Chapter 2

October 21st, 1983 continued

Finally, we got dressed, or started to. While Laurel was trying to put on panties, (a process I found utterly fascinating) we discovered a major problem for our delayed “DQ date”. Laurel was incredibly sore down there.

She quickly realized that she’d be too sore to ride her bike. So much for going to DQ, or anywhere popular for a ‘statement date’ for that matter. Laurel assuaged my guilt and, with a little goading, I admitted that my (obviously reddened) member was sore as well. We began plotting alternatives for our evening.

I had completely forgotten about Shelly and Jake ... and about Jake asking me to cover for their date.

We talked it over, both somehow a little embarrassed by the cause of Laurel’s discomfort. I had made apologetic noises and I quickly agreed when she told me that I could ‘kiss it better’, after we ate. I was just starting to talk her into letting me try my healing skills when my stomach growled ... quickly followed by an answering blurbling from my lover’s tummy. Our eyes both went comically wide, we both snorted almost in sync, and then we were rolling on the bed, lost in laughter. My sides hurt by the time we stopped laughing! Thankfully, we had changed the sheets and put her bedding into the wash after our shower. I had even impressed my girlfriend with my laundry knowledge!

We acknowledged that “playtime” would wait as we were both famished. I did find that my lower back was quite sore, and various muscles in my legs, arms, and especially shoulders were all fatigued. Who knew that marathon sex was such a good workout?

Laurel didn’t specify where she hurt beyond, ‘down there’.

A compromise was reached on food. It wasn’t as simple as calling for delivery, we (she) had quickly decided that we wanted to make a “statement date”. Plus, my new girlfriend announced that she wanted to buy my meal as a late birthday present. (Never mind that she’d already given me something last week.)

We had a new girl in class, Lupe Torres, who also had an October birthday. So, as with other months with multiple birthdays, we’d had our party on the Friday closest to mid-month. Laurel had gotten me a monogrammed mechanical drafting pencil set, which I now realized showed just how much she knew me as I truly loved to draw and sketch. It really impressed me even as it solidified in my mind that we really were boyfriend-girlfriend. I really liked thinking about her that way!

Anyway, our bodies were clean, though Laurel had been embarrassed when I watched her put a pad in her cute pink panties. “There’s still some of you ... up in there” she’d explained, beet red in the face. I kept giving her little kisses all over her face until she giggled and we kept getting dressed. My girlfriend is not just sexy, she’s adorable! Our stomachs had continued growling as we’d been discussing food and I finally looked at a clock, it was almost six thirty in the evening!

We really only had two choices that were close enough for a short walk: Lorenzo’s, a mid-price, fairly upscale Italian place; or Tico’s Tacos, which had really good food, but only had outdoor seating and mostly did takeout this time of year. Keep in mind that, while it wasn’t exactly cold here in mid October, it was going to get dark soon and we didn’t want to be out really late, especially as we were going to be walking.

So it was that my first date with my first lover was the same day that we went to a fairly expensive restaurant (for 14 yr olds). In the social parlance of our teen peers, it would seem like we must have been dating for months and some would even wonder if we were getting engaged. Yes, teenagers that dumb like that. Laurel was actually super excited because she knew that her neighbor down the street worked as a waitress at Lorenzo’s. Her Sophomore in high school neighbor, who was always gossiping about who she had seen out at “her restaurant”. Laurel assured me that our ‘relationship status’ would be all over the school by lunchtime tomorrow. She gave me another one of those ‘addicting smiles’ and I was quickly nodding along like a good little addict.

And then we realized that we had (yet another) snag in our “public proclamation date” plan: I was wearing a workout shirt and jeans. My only other clean clothes (besides a change of underwear) were the workout shorts that I hadn’t had time to wear after my little meltdown.

Thankfully, my new girlfriend (had I mentioned how cool it was to think of her like that?) came up with a plan. A rather daring plan, but one that I was on board with once she assured me that we had almost no chance of getting caught. Assuming her folks didn’t notice her bedding being freshly laundered and her bedroom smelling like ... whatever scent that Glade air freshener was supposed to be. ‘Something-Something Pine Morning’?

Anyway, the short story was that I was going to wear her dad’s clothing. I would wear whatever pants we found that would match whatever shoes that I could fit into, and then we’d look at dress shirts. We (she) would figure out an outfit from what fit. Since her dad was a little bigger than me, but had kept most of his clothes in really good shape (Laurel said her mom called him a ‘clothes horse’) she thought we had a good chance of finding something that would fit.

My jaw dropped when we went into her dad’s walk-in closet. To be fair, her mom’s closet was the same size, but I don’t think my dad owned a quarter of the number of shirts as Mr. Andersen. There were dozens of pairs of slacks as well, all meticulously arranged by color, fabric, and we discovered, by size.

When she was done Laurel had me looking pretty sharp! I was able to fit into a pair of what she referred to as ‘wing-tip’ dress shoes ... kinda. We had to stuff the toes of each shoe with a tiny ‘sock’ of hers, and I had to wear two pairs of socks, but I could walk in them fairly comfortably. I was wearing tan slacks, a reddish-brown belt, (that she did some magic to and shortened ... a lot!) a burgundy long sleeved shirt, (which she had to roll the sleeves to what she called “three quarters”) and a tan sport coat that matched the pants. Oh, and the (outside pair of) socks matched the shirt.

I noted that it was past seven and I started getting nervous about the time. She disappeared into her room with the assurance that her parents wouldn’t be home until around eleven. It was Friday night, her parents ‘date night’, and Lorenzo’s ad in the phone book showed that they didn’t close until 11 on Fridays and Saturdays. I did manage to convince her that we should both eat a slice of bread or we’d be growling at the waitress by the time we got sat down.

It was a good thing that I had learned how to be patient as, even though it had only taken about twenty minutes for Laurel to find clothes for me, I knew that she would take longer to get ready. I’d heard my dad making half-joking comments about my mom taking longer than a teenage girl, so I sat down on the comfy living room couch and started channel surfing.