Chapter 12: Bonfires and Fireworks

It was the Saturday of the Labor Day weekend and Lauren was hustling her children to get ready. She had to take them to Saturday evening Mass, and from there they were going straight to Peter’s. There was going to be a firework display that evening and he promised that the balcony of his apartment would provide ringside seats. Both children were dawdling in front of the television.

The knock on the door startled her since she wasn’t expecting visitors. She skipped over and yanked it open. “Hello?” she said automatically, then she knew who it was. Robby Jones, Heather’s boyfriend, was standing there looking somewhat confused. He was a tall and gangly youth, almost skinny, with traces of acne on his face, and dark and unruly hair in a curly mop. He had a thin and serious looking face with hazel eyes. “Hi, Robby,” she said.

“Uh, hello. Is Heather here?” He looked around as he asked. He wasn’t completely clear on Heather’s household arrangements; his girlfriend didn’t really want to talk about it, but she had told him she was staying at the house to the right of hers.

“She’ll be back in a moment. She went over to her house to change. She still has some stuff over there,” explained Lauren. “Come on in.”

“Uh, okay,” said the nervous teen. He stepped into the foyer and looked around but wasn’t brave enough to venture further. “I guess Heather is staying here now,” he asked in an attempt at conversation.

Lauren nodded. “Did she explain it to you?”

Robby shrugged. “I guess. Her mom is sick, and her father can’t be home much. I know she was having a lot of problems this summer with them. Maybe I shouldn’t say that.”

Lauren waved off his concern then yelled for Jimmy and Holly to turn off the television. Turning back to the boy, she said, “No, they’ve all had some problems. She needs you to be supportive. You need to help her through this, alright?”

Robby looked very serious as he nodded his understanding. “Yeah, I mean, I understand. Heather, I mean, I really like her, you know. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt her,” he replied earnestly.

At that moment Lauren heard the back door open and close. “I bet that’s her coming in now,” she said. She raised her voice and turned slightly. “Heather, Robby’s in here.”

“Hey babe!” the bubbly young teen squealed as she bounced into the room. She skipped over and gave her boyfriend a quick hug and kiss, then stepped back. “Sorry I’m late. Like my outfit?”

Robby had a happy and dazed look on his face, as if he had been hit by a rock between the eyes. He shook himself awake and gazed over her. Ever since Heather had moved out, her dress had become more, if not risqué, then at least more in the range of a normal teenage girl. Today was no exception. She was wearing very tight and low-cut jeans and a midriff-baring sweater, framing and displaying a very deep navel. Lauren’s first thought as she glanced at Robby was that he looked like a bull being aimed at a pasture with cows present; he was practically snorting and pawing at the ground!

“Yeah!” he said fervently.

“Where are you two going?” asked Lauren. She found herself starting to play parent to the teen, not a job she had originally planned for, and she still wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Heather was a well-raised and behaved girl, but she was a teenager, nonetheless.

“A buddy of ours is having a picnic and a bonfire out in the county, on his dad’s farm. About a dozen of us are going,” answered Robby.

“Okay, but no drinking,” said Lauren.

“We’ll behave, Mom!” teased Heather, who then grabbed her boyfriend’s hand and dragged him outside. Robby followed, yelling out a good-bye, then the two got into his small pickup truck and took off. Lauren shook her head in amusement then went back to find her own children.

“So, what’s the plan?” asked Heather as she sat next to her boyfriend in the small pickup.

“Like I said before. We’re going out to Ben Jacob’s place for a picnic and a bonfire,” he answered.

“Yeah, so where’s the picnic basket?” she replied.

Robby just grinned. “Ben’s older brother got a keg of beer. That’s the picnic part, that and a bunch of blankets.”

Heather simply shook her head and grinned. Lauren wouldn’t be home until late, and she could always tell her that she had slept over at her own home. “Okay, but let’s stop at Mickey Ds first and get something to eat.”

Robby nodded in agreement and made the turn at the next corner. It was almost six by the time they made it out to the Jacob’s farm. They weren’t the first there, but they weren’t the last either. Robby parked his truck and hopped out. Heather opened her door and looked down to see that her boyfriend had managed to park next to a very large and fresh cow pie. “Gross! Robby, move the damn truck!” she demanded.

“What’s your problem?’ he asked as he came around the corner.

“I am NOT getting out here!” she told him loudly.

Just then somebody came flying into the field and stopped behind their truck. “Hey babe, you’re stuck!” he commented.

“Robby!”

“Okay, okay!” he said in exasperation. He stepped over the dung and grabbed her by the waist, then tossed her over his shoulder. Heather laughed as she was carried around the bonfire and dropped on her feet on the other side. Then he returned to his truck and grabbed some blankets from behind the seat. Heather spread them around as he went to the keg and grabbed a couple of cups of beer, then they sat down. They were promptly joined by their friends.

By the time it got dark and Ben threw some lighter fluid on the wood and set it ablaze, the group had fragmented. Several of the boys had drunk way too much beer and had fallen asleep; their girlfriends were sitting by themselves and talking. Another boy and his girl had gotten sick to their stomachs, running off to the woods and puke, and had then gotten into an argument and left. Ben smiled at his girl, a petite blonde, and stood up. After helping her to her feet, he grabbed a blanket and headed into the woods.

Robby grinned at Heather and lay back on their blankets, tucking his jacket under his head as a makeshift pillow. “Well, I guess we know what they’re going to be doing.”

“Well, don’t get any ideas!” Heather replied, looking at him sharply. “I never said anything about doing that tonight.”

“Hey, hey, it’s cool, babe. Nothing happens unless you want it to, I told you!” he protested.

“I know, I know,” she agreed. She crawled over to him and crawled on top of him, her face propped up on her elbows, digging into his bony chest, and she looked down at him. If he was in any discomfort, he didn’t let it show. “You’ve been really good about that. I know some guys wouldn’t want to wait like this, but I’m just not ready.”

Robby wrapped his arms around her and hugged her to him. “It’s okay, babe, it’s all right!” he assured her quietly. He began running his hands lightly across her back.

“And for damn sure I’m not going to do it the first time here at a campfire with your buddies watching!” she finished.

Robby laughed at this, because a loud series of moans came from the woods at that point. Around the fire, several pithy comments were loudly let out, most of them crude and lewd, and the moans subsided. Heather squirmed in his arms pleasantly. “Just what did you have in mind for that first time, then?” he asked.

Heather looked up at that. She had been lying on his chest, enjoying the feel of her body pressed against his. “What?” she asked in surprise.

“Well, I mean, what, how, well, you know...” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I mean, it’s not like I know either. I haven’t done it either.” He had told her this in the strictest secrecy a few weeks ago, as they began to get more serious, and Heather had pushed him back after a date once. “I never said I wanted to do it around a campfire with these guys watching either, okay?”

“Really?” she asked.

“Really what, that I’ve never done it or that I don’t want it like this?” he asked, a hint of exasperation in his voice.

“Well, how do you want it to be?” she pressed.

Robby rolled over slowly, holding Heather as he moved so they were lying side by side. Heather threw a leg over his and nestled in closer. “Well, it’s something special, isn’t it? I mean, you want it to be special, don’t you?” Heather nodded silently, smiling at him sweetly. “Well, why wouldn’t I want the same thing? I want it to be something we’ll both remember. Alright?”

“Oh, Robby!” she whispered, tears running down her cheeks. “I love you. I’m sorry I’m not ready, but soon, soon...”

“It’s okay, babe,” he whispered back, running a finger across her face and down her neck. Heather shivered at his touch, and when he cupped her face with his fingers, she leaned back, pursing her lips and closing her eyes for the kiss that would follow. “I love you,” he whispered.

Robby’s kisses moved from her lips to gently caress her nose, eyelids, and forehead, then moved down to the side of her neck. Heather shuddered pleasantly to their ghostlike touch, and her back arched as he began to move his lips lower, licking and nibbling at her throat and shoulders. Moments later she felt him bring a hand up to slowly begin unbuttoning her sweater, and as he did so, Robby’s lips and tongue slipped inside to begin caressing her breasts as they were exposed above her well-packed brassiere.

“Oh, Robby! Oh, Robby!” she moaned quietly. She may have been a nervous virgin, but Heather wasn’t a complete naïf. She and Robby had been parking and necking for several weeks now, and it wasn’t the first time he had tried to touch her ample tits. At first, she had limited him to simply rubbing them through her top, but the last couple of times she had let him slip his fingers inside. The last time he had even gotten his fingers into her bra, to touch and rub her nipples before she had stopped him.

Like any other teenaged boy, Robby was nothing if not persistent in pursuit of this goal. Within minutes he had slowly finished undoing her sweater, so that her bra-encased bosom was on display in the firelight. Tonight, she had worn a new bra, small and low cut in a red lace to complement her tight red sweater, and as he looked at her, he noticed that the clasp was in the front. Half-expecting Heather to stop him, he nervously fingered the catch and popped it open. The elastic in the bra pulled it away from her and for the first time in his life Robby Jones was looking at naked female breasts. They looked great! They seemed at least as large as anything he had jerked off to when sneaking peeks at his father’s Playboys. His breath caught in his throat as he leaned up on one elbow and looked down at Heather.

Heather started as she felt her bra loosen and the light evening breeze waft across her exposed flesh. Her eyes popped open to see Robby smiling down at her. She knew she should stop things from continuing, sit up and demand to be taken home, but she simply smiled.

“You are so beautiful!” he whispered to her.

Heather looked around, pulling her sweater around her naked torso. “Where’s everybody else?” she asked.

“Still around,” he answered. “Debby and Val took off in Debby’s truck, leaving their boyfriends sleeping. Ben and Katie are still moaning in the woods...” Heather grinned at this. “ ... and Jack...?” Robby looked around for the last pair, half standing until he could see them. Jack and his girlfriend had pulled their blanket over themselves, and an awful lot of vertical movement seemed to be happening under the covers. “Jack is banging away with Amanda, under the blankets on the other side of the fire,” he announced.

“Banging away? Is that what you call it?” asked Heather with an outraged tone of voice.

“Well excuse me, maybe you’d like me to go over and do a play-by-play analysis?”

Heather snorted and climbed to her feet. Looking at the blanket-covered couple, she could see the movements and hear Jack grunting and his girlfriend squealing quietly. Giggling, she lay back down on the blanket, letting her tits come into view again, and said, “I think that’s banging, all right!” She held her arms wide open, welcoming Robby back into her embrace, and the teenager lay back down next to her, to begin kissing and making out all over again.

Emboldened by the fact that Heather hadn’t complained that he had undone her bra, Robby’s hands began moving all over her body, and Heather responded with quiet moans of her own. They were laying so that their legs were entwined, and Robby’s thigh was pressing into her pussy. Robby continued to kiss and lick her tits, touching them with his fingers and gently tweaking and pulling on her nipples, and Heather responded by running her hands all through his hair, pulling his head against her body. She startled her boyfriend when she came, moaning and shaking as she held him tightly.

Excited beyond belief, and with the sure knowledge that no matter what Heather had said earlier, she really wanted him to keep going, Robby brought a hand down from the breast it was fondling to the snap at the waistband of her blue jeans. His fumbling with the snap brought Heather back down from her orgasm. She tried to twist out from under her boyfriend but found herself helpless against the much larger teen. “No, Robby, no!” She pushed his hand away and in pushing away from him, managed to bring her knee up.

“Aaagh,” cried Robby briefly, as he rolled away from Heather, both hands diving down to grab at his crotch. His ardor was a thing of the past; he had just received a first-class nut cruncher.

Robby’s moan of pain was enough to rouse the rest of the campfire’s watchers from their own pursuits. Heather sat up and hurriedly redid her clothing, her back to the group, even as Jack and Ben hooted in derision at Robby, who flipped them the finger. “Fuck you,” he told his friends, who simply laughed the harder.

The evening was getting late, and everybody had gotten as far as they were going to get with their partners. The remains of the bonfire were doused with flat beer and Ben, Jack, and Robby took their girlfriends home, leaving a pickup truck parked by the embers with two of their friends still asleep. Robby was moving very cautiously as he climbed into the cab of his truck.

Heather treated him a little coldly on the drive back. When he got to her house, Robby turned to her and said, “Listen, I’m sorry. I just got carried away back there. You make me nuts. You get me so excited...”

Heather looked at him and smiled. “I’m sorry, too. Does that really hurt?” she asked, pointing at his crotch.

Robby grinned painfully. “Like you wouldn’t believe. Right now, I couldn’t, even if I could!”

Heather laughed and leaned across the bench seat of the pickup to kiss him goodnight, then climbed out of the truck and went into the house.

It was just after six by the time Lauren and her children arrived at Peter’s apartment. She was a little nervous at this since Jimmy and Holly had never been there before. It certainly seemed as if Peter’s comments about things continuing to move forward were accurate. She couldn’t imagine that if he wasn’t truly interested in her that he would invite her children to visit. The two were very excited about the visit, and as always, when excited, moved with the grace and agility of a rampaging herd of elephants. They thundered their way into the building and up the stairs at their mother’s direction.