Chapter 11

"What are you thinking about?" Kyle ventured a few minutes later.

"Pull over," I answered. I'd made a quick decision without really thinking about it. Something had to be done though or this would turn out to be the worst night of our lives.

"What?" Kyle glanced at me.

"Pull over. Right here, on the shoulder," I said, pointing with my finger. "Stop the car."

"Okay, okay." Kyle was confused, but he did it and as soon as the car had stopped and he'd put it in park, he turned to look at me. "What's wrong?" he wondered, thinking maybe I felt sick or something, or perhaps I'd gotten mad again.

"Nothing," I said and I leaned over, putting my hand around his shoulders and pulling his head close to mine.

I kissed him the way Sandy had taught me, or at least perfected with me. I slipped my tongue across Kyle's lips and inside his mouth. I felt the hard sharpness of his teeth and then the soft wet warmth of his tongue against mine. I held his face in my hands and I felt his hands on my shoulders, rubbing me gently. We kissed long and deep and by the time we'd finished our very first kiss I'd gotten hot all over, breathless and tingling.

"You asked what I was thinking about," I whispered with a smile. "I was wondering what it would be like to kiss you."

"Oh." Kyle blinked and smiled. "I'm glad. I mean ... Wow ... Okay."

It had been a good kiss and a pretty good idea too, I decided. I moved back into the passenger seat, settling myself in comfortably and Kyle pulled the car back onto the road. We were both much more relaxed and found that we had all kinds of stuff to talk about, just like we always had, and after that everything was fine.

"She asked about me?" I gave Kyle a little look. We were getting close to Beaverton after a 20 minute drive.

He'd been telling me that Jane's sister, Sherry, had sat down next to him and some other guys during lunch the day before. Sherry was a senior and Kyle just a brand new freshman, so I guess in typical high school fashion that was sort of a big deal. Especially since Sherry was on the varsity cheerleading squad and enjoyed all the social perks of being at the top of the social food chain. I'd never thought about Mark and David that way. I mean, where and how they fit in at school, but I began to realize that they were probably up there too. I kind of rebelled against that a little, given that I was anything but status hungry. My choices in friends, fashion, and hobbies pretty much made me the invisible girl. At best I was just another guy, at worst I was a tomboy and maybe even a lesbian. It all depended on who you asked.

"Yeah," Kyle explained. "She said something about her boyfriend being one of your brothers and she'd heard we were friends."

"So what did you say?"

"I said yeah, we're friends. I said something about we were going out and Sherry said she didn't think you had a boyfriend yet."

"She said that?" I frowned a little. "She barely knows me. So you told her you're my boyfriend?" I made it sound like I was accusing Kyle of a crime, but I didn't mean to.

"Well, yeah," he sounded unsure of himself, like he didn't want to say anything that would get him in trouble. "I probably did."

"That's okay." I forced myself to smile. "So what did she say then?"

"Not that much. She just said maybe we could double date sometime, since she's going out with your brother and all."

"That's it?" I asked, knowing I was sort of pushing a little too hard.

"Yeah. I guess so. Mostly she just talked about running for school president and stuff," Kyle said, turning into the parking lot for the movie theater. The town only had one, but it had three screens.

"She's running for president?" I asked with a little roll of my eyes.

I definitely thought that was too much. And she wanted to double date with me and Kyle? I bet she did. If Sherry was like Jane, and from the way my brothers had talked, the Hudson sisters were like peas in a pod, then she probably wanted more than just a friendly night out with our boyfriends. But maybe I was jumping to conclusions too, I did that sometimes.

"So is she really your brother's girlfriend?" Kyle asked me.

"Sherry?" I nodded. "Yeah, Mark and David have been going steady with Sherry and her sister for more than a year."

"Her sister? Jane?" Kyle sounded a little wistful, I thought, and I felt a tiny pang of jealousy maybe. "She's in my astronomy class," Kyle said and he seemed obviously happy about that.

"Good for you," I told him, feeling a little annoyed and wondering if we could change the subject.

"She's seriously hot." Kyle wasn't getting it.

"Maybe you shoulda asked her out then," I said lightly, hoping he'd remember that he'd actually asked me out.

"She'd never go out with me." Kyle was being stupid now.

"So, I guess my standards are lower or something?" I crossed my arms and looked out the side window, pouting just a little maybe and waiting for him to park the car just so I could get out slam the door shut.

"What? Oh ... No! I didn't mean that!" Kyle finally came out of his fog. "I'm sorry, Ann." He parked and turned off the engine, reaching over to touch my arm, "I didn't mean anything, okay? You're way cooler than Jane is, I just meant..."

"She's hot, yeah, I get it." I frowned and shrugged his hand off, undoing my seat belt and opening the door. "Hot is better than cool. Fine. Whatever." I finally did get to slam the door and it wasn't nearly as satisfying as I'd hoped for.

What was the deal with me, I wondered? We talked about girls like that all the time, or mostly my friends did and I just listened and gave them a hard time about it. Why the big deal now? I'd felt hurt by what Kyle had been saying and that was new to me. It wasn't something I'd expected and I should have been able to ignore it. But I couldn't. So I was changing, wasn't I? Did I want to be a little high school hottie and have all the boys dreaming about me? I didn't think so. No, I didn't, I told myself. I liked being me. I liked looking like I did and acting the way I wanted to ... But what would it be like, a little voice kept pestering me. What would it be like to be ... What? To be a girl?

I must have been standing there for a few minutes, leaning against the car and thinking, before I realized Kyle had been apologizing to me, asking me if I was okay.

"I'm fine." I gave him a smile and decided I wasn't going to act like I had been.

I'd spent so much time and energy worrying and trying to tell my friends that even if we went out on a date, we still had to stay best friends. But here I was acting like anything but a best friend. I didn't like myself very much right then. I was being unfair probably, and a hypocrite. Kyle hadn't meant anything and I shouldn't have taken it so seriously. I should have been glad he still thought of me as a guy, sorta. His best friend and not his girlfriend, at least for a moment there. That's what I wanted, right? But I'd kissed him too, don't forget.

"I'm sorry." I gave Kyle a hug and swore I'd be really nice to him for the rest of the night. Besides ... Jane Hudson? God! She was hot.

We were walking towards the theater, not arm in arm or anything though. It wouldn't really have bothered me so much to hold Kyle's hand, but we did look like a couple guys hanging out together, especially in Beaverton where most people didn't really know me by anything but a name maybe. So holding hands would have gotten us some looks, definitely. It's probably a good thing nobody had seen us hugging a moment earlier, or if someone had, then at least it had been dark by the car.

We were going to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but we had about 45 minutes to kill before it started, so we decided to play some video games for awhile. They had a whole arcade full of them and that's cool because back in Squinosha there were just two old pinball machines at the little pizza place, and a crappy Street Fighter game at the 7-11 that was busted most of the time. David fixed it a couple times, but Dale, the guy who owned the 7-11, had gotten in trouble with the vending company who owned the machine. I guess they didn't like other people fixing their stuff.

"Hi Kyle!" Some girl's voice caught my ear. We were battling on the WWF game and I was kicking Kyle's butt.

"Hey Denise." Kyle glanced at her and so did I.

She looked cute, about my height with shoulder length blond hair, wearing white painter's pants and a baby blue sweater. I didn't recognize her and I wondered how she knew Kyle. Behind the girl stood another one, taller than her friend with really pale skin and dark eyes. Her hair was long and black and wavy, curling at the ends. They stood there watching us and it was kind of bad for Kyle's concentration, I think.

"This is my friend, Julie," Denise finally said half a minute later. "She goes to CFS."

That's the Christian Fellowship School, which is the only private school around. It wasn't very big, and being there in Beaverton meant none of us in Squinosha really knew much about it. Some kids thought it was like a cult or something, but really it was just a private school for people who didn't want to send their kids to public school for whatever reason. Anybody could go there, so far as I knew, so long as you could afford it.

"Hi," Julie said with a smile, but mostly for me, I thought.

"Hi," Kyle replied and I nodded slightly, glancing at the girl and being kind of polite.

Kyle's game ended less than a minute later and I was still going strong, fighting against the machine now. He watched me for a few seconds and then he started talking to Denise and her friend, while I sorta listened while I played.

"I didn't know you lived around here," Denise said

"Nah, we drove over from Squinosha," Kyle told her.

"You have a car?" she asked and when Kyle told her he did, she seemed pretty impressed.

"I'm going to get one for my 16th birthday, I think," Denise said.

"When's your birthday?" Kyle looked over to see how I was doing, but mostly he kept looking at Denise. Her sweater seemed kind of tight and she had some well developed tits. So did her friend, Julie, who wore a tight black Green Day t-shirt tucked neatly into her equally tight jeans. I thought they looked good on her, and my eyes kept drifting over even though I wasn't sure why.

"You play that pretty good," Julie said and she'd moved a bit closer to me, I guess cause she felt a little left out listening to Kyle and Denise.

"Thanks," I said, glancing up and accidentally staring into her dark eyes for a second. I felt a little embarrassed and that confused me.

"Do you go to school with Kyle and Denise?" Julie asked and at least I knew then how Kyle and that other girl knew each other. Denise must have just moved here or something, I figured, because I knew most everybody who went to the high school, at least by sight.

"Nope." I was jamming buttons and working up a combo. "I go to the middle school."

"Oh," the girl replied. "I thought you were older." She didn't mean it in a bad way, but it surprised me because I knew I didn't look that old!

"I'm 15 almost," I told her, wondering why I didn't just say I was 14.

"Me too." Julie smiled. "I mean, I'm 15 now. I just had my birthday last month."

"Happy birthday," I said with a joking laugh. "I'm sorry I missed it."

"Yeah, I'm sorry too," she said, smiling but not laughing. "Maybe I can come to yours," Julie suggested and I suddenly realized she was serious.

"Huh?" My guy on the video screen almost got pinned when I looked at her.

"I can give you my phone number if you want," she said. "I mean, if you wanted to invite me or ... something, you know."

"Oh."

I had no idea how to react to that. Didn't she know I was a girl? That I was there on a date with the guy standing like five feet away from us while she was hitting on me? I felt my heart skipping a little and that all too familiar knot starting in my tummy. What if she did know I was a girl? What if she didn't mind and maybe that's why she liked me? Suddenly my game was over, the videogame laughing triumphantly, and I barely realized it.

"Here..." Julie started digging in her purse and then wrote her name and number on a napkin she'd found. Her pen was big and pink and topped with a little Minnie Mouse. I just stared at it as she wrote, wondering what I should say.

"Okay, um..." I looked at the paper she'd handed me. "Thanks, uh, Julie."

"Just call me anytime, okay?" She smiled at me. "I have to get home." Denise had been waiting impatiently and Kyle told me we had to get our popcorn and stuff cause the movie was gonna start.

"I will," I told her, but not knowing if I meant it or not. "Bye."

"Bye." Julie gave me a little wave.

"What was that all about?" Kyle asked, looking at me funny.

"I don't know." I shrugged and put Julie's phone number in my shirt pocket, buttoning the flap.

It didn't even occur to me until Kyle was paying for our popcorn and sodas that I hadn't told Julie my name. Kyle had been telling me that Denise was a freshman too and her family had moved to Beaverton just a few months before. He said she seemed nice, but kind of an airhead. I teased him about her liking him and he just grinned at me, but didn't say anything, so it was probably true. But I wasn't going to make a big deal out of it; I'd had enough of being stupid like that for one night. But Julie ... I just didn't know what she wanted and it bothered me a lot.

"Hey, did you tell Denise anything about me?" I asked carefully, wanting to find out what Julie might know without appearing dumb, or worse, sounding like I was interested in her.

"No, not really." Kyle gave a tiny shrug, not wanting to spill anything while we walked into the theater.

"Did she ask about me?"

"Um, nope. Not really. She just said it looked like you and Julie were making friends." Kyle wanted to sit way up front, like we usually did, but for some reason I was thinking I wanted to sit in the back.

Maybe it was just my mood, which had been swinging up and down like a roller coaster over the last few days. Or maybe it's just that I felt strangely out of place. Like I wasn't who I was supposed to be, although I must have been the same as I'd always been, I thought. But this was different. I was on my first date, but like a girl pretending to be a guy, out with another guy who knew I was a girl, and getting phone numbers from pretty girls and wondering what it all meant. I wanted to sit in the back, away from everyone else, curled up in a corner. This wasn't the date I'd expected, and honestly, I hadn't known what to expect at all.

I got my wish anyway. Kyle and I sat about three rows from the back, all the way on the right side of the theater. We put our jackets on the seat next to Kyle and got comfortable. Being a Tuesday night, the place wasn't very crowded anyway, only half full at best. We were pretty much by ourselves and that let me relax quite a bit. I hated being so stressed like that, but Kyle was nice and talked about the pick-up football game I'd missed on Sunday, making me laugh as he described all the crazy plays they'd tried. I really wished I could have played, but spending the day with Sandy had been worth it.

And that got me thinking about Sandy, and then about Jane, and then about Julie and ... I ended up right back where I'd started! God! I really needed to get my mind off all those girls and stop worrying about if I was starting to turn lesbian or not, because that really was the deepest knot in my guts. I had to do something and maybe something else besides, just to prove that I wasn't a lesbian at all.

It couldn't have been more than 15 minutes into the movie that I slipped my arm around Kyle's shoulders. I felt pretty nervous doing it, wondering if he wouldn't rather watch the movie, but I didn't need to be. I hadn't realize it at the time, but I'd been seriously underestimating myself and the feelings my friends had for me. It would take me a long time before I understood that, and maybe that's part of the growing up process that everyone has to go through. In the meantime, I went through all the anxious moments and doubts and fears that every teenage boy, and girl I suppose, has to suffer through. And that included my first kiss in a darkened movie theater.

It was exciting. The way the light flickered over us, being surrounded by strangers, and kissing my boyfriend. Kyle had his arms around me and I'd turned towards him, leaning awkwardly over the armrest between us. I had my hand on his neck, holding his mouth to mine while we kissed deeply. Our tongues played against each other, sometimes in my mouth, sometimes in his, and it felt wonderful. My body grew warmer and my nipples hardened as they began to itch and ache pleasantly. My strap-on had been hidden quietly for hours, but now I could feel it distinct and hard, and the base of the thing pressed against my sex, bringing my clit to burning life.

Everything seemed different and new and incredibly sexy, making out with Kyle in public like that, and I wondered if anyone was watching us. Occasionally our mouths would slip and a gasp or sigh, or a soft wet smacking sound would fill my ears, making me even hotter as a little wave of embarrassment washed over me. Kyle was eager and if anything even less experienced than me. I'd only learned the art of making out over the weekend and I tried to do to him everything Sandy had done to me. I moved my mouth to his ear and kissed it gently, licking inside and taking his earlobe between my lips and teeth. I nibbled him tenderly, feeling his body moving against mine, trying to bring us even closer somehow. I brought my lips to his neck and gave him a hickey, sucking and biting, and feeling the pressure in my lips until I was sure he had a small love bite to remember me by.

"Now your mine," I whispered with a breathless giggle.

"Oh, Ann..." Kyle kissed me again and his hands were moving, one sliding up and down my back, while the other moved beneath me, searching for my tender breasts.

Kyle massaged my tits through the heavy cotton of my shirt and I didn't mind. It felt good and brought my nipples to almost painful attention. I was flashing hot and cold all at once and I sucked his tongue into my mouth. He fumbled with the buttons on my shirt, but managed finally to get two or three undone, giving him plenty of room to touch my bare skin and that felt even better. Kyle's hands were gentle and smooth and as he squeezed my breasts, I moaned softly into his mouth.

"Kiss them..." I whispered, my mouth touching his ear as I pushed Kyle's head down, moving him so that he could reach my breasts with his lips.

It seemed as if every part of me was concentrated there, in those two small handfuls of flesh and the rock hard nipples that topped them. Kyle kissed and licked noisily, practically kneeling on the dirty floor of the movie theater, and as I cradled his face to my heaving chest I looked around, seeing that there were people watching us. Adults mostly, the kids sitting closer to the front and more interested in the movie than what might be going on behind them. I was panting and Kyle would move from one nipple to the other, seeming to take my entire breast in his mouth and sucking on it while his hands explored my tummy and back. My shirt had gotten really loose, untucked completely and barely buttoned, and I watched those people watching us and that somehow made it even better.