Part 2

Friday, there was a home game. Steve and Shannon went to the game together and parked afterwards. They were dressed for the weather, and his hand was icy; so he took some time to burrow under Shannon's parka and her sweater. Finally, caressing her through her warm sweat shirt, he reached the soft mound formed by her breast. And it was remarkably soft. Before he touched the peak that the shirt made over her nipple, he knew that she hadn't worn a bra.

"Oh, Shannon!" he said. She was so soft, and he knew how those glories looked. Hell! He knew how they tasted. He kissed her more deeply while holding her. Probably his hand was still too cold to go under the shirt. "I love you. I want to be with you always."

"I want that too," she said. Then she kissed him back. A minute later, she pushed his face away. "Steve," she said, "I do want to be with you always. I want to be with you next year."

It took him a minute to hear what she was saying. Somehow, all of his attention was on his left hand and none on his ears.

"We should go to the same college." She said it aloud, and wondered how much she was pushing him.

"Well, I've applied to U of I already. I need some backups, and the counselor told me that I looked good enough in science to add a better school. You know what they say, one for a dream and one for a parachute."

"You can do better than Champaign-Urbana." That was her idea of a parachute. Besides being with her for four more years, he should realize his potential.

"Don't make it sound like a pile of garbage; people from out- of-state pay big money to go there. It's not Cal Tech or MIT, but it is a good school for chemical engineering. It is a lot cheaper than any comparable school when you're paying in-state tuition."

"There's always financial aid. Mrs. Swenson said that you could do better."

"She told me that I had a decent chance. Anyway, what is your dream school? U of C?"

"Fat chance! I don't want to live in the big city. I've applied to Albion College. It's small, it's liberal arts, and my mother is an alum."

"And you were wondering if we would be together."

"You really are more interested in chemistry. I'm sure that you could get a great education in chemistry at Albion."

"I'll look into it."

By the time that conversation was done, it was almost time to drive her home. They kissed deeply, his hand still outside her shirt. Then he started the car.

He thought that there were better things to do on dates than talk.

However there was never enough time to talk. They shared one class that year, English, and a lunch period. But Shannon had to cross the entire building after English class. Shannon belonged, had belonged since grade school, to a group of girls that got together for some lunches. While they mostly didn't meet as a group anymore except to celebrate birthdays, one or another of them might join Shannon and him at a table. She would sometimes wave them off, but she got angry if he did. Even if she did, the table would fill up one way or another.

Their talks on the phone were only private if both sets of parents were elsewhere.

He lived more than four miles from the high school, an uncomfortable walk but no great bike ride. He could walk Shannon home, wheeling his bike. In bad weather, he took the bus which left right at the end of home room. He didn't even get a chance to wave at Shannon those days. The bus also followed a circuitous route, taking almost as long as the direct bike ride did.

Shannon was second back-up on Mrs. Green's call list when the regular babysitter couldn't make it. She would gladly have been third. One time in mid-October, Mrs. Green called back after having received a refusal.

"I told you that I have a date," Shannon said. "My boyfriend works, and I sit for other people. We don't have that many evenings when we are both free. Anyway, I promised. I can't possibly come."

"Look, half the nursing staff is working with the flu. I can't call in and say that I can't get a sitter." There must have been a Mr. Green at some time, but not within Shannon's acquaintance with the family. "Were you going somewhere special with your boyfriend?"

"It's special because it's with my boyfriend," Shannon said, biting back the question of what business it was of Mrs. Green's.

"I trust you; you know that. Wouldn't leave you with Ralph and George otherwise, right?" Shannon wasn't sure that she had all that much choice; for the night in question, she didn't appear to have any. "You could have him over while you sit. If he picks up pizza for the four of you, I'll reimburse him that night." Steve wasn't happy; hell, Shannon wasn't happy, but she didn't want to deepen the hospital's staffing crisis. She reluctantly agreed.

Picturing all the possibilities of the two of them alone, Steve rang up a box of condoms and hid it away -- slightly lighter -- at home. The reality was different. His condom stayed in the secret compartment of his wallet; the belt to Shannon's jeans stayed buckled. He and she even -- once the little terrorists were actually asleep -- got some studying done. He had to leave before Mrs. Green arrived, too; he got the money for the pizza from Shannon the next day.

A precedent had been set, however. From that time on, Shannon invited him over whenever she sat for the Green kids. Steve would come soon after their bedtime, or later if he worked that night. Once the kids were settled down, they would have time for some serious petting. Shannon didn't go around without her top, afraid of the kids' waking up or someone's coming to the door; but he pushed it up in the soft lamplight. She removed her bra, and he could feast his eyes (and hands and mouth) on her beauty.

The pleasure that Steve afforded her almost made up for the struggles that Shannon had with those kids. And, she was vaguely aware, the tension from those kids made her a little more eager for Steve's kisses -- and his hands.

Steve wanted Shannon. He was reconciled to the knowledge that he couldn't have her completely any time soon, but he was pulling for the long run. Together in college, with parents far away, he thought that he would have a chance. For that matter, he wanted the very long run, as well. If he had to wait until marriage, there were still the kisses -- and the magazines.

Shannon's college plans, however, seemed to be driving them apart. He stopped her in the hall one morning. "Can you get a pass to see the counselor seventh period?" They each had study hall that period, unfortunately in different rooms.

"I'll try." Lots of kids used that as a way to cut, get the pass but don't show up. Or show up very late. She hated to lie, however, and Steve should know that.

"Good, I want both of us to see the same thing at the same time. I'll see you there."

So, she didn't have to lie.

Mrs. Swenson looked surprised to see the two of them together. "Actually," she said, "I'm more of a career counselor than..."

"Well," said Steve, "you're the person we are supposed to see about college applications. And, anyway, it is more that we want to see your Blue Book."

She gave them the book and took another student into her inner office.

"Read it and weep," Steve said. "Albion's weaker in academics than the U of I. It will cost ten thou more to go there. And I can't get a degree in Chem-E. There's no reason for me to go there, except you; and the only reason for you to go there is your mother's nostalgia."

"You could get a chemistry degree at Albion. It's a fine school." It had been her mother's dream; it had become hers, though.

They were still wrangling when Mrs. Swenson called them in. When the problem was laid out for her, she sighed. She almost wished that the problem that they brought her had been the one that she had suspected first.

"Look at this objectively," she said. "You guys like each other. You want to go to the same school. I can understand that. But going to different schools is not the end of the world." It would probably be the end of their romance, but so would going to the same school in nine cases out of ten. Suggesting that they might grow out of their relationship was not, as she was well aware, the way to reach these kids.

"He could get a chemistry degree with the liberal-arts experience," Shannon said. "It's a better school. And they give financial aid."

"Including both loans and grants," Steve pointed out. "Everybody does that. My father is still paying off his student loan. And look at the ACT scores. It's not a better school."

"Well," Mrs. Swenson said, "it's a less selective school, but not really significantly so. That doesn't mean that they teach you less. You're comparing apples and oranges. The university has, what? twenty times as many students?"

"About that," said Steve.

"And it has graduate programs. That means that there will be many more faculty there, and some of them will be significant researchers. You won't meet them in your first two years, maybe never. You will study under their grad students; and, however advanced the subject you want to study, there will be someone there who can teach you.

"On the other hand," she continued, "if you want a piece of paper without really learning anything, that can happen at a big university more easily than anywhere else. Nobody watches to see if you go to class. Nobody watches to see if your interests are being met. Nobody cares.

"A good, small, liberal-arts college provides anybody who wants one an introduction to the thinking which has passed the test of time or has attracted academic approval. Almost always the original thinking is going on elsewhere. It is a great experience. I enjoyed it. And the professors are hired to teach, more likely have an ability to teach. You don't get graduate students who are finding out whether they can teach or not.

"But, if you want something particular, want to be a chemist, did you say?"

"That or a chemical engineer," Steve said. "I never thought that I was Nobel-prize material. And I don't want, with all due respect, to teach. I want to put things together."

"Then you should go where they have that as one of their aims. Now, with a degree in chemistry you can do all sorts of things. You can become a doctor, or even a lawyer."

"I don't want that."

"But many people do. And many people go to college wanting some sort of an education and major in chemistry because they are sort of good at it or because the teacher is great. Those do just fine in liberal-arts schools. If you want to do technology, it's probably smarter to attend a school where they train people for that technology.

"That doesn't mean," she told Shannon, "that you should follow him there."

But Shannon wanted to be with him.

"What is my balance with you anyway, Mom?" Shannon asked.

"I don't know precisely. I haven't added up the books lately, but you have plenty even after you deduct the taxes you'll owe. Why do you ask?" Her daughter was good about earning money, Allison Bryant couldn't deny that. She was also a wild spendthrift. If she told her that the balance was several thousand dollars, it would be gone next month.

"Steve's birthday is next week. If I have lots in the bank, I want to buy him something really nice."

"You have lots in the bank, but does he?"

"Well, he's saving up for college, but what does that matter?" Her mother was always bringing up these irrelevancies.

"Shannon, I'm glad that you're feeling generous. I'm sure that you would feel really good about getting Steven something expensive. And, if he gave you something less expensive on your birthday, you wouldn't let that bother you.

"But would it bother Steven?"

Dammit! It would. She could see that now. "I just want it to something he really enjoys. And he dresses sort of... Well, he's not quite a nerd."

"And now, you have to think of something he would like, instead of something which isn't in his style but is really expensive. Now you have to find something which you know he will like because you know him better than anyone else does."

"Gee thanks, Mom." But she was right, after all.

Mr. Jensen picked Shannon up for a babysitting job on Wednesday night. When she got to the house, Amy burst into tears. Shannon wanted to say, "Look, kiss her good-bye and leave. The tears will last all of five minutes after you're out the door." She didn't say anything, though. Mrs. Jensen dithered, Amy wept herself damn close to an attack, and Mr. Jensen finally drove Shannon home.

"I'm sorry about this," he said.

"She really cried more than she would have if you had just left. She doesn't enjoy having the two of you gone, but the parting is what's traumatic. It's like her playing with Peggy's bottle. You don't say, 'Look Amy, here's a bottle you can't have.' You put it where she can't see it and say, 'All gone.' She looks for something else to want."

"Theresa needs to get out of that house. The constant worry is going to drive her up the wall. Look, don't give up on us. We'd have been gone, what? Maybe five hours. I'll pay you half what you would have received." He paid her a ten and a five before she left the car. She put it in her pocketbook. If her mom said that there was loads of money in the bank, there really was no reason to build that credit any higher. Checks, now, would have to go to Mom.

Shannon asked her other customers for privileges similar to those Mrs. Green gave her. The responses were mixed. Some families for whom she sat refused to consider allowing a strange boy into their house; one never called her again after she asked. Others checked up on Steve, or asked to meet him. Some, however, figured that -- simply by asking -- Shannon had demonstrated enough responsibility to be trusted. Gradually, Shannon moved the less permissive ones (except the Jensens) to the bottom of her customer list; she also started a pattern of cleaning up the mess that the kids left, as well as any that Steve and she caused, for those parents who trusted her that much.

One Monday, Steve was pushing the deadline on a major paper due that Wednesday. Shannon told him in the hall that he could visit her at the Larkins' where she was babysitting that Tuesday night. He was foolish enough to mention the paper.

"Well, if you come over," she said, "bring the theme. I want to see that you have finished it." He rushed to get something down on paper; it showed. She took the last two pages and tore them in two. "You are going to do that right. I have some studying that I can do as well."

Mr. Larkin, who brought his wife home early with a migraine that night, would never understand why the two teenagers he surprised studying across from each other at his dining-room table seemed so flustered.

By mid-November, they had established a pattern. Shannon would make sure that Steve met any kids where he was allowed to visit, not wanting any of her charges to wake up to find an absolute stranger in the house. Steve had limited chances, however, to see Shannon on nights when he wasn't working.

More usually, he would stop off at Shannon's job after the drug store closed. They would work together to clean up the mess and then spread out their books to look like they were studying; that ploy had worked with the Larkins, after all. Steve would push up Shannon's top and unhook her bra; after the near miss at the Larkins', Shannon only took her bra off at Mrs. Green's. Then his hands would feel that marvelous smoothness and heft while they shared a long deep kiss. When his lips replaced his hands, he caressed the length of her thighs and squeezed her butt.

Compulsively drawn to those curves, he would stroke them as long as she let him. He usually would arouse himself to the point where he had to adjourn to the bathroom for a little relief. Then he would leave, usually before the parents got home.

Shannon, too, was aroused by the kisses and stroking. She never distinguished the physical sensations from the knowledge that Steve desired her and thought her a beauty. While Steve's tongue played with hers and his fingers stroked over her breasts, her nipples would tingle. Then he would lick them until the feeling turned into an ache and the tingle moved downwards to her stomach and then to the junction of her legs.

Shannon always remembered, however that she had responsibilities, for herself and for the parents who left her in charge of their houses and their children. She had a good idea what Steve was doing in the bathroom before he left. She didn't understand how he could leave the warmth and love of her arms for the cold, smelly, borrowed room full of enamel and pipes. Shannon put herself back together and waited patiently to be relieved of her responsibilities and driven home.

Only in the warmth, comfort, and safety of her own bed in her own room would she allow herself to really remember Steve's hands and lips and words. Then she would hug a pillow that she called Steve and take her own hands where she wouldn't permit Steve's. She pretended that they were his hands, however, and dreamed of the day when they would be.

On their wedding night, they would kiss until she was as dizzy as she was on the best of these dates. And he would kiss her skin every time he removed a piece of her clothing, then kiss her mouth again. Then, while she hid in the bed, Steve would strip as well. Lying beside her, hugging and kissing her, he would stroke her until she was aroused as she was now. And then, and then...

And then she climaxed from her own hand. It was exciting, but it was merely a promise of what was to be. And Steve wasn't there to hold her as she drifted off to sleep.

Meanwhile, they reached a compromise on schools; more accurately, they put their problems off. Steve applied to Albion, and to the Illinois Institute of Technology as a might- get-in. Shannon applied to the U of I as well as to Albion. Neither really applied to a "parachute" school, although Shannon thought of the U of I that way.

They continued to go on dates. For most of these they wore blue jeans. For the Thanksgiving Ball, however, Steve wore a coat and tie and Shannon a fancy zip-up-the-back dress. The heater hadn't been able to overcome the hours-old chill in the parked car, and Shannon couldn't bring herself to permit the near-nakedness that was the only way to give Steve access to her breasts with that dress. She was wearing a slip, for heaven's sake.

"Please, darling," she said when he started fumbling with the zipper. "Anybody could drive by and see in. Let's just kiss."

Steve thought ruefully that he would have enjoyed the evening more if Shannon had taken a babysitting job. But it wasn't really true. He had held her in his arms for every slow dance; he'd shown her off in public as his girl. "Anyway," he thought, "I only have about half an hour. I can spend it fighting her and ruin the evening, or I can spend it kissing her." The choice seemed obvious.

"Kissing you is never 'just a kiss.' A kiss from Shannon is an event."

And, at that, they kissed. He tasted her lipstick, and then her mouth opened wide -- letting their tongues meet, and he could taste Shannon. She raised no objection to his hands roving over her dress; but, while the shape was vaguely like Shannon's, the softness that he loved was buried too deep. When he stroked her leg, however, the story was entirely different. Through the three layers of soft cloth, the curves of her thigh were much softer than the usual sculpted shapes armored by jeans. The softening made those curves even more magnetic. It was minutes before he could tear his left hand away and hold it in front of the heater vent. He kept his right hand, terribly restricted by their location, resting on her left thigh.

Shannon also experienced these strokes differently. First, she had entered the car still excited by the evening; then, the embarrassment geared her up to fight Steve off; not needing to fight led to gratitude mixed with the annoyance of all that combative adrenaline going to waste. By the time that she melted through those layers to really experience the kiss, she felt Steve's caresses on her leg. Without the interference of the jeans, it was every bit as arousing as the attention to her breasts would have been. She had even felt her nipples tighten into the beginning of their ache when Steve had removed the more arousing hand.

Wanting more but afraid to say so, she pulled his face against hers to deepen the kiss. For once, her tongue had pressed into his mouth. He sucked it just when the warm hand touched her knee. Only her panty hose was between them. She knew that she should say no; but she'd already said that once this evening, and the hand was out of sight, and her body was saying yes. She compromised by closing her legs together. His strokes on the outside of her leg were exciting in the sense of daring, but less arousing than the earlier strokes on her thrice-covered inner thigh. Soon it had been time to quit.

"Break!" she said. "My curfew is coming up."

"Damn!" he said. But he put the car in gear, anyway. At her house, he opened the car door for her, walked her to the door, and gave her a quick peck on her mouth. Not that this fooled her parents when they saw her smeared lipstick.

"You're two minutes late," was all that her father said.

"We could have been on time," she answered. "Steve just doesn't like to break the speed limit." And it ended there.

Up in her room, Shannon paused before donning her nightgown. She looked once again at her naked figure in the mirror. She thought back to the end of the summer. The meadow had been a special place, and the summer mornings had been special times. The last morning there had been most special of all.

She had been lying in the meadow holding a bouquet of wild flowers Steve had picked for her. He had been kneeling at her head and kissing all over her face. While he'd kissed her breasts, she had nipped at the bronzed skin arching above her. Then he'd kissed her bellybutton while she wiggled in response to the tickle. She hadn't resisted when he pushed down on her shorts.

She still didn't know why. Maybe it had been the non- threatening position, maybe it had been the school year looming over them. One tiny part of it had been the posies in her hand that she didn't want to crush. Then he'd pushed her panties down to the edge of her mound. "Oh Shannon," he'd said.

She'd responded to the wonder in his voice by raising her hips and pushing the shorts and panties down to her thighs. She really couldn't tell why she'd done that.

"That's where they get it," he'd said.

Suddenly frightened, she had pulled her panties and shorts up. "Get what?"

"The heart, the Valentine heart. It doesn't look much like the illustrations of a heart in the health books; but it looks just like your hair. Look if you don't believe me. No wonder it's the symbol of love."

"I'll look," she had said. "But when I'm alone, thank you."

"You have to think of it upside down, if you use a mirror."

"I shouldn't have let you do that."

"Yes you should," he had said. "I love you."

"That doesn't follow." And soon they'd had to leave the meadow, and the summer.

She had looked, though, that night and later. Sometimes she could almost see what he meant, sometimes she thought that he'd been making it up.

Tonight it looked like a valentine's heart. Tonight it looked like a symbol of their love. Tonight, she was sorry that she had closed her legs in the car. She donned her nightgown and climbed into bed. She shivered; the gown and the sheets were even colder than the air.

She'd never caressed as far down her legs as Steve had started, but she tried it now. The feeling, even from her own fingers, was erotic. By the time that she reached the junction of her thighs, she was ready, and she had barely touched her breasts yet. She did so, and then took herself over.

"About last night," Shannon said during supper Sunday night.

"Look," her mother responded. "We don't want to make a big thing of a few minutes, but the curfew is your deadline. You're supposed to be home before eleven. We wouldn't mind having you invite Steven in for the time remaining until eleven."

"But when I come home late from babysitting, you don't make a big thing of it."

"That's different, dear," Wayne Bryant answered, atypically. He left these things to his wife most of the time, feeling that she could better judge the fine line between the rules that needed to be enforced and those which would drive Shannon to rebellion.

"It's different," Shannon said, "because those are adults who've broken their commitment. If Mr. Larkin says that he'll be home at eleven and staggers in a little after twelve, that's okay. But if Steve took one drink before he drove me home, you wouldn't let me ever date him again."

"It's different because you can nap when you're babysitting late," he said.

"Oh? If I were sleeping beside Steve, it would be okay?"

"Shannon!" her mother said.

"I was only teasing. You know that I wouldn't."

Allison Bryant, who knew no such thing, was much too wise to say so. "That's all right, Shannon. We know that you are a kid who teases us. But eleven o'clock is really awfully late for a kid to be out." Shannon had lost that one, but she planned to bring it up again. Later that night she went through her wardrobe choosing which skirts were a little too passe or too worn for wearing to school.

Her parents looked at each other when she had gone up to her room. They knew that she was a basically good kid, Steven too. They'd been glad when this romance had started, partly because Shannon felt so awful after Curt, partly because Steven was in the same year and acted like a gentleman.

They continued the conversation in their room. "I don't know, Wayne," her mother said as she sat at her dresser to remove her makeup. "We do let her babysit for Mrs. Green on school nights. And that doesn't get her home much before 1:00, sometimes later. What about keeping 11:00 for dates on school nights, but letting her stay out until midnight on weekends?"

"When you get up late, it's hard to change back. She needs to get up at 6:30 tomorrow, she dragged herself out of bed when? 8:30 this morning." He sat down on his own bed to remove his shoes.

"Well, she got to church, which is what you care about. I don't know. She never seems to spend time with anybody but Steven. I wouldn't mind if she still had sleep-overs with her friends..."

"One friend excepted," Wayne Bryant said. Once he had been a husband to this woman. They had shared the triumphs of his career, her wars with the neighbors. Hell, they had shared the joys of their bodies, and they had shared a bed. Now, he was her co-parent. Almost all they seemed to share these days was a concern for Shannon.

"Oh, you! You're as bad as she is. Still, I guess it could be worse."

"It could always be worse. We want it to be good. And all her cave-man ancestry is there in her blood telling her that it is time to become a mother. It isn't. She's going to college."

"Do you think she is? That they?..." When she saw Shannon's tousled appearance after a date, she worried about what she had been doing; Shannon had been going steady for more than half a year, and they worried that she and Steven were getting too serious too soon, never dreaming that Shannon saw Steve more often -- and more privately -- during her babysitting appointments than on dates.

Wayne didn't think so, partly because imagining his chick having sex filled him with fury. It must be fury. "No. But the hormones in her blood are urging her on. As, without doubt, is Steven. So we will weigh in on the other side. There is a lot more time between the end of the dance and midnight than there is between the end of the dance and eleven."

Allison looked at him. Bending over to put on his pajama pants, he showed the beginnings of an erection, and it was Sunday night. "Well," she said, "you'll have your way. I'll tell her that the curfew stands when she brings it up again." Then she disappeared into the bathroom with her nightgown and robe.

When Wayne came back from his own bathroom break, he saw her in his bed. He stripped off his pajamas before joining her. "Hmmm," he said, "what have we here?"

They kissed for a while, and he stroked her breasts through the nightgown. Abruptly, she sat up in the bed while he helped her remove the gown.

Now he could kiss her breasts, bury his face between their luscious abundances, suck the red tips to firmness. While he did so, he played with her nether lips, seeking her moisture.

While her body reacted to his approaches, her mind wished he'd let her breasts alone. Once, they had been firm mounds worthy of his attention. Now they were loose sacks, only looking decent when she poured them into wired brassieres. But the nipples still betrayed her, and his hands knew her too well. As her body responded to them again, one finger touched her clitoris. She felt that touch from her follicles to her toenails, it suppressed her mind and its preferences. He teased it, retreating, advancing, circling. She was reduced to a body, he was reduced to a finger.