Chapter 34: A Very Crafty Girl

Over the first part of that summer, Kayla and I didn't get the chance to share her gift very often. We still went out quite a bit, we were hanging out together as much as we could, and we still fooled around in the Lovemobile, but she was adamant about not wanting to make love in the back seat of my car. She did relent a couple of times, succumbing to her own desires as much as mine, but for the most part we satisfied ourselves with oral and manual stimulation and release. As my good but crude friend Jake would point out, it was better than going home and making love to Five-Finger Betty.

Besides, I had nothing at all to complain about. Luscious Kayla loved me, and I loved her, and we both knew that what she said was the law. I gladly accepted that, just as Jake accepted that Jaimie held the reins in their relationship.

Coach Bill and I had another successful spring season with the Warriors, finishing 7-1-1. Tournament weekend was the same weekend as Lori's wedding, so we couldn't take the team back to defend their championship. Other teams besides the ones from our town, however, had seen our success, and I got calls from a lot of parents about working with their kids, ranging in age from six years old to junior high age.

I was concerned about my amateur status if I taught for money, and I even called Pick and talked to him about it. In the end, we decided that I could do it, as long as I was paid in cash, and didn't advertise or publicize my teaching. As Pick pointed out, I had already taken money to teach the game when I worked for Duane Olchick. Besides, the issue for collegiate scholarship players seemed to try to address playing for money, not teaching for money, so I was okay.

I recruited Eric, Jorge, Tessa, and Trent to help me out. I had enough kids who wanted to take lessons over the summer that I was able to run three sets of classes, one for younger kids, ages six to ten; another for ten to twelve; and another for competitive play, ages twelve and up. The parents paid me in cash weekly, and I split it evenly among the five of us. That is, all the parents paid me in cash, except for Lori and David. Being a poor high-school kid, I couldn't afford to buy them much, so my wedding gift to them was a summer of lessons for Davey and Kip.

We taught each group three times a week. The younger kids were with us for an hour and a half, and the other two groups played for two hours, and sometimes it spilled over, if our scrimmages were going well. The parents, for the most part, didn't mind if we ran over our time slot. They were happy to see their kids playing and having fun, and maybe even learning something in the process.

The division of tasks worked out well, too. Eric and Trent worked on offensive plays, and Tessa, Jorge, and I concentrated on defending and goaltending. I had arranged for Davey and Kip to join me a couple of days before our soccer camps started, so that Eric and Trent in particular could get used to the skill levels we would be working with, along with typical nine- or ten-year-old behaviors. Tessa and Jorge had worked with the Warriors in the past, and were a little more clued in as to the types of questions and interpretations that might come from a group of younger kids, but we all benefited from the refresher course. Davey and Kip were excited to be singled out as my helpers, and they carried that badge of honor into camp with them.

Jake and Kayla had to work in their father's store that summer. Jake was restocking shelves and working in the back room, and Kayla was a cashier. It made it easier to buy condoms, since I stopped in to say hello nearly every day, and she was usually able to take a short break whenever I was there. She would ring up the sale whenever there was nobody else around, and I kept a supply handy in a pocket of my soccer gear bag, which pretty much stayed in my car all the time.

The Fourth of July that summer fell on Sunday, and, as usual, there was a big carnival set up in the park by the small lake in town. Our schedules didn't mesh very well that weekend, though. Kayla had Friday off, but I had soccer camp until four o'clock. I had Saturday free, but Kayla had to work from noon until eight. We made do the best we could.

The Lehighs invited me over for dinner on Friday. It had been really hot, over ninety degrees. I was feeling pretty washed out from running up and down the fields during two sessions of soccer camp. By the time Mr. Lehigh got the charcoal going in the grill, the day had cooled off to something a little more reasonable. Even so, I was happy just to slouch in one of their loungers on the deck, relaxing in the shade, watching as Kayla and her mother brought out trays of condiments, drinks, and chips from the house and set them up on the big round patio table.

Actually, I was watching Kayla, captivated by her. She had on a tight, sleeveless tank top that only came down to her ribcage, leaving her delectable midriff bare, and a baggy pair of gym shorts. Her pale blonde hair was gathered back loosely, and there was a sheen of perspiration on her neck that I really wanted to lick off for her.

Jake was in another lounger next to me. He must have guessed my thoughts, because just about then he pounded my arm.

"You're practically drooling, Porter," he growled. "Cut it out."

"Hey, you get to live with her," I retorted. "I only get to see her once in a while."

Jake snorted. "You think living with a little sister is such a treat?" He glanced over and saw my face, and began to laugh. "Okay, yeah, you would think of it as a treat, wouldn't you?"

I just cocked an eyebrow at him, feigning ignorance, an attitude I usually came by honestly.

"Time to eat, boys," called out Mrs. Lehigh. The hamburgers and hot dogs were arrayed on a big platter in the center of the table. Kayla was finishing putting napkins at each place setting. Jake and I got up, and Kayla took my hand and led me over to sit on her right, on one of the curved benches under the table.

We fixed up our plates, slathering catsup and mustard on burgers and dogs, refilling glasses, and grabbing handfuls of chips. When the dust settled, we sat back and started chowing down. I powered through a hamburger in about three bites. I was ferociously hungry, and hadn't really realized it until I started eating. Once the beast within was somewhat mollified, I slowed down, willing to actually take time to chew when I started in on my hot dog.

I felt Kayla's fingers touching my thigh, so I held my hot dog in my right hand, and dropped my left hand below the table to hold hers. The dinner banter was light, mostly shop talk about the drug store, which I was content to listen to, without feeling the need to contribute. Kay pulled my hand over to her leg, and pressed my palm against the top of her warm thigh, holding it there.

Putting down her glass of iced tea, Mrs. Lehigh turned to Jake and asked, "Are you and Jaimie going over to the carnival tonight, Jake?"

Around a mouthful of hamburger, Jake nodded and mumbled, "Yes, we're meeting up with a bunch of kids in a little while."

Kayla surreptitiously moved my hand up her thigh, until I felt the hem of her gym shorts on the backs of my fingers. Her skin was silky smooth and warm.

Mrs. Lehigh turned to us. "And what are you two planning on doing tonight?" she asked.

Kayla moved my hand even further up her leg. I could feel the edge of her panties now, as she slowly moved my hand up and down the crease of her leg and her crotch. I thought I could feel just a hint of moisture, and I knew it was nearly too hot to touch there. I could feel the sweat start to break out on my face, and my shorts were suddenly a lot tighter. Kayla looked at me, all innocence, waiting for me to open my mouth and croak out an answer for her mom's question.

Before I could embarrass myself, Kayla, still looking at me, said, "We're going over to the park, too."

I had to clear my throat before speaking, so I tried to cover it up by taking a drink from my glass.

"We'll probably go over with Jake and Jaimie," I finally managed to say.

Kayla pulled my hand out of the leg of her shorts, but my relief was only momentary. She pressed my hand firmly back between her legs, and clenched her thighs tightly against my fingers and held me there for just a moment. I nearly sputtered my soda out my nose when she did that, and I started coughing. She let my hand loose, and turned to me, a concerned look on her face, except where the corners of her mouth were twitching as she tried to suppress her smile.

She patted me on the back solicitously. "Are you okay, Sean?" she asked.

I could only nod as I reached for my paper napkin, my eyes streaming from my coughing fit.

"Yeah," I finally stammered. "I'm fine."

Jake just shook his head at me, chuckling under his breath at my predicament. I hoped he didn't know the real cause of my discomfort.

Mrs. Lehigh brought out some homemade chocolate cake for dessert, and Kayla stood up to help her pass out plates.

"So tell me, Sean, how are your soccer lessons going?" asked Mr. Lehigh.

"Really well," I replied. "We've got fifteen younger kids, eighteen middle ones, and twenty-five in the competitive group."

"That's a lot of soccer for you to be teaching," he said.

"I've got a lot of help. Eric Johnson, Trent Abbott, Jorge Mendoza, and Tessa Navarrone all work with me. I'm charging the kids ten bucks a week, so each of us gets a hundred dollars in cash every week. I'm using the extra money to buy supplies, and some I'm saving for a party for each of the groups at the end of the summer, before their leagues start up again."

"That's good money," observed Jake. "Maybe I should have started a football clinic."

"You've got your own responsibilities this summer already," said his father. "Working at the store should be enough."

"Yeah, I suppose," grumbled Jake. "It's just not as much fun."

"Well, it is fun to spend so much time teaching soccer, but it's more work than I thought it would be when I started," I said.

"How so, Sean?" asked Mrs. Lehigh.

"I started out thinking I could just work with these kids like I did with Davey and Kip," I explained. "You know, just go out and have fun working with the ball, teaching them how to dribble and pass and stuff. Then, when more kids signed up, I started realizing that I had to have a plan for each session, based on their experience levels and their abilities."

"And then you found out you had enough kids coming to break them into three different groups, and the workload tripled," said Mr. Lehigh.

I glanced at him. I was a little surprised that he figured that out so quickly. In retrospect, it shouldn't have surprised me. He was a very intelligent and precise man who ran a successful local business, in an industry that had quite a few national and regional players just itching to run small, family owned pharmacies like his out of business.

"I think it more than tripled," I admitted. "Each section requires their own set of drills and skill sets. There are a few drills, mostly concerning ball handling, that can be used for all three player skills, but for the most part I'm spending a lot of my off- field time working up drills and scrimmage plays for each section."

"It's too bad Duane What's-his-name isn't around this summer," mentioned Jake.

"I could use his expertise, that's for sure," I said with a rueful chuckle. "I didn't appreciate how much time he put in away from the players, just so he and his assistants would be ready each day."

"He isn't coming back to do clinics this summer?" asked Mrs. Lehigh.

"No," I said. "His schedule in Europe didn't give him enough time to set up anything in America this year. He and Nicholas, his right-hand man, are running programs in Germany and France this summer. He did write and ask if I could join him for a couple of weeks, but there was no way I could afford to do that."

"That's too bad," said Mr. Lehigh. "That would have been an opportunity of a lifetime."

"Maybe," I agreed, glancing quickly at Luscious. "But I would have had to have been gone for almost three weeks, right in the middle of everything, and it would have been tough leaving home for that long, and everything..."

"And leaving your girlfriend behind?" finished Mrs. Lehigh, a small, knowing grin on her face.

"Well, yeah. That, too," I agreed, a little embarrassed.

"He would have spent every penny he would have earned over there, calling me every night," said Kayla.

"Honey, would you really have expected him to call you all the way from France?" asked Mrs. Lehigh, a little incredulous.

"Of course not," said Kayla. "But he would have, anyway."

I could only nod in agreement. My Luscious knew me very well, indeed.

"By the way, Mr. Lehigh, I want to thank you again for donating that first-aid kit to my program."

"Oh, it's no problem, Sean. I was happy to do it," he replied.

"With the extra money I've been getting each week, I could just as easily pay for it," I said. I was still a little uncomfortable about taking free stuff from anybody, even if it was to help the kids.

"I know you could, Sean. And I appreciate the offer to pay for it, but it's really not necessary. The drug store sponsors a lot of teams in a lot of different sports here in town, and my suppliers know how important it is to me and to the community. In this case, I happened to mention to my salesman that you were running these clinics for the kids here, and he asked if you needed anything." He took a sip of his iced tea, and then smiled. "So you see, I couldn't take your money for it anyway, since it was really a gift from my salesman."

"Who wouldn't have known about Sean's clinics, if you hadn't told him," interjected Jake.

Mr. Lehigh smiled again. "True," he said. He looked at his son affectionately. "I might have been the catalyst for the exchange of this first aid kit, but the fact remains that I didn't buy it, so I wouldn't feel right about letting Sean pay for it, either."

"Not that you would have charged him for it, anyway, dear," said Mrs. Lehigh, patting her husband's hand.

He just shrugged and sat back. "True again," he admitted. "But this way, Sean doesn't have to feel like he's skipping out on an obligation to pay for it. Okay, son?"

"Okay," I agreed. It was easier than arguing with him, anyway.

After we helped clean up after dinner, Jake walked over to get Jaimie. Kayla and I piled into the back seat of Jake's car to wait for them. Even with the windows down, and the sun sinking lower in the sky, it was steamy in the back seat, almost too warm to sit next to each other with my arm around her. Almost.

We drove over to the park and walked around the carnival, catching up with groups of friends in line for rides or playing around at the carnie games. I was proud to be strolling around the park holding Luscious Kayla's hand, being seen by everybody in school with the most beautiful girl in town.

We stopped to watch Sam Loggins and Jen Davies shooting baskets for prizes. Sam, having grown to about Tiny's height but skinny as a fencepost, was talented enough that he was able to figure out that the basket wasn't set at the normal ten-foot height, and was able to adjust his shot to make eight out of ten anyway. Whispered suggestions to his girlfriend, also a basketball player, were enough to allow her to make six out of ten, still far above the typical for that booth. They both walked away with huge stuffed pandas, along with a warning not to come back again from the booth operator.

We joined Eric, Keisha, Ayesha, and Anthony as they tried their luck shooting b-b guns at targets. Kayla hit only one bulls-eye on her first try, but I managed to knock down quite a few targets, and won a poster. Even Kayla had to laugh when I chose that Farrah Fawcett poster as my prize.

On one of our circuits through the maze of walkways around the carnival rides, we saw my brother Stephen, along with his friends Carlos and Tommy and Richie, standing in line for the Gravity Drop. Along with them were Tara Jacks, and one other girl I didn't know. Jaimie stopped short, pulling Jake's arm as he took another step forward before realizing that his girlfriend had halted. She was staring over at the kids in line, who couldn't seem to keep still as they waited, dancing and hopping in place, shifting from person to person, always in motion within their spots in line.

"Shit," exclaimed Jaimie. "She's not supposed to be here."

"Who?" asked Jake. Jaimie pulled him around so that more people were between the kids in line and us. She didn't want Tara to see her, so we moved back with her, until we were pretty much blended into the crowd.

"Tara's over there, with Sean's brother and his friends," explained Jaimie. Jake stood on tiptoe so he could see over the crowd.

"Oh, yeah, I see her," he said. "I thought she was permanently grounded?"

"She is," confirmed Jaimie.

She sure didn't look grounded to me. She was wearing a bikini top that was about two sizes too small for her, and short-short cutoff jeans that had been washed until the edges were fringed and the seat was nearly transparent. The legs of the shorts were nonexistent. Her ass cheeks were plainly visible, so much so that I had to doubt that she was wearing any underwear at all. She was looking and acting as slutty as she could, and she had all the boys drooling over her.

The little girl who was with the group was dressed similarly, except that her top was just slightly more modest, a clingy tube top that molded to her small breasts. The way they jiggled as she moved only served to confirm that she, too, was going without underwear.

"Who's her friend?" I asked.

"Why do you want to know?" asked Kayla, a frown on her pretty face.

"I just want to know who to stay far away from when school starts," I said, putting my arm around her.

She resisted for just a moment, and then allowed me to pull her to me. "Well, in that case..." she said with a smile.

"That's Tracy Evanson," said Jaimie.

I looked over at her, startled. "Mikey Evanson's sister?" I asked.

"Yes," she confirmed. "Tara's not supposed to be here, and especially with Tracy."

"Are you going to say anything to your parents?" asked Jake, looking concerned.

"I think I have to," said Jaimie unhappily.

We headed back toward the parking lot. Jaimie wasn't in the mood to walk around any more, so we decided to head over to the Dairy Queen to see if anybody was there. We met up with Tiny and Erica, sitting at one of the picnic tables there, and spent the next hour in an ice- cream haze before calling it a night.

On Saturday, Kayla had to work late. I got to the drug store at about seven forty-five and waited for her, wandering up and down the aisles while she finished up with her duties and punched out. Finally, at a few minutes after eight o'clock, she came skipping out of the back room. She ran up and jumped up into my arms and gave me a big, sloppy kiss on the cheek.

"Come on, boyfriend, take me away from here," she giggled. She hopped down and practically dragged me out the door.

When we got in my car, she leaned over and wrapped her arms around my neck and gave me a very hot, very wet open-mouthed kiss that almost immediately burned out my coherent thought processes.

"I've got an idea," she whispered throatily. "There's a sixties band playing in the park tonight, so my parents are meeting some of their friends in the beer tent. Jake and Jaimie are already over at the park." She stared into my eyes, waiting for me to make the connection.

It didn't take me long at all. I gave her a quick kiss, started the car, and peeled rubber on my way out of the parking lot. Destination: Lehigh House. We would have the place to ourselves for at least a couple of hours.

I pulled into the driveway, and Kayla was out of the car before I could turn off the engine and open my door. We went around to the back of the house and went in through the kitchen, not bothering to turn on any lights. Kay led me to the basement stairs, and we went down to the rec room. There was a little light spilling in through the windows from the dying sun, enough to give the place a dim, amber glow, as Kayla took my hand and pulled me over to the couch in front of the television.

She sat down against the armrest and pulled me over on top of her. She let go of my hand and wrapped her arms around my neck. She pulled me down to kiss me, nibbling at my lips as I lay half on her, trying not to crush her with my weight. She loved worrying and playing with the tiny scar on my lip, and I loved the way she concentrated on that spot. It was becoming one of the places on me that was very sensitive to her touch, an erogenous zone she had created.

I managed to pull my legs up so that I was lying on the couch alongside her, and she naturally scooted down and swung her legs up so that she was lying next to me. I slithered my right arm around her head, giving her a cushion against my arm, and I bent to her, showering her mouth with small kisses in return.

Kayla's pale hair was tied back in a ponytail, and I reached up and pulled the elastic out, letting her hair cascade down around her head and across her shoulders. I grabbed a handful of her luxurious, soft hair, letting strands of her tresses drag through my fingers. Her eyes were closed as she concentrated on her kissing, so I closed my eyes, too, and gave in to the feelings she was inciting.

Our kisses got softer and slower, if no less urgent, as we both teased and advanced on each other until, finally, our lips locked together. As our tongues met, she moaned softly into my mouth, sending a flare of excitement through me. She was wearing a demure white blouse, buttoned all the way up to her throat, and the fingers of my left hand started at the top, fumbling with buttons until they could twist them through the buttonholes. I wanted to feel her breasts, even through her clothes, but I forced myself to go slowly, moving from button to button, as gently as I could. She shifted slightly once I got about halfway done, making it easier for me to reach the rest of them, until, at last, I undid the last button of her shirt that I could reach. I pulled the tails of her blouse out of her skirt and found two more buttons, which I went to work on, until I could open her blouse up and work it off her shoulder.