Chapter 5

Saturday, I was up early and knocked out ten pools before noon. On my last pool of the morning, Mrs. Bader met me as I was leaving.

“I did it, Michael. I went dancing last night. First time in years,” she said smiling.

“Well? How did it go?”

“I need new boots.”

“What do you mean?”

“I danced so much my feet hurt. I need more comfortable boots. I had a great time.”

“Good for you, Mrs. Bader. I knew it.”

“I’m Monica, remember. Mrs. Bader is an old woman.”

“Any prospects? It was just dancing but you never know.”

“Maybe. I gave one man my number and he said he’d call. He seems nice enough and he sure could dance.”

“I’m really happy for you, Monica. Just outstanding.”

“Thanks. It might just be dancing, but stranger things have happened. Like getting a life lesson from your pool man. Thank you for kicking my butt into gear.” I had a pool hose in one hand and a bottle of chlorine in the other but she still managed to give me an awkward hug. “Unless Andy calls, I’ll probably be back there next Friday night. I had so much fun.”

“I bet it felt good to know you’ve still got it.”

“Yes, it did. It really did. Thank you, sweetheart.” I congratulated her again and left with a smile on my face and a sudden urge to go dancing.

I went home to drop off my gear. I found Mom out back and told her about Monica. She smiled and gave me a high five. I told her I was off to help LuAnn. She walked me up to the house and made an egg salad sandwich for me. I ended up eating two. I went back to my room and changed shirts, then brushed, gargled and washed the chlorine smell off me. And drove to the Paulsons’ house. I didn’t have a remote so I left the truck in the driveway and knocked on the front door.

LuAnn answered with her hair up, an apron around her waist and rubber gloves on. She gave me a quick kiss.

“I’m tracked. I want to do all kinds of smoochin’ and stuff but I’m on track.”

“Got it. Point me. What do you want me to do?”

She gave me directions and showed me where all the cleaning supplies were and I went to work. I soon discovered that she had given me all the easy stuff and tried to keep the difficult chores for herself. I was having none of that. I told her I was strong and not afraid of hard work and that she should give it to me. She did.

By six that afternoon, she said we were done with the toughest of it and the rest would only take a couple of hours but that it was easy. We warmed up the leftover chicken and sides from the night before and finished them off. She said that most of the bedding was in the laundry and she wanted to remove the living room drapes to take them to a dry cleaner. I convinced her that it could wait.

I pulled her to me and sat in an oversized rocker. I pulled her up so she sat on my lap, facing me, her knees tucked in on either side of me. I managed to remove her apron. We kissed gently for a while. We hadn’t had as much practice with gentle kisses as we had with hungry ones. I think it took more patience for either of us than we wanted to use but we kept it slow and easy.

She leaned back with her hands on my shoulders and I slid my hands up under her T shirt. “Your hands feel good on me, Michael.” With my fingers on her back and palms on her sides, I squeezed her and she smiled.

“Remember me telling you about Mrs. Bader? She went dancing last night. Danced all night and was pretty happy about it.”

“You told her to, right?”

“I suggested it as one option but mainly I told her she needed to get out in circulation. I told Mom and she was proud of me for taking the time with her and everything. Feels pretty good.”

“I’m glad,” she said and leaned forward to kiss me again.

When she leaned back, I let my hands roam over her body. I watched her face for tells. She loved my hands on her upper back but she really loved them on her very low back. When I held her boobs, she smiled again and then did her magic and removed her bra without taking off her shirt.

“I know my way around your boobs blindfolded,” I said, caressing them.

“By now, you’d better. Quit showing off and open your eyes. What else do you know your way around?”

I slid my right hand inside her shorts and then under the waist band of her panties. I raised my eyebrows and she lifted up so I could work my fingers into position. I glanced up every now and then to see her watching my face. I continued to work, sliding the two middle fingers of my right hand inside her and using my left on her clit. When I finally had both hands positioned, I looked back up at her and she was still watching my face but hers was going through her pre-orgasm pleasantries. Working like that, I was able to watch her and hear her better than ever before. I tried to stretch it out but she was on stimulation overload and I took her to paradise.

She came hard, looking right at me, never taking her eyes from mine. It was incredibly intoxicating. It was so effective, I was able to bring her to multiple orgasms, one right after another until she slid off my lap and onto the floor. I obviously had limited sexual experience but I couldn’t imagine anyone cumming harder or more frequently than LuAnn. She was a sexual dynamo.

“Baby,” I said, “I am so glad I can get you off with my hands. There is no way I could keep up with you otherwise.”

“That was pretty amazing, Michael. I got to watch you watch me cum. It seemed like you had fun.”

“Yeah. You could say that.”

“I can’t believe this. I can’t believe that I’ve let you see me naked, let alone do what you just did. I’d never even kissed a boy until I kissed you.” I didn’t know what to say. “You know what it is? I trust you. I bet you did more than just kiss Fallon but you never said. You won’t say. I don’t have to worry about you blabbing about me.”

“I would never do that. I like to make you feel good, LuAnn. Blabbing about you would make you feel bad. I would never do that.”

“Good. And now...” she said as she sat up. It didn’t take her long to bring me to an orgasm with her hands and I tried to repay the favor by keeping my focus on her face as she worked. It definitely seemed pretty intimate that way.

“I liked that,” she said. “I like to watch your face when I cum and I like to watch your face when you do.” I made a funny face and she laughed. “I’m sure I look pretty crazy.”

“It’s intense, Lu. There’s no possible way we could do anything more intimate than that.”

“There’s one way,” she said, smiling.

“Oh, man. I can’t even imagine.”

“I really like it when you’re on top of me. That feels so, so good.”

We cleaned up and then we cleaned up. First, ourselves and then we worked a little more on the house. I still had pools to do Sunday and she was going to try to finish the house by herself. I made sure I had all the heavy work done and then we unhooked the drapes to take them to the cleaners.

I took her home and went in. Mrs. Lang was reading on the couch and greeted us with a smile. She said Chester wouldn’t be home until Wednesday. I said I’d finish working on his car the next afternoon and she said he’d be pleased. I gave LuAnn a little kiss and went to leave. Her mom said something about how cute we were. She might have had a different description if she’d seen us earlier.

The next day, I finished my pools for the week and did a couple more out of sequence but that I knew had trees in their yards. As I expected, they were full of leaves. I knew if I didn’t keep them up, I’d probably lose them for the winter sooner. I swung by the Paulsons’ house but she was already gone. I found her at home, canning the last batch of something or other from their vegetable garden. LuAnn and her mom had a production line going with large pots and the whole nine yards. I went to the garage and finished the carb rebuild and put it back on the car. I’d need to start it up and tune them running to get it right.

I asked Mrs. Lang and she told me to go ahead. I opened the garage to let the fumes out. I cranked it up. It sputtered and died. I waited to make certain I wouldn’t flood it. On the third try, I got it running but the idle was high. I adjusted it down until it would hold right at seven hundred. That might not be perfect but it was close enough. The car sounded pretty good and was really responsive. Back in the house it was clear they’d be at it a while. I gave LuAnn a kiss and promised to pick her up the next day.

Third Week in September

I had settled into something of a routine, not that life with any of the Musketeers could be called routine. I guess it was the new normal. Classes were as easy as I’d imagined and nearly every day, I kicked myself in the pants for not being as aggressive as Tina had been. I could have easily graduated in three years. On the other hand, I was having the time of my life. Water polo season was around the corner and I thought I had a good chance of starting. My second trip to the karate studio I was awarded a yellow belt without testing, a rarity. My instructor expected me to test for orange belt within a couple of weeks.

I made peace with Sascha but I did it with a warning. I reminded him that even Master Po, from Kung Fu, lost his temper and kicked ass but there was no excuse for disrespecting Fallon. He seemed appropriately rebuked. We talked about technique versus power and I took him to the weight room and showed him the big four. He was weak. I told him that he could work on bench press, military press, deadlift and squats and let those be his guides. He was amazed that I could lift four times as much as he could on a couple of those lifts. Perhaps he’d become a little too dependent on technique. Perhaps he wouldn’t have provoked me if he’d realized my strength.

LuAnn and I finished the Paulsons’ house on Monday, watched Kung Fu together on Tuesday and ate at her house Wednesday night. Her dad was home. After dinner, he started the Austin Healey and listened. He revved the engine a couple of times and let it settle into an idle. He lowered the idle by fifty and smiled.

“Do you know how to drive a stick?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good,” he said, getting into the passenger seat. “Let’s take it for a spin.”

LuAnn and her mom smiled as I backed it out of the garage. I took it out to Fairview, then took Fair to Harbor and back. It shifted well, accelerated well and sounded great, with a deep throated rumble. When I pulled back in, Mr. Lang and I were both smiling.

“Nice job, both on the carbs and driving. I might just let you date my daughter for another day.”

I thanked him for the opportunity. I was cutting it close and left for my karate class, glad to have my gi hemmed by an expert. By the end of the class, I had all the material down for orange but needed some polish. Polish won’t win fights, I was told. But I’d need it if I wanted to move up, to more complex techniques and higher belts. I could live with that.

On Thursday, LuAnn and I went back to the Paulsons’ under the pretext of finishing up. In reality, we had a pretty fun make-out session and were both sorry the Paulson’s would be returning home so soon. Like our first session, we came dangerously close to intercourse and it scared me, probably more than Lu. That fact scared me too. It dawned on me for the first time that three out of four Musketeers would end up dating someone other than me and they might not be so concerned about pregnancy. I promised myself to talk to them as a group when it was all over and give them my big brother speech.

LuAnn had dinner at my house Friday night and Mom cornered her for a talk. I didn’t see that coming but Lu was smiling when they finished. The whole agreement with me and the Musketeers started when LuAnn spent the day with me without coordinating with Tina or Fallon. After that day, Mom had said LuAnn was ready to pick out drapes, meaning she had plans of a life together with me. I thought it was kind of funny that we had just hung the Paulson’s drapes. I wondered if Mom and LuAnn had looked at drapes catalogs together.

On Saturday, I knocked out a bunch of pools again. I didn’t need to stop at Mrs. Bader’s but I did. She’d had another good time dancing, had a dinner date and was happy about life again. I’d done my good deed and could move on.

When I got back to the house, the girls were having a Dutch Blitz fest and it was rowdy. I was in the kitchen just long enough to make a sandwich, grab some chips, a pickle, and a drink, and shoot out to the pool. My folks had been busy all week and we caught up a bit. After re-hashing the school week, Mom quizzed me about LuAnn.

“Nearing the end of September. How’s life with LuAnn?”

“Good. Different. Very different than with Fallon.”

“In a good way?” she asked.

“Not good or bad. Just different. Lisa asked me who I liked best and I honestly can’t answer.”

Dad jumped in, “I know this is early but it’s fun for me to watch, too. Can you imagine a life with either of them? Could you imagine spending the rest of your life with either?”

“Easily. Either one of them. Life with Lu would definitely be different than life with Fallon.”

“Which is more appealing?” he asked.

“I don’t know, Dad. It’s like when you go to a restaurant and have your choice between steak or lobster. They’re both good. Just different.”

“Surf and turf,” he said. “Good thing you don’t have to decide the rest of your life at sixteen. Enjoy it and learn.”

“I’ve been doing that. But I also know that I could make a decision a month from now that would change my life forever. It’s kind of scary, but kind of cool, too. Mom, what did you and LuAnn talk about the other day?”

“Girl talk,” she said and was going to stop there.

“C’mon, Mom. If it had anything to do with me, spill it.”

“Alright. I told her the same thing I told Fallon. Odds are, there will be life after Michael. Enjoy it but don’t be surprised if things change dramatically. I told her she might be happy with how it all works out but to not endanger friendships with how she handles it.”

“Sounds like good advice. How’d she respond to that?”

“I’m not sure it took. Fallon got it. I think she understood. Fallon knows that as much as she values Lisa’s and LuAnn’s friendship, Tina is her best. She thinks the world of Lisa and Lu, but Tina’s still her best. She realizes that you may find yourself in a similar situation. Valuing her and Tina, for example, but choosing LuAnn.”

“That’s what you think, isn’t it? LuAnn?”

“Doesn’t really matter what I think. I was going to say it’s your call but it’s not. Eventually, and with whoever it is, it has to be a joint decision.”

“Well, one big difference is that Fallon has bunches of creative talent and LuAnn likes to do. We’re going fishing again tonight. If she can’t grow it, clean it or cook it, she better be able to catch it. I think she’d love it if I were a hunter so we could go shoot it.”

“Better check the freezer for space before you bring home another thirty pounds of fish. I should probably cook up some of the halibut tonight.” Dad nodded that he’d be happy with that. I excused myself.

I passed back through the kitchen and Tina had been taking a break from cards. She followed me into the living room.

“How’s it going, sport?”

“Good, I think.”

“Glad to hear it. Do you remember what I said about speed?”

I laughed at the way she asked the question. “Yup. Zero to sixty,” I said, meaning she had gone from no sex to some pretty good times with me in a short period of time.

“And back to zero,” she said, looking at me very seriously.

“By zero...” I said and left it hanging.

“Zero,” she said. What she meant was that she hadn’t had any orgasms in nearly two months. At sixteen, I couldn’t imagine.

“Holy, crap, Tina.” She raised her eyebrows.