Chapter 2

Wendy Franklin was very close to her mother. With her father dead for many years, the two of them could have split apart, as so often and tragically happens, but her mother had always been fair and understanding, directing without being domineering, and above all, loving.

And Wendy loved her mother deeply in return. Her mother might be old and no longer interested in men, for example, but she had once been young and knew what it was like to be Wendy's age. She allowed her to go out on dates and lots of other things without a bunch of silly regulations some of the other mothers placed on their kids--like being home from a school prom at midnight, and not allowing the girls to go on anything but double dates. Her mother had always insisted that the mark of maturity was trust, and so she made sure that her daughter was instilled with the proper ethics and morals and then trusted her to do the right thing. She never tried to cling to her growing child, nor constantly think in terms of her as her "baby," and was more than pleased when Wendy was interested in the ways and morals of sex and reproduction, of explaining the mysteries of monthly cycles when Wendy had first begun to menstruate when she was eleven, went out of her way to buy training bras and then larger ones as Wendy developed.

There was no false prudery between them; they'd seen each other naked, and had once even taken a shower together, but again, her mother was a modest woman, and taught Wendy the healthy outlook to like her body and hold it ready in pride for a man she loved to take. And in the course of dating and going steady, Wendy had been aroused to seething, panting excitement by a boy's touches and kisses, been driven to almost the point of total abandonment by her sexual instincts, which were alive and always seemed just below her surface. But that was the difference: almost. Her mother's love and trust and honor had always stuck somehow, and Wendy Franklin was still a virgin, unlike most of her class-mates, vowing to save her cherished gift of sex for the right man--the man she would love and who would love her enough in return to slip a gold ring on her finger first. Sometimes, after a long drive-in movie or heavy petting up in the woods in a car, it took everything she held dear for her to stop, to fight off her urges and the boy and will herself back to calmness so that she could control her passions.

So she loved her mother, respected her and stayed chaste because of her, and while she complained and fought now and then as any two people will do when together, she understood and appreciated the strain and burden that raising a daughter single- handedly can bring. Like that afternoon, for example, when that adorable man came to rent the apartment. She bitched and moaned about having to dress and watch the shop, and her Mother snapped back at her, but it meant nothing. It was just part of their way, and let the steam out, for when the big problems arose, they were always together, always communicating. No generation gap between them!

Wendy thought of this as she stood in the livingroom of Clyde Brook's home, looking at Clyde and then at herself, both of them chilled and drenched to the skin and tipsy from drinking too much. What would her mother say if she saw her daughter like this! What was she going to say, because of course Wendy was going to relate this silly situation to her first thing tomorrow.

Clyde looked like a drowned rat, and a very unhappy and mournful one at that, she thought, choking down a giggle. It wouldn't do to laugh at him, she knew; Clyde was a very proud boy, and was her latest beau, and a swell catch. After all, she was only a junior--or would be that September when school started again, and Clyde had graduated last June. He was going to college in Los Angeles, so their two-month romance would be cooled to nothing in another two months when he left--but in the meantime, he was the mayor's son, lived right on the best part of the shore, up by the Point, and had spent lots of time and money on her. She was the envy of her friends and she was always thrilled when he took her out in his little red sports car, and to make it even better, Clyde was a groovy, foxy-looking guy who was very popular and "In." He was tall and muscular, with brown hair cut long and pale-grey eyes stink deep in prominent cheekbones. His nose had a crazy little bend to it after it had been broken in a football game--he'd been the high school's fullback, and known as "Battlin' Brooks"--and a crooked smile which was both captivating and somehow guileless.

And at the moment, he, like Wendy, was making a dark wet pool of sea-water on the expensive carpet in his father's home. He was chagrined and red in the face, angry at himself and very, very tender to any comments. She'd soon found that out about him, his egotistical tenderness, and curbed her often biting and sarcastic tongue when she was with him, and after the events that had happened already tonight, she didn't want anything to go wrong. But, still, it was funny, and how differently the evening had begun a few short hours before...

After her mother had come downstairs and told her that the man--what was his name? David Prescott? No, Preston--had rented the apartment next door, she returned to sunning herself, stripping off her blouse and lying on the porch on a grass mat, letting her breasts soak up the tanning rays of the hot late June sun. It was titillating to think what the girls in the shower room would say when she returned in the Fall with a golden glow all over, with only her dark brown nipples accent points on her otherwise evenly tanned young body. They'd eat their hearts out, just like they did because she was dating Clyde, and she'd never let on that she'd gotten the tan innocently, either, and not on the deck of Old Man Brook's mansion, or out in the water with Clyde.

And then she showered, still tingling from the excitement of the simulated wickedness which lying out there nearly nude had given her, and went into her little bedroom to dress. Her room was hardly big enough for her bed and wardrobe, but unlike the single bedroom apartment her mother rented, she at least had her privacy this way, and she never considered complaining about the inadequacies. She wasn't that kind of girl, and was simply happy that her mother was able to make the sporting goods shop make money. Her mother had never said so, but Wendy had the feeling that she was scrimping and saving to send her to college, though Wendy was having serious doubts that she wanted to go. Secretarial school, perhaps, or something like that, but college never really interested her much, and she had been thinking about asking her mother if she could maybe work in the shop after she graduated and continue her real interest: sports. Both her parents had been athletic and her father had been a tremendous fisherman--not commercially, but only for pleasure--and it had only been a fluke that she hadn't gone along on the salmon trawler with him that fateful day he'd drowned. Mother, with the store to run and everything else, had not been able since then to do much though she liked to fish and hunt as much as Wendy's father had, and Wendy, weaned on books and fly-casting and shotgun powder, wanted to be able to be around that kind of life, and perhaps, she thought while she dressed that afternoon, she could work with her mother in such a way as to allow them enough free time to do the things they liked...

Wendy Franklin, not exactly alike physically with her mother, had the same interests, the same concerns, the same filial bonds; she considered her loving and devoted attitude only natural, and never gave it a second thought. But it was stronger than she suspected, than either of them suspected--

She put on a nude-look, flesh-colored bra and panties, the panties snug tight and shockingly sheer around her buttocks and the soft mound of her young, virginal pussy. She looked in the mirror and saw the panties crease in the crevice between her cunt lips, accentuate them with an indecent line which ran between the elastic band down to her vaginal area and slipped between her firm, naked thighs. A moment of tiny misgivings crossed her mind, her body somehow more blatantly sexual than pure nudity, and then she quickly put on her thin, frilly rayon blouse and darker green mini-skirt. Her bra showed through the blouse and the hem of her skirt was high enough so that when she wasn't careful, her barely clad buttocks and upper thighs were visible, and though she was dressed, she still gave off the aura of being without anything. A good, summer outfit, she thought; good for keeping a boy like Clyde Brooks interested in her.

Interested--but not successful in his desire to make love to her. She'd handle him if he got too passionate, just as she always had, she thought as she waited for him to pick her up. He'd be here at seven, as he had every night, and they'd go to a movie or ride around or dance or whatever, and eventually they'd start necking. She liked necking with him, and had even gone so far as to let him play with her titties; she sat in the livingroom and blushed at the remembrance of that incident. The Sunday before she'd been out in his father's cruiser, sunbathing with Clyde beside her, and they'd began kissing, kissing until she'd felt the hardened bulge in his swim trunks against her thighs. She remembered his strong but gentle hands on her bikini top, and how after a while she'd made no attempt to stop him from undoing the straps, and the tender tingling sensations of his fingers as he'd traced over her hot, naked flesh and then kissed her exposed, hardening nipples. A dryness crept in her throat at the recollection, and how close she'd come to not stopping his hand as it had continued to wander, tauting her flat, pulsating stomach madly, down to the thin wisp of her bikini bottom, attempting to pull them off. She'd made the big effort then, and they'd argued; he'd threatened, cajoled, and at last, had pleaded, but in the end, he'd gotten up disgustedly and walked around the deck, smoking a cigarette.

She'd had only the uncomfortable wetness between her legs to remind her of how close to the edge she'd strayed, and as she sat and waited for him to come this evening, she'd made a resolution to never let it happen again.

So far, this evening wasn't presenting any threat to her virginity. His parents were out, so they came to the house, raiding the pantry for dinner, which she cooked, and the liquor cabinet for some wine. A couple of bottles later, she wanted fresh air and he wanted to go out in the cruiser, and they walked down to the dock and boat-house, where he carefully and with studied slowness removed the tarp and started the inboard engine. Then he climbed on the boathouse dock, took her hand in an exaggerated courtly bow, and lost his footing, falling in the water beside the boat, taking her with him. Now they were back in the house, sopping messes, and she felt like laughing. It was so stupid of him, and yet so human, and it made her like Clyde all the more.

"I'm drenched," she heard herself say thickly, still giddy from wine.

"Lord, I can't let you go home like that, Wendy. Your mother would kill me. I mean, we've drunk too much and show it, too."

"No, she'd understand."

"Maybe, but I don't want to take the chance. Anyway, the night's still young, and once you dry off, we can go do something else."