Chapter 18: Destiny

SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 2001

Four weeks of camp. Almost a month away from the real world. No email. No IMing. Probably not any phone calls. No more seeing Megan, Cassidy, and Adrienne on a daily basis to remind me how much I'd sabotaged my own happiness. No seeing Abbie and Allie to remind me that this wasn't just a game and how close I'd come to ruining my life. Sure, I'd miss my friends. But I needed a break.

Last year, I couldn't read in the family van while we cruised up Highway 5 towards Northern California. My growth spurt was wreaking havoc on my sense of balance and after a while, even reading street signs was making me queasy. But this year was no problem, and I happily settled in to read. With an eleven- hour drive, I had plenty of time and nothing better to do and I settled into my chair with Goblet of Fire.

Brooke and the twins were finally letting me read it, after they'd read it and re- read it a hundred times in the past year or so. I was just happy that the Potter books were starting to grow up and get darker. And the simple peace of reading a book did wonders for my overly cluttered mind.

Speaking of the girls, the twins were chatting amongst themselves in the back bench seat. And Brooke was presently conked out in the bucket seat to my right, the spot usually occupied by Brandi, who was still at Berkeley for her internship and wouldn't be joining us.

I sighed at the thought of not seeing Brandi again for a while. She planned to make one weekend visit at least during the summer, so we'd reconnect for a bit. But I HAD been looking forward to a chance to reconnect our sexual organs at some point during camp. The idea of a repeat foursome with Dawn, Dayna, and Brandi had me hard for hours when I first thought of it back in February.

But even with Brandi and Dayna not attending camp, I still had Dawn. My Dawn. Of all the people in the world, I knew she would understand and forgive. I had a clean slate with her. I could be the man I truly wanted to be with her, without the baggage of my past mistakes. And I felt my heart overflowing with sunshine at the mere thought of seeing my Dawn again.

And then there was Brooke. In the few days since the near-rape by her boyfriend Perry, my 15-year-old little sister had clung to my side like a second skin. On the couch, she displaced one of the twins to lean against me while watching a movie. We played more video games and board games together in three days than we had in the previous three months. And when I had to drive out to fill up my mom's car with gas, Brooke even volunteered to give me some company just to stay in my orbit.

There wasn't anything sexual about it, but the entire family could tell that we were somehow closer. And when our parents questioned her about it, Brooke just explained that she'd broken up with her boyfriend and that I was helping to talk her through it.

Mom made a smart-alecky remark, "Well if anyone knows breakups, it's Ben."

Brooke had just giggled and slid herself under my arm, not so easy now that her growth spurt had pushed her up to 5'7".

Now that we were on our way to camp, I wondered how much she would still be around me. In the past, Brooke had immediately paired up with DJ and the two would run off to do whatever young teenage girls did while I did my own thing with Dawn. Most summers, I felt like I saw even less of Brooke at camp than I did at home. But lately, I'd gotten used to having her around me, and as I looked at my pretty sister sleeping peacefully in the chair nearby, I found myself hoping we'd find away to hang out together for a change.

Given that I also wanted to spend as much time as possible fucking Dawn's lights out, I wasn't quite sure how the logistics would work out, but I did have a craving to be near Brooke.

I was stirred from my thoughts when we stopped for gas and my dad took over the driving for the final leg. He was a bit grumpy from not having a pleasant enough nap, and before he shifted the car into gear, he turned around and looked right at me. "Ben, next year, you're taking a driving leg."

I grinned. My parents may have seen driving as a chore, but to a 17-year-old like me, getting new responsibilities is always a little thrill. And if it were up to me, I'd floor the van and do 100 miles an hour until I got to see Dawn again.

I started to get nervous as we approached the camp. So much had happened to me in the past year. So much about me had changed. How much had Dawn changed? Yeah, I got the occasional email or phone call, but I really didn't know what was going on in her life.

Had she gone off the deep-end like me and screwed a dozen guys? Had she fallen in love with Mark or some other boyfriend and wanted to remain faithful to him? Had her personality just changed so much that she no longer wanted to hang out with me for four weeks, or even be my friend?

I tossed aside the extreme thoughts. After all, she HAD called me for Christmas and in April. Everything seemed normal. But even if she hadn't radically changed, it was always possible that she'd changed just enough for things to no longer be the way they used to be. And I'd done so many things I wasn't proud of, I wasn't sure if she'd still want to be around me if she found out.

Brooke, awake now, caught me biting my lip and reached over to squeeze my hand. Without having to ask, she said sweetly, "Relax, Ben. I'm sure Dawn will be happy to see you."

I gave a tight smile to my sister, and then we arrived.

As usual, the Evanses were there before us. Their cabin right next to ours was already adorned with hanging towels and various equipment propped against the wall on the porch. And the minute our van pulled up outside our cabin, I glanced out the window and saw the Evans' front door opening.

Jack and Deanna Evans were the first ones out the door, waving while my dad parked the van. Brooke was quick to pop the double-doors and hop out, and I followed soon after.

I turned back to look at the cabin porch just in time to see Dawn come out. She looked EXACTLY like I remembered her. I had a clear image in my head of her svelte body, her slightly overdeveloped breasts on top of the Evans family natural slenderness. Her fine blonde hair cascaded around her cheeks as she hustled down the stairs, and my heart leaped as I realized how eager she was to reunite with me.

But instead of heading for me by the van, she made a beeline for Brooke who was hustling up to her. And just then, her hair bounced back away from her face and I realized it was DJ, and my eyes popped open in surprise. Hell, the youngest Evans daughter had certainly grown up.

A musical giggle caught my attention from the porch and I turned to see Dawn smiling at me. Her face was just as gorgeous as ever, and the rest of her body was growing into the very full curves of a young woman. Just a few days away from her 17th birthday, Dawn's tits had certainly grown to where they were stretching her light summer dress to the limits. They weren't Dayna's double-D's yet, but they WERE much bigger than I remembered them, and I felt my shorts tightening in response. The hem of the dress was short, showing off her long, tanned legs. Her hips were flared just a bit more, and she seemed to have picked up another couple of inches in height, although that may have been because she was elevated on the porch.

I'd had a clear image of what she looked like in my mind. The memory didn't do her justice. Dawn was breathtakingly beautiful now. And I merely blinked as if her radiance blinded me while my jaw dropped wide open.

Deanna Evans, Dawn's mother, looked over at her daughter and said, "I TOLD you he'd like that dress."

Dawn didn't respond verbally, her gaze locked onto me. I said nothing either, and time seemed to slow down around us.

The treeline behind the cabins went out of focus and became a fuzzy green. The cabin itself washed out, and everything else in my field of vision melted away to leave nothing but Dawn in front of me. She glowed like an angel descended from heaven. And in her crystal clear blue eyes I felt like I could lose myself to the delirium of pure bliss, free from the troubles and worries of the real world I wanted so desperately to leave behind.

I moved forward. Each step felt like an eternity as I approached her, and I had time to study every little detail about her on the way. I noticed the teasing curve of her eyebrows, lightly rounded to highlight the pleased expression in her eyes. I noticed the crinkle of her lips, turned upwards with just the hint of a smile. I noticed the swell of her large breasts, pushed up and curving as they were stuffed into the woefully insufficient top of her dress. And I noticed the gentle curving lines of her torso as her body pinched in at the waist before flaring out over the tight teenage hips that made grown women jealous.

If Dawn Evans were ever to stand next to Adrienne Dennis, I might just have a heart attack. And by the time I finally got to the radiant young blonde, my chest was thumping so much I thought I WAS having a heart attack.

Last year, Dawn and I stared eagerly at each other for a few minutes before she shyly asked if she could kiss me. This time, she just barely managed to say, "Hi, Ben" before I swept her into my arms, bent her over, and planted one of the firmest, juiciest kisses of my life. Sparkles went off behind my eyes. My stomach flipped and then flipped a few more times. And an excited, warm flush went through my whole body. It was a wonderful kiss. It was like we were picking up exactly where we'd left off eleven months ago.

We kissed for what felt like an hour, and I was out of breath by the time I stood her up and looked into her eyes. She panted and her eyes twinkled at me. We were oblivious to the rest of our families, who had literally formed a semi-circle around us as they looked on in awe. There was a crackle of electricity in the air that everyone felt, and a hushed silence as they all waited to see what Dawn and I did next.

"Hey," I said softly while looking through her eyes and into her soul.

"Hey," she replied, her gaze darting back and forth through my eyes. "I missed you, Ben."

I missed her too. I hadn't realized it, given all my distractions and romantic complications back in Orange County, but I felt a blanket of peace settle over me just being with my childhood friend again. But it was more than that.

Keira had once told me that I was too young to really understand love. I was either too clouded by orgasms and lust or just wrapped up in the thrill of puppy love to really and truly LOVE someone. I was comfortable with girls, like Megan and Cassidy. I had passionate lust for girls, like Adrienne. I even had emotional concern for girls, like Summer. But only one person had ever embodied ALL of that, and she was standing right in front of me. Some people talk about love at first sight. Well, I certainly had seen Dawn many, many times, so maybe this was love at 13,942nd sight.

When you know it, you know it. And I KNEW it.

In the past, I might have just blurted out the three-word phrase. Girls love to hear the L-word and I'd certainly told Dawn I loved her many times last year. But this year would be different. I'd be a little more careful, a little more realistic. I certainly FELT in love, but I had to face that I was just now seeing Dawn after an 11-month layoff. Rationally, I understood that the time apart heightened my emotions. So I simply smiled and told her, "I missed you, too."

I didn't verbalize the L-word, but I think Dawn saw it in my eyes anyways.

It was going to be a GREAT summer.

As much as I wanted to, we didn't jump each other's bones right away. After the long drive, relaxing on lounge chairs by the lake sounded like a good idea and we changed into our swimsuits.

Being a dude, I was the first one out, quickly followed by Brooke, who blushed when I gave her a wolf whistle and then sternly ordered her back inside to put more clothes on. My little sister giggled and ignored my command, posing to show off her developing curves in her black bikini.

DJ hopped out next, wearing quite the attention-getter in red. It had extra laces, bowties, and metal circles joining the bottoms at her hips, looking more like a bikini for lounging than actual water activity. Her larger breasts dented out the cups nicely, and I raised my eyebrows in some surprise and appreciation. "You're looking very lovely, DJ."

The cute blonde 15-year-old beamed at me and leaned forward to show me even more cleavage. "Glad you like the suit, Ben," she giggled and then turned her face into the perfect image of a naughty schoolgirl, complete with one finger in the corner of her mouth and her fine blonde hair now braided into twin pigtails. "Want a closer look?"

Brooke just slapped my shoulder and folded her arms over her chest grumpily. "Boys and boobs."

"Aww, you've got quite the nice pair too, Brooke," DJ said sweetly. "I KNOW I'm gonna like them."

Brooke's eyes popped open and she blushed, averting her gaze. I was going to come up with a most inappropriate comment, but then Dawn emerged and took my breath away.

What felt like an hour later, my best friend said, "Ben, you can close your mouth now."

I blinked and realized that Dawn was now standing right in front of me. I must have blacked out for a few seconds, and my mouth stayed open. Her pastel blue bikini was woefully inadequate at covering up her naked skin, and if I thought Dawn was gorgeous in the summer dress, she was awe-inspiring in that bikini.

"Show off," DJ deadpanned.

"Hey, if you've got it, flaunt it," Dawn remarked, cupping her own tits and hoisting them upwards. "Still, I don't think I'll ever get Dayna's Double-D's."

"34D is nothing to sneeze at, Dawn," DJ shook her head.

"You can talk. Couple more years and you'll catch Dayna," Dawn shrugged.

"Yeah, but she does nothing but complain about backaches and boys never looking her in the face," DJ giggled.

"That's because Dayna always wears shirts that show off her cleavage. Her own damn fault," Dawn shook her head.

"What, you mean like you're doing to Ben right now?" DJ smiled.

Dawn turned to me with a grin on her face. "Yeah, but I WANT him staring." And with that, my lifelong long distance best friend walked over to the bench I was sitting on and shoved her tits into my face, rubbing my nose down her cleavage. And then she tugged on the back of my head to press me even deeper. I was in heaven.

Dawn giggled and then bent to kiss my lips. Then she stood up straight and held a hand out to me. "Come on, let's go."

By the lake, the three girls in their bikinis attracted boys like honeybees. Dawn flirted for five minutes, then started to get annoyed. She wound up just joining me on my lounge chair, pillowing her head on my chest and holding me lovingly. The boys stopped bothering her then and concentrated their attention on Brooke and DJ, who soaked it all up like sponges.

It felt completely natural to cuddle with Dawn this way. I'd gotten a lot of practice with different women in the past year, and between that understanding of the physics involved and my innate, natural comfort with my long-time best friend, I started to doze off while happily wrapped up in the intimate embrace. The sound of the younger girls flirting just faded into the background noise.

But Dawn's voice woke me back up. "So, Ben ... how are things with ... Adrienne? Right?"

My eyes were closed as I lay back, and they stayed closed. I shrugged lightly. "We broke up. Still friends ... I think ... Didn't you and Mark break up?"

She humphed. "I knew he wasn't the guy for me forever."

"So..." I began hesitantly, afraid of the possible answer. "Are you seeing anybody right now?"

"No," Dawn murmured softly as she moved her head up towards my face. "Are you?"

I shook my head. "No."

"Good," Dawn smiled and then she bent her lips to mine, giving me a soft, tender kiss.

"Mmm..." I moaned when she pulled away. Dawn had the softest lips of any girl I'd ever kissed. She was my first kiss, and in this moment I hoped she would be my last kiss eighty years from now. "Any particular reason why that's good? Shouldn't I be saying, 'Oh, I'm sorry things didn't work out and I'm sorry you haven't found someone else just yet.'?"

Dawn shook her head. "I'm not looking for someone else. I was just waiting for you."

I arched an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Isn't it obvious, Ben?" Dawn smirked and did a good approximation of my arched eyebrow. "I love you. I loved you last summer and I still love you now. We may have been apart for a long time but that doesn't mean my feelings have changed."

I smiled, but didn't immediately say the phrase back to her. Dawn let the first uncertain expression cross her face and she got up on one elbow. "Ben? Don't you still love me?"

I poured out my love through my eyes, willing her to recognize it. But I sighed regretfully as I said, "Yes, I do. But..."

Dawn winced at the 'but' and I bit my lip. "But..." I began again. "I'm trying to make sure of my emotions. This past year has been crazy for me and I've done some things you might not have expected from me. You once told me that if we were together, you would be getting really, really mad at me for all the stupid things I did until the time I finally matured. I'm getting there, but I'm not sure I've matured enough yet."

She frowned and brushed some of her fine blonde hair back behind her ear. The hand she used made me see she was wearing a thin metal bracelet which highlighted her slender wrist. And I noticed an engraving on it that for some reason captured my attention. I reached over, turned her wrist around, and read "Ben Forever" stenciled into the thin, silver metal.

"I wondered how long it would be before you noticed that," she said quietly.

My eyes went wide and I noticed that Dawn was very intently looking for my reaction. I'm afraid to say that fear was the first thing that crossed my mind.

Dawn loved me. Dawn was wearing a freaking "Ben Forever" bracelet on her wrist. I should have been thrilled beyond belief.

But I was scared shitless.

Megan loved me. Cassidy loved me. But I'd betrayed them and even though we'd gotten back to the point where we were talking again, our friendships weren't as close as they'd been before.

Adrienne had shared with me her darkest secret. She trusted me, needed my comfort and support, and let herself fall in love with me. But I'd betrayed her and even now things were still a little awkward between us.

My life after that was a string of meaningless sexual encounters plus one teen pregnancy and abortion. I was a colossal failure of sexual relationships, and the only one that had come out better than it began was with Summer, with whom I'd never STARTED a relationship.

I could handle my reduced closeness with Megan and Cassidy. At least we could be in the same circle of friends together. I could handle the awkwardness with Adrienne. We'd never been close in the first place. And I could live with never seeing Donna Kincaid or Stacey Whitehouse ever again. But not Dawn. I couldn't live without Dawn. She was my Siamese twin until we were ten. She was my partner in exploration every summer since then. And I absolutely COULDN'T live without her in my life. I LOVED her.

But what if I fucked it up?

"Ben?" Dawn asked with deep concern in her voice. Clearly, I wasn't having the reaction she'd been expecting. "Are you okay?"

"I can't," I croaked.

"What?"

"I can't be with you," I nearly started crying.

Dawn's face fell and her lower jaw immediately started quivering. "Why not?"

"Because ... I'll screw it up ... Always have..." I stammered and looked away, the tears bubbling out of my eyes as I simultaneously wanted to push myself away from Dawn and yet clutched her even more tightly to my body.

"Ben, Ben," Dawn soothed and stroked my head. "Do you love me?"

Sniffling already, I winced and managed to croak, "I shouldn't."

"But do you?"

"Yes..." I could feel my heart cracking. "Always have. Always will. But I'll still betray you. The same ... weakness ... I had with Dayna last summer ... I've still got it."

Dawn bypassed and further conversation and grabbed my head, tilting to her and then covering my mouth with her own. The kiss she gave me felt like a volcanic explosion of passion and emotion, and I found myself whimpering into it as she took me away to a height of bliss and ecstasy I didn't know was possible, and when she pulled away I was left in a daze with a completely empty head.

"Do you want to be with me, Ben?"

Cleared of all thought, I went with what I felt inside. "More than anything."

"Then believe in us, Ben," Dawn said earnestly. "You're not just another guy. I'm not just another girl. We're Ben and Dawn and we've been destined from birth to get married and have kids and unite our two families together. Okay? We'll make it work."

She wiped away my tears, I looked up into her eyes, and I stared right into her soul. And then with every ounce of feeling in my heart, I said, "Dawn, I love you."

After such an emotional moment, there was only one thing Dawn and I wanted to do. Her irises glowed bright blue as she got up and held her hand out to me. We hurriedly grabbed our things and sprinted off hand-in-hand.

Brooke and DJ were oblivious as they chatted with the five guys. We knew they'd be occupied for quite a while. I knew Eden and Emma were down by the lake as well, mingling with their other pre-teen friends. And my sincerest hope was that at least one set of our parents, if not both, had left the cabins behind to go socialize with other adults.

I got my wish. Dawn's cabin was empty, and no sooner did we pass through the door than Dawn leaped into my arms, wrapping her legs around my waist and her arms around my shoulders while she did her best to permanently imbed her tongue down my throat.

My fingers were already opening the hook on her bikini top, and I managed to stagger us into the main bunkroom. I started to lose my balance when I tried to get her top off and see for myself just how much bigger her boobs had gotten, but fortunately I made it to her bed and dropped Dawn unceremoniously onto the mattress, rather than onto the floor. At least I managed to remain standing upright, holding her pastel blue bikini top in my hand.

Dawn giggled and immediately started wriggling out of her bottoms. I tossed the top to the side and then quickly dropped my trunks down to my ankles. And then I had to stop and admire the gorgeous young creature on the bed before me.

A little over a week shy of her seventeenth birthday, Dawn was the definition of female perfection. Her fine blonde hair haloed behind her head, drawing one's attention to the pure white of her face and her piercing blue eyes. Michelangelo could not have sculpted a finer face. Delicate shoulders and prominent collarbones framed a slender torso, where the firm mounds of her large breasts remained firm and upright with minimal support, and they were all real. I could see the hint of her ribcage before Dawn's taut tummy took over with just the delicate ripples of her abs. Her hips perfectly circled around a pretty pussy, her shaven labia surrounding the moist, pink center. And her legs seemed long enough to drape off the bed and wrap around me even though I was several feet away. She was exquisite.

Lying flat on her back while sideways on the bed, Dawn beckoned me to her with both arms outstretched. My cock was rock hard and bouncing off my own belly as I clambered onto the mattress and moved myself on top of her. She reached to my face and cradled my cheeks as I bent to kiss her, Dawn responding with another one of those volcanic kisses that exploded inside my brain.

Actually, that kiss practically melted my brain. It sucked all the oxygen out of me, sucked my awareness, and took a part of my soul with it. I lost myself to the euphoria and dimly felt myself rolling over and over, flopping onto my back and then finding myself on top and then rolling again while Dawn and I played tonsil hockey.

I blinked, and then I felt the sudden warmth and pleasure of being inside a tight pussy, and belatedly realized that somewhere along the way our loins had joined together. Only then did Dawn break away to gasp for air and immediately groan in excitement as my cock started moving inside of her of its own accord.

When my senses came back to me, I realized that I was actually on my side, spooning Dawn while my dick had slipped into her sodden pussy from behind. I held a firm tit in my left hand as my arm was snaked beneath her neck, and my right hand was on her hip as leverage while I thrust myself in and out of her clasping tunnel on autopilot.

Dawn had twisted her head around to french kiss me, her right arm wrapped behind my head while we made love in her bed. And all I could do was moan and groan and kiss some more while the rest of our bodies moved together in a horizontal-sideways-lambada that shot bolts of pleasure through the both of us.

The next time I tore my head away to breathe, Dawn turned her torso away from me, dropping her right arm to the mattress and scrunching up the bedsheets in her hand while she concentrated on fucking her hips back at me. She looked unbelievably sexy in that moment, her naked spine twisting away, her hair pulled over one shoulder, and her head bent as she moaned an erotic litany of, "Fuck me, Ben! Fuck me! Gimme your cock! Oh, yes! Yes! Unnnnnghhh! Just FUCK ME!"

A spike of adrenaline shot through me as she ordered me to fuck her, and I decided to shift away from my spooned position and instead, raised her right leg so that I could pivot under it, straddling Dawn's left leg as I began thrusting into her from the new oblique angle. Our asses formed a plus sign should anyone be behind us, my butt parallel to the bed as I manically thrust in and out of my best friend and lover. Dawn's body was sideways, her right cheek on top as I elevated her right leg up and over my shoulder, spreading her even wider.

I wasn't thinking totally straight at that point, my brain long ago subsumed by pleasure. I'd forgotten the old concerns Dawn had with her ass, forgotten her order never to put anything inside it. So it was on impulse that while my right hand diddled her clit and stroked Dawn right up the brink of orgasm, my left hand abruptly let go of her buttcheeks and I sank my middle finger through her clenched anus.

Perhaps Dawn had also forgotten her squeamishness surrounding her ass, because her reaction was immediate. She locked up, her body went rigid, and then she screamed in ecstasy loud enough to call our parents home as she climaxed with intense ferocity.

"AAAAAHHHHH!" The blonde 16-year-old shrieked. "Fuuuuuuuck!!!"

Quite pleased with myself, I drilled my left middle finger deeper, setting off all those tight nerve bundles she had in there. I continued thumbing her clit with my right hand while driving my cock forwards a few more times. And then holding myself in the very depths of Dawn's pussy, my cockhead expanded right up against her cervix and began spitting out wad after wad of scalding hot cum.

"Cumming!" Dawn announced while her whole body continued to vibrate. "I'm cumming, Ben! You're cumming in me! We're cumming together!"

There was no doubt about that, and long past the duration I would have believed, Dawn was still trembling in the aftershocks of orgasm while I squeezed out the final few drops of jism into the back of my lover's womb.

In that contorted position with her right leg over my shoulder, we stayed and panted for a minute or two. Eventually, Dawn dropped her leg off my shoulder, which rotated her forwards so that she was facedown on the mattress, her hips half suspended over my knees while my cock was still buried in her pussy.

Gently, I pulled myself out of her, her snatch quickly dribbling out a veritable river of mingled cum onto the bed. And then crawling over her prone body, I lay myself down half on the bed and half on her back, kissing her shoulder before kissing her cheek and then whispering sincerely, "Dawn, I love you."

She hummed happily and turned her face so that her lips could meet mine. And then smiling she replied back, "I love you too, Ben. Always and forever."

Dawn and I both passed out and went to sleep like that, lying naked and on top of each other, evidence of our fornication dribbling out of her lewdly stretched pussy and puddling on the bed.

That was how Mr. and Mrs. Evans found us when they returned to the cabin. But rather than yell at us, Mrs. Evans simply moved over and pulled a blanket over our two bodies, which woke me up for a brief moment as I felt the fabric stretching across my naked bottom.

It hit me about five seconds after they left that I'd just gotten caught post-coital with Dawn in their cabin. And I was suddenly wide awake in panic. After all, isn't "getting caught by parents" genetically ingrained as a panic-response by every teenager?