Chapter 11

“I didn’t say you were. Just some of the things you like to wear—sometimes—are a little slutty.”

Cherry said, “I just felt like being comfy today. That’s all.”

Her Mom accepted the explanation, completely oblivious to what Cherry wore underneath.

Meanwhile, I had gone back to my project of finding a solution to the dangerous intersection. The transition of getting back to work was a gradual one; I was having a difficult time putting the conversations, bubble bath and fashion shows behind me. But I told myself that any guy with a pulse would be having the same problem.

Looking over the multiple pictures and notes I’d made about my observations, I thought back to what Cherry said when I told her of the dead-end I was running into. She said that you just had to ‘stop and step back from it’ sometimes.

Her words (especially the ‘step back’ part) echoed in my head and I had a sudden thought: the problem wasn’t AT the intersection; it was the stretch of interstate that seamlessly transitioned into local roads with nothing more than road signs to warn about the transition. That meant the REAL problem was at least ¾ of a mile before the intersection.

I thought if there was a way to make sure that ALL drivers were completely aware of what lay ahead, the problem would be solved. I asked myself, ‘how do you get someone to know that there is a stop on what appears to be an interstate?

Almost as soon as I asked the question, I had the answer. It was so unbelievably stupid and simple that I had difficulty in believing it might work. The solution in simplest terms was a toll booth. The lanes could be divided with guard rails and heavy plastic poles leading up to the rails: an unaware driver would notice hitting the poles and the only thing to be hurt is a front bumper and maybe a headlight.

He would regain control before reaching the guard rails and another disaster would be averted. Throw in some ‘rumple strips’ for good measure and maybe even a modest speed bump 50 yards from the intersection and there would never be another “Katie tragedy” at this intersection again!

I went into overdrive to put the presentation together; it had to be ready before the town hall meeting on Wednesday! I knew that exact distances for placement of the various elements to the concept would have to be calculated by an actual engineer, so I didn’t worry about those things too much. Instead I just focused on making it look neatly organized, well thought out, and most importantly, fool-proof and too safe to say ‘no’.

Reaching a good stopping point for the night, I cleaned up a bit and realized I was starting to feel sick. As I was trying to figure out why, it dawned on me that I had not eaten a thing all day. I went to the fridge and raided it like a bear in a camper’s cooler. With my stomach full, I finally noticed that a new level of funk was emanating from me; it was time to get a shower.

The phone rang with a FaceTime call just as I was about to step into the shower. Knowing it was Cherry, I answered it.

Cherry took one look at me and teasingly said, “Oh, you dirty-dirty man! Are you just walking around like that?”

I said, “Very funny; I was just getting in the shower. How was your day?”

She said, “It was pretty good. I got some good news!”

Thinking I might know what it was I asked, “Did you get your period?”

“No, not yet; that’s not it...”

“Oh. What’s the good news, then?” I asked.

She said, “The warden is reducing my sentence by half; I’m off of being grounded after school Monday!”

A bit surprised I said, “Oh, ok. That is good news! Maybe we can get together for that cup of coffee you agreed to having with me?”

Confused, Cherry asked, “What? What cup of coffee?”

I explained, “At the game; you said you’d meet me for coffee so we could get to know each other more.”

She smiled and said, “Right—THAT cup of coffee. I’m going to have to say: ‘we’ll see’. I have practice Monday after school and I’ll let you guess who is taking me home ... But we’ll do that soon. Ok?”

I understood and said, “For you: I will wait.”

Without warning, Cherry pulled her sweat shirt over her head and discarded it on the floor. She was still wearing the sheer red bra from that morning. She propped the phone up again in the bathroom and I could see her red garter belt above the belt line of her jeans.

After popping the button open and pushing the zipper down, she splayed the fly open as wide as she could and I could not see any sign of the tiny panties she put on that morning. For a moment I wondered if she had opted to take them off and go ‘commando’, but as she slipped the denim garment down, the side strings came into view; leading the way to the tiny triangle of clear, red fabric.

The jeans came off and Cherry looked like she just jumped off the pages of a Playboy magazine (not that the magazine had ever featured anyone as beautiful as my Cherry... )!

I said, “You are simply stunning. I can’t believe you are still wearing those...”

She said, “I told you: they feel good. They had me thinking about you with every move I made—all day.”

“I think about you all day, too—and I wear boxers!”

Cherry puckered her lips at me and released the garter’s suspender straps from the tops of her thigh-high stockings before hooking her fingers under the side strings to the panties and working them down.

Once they were off, she stood and I could easily see an imprint of where they sat on her—even her mons had a triangle pressed into it. She sat on her vanity stool, slid her stockings off and stood; naked and ready to get in the shower.

We ended the call and took our showers; separate, but together in spirit. I texted her when I got out of the shower, but not surprisingly, she took a little longer. Almost as soon as she got out, she called to continue our FaceTime conversation. She was wrapped in towels; one wrapped around her at chest level—the second swirled on top of her head to dry her hair.

As we talked, Cherry went about her nighttime beauty routine in preparation for bed. As she finished, she looked at her phone screen to see me in my boxers and a t-shirt and made a disappointed face.

She said, “I thought maybe you would wear the same thing to bed that I’m going to wear...”

My first thought was of one of her pairs of panties hanging on my bed and that was a strange thought to me. I said, “I don’t think either pair of you panties here would fit me, for one thing. And for another, that’s a little weird, don’t you think?”

Cherry looked at me like I just said the dumbest thing she’d ever heard in her life and said, “You really are crazy. You know that, right? I wasn’t talking about that; I was talking about this...”

Cherry pulled her towel off to one side and held it up and away from her completely bare body. Seeing her like that never got old. It had long since become pointless to look at online porn: there was nothing there that did for me what Cherry could do.

I couldn’t even remember when I last looked at porn or even what sites I used to surf. Without a word, I stripped out of my t-shirt and before it cleared my head she was pulling her hair out of the second towel. I removed my boxers and we were both naked.

And even though she was about 45 minutes away from me, there was a connection to her, just knowing that we were doing this together. We went to bed and simply talked until one of us fell asleep; neither of us knew which one was the first to pass out.

The next morning I saw that the call had become disconnected so I tried to call her back. When the phone call went straight to voice mail, I figured the call had ended because her phone died—she was occasionally bad about charging her phone. But that was probably for the better since I still had some work to do on my project; mostly finishing touches and getting an outline of what I needed to say so I wouldn’t get up there and start stammering for words.

I had finished the outline and was going over what I was going to say in my head when Cherry finally called to say ‘good morning’ (even though it was almost noon). I made fun of her for being ‘lazy’ on the weekends, but truth be told, I was the same way when I was in school. I confessed to my own weekend schedule at her age and ‘let her off the hook’ easy.