Chapter 13: Weekend Lovers

I’D JUST TAKEN RONDA home after our photo sessions on Saturday afternoon. I was exhausted, but planned to spend the night with Elizabeth. She was headed back to Chicago on Sunday to start DePaul’s winter quarter. I’d decided to take a break during Columbia’s flex term. The three-week term wasn’t required and I now had a backlog of printing that would keep me busy until I had to be back. I had all the senior yearbook photos to do and by the end of the week, I’d have orders for as many as thirty Attic Allure clients. This was a profitable venture, but also very time-consuming.

It had its benefits, though, in the number of seventeen and eighteen-year-old senior girls who had placed themselves in my hands. Quite literally. I’d had to turn half a dozen down who wanted dates. I had all the women I could want outside the studio.

Ronda and I kissed a long time, just loving each other.

“I’m so glad you’re staying in Tenbrook for a while,” she said as we cuddled together. “I have two more weeks of winter break. I want all of you I can get.”

“Anna has one more week. Patricia lives here. I think we’ll be able to squeeze out some quality time,” I said.

“Well, you need to spend quality time with Elizabeth tonight. Go on home and get ready. I love you.”

“I love you, Ronda. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I headed up the street toward home and had to pause. During the entire holiday break, Chris’s house had been dark and the car was gone. Kat had told me the family was going to Mexico for the holiday. Julie and Brian had become Kat’s closest friends and she was bummed that they’d been gone the entire holiday. Now the car was in the driveway and a lot of lights were on.

I almost parked and went to the door, but I chickened out. It was always possible that Christine wasn’t home, or wouldn’t come to the door to see me if she was. I drove on home.

My date with Elizabeth was set for dinner, so I didn’t go to the table when the family sat. I was about to leave when I took a detour into Mom’s office and picked up the phone. I didn’t give myself time to think any further. I just dialed her number.

“This is Julie,” the voice said on the other end. I didn’t identify myself.

“May I speak to Christine, please?” I said. I thought Julie caught her breath.

“Just a moment,” she said.

A minute later, Chris answered the phone.

“Hello?”

“Happy birthday, Christine,” I said. “I hope you have a great day.”

“Nate! Oh, my God! You remembered my birthday! Thank you!”

I was relieved. She didn’t seem upset and I breathed a sigh of relief.

“How are you doing? Is college all you hoped for?” I asked. I hadn’t planned anything past ‘happy birthday’ when I made this call. I wanted to tell her I loved her and ask if I could come over. I restrained myself.

“It’s hard, but fun. I’ve met a lot of people and I’m doing okay in classes. How about you?”

“It’s been an exciting fall. I’ve had some pictures published in the newspaper and a lot of clients. I miss you,” I said.

“How exciting. I mean getting published. I know ... I miss you, too. I can’t believe you even remembered my birthday. I haven’t treated you well.”

“Hey, you were my first kiss on New Year’s Day. My first kiss ever. You know they say that person will always be in your life,” I said.

“Thank you. Someday I hope I’ll be able to face you and be in your life. I think our sisters have something going. Maybe my brother and your sister, too. But right now, I’m doing what I need to do. It hurts sometimes, but I can’t go back to the life we were leading in high school. I’m glad you remembered my birthday. Maybe I’ll see you again this summer.”

“I’d like that.”

“Well, we’ve kind of got a little family thing going tonight, so I’ll let you go. Good luck with the next school term. ‘Bye.”

“‘Bye, Christine. See you later.”

The phone went dead. I wasn’t sure if she even heard me.

“Well, not to be negative, but I’ve always thought Chris was strange in a different way than the rest of us,” Beth said as we sat at dinner in Dubuque. Of course, I’d told her about my brief conversation with Christine. In a way, Elizabeth was still my ‘outsider’ viewpoint. I started to get upset and then settled back to let her have her say and not jump to conclusions.

“You think the rest of us are strange?” I prompted.

“We’re four women sharing one man. The four of us have become friends, but we aren’t romantically involved with each other. We just take our turns being with you and we get along fine. I think most of the world would consider that strange.”

“I suppose so. And it was different with Christine. She was equally involved with Ronda,” I said.

“That’s one way it’s strange. I hear of a lot more people coming out like that, though. Out East there’s a whole lesbian feminism movement. You met Adele. I take it you were surprised she was the third party at our photo session. I was, too. She makes me nervous. But she’s a lesbian feminist. She believes so strongly in women’s rights and women supporting women that she wants nothing to do with men,” Beth said.

“When I did her photos, she didn’t want me to touch her.”

“That’s the extreme. Chris seemed more like she was open to anything. Maybe vulnerable to anything. Did she ever pull away before?”

“A couple of times. I guess the first was when we first got together, she decided she shouldn’t model anymore. That’s what led to the ‘models don’t date Nate’ rule,” I said.

“Well, Judy sure managed to get past that restriction, didn’t she?”

“Oh, God, yes. But she doesn’t want to be a girlfriend. She was very specific about that this morning. She said I was her naughty excitement, not anything she was serious about. She still considers Pete her home base, but is pulling away from there, too. She says it’s a natural course of events for Janice and Pete to become closer and her further away, but I think she’s using that as a kind of excuse for her to separate herself,” I said.

“So, when else did Chris pull away?”

“Well, when Patricia and I made love, Christine broke up with me.”

“And what, exactly, did that mean? I think I’d recently become your girlfriend at that time, too, but she didn’t break up over that,” Beth said.

“It seemed that breaking up only meant we got our own class rings back. Right after we broke up, we made love,” I laughed.

“I think that’s telling. In fact, she made love with you right up until she left and said goodbye, didn’t she?”

“Yeah. That’s what made it so hard to understand.”

“Chris is an addict. She’s either hooked or she’s gone cold turkey. Please don’t think I’m just snooting her. If you had been a really perverted guy with, say, a favorite dog, she would have let the dog do whatever you said. She loved you and if you said this was what you wanted, she’d have been all in. I think that’s what made her accept Ronda. It wasn’t an initial attraction. It was you saying you’d take both of them to the dance.”

“Ronda would be crushed by that.”

“Don’t tell her. You can handle this. I don’t know if Ronda can. She’s a lot more fragile than I thought when I first met her.”

“I never thought of her as fragile. I always thought she was the strong one, holding the others together and protecting them,” I said.

“We all have hidden personalities,” Beth said. “Even me. You’re pretty good at uncovering them in the studio. I’ve been reading about famous comedians. Believe it or not, it’s part of my improv class. But a lot of these guys are really depressed and self-loathing. It makes me wonder if I do a funny act because I’m really depressed and don’t like myself.”

“I really can’t imagine that,” I said.

“Don’t worry. My professional self-analysis came back negative on that issue. I just like humor and comedy. But I can imagine. I’m going on stage for the first time with a comedy routine in April. What if they don’t like me? What if no one laughs? You’ll end up having to support my broken-down career before it even begins.”

I looked at her in horror. How could she even imagine people wouldn’t like her?

“Except,” she continued, “I wouldn’t be broken if my comedy career sputtered. I’d get a job as a medical technician and make people with broken ribs laugh when I’m taking their x-rays. It’s just who I am. But Chris? She’ll become whatever she needs to be to be accepted and loved. She saw a road with you that led to increased perversion. She got off on you going out with Kelly. She loved imagining you fuck Vicki’s ass. She figured if Ronda’s pussy was good, any pussy would be. Like Lori’s. I’ll bet if you asked around, you’d find a few others she’d licked. Chris had just enough self-awareness to realize that if she didn’t call a stop to her lifestyle right this fucking instant, she would end up in a well of depravity that horrified her.”

“Jesus Christ! Could we really have been leading her down a road of addiction? I can’t believe it!”

“Maybe I’m wrong. She referred to herself enough times as a pervert to make me think she believed it. This really could be her way to recovery.”

“Without us.”

“Us meaning you and Ronda. Honey, believe me when I say this is going to be harder on Ronda than on any of the rest of us.”

We didn’t camp out that night. We got a room in an old hotel in downtown Dubuque. Sometimes sex with Elizabeth was an athletic event. This night it was tender and loving and we didn’t sleep much. We’d make love and talk. She tried out some of the lines she was preparing for her stage debut in April. She’d have a ten-minute routine at the university theatre. I was sure it would be great.

And then we’d make love again. We’d kiss and caress, holding our naked bodies close together and then I’d just slip into her warm and welcoming pussy. She was always slick and happy to get me into her, where she’d try to keep me hard without coming for as long as possible. But eventually I’d come in her and she was always right with me.

In the morning, we got breakfast in the hotel restaurant and then made it back to Tenbrook in time to sit with the rest of our family—Ronda, Anna, Patricia, and Toni—in church while Reverend Mother Superior exhorted us to good living.

I had no Attic Allure appointments Sunday afternoon, but we all went to the studio for the weekly photos of Patricia and Toni. Kat came with us and talked Elizabeth into stripping and posing for her. About mid-afternoon, Deke showed up and Elizabeth left for Chicago.

The next three weeks were busy, marked mostly by my spending time with my girlfriends, and even more time in the darkroom. By the end of the first full week of January, orders had begun pouring in for prints. I had a before-school appointment on Thursday to take another series of photos for Sandra’s growth project. She’d turned sixteen in September.

“Good morning, Nate,” she said brightly. “I have a new inch. I wonder if you can tell where.”

She started stripping off her clothes, which I considered a good sign. She wasn’t trying to get me involved in the process any more than as a photographer. I’d been getting a little worried about how much she was asking me to do. Giving her an orgasm last time she was in was far more than I really wanted to be involved.

Who am I kidding? I loved putting my fingers in her tight little pussy and sucking on her little nipples. I loved getting down between her legs and examining her vagina, parting the curtains so I could look right inside her. That was really the problem. I wasn’t in love with Sandra and I didn’t want to get into a complicated relationship that would hurt her.

“Well, stand nice and straight and let me see if I can tell,” I said. She posed in each of her poses as I got the camera aligned and ready to shoot. “I’d have to say your bust has increased. In fact, I’m betting you have graduated out of a training bra and into an A-cup. Am I right?”

“Yes! It’s so exciting. I went to town this week and bought new bras. I don’t want to get as big as Pam is, but I like the slight increase. Do you think boys will notice me now?” she asked.

“I have no doubt they will. I would be surprised if they didn’t notice already but have been too shy to approach you,” I assured her. “Okay, let’s get into the first pose and hold it.”

She posed and I took the pictures of each of the three positions, then we moved to the fainting couch, where I’d spread a sheet for her to lie back on. She got in position and spread her legs, bringing them back to open herself up.

“I think you’ll need to spread your lips apart, Sandra. They seem pretty tightly sealed.”

“Please take one picture like that,” she said. “A girl needs to know what she looks like when she isn’t excited and lubricated.”

“That makes sense. Is something on your mind today?” I asked. I took the picture and she opened her lips, holding the dry bit of flesh out to the sides so I could take the next photo.

“Yes. I’m very nervous and I think that has affected my usual response,” she said. “It will be interesting to make notations on this experience.” I finished taking the pictures and sat back. She continued to hold herself open.

“What has you so nervous this morning?”

“I ... I want you to make love to me. Please,” she said.

I sat back with my mouth wide open. No, this could not be.

“No. No, no, no. Sandra, I’ve done far more with you than I ever should have. I should never have touched your breasts the first time you offered. I should not have touched your pussy or broken your hymen or given you an orgasm. I can’t go any further with you. I simply can’t.”

“But I want that next experience,” she said.

“The evidence that you are dry and nervous and not turned on indicates that you don’t really want me to do that.”

“I know you could do something to me that would get me turned on. Maybe you could lick me and that would give me enough lubrication.”

“No. Sandra, you are focusing all your attention on your vagina. Getting turned on doesn’t start there. It starts in your head and works its way down your body from there. By the time your vagina lubricates, you are already turned on. That’s just the last symptom,” I said.

“You say symptom like being turned on is a disease,” she pouted.

“Then scratch the word. It’s just evidence that you are turned on,” I said.

“Now it’s a crime instead of a disease.”

“Sandra, you are trying to trap me in interpretations of what I’m saying that you know are not what I mean. When you are out with a boy and you are both truly turned on, you’ll find the time that’s right for you to make love. That just shouldn’t be something you try out as a scientific experiment.”

“My head says you’re right, but my heart is ... You’re in college and I’m afraid I’ll never see you again.”

“We’ll just have to work on our schedule a little. I plan to return to the studio here on a regular basis this year. I will continue to record the scientific photos you want. But I won’t become your lover. You need to find a boy or a girl that you can love and who can love you.”

“I knew it was against the rules. You said no sex in the studio. And you told me I shouldn’t think of you as a boyfriend. And I ... I did anyway. I think...” she sniffled and I went to get tissues from the desk. “I think I have to count this as my first broken heart. I didn’t mean to love you. You’ve just been so kind and you’ve done all the things I’ve asked and you listened to what I had to say and ... And I fell in love. I think. How do you know for sure? Nate, what’s it like to fall in love and know for sure?”

“Maybe we never really know for sure.” I sat on the couch next to her and she leaned into me. I put my arms around the naked girl and tried to comfort her a little. “You know I have four girlfriends. It used to be five. I’ve had my first broken heart, too. I love all five, but there was something special with Christine that made me think of forever. We went steady for a while and when she broke up with me, it wasn’t like she was really breaking up. She was just making sure there was room for the others. But when she left for college, she said, ‘Goodbye.’ And she meant it. She meant she wasn’t coming back to me. All of my forever thoughts went up in smoke.”

“That’s so sad.”

“The thing is that being in love isn’t dependent on the other person. I thought we were both in love right up until the morning she left. But she wasn’t. Not the way I was.”

“When I said I loved you, I wasn’t thinking of forever,” Sandra said. “I was only thinking of right now. I’m sorry, Nate. I’m sorry I made things hard for you and I’m sorry you lost Christine. Do you think you’ll lose your other girlfriends, too?”

“Wow! That’s a tough thought. Ronda and I talk together two or three times a week. She made sure I had her room number in Boston, her grandmother’s number, her parents’ number, and three addresses for her. And when I see her, we can’t wait to be together.”

“That’s sweet. She’s thinking forever.”

“Yeah. You know what, though. I see Anna at least once a month, either to bring her here to Tenbrook or when she comes to Chicago. She gave me a list of numbers and addresses and wanted to make sure I didn’t want her to disappear like Christine did. You see, Anna is thinking about forever, too. And so am I.”

“What about Patricia and the baby?” she asked.

“Patricia knows I’ll be in Toni’s life as long as she’ll have me. And so, I’ll be in Patricia’s life. She chose me to be Toni’s godfather. It’s different with Patricia. I’m probably not enough of a bad boy to really satisfy her life dreams. I wish I was.”

“Yeah. You won’t even fuck a sixteen-year-old virgin when she offers herself to you. Some bad boy,” Sandra sputtered.

“Yeah. I didn’t intend to fuck Patricia, but so much for good intentions. The thing is that Patricia and Toni are attached ... There’s like an umbilical cord that holds them to Tenbrook. If I move away, she’ll probably come and visit me, but I can’t convince myself she’ll move with me,” I said.

“That’s sad. But it’s about forever, isn’t it?”

“Yes. For Patricia, the only forever she knows is her love for Tony. He’s buried out there, and she’ll never leave him.”

“What about the girl in Chicago? She just went back, didn’t she?”

“Yeah. Her classes start three weeks before mine. The thing is that we don’t have as much history or life in common. I don’t know if we have a forever love or a right now love. We’re just picking our way along trying to figure things out. Now, you need to get dressed and I need to develop this roll of film before I start pinching your little titties and do something we’ll absolutely regret.”

I stood up and dragged my hand off her breast. I wasn’t sure when it had attached itself there, nor when her hand got such a firm grip on my cock. Regardless, I needed to get working.

Friday afternoon, Anna said goodbye to her parents, to Ronda, and to Patricia. She spent a few minutes just cuddling Toni and making the little girl laugh. Toni would be six months old this week. Unbelievable. Once the goodbyes had been said, Anna and I headed for Rockford.

This wasn’t just a drop-off. I booked us into a downtown hotel for two nights.

“I’m so happy that we’ll get to go on vacation in three months,” she said as we cuddled into bed together after dinner. “I just love Patricia and I’m glad we’ll get to go on a house-hunting trip with you. It’s funny, isn’t it? I can look at you being loving with Patricia or Ronda or Beth and I think how beautiful you look together and how wonderful it is that you love each other. And then we get someplace like this and are naked in bed together and I open my legs like this and you crawl between them like you are and put your wonderful cock in my pussy ... Yes! Like that! And I think how beautiful this is and how wonderful it is that you love me like I love you. Oh, yes. Move in me. Let me feel you inside my body like you are inside my heart. Nate, no matter what else we have, I love you so much! Do it! Move in me. Come in me!”

With Anna directing my actions, it wasn’t difficult to follow instructions and fill her with my come. And then to hold her and to pet her and kiss her until we were ready to go again. And again.

Anna is, shall we say, the largest of my girlfriends—which does not make her large at all. At five-seven, she’s a good two inches taller than Elizabeth. She does not have the largest bustline. That goes to Beth, I think, with Ronda a close second. Or maybe it’s Patricia. Anna is sturdily built, but still has a narrow waist and beautiful round hips. And she has very sensitive nipples. She has orgasmed from having me rub her nipple with my thumb while we kissed. With all our clothes on! But when we kiss, as she says, she wants to do so much more. I never anticipated Anna to be such an enthusiastic lover.