Double Take
Chapter 39
“Demigoddesses do NOT take public transportation. I'd rather die first.”
—Nicky Drayden, The Prey of Gods
SPRING BREAK WAS OVER, which meant there were only thirty-eight more classroom days until the end of the year. Eight weeks, less a couple of days off. In my Adult Roles and Responsibilities class, there was a big grid on the whiteboard that counted down the days with a big ‘X’ drawn through the number at the end of the day. That was when my class was, so we got to watch the red erasable marker come out at the end of class and we’d cheer.
I had a fuck-ton of work to get done. These classes were nothing at all like what V1 had in high school. Of course, we were all focused to different degrees on the Human Geography project, but the work was largely independent as we gathered together on Saturdays to review it with each other. Beca and I had split up the writing and Rachel was proving to be an English Grammar Nazi as she proofread. Desi was reviewing Joan’s animations and playing with the overlays to see how they could be best used. She’d also started constructing our PowerPoint template.
But I had four other classes that were begging my attention. Rachel and I spent the study hall before lunch reviewing our Geometry lesson. It was going fine as long as we didn’t rush through it and make stupid mistakes. The half-hour to check our homework each day was crucial. As was the half-hour or so we spent each evening on the phone or texting. And the hour we managed to squeeze out twice a week to go to her house or mine to make love. Yeah.
My Intro to Business class required us to actually create a small business plan with estimated revenue, expense, and profits in an Excel pivot table. The last two weeks of class, we’d each have to make a presentation of our business plan to the rest of the class and ‘the investors’ would decide if they wanted to put in some money, trash the idea, or suggest a way to bootstrap it. Yeah. Another PowerPoint.
Adult Roles and Responsibility had an interesting term paper due. We were to chart out our lives for the next ten years, broken down into ‘Time Before Service’, ‘Time in Service’, and ‘Time After Service’. We needed to look at goals in six different areas and have at least a paragraph explaining how we intended to reach those goals. Financial, Educational, Relational, Social, Professional, Personal Growth. It was going to be an interesting project, but I wasn’t going to be writing things like becoming a mechanical engineer.
And then there was English. We had two more units to get through—Character and Themes of Good and Evil, featuring Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, and Elements of Gothic Literature and the Role of Conscience, featuring Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde—and other readings, of course. We’d already started our research papers and we were supposed to show a specific amount of progress each week. But heaviest on my mind was the short story I was working on. Ms. Levy had approved my outline and offered me a third-point additional credit for the semester if I finished a ‘reasonable’ short story. A half-point if she considered it publishable. There were a lot of nights I fell asleep late dreaming about spaceflight.
My spacesuit was confining. It inhibited movement. All around me was the deep black of space as my suit continued to fill with air. The pressure on my body was intense. I could no longer hear my own breathing. The blackness closing in. I could no longer feel the EVA suit. Only the pressure. My lungs were collapsing. My eyes had gone dark. I could not feel my own body. I would die in this eternal blackness. There was no hope.
Except the hand holding mine.
“J. Wake up, J. It’s just a dream. Just a dream.” Em’s voice finally penetrated the impenetrable. I followed her voice and the touch of her hand. “Just a dream, baby. I won’t let go of you.”
Air rushed into my lungs and I wept.
“It was a dream, Em. I knew it was a dream. I was in outer space and my suit collapsed. I knew I was dreaming but I couldn’t wake up.”
“Just a dream, baby. Just a dream. I’m here. I’ll hold you.” I rolled toward my sister’s naked body in the bed with me. Her soft breast was pressed against my cheek. Like a baby, I shifted my head, my lips seeking the comfort of her nipple. I latched on and heard her gasp.
And then I went back to sleep.
We all met together at Joan’s house to review our work again on Saturday. There was no make-out session in the offing. I’d had an hour with Rachel after school Friday afternoon with both of us bemoaning the fact that our love-making was rushed. But neither of us was willing to curtail our brief interludes. It was much harder than when I’d been meeting with Francie after school for an hour. Francie and I really had no other goals but to get each other off. With Rachel I wanted to take my time. I wanted to hold her and talk to her. It was frustrating as hell.
“I think we have the paper ready to put together,” Beca said after reading my work for the week. “Which means we need to start working on the presentation.”
“Both of you send your docs to me and I’ll cut it together and format it according to the stylesheet. No sense in you getting bogged down in the busywork,” Rachel said. We agreed and Desi put the template for the presentation up on the television screen.
“Here’s what we’ve got,” she said. “First of all, I can add content and slides in between things and rearrange them however you want. I’ve attached Joan’s animations to slides and you can put bullets in, then click to play.”
“Play the animations. Are they all done, Joan?”
“Every one. I’m doing some fun stuff for my computer graphics class, but it’s not relevant for your project.”
“You are so sweet!” Beca said. “We’ve got, like, ten days to have everything finished. I think we’re going to make it.”
“So what can we do to help you girls with your projects and stuff?” I asked. “You’ve put so much time in on this, I want to help you if I can.”
“Me, too,” agreed Beca.
“I could use a proofreader,” Desi said. “My English paper is crap. Want to have a go at it?”
“Love to,” I answered.
“You’ve been helping me all semester with Geometry,” Rachel said. “I don’t feel like I’ve over-contributed. Joan?”
“It’s four weeks till prom. Shouldn’t we be doing some practicing, Jacob?”
“Practicing? Oh. Um… Like dancing, right?”
“Yeah, ri-ight,” Desi drawled.
“I think that’s our cue to leave, girlfriends,” Beca said. “Maybe we could go someplace to do some practicing ourselves.”
“Wait. What?”
“Call home, Jacob. Let them know you won’t be home for dinner,” Rachel said. She gave me a sweet kiss and for a moment, I thought she and I were going out. Then Desi slammed one on me and Beca stood on tiptoe to kiss my cheek, having just kissed Joan. I could smell Joan’s powder on Beca’s cheek. The three girls left and I was face-to-face with Joan.
“You look like a deer in the headlights,” she smirked. “Relax. I don’t plan to fuck you here in the family room.”
“Sorry, Joan. It was just the suddenness of everybody running out like you all had something planned. Made me a little nervous. I didn’t mean to act like I don’t want to spend time with you. I do. Really.”
“We do have something planned.” Joan said. “But you don’t need to be worried. I just requested four Saturday nights with you, followed by prom. I promise I won’t try to cut in on any of your other time with Rachel or Desi and I won’t let you cut in on my time with Beca.”
“Four Saturday night dates? I might need to get special permission from home,” I sighed. “Mom and Dad have been pretty laid back about getting together with everyone but insist that I only date once a weekend. And, well, Rachel and I were hoping to go out some, too.”
“Tell you what. You need to change clothes anyway. You really aren’t dressed to go out with me. Let me change real quick and I’ll take you home so you can change. While you’re changing, I’ll explain to your parents the new project we’ve taken on and the necessity to go out on Saturday nights. It’s Project Prom.”
“So you see, prom is like a big thing for me and I know Jacob is a little inexperienced about these things. So, we need to get things ready.”
“Things like what?” Mom asked. I’d changed into my slacks, a button-down shirt and dress shoes.
“Well, today, for example, I need to go to the mall to choose a prom dress. I can’t believe I’m so far behind. But I like the idea of having my boyfriend help make the choice because he’ll have to do things like pick a flower—which I’ll help with—and we need to reserve his tux. I want to be there for that because I don’t want him showing up in some kind of lavender tails or something. And then there’s the dance lessons.”
“The what?” I squeaked.
“There’s this really cool thing. Fort Wayne Teen Alliance has set up Saturday night dance lessons to get kids ready for prom,” Joan said excitedly. “They have a different DJ in every week and at six o’clock, there is a group lesson. They teach everything from line dancing to hip hop. And some swing and ballroom dancing, too. Then at seven o’clock, they give you three hours to practice. The lesson is included in the five-dollar cover to get in. You have to have a student ID to get in.”
“In other words, you go out dancing every Saturday for the next four weeks,” Dad said. “As training.”
“Um… Yes,” Joan said. My dad hadn’t said anything since she got there and I think Joan was a little startled and frightened when he spoke up. He looked at Mom.
“I wish they’d had something like that when I took you to the prom. Might not have felt so awkward once we got there.” That was it. We had Saturdays to work on our ‘project’ together.
Dad pushed a handful of money into my pocket as we were leaving. “Tomorrow’s Easter. See if you can’t get your date and her mother flowers. And if they still have any left, pick some up for your sisters. Won’t be much selection but they always have a few available. The rest is for your lesson and dinner.”
Wow! My Dad said more words than I’d heard him speak the past week. And patted me on the shoulder. I hopped out to the car with Joan and made sure I ran around to the driver’s side to open her door for her. She’d managed to get her mother’s Audi for our date. It had a lot more room in it than the Miata.
Joan was serious about having to pick out a dress. I figured that was something girls did months before the event, but Joan said it was part of the fun of preparing for prom. The first question was ‘long or short?’ We looked at a selection of dresses at Nordstrom and then decided to move over to The Bridal Shoppe, which made me a little nervous, but they carry a lot of formal wear, not just bride’s dresses. The short dresses sure looked like she was ready to party. I could imagine having my hands on her silky smooth legs. But I’m also a bit of a traditionalist. A formal dance should have a formal dress. Next question, ‘color?’ Joan reminded me that she could change her makeup to go with different colors, but after we’d looked at a dozen dresses, we both decided blue would be beautiful on her.
So, then it was off to Macy’s to start trying things on. It took a little while, but a very helpful saleslady who grasped immediately what Joan was after. She brought out three dresses that were all lovely but one just was perfect. The dress was strapless, which did great things for Joan’s bust. It must have been a foot of bare skin between her chin and the top of the dress. The back dipped even lower. The whole thing looked like it was just strips of flowing blue taffeta that wrapped around her waist and hung to the floor in two shades of blue. Beneath it was a short skirt in the paler blue. When Joan moved and spun, the strips of fabric flared out with a life of their own, showing off her gorgeous legs. It was perfect!
I had a little sticker shock, though, when Joan pulled out her mother’s credit card to pay a little over $300 for the dress. Holy shit!
I thought selecting a dress was difficult and all I’d have to do was walk into the tux shop and rent a dinner jacket. V1 remembered a formal dance but no one wore a complete black tuxedo. All the men were in black formal slacks with a stripe down the side, cummerbund, white formal shirt with damn little studs you had to feed through, black bowtie, and white dinner jacket. That was our formal wear. V3 was in for a shock.
I was carting Joan’s dress around in a long plastic garment bag and the tux consultant at Louie’s wanted to see it. He pulled out several selections for style and told me—He told me!—which one I’d be renting for the dance. Joan kept nodding her head, so I just went with it. I was surprised when he sent me back to try a suit on in the sizes he’d measured and sent Joan into another dressing room to change into her gown. We stood on a little platform while he had us turn in different directions and took pictures of us. He showed us the pictures on a big flat screen TV and I had to admit, Joan and I looked like a fashion plate. I was thinking we should have this guy do our prom pictures.
I paid the $25 deposit on my $100 rental and we finally got out of the store. Dress back in its bag, we headed for the florist. Man! Do not try to get a corsage at four o’clock on Saturday afternoon before Easter. We were handed a book of pictures and told to choose what we wanted for prom and order it by number. Well, it was a cinch that I wouldn’t be trying to pin a flower on Joan’s bosom for prom. There wasn’t enough fabric in that area to stick a pin in. So, wrist corsage, simple pink rose with baby’s breath. Not bad. By that time, though, I’d been in front of the refrigerator case that was rapidly emptying out and grabbed four orchid corsages. I took them to the cashier along with our prom order.
“You want all four of those now?” she asked.
“Yes. It’s Easter,” I said.
“Don’t I know it.” She tallied things up. “That will be $114.73. You sure?”
I dipped into my pocket and removed the wad of twenties Dad had put there. Ten of them. I peeled off six and she gave me change.
“Jacob, why do you need four orchid corsages?” Joan asked as I juggled the bag of boxes so I had a hand free to carry her dress as well.
“We go to church on Easter. I needed to get corsages for my two sisters.”
“And?”
“It’s only polite to get an Easter flower for my prom date and her mother,” I said. “You can wear yours to the dance tonight, too.”
“Jacob, do you know how easy it is to love you?”
Dancing was fun. The instruction set of the evening was on basic ballroom dances. My head already knew most of this stuff, but as with skating, I had to get my body coordinated with it. Joan was a quick learner and a pleasure to hold in my arms. And the way she kept smiling at me kept my interest focused. We left the dance about nine-thirty and headed for the school parking lot. There were already three cars back there and it was an open invitation for a police cruiser to investigate. We went on to Eagle Park and she shut down the engine.
The Audi had a center console that made it almost as difficult to make out in as the Miata. But it had a big back seat. After our first kiss, Joan opened her door and stepped to the back door to get in. I figured out what was going on before she got the door shut and hopped out to join her in back.
And then she got shy.
“Um… Can we not go all the way?” she asked. I thought that was a question she should have asked before we parked, but I also believe the girl sets the limits.
“Whatever you want,” I said.
“That’s the problem. I want to fuck you. I just don’t want to do it yet, you know? I want to prepare and practice for prom, but I’d like to save something for then.”
“Would you like anything else?” I asked as I picked up her hand and kissed her fingers.
“Could we do kind of what we did when we made out after skating? You know?” Hell yes, I know. Joan’s nipples alone could send her over the edge into orgasm, but combined with a little stroking of her pussy, she was a rocket. I just nodded and closed in to kiss her.
I think she assumed I’d just start unbuttoning her blouse and sucking her tits.
She kept pushing them at me and I kept ignoring them while I stroked up and down her bare leg from knee to hip. Finally, she grabbed a hand and put it on her breast.
“Please?” she whimpered. I pulled my hand away and carefully started unbuttoning her blouse without touching any of the goods while she started panting, her breasts heaving with every breath. This time, I checked first and found the front catch on her bra. I’m sure these were invented to make it much easier for a woman to put her bra on. That’s the only reason anyone would ever put an easy access latch in front. Right?
Still without touching them, I pulled the cups of the bra away from her tits and down her arms along with the sleeves of her blouse. Her eyes were intent on mine and I was drawing this out as much as I could stand. I blew across her breasts, the touch of my breath enough to call her nipples to attention. Then, still without using my hands, I leaned forward and licked first one proud protuberance and then the other.
Joan gasped and cried out a tiny orgasm, reaching to pull me in tighter. Her arms, though, were trapped in the sleeves of her blouse and I made her lie there beside me as I stripped off my shirt. She moaned. Then I leaned in to kiss her, our chests coming fully in contact for the first time. I could feel the electric waves passing down my spine as we kissed and rubbed our chests together. When my hand reached her thigh, her legs fell open to give me access to her treasures. I lowered my mouth from her lips and took one of her nipples in it as my fingers wormed their way beneath the edge of her panties and into the wet furnace they almost hid. Joan was hyper sensitive and extremely vocal when she was nearing a big orgasm.
“Fuck me! Fuck me! Fuck me!” she screamed, forgetting our agreement to not go all the way. She’d managed to get a hand free to stroke my cock through my slacks and then gripped it so hard it hurt when she made the big O. I removed my hand and licked my fingers while I looked into her eyes. “You can do it if you want to, Jacob. I don’t need to save anything for prom. Fuck me.”
“I would, but we made an agreement. Besides, there are lots of things I want to do with you before we make love.”
“There are?” she said in a small voice as we hugged with our bare chests pressed against each other.
“Yes. It’s getting late, though. I don’t want anything to interfere with us getting to do this every weekend.”
“Every weekend,” Joan repeated. I think she was still a little dazed. I pulled her bra back into place and kissed each nipple one more time before I covered them and fastened the bra. Joan came back to life and bent forward a little to hold the cups and shake her boobs more comfortably into them. Then she started buttoning her blouse. “Do you know how many times I’ve taken this off and put it back on today?” she giggled. “Should have worn one with Velcro fastenings.”
“They’re not that much fun,” I said. “I speak from experience.”
We got back into the front seats after we were put together again and she drove me to my house. We kissed again and it was lovely, but not the kind of pre-orgasmic kisses we’d shared a few minutes before.
“Don’t forget to give your mom the Easter flower for me, ’K?”
“Yeah. She’ll really want you after that,” Joan giggled. “I’m the daughter of a nymphomaniac cougar who bequeathed to me ultra-sensitive nipples and a dripping pussy.”
“I’m glad they’re yours,” I said.
“You are, aren’t you, Jacob.”
“Say, before I forget, are you planning to drive for prom? I mean, you know, I’m only fifteen. I don’t have a license.”
“If you think I’m going to get behind the wheel in my beautiful new gown and drive to pick you up, think again! And no. I won’t consider going on the bus. That part of the night is your responsibility.” She kissed me again and gave me a shove toward the door. “Figure it out.”
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