16: I Love You

I slept in the hayloft every night that week. No Joanne. I guess it was a good thing. Wednesday night Mom poked her head up in the hayloft. I was reading.

"Why are you sleeping in the barn, silly boy?"

"Oh," I said, thinking fast. "It's kind of a celebration of the end of school. I liked it Sunday night and just decided I'd spend a few nights out here before the weather got too hot."

"You aren't doing anything dangerous out here, are you? No drugs or cigarettes?"

"No, Mom. Has Betts been talking? I've never smoked a cigarette and I know better than to have any matches in the barn. As to drugs..." I giggled, " ... my chemistry set is in the house."

"Your chemistry set? Oh my! Do we need to talk about this?" I laughed.

"You know one of the major industries for chemists to go to work in is pharmaceuticals, Mom. They even called pharmacists 'chemists.' I'm not making any drugs in my room, but I've been studying about them."

"So you are pretty set on becoming a chemist, huh?" Mom said as she settled down on my blanket cross-legged to talk to me. She fingered the blanket. "Where did you get this blanket?" Oh no! It was Joanne's.

"I just grabbed it out of a box in the attic," I said quickly. "Is it okay? I just figured it was an old quilt and no one would notice."

"Hmm. It must have been one of your Grandmother Frost's. I don't recognize it. So, about your career. You are a freshman in high school now. I suppose you have the future all worked out."

"Not really. I know you were being facetious. But I think about it a lot. I really like chemistry. But I like cooking, too. Do you think I could make a living as a chef?"

"Hmm. I don't know. What's for breakfast tomorrow?" she laughed.

"I'm keeping it simple with a fruit compote and Cream of Wheat. Breakfast is an important meal, Mom, but I don't want my family getting fat just because they have their own private breakfast chef." We laughed. "Actually, Mom, breakfast is kind of limiting. I was wondering if I could switch off sometimes and do dinner. You and Dad are both working and I could serve a light breakfast on a few mornings and make sure there was something ready for dinner when you get home. It would give me something to do in the afternoons when I'm tired of experiments." Mom thought about it for a minute.

"That would be more than okay, Brian. But not every day. I don't want you spending the entire summer in the kitchen. It is summer and you should be outside. You are still going to play with Rhonda, aren't you?"

"Yeah. In fact, we were going to go biking tomorrow afternoon. Mom..." Crap! I was getting choked up again. "I really still like her. I guess it won't be much different than when she was my girlfriend. But I really like her."

"Oh, baby," Mom said. "You're so young to have a broken heart already." She hugged me but didn't offer any other advice. Instead she changed the subject. Moms can be really smart that way, you know? "How was your 4-H meeting this afternoon?"

"It's neat, but really weird. There are seventeen of us in the group plus Miss Sullivan. She divided us into four groups of four."

"That's sixteen."

"Yeah. I'm my own group of one. She had me help her with the demonstrations. She just told them all that I was her assistant."

"You always liked Miss Sullivan."

"I still do. You know she got engaged? I guess when she gets married she'll probably quit teaching and have babies or something."

"Not necessarily. That's not the only thing that married women do," Mom laughed.

"Well, anyway, all the other kids are just going into seventh and eighth grade so I guess I'm the oldest and once she made me her assistant the girls stopped being so snotty to me. Boy, they're really stuck up!"

"I remember that when they were younger, some of your friends might have been called stuck up, too," Mom said. It was true. I didn't really have any friends until I was in fifth grade. Mom got up to leave and brushed a few strands of hay off her legs. "Remember you do have a bed in the house. If it gets too hot in the attic, you can always move back downstairs for the summer. Your sister will be gone Saturday."

"I will. 'Night, Mom."

"Goodnight, honeybunch."

I'd pretty much given up by Friday night. Joanne was leaving for Europe on Sunday. I'd seen her running in and out of the house a few times. It seemed she was always gone someplace. Rhonda and I had a road race on Thursday afternoon and went around the whole country block. A country block is from county road to county road and is a mile on each side. I was exhausted when we got the fourth mile done but Rhonda wanted to race home after that. That was about the time my seat post collapsed and slid down in the socket. Then my handlebars came loose. I got off and walked. My bike was only a few days old and apparently all the bolts and nuts on it needed to be tightened. Rhonda walked with me and she told me the Phillips family had a new dog and when she put the paper in their door the dog started barking and woke everyone up. We had a really good time and I was sad when she took off to ride the two miles back to her house.

Friday, the world revolved around Betts. Well, it usually did in her mind. But this time, we were all focused on getting rid of her. I mean we were focused on helping her prepare for her summer on the road. There were horse shows all over the Midwest and Betts was showing Princess, of course. One of her riding partners in the Arabian horse club was going with her and they were towing the horse trailer with both horses. Dad put a sleeping camper on the back of his pickup and the two girls were headed out for the first show on Saturday morning. There was a lot of fussing and Sally, Betts' friend, was real concerned about her horse in a new barn with our horses, so they were in and out of the barn till after dark before they finally went back in the house. The truck and trailer were parked beside the barn ready to be loaded in the morning.

All the family knew I'd been sleeping in the hayloft, so nobody raised an eyebrow when I walked out the back door in my pajamas. When I was sleeping in my own bed, I'd quit wearing anything. If I wore something to bed I'd just end up kicking it off to make it easier to jack off. I'd been really careful in the barn though. I didn't want a bunch of tissues wadded up in the hayloft or to risk Joanne showing up while I was masturbating. Most of the time I'd waited and in the morning when everyone left for their day I did it in my room. I did have a box of tissues in the hayloft, though. It was full dark out by the time I made my way to the barn and climbed the ladder to the loft.

As soon as I was all the way into the loft, Joanne threw herself into my arms and kissed me. Every part of me exploded with emotions. When our lips parted, I was crying and laughing and gasping for breath. I just wanted to hold her in my arms and never let go. She seemed to be of like mind.

"I didn't think you were going to come back," I sighed.

"I tried. I tried every night this week. I was out the back door and coming around the garage Wednesday night when I saw your mom come to the barn. I was so startled I ran back to my room and covered my head with the blanket for fear she'd seen me." I laughed.

"I almost said something inappropriate when she stuck her head through the loft thinking it was you."

"What would you say that was inappropriate for your mother to hear?"

"Just something like 'Hey, beautiful. I love you.'"

"Well, your mom is beautiful and you love her."

"Not like I love you, Joanne."

"Don't say that, Brian. Please don't say that. I know it and I know it's true and I know I feel the same way, but I can't hear it right now. It would ruin everything."

"Shh." I said as I held her and led her to the sleeping bag and blanket. Our bed. I had a trouble light I'd run to the attic so I could read. I clicked it on and dim light filled the room.

"I changed the bulb," Joanne giggled. "The other one was too bright." I was wearing pajamas, but once the light was on I could see that Joanne was wearing a short little nightie and I could see her panties. Blue and white stripes. And beyond them, just her bare legs. I held her out at arms' length and just looked her up and down. She was still about five inches taller than me. The lightweight nightie clung to her slight curves and I could see a shadow that said her nipples were poking the fabric out. "Do you like the way I look, Brian?"

"You are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen," I said. "Or that I ever hope to see." I pulled her to me and kissed her again as we sank down to the sleeping bag.

"Does that mean you've gotten over Rhonda?" she whispered. I looked into her deep blue eyes.

"I'll never get over Rhonda," I said. "I love her and I think I always will. Maybe one day she'll feel the same way, but I doubt it. Still, that's never stopped me from ... feeling the way I do about you. I wish I was old enough for you to take seriously."

"I do take you seriously, Brian. That's why I'm here. I just know we can't be anything more than friends. Special friends." We kissed some more. It was so delicious and I found that my hand was lightly cupping Joanne's breast and she pushed it into my palm. "You know, you could pretty much make love to any girl you kiss like that," she whispered.

"So far, every girl I've kissed has run away from me and said they don't want to do it again."

"That's because they all know they'll lose their virginity to you."

"And you? You're leaving Sunday, too."

"Me, too. It's a big risk for me to be with you here in this hayloft. Alone. Together. Where no one can see us. Kissing." Her mouth was back on mine and we were lying together hugging each other tightly as I caressed her breast and she ran a hand up under my pajama shirt to stroke my chest. We both had to catch our breath and just lay there holding onto each other. I kept biting my tongue to keep from saying "I love you" over and over again.

"What do you think of me, Brian? Am I just a tease? Am I some kind of slut to come out here in my nightie and kiss you and let you fondle me? Am I selfish to be going off to Paris to model? I'm so confused. And scared." I felt her shake a little and realized she was crying against my shoulder.

"Joanne, don't cry. It hurts so much to see you sad. I don't think you're a tease or a slut or selfish. I'd kill anyone who said so. I think ... I think you are Heaven, Joanne. When those guys beat me up and I was lying on the ground, I thought I was dying. I thought, 'I'm going to die and go to Joanne.' That's what my idea of Heaven is. It's just to be with you. And not just when we're kissing. It's Heaven to be riding the same school bus. To look out my window and see you getting into your car. To have you say 'Hi' and give me a little hip-bump in school. To hear you when you are laughing with your friends. To just know that a few yards away, you are asleep in your bed dreaming and maybe I might flit through one of your dreams. You're Heaven, Joanne."

"How is it when we take off our shirts and hold each other together?" she whispered. It didn't take us long to find out.

Two years of waking up at four-thirty in the morning to deliver papers and then go to bed at eight-thirty at night had influenced my internal clock. Usually, I was too sleepy to stand up by ten. Tonight I was wide awake. If at all possible, I'd stay awake all night just touching Joanne and kissing her. She pulled my head down and my lips found her little nipple. Joanne was a classic model. At sixteen, she was five-nine and maybe one-ten. Her breasts were round and firm, but not huge. She could model stuff without a bra with no trouble. Her nipples were pea-sized and she told me to suck gently and touch them with my tongue. She could hardly stop squirming when I did.