Chapter 13

I crawled into the tub with Nikki, and pulled her in with me. We kissed, and she felt so good in my arms. She pulled back, and said, "I so want to have sex with you, but I can't, because I'm a virgin. I love the idea of it, but I'm just not ready."

"No problem. I do enjoy holding you like this, and kissing as we just did. I also enjoy checking you for stubble. You know that I have other girls that I play with, but I don't have a girlfriend, and right now, I'm not really looking for one."

"I know. I think that's one of the reasons that I'm not ready to take the last step. As long as we're both free and comfortable, we can keep doing what we've been doing. I just don't want to lead you on, or have you thinking that I'm a tease."

"I think you're a lot of things, but definitely not a tease. If you can borrow your parent's car, I'll take you to lunch."

"Although I'm a grade ahead of you, I'm still fifteen for a couple more weeks. I turn sixteen in April on the 10th."

"Well, I can call a cab, or we can wait a few weeks, but I'm proud of the way you held it together this past week. I think that the picture and your body are hot."

"Thanks, let's wait a couple of weeks. Do you want to do some pottery this afternoon or as they say 'throw some clay'?"

"Sounds like fun."

Later in the afternoon, we met. When we were alone she said, "My mom came in to talk to me while I was home."

"And?"

"And, after she closed and locked the door, she told me that Dad sent out a memo telling everyone to drop the hunt for the mystery photographer and the model. I thought it somewhat odd that she'd make a point to stop by just to tell me that. That was until she pulled up her dress, and turned sideways showing me that my protruding mound is genetic."

"Oh?"

"She told me that she liked the picture, but that I was playing with fire. She asked me about being clean-shaven, so I came clean, and told her about some of the swimmers, and then how some of the crew team shaved, as a team spirit thing. I mentioned that the photographer showed me a new way to look at my skinny body, and since then, I now see it as a work of art."

"How did she take that?"

"She asked if I'd been having sex, not as an accusation, but out of concern. I could honestly tell her that I was still a virgin, and that I planned to stay that way, for now. She said that after my birthday it might be a good idea to take me to the doctor, and have him place me on the pill if I suddenly became ready."

"It sounds like she's a good mom."

"She wanted to see me, down there, shaved, bald. I think that she wanted to know what she'd look like. She was shy and nervous to ask, but the way she asked, she was almost begging me. I took off my shorts, underwear, and top. When I was completely naked, I laid down on the bed. She looked at me, and then she ran her hands down my stomach, and on my mound."

"I'm not sure if it was the mound or no hair that intrigued her, but she moved her hand over it a few times. It's difficult to explain how excited I was. There I was, first pinching my nipples, and then letting my legs spread for her. She ran her hand over my labia once, and then dragged her finger in my slit on the way back up. I was ready to cum, but she pulled away. When I looked at her, I could see that she felt ashamed for her actions, and she quickly left the room. You can't imagine how hot I felt, just like the first time I was shaven, and eaten at your place. This was such a mind-blowing event that I had to tell someone, and I trust you to keep my secret."

"I'll think about it often, but will never speak of it to anyone, including you."

"You're a good friend, Nick."

"So are you. You could have turned me in a long time ago."

"We're a team. I tell you what to do, and you do it."

"Isn't that the way friends should work together? Do you want to work on this pottery or should we go to my place, and check to see if you've grown any stubble?"

"I took care of it after Mom left."

"You'll have to show me how you do that sometime."

I didn't receive a response other than a laugh, and we began to throw some clay. I was finally getting better at it. That evening, after dinner, I was working on schoolwork when Julie stopped by, and I asked her if she could take me shopping sometime.

"Any time, but if you want to go tomorrow, you can buy me lunch, as well."

"I think that's a fair trade."

"It's a date. Meet me out front, at eleven."

During the ride, as we drove to Portsmouth, I found her in a cheerful mood. As we strolled through the art galleries and antique stores, she held my hand. As we continued walking, she asked me what I was shopping for, and when I told her, she led me over two streets to another gallery. There, I found something close to what I wanted, but not exactly what I had in my head. I spoke to the person behind the counter, and she went in the back of the store.

Out of the back came a man with an apron on with sawdust in his hair. He was the craftsman that made all the wood sculptures and pieces in the store. After we met, I explained my needs for a jewelry box with four drawers. To offer him a model, I pointed to one that was sitting on a table. It was very pretty with an inlaid design on the top. I pulled out the drawers, and explained that I didn't want the drawer to slide on the bottom of the drawer. Instead, I wanted them raised a bit. When I explained why, he understood what I wanted, and told me that he could have it ready in two weeks.

Julie had just listened to what I said and to why I wanted it that way. She was smiling, was happy for what I was doing, and happy that I allowed her in on the secret. We were walking toward the restaurant that she wanted to eat at when she suddenly stopped, and she pulled me back into a doorway. I thought she wanted a kiss, but instead, she pointed across the street. When I looked, there was Rhonda, (Miss Wilson) and Steve.

"There's Miss Wilson and her boyfriend."

"Why are we hiding?"

"To see what they're going to do."

"Do you think that she'll let him fuck her right in the street?"

"No."

I took Julie's hand, and she stepped out of the doorway. As I called across the street, I waved, and said, "Hey Steve, hi Miss Wilson."

Steve said, "Hey, Nick. What brings you to town?"

"All the students keep giving Miss Wilson a hard time about her mystery boyfriend. So, I decided to spy on you to make sure you were treating her well. This is Julie. She's just a pervert, and she was hoping to snap a spy picture of you doing something more adventurous."

"Out here in the street?"

"Teenage girls; their minds are like a paperback romance novel."

"It's nice to meet you Julie. Rhonda was telling me about the girls in her class, and you can tell them that I'm real."

"It's nice to meet you too, Steve. I see that Miss Wilson has no trouble finding cute guys."

Rhonda said, "Miss Wilson has found this cute guy, so back off."

I said, "We were just going to lunch. Maybe you could join us, and Steve and I could watch your cat fight for entertainment while we eat?"

"We've finished fighting, haven't we Julie?"

"Yes, Miss Wilson."

Steve said, "I think that it's my turn to buy a meal. We'd be happy if you'd joined us."

I quickly accepted.

After we finished lunch, Julie felt as if she was on cloud nine. She was now the keeper of so many new stories and secrets. She said, "You still owe me lunch since Steve bought today. I'll drive you down to pick up the jewelry box for Nikki. But only if you let me buy a piece of jewelry, and put it inside."

"Steve bought you lunch, because you were with me, and not hiding in a doorway. But I'll be happy to buy you lunch when we return to pick up the jewelry box."

When we met with our friends, later that afternoon, Julie mentioned Nikki's birthday and her present. All our friends wanted to place something in her new jewelry box. Adam and Tess both felt bad about their attitude, because they both knew Nikki and me. They both knew that we would ever consider being disrespectful to the school. Wendy and Mika wanted in, as did some others. We agreed to have Nikki over after practice on Friday the 11th.

As normally happens, we had to deal with school over the next few weeks. One day, Julie let slip that she'd met Miss Wilson's boyfriend, and how cute and rugged looking he was. That set off everyone asking questions. This went on until Miss Wilson promised to bring in a picture for her desk.

On the 11th after practice, I had Nikki help me look at my oar, since it felt funny when I'd rowed with it earlier. She and I didn't see anything, but we'd keep an eye on it tomorrow. I asked her to come up to my room so I could give her a little something that I'd picked up for her birthday.

"That's sweet, I thought you forgot, or well, thanks."

We walked in to a yell of "Surprise." There were close to thirty people, and even some people who I didn't expect would be there. Both the gesture and the number of people surprised Nikki. She said that she needed to call her mom to let her know that she'd be late. But Julie said, "Your mom already knows about the party, and that you're staying with me tonight."

We had pizza and sodas, but no pot. There were people there from crew, which included even Brandon, but these weren't people we trusted to keep quiet. We kept my door and Adams' closed and locked. I hope he has a key to his room, because I knew that I didn't. The bathroom was down in the common area, so that wouldn't pose a problem. After we turned the music down, and everyone had enough pizza, cake and ice cream it came time for gifts.

Nikki started to open some cards and some small things that she was thankful and happy to receive. After she'd opened all the gifts, we turned the music back up, and I told her that she would receive my gift later. After a while, some of the friends started to leave, and some stayed. We ended up having to hint that one or two others needed to leave.

When it was down to our core group of friends, we brought out the one gift from all of us. It was a large jewelry box with four drawers, and two side panels, which when opened, swung like doors to reveal hanging pieces. The wood on the box was dark mahogany, and had inlaid on the top with mother of pearl.

She said thank you to each of us, and then she opened the top drawer. Inside was a watch from Bob and Tiffany. After she thanked them, she opened the next drawer and saw a simple gold bangle bracelet from Wendy. The next drawer held a pair of small diamond earrings from Adam, Tess, and Julie. Both the bottom drawer and the door on the left side were empty. The right door held a strand of pearls from Mika.

"Those are Japanese pearls. Women go out, and they dive below to gather the oysters. They pick each one by hand."

"They're so pretty thank you so much."

I said, "Wow. I feel like I didn't buy you much when I had the jewelry box made for you."

"This was made for me?"

I walked over to the wall, and took down a picture of Adam's family that was hanging there. I took out the bottom drawer that was empty, and hung it on the hook. Therein the frame built into the bottom of the drawer was Nikki lying across a piece of granite in the quad. Everyone went nuts. Nikki came to me, and jumped into my arms. It didn't take long for Julie to remove the earrings, bracelet, and watch from the box. She also showed the other three pictures from the set.

Nikki was crying, and everyone was hugging her. I went to squeeze her butt, but found Wendy's hand was already there. Her fingers were rubbing the labia that I loved so much. Bob and Tiffany were the only ones who were out of the loop. So we quickly swore them to secrecy. Tiffany wanted to know if she could model for me some time. Nikki left with Julie, and she spent the night in the dorm. This was her first time feeling the love of friends. She had never experienced this since moving to the 'island' of Emerson Academy with her family.

The next Saturday, we had our first regatta against three other schools. It isn't like grabbing a couple of pads, a soccer ball, and jumping on a bus. We had to trailer all the boats, and oars. It also involved moving the entire team, our tents, food, and drinks. This was a difficult issue, because it included separate weight classes, the numbers of rowers, and our JV or varsity teams.

I was rowing as the 'stroke' in the varsity eights boat. This would be a side-by-side race with all of the boats lined up in the water. We would be racing lanes at the same time to the finish. That doesn't mean it will be a straight run, because there are curves in the river. A 'headrace' is another kind of racing. Each boat starts, one after the other, and they time each boat. The fastest time wins, but with only fifteen to thirty seconds between starts, there's a lot of passing. As you can imagine, it can become extremely exciting.

The first thing Nikki did was to have us warm up a bit. Then she had us test all of our equipment to make sure that everything was ready and working. Then we slowly started our way up-stream. When you row in a competition, they don't drop you off at the starting line. You have to row your way against the current to the starting point. A 2000-meter race is 1.24 miles. So, we had to row a mile and a quarter upstream, so that we could race a mile, and a quarter downstream. The real goal for the team is to reach the start of the race without wearing ourselves out.

Nikki did a great job. We were at the start, and it was a standing start. In other words, we started the race from a stopped position. On the gun we all dug deep to start the boat moving. The stroke was slow, but powerful. When we were up to speed, she started with the cadence that she wanted. I maintained a firm focus on her calls as she gave the directions. When she called stroke, my blade would dig down into the water, then I'd pull hard, and then coast while we reset for the next pull. If our blades entered too early or too slowly then it would slow the boat.

We were doing well, but she had to watch the other boats, the river, our competition, and the team in her boat. It's like blindfolding a driver, and then guiding them by voice commands in a race. Since the rowers are all facing in the wrong direction, it's important to listen to and obey our Cox. If we don't, it's possible that we could wreck the boat. Of course, we would most likely lose the race.

By the halfway point, we were in the lead, but couldn't pull any further away from the second place boat. She wanted them further behind us, and called for a hard twenty. I dug deep, and so did the rest of the team. It felt like we came up out of the water. Coach Becker was riding his bike along the shore watching and cheering.

We came around the last bend in the river to port, and then had five hundred meters or one split to the finish. We were ahead, but to make sure we had a good starting position in future races, we needed to finish this race with a good time. She first gave us a hard ten, and then, when we got close to the end of the race, a hard twenty to finish strong. As we coasted past the finish, half of the guys were lying down on the guy behind them trying to catch their breath. I leaned forward, and whispered to Nikki, "You did great, and no distractions helped."

She reached down, and she gave me the briefest flash of her bald beaver. She then told the lazy bums to prepare themselves to come about and to head for the dock. We took care of the boat, and we placed all the equipment on the trailer. Our official time was 6:03.03 for the win. That was not a bad time for our first race of the year. Next week would be a headrace on the Charles River down in Boston. That meant a moving start, so our goal would be to break six minutes.

Julie's team won as well, and over half of the other races went to our school. The coaches were very pleased, and I stood there, looking at the crowd, amazed at how many parents, students, and faculty had made the time to watch us race. Bob's parents were in from Connecticut, and Brandon's were up from Virginia. Nikki's parents were there, and they were very pleased with her performance.

With all the parents around, it took us a while to leave, because we had to check, and double-check that we had accounted for everyone. It also took us longer to unload since there were fewer rowers available to put the equipment away. When we finished, Julie, Nikki, and I went out, and we shared a pizza. Bob went to dinner with his parents, and he invited Tiffany to join them.

One of the things that we had to learn was how to hit the start at full speed. By doing so, we could finish with our best time. There were two parts to the proper start. First, we didn't want to receive a penalty from the judges if we started too early. The other portion was being fifty feet away from the starting line when the clock started on our run. So, to prepare for our next race, we spent the next week working on our moving starts. It now appeared that we worked well as a team, and the win had seemed to cool the tension between Bob and Brandon.