I caressed her. I kissed her. And I did anything she wanted. Finally, I held her against my chest while she silently wept.
“I know we’re not together like a boyfriend and girlfriend or even lovers, really,” she sniffed. “I want you to have a real relationship and a real girlfriend. I don’t want to tie you down to a fat cow. And still knowing all that, I just felt so abandoned. I thought you were never going to want me again.”
“I want you, Francie. It was stupid of me not to think of you first.”
“That’s just it, though. You shouldn’t have to think of me first. You should think of your girlfriend first.”
“I wish we shared the same lunch period,” I sighed. “I’d make you one of them.”
“That’s sweet, but even though Rachel is willing to accept me, I wouldn’t be so sure about the other three. Girls get jealous over the silliest things.”
“I need to wash you off so you can get dressed before Pey gets here,” I sighed. “I wish we had more time.”
“It’s hard enough to leave after an hour. It would be impossible after two,” she laughed. “Thank you, Jacob. Thank you for taking care of me.”
Making things right with Em wasn’t so easy. She fucked Tony.
I should have seen it coming, even before my fiasco with Francie. He met her every morning when I went in for my early workout. I’d long since been abandoned on the treadmill since I was spending forty minutes walking in gym the next period. Tony spent all his time helping Em get fit and strong before National Service Basic. She dutifully took Francie and me home on Tuesday and Thursday, but expected me to find my own lift home the other days of the week. Fortunately, either Joan or Rachel was always available and each day included a bit of making out with one or more of my girlfriends. I only ever gave Beca a little kiss on the cheek but she had some pretty serious kisses with Joan.
The night I found out about Tony—Friday after I’d had a very nice night out with my four girlfriends—the nightmare hit with a vengeance. I’d cried myself to sleep after Em stopped in my room and told me she’d gone all the way with Tony.
“God, he knows how to get a girl’s motor purring,” she said. “How was your date?”
I admitted I’d had fun and she left to go to bed. I rolled over to cry.
The pressure came. I knew where I was this time. I was dead at eighty years old and they were burying me. I felt the pressure grow with every shovelful of dirt they piled on. Of course I couldn’t breathe. Of course I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t feel anything but the growing pressure. I was dead. I needed to just let go. There was nothing there on the other side of death but the absorption of my body into the pressure of earth. Maybe one day, like dinosaurs of old, I would become oil trapped in a layer of shale, pumped out to fuel a car or its equivalent eighty million years from now. Memory. Life. Family. Friends. Lovers. It all faded into that inky blackness as the pressure on my chest drove me into the ground and into oblivion.
I woke, feeling air rushing into my lungs as I gasped. Early morning light came through my window. I lay flat on my back staring at the ceiling, wondering why I was alive. Beside me, Em stirred and I felt her hand in mine. She wore a long sleepshirt but I could feel the softness of her breast pressed into my arm.
My anchor. She was why I was alive.
I turned my head toward her and watched her sleep. She always slept in on Saturday morning after her big date nights. I hadn’t had a nightmare on a Friday night in quite a while. I’d had one the night after my mess-up with Francine a week ago and woke up with Peyton holding my hand. But Em was here with me now and when I tried to pull my hand away, she gripped it tighter. Her eyes squinted open at me.
“Never let go,” she mumbled.
“I thought… I was dead.”
“Just a dream. Don’t let it bother you. It was just a dream.”
“It’s not a dream, is it, Em. I died.” Her eyes flashed open and stared at me.
“Don’t go there, Jacob. Please don’t go there. I can’t stand it. It was just a dream and I’ll never let you go.” Tears sparkled in her eyes and I wrapped my arm around her to hold her against me.
“I thought you let go last night,” I whispered.
“Tony?”
“Yeah.”
“You felt abandoned?”
“Yeah.”
“Like Francie?”
“Em…”
“Jacob, I didn’t fuck Tony to get back at you.” She rolled farther toward me and kissed me gently.
“You won’t understand until you’re a senior and turn eighteen. All of a sudden you start seeing people as a lost opportunity. You think, ‘I’ll never have a chance to see if we could be a match.’ Or even, ‘I wish I’d fucked him before it was too late.’ Everything changes when you turn eighteen.”
“The National Service?”
“Yeah. It’s easy to ignore until you get the letter. It was a stupid idea passed into law by hateful old men who knew they’d never have to serve. And now we’re stuck with it and when we become hateful old men… or women… all we’ll think is that we endured it, our children can do it.”
That smacked me into silence. I was one of those hateful old men who had espoused a mandatory national service as V1. I’d talked about how it would teach discipline and straighten out our youth. But I knew I’d never have to serve. I was eighty fucking years old. I wondered if this life was simply punishment for things I advocated in the other.
“So, what are we doing next weekend?” Beca asked Sunday afternoon. “We get Friday off for that teacher in-service thing. We should do something fun.” The five of us sat at our table with books still spread open. Desi, after a little establishment of the pecking order, had fit in just fine. Pey had finally gotten tired of the fact that we were actually studying and went to play with a friend. I guess Em had, too.
“It’s so stupid that they have it this week instead of next week,” Joan complained. “One week difference and we’d have a four-day Valentine’s weekend with President’s Day the next Monday.”
“Should we celebrate Valentine’s early?” Rachel asked. “We could do something special together. Or separately.”
“I have such a cool V-Day outfit this year,” Desi said.
“Does it involve you wearing any clothes?” Joan asked sarcastically. Desi had shown that she didn’t wear a wild costume every day. Although she sure had a lot of low-cut blouses that showed off her cleavage. I understood Rachel’s desire to suck on her tits.
“Yes,” Desi responded. “I still wear more clothes than you do, slut.”
“Yeah. I’m learning a lot about how to attract insects from watching you.” Desi had been hit on once nearly every day since she joined our group. The warrior queen cosplay she’d worn last Wednesday resulted in three date requests which she declined by saying she had a boyfriend, thank you. They all looked around at our table and got headshakes from the other girls. The guys slunk away.
“Girls, don’t start bashing on each other. The rest of us are stuck with you, too, you know. So, who’s in favor of our own Valentine Dance this weekend?” Beca asked.
“Uh, does that mean we don’t go to the school dance next week?” Rachel asked. Beca turned to her and smiled before kissing her on the cheek.
“No, honey. It means you get to take Jacob to the dance and the other three of us will stay out of your way,” Beca said. Rachel grinned broadly and turned to me. I just loved her smile.
“Want to go to the school Valentine Dance with me, Jacob?” she asked sweetly.
“I’d love to,” I answered.
“It also means,” Joan broke in, “that Desi and I get to take turns on him… I mean with him… at our private dance this weekend.” I blushed and saw Desi blush, too.
“Um…”
“Relax, Jacob. I’ll make sure you get some breaks from these two,” Beca laughed.
“Okay, I guess. Where?” I asked. Joan raised her hand and waggled her fingers.
“We’ve got all kinds of room you guys haven’t even seen yet. All I have to do is lock the door so my mother doesn’t try to join us. We can spend the night.”
“Um… Maybe you girls can spend the night, but my parents sure aren’t going to allow me to,” I said.
“Me either,” Beca said sadly. “Rachel, will you take Jacob and me home before the sleep-over starts?”
“Of course I will, sugar. How about you, Des? Can you spend the night?”
“Um… Probably. I mean if you two older girls actually want me around.” I saw Rachel and Joan share a look and a subtle wink.
“We’d love to have you,” Joan said. I thought that meant more than it sounded like.
I jogged!
Well, it wasn’t any faster than my walking, but the movement is different and I did it. Not quite six months since my stupid V2 walked in front of a bus. The more I thought about it, I decided I would need to do something special to celebrate the anniversary of waking up as V3. I needed to put some thought into how to manage that with four girlfriends. And a lover. Wow!
I set my shoulders back and my head up as I lifted my feet from the ground. That, I had read, is the difference between walking and running. When you are walking, you always have one foot in contact with the ground. When you run, you spend some time, even if fractional, with both feet off the ground. When someone comments, ‘He’s really flying,’ when a runner goes past, it could be taken literally.
For me, learning to run was a major goal, so even though I wasn’t moving any faster than my three-and-a-half mile per hour current walking speed, I felt I was moving toward my goal.
“Hopkins! What the hell was that?” Jock yelled after I’d settled back into my walk. I’d only managed half a lap of the gym at a jog.
“I ran, Jock!” I yelled.
“I guess you could call it that. How does your leg feel?” I glanced down at the elastic brace I still wore.
“Okay. I think it’s catching up with the other.”
“Don’t work out without the brace. Jogging causes more stress on the knees and that is your least stable location at the moment. You’re doing well, Jacob. Get a shower and get to class.”
“I say we cut off video collection at the end of February,” Beca said. “I mean with the end of February videos we’ll get the next week. Our project is due May first.”
“Mayday! Mayday!” I said into my hand as if I were speaking into an old-fashioned airplane microphone. They all looked at me strangely and I shut up. I suppose if I shouted ‘Tora! Tora! Tora!’ they’d lock me up somewhere.
“Yeah. Whatever,” Beca continued. “That gives us two significant events to track. The first is semester break when class schedules changed for a lot of people and the lunchroom dynamics changed. The second will be coming up shortly as we see reorganization around the Valentine Dance.”
“Are you sure we’ll see anything then?” Rachel asked. “I mean, I suppose there will be a few more couples but will it be statistically significant?”
“That’s the question we’re answering,” Joan said. “Is the movement of the populace controlled by physical geography or social geography? If we see migration patterns that are unchanged after the dance, we’d have to conclude that the physical geography is determining settlement points rather than the social changes. There is only one other event in school that affects relationships as much as Valentine’s Day. That’s Prom. Statistically, people fall in love and break up more at those times than any other time of year. Unfortunately, Prom is after the project is due.”
“How do you know all this stuff? You aren’t even in the same class,” Desi said. “I’m in the dunce class Jacob transferred out of and haven’t gotten anything out of the class like this at all.”
“There are days I wish I’d never transferred,” I sighed. Beca snapped her head up to look at me. “I’m glad I did,” I reassured her, “but there is so much work. We have twice the reading assignments and both map and unit tests every week. And just look at the time we’re spending on this project. Just reviewing the video is like having another whole class.”
“Aw, poor baby,” Rachel said as she kissed me on the cheek.
“And I’m retaking the class next year for AP credit,” Joan said. “Believe me, I didn’t get any more out of it freshman year than you are. These guys just kind of got me interested in digging deeper.”
“Now about this weekend,” Rachel said. “We’re still going to need to study on Saturday and Sunday like we usually do. But I think we should make the entire day Friday a holiday. I mean, start with breakfast… at a decent hour like ten or eleven…”
“Doesn’t that make it brunch?” I asked.
“Whatever. Then we go to a movie.”
“What movie?” Joan asked.
“I say Alita: Battle Angel,” Desi suggested. “I’ve already started putting together a cosplay for her. Her arms are, like, robot joints. And every joint in her fingers has a ring around it.”
“But does she show off her boobs?” Beca asked. They all started laughing.
“Well, hell, yeah,” Desi said, hefting up her own until they almost popped out of the spaghetti strap top she was wearing.
“Good. Alita it is,” Rachel continued. “Then the spa. We should all have our hair and nails done. Then we can get ready for our dance at Joan’s house.”
“Costumes?” Desi asked.
“Valentine theme,” Joan said. “You can come as the naked baby with wings and a bow.”
“Okay!” Desi announced happily.
“Um… What am I supposed to do?” I asked.
“Jacob! We go to breakfast, then a movie, and then the spa. You get your hair styled and a manicure, too. I noticed you’ve got two broken nails on your left hand,” Rachel said.
“Guitar,” I answered.
“Good. Have them trimmed and shaped so they don’t get in the way. Then you come to the party as that naked baby with wings and a bow and we see if Desi can keep her virginity intact until she’s sixteen.”
“Jacob, I know you want to fuck and I want to, too, but can we just cuddle for a while? My back is killing me,” Francie said when we got to my room on Thursday.
“Francie, of course we can. Let’s get you out of your clothes and let me put lotion on your tummy. Then I’ll give you a backrub.”
“I can’t lie on my tummy for a backrub.”
“I found a website with instructions for prenatal massage. There are a couple of positions suggested and we can see which is most comfortable for you.”
“Jacob, why are you being so nice to me? I’m supposed to be the one coming over to give you relief.”
“Francie,” I said, kissing her softly as I removed her heavyweight bra and released her growing tits. “You know it hasn’t been about just giving me relief since the first time we fucked.”
“You don’t like what we do?” she said with hurt showing through her voice.
“I love what we do. But I do it just as much for you as you do it for me.”
“Oh, that feels good. Get undressed to massage me. There’s no reason for that proud boner to be trapped in your jeans.” I finished undressing her and got out of my clothes as well. I suggested that she kneel on the bed facing the wall and I got behind her. She leaned against the wall, grabbing a pillow to rest her head against. I started the gentle massage down her spine from her shoulders to her pelvis. She moaned.
Of course, just having naked Francie kneeling in front of me gave my cock other ideas and pretty soon it was slapping against her butt as I worked on her back. She reached behind and pulled it between her legs. I slid back and forth through her moistness but didn’t try to enter her. She was content.
“Jacob? You really have four girlfriends now?”
“Yeah. Kind of weird, huh?”
“Are you, like, um… doing stuff with them?”
“Doing stuff?”
“Fucking?”
“No,” I laughed. “We… I decided I was too focused on getting you pregnant to spare my cock for other nefarious purposes.”
“I’m already pregnant, Jacob.”
“Well, I plan to make sure right up until the last minute. Francie, you’re my first and I want to focus on you. They understand. None of them are going to make an advance before you have your baby.”
“Well, tell them to start getting lubed up and stretch their holes for you. It won’t be long now. I’m due in eight weeks.”
“Francie, I’m not going to just abandon you, you know.”
“Oh, that’s sweet, but I’m going to be too sore and too busy after the sprout is out to deal with a boy. Can you imagine me handing the baby off to Emily so I can come and bang you? Not going to happen. Besides, I want time to separate my emotions from you while I bond with my baby. I can’t take either of you into service with me and I don’t want to deal with two emotional issues at the same time.”
“Whatever you want, Francie.”
“I think I’d like it if you repositioned a little and slid inside me. I’m so relaxed now, I’d just like to feel your cock massaging the inside of my vagina. Enjoy my wet little furnace and come in me.”
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