Deadly Chemistry
5 Two Words
OUR DAY AT THE FAIR was wild. I must have looked like Hugh Hefner walking around with seven gorgeous babes hanging off me. They were doing their best to embarrass me. When Rose told everyone that our first time at the fair, I’d won a little teddy bear for her, everyone wanted me to go shoot a basketball and win her a teddy bear. It was a different guy this year and I could tell that the whole set-up was different. He had only one size of teddy bear on display and it was pretty big. It was a dollar a shot and one-in won a bear.
“This is no good,” I said. “The whole thing is off. I doubt if the ball will even go through the hoop. The balls are probably over-sized, too. It’s rigged.”
“Hey, young man. I resent that. Watch this.” He tossed the ball into the air and swished it. I shook my head. I could see the hoop was smaller than regulation, but the ball had gone through. “Now step up here and win your lady a bear. Just one basket and she can have her choice of any bear in the display.”
“Oh. Well, that’s a problem, too,” I laughed. “I have seven girlfriends.” If this had been a cartoon, you would have been able to see the guy’s eyes light up with dollar signs.
“All these lovely ladies are attached to you?” the barker asked. “That creates a problem. I usually limit my customers to one bear per day.”
“Aww,” Sam pouted. “What will the rest of us do?” Uh-oh. I could see a set-up coming and I was already getting performance anxiety.
“Tell you what I’ll do,” he said. He was slick. “Ten dollars and he can have as many bears as he can sink in ten shots. Now I could go broke doing this. I should charge twenty minimum because I pay way more than that for each bear. But he’s kind of a little guy and I’d hate to have all you girls go home with nothing more than a wish.” Rose cut him off by snapping a ten-dollar bill under his nose.
“Ten shots and a bear for every one that he sinks.” The guy snatched the bill and put it in his apron pocket and handed me the ball.
“Shot number one for the little man,” he laughed. “Who gets the first bear?”
“I do,” Rose said. Before I could set for my first embarrassment, she stepped in front of me and gave me a very not-for-public-consumption kiss. My eyes were crossed when she stepped aside. I let out my breath and shook my head, bouncing the ball. I looked over at Rose and she’d crossed her arms under her breasts and pushed them up into a mouth-watering display. I looked back at the basket and launched the ball then turned to Rose.
“That was very distracting,” I started to say as the rest of the girls yelled “Swish!” Huh?
“Well, well, well,” the barker said. “I lost that bet. Here’s your bear. Now get lost.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” Rose said, marching up to him. “Everybody here heard you say a bear for every shot he makes in ten. I want that blue one and Jen’s is next.” The guy huffed a little and handed me the ball again while he dug out the blue bear for Rose. Jen stepped in front of me and gave me a real toe-curler.
“Come on, make the shot,” the dude called at us. I turned and looked at the basket then launched the ball.
“Swish!” the girls yelled.
“Red one!” Jen called. A crowd had begun to gather behind us. Apparently, no one else had made the shot today.
“My turn!” Liz said, grabbing me behind the head and pulling my lips to hers and grinding into my crotch. Shit! I’d never be able to shoot around my hard-on.
“Don’t worry,” Rose told the barker. “Last year he only made two out of three. I got a dinky little bear. You’re a much nicer carnie.” She was really laying it on thick. I put the ball up and the whole crowd yelled, “Swish!”
“Yellow one!” Liz yelled. Courtney was in front of me and had her hands on my ass as she ground into me. She pushed away and yelled “Green” before I even shot. Swish again.
“I’m gonna go broke on this guy!” the barker yelled. But guys were beginning to line up behind me and each one had a ten-dollar bill in his hand. “You see how easy this is? A little kid can play this game. One basket, one bear!” Suddenly, the fact that I was making baskets was no longer important to him. Sam was planting a kiss on me that I’d remember for a long time.
“I wish that kiss was between my legs,” she whispered to me.
“Swish!”
“Purple!”
Cassie stood in front of me.
“I’m embarrassed,” she said.
“You don’t have to kiss me,” I whispered. “It’s okay.”
“Oh, I want to kiss you. I’m just trying to figure out how to keep my clothes on while I do it.” The crowd around us laughed.
“How about a kiss with promise?” I asked.
“A promise to kiss me again?” I nodded. We kissed. I launched the ball. Swish! “Pink, please?” she asked the carnie.
“Can he do seven in a row? Seven bears for seven girlfriends. It’s fun. It’s easy. Guys, your girlfriend probably needs to kiss you in order to make the basket. Better get her warmed up.”
Brenda stood in front of me. She looked at me with her lip caught between her teeth in that way that girls have of completely melting your heart.
“May I kiss you, Brian?” she asked. It was kind of funny. Yesterday she’d had her thighs wrapped around my head while I licked her and Rose kissed and played with her nipples. Still, she asked permission for a kiss and I pulled her to me. It was a sweet gentle little kiss compared to the scorchers that some of my girlfriends had laid on me. I found, if anything, that my erection was even more rigid. Swish!
“I’ve never had anyone make seven in a row!” the barker called. There was a heck of a crowd behind us now. “He has three more shots, but he’s out of girlfriends. Can he make another?” Rose, Brenda, Cassie, and Liz peppered my face with kisses as the guy handed me a ball.
“This one’s for Whitney!” Rose said.
“Who’s that?” the barker asked.
“There’s three more girlfriends that couldn’t be with us today,” she answered. It would be really embarrassing if I missed the shot for Whitney. She could probably make the shot herself. She’d be standing here in her jersey with the open armholes showing glimpses of her tiny breasts and hard pointy nipples.
“Swish!” the crowd yelled. The barker’s supply of bears was beginning to run low. Jen, Courtney, and Sam closed on me and managed to get all four of us in one steamy kiss. I hugged them all to me.
“This is for Hannah,” they whispered. I smiled and launched the ball. Nine in a row. Sam collected the next bear.
“For Elaine next!” Rose shouted. No one stepped up to kiss me. I bounced the ball. “Wait, Brian,” Rose said. I turned to look at the row of girls behind me. Their backs were to the rest of the crowd, but the barker was standing next to me. As soon as I looked at them, they all raised their shirts to flash me some boob. Well, me and the barker. Shit! I turned and launched the last ball. It caught on the inside of the rim and bounced up against the backboard and off.
“Damn! Elaine is going to give me a world of shit for that!” I said.
“Nine out of ten,” the barker called. “Here, kid. Take another bear for the last girlfriend. I’d have paid fifty bucks to see that last display. Now who’s next? Girls, don’t forget to kiss that boyfriend for luck.”
The next guy in line gave the barker ten and took a wild shot. We left the area carrying our bears down the midway. We heard the crowd behind at the basket go ‘Aww.’ I had a feeling the barker was going to come out way ahead on the day today, even giving away ten bears to us.
We decided we had to take the bears to the car after parading around the midway for half an hour. Sam and Rose each carried two bears and I had one under my arm. Whenever someone asked where we got the bears, one of the girls would respond, “Our boyfriend shot baskets for them. It was easy.” Someone else would head for the hoop shoot. Well, in spite of being a little sleazy, the barker had kept the deal. I was pretty sure there wouldn’t be many more bears won today.
We cut through the Commercial Building to get out to the parking lot and I heard a familiar voice.
“Brian Frost? Only you could have a trail of girls behind you like this.” Miss Polly was headed over.
“Hi, Miss Polly. Uh… these are my girlfriends.”
“Seven of you? You must have bought out a toy store.”
“There’s ten,” Rose said. “Three couldn’t be here today but Brian won bears for them anyway.”
“How did you ‘win’ these bears?”
“I… uh… shot baskets. And got kissed a lot.”
“No. You really actually won those?” I nodded. “I was hoping to see you this week, but I’m sure what I have to say will come as an anti-climax… so to speak. Your segments on our show have been the most commented on in our history. I was wondering if you’d be interested in doing a weekly segment this winter. We’re trying to expand our audience and get more young people.”
“That sounds cool,” I said. “I’d have to talk about it with my parents. You know, kids our age are all in school when your show comes on.”
“Yes, but you would be amazed at the new demographics we’ve been given. An increasing number of our viewers are newlyweds from eighteen to twenty-five years old. These young women would respond well to a young man giving them hints on how to please their husbands.”
“Oh, Brian could definitely give them that,” Sam giggled. I think Miss Polly actually blushed. She gave me a card and told me to call her after I was back in school and if I was interested we’d shoot a test. Wow! A weekly spot.
It was finals week at last. After I got back from visiting all the girlfriends, I was back to work at the restaurant non-stop. It seemed like Bill was pushing me in the kitchen more and more. During the Saturday prep talk, Bill called everyone to attention. He called in the serving staff and Crystal, too.
“It’s been a great summer,” Bill started. “That means that school starts again in just a week and we are going to lose our summer intern, Brian.” I was surprised when everyone applauded and wasn’t sure if it was for me or because I was leaving. “Now they say that every good manager trains his replacement. That’s what I’ve tried to do this summer. Brian has worked every station in the kitchen and you’ve each taught him the best way we do things at the Tally Ho. He even learned not to sniff the fresh horseradish.” There was some laughter. “So, one week from today, starting whenever Brian unlocks the restaurant to prepare the prime rib, he is Bill for a day. It is his final exam for his internship. Brian, it’s for real. I’m not even going to be here, nor is Crystal. You are the man next Saturday. Today is your last day to watch and learn the Saturday prep. Next Saturday, Crystal and I are going on a short vacation. Courtney will be filling in for Crystal, assisted by Jennifer. Brian will be filling in for me. Everybody here will be submitting a grade for Brian based on how you feel he handled his day in the driver’s seat. That won’t be his final grade but will count toward it. Now let’s get to work.”
Holy fucking shit! I don’t think I moved for five minutes until Sophie, one of the servers, asked me to get out of her way so she could get the linens. This was not what I was expecting for a final exam.
I’d worked every Saturday all summer, so I knew the routines. Some of them still bugged me, but I wasn’t going to change them. I was going to be Bill. By Friday night I was a complete wreck. Jen and Court came to my bed after I’d showered and just held me between them as I was curled up in a ball. I had three alarms set so I wouldn’t sleep too late to get the Prime Rib in the oven at the restaurant. There was always a break after the meat was cooking and I’d come back to shower again after I got it in the oven.
I managed to get the meat prepared at five o’clock and set the four full roasts in their beds of rock salt in the 200-degree oven. I breathed a sigh of relief. As long as nothing catastrophic happened, like the electricity and gas all going out at once, at least the meat would be cooked. I went home and headed for the shower, joined shortly by two slightly sleepy girls. Slightly sleepy, very naked, and rubbing their soapy bodies all over mine. I felt a lot better by the time I got out of that shower.
“Oh, shit!” Courtney said, shaking her head as I served her hot chocolate. “Mom always goes in with Dad on Saturday morning to organize things for the servers and bussers. Jen, we have to be ready to go to the restaurant as soon as Brian is ready.” Jennifer groaned. Anna wandered into the kitchen complaining that everyone was being too noisy for her to sleep. She was stark naked. I handed her a cup of coffee mixed with hot chocolate, pointed her back to her room and swatted her on the butt.
“Brian!” she said turning to face me.
“Go on and get dressed,” I said, not looking at her. “I have to be back to work in half an hour with Jen and Court. I don’t have time to get aroused looking at my mother’s playmate.”
“And your father’s,” she said haughtily. Then she giggled, pinched me on the butt, and ran back to her room to dress. It was going to be a long day.
The kitchen seemed more frantic than usual. Maybe it was because I was seeing it through new eyes. I was Bill. I had to look at everything at once and make sure it was correct. Everyone seemed a step off for some reason. One of the waitresses came into the kitchen in a huff, grabbed the linens out of the cabinet and slammed the door.
“What’s up, Sophie?” I asked.
“That girl does not know what she’s doing!” the waitress said. “She’s numbering the tables all wrong.”
“Do you know what you are supposed to do?” I asked.
“Yes. What do you think, I’m an amateur?”
“Not at all. Do what you are supposed to. If you spot someplace else you can help, please do. We’re all in training here and depend on you.” She looked at me and chuckled.
“Yeah. Sure. I forget. I’ll help as much as I can.” She headed out of the kitchen and I felt good about at least one thing.
“Brian, how finely do you want the horseradish ground?” I turned and looked at David who had failed last spring to equip me properly or instruct me on the grinder. Why would he want to know how finely to grind the horseradish?
“David, do you have to ask Bill every week how fine to grind the horseradish? I thought you’ve been doing this for a long time.”
“I have. I don’t need him to tell me…” He stopped, realizing what he was saying. “I thought you might want things different.”
“Just do your job the way you know how to do it, Dave. I’m not going to lean over your shoulder. And I’m not taking a sniff of your horseradish.” He looked at me and laughed. We went our own way. I used a temperature probe to check on the progress of the meat and headed over to the salad prep area. “Sal, do you need any help on prep?” I asked. He glanced up at me.
“Nothing’s any further behind than usual. Won’t get further behind if you don’t bother me.” Okay. I nodded and backed off. Jerry, the other grill chef, stopped me.
“Brian, you might not have noticed it, but Bill usually does a quick run-down of the numbers on the various steaks so he knows when to cut the waiters off on ordering certain cuts. I’ll show you, if you’d like.”
“Thanks, Jerry. How long have you worked with Bill?”
“Since the day he opened the restaurant. I love it here.”
“I’m glad you’re on the team. No matter how many times I observe things, there’s nothing like actually being under the hat. I sort of feel like a fraud.”
“Don’t worry about it. Some people just have to test you. Here, you mark the numbers and I’ll call them out. T-bone, 14.” I was jotting down the numbers on the clipboard as fast as Jerry went through the walk-in fridge and called them out to me. When we were finished, he stomped his feet to get the chill off and turned to me again. “You won’t have any problem with Cookie or me. She has her vegetables and potatoes in perfect order. If you’ve got a question, ask. We’ll do our best to help out.” I got the message and made a point of walking by Cookie, stopping for a second and just saying thanks. She smiled at me and I started cleaning the grill like Bill did after lunch.
“Brian, this is a bad rib.”
“What?”
“Customer says it’s not rare.” Damn. One thing you can’t do is put a steak on the grill and make it rarer. I looked at the cut rib and sliced a piece off. I looked at it and then ate it.
“Anybody want a piece of perfectly rare prime rib, slice some off of this baby. Carla, take me to your customer.” The waitress looked at me with wide eyes and led me out into the restaurant to a table with a middle-aged couple. The man was chowing down and the woman was sitting primly at her seat. I was surprised the guy was eating a whole rib by himself and was really enjoying it.
“Hi. I’m Chef Brian. Ma’am was it you who ordered the rare rib?”
“Yes. I’m very disappointed. I wanted a rare rib and mine looked exactly like Donald’s only raw. I want one that’s rare.” Donald glanced up at me and rolled his eyes. He dipped another bite of his rib in the horseradish and popped it into his mouth. It was fun to watch the expressions on his face change as the horseradish hit his sinuses and then dissolved into the meat in his mouth. He smiled blissfully.
“I see,” I said. I was trying to figure out what the hell she was talking about. “Is this a special occasion for you?”
“It’s our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary and I’ve always wanted to try a rare steak. You do have them, don’t you?”
“Rare. Could you describe what kind you are interested in? Sometimes we have different ways of referring to them in the kitchen. I don’t want another misunderstanding.”
“A steak like from one of those Japanese Kobuke cows. You have those don’t you?” Oh. Shit!
“What size steak would you like?” I asked.
“Well, not a whole cow like Donald is eating. Did you know that the proper portion of meat is about the same size as a deck of cards?”
“Oh yes. I think I understand exactly what you want now. You want Rare Beef. We misunderstood. Do you like your meat well-done or a little pink on the inside?”
“Oh, a little pink is okay, but not bloody raw.”
“I have a perfect cut for you. It will be my pleasure to make sure you have exactly what you want.” I headed for the kitchen. Carla followed me. “It’s okay, Carla. I’ll deliver this one personally,” I told her, shooing her back out to her customers. It looked like everyone had taken a bite out of the rib I’d left on the counter. I shouldn’t have made that offer. I went straight to the walk-in and grabbed a steak. “Jerry, I’m taking a petit filet. Mark it please,” I called. I took the small steak to my cutting table and grabbed some minced garlic, pepper, and salt. I rubbed the steak thoroughly and took a tenderizing mallet to it. The petit filet didn’t need to be beaten with a mallet to make it tender, but it flattened the steak a bit so it was just a bit thicker than a deck of cards. And with the spices on the meat when I beat it, they were fully embedded into the flesh. I put the meat on the grill and carefully monitored the temperature. Since I’d flattened it a bit, I could cook it at a higher temperature which would sear the spices into the meat. I watched with the infrared thermometer until it was a perfect 145 degrees and pulled it from the grill. I went to Cookie and grabbed a potato and some crisp baked kale. I made my own arrangement on the dinner plate while Jerry and Cookie watched in amusement.
“Wait,” Cookie said when I was about to leave. She wedged a pat of butter at an angle into the potato and garnished it with a sprig of parsley. Then she nodded at me. I marched out to the couple. The guy had made a big dent in the nearly two pounds of prime rib. His wife was waiting patiently. Carla approached to watch.
“Ma’am, this is our rarest beef. In fact, there are no more available tonight. It is not normally on our menu, but for you, I have fixed my own private recipe. Please sample this and let me know if it is suitable to you.” The guy looked at me with one eyebrow raised and shoved another bite in his mouth. His wife carefully cut and examined the piece of beef before putting it in her mouth. Her eyes popped open and she chewed in delight.
“Oh, Donald. This is perfect. This young man brought me the rarest steak I’ve ever had. It’s wonderful.” I smiled at the couple.
“Happy anniversary,” I said. “Your rare steak is on me tonight in celebration of this wonderful event.” I turned and went to the kitchen.
“Other than the fact that I had three people order the same rare steak that woman was having and had to tell them that it was a special order, it was a great night!” Carla laughed. “What did you do that got her raving like that?”
“Mostly just treated her kindly,” I said as we were cleaning up the kitchen.
“Oh, there was more than that,” Jerry said. “I’m going to try that and then suggest that we put it on the menu. I think Bill will really like this.”
“We made it,” Sophie said as she collapsed with a load of laundry. “I don’t believe it.”
“Hey, thanks for your help,” I said. “You might have saved us all.”
“Oh, they weren’t so bad after they got over their nerves. It was just first night jitters. Once you got me to relax, I realized they were just trying to do their best. Thanks,” Sophie said.
“Brian, I’m hungry,” Jennifer said as she came through the kitchen door. “Is there anything left?” I glanced around at the spotless kitchen with everything put away.
“How about Steak ‘n’ Shake?” I asked.
Mom and Dad were spending the night with Anna and had already gone to bed when Jen and Court and I got home. About noon on Sunday we said our farewells and loaded my summer things in the car to head home. I kissed each of the girls goodbye and we made all kinds of promises about when we’d see each other next. Then we headed home. I hid from everyone the day before school started and on Tuesday morning started seeing what the new school year would bring. I was amused that several students wore their prison shirts on the first day of classes. Maybe we should make a tradition of that.
My first period class was Trigonometry and there were only half a dozen juniors in the class. Most of the students were seniors. I knew the juniors, including Brenda, and had a passing acquaintance with most of the seniors from last year’s Algebra II class, but only Brenda and I hung out together. Fortunately, both Doug and Liz were in my Physics class second period. We quickly teamed up for lab and dragged another junior named Dave into our group. At least we’d have a strong study group for this one.
English Composition third period started really weird. I’d never had Ms. Monroe for a class and she made it obvious that she demanded discipline.
“We’re discussing writing in this class. The interesting material will be in the discussions and in what you write. Every paper you write is a test. Pay attention and take notes. That is the only way you will pass this class.”
There was a mad scramble to get notebooks out and start taking notes. I was sure that there were half a dozen kids who didn’t even have a pen or pencil. Nobody ever started teaching the first day of school.
“Now, why do we write?” Ms. Monroe asked.
“To keep the fucking creepy things away,” said a girl in the back of the room. Oh, man. That spelled the end of her. I turned to look. Nikki, I think. Funny, we’ve been in school together for as long as I can remember, but I don’t remember ever speaking to her. When did she get so weird? She had a skirt that came about mid-thigh with a baggy sweater. She wore black tights that were ripped in the knee. Top the image off with a beret and army boots. Wow! Well, bye-bye Nikki.
“Do you write?” Ms. Monroe asked.
“Yeah,” Nikki replied.
“I read. Please make sure I see something of yours by the end of the week.”
She was letting her stay in class? How weird! I was still puzzling over this, but Ms. Monroe had already started talking about Edgar Allen Poe and that Nikki’s description was often correct. I started scribbling.
I hated the early lunch. It meant that there were four hours of classes later. But this was the first chance I got to connect with all the girlfriends and boyfriends of the agreement. The first thing I noticed was that Louise Bacon had joined our table and sat on one side of Carl with Brenda on the other. There was an empty chair next to Brenda and I took it with Whitney on the other side. We started talking as fast as we were eating with everyone trying to catch up on the summer with everyone else and moaning about school starting before summer was over.
“Well guys, I gotta go,” Whitney said, standing up after we’d been at lunch for about twenty minutes.
“Where are you headed?” I asked.
“To school.”
“Huh?”
“I have a surprise and I couldn’t tell anyone before. I could have told you if you’d let me know you were home yesterday,” she said nudging me. “Anyway, I’m only attending St. Joe Valley part time this year. I’ll be heading to Potawatomi for my afternoon classes. It was a compromise that we managed to work out last week while I was still in camp. The short of it is that I’ll be playing basketball on the Potawatomi girls’ team this winter.”
“No way! What are we going to do?” I asked, jumping up.
“I guess you’ll just have to lose without me,” she laughed. I gave her a big hug.
“I’m so proud of you, Whitney. You’ll do great.”
“Well, Potawatomi starts half an hour later than St. Joe Valley, so I can have lunch with you guys and still have time to make it to my first class there. Wait till you see my wheels!”
“You’ve got a car, too?”
“Have to have some way to get to class.” We all congratulated Whitney and she headed out.
My afternoon classes were going to be a bear, but there were some plusses, too. For example, Cassie and I had Speech and Drama with Mrs. Streeter after lunch. She was the director of the school plays and I had a feeling I’d get roped into it again. Then there was my AP German Language and Culture class with Frau Doktor Meier and fortunately Sora was in it, too. I had a feeling we’d be studying together a lot this year. The newest endeavor on my academic schedule was Intro to Psychology. I was lucky here, too, though. Brenda, Rose, and Lionel were all in my class. We’d be spending a lot of Saturday afternoons together.
I was pretty pleased with my last class of the day. I even felt kind of responsible for it. The school had just added a class called Advanced Culinary Arts and none other than Miss Sullivan was teaching it. I was corrected when I greeted her and told that since she was married now, technically she was no longer a Miss, but since she hadn’t changed her name, she wasn’t a Mrs. either. I could now refer to her only as Ms. Sullivan. We actually started laughing over that and the girls in the class looked at us pretty strangely.
“Don’t worry, ladies. In order to keep you from having to share a cooktop with Mr. Frost, I will work with him individually and he will assist me in class,” she said. “We’ve been turning out some reputable culinary specialists from this school and as a result, this class was added this year to give people who are serious about culinary arts a chance to get ahead in their chosen career field. Many of you know Carla Leoni who is still in Paris working on her final instruction as a pastry chef. Brian Frost, in our class, has served two summer internships at the Tally Ho Restaurant in Kokomo. And there are others.”
Of course, there were a few smart comments, including assuming that summer intern meant dishwasher. I just let that pass. I’d discovered that when you actually have the juice, you don’t have to tell people about it. They’ll be suitably embarrassed when they find out. I guess I should thank Whitney for that insight.
Unfortunately, the end of the last period was not the end of my school day on Tuesday and Thursday. In addition to my AP class, I was taking the required Freshman English Comp class at the IU extension on those evenings from seven till nine. It made for a fucking long day. Imagine my surprise to see the weird chick Nikki sitting in the back of that class. She didn’t say anything in this class, though. She looked as tired as I felt. I was surprised that college freshman comp was more basic than our high school comp class was.
As soon as school was out on Friday, I was on the road. I couldn’t drive all the way from home to Evansville and get in at a decent hour. In fact, Mom and Dad had forbidden it. I would stop in Indianapolis and see Elaine on Friday night and then get to Hannah’s house at a respectable time the next morning. Besides, I’d only seen Elaine a couple times this summer and she was still performing at the Wagon Wheel on weekends when she left for fall classes at UIndy.
This year, she was sharing an apartment with two other theater girls and I went straight there. I pretty much just collapsed into her arms.
“Hey, we never did find out which branch of the service your husband is in,” one of the girls said after we’d been introduced. Linda was her name. “We’re so glad you are back stateside. Will you be moving in with us?” she asked me. Her eyes were about as mischievous as you could get. She wasn’t a particularly pretty girl—not what I stereotypically thought of as a theater person. Her teeth were a little crooked and she had kind of mousy brown hair and a splotchy complexion. All that makeup, I suppose.
The other roommate was Gail. Gail was about the same size as Elaine and with one word from her I’d already figured out they’d be competing against each other for just about any role that came up. She had bigger boobs than Elaine and they were pushed together and out in a bra that looked like she had torpedoes on her chest.
“Well, actually…” I started.
“Brian’s my brother,” Elaine said dramatically. “How can we explain our relationship around school, though? You guys were bound to find out sooner or later. We might as well come clean with you. But we have to hide our incestuous relationship from everyone else. Seriously.”
Both roommates looked at us and then burst out laughing.
“Cousins I’d almost believe,” Gail said. “But there is no way you are brother and sister. Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out eventually. It has something to do with that mysterious contract you are always talking about.”
“Well, we’ll never tell,” Elaine said. “We’re going out to dinner now and then I’m bringing him home to bed. We’ll try not to disturb your sleep tonight but I haven’t seen my guy all summer and I might get a little loud. Don’t worry, though. He’ll be out of here first thing in the morning so he can go see our girlfriend.”
We left a couple open-mouthed girls in the apartment.
When we got to bed that night, Elaine didn’t waste time with questions about my summer or information about hers. We practically raced through dinner and when we got back to her apartment, we didn’t even say hello to her roommates. Thirty seconds after we were in her room we were both naked and holding each other in bed.
“How is she, Brian? What can I do to help?”
“She’s depressed and lonely,” I said. “They’ve got her on some kind of anti-depressant, but I don’t know if it’s even working. She sounds so miserable. I’m going to ask them if she can come and live with us.”
“They’ll never agree to that. No matter how she’s suffering, they are her parents and they’ll always figure they know what’s best for their little girl. Why do you think Sarah waited until graduation to tell everyone she was going to Oberlin? Everybody assumed she was coming here where her parents told her they could help with her expenses. She went out and got a full-ride scholarship on her own without telling them. It’s just the way parents are.”
“But she’s so unhappy,” I said. “Can’t they see that?” I was near tears and ready to go back out and get in the car to make the rest of the drive tonight.
“Of course they can, sweetheart,” she whispered. “They just believe they are the solution and not the problem.”
We stopped talking when it was obvious that we were going to go around in circles about this and I wouldn’t really know what the situation was until tomorrow. And when we stopped talking, we started loving. It had been too long and I really wanted to show her I missed her, but I kept getting up-tight about seeing Hannah tomorrow.
“Brian, relax,” she said. “Let me do the work. You’re trying too hard. Remember how it was the first time?” I remembered, but Elaine was quick to remind me. She shoved me back on the bed and started kissing me all over, never letting me capture her lips with mine. As she worked her way down my body, tonguing my nipples and rubbing my skin with her hands and her breasts, I came erect and just let her do her thing. It was different this time, though, and Elaine kissed her way down me, turning herself so that her knees were by my shoulder as she began to lick and suck on my cock. This was nice because from this angle I had a great view of her pussy with its short, red, curly hair. My hand just naturally went to it and I found her wet and responsive to my touch. Elaine worked her magic and I forgot all about the next day. I nudged her knee and she straddled my head, opening her moist depths to my tongue. She might have been working on getting me relaxed and in the mood, but Elaine was on a hair-trigger. When my tongue touched her clit, her mouth came off my cock and she howled out an instant orgasm. There is nothing sexier than having your tongue in a girl’s cunt when she comes. I kept right on lapping. After the first one, Elaine went right back to work on my cock, but she lifted off two more times before I felt the imminent release building.
“Elaine, I’m about…” I didn’t finish because she pushed further down on my cock with her mouth and as the head wedged into her throat I started pumping. “Yes! My God, yes!” I screamed. I collapsed back and saw the door move just before I heard the latch click. I panted and managed to get out, “Your roommates seemed to be curious.”
“Hmpf. They were just checking to make sure we weren’t faking. Oh, Brian, that was wonderful.” She switched around and cuddled up to me kissing me and letting me explore her mouth with my tongue. “Someday soon, that’s just going to be the appetizer, love,” she said. “Then when we’ve caught our breath a little I’m going to slide that wet pussy down over your cock and ride you until we both come again. Oh God, it’s been a long lonely summer.”
“Didn’t you go out at all?”
“Oh, sure. But, love, you have to understand that even though we are touchy-feely in theater, I don’t just give it away. There just was no one I was interested in enough to do more with—even with my reset age over seventeen now. You’ve really spoiled me, love. I might not be able to give this up.”
I lay there with Elaine in my arms and thought about that a long time before I went to sleep.
I found a quiet and subdued girlfriend in Evansville Saturday morning. She gave me a hug when I got there and then we went out for a walk along the river. The Ohio River is impressive, but Evansville doesn’t have a particularly pretty waterfront. It was hard for me not to get depressed being there, too. I asked her where she’d like to go for dinner and found out her parents were expecting us at home for dinner. It was a good dinner—Mrs. Gordon can really cook—but nobody seemed to be very happy.
I came prepared to go to church in the morning and after a night on the couch, I dressed in a shirt and tie and joined the family. The church was a huge old brick structure that looked almost like a factory from half a block away. There weren’t that many people there, but I suppose that’s typical for Labor Day Sunday. Everybody was out of town on their last vacation of the summer. Brighty preached a nice sermon, I suppose, as far as sermons go. But it seemed like a little of the light had gone out. I thought maybe he was suffering from the move as much as Hannah was. He asked me to come to his office after church while he took off his robe.
“How are you doing, Brian?” he asked. It was perfunctory. It was not what was on his mind.
“I have friends around me,” I said. “How are you doing, Brighty?”
“This might be the hardest posting I’ve ever had. I still don’t know why the Bishop decided I was needed here, but I’m praying that we’ll make it.”
“How about Hannah? She seems really out of it. Is she okay?”
“I don’t like the fact that the doctor put her on anti-depressants, but it seemed like the only thing to do. Moving here. And Sarah so far away now. She just doesn’t have an anchor.”
“Let her come and live with us,” I blurted out. “I know it would be a strain on you to have both your daughters gone, but she needs us. And we need her.” I was almost in tears.
“We’ll wait on the Lord this time, Brian. I’m sure he has a plan for us. I thought your visit would perk her up, but I don’t think she feels much of anything right now.”
I was going to have to leave in about twelve hours and I was feeling miserable. I held her hand as we went for more walks, but she kept turning me away from some streets saying, “We shouldn’t go that way. It’s not safe.” I took the family to Red Lobster for dinner. After everyone had gone to bed and I was lying on the sofa, Hannah came out of her room.
“Will you rub my feet, Brian? We walked a long way today.” She had the cream-colored silk pajamas on that she’d worn so long ago at the dude ranch when we met Jennifer and Courtney there. She pulled the legs up to her thighs as a clear indication that I should not stop at her feet but continue up her calves. She handed me a bottle of lotion and I began to work it into her skin, softly caressing her legs and then working the lotion into her feet and between her toes. She seemed a little livelier tonight than any time since I’d arrived. “I skipped my pill tonight,” she explained. “They make everything seem dead and like I just don’t have any feelings at all. I love you, Brian, and I just wanted you to know that I’m still in here.”
“Shh. Honey, I love you, too. You know I’ll always love you. We’ll get through this.”
I kissed her toes and she moaned. What a wonderful sound. I slid my hands up and down her legs and worked the soles her feet with my thumbs. I ran my fingers between her toes and her moaning became louder. I looked up and saw she was flushed. Fine. That was good. She was getting turned on and I would be able to help her at least know that I was here and I loved her. She finally sighed. I wasn’t sure she’d actually had an orgasm, but she seemed satisfied. Her breasts were heaving and her nipples were hard points poking out the fabric. I could smell her arousal and just relished the touch of her skin. Eventually she began to settle down and she cuddled up against me on the sofa. We dozed and awoke, occasionally kissing or caressing each other and I thought we’d managed a breakthrough. We were who we were again. The drugs must be pretty powerful to suppress all her feelings like that.
I awoke at four-thirty with Hannah still in my arms on the sofa. Her eyes were open and moist with her tears as she looked at me. I kissed her cheeks and held her tightly.
“I’m here, love,” I said. “I’m here and I love you.”
“Brian,” she whispered. “I think… I’m pregnant.”
Comments
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
