17: Seven Minutes

I really didn't get it. In fact, I figured I must be abnormal in some way. I'd cried Sunday night out in the hayloft after I'd watched and waved as Joanne left for the airport. In fact, I cried most of the night. In the morning I took Joanne's blanket into the house with me and moved back into my room. Monday morning, Rhonda showed up for breakfast at 6:30 after delivering her papers and I realized how much I loved that crazy girl. But there was nothing sexual about it. I realized the ache I'd felt about wanting to touch and kiss Rhonda was just a normal response of a boy with a girl. When she sat in front of me in the saddle on Gypsy when we went riding that morning, I got hard. But it wasn't because she was my girlfriend or because I loved her. I know she felt it, but it didn't bother her either. I was her friend.

How could I love Rhonda and be so head-over-heels in love with Joanne and still get a hard-on every time I saw a girl in a bathing suit?

Speaking of boners, the girls in 4-H foods were in full summer mode—short-shorts and tank-tops or halters. But it was working next to Miss Sullivan and realizing she was showing some skin I hadn't seen in English class that gave me a rise. Worse yet, she noticed.

"Is that going to be a problem for us working together?" she asked. There was a teasing tone to her voice.

"No, Miss Sullivan. Sorry if it embarrasses you as much as it does me, but it's no problem."

"I think in 4-H you could call me Anne. Mind you, that doesn't apply to when we get back to school in the fall. Fair enough?"

"Sure, Anne. Thanks." And things relaxed after that. Everything. Oh, she was still as pretty as ever and she didn't suddenly start dressing in a less revealing way, but it was just okay. I sometimes got hard, but we both just ignored it. She had me do the next demonstration in Foods. We were going to make fudge and I practiced all week to make sure I could tell when the sugar and cocoa and milk were hot enough to pour and solidify, but not so hot that it got hard. The demo was great until...

"How did you know that it was ready? You didn't use the candy thermometer," one of the girls asked. I don't know what her name was. She had brown hair and dimples. That's all I latched onto.

"It's all just chemistry, Dimples," I said.

"Eww. Chemistry. Yuck!"

"Hey, it's not that bad. You just have to know what kind of a compound you are dealing with. You see we talk about melting the sugar, but really sugar doesn't melt."

"What do you mean? We saw it melt in the pan and the directions in the recipe say to melt it." Damn, the redhead with the big tits. I couldn't call her "Boobs."

"Okay, Red. Here's the thing. I didn't use a thermometer to tell when to pour the fudge out. I dropped little balls in cold water to see how they'd react. Sugar is an organic substance made out of plant sap. So when we heat it, it's more like it decomposes."

"Like a dead body?"

"Yeah, Checkers." She always wore plaid. "Only we control the rate, so it doesn't stink like rotting garbage. The hotter the burner, the higher the temperature before it decomposes. If we use a lower burner, the sugar actually decomposes at a lower temperature. That's why the candy thermometer wasn't consistent for each group. Some of you got impatient and turned up the burner, so the sugar wasn't completely decomposed when it reached 250 degrees and you poured it out, it was still runny. Red's group was really cautious and had the flame turned as low as it would go so they wouldn't burn it. It hardly turned out of the pan when they tried to pour it at 250 degrees. That's why I used the "firm ball" test by dropping some in a pan of cold water and testing it."

"Miss Sullivan, are we going to have to learn chemistry in order to cook?" Shorty asked. Miss Sullivan was just looking at me.

"I've never actually heard it explained that way, but the essence of what Brian said is correct. It's always better to test your candy in water than it is to just go by a candy thermometer. But I've always heard it was just part of being a good cook, not that you had to be a chemist. So I'd say no. You don't have to learn chemistry to cook. But sample this fudge Brian has cooling. I'd say chemistry didn't hurt it any!"

The summer was going well. Rhonda and I were getting together about every two or three days and doing all the things we'd had fun doing outdoors last fall. Brenda had a bunch of kids over on the Fourth of July and we played in the pool then hung around until dark and watched the fireworks at the downtown park. We all wished Rhonda a happy birthday as the next day was her fourteenth. Liz came up to me after the fireworks.

"Hey, you having fun this summer?"

"Yeah. You?"

"Oh, mostly. There doesn't seem to be anyone around to have fun with. Want to come over sometime this week and play games?"

"Sure. That sounds like fun. Any day but Wednesday. That's when I have my 4-H group."

"That's cool. If the weather's decent enough to bike, come over Thursday afternoon about two."

We agreed and Thursday morning Liz called me to make sure I was going to come. It was a beautiful, hot day, so I figured it would be fine to bike over there. Liz promised to have something cold to drink when I got there. It's a good thing because I was kind of sweaty. So was Liz, but that wasn't a problem. I mean it really wasn't a problem. She was barefoot and wearing a pair of short-shorts and a halter top that were about smaller than her two-piece swimsuit. The top was damp from her sweat and clung to the exact shape of her small breasts and outlined her nipples like two targets on her chest. We played tetherball in her back yard for about half an hour and it just got too hot. We were dripping.

"Let's go inside. We've got air conditioning and it's cooler in there." Crap, why'd she wait so long? She reached in the refrigerator to get us a couple of sodas while I fanned my shirt back and forth in the cold air to cool off. When she turned around, I had a sudden appreciation for the air conditioning and for having been outside. Her halter was soaking wet, like my t-shirt. But in the cold air, her nipples had come to full attention inside the nearly transparent top. She handed me my drink and then stood facing me as she rubbed hers over her neck and down into her ... well, what passed for cleavage. Liz wasn't as stacked as, say, Brenda or Rose, but she sure had nice small round tits with hard little points on them. I took a drink before I realized I'd been staring. Like unblinkingly. Liz grinned at me.

"I know what we can play." She turned and got something out of the kitchen drawer. "Follow me." Hell yes! Her shorts were clinging to her butt and right up into her crack the same as her shirt was to her breasts. I could actually see the outline of her pussy as I followed her up the stairs and into her room.

"What are we going to play?" I asked as I looked around her room. I didn't think of Liz as a girly-girl, though she was certainly cute. She had a bunch of stuffed animals. I heard a bunch of clicks and turned around to see her winding a kitchen timer.

"I was thinking we could play seven minutes in heaven. Since there's nobody else around, we can just do it in my room and not have to get in a closet or anything."

"Um ... are you sure this is a good idea, Liz?" She scuffed at the carpet with her toes and I thought for a minute that she might cry. Then I'd be done for.

"Brian," she said in a very small voice. "I want a kiss like the one you gave Rose at the Lake last fall. Like the one you gave Rhonda in the closet. I keep thinking about it and I can't help it. I get so antsy I can hardly stand it."

"It's still kind of dangerous to start kissing alone in your room, Liz."

"Yeah. That's why I figure if we set the timer for seven minutes, we can't really get any further. And if we want, we can set it again. As often as we want." Oh, man! Did I want to kiss Liz? Hell, yes. But just knowing what I did with Joanne a few weeks ago, this could get out of hand real fast.

"Okay."

"You will?"

"Yes, but we've got to set up some rules. First, we don't try to rush. We don't need to try everything in the first seven minutes."

"Agreed."

"Second, when the timer rings, we set it for seven more minutes and don't touch each other or kiss until it rings and we set it for our seven minutes in heaven."

"Why?"

"Because ... we'll call it a cooling-off period. So we don't just keep setting the timer for seven more minutes and keep going. Seven on and seven off."

"I see. It makes sense, but it's going to be hard."

"No kidding," I said. She giggled.

"So how will we start?"

"We just take it slow and maybe kiss a little. That way we'll see if we really want to go any further. We might discover that we aren't that interested in each other after the first time and go out and play tether ball some more."

"Yeah, right. I'll set the timer. You ready?" I nodded. She wound the timer and showed me seven minutes then let it go. When it came to the moment of truth, all we did was stand and stare at each other for a minute. It's really different when you are looking at someone waiting than, say, when you are in a dark closet together. Finally, I stepped up to Liz and just hugged her. She put her arms around me and relaxed. I figure for all I said she still thought I'd attack her when I had the green light.

"This is nice," I said. "You know I always have liked you but I never figured out why you didn't want one of my loops."

"I sort of had a boyfriend at church. Well, not that I knew anything about having a boyfriend. We said we were, you know? You've gotten taller."

"Yeah. I'm still growing. Mom says she thinks this is my real growth spurt and I'll probably come out normal."

"Will you still be our pet?"

"As long as you want," I said. I lifted my lips and kissed her softly. We just stayed that way for a minute and moved our lips against each other. I could feel both of us opening a little and I ran my hand up her back. I let my tongue come out just a little and found hers approaching. We just touched our tongues and the damn timer rang!

"Already? There must be something wrong with this timer. That can't have been seven minutes." She squeezed me and started to kiss me again, but I pulled away.

"We'd better test the timer and make sure," I said. I wound it and showed her seven minutes and then looked at my watch. "Okay. No touching now. Ready, go." I set the timer down and Liz sat on her bed. She had a chair by her desk so I sat there. We stared at each other for a minute.

"Is it about done yet?" she asked.

"Um ... there's six minutes to go."

"That can't be. It was like almost over by now when we were, you know, kissing."

"Einstein said that's what the theory of relativity was."

"Everybody knows E equals MC squared."

"Yeah, but he said a minute with your hand on a hot stove seems like an hour. An hour holding hands with a beautiful woman seems like a minute. It's all relative."

"He didn't really say that, did he?" Liz laughed.

"Something like that. I probably didn't get it exact."

"I was just getting warmed up. It was really sweet."

"I liked it a lot."

"Where'd you learn to kiss?"

"Um..." I was not going to tell her. "I, uh ... guess it just comes naturally. I suppose everyone does it about the same."

"No way. How much time is left?"

"Two minutes."

"I'm getting impatient. Talking about kissing makes me want to do it. This is taking forever."

"Next time we should think of something to do to make the time go faster."

"You mean like holding hands?"

"Can't do that. No touching."

"Oh, hell."

The timer rang and Liz rushed me.

"Wait, wait, wait!" I said. "Go sit back down. The timer and my watch were the same. Seven minutes. Now let me set it again and I'll sit beside you." She sat on the bed again and scooted back onto it to give me room to get beside her. I set the timer and I slipped up beside her. She moved in for a kiss and I dodged her. Instead, I took her hand. "Did you know that it's more intimate for a boy to hold a girl's hand than to put his arm around her?" She just looked at me with her eyebrows raised. "When we hold each other's hand we're both participating and put skin on skin with all those nerve endings. If I put my arm around your shoulder, it's just me pulling you. Besides, I like your hands," I said. I lifted her fingers to my lips and began kissing them. I turned her hand over and kissed the center of her palm. She moaned a little. Finally, I looked into her eyes and moved in for a kiss. Our eyes drifted closed just before our lips touched.