Chapter 3

Lonnie Carmel stared morosely into her coffee cup. The silence of the house was oppressive to her ears, its emptiness a sacrilege to her eyes. It was always thus during the week, in that magical hour or so between the end of the housework chores and the entrance of her daughter, home from school. But with the knowledge that she was without her husband for another fortnight, Lonnie sensed that the house was like a tomb; still as death and just as vacant.

She sighed, wondering whether it was worth saving the special steak from age she'd prepared for Roger, or if she should throw it away as carelessly as it seemed to her that her errant husband was discarding their marriage. A tear welled in one eye; she blinked rapidly and it rolled down her cheek and poised uncertainly by her trembling jaw.

Her thoughts were stilled when the front door burst open and Jennifer came in. She was a little breathless and her face was a soft crimson. "Hi, Mom," she cried out happily. "I ran from the bus stop because of the rain. Whoo-ee! Anything to eat?"

"I'll fix dinner soon," Lonnie said woodenly.

"You look sad, Mom," the daughter said, frowning slightly. "What's the matter?"

"N-nothing," Lonnie said haltingly. "Nothing at all."

Jennifer, concerned, put her books on the dinette table and sat down beside her mother. "Yes there is, I can tell it."

"It's... it's just that your father had to go on another trip."

"Today?" Jennifer was shocked: her father had just gotten home this morning! "You mean he's left again, today?"

"Yes," came the whisper.

Mother and daughter sat in glum-filled sadness. The pall of quiet engulfed them; a sound-proof cloak effectively sealing their separate thoughts even from being shared between them. After awhile, the daughter said: "I think it's a crime. Daddy's never home."

"It seems that way at times," her mother agreed. "But we have to remember that he's doing it for us."

"You say that, Mom, but you don't believe it."

Lonnie winced inwardly at the telling remark. It was hard to be coldly analytical in a situation as emotion-fraught as this. She had to remember, though, that it wasn't good to display her marital troubles in front of Jennifer. It only hurt the family needlessly, and certainly didn't help solve the problem. She tried to smile, it came out forced and shallow. "Well..." she said, "well, we can't just sit around and cry in our soup, can we?"

Jennifer remained sullen. Mothers were one thing, and she loved hers very much. But Jennifer had always been "Daddy's little girl," and she felt drawn to him strongly. When she worked hard in school, it was to make Dad proud of her; when she had a problem, it was to Dad that she went; when she thought about the man she would marry someday, the image came out to look like Dad. It was the natural, common Oedipus complex in female garb -- nothing serious or especially unhealthy -- but a source of frustration and anger when Dad was away.

Roger Carmel never dreamed how much his family really loved him. They would do anything for him, and might not have recognized how well he'd succeeded as a mate and parent. The Olisses did. They were counting on it, in fact.

"Tell you what, Jennifer," Lonnie said, a little more sprightly, now that she had something to do to keep her mind occupied, "I'll whip up a batch of pancakes. Norwegian ones; you always like them."

"Sure. Fine." Jennifer remained unmoved.

"Then we'll go to the movies, if you like."

"I don't feel like going out. Thanks anyway."

Lonnie glanced over at her offspring, wondering how to snap her teenage daughter out of the blue funk she was in. She chastised herself again for being as maudlin as she'd been when Jennifer had first come home. Her moroseness has transmitted itself, and she felt, as a mother, the burden of responsibility.

Her considerations were interrupted by the ringing of the door chimes. Now who could that be?

"I'll get it," Jennifer said, and rose. She wasn't overly quick about it, though she wasn't dragging her feet; merely disinterested and sluggish with sadness. She was surprised when she answered the door to find the Oliss women standing on the porch. "Why... Tamera! And Mrs. Oliss!"

"Mind if we visit, Jennifer?" Mrs. Oliss said sweetly. "Tam and I are without our man, just like you two. We thought we'd at least make it a lonesome foursome."

"Of course," Jennifer said, standing back so they could enter. "Come on in. Mom was fixing dinner."

"Oh, well if she's busy..."

"Not at all, Cylvia," Lonnie said, coming out of the kitchen and wiping her hands on a towel. "I hadn't really started yet. Coffee?"

"Sounds wonderful. Unless I can plead for a drink instead."

"Of course. Scotch and Ginger? I'll join you."

"Got a Coke, Mrs. Carmel?" Tam said, the picture of adolescent respectability. If only Lonnie and Jennifer could have seen inside the girl's mind, read her evil and depraved thoughts, they wouldn't have been so glad to see her or her mother. But all they saw were the facades, and as a result, Lonnie and Jennifer were pleased and relieved to have them here. It was easier to share the depression with four people than with two, especially when the others were in the same boat.

Jennifer and Tamera went into the teenager's room, and within seconds the house reverberated with the sounds of rock music, the latest "top ten" singles.

Tamera, like her mother, was naturally blonde, but she'd let her hair grow long and combed it in that tangled, careless look as if she'd been in a convertible all day, driving with the top down. She had a little stubby nose, freckles across its bridge, and her greenish eyes were more cat-like and devilish than her mother's. Her pert breasts were twin small, firm cylinders, tapering from their swollen moorings to cherry-nippled crests. They bobbed invitingly as she jumped onto Jennifer's bed, and she purposely sat in such a way that her short skirt hiked past her thighs and Jennifer couldn't help but see the shadowed white band of molded panties between her legs.

A secret tingle went through Tamera's nerves, making her breasts electric and her pubescent vagina secrete little droplets of fluid. Her mother had told her what she wanted done, told her and Vic when he had driven Tam home from school and dropped in for a drink. Get Jennifer Carmel! Get her naked and hungry for her first taste of cock! She shivered with forbidden delight and one area of her mind dwelled on what was in store for her younger friend if everything went right tonight. The other portion of her brain was doing the talking, worming Jennifer around to accepting the initial stage of her seduction...

"I can't stay for long, Jennie," Tamera said, outwardly sad-faced. "Vic's invited me to a party."

"Oh?" Jennifer tried to conceal her obvious disappointment. If it wasn't her father, it was her friend who was deserting her. "Gee, I'd sort of hoped you could stay. I mean, your mom and mine will be talking for hours. I'll have nothing to do." She averted her eyes from the uncovered loins of Tamera's lithe body and changed a record. "What kind of party is it?"

"A real fab one. Most of the foxy guys from the football team," Tamera said conspiratorially. "If word leaked out about the drinking and... things, they'd be dismissed from the squad!" She almost made a slip; the time wasn't right to tell the innocent virgin girl what the other "things" would consist of. "It's going to be outa sight!"

"Wow!" Jennifer breathed with envious excitement.

"Vic's going to pick me up here at nine." She lowered her head, now looking contrite. "I'm sorry about it, Jennie. I know how you were counting on us keeping each other company tonight."

"Yeah, well I can understand."

"If there was some way you could come along..."

"Forget it. I'd just be in the way." She picked a cuticle. "You go and have a real nice time."

There was a long moment of silence -- or as much silence as could be had when the record player was screaming out "yah, yah, yah, yah, yahhhhhh!" Then a small smile began an Tamera's lips. She said: "Wait a minute! Maybe we can get you along!"

"How?"

"That is... if you really want to go."

"Sure I do. You don't think I want to stay around Dullsville tonight, do you?"

"It might get a little... rough."

Tamera's warning only whetted the natural curiosity and the refusal in Jennifer to admit she wasn't "grown-up" enough; she jutted her jaw forward and said defiantly, "Don't worry about me none. I won't faint or something."

"Well, promise me you'll not panic, no matter what you see." She saw nervousness and indecision in Jennifer's eyes, so she hastily added, "Not that you have to do any of it." She didn't say what the "it" was -- better not scare the poor virgin off entirely. Anyway, Tamera knew Jennifer well enough to know that the younger teenager's imagination would fill in some of the gaps, and would only entice her more than if she was told everything. "Just don't start making a scene. Act as if you're part of it like everyone else, and not a wet blanket." She smiled again wickedly. "That is, if you don't care for some of the action. What the hell, you might; I sure do."

"Sure I promise, Tam," Jennifer said hurriedly, her throat parched with excitement. "What do you take me for, a kid? I won't embarrass you any. You'll see. But how'll you fix it so I can go?"

"Well, we'll have to get you a date."

"But I'm not going with anybody. Besides, you said the guys are from the football team, and they're all going with girls now."

"Stan Lugin isn't. He broke off with Marsha Dixon last weekend, up at the mountains. Didn't you know?"

"Jeez! 'The Slam?'" Jennifer spoke in awe of the team's star fullback. His size and offensive determination had earned him the monicker of Stan 'The Slam' Lugin. He was Vic's buddy, and next to Vic, was the school's biggest athletic hero. "You think you could get me a date with Stan?"

"I can't promise, but I'll call Vic and see if he'll talk to Stan. If we do swing it, that's even more reason for you to be a sport. He doesn't cotton to sissies."

"For Stan," Jennifer said, stars twirling in her eyes, "I'd do most anything"

We'll see," Tamera said under her breath. Then to Jennifer she said: "Let's go ask your mother if it's all right first, and then I'll call Vic."

Lonnie Carmel was ambivalent to the request. On one hand she saw the excitement in her daughter, and wanted to make her happy. But Jennifer was so young for such things. And besides, that would leave her home all alone, which was the last thing on earth the wanted to be faced with tonight. She shook her head. "I... I don't know, Jennifer."

"Aw, Mom! Please!

"I'm sure Jennifer will be quite safe," Mrs. Oliss offered. "If I had any doubts, I'd never allow Tamera to go. But Vic's a good boy, and from the little I've met of Stan Lubin, he's been very polite and well mannered." She had a very hard time keeping a straight face, saying that garbage. Cylvia Oliss had first hand knowledge that Stan Lubin had gained his nick-name from his way of fucking girls as much as from his football techniques. The third worst person to entrust a young naive virgin with was Stan Lubin in her estimation; Vic and her husband being the first and second, and not necessarily in that order.

"I'll keep an eye on her, Mrs. Carmel," Tamera sad. Damned right I will. I love watching The Slam' in action.

"Yes, but --"

"Tell you what," Mrs. Oliss said, as if suddenly struck with a thought. "Let the girls go out, and we'll go out, too. I think we deserve a dinner and a couple of drinks, after the way Martin and Roger deserted us."

"Sure, Mom, that sounds swell. You haven't been out for ages."

Lonnie had drunk three scotch and gingers, and her mind wasn't quite as sharp as it was normally... The liquor had relaxed her, made her feel as if life was worth living a little. Maybe going out for a dinner instead of slaving over the stove wasn't a bad idea; Lord knew she had earned a break.

"If I know Martin, he's lounging in the cocktail bar right now, lapping up martinis and ogling the girls," Cylvia continued. "Acting like he wasn't married, and he's just like all other men when they're away from home. Huh!" she sniffed, as if outraged at masculine games. "We ought to have the same privileges. We ought to have a night out once in a while to act as if we were the girls' ages again, without responsibilities."

"A dinner and a drink would sound nice," Lonnie said, already half convinced that she should go out and it would be entirely innocent. That nothing would happen. That Roger would approve if he knew what she was considering. That made her think of Roger, and the insidiously implanted suggestion of Cylvia's made her imagine Roger sitting beside Martin at the cocktail bar. Well, she would go, and damn the consequences -- of which she was sure there would be none. She and Cylvia were both adult and mature -- and two unescorted women this day and age were not considered bad as they had been in her mother's time.

"I'm convinced," she said giddily. "Jennifer, if you promise to be good, and if Vic's friend wants to take you to the party, then I'll let you. And you, Mrs. Oliss, will have the pleasure of escorting Mrs. Carmel to a steak dinner and drinks a little later on."

"Excellent!" from Cylvia.

"You're swell, Mother!" from Jennifer.

"I'll call Vic," from Tamera.

The phone call was pure fraud. A bald-faced con to convince the Carmel mother and daughter that this was all spontaneous. In fact, it had been carefully laid out before-hand; even 'The Slam' and his girl, Marsha, with whom he hadn't broken up with at all, were in on it. They hadn't been told why the alteration in Jennifer's virginal status was desired; Vic and Tamera had merely told them they had thought it up as the evening's entertainment highlight, a new twist to the usual alcohol and marijuana and sex kicks. They thought the forced seduction of Little Miss Carmel was one grand joke.

The result was that Tamera went through the motions of asking and arguing and hearing the I-don't-knows and I'll-have-to-check-and- call-you-back. The wait of fifteen minutes had been added as a special, exquisite form of psychological torture to insure that Jennifer was fully ensnared, wanting the date more and more with each passing second.

Cylvia got up, and as a long-time and trusted friend of the Carmel family, made herself and Lonnie another drink. She liberally laced Lonnie's with scotch, and added some vodka for good measure. What she had in store for Mrs. Carmel was going to take all the help she could get, and having her friend drunk would "grease the runway," to use a phrase of her father's.

Then the phone rang, and Tamera answered it. She attentively listened to Vic tell her what he was planning to do with his cock to her that night, and then she put the receiver down and turned to Jennifer. With a solumn tone she said what she had known all along: "Stan says he'll take you."

Stan leaned over the back seat of the car and said to Vic: "Any juice kicking around?"

Tamera giggled and turned her head. She smiled at Stan. "Can't wait for the party, huh?"

"Hell, that's a half hour's drive away yet," Stan complained. "Gotta have something to prime my engine before then."

Vic laughed. "Sure. I could use a pull myself. Reach in the glove compartment, Tam, and get the bottle."

Tamera did; she unstoppered a refilled Coke bottle and took a stiff swallow. She sputtered, and her throat worked, and then she handed the bottle to Vic. "Wow! That stuff's good!"

"Yeah," Vic said. He took his eyes off the road long enough to drink. The large convertible weaved erratically for a moment, throwing Jennifer off balance, and against Stan. The rugged football player put one arm around her so that she couldn't regain her position, and when Tamera took the bottle from Vic and handed it to Stan, he offered it first to the young teenager. "Here," he said with a grin, "ladies first. Just don't hog it."

Jennifer hesitated.

"What's the matter?" Stan frowned. "You drink, don't you?"

"Sure, I do," Jennifer said stoutly. She was bluffing and hoped that it wasn't too obvious. She wondered if she wasn't talking herself into a bad future position, for anything over a glass of wine gave her the woozies, but Tamera had kept repeating that this was her big chance to get in with the "In" crowd around school, and she couldn't afford to be childish or stubborn...