Chapter 6

It was about an hour later when Cathy and Jennifer returned at last to the party. Chris was surprised as hell to see them laughing and talking together in soft, low voices as they walked across the sands, but he knew better than to ask any questions. The look Cathy shot him was proof enough that he was still in the doghouse as far as she was concerned.

"I'm ready to go home now, if you don't mind," She said to him. He shrugged acceptantly, and she turned to Jennifer. "Like a ride home with us?" she asked in a surprisingly tender voice.

"Oh, no thanks," Jen replied. "I think I'll hang out awhile longer. There's just my parents to talk to back at the house, and I'd rather put that off as long as I can."

"Okay," Cathy said and she leaned forward to kiss Jennifer's mouth with a very audible smack. "See you tomorrow, maybe?"

"I'd like that. Bye."

Cathy said nothing at all to Chris as they walked up the hill to where he'd parked his father's car. He wanted to make amends, to tell her he was sorry, but the iciness of her silence froze the words in his very throat. Later, in the car and on the road, he tried to speak. "Look, Oath, I'm sorry about tonight...

"Don't." she said. "I'm sure I don't want to hear it."

He shrugged complacently and returned his eyes to the road ahead. Well, damn it, he thought, it isn't my fault. He'd forgotten completely about Penny. Oh, he knew she was on the island with a couple of girl friends, but he hadn't seen her in a few days and he hadn't made it with her for a year or so and, besides, how did he know she'd be at the party? He didn't ask her to come on with him tonight-that was her own idea. And he sure didn't ask Cathy to play with what's his name- Harold's-pecker the way she did. It couldn't have been entirely accidental, he was sure.

What was really weird was the new friendliness between Cathy and Jennifer. This afternoon Cathy had been ready to rip the other girl's hair out by the roots, but tonight they were really honey and pie together. Like the way Cathy had smacked that slurpy kiss onto Jennifer, and in front of him. They'd been gone a long time, and he wondered what they had been up to out there in the dunes. He'd bet a thousand dollars they'd been screwing each other. Which meant that Miss Cathy wasn't so straight as she liked to pretend. He smiled at the thought. If the nirvana look on her face was any indication, she had certainly enjoyed whatever she and Jen had been doing.

Anyway-how long could she stay angry with him? She had hot blood and by tomorrow or the next day that blood would be boiling in her veins. She might be able to get some of her kicks fooling around with Jennifer, as she apparently had tonight, but she needed cock, too, and she would get mighty lonesome for his before too much time had passed. Let her squirm a little, he decided. Let her beg him for it.

All too soon the silent journey ended, and he had pulled up in front of the beach house Cathy shared with her mother. She popped out of the car and he slid out, too, wishing at least to walk her to the door, to give her one last chance to take him back while she could still be dignified about it.

"Wait up a sec," he said, walking fast to catch her, but she had already clomped onto the porch, not even giving him a glance back. He reached for her hand and tugged on it, Cathy resisting him, trying to free herself, and she had just turned to order him to get the flick out when the front door of the house opened and Gwen stepped onto the porch.

"Hi, dear," she said to Cathy. "And you must be-"

"Chris," he smiled, supplying her with the name she couldn't quite recall.

"Chris. Of course. Home so soon?" she asked her daughter.

"It was a draggy party," Cathy grumbled, still trying to pull her hand free of Chris'.

"Oh, that's too bad," Gwen commiserated. "Well. Why don't you invite your friend inside for something cool to drink?"

"Oh, I'd better get home," Chris apologized. Cathy's mother seemed to be totally unaware of the tension existing between the teenagers.

"It's early," Gwen insisted. "Come on in."

Cathy went through the door first, followed by Gwen and Chris. "You go into the kitchen, dear, and get some Cokes-or would you rather have some beer or some wine, Chris? If you're allowed, that is.

"A beer would be okay," he smiled, watching Cathy as she disappeared into the kitchen. He heard the refrigerator door open, then heard it slammed shut with vehemence. In a moment she returned with two bottles of beer and two glasses.

She divided them equally between Gwen and Chris then said, "Excuse me, I'm going to bed," and left the room once again. She slammed the bedroom door behind her and in another moment her stereo clicked on-Carly Simon, playing very loud.

Gwen looked at Chris with raised eyebrows. "Is something bothering Cathy?" she wondered. He thought it politic not to answer. "I'm afraid I don't understand her at all," Owen went on. "I've tried and tried, but there seems to be an enormous gulf between them.

Chris stood with a cool beer and a handled glass, shifting his weight from foot to foot. He wanted to leave. "I'd better be going," he said.

"Oh, no, Gwen assured him. "Sit down. The sofa's fine. And drink your beer. It'll only go to waste if you don't."

She sat down opposite him, on the chair beside her typing desk. Her portable electric was covered now, for she had just finished the final revisions on her article for the magazine, and for the first time in a long while she had no impending deadlines or other responsibilities. Time enough to begin making friends with Cathy once more, and to make friends with all Cathy's chums, too. This young man for example. She looked at him with a smile. He was a beautiful boy, she thought, as lovely in his own way as Cathy was in hers. There was such an aura of young virility, a pure and chaste virility like that of a Greek statue, about him. His body was lithe and nicely developed, and she liked his almost-blond hair, too, and especially the fantastic blue of his eyes. Indeed, he resembled Cathy just a bit. Like attracting like, she decided. A handsome boy and a sparkling young girl. That was what life and love were all about.

Chris stared back at her, trying not to be obvious about it. Cathy's mother-he knew that her name was Gwen and that she and her daughter were on a first-name basis-was a fine piece of woman. Cathy would look much the same when she was fully matured, and that was a good sign. But it was still difficult for him to believe that Gwen was old enough to have a daughter his own age. She must have been a real child bride, he decided.

Right now she was casually dressed in a short-sleeved knit top that clung to the lines of her very fine tits and left her bare from just below the boobs to the waistband of her very short shorts. And they were the kind of shorts nobody's mother was supposed to be wearing, what with the way they rode low on her hipbones and cut high on her sleek thighs and fit like a tight glove around her crotch. Made of some sort of nylon, they seemed to be a size too small, and Chris was positive that if he looked close enough, he could see the outline of her goddamned snatch in the fabric between her legs. He poured his beer, trying not to spill any, and he took a sip that he hoped would help to cool him down.

Gwen looked around her typing table, searching vainly for her cigarettes. All she could find was an empty pack which she had crumpled earlier in the evening. "Are my cigarettes on the table, Chris?" she asked suddenly, breaking the silence inside the living room.

He looked at the coffee table before him and shook his head. Gwen stood up, and he had to repress a whistle of appreciation at the smooth action of her legs. They were just as long, just as shapely as Cathy's, though her mother was built on a slightly more voluptuous frame, with bigger tits and an ass that was, if anything, just a bit nicer than Cathy's.

She walked across the room and he followed her with his eyes, drinking in her every movement. "I had a fresh pack somewhere," she said almost inaudibly. "Where did I put them?" And then- "Oh, there they are!" and she went to the end table right beside where Chris was sitting.

Gwen bent over to pick up her package of Winstons, and as she did, her ass poked high and round into the air in such a way and in such a position that Chris couldn't help but stare at it. He closed his eyes for an instant and opened them again to find that vision of shapeliness still there, and so he took this as a divine beneficence. He reached out with one hand and smoothed it over the curve of her nearest buttcheek, testing the texture of her nylon shorts, feeling the warmth of the ass which they covered.

Gwen's eyes opened in surprise at Chris' laying-on of hands, and they opened even wider when she felt him slide a finger through her crotch, rubbing her from asshole to perineum to cunt through the thin barrier of her nylon shorts. She stood up slowly, straightening her back, and she put a cigarette between her lips very carefully, lighting it before she turned to look at Chris.

"Uh..." she began, startled to note that his finger was still touching her warm crotch. His hand dropped when she made the sound, and he looked up at her innocently, with a smile that was almost sweet, ingenuous even. And Gwen didn't know what to say. He was young enough to be her own son, and if she flared out at him in anger for daring to feel her up, she might stunt his sexual development irremediably.

Besides, she thought, what should she have expected? He was young, obviously he had sexual desires, and she was an older woman, admittedly, but an older woman wit a body that was still first-rate. It was a classic situation.

Good God, she thought, look at the way I'm dressed, too! No bra, clingy knit top which, thank the Lord, isn't quite see-through, and shorts that look like I was born wearing them. And I guess I must have given him a pretty good shot when I bent over. Obviously he thinks I'm trying to seduce him. The poor guy was probably scared half to death right now.

I wonder what she's gonna do, Chris thought idly. She didn't scream or anything. And she hasn't told me to get the hell out.

He looked at Gwen and she looked at him, neither of them saying a word. Chris broke the impasse. He stood up, saying, "It really is getting late. I should be going home. My dad will think I've piled the car up somewhere."

Gwen nodded, chewing absentmindedly on her lower lip. She hoped she'd done the right thing. It was so important that a young boy, making his first sexual overtures, be treated carefully-neither encouraged nor turned off completely, and she couldn't know yet if she had reacted correctly to his exploratory touching. Sometimes she wished she'd had a son as well as a daughter-it would have given her much better insight on child psychology.

"Well," she said, "good night, Chris," and she followed him to the door.

"Good night, Mrs. Corby," he called as he went around the front of his car. "Tell Cathy I'll see her sometime soon."

"I'll be sure to do that" Gwen replied, her heart beating with a rap-tap-tap of justification. Possibly-no, probably-she had handled the little incident in a calm adult fashion that would not leave permanent scars on Chris' psyche.