Chapter 1

Tamera West slouched in an easy chair, watching an old Tarzan repeat on the television and eating an apple. Her thoughts weren't on the screen, but on her date for that night, Eddie McDonald, a big, handsome boy, with craggy features like James Colburn--only younger, of course, Eddie was going to be a senior when school started again, (but sadly, he was going to be bussed to another district. Still, there was the rest of the summer to see him, and who could tell what would happen by September?) She'd only been out with him once, last Saturday night, on a blind date arranged by her best friend, Nancy Cannon, whose steady boyfriend Jason, had brought Eddie along. And wow!

Tamera stretched out and yawned, running her fingers feline-like through her long silken blonde hair, blissfully thinking of his strong, muscular arms and how they'd held her in the backseat of Jason's old car, of how he'd kissed her so hard her toes had curled, of how he'd tried to put his hand on her breasts, under her sweater, and of how, when she hadn't allowed him to, he'd attempted to slide his hand up her naked thigh and under her skirt.

It made her quiver all over again with excitement, strange awakening tinglings of budding womanhood pervading her belly, breasts, and vagina. Eddie made her feel so alive, so much like a woman, even though she was only fifteen. Or--was it him, her mind cautioned, or just her own chemistry changing as she matured. Was it time, she asked herself, like her girlfriend Nancy had told her once? One day you're a child, and the next you're ready for sex and everything. She didn't know, but she figured that the important thing was having the feeling of being alive and generating a tingling heat every time she thought about it and Eddie.

She moved her legs so that they were straight out in front of her, arching slightly, and then she stiffened her back and yawned. In only one more hour...

She was a beautiful young girl, much like her mother, with an upturned, freckle-splattered nose and cheeks like spots from a paint brush, and her ice-blue eyes were more cat-like and devilish than distant, as many blue eyes can be. Her ripely budding young breasts were two small firm cylinders, tapering from their swollen moorings to cherry-nippled crests, and they bobbed invitingly as she moved in the chair, for she wore nothing more than a thin bra and sheer, almost see-through panties. The day had been so hot, and she had been too comfortable to worry about dressing for her date until the cool of the evening. The way she sat now, her eyes were drawn to the thin white nylon of her panties, and the way they creased in the thin visibly dividing slit of her vaginal lips. She liked looking at it, studying the soft, pink curves and silky blonde strands of pubic hair that curled out from around the elastic legbands; she liked looking at it through her panties almost as much as she liked seeing it naked. For the last few months she had liked looking at her sensually awakening young cunt, almost as much as she had enjoyed touching it.

She had learned the delightful way her fingers could arouse her, make her thrash and oscillate with delicious sensations. She had learned to finger herself from Nancy--which was one reason that they were friends. She'd walked into Nancy's bedroom one night when she'd been sleeping overnight there, not wearing even so much as she was now, for she'd been taking a shower; her nakedness had never given her a second thought. After all, they were both girls, and they'd seen each other in the flesh in the school locker room before, so why should it be different here? It proved to be very different.

Nancy had been lying on her bed, her back against the headboard, and her hand was between her legs rubbing her dark, thinly curled pubic triangle as fast as she could. Her eyes had been shut, and she'd been moaning. Thinking she was in pain, Tamera had run over to her and asked what was the matter. Nancy had told her to put the towel on the bed and lie down upon it beside her; and then, after the innocent Tamera had done so, Nancy leaned forward and told her to spread her legs...

The thought of Nancy's cool fingers on her sensitive little pubic lips made Tamera blush even now, for she knew instinctively that what they had done was wrong, though such things were never discussed in her sex classes.

But, after a few moments, Tamera hadn't wanted the strange scintillating feelings she'd been introduced to by Nancy to stop. Nancy and she had gotten together a lot after that, and Tamera alone often fondled the soft little cuntal valley between her legs. Not that she'd ever allowed the boys who dated her to finger her... never.

She was determined to be married a virgin like her mother had, and anything past necking and fondling her breasts--and that only after quite a few dates... was strictly off limits. There'd been times after a drive-in movie or a hot party or like last week with Eddie, when she'd cried her frustrations into her pillow, for she'd been aroused hotter than ever before. And then she'd had to use her fingers again for relief. She kept telling herself that in a few weeks a particular boy would no longer be important, and she would grow fond of another, and she couldn't give in her virginity for one that wouldn't last forever. She wasn't ready to settle down, to truly fall in love--and so far she'd been right.

Of course, no boy had come along like Eddie before. Tamera knew instinctively that she'd have an awfully hard time keeping her moral resolutions intact with a "wow" guy like him.

There was a noise then, interrupting her train of thoughts, and Tamera looked up as the front door opened and her mother entered. Carla West, thirty-five years old and widowed, staggered into the living room with a pile of grocery sacks. She was dressed in a light blouse and shorts, the long expanse of her tanned legs provocative against the white of the cloth. Her hair was askew, however, and perspiration beaded her face, and it was obvious that she was tired from the shopping she'd done. Still, there was a fresh, young beauty about her in spite of the fact she had a teenaged daughter; firm taut breasts, trim flat stomach without the slightest stretch mark to interrupt the silken smoothness of her skin, and the same kind of pouty, sensual face as Tamera's.

"There's another bundle in the car," Carla said. "I'd ask you to get it, but I can see you're not dressed." She eyed her daughter's bare sun- browned body with disapproval.

"Aw, Mom," Tamera objected. "I was just resting like this."

"Resting to do what? Strip-tease for the neighbors?"

"I've got more on now than when I'm wearing my bikini, for crying out loud."

"Listen, honey," her mother retorted waspishly. "I don't care if you run around the house completely naked. In fact you have a lovely body and it's enjoyable to see, compared to most girl's figures. But a bikini is one thing, see-through panties and bra are another--and especially when the curtains are open and everybody passing can see you."

"Oh," Tamera said. "I forgot."

"Uh-huh." Carla sighed, exhausted and too uncomfortable to continue arguing, and sat down on the sofa to the right of her daughter. "What a mess at Goodermann's today. You'd think it was the Fourth of July or something. I'm bushed."

"I'll get dressed," Tamera offered, "and get the other sack of groceries for you."

"No, no," Carla replied wearily. "No need. I'll get a second wind in a little bit."

"I have to get dressed anyway," Tamera said, rising out of her chair. "I mean, it's almost time for Eddie to get here."

"Eddie? Oh, yes, Eddie, the boy you were with last week. You're going out with him again tonight?"

"The four of us. Jason--that's Nancy's boy-friend--doesn't have his car running, so we're all using Eddie's. Last week Eddie's was broken."

"Where were you today?"

"At the park. Me and Nancy, we swam in the pool there. But it was awful crowded, you know? And it sort of smelled from everybody." She wrinkled her nose with disgust. "It wasn't very nice."

"I worry about you," her mother started to complain. "Out all day, gone most of the nights... I don't know what to do at times."

"Don't worry, Mom. I'm a big girl now."

"You're the only one left now, the only one. Some women who've lost their husbands don't try to be both parents to their children, never care where they are or who they're with, but I do."

"You want me to put away the groceries, then?" Tamera asked, knowing what happened when her mother got wound up on the maudlin subject of just- the-two-of-them.

"I've got so many troubles, I don't even sleep any more."

"Sure you do," Tamera said. "Don't take so many pills, that's all. They're not good for you." She didn't mention the pints of brandy that her mother kept by her bedside. "But honest, Mom, you've got nothing to worry about."

Nothing a good man wouldn't cure, Tamera thought. Her mother was a very lovely woman, with a good figure and svelte, smoothly tapered legs, and she should have somebody to replace the father and husband which had been missing for six years now. It wasn't right that her mother should deny herself the love and passion of a man, not right at all--but Tamera knew better than to bring up that subject. The few times she had in the past, her head had been chopped off, for her mother considered such talk sinful. Her mother was definitely a product of her mother's Victorian generation.

"Well, if you must leave me alone, you must." Carla sighed. "You know that I'm tired and need you to help me."

"I'll be in early, Mother, and help tomorrow. You'll be all right this evening, won't you?" Sure she will, Tamera thought. Nothing the matter with her except neglect. That's why all the aches and pains; she's looking for sympathy and interest--why, the doctor as much told me that when I saw him last. Neglect and disuse, that's all the matter with her, neglect of mind and body. Why couldn't she break down her old-fashioned ways and be the real woman that she is underneath those imaginary black ankle-length skirts and whale-bone corsets...

"Oh, I realize I'm only being a selfish old lady," Carla said, smiling. "It's your time to be out and find your man. I've had my love, now better luck with yours."

"You haven't finished loving, mother," Tamera said sharply. "You're only thirty-five, and a beautiful thirty-five at that!"

"I know. I have you, dearest child."

"That's not what I meant! I--Ohhh, what's the use." Tamera turned and started across the room. "I have to get dressed now, Mom."

Carla looked at her beautiful offspring tenderly as the almost naked Tamera padded barefoot into the hallway. She was slightly disturbed at her child, because Tamera had almost spoken--and was no doubt thinking-- what she herself hadn't dared to think at her young age. But she couldn't stay mad or upset for long, and she felt herself warming with love and affection at the radiant, tanned body, the cornsilk hair fanning out behind her head, the way her conical young breasts beat with the rhythm of her heart, solid and not as large as her own, but then not fully developed, either. And Carla had to admire with pride her daughter's smooth flat belly and cute navel and the gentle sloping to her thighs, where she knew there was a down of softly curling pubic hair slightly thinner than her own--at the moment covered by merely a wisp of sheer nylon--and the pink petals of her still untouched young vagina. Her tight, almost boyish buttocks swayed gently as she walked toward her bedroom, and her feet, small, with delicate toes...

Still, she couldn't help fearing that Tamera was perhaps emerging into maturity faster than she should, and that she wasn't experiencing the joys of childhood. Was Tamera growing up too fast? And then Carla laughed wryly, realizing that she was being foolish. She was overprotective, desperately clutching her child to her bosom because that was all that was left. No husband, not since Arnold died, and there wouldn't be another--not so long as the memory of her one true love was still fresh and poignant in her mind. Six years... but the telegram from the Army saying he'd been killed in a munitions accident could have arrived yesterday for all the dulling effects of time. No, Tamera was of this generation, a world faster than her own. There was no cause to worry... Tamera might not be the mental innocent that she had been at fifteen-- but she was still as physically pure, that Carla was sure of.

With another long-drawn sigh, Carla West lifted herself out of her chair and began taking the groceries into the kitchen. They weren't going to put themselves away, that was for sure...

Tamera had showered when she'd returned from the Park, so her dressing consisted merely of putting on whatever outfit she chose to wear that evening. She stopped before the mirror in her bedroom, gazing with satisfaction at the voluptuously curved body her attractive mother and father had given her, and again studied the way her panties outlined her slightly puffy little cuntal mound. She tugged the panties up with her fingers until the smooth round cheeks of her buttocks and the thin divide of her vaginal slit were tightly impressed into the soft nylon and she giggled with secret delight. Then she slipped into a mini-skirted jumper, the top of which covered her breasts but still gave the impression that she was naked underneath. A summer dress, befitting the heat--and good for getting a boy like Eddie all hot and bothered. But she'd handle him, she thought to herself as she smoothed out the thin, light yellow material, and she'd stop his crude passes tonight, just as she had last week, but she was going to have loads of fun getting up to that point...