Chapter 7: The Big Dance

Through the rest of the summer and into the fall, Henry and Cindy made their way to the boulders as much as possible. There, they continued their sexual awakening delving into the wonders and pleasures of oral sex. With time they gained familiarity with the others body which allowed them to enhance the pleasures they gave to each other.

The sexual intimacy they shared not only brought them closer together, but it also emboldened them in ways that were not altogether related to sex, but to a growing of confidence within themselves. It came about quickly, but with little notice to themselves, but was clearly seen by their friends. The only place that it did not manifest was with their family, at least for Henry. But that was about to change.

The effects of intimacy on Henry were apparent when he introduced Cindy to his parents. The fireworks from his Mother, as he well expected, began with a passive aggressive barb hurled in Cindy’s direction. It landed square upon her, but her upbringing of respecting ones elders precluded her from acknowledge the barb, or reciprocating in kind. That, as well as the comments had caught her by surprise.

But it was Henry that saved Cindy from further barbs. Before his Mother could get off a second salvo, he deftly deflected the first and steered the conversation to a more palatable topic of conversation, school, something that he knew his Mother would talk in great lengths on.

His Mother failed to see the significance of his sleight of hand redirection of the conversation and followed the new topic. But it was not lost upon his Dad who sat silently smiling to himself. His Son had successfully redirected his Mothers interests to something more important than the verbal dismemberment of a young woman.

He listened to the banter between Mother and Son, focusing on what each was saying as he pretended to read the newspaper. And that is when it came to him. Though the conversation was of little consequence, Henry spoke with strength and conviction, which for Henry was a first when speaking with his Mother.

Years of being talked at, yelled at, or told what to do had made Henry insecure, and this would cause him to defer to his Mother in all things. It was with much concern his Dad had for Henry’s growth that he began to take a greater and more vocal role into what Henry was allowed to do. An area that had been the sole province of his wife was now shared with him, at a very large cost to him and his relationship with his wife. Years ago they had agreed to not argue in front of Henry, something the two found devastating growing up seeing their parents have long drawn out arguments in front of them. Though it strained their relationship it did not appear to damage them in that they could not get past the differences between them, at least for the time being.

Thirty minutes later Henry’s Dad, thinking that the two kids had spent the prerequisite amount of time visiting, lowered his paper and stated that he thought it was time for the two teens to go about their business, and leave the old fogies to themselves.

Henry looked to his Mother, who clearly had a surprised expression at the old fogy comment but surprisingly said nothing. Shrugging his shoulders he got up from the coach and gave his Mother a hug, and nodded to his Dad who was still seated in his chair.

Cindy followed Henry, but leaned in and kissed his Mother on the cheek which caught his Mother by surprise, as well as everyone else. But most of all what surprised Henry was the noticeable change in his Mother, a softening to Cindy that he would never had expected. Well, maybe after several months, or maybe years. Or quite possibly never. But he saw a change.

As Cindy moved away from Henry’s Mother, she smiled at him and winked. Not wanting to push it Henry just smiled and guided Cindy out the front door. After closing it he stopped her and gave her a hug, followed by a kiss on the lips.

“Wow, you did great Cindy” he exclaimed.

“Oh my God, I thought I was going to die! Holy crap!”

What Henry and Cindy didn’t know was that his Mother could see everything. And now she began to worry as she wrung her hands.

Going back to his paper and without looking up Henry’s Dad asked, “So, quite taken with the young lady are you?”

The comment snapped her back to reality. She began to think of her Henry and how he has been moving away from her, first with that homosexual drug taking Alex, and now with the sweet young hussy.

The effects of intimacy for Cindy began when she found her voice. Setting aside her fear of upsetting her parents, mostly her Dad, she opened up at the most tranquil of places in her home, the dinner table. She started off by talking of the upcoming school year, of taking additional courses and maybe a college course at nights and Saturday morning. The sticky point was not so much the class as it was that it is a College class, and anything that shined the light on her advancement in age was not a welcome observation. And she knew it, but it didn’t deter her. In any case she needed her parents to sign her up for these classes, and she was working on them every evening. A couple of days of Cindy asking brought about a tacit agreement with her parents that they might agree to discuss the possibility that they would consider to allow her to potentially attend the class. Oh well, you got to chalk that up as a win, you know, because at least they would consider it.

The ensuing days were much the same at the dinner table as Cindy continued in the exploration of her voice, expanding the topics of discussion to include, and this was the dicey part, Henry. It was a delicate situation, no understatement there, but it was important for her to bring up Henry. Now, the mere mention of Henry’s name brought a slight sneer to her father’s face. Cindy thought that eventually she would be able to talk about Henry without the sneer. It will take some time, maybe two, three years. Maybe after their first born.

It was the third week that she screwed up, a REALLY bad screw-up. But, it had to happen, because, that’s the way it goes. All was going well, her Dad acquiesced to her taking college level classes, and much of it was due to her Mom’s prodding him as she was sympathetic to her plight.

The screw up came when her Dad asked how she was getting to and from class, especially the night courses. Without much thought Cindy responded that she wasn’t sure, as she had not talked with Henry about it, but thought that he would give her a ride home.

Her Dad’s face was as a statue, cold and hard, and it spoke volumes to Cindy. All the work that she and her Mom put into softening up her Dad went down the drain. Her Mom jumped in and made a valiant attempt to save the day, but failed to sway her Dad. Without much thought her Dad nixed the night classes, but agreed to the Saturday class, with either Him or her Mom driving her to and from the school.

Later that night as Cindy lay in bed, she heard for the first time her Parents arguing. But it didn’t end there as the following weeks can attest as their home was transformed from a quiet loving environment to home filled with land mines. The slightest misstep could set off a verbal assault or a long drawn out argument from her Dad. No one was safe, not even the golden child, her sister Jessica.

For Cindy, the guilt of being the source for the contentiousness of the household was difficult for her to bare, and for several nights after, while lying in bed listening to her parents argue, she would weep softly before sleep would take her.

What was lost upon Cindy was her Mom supporting her behind the scenes by pushing, quite hard. This was a significant departure for her Mom as she would always defer to Husbands decisions no matter if she agreed with him or not. In many ways she was a housewife of the past, a way of life that each had become accustomed to through the years, accepting the roles that, up until now, were well defined.

But now she felt a wrong had been laid upon her Daughter, more grievous than any in the past, and that wrong needed to be resolved in her favor. And she was determined to ensure that she would prevail upon her Husbands misguided attempts to hold onto his Daughter, no matter what the cost or the impact to his family.

So she pushed her Husband, at most every opportunity, by presenting him with what she saw as His misguided attempt at holding his Daughter from growing up and becoming the person she was destined to be. But as she pushed, her Husband would push back, and with an increasingly harder edge.

The arguing continued for two weeks before her Dad relented, agreeing to allow Cindy to attend the evening and weekend classes with Henry.

But the cost was more than either imagined as a rift in their relationship came forward, beginning a slow and painful division that would eventually lead to an end of the love that they had for one another.

With agreements from each family Henry and Cindy made their way to the High School a month before school was to begin and met with their Guidance Counselor Mrs. Dartmouth, a highly educated and well respected member of the faculty, to review their request to attend courses at the local community college.

The requirements were strict and precise, allowing no room for deviation from either the Student or Faculty. Henry and Cindy were fortunate that their commitment to their education was paramount to them and represented quite effectively in their grades, a GPA of 3.7 for Henry and 3.75 for Cindy, and in their unblemished attendance record.

They were confident that they would meet the requirements for enrolling in the college courses and had agreed on the classes that they wanted to attend which were Biology for Cindy, Business Management for Henry, and Humanities which both agreed to.

Mrs. Dartmouth had very little work to do as Henry and Cindy had gone over the course times and schedules together and with their parents days before. All that was left was a perfunctory review of their scholastic records to ensure they met the criteria and the completion of the class registration forms.

With the meeting successfully concluded the two drove off to Billy Boys, a local hamburger joint, for lunch. Today marked a huge milestone for the two, for Cindy it was the first time that she was allowed to be alone with Henry, well maybe not the first time, but the first time that she was allowed. And for Henry it was the first time he was allowed to take his Mother’s car, scratch that, Mini Van, ever.

Lunch was spent talking of inconsequential things, that is until the subject of the future was brought into the conversation.

“So, I’m really looking forward to the biology class.”

Henry wrinkled his nose, not fully feeling that Biology was that appropriate for his career path.

“You don’t want to take Biology?” asked Cindy.

He shrugged his shoulders as he said, “Not really, but that’s okay.”

“Why did you say it was okay?”

“Well, you wanted to take it, so it’s like, well, you don’t want to take Business Management but you took it anyway. Same with me and Biology.”

It was Cindy’s turn to wrinkle her nose before saying “Business Management, ugh.”

Henry laughed and said, “Same way I feel about Biology.”

They both laughed, realizing how they felt about each of their perspective classes.

“So, Henry, still looking at going to FSU?”

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat not knowing if his discomfort was because of his Mother or in where this conversation with was going to lead to. In any case he forged ahead, “Yeah. I talked to my Dad about it, He’s up for it but only if I want to go there, I think he didn’t want to push me into going to his Alma Mater. Mother didn’t say anything, but the way she looked when I mentioned going to FSU, well, I kind of got the impression that she was totally set against it.”

“So, it seems that you are leaning in that direction?”

“Yeah, I guess I am. I think that, you know, if I had wanted to go anywhere else Mother would have come down hard against it. I think her choice for me would be College of DuPage, Morraine Valley, or St. Xavier. Anything to keep me close to home. What about you?”