Foolish Wisdom
18 Schedules
I HAD TO WONDER. How did I, the geeky chemist, end up doing cooking demonstrations on The Homemakers’ Hour and tending three horses? I didn’t care. I woke up every morning, whispered a little prayer of safety and encouragement to Hannah, and made breakfast. About half of the mornings my little green-eyed girlfriend would walk in about six-thirty and eat with Mom and Dad and me. Then we, or if she wasn’t there, I, would go to the barn and brush the coats of three loving old horses. Sorry, Rika. I knew she wasn’t old, but I treated her like a princess anyway.
The vet came out on Monday and gave me a liniment to rub on Jingo’s right foreleg. The farrier came out that afternoon and pulled his heavy trail shoes and put lightweight shoes on him. Each day I spent hours brushing all three horses, sometimes with Hannah helping and sometimes not. Then I’d let them out in the pasture and just stand out there and watch them. It was like meditation, I guess. I felt peaceful and calm.
That peace and calm continued into the afternoon activities that included a lot of shooting baskets and a lot of looking at my chemistry books. I’d be taking a break from chemistry in school this year. St. Joe Valley didn’t offer any more advanced chem classes. I still needed four credits of science for my degree, so I was taking biology this year. I wondered if Angela ever became a nudist like she said she would. Now that would be something to see. I was surprised to find my thoughts still drifting back to our time at science camp.
I’d just sunk my twenty-third free throw in a row when I heard the cinders crunch beneath the tires. I launched one more and it bounced off the front of the rim. I grabbed the ball and turned to see who was here.
“You never could hit a free throw.”
“Whitney! My God, girl. You are beautiful!”
“Oh, come on. A girl grows boobs and all of a sudden she’s beautiful?”
“Boobs?”
“Please don’t say you didn’t notice!”
“I just wasn’t looking. They are a little heftier.” Well, there were bumps under her shirt. That was more than there used to be. Whitney had the good grace to laugh as she crushed me to her. She was the only girlfriend I hadn’t seen since the Fourth of July and I could hardly believe she was here. “I’m so happy to see you, my Fairy Queen!”
“You better be. You’re stuck with me for the weekend.” Mrs. Anderson and Dave were out of the car now and I greeted them. Whitney grabbed an overnight bag. We went into the house and Mom and Dad greeted them warmly. Whitney took my hand and led me upstairs.
“What’s going on, Whit? You just got back to town. Doesn’t your Mom want to see you?”
“I’ve been back for five days. I just couldn’t get over here before now. Mom bought me a whole new wardrobe for school this year.”
“Let me guess. That’s because you’ve grown.”
“Six-three, one-sixty, and an A-cup.”
“Wow! You have grown.”
“Yeah. I never had a cup before. Not that I wear it now. I feel like a little girl with a training bra. Anyway. Mom and Dave had this Labor Day getaway planned before they both go back to work on Tuesday. We talked about it and I was so relieved that I was going to get to see everyone before school started. I practically packed their bags for them.”
I stood back and looked at my tall, athletic girlfriend. Now eight inches taller than me and somehow, I wanted to kiss every inch.
“May I kiss my girlfriend?”
“May I kiss my boyfriend?”
“Jinx. You owe me a kiss.”
We both laughed. Great minds think alike, I guess. I tilted my head up to meet her lips for a long, sweet kiss. I hugged her to me.
“I’m hoping to see fireworks again this weekend,” she whispered.
About an hour later, Jennifer, Courtney, and Anna pulled in. When Liz followed them, something told me it was going to be an interesting weekend. Sure enough, Hannah, Sarah, and Samantha arrived before mid-afternoon. Rose arrived in time for dinner. That night, I sat among the prettiest and sweetest girls in the universe. I was very fond of all seventeen girlfriends, but I realized that there was something special I had with each of these eight that was unlike anything with the others except Elaine. If she were here, I’d feel complete. What’s with that?
We all had “proper sleepwear” on and piles of sleeping bags and blankets spread out on the floor. I wondered what Mom and Dad would say if I got another couple mattresses. It was plenty warm, so no one expected to need a blanket over the top of us. We lay in a wagon wheel and talked quietly until two in the morning before we started drifting off to sleep. I spooned Whitney in front of me and after one last kiss she pulled my hand up under her shirt to cup her tiny breast. Rose pressed her bounteous boobs into my back with an arm draped over mine. I had to grin. The tallest and the shortest of my girlfriends happened to be the ones with the smallest and the largest breasts. It was going to be a great Labor Day.
I woke up on my back with one arm around Whitney and the other around Rose. We’d all managed to get our shirts up under our armpits and I had four beautiful breasts pushed up against my skin. I knew it was early, but I heard someone stir and Hannah smiled down at me. “So pretty,” she mouthed at me and nudged my feet to get me to part my legs. Then she lay down between them with her cheek right against my hard cock. It was the exact same position Rose had been in a few months ago and that caused my cock to twitch. Hannah managed to curl her arm onto my stomach and I was pretty sure she was touching both girls’ breasts with that one outstretched hand. She sighed and her breathing evened out as she drifted back to sleep. I twitched a couple more times, but my eyes closed on me, too.
“How can you sleep when you’re in this position?” Hannah whispered.
“Why would I sleep in that position?” Rose responded.
“You did over spring break when we had our sleepover.”
“Who said I slept?” Rose giggled. I felt both her head and Hannah’s bouncing with their laughter. “It was better with it in my hand, though.”
“I didn’t ask permission.”
“Well I’m going to ask permission to kiss him and then you can ask permission to do that,” Whitney whispered.
“You don’t have to ask permission to kiss him,” Rose said. “It’s a new unwritten rule. If you sleep with him you can kiss him.”
“I wish he’d write these down.” A pair of soft lips covered mine and I welcomed the invasion of Whitney’s tongue. Rose lay back and I fondled her breast while Whitney thoroughly searched my oral cavity. Eventually, Whitney settled back with a sigh and Rose found my lips. My hand found Whitney’s breast.
“May I kiss you, Brian?” Hannah asked.
“You heard the new rule,” I laughed. “If you are sleeping with me, you can kiss me.”
“I just wanted to be sure.” With that, Hannah lovingly kissed my cock. Yes, it was still in my pajamas, but it was Hannah’s mouth and my cock! I sat straight up, spilling Rose and Whitney out of my arms.
“Hannah! You can’t do that!” She looked up at me with innocence that was soon belied by her smile.
“You said.”
“I meant up here. On my lips.”
“Oh! Okay.” She crawled up my body making sure that I was touched as much as possible by hers. We kissed and she pulled away. “I guess I do tease a little.”
The four of us headed to the kitchen to start breakfast. Whitney grabbed my hand and dragged me outside.
“Those two can handle the kitchen this morning. The other five won’t be up for an hour. You and I have to exercise.”
“Exercise?”
“Get used to it, partner. We’re going to be exercising every day before school. Mom will pick us up and take us to school an hour early. We’ll be in the gym at six-thirty every morning doing our forms.”
“What forms? Whitney, you are not making any sense at all.”
“I’m only sharing this with you, Brian. I am a rock and you will be one, too.”
“Whitney?”
“Martial arts and meditation. It will help us with our game and it will help you defend yourself. I’ve advanced this summer and Master Cho says I need to teach someone. You can follow what I do every morning.”
“What do martial arts and meditation have to do with basketball?”
“When I become a rock, no one—even the bigger guys—can move me out of the way. Here.” She tossed me the basketball from its spot by the garage door. “Drive through me like you are going for the basket.” We practiced this last spring. Most people will step out of the way or give enough for you to get by when you come at them hard. Whitney dropped to a defensive position waiting for me as I dribbled. I drove right then switched to the left side to dribble around her. Suddenly she was in front of me, just standing there. I bumped into her and picked myself up off the concrete. “When you are a rock, nothing can move you.” Okay, maybe I should become a rock. I followed Whitney as she moved into different positions, naming each one. As soon as we were in position, she would say, “Deep breath and become a rock.”
The first time I did it, she reached out and knocked me over.
“Not much of a rock.”
“I was off balance.”
“Rocks don’t get off balance. They sit firmly anchored to the ground. Anchor yourself next time.”
Forty minutes of this was enough to show me that I’d need forty minutes every day for the rest of my life if I was ever going to get any use from this. We went into the house and the other seven girls were all in the kitchen. Whitney went to get a shower and I just stood there looking at the girls. These eight were special.
When Whitney was out of the shower, I showered and barely got any food when I got back to the kitchen. Everything was cleaned up and put away.
“Horses!” Sam called happily. The girls all headed out the door and I trailed along behind. The scream from the barn brought me out of my reverie and I started to run. Jennifer and Courtney came bursting out the barn door.
“You have Jingo!” Oh. That’s all. I’d completely forgotten to tell anyone that the dude ranch horse was now a resident. Apparently, Hannah and Sam had thought it funny to keep it a secret until they sent Jennifer and Courtney into the stall. Now I was being smothered in kisses, even though, technically, I didn’t have anything to do with him being here.
The Labor Day swim did more to tell me what the coming year would be like than anything else. Aside from a few wistful moments spent thinking about the time three years ago when I was lost to the world while playing with Jessica, I was constantly engaged with my friends. Jennifer and Courtney had never been to our Labor Day outing and they loved the lake. I loved their almost nonexistent bikinis.
“It’s really no fair that you don’t go to school until tomorrow and we already started a week ago,” Jen complained. “Do you know we had homework that we had to do in the car on the way up here? Mom said if it wasn’t done by the time we got to your house, she’d just keep driving around until we finished. I hate geometry.”
“I think I’d trade,” I said. “You get out the first week in June. That’s two weeks before we do.”
“That’s because they shortened all our breaks, too. Can you believe we have to go to school till Wednesday, Christmas week? Just because Christmas is on the weekend. But we still have to be back in school January third,” Courtney joined.
“I still think it would be nice to get out earlier for the summer,” Hannah laughed as she crawled up on Courtney’s back for a ride.
“Hey, girlfriend,” Courtney said, grabbing Hannah’s legs and hugging them to her. “Don’t forget, we get Brian for Prom this year.”
“Ooo. Juniors,” Hannah laughed.
“Well, we kind of made such a big deal about Brian being our boyfriend this summer that we’d get laughed off the dance floor if we showed up without him. Besides, Rebecca seems to think that if she buddies up to us this year, she’ll get to date Brian, too. He was so bad this summer!”
“I was just trying to be polite to your friends,” I moaned.
“She was sure you were going to pound us both into the mattress when we got home and proceeded to take the credit for it,” Jennifer laughed.
“Well, you have to admit…” My suggestive come-back was cut short when Whitney jumped on my back and ducked me. I came up spluttering.
“Now, what do we have to admit, boyfriend?” Sam asked when I got the water out of my eyes.
“Um… that I love you each dearly and hope to live long enough to show you.”
“Good answer,” she said and started to kiss me. She jerked back. “Um… may I kiss you, Brian?”
“Of course.” She jumped up and wrapped her legs around both Whitney and me. I was in a very pleasant girl sandwich and tried to show my approval with my kiss.
“We need to extend Brian’s unwritten rules,” Hannah said. I noticed she’d switched to Jennifer’s back and Courtney was riding Sarah. Liz was giving Rose a ride. We were all close together and even though it wasn’t a big difference, it was obvious that these eight girls were staying close to me in the water. All the guys were giving girls rides and Doug had Rhiannon in front of him and Doreen on his back, but he wasn’t playing a lot with the other girls.
“Which rule?” Liz asked, bringing me back to my nearest girlfriends.
“Well, Brian said that if we were sleeping together we didn’t have to ask permission to kiss.”
“On the lips,” Sarah reminded her, smacking her sister’s butt. Hannah squealed and I heard Whitney moan in my ear. Oh shit!
“Yes. On the lips. He wasn’t specific the first time. But I was being a bad girl and teasing. I’m sorry.”
“So how do you want to expand the rules, sweetheart?” Rose asked.
“Well, I don’t know if it should extend to everyone, but… well, among us, I think we shouldn’t have to ask permission for a friendly kiss or hug when it’s appropriate. We have to figure out when it’s appropriate and that might take some trial and error, but I think the current rule should allow us to give a blanket permission for something like that. Maybe with each of us.”
“Jen and I kind of do that already,” Courtney said. “I mean, we see each other a lot and we don’t have the rest of you around. Even if we aren’t sleeping together we can get permission for a little kiss with just a squeeze or a blink, you know?”
“What do you mean by a friendly kiss or hug?” Liz asked.
“I think she means that if I just want to jump on Brian in the Lake and give him a smooch because I love him, that’s okay.” Sam demonstrated the little kiss we’d just shared and I hugged her. “But if I want to ream his tonsils, I need to ask permission. May I demonstrate, Brian?”
“Yes?” I really was positive about this, it just didn’t sound like it. Sam closed on my lips and tickled them open with her tongue. In a second, we were in a serious tongue-battle and I was losing my concentration on the discussion. I felt a lot of hands on my legs and they were suddenly pulled out from under me, plunging Whitney, Sam, and me under the water. We all came up spluttering and laughing.
“Firehose time,” Sarah suggested.
“I was just demonstrating,” Sam laughed.
“We heard your demonstration outside the camper at the fair,” Rose laughed.
“Oh, that was no demonstration,” Sam sighed.
“All right,” Hannah said. “I think we can all tell the difference between a friendly kiss and a kiss with intent to have sex.”
“Oh God! Hannah, where’s my innocent, shy little sister?” Sarah said blushing.
“I’m right here, love. But we kiss like that. I mean, kind of like Jennifer and Courtney when we greet each other. And we both know if we’re going to do any more than that.” It was the first time I’d ever actually heard Hannah or Sarah talk about kissing each other. I think we all knew, but there were a lot of sweet smiles as we looked at the two. As if to demonstrate their point, Sarah swept her sister into a hug and gave her a little kiss.
“Do we have to extend that privilege to everyone in the group?” Rose asked. She looked at me meaningfully. “You might as well all know that I’ve decided not to really go out with any of the other guys this year. I’m not claiming Brian exclusively, but I just don’t want to be in a dating situation with any of them.”
“How about with me?” Sarah asked. “Can I ask you out?” She moved over and stood in front of Rose. Rose hesitated a moment and then jumped up to wrap her legs around Sarah’s waist and give her a little kiss.
“I’d like that. In fact, since I know that Brian is going to be tied up dating all of you and not just me, I’d like to do more things with each of you. We can call them dates, and I give each of you the same hug and kiss permission.”
“Does any of that include me?” a weak voice cut in. Oh shit! When did Cassie show up? I knew I didn’t see her when we were all paired up on each other’s backs. She is so… invisible most of the time.
“Hi, Cassie,” I said. “Can I have a hug?” I moved toward her and held out my arms.
“And a kiss,” she whispered as I pulled her toward me. I did as she suggested.
“We didn’t mean to leave you out.”
“I know. It seems a little hard, though. Everybody is pairing up and I haven’t even gone on a date yet.”
“I don’t think you can call us a pair,” Liz laughed.
“And if Elaine wasn’t down in Indianapolis, she’d be right in the middle of us, too,” Hannah added.
“Cass,” I said, still holding her, “maybe because we have tried to be respectful of your wishes and… your religion… we come off as not being friendly. But we all like you and I’ll never forget the treasure hunt you organized during hell week.”
“I feel so far behind everybody sometimes. I mean, I know you aren’t all doing sex stuff—at least not all the time—but until I turn sixteen, Dad won’t even let me go on a date.”
“When do you turn sixteen, Cass?”
“January 27.”
“On the first Saturday night after that, may I have the privilege of taking you out on a real date?”
“Really? Would you?”
“Absolutely.”
“Yes!” Everyone applauded.
“Uh… as long as we’re getting date reservations in and Jen and Court have already claimed Prom, may I have Brian for this year’s Valentine’s Day Dance?” Sam asked. I grinned at her. She blushed. Everyone nodded.
“I think I’m going to need a social calendar,” I said. “Any other dates I should reserve?”
“Homecoming?” Rose said, raising her hand.
“May 19,” Liz said. “I don’t care what day of the week it is.” Oh boy. Liz would turn sixteen on May 18. I had a little tremor about that and my cock twitched. That wasn’t unnoticed by Cassie, who was still hugging me. Instead of pulling away, she jumped up and wrapped her legs around my waist and put her head on my shoulder.
“This Friday. First football game of the season and the dance afterward,” Hannah said. “With us.” She put her arm around Sarah. “She gets to dance all the slow sticky ones with you.” Everybody laughed. “And you can all come. It’s an event after all. And you might even get a sticky dance with our boyfriend if she gets tired.”
“Whitney? Isn’t there a date you want?”
“I figure I’m going to be spending a lot of time with you practicing,” she said. “I hope you’ll take me out sometimes, too, but I don’t need to reserve a time. Unless it’s July Fourth. Did you guys know Brian kissed me on the Fourth of July and I saw fireworks in the sky?”
“Giddyap, horsey!” a voice yelled as a pint-sized girl grabbed my shoulders and hoisted herself onto my back.
“Hey! Who’s calling me a horse?”
“Okay. You’re really just a pony. Carry me.”
“Shorty, you’re the only person here I’d take that pony line from,” I laughed. There was a whole new batch of kids at the lake this year and I could see how the cycle kind of shifted. Judy was in eighth grade and came to the lake with Samantha’s sister, Lexi. Sora’s brother Monte, Carl’s brother Rich, Rose’s little brother Ross, and four more of their friends were swimming with us.
“My name’s Judy. Watch who you’re calling Shorty, shrimp. I’ve grown three inches.”
“Oh, man! You must be five feet tall now.”
“Almost. Not only that, I’ve got boobs. Look. They stick out and everything.”
“Judy, you don’t have to show them to me.”
“I’m not going to uncover them or anything, but Lexi gave me one of her old bathing suits that doesn’t fit her anymore and it isn’t even too big on me.”
“How’s life treating you, Judy?” I asked. I helped her shift around to ride in front of me while I kicked us around in the water. Judy had been my friend back in 4-H Foods a year ago. She was the smallest in her class, had no father, and her mother was gone a lot of the time. She didn’t have much money and had to pretty much cook for herself.
“Well, I’m eating more than mac and cheese now. I had to stomp my foot and threaten to report Mom to the authorities, but she put a bunch of chicken in the freezer for me and let me pick out a bunch of my own groceries this week. I think the chicken is why my boobs grew. It’s got hormones in it, you know?”
“I didn’t know that. It’s good to see you having fun with your friends.” I’d noticed both Rich and Monte give me looks when Judy jumped on me and they’d surreptitiously moved a little closer.
“It’s like having bodyguards,” she laughed. “Hardly anyone picks on me and Monte always bikes home with me, even if he’s doing something else after school.”
“It’s good to have a little protection when you’re small,” I said. “One thing I learned, though, Judy, is you can’t just depend on them all the time. You’ve got to be able to take care of yourself, too. And even protect them when you have to.”
“You should ask Arden Grossman if I can take care of myself,” Judy laughed. “He stays as far away from me as possible. He made like he was going to be one of my friends and rode home with me one day. Then he tried to shove his way into my house. I kicked him so hard in the balls that he had to walk his bike home.”
“Good for you. Always keep an eye out. I was in eighth grade when I got beaten to a pulp. Your friends just can’t always be there for you.”
“You would be.”
“If I could. I might not know the right time to be there, though.”
“We’re going to sign the agreement, you know,” she said.
“Um… what agreement?”
“The dating agreement you wrote. Samantha gave Lexi a copy and we voted to adopt it. We’re going to sign it at lunch tomorrow when we’re all there. We won’t be part of your agreement, but we’ll have one among ourselves.”
“That’s great, Judy. Just remember… and make sure everyone understands it… the agreement spells out the limits of what you can do physically, not what you have to do.”
“Oh, we figured that out. The first thing Susan said was, ‘Oh yuck! I’m not doing that!’ We all laughed. Um… we made a couple revisions, though, too. We’re keeping the words you wrote for later, but for this year we all agreed that beyond a little kissing there would be no sexual touching. It was the only way everyone would agree.”
“That makes sense. We were all a year older when we made the agreement and some of us already regretted what we’d done prior to that.” Mom started clanging on the cowbell up at the shelter and we all ran for the food.
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