25: Horses

Denise and her dad pulled into my drive at noon. I had lunch ready. I was a little nervous. I was determined to have all my girlfriends and at least some of their parents over for a meal and to meet my parents. My folks were on-board and encouraged me.

"I think it's a wonderful idea to meet your friends and their parents. Dad and I haven't met a lot of new people since elementary school PTA meetings."

I answered the door and Mr. Raymond stood between me and Denise. I had a feeling he was just a mite protective of her.

"Hi, Mr. Raymond. Hi, Denise. Please come in and meet my parents. I have lunch just about ready." They followed me to the living room and I introduced them to my parents. As soon as the intros were done, Denise followed me to the kitchen.

"Scared?" she asked.

"No. Well. Maybe a little. Your dad is pretty intimidating. I've only met him once before."

"Well, he was impressed that neither of you white boys flinched at riding in the back of his car."

"Are you kidding? That's a luxury ride. The four of us weren't even crowded. How's he feel about you dating one white boy one week and another the next?"

"Well, you scored points by inviting him to lunch and to meet your parents. I ... uh ... had to show him the agreement."

"That's okay. My mom and dad have read it, too. With all the signatures. What did he think?"

"He was puzzled, but he really liked the 'no penetration' clause."

"Man. Parents really zero in on that one, don't they? You'd think that we are all just waiting for an opportunity to jump each other." I laughed as I poured the soup. It was almost too cold for the gazpacho, but Denise had requested it specifically. I noticed that she wasn't laughing with me.

"Maybe I was," she said softly. "Until Lionel invited me to our table and I met everybody, I was playing with some pretty dangerous characters. Our neighborhood isn't as nice as living out here in the country. It can get pretty rough and if you don't give back as good as you get, they start thinking you are prey. It got pretty tense at the end of this summer and Dad beat the crap out of a neighborhood tough who had his hands on me."

"Damn, Denise. That's a crappy thing to happen. I'm sorry. I'm glad your dad was there to help."

"Yeah. Well, the thing was, I'd have probably gone with him just to prove I was able to play with the big guys. I'd probably be pregnant by now and just be a gang bitch."

I didn't know what to say. No wonder Mr. Raymond was protective. Denise was about the same height as me and had a slender build. She was definitely mature, but didn't have the super stacks that Sugar, Brenda, and Rose had. Even in her tight blue jeans, though, she had an incredible round butt. We called everyone to the table. Because there were five of us, I served lunch at the dining room table, but just with placemats and paper napkins. We had the soup, a big chef salad, and of course, fresh bread.

"Denise told me you were an award-winning cook, Brian. I didn't quite believe her until I tasted this. Is that your plan for the future? You're not thinking of turning burgers for a living, are you?" He laughed, but I think he wasn't sure that cooking was an appropriate activity for a boy.

"I love to cook, but my goal is to become a chemist."

"Excuse my ignorance, but what does a chemist actually do?"

"Well, there are several fields that are open. The pharmaceutical industry is pretty much run by chemists. That's drug manufacturing, like for everything from aspirin to penicillin. The oil industry employs hundreds of chemists for everything from making new products from oil, like plastics, to better blends of gasoline to power big cars like your Cadillac. There are even chemists working in places like cosmetics and perfume. There's a ton of possibilities. I just know I like chemistry and want to do something in that field." He nodded his head.

"Before you take my daughter off on a horse and into the woods, I have to ask one other question," he said. My dad nodded to him when he looked his way. "Do you take this agreement that you all signed seriously? It's pretty hard to believe that a bunch of kids would put this together and not be using it as a way to fool the parents or just take advantage of someone."

"Mr. Raymond," I said, looking him squarely in the eye, "I wrote this agreement so that my friends and I could feel safe when we were out. We're mostly fourteen and fifteen years old and most of us are freshmen. There's a lot of pressure to be older than we are. We've all got a lot of curiosity—there's no question about that—but we also know we aren't ready to make commitments for the rest of our lives. Having one of my girlfriends end up pregnant, or feeling like I had to drop out of school to support a family would be devastating. We're handling our raging hormones the best we can."

He looked me in the eye for a long while.

"Well, I have an appointment in a little while and I need to get going. I expect a full report on this horse-riding date you have today. I don't think there's anyone in our family who has ever been on a horse. I'll see you at six, is that clear?"

"Yes, Daddy."

"Don't worry, Jack," Dad said. "We'll have her home on time. Thanks for coming to have lunch with us."

"Oh my god! It's big!" She'd no more than said it than we both started giggling.

"You're a girlfriend every guy is going to want," I laughed. "It's a she and she's only about fourteen-two."

"What's that mean?"

"Horses are measured in hands, roughly the distance across the palm. The measurement has been standardized so that each hand is four inches. So Gypsy stands fourteen hands plus two inches. That's fifty-eight inches. Princess is about two inches taller at fifteen hands."

"She looks taller than five feet."

"That's because you are looking up at her head and she's a proud girl. Arabians naturally hold their heads high, unlike quarter horses or thoroughbreds. A horse's height is measured at the withers or shoulder. Look. You can see right across her."

"She's such a pretty white."

"Gypsy is perfect for you and me."

"Why?"

"Well her hair is white or really kind of gray, so she's light, right? But look here. Her skin is black. She's a desert horse."

"Black and white, like you and me. Can I touch her?"

"She's been waiting for you to. Here's a brush. They like to go out and roll in the dust or even sometimes in the mud. It helps keep them cool in warm weather. You don't want to toss a blanket and saddle on a dirty horse. They could get sores if it rubbed funny. So they get brushed and combed before we saddle. They love the attention. It's pretty soothing for people, too."

"She's so soft."

"Another way she's like you," I laughed.

"You don't really know that yet," Denise pouted. "I don't know if I'll let you find out."

"Well, if you are okay with just sitting on her back while I lead her around, I don't need to touch you at all today. But if you want to ride with me, we'll have to have permission to put our arms around each other."

"We ride hugging?"

"No. If you are behind me, you hug me. If I'm behind you, I have to put my arms around you in order to use the reins. Either way, we'll be squashed right together."

"Sounds good to me. I was still afraid you wouldn't want to actually touch me."

"Denise," I said, putting my brush and comb down. She turned toward me. "May I put my arms around you and kiss you? I want to show you how much I want to touch you." She caught her breath and dropped her hands to her side looking me in the eye. When she nodded, I put my arms around her and slowly brought our lips together. Her lips were full and soft. I kept my tongue in my mouth. This wasn't about making out. This was about affirming that she was my girlfriend as much as any of the others. "Now do you know that I don't have any hang-ups about our race difference?"

"Sorry, Brian. I think I was blaming you for my hang-ups. That was ... nice. What do we do now?"

"Now we saddle up and ride."

I did lead Gypsy around while Denise rode on her. I couldn't just let her ride because the little tennis shoes she was wearing would have slipped right through the stirrups and that could be a disaster, even with a gentle horse like Gypsy. After we'd ridden around the corral for a while, though, with Princess prancing around beside us, I mounted behind Denise and we headed for the woods. We rode the whole distance to the end of our country mile and then wound around through the trees coming back. I gave Gypsy a break when we found a particularly lush area of grass and Denise and I walked together holding hands.

We really lived in different worlds. My dad worked for an engineering company and Mom worked at the newspaper. Denise's dad was the president of the United Auto Workers local at the factory and had been a laborer all his life. His only luxury was that black Cadillac and I was surprised to find it was nearly as old as Denise. Her mom had run off when Denise was little and had never been heard from again. It was sad, but also obvious that she idolized her father. Her neighborhood was rough and there were often fights among the toughs. Girls were expected to choose their man early and many were pregnant by the time they were our age.

"Don't be offended, Brian, but my dad might have higher expectations for us than either of us do. When he sees me with a black boy, like Lionel a couple weeks ago, it's like he has his hand on his gun the whole time. I saw how he treated you today and the way he looked at your parents. He's probably thinking that his daughter could get a big boost in life and escape our neighborhood if she was with this nice white boy who is going to make drugs."

"I don't think I'm going to make drugs."

"He'd rather I was with someone who made them than someone who used them."

"But Denise, what are your expectations?"

"I signed the agreement. I expect that we're probably going to go out some more this year, maybe alone and maybe with others. I plan to go out with Lionel again because I really like him, but Dougie was funny and made me laugh a lot."

"When did he get the name Dougie?"

"Oh. Maybe when I asked him out last week. I haven't asked Carl out because I haven't found a cute name for him yet. I will, though. I might go out with Jackson, too, but only if he'll abide by the rules. I like him, but he's from the same neighborhood that I am and that can distort your sense of what's real."

"Well, you'd better work on a name for Carl in a hurry. And don't make plans with anyone for after the game next weekend."

"Mmm. Thanks for the tip. Can we ride some more?" We mounted and Denise settled back against me and pulled my hand to her stomach where she held it with both of hers while I guided Gypsy with the other hand. The feel of her soft round bottom bouncing up and down in front of me had predictable results. Instead of pulling away, she wiggled up closer to get more contact. As we rode into the corral, her hand snaked around between us and grasped my cock.

"Hey," I said. "I didn't give you permission to do that." She snatched her hand back.

"You don't want a black girl, do you?"

"Has nothing to do with what I want. It's all about the agreement." I slid out of the saddle and reached up to lift her down. She fell against me and hung on tightly.

"I'm sorry, Brian. I've really got to work at some of these things. Any boy I know outside our dating group would expect that if they got hard rubbing up against my butt, I'd give them some relief. I just assumed you'd want the same."

"I do, but I don't think it's a very good idea for us right now."

"I just want to know if white guys are different than black guys. I'll show you my black pussy if you want. That would be a first for both of us. I've never shown anyone."

"Denise, I wouldn't normally say this to anyone, in fact, I never have, but this is special and I'm sure she'd forgive me. The first pussy I ever saw was black."

"Sugar?"

"No. Long before I even met you guys. A girl at science camp convinced me that we should show each other. It was the first time I ever came."

"You fucked her?"

"No. We just watched each other. We were going to get together the next year when she said she'd be on the pill and try it, but I didn't get to go to camp that summer."

"So you still want to feel what it's like with a black girl?"

"One day, when we've removed the penetration clause. I hope you are still my girlfriend."

"Kiss me?"

I did and it was long and sweet and did absolutely nothing to make my cock go down.

Denise's neighborhood was scary. It just looked crowded and poor and a little dirty. Mom and Dad pulled up in front of a little house that was only about ten feet back from the sidewalk. There were six or eight kids sitting on the hood of a car smoking in front of the next house. Most of them were black guys, but there were two white girls with them. One of them had her breast out so a baby could suck it while she took drags from a cigarette one of the guys held for her.

I got out and held the door for Denise.

"'Bye, Mr. and Mrs. Frost. 'Bye, Brian." She turned to walk to her door and it took a second before she realized I was walking with her. "What are you doing?" she asked with a panicked tone in her voice.

"Walking my girlfriend to her door," I said.

"What you doing here, whitey?" the guy with the cigarette said. "You're poaching our women." I looked at him and he'd pushed himself off the hood. He didn't look too stable. I've got to learn to control my temper.

"Sorry, man. But you can't expect to have the easy white girls and the classy black women, too."

"The fuck you say?" He took a couple unsteady steps toward us and I could tell smoking wasn't all he'd been doing. The door opened in front of us and Mr. Raymond stepped out. I saw there was a baseball bat in his hand where the guys couldn't see it.

"You've got guts," he said under his breath. "Sounds like this young man nailed it, doesn't it, Hawk? You made your choice; now go raise your baby."

"Aw, hell." He turned his back on us and his whole gang moved further down the street.