Chapter 131: Something Bland, Something Spicy

Saturday, May 28, 1983

Angie and I slept late and did little for most of the day. We needed a chance to unwind before our brief summer freedom, then vacation, and then Northwestern occupied all of our time.

I changed at four-thirty and headed over to Jaya’s. She’d gotten her parents to agree to this date. I thought that might be a testimony to her powers of persuasion. I’d been prepared for a ‘going to the mall’ subterfuge or the like.

Since we’d gone to Sadie Hawkins together, the ‘meet the parents’ requirement was waived and I was free to simply pick Jaya up. That worked for me. After all, while I could honestly say that my intentions towards Jaya were honorable, that was only because I felt that someone her age was perfectly competent to decide when and how to lose her virginity. Parents might not agree with me, though I would when it was my turn to be the parent. That’s what I’d done the first go-round, after all. To be honest, I’d never been certain if my kids had lost theirs.

I met her at her door, hearing Gita call, “Have fun!”

“I will!” Jaya called back. She was wearing a pretty normal school outfit: nice blouse, loose ankle-length black skirt, and tennis shoes. Beyond that? Perhaps we’d find out together.

I offered my arm, she took it, and I walked her to the car.

“How is your summer going so far?” she said, once I’d gotten the car moving.

“So far, so good. We went to see ‘Return of the Jedi’...”

“I thought there were huge lines for that!”

“There were. We camped out overnight.”

“That sounds ... well ... I don’t know. Somewhere between awful and a lot of fun.”

“Mostly the second, though Houston parking lots aren’t ideal camp-sites.”

“I imagine not!”

“How’s your summer going so far?”

“I’m very happy to be done for the summer. I want to just enjoy life for a few weeks. We’re going to England for a week, and then Gonzaga.”

“England sounds like fun. I’ve never been.” Well, except for a work trip about fifteen years from now, but ... yeah. Anyway.

“We go almost every year. It’s a very long flight, but worth it. I usually sleep on the plane.”

“I’d like to go with Jas and visit France one day.”

She chuckled. “Funny how we’re both from somewhere that’s not where you would expect us to be from.”

“It is!”

“Silly Europeans, meddling everywhere.”

“Americans, too.”

She nodded. “Of course. It’s universal. And, if other countries had the resources, they’d do it too.”

“Sounds cynical,” I said.

“Eh,” she said, grinning. “You’re cynical enough, much of the time. I’m a realist. England meddles. India meddles. Pretty much anyone who can meddle ... does.”

“Which is what we’ve spent the last year arguing about.”

“True! What do you think of next year’s topic?”

We lost ourselves in that for about fifteen minutes. The topic itself seemed dry (‘Resolved: That the United States should establish uniform rules governing the procedure of all criminal courts in the nation.’), but I knew we’d get interesting topics. Like arms sales, we didn’t have to tackle everything. There would be cases on polygraph admissibility, eyewitness testimony, statutory rape, the death penalty, and dozens of other things. Technically, it was ‘procedure,’ not ‘laws’ or ‘decriminalization’ or anything like that, but procedures that made certain cases impossible to prosecute created de facto decriminalization.

The conversation came to a halt when I pulled up to an Indian restaurant. Jaya bounced in her seat a little.

“Oh! Yay!” she said, grinning. “Now I can complain about how it’s nowhere near as good as mom’s cooking!”

“That’s an unfair standard for nearly every restaurant.”

“True enough.”

We headed in and were quickly seated. I wound up going with butter chicken, while Jaya chose chicken tikka masala. We ordered some naan and palak paneer as well.

“So,” she said, “You clearly know your way around Indian food.”

I nodded. This was a question I’d been prepared for. “I’ve been making a point of trying new dishes for a while now. It’s fun, and you never know when it will come in handy. I can’t say that I like everything, but then who does?”

She nodded. “Some English cooking is dreadful, frankly. The French are much better. The English are very lucky so many Indians set up shop in England!”

I chuckled. “I’ve heard that. There’s an old joke about it.”

“Tell me?”

“In Heaven, the French do the cooking, the English provide the police, the Germans provide the mechanics, the lovers are Italian, and the bankers are Swiss. In Hell, the cooks are English, the policemen are German, the French are the mechanics, the Swiss provide the lovers, and the Italians handle the banking.”

She laughed, fairly loudly. “That is so ... stereotypical! But it’s that way because it’s true! Well, on average, anyway.”

“I want to tour Europe at some point. When? No idea. But it would be nice to see those places.”

“I suggest taking the train. Admittedly, not from England to the continent, but once you’re there...”

Or I could wait for them to build the Chunnel, which I’d never managed to take. It wasn’t that far in the future, I didn’t think.

We chatted a bit about Europe, then about the food once it arrived. Jaya rated it ‘good,’ but well below Gita’s cooking. I was hardly surprised by that. According to her, everything was just a trifle bland and homogenized, which is true of most restaurant food in my experience.

We didn’t have dessert. I’m not much of a fan of most Indian desserts, and (surprisingly or not) neither was she.

We left holding hands. I helped her into the car, then got in.

“Jasmine’s?” she said.

“Unless you’ve changed your mind.”

She grinned. “I have not, but I knew you would ask, probably more than once. This feels ... right ... to me.”

“Then, yes, Jasmine’s.”

I got the car moving. She took my hand and squeezed it.

“I think ... one can always invent a scenario in which anything is the wrong thing.”

“Of course,” I said, nodding. “Even if you stick to broad categories, there’s always a scenario where they’re wrong.”

“Unless they’re so broad that they’re somewhat useless.”

“Also true.”

“So...” she said, drawing it out. “I just have my intuition to guide me, and it says that this is right. You must agree, or else you’d have not offered the option.”

“I’d have told you well before if I wasn’t. There is plenty to like about the option.”

She giggled a bit, blushing. “I should hope so! But that’s my ego talking.”

I squeezed her hand. “Pretty, smart, a good friend, sexy, fun. What’s not to like?”

“That’s my line!” she said, still blushing.

“Win-win.”

“Most definitely.”

We got quiet, just holding hands. Jasmine’s house was lit up when we arrived, but when I opened the door with the key Jas had given me, there was no one around. I locked the house, then headed for the now-spare bedroom. When we got there, I considered carrying her over the threshold, then decided against it. Too romantic, too much pressure, too much meaning ... just, too much.

Instead, we both walked in, then closed the door. She was immediately up close to me, and I wrapped her up in my arms, then leaned in and kissed her softly.

At first, she simply matched me, but soon she was having little of it, quickly building the kiss into more and deeper. She wasn’t the best kisser I’ve ever been with, but she wasn’t bad at all. She’d been practicing, I thought. But, then, so had I.

Once we broke the kiss, she grinned a little, looking up at me.

“So ... how do we do this?”

Then she blushed and suddenly got all flustered.

“Wait! I mean, I know how! But ... I mean ... I...”

It was very cute. If she knew I was thinking that, there was a reasonable chance that things would not go well, though, so...

“It’s okay. I know what you mean.”

She sighed, and nodded. “Of course you do. Um...”

“There are a lot of possibilities, pretty much the whole way through. We can go slowly, or ... not so slowly. At some point, we need fewer clothes...”

She giggled at that, the mood broken.

“But we could get there a few ways. Then ... well...”

“I think I know what I want, then. Um ... would you...?”

She shifted and waved her arms a little.

“Undress? Undress you?”

“Um ... the ... second?”

I smiled. “I’d be happy to. Do you want to undress me?”

“Y ... yes. Maybe we could take turns?”

“I’d like that.”

With that, we took turns, trading a shirt for a shirt, pants for a skirt, then a little hesitation since I didn’t have a bra. She was clearly nervous about losing hers.

Instead of removing it, I gave her another kiss. She wriggled a bit, then kissed back enthusiastically.

As we broke the kiss, I unhooked her bra. That got a grin, and she stepped back, then slipped it off.

I smiled. “Very nice.”

“They’re tiny!”

“They suit you, and that’s what’s important.”

“You really like them?”

I nodded. “Definitely! I mean it. They suit you. That’s the only thing that’s important.”

“I don’t think I’d believe that from a lot of guys, but I know you, and who you’ve dated. And are dating.”

I grinned a little. “Any guy ... or girl...”

That got a blush.

“ ... lucky enough to see them should be quite appreciative.”

“Okay ... yeah,” she said, nodding. “I like that. And ... you next.”

I smiled, nodding. She reached for my underwear, hesitated, then tugged. Once my cock sproinged free, she giggled, gasped, and blushed nearly simultaneously.

“That’s ... I mean ... I knew what to expect ... but ... it’s ... um ... big?” she said.

Then she blushed again and giggled a little more. “Okay, I know guys like to hear that, but I’m serious!”

“It’s probably a bit more than average, but I honestly don’t know.”

She took a deep breath. “I still want to, but ... is it going to ... you know? Fit?”

“I can’t know that, except ... generally, they do.”

She giggled, somewhere between nervous and actually amused. “I guess they have to, otherwise there wouldn’t be many of us. Plus ... babies do fit, so ... I guess ... um ... yeah.”

She took a deep breath, then nodded. “Your turn.”

I drew her panties down, slowly. She’d trimmed, likely for a swimsuit, but that was it, and she was ... adorable ... head to toe.

I recognized that thought for what it was, and wasn’t. We were just within a range that was fine for me. Jaya was a bit less than two years younger than me, so we didn’t have legal entanglements. More to the point, if I hadn’t been roughly forty years older than I was, she’d have been more mature than I was, most likely.

“You’re lovely,” I said, smiling.

“And you are very handsome,” she said, smiling right back.

“I have an idea, if you’ll let me guide things.”

“Please! I’d be very happy to let you guide things!”

I led her to the bed, then had her lie down on her tummy. She looked over her shoulder, puzzled, until I started giving her a gentle massage. I am by no means the most accomplished at that, but I’d learned a few things, and they were enough.