The Rock
22 Demonstration
IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG for word that Geoff was gay to get around—especially around the basketball team. I’m sure we had Barry to thank for that. None of us were making a big deal about it, but Kevin started showing up at our table at lunch. Bert made a special effort to stop by and eat lunch with us on Wednesday and specifically sat beside Geoff. He never said anything about it, but his demonstration didn’t go unnoticed. Unfortunately, not everyone responded the same way and I wasn’t sure I would be able to keep from punching someone out.
Trent and Brent, the sophomore twins who joined the Varsity team for the tournament were the ones who walked by and just said, “Fucking queers.” I about lost it and it was only because Sam and Whitney were next to me that I didn’t get a chance to make them eat their words. Tuesday morning, I had a message in Ms. Hammer’s class that I needed to go see Coach Hancock.
Whitney was already there.
“It’s time,” Coach said without any preamble. “I thought we might go all the way to graduation and never have to pull it out. The events at the prom changed that. Brian, Geoff is a target. It’s stupid and unfair but it is what it is. That makes all of you who are around Geoff targets, as well. If the tensions escalate, someone will get hurt—badly. I don’t think it will be you.”
“We’ve avoided letting anyone know,” Whitney said. “Our clan knows, but no one else.”
“What? What are we talking about?” I asked.
“Coach wants us to do a demonstration,” Whitney said.
“But we’ve always…”
“That’s what I was saying.”
“Here’s the thing,” Coach said. “You have a month of school left. A demonstration of your skill could change whether anyone in the school challenges you or any of your friends.”
“I get that it would prevent anyone from attacking Whitney or me. How would it help our friends?” I asked.
“No one has to know who all has the skills you have,” Coach said. “Get all your friends—clan, you call it?—to sit around the mat in gis. Only you and Whitney need to demonstrate. Everyone will assume the rest of the clan is trained or being trained. They won’t believe it is safe to attack anyone.”
I don’t think Coach knew how easy it was to get the whole clan outfitted in gis.
“If you think it will work, then I’m okay with it if Whitney is okay with it.”
“I think it’s our best option to protect Geoff and even Kevin,” Whitney said. “And don’t forget we’re leaving Leonard, Ross, and Monte here next year. They need to have some aura of protection around them.”
“I believe you said you had red gis,” Coach said. “This is the time to wear them. No one needs to know what the colors for your clan mean.”
“When?” I asked.
“Sooner is better. If I can get Principal Darnell to agree, it will be Friday afternoon. Can you get out of your classes?” Whitney and I both nodded.
“Better get back to your first period,” Coach said dismissing us.
“You came up with new poems?” Ms. Streeter asked when she saw me in the hall on the way to lunch. I glared at her.
“You should know.”
“Why would I know?” she asked simply. “Plan to give me a reading at lunch next Tuesday. I’ll make sure you are free in time to get to class at IUSB.” She walked away and left me hanging. Ms. Streeter was one of the two or three most influential teachers I’d had, but damn, she made me mad sometimes.
“I know you aren’t comfortable with that aspect of what Whitney and I do, Mom, but I’m asking for your support and your presence. Whitney’s mom and Dave will be there. We’d like to be united. Mom, Geoff’s been a constant friend since we were in second grade. Coach thinks this will protect him. We have to try.” I’d made the plea at dinner so everyone could hear. Mom immediately objected, but I had to convince her.
“I think he’s right, Marilyn,” Anna said. “We know they are capable. I’m sure Coach Hancock wouldn’t suggest this if he didn’t think it would work.”
“That other coach last year—Mitchell—put Brian on the court to get beaten up. I don’t like it.”
“Coach Hancock isn’t like that, Mom.”
Dad looked at Mom and they held each other’s eyes for a whole minute. They both gave an almost imperceptible nod.
“I still don’t like it but I will be there and I will support you,” Mom said at last. “I think we’d better get some other parents involved.”
I hadn’t seen all the students gathered in the gym and so focused since Cassie and I debated in front of the school board. They’d been told simply that there would be a special convocation on personal safety and self-defense Friday afternoon. Nobody knew or understood what they were about to witness.
There were mats in the middle of the basketball court. Our parents sat in chairs around the mats. All our parents—almost. Mom and Dad had managed to get at least one parent of every member of the clan to be in attendance, including Renee’s mother, Elaine’s parents and her brother, and even Evelyn Gordon. I saw her slip in but didn’t mention it to Hannah. Doug’s and Doreen’s parents were there, back from Florida to get their house ready to sell. Our college clan members could not make it for the gathering but all the others were there, including Doreen, Jennifer, Courtney, and Hannah.
“There is no question that bullying still exists in spite of our best efforts to combat it. We have had students who have been beaten and even killed,” Coach said. “Having observed one group of students and the unique bond that they have, I investigated to find not only a family-like relationship, but a discipline that is rare among teens and adults as well. Some of you know them as ‘that dating group.’ They refer to themselves as the Clan of the Heart. They have agreed to provide us with a few demonstrations of self-defense skills.”
Coach was surprised when we filed in. Whitney and I had told him that we had red gis and he expected that. He wasn’t expecting five more red gis, an emerald green, three grass green, three royal blue, two yellow and a sea of white gis with various colored belts. We’d rehearsed our entrance and everyone knelt around the mats in front of the parents.
“This group is full of surprises,” Coach said. “I do not know the rankings of every member of the clan. I have arranged, however, for Brian Frost and Whitney Anderson to demonstrate a few basic moves and then to give a full contact exhibition.” Coach also wore a red gi with his black belt and another man joined him in a similar outfit. An old Chinese man with a white beard and a pair of Hawaiian board shorts and shirt approached from the other side.
“On my left is Coach Jack Phillips of Logansport High School,” Coach said. “His team gave us a run for our money in the Semi-state. It happens that Coach Phillips and I served together and trained together in the Marines. On my right is the venerable Master Cho. Among martial artists, he is a legend. I have asked these two to test and comment on the skills of Whitney and Brian as they demonstrate their skills.”
Shit! Whitney’s master was here. She reached over and grabbed my hand when she saw him walk in, nearly crushing it. He looked so… weird. It was like, this guy cannot be a martial artist. He’s just a little old man in funky clothes.
“As I don’t wish to be humiliated in front of my own students, Coach Phillips and Master Cho have also agreed to spar a round with each other so you can see what the top masters in the martial arts can do. We’ll begin with that demonstration. Gentlemen, to first fall.” Coach Hancock stepped away and the two men took up positions on opposite sides of the wrestling mats. They bowed to each other. Then the match was on.
It was funny and stupid to watch. Coach Phillips was maybe two inches shorter than Coach Hancock and was built like the Marine he was. Master Cho looked like a silly little old man. Hands and feet flew at an amazing speed but few landed. I recognized the defense as many of the water moves Coach had taught us. It just flowed. Master Cho was so fluid it was difficult to see how he got from one place to another. Coach Phillips was also a master and moved with the grace and speed that I’d begun to see in Coach Hancock. But even I saw the opening he went for when Master Cho appeared to stumble. Master Cho was on one foot and leaning to the side when Coach Phillips hit him in the chest with a snap kick.
Coach Phillips landed on the floor.
Master Cho was still standing in the same awkward position.
“Master Cho is a rock,” Whitney whispered. “So are you.”
Coach Phillips bounced back up off the floor and bowed to Master Cho who bowed back. The students applauded. It was like watching something out of Kung Fu.
“Whitney. Brian.” Coach Hancock called for us and we went to the center of the mat. We must have made quite a pair in our red gis with Whitney eight or nine inches taller than me. We did a few forms side-by-side as Coach commented on the style and why forms in slow motion were important. Then we were ready to start. “This is an unusual demonstration for a school to see. Whitney’s and Brian’s parents are here and all parties have signed a waiver of liability allowing the two to demonstrate full contact without pads, much the same as you just saw Master Cho and Coach Phillips. Personally, I have not trained either of these athletes that most of you know from basketball both here at St. Joe Valley and at PHS. I have, however, observed them training together the past two years. To first fall,” Coach concluded and stepped off the mats and gave a short burst on his whistle.
Whitney and I stepped back and bowed to each other, observing the formalities Coach taught us about competitions. We started like we often start sparring, reflecting each other in forms as we moved in a circle facing each other. I’m sure we looked like rank amateurs compared to what they’d just seen with the two masters. Whitney struck first, coming straight at my chest. I slid around her and hit her with an elbow on the back of her shoulder. I barely got out of the way of the roundhouse kick that came toward my head as she swept past me.
It was game on.
Whitney and I often spar for an hour and seldom put each other down anymore. Now that we had acquired skills in both water and rock, we found that we had more defense and more offense to draw on. Oh, we both landed blows. I planned to spend a good part of the night rubbing arnica into our bruises. But the act of sparring took us both to a different place in our heads. It was exercise, fighting, ballet, and foreplay all in one. And this time, we were fighting to create a sense of mystique and protection around our friends. No one would know how many of us were trained or what the colors of our gis and belts meant. That they had nothing to do with martial arts was nobody’s business but our own.
As we became more and more warmed up, we moved faster and faster. And then, I discovered that Whitney still knew things that I did not.
I swear the punch she threw never touched me. It wasn’t even a punch. Her hand shot out toward my chest, palm facing me. The impact hit me way before her hand did. It lifted me off the floor and I came down hard on my butt with my mouth open staring at her.
Whitney had mastered air.
I didn’t bounce up as fast as Coach Phillips had when Master Cho put him down. Coach Hancock’s whistle blew and I struggled to my feet. Whitney and I bowed to each other and then to the three masters and finally to the students. There was silence in the gym until our bows were finished and then applause and cheers erupted from the student body. Our clan and families maintained discipline and sat in silence. Whitney and I returned to our seats next to the mat with our casa, our red gis the dominant color in the group.
I chuckled when I thought about the fact that the red gis actually meant my committed lovers. Whitney nudged me and told me to be quiet, but I saw that she was smiling, too. Coach went on into a lecture on self-defense and the discipline that it takes to become a proficient martial artist.
Then Coach Phillips asked for volunteers to demonstrate basic self-defense moves. He and Coach Hancock explained several situations in which students might be in bad positions. They ranged from aggressive school competitors to date rape. The volunteers were taught how to escape and quickly disable an attacker.
“Self-defense is exactly what the words say. It is not an act of aggression,” Coach said. “I’m certain that no one here has witnessed any of the students surrounding the mat bullying another student. In fact, many of you saw the cut and the scar on his ear that Brian brought back after Christmas break. He stepped between a much bigger aggressor and a woman that had been abused—beaten. The attacker—hyped up on meth—managed to cut Brian with his knife before he was subdued. We are informed that after four months in the hospital, that attacker has now been moved to a prison cell where he will reside for many years to come.”
“We have not brought these words to you to frighten you,” Coach Phillips joined in. “Many of you will graduate in a month. School is a comparably safe place when compared to the world at large. Some of you will go directly into the military. Some of you will go to college. Some of you will enter into relationships with your life partners and sadly, a few of those will experience domestic violence. When I sparred with Master Cho, I was the aggressor. It is part of the way I was taught. Frankly, I believe I could have beaten on Master Cho all morning and would ultimately have dropped to the mat from exhaustion before he was moved. Master Cho?”
“De-escalate,” the Chinese man said softly. Everyone in the gym was straining to hear what he had to say. “Do not increase the ire of those who would do you harm. Let them pass. They are their own enemies. Be the sun, warming the souls of those around you. Let your light blind those who would hurt you. But do not hesitate in your defense when the enemy will not be appeased. Be safe, young people. Carry peace in your hearts and you will find peace wherever you go.”
Well, that sure wasn’t what any of us expected to hear, but his words rang true to me. I’d been in too many situations at the ripe old age of eighteen where I’d ignored that advice and I carried the scars inside and out. I could almost feel his words wash me. Peace was not weakness.
We filed out of the gymnasium followed by our parents.
We didn’t change out of our gis, but all left school even though there was one period left in the day. Of course, everyone headed for our house, including the parents. There were so many of us that we couldn’t all fit in the house and with it being such a beautiful May evening, we lit a bonfire and moved outside. We had cars parked the whole length of our driveway and the Barnes’s. Ford was out of town, so no one was home next door.
There was a lot of congratulating of Whitney and me for our performance and asking how bruised we were. It seems that our sparring went on for about twenty minutes before Whitney knocked me on my ass. I had no concept of the passage of time. We managed to escape for half an hour and I took her to my room to shower and tend to the bruises. There weren’t too many, so we took a few minutes to comfort each other in other ways. We stayed in the bathroom as she leaned over the sink and bent her legs slightly so I could reach her sex with my cock. She pushed back and down onto me. I think we’d both been ready for this ever since we came off the mats.
I reached around her thin hips and found her clit with my fingers and was immediately flooded with her juices. She pushed back harder and I slammed into her harder. For three minutes, we fucked with the same intensity that we’d sparred. We couldn’t last through twenty minutes of that.
When we returned to the bonfire clean, salved, and sated, we found food was appearing on the picnic table. Chinese take-out, pizzas, sacks of burgers from McDonalds. Bags of chips, cases of soft drinks, half-a-dozen pies. The other thing that had appeared was an easel with floor plans and area plans for our new home in Bloomington. Dad fixed a halogen work light up so people could see and comment on the drawings. Rhiannon had really been busy. There were elevation drawings that showed the modular dwelling behind the main house, a shelter over the horse arena, and parking areas. The one that blew me away was a drawing of the kitchen-studio in the main house. Hannah had been working pretty tightly with Rhiannon on getting that designed. With the high ceilings on the main floor, Hannah was able to specify studio lighting. I still wasn’t sure how she expected us to pay for that. Or how we were funding any of the improvements, including the pad and plumbing for the modular, the remodeled bathrooms, or the horse arena.
It was mostly parents gathered around the easel. There was a lot of discussion among the adults.
I mentally took a survey of where my hearthmates were. Whitney had been drawn away from me by a group of adults and for a minute I found myself alone. Sam was talking to the fearsome foursome with their green sashes. Geoff and Robyn were with them, too. Jennifer, Courtney, Liz, and Nikki were all with Doug, Rhiannon, and Doreen laughing about something. Josh and Cassie were with their parents. Mr. Clinton had an arm around Josh’s shoulder. I think Josh was approved as suitable for his daughter. I finally spotted Hannah. She was standing with her mother at the edge of the gathering and smiling. I breathed a deep sigh of relief.
“It’s nice to see, isn’t it, patrón,” Rose said as she slipped her hand through my arm. “That might be the most encouraging sign yet.”
“Yeah. She calls home every week—it’s part of her agreement. But it looks like she’s finally really making a connection with her parents again. At least with her mother,” I said. “I hope she can patch things up with her dad. He really thought he was doing the right thing for her.”
“Well, you have another hearthmate that needs your attention,” Rose said. She turned me and I saw Mary coming toward me with her brother in tow.
“Oh, boy,” I said. Bill still glowered at me a little, but his sister was obviously in control. Rose and I waited. Mary wasted no time.
“Okay. Both of you. Bury the hatchet. Brian, stop criticizing my brother for what he did or didn’t do two years ago. We were kids and he’s still there for me. Bill, I’ll sleep with who I want to sleep with and if that means being naked with Brian and the rest of my hearthmates, it’s none of your business. Got it?”
“Sorry, Bill,” I said. “I should never have said what I did. That really wasn’t my business.”
“My fault,” Bill said. “I wanted to keep my little sister a baby and not let her grow up. I didn’t realize how badly I’d failed at even being the big brother she needed.” He held out his hand and we shook. I didn’t think Bill and I would ever be good buddies, but for Mary’s sake, at least, we wouldn’t be trying to kill each other.
“I see,” Ms. Streeter said when I’d finished reading the two poems I’d selected. She wrinkled up her nose. I waited for her to tell me how I was supposed to interpret them. After all, I was sure she already knew them. “I don’t know what to say, Brian.”
“Um… Did I get the interpretation wrong? Less angst? More passion?”
“Your interpretation was fine. You need to be a little smoother, but that will come as you practice.”
“Then what? There’s something you wrote that I’m missing.”
“Brian, I know you believe I am Nat Hart. I was at one time. The name has passed to a new author. I know Nicolette used the name, but this is… I’m not sure.” She took the pages from me and looked at them, reading the two poems. “You might be interested in taking a class in literary criticism next fall. I know you are primarily going for a science degree, but with your investigative mind, I think you’d be intrigued by textual analysis.”
“What does that involve?”
“It’s using textual information to determine authenticity of a work. For example, if I’d been interested in preventing you from using the first poems you presented, I’d have pointed out various inconsistencies between the published poem clipping and the new works that pointed to a different author. Now authors do grow and change, but there are things that often remain consistent through all their works. Sometimes it is imagery, approach, rhythm, word choice. What I’m saying is that from my initial reading, this is not the work of Nicolette Duval. I’ve read a lot of her poems over the past four years and have helped her get half a dozen published.”
“Really? She’s never mentioned having any of her work published. How cool.”
“For all her… idiosyncrasies… Nicolette is a talented writer. I know it is taking her away from your clan, but Brown is a good choice for her college life. It wouldn’t surprise me if she went straight through to her doctorate.”
“But why do you think this isn’t her work?” I asked. Who the hell else could it be?
“It’s good. The theme is not unlike Nicolette. She has a tendency to be rather dark in her writing and sometimes violent. But this is not as refined as her work. I’d say it was hers from four or five years ago except that the subject matter is more mature than she was writing then. Then she was entirely about her anger. This is more… sad and resigned. Pain is just.” Ms. Streeter paused and read through the first poem again. “No. There is definitely a new Nat Hart.”
I had one more final at IU on Wednesday morning and I was done for the term. It’s a weird thing. The finals aren’t necessarily scheduled for the same time that your class meets because the final takes longer than a normal class. Monday evening I’d had my Chemistry final and had to do both written and lab testing over the three hours. I had to get permission from Principal Darnell to miss classes on Wednesday morning. He still looked at me suspiciously as if I’d planned the whole prom fiasco.
Mathematical Modeling wasn’t my strongest suit, but I did pretty well on the test and suddenly had a lot more time on my hands. When I got home after the test, I went back to bed and slept for four hours!
When I woke up, Hannah was cuddled up against my back. She stirred when I did. I scooted over on my back and put an arm around her. She rubbed her cheek against my chest.
“I like waking up in your arms,” she whispered.
“Me, too. You surprised me.”
“I thought you were studying so I came up to study with you. When I saw you in bed, it was just too tempting to pass up.”
I kissed the top of her head and petted her hair, just enjoying the feeling of having her next to me. We weren’t having sex or even kissing, but it still felt especially intimate. I was just holding my love in my arms.
“We should probably go get dinner ready for our family,” I said. She giggled a little.
“Did you notice the time?”
“No. I wasn’t paying any attention.”
“We’re just twelve hours off our special time together. It’s four-thirty in the afternoon.”
“Do you suppose we’ll always wake up at that time so I can hold you in my arms?”
“Maybe not. You’ve had some pretty late nights recently and I know you barely open your eyes at four-thirty. When you start studying in college it might be really hard to wake up at that hour. But we’ll find other time together. And I don’t mean time on set or in front of cameras. I promise you, Brian Frost, that even if we are separated by miles, I will always have private time with you each day. You were so faithful to me—even when I was not. How could I ever do less with you?”
“It’s never an obligation, Hannah. If there ever comes a time when we aren’t together because of our love, then we won’t be together,” I said. I could feel the truth in the words even though it hurt to say them.
“I want to make love with you, Brian. I don’t mean right now, but soon. The time is coming when I’ll want you to make love to me even… even if my body doesn’t seem ready. I want to give myself to you. I want so much to have what we should have had.”
“My precious darling. I want you desperately. But I want you ready. I’ll wait. You won’t always be suffering these aftereffects. One day it will be right,” I whispered. “One day.”
“He… He never cared. He never cared if I was turned on or ready or even interested. I still go through times when I feel so dirty I can’t speak. There are mornings when you’ve left for school that I stand under the shower forever. When the hot water runs out, I still stand in the cold water. I made myself so dirty. I didn’t even want to be turned on. I wanted it to hurt. I’m so sorry, Brian. I’m so sorry I can’t give you the girl you fell in love with. I can’t even imagine how innocent… how naïve I was. I teased you, but until that morning it was all just a game. When we were there—in the hayloft—and I was rubbing against you, I wanted you to let go of my waist so I could have you in me. It was the first time in my life that I had an orgasm. It was the only time,” she finished in a whisper.
“It will happen,” I said. “I promise.” I only hoped it was a promise I could fulfill.
Coach hoped that our demonstration of martial arts would make people think twice before they tried anything because Geoff was out of the closet. That assumes that people think once. Barry backed off because twice he’d felt Whitney’s grip and been on his knees. He believed what she could do. There were others who took it as a challenge. Of course, they could only harass someone much smaller than themselves.
The sophomoric idiots were the twins, Trent and Brent. They chose Rose as their target.
I was hanging around after lunch since I didn’t have to go to class at IU anymore. Everyone else had already headed to class and I thought I’d go visit Coach to see how he thought the demonstration went. I’d been too busy studying for finals to do anything else the first part of the week.
I heard the voices and picked up my pace. I didn’t know who they were harassing, but I was going to put an end to it.
“You’re all such fakes. Now you’re supposed to be some teenage mutant ninja turtles. Nobody can knock a person over without even touching them.”
I never heard a response. Instead, I heard two thuds as they hit the floor.
“Holy shit!”
“Jesus! We didn’t mean anything.”
I rounded the corner to see Rose straightening her clothes. Trent and Brent were on the floor in front of her. When they saw me they started scooting away.
“We weren’t going to do anything. Honest!” one of them cried.
“Sometimes we don’t even have to use our hands,” Rose said. “Now beat it.” They scrambled around and ran. Rose turned and almost ran into me. I caught her before she could really swing at me.
“Are you okay?”
“Brian! God! You scared me to death.”
“Me? What did you do to Tweedle-Dumb and Tweedle-Dumber?” We walked back the way I’d come and Rose started giggling. She couldn’t hold it in and I walked her all the way to my car before she’d stopped laughing too hard to talk. And I was trying to figure out why we were going to my car. There were still three-and-a-half classes in the afternoon.
“You almost got there in time,” she said. “Those two idiots decided we were all fakes because no real martial artists wore gis in all those colors and none of us had a black belt like the coaches had. Then they were on about how the little old Chinese guy was a joke. There was no way he could just stand there and Coach kick him like that and fall down. He said we were just a little dating clique and now we were supposed to be some kind teenage mutant ninja turtles. I’ll bet they have all the action figures. And then they said no one could knock someone down without touching them.”
“That’s what I heard while I was coming down the hall and then I heard them fall and start pleading that they weren’t going to do anything. What did you do to them?”
“I flashed them.”
“You what?”
“I don’t think either of them had ever seen a live tit. They were so shocked they stepped back and tripped over their own feet. They hit the floor right on their asses and started apologizing.”
“You knocked them over with your boobs? Rose, that is too good. Wait till Coach hears that.”
“Don’t tell him, Brian. I’d be embarrassed to death. And besides, as long as we don’t tell anyone, they won’t try anything. Right now, nobody knows they did something and failed. If we tell, they’ll have to save face.” I guess she made sense.
“Why are we in the car and where are we going?”
“After that? If you don’t get me somewhere and fuck me right now I’m going to hyperventilate and pass out.”
I got the message. We headed home and ran for my bedroom.
Rose and I weren’t slow about our love making. We kissed as we shed our clothes, crab-walking to the bed. She was as needy as Liz had ever been. I understood. She’d also been terrified. She was not trained to deal with attackers and had used her body in another way to knock them on their asses. As soon as she was lying down, my face was between her legs. She was so wet it had run down her thighs and I licked them to her delighted squeals. The squeals turned to screams when I latched onto her clit with my lips and started flicking it with my tongue. The bed was drenched in her juices as I couldn’t lick fast enough to catch them all.
“Brian! I need you. Fuck me. Come here and fuck me!” she screamed again. I repositioned myself and Rose pulled my lips to hers and kissed me so ferociously I thought I’d be bruised. My cock needed no guidance as I slid fully into her and she began bucking against me. “Yes! Yes! I was so scared. I need you. I love you. Ahhh!”
Her pussy clamped and pulsed on my cock as she came again. It was too much to resist and the building pressure behind my balls burst forth in torrents out my cock. Each pulse seemed to push Rose higher on her ascent. She gripped me with her legs around my waist and her arms around my chest, hugging me to her and not letting me shift my weight off her. Finally, I managed to roll us to our sides so I wouldn’t crush her but she kept her death grip around me even in this position as the dam burst and she wept against my neck as I held her.
Minutes later—hours later—I have no idea. We kept hold of each other, my cock in her pussy and her tongue in my mouth as our breathing gradually slowed. Our heart-rates might never return to normal but they came down enough that I could hear things other than my own pulse.
And what I heard nearly stopped my heart completely.
The sniffling I heard wasn’t coming from Rose but from across the room at my desk. I jerked away from Rose’s lips and looked. Hannah sat at my computer with tears running down her cheeks, looking at the two of us in bed.
Fucking hell! Rose and I had probably just had the best sex of our young lives right in front of Hannah. Nothing like rubbing her insecurity and feelings of inadequacy into her face. I felt like such a fucking jerk. In our rush, I hadn’t even considered where Hannah might be when we entered the house.
“Hannah! I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t know you were here. I’m so sorry, baby.” She shook her head.
“You’re so beautiful together.”
“But you’re crying.”
“I was crying before you got here. It’s nothing.” What? Why would she… Dr. McCall’s words echoed through my mind. ‘Stop asking why.’
“Hannah, hearthmate,” Rose said softly rolling her upper body away from me but maintaining her lock on my waist. I was beginning to shrink and felt her squeezing at my cock trying to keep me in her. “Come here to us and let us hold you, sweetheart.” Having had her fears battered back through multiple orgasms, Rose was once again queen of our hive. Hannah might have resisted me, but when Rose called to her, she stood and by the time she reached the bed she was naked. I finally slipped out of Rose and she moved slightly to pull Hannah into the bed between us. There was a little wincing and repositioning as the girls managed to get their boobs into comfortable positions. Then we had Hannah sandwiched between us and were just as tightly held as Rose and I had been before.
Hannah continued to cry but the tears slowed and all three of us drifted into a little nap as we held each other. Rose seemed to know that the situation didn’t require words and Hannah responded to being held.
When I came back up from my underwater dream, Hannah had slid down between us and was nursing at Rose’s breast. Rose’s lips were open and her eyes told of her pleasure as our younger girlfriend stimulated her nipples. I leaned in enough to kiss Rose over the top of Hannah’s head.
“So beautiful,” Hannah whispered around Rose’s distended nipple. “So wonderful. So beautiful.” She came fully awake slowly and looked up at us. Hannah blushed. “I’m sorry. I don’t know… I’m sorry,” she mumbled. Rose pulled at her and kissed her softly.
“Hannah, we have a pact from this moment forward,” Rose whispered. “Anytime you need… or want… comfort, come suckle at my breast. Let me—let us hold you. Let us love you. You don’t have to be my compañera or novia or anything else. You can just have my comfort. You can talk if you want or you can be quiet. Like all your hearthmates, I am here for you.” Hannah hugged Rose and then turned to kiss me. It was soft and tender and still tasted of her salt tears.
“Sometimes I just can’t help it,” she whispered. “Nothing happened. Life is better than it’s ever been. I was working on the kitchen plans and all of a sudden, I couldn’t see the monitor because I was crying. And it wouldn’t stop. It wasn’t anything you did. But watching you and being filled with such longing that I thought my heart would break and not really being a woman. I just couldn’t stop crying.”
“It will happen sometimes, sweetheart,” I whispered. Even in the midst of joy and doing what she loved, her depression could still overwhelm her. “But we’ll always be here for you.”
“Will you make love again so I can be here with you?” Hannah asked. “I just want to be close to you while you are so beautiful.” My cock twitched and Hannah giggled a little.
“I’ll bet you just got an answer from him, didn’t you?” Rose laughed. “I was hoping we could get another round in. Maybe a little less desperate this time. I’m going to scoot down there and make sure he’s ready. Want to join me?”
“Look, you got another package from Heaven,” Courtney said at dinner.
“Oh good! Maybe she got the card I sent her,” I said.
“Card for what?” Jennifer asked.
“Her twentieth birthday was Sunday.”
“Is she really only a year older than me?” Courtney asked. “She’s so successful and I’m so… nothing.”
I nudged Hannah and she traded places with me at the dinner table with a wink. As soon as I was sitting next to Courtney, I lifted her out of her seat and plopped her down in my lap. Moms and Dad just chuckled.
“You’re gonna get it now,” Hannah intoned.
“Well, maybe not right now but I think that comment deserves a very personal response,” I said. Courtney caught her breath and there was an instant burst of female scent that rose from her lap as she put her arms around me and hugged me. “You, my courtesan, are not a nothing. In fact, you are quite a handful.” I emphasized that by grabbing her butt with my left hand under the table. This time it was definitely a gasp.
“I’m sorry, Brian. I was jealous.”
“No one is measuring you against Heaven. Think of what her career has cost her. If you ask me, she’s paid too much but it was her choice. I’m just glad you’ve made the choices you have.”
“Moms,” Courtney turned to Mom and Anna, “may Brian and I be excused, please?”
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