Chapter 5

Now that Hannah’s portfolio was complete, we no longer had an excuse to take racy pictures. I think that’s the way we both saw it at the time. School also started and our days were full again, with little time or opportunity to take such photographs. She was a senior now, and that put her in a different social class.

That lasted until November, when Steve finally realized he wasn’t ever going to get a piece of ass from Hannah and broke up with her. He made it clear why he was breaking up with her by giving her an ultimatum on a date one night. To be honest, I don’t think he actually meant to break it off. They’d been going out for almost a year by then. But she called his bluff and I suspect his pride was wounded so he took her home. At least he didn’t leave her on the side of the road.

She was pretty broken up about it. Mom commiserated with her but said, “It’s probably for the best sweetheart.” Dad said, “Good. I didn’t like him anyway.”

She came to my room to find a shoulder to cry on.

We ended up on the bed just hugging while she cried. It never occurred to me to do anything other than hold her, but that was the first time I had a face full of that long golden hair that smelled so good. I thought about how Steve had no doubt gotten to sniff that lovely hair a lot. But no longer. He was a loser. I had her now.

That’s an example of how we can talk ourselves into something completely unrealistic. I didn’t “have” Hannah, certainly not like Steve had her, but she felt so good in my arms and smelled so good and my heart was breaking for her while it exulted that Steve-the-jerk was no longer in the picture, that my psyche kind of went off on a fantasy, I guess.

I was clueless about it before, but I’ve heard about the “rebound” phenomenon since then. Hannah was a classic case. She was hurt and she was mad. About an hour into our hug, during which she poured her heart out to me and I just listened, I heard her stomach rumble and asked her if she was hungry. She said she was starved. Steve had apparently been trying to set the agenda for the evening by getting her to agree to have sex after they ate. They never got around to the eating part, what with sex being off the table.

So I got up to go get us a snack. Mom and Dad were just going to bed and asked me if I’d seen Hannah.

“She told me what happened and then said she was going to bed,” I lied. I don’t know why I lied. Maybe I didn’t want them to know she was lying on my bed at the time.

“Take it easy on her for the next few days,” said my mother. “Girls at that age are very vulnerable.”

I thought about telling her all the things Hannah had muttered about doing to Steve, such as cutting his balls off. She hadn’t sounded very vulnerable at all. I didn’t say anything, though and they went into their room and closed the door.

I got some cookies Mom had made that day and two glasses of milk and took them back to my room. Hannah was sitting at my computer, looking through the pictures I’d saved from both her portfolio and the private ones.

“And to think I was actually thinking about giving him one or two of these,” she said. She was looking at the lingerie shots at the time.

“You promised me you wouldn’t,” I reminded her.

“I know.” She looked at me. “You’d make a better boyfriend than him.”

“I think people might stare if we started going on dates,” I teased.

“You’re still a dork,” she said. “You’re a sweet dork, but still a dork.”

“Speaking of portfolios, you still haven’t heard back?”

I was referring to the fact that she’d sent a copy of her homemade portfolio to the modeling agency that had approved of her head shot.

“Nope. I guess they’re not interested after all.”

“Then they’re crazy,” I said.

“I don’t care,” she said. “I don’t care about much of anything anymore.”

“I know you’re mad at Steve, but do you want to share the wealth and be mad at me, too?”

“Why?”

“Because he was a jerk and you deserved much better, from the very first time he took you out. I’m with Dad on this one, Hannah.”

She didn’t get mad, to my surprise. Instead she got that impish look on her face.

“You were just jealous of him.”

“Why? You said you never did anything with him.”

“Because I wanted to do things with him,” she said.

“You did more things with me than you did with him,” I argued. “If anything he should have been jealous of me.”

“If he’d have known what you got to see he would have been crazy jealous. He’d have tried to beat you up.”

“He’d have gotten his ass handed to him in a cup,” I bragged. Steve thought he was tough but I had two inches and thirty pounds on him.

“You didn’t get to kiss me,” she said. “Or feel my boobs.” She looked startled, as if she’d blurted something out unintentionally. I was pretty sure keeping it a secret that she kissed him wasn’t it.

“And we never discussed this before because... ?” I asked.

“Because it was none of your business,” she said, suddenly on the defensive.

“Did I not tell you if some guy tried anything with you I’d have to kill him? It seems that makes it my business.”

“You said if a guy tried to force me to do something you’d kill him,” she corrected.

“So you just let him grope you out of the goodness of your heart,” I said.

“No. I wanted to know what it would feel like. He always tried so one time I let him.”

“And that’s all?”

“Pretty much. I didn’t let him do it again.”

“Wait. You let him cop a feel and then made him stop?” I was starting to feel some sympathy for Steve. It felt odd.

“Of course. I couldn’t encourage him. He’d just want more. He was always telling me I was killing him anyway.”

“Hannah, letting a guy feel your boobs is the definition of encouraging him,” I suggested.

“I didn’t encourage him,” she insisted.

“You said ‘pretty much.’ What else happened you didn’t tell me about?”

“You’re not the boss of me,” she said, petulantly. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

“Did he stick a finger in your pussy?” I asked. I admit it was a little blunt.

“Of course not!” she yipped. I could tell she was genuinely horrified that I might think that.

“Well... something happened,” I said, stubbornly.

“He pushed his boner against me a lot, okay?” she snapped.

“Oh,” I said. That wasn’t so bad. From my perspective, the hard part was not pushing your boner against a girl if you were hugging her.

“Oh? Is that it? Feeling my boobs is horrible but pushing his nasty swollen penis against me is just fine?”

I could tell she was getting mad, and it wasn’t at Steve this time. Sure, I’d offered to let her get mad at me, too, but I hadn’t meant it. I hoped she’d recognize good advice when she heard it. That was the fact that Steve was and always had been a jerk.

“Look,” I said. “I don’t want to fight. I’m sorry your heart got broken. Trust me, though. When word gets out, there will be a line of guys trying to get you to go out with them. I know. Some of them talk to me about you.”

“They do?” That had gotten her attention off of both Steve and me.

“Yeah. Most of it is locker room chatter though.”

“What do you mean? Do you mean like President Trump? Do they say they want to grab my pussy?”

“Not exactly. I don’t know any guy who actually talks like that. For my money Trump thought he was being cool when he said that and has never actually grabbed a woman’s pussy. You don’t just go around grabbing pussies. I don’t care how rich you are. That will get you kicked in the balls.”

“What, then?” she asked. “What do they say?”

“You don’t want to know. Really. It will just get you going again. But trust me, a lot of guys think you’re hot and they’d love to take you out. Steve’s been hogging you and there’s a backlog on your dance card.”

“That sounds like something Daddy would say,” she said.

“It is. I need to ask him what the heck a dance card actually is. It just sounds kind of cool, don’t you think?”

“What would be cool is if you told me what guys say to you about me.”

“You’re not going to give this up, are you?”

“No.”

“Okay, then. I warned you. Do you want names? You know, so you know who to slap in the face when they ask you out next week?”

“Let’s hear what they said first,” she replied.

“Okay, let’s see. Lots of guys ask me if I ever get to see you naked, like after a shower or something. That’s pretty tame.” I thought back. “One guy asked me if I ever got to help you shave your pussy.”

“Very Trump-like,” said Hannah, but she smiled.

“Another guy said you looked super hot and asked if I ever got to tap that.”

“Tap that?”

“Have sex with you,” I explained.

“Who asked you that?!” she squealed.

“Todd McKinsey,” I answered. He was a jerk too, so I didn’t care if she knew it.

“Wait.” She frowned. “Isn’t he Sarah McKinsey’s brother?”

“I don’t know. Who’s Sarah McKinsey?”

“She’s a freshman. She’s on the JV cheer squad.”

“I don’t hang around cheerleaders,” I said. “I’m not their type.”

“On my gosh! You don’t suppose he’s having sex with her, do you?”