Chapter 2

The next morning, a little before noon I was sitting on the little merry go round at the elementary school waiting for Faye to show up. It was one of those days in early February where every time you exhaled you could see your breath. It was just cold enough so that breathing hurt your lungs a little bit. I had walked over to the school by cutting through the woods, just like we used to do when I attended the school as a child. I had some good memories at that school. Six years of good memories really. I'd been pretty happy and carefree when I was little. I didn't have too many concerns then, and I worried only about whether I'd hear my father when he whistled from the front porch, signaling us that it was time to quit playing and come in for either supper or bed. Luckily his whistle was loud and piercing and could be heard at least two blocks away. He wasn't a man who accepted many excuses for not coming when he whistled you home.

I saw Faye as she rounded the back of the school and headed straight for me. She looked wonderful, and I felt my heart tighten up just a little from having her near me. I took a mental picture of her, trying to imprint each tiny detail of the way she looked into my memory, filling myself with her presence. "Hi."

"Hey, Jackie. I can't believe how cold it gets here. Back home we never got anything near as cold as this. It must be twenty below right now."

"I think it's about five degrees above zero, something like that, but the humidity is high because of all the water, makes it seem a lot colder." Great, I was turning into the weather guy on the radio. "So, Joan told me no more dancing lessons?" She smiled at me, and shook her head back and forth to indicate no. "I forgot what she said my other choices were."

"You forgot?" She had climbed up on the merry go round when she come over to me and I'd stood up and was pushing it to make it spin around. I wasn't making it too fast, but she'd been making a complete revolution every ten seconds or so. When she asked me if I'd forgot, she jumped off the merry go round and I caught her, just like she'd planned. I held her in my arms for just a fraction of time before I started lowering her to the ground. As her face passed mine she gave me a kiss, right on the lips, and I stopped lowering her right away. As kisses go, I'd say it was very innocent, but not chaste. It was more like a kiss of promise. I felt part of the promise in my heart, but the majority seemed centered just a little bit lower. As she pulled her head back from me, I lowered her to her feet and broke out in a blush just from having had the thoughts that I'd entertained for only a few seconds. "Why are you blushing Jackie? Did a little kiss embarrass you that much? I bet it wasn't your first kiss, so what was it?" I didn't think before I spoke, just wanting to say something, almost anything to hide the real reason that I was turning so red.

"I'm sorry, Faye, I guess I just wasn't expecting you to just kiss me like that, I wasn't ready for it is all." Oh great! That didn't come out at all like I'd meant it to sound.

"Is my kissing so bad that you need to prepare for it? Maybe I should go and take some lessons myself." Careful here Jackie, you better say something quick before she figures out what a fool you really are.

"I'm blushing from an impure thought that just jumped into my mind when you kissed me."

"An impure thought you say? Do you get a lot of those impure thoughts or was this just a once in a blue moon kind of thing?"

"No, I get them quite a lot, especially lately."

"That's good. I'd hate to think I'd lost my touch. Back in Burlingame I gave a lot of boys impure thoughts. I wasn't sure if it was only a west coast kind of talent. Are you going to tell me which impure thought I inspired?"

"You shouldn't tease me Faye."

"Really, why not? I like to tease. I'm pretty good at it too. Most boys I know would absolutely love to have me tease them. Don't you like to be teased, Jackie? If you tell me the impure thought you had when I kissed you, I'll tell you one I had after I got back from the dance Friday night, it was a good one too." I still had both hands around her, holding her loosely, her face a foot or so from mine. I wanted to just start kissing her, forget about all this talking, just let me hold her and kiss her for a long time and I'd be happy. I hadn't had that much experience with being glib and spontaneous with people, especially girls, and most especially a girl who had the kind of effect on me that Faye did. I didn't think I wanted to be teased. I was soon to find out that Faye meant a different thing by tease than I did.

"I've never had a girlfriend before Faye, so I might not always say things the right way. You make me nervous already, and if you tease me, I'll just get more nervous and probably act even more stupid than I have been already. If that's even possible."

"I don't think you've acted stupid at all Jackie. I think you've been very flattering, especially the way you've been always looking right at me, and I've never met a boy so cute who was so shy around girls before. I'm really interested in your impure thought too. Won't you please tell me what it was. I won't be offended, I promise."

"It was just things, you know, us doing things like making out and stuff."

"You mean thinking about us kissing and touching, things like that? That's all, and it made you blush like that?" I looked at her and nodded yes to her question. "Jackie, I'd be hurt if kissing me didn't give you those kind of thoughts. I'm almost afraid to tell you what I was thinking about after the dance now. I said I would though, so I will. After I got home Friday, I hung up my dress and went into my bathroom to wash my face and get ready for bed. I took off all my clothes, everything, and I was looking in the mirror. I started thinking about what if you could see me like that, without any clothes on, and I thought about what you'd do if I let you see me like that, about whether you'd be able to control yourself and not touch, just look. I got pretty excited thinking about that, and later, before I went to sleep, I thought of it some more, and about what I'd do if you did try to touch me. I even pretended that you were touching me, and it got me hot, real hot. Telling you about it gets me hot too. Don't you get hot knowing I think about stuff like that too?"