Chapter 26

I have a lot of stuff left to tell you but first I need to insert a small sidebar. I want to talk some about what makes a woman attractive to me. Now I don’t pretend to be an expert, heck I’ve only had sex with seven women in my entire life, but every woman I’ve ever been with was sexy as hell, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that every one of them was smart also. I know that my perception of beauty has undergone a radical change. For instance, I don’t think the almost physically perfect Rachael Scofield will ever be as beautiful as frizzy haired, freckle faced Elaine and Ellen Cavanaugh or tiny, flat chested Cindi Frazier. And I think that’s because Cindi and Elaine and Ellen are beautiful on the inside, and I’m just a lucky guy for seeing it.

Okay, enough pontificating and back to my story. At the end of last chapter I was at the drive-in movie with Cindi and the Cavanaugh twins, remenber?

We fooled around some more at the drive-in but mostly we just sat there and shared kisses and good feelings for each other. When I turned my head and kissed Elaine while Ellen was doing the same to Cindi we had a taste of things to come. Yes, a surge of sexual arousal washed among the four of us but mingled with it there was some serious love. When I drove everyone home we were probably four of the most contented teenagers on the planet.

After mass on Sunday, I zipped over to see Nina Murphy as Elaine suggested I do. I called Nina first, of course, and she confirmed that I was expected. Nina opened the door wearing shorts and a cute little t-shirt. Her hair was pulled back in a bushy ponytail and her big blue eyes sparkled; she looked half her age. She was bare footed but she was wearing the ankle bracelet I had given her. Nina was more radiant that day than I had ever seen her. She kissed me at the door as if I’d just returned from the war or something, and then dragged me into the little sitting room off the foyer.

“Johnny, in about five minutes I’m going to take you to bed. When we get to that bed I am going to give myself to you completely. And for as long as you still want me that is the way it’s going to be, anytime, anywhere, anyway you want me, understand?”

I gulped and nodded. “What brought this on?” I asked.

“You did, you’ve made me the happiest woman in Palmdale. I’m pregnant! The thing that twenty doctors told me could never happen, has happened, thanks to you.”

Oh Sweet Jesus, the thing that I had been so careful with every other woman I’d ever been with happens to the one I failed to take the initiative for using protection. I guess my face must have given me away because Nina’s big smile morphed into a look of concern.

“What’s wrong, Johnny?”

“Nothing, I’m happy for you and you know I’ll do the right thing. We can get married as soon as I turn seventeen, I have some money saved, and I can get a full time job with my grandfather.”

Nina looked at me for a second and then pulled me toward her.

“That’s so sweet, sometimes I forget how old you really are, Honey. Listen to me. We aren’t getting married and you don’t need to quit school and get a job. I could probably get in trouble if it became public knowledge that you knocked me up, after all, I’m twenty-five years older than you. We’ll work things out as we go along. Just know that you’ve given me a chance at something I never thought would happen, and for that I’ll love you forever.”

I acknowledged what she said, a giant weight off my chest. It made me proud that I had done something to bring her such unabashed joy, even if it was by accident. One thing was certain though, I was going to have to redouble my efforts at practicing safe sex. I had irrefutable evidence that my little Polish swimmers were of Olympic caliber. Of course tucked away in that part of my brain that houses all the Pulaskiness, was the thought that, regardless what Nina said, I would have a responsibility to the child she bore. Nina and I would just have to work that out as time passed.

Nina made good on her promise about taking me to bed. And she did it in fewer than the five minutes she’d advertised. It was an amazing afternoon as Nina pampered me as if I were really the Sultan we kidded about me being. Being pregnant had spiked up Nina’s already healthy libido. She was Ready for Freddy as soon as she stripped us both naked. I was as limp as well done vermicelli when she finally let me out of the bed. After we showered and dressed she cooked me dinner. We ate out by the pool and talked for a while. I told her about my pact with the twins and Cindi. She smiled when I told her that I had asked permission to keep seeing her even before I knew she was pregnant.

I thought about Nina and her condition on my way home. I have to say that once I thought about it I must have sounded really stupid when I manfully talked about going out to get a job. Jesus, Nina was about as rich as a person could want to be! She probably spent more on laundry a week than I could have made working full time. Nina said the twins figured out she was pregnant right away after overhearing her tell her sister Donna that she was trying an experimental fertility procedure. The twins were ecstatic, but Donna seemed to think she was loony for trying to get pregnant so late in life. The twins were sworn to secrecy and Nina asked me to keep it quiet until she was ready to announce her miracle to the family.

I had no problem with keeping her secret. After all, I was going to ask Mr. and Mrs. Cavanaugh for permission to date their daughters tomorrow night. I don’t think they’d be as quick to say yes if I threw in a, “By the way, you can trust me, even though I’ve been boinking your sister and, whoops, she’s knocked up.”

Cindi rode to school with me on Monday, and after school we went to my house to study. I was a little nervous about talking to the Cavanaughs, so Cindi was keeping me company and working on reducing my stress level. We did study, too, for the first hour it was Math and English, for the last hour it was Anatomy and Physiology. Cindi’s cute little ass was the Anatomy topic and how it reacted to my playing with it was the Physiology. Know what we discovered as a result of our carefully crafted experiment? Cindi loved having her ass played with, that’s what. When I was noshing on her little quim and stuck a slicked up finger in her ass I thought she was going to hit the ceiling.

Cindi also proudly demonstrated that she’d enlarged the perforation in her hymen so I could ease a finger into her. Can you say, hello g-spot? Who knew my little honey would go ballistic with a finger in her tight little pussy and one up her equally tight little ass? When I took her home Cindi was so relaxed she was almost comatose. She kissed me at her door, told me she loved me, and then pointed me towards the twins’ house.

I was nervous when I sat down with the Cavanaughs, even though the twins said it would be a piece of cake.

“Mister and Missus Cavanaugh, I’d like your permission to date Elaine and Ellen.” I started.

“You are already doing that, Johnny,” Mister Cavanaugh said.

“I mean real dates, Sir, not tutoring.”

“That’s what Thomas meant also, Johnny. If you don’t think the dates you took the girls on were real, you are the only one within several miles of here who didn’t. And we approve of you three dating, the positive changes in Elaine and Ellen since they’ve met you are extraordinary. I have been dreading the day they started dating since they were twelve. Knowing they are going out with you is a relief for us. I just hope they don’t take advantage of you, they can be a handful when they want something.”

I looked at Mister Cavanaugh and he was nodding in agreement. “I couldn’t be happier about this, either,” he said. “Those two are way beyond anything I can comprehend but you seem to understand them perfectly.”

Missus Cavanaugh called upstairs on the intercom and told the twins their boyfriend was waiting for them. Elaine and Ellen came exploding down the stairs and swarmed their parents. After a bunch of thank yous, they grabbed me and hauled me out to the back yard. We sat in the long wooden swing seat in the gazebo, me between them, them tucked under my arms. They weren’t surprised at all about what their parents said. They had it all figured out days ago. We kissed and cuddled for a few minutes then I reluctantly had to head home.

I had a ball game the next day so Cindi drove herself to school. I waited for her in the parking lot and walked in with her, though, dutifully carrying her books. If everyone were as sweet as Cindi Frazier first thing in the morning this would be a much nicer world. Cindi sent me to homeroom adjusting Louisville Slugger caliber wood when she told me her little butt still tingled from me playing with it. Then she iced the cake by saying she couldn’t wait until I did it some more.

Cindi and the twins were front row center at our home baseball game that afternoon. Too bad the game sucked so badly. We lost by one run, a run scored on a close call at the plate on a throw I made from deep right-center. The throw was right on the money and our catcher held onto the ball but the umpire ruled the runner slid under the tag. For some reason Elaine took serious Irish exception to the call and proceeded to give the ump a huge ration of shit. I couldn’t hear her from where I was in right field, but Coach Neivers said it was the best harangue he’d ever heard, and she hadn’t used one swear word.

Coach said he almost fell down when she yelled that the ump should get his ophthalmologically challenged cranium ablated from his gluteus maximus because the trumpery he’d perpetrated was bovine defecation!

Stan Hoffman pithily observed that pillow talk with Elaine must be like taking the SATs.

The rest of the last week of April passed with agonizing slowness. The girls’ sleepover weekend started Friday night but I wasn’t invited to the opening night festivities because Nina was doing the tutoring that night. Nina was giving them the finer points of how to make each other and me happy. Of course, knowing what was going on over at Nina’s joint just about drove Kong crazy.

I worked for Papa until two Saturday afternoon. That day we were getting the house I lived in ready for a new roof. It had taken almost six months for a roofing company to get around to us. The roofers were removing the old shingles Monday morning and installing the new sub roof. Papa and I installed eyebolts on the roof’s ridge so the roofers could tie off their safety lines. We also removed the gutters and off ridge vents so they could be used later. While we were at it Papa also removed some damaged fascia and soffits. We would replace them after the new roof was on.

{Ed.’s Note: https://roofersdublin.ie/wp-content/uploads/fascia-and-soffit-explained.jpg }

While I was baking in the sun, the girls and Nina were at the Palmdale Day Spa. The spa was a part of the local Herz. Herz is a national chain of fitness and wellness centers for women. Nina’s oldest sister, Claudia, was part owner of the entire chain of centers, so getting in on a Saturday was not a big deal for them. I showed up at Nina’s at six o’clock sharp that evening. I had been told to dress up for the evening so I was looking pretty spiff when I hit the door. I was also loaded down like a pack mule; I had three bouquets of roses, all different colors, my backpack full of birth control supplies, and two bottles of champagne. Papa snagged me the bubbly when I picked up the flowers at Winn Dixie. I knew from experience that the flowers and champagne were a good investment of my hard-earned ducats.

All three girls met me at the door. The girls were all wearing dresses, all different and all spectacular. They had their hair done up in sophisticated styles and wore tastefully applied makeup. I could not get over how good they looked or how poised they acted. Nor could I actually believe my good fortune at being there with them. I gave each of them a bouquet of flowers and a kiss before they led me into the dining room.

The dining table had four places set, two on each side, at one end of a table that could seat twenty comfortably. Ellen got me seated and the three of them went about serving supper. We had lasagna and garlic bread, both obviously from the frozen food section of the super market. That didn’t bother me a whit, though, because all my attention was focused on the girls. I could see that the meal was their subtle way of showing that our relationship was not just about sex. To further make the point, sex wasn’t even mentioned during the meal; instead, Ellen, never at a loss for words, started talking about current affairs and politics. Since I only watched ESPN and read the sports section of the paper, I wasn’t able to contribute much to the conversation.

They’d be going on about some program or policy and all of the sudden ask me for my opinion. I kept my face down in my plate as if I were in prison and mumbled I didn’t know anything about it. Finally, Ellen got exasperated with me.

“Don’t you read the paper, Johnny?”

“Everyday,” I said. “You are just asking questions out of the wrong section. If you want to know how the Yankees did last night, or what Beetle Bailey is up too, I’m your man.”

That drew a snort of laughter from Elaine and even a titter from Cindi, but it earned me a withering glare from Ellen. “Oh, really,” she sniffed disdainfully, sounding for all the world exactly like her mother.

I gave Ellen my most contrite hangdog look and she burst out laughing. “Gotcha!” she said.

But before I got up from the table, I had promised to keep current on what was going on besides in the sports pages. Elaine guilted me into it by telling me it was my obligation as a citizen to stay informed. I replied that I thought if they wanted me to have an opinion they’d give me one. That cracked them all up.

“Touché,” said Ellen not denying what I said even a little bit.

You probably already know this and don’t need to hear it from someone my age. But here it is, anyway. Hooking up with a smart woman is the most intelligent thing any guy can do. Because when a smart woman loves you she will treat you like you are King Shit and, at the same time, make you better at everything without you even noticing. I don’t know how it works, but I know it is as much a natural law as gravity.

I’m a pretty smart guy sometimes myself, but my accomplishments in school are more the result of hard work than native intelligence. Things these three women soak up like sponges take a concerted effort for me to absorb. But I’ll tell you, that night I had one of my brightest ideas ever! I decided that I wasn’t going to fight whatever direction they nudged me toward, because they cared for me enough to want what was best for me, and they were smart enough to know how to get me there. The only other two people who had that kind of sway over me were my father and grandfather.

After cleaning off the table Elaine brought out this huge bottle of champagne. She said what I brought wasn’t cold yet so she swapped it for a bottle of Nina’s. I think Nina was not getting much in the exchange being as how I’d only paid $7.99 a bottle for what I brought, but refer to the paragraph above. I did the honors and uncorked the big bottle of Chateau Moulin de something or other then filled the four flutes Ellen had snagged for us. My women looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to make a toast. Man did I have a good one too. I heard Papa use it once down at the American Legion Hall when he was half way through a bottle of vodka. It went like this:

If I had a dog, And he could pee this stuff, And if that dog could pee enough, I’d throw that dog into my bed. And suck his dick till we both were dead.

Salute`

It was on the tip of my tongue but I bit it back and instead I said:

“Here’s to us, and us forever. And here’s to the three of you! I’d be the luckiest guy who ever lived even if all I were allowed to do was stand in your auras.”

Hey, I know the Toast Masters aren’t going to knock down my door anytime soon, but it was from the heart, and more importantly, my women thought it sounded good to them. We clinked glasses and then took a sip, eyeing each other over the rims. Finally, Elaine lowered her glass and sat it on the table.

“Johnny, My Love, this is your last chance to leave here uncommitted. If you stay you might as well buy us all rings.”

Jesus, she didn’t mince words, did she? I looked at each of them and tried to think of one single reason for leaving. Nothing even flickered up there in my brain housing, mainly because all I’d be doing tonight was formalizing what my heart had already decided.

“I’ll need your sizes,” I said.

Elaine whooped and grabbed me in a hug tight enough to actually hurt. Then Ellen and Cindi piled on me, too.

“You are never going to regret this, Johnny, never for a second,” Ellen vowed.

I nodded and looked at Cindi. She was smiling that sweet little shy smile. I looked at the twins and winked.

“Someone here is improperly dressed,” I said, looking at Cindi again. She looked back at me, her smile fading. “Sit down right here, Cindi,” I gestured toward a dining room chair.

She complied, sitting primly, her knees together. She glanced inquisitively at the twins but they just stared back blankly. I knelt down and fished one of the remaining ankle bracelets out of my pocket and fastened it around her small ankle. I looked up at her when I finished closing the clasp. She sat her foot back on the floor and looked at each of us, her eyes shiny with unshed tears.

“It’s really true, isn’t it? You want me to be a part of this because you love me, not because you feel sorry for me!” Cindi said.

Before I could reply, Ellen and Elaine pulled Cindi to her feet.