Chapter 10

Ed's turn:

The difficult part, now, is letting my angel go home.

I want to keep her. I want to wake up with the morning sunlight fighting its way into the room, finding her head on the pillow next to me.

I'm thinking that thought with Dana formed into my side. She's in exploring mode, fingertips satisfying her curiosity about my dick.

There's the inevitable (in view of the level of stimulation) giggle. "Hee-hee! It's getting hard again. I wanna..."

"You're not sore?"

She twisted up to kiss me, pulled her face back, a smile that encompassed her whole face. Damn those grey eyes...

"Not THAT sore..." She rolled sideways, reached into the nightstand, retrieved a... "I get to put this one on."

"You're crazy..."

"Crazy in love with you." She pulled to a kneeling position beside me, ripped the package open.

"Just put the thing on the tip and roll it down the shaft."

"I knowwww. I watched." Giggle. "I'm still wet. Does that count for foreplay?"

"Another kiss might help."

"I'm s'posed to be the one who needs foreplay," she giggled.

"What DID you read on the Internet?"

"Just helpful stuff. Now, I just get on top of you and..." Her fingers guided a completely rigid dick into position. "Now..." She settled slowly onto me. "Ohgodthat's good..."

"Ohgodyou'rebeautiful."

"You're deluded."

"Says the girl riding me." I put my hands on her waist.

Giggle. "Like you're forcing me down on you." Giggle. "Believe me, I know exactly where it's at. You're way in ... anatomy ... my cervix."

"That would be correct."

"You know these condoms rob us..."

"I know..."

"All that stuff you squirt ... It should be up in me, and then it will leak out..."

"Except for that one ambitious sperm that says 'Ed 'n' Dana get to reproduce!'"

"But still..." she started sliding back and forth, dragging my dick along her little pink button.

"Ohgod..."

She smiled down at me. "I knew it would be good with us ... I'm struggling to be able to talk..."

A couple more strokes and we both lost the capacity of speech.

Now there are two condoms on that towel. And, "We need to shower before I go home tonight."

"I was going to suggest that."

She stretched out on me again. "Let me say this one more time. Ed, I love you. Gotta be serious. Really."

"I love you too, Dana."

"When I turn sixteen..."

"I hope your gramma signs."

"She will. I know."

We occupied the shower until the water started to get cool. It's just too much fun with Dana. We both got dressed and ended up on the sofa with a movie on. So totally sane and normal.

"Gramma's talking to people at school."

"About you, I'd imagine."

Squeal. "Of course it's about me. Ed, it's too easy. NOTHING stretches me. Your stuff..." giggle. "Now THAT stretched me..."

"Dana!"

Giggle. "I was talking about the number theory. Binary and octal and hexadecimal. Fun. Boolean math. Fun. Electronics. Fun. And Morse code. That's HISTORY. Fun."

"Glad you like that. I wouldn't be like this about you if you were stupid."

"If I was like, 'Let's watch MTV 'n' Honey Boo-boo. An' can you get me more nail polish? An' I think I need to get more piercings ... But they won't do it 'cuz I'm fourteen... ' That girl?"

"Those would be the signs."

"Instead you got the girl that likes the weird music and who gets excited about science and math and history..."

"And uses words with more than two syllables."

"That would be your Dana."

"Yes. MY Dana. Didn't even know I needed a Dana..."

"Now you have one of your very own."

Inwardly I hoped it was so. So many reasons. First, I absolutely adored the girl. Second, hell of a note to have committed a felony only to get dumped on one's ass and laughed at. Third, Dana is Dana. She's going places and I wanna watch.

Dana's turn:

Walked into Gramma's after school on Tuesday. "Gramma, can I ask you something?"

"MAY you? Of course."

I keep forgetting Gramma's a retired English teacher. Okay. So I say, "Gramma, you know that Ed's my best friend, correct?"

"Judging from your lack of conversation with your classmates, I assume that to be true. Go ahead, baby."

"Well, I've talked with Ed. We'd really like to make a trip to Houston and Galveston. We can do either of those as a day trip, leave early, get back late." I watched Gramma's eyes.

"That would be one way to do it. What do you have in mind for destinations?"

"The Houston Zoo. Museums. And restaurants in Galveston." I paused. Her eyes seemed serene. I can only imagine what she's thinking. I continued, "We'd have to leave very early and we'd get back very late and that's a long drive for Ed after a day following me around."

"I then take it that you have an alternative plan."

"Yes, ma'am. We could leave Friday after school and come back Sunday afternoon."

"That would put you spending two nights in a hotel room with Edward."

"They have rooms with two queen beds, so we'd each have our own bed. And you trust Ed with me."

"I haven't had to think about the two of you overnight in a hotel."

"Gramma ... I'm a good girl and a good student. Ed helps me with studying and he presents me with educational opportunities in the real world, outside the school environment."

"That is true. I am not concerned with your academics, though, Dana."

"I understand, Gramma. Ed. Best friend."

"Edward. Mature male."

"Ed, who cares about me and will take good care of me. He always has."

"Dana ... I know that at your age, a large percentage of girls are sexually active."

"I sort of know that, Gramma. I talk at school, and more important, I listen. It's pretty tragic, sometimes."

"Explain the parts you find tragic."

Gramma's going to make me think, then present my thoughts. "Some of 'em are just plain promiscuous. I'd use the term 'slutty' but that is rather coarse, but applicable."

"Do you think they know what they're doing?"

"I don't think they know what they're doing, but THEY think they know what they're doing. I have personally seen the logical path such activities might take. Mom. Serial sex partners. I don't know for what they might be looking."

"I think you do. Tell me."

"Uh ... okay ... some kind of human connection. They mistake the physical for the mental and spiritual. That's one. Another ... just the thrill ... of the chase, perhaps? Or maybe they actually LIKE sex and are simply treating sexual congress as a purely physical act with no more feeling than a particularly enthusiastic handshake?"

"Handshake? Not a hug?"

"No, I don't think so. Hugs usually carry a connotation of caring."

"You get an A for extemporaneous speech, Dana. Keep going."

"Multiple serial partners. One, usually the girl, thinks there's more to the collision than a physical thing. When the other moves on, there's a lot of hurt."

"Dana, neither you nor Edward deserve that sort of hurt. I do not think Ed would ever hurt you in that manner."

"Gramma ... we both know Ed. He's like this happy puppy of a guy. Having him around is one of the best things that ever happened to me. You taking me in, for that I'm eternally grateful. Putting Ed into my life, that's a huge plus." I put on my 'serious' face. "Gramma, I would never hurt Ed." Really serious. "Ed and Dana will not be a tragedy."

"Dana, you and I have talked about the legal implications of any sort of physical relation between you and Edward if such relationship were to become known to the authorities."

"Gramma, I did not plan on going to school tomorrow and announcing that I was going to go spend two nights in a hotel with my adult boyfriend."

"That idea frightens me, Dana. I know Edward is not a malicious man."

"Gramma, I will be fifteen in January. When I turn sixteen..."

"Dana..."

"Honestly, Gramma ... can you see me hanging out with kids my age? Boys my age? I don't think any of them would be as caring about me as Ed is."

"What does 'sixteen' have to do with that?"

"Youngest age that one can get married in this state. Requires signature of adult parent or guardian."

"Dana ... You've known Ed two months..."

"Yes."

"I suspect you're serious. And I further suspect that you and he have had discussions."

"We have, Gramma."

"And what does a thirty year old Edward think of a sixteen year old wife? A high school student?"

"Gramma ... Ed adores me."

"You must think that I would approve of such knowledge for you to admit it openly."

"Gramma, if I was, for lack of a better term, a normal teen girl, I'd be pestering you to let me go to the Mall and hang out ... maybe movies, you know, DARK, me, and some random guy ... this is me, though, I don't think I'm normal, not in that sense. And I don't WANT to go to the mall and I don't want to be in the dark with some random guy who doesn't have a vocabulary and doesn't like the good music and ... No, Gramma. Not your Dana. Ed, on the other hand..."

"You sound serious, but you're fourteen, Dana..."

"Gramma, whether I go off this weekend with Ed or not, I have strong feelings for him. Not infatuation. Infatuated girls do not do their boyfriend's horribly dirty laundry and change their boyfriend's cat's litterbox."

"If you discount infatuation and you admit strong feelings, that leaves..."

Brave Dana. One word. "Love. Not the silly schoolgirl kind of love, Gramma. I know you've seen a lot of that."

"I have. I agree with your descriptor. Tragic, in so many cases."

"I don't do drugs or drink or smoke. Ed would hate any of those. I get to be plain ol' Dana..."

"I see nothing plain about you, Dana. I doubt that Edward sees you in any way plain."

I sort of turned my eyes downward. "He really does adore me, Gramma. If I was a conniving person, I ... No, I can't even imagine myself doing any such thing. Gramma, you see, I adore him as well."

"Dana, Dana, Dana," she said softly. "What do you think a sane adult should do with that revelation?"

"Forbid me from ever seeing Ed again. Turn him in to the authorities as a child molester. Watch me turn sullen and unresponsive and finally end my life..."

"Dana Wilkerson, I love you as my great granddaughter/daughter out of time. Edward is, to me, the son I wish I had. You know that I cannot do the things you just said."

"Then what are we supposed to do?"

I guess I sort of smiled.

"Be careful what you wish for, Dana. I suppose that Edward and I need another conversation about Dana."

"Gramma, if you told him to never see me again, he'd move out tonight. I don't think he'd be happy. I know I wouldn't."

"I will not do that, Dana. You do realize that my complicity makes me a criminal as well. If word ever got out, Edward and I both..."

"Gramma ... the utmost restraint. In public, we're like uncle and niece." I got up and hugged her. "Gramma ... I never meant to be trouble."

"Being in love is trouble of the best kind. We must contain the fallout. I could ship you to a nunnery for the next thirteen months, but I suspect they would have to chain you to a wall and Edward would likely die of despondency."

"I will take care of us, Gramma."

"Wouldn't it be easier..." She looked at me. "No, I suppose that would not be possible. I was in love once, Dana. I do understand. I was seventeen, though..."

Ed drove in. I can see his parking spot through Gramma's window. We caught him when he hit the alcove.

"Edward, I would like to talk to you. Is it okay for Dana to go into your apartment while we do so?"

"Sure..." Ed said, looking a bit confused. He let me into his apartment, then went into Gramma's.

I waited, petting DC, talking to him in the language that cats understand.

Twenty minutes later Ed walked in. He looked drained.

"Do I need to go home now?"

"No. You need to kiss me."