Chapter 1: Friday Night

We were all sophomores and juniors from the same high school. None of us on the A-list when it came to the cliques in school—no cheerleaders or football heroes in our group; nope, mostly theater and music people. Just a bunch of kids who'd get together most Friday nights at a local hangout.

This particular Friday we were all decompressing from mid-terms and a general bitch session was picking up steam. I was already getting tired of listening to a couple of the guys griping about the amount of attention high school sports get and I'd decided to head home.

Who am I? Tommy Randahl, seventeen, a junior at Central High School. Brown hair, blue eyes, five-eleven and 150 pounds pretty much covers it.

I had decided to leave earlier than usual because one of the local stations had started showing all the old Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies and I'd gotten hooked on the series watching The Hound of the Baskervilles the week before.

"Anybody need a ride?" Since some of the kids didn't have wheels—or even licenses, in a couple of cases—it was only polite to offer a lift to anyone who didn't feel like walking.

"I could use a ride."

Have you ever been thrilled and scared shitless at the same time? Well, that was me when I realized that it was Beth Jones who had just accepted my offer. Beth, one of the best-looking girls in the school, even if she did tend to dress in baggy sweaters and loose jeans. Beth, the oh-so-unreachable ice queen—not really part of our group, she just happened to be there—had just accepted my offer of a ride home!

"Uh, O-okay, y-you ready to go?" I stammered, trying to get my heart to stop racing and my brain to function again.

"Sure, any time." She replied with a glint in her eye, as a indefinable little grin ghosted over her lips.

We walked out to my car and I opened the door for her, wishing I had something better to drive than my fifteen-year-old beater.

"Thanks, Tommy." (She knows my name!)

"You're welcome, my lady." OK, so I'm a theater geek.

Beth lived in one of the nicer areas of town, in a big two story house. Her folks owned a company in town that built something, I don't know what. But they were pretty well-off. After I pulled up in the driveway, she waited until I got out and opened the door for her and then thanked me again. I mumbled something about her having a good night and was ready to turn back to the car when she said, "Do you have to get home right away?"

"Um, no, not really. I was just going to go home and watch a movie."

"You want to come in for a while? I was just going to watch the Sherlock Holmes movie on channel four."

"You like old Sherlock Holmes movies? That's what I was going to watch!" I wasn't about to turn down an opportunity like this.

"I love them! Especially the ones with Basil Rathbone."

By this time she'd opened the door and we walked into the family room—a room obviously made for entertainment—old movie posters covered the walls and a pair of black leather couches faced the biggest TV I'd ever seen. "Wow, this is like going to a movie in a theater!"

"You want a Coke or something?"

"A Coke sounds great. Thanks."

After firing up the monster TV, Beth and I settled into a couch to watch Rathbone and Nigel Bruce work their way through all the clues and nab the bad guy at the end—with appropriate comments from the peanut gallery, of course.

"I've always thought of myself as Watson," said Beth during one of the commercial breaks.

"Does that make me Moriarty?" I replied with my best Snidely Whiplash leer.

"Nah, you've got to be Sherlock."

"No, you've got to be Holmes—very analytical and dispassionate. I'm more the Watson type—you know, the bumbling sidekick."

Beth looked like she wanted to disagree, but then just sat back and rubbed her neck.

"Your neck bothering you?"

"Yeah. That English Lit mid-term today still has me tense."

"What? You're one of the smartest kids in school. Why would a class like E-Lit bother you?"

"I like classes where you can find an exact answer. Lit is so, I dunno, fuzzy. Everybody has their own idea about what makes a book good or not."

"Maybe that's the idea—to get you to read, to think about what you've read and be able to explain your thoughts. It's the process, not the answer that's important." It dawned on me that I was actually having a normal conversation with someone who would usually leave me tongue-tied and stammering. How'd that happen?

"If your neck's bothering you, turn a bit and let me see what I can do," I offered.

Beth turned away from me and I dug my thumbs into her neck muscles, eliciting a groan from her.

"I'm not hurting you, am I?"

"No, it feels wonderful. Where were you all afternoon when I could have used this?"

"Taking my own tests." I replied, "Why don't you lie down and I'll give you the full treatment."

Beth looked over her shoulder, "You wouldn't take advantage of a poor defenseless girl, would you?" With a slightly rising tone at the end, it almost sounded like she was hoping that's what I had in mind. But this was BETH. She's never stoop so low as to be interested in someone like me. Would she?

"N-no, no, nothing like that. Just a back rub. Honest!"

"Oh, sure. I've heard about guys like you. Get a girl in a compromising position, get her all relaxed and then..."

By this time I'd figured out she was just teasing me and I leered at her, "It's too late for you, my dear. I have you in my power now and NOTHING can save you from a fate worse than death!"

Beth just giggled and said in a tremulous, little voice, "Please be gentle," as she stretched out on the couch.

We both cracked up and I started to rub her shoulders and back.

I worked my way down her back, trying to loosen the muscles as I went. To tell you the truth, she didn't feel all that tense, but I wasn't going to pass up an opportunity like this.

After working my way down to the top of her jeans, I moved down to her feet and, starting with her left foot, I worked my way north. Her body felt wonderful under my moving fingers and I had a hard time ignoring the signals from parts of MY body.

When I got to the top of her left leg, I stopped just short of heaven and moved down to her right foot and started over. As I moved upward she shifted around and spread her legs a bit. Now with any other girl, I'd think that was an invitation for a more intimate massage, but I still had this mental image of Beth being beyond my reach.

When I finished her right leg, Beth just kind of moaned a bit, "You don't know how good that makes me feel. Where'd you learn how to do that?"

"A cousin is into massage and taught me some of her tricks."

"Well, she was a great teacher, and I could lie here all night, but right now I've got to get rid of some of that coffee we had earlier." She stood up and headed for the bathroom.

When she came back the movie was over, so she grabbed the remote and started channel surfing until she came up with another movie.

I'd noticed when we first got here that there were no lights on and I hadn't heard anyone moving around upstairs. "Your folks hit the sack early tonight or what?"

"No, they went to a wedding out of town, they'll be gone all weekend."

"Yours, too? So did mine! They took off this morning and dragged my little brother, The Pest, with them." By definition, all little brothers are pests, but Kevin was worse than most, thus earning him the upper-case sobriquet.

"You don't suppose it was the same wedding, do you? Wouldn't that be weird." Beth looked at me, "We might be related and never knew it!"

The idea of being related to a goddess appealed to me until I remembered some of the incest stories I'd read online. 'Oh, please, not that!' was my panicked thought. 'Unless that would make us kissing cousins.' Answered the little imp that inhabits my head.

"Umm, that would be strange, all right."

We settled in to watch the latest chick-flick on the tube. Now I've got nothing against romantic movies, they put most girls into the mood to mess around a little, but Beth didn't strike me as that kind of girl. Until, that is, she stretched out on the couch again and used my leg as a pillow.