Chapter 2

This is hard to explain, at least to a guy, because I don’t think guys allow themselves to have the kind of relationship some of us girls had back then. We weren’t lesbians, meaning we didn’t have an exclusive attraction to other girls. We weren’t even bisexual, really. If you’d have asked any of us if we planned a life that included both male and female sexual partners on a routine basis, we’d have looked at you like you were crazy. Well ... actually ... we’d have probably gone, “Ewwww,” and called you some kind of name.

But somehow, kissing one of the other girls in the group was all right ... even if it had to be a secret. It was complicated. Our friendship was on a different plane than other kinds of friendship. And the strangest part of all is that each girl in that group had a preference as to which other girl she would kiss if the occasion ever came up. What I mean is that the normal social rules against same sex affection were suspended in our group, even if we didn’t actually see it that way at the time.

It’s so hard to explain.

So when I was challenged to kiss Chrissy, whom I loved above all other women, and make it look like we were lesbians ... well ... the only problem we had was that we got embarrassed by how emotional it ended up being.

It wasn’t the first time we had kissed. She was my primary test dummy when I was learning how to kiss, and I was hers. We hadn’t done anything else, but I’m fairly sure now that it was only because we hadn’t actually thought about the possibility of trying other things. And I know that some of the other girls felt that way about each other too.

Anyway, when Chrissy and I finished kissing each other, we were both flushed and panting. I saw her nipples pushing bumps in her jammies and I didn’t even have to look at mine to know they were rock hard ... again. They had been rock hard only half an hour before, as Mr. C. squeezed and pulled at them while he fingerfucked me nearly to oblivion.

In other words, at that moment in my life, I loved Chrissy and Mr. C. more than any other human beings on the face of the earth.

And yes, I know it was hormones. I know it was puppy love. I know I was a stupid teenager.

But it felt real to me then.

As always, after the sleepover, Mr. C. paid no special attention to me at all, other than the regular special attention he showed me as Chrissy’s best friend. And the amazing thing is that it wasn’t awkward or strange to be around him. We had this secret, and the power of being able to keep that secret just between us made me feel like the rest of the world was blind and stupid, and I was smart and powerful.

That kiss Chrissy and I had shared, however, did not fall in the same category. First of all, it wasn’t a secret and we didn’t have to pretend it hadn’t happened. And second ... well ... it had felt wonderful.

We didn’t go all lesbo, but we were much closer after that, and twice, after dates that were not at all satisfying, we made out and then masturbated in front of each other.

And then, for my seventeenth birthday, Chrissy said she wanted to do something special for me. She wouldn’t tell me what, but she was like what my dad used to say - a cat on a hot tin roof. As the date got closer and closer she got more and more freaked out, until I told her whatever it was wasn’t worth going crazy for. I thought she was having a hard time saving up enough money to get whatever it was, or that something she had ordered online hadn’t come in the mail yet, and she was worried it wasn’t going to be there in time.

And then my birthday was there. It came on a Saturday. My parents let me sleep in, and then took me out to lunch. I had already told them I didn’t want a party, so they gave me my presents - a beautiful watch and a gift certificate to Dillards - and that was it.

I got to Chrissy’s around three in the afternoon.

Mr. C. wasn’t there. I knew that because his car was gone. He didn’t work every Saturday, but as the owner of the business he said he liked to be in touch with what was going on, so sometimes he went in and worked with his employees on whatever they were doing. Chrissy was in her room. She looked like she was sick or something.

“I’m here,” I said, and waited.

“Happy birthday,” she said, listlessly. “I can’t do it.”

“Can’t do what?”

“I can’t give you your special gift.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll hate me and never want to see me again,” she said. “It was stupid to even think of it.”

“What was it?” I asked. Based on her attitude, “it” was already past tense.

“I can’t tell you that!” she moaned. “It would be as bad as giving it to you.”

“You mean you have it?” Suddenly “it” wasn’t past tense any more.

“It wasn’t something I have. It was something I was going to do.” She clapped both hands over her face.

If you’re a woman, you know the deal. One friend can worm almost anything out of the other friend, even if that friend really doesn’t want to tell. If you’re a man you’ve probably watched it happen. It took me twenty minutes of whining, leaning on her, bullying her and just pleading to get it out of her.

She had wanted to go down on me for my birthday.

Remember how I told you I felt after I kissed Chrissy in front of the girls and her father? At that moment I had loved them more than anybody else.

Nothing had changed.

I still loved them more than anybody else.

And because of that I wasn’t grossed out or disgusted. In fact, I felt remarkably like I felt when a sleepover at Chrissy’s was coming up, and I knew I was going to hide in the dark with Mr. C. again.

Chrissy was crying, because she thought there was something wrong with her for wanting to do that. I think she loved me the same way I loved her, but she just wasn’t comfortable with it the way I was.

I don’t want you to misunderstand this, because it was an incredibly important moment in my life. We were not lesbians. I know I’ve said that many times already, but it’s important to make the distinction. I still assumed I’d find a guy some day who wasn’t a complete jerk, and we’d get married. I wanted to have babies some day - the normal way. And Chrissy was the same. I knew she was looking for a boyfriend. We had already projected that, when we got to college, the guys would be more mature, and we’d finally find that special guy who could give us what we were missing in high school.

But we loved each other too, with a deep, life-long and abiding love. Isn’t that the kind of love successful marriages are made on?

And it killed me that she was crying. And what she had thought of was so sweet.

So I comforted her ... and kissed her ... and the next thing I knew we were naked on her bed, writhing around, sliding our bodies against each other and...

Suffice it to say I got my pussy sucked for my birthday.

And Chrissy got hers sucked for my birthday too.

In fact, we spent all afternoon at it, and only stopped when we heard the garage door go up, and had to scramble to find our own clothes and get them on, and wash our faces and stop laughing hysterically, before Mr. C. came in and yelled that he was home.

By the time of Chrissy’s next sleepover, she and I had made love four times. We didn’t treat it like some new game that was fun to play. This new intimacy was for special occasions, or for when one of us was really down and needed to be loved to be brought back up.

But all that made no difference whatsoever in how I felt as I went to her house for the sleepover. I was excited, jittery, almost spastic as I anticipated what Mr. C. would do to me on this night. Every time I had gotten a year older, he had turned it up a notch. I had had his thick, long finger in me, and now I couldn’t help but wonder if something else he had that could get thick and long might replace his finger.

And then disaster struck.

The girls didn’t want to play sardines.

They thought they were too old for that.

It was a kids’ game.

I now know that all of them except Suzie had lost their virginity by then. And Chrissy, of course. I knew she was still a virgin because we almost always went out on dates together. And she’d have told me if some guy got to her. And maybe it was that fact that dulled the thrill of hiding in the dark with Mr. C. The girls no longer fantasized about what it would be like to have a man make them into women, because they already knew what it was like.

I tried. I talked about tradition, and fun, and being scared. But it didn’t do any good. They didn’t want to play games. They wanted to talk about boys, and college, and plans, and restrictive parents. I though I would explode.

I said I’d be back and let them think I was going to get something to eat or drink. But I went to Mr. C.’s bedroom instead.

And he wasn’t there.

I had a moment of almost heart attack, but then I found him in the den, watching a historical show on some caves someplace that were full of ancient documents. When he saw me he muted the program. He just stared at me.

“They don’t want to play sardines this time,” I said. My voice no doubt sounded tragic.

“I see,” he said, his voice neutral. “Well ... it’s not strange to leave childish things behind, eventually.”

“But I want to play sardines!” I moaned, like a ten year old.

“That’s not what you want,” he said, his voice low.

The ten year old in me vanished. The adult was there, and she was ready to negotiate. The fact that I was negotiating with a man I knew better than any other man on Earth made me bold.

“You want to fuck me,” I said, so low that only he could hear it.

He stared at me for a long time. So long I got nervous.

“I know you do!” I insisted.

He looked tired, suddenly.

“I want to make love with you,” he said. “There’s a difference.”

“I want to do what we’ve been doing!” I said, impatient.

“What we’ve been doing is in the ‘fucking’ area. I want to do so much more than that,” he said.

“I do too!” I moaned.

“You’re not ready,” he said.

“Oh I am soooo ready!” I said.

“What you’re ready for is for me to get you off,” he said. “I understand that. When you can understand what I’m talking about ... then I’ll make love with you.”

My body started vibrating when he spoke the words “get you off.” My pussy tingled, and my nipples crinkled and needed to be squeezed.

“I do understand. That’s why I want you so bad right now,” I argued.

“You don’t understand,” he insisted. I started to argue and he held up his hand so stop me. “Remember the last sleepover, when they dared you to kiss Chrissy and make it look like you were lesbians?”

I blinked. I remembered that kiss all the time ... especially when Chrissy was doing it again just before she stuck her tongue in my pussy. I nodded.

“When you feel about me like you felt about Chrissy after that kiss that night ... then you’ll understand what I want for us.”

I stood there, thinking about how I felt about Chrissy. It seemed like I loved her for a million reasons, all of which competed to be number one on the list. And sex wasn’t at the top. It was easily in view, but it wasn’t at the top. Then I thought about Mr. C. He was this big, fuzzy ball of feel-good, who I liked to be around, and loved to be touched by. And I realized that sex was at the top of my Mr. C. list.

“So what have we been doing?” I asked.

“Having fun,” he said.

I didn’t get mad. And I didn’t feel used. I had fun with my friends all the time. It was something we tried to do.

“Are we going to have more fun?” I asked.

“I sure hope so,” he said, smiling.

“Do you love me?” I asked. I suddenly felt like I was going to throw up.

He stared at me for ten or fifteen seconds and then pointed to the couch, which was separated from the chair he was sitting in by an end table. “Sit down.”

I did and he moved to sit on the edge of his chair. He leaned toward me.

“At your age almost everything is ruled by hormones. It’s a little like being bipolar. Everything is either way up, and great, or way down, and terrible. That will begin to change radically in the next year or two, and you’ll begin to think about things, instead of just reacting to them. I have done things to you over the years, and you reacted by letting me. But it was still a reaction, rather than a choice.”

“I chose to come back every time,” I said.

“That’s true,” he said. “And you understood, somehow, that what we were doing was metered ... just for special times.”

I nodded.

“And that’s why I continued to have fun with you,” he said. “I saw you weren’t taking it too seriously, and that was good.”

I nodded again.

“Now, though, you’re chock full of hormones. If I told you I loved you, and wanted you in the bedroom in five minutes, you’d be there. Am I right?”

I nodded yet again. I didn’t even have to think about it. And don’t wince like that. I was seventeen. And I was chock full of hormones.

“But the thing is, Mal, that while I want you in the worst possible way, I want you to decide you want me, rather than your hormones driving you to it. In other words, I’m not looking for a woman to have fun with. I want something much deeper and more important than that.

I knew I was going to puke. “So you don’t love me?” I sounded like a ten year old again.

“I love you like a daughter,” he said in that voice adults use to comfort hurt children. “I could love you the way you want me to, but only after you’ve grown enough emotionally to understand more about what that kind of love means.”

I felt better immediately. Being loved like he loved Chrissy was no small thing. And he held the carrot of some other kind of mysterious love out there.

“Okay,” I said. “On one condition.”

“What’s that?” he asked, smiling that little smile that made me want to crawl all over him naked.

“I want to have some fun tonight.”

He didn’t bat an eye, which made me want to crawl all over him naked.

“I thought they didn’t want to play sardines.”

“They don’t.”

“Then how are we going to arrange for you to have ... fun?”

“That’s your problem,” I said, standing up. “You’re the one who got me addicted to this stuff. You’re the one who’s going to have to figure out a way to give me my fix.” I smiled at him, using a special smile that all girls practice in the mirror for hours, to perfect. It’s a catty look ... that look that says “Gotcha!”

I went back to Chrissy’s room, where Valerie Hooper was describing in detail what Jerry Colwell’s penis and balls looked like. Chrissy shot me a look when I came in. It was odd, because it started as a frown, but then relaxed almost immediately. Then she ignored me.

We didn’t realize it at the time, but we were women inside girls’ bodies, trying to break out like a butterfly emerges from its chrysalis. An example of that was when we ordered pizza and three of the girls went to let the delivery boy in. He was a little older than us, but that didn’t matter. By the time we were seventeen, the Minnie Mouse jammies had been put away and we wore things that we thought looked grown up. That meant showing off skin. Suzie, Debby and Megan were wearing the skimpiest outfits, and so naturally they were the ones who went to get the pizzas ... and show off in front of the poor delivery guy. Megan’s top was too loose and she kept popping out of it. Not on purpose, but you know what I mean.

It was that kind of night.

So we were all running on adrenalin that night, and stayed up until three in the morning. Sleepovers were always done on Friday nights, so that we could all crash as long as we wanted to the next morning. And Mr. C., having as much experience with sleepovers as we girls did, knew the deal.

Which is why he waited until we had all crashed, before he came and got me. He could have let me sleep. There wouldn’t have been anything I could do about it but frown and mope and glare at him the next day.

When somebody got tired and wanted to sleep in Chrissy’s house, they just went and found an empty bedroom. Sleeping two to a bed was routine, and Linda and I had ended up in a bed together. It was like a dream. He woke me up by tickling my breast, and put a finger over my lips. He took that finger off my lips and crooked it at me, backing away in the semi-darkness.

I got up. Linda slept like a log and didn’t make a sound.

He was insane. He grabbed me as soon as I left the room, just like the first time he’d grabbed me, with a hand over my mouth and an arm around my waist. This time, though, his hand was on my right breast. I stiffened, but then relaxed. He was in control, just like always. He could have done anything he wanted to. If he’d taken me to his bed and stripped me I’d have laid on the bed and spread my legs eagerly.

But this was a sleepover, and everything that had ever happened had happened in some dark, usually small room, hiding from the others. And that’s exactly what he did this time too.

He took me to the garage, where it had all started. He didn’t say a word. There was one of those table lamps that had two bulbs in it, a regular one and tiny night light one, sitting on the work bench off to one side. The night light bulb was lit. The work bench was cleared off, and had a towel draped over the surface.

My top was silk, and had spaghetti straps on it. The cloth went straight across my chest, and didn’t show any cleavage at all. There were boyshort panties that matched it underneath. He stood me in front of the work bench and raised my arms. I held them there as he pulled my top slowly up, revealing my panties, and then my abdomen, and finally my breasts. I felt the wet come into my pussy. He was going to see me for the first time. I was so into it that when he got the top off my head, I kept my arms straight up and he had to pull them down to get it off of me. He had even thought of what he was going to do with my jammies. There was a stool next to him that he laid the top on.

His hands came out and started in my arm pits, sliding down my sides as he stared at my breasts. I started shaking, but I wasn’t cold. I felt hot all over. He touched my breasts so gently, just brushing the nipples he had always squeezed and pulled at.

His hands smoothed down my sides again and hooked my panties, pulling them down over my hips. I moved my left foot six inches to my left automatically. It was just instinct. He slid the panties down and I lifted each foot until I was naked.

I was naked in front of Mr. C.

It was glorious!