Chapter 6

The next day, Susan and I had to drive to town to pick up more boxes. I got up early, took a quick shower, put on my clothes, and headed down the hill to her house. When I got there, she was cooking breakfast. I knocked and then opened the door without waiting for her to turn.

“Morning,” she said cheerfully.

The aroma of french toast filled the kitchen, and she smiled at me when I took a deep breath to enjoy the smell.

“I miss cooking breakfast for the boys,” she said.

She set a plate in front of me and looked pointedly at my shorts. I grinned sheepishly and slid them down my hips.

“I couldn’t do this with the boys, though,” she said, sliding to the floor, her eyes locked on my stiffening penis.

She had her fill of me, and I had my fill of french toast. Afterward, she fixed herself a piece of plain toast and I followed her, still sans shorts, back to her bedroom. Once there, she sat cross-legged in the center of the bed and gestured for me to join her.

“Ah, the stamina of youth,” she said when she saw my semi-aroused state. “Hold that thought.”

“Sure,” I said with a grin. “What’s going on?”

“We need to talk.”

At her serious tone, I began to squirm a little. Had I done something?

“You know,” she said. “You’re a lot more fun when you forget to feel sorry for yourself.”

I blinked at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I finally asked.

“Well, it means what it sounds like. When you’re not feeling sorry for yourself, you’re pretty fun to be around.”

When I didn’t say anything, she continued.

“Are you ready to talk about whatever’s been bothering you?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” In reality, I did, of course. I just didn’t want to think about it. Things had been going so well for the past couple of days. I thought that if I didn’t worry about Gina or Amy, or any other woman besides Susan, I wouldn’t get depressed. I didn’t want to talk about things at all, but in a way I did. I guess I desperately wanted to talk to Susan about what I should do, but I didn’t have the courage to bring things up myself.

“Spit it out,” she said, sensing my reluctance.

“It’s about a girl,” I said tentatively.

She merely nodded.

“There’s this girl ... Amy ... from school. Although I guess I should say there was this girl...”

“Don’t get all mopey about it,” Susan admonished. “Just tell me about her.”

So I did. I told her about my school year, all the parts I’d left out when we talked on Sunday. I told her about how Amy and I had become friends, and then gone on double dates with Scott and Shannon. I told her about how Gina and I had drifted apart when I was living my life on a wrestling mat. I told her about Amy and the hot tub, and then the next morning. I told her about the pregnancy scare. I told her everything. With a few insightful questions, she drew more information out of me, but for the most part, she just let me talk.

“The worst part is,” I said, nearly forty-five minutes later, “I don’t know what to tell Gina. But I’m going to face things like a man.”

She gazed at me serenely, long enough to make me begin to squirm again. “Are you serious about that?” she finally asked.

Her penetrating stare put me off a little, but I swallowed hard and nodded. I guess I expected her to sympathize with me, or maybe tell me that everything would work itself out.

“Well, if you’re going to face things like a man, you’d better start acting like one,” she said flatly.

I blinked at her, too stunned to say anything.

“Half of being an adult, of being a man, is taking the good with the bad and not whining about it. Whining never solved anything, and it makes you sound like a child.”

“Whining... ?”

“Yes, whining,” she said. “I understand you’re in a tough situation, and it may not be entirely your fault. But you still need to deal with the problem rather than moaning about how you don’t know what to do.”

“Moaning... ?”

“Did you ever talk to your parents about any of this?”

I shook my head sullenly. I wasn’t taking kindly to being told I was whining and moaning.

“Why not?”

I shrugged.

When she didn’t say anything else, I cast about for an answer. I knew she expected one, and that she wasn’t going to continue until she got one. “What would they know about it?” I finally asked hotly. “How could they help?”

“Do you honestly think that?” she asked calmly.

I glared at her, hoping my expression alone was answer enough. I expected her to get angry, or to yell at me. Instead, her eyes softened and she took a deep breath.

“Watching you go through this has been one of the hardest things your mother has ever had to do. Did you know that?”

For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. I stared at her and everything around me became a formless blur. “Huh?” I finally croaked.

“It’s been tearing her up inside, knowing what you were going through and not being able to help.”

“She knew?” I gasped.

Susan nodded. “She figured out most of it, yes.”

“How?” My mouth was suddenly dry and I had horrible visions of being grounded for the rest of my life.

“She’s your mother, Paul,” Susan said, her voice softening. “You think she doesn’t pay attention to you, doesn’t notice your moods?”

I swallowed hard.

“She figured out what was going on with Amy when you got that phone call that one morning.”

I immediately knew: the morning when Amy told me she’d gotten her period. I cleared my throat and swallowed hard, but my mouth still felt filled with cotton. “How?” Couldn’t I think of anything better to say?!

“How do you think?” Susan asked, her voice laden with irony. “She’s a smart woman, Paul. Give her a little credit.”

I nodded, still too shocked to speak.

“And while you’re at it, give her a little credit for wanting to help you. You’ve put her through a really hard time for the past couple of months. Did you know that?”

I shook my head.

“Well, you have. If you’ve got a problem, no matter how bad you think it is, you can always talk to her. And if you don’t think you can talk to her, think again, because you’re probably wrong. What were you thinking, not talking to the one person in your life guaranteed to love you no matter what?”

“I...”

“Do you think she’d stop loving you because you’re sixteen, and did something dumb, like practically every sixteen-year-old in the history of the world, at one time or another? So ... What were you thinking?”

“I...”

“You weren’t,” she said with finality. It was an indictment.

I started to defend myself, but she frowned slightly, and I knew it was futile. I hung my head and shook it morosely.

“Paul,” she said to the top of my head. “My father used to tell me that there are reasons, and there are excuses. He wasn’t interested in the excuses, only the reasons. So, what’s the reason you didn’t talk to your mom?”

I thought about it long and hard, and Susan let me. I knew what the answer was, but I couldn’t form the words. Finally, I took a deep breath. “I was scared,” I admitted.

“Scared that Amy might be pregnant?” she asked rhetorically. “Scared about how your parents would react, and probably about how hers would react if she were? Scared about how things were going with Gina? Scared about a lot of things, right?”

I nodded, trying to blink back the tears that were welling up.

“That’s okay, Paul,” she said soothingly. “It’s okay to be scared. That’s what your family and friends are there for, to help you when you’re scared, or need advice, or just want someone to talk to.”

“What would she know about it?” I asked, trying to salvage some of my dignity.

Susan lifted my chin with her finger and smiled gently. “A lot,” she said simply.

I looked away, determined not to let her see me cry.

She put her hand on my knee—a firm, reassuring presence—and I unexplainably felt better. “You can always talk to your mom. Or to me,” she said softly. “You know that, don’t you?”

I nodded moodily.

“Paul, look at me when you answer. And mean it.”

I looked at her defiantly, my eyes still brimming with unshed tears. At her gentle expression, mine softened somewhat. She looked at me wordlessly and waited for me to answer. “I know,” I said at last.

She looked at me for a long moment, and then nodded. “I know you do.” She was silent for a moment more while I wiped my eyes. “Don’t do this to your mother again. She was a young mother and watched her husband go off to fight a war. She said that watching you tie yourself in knots was worse than that ever was. Your mom deserves better, and you know it.”

I nodded again, considerably less sullen.

She reached out and tenderly caressed my cheek. “You’re a fine young man, Paul. You’re going to make an even better grown man.”

I felt heat rising in my cheeks.

“Now, let’s talk about what you want to do about Gina,” she said. “And no whining.”

For a moment, I was stung by her words, but when I looked at her gentle expression, the resentment drained out of me. Still not trusting myself to speak, I nodded.

“Men don’t whine about their problems, they fix them, or they get over it. Whining doesn’t do anyone any good, and it makes you sound pathetic.”

“All right, already!” I said hotly. “I get the point about the whining. No more whining. Okay? Can we just get on with figuring out how to solve my problems?”

She grinned at me and arched an eyebrow. “Ah,” she said cryptically. “A glimmer of hope.”

“What?”

“Never mind,” she said with a smug grin. “First, you need to figure out how you feel about Gina and Amy. Do you love Gina?”

“Very much.”

“And what about Amy?”

“I thought I did.”

“But you’re not sure?”

“I was,” I said.

“What made you change your mind?”

I thought about it for a moment, but couldn’t come up with anything definitive.

“Can you see yourself spending the rest of your life with Gina?”

I nodded quickly.

“With Amy?”

“I guess.”

“You don’t sound very convincing,” she said.

“Well, it’s not that. I could easily see Amy as my wife, but...”

“But what?”

“Well,” I said, thinking hard. “I dunno. I guess maybe it’s because that’s all she’d like to be.”

With a gesture, she invited me to continue.

“I mean, Amy’s great, don’t get me wrong. She’s cute, and fun to be with, and easy to talk to and all. But...” I just couldn’t put my finger on it. “I guess she’d be happy being my wife.”

“And you don’t think Gina would?”

“It’s not that, I think Gina would. But with Amy, it’s like ... it’s like she’d be happy being just my wife.” With a start, I realized I’d hit on something. “That’s it,” I said with growing certainty. “Gina wouldn’t want to be just my wife, she wants to be a doctor. With Amy, we never really talked about it, but I always got the impression that she really just wanted to get married and have babies.”

“You don’t want to have children?” Susan asked.

I shook my head. “I want kids. But Gina and I haven’t talked about it,” I said, trying not to blush. “I know from things she’s said that she wants to have kids someday, though.”

“Then what is it?”

I got the idea that Susan knew where the conversation was going, but she wanted me to get us there. “I dunno. I guess it’s that with Amy, all she really wants, would want, is to be my wife. She wouldn’t want more, I don’t think.”

Susan nodded and motioned for me to continue.

“But with Gina, she wants to be something more than just a wife and mother.”

“‘Just a wife and mother’ is a pretty tough job,” she said. “Much tougher than most men realize.”

I looked at her and furrowed my brow in confusion.

“Your mom is ‘just a wife and mother,’” she said archly, but without heat. “I was ‘just a wife and mother.’”

“I don’t mean it like that...”

“I know you don’t,” Susan said placatingly. “But I want to talk about this for a moment. You need to understand that being a wife and mother isn’t the easiest thing in the world. Think about all the things your mother does for you.”

“I know she does a lot,” I said, although it sounded insincere, even to me. “But it’s not like she has a job...”

“Ha!” Susan snorted. “You don’t think so?!”

My eyes widened and I was taken aback by the force of her reaction.

“Do you cook?” she asked suddenly.

“No.”

“Do you do laundry?”

A headshake.

“Do you clean the house?”

“I have to help out,” I said, but it was a hollow protest.

“Do you go grocery shopping?”

“Sometimes. I mean, I help.”

“Every day?”

Another headshake.

“Do you... ?”

“Okay, I get it. She does a lot. Okay?”

Susan nodded, finally letting up. “Don’t ever think that being a wife and mother isn’t a job, Paul. In a lot of ways, it’s a tougher job than most men have. Most men get to leave their jobs at the end of the day and go home to their wife and family. Where does a wife go after her workday is done? She doesn’t get to leave ‘the office’ and go somewhere where her meals are fixed, her sheets are clean, and someone remembered to buy more toilet paper.”

I worked my mouth soundlessly, but couldn’t think of a thing to say.

“Your mom has a job, a full-time job. You, your sister, your father, and your home are it.”

“Wow.” I blinked, still trying to get my mind around what she’d just told me.

“Wow, indeed.”

Susan let me think for a moment, and I’m sure she knew what I was thinking about. I guess for the first time in my life, I started to really appreciate all that Mom did for us. Even at camp, on our “vacation,” she did laundry, went grocery shopping, and swept out the cabin. Erin and I had to change our own sheets, and we had to pick up after ourselves, but aside from the odd bowl of cereal fixed in the morning, we did little else to help out. I was a little overawed when I thought about all that Mom did, most of it without me even noticing it.

“It’s a lot,” Susan said, as if reading my mind. “Now that you think about it.”

I nodded dumbly.

“So ... If Amy wants to be ‘just a wife and mother,’ as you think she does, what’s the matter with that?”

“I guess I hadn’t thought about it that much,” I said lamely.

“Well, I’m sure you have,” Susan said. “Just not in those terms. Just as long as you don’t spout any more nonsense about being a wife and mother and ‘not having a job.’”

I shook my head quickly.

“So why don’t you think you’d be happy with Amy, without her having a job outside the home?”

I heard the subtle emphasis in her voice and grinned sheepishly. “I don’t know, really,” I said. “I can’t explain it. I guess maybe I just want to wait before I have kids ... before we have kids, I mean. Whoever I end up marrying, that is. I want to wait, so my wife can have a job, and maybe the start of a career ... if she wants ... so she’ll know what she’s trading in.”

“Trading in?”

“If she decides to become a wife and mother. I mean, if she decides to have a full-time job at home.”

Susan playfully rapped her knuckles on my forehead. “There is some learning going on in there.”

I blushed and nodded.

“It’s okay to want a wife who has a career,” she said gently. “When I got married, women didn’t have a lot of career options. With women’s lib, girls today have a lot more choices. In some ways, that’s a good thing. But you need to remember that family is probably still the most important thing. Make sure you marry a woman who knows how to balance career and family.”

I nodded.

“And make sure you know how to balance career and family. Marriage is a partnership. It’s not always fifty-fifty, but both of you have to work at it.”

I nodded again.

“Okay,” Susan said lightheartedly. “Down off my soapbox. Let’s figure out what to do about the women in your life.”

“But...”

“Uh-uh! No whining.”

“Sorry.”

“Remember, fix the problem, or get over it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, rolling my eyes.

She grinned at me but quickly turned serious. “I’ve got a pretty important question for you, and I want you to think about it before you answer me. First, however, it requires a little explanation.”

“More explanation?” I asked, feigning exasperation.

She grinned and nodded. “More. Bear with me.” She paused for a moment to gather her thoughts. “You can be in love with more than one person. Even more than one person at a time. But you can really only be committed to one person at a time. Do you understand?”

I shook my head.

“If you’re in love with someone, say two someones: Gina, and Amy, for instance.”

“For instance,” I said, my voice dripping with irony.

Susan smiled briefly and then continued. “But you could only commit yourself to one of them, to always return to that girl, to think of her before anyone else, even yourself, who would it be? Who would you have a committed relationship with?”

“I see what you mean,” I said, understanding why she wanted me to take my time before answering. “Commitment’s like marriage, only not so legal and all.”

“Exactly,” she said, nodding. “Marriage is simply the legal recognition of a couple’s commitment to each other. But you can have that commitment without being married.”

The concept as a whole was a lot easier to understand than the “love, in love” thing had been, the year before. All of a sudden, a thought occurred to me. Maybe I had to understand the difference between love and in love before I could understand about commitment. I was staggered by the implications, and a little intrigued about what came next.

“Which girl would you have a committed relationship with?” Susan asked. “Amy, or Gina?”

I pretended to think about it long and hard, but the answer had leapt to my mind as soon as she’d finished asking the question. The answer was simple. Far simpler than I thought it had any right to be, and I felt that I should at least look like I was giving it due consideration.

Finally, I looked up at Susan. “Gina.” Simply saying her name, with all that it implied, felt like a load had been lifted from my shoulders.

Susan squeezed my hand reassuringly and smiled at me. “Good.” She paused for a moment, then looked at me mischievously. “Now, we’ll talk the morning away if we stay here. We have work to do,” she said, looking at the bedside clock. “We can figure out what you’re going to say to Gina later.”

I nodded.

“Right now, I need a shower.” She started to get up, tugging me with her. “C’mon, let’s go.”

“But I already showered,” I said.

Susan grinned at me indulgently. “I don’t want you in the shower to get you clean, Paul.” She looked pointedly at my penis.

“Oh! Okay.” I smiled at her, truly happy for the first time in ... in a long time. I still had a lot of things to figure out, and the future was hardly assured, but at least I knew what—or rather, who—I wanted.

***

Once in the shower, we were barely wet before Susan dropped to her knees and sucked me into her mouth. I leaned my head back and let the hot water wash over my hair and down my body. It felt almost as good as her mouth did. Under her ministrations, I quickly became fully erect.

Susan slid her lips up the length of my shaft and let it slip from her mouth. I looked down at her water-beaded face and watched as she kissed down the length of my cock. When she reached the base, she licked and sucked my balls while stroking me with her left hand.

When she’d had enough of my balls, she sucked and nipped her way back up my member and captured the head between her soft, supple lips. She flicked her tongue against the slit at the tip, and I shuddered at the sensation. Her left hand still wrapped around the base, she began sucking more of my cock into her mouth, caressing me with her tongue as she did.

I’d already come once that day, and was perfectly content to let her take her time. I knew she enjoyed sucking my dick, and I enjoyed simply watching her and seeing the obvious pleasure she experienced.

She took her time, but soon had her lips wrapped around the very base of my organ. She sucked hard and moved her head side-to-side at the same time, making me groan. I felt the head of my cock ease out of her throat as she pulled back, and the feeling as it slid down the length of her tongue was exquisite.

At last, she let my dick slip free and looked up at me with lust-filled eyes. By unspoken agreement, I helped her to her feet and turned her away from me. She leaned against me as I cupped her heavy breasts and gently pinched her swollen nipples. She shuddered and arched her back, pressing her ass against my stiffness. I thrust my hips forward at the same time I began twisting her nipples, and she cried out in surprise and pleasure.

The slippery tip of my cock slid between her legs and bumped against her moist sex. She shuddered again and began rocking her hips back and forth. I hefted her breasts in my hands and tenderly kneaded them.

“You have the greatest tits,” I said.

“Mmmmm,” she said, leaning back against me. “You say the nicest things.”

“Did you know,” I asked, feeling her shiver with arousal, “that when I first got home, after last summer, I used to jerk off two, sometimes three times a night, just thinking about you?”

She leaned her head against my shoulder and sighed. “You did?”

“Mmm hmm. I’d think of you sucking me, and I’d instantly get hard. After that, I’d have to jerk off.” I trailed one hand down her stomach and began playing with her pussy. Her clit was soon a hard little bud and she was whimpering softly. “But you know what I thought about most?”

She was silent for a moment, lost in the pleasure radiating from her pussy.

“That first time you fucked me.”

“Yes,” she hissed.

“When we were in the courtyard shower, and you bent over in front of me. The water was so cold on my hard cock.” I punctuated my statement with a firm thrust of my hips. “And your pussy was so warm and smooth. It felt so wonderful.” I rubbed my shaft along her puffy labia.

Susan moaned inarticulately and I smiled to myself.

“There’s only one thing that bothered me about that first time,” I said, running my fingers in lazy circles around her clit.

“Whassat... ?”

“You didn’t come, that first time.”

She shook her head, but said nothing.

“At night, when I was thinking about you and stroking my cock...” I slid my cock along the length of her slit and felt her lips begin to part before me. “I’d think about how I wanted to fuck you, how I wanted to make you come for me, if I could do it over.”

“Oh, Paul...”

I bumped my hips against her ass and tilted them upward. The tip of my dick pressed into the folds of her slick pussy and I trailed my fingers over her engorged clit.

“Mmmmm.”

“So you know what I want to do?”

She shook her head.

“I want to make one of my fantasies come true. It’s a little one, nothing wild or crazy, but it’s one I have a lot.”

With one hand on her sensitive nipple, the other one rubbing her clit, and my cock sliding back and forth in her channel, she was beyond coherent speech.

“It’s going to be like that first time, in the shower. We’re not outside, but this is close enough.”

She nodded wordlessly.

“And I’m going to fuck you from behind, like that first time.”

She whimpered and arched her back, trying to press down against my stiff cock.

“Only now,” I said, letting the words hang in the air as I pressed two fingers against the hooded base of her clit and pulled on her nipple. I leaned close to her body and pressed my lips against her ear. “Only now,” I said slowly, “I know a lot more about a woman’s body.”

With that, I gently pressed her forward until she was half bent over, with her palms flat against the far wall, supporting her weight. I kept my hips pressed against her ass, and my cock against her labia, as I put my hands on her waist. I tilted my hips up and then pulled back slowly, letting the bulbous head of my dick drag along her slit. She shuddered with the passage and I gripped her hips to steady her.

I took one hand off her waist and aimed my manhood at her pussy, easing forward until I felt the head begin to spread her open. I slipped forward a little, until just the crown was inside her, then put my hand back on her waist. In a move that was far more practiced than the first clumsy time we’d had sex, I slid forward and seated my cock in her depths.

Susan shuddered as my girth spread her open, and once I was buried as deeply as possible, I held my hips motionless. I looked down and simply marveled at the gentle curve of her ass as it flared toward her hips, and then pinched in at her waist, only to flare again over her ribs and shoulders.

I ran my palms up along her flanks, teasing the sides of her dangling breasts with my fingertips, and finally rested my hands on her shoulders. I gathered her wet hair and draped it over her left shoulder. She looked back at me over her right as I gently caressed the line of her cheek with my finger. Her eyelids drooped in pleasure when I began to slide my hips back in preparation for the first thrust. When it came, it was short and gentle, and she whimpered.

As I began to thrust into her, I dragged my hands down the line of her back and rested them on her hips. I increased the tempo of my thrusts, but kept them strong and steady. Every third or fourth time my hips slapped into her ass, I rotated them slightly and ground my cock into the walls of her pussy. She was moaning and thrusting back at me, clearly enjoying herself.

Oh yes, I thought to myself, I’d learned a lot since those first fumbling sessions. I knew how to make her happy, and I enjoyed doing it. With both hands, I reached around and cupped her pendulous breasts, teasing her distended nipples with thumbs and forefingers. She groaned in delight when I pulled on them and twisted.

I knew I wasn’t in danger of shooting off too soon, but I still used most of the tricks I’d learned, to prolong our enjoyment. When I felt my orgasm building, I slowed my pace, barely moving within her. In order to keep her on the edge, I slid one hand down her stomach and started teasing her fully exposed clit.

Finally, I knew I was too close to my own climax to keep thrusting, so I buried my rod deep in her pussy and concentrated on getting her off. With one hand on the far shower wall to support myself, I bent over her back, pressing the skin of my chest against her flesh. She gasped at the contact and writhed, trying to get me to keep thrusting within her. I kept my cock motionless, however, as I began moving my fingers in ever-tightening circles around her clit.

Susan went wild and her pussy started spasming. I knew she was close to orgasm, and I drove her toward it with my fingers. She hung her head, and with a low, keening moan, she started to come. Her pussy gripped me and I clenched my buttocks, swelling my cock against her internal muscles. I felt her clit disappear as she cried out and threw her head back, slinging droplets of water against my face as her hair slapped over my shoulder. She almost clipped my chin with her head when she did, but I didn’t let that distract me from rubbing her pussy.

Her whole body shuddered with the force of her climax, and I could feel her pussy spasming around my intruding shaft. It was like a firm, wet glove gripping my cock, squeezing me rhythmically. Finally, her orgasm began to subside, and she started to collapse forward, both hands slipping down the wall. I quickly moved my right hand from her pussy and brought it up under her, holding her up. My left hand still pressed against the wall, holding us both.

She panted with the aftereffects of her orgasm, and I smiled to myself. My own climax was no longer imminent, so I kept supporting her and began to gently move my hips back and forth. A low moan escaped her as my hard shaft slid over her vaginal walls. I pumped into her slowly, not wanting to over-stimulate her clit. I knew the motion of my cock—gently sawing in and out of her pussy—would move her labia against the sensitive pearl of nerves. I wanted her to feel the sensation, but not be overwhelmed by it.

Slowly, very slowly, she started moving her hips back against me, another orgasm building deep within her. I was still supporting us both, amazed by the stamina that days, weeks, and months of strength training had given me. Susan put one hand on the wall and tried to support herself, but I didn’t let her go just yet. With her other hand, she began pulling on first one nipple, then the other, twisting them far harder than I ever would have.

I felt my own orgasm welling up again, and thrust myself into her. She groaned when I stopped moving, but I could tell by the way my cock was throbbing that it had been a close call. My balls were already tight against my body, and I felt my organ throb like I was coming, but I knew I wasn’t ejaculating. It was like having an orgasm without squirting, and I simply closed my eyes and enjoyed it.