Shutter Speed
16
Juggling Five
“Debbie” by Hank Shiffman, ID1628895940 licensed from Shutterstock.com
SO, GET THIS: According to Christine, I have five girlfriends, Chris, Ronda, Anna, Elizabeth, and Patricia. I’m having sex when we go out with four of them and Anna is playing with fire. She’s so hot I think she’ll ignite one day soon. And I expect I’ll go up in smoke. Five girlfriends, so what did I do Friday night? Take Vicki home after the dance, just so I could fuck her sweet ass. And I didn’t feel guilty about that at all. Vicki is devoted to becoming as good at sex as her sister Melanie had been in school, without losing her vaginal virginity. She was certainly mastering blowjobs and anal.
On Saturday, Debbie’s eighteenth birthday party and photoshoot was in the studio with all the models. She had a theme for her photos that kept us busy all afternoon, too. She’d gone to work right after Pris’s shoot in October, looking for the perfect concept. She’d found a box of old French postcards at Mrs. Wilson’s store and bought them under the pretense that she was looking for rare postage stamps. What she wanted were the pictures. She laid half a dozen of them on the table and said she wanted to recreate those pictures.
The style was good for Debbie. She wasn’t happy with her boobs, but liked her butt. Frankly, even though she had a spectacular ass, I didn’t think there was anything wrong with her tits at all. I’d seen them plenty of times over the summer. But the erotic French postcards put less emphasis on the breast and a great deal on legs and butt. Not that there wasn’t a nicely exposed breast here and there as well. Debbie upped the level by wearing white nylons that would have needed a garter if she’d been walking around, but stayed in position just fine when she was posed. She disposed of pretty much all the rest of her clothes and just used an artful drape or shawl to conceal what she didn’t want in the photo.
My favorite was an idea she came up with to lie on her back on one of the cubes, which was only large enough for her butt and tailbone. She put a cushion on it with a black drape over it and we used the black background. I focused all the lighting pretty tightly on her. Then she used a hula hoop more or less under her with a foot propped up on the inside and her shoulder inside the hoop. By the time we were finished, she looked like she was suspended in air in a trapeze hoop.
The pictures also included a lot of petticoats that looked like they were falling off of her. Occasionally a nipple would peek out over the top of one, but mostly they showed off her spectacular legs and butt.
When we finally sat around the table for birthday cake—with Debbie on my lap, of course—we’d captured most everything she wanted except an orgasm. She was mostly wearing one of the oversized slips. It was hooked by the strap on one shoulder, but the other fell off her shoulder and under her boob, right at the level of my chin. It was no problem at all for me to get a little tug on her nipple with my lips as she sat there pretending to officiate her birthday party.
My hands were engaged beneath her petticoat, one on her ass and one between her legs, which were spread wide so I had free access to her pussy. Between the contacts, Debbie soon gave up her pretense of disinterest in anything but her cake and the party and gasped out her orgasm. She turned and slammed her mouth onto mine for a kiss, driving my fingers all the way up inside her pussy.
“Oh, that must have been a very good bite of cake,” Anna said as she sampled hers. “It is good, don’t you think, Judy?”
“Um… uh… yeah. Really good… cake,” she said as she watched Debbie come down from her climax.
“Looks like Debbie had her cake and ate it, too,” Patricia snickered. It was nice to see her just relaxed with the group for a change. She still had periods of spacing out as she thought about her life, Tony, the future, her baby. I don’t think I could have engaged with anyone if I had all that on my mind as well.
“That was really yummy… cake,” Debbie sighed as I pulled my fingers out of her hot box. “It’s so nice of you all to come and help with my pictures.”
“We all helped,” Ronda said. “I think only one of us came.”
The next weekend, I sat with Chris at her home watching TV while I held the heating pad against her tummy. It was pretty much the same as when we were going steady. She told me frequently that she was still my girlfriend, we just weren’t going steady. We needed to make room for the other girlfriends.
“The cramps aren’t as bad this month,” Chris sighed. “I guess the pills work. They said it would help regulate my period and lessen the discomfort. As if my period could get any more regular. I expect to spend every fourth Friday night curled up with a heating pad for the rest of my life.”
“I’m sure you’ll get some respite. But I’ll always be here to hold you.”
“You shouldn’t make promises. If it gets really bad, I might call you up in Chicago and demand you come to Peoria to hold my tummy,” she giggled.
“I’ll be on my way,” I said.
“Can you see any changes in Patricia yet? I mean in last Sunday’s photos?”
“Not really. She says her nipples are more sensitive and that drives her crazy.”
“Did you… um… kiss them to make them feel better?”
“Are you probing, Chris? Do you really want to know what I do with all the other girlfriends?”
“Yes. I know that makes me sound weird, but I do. I want to know that you are making love to Patricia and that she loves you like we do. I want to hear about how wet and wonderful Ronda’s pussy is when you fill her with come. I want to think about you taking Anna’s bra off and touching her breasts. I want to know if her panties are wet when you touch her pussy, and if she makes you come. I even want to know what Elizabeth tastes like and whether she shaves her pussy. I’ve told you before I’m perverted and I live my perversions through you. Ronda and I slept together last Friday night and just played with each other’s bottom hole while we talked about you pushing your big cock into Vicki’s little ass. I wish that Roxie would want to go out with you again, or that Kelly would come back. I look around our class and can see the girls who have come to the studio for photos look at you speculatively. Would you like to make love to Grace? Libby would never look at you, but she’d spread her legs wide like a banquet table if you wanted to eat her. I’ve even caught some freshmen and sophomores looking at you speculatively. Fuck them all and tell me every detail about how they smell and what they feel like when you put your cock in their pussies.”
“Wow. You are perverted.”
“Yeah, but I felt you getting hard while I talked. The rest of the family has gone to bed and I’m feeling much better than I usually do on my first day. Let me suck you and take that big load out of your balls so it doesn’t distract you tomorrow night when you’re with Anna.”
Chris did get my cock out of my pants and into her mouth, and there was no chance I’d be thinking about anything else while she gave me one of her best blowjobs. Vicki might be able to take me into her throat, but Chris working her hands on my cock while she slid up and down the top with her mouth was the best ever. I was still madly in love with this girl.
My date with Anna Saturday night was a little screwy. We hadn’t really looked to see what movie was playing in Huntertown. It turned out to be strange. It was less than a year old, which made it a new movie in our backwater area. One Million Years B.C. There was really no dialog as the people all spoke in grunts and sign language as they tried to survive in an age of dinosaurs. Raquel Welch was in the movie and almost in her costume. The most memorable line is when she meets the love interest from a rival tribe and points at her prodigious breasts. She says, “Oowanna?”
I think even Anna wanted. It was funny and we went to Gerties after for a shake. When we got back in the bus, Anna slid over toward me and used both hands to point to her chest.
“Oowanna?” she said in a deep sexy voice.
“I wanna,” I answered.
“Then let’s go someplace nice and quiet for a while.” She leaned against me and every time I shifted gears, I slid my hand up and down her leg.
With that as a prelude, we still didn’t just park and strip. This was Anna and even though she had opened up and become far more liberal in her sexual expression, she started at point zero each time. The build-up was getting faster, though, and we were into some pretty heavy petting before too long. I still wasn’t sure how far she wanted to go tonight, but when I reached behind her for her bra clasp, she leaned forward to give me easier access.
“Do you really like my breasts, Nate?” she panted.
“Yes, Anna. It’s for real. I think you have beautiful, touchable, kissable breasts and I want to be able to see them all the time.”
“Should we become nudists?” she asked. I thought it was only a rhetorical question, but she looked at me as if she really wanted an answer.
“I think we’ve pretty much established the studio as a clothing optional area unless we are working with a client,” I laughed.
“Except you,” she said. “It’s a naked girls space, but we haven’t really seen anything of you. I haven’t. I’ve seen your chest when we are making out and rubbing my breasts against you. But that’s the most. Are you body shy?”
“Mmm. Well, you see there’s a little problem. I can look at you completely nude—or I’d like to—and not really be able to tell if you were aroused unless I touched you and kissed you and could feel your arousal. But if I went completely nude in the studio, I’d have an erection sticking out at you and drooling precome all over everything. I’ve just never considered it appropriate to face a bunch of girls with a hard-on unless I’m with one I expect will use it.”
Anna had her hand on the front of my pants, squeezing my cock, so she knew exactly what I was talking about.
“Can I see it?” she asked.
“You mean, naked?”
“Yes. Girls have lots of parts that stick out. Our breasts are the most obvious, but there are smaller parts, too. You can see them. You can see the breasts you’re touching right now. I’d like to see what I’m touching and find out about you. You might not know the specifics of my pussy and vagina, but you know what girls look like and generally how they feel. I’d just like to see and touch you.”
“That’s okay if you really want to, honey, but you have to understand that I’m hard and turned on. There’s probably precome leaking out of me already. And with your breasts in my hands and your hands on my cock, I’m likely to come and make a mess.”
“Can it be cleaned up?”
“Well, yeah. As long as I don’t get it on your clothes.”
I was not expecting Anna to shimmy out of her skirt and put it behind her. Then she started working on my belt and zipper to get my cock free while she continued to look into my eyes, only glancing down occasionally to see what she was doing. I was definitely going to come when she had me out and touched me. I continued to massage her breasts and play with her nipples as she pushed her chest into my hands.
“Do I have to get it through this little opening?” she asked.
“It’s easier if you just pull them down a little.”
She took hold of my pants waist and pulled the trousers and underwear down together as I lifted up. Of course, we both started giggling when the waistband got caught on my cock and it flopped back as soon as it came loose.
“Can I just look at it a little?”
“Anna, I know that if I had your panties down and was between your legs, I’d definitely want to look for a little while. I live with my cock, so I don’t see anything particularly interesting in it. On the other hand, I think a girl’s pussy is the most beautiful thing God ever created. So yeah, go ahead and look. I feel really privileged that you actually want to see me.”
“I was afraid that all boys were built like Kent. There was no way I was going to let something that size between my legs. This seems more handleable.”
She touched the tip and I twitched a little. So, she had to try that some more. Finally, she wrapped a hand around it and I moaned. Anna was holding my cock!
“Is it okay? Did I hurt?”
“No, Anna. It feels incredibly good. Remember what I said the outcome would be, though.”
“Right away?”
“Not quite, but soon.”
“And all I have to do is hold it?”
“You could stroke up and down a little. Especially if you ran your hand through the precome leaking out of it.”
She tentatively ran a finger through the slime and then her whole hand as she stroked down my cock. I tried not to grip her boobs too tightly, but the thrills she was sending through my cock made my reflexes twitch. I might have pinched her nipple a little because she gasped and rubbed more vigorously. That was the end of the story for me.
“Now,” was all I had time to say.
The way she was holding me directed the first powerful spurt right at her chest. It was right there at my fingertips, so I smeared it over her breasts and used it to lubricate my fingers as I rubbed her nipples. She straightened my cock a little and the second spurt went straight up in the air and back down on her hand. The rest were weaker spurts that dribbled onto my stomach as she leaned in toward me. I was panting, but so was Anna.
“Oh! Oh, my God! I could feel it pulsing through my fingers around your cock. It hit me so hard, I almost dropped you. Will it be that strong when you’re inside me? Will it hit me and spatter all over?”
“Not quite, honey,” I said. She wasn’t letting go of my cock and I was keeping her breasts firmly in hand. “When we make love, I’ll wear a condom. I wouldn’t risk getting you pregnant. You might feel my cock pulsing, but the spurts will be contained in the condom.”
“Unless I’m, like, on birth control. I’m going to consider that. I might ask you to take me to Dubuque soon.”
There was a box of tissues on the floor beside the gearshift and I struggled to reach them and start wiping up the semen from her chest and hands. She was busy examining it and squeezing it between her fingers. I wiped up what was on my stomach and when I had everything cleaned up as well as it was going to be, I pulled Anna to me and held her against my chest as we kissed.
We kissed and petted some more and she pushed my hand down to her panties, indicating to me that she wanted me to rub her pussy and make her come. I was certainly willing to do that. Then she pulled my hand away for a moment and I thought I’d misread her. Instead, she put my hand at the waistband of her panties and pushed it inside. She looked at me with her lip caught between her teeth and pled with me with her eyes.
I’d been told by two girls, including Anna, that I’d touched her pussy and it didn’t make a difference whether it was inside or outside her panties. I pushed my hand down through her hair and found the wet crease of her pussy as it opened to my exploration. She was quickly back to my lips with her mouth and the intensity of our kiss ramped up as I slid through her moisture and circled her clit with my finger. I was hard again and pressed against her belly as I focused my intent on making her come. I was not disappointed. Her hips began to rock forward and back as I stroked her clit and she erupted in a stream of “Oh, oh, oh, oh!” and shook all over as she came.
As I had done the last time I’d touched her, I didn’t hurry to remove my hand from between her legs. I gently explored, parting the folds of her inner lips to press lightly against her vaginal opening. I didn’t try to put my finger in her because I wasn’t sure about whether she had a hymen and I didn’t want to risk breaking it if she did. I’d learned a few things in my sessions photographing Sandra.
Anna was shaking and I pulled the blanket up around us and held her closely, finally relinquishing my hold on her pussy and sliding my hand around under her panties to hold her bottom.
“Sweetheart, are you all right?” I asked.
“Yes. It was so intense that I’m still shaking. Oh, Nate, I love you so much it leaks out of my eyes. I’m not sad, honest. I just want to know that I’ll always be safe in your arms, no matter how many girlfriends you have. I’ll do anything for you. Be anything you want me to be. Just love me a little,” she said.
“I do love you, Anna. I’m a cad and a playboy, but I don’t think I could have done that with you without loving you.”
“I’m learning so much. Not just about our bodies, but about relating to you and your other girlfriends. I think I can accept them. Any of them. All of them. I’m looking forward to meeting Elizabeth when she comes out in two weeks,” she said.
“What? Beth is coming out here in two weeks?” This was news to me.
“I talked to her last Sunday afternoon while you were in your session with Patricia. I felt that since I set the schedule, I needed to tell her what was going on. It’s good that you talked to her about being with Patricia. She had an interesting take on it all and said that we were a new generation of teens and it was up to us to set ourselves up to accept each other rather than compete with each other. So, I invited her out. She’s staying at my house.”
“She is? Wow! Thank you for telling me.” I wasn’t sure I was happy with my girlfriends going behind my back.
“I talked to Chris and Ronda. Then I got together with Patricia to be sure it would be okay with everyone. I still need to confirm with Elizabeth, and we’ve scheduled time to talk again tomorrow. If you say you don’t want her to come out, I’ll tell her the deal is off,” Anna said.
“Um… Of course, I want her to come out. I mean, I don’t even know if she drives. She has a driver who carts her around Chicago. If she can come to visit and you are all four okay with it, I’d love to have her here. I’ll call and talk to her when I get home tonight.”
“Of course, you should do that. She’s as important to you as any of the rest of us. And none of us know how long any of us will stay together. We know we’re going to four different places by the end of summer. We want to see if she can visit for longer during the summer so we can all play and date you. And there will be more models this summer. It will be nice to have another helper in the studio,” she said.
“Anna, you think of everything. I just want to hold you and love you tonight.”
“It’s still only eleven. I think you can hold me for at least another hour.” She tucked a hand between us and moved my cock against her stomach, smearing a new coating of precome with it. Each of us made sure the other had another good orgasm before we dressed and went home.
* * *
Chris begged off our date for Tuesday evening, saying she wanted to be sure she was clean and fresh, so we’d go out Wednesday after school. Household rules said we still needed to be back home by ten on school nights, so we decided to go into Huntertown for dinner and then go to the river parking spot for a few hours.
I’ll just say that sliding my bare cock into Christine’s pussy over and over again was a dream come true for both of us. We tried every position we could think of and I left a deposit in her in each position. And when we’d each had a raft of climaxes and I was softening out of her, I held her and kissed her for another half an hour before we got dressed and went home by curfew. I could just live in her pussy and despite being a little sore from the constant pounding that night, Christine felt the same.
I was tempted to ask her to go steady again, but I knew now more than ever that I was definitely having sex with four different girlfriends and would probably soon be doing a fifth. That isn’t what going steady is all about.
The team won our Friday night homecoming game and I officially took Ronda to the Saturday night dance. I escorted her to the stage as she was crowned Homecoming Queen. Then, I danced with Anna and Chris while Ronda had to stand in the receiving line and have a dance with Dave Smith, who was elected king.
We hung out a lot with my other girlfriends, but Ronda and I hit the dance floor with a request to the DJ for a set of swing tunes. We really cut loose, and I spun her around the floor, over my back, between my legs, and under my arm. We got a round of applause when we were finished and someone had to bring her crown to her when we finished because it had flown off at some point.
We finished out the dance with the four of us dancing together. Patricia was back in school, but was maintaining a very low profile socially and not going to any dances or ball games. She was trying to stay under the school radar. So, it was just Anna, Chris, Ronda, and me. But Ronda was my date. We took Anna and then Chris home. I got a very nice kiss from Anna. She got slightly less passionate kisses from Ronda and Chris. She didn’t mind giving them a little kiss, but she wasn’t enthused about any girl-girl action. Ronda and I walked Chris to her door and for a minute it was like old times with the three of us tangling tongues together. Then Chris went in and I took Ronda home.
She reached in her purse and pulled out a radio operated garage door opener and directed me to park in the empty garage. Dr. and Mrs. Mays were conveniently out of town and Danny was staying with Chris’s brother. Probably trying to stay with Chris’s sister, but her parents kept an eye on that little relationship. That meant Ronda and I had her house to ourselves for the night and we went immediately to her room.
I ‘helped’ undress her and hang up her formal. When I hung the dress in her closet, I saw what must have been eight or ten formal gowns hanging there. Apparently, she never wore the same formal to two events and I wondered if she would ever have occasion to wear them again. Girls at our school wore formals to homecoming and prom. For two years, we’d had two homecomings. If she went to all of them—which as a cheerleader, I’m sure she did—that would be six dresses. Two proms made eight. Who knew when girls wore formals for other things? I knew Kelly had mentioned a formal event for the DAR. The school girls’ chorus wore long dresses. I was sure there were other events as well. Guys wore suits to homecoming and dinner jackets to prom. We had it easy.
I took my jacket and shirt off then took my turn in the bathroom after Ronda returned. This would be only the third time I’d ever spent the entire night with a girl and I was looking forward to cuddling up with Ronda in her bed.
And making love. We moved together and I did my best to worship every inch of her beautiful body. Her lips, her neck, her full and sensitive breasts, her thin waist, hips, legs, and positioning myself finally to feast on her hairless slit. She was the only one of my girlfriends and lovers who was shaved bare. Chris was trimmed and her lower lips were shaved. Patricia had such pale blonde hair that her pussy hair was scarcely visible. I hadn’t seen Anna’s hair, but I’d certainly explored a full bush with my fingers the previous week. Elizabeth had a full bush, but was trimmed all around the edges in what she referred to as a bikini cut. I remembered the first time I saw a few of Patricia’s pussy hairs sticking out the sides of her bikini and she tucked them in right in front of me.
Ronda said that shaving completely was kind of a cheerleader thing. I remembered that Pam, Lori, and Avery were all shaved bald. Vicki was trimmed into what she called a landing strip with her lower lips bare. I’d asked Ronda why.
“We don’t have uneven textures making lumps in our panties when we do splits and tumble,” she said. “For me, I like to be licked and I figure it is courteous for me to make sure my boyfriend—or my girlfriend—doesn’t get a mouthful of hair when he or she is pleasing me.”
“Mmm. I’d like to please you,” I said.
“You’re doing a pretty good job right now. I love to have you eat me, but I want you to put your cock in me, too. Chris and I go down on each other a lot. But yours is the only cock that ever enters my pussy.”
“I’m so honored that you let me do that,” I said. “I love having my cock in your pussy.”
“Then come up here and kiss me while you put it in,” she said. “I want you more than ever tonight.”
I gladly kissed my way up her body and fastened my lips to hers. As our tongues matched up, my cock slid smoothly into her tight pussy. That was one thing about Ronda. She was the smallest of my girlfriends and unquestionably the tightest. I think that was partly because of the control she had over her pussy muscles. She contracted them around my cock as I pulled back and relaxed them as I plunged into her. When I paused inside her muscles rippled around me. I’d found that if I angled myself just right, I could scrape along her clit with my cock as I plunged in and out and it drove Ronda wild. When she called out her orgasm, my cock erupted inside her.
“Happy birthday, love,” I said. It was well after midnight and therefore Ronda’s eighteenth birthday. I had the impression that having the house to herself tonight had been the birthday present she asked her parents for. I had five girlfriends and as of tonight, they were all eighteen.
Ronda was the first girl I’d made love to with my bare cock. I was as fascinated to see my come drooling from her pussy as I was with stroking her to another climax while I was recovering from mine. I slid my finger through the mess and down to her butthole to circle it and she gasped as I applied pressure.
“I hear you and Chris liked to play with each other back there while you talk about what I’m doing to Vicki. Does that excite you, girlfriend?”
“Yes,” she panted. She stroked my cock with her hand. “I can’t believe you stuff all of this into that little girl’s butt. I like you to play with mine and pretend that your finger is your cock pressing into me. Yes! Yes, like that. You put your finger in me. Put your cock in my pussy while you have your finger back there. Oh, Nate, I wish I was brave enough to take you there. I just know it would hurt too much. Not like having your finger wiggling around there and making me feel so incredible. I’m going to come. I’m going to come on your cock and your finger at the same time. Oh, fuck me, Nate!”
I fucked her and she wasn’t that far into her climax when I hit mine and filled her again.
“I love you, Ronda. I love us making love. I love to make you come.”
“I love you and I love to have you in me. I just wish Christine was here to clean all this stuff out of me. I want to eat your come out of her now that she’s safe, but we wanted her first time to have you bareback in her to be with just her so she could really enjoy it. Did you enjoy it, Nate? Did you like fucking her wet pussy with your bare cock?”
“Oh, God, yes. I loved fucking both of you when I was wearing a condom, but I love feeling my cock in your pussy with nothing between us but love.”
“Let me see if I can suck you up for another before we fall asleep. If not, we’ll do it again in the morning. And if I’m successful and we fuck again tonight, I’ll still do it again in the morning.”
She was successful.
“It will be interesting to have Elizabeth watching us take these pictures next weekend,” Patricia said.
“Are you okay with that, honey?” I asked as I felt her tummy. I could tell she was a little puffier in the middle than she’d been. Patricia had always had a flat, hard stomach.
“Yeah. I’m becoming more comfortable with your girlfriends knowing I’m pregnant and seeing me. I’m glad Anna came up with this schedule that gives us private time on Sunday afternoon. It really wouldn’t be wise to start publicly dating you. And thank you for calling me your girlfriend, but I’m still more than hung up on Tony. Losing him put a hole in my heart that I might not ever recover from.”
“I’m here for you, baby.”
“Yes. I couldn’t be more grateful. This is the fourth week that you’ve taken my pictures and although you hold me and kiss me, we haven’t made love since the first time. Don’t you think we could go upstairs for a while this afternoon? It would be so nice to be held and loved like you do.”
I picked her up in my arms, still naked from taking her photo, and carried her upstairs to where Anna and I had made up the bed. I’d taken her advice and bought another foam rubber pad to make the bed a little softer and it wasn’t bad. Today, we knew we wouldn’t get interrupted. We had all afternoon and I carefully and gently made love to my newest lover. Her nipples were very sensitive and I paid special attention to them. The way she counted, she was at week fifteen and in what they called the second trimester. What I knew was that no matter how much she missed Tony, and no matter how her body was changing, she was loving and ready for me to enter her and bring her to orgasm while I filled her pussy with my come.
All five of us met the bus Thursday afternoon when Elizabeth stepped off in front of the bank. Of course, she ran to my arms first since I was the only one she didn’t need an introduction to. We had a delicious kiss right in the middle of town. Then she met and hugged each of the girls with a kiss on their cheeks. Ronda and Chris may have snagged her lips with theirs, which Beth tolerated but I didn’t think she was really into.
I talked the situation over with Mom and Dad and they still weren’t sure how it worked with just Chris and Ronda, let alone with three more girls in the mix. But Mom had promised not to judge and was proving true to her word. I think this was more of a test than she’d bargained for, though. Eventually, she and Dad approved me having all five girls over for dinner Thursday night if I prepared it. I’d rushed home from school and got a huge pan of lasagna in the oven, so there wasn’t much left to do when we got to the house. I buttered up a thick loaf of French bread with garlic butter and parmesan cheese, then popped it under the broiler for a couple of minutes. Once it was out, we all sat down to dinner with the family.
Kat was thoroughly in awe of all the girls. And face it, each and every one of my girlfriends could easily have become a professional model for more than just my little photography studio. Mom had seen photos of all five, so she knew they all modeled for me. Kat, however, was glued to Patricia’s side, making sure she had water, asking if she needed anything, and generally fawning on her idol.
I’d also talked to my family about Patricia’s pregnancy, so they knew she was facing a difficult time ahead and that my other girlfriends and I were doing our best to be of help to her.
“Elizabeth, welcome to our home. I hope you don’t have too high of expectations. We’re pretty simple here,” Mom said.
“Oh, Reverend Hart, I don’t hold a family’s home or occupation as a standard of who they are. I know based on my time with Nate and my conversation with the other girls that this is a prestigious home and one of the most respected places in the community and I hold you all in high regard,” Beth answered.
“Oh, my. Nate said you liked big words,” Dad laughed. “I don’t recall ever having lived in a prestigious home before.”
“Rich…” Mom started.
“Mr. Hart, you have no idea, do you? I have been told that you are the leader and instigator of this town’s equivalent of freedom riders,” Beth grinned at him. “I would hope that our mutual commitment to fight racial injustice would make us friends as well as neighbors.”
“Well, that might be a little stretched,” Dad said, looking around the table at the grinning girls. He finally fixed on Patricia.
“Mr. Hart, I for one will never forget nor cease to thank you for coming to Tony’s defense and getting rid of that awful racist constable. The child I’m carrying will have a better life because people like you stand up to be counted,” Patricia said. “Tony considered Nate to be his best friend, and you to be his idol. I will never treat either of you as less than that.”
I think a tear was sparkling in Dad’s eye as he reached out and put his hand on Patricia’s.
“Your precious little baby will have a third set of grandparents standing by any time you need them,” he said softly. “I think you already have a dedicated babysitter beside you there.” He nodded toward Kat and she blushed brightly.
“So, how do you plan to spend your time here this weekend?” Mom asked Elizabeth.
“It’s so kind of Anna to have invited me to stay with her. I understand her family is just as loving as yours. So, I’ll go to school with Anna tomorrow to see what it’s like out here and how it compares to school in the city. My teachers have agreed to consider this a cultural exchange as long as I prepare a paper telling what I’ve discovered while I’m here. As long as I don’t tell them too much,” she giggled.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“I understand there is a basketball game tomorrow night and I plan to go with Nate to watch him work as school photographer. Saturday, we’re celebrating Chris and Ronda’s birthdays with their birthday photoshoot. I understand that’s quite a thing here and I’m happy to have had mine on my birthday in December. Anna and Patricia and I are hanging out Saturday night. Anna tells me that there’s a sweet shop in town that makes the world’s best ice cream sundaes. I’m dying to try one. And finally, Nate has his weekly photo session with Patricia to record the progress of her pregnancy. I feel really privileged that Patricia has consented to let me be present. Then my driver, Deke, will pick me up around three in the afternoon and drive me back to Chicago. It’s a bit of a whirlwind trip. I hope to spend more time out here this summer.”
“That is quite a schedule,” Mom said. In fact, I hadn’t heard most of it before. “I just want you to know, and the rest of you girls need to hear this as well, you are always welcome here. That doesn’t give you any… ah… special privileges while you are here, but if you’d like to study together or work on a project, you are all five welcome in our home.”
“You’re just the best, Reverend Mother Superior,” Chris said. We all laughed and had a good time.
After dinner the girls all helped me clean up the dishes and then I loaded them all in the van to take them home. Patricia lived the farthest out, so I started with her. I walked her to her door and gave her a deep kiss goodnight.
“Chris was right. Your parents are the best. Tony would be so happy that your father offered to be a third grandfather to our baby. And you know I love Kat. I guess, I’m admitting that I love you, too, Nate. Thank you for being the wonderful boy you are.”
She kissed me again and went into the house.
Chris and Ronda were next tonight. I walked with them up to Chris’s door where we all three had intense kisses before I walked Ronda up two doors and kissed her again. When I got to the bus, Elizabeth was in the middle of the front seat with Anna beside her and we drove the three blocks over to Anna’s house. I helped carry Beth’s bags up to the door and then kissed them both goodnight. Anna’s kisses had become far more spirited in the past three weeks. I had to wonder if she did a little of that for Elizabeth’s benefit. Elizabeth responded with a sizzling kiss of her own.
“Don’t forget,” Anna said. “You aren’t responsible for getting anyone to the game tomorrow but Beth. So, make sure your get the seats out of the back of the bus and get the mattress inflated.”
“Anna…”
“And if we don’t actually make it to the game, I’ll just leave that part out of my report,” Beth concluded.
Okay. Seats out and mattress in.
It was fun having Elizabeth in class with us on Friday and introducing her to my classmates at lunch. Leave it to Karen to make things difficult.
“You’re really one of Nate’s girlfriends now? Honestly, Nate? Four girlfriends? How on earth can you even manage that? And why do they tolerate a playboy like you as their boyfriend?”
I was about to suggest she mind her own business, but Beth jumped in.
“Four? I thought there were five,” she said. I shook my head at her. “Or was it six? Karen, do you mean to tell me you aren’t one of his girlfriends?”
“I’m engaged to Andy here!”
“Oh, what a shame. I mean, congratulations, Andy. She’s sooo cute! You must be a real winner!”
“No, I’m just a regular…” He got an elbow in the ribs. “I mean, yeah. I’m really a winner to have gotten Karen before Nate did. I think she’d be too much for him to handle anyway.” He put an arm around Karen and squeezed her to him.
“But look around, Beth,” Pris joined in, then dropped her voice to a whisper. “There are only five girls in the whole senior class Nate hasn’t seen naked. He only kept the crème de la crème.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie! That book is so hot!”
“Oh yes. My whole photo set is book covers. Ever since reading that one I’ve admired the best of the best. And they all gather around Nate.”
“You, too, Pris?” Beth asked.
“Oh, yes. My pictures are finally on display in the studio. I’ve spent the past year running around the studio naked and he hardly notices.”
“Pris, you don’t!” Karen said. Pris just looked at her with wide innocent eyes. What Karen doesn’t know.
It was finally time for my date with Elizabeth and I picked her up at school. She’d walked over with Anna to catch the fan bus, but got in my bus instead. We took off.
“I understand there are a lot more interesting places to visit around here than a basketball game on Friday night,” Elizabeth said, snuggling up to me in the VW.
“Why don’t I take you on a quick tour of Huntertown so you can see what we have to do out here in the boondocks,” I said. “Then, if you like, I know a nice little overlook where you can see the boats on the Mississippi.”
“Oh, that sounds nice. Can you see the boats from the mattress in back?”
“No. I haven’t built a riser in back to put the mattress up at head height. I keep measuring and debating, but I think I’d constantly be hitting my head.”
“Well, I just have to forgo the view, then. Park wherever you want to,” Beth laughed.
I did drive her through town and pointed out the movie theater, the best restaurants, and the second hand store where I’d recently found a daybed somewhat like the one in the studio in Chicago. Then we drove out to the ferry launch overlook. After spending almost a minute looking out across the river, we got out of the van and into the back. I made sure the emergency brake was set and the doors were locked and settled down in the blankets with Beth.
“Have you had a good time since coming out here, Beth?” I asked.
“Everything I’ve seen tells me that I made a good choice when I decided to become involved with you. Your family, your friends, and especially your girlfriends tell me all I needed to know. It’s hard to have a relationship with someone who’s 150 miles away and only have a conversation late on Sunday nights. But I think it’s worth it if we can just get together once in a while. I know it’s hard because of school and all, but if we weather this, I think we’ll have a great time when we get to college.”
“You kind of bowled me over the day I took your pictures. I never expected to leave Chicago with another girlfriend. I’d been looking at a future that said when next fall came, I wouldn’t have any girlfriends. We’d all be scattered to the wind.”
“Come and make love to me. Let me remind you what’s waiting in Chicago for you.”
I made love to Elizabeth until I knew I needed to get her back to Anna’s house. I’d have just taken her home to my house if I could get away with it.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
