Full Frame
29
After-Prom
I PARKED in Ronda’s driveway and we grabbed our overnight things before we rushed into the house.
“Let’s not draw any attention by turning on extra lights until we’re in my room and the shades are drawn,” Ronda whispered. There was a kind of secretive atmosphere, as if we all knew we shouldn’t be here but were determined to be anyway. In her room, Ronda quickly pulled the shades while Chris and I kissed. Then she rushed to join us in the kiss and we almost didn’t make it the rest of the way to the bed.
When she turned on the lamp, I just looked around. I’d never really been in a girl’s bedroom before. It had all kinds of cheerleader stuff, like poms and pennants and a couple of trophies. A certificate for mountain climbing hung on her wall, next to a picture I assumed was her on a cliff face. I glanced toward the bed that Chris had said they turned down.
“Um… Ronda, did your parents know we were coming here tonight?” I asked.
“I sort of told them. A little,” she explained. “I just said that if the after-prom was a bust, Chris and I would spend the night here. I didn’t mention you’d be with us.”
“I think they knew,” I said. I pointed at her bed. It was turned down, just like Chris said, but there were three little mint packages on the pillows.
“Oh, my God!” Ronda said. “I can’t believe they did that. And there’s a note.”
She grabbed the envelope and opened it, opening her mouth in shock when she looked inside.
“What is it?” Chris asked.
“Um… It just says ‘We love you. Please be safe.’ And there’s three condoms in the envelope. I’m going to die of embarrassment.”
“They expect you and me to… do it three times?” I asked. “They certainly wouldn’t have been expecting you to bring both Chris and me home, were they?”
“They put out three mints,” Chris said. “Wow! I wonder if they talked to my parents about it.”
“Oh, God. Please not to Reverend Mother Superior,” I moaned. “I… um… should have left the car at the school. It’s parked in your drive where anyone could see it. I didn’t even think.”
“You had to get us home. We were certainly in no condition to walk in high heels and formals,” Ronda said. She sat on the edge of the bed just looking at the envelope.
“It’s too late to worry about any of that now,” Chris said. “I don’t care who knows that I’m making love to my boyfriend and my girlfriend. In fact, we should go ahead and enjoy the night, and in the morning, we should all get dressed and go to Nate’s church to hear his mother’s sermon. Maybe we’ll go to town and have breakfast first. We’ve all sat at each other’s dinner table. Our parents know we’re in love. If we’d just gone through some elaborate church wedding, they’d know exactly what we were doing that night. It doesn’t matter if they know now.”
It sounded a little like she was convincing herself, but Ronda stood up and kissed our girlfriend, then kissed me.
“You’re right, honey. Let’s just get ready for bed like we would if we figured no one would know.”
“Um… that’s a little bit of a problem. I don’t have any sleepwear with me,” I said.
“Not that you’ll be wearing it long,” Ronda giggled. “We have you covered.” She went to her bureau and pulled a plastic wrapped package from her drawer. She opened it and handed me a pair of pajama pants.
“Here’s a hint,” Chris said. “Don’t wear anything under them.”
“Just the pants?”
“I need to wear something,” Chris giggled. Ronda handed her the matching pajama shirt.
These were definitely nothing like I would ever have bought for myself. They were shiny and slick, like rayon or something. They were royal blue, which was a great color for Chris. Ronda pulled another package from her drawer and extracted a matching pajama shirt.
“Why don’t you go ahead and change in here, lover,” she said. “Chris and I will get ready in the bathroom and then you can have a turn.”
The two girls headed for the bathroom after I’d unzipped their dresses. I hung my after-prom clothes on Ronda’s closet door. I didn’t want to open a door in her room that I hadn’t been invited to. It was all so… girlish. I hung my dinner jacket on the back of her desk chair and got my shirt off. It looked like I was only missing one stud, so I’d need to search the car for it in the morning. I folded my pants and stuffed my underwear into my jacket pocket. Then I quickly put on the pajama pants.
While the girls got ready, I just wandered around Ronda’s room, looking at things. She had a shelf of stuffed animals, a poster of The Beach Boys, and pictures I’d taken displayed on her desk. Her picture was between Chris’s and mine. She’d added a little red heart frame around all three pictures. There could be no mistake about what that meant if her parents ever looked into her room. And obviously, they did. Near the mountain-climbing certificate there was another certificate that said ‘International Studies Summer Conference 1966.’
Chris and Ronda came back from the bathroom and each gave me a little kiss, but pushed me out before I could fully appreciate them dressed in matching pajama tops. They’d told me not to wear anything under the pants and I wondered if they’d followed the same rule.
Ronda had laid out a washcloth and towel. I opened my Dopp kit and brushed my teeth and shaved. I didn’t have a really stiff beard, but better to be smooth if I managed to get my face where I hoped it would go tonight. When I thought about it, I decided to wash critical areas thoroughly before I returned. I did my face, pits, and crotch, making sure that there was no smell or anything that might disgust a lover. Since I was called out of bed by my uncle Saturday morning, I hadn’t beaten off as I often did in the morning, so at least things didn’t smell like sex. I tried just commanding my cock to relax, but that was a half-hearted gesture. I stayed half-hard.
“Boyfriend,” the girls chorused from the bed when I returned to the bedroom. They were sitting up and patted the space between them. Wow! They looked so sexy, with a mile of leg sticking out from beneath their shirts and the welcoming smile on their faces.
“Girlfriends,” I said. “Are you sure you want me between you?”
“We can switch positions anytime we want to,” Chris said. “Start out here and we’ll move when we want to.”
I crawled onto the bed and kissed Chris, who was closest, and then Ronda, before I sat between them.
“We can save the mints for later,” Ronda said. “We’re all minty fresh right now. And I think we can save my parents’ gift of condoms for later, too.” I looked at her, wondering if the girls had had a change of heart. “We got your condoms out of your jacket pocket when we put all our clothes in the closet.” She pointed to her nightstand where the box was conveniently located.
We all three just sat there for a minute, looking at each other. I put an arm around each of them and they leaned against me, but none of us made a move or said anything to get started.
“You could kiss me,” Chris whispered at last. I turned toward her and found Ronda practically crawling over me to get to her as well. We giggled a lot about that, but eventually, the three of us managed to kiss each other, individually and all at once.
“There is a little awkwardness when none of us have any idea what we’re doing,” Ronda said. “Are you sure you don’t want to call Kelly up?”
“I think Kelly might be otherwise engaged already,” I said. “Besides, the way Kelly was going about it, I don’t think we’d have been any better prepared for this. She did teach me a little something, though. Ronda, can Christine and I make love to you?”
“Together? Um… Yeah, I guess. I thought you were going to do Christine first,” she gasped.
I winked at Chris and pulled Ronda between us.
“You know, you are loved by both of us,” I said. “I don’t think we need to adhere to a special order for this.”
Chris and I both started kissing her. When Chris had Ronda’s mouth covered, I started moving down and unbuttoned Ronda’s shirt as I went. It wasn’t long before I had one of her full ripe breasts in my hand and a nipple in my mouth. Ronda moaned into Christine’s mouth and I felt a hand join mine on Ronda’s breast.
I glanced down as I undid the last button and the shirt fell open to reveal Ronda’s bare sex. No underwear at all.
“You are so beautiful, Ronda. I could just look at you all night,” I said.
“You’re looking at me… naked. No boy’s ever seen me naked before.”
“I love every inch of what I see,” I said. “Now relax and let your lovers take good care of you. We love you so much!”
“I love the way you look, too, hon. Even though I’ve seen you naked in the gym showers and when we were getting dressed tonight, I’ve never been able to just look and see how beautiful you are. I love you,” Chris said.
“I love you both, so much. I’ll be… I’ll be naked for my lovers,” Ronda said, slipping her arms out of the pajama shirt so she was truly naked.
Chris and I took turns kissing her while we petted up and down her body. We caressed her breasts and then bent to kiss her nipples. We let our fingers play with her navel and slide down past her pussy to her legs and then back up as Ronda got more and more worked up. Then I started kissing my way down her stomach and signaled Chris to join me. When we were just above her pubic bone, Ronda started to pant. We pushed her legs out farther so we could both get between them.
“Are you… are you going to put your cock in me, Nate?”
“Not yet, love. First, I need to teach Christine about really pleasing you.”
“Pleasing me? Oh! You’re not going to…”
I swiped up her slit with my tongue and she broke off with a gasp. Chris looked at me with her mouth open and I nodded to her. She bent to our girlfriend’s pussy and took a long lick as well. Then the two of us settled in and took turns licking the folds open with our tongues until we could both attack her clit from the sides.
“OH! Christine! You’re licking my clit with Nate. I can’t believe you’d both do that. It feels so wonderful.”
I introduced a finger into her pussy as we tongued her clit, pausing occasionally to tangle our tongues together. Ronda was delirious and began to thrash on the bed beneath us, thrusting her pussy up into our mouths and against my finger. I introduced a second finger and Ronda started coming. Christine let me finish the cunnilingus as Ronda began to come down and I licked gently, mostly just kissing around her lips until she relaxed enough to let me pull my fingers out. Chris was kissing Ronda and whispering to her.
“Do you taste yourself on my tongue?” Chris said. “I put my tongue in your pussy and licked you. And you know what? I liked it so much I’d do it again anytime you want. I made love to you, my sweetheart. Nate showed me how.”
“I can’t wait to kiss you there,” Ronda said. “Are you going to fuck me now, Nate?”
“Not yet, love,” I said moving up beside the girls’ faces. I kissed them and both girls licked at my pussy juice covered face. “Don’t you think we owe Christine a little now? Wouldn’t you love to get your tongue between her legs?”
“Oh, yes!” Ronda said. “I’ve dreamt of that. May I lick you, my sweet?”
“Yes, but… I want to come with Nate inside me. Do you think we can do that?”
“Let’s make sure Nate is ready for that adventure,” Ronda agreed.
Chris stripped off her own pajama shirt and I was faced with two unbelievably beautiful seventeen-year-olds who wanted to make love to me. They began pulling at my pants and before long, I was naked in front of them as well.
Both girls looked at my cock standing out rigidly and touched it lightly.
“I’d like to suck on Nate, too, but I bet he’d come and I think he’d rather come inside you. I’ll show you how to put a condom on him. We’ve done that before.”
Ronda grabbed one of the condom packs and tore it open, then showed Chris the way it was rolled up. She put it on the end of my cock and held the tip while Chris rolled the condom down my shaft. I still nearly came even without being in their mouths.
“Now lie down, Nate. Kiss Chris while I make sure she’s open and ready for your big cock.”
Ronda had been giving instructions but from about that time on, she sort of had her mouth full. Chris threw a leg over me and slid back and forth on top of my cock, spreading her lubrication around the condom.
“She’s… She’s got her tongue on my pussy, Nate. Ronda is licking me like we licked her.” Chris shifted to lift her butt a little and Ronda was apparently able to get to her clit for a minute as Chris panted and neared her climax. “I want you. I want you now,” she gasped.
Ronda pulled my cock back and bathed it with her tongue, spreading her saliva over the rubber. Then she held my cock at Chris’s opening.
“It’s all up to you, lover,” Ronda said. “His cock is against your hole. All you have to do is slide back onto it.”
“Yes!” Chris said. She began pressing against the head of my cock and I penetrated her tight channel. Farther and farther, she went. I couldn’t believe the warm tightness that was enveloping my dick. And then she came to a stop with her pubic bone resting against mine. “I have you all the way inside me. Nate, we aren’t virgins anymore. We’re really, truly lovers.”
After we’d held still for a minute with Ronda kissing all over us and holding my balls, we both started moving. I slid back and thrust into her again. Chris pulled back and slammed her pussy down on me. Chris and I kissed as Ronda wormed a finger between us and started diddling Christine’s clit. It didn’t take long for Chris to gasp and begin her climax. That was all it took for me to join her and start pumping into the condom.
We kissed some more and Ronda joined us. I’d just made love to Christine with Ronda helping.
We didn’t rush anything else. It was about three in the morning and we cuddled and kissed each other. Ronda, of course, wanted Chris to describe every second of what she was feeling. I think we all dozed off a bit. I know I did.
I woke up a while later to the bed vibrations of Chris’s crashing orgasm as Ronda crawled up from between her legs. I rolled toward them and held the two lovers as they kissed. I managed to get in there and lick some of Chris’s love juice off Ronda’s face
“I had to show her what it was like when you both went down on me,” Ronda explained. “I’m sorry you weren’t awake to participate.”
“I think it’s wonderful that you gave that great feeling to our lover,” I said. “I bet you both needed that.”
“We did,” Ronda admitted. “You know what else I need? Licking Christine really got me turned on. I need you now, my love. Are you awake enough to make love to me?”
“Oh, sweetheart, you know I am,” I said.
“He is. I don’t think his cock has actually gone down since we made love, even while he was sleeping,” Chris said. In fact, I was really hard.
“I’m already a woman,” Ronda said. “I don’t need you to make me one. I need you to treat me like one and make love to me.”
Ronda slipped off Chris and lay on her back, beckoning me to her. Chris stopped us and managed to get a condom on me without making me come. It was a near thing when she decided to slick up the condom by taking me in her mouth. Then she gave a little tug on my cock and I rolled between Ronda’s parted legs. Chris guided me to Ronda’s opening and Ronda pulled me forward until I was all the way in her.
“Oh. Oh! That’s… The feeling… I’m being… Oh! So full. So full of my man, Nate. Our man, Christine. Our man is making love to me, like you just did. I mean… Not in the same way… But he’s… Oh, Nate. Move in me. Let me feel you moving in and out of my vagina. Oh, Chris, it’s so good!”
We moved together and as Ronda had done for Chris and me, so Chris managed to wiggle her hand between us and start playing with Ronda’s clit. Ronda’s unintelligible agreement was acknowledged with more active thrusting against me. Chris kissed us both as we kissed each other. Perhaps because Ronda had been getting ready for this the whole time she was licking Chris, she was a little faster off the mark than I was. I was almost painfully hard, but was really able to enjoy just being in this beautiful cheerleader who had let me into her life and her body.
Feeling her clamping down on me as she came, though, accelerated my own approach and before I knew it, my cock was contracting.
“I’m coming, Ronda. I’m coming in your vagina. I love you so much, baby!”
“I love you, Nate. Come in me! Come in me!”
“Oh, I’m going to want more of that,” Christine whispered to us as we drifted down from our climaxes and lazily kissed each other as I began shrinking out of Ronda.
“I think we’ll have to wait a while,” I said. “I don’t think I can go again right away. I need to use the bathroom now.”
“Don’t flush the condom!” Ronda said. “Put it in my wastebasket with the other. I’ll take my garbage out when we get up in the morning.”
I stripped off the condom and dropped it in Ronda’s wastebasket and made my way to the bathroom. I stared at my cock for a minute as I drained the radiator. My cock. My seventeen-year-old cock had just made love to not one, but two of the most beautiful and wonderful girls I’d ever met. And they loved me like I loved them.
When I got back to the bedroom, the girls were cuddled together asleep. There was room for me to crawl in behind Christine and I did, draping an arm over both girls.
“Can you make love to both of us again this morning?” Chris asked as she nibbled on my ear. It must have been about 6:30. I yawned, but discovered my cock was already hard. And Ronda’s hand was on it.
“We’re pretty sure Christine and I can get time together fairly easily. But there’s no telling when we can arrange to make love with you again. I don’t want my after-prom to end with only making love to you once,” Ronda said as she nibbled on the other ear.
“Well, we’d better get busy, then,” I said as I gave a good morning kiss to each of the girls. “Um… Do I need to go brush my teeth before we get started? You both taste minty fresh.”
“Maybe so. Just don’t lose this,” Ronda said squeezing my hard-on. “I’ll make sure Christine is ready for you when you get back.”
I crawled over Ronda and she immediately rolled to Chris to start her way downtown. I got my teeth brushed, peed, and washed my parts off. There were still a few flakes of dried come on my cock. When I got back to the bed, Ronda was between Chris’s legs and Chris was panting.
“I’m ready. I’m ready. You have to come up now,” she said, lightly beating on Ronda’s head. Ronda lifted up, giggling, and kissed her way up Christine’s body, sucking on each nipple and then darting in for a kiss.
“Oh, no! He’s not as hard now!” Ronda said when she saw me.
“It will be back,” I said.
“I know how to get it back,” Chris said. “Come here, lover.”
She tugged at my hips until my cock was near her face and then dove onto it to give it a sensuous tongue bath. She was right. She’d found a sure way to get me hard in no time. As soon as I was rigid, Ronda rolled a condom on me.
“I want to be on the bottom this time,” Chris said. She pulled me to her and as soon as I was between her legs, Ronda guided my cock to Chris’s pussy. “Yes! Push into me. I want to feel your weight. Press me into the mattress!” she shouted.
There was no time for Ronda to attempt to get her hand between us. She’d done her job with her tongue and Chris was ready to go. I loved being in her and feeling her pussy pulsing around my cock, but Christine’s orgasm was over long before I was ready to come. I’d had two within a few hours before this and maybe I was experiencing a little loss of sensitivity through the condom. I was still having a wonderful time thrusting in and out of her.
“Did you come?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
“Good! Then you can do Ronda while you’re still up and ready!”
Chris gave me a little push and only the prospect of being immediately in Ronda made me regretfully withdraw from Chris. Ronda pushed me down on my back.
“This time, I’m trying Christine’s position. It looked exciting.”
I had no objections to that and as Ronda straddled me, I immediately started playing with her cute little nipples. Chris held my cock so Ronda could settle on it.
“I’m glad it was still wet from you,” Ronda said. “I might not have been as ready as I thought I was.”
“We don’t have to go straight to this,” I said. “We can wait until you’re ready.”
“I’m ready enough. Now that you’re in me, I don’t ever want you to take it out! I just might be too sore to walk later.”
“I hear you, lover,” Chris said. “I can still feel how stretched my pussy is. We definitely aren’t used to this.”
“I may never get used to it,” I gasped as Ronda started moving up and down my pole. “You are both so incredible, I think it’s going to be like a new experience every time.”
“There are going to be more times, aren’t there?” Ronda gasped.
“Oh, my precious lovers. I hope there’s a lifetime of more times ahead of us.”
“Oh! I think I just got a lot wetter,” Ronda said.
“So did I,” Chris echoed. “We’re going to make love together whenever we can for the rest of our lives. I just know it!”
“Nate just got harder, too. I could feel the difference. Do you really love us that much, Nate?”
“I can’t even imagine not being with you, ever,” I said. That wasn’t exactly a proposal, but I was already considering it. But we couldn’t get married. There were three of us. We’d just have to shack up together.
This time I was ramping up at about the same pace Ronda was and I could feel her impending climax pulling me along. I held her breasts in my hands while Chris kissed her. Thrusting up, I held as deeply as I could get in my lover and began pulsing my come into the condom.
“Oh! I felt it that time!” Ronda said. “I’m coming!”
She slipped away from Chris and slammed her mouth against mine as I felt her pulses complementing mine. One more drop might have been squeezed out.
“If we’re going to Huntertown for breakfast, we should get dressed,” Chris said after we’d lain cuddled together for a few minutes. “It’s after seven.”
“Mmm. Showers first,” Ronda said. “I’ll get us each a towel. I don’t think we can all fit at once, so Chris can go first, then Nate. I’ll take last in case we run out of hot water. Just don’t take long.”
She got the towels and Chris headed into the bathroom while Ronda and I sat on the bed together.
“You know what’s funny?” I asked. “I mean, not haha funny, but what strikes me as odd?”
“You mean besides two girls and a boy making love with each other all night? No, darling. What’s so funny?”
“There’s our pajamas on the floor,” I said, pointing at the royal blue pile. “Since we took them off last night and were naked with someone else for the very first time, we haven’t put a stitch of clothes on.”
Ronda jumped up and stood in front of me. I thought at first, she was going to grab her pajama shirt, but she just faced me.
“Do you like looking at me? And touching me? And seeing me naked?” she asked as she brought my hands to her and let me run them up and down her sides and over her breasts and then her butt.
“Oh, yes,” I breathed. “You are the most remarkable sight I have ever seen. I love having you naked with me.”
“Then I never want to wear clothes when I’m with you again. I know that if we’re around other people or in public, we have to wear clothes. But if it’s just you and Chris and me, I want to take off all my clothes and let you look and touch me as much as you want.”
“We might need to have a break sometimes,” I said. “People don’t always feel the same way at any given moment. But I would love to have you naked and in my arms whenever you are willing.”
I stood and embraced her. We kissed passionately. Then Christine came in from the bathroom.
“I hope you have one of those for me,” she laughed. I headed toward her, but she waved me to the bathroom. “Ronda first. You go shower.”
I went as the girls picked up where I left off and started kissing.
When I got back to the bedroom, Chris still hadn’t started dressing. Ronda bounced off to the bathroom and Chris patted the bed next to her for me to sit. Then she stood in front of me.
“I know I’m not as beautiful as Ronda. She’s, like, perfect. I love her so much. But do you like to see me, too? I mean naked like this? Would you mind if I was always naked when I was with you and no one else was around? Could you stand to look at me and hold me and touch me?”
“Chris, my love… my first love, if you stop and think about it, I fell for you the first time I saw you. I know. I know. I went out with Anna and that was important. I’m glad I did and that Anna became my assistant on the yearbook. She’s sweet and all. But I had a kind of gut reaction when I met you the first time. I hope you can forget all that you ever thought about not being as beautiful as Ronda. To me, you are every bit as desirable and beautiful as Ronda and I love you to bits. I can’t imagine any better life than having you naked when you are around me. I would want to look at you and hold you and pet you all the time.”
“Wow!”
I stood and took Chris into my arms and tried to pour everything I’d just said into my kiss.
“I love seeing my lovers being so in love,” Ronda said when she walked into the room. We brought her into our kiss and just held each other for a minute. “Now we need to get dressed and go to breakfast and then to church.”
And that’s what we did next.
Finding breakfast in Huntertown at 7:30 Sunday morning was a challenge, but Chris knew of a place called The Pancake Corral and they were open. We took our time and arrived at church five minutes before service began. Mr. Farnsworth handed me a batch of bulletins and pointed me to the other door. I laughed and led the girls to the other side and got them seated, then went up and down the aisle offering bulletins to anyone who needed one. There were only a few people who came in after we did.
Chris sat between Ronda and me and we held hands except when we needed to open the hymnal or something. And when I got up to take the offering. They were surprised that I had a job to do. They loved it when Mom called nearly a dozen kids to the front and sat on the steps to tell a story about a bird who got in a fight and then realized he was fighting his reflection in a window. I think kids and adults both liked Mom’s children’s stories as much as the sermon.
“Well, I put a meatloaf and baked potatoes in the oven before I came to church,” Dad said when he came over to us after church. “You might all as well come sit down for lunch. There’s plenty.”
We had a hurried conversation and no one had an excuse not to sit at the table with the family. We just warned Dad that we might all fall asleep in our plates.
“I was certainly surprised to see you three in church this morning,” Mom said as we sat for Sunday dinner.
“Well, Mom, I guess I didn’t consider not getting any sleep important enough to break my perfect attendance record. It’s not like I was sick in bed and dying. Who knows? Maybe I’ll make it to eighteen years of perfect attendance.”
“I was hoping there was a better reason than just keeping your record intact. But whatever shortcomings, you made up for it by bringing Chris and Ronda with you. It’s so nice to see you girls.”
“Thank you, Reverend um… Hart,” Chris said. “We really loved your children’s story.”
“That’s so cool. Pastor Luke loves the kids and is often down in the daycare, but he’s never told a story to them in church. We should suggest that,” Ronda said.
“Oh, we share ideas back and forth. There is no telling who might try what. I might instruct people to kneel one day like Father Emory does,” Mom laughed.
Of course, Kat wanted to know all about the prom and who the queen was and if they thought she, Kat, might one day be a prom queen and how should she prepare.
“And the after prom?” Mom asked. I know all three of us blushed.
“After the prom was fun,” I said. “We didn’t get any sleep.”
“Well, you’ll all want to go take a nap this afternoon then,” Mom said. “Don’t worry about the dishes. I’m feeling rather domestic this afternoon. Kat can help me clean up.”
“Aw, Mom!” Kat complained, but we hugged Mom, Dad, and Kat, and I walked the girls home.
“Children behave. That’s what they say when we’re together,” Ronda sang as we walked to her house.
“And watch how you play. They don’t understand we love each other,” Chris joined her. We all laughed, but I declined to start singing with them. No sense ruining the mood.
We went straight to Ronda’s door and stopped on her porch for another kiss. I almost thought we’d all go in and take a nap together. My sleep deprived brain.
“We’re going to nap together,” Ronda said, taking hold of Chris’s hand. “As much as I’d like to invite you in to join us, Nate, I have no idea when Mom and Dad or Danny will be home. Danny might be staring out the window right now.”
“Besides, if you joined us, I’d want to do some more of what we were doing and I don’t think my pussy could take it right now,” Chris said.
“You managed to get two girls sore enough to be out of commission on our first time,” Ronda giggled.
“I’m sorry. I really didn’t think I was hurting you. I confess, I feel a little… um… worked out,” I said.
“Don’t you dare be sorry for anything,” Ronda said. “It was wonderful.”
“We may be the only girls we know who had fun and loved our first time,” Chris said. “I’m sure our parents all suspect what we did—or know for sure—but I’m not in the least bit ashamed of it. I wish it was proper to run up Main Street yelling ‘I’m not a virgin anymore!’ I’d do it.”
“I love you both. I think my mom might have been fishing a little, but she wasn’t going to pursue the subject with Kat at the table. Just please understand if I’m grounded until next September when I turn eighteen.”
“We’ll demand visiting privileges,” Ronda affirmed.
“Conjugal visitation,” Chris laughed. “Your mother would love that.”
“Well, hold each other and kiss each other for me, but try to get some sleep, too. I love you,” I said.
We all kissed again and I walked home.
I didn’t sleep that long. I woke up about four and thought maybe I should go to the studio and start printing some experimental full frame enlargements. I just hadn’t had time to do much the past week. I went downstairs and saw Mom in the living room.
“Oh, Nate. Don’t go out to the garage. Kat is almost finished with her project and doesn’t want you to see it until she’s done. Dad’s been helping her,” Mom said.
“I was really shocked to see my bike as part of the setup for her science fair project. Every once in a while, she really comes up with something that bowls me over,” I said.
“She is going to be as much an artist with her paintbrush as you are with a camera, I believe.”
“I was just going to go over to the studio.”
“I haven’t seen the new space, you know,” Mom said. “Why don’t you give me a tour?”
“Sure, Mom.”
I haven’t lived with my parents for seventeen and a half years and ended up clueless when Mom makes a seemingly innocent suggestion, like visiting my studio. The underlying message was ‘I want to talk to you about your behavior.’
The three-block walk gave me time to formulate what I would say when she asked if I was having sex with Ronda and Chris. I didn’t feel a need to confess my sins because I didn’t consider it a sin. But I wasn’t going to deny anything, either. I loved those girls and I was happy we’d made love. Within the bounds of what I felt was proper to let mom know, I’d happily tell her that Chris and Ronda were my lovers.
When we got to the studio, Mom was really amazed at how things had changed since Easter.
“Remember the foggy night a couple of weeks ago when I went out to take pictures? Wait till you see what I made. Mr. Grossman says that it transcends the other works I’ve done and is a true work of art.”
“That’s very high praise from a professional,” Mom said. “This studio tells me that you are very much a professional. Let’s see some of these new photos you’ve been taking.”
I showed her the picture of Lori on the truck and the ones among the falling bodies.
“I’m going to create an entire portfolio for Lori that she can circulate to modeling agencies in Chicago. I think she is going to land some professional gigs in the near future,” I said. “I really want her to succeed.”
Mom was impressed and then wanted to know who the new model among the mushrooms was.
“Avery really surprised me. I was looking for Lori or Pam to be my model after school on that foggy Thursday and Avery volunteered. When she saw my concept, she was all in. She really suffered a lot to get the real photo.”
“Suffered? Among the mushrooms?” Mom laughed.
“No. Under the streetlight.”
I pulled out the last photo and showed Mom what we’d captured. I hadn’t hung this photo yet because I was still a little spooked by the break-in.
“I’d really like to hang this picture at home,” I said. “I suppose it’s a little too much for the preacher’s house, though.”
“Is there something about the preacher’s house… or the preacher, that prevents her from appreciating a fine work of art? I’d like to take this to the framing shop in Huntertown and have it professionally framed first.”
“Really, Mom?”
“Nate, if anyone ever questions me about the kind of photography you are doing or what you do with models in your studio, I’d like to point them to this photo and let it shut their mouths for me. This is so beautiful. I’d like to meet the model… Avery… and tell her how much I love her photograph. Perhaps I wouldn’t go so far as to hang it in the church, but in the parsonage, certainly.”
“Yeah. If it were in church, it would be too easy for people to lose focus on why they were there,” I laughed.
“You stayed focused pretty well this morning, even with Chris and Ronda beside you. A little sleepy, but not as worn as I expected.”
“Mom, I…”
“Shh! Wait. Please. I don’t want to hear you tell me that you’ve had sex with one or both of those beautiful girls. And I don’t want you to lie to me. So, let’s not say anything about that. This room, these photos, tell me all I need to know about your maturity and the kind of man you have become. That these young women all trust you with this level of intimacy… No, I don’t mean to imply a sexual involvement with any of them, but the kind of trust a young woman must have in you to follow your vision, even to undress and let you photograph her, is phenomenal. Young women, even those we might think of as brazen, are extremely body conscious. Even a casual word while taking their pictures could scar them deeply. But they trust you. They trust you so much that they will take your direction and turn themselves into wonderful works of art.”
“Avery talked to me about that last night. She plans to go to Berkeley and study to become a psychologist. She said that first really great photo I took of Lori showed Lori something about herself. It was a kind of therapy for her that would enable her to become something more than she expected.”
“Hmm. I can see her point. Even in your senior retakes and what you called your attic allure photos, you brought something out in each of those people that showed more than their face. It showed something about that person.”
We sat at the table for a few minutes while Mom continued to look at the streetlight print.
“This place, your studio and your photographs, your relationship with your models and your obvious relationship with your girlfriends, all tell me that my little boy has grown up. Oh, you still have a ways to go before you are an adult and independent, but you have matured more than I ever expected you to so soon. It makes me very proud of you, Nate.”
Mom paused and sniffed. I saw a tear in her eye. I dove for the clean handkerchief in my pocket and handed it to her. She snorted a little as she dried her eyes and wiped her nose.
“You learned your father’s tricks well.”
“Are you okay, Mom?”
“Yes. I… It somehow makes me sad as well as proud. I accepted this posting… requested it… as a way to get you and Kat out of the city. To protect you. But I realize you’ve grown so much and have your own world that you’ve entered and I can’t protect you there. You’ll have to face your own accomplishments and mistakes and loves and heartbreaks. I’ll still be here to give you a hug and put a Band-Aid on your booboos. But I can’t live your life for you. I’m very proud of you, and still so very sad.”
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
