Chapter 13: Propositions

February 7, 2002, Chicago, Illinois

🎤 Jesse

“Cum for dessert, like you promised?” Kenzie asked, as we did the dishes.

“You can even have a second helping if you want!” I chuckled.

“How about you fuck me, and then we just lick and suck until I have to go home? I REALLY like your tongue! And I like the taste of your cum even more!”

“You taste good, too!”

“Two great tastes, that taste great together?” Kenzie giggled. “Like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups?”

“I’m not sure I’d go THAT far!” I chuckled.

We finished drying the dishes and went upstairs to my room to enjoy our dessert.

[Oswego, Illinois] 🎤 Matthew

“Thanks for coming tonight, Dad,” I said when the play ended.

“You did a great job,” Dad replied. “And neither you nor Nick needed an ER visit!”

“You are not going to let me live that down, are you?”

“Nope!”

“Steve,” Mom said, “will you, Kara, Jessica, and Suzanne come back to the house for dessert? I have something that won’t bust your diet.”

“I’d love to,” Dad replied. “Wives?”

“Yes!” the three of them agreed.

We all headed back to the house where Mom, Eduardo, Michael, Dad, and his wives joined us for dessert. I asked Dad if I could speak with him and with Eduardo’s permission, we went into his den.

“What’s up?” Dad asked.

“I wanted your advice on Chelsea.”

“Is there a problem?”

“Yes, but not like you’re probably thinking. We’re doing great! The problem is she turns eighteen in May.”

“And you are only fourteen,” Dad said, immediately understanding the problem.

“Yeah. Mom and I talked about it, and she thinks it’ll be OK, but I wanted your opinion.”

“Honestly, I think if you’re discreet, there won’t be a problem. I’ve never heard you talk about it, and I only knew it happened because your mom said something about you two being in bed together. Of course, I’m making an assumption, but given what you just asked, it’s obvious my assumption was correct.

“The other thing you have going for you, besides discretion, is the age-old bias that only underage teenage girls can be ‘abused’ by older men. It’s a double-standard, but one that works in your favor, at least so far. The age of consent is set wrong, but neither you nor I are going to change it, so we’ll let the double-standard work in your favor, should it ever somehow get out.”

“Do you think it’s OK for us to stay in Eduardo’s townhouse on weekends after she starts school?”

“It has two bedrooms, so plausible deniability works in your favor. And both houses have plenty of bedrooms as well. The chances that any of the places would be searched before the police spoke to you, your mom, or me are near zero. Fundamentally, if it comes to that, lie.”

“Words I never would have thought I would hear from you.”

“I don’t see any other option except chastity for two years and three months.”

“Not happening,” I declared.

“No kidding!” Dad chuckled. “You are your mother’s son!”

“I do NOT need to know ANY details about how I came into being! Period! Ever! End of discussion!”

Dad laughed, “I felt the same way at your age; in fact, I still do!”

[Chicago, Illinois] 🎤 Jesse

“I assume you found that amusing?” I said flatly when Kenzie broke the French kiss.

“Are you upset?”

“No, but it’s not something I particularly like.”

“Come on! You French kiss me after I suck you and you put your tongue in my pussy after you cum in it! What’s the big deal about me not swallowing before the kiss?”

“You skipped the part where you opened your mouth and let all my cum drain into my mouth!”

“How can you complain when your lips and tongue are literally covered with my juices when you kissed me?! It’s like Reese’s!”

“It is NOT like Reese’s! I LIKE Reese’s!”

“You are upset!” Kenzie said. “I’m really sorry.”

“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” I said.

“No! I promise I won’t ever do it again! Don’t end it!”

I smirked, “Gotcha!”

“You brat!” she screeched. “You really had me going!”

“It’s true that I don’t really appreciate it, but if it made you happy, I’m not going to end things because you did it. You’re just lucky I didn’t try for revenge!”

“Revenge?”

I moved my hand to her butt, then slid my finger down between her cheeks and pushed gently on her hole.

“NO WAY!” she gasped. “You wouldn’t!”

“Not if you didn’t agree in advance,” I said.

“Are you saying I should have asked?”

“It’s usually a good idea to talk about new things in advance. Remember last week? You told me what you wanted to do, and that’s exactly what we did.”

“That makes sense, but it was just a French kiss.”

“Again, are you forgetting the part about not swallowing and letting it all run into my mouth?”

“No, but as I said, you kissed me after I let you cum in my mouth.”

“And you assumed something. What if I assumed you were OK with me putting my dick here?”

I pushed my finger against her again.

“I still think you sound upset.”

“No, I’m just trying to make a point so that in any future relationship, you don’t make assumptions. Ask your friends who have given blowjobs if the guy will kiss them afterwards. From what I hear, that doesn’t happen a lot.”

“My cousin said her boyfriend always brings a can of Coke and makes her drink it before he’ll kiss her. What you’re implying, have you actually done that?”

“A few times.”

“I don’t think I’d ever want to do that. I mean, I know gay guys do it, but no thanks!”

“I wasn’t asking or suggesting, just making a point.”

“You’re really not upset?”

“I’m really not upset. Shall we shower so you can get home?”

“Next Thursday?” she asked hopefully.

“Yes!”

February 8, 2002, Chicago, Illinois

🎤 Birgit

“Where are Kjell and his parents staying?” I asked, while cuddling with Dad on Friday morning.

“At a hotel in the Loop. They arranged a rental car, so it’ll be easy for them to come here. Basically, during the day all of you kids are in school, and your moms and I work, and Suzanne is in class, so Kristian and Karin decided they’d go to museums, the zoo, and stuff like that during the day, then hang out with us in the afternoons and evenings. Don’t you IM with Kjell?”

“No. They have email, but they don’t go online very often. I chat with Katt sometimes, though.”

“What did you and Katy work out?”

“I’m going for the two weeks while Jesse is at hockey camp. I already changed the tickets with Liesel.”

“Back to Kjell, were you asking because you wanted him to stay with you?”

“No, I’m not ready for that. I mean, I am physically, obviously, but I think it’s better to wait.”

“That’s up to you, Pumpkin. You know your moms, Karin, Kristian, and I all believe you have to decide for yourselves.”

“I don’t see Aunt Sofia for two weeks, and it’s not happening before I’m safe, because who wants to use a rubber if they don’t have to?”

“And Swedish guys are notorious for expecting the girl to be on the Pill.”

“MOM went on the Pill despite being a ‘goody two-shoes’ religious fanatic!”

“I heard that!” Mom said from the door.

“She’s not wrong, Honey,” Dad replied.

“Breakfast in two minutes!”

We went to the kitchen three minutes later.

🎤 Jesse

“You won’t believe it,” CeCe said, coming up to my locker on Friday morning.

“What?”

“Everyone on the team is going to get tested!”

“You’re pulling my leg!”

“Nope! But I get the idea that other than Shelly, none of them will actually go through with what they suggested, and Shelly did say she’d do it if Isabella did. I seriously doubt it’s going to happen.”

“That’s kind of what I figured.”

“Disappointed?” CeCe asked.

I laughed, “If I said I wasn’t, I’d risk being drummed out of the ‘All-American Boy Club’ and having my membership card revoked permanently!”

“You’re a goofball!”

“I know,” I replied.

“I think one or two of the girls might approach you privately, as I said, but I’m not sure.”

“I’ll deal with it if it happens.”

“OK. I’ll be at the game tomorrow morning. OK to come over right after?”

“That works for me!”

“See you tomorrow!”

She left, and I got my books, then started walking with Libby to our first class.

“Hi, Jesse,” Brooke Stephenson said shyly, coming up next to me.

“Hi,” I said.

She handed me a small envelope, then quickly walked away.

“Talk about shy and nervous!” Libby observed.

We still had time before the homeroom bell rang, so I stepped to the side of the corridor and opened the envelope, extracted a card, and just shook my head. She had written ‘Help me determine if the following equation is true: ‘∫e^x = f(uⁿ)’.

“I don’t get it,” Libby said.

I chuckled, “It’s calculus, and I only know this because Mom One showed me the joke ages ago. The integral of e to the x equals the function of u to the n. Or, if you read it as words, sex equals fun!”

Libby laughed, “Only the captain of the Math Olympics team would use math as a pickup line! Just that and her phone number!”

“I’d say she got her message across! And there’s more at the bottom of the card.”

“What is that? A phone number?”

“And a code. I bet you anything it’s the clinic phone number and her code for her STI results.”

“I guess nerds need sex, too!” Libby teased. “What did CeCe have to say?”

“It would appear that the girls on the softball team are getting STI tests.”

“No way!”

“CeCe actually doesn’t think anything will happen because the girls implied a sequence, and CeCe is pretty sure that the person who is supposed to be first, won’t, and I told you it was a ‘If she will, I will’ chain of teasing. Not to mention the fact that I have a seriously hard time believing a bunch of virgins will lose their virginities together.”

“Maybe Loki will smile on you! What are we doing tonight?”

“The guys want to watch Pulp Fiction, so we can watch it in my rec room. I thought we’d go for Chinese instead of pizza tonight.”

“Sounds like a plan!”

🎤 Birgit

Ms. Czerwinski stopped me in the hallway between second and third period.

“You’re not applying to Kenwood Academy for next year?” she asked.

“No. My moms are sending us to the Lab School at UofC. Jesse is staying at Kenwood Academy because the Lab School doesn’t have a hockey team.”

“Do you know why they’re sending you there? Well, assuming you weren’t told not to say.”

“Gangs and drugs,” I said. “The undercover drug busts basically were the last straw, not to mention the Vice Lords, Gangster Disciples, and Blackstone Rangers!”

“The gangs are a serious problem,” Ms. Czerwinski said.

“Us leaving the public school does mean you can go to my Dad’s Philosophy Club on a regular basis without worrying about what the school might think.”

“I’ll miss having your sister in class, though.”

“Well,” I giggled, “you’ve had the best!”

“True. Albert is a dream to have in class!”

“EXCUSE ME!” I growled.

Ms. Czerwinski laughed, “You are very easy to wind up, young lady!”

I rolled my eyes, “What-ever!”

“I’ll point out that Albert doesn’t cause trouble the way you did!”

“Because he’s already thinking like a Naval officer! He folds his fuc ... freaking clothes and stacks them in a precise manner! His freaking school shoes are shined!”

“He may be a bit ‘gung-ho’,” Ms. Czerwinski allowed.

“A bit?”

“He’s planning to try for an appointment to the Naval Academy, right?”

“Yes. And he wants to fly jets. Dad has enough friends to get him in, and you know his grades are perfect.”

“Unlike someone else’s, because they were unfocused.”

“I had nearly all A’s last year and this year!” I protested. “I have a LIFE!”

Ms. Czerwinski laughed again, “I believe your brother has a life as well.”

“Maybe,” I allowed.

“I’ll let you get to class.”

I had to hurry to beat the tardy bell, but I was sitting in my seat when it rang.

🎤 Steve

My IM dinged just before 9:00am.

LeighR83: Hey! Are you free for lunch?
NIKASteve: I didn’t have any plans.
LeighR83: Meet at West Loop Café
NIKASteve: Sure. What time?
LeighR83: I can be there any time after 11:30am.
NIKASteve: How about 11:45am, to beat the noon rush?
LeighR83: Perfect! See you then!!
NIKASteve: OK!

I let Kimmy know I’d be out, then went to the low table where Kimmy had set out tea and cookies for my weekly status meeting with Reed, Aisyah, and Noelle. In April, we’d be adding Penny to our group, which would help us finalize the hosted version of NIKA Legal, with Cindi’s team beginning to sell in May for June availability. She’d pushed to start earlier, but until we had no blocking bugs, I didn’t want to commit, and so far we were on track to have all of them fixed by the end of April. Penny would have no trouble coming up to speed, as she and I had spent more than a decade working together on the legal software.

“VMWare is a no-go,” Aisyah said after we gathered. “It’s just not reliable enough, nor does it have sufficient performance. We’re having no trouble with load balancing the blades, as we can easily move hosted web services from blade to blade as necessary. The big concern, obviously, is using a shared server for multiple NIKA Legal customers.”

“I’m confident the security is sufficient that we can do it,” Reed said. “The testing Nicole has helped me with was successful, and the certificate-based security Brenda designed is bulletproof. That said, I would very much like the security team to do penetration testing on both the database server and the front end.”

“Set that up with Débora and her team. If there’s a conflict, let me know and I’ll speak to Cèlia.”

“I spoke with Débora yesterday to check, and she said that Tuqaa would have some time over the next two weeks.”

“Good initiative! I’ve spoken with Julia, and Penny will join our team on April 15th. Her main task will be helping me fix a number of performance issues which only manifested themselves in the hosted version. Those changes will be merged into the mainline code, and hopefully, we’ll see some gains there as well, though I don’t expect much.”

“Speaking of performance,” Noelle said, “I asked Cèlia to pull all service records for hard drive replacement, and I’ve added that information to the spreadsheet I’m keeping for the NAS disks. We’ve had a few failures of Seagate drives and I want to see if there’s a general problem or if we just had a suspect batch.”

“All those drives were ordered at the same time,” I said, “so I suspect they all came from the same manufacturing batch. I think when we order new drives, we need to alternate suppliers to avoid that problem in the future.”

“I’ll speak with Eve about that.”

“Any other hardware concerns?” I asked.

“No. I’ve updated the documentation and finalized the procedure manuals. I sent copies to Moscow.”

“Good. I’ll be seeing Lyudmila in July when I go to Sweden. I’m taking a four-day side-trip to Saint Petersburg to see some friends and she’ll meet us there.”

“Taking the whole family?” Noelle asked.

“Just my wives, daughters, and Jesse. Albert is going to Leeds in the UK to see his friend Jane, and Matthew and Michael are going to Spain with Eduardo and Elyse.”

“Where in Spain, if I can ask?” Noelle inquired.

“Cádiz. Eduardo’s family has a villa in Casco Antiguo, the oldest part of the town, that they’ve owned for something like three hundred years. And here’s some trivia for you — Union General George Meade, who faced off with Lee at Gettysburg, was born there. His dad was a US Naval Agent, but lost his fortune because he supported Spain against Napoléon in the Peninsular War, and they moved back to the US when Meade was two.”

“Where did you come across that?” Reed asked.

“My Junior High American History class,” I replied.

Which dredged up memories of the teacher who had raped Jennifer. She’d forbidden me from doing anything about it, and I’d kept my word to her that I wouldn’t, which meant I’d have to leave it to Karma to balance the scales.

“I don’t have anything else,” Noelle said.

“Me, either,” Aisyah said.

Reed had nothing either, so we ended the meeting, though Aisyah stayed back.

“I’m meeting with Hassan tomorrow,” I said. “I invited him to the dojo.”

She laughed, “My father would approve of that tactic!”

“He did! I spoke to him yesterday. Remember, you decide what is appropriate, and let me know.”

She smiled, “I am a virtuous Muslim girl!”

“I will make that clear to Hassan.”

“Thank you for everything,” she said with a bright smile. “Both before and now.”

“You’re welcome!”

She left, and I went to my workstation, brought up my task list, and got to work.

🎤 Jesse

“Could we go on a date next weekend?” Adi asked at lunch. “Just us?”

“Sure. Do I need to ask your dad?”

“I think it would be a good idea if you did, even if it’s not really necessary. They’re happy we’ve been going out with the group, and Dad really likes you, so asking would make him happier.”

“OK. How about you be my official date for the Spring dance next Friday? We’re going as a group, but it could be a date if you wanted. Nobody will have a problem with it.”

“Yes! That’s perfect! Though I find it strange that it’s called the ‘Spring dance’ and it’s still Winter until late March!”

“We can get snow in April,” I chuckled. “I’ve seen it! But this is the ‘Spring semester’, so that’s why.”

My phone vibrated, so I slipped it from my pocket and sighed — an Iowa number, which meant it could only be one person.

“What?” Adi asked.

“Francesca,” I replied, slipping the phone back into my pocket.

“You aren’t going to take the call?”

“No. We need to get to class, and I suspect she’ll leave a message. I’ll listen after school lets out.”