Chapter 12: Into the Woods

By the time I got over to Tessa's house, it was nearly six in the evening. Molly and Tessa were sitting on the front step with Kristina Mendoza, a slender Hispanic girl who was fairly new to the neighborhood. She lived just down the street from Tessa, and she and Tessa had become friends right away. Kristina played soccer for the Sting Rays, and brought a considerable skill to the team. Her family had moved here from Texas, where she had played soccer year-round, practically since she could walk. I didn't really know her very well, but Tessa and Molly both liked her, and the three of them had hung out quite a bit of the summer together.

"Hi, ladies," I said as I walked up the sidewalk.

"Hi, Sean," they echoed in answer. Is it my imagination, or are Tessa and Kristina looking at me funny? I couldn't really tell. Molly stood up and came over to me. She grabbed my arm and pulled me over to sit by her on the bottom step.

"Have you eaten dinner yet, Sean?" asked Tessa. "My dad's going to barbeque some burgers and hot dogs for us pretty soon."

"Hey, that's great," I said. "You're sure it's okay with your parents if I stay for dinner?"

"Sure," she said. "Kristina and Molly were already staying, so one more won't matter."

"Even if it's a boy with an appetite?" I asked. "Between my brothers and me, we eat everything we find in the house. My mom is always complaining about how often she has to go food shopping for us."

"I don't think even you could out-eat my dad," said Tessa. "He eats more than anyone I've ever seen or heard of."

"It's true," confirmed Molly. "I've never seen anybody eat like Mr. Navarrone. My brother Josh eats a lot, but nothing like your dad, Tessa."

"That's right," added Kristina. "When we first moved here, Tessa's parents invited my family over for a cookout, and Mr. Navarrone cooked a whole huge turkey on the grill. Do you know that there was no turkey left by the end of the meal? And then, after dinner, your mom brings out all these pies and cookies and stuff, and we practically finished them off, too!" She started laughing at the memory of that meal.

"So," I said, "I don't have to be polite and not eat very much then, is that what you're telling me? Yum, I can't wait!" I rubbed my growling stomach in anticipation.

Tessa instructed me on where I could find a telephone in their house. I went in and called my mom to let her know I was staying for dinner.

"You're sure it's okay with Tessa's parents, Sean?"

I favored her with a big, theatrical sigh that I was sure she would be able to hear over the telephone. "Yes, Mom, I'm sure."

"Make sure you thank them when you're done," she reminded me.

"Yes, Mom," I answered dutifully. "I will, I promise."

"Okay, then, have a nice time," she said. I hung up the phone and ran back out to the front to be with my friends.

In a little while, Tessa's parents called us into the back yard for dinner. It was quite a party, with the four of us, Tessa's parents, her two sisters and two brothers, plus an assortment of their friends, totaling about twenty people. We were spread out throughout the back yard, finding space on the deck, or at one of several tables, or on a retaining wall across the back of their yard. There was plenty of food, lots of sodas and iced tea, and Mr. Navarrone ruled it all from in front of his gas grille, cooking up a storm of hamburgers, hot dogs, bratwursts, and barbequed chicken. There was also corn on the cob, baked beans, salads, Jell-O, cold pasta salad, and chips, followed by homemade cookies and a chocolate cake with ice cream for dessert. By the end, I had downed two hamburgers, a bratwurst, and a huge mound of beans and pasta salad, and still managed to squeeze down a piece of cake and a couple of cookies. Molly, sticking by me throughout the meal, kept up a running commentary for her friends on my progress through my meal, until both Tessa and Kristina finally begged her to stop.

"Enough!" cried Kristina. "I'm going to be sick just hearing what he's eating, Molly!"

"Between you and my dad, Sean, you could clean out this house of food," complained Tessa good-naturedly.

"Someone is challenging me to an eating contest?" rumbled a gravelly voice from the other side of the yard. "Who's eating so much over there?" said Mr. Navarrone.

"It's Sean," cried Lisbeth, Tessa's youngest sister.

"What? That skinny little kid?" said Mr. Navarrone. "Where are you putting all that chow, Sean? In a hollow leg?"

"I'm a growing kid, Mr. Navarrone," I called out. "Besides, I'm just trying to be a good guest by cleaning my plate. It's not really my fault."

"A good guest? Hah! How about a bottomless pit?" said Molly with a laugh. "Aren't you afraid of getting too fat?"

"Nah," I said. "Not with all these beautiful women around here to chase. I'll work it off somehow."

Everyone laughed, and Molly slugged me in the arm in mock anger.

"If you're planning on chasing all these beautiful women," said Mr. Navarrone, "then you probably need one more cookie for sustenance. Some of them can run pretty fast, after all. Tessa, come get the plate of cookies for Sean, would you please?"

The last laugh was on me after all, when Tessa loaded up a plate with cookies and pieces of cake and brought it over to me. She handed it over with a flourish.

By the time we were done eating, it was dusk. The streetlights were buzzing and flickering to life, and porch lights throughout the neighborhood were switching on. Lightning bugs were making an appearance, and we all chased them around, catching them and putting them in each others' hair and on our clothes. As the darkness closed in, Kristina, Molly, and I said our goodbyes to everybody. We thanked Tessa's parents for dinner, and then the three of us wandered down the street toward Kristina's house.

"Do you guys want to come in for a little while? Maybe there's a good movie on or something," said Kristina as we got to her house.

Molly and I looked at each other and nearly simultaneously said, "No, thanks, I've got to be getting home." We waved and continued walking toward Molly's house. Nervously, we reached for each other's hand, as if we were near strangers on a clandestine mission.

When we got to her house, she led the way down her driveway, and into the garage. "I've got some blankets stashed in here," she whispered. She went in through a side door and came back out again, carrying some folded blankets in her arms.

"Let's go back here," she whispered. "I'm not sure who's home, so we need to keep quiet until we get to the clearing."

She led the way to the back of the yard, and into the trees. About twenty yards in, there was a small clearing, with a picnic table, an old fire ring, and a couple of bent and broken lawn chairs. It was obviously a long-time neighborhood hangout, but I hadn't realized it was there.

Molly knelt down and spread out the blankets on the ground, and sat down facing me. Silently she patted the ground next to her, beckoning me. She was wearing a sleeveless shirt that buttoned down the front, and a pair of tight shorts. She reached up and took her reddish- blonde hair out of the ponytail, letting it fall down her cheeks and spread across her shoulders. I moved over to sit beside her, reaching around to put my arm around her shoulder, and felt the weight of her hair against my arm as she moved into my embrace. We kissed, fumbling to find each other's lips in the dark. As we connected, we lowered each other down onto the blanket until we were lying on our sides, facing each other, lips locked together and arms entwined. I felt her hand running up and down my back, and I did the same, my fingertips sensing the soft cotton of her shirt, the bumps and ridges of her spine, and the extra thickness of her bra beneath her shirt.

Her tongue insinuated itself into my mouth, searching and tasting, as our mouths opened wider against each other. The pressure of her hands turned more insistent on my back as we kissed, shifting our heads this way and that to try to get an even better contact. Her tongue played along my teeth as if they were piano keys, one side and then the other, before fleeing back into its own cavern, chased by my own tongue.

I dragged my hand down onto her beautiful, tight ass, blindly searching for the hem of her shirt. The pressure of my hand on the small of her back and on her butt caused her to move her hips closer to me, until her crotch was rubbing against my rigid dick. I slipped my hand under her shirttail and brushed along the soft skin of her back, feeling the muscles underneath the skin flexing and relaxing with the unconscious movement of her hips against me. As I moved up her back, my arm pushed her shirt up until it started to bunch up under her arm. It must have irritated her a little, because she let go of me and started to unbutton it. I tried to help, but it's easier working buttons when they're on you, so I ended up fumbling around until she finished the job. She shrugged out of her shirt and settled back against me, reaching once more for another wet, open-mouthed kiss. I put my arms around her again, and enjoyed feeling her back tense and relax as I tickled up and down along her spine. Molly, in the meantime, found the hem of my shirt and started rucking it up my body, duplicating my movements.

I didn't have a lot of experience with the hooks and eyes of bra straps, but I managed to unhook Molly's with one hand after wrestling with it for a few moments. As soon as it was loose, I ran my hand around her, to her left tit, and pushed her back just a little so I could play with it better. I pressed her whole breast with the palm of my hand, feeling her nipple expand against it. I was gently squeezing and releasing it, still amazed at the sensation of this soft, sensuous place on a girl's body that differed so much from mine. The contrast of her hard ribcage, topped by her amazingly tender breast, tipped by this flexible and sensitive nipple, was a constant source of joy and discovery for me.

I wanted so much to give her an inkling of the pleasure she was imparting, so I left her lips and tongue and trailed soft kisses and licks down her throat, under her ear (boy, did that cause a reaction!), and down her body to her boob.

She arched up, trying to move her breast and nipple into my mouth as I got closer. However, I sensed that a slower buildup would lead to a more interesting conclusion, so I took the longer, winding path to her treasures. Molly was moaning in frustration, rolling around on the blanket in an attempt to increase the contact, until she finally grabbed me by the neck and forcibly pushed my face onto her. She sighed in contentment and arousal as she felt my lips enclose her swollen nipple. I sucked on her, drumming my tongue across the swollen nub, and brought my hand over to squeeze and play with her right breast as I was feasting on her left.

Unwilling to show any favoritism, I transferred the attentions of my mouth to her right breast, sucking hard on her. Each time I rubbed her nipple with my tongue, her breathing got rougher and deeper and she hugged me tighter to her, so I figured I was doing it all right. Taking my cue from her, I continued. Small reaction, try something else. Big reaction, do that some more. That plan worked out even as I was sucking on her right breast and reaching down her body toward her legs. As I rubbed up her thigh and between her legs, she moaned even harder, her hips started wriggling more, and she started reaching for my crotch. I took this to be a good sign.

Her shorts had an elastic waistband, so it was a simple matter for me to reach in and slip my hand down between her shorts and her panties to caress her. Her panties were silky to the touch, and were soaked through, which created a greater sense of urgency within me. My cock got instantly harder, something I didn't think was possible. Molly, meanwhile, was pulling at the snap of my cutoffs, yanking on my shorts until they unsnapped and unzipped in one quick motion. She snaked her fingers through the gap in my shorts and grabbed me. She held my twitching cock tightly, and began to pump her hand up and down on me, a purely unconscious reaction on her part to the sensations rolling through her.

I started to push her shorts down off her hips, and she apparently thought this was an excellent idea, because she did the same with mine. We kept getting all tangled up, trying to undress each other, so we wordlessly sat up together. She knelt beside me, pushed me back so I was lying down, and worked my shorts and underwear off. She stared at my cock, pulsing with the beating of my heart, for just a moment before laying back herself and lifting up her hips in invitation. I sat up and pulled her shorts down, and then pulled her panties off. I could smell her excitement, and it pulled me toward her. As I leaned down toward her, she put out her hands and stopped me.

"Did you bring them?" she said quietly, her eyes shining in the dark.

I nodded, and scrambled over to where my shorts lay crumpled in a pile. I dug into my pocket and pulled out one of the little foil packets, and I tore it open. My fingers weren't working properly, and I felt a little frantic as I took the condom out of the package and tried to put it on.

"Come here, I'll do that," she whispered with a giggle. She sat up, her small breasts jiggling provocatively, and knelt down in front of me. I handed her the condom, and had to hold my breath when the sensations of what she was doing to me suddenly hit me like a giant wave.