Double Time
Chapter 64
“After all, if you run far enough, no one can catch you.”
—V.E. Schwab, A Gathering of Shadows
WEDNESDAY MORNING, Brittany and I read our papers in Ms. Levy’s class—a one-page argumentative oration. We’d chosen ‘mandatory birth control’ as our topic. Brittany argued for and I argued against. Beca and I had worked hard to shape arguments for and against but had no idea what our counterparts, Desi and Brittany, would present. Since we didn’t know how they’d argue, we made up our own scenario and focused on the elements in the Brutus and Marc Antony speeches. I decided to go all out on the satire aspect, regardless of what Brittany said in her argument.
In class, we’d all discussed the elements of argument and subtle discreditation. We’d seen some pretty malicious attacks in the first two days of reading our papers. The biggest criticism was that they lacked subtlety and were not persuasive. Brittany and I had agreed that we would not hold attacks on each other’s character as anything more than the assignment and we would immediately kiss after our presentation in the class to show people that we were not taking things personally.
“Of course Jacob would be opposed to birth control. Jacob is a boy. Boys never bear the responsibility for pregnancy. Boys are driven to spread their seed to as many girls as possible, making fertile fields blossom with new life. But boys are not driven to tend the fields after they are planted. Boys do not stay for the harvest. Boys do not mill the wheat or bake the bread. Their irresponsibility is the foundation of the need for mandatory birth control.”
Brittany’s discourse was fun and funny. I expected her to cite facts and number regarding teen pregnancy. Instead, she stayed vague on the facts and suggestive in the presentation. “Every unplanned and unwanted pregnancy in the world resulted from a man having unprotected sex with a woman,” she concluded. I was called to deliver my opposition argument.
“You have heard that mandatory birth control is a good thing. Brittany has told you the many reasons birth control is good, and Brittany is a pure and innocent girl. Yes, I could recite statistics that show how the country will be damaged by a sudden drop in births. That a quarter of the births in our country that would normally be parented by those in the mandatory age bracket for birth control will suddenly be missing. But these are merely statistics. The importance of this issue is the purity and innocence of Brittany.” I could see clearly, even as I read from my paper, Brittany blushing. She wasn’t sure yet if I was praising her innocence or ridiculing it.
“Purity and innocence know little of the truth. Brittany has not experienced the mind-blanking pleasure of copulation. Because Brittany is pure and innocent, she does not fully comprehend the biological drive within the female of the species to reproduce. And in purity and innocence, Brittany does not know the joy and euphoria of looking into her lover’s eyes and knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt that they are about to create new life within her body.
“And by Federal law, she will be denied that experience whether she wills it or not. She and any possible mate she might have will be delayed in their maturity leaving a false sense of innocence in the wake of the destruction of her purity.
“But Brittany is pure and innocent. In her youthful trust, she cannot fathom that the government elected by the people would ever do something so blatantly evil to her body and her mind. And sadly, she will one day look back, no longer in innocence and purity, to see the destruction of her youth without the growth and maturity that she should have grown into.”
I laid my paper on Ms. Levy’s desk and walked over to Brittany. She blushed scarlet but nonetheless stood and kissed me deeply. The class applauded, more at our display than our presentations, I think. I glanced up at my classmates.
“Perhaps not quite so innocent as I supposed,” I sighed.
“I am going to dance my boyfriend around the room, stripping an article of clothing from him and from me with every measure of the music. And when we are naked, I am going to find out exactly the difference between my purity and innocence and whatever it is that comes after,” Brittany said at lunch after she’d sat on my lap and kissed me in front of our girlfriends.
“Wow! That’s sure a different response than I had when Desi presented my approval of birth control as weak and ineffective. Instead of attacking the idea of birth control directly, she parodied the concept. She talked about the inadequacy of birth control and compared it to handcuffing teens to the passenger door so they could not drive and get into accidents. Or sewing the lips of the vagina together so that no penetration could be possible,” Beca laughed.
“Just pointing out the stupidity. I think the one that encouraged teen births so the babies could be fattened and used to feed the troops was best,” Desi said.
“You didn’t really say that!” Rachel asked, horrified.
“I borrowed it from Jonathan Swift’s Modest Proposal.”
We settled down to our lunch with a few jabs going back and forth as we ate.
“Is anyone coming to my birthday fete tomorrow?” Livy asked. I snapped toward her.
“Did we get invites? Is this like a big thing like Brittany’s quinceañera?” I asked.
“I wish,” Livy laughed. “I’ve got a volleyball match at six o’clock. Maybe one of my teammates will remember to wish me happy seventeen.”
“I’ll be there,” I said, glancing over at Rachel. She winked at me.
“Yep. I think I should pick you up for school tomorrow morning so Jacob and I can take you home after the game.”
“I suppose giving you a dozen orgasms like Jacob had before the cross country meet yesterday is a bad idea, huh?” Joan said.
“A dozen? Is that why he kind of wobbled over the finish line in last place?” Livy asked. “How about after the game?”
“Just leave that to us,” Rachel said.
I almost missed Livy’s game. I’d forgotten to write in my Literary Journal, which I usually do at our Thursday study session, so after cross country practice—which Livy skipped—I sat in the school cafeteria and did the last bit of reading and writing. Ms. Levy was very strict about Journals needing to be handed in at the beginning of class on Fridays or no credit would be given. She always handed them back at the beginning of class on Monday and said she held herself to the same standard as her students. I just didn’t want to disappoint her. I’d written a new story and planned to include the green folder with my Journal.
Rachel found me in the cafeteria and handed me a sandwich and some chips.
“I swung by your house to pick you up and your mother said you’d stayed at school. She gave me the sack lunch for you,” Rachel said.
“You could have claimed a lot of points by saying you were so concerned about me that you made my favorite kind of sandwich and brought it so I wouldn’t starve during the game,” I laughed as I kissed her.
“I told you once before: I don’t cook.”
I finished my sandwich and held Rachel’s hand as we went to the gym for the start of the game. Sometimes, just walking with my hand in hers was as precious to me as making love. She glanced up with a smile and leaned against me as we walked, letting me know she felt the same way.
Livy got some good playing time in the second and fifth games of the match and was showing what she could do both at the net and as a setter. I was beginning to understand more about the game but was mostly just interested in watching the bouncing boobs on the court. And cheering Livy. She won the match, three games to two, and gave us a quick kiss courtside before she headed off to the showers.
When she came out of the locker room, she was wearing her letter jacket over my favorite peach tank top and obviously nothing under it. She had a slightly flared denim skirt on that left about a mile of leg exposed before it reached her Converse high tops. She looked good enough to eat. Rachel thought the same thing.
“Okay, you two get in the back,” Rache said when we got to her car. “Do a lot of kissing and touching. Jacob, you’ve got about five minutes to get her naked before I get back there to join you.”
Livy’s letter jacket landed in the front passenger seat. We pulled out of the school parking lot and she had her lips plastered against mine as I slid my hand inside that peach tank top to cup her left boob. I started the other hand up inside and she lifted her arms to allow me to pull her shirt off, only getting caught a second on her ponytail. Then she started panting as I groped both breasts and kissed her some more. She pushed my hands down to get them busy on her skirt and my face followed, catching a nipple between my lips as I unzipped her skirt and started tugging at it.
I could recognize where Rachel was headed, just from a glance out the window. As we drove past the one security light in the parking lot and into the shadows, I gripped Livy’s panties and pulled them down off her hips. When I got to her feet, I decided to leave the tennis shoes and started kissing my way up her legs.
Rachel turned off the Yaris and jumped in the back seat with us.
“Happy birthday, lover,” Rachel said as she kissed and caressed Livy. I just kept working my way up between her thighs.
“Am I getting birthday orgasms?” Livy sighed.
“You sure are, baby. Jacob is going to lick you up and when you’ve had an orgasm on his tongue, we’ll trade places and I’ll lick you to an orgasm while he kisses you and teases your nipples. After that, we’ll just have to see how many you can take.”
Livy squealed as I reached my target and started licking.
I think we only managed four big Os by the time we all were just cuddled together kissing and petting each other. Rachel and I mostly kept our clothes on, but that didn’t keep Livy from getting her hands in our pants.
“We could fuck,” Livy said. “If anybody wanted to give me that for a birthday present.”
“We don’t fuck in the backseat the first time,” Rachel said firmly. “We want you in our bed. All night if possible.”
“If not, then all day,” I added. “Making love with you the first time will be no backseat quickie. We want all of you.”
“I suppose I need to get home so my parents can wish me happy birthday, too,” she said. “They are so easy to forget about when I’m with you.”
“Yeah. Jacob, kiss everything thoroughly before you cover it with her clothes,” Rachel said. She got back in the front seat, pulling her clothes straight. I set about kissing and dressing our lover.
It was only nine o’clock when we dropped Livy off to celebrate with her parents. We’d both kissed her deeply when we dropped her off and we were horny as hell. I glanced over at Rachel and she grinned at me.
“The car still smells like sex,” Rache said.
“Yeah. The car and my face,” I laughed.
“Mmm. We’d better go someplace where I can clean your face before you get home. You game?”
“Rachel, I’d go to the ends of the world with you.”
“How about back to the end of the parking lot?”
We headed back to where we’d just left half an hour earlier and were in the back seat and naked without hesitation. We’d both kept our clothes on while we had Livy stripped naked, but with just the two of us, there was no hesitation.
“I really don’t mind an occasional quickie in the car,” Rachel said as she settled onto my cock. “I just don’t want that to be where we are the first time with Livy. I want to make it special for her.”
“You think like I do when we are considering our lovers. Rachel, you know I wouldn’t do this with anyone else if you wanted me to stop.”
“I know, but…” she licked my face, “why would we stop? Now tell me about this other little runner you two have been teasing.”
Jock scowled at me when I showed up for the race Saturday morning. I wasn’t sure if he’d even let me run.
“I don’t know what happened to you Tuesday. Are you ready to run this morning?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve maintained two each day since with no sign of any weakness,” I said.
“You’re doing 5k every morning?”
“Yes.”
“Today?”
“I figured I’d better save it for the race.”
“Good. Get warmed up. And try not to distract your girlfriend before she runs. I had to wrestle Miller down before I got Livy for this race instead of the volleyball game against Southside.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“Get on the bus, asshole.”
The ride to Penn was almost two hours. We’d never faced any of these runners before. Penn, Elkhart, and Mishawaka were all big schools and the officials and coaches agreed to let our whole teams run. There would be about fifty in the boys’ race and easily sixty-five in the girls’. I guessed I’d be in the third tier of runners as we’d be facing two of the top teams in the state. I was just going out to feel the air and do my best.
The race was actually out at an elementary school south of town. It was out in the country and surrounded by farmland. I guess the farmers had approved a trail around their fields. We were told it was a short 5k and would be just three miles. At nine-fifteen the boys got the start and we were off. The downside was that the starting chute was narrow. The rules state the starting line has to be two inches across and six feet long times the number of teams in the meet. It has to have a ‘long straightaway’ that will accommodate all the teams before narrowing to the trail. In order to work for four teams and fifty runners, they started the race on the road in front of the school. A hundred yards down the road was a barricade with a yellow flag and an arrow pointing to the right. From there until we reached the finish line chute, the trail was dirt and grass and just wide enough for two runners to pass.
We were all given bibs to pin on. There would be no transponders in this race. That meant the starter gun would be the same for all runners, even if—like me—the runner was in the back of the pack. It would be twenty seconds before I even reached the starting line. Then there was a mad scramble for position in the first hundred yards to make the turn onto the trail without getting knocked into next week.
I don’t know what got into me, but I swung right around my teammates and stretched out into a full run as soon as I crossed the starting line. There were ten guys on my team and I flashed past seven of them so I was running with the leaders instead of the pack. There was some jostling and bumping as we all made the turn onto the trail and I figured there were about fifteen runners ahead of me when my feet hit the dirt. And those guys were six-minute milers or better. I wasn’t going to keep up with them. I was surprised, though, that even as they pulled away, no one was speeding up to pass me.
‘Rabbit’ was the word we used in this situation. There was another guy at the lead who was setting a hard pace for the frontrunners. He might not last the distance at that pace, but he’d pull the elite runners with him. I had a feeling that I’d just become the rabbit for the mid-runners. I didn’t want to look over my shoulder, but when we made the next turn, I could see a line of runners matching my pace. Behind them, the line began to straggle out to the nine and ten-minute milers. That was the group I’d been in just a few weeks ago.
I wasn’t concerned about running out of gas any longer. Yesterday, Nanette had pushed me for an hour and then told me we ran six miles. That was three miles longer than this race. Of course, it was a slower pace, but I felt confident that I could maintain this pace to the finish line.
At the two mile post, I saw the line ahead of me moving out. One and then another runner was being passed as the guys who could do the distance started picking up the tempo and the rabbits were falling back. It surprised me when I had to move to the left and pass first one and then the other. Then I could hear the guys behind me beginning to shuffle. At the next turn, I could see a guy moving out to my left to pass. We had half a mile to go and I didn’t feel like letting him past.
Don’t mistake me. It’s illegal to block the path so a runner can’t pass you. But I sped up. I could hear him breathing down my neck, if you will, but he fell back a step. I kept my pace until I glanced to my left and a different runner was pressing forward. I picked it up again, doing my best to follow Nanette’s instructions on lengthening my stride, not just increasing the speed of them. I could almost feel my body shift.
A hundred feet before the finish line, we hit the parking lot and the path was about fifteen feet wide to the finish line. That meant we could pass others. I wasn’t going to catch any of the elite runners still stretching the distance out ahead of us, but I was more determined than ever not to get passed. I could feel them before I could see them. Three other runners had pulled up even with me and we were all doing our best to get another ounce out of our kick. Chests pressed forward, we crossed the finish line and cut our pace as the funnel guided us into the chute. They tried to keep us in order going into the chute, but the winners were determined back at the finish line and recorded by the finish judges. The stand-ins and marshals direct the runners into the chute in the order of finishing and chute umpires maintain the order. At the end of the chute, a caller calls out the number of the finisher and a team of checkers records them in order.
I was heaving as I entered the chute ahead of two of the guys in our final kick finish. My mouth was so dry I couldn’t open it. A bunch of Penn cheerleaders walked along the chute handing everyone bottles of water as we passed. I thought I’d never get my tongue unstuck from the roof of my mouth. Unlike other events where there were staggered starts for as many as five or six different races, the girls’ race wouldn’t start until the last boy had crossed the finish line. Livy met me when the checker had finally called my number and hugged me to her.
“What got into you?” she squealed. “We might have won the boys’ meet!”
“Huh? What do you mean?” I gasped out.
“You broke seven minutes. 20:41 for three miles. You’re in thirteenth place!”
“You’ve got to be kidding!”
I’d have spent a lot longer in her arms, but the officials called the girls’ teams to the starting line and Livy handed me her stopwatch and sent me to Jock. It took about ten more minutes to get everyone straight at the starting line and uniforms checked. I pitied the girls a little because there were even more starting down that straightaway than there were boys. Jock checked the stopwatch I was carrying and reset it.
“Time Sue. Click the watch when the starter gun goes off and then watch for her to come across the finish line. She’ll be mid-pack unless she pulls a stunt like you just did. Nice going.” The starter raised his pistol and they were off.
Livy, of course, was right on the starting line when the gun went off instead of ten feet back like I’d been. Three girls were side by side when they made the corner onto the trail. I saw a final flash of Livy’s ponytail before she disappeared into the trees. I glanced at the watch eighteen minutes later when the same three girls appeared around the corner and headed toward the parking lot and finish line. Livy flashed across the line a hair behind the girl from Elkhart and a step ahead of the one from Penn. If she’d had bigger boobs, she would have won. Three minutes later, I stopped the watch on Sue. She’d run the course almost as fast as I had.
We recorded the times, I handed the stopwatch back to Jock, and I headed to the end of the chute where Livy was coming out second.
“Do you know what the time was?” she asked as soon as I saw her.
“I wasn’t holding the watch on you. I looked at it, though. It was definitely under nineteen.”
“Yes!” she shouted. She turned to the girls who had placed first and third. “I’ll see you two at Semi-state.”
I managed to get Livy aside for a few minutes to work on stretches. We were soon joined by Sue. There was no time for leisurely massages today. There was a short awards ceremony and the boys’ team got second place. If our fifth place runner had passed one more person we’d have tied for first. Livy led the girls to a first place finish and that put our combined team in first place. It was the best meet we’d had all season.
Livy slid into the seat next to me and turned sideways so her legs were across mine.
“Now you can rub my legs all the way back to Fort Wayne,” she sighed. I gladly did.
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