32: Consequences

What just happened to me? I was sitting on the floor with two cute girls curled up on either side of me, savoring the kisses and wishing this night would never end. All of a sudden I'm standing by the stairs dancing from foot to foot like I have to pee and wishing everyone would hurry up and leave so I can go home. I hoped it wasn't too obvious. I looked at each person as he or she made their way to the stairs and could honestly say 'I love you' about every one of them.

But Joanne was waiting.

For once, the parents were cooperating. I think they only held out till midnight to give us the chance to greet the New Year with each other. Now they were ready to get home and to bed. We swept through the basement with garbage bags and brooms and a vacuum. In ten minutes we had it looking like a kindergarten classroom again and we all headed upstairs to our parents. There was a lot of hugging and a few kisses as we were on our way out, but for the most part we looked like any group of friends saying goodnight after a party.

"We'll see you tomorrow afternoon," Rhonda said. "The James and Pratt families aren't planning to leave until mid-afternoon and your Mom invited us over for a late lunch before they take off. Um ... let me know if you need extra sleep and I'll keep the Kokomo girls from disturbing you too much." I looked at her and she winked at me. "Have fun." Rhonda knew. And in her typical playful way, she had just told me it was okay to see Joanne tonight.

If leaving the party took forever, waiting for the parents and Anna Pratt to get settled when we got home was agony. As soon as they were in their rooms, I grabbed my sleeping bag and Joanne's blanket and crept out the back door. Shit, it was cold! I still had jeans and a sweatshirt on, but I hadn't bothered putting on my jacket. The wind cut through me like ice. I got to the barn and tossed my bag ahead of me into the hayloft. At least having horses below me generated enough heat that it was above freezing—and fragrant—but it was still cold. I crawled into the loft.

I was met by an angel. Joanne was in my arms before I could whisper her name and our lips met like we had never kissed anyone else.

"Oh, Brian, I love you!" she whispered in my ear.

"Joanne, my Heaven, I love you, too. God! I've missed you. I've missed you and wanted you for six months." I'd have said more, but her lips were on mine again and words didn't seem to be necessary.

When we finally pulled away from each other she shivered and said, "Cold." We quickly spread the sleeping bag and blanket out and kicked off our shoes. "It's been so hard and I've missed you so much," she said as we settled back into the nest. I pulled my sweatshirt off when she took off her jacket. We soon had the nest warmed up with our body heat as she told me between kisses where she had traveled and what life was like on the road.

"But now you are back," I said. I kissed her deeply again.

"Too hot, now," she whispered. I suppose we could have tossed off the blanket, but our solution was to remove our clothes. I was down to my briefs and Joanne crushed her beautiful bare breasts against my chest. I stroked her soft skin and tried to memorize every detail of what she felt like. I dipped to suck her nipples and flick them with my tongue. I wanted to kiss her all over and she was doing her best to kiss me.

"You are so beautiful. So perfect," I whispered. "So much my Heaven."

"Make love to me, Brian," she answered. "You were right. I've regretted not making love with you since the day I left. Be my first, love. I went on the pill and I want to feel you inside me." My hand slid down her body and I found no clothing in the way. She turned to her back as my hand caressed her naked bottom and found its way to the front. Her legs parted and I dipped my fingers into her hot wet folds—the same pussy entrance she'd let me enter and break her hymen with my fingers. I dragged my fingers up across her clitoris and she shuddered with an orgasm.

And something broke in my head.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't get air into my lungs. I rolled to my back and tears flew from my eyes and I heard a deep long wail come from my throat.

"I can't."

Joanne gasped and clutched at me.

"Brian, Brian. What? I want you so much."

"I have girlfriends."

"Oh. Your dating group? That's okay. I won't keep you from them. Donna told me about it. It's a great idea. I won't come between you. I just want to make love to you."

"I signed an agreement. I can't be unfaithful to them."

"What kind of agreement?"

"We promised no skin-to-skin genital contact."

"But I'm not in the group, Brian. Please."

"That's just it. Making love to you would break my promise to them. Oh, my darling. Tomorrow I'll call them all and break up with them. Then we can be together. But I can't do it while my name is on the agreement. I can't. I can't." I was crying harder than when Joanne left me last spring. When Rhonda had just broken up with me. I was frantic and holding Joanne to me as I wept. She didn't try to push away; she just cried with me. My beautiful naked Heaven was lying in my arms and I couldn't make love to her.

"I'm so selfish," she sobbed against me. "Please forgive me, my love. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I didn't make love to you in June. I was so selfish, thinking I was all grown up and mature. I'm sorry I never dated you or let us be seen in public together. It was my selfish protection of my image. I couldn't be seen with a junior high kid. And then tonight. I didn't even consider your feelings. I just came back determined to get what I'd left behind. Oh god, Brian, I'm so sorry."

"I love you, Joanne. I love you more than all the world. I forgive you. Tomorrow I'll break up with the group and then we can always be together." She started crying harder and shaking her head.

"No," she croaked. "No. You can't. I ... I'm leaving again tomorrow. I only had one night to come home and visit my dad while he and Mom ... sign their separation papers. I'm headed for a photo shoot in South Africa. Brian. Oh, god. I'm not coming back. I'm so selfish."

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. She has to come back. She's only sixteen. Her parents are separating? Like divorce?

"No, no, no, no. You have to come back," I wailed. "Don't leave me, Joanne. Please, don't leave me again."

She held onto me. I held her like a drowning man clutching at a straw for safety. I'd make love to her. Then she'd have to stay. I'd call the group and break up with them afterward. I couldn't let her go. I couldn't. Joanne grabbed for her panties and pulled them on as I was reaching for her pussy.

"No. We have to settle down and talk. I created this mess. I have to help you. Don't break your promise, Brian. You are right. I was wrong and stupid. You'd be throwing away your friends for nothing. I can't be responsible for that. But, oh, my love, now that we are both covered will you just hold me? Just hold me and tell me you love me and I'll take those words with me to cherish all my life."

We held each other all through what remained of the night. The sun came up and in the early morning light I looked at her beautiful honey-blonde hair, her soft lips, her cute nose. I kissed her brow softly and she stirred in my arms.

I was cried out. Well, for now. I knew that when she was gone the tears would start again, but now, I could only look at the precious treasure in my arms. She stirred and pushed the blanket down. I watched her perfect nipples harden in the cool air as her blue eyes fluttered open and gazed at me.

"I love you, darling," she said. I snapped my eyes away from her breasts. "No. Look at them, Brian. I want you to look at me. I want to see the love in your eyes as you look at my breasts. At all of me." She pushed the blanket all the way off and reached for her panties.

"Joanne..."

"Just look. I want you to see all of me. I want to remember you looking at me like no other man ever has. I want you to see every inch of my body and know that every part of me will always live with my regret." She stood in front of me and slowly turned so I could see her from every side. The slope of her shoulders, her long hair streaming down the perfect curve of her back to the precious heart of her bottom. I could see her swollen pussy lips, still dripping honey even after our long night of abstinence. Her flat tummy and the little indentation of her navel that once had my sperm splattered on it. The curve of her breasts and the perfect, tiny nipples that crowned them. Her long elegant throat and the regal head above it. She slowly pulled her panties on again, then her simple blue dress. I hadn't even seen it in the darkness the night before. It wasn't the same dress she wore six years ago, of course. That one wouldn't have covered the butt of the tall elegant woman standing in front of me. She slipped her shoes on and reached for her jacket.

"Photographers are offering hundreds—even thousands—of dollars to photograph what you've seen. But I don't plan to do nude poses for anyone. I'm a fashion model. You might see me in a provocative pose, or even topless. But you won't see me exposed. I'll be seventeen in April. By the time I'm twenty-five, my career will probably be over. I'll have devoted a third of my life to regretting my choices. I love you, Brian. I always will."

She turned and went down the ladder out of the loft. Tears kept trickling out of my eyes, but I wasn't weeping. I was wondering how many years I would spend regretting.

I was still brushing the horses when I heard the crunch of tires on cinders and the sound of a car leaving.

I guessed I'd better go in and face the music. By this hour, there was no way Mom and Dad wouldn't know I wasn't in bed.

"Oh, there you are!" Mom said. "You spent a long time out with the horses this morning. Here we were all thinking you'd be up to make the grown-ups breakfast this morning."

"Sorry. I ... uh ... had a lot to think about. I didn't realize how late it was."

"No problem, honeybunch. You can help with lunch. I don't know if you'll have three or four girlfriends here with their parents. What do you suppose you can whip up?"

"Let me get some bread mixed up and rising," I said.

"My god! He makes bread, too?" Anna said from the kitchen door. "How about coffee? Did he make that?" I walked over to Jennifer's mom and gave her a great big hug. It surprised her. I'd never done that before. "Oh my! You smell like a barn," she laughed, hugging me right back.

"Like a horse," I corrected her. I grabbed a quick shower and got bread rising before we had breakfast.

I was hurt. I was shocked. I was sad. I was angry. I'd cried into Gypsy's and Princess' manes as I brushed them, stroke after stroke until they shone. I asked them if they'd heard everything last night and what they thought. I'd complained that it wasn't fair. I hated what my own stupid agreement had done. I hated what Joanne had done. Coming to make love to me when she knew she was leaving the next morning? How could she do that? How could she just leave me again?

I really punched the bread down when it rose. How stupid could I be? Pass up the opportunity to make love to the girl I've adored for years because I put my name on a stupid piece of paper? I could just see Carl turning down Heaven and he hardly knew her. 'Agreement? What agreement? Oh. I forgot.' But not me. I have to go and drag it up right when I've got my finger in her pussy. I'm a hopeless dork.

I miss you already, Heaven. Why did you ever leave me? Why didn't you tell me you were coming home? Why did you ever say you loved me?

The Gordon and James cars pulled into our drive just as the bread came out of the oven. I put plates of sliced ham and turkey leftovers on the table with a kettle of vegetable soup—mostly vegetables I'd canned in September. It was hot and spicy.

The girls came running into the kitchen and started to rush me with their arms held out. Even Donna was in line for a hug when I held up my hands and shook my head.

"Lunch is on the table. Let's eat first," I said. They looked at me like I'd grown another head, but turned and went into the dining room. I looked out the kitchen window and saw a car I didn't recognize pull in. For just a moment, I thought Joanne had changed her mind and come back, but the car stopped behind the Gordons' and Betts got out of the passenger side. A tall guy got out the driver's side and Betts ran to him and kissed him. He put his arms around her and swung her in a circle. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. My big sister was in love.

I grabbed two more place settings and took them to the table. Everyone was finding places to sit as I began shuffling things around a little.

"Do you have more friends arriving, Brian?" Mom asked.

"No, Mom. Betts just got here. We need to make a little extra room."