Chapter 22

I saw the Cavanaughs at Mass the next morning in their usual spot, a couple of pews in front of us. Even from behind I knew which of the three redheads was Elaine. I was thinking how wonderful a person she was when she turned around and smiled at me. I was startled when I felt a wash of contentment settle over me. Could Elaine be sending it to me without us even touching or was I just content being near her? I closed my eyes and tried to project the same feeling back to her. I figured I failed, and must have been mistaken, when she didn’t acknowledge my actions.

After Mass I drove over to Rachael’s house. After my episode with Elaine the night before, I was seeing everything differently, today. One of those things was ‘Rachael and me.’ I had always had this romantic notion of Rachael and me as soul mates. Last night put things in a different perspective. I guess it was that chemistry thing Nina talked about. In the school of love, with Rachael, I had history; with Elaine, I had chemistry. Thinking about Elaine of course made me think about Ellen. Would it be the same way with the other twin? Somehow, I thought not. Ellen and I connected, but not as I did with Elaine or even Nina, for that matter. I wondered why that was. After all, they were as identical as two people could be.

When I arrived at Rachael’s she met me at the door wearing this teddy the same color blue as her eyes. I swear no other woman in the world could look any better than she did in that thing. After we shared a steamy kiss just inside the door, she practically dragged me to the bedroom. Rachael was the hottest and most vocal I’d ever seen her and I was a machine as I sought to please her. For the first time Rachael let me try different positions with her. To her surprise she liked all of them. We made technically proficient love for over an hour and a half. During that time she must have had half a dozen orgasms to my three. When she was finally sated she rested a minute or two then looked at her watch.

“That was incredible Johnny and I’d love to stay here and cuddle with you but I have a study group at five that I can’t miss. I have just enough time to shower and make the drive.”

I said I understood and dressed. She walked me to the door and gave me a kiss.

“Ciao, Johnny. I’ll call you,” she said.

‘Ciao, Johnny?’ What the hell was that, if it wasn’t the ‘bum’s rush?’ I suddenly knew what a woman must feel like when a man just uses her for sex and dumps her. That shit, I vowed, would never happen again. I don’t care how good her body was, or how hot she was in the sack. The more I thought about it the more it pissed me off. ‘Ciao, Johnny,’ my aching ass.

Michelle called me at seven that night. She was all peppy and happy sounding. She told me all about her two dates with Nick, the new guy. She said the dates were terrific, Nick was terrific; as a matter of fact, life in general was terrific. Nick was so romantic; Nick was so charming; Nick was so ... I tuned out about then. It just wasn’t my day I guess.

Michelle drove me to school the next morning still carrying on about Nick. I got to meet Prince Charming in the parking lot. His name was Nicholas Stavros and he was one handsome son of a gun. He was as tall as I, but had a slim swimmer’s build. His hair was black and curly and his eyes were dark blue shaded towards violet. He seemed like a genuinely nice guy, too. He smiled a lot, which only showed off his perfectly straight, pearly white teeth. Michelle departed with Nick without a backwards glance at me. I swear I could almost see the cartoon stars in her eyes.

That night Michelle called me and asked if I minded riding the bus to school in the morning because Nick was coming by to pick her up. Her voice sounded different somehow, sort of strained. I asked her what the matter was. She hesitated a few seconds and then admitted that she and Nick had sex that afternoon at her house after school. She sounded apologetic about ditching me so quickly over him. I told her I understood and hoped he made her happy. I could hear the blush in her voice when she replied that he made her very happy. She then gave me just the information I didn’t need when she said he was really big, ‘down there.’ Jesus, it wasn’t like Nick needed any other advantages.

Elaine called and salvaged my night a few minutes after I hung up with Michelle. I couldn’t quite grasp the serious attraction we obviously both felt. Judging by our conversation, Elaine felt the same way.

“Johnny, I could feel you behind me in church yesterday, it made me feel so good. And I talked to Aunt Nina about what happened Saturday night,” she said.

I smiled at that. I was guessing I wouldn’t be invited to dinner at Nina’s this week. I don’t think Nina actually believed that the one of the twins would be such a fast worker.

“What did she say?” I asked.

“She was very surprised and asked me a lot of questions. I guess at first she thought it was just our hormones getting out of control. Get this, when I told her I thought it was way beyond hormones, she said that the reaction was genetic with women in our family and was not unexpected. What was out of character was that it was with you and not our clan chief in Ireland, some distant cousin she called the O’Buckley. She said Ellen’s reaction is more typical, you know, inquisitive but reserved. If anyone but Aunt Nina told me that stuff I’d think they were loony.”

“Wow, that does sound weird,” I said.

“There’s even more Johnny, supposedly we are going to Ireland this summer and meet this guy. His name is Patrick Buckley, by the way. I looked him up on the Net. He is one of about twenty people who head the remnants of the old Irish clans. The clan chiefs are the only titleholders allowed by the Irish Constitution. The first O’Buckley was clan chief a thousand years before Christ.”

“So where does that leave us, Sweetie? Are we going to have to stop seeing each other?” I asked, afraid of the answer.

“Nina didn’t even mention that. I think our only problem is going to be the usual stuff about my age. But the same arguments about genetics apply there as well. Women in my family mature early, that’s just a fact of life. Then again, the boy involved is you, Johnny, and everyone knows how you are.”

I didn’t like the sound of that.

“Er, is that good or bad?” I asked.

She had the same laugh that Nina had. It was enchanting and you knew it was real.

“That’s very good, silly boy. My dad considers you the son he never had, Mom respects you and Aunt Nina loves you to death.”

We hung up shortly after that. I finished my homework and hung out watching television with Dad for a while then turned in at ten. Elaine sure had given me a bunch to think about. The story of her family didn’t seem nearly as strange to me as it would have before I discovered the ability that I had to connect with some people. And what about Michelle? Dammed if that wasn’t fast. I knew Michelle and I weren’t destined to spend our lives together but holy cow, she dropped me like a bad habit.

I rode the bus to school Monday morning. I tried like hell not to feel sorry for myself, but it didn’t work. We had baseball practice Monday afternoon, so Stan drove me home.

“Sorry about you and Michelle,” he said.

I shrugged.

“I hope this guy makes her happy. I think we both realized that we were meant to be friends more than anything else.”

Stan nodded.

“I know she’s always going to think of you as someone special. You came through for her when she needed it.”

We had ball games Tuesday and Thursday. Our team was actually doing pretty well. We were four and two after three weeks. JJ Hernandez was a big part of our success. We were three and zip in games he started. Friday morning I received a note at homeroom to go see Coach Boyette. Coach sat me down and told me he knew all about what had gone down with Tony Rochelli. He had still kept my parking pass in spite of what he knew because it was still wrong for me to have instigated the fight on school property. He handed me a new pass and said to remember how easy they were to lose before he dismissed me. Damn I was glad to get that pass back!

Caroline and Amanda joined me for lunch that day. Amanda told me she had seen Michelle and Nick together all chummy in the hallway. I told them the story and both girls gave me sympathetic hugs. I hadn’t been with either of them since the day after Christmas. I guessed they were really into each other right then. Amanda said her mother, Jane, was still seeing Murray, and the two of them seemed to be getting along great. I thought that was a very good thing.

That night I had another mall date with the twins. I made sure I treated both girls exactly the same. We ate at the food court again and from the mall we went up to Daytona to the new boardwalk complex. The temperature was about fifty and the breeze off the ocean was stiff so the three of us strolled along snuggled up. We stopped at Dunkin Donuts for hot chocolate then I took them home. The twins thought it was pretty funny that our early arrival interrupted Shelia and Al making out on the couch. Mr. and Mrs. Cavanaugh were out for the evening again, this time at some charity function. It was only ten so I stayed and hung out for a while.

Al and Shelia seemed anxious to get back to whatever they were doing, so I went upstairs with the twins to their playroom. We ended up playing Monopoly, of all things. I left at eleven after nice kisses from both girls. Elaine and I had to concentrate on keeping our ardor toned down. That wasn’t an easy task because our attraction was stronger than ever as soon as our lips met. I wasn’t going to get a date with Elaine that weekend because the Cavanaughs were going to Tampa early in the morning and coming back Sunday night. They were going to visit Mr. Cavanaugh’s sister and go boating out on the Gulf of Mexico.

I got seriously double smacked in both arms for suggesting I go along to keep cousin Ashley amused.

The next Wednesday night Nina invited me to dinner again. She apologized for us missing last week. It turned out she had other matters to attend to, which had nothing to do with Elaine and me. After we ate we went to the living room and settled into our usual place on the couch. Nina was wearing this brown corduroy dress that buttoned down the front from collar to hem with big pink buttons. The top two buttons were undone and so were a few at the bottom. She had on sandals and her legs were bare except for the ankle bracelet I gave her.

“Do you wear that all the time or did you put it on just for me?” I asked pointing to the bracelet.

She stuck her leg out and grinned. “I wear it all the time, I think it’s sexy. I get a lot of comments on it, especially if I’m wearing heels. Of course, I can’t tell anyone that my cruel sheik makes me wear it to mark me as his property.”

She gave me the opening I’d waited for all evening. “You know, Nina, Elaine raised the stakes of our little game quite a bit. I’m afraid we went a little crazy.”

“She told me. We had a long talk about it. Her attraction to you is extraordinary. It is also extraordinary that everyone feels you two are meant for each other. When she asked my sister about going on the pill, Donna didn’t bat an eyelash and agreed immediately. I think our biggest concern about the whole thing is the affect it will have on her relationship with Ellen. They have been inseparable since birth; now all of the sudden, here you are in the mix.”

That was something I had not even considered. I admitted as much to Nina and asked for her advice. She told me before Elaine and I went any further I needed to talk about it with both Elaine and Ellen together. That sounded like excellent advice. With that settled, I turned to her with a big Snidely Whiplash leer.

“I believe we have some catching up to do,” I said, trying to sound menacing.

She tried to look frightened as I took her in my arms but she was no better an actor than I was. We were soon kissing passionately and I wasted no time in starting to unbutton her dress. I was expecting her to protest but she just kept kissing. I had her dress unbuttoned to the waist and her bra unfastened before we broke that first kiss. As passionately as she was responding I could still sense she was holding herself back. Suddenly for me this wasn’t a game any more. It was me and a woman I was strongly attracted to. I tweaked her nipple, put my lips next to her ear and sent her a big dose of how I really felt about her.

“Let yourself go, Nina. This is just about us. I want to make love to you.”

“Oh, God,” she moaned. I could feel it as she let herself loose; it was as if a dam burst, her feelings washed over me in a huge surge. “Not here,” she panted, “bedroom.”

I picked her up and she guided me up the stairs to her spacious master suite. I deposited her on her big, canopied, mahogany bed then shucked my clothes as if they were on fire. Nina finished undressing herself and almost exactly as Elaine had, she held her arms out to me. I kissed her gently then kissed my way down her body. Mother nature had sure been kind to Nina; she had a body a thirty year old would be proud of. Her skin was soft and smooth across muscles that still had their definition. The only hint of her age was the slightest of laugh lines around her eyes.

Nina’s bush was the same flame red as Elaine’s although Nina had more of it. She also had a large prominent clit peeking between her lips. She didn’t explode as soon as I touched her as Elaine had but it didn’t take her long to climax. Nina produced prodigious amounts of juice that tasted as sweet as cotton candy. Best of all for me, she wasn’t too sensitive after she came for me to continue; she soared from one orgasm to the next with hardy a pause. After her third I was as needy as a televangelist. I moved up and positioned myself over her. She opened her eyes when I moved; they were glazed with lust.

“I have a rubber in my wallet,” I offered.

“We don’t need it, just go slow, My Love. I haven’t been with a man in a long time.”