Chapter 27

So two weeks, the next TWO weeks, passed with no negative incidents. Work was, well, work, but we had it going our way.

On the home/school front, the official connection of Jason and Susan actually meant that Tina and I had a little more alone time, not that I was feeling particularly uncomfortable with the regular appearance of Susan at our little trailer.

Interestingly, Jason's apartment became one of the regular destinations, Jason and I watching movies while the girls did school work. And then the exit exams for high school graduates were on us. I always found these things amusing, myself, especially the idea that a kid could get through twelve years of school and not be able to graduate because he failed the exits tests. But then I also knew about social promotions and poor teachers who issued passing grades without a care as to the actual need for an education.

Tina was right, though. Those tests weren't meant for students like her and Susan, bright, eager for an education, able to soak up learning easily.

"Reviews!" Tina had snorted. "I am sitting through REVIEWS of stuff I learned in the eighth grade!"

I knew she was aggravated. "Baby, you gotta remember..."

She stopped me. Make that 'very aggravated'. "I DO remember that, but we're losing WEEKS of opportunity. Why can't they separate those that can and will from those that can't or won't?"

"Because that's gonna require too many people to make decisions that would put them in the gunsights of angry, entitled parents. How would YOU like to be the school administrator to have to tell some mommy that her little snowflake's just not up to the standard for the smart classes?"

"You make a good point. But people need to grow up."

I kissed her on the forehead. "Welcome to the real world, baby..."

Her eyes softened with the kiss and she pulled back to look at me. "I knowwww..." She wrapped her arms around my neck and forced me into another, longer kiss. "Still gets to me, though." Another kiss, and then a giggle. "D'ya know any kind of GOOD way to relieve stress?"

We didn't get out of the house THAT evening.

Other evenings? Jason's apartment, graciously attended by Jason and a very giggly-looking Susan, and that's the first time I actually saw the two kiss. It was just a little longer than a friendly peck, but from the way that Tina glanced at me, I knew she was gauging my reaction.

They didn't make a big deal out of it. They just acted like they were comfortable and happy with each other. Since we got there BEFORE Susan, I surmised that Susan was still very much Daddy's Little Girl, too. I was hoping that, anyway. But I was also becoming more relaxed, or was it resigned, with the idea of those two being a couple.

Note to self. Don't mention that to Tina. The last time I mentioned the age difference, she got the giggles. "There's TEN YEARS less difference than me and YOU!" And a giggle. "And we do pretty darned good, you know..."

"Hah!" I laughed. "I've always characterized us as perfect."

Another kiss. "Me too, baby! But we can't tell people that. They'll get jealous!"

The evenings at Jason's apartment were just about the same as the previous evenings at our trailer: games, conversation, food. Jason and Susan made Tina and me sit back while they laughed and argued through their version of Tina's 'dump soup' one time. Another was delivery pizza. And when it was time for US to leave, I noted that Susan left with us after gracing Jason with a sweet kiss while she was standing by her car in the parking lot.

Driving home, I asked Tina, "So, Jason and Susan? They ever been alone in his apartment?"

Tina said, "She says no. She's not rushing, baby. She's known him a lot longer than you knew me, baby, before WE were in bed together."

"You know, little one, that we're exceptionally fortunate to have found each other. We just sort of match, even from the first day..."

"When I was scared and nervous and everything else." She smiled. "I remember. Sometimes that's my daydream, just reliving how it all happened." Little smile. "I just want Susan to be this happy. And Jason too."

"How happy?" I asked.

She caught that. "Having somebody who can actually carry on a conversation, somebody who has interests we can share, and who is just somebody who FITS me."

"You're so wrong, little one," I said. "It's you that fit me."

"Mmmm," she purred as we kissed. "I cannot possibly imagine finding anyone better, babe," she said. "So we're going to the gym this evening?"

"I think we need to. Our dazzling social whirl is too much food and the only exercise, lovely though it is, isn't going to keep me from gaining weight."

"But I really like that exercise," she said. "Just so we can do BOTH!"

As we walked out to her car, I said, "Of course we can. The gym takes care of the body. That other exercise is for my soul."

"Mine too, guy," she said. "You drive."

I knew WHY I was driving. After she buckled in, she wiggled around and started gathering her hair into two miniscule pigtails, one just behind each ear, her fix for 'I can't stand my hair on my neck when I'm sweating.'

When she finished, she turned to me with a huge grin. "There! Now I can exercise, and I'll know the whole time that you're lusting after me extra much."

"You know waaay too much about me, cutie," I said.

"I have a whole list, honey," she giggled. "But this one's just strange..." And she laughed.

At the gym, I ran through my routine, a bit of time on the weight machine, some brisk time on an elliptical machine, all the time watching HER, because in a workout outfit that consisted of shorts, a tight top and a sports bra that suggestively showed its shoulder straps, she was a very attractive example of a young girl at the gym. Of course, all the regulars knew that she and I were a couple, and I'd seen her approached more than once by young men (younger than me, for darned sure) with their best smiles, and I'm sure, their best lines, and she just smiled back, shook her head (making sure I got to see those little pigtails wiggling) and pointed me out.

We finished our cool-down on two side-by-side treadmills, then put on warmup suits and walked back into the nasty outdoors to the car. As soon as we got in, I turned the heater on against the harsh nasty weather that had followed a cold front.

"Home," she said. "Shower. Hot chocolate. And lots of snuggles."

"Gladly," I said. "How're you feeling?" We weren't as diligent with our gym visits as we should be, and I could feel a bit of tightness from my own workout."

"I can feel things pulling," she said. "We need to do this more regularly." I laughed inside. That was one of the things that I adored about Tina, that it seemed like our minds were synched together. Her hooking my bicep and resting her chin on my shoulder was another, as we drove along, a CD playing music from one of the concerts we'd seen together.

We pulled into the park and went inside. As was normal, she got first shot at the shower. I took advantage of that to get the makings of two mugs of hot chocolate out, and no, NOT the instant. Real milk. Sugar. A block of that wonderful Mexican chocolate.

The sound of the shower stopped and Tina stepped out. "Your turn," she said brightly.

I jumped into the little bathroom, showering while I heard the hair dryer going. I got out, shaved, then stood behind her to help her finish her hair.

"No, I got this. You do the chocolate!"

I did exactly that, and when it was ready, I handed her a steamy, frothy mug. Her hair was in pigtails. I got to look at THAT picture while we sipped the sweet darkness and watched part of a TV show neither of us was particularly interested in. We finished our drinks a little before nine. The mugs went into the sink. We went into the bedroom.

That got me into the arms of this vision, auburn hair, pulled back into two little pigtails, blue eyes, bangs, freckles ... every off-center quirk I ever harbored about what's sexy, there it was in one neat package. She was grinning.

"Oh, you think you have me figured out, don't you?" I laughed.

Her hand gently wrapped around my dick. Her giggle was gentle, too. "Something tells me I'm right, you know." Her blue eyes flashed. "Want me to run down the rest of the list? I know lots of things that'll put you so close to the edge I can sneeze and you'll squirt for me."

She did, too. And she was happy and giggling when she used 'em. Of course, I knew some things about her, too, and while another man might find it disconcerting to have a girl giggling and grinning while he's in the middle of full penetration, I saw it as the most wonderful expression of sharing of each other's bodies imaginable.

That's the fun part. We're in that position that's MADE for me and Tina: I'm sitting in the middle of the bed, legs crossed, she's sitting in my lap, happily impaled on me, we're gently rocking, just enjoying being coupled together, not yet frantic with the inevitable orgasms. It's communion. She's got her arms around me, holding us in position, so my hands can range over her luscious form. They end up cupping her face inches from mine, and our eyes connect and there's love in her look.

"Darn it, Tina, you're so wonderfully beautiful..." I kissed her.

"To you, Alan," she said.

"Yeah, right. That's why I have to watch you at the gym. I see those other guys looking..."

"They'd never get more than a smile, Alan. This" and she gave a wiggle to her ass that took me in mid-breath, "is only for YOU."

"I love you, little dove," I said.

"You love me for everything I am, Alan Dean Addison. I've never thought anything else. There MIGHT be another man on this planet like you, but I have you, so I don't care..." Her lips fastened to mine and we traded tongues. Her rocking became more rhythmic and before long her smile had morphed to flashing eyes, biting her bottom lip, the smile still there at the upturned corners of her mouth, and then as she got even closer, she released her lip and came in short mewing moans and panting grunts and I added my own sound to our sensual duet as I came.

She recovered her giggle as she descended from orgasmic heights. "We're going to have a mess, baby," she tittered. "Apparently pigtails double your semen volume."

"Apparently my marvelous partner drives me crazy," I said. "You wanna towel?"

"Not MY choice," she said. Her choice left us both with sticky faces and her with a second orgasm and then we kissed each other's faces clean.

We lay there in bed, cuddled together. I thought that if we turned the lights out, we'd glow. Yes, it's like that, some of the times are more than others, and tonight was one of the better ones, for no particular reason. We turned out the lights and let the sleep come gently.

Tina's tests at school corresponded with some critical steps in our project. I had all my big power systems taken care of, but now we were dealing with process equipment, and I spent a good part of the time dashing back and forth between the systems programmer and the power center and the equipment room holding the interfaces between them. I had to couple that with groups of foreign engineers there to set up specialty equipment from Germany and Italy. Fortunately my meager German and almost non-existent Italian were sufficient, along with a positive attitude, to keep things on track.

Tina and I met the German crew one night, then the Italian crew the next, for dinner. To say that mouths gaped open at the sight of my seventeen-year-old wife is an understatement. However, her charming demeanor and attitude won them over immediately, making for a pleasant dinner and a pleasant project.

In the truck on the way home, Tina nipped my shoulder. "Baby, d'ya think we can do some travel in Europe?"

"I suppose that might be something we can swing, little one. Let's see how things work out after you graduate. Dan and I have to get a business off the ground and you and Susan and Cindy need to get your college schedules figured out. We..."

"We have to get our housing situation resolved, too. I was talking to Mizz Kathy. She's going through the realtor network, seeing what she can come up with."

"You're doing that?" I was surprised. I guess I shouldn't have been. Tina and I were partners, but I guess there's a part of me that still tends to assume she's as limited as most kids her age. That was, of course, an error on my part. Tina was brilliant, and she had an eye on our plan.

"Uh-huh. That's okay with you, isn't it?"

"Well, sure, baby."

"I talked with Cindy and Susan, and we all talked with Susan's mom. Cindy said something like a little apartment building might be nice. Mizz Kathy said that if you guys incorporate, then we could buy it under the corporation."

I shook my head at the thought of three teen girls working over the ideas of housing and corporations and a future. "An apartment building?"

"Yeah," she said. "Don't'cha think that the idea works? We buy an apartment building, not a big one, but big enough for two or three families, us and Dan and Cindy and ... well, we're looking, okay?

"You don't think that just maybe living in the same building might be a little too much closeness?"

"Do you?"

"I was in the army, baby. I'm used to living with people whether I get tired of 'em or not."

"Didn't you and Dan..."

"Yeah, we rented an apartment in Arizona. Three bedrooms, one for each of us, one for junk. But neither of us was too far off the reservation as far as lifestyle."

Giggle. "So let's see. We can do the inventory. Young wives who get along? Still engineers. Same hobbies. Same tastes in music."

"And your point?" I said.

"We could do that. Separate apartments, but the same building. Have our privacy when we need it, convenient for me and Cindy and Susan to study together."