Chapter 30: Trust Betrayed

Tryouts for the girl's varsity and junior varsity soccer teams were held at the beginning of March. Jen, Ashley, and Molly ended up on the JV team, while Kristina and Tessa both made the varsity team. Practice was every day after school, starting about the second week of March. The girls were doing a lot of running laps, out on the track when the weather cooperated and in the gymnasium when it didn't. The girls did a lot of good-natured complaining about it, but they knew the benefits of all that boring running of laps would pay off once the season began.

Because of her practice schedule, I couldn't see or call Kristina much during the week. Her parents were very strict anyway, and with so much of her free time taken up with soccer, she only had time for homework after dinner. No time for poor Sean.

I had a plan, though. My sixteenth birthday was coming up the first week of April, and Toby's was the same week. We came up with the idea that we should have a combined birthday party to celebrate. My parents offered to host the party, so all our friends were invited over to my house on the first Saturday of April. Toby and I asked Ashley and Kristina if they could come over early in the afternoon to hang out with us while we got the basement ready for the party, which they did. Toby and Ashley had become something of an item, ever since the turnabout dance in February. They discovered a remarkable compatibility together that began on the dance floor and expanded from there. I was really happy about it for Toby's sake, because it meant that he was finally getting over his serious crush on Jen Davies, who still was madly in love with Sam. Ashley was a better fit for him anyway, since she didn't tower over him by a foot like Jen did. The four of us had a great afternoon getting set for the party, watching TV, and gossiping about our friends.

Most of our friends were at the party. The music was loud, but there were some quieter, darker corners for the couples (though my parents made sure they patrolled those areas frequently). Drinks were spilled, chips and dips were consumed in huge quantities, and everybody seemed to be having a very good time.

At one point during the height of the party, Eric came over to me.

"How's it going, Sean? Another year older, huh?" he said.

"Yeah, the time's really flying now," I replied. "One day, you're a fifteen-year-old punk. The next thing you know, you've got your driver's license and you've got a bunch more new friends needing rides."

"Don't I know it. I got my license and all of a sudden, I had to start driving my younger brother and sister around all the time. Got old pretty quick," he complained. I could sympathize. My brother Michael was more than happy to see me get my license, since that meant that I could drive our younger brother Stephen around now, instead of him having to cart the both of us. "Hey, have you heard the rumors going around about your old girlfriend?" he asked.

I shook my head. This oughta be good, I thought to myself.

"You know she broke up with Scotty, right?" he asked. I hadn't known, but then I wasn't paying a lot of attention to what Molly was up to lately, either. "Well, Scott's been spreading some dirt about her. About how she was putting out for him so easy at first, but then shut him out after awhile. Calling her an ice bitch, things like that."

"You're kidding."

"Nope. Ask Keisha. She's really been getting the down-and-dirty from the rumor-mills in the girls' johns at school. Anyway, the story that Keisha picked up is that Molly was two-timing Scotty with Trent, then dropped them both and jumped on Mikey Evanson for a poke."

"You have got to be shitting me, Eric. Molly is doing this? What the hell is wrong with her?"

Jake walked up, just in time to hear my question. "You guys talking about Molly 'I'll Do Anything For a Long Hard One' O'Toole? Yeah, I heard, too," he said.

"I don't believe it," I said, shaking my head at the news. "What the hell is she trying to prove?"

"I don't know, but her brother better not find out about it," said Jake, glancing over in Josh's direction.

"On a happier note, man, it looks like you and Kristina have got things going," said Eric. "You're a lucky dude. She's one of a kind."

"Yeah, well, my track record for keeping women happy is a pretty dismal 0-1 so far," I said. "I'm trying, but who knows how successful I'll be."

"You know the secret to keeping a woman happy, don't you?" asked Eric. Jake and I looked at each other questioningly, then both said no.

"Just repeat after me: 'Yes, dear, Of course it was my fault, anything you want, my little love-muffin, ' and everything will be hunky-dory," he said.

We all laughed.

"Lessons in life we could all learn from," said Jake.

As a birthday party treat, my parents agreed to let me drive Josh and Andrea and Kristina home after the party. I was using my mom's old car, a '75 Buick Century with a split bench seat in the front. Josh and Andrea got into the back, and Kristina slid over next to me as I started up the old beast. We were barely out of the driveway when I heard giggling and kissing noises coming from the back. Kristina looked at me and smiled, taking my arm and holding it as I tooled down the street.

In almost no time at all, I was pulling into Andrea's driveway. I stopped the car, throwing it into park while we waited for them to disentangle from each other and walk up to her front door. While Josh was kissing her and saying goodnight, I slipped my arm around Kristina's shoulder. She tilted her head up, and I bent down and kissed her tenderly and softly, just the way I knew she liked to be kissed.

The back door opened and Josh climbed back in.

"All right, you guys, that's enough," he complained good-naturedly. "Can't you see I'm lonely back here? It's bad enough I don't have my girlfriend here, I have to watch you two and your disgusting public display of affection?"

I took my arm back from around Kristina's shoulder and put the car in reverse. As I was looking through the back window, backing out of the driveway, I glanced at Josh.

"It's not exactly a public place here, I don't think. But we'll stop anyway, because we are sensitive to your loneliness," I said.

"Thank you very much," he shot back. "Thank you from the bottom of my bottom."

"Josh! That's gross!" Kristina complained, but I could see she was smiling as she said it.

I drove through the side streets to Josh's house and dropped him off. I was reluctant to drive straight to Kristina's house, wanting to spend as many minutes with her as I could, so I turned in the opposite direction, intending to just drive around for a few minutes with her by my side.

"Good, I don't want to go home just yet," she whispered when she saw that I had turned in a different direction.

We drove slowly down the street.

"Stop over there," she said, pointing to a dark area in the middle of the next block. I pulled over to the curb, in front of a new house under construction. There were no lights around us as we came to a stop under a tree, the streetlights on the corner too far away to afford much light here in the middle of the block.

It was chilly out, so I left the car running with the lights off. I turned to her and put my arm around her once more. She turned into me, slipping her arm around my back as she tilted her face up, inviting me to kiss her. I bent down and pressed my lips to hers in a soft, warm and tender kiss. I planted lots of little kisses on her lips, the corners of her mouth, her cheeks, and her chin, receiving lots in return. I didn't want to rush her in any way, so I contented myself to nibbling and kissing her softly. Finally, her lips found their way to mine, and I could feel her trembling as her mouth opened just slightly and the tip of her tongue just touched my mouth. My lips parted, and my tongue slipped out to meet hers, tip to tip, before retreating and breaking the kiss. I nuzzled her throat, feeling the heat radiating from her skin just below her ear, and returned for another kiss. Her lips and tongue were bolder now, being guided in their explorations by her rising temperature, until, after several brief darting jabs at each other, our mouths finally opened and our lips sealed onto each other as our tongues intertwined in our first truly hot, wet, demanding kiss.

She moaned into my mouth and twisted her body so she could hold me tighter against her. My hand snaked around her waist to hold her tightly to me. My knee was pressed against hers, our torsos twisted around as I struggled to get even closer to her around the steering column of the car. She reached up and threw her arm around my neck as we kissed, and I could feel her sweater inch up from her jeans, so that two of my fingers were resting against the hot skin of her lower back.

Just that small touch of her soft skin lit the afterburners in my body, and my blood raced through me, making me feel flushed and swollen. My fingers slipped under her sweater, still at her waist, and rested there, reveling in the feel of her incredibly smooth skin. My hand warmed from the touch, my fingers tingling, as I pressed my palm hard against her back.

She moaned again, and pulled me even harder to her. I took that as a good sign. My hand on her waist, almost on its own, began to slide up her side under the sweater, tracing the hidden musculature just under the soft layer of skin. My fingers felt the rough cotton and elastic of her bra, and quite naturally followed its path under her arm to cup her small, round covered breast under the sweater. She was making lots of small sounds into my mouth, and she twisted just slightly, giving my hand a little more room to caress her. I gently squeezed the soft mound, feeling her true shape for the first time, and wondering all over again at the miracle of the female form. My hand followed her bra back around under her arm again, intent on finding the key to releasing the treasure. Without seeming to move, her body language spoke of disappointment that I had abandoned her boob, but I had better plans in mind for both of us. I fumbled at her back, fingers searching for the complicated hooks and eyes I had encountered a few times before, and found none.

I think I might have panicked as my hand scrambled around, scratching and searching for the secret to her confining bra. She stopped kissing me for a moment and giggled slightly as she reached under her sweater in front of her. The tight strap mysteriously came loose on her. As she reached back up to pull me down to resume our kissing, she whispered, "It attaches in front."

She opened her mouth against me again, her tongue intruding and exploring the recesses of my teeth and gums, as she twisted just a little away from me in my arms, giving my hand a hint as to where she wanted it to go. I obliged by slipping under the now loose bra, back to her front, to gently grasp the bare skin of her pliant breast. I pressed my palm against her, feeling her nipple expand against it, and then lightly pinched the swollen nub to stimulate it even more. I hefted the small weight of her boob, held the whole thing in the palm of my hand, felt the heat emanating from her.

We stayed like that for a time, kissing each other while she held the back of my head and I held her breast like a precious work of art, until the headlights of a car turning down the street from the corner interrupted our reverie. We both glanced at the clock on the dashboard.

"I've got to get home," she said regretfully. "Jorge is probably already there, and my parents will be worried that I didn't come home with him."

I reluctantly let go of her, and she reached under her sweater and put her clothes back into place, lifting up on the seat to pull her sweater back down. I watched her sadly, wishing fervently we could have continued, but I had made a promise to myself that she would guide me. I would only go as far as she was unhesitatingly willing to go and would not push her to go beyond. I could see now, though, that it would not be an easy promise to keep.

Two minutes later, I was walking her to her door. The porch light went on just as soon as we stepped to the door. She reached up and kissed me lightly on my cheek just before the front door opened, and she stepped inside.

"Thank you, Sean," she said. "Good night."

It was a long time before I finally fell asleep. That night I dreamed of a raven-haired beauty, dressed all in black, dancing a samba just for me.

Just as soccer practice had started for the school teams, the recreational teams for all ages were starting to gear up. I got a call from Davey and Kip's coach, Bill Pinella, asking if I would be his assistant coach for the spring session. To help seal the deal, he had asked Lori Wilkinson to call me, too. She told me that the boys were clamoring to see me again.

"It seems to them like it's been years since they saw you," she said.

"Well, it's been since the fall sometime," I recalled.

"So, will you do it? Will you help out Bill with his team?"

"Sure, Lori, I'll be glad to," I said.

Bill and I met a couple of times at his house to go over some drills he had in mind for the team. He was going to be out of town for a couple of games and he insisted on letting me make up my own lineups for those games.

The first couple of practices we held were just information gathering exercises for us, watching the boys kick the ball around, timing them as they ran up and down the field, and asking each one which position he liked to play best and why. They still had plenty of soccer left to play before they got locked into a specific position or even being labeled defense or offense, so we didn't take anything they said too seriously, knowing full well how changeable kids that age could be.

After the second practice, I recruited Jorge to come along to some of our practices. We had a core of three boys who were most interested in playing keeper, so Jorge took those three aside for about thirty minutes each time and worked with them on punting, blocking, and moving their defensive players around the field. The three keepers got more and more enthusiastic about trying out their new knowledge in a game, so we dedicated the last half of each practice to scrimmaging, dividing the team in half and playing either a half-field game or a full-field scrimmage. Sometimes we drew lanes on the field with flour, making them stay within their lanes. Some days, the lanes had about ten feet of space between them, sometimes we drew them so they overlapped, but the rule always was don't step out of the lane. We knew that when it came to game time, they would follow the ball anyway, but we were trying to convince them that if they played positions, they would be able to move the ball better. Some days it worked, some days it didn't.

Lori came down whenever she could to watch at least the last half of practice. She asked if I could work with the boys again on the side. I was gratified, as I had been looking forward to helping them out again. She also mentioned that Molly was still babysitting for her occasionally, but she had noticed that she was pretty unhappy lately and asked if I knew anything about it.

"Nope, I don't," I said. "Molly and I haven't really spoken much since around November."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Sean," she said. "I thought you two made a really cute couple together."

"Well, at the time I thought so too, but what can you do," I replied.

She could tell I really didn't care to talk much about it, so she dropped the subject.

A couple of weeks after my birthday, I borrowed my mom's car and picked up Kristina for our Saturday date. It had been a warm and sunny day, the first real promise of the summer to come. We decided to forego the movie we were going to see and instead drove to Silver Lake, a town close to us that had built up around its namesake body of water. There was a public promenade all around the lake, with park benches and gazebos and a band shell. We parked the car at dusk and just started meandering around the lake, pausing and sitting when we felt like it, walking and holding hands when we got tired of sitting.

It took us a couple of hours to make our way all the way around the lake, and we were chilled by the time we got back to the car. Ours was the only car left in the lot as I started it up and threw the fan and heater on high.

"Ohhh, I'm so cold," she complained as she scooted over to nestle up against me. I put my arm around her and pulled her tighter to me.

"Snuggle up here, I'll warm you up," I said as I wrapped my arms around her. She twisted around to press more of herself up against me, trying to take advantage of my body heat. I unzipped my light jacket and pulled it around her as she shivered against me, her face tucked under my arm and her arms drawn in to her.

I felt the beginnings of heat coming from the floorboards. "It's warming up now," I said. She just shook her head and burrowed deeper into me, now snaking her arms around me, inside my jacket, to hold me around my waist.

"You could probably safely come out now," I said as I felt my feet begin to warm. She shook her head again, staying right where she was. "Come on, you can do it," I said encouragingly. Again, she shook her head, and pulled even tighter on me. I grasped her shoulders and gently pulled her out from her warm cocoon. She lifted her head and smiled at me, then moved up closer to me. I bent down and kissed her softly. She practically purred as I kissed her, her pleasure and contentment obvious, even to me.

I felt her lips open slightly, her signal that she wanted more. I let the tip of my tongue peek out and touch her warm lips, and they parted a little more as her own tongue came out to meet mine, tips touching and caressing, exchanging information on a cellular level.

My own internal temperature climbed, and I stopped kissing her long enough to reach for the zipper of her coat. She watched me solemnly as I slowly lowered the tab and opened her coat so I could slip my arms around her. When I did, my hands encircling her waist. She closed her eyes and lifted her face up to kiss me again, opening her lips a little more and becoming more daring with her tongue in my mouth. She suddenly thrust her tongue as deeply as she could into me, and the resultant flare that shot through me almost made me cry out.

My hand found its way to the hem of her sweatshirt, and my fingers wormed their way underneath, encountering the soft skin of her tummy. I could feel the depression of her belly button, but that particular area was not my goal at the moment, as my hand slipped up her sternum to find her small breasts. I grasped one and squeezed, slid my hand over to fondle the other, then moving back to the first, almost as if comparing the roundness and firmness of her feminine charms. Her tongue continued thrusting into me, taking my breath away, as I found the front clasp of her bra, having learned from my previous session. I managed to fumble with the clasp until the encasing material magically parted to allow me access to her hot, desirable flesh.

As soon as I released her swelling breasts and touched her engorged nipples, she moaned and opened her mouth as wide as she could, inviting my own tongue in to invade and explore. I was so confused, my brain so addled from the fires raging in me, that I didn't know where to concentrate my efforts. I really wanted to lift her sweatshirt off so I could pay proper homage to the treats in the palm of my hand, but that was impossible. Instead, I let my tongue do its exploring within the moist confines of her mouth while my fingers played with the exquisite treasures of her boobs.

My cock was painfully swollen, caught in the seam of my jeans. I reluctantly abandoned her soft breast for a moment and took my hand out from under her sweatshirt so I could make a minor adjustment of my own. Her body language spoke of disappointment that I seemed to be done with her sensitive nipples, until she realized what I was doing. Of her own volition, she dropped her hand onto mine as I adjusted the position of my steely cock. As I twisted in the seat and repositioned my shaft, her hand stayed on top of mine, feeling what I had done. I slipped my hand from beneath hers, and felt her hesitate when her hand dropped onto my hard cock, feeling its length and girth for the first time. She allowed her hand to lie there, passively holding me, creating even more blood flow into the area. I was afraid I might go off in my jeans if she did start to hold me, but it was a chance I was willing to take. Her actions made me bold enough to reach back for her waist, but instead of gliding up her body back to her delightful breasts, I moved my hand to the snap of her jeans. She was not quite ready to take that large step, however, and she abandoned my crotch to grab my wrist, stopping me.

I placed my hand flat on her tummy, and she returned to exploring my cock through my pants, taking up where she had left off. After a few moments of letting my hand rest there, I tried rubbing her through the layers of her clothes, at first lightly and slowly moving from the snap of her jeans to between her parted legs, and then progressively pressing harder on her as she allowed this intimacy. Finally, I was pushing against her covered pussy hard and I could feel her legs quiver as they lay open for me. Her kisses were very hot and wet, and our tongues were squirming and darting, licking and tasting without reservation.

Judging that she just might be ready for more, I took the tab of her zipper and tried to lower it without undoing the snap on her jeans. As I struggled to slide it down, her hand on my cock stopped its rubbing as she paused, waiting to see what I was going to do. Her zipper parted, and I slipped my hand into the opening, encountering the silky fabric of her panties.

I felt hot moisture soaking her panties as my fingers moved lower. Her jeans were too tight for me to be able to reach the source of the heat, but I could just detect the crinkle of her pubic hair through the thin fabric of her panties with my fingertips. I felt her hips move up slightly off the seat, and her legs parted just a little, and suddenly there was a bit more room for my fingers. I pushed a little harder, and my fingertips found where her hot oils were coming from as I pushed the crotch of her panties into the top of her slit, soaking up more of her smooth, hot liquid. I pressed against her, vainly seeking her clit and her opening through the fabric, trying to wish away our clothes.

Kristina broke our kiss, panting and gasping at the sensations rolling through her. Her hand was now clutching at my rock-hard cock, creating a monumental pressure within me. I pulled my hand out to scramble for the snap of her jeans, intending to invade the barrier of her panties and claim the prize my fingers wanted, but that tripped a circuit breaker in her. She froze, and grabbed my hand, stopping me from continuing.

"No, Sean, please. I can't." She was still breathing very hard, and I knew that what she did was nearly as difficult on her as it was on me, but I couldn't deny her. I looked into those huge brown eyes, looking so longingly at me, and took my hand completely out of her pants and pulled her by the waist to me. I lowered my face to her and kissed her soft lips, bending to her will without reservation. We kissed and cuddled for a time, lost in our own thoughts of wishes and acceptance, unspoken longings and unfulfilled desires balanced by the unreserved respect of our individual silent vows. Our kisses became more and more chaste, until finally they were as we had started, soft and tender and loving.

Two weeks later, I had a very busy weekend planned. The girls had their first game on Friday night, and I was going to watch the varsity team play. There was a pizza party planned for after the game, and Kristina and I were going to go. On Saturday morning, she was coming over to my house to work on a project we were doing together for our English class. We had the same teacher, but were in different classes, so the assignments were the same for both classes. Then, later in the afternoon, Davey and Kip had their first game of the season. I was hoping that the lane drills we had been using would pay off during a game situation, and was anxious to see how it worked.

The weekend started out great. The girls played hard on Friday, winning their game 3-0. Tessa tallied her first shutout as a varsity keeper, and Kristina scored the final goal, powering a shot in from just inside the box after taking a crossing pass.

After the game, we all went to a local hangout and ordered pizzas and sodas, talking about the game and laughing over some of the little errors that didn't affect the outcome at all. Most of the team was there, along with a bunch of friends of the team, including Jorge, Molly, Toby, and Ashley. Tessa had decided, sometime over the course of the spring, that maybe I wasn't the Devil incarnate and was back to being relatively friendly to me again. Molly still didn't talk to me much, but we weren't enemies either, so everybody at the pizza place was comfortable and happy that they got their first win under their belts. I ended up driving Jorge and Kristina back to their house afterwards. Jorge, in his usual considerate way, quickly slipped out of the car as soon as it was stopped, giving Kristina and me a moment together so we could share one quick kiss. It wasn't nearly enough, but it had to do.

On Saturday, Kristina's mother dropped her off at my house so we could work on the project. Mrs. Mendoza came in for a moment and chatted with my mom in the kitchen. I'm sure she wanted to make sure Kristina and I hadn't just cooked up a plan to be alone, but we really did have homework to do. My brother Michael was home, too, coming in and out of the house for drinks and snacks as he washed and waxed his recent purchase, a 1977 Honda Accord.

After about an hour, my mom called us in to the kitchen for lunch. As we were eating, she said, "I hope you guys don't mind cleaning up after lunch. I have to go to my bridge club this afternoon."

"No, Mom, that's all right," I said.

"If you need anything, Michael is working on his car in the driveway," she added.

"Okay, no problem. We'll just be working here." We were set up in the family room, and had the stereo going. Kristina went back in to continue working while I cleaned up the kitchen after lunch.

When I got done in the kitchen, I walked into the family room to get back to work. Kristina was lying on the floor on her stomach, one leg bent up into the air, writing in the journal we were creating. It was a warm spring Saturday, and she was wearing a short t-shirt that had ridden up just a little to leave a thin strip of skin showing above her shorts. She looked absolutely delicious, so scrumptious that I just couldn't resist. I knelt down next to her and kissed the gap between her t-shirt and her shorts. She squirmed a little.

"Stop it, Sean," she said, but she really didn't sound like she meant it, so I did it again.

"Sean!" she complained, but there was a laugh in her voice. She pretended to keep on writing as I scooted down and kissed the back of her bent knee. She squirmed again, but it wasn't to get away from me. This squirm had a definite hint of excitement in it, especially when she straightened out her leg for me. It seemed like an open invitation to me, so I did it again, this time eliciting a humming "Mmmmmmm" from her.

I kissed my way up the back of her thigh, all the way up to the hem of her shorts, and worked my way back down again to the back of her knee. Her leg was silky smooth on my lips, and I could feel the fires begin to stoke within me as I continued. I worked my way slowly back up her thigh, nibbling and kissing along one leg and running just my fingertips, so lightly I was barely touching her, up her other thigh. Her legs parted slightly, an involuntary reaction that I didn't think she even realized was happening. She laid still, the journal forgotten as she concentrated on the signals being transmitted through her nervous system.

I began to caress just a little more with my fingertips, still reveling in the silken feel of her skin on my lips and tongue and fingers. I kissed and caressed up and down her legs, each time a memorable journey of discovery. Finally, as I approached the hem of her shorts, I grasped the material in my teeth for a moment, and then stuck my tongue up the leg of her baggy shorts as far as I could. I pushed up the material with my face as I traced along her skin, until I got to the edge of her panties covering her tight butt, tasting the salt on her skin from her thigh to the crease along the bottom of her ass. I was beginning to catch the faintest whiff of her excitement, a rush of pheromones that entered my nasal passages and raced directly into the core of my brain.

She was still propped up on her elbows, her head back and her eyes closed as she concentrated on the pleasures she was experiencing. As I was kissing and chewing on the edge of her shorts and panties, I traced a line from her knee, up the inside of her thigh, with just one finger. Her legs parted more, anticipating and unconsciously encouraging further explorations of her most sensitive areas. I let that finger slide beneath her shorts and trace the line of the edge of her panties, along the flare of her ass and to her damp crotch. I felt along that route, back and forth, without delving to her damp center, building up pressure and expectation in her, wanting to make her first experience of another's caress within her female flesh one of pleasure and, hopefully, release.