Chapter 42

Mom sat down at the table and bent a cookie on her plate, breaking it. She picked up the piece and examined it, then leaned over past the edge of the table. "Dino. Come 'ere, Boy."

I turned around and looked behind me. The dogs must have come in, decided it would be safer to stay on the rug than to join us and pushed the door closed as they lay down. Dino was just getting up from the rug that was scrunched up against the door. Bozo was sitting up, looking at me, as if for permission. I clicked a couple of times as if I was urging a horse to start moving and he came over to us.

Mom told Dino to sit and then gave him the piece of cookie she'd broken off. He inhaled it and looked up for more.

Jack was sitting next to me on the outside of the table. Bozo came over and was all set to duck underneath it so he could get to me when Jack said, "Hey!" Bozo stopped in his tracks and sat. If a piece of plywood suddenly appeared that went from the edge of the table to the floor, I have no doubt Bozo would be touching it with the majority of his left side.

"Give him some of your cookie, Jack."

He already had one in his hands. He looked at me, seeming to study me for a moment before looking back at the cookie and breaking it in two.

"No chocolate. It's bad for him."

Jack looked at me as if I was crazy.

"Wha-aht?"

He didn't answer me; he just looked at me some more, then slowly shook his head. He inspected the piece of cookie in his left hand and then held it out. "Here you go, Boy." David Copperfield has nothing on Bozo. One second it was there, the next it was gone.

Both dogs turned toward the hallway as Mary came through the door. Dino started wagging his tail and got up. She reached down and scratched behind his ear, then stood up again.

"Mom, I'm sorry. I should have listened to the doctor."

Mom got up and hugged her. "We'll figure something out this week. You've got one more chance or else I'm going to find someone who makes chastity belts and you're going to wear one until you're 25. You need to take responsibility for your own body. Did Charlie tell you what I said?"

"One foot."

"OK. Go have fun."

She kissed Mom on the cheek, turned to leave and paused, looking at Dino.

"Uh, Mom?"

"You go ahead, Mary. Dino and I will rough it tonight."

She started running as soon as she hit the hallway.

Mom sat down and the three of us ate cookies and shared them with the dogs. After a while I glanced up and noticed she had a tear rolling down her cheek.

"You OK, Mom?"

"I'm fine. I'm just thinking about how fast you kids have grown up."

"Oh? Are you including me in that?"

"Of course. Do you have any idea how much you've changed since you and Jack got together?"

"I haven't really thought about it."

"I have. I remember the insecure little girl who talked to me on the phone that night when Jack had to rush over to your house after dinner because he thought he'd lost you. And I look at the two of you now. I'm amazed at the difference, in both of you. And I'm so proud..."

I don't think any of us thought about it. One moment we were sitting at the kitchen table and the next we were standing between the table and the sink, hugging each other. All of us had tears flowing down our faces.

I don't know how many times I've seen the first Superman movie. Well, the first one with Christopher Reeve. There's one scene in that movie that makes me tear up, no matter how many times I've seen it. It's the first time Lois Lane meets Superman. She's been trapped in a helicopter that's tangled with the top of a skyscraper, doing her best to survive when she falls out. All of a sudden he swoops up out of nowhere and gathers her in his arms, telling her not to worry, that he's got her. It's like my whole body locks up when that happens. My eyes get teary, I feel a lump in my throat and it seems I can't move or even make a sound.

I've tried to classify that emotion. It's not sad. It's much more than happy. I just think of it as emotional.

Whatever it is, take that feeling and multiply it by ten or twenty and that's how I felt, standing in the middle of the kitchen late on a Saturday night with Jack and Mom in my arms, our bodies all pressed together.

Dino broke us up. I felt him squeeze his head between Mom and I, nudging her leg with his snout. I guess he placed a higher priority on chocolate chip cookies than a bunch of people standing around, hugging each other.

Jack said, "OK, Bozo. One more, then we go home. Give him a cookie, Jill. Break it up so he doesn't choke on it. Make sure he doesn't get any of the chocolate chips so he doesn't get sick. Make him chew it before he swallows it."

I said, "All right, All right. I know how to give my dog a bite of cookie."

He looked at me and said, "So do I."

"I know that. -- Oh. -- I guess I kinda..."

"Uh huh."

"I'm sorry."

Bozo got his cookie then we both kissed Mom goodnight. Jack said, "You want to spend the night in our place? I might get pretty noisy down here."

"It might get noisy in your place, too. I'll be fine, Jack. Dino will take good care of me."

She gave us a bowl of peaches, half of a box she'd picked up at Costco., then pulled apart a bunch of bananas and gave us half. "They're good, but they only stay ripe for a few days and then they start to spoil."

We went back to the apartment and I went into the bedroom. The message light was flashing on the phone. It was just before 11 so I decided to give Daddy a call before it got too late.

I called the house and it rang twice, then went into voice mail. I just left a message that we were back and I was going to try his cell. That went immediately into voice mail which meant he had it turned off. I left the same message and added that we would both be waiting for him tomorrow at 4:00 and promised to be good. That done, I checked our voice mail. There was one message, from Daddy. He said he understood that I was probably shocked to see my mother (his words, not mine). He said that June had a message for me and that it was important, he was counting on me to act like an adult and that he loved me.

I changed into an oversized T-shirt and panties and took my laptop out to the kitchen. Jack was just putting away the big bag of dog food while Bozo put away the food Jack had poured in his bowl. And I always thought cookies spoiled your dinner.

I powered up the laptop and plugged in the power adapter. The papers with my graduation requirements were still in the outside pocket of my laptop case and I pulled them out. I had a good 3" stack of papers on the table.

Jack came into the kitchen. He was wearing a sleeveless sweatshirt and a pair of gym shorts. You know the type — they come down a couple of inches from the crotch and the legs are wide enough to breathe and not bind when you do physical activity.

I know guys are notorious horndogs and they really get off on looking down a girl's blouse or up her skirt. They make damn fools of themselves, thinking all the while they're being sly and nobody realizes what they're doing. Maybe it's the bulging eyes or the hanging tongues, but any woman worth her salt can spot a guy from across the room when he thinks he's on the way to finding gold or even cotton.

Girls are different. We love to see a decent-looking bared chest. I might add that a disgusting looking one does nothing for us. But back to the good looking ones. A guy with a couple or three shirt buttons undone isn't going to attract a mob of women, each one trying to find just the right angle to see a couple more inches of skin.

Plumber's butt disgusts us, as do the baggy pants that provide the same effect. (Imagine telling some gang-banger he looks like a plumber who can't keep his pants up.) Most of us admire a snug fitting pair of jeans across a nice ass. And many of us try to imagine what a guy's package looks like when we see a bulge in the front. I'm not talking about an erection — that is something we'll turn away from unless we're personally interested in the guy himself. Seeing all or part of exposed genitals or buttocks is generally a turnoff. I think it has to do with the difference in the sexes. All a guy has to do is think 'pussy' and he's ready. We women take a bit more to get in the mood.

I say this because Jack came into the kitchen, pulled a chair out from the table and sat down. He had one foot on the floor and had the other leg crossed over the knee — sort of a three dimensional figure 4. He was just talking to me about the project, getting an idea of what he could do to help me through it. I know he had no idea what he was doing to me.

I should have been going through the stack of papers. I should have been setting up the table in Excel. I should have been looking Jack in the eye as I answered his questions. And I did all of these, as little as I could get away with. The rest of the time was spent looking at his lap, trying to will the gap between the inside of his thigh and the fabric of those shorts to expand a little. I could see up a short way but then it turned dark. I couldn't tell if I was looking at an absence of light or pubic hair or a dark skinned scrotum. My imagination told me it was one of the last two.

I have kissed, licked, bitten and/or tasted just about every square inch of Jack's body. And he's returned the favor, believe me. That little gap in his shorts with the mystery at the end turned me on like you wouldn't believe. My heart was beating and I was breathing through my mouth and I was swallowing a lot because I was salivating. In fact, that was the end of me when I tried to swallow and breathe at the same time. I had a coughing fit as I tried to clear my windpipe.

That got Jack out of his chair immediately. He got behind me and pulled my chair, with me on it, away from the table. He pushed so that I was bent over, still coughing, as he did something to my back. I know exactly what he did, but it's difficult to put into words. He didn't pound or slap or hit but it was like parts of all three. Maybe tapped is a better word. He brought his hand into contact with my back with just the right amount of force to nudge that bubble of saliva I had trapped inside so that the next time I coughed, it cleared.

I started to sit up but he had other ideas. With a soothing "Shh, sshh, sshhh, sshhh," he kept me bent over with a hand on my shoulder and he rubbed my back with the other as I breathed.

As my breathing became normal, he eased up the pressure on the hand that was holding me down and then pulled me back to an upright position. He wrapped his arms around the chair and me, enclosing my breasts, though there was nothing sexual about it. He kissed the top of my head. "Better?"

"Mmmm."

"OK. It's late. Why don't you leave all this stuff out and we'll work on it in the morning."

That sounded good to me. We both washed and brushed our teeth and we were in bed in less than ten minutes. We kissed goodnight and then Jack told me to roll over on my stomach. I did and he proceeded to massage my back, from shoulders to heels. When he was finished, he lay on his back right next to me. I had just enough energy to crawl on top of him and bury my face in his chest. I felt his arms wrap around me just before I fell asleep.

I felt rested when I woke up. I was on my back again and there were no covers on me. My legs were spread apart and I could feel Jack's hands on the tops of my thighs, his forearms pointed toward the area between them, his elbows resting on the mattress. He was taking long, gentle swipes at my vulva, from the area beneath my labia up past my clitoris. He hadn't shaved and I could feel the stubble gently scraping the inside of my thighs, in counterpoint to his tongue.

I lay there, relaxed, eyes closed. He was opening me up with each long lick, stopping now to pay attention to my vagina before continuing to the end. I knew that much longer and the pleasure from his whiskers would shortly turn to irritation. Besides, my body was calling for more than his tongue. I reached down and held his head with both hands. He looked up at me and I whispered "Beard" as I eased him up my body. He kissed me and I reached down with one hand to guide him in.

Several moments of reciprocal movements and Jack was seated completely inside me. Neither of us said anything but we both relaxed, enjoying the intimate contact.

He leaned down next to my ear. "Does it ever bother you that I'm not bigger?"

"There's nothing wrong with you. From all I've read, you're average."

"But wouldn't you like a little more?"

"I've never been dissatisfied with what you have. And didn't you ever think I might be average, too?"

"I guess I never thought about that."

"Do you want me to go to some plastic surgeon and get fake double D boobs?"

"No way. I like these just fine." He licked one of them, taking the nipple in his mouth, sucking on it. "I wouldn't know what to do if they were any bigger."

"Jack, you underestimate yourself. I'm sure you would be able to figure something out. If you're worried about being average, there are a lot more things than sex organs to put your attention on. I've never read an obituary that said 'His dick was 3" longer than everybody else's.' Now, why don't you move that average prick around in my average pussy and stimulate some nerve cells."

He did and I helped and 45 minutes later we were all satisfied and showered and cooking omelets for breakfast. We had fresh brewed coffee, omelets and the fruit Mom gave us for breakfast. The first time I bit into my peach, it dribbled juice down my chin and onto my chest. I pulled it away from my mouth and put it on my plate while I tried to get everything that had dripped with a napkin.

"Watch out, they're juicy. These would be fun to play with in bed."

"I already have a nice juicy peach I can play with."

"Yeah, but I don't. Can't you imagine me lying between your legs, taking a bite out of my peach, the juice flowing down my chin and onto you. I'd have to lick it all up because I made the mess and I should take responsibility for it. And then you'd have to lick off any that was left on my chin."

"Ooh, sounds good. Let's go."

"Uh, uh. We already had playtime for this morning. I've got work to do and you promised to help. And you need to get back to all those women who want pictures. Maybe after Daddy leaves."

Jack asked what I needed to do and I told him what I'd thought about before Coach told me to put the laptop away. The list of everything that needed to be done in each subject. The spreadsheet with the columns that showed everything that needed to be done in all the subjects with the progress tracked so I could tell where I was at a glance. Jack suggested that one of us read the requirements for each class out loud while the other typed. Once all the subjects were done, we'd work on the spreadsheet. I suggested at least designing the spreadsheet and he said we'd probably do a better job if we were familiar with all the material beforehand. It would be no big deal to insert a column if we missed some function but I went along with him. He read and I typed. That let me come up with my own shorthand; something I wouldn't have to go back to him to ask about later if he'd come up with the abbreviations.