The Agreement
10 Basketball
WE HAD A BLAST racing in the morning. I ran barrels against the clock on Rika and she showed she was one fast girl. Of course, Theresa and Snooker were pros and her time was a good two seconds faster than mine. Each of the girls rode the barrels on Silk. She carried them all flawlessly, though not fast. Silk knows barrels so well, she does her own lead changes whether you cue her or not. Then I ‘rescued’ each of the girls and when Hannah swung on behind me on Rika, we set a new arena record of 18.28. Of course, since there was only one stop watch going, it wouldn’t be entered. I had a feeling that they sort of made up the arena records anyway.
We packed our bags before lunch and the five of us stood in the middle of the cabin with the mattresses back on the bunks.
“Our parents will be here after lunch,” Jennifer said. “My mom’s pretty cool, but I want a kiss goodbye that she might not be all that happy about.”
“We should have our goodbye kisses now, before lunch,” Samantha said. “Of course, Hannah and I will get to kiss Brian goodbye when we get back to his house, but I’d rather my mom not get any more ideas.”
“I give each of you explicit permission to kiss and hug me,” Courtney said. “And if you feel me up a little, that’s okay, too,” she laughed. Jennifer used the same words, including the feel me up clause. I realized I was next in the circle, so I used the same words, as did Samantha.
“I give you each permission to give me a little kiss goodbye and a hug,” Hannah said. “But… Please don’t feel me up. It’s icky enough kissing.”
Jennifer turned to me and kissed me, pulling my hand up to her breast as she gripped my ass in her other hand. “I’m going to miss you, Brian. We’ll try to find other ways to get together. I want to meet all my other girlfriends and boyfriends.” I looked over her shoulder and Courtney was in front of Hannah carrying on a whispered conversation. Jennifer let go of me and Samantha plastered herself to me. She ground her crotch into my erection as she kissed me and I held her ass.
“Feel these legs,” Sam whispered to me as she pulled my hand down to her upheld leg and let me run it all the way up the inside of her thigh. “Remember, it feels the same way all the way up. Someday, I want you to kiss me there for real. With lots of tongue.” We parted and I saw Courtney was still in front of Hannah. Hannah nodded her head. Courtney put her hand on Hannah’s cheek and drew her toward her lips. Hannah followed and Court slowly and sensuously and thoroughly kissed Hannah. She didn’t touch her anyplace else, but when they parted, they hugged. Courtney turned for her kiss with me. Hannah had a kind of bemused expression on her face.
Courtney led me a step away, swinging us so the others were no longer in my line of sight.
“Our little girlfriend got me really turned on,” Courtney said. She pulled my hand to her stomach and then pressed it down under the waistband of her sweats. She had panties on and pushed my hand down until my fingers were on her very wet slit. I moved them up and down as I looked into her smoldering eyes. Then she pulled my hand out and pressed my fingers to my lips. I licked her juices off them before she crushed me to her for a kiss. “Don’t forget,” she whispered. “One day our time will come. To come.” She laughed at her joke. I turned back to the group to see Samantha and Jennifer in a liplock and Hannah standing in front of me.
“How are you, Honey?” I asked.
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
“My kiss.” I looked at her and realized she was really making an effort to catch up with everyone else. I wasn’t going to be the one to push her.
“If you want a kiss, you can’t just stand there and wait,” I said. She picked up what I meant immediately and closed the distance between us. She pulled my head down to her lips and kissed them, then touched them with her tongue. I let her find my tongue and she explored it tentatively. She pulled back and looked a little puzzled, or like she was trying to consider the kiss from every angle.
“I’ve never kissed a girl before. You two are wicked!” Samantha said. “And to pinch my nipple in the middle!”
“Did you like it?”
“Oh yeah. I love kissing.”
“Are all our girlfriends as sexy as you two?” Courtney asked.
“Oh, way more,” Hannah said right away. “Than me. Samantha is in a class all by herself.”
Sam hugged Hannah again.
I decided to throw a party. As soon as I made that decision, I went to ask my parents’ permission. That’s the thing about being fifteen. You can decide anything you want to if you get permission.
Halloween was coming and it was time all of us in the dating group got together where we could have fun without anyone else commenting on how weird we were. I put together a complete party plan, including a budget for how much everything would cost (my parents). I was surprised that they countered with some suggestions I hadn’t thought about. For example, with the menu I planned I would do nothing but run back and forth to the kitchen all night and wouldn’t be able to enjoy my own party. Man, that would suck. I simplified the menu with all food that could be prepared in advance and didn’t need monitoring during the party. It turned out cheaper, too.
My parents had almost eclipsed my amazing weekend with four girlfriends when they gave me a Macintosh computer for my birthday. I wanted one, yes. I’d told them I was saving money to buy one. I’d answered their questions about why I wanted a computer and if that was the best one for my purposes. But I never in a million years expected them to buy one. And a printer, too!
I used the computer to create invitations. My first big project on my new Mac! I printed one for each member of our group and several other people who regularly shared with us.
The only interruptions in planning the party were the musical and basketball tryouts. The musical was a breeze for me. It played for three nights—Thursday, Friday, and Saturday—and I had five lines. It turned out that they were the funniest lines in the play because of the way they were set up. Every time I appeared, people would listen for “Yes ma’am.” On Saturday night a bunch of the people who had seen the show on Thursday and Friday came again and every time one of my lines came up, the whole audience shouted them out. Yeah. It was fun.
Saturday, a week before the party, Whitney came over. We planned to go riding because Hannah, Denise, and Samantha all talked about how much fun it was. We walked out the back door and she pointed at my basketball hoop.
“You gotta ball, Bri?” she asked.
“Sure. Doesn’t everybody?”
“Let’s play some one-on-one before we go riding.” Whitney wore a basketball jersey over just about anything these days. Seems like she had one from every pro team in the country. They looked good on her, too.
We shot some baskets. That led to a game of HORSE and Whitney discovered that I could make just about any shot she could. Of course, she could make mine, too, unless I was way outside. Finally, we started trying to rush the basket and score against the other person. She was taller than me by several inches. She said she was six feet even, but I thought she’d grown more since school started. I was just five-five and she had a lot of reach on me. It was hard to shoot over her. I kept having to drive and fade-away so she couldn’t swat the ball out of the air. It was an eye-opener when she stole the ball while I was dribbling. She just grabbed it and did an easy layup. She fell for my hook shot fake almost every time, though.
We were hot and sweaty by the time we called a break and went in to get drinks. I showed her my room. It’s the coolest part of the house when the weather gets cold. I didn’t turn my space heater on unless I was going to be up there a while, like at night. My train had been shoved out of the way this year. It was kind of sad, but I just had too much other stuff to do to play with a model railroad.
“You’re a pretty cool boyfriend,” Whitney said. “Wish you were, like, eight inches taller. I think I’d try to get you out of the dating group.”
“Oh, you just think that because I won’t let you get a shot off.”
“That’s true.” What? That was supposed to be sarcastic. “I mean, Coach Hancock has had me in to work with a few guys he wants on the JV team and none of them take me seriously. It’s like, ‘Oh the girl has the ball. Let her take a shot.’ I keep sinking them but nobody ever puts the pressure on like you do. I haven’t had this good a workout since camp this summer. I don’t believe Coach thinks I can play because all I ever do is make easy shots.”
“That sucks! You’re great out there.”
“Will you come work out with me to show him I can really play?”
“Wouldn’t someone who actually plays ball be better? Like Carl?”
“Carl’s better than the others, but even he has this ‘she’s a girl’ attitude. Please, Brian?”
“Okay, sure. Coach has been pestering me to come out anyway. This will show him for sure that you’re a good choice and I’m not.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. If you had a team backing you up, you’d be deadly. That outside shot is wicked.”
“Yeah. Unless someone happens to be standing in front of me. And I dribble like a cripple.”
“I could help you with that. The coaches at camp ran dribbling drills every day.”
“Okay. I’ll do it. Just don’t blame me if Coach laughs us both off the court.”
“Will you kiss me now?”
“Really, Whitney?”
“You know, I’m not really going out much with any of the guys. They all think I’m too tall. I don’t really care much because we’re all friends, but… There’s not so much difference in our height when we’re sitting down. Mom says my height is all in my legs.”
“Okay, let’s sit.” It was probably a relief that she didn’t have to keep ducking her head with my low ceilings. She headed for the bed. “No here, on the floor.” I plopped down in the middle of the area rug. Might not be as comfortable as the bed, but we weren’t going to lie down. Not exactly. She started to sit beside me but I turned her so she was beside me but facing the opposite direction.
“Oh! Like in Candace’s car.”
“You’ve got to admit that worked.”
“Cheeses, it sure did.”
Once we were in position, she kind of leaned back against my knees to support her back. We were looking each other right in the eye and she kind of bit her lip a little and smiled.
“Brian, that one time with you was my only time. I’m not a very good kisser.”
“If that one time was your only time, you have a natural talent.”
“I’m just so ugly. I understand if you don’t really want to kiss me.”
“Whitney, who told you you were ugly? I’ve never thought that once.”
“I’m so tall. And I guess I dress like a boy. Nobody notices me.”
“I do. And I’m sorry I don’t pay more attention to you, girlfriend. After all, you are my fairy queen. I never thought having fourteen girlfriends would be such a problem.”
“Serves you right.”
“You want to know a secret? It’s going to embarrass me and it might embarrass you, too.”
“Tell me.”
“These basketball jerseys are really long. I suppose because real basketball players are tall. On me it would hang to my knees. I’m sure Coach Hancock would have to order me a jersey from the midget league.”
“They don’t have a midget league.”
“Guess I’m out of luck, then. But you know what I think when I see you wear one?”
“Please don’t tell me you think of some pro basketball player. I wouldn’t believe you.”
“No. I think how cool it would be if that was all you were wearing.”
“Brian!”
“It would be like an ultra mini skirt. And these sleeve holes. I mean, you only wear them over T-shirts and stuff, but if you didn’t have anything on under it, I’d be trying to get beside you all the time because I’m sure I’d be able to see your nipples. And it would be so easy to slip a hand in from the side. I bet you wouldn’t dare bend over in it.”
“Mmm. Brian, kiss me. Please kiss me.” I did. Just holding Whitney in my arms as we sat facing each other on the floor was pretty intense. Kissing her was a whole different world.
Wednesday after school I joined Carl and Doug in the locker room to dress for a basketball warm-up. It wasn’t official practice, or even tryouts. Season didn’t start until the first of November. So officially, we were just playing some pickup games. It just happened that Coach Hancock was the gym monitor for after-school activities.
“You’re kidding. Now we’ve got two girls who want to play. Who wants them?” I let the insult slide and held out a hand to stop Carl from going after Josh.
“Josh, you don’t want the two of us on the same team. None of the rest of you would ever get the ball,” I said. Josh dominated our junior high basketball team, even though Lionel outscored him and out-played him. Josh was really physical in his play and everyone avoided him. No one was talking about moving him to varsity this year like Lionel, though. That meant that he’d be throwing his weight around on the JV team even though there would probably be sophomores and juniors on the team.
“Yeah, right. You two with your boyfriends and Ty. If any of you can even score in the first five minutes we’ll take you seriously.” I grinned at Whitney. I didn’t really know Ty, but Carl and Doug pulled him in for a conference.
“Just put it in play and let Whitney bring it down court,” I said. “That challenge was directed at her. Let her make the play.”
“Okay for the first time,” Ty said, “but the next time we get the ball it goes to a player. I don’t want to be humiliated by Josh and his crew. They think they own the team.”
“Don’t sweat it,” Carl said. “I think Brian has a plan. Go with it.”
Of course, Josh got the tip, ran down court and scored. His gang decided to press Ty on the inbound and Whitney took off running. Ty launched the ball over the heads of the front three and Whitney took it. I paced her on her left as the two guards closed on her. That was all she was waiting for she drove to the right and they followed her. She flipped the ball behind her back to me and I nailed it on an easy layup.
“No. That’s a fluke,” Josh jeered. “You’ll never score again.”
We ran up court and took our positions. Whitney was as tall as Doug, but we put him at forward and Whitney and me at guard. Ty took center and Carl was the other forward. Three of Josh’s team came down to set picks and rebound. They knew each other and knew how to play. Josh took the ball from his other guard and they brought it down court. Whitney waited until he was just across the center line and had no place to back up when she lunged for the ball. Josh was quick and snatched the ball away from her, but Whitney kept going. Josh winged the ball over to his other guard and I stepped in front of it and took it a quarter of the way down before I launched it up. Whitney picked the ball up in the air and shot without even taking a step. It was four to two.
“Hey! How about some protection here!” Josh shouted at his team. Whitney and I fell back and Ty, Doug, and Carl moved forward into the press on the inbound. Josh fell over his own feet trying to get by Carl. Doug scooped up the ball and whipped it to Ty coming hard from the other side of the court. One bounce and up. Six to two.
“We just wanted to make sure you knew it wasn’t just me and Whitney that are your worst nightmares,” I said.
It was war from that point on. Josh and his team tried to use their muscle to push us around. They caught up before we started avoiding their elbows and shoulders. I ended up in the worst place possible, under the basket with the ball. I couldn’t even see the damned thing, nor any of my teammates. I knew Josh was right behind me, blocking my way and two of his goons were closing in front of me. I snapped my right hand in the air and all three of them went up to block my shot. As they came down I spun out to my right and hooked the ball in with my left.
“You fucking runt!” Josh yelled at me. A whistle pierced the air. Coach Hancock came marching across the floor. He was six-six and played college ball at IU He blasted Josh for swearing on the court and lectured us all about sportsmanship. Then he sent us all to the showers and closed the gym.
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