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ZACH and CHRISTA NAKED in SCHOOL
Thursday



Th.1

 

As could probably be expected, my mom was waiting for me when I came down to breakfast.  What was surprising was my father—he was there too.  He has pretty bad commutes, so normally he's gone by now.

"Christa," they said.  "Good morning."

"Hi Mom, hi Dad," I said.

"We'd like to speak to you," Mom said.

I shrugged, reaching for the cereal.  "I'm here."

They sat down across from me, composing themselves.  Finally my mother spoke.  "Young lady, what time did you get home last night?"

"That's how you're going to start?  That's..."  I couldn't help myself—I started laughing.  Oh my God!  Of all the things they could've picked, they start with...!  "Mark magically changes into Zach and you don't bat an eyelash, but I get home an hour and a half late and you—!"

"It seemed as good a place to start as any," my father said.  "We wondered about that other, too, but I imagine they're related."

"Heehee.  That's a... that's a good point."  I wiped at my eyes.  "Okay.  I'm calm.  It's not that funny."

All right.  What time did I get home last night?  Why did I get home that late?  Well...

"Okay," I said.  "Mom, you remember we talked about what my friends said to me, about not clinging to my dreams."

"I don't," my father said immediately.

"They told her not to let her fantasies blind her to reality," my mother supplied.

My father nodded.  "Wise words.  Life is hard enough sometimes without lying to ourselves."

"Well...  I didn't remember their advice," I said.

There was a bit of a silence.

"Which means," my father finally prompted.

"I didn't see who he really was because I was too focused on who I thought he was," I said.

"Who?" my mother asked.  "Which 'he'?"

At first I was about to answer, Mark, of course, because, I mean, who else?  But then it occurred to me just how much my mental picture of Zach had changed over the last few days.  How much of him I knew now, that I hadn't before.

"...Well...  Both, actually," I said.  "Neither of them were who I thought they were."

"Christa," my father said, gently chiding.  "Haven't we always told you not to judge a book by its cover?"

I shrugged helplessly.  "Some covers are really convincing."

"That's true," my father said.

"So, what did you find when you opened the book," my mother said.

I sighed.  "Not what I expected."

"In more detail than that," my father said.

"Well..."  I thought about it.  "Well, I think the real question is, what did I see that I didn't ignore."

"And what did you see," my father said.

"Not much," I said.  "I just...  Only saw what I wanted to."

My parents were silent.

"Like...  I mean, the biggest warning was probably when Mark refused to take me home.  We got to The Lighthouse at about nine-thirty and if I wanted to be home by ten, it meant we had to leave really soon.  And I told him that.  And he said, you know, 'Sure, that's fine, just let me talk to my friends for a minute.'  And before I realized it that minute had turned into an hour, and we were still there.  I should've called home for a ride.  I should've called home."

"Well, next time you'll remember to," my mother said.

"And how does Zach fit into this?" my father asked.

"Well, the thing about The Lighthouse is, evidently, that's where the basketball team goes.  At about ten, ten-fifteen the whole team poured in.  And Zach and a couple of his friends came up and talked to Mark and his friends for a while.  Then we went home."

"But not directly," my father said, doing the math in his head, "unless you didn't leave The Lighthouse until about eleven-ten."

"Yeah," I said.  "Yeah."  I blew out breath in a huff.  This was going to be the hard part.  How, exactly, does a girl explain this to her parents?  To anyone?

"Does it have anything to do with you being naked when you came home," my mother asked, unknowingly hitting the nail directly on the head.

I sighed again.

Okay.

"Mark...  I don't know the whole story, but the whole night, he was very interested in my clothing.  Most specifically, about how it remained on my body.  He managed to get me to go into The Lighthouse naked—I don't know how he did it."

"Did he, ah, promise rewards of a certain nature," my mother asked.

"No, actually, he didn't touch me all night," I said, my brow furrowing.  "Even when I was naked.  I wonder why."

"Did you touch him," my father said.

"No."  I shook my head.  "Hardly.  He was always so...  So distant, so standoffish.  He didn't smile once.  I just assumed he wanted the distance."

"Or you did, without realizing it," my father said.

"Maybe," I said.  My dad's a big believer in Freud's theory of the subconscious.  I'm not so sure about it.  If all my mistakes are intentional, then my subconscious must hate me.

"So, he took you out into the parking lot," my mother prompted.

"...And, he...  Wanted more," I said.

My parents blinked at me.

"More...  More what," my father asked.

"More...  I don't know," I said.  "Something physical, presumably, because he doesn't strike me as the emotional type anymore...  Honestly, he didn't say.  But it was clear he didn't intend to take me home, not until he'd gotten whatever he wanted—he wouldn't even unlock his car.  And, I...  Wasn't interested."

My parents said nothing.

"I was wearing my whistle," I said, "and—"

"Whistle?" my father said.

"Oh."  I guess he hadn't heard.  "On Monday Dr. Zelvetti gave us all whistles.  Everyone who's in The Program.  She said there's a new policy on campus that no one can use whistles, because the ones she gave us are in case of trouble.  If something goes wrong, we blow.  And if anyone ever hears a whistle blow, it means trouble."

"And you were wearing yours," my mother said.

"Incredible foresight," my father said.  I could tell he was thinking about the subconscious again.

I shrugged, feeling uncomfortable.  "I just...  Thought it would be a good idea.  I mean, I'd be in public on school grounds, I might as well wear it, just to look, you know, safety-conscious or whatever."

My parents nodded.  That's a creepy thought—I mean, what if your unconscious is also responsible for all your successes?  More to the point, what if you aren't?  We're just puppets of the rest of our brains, right?  That's not a fun thought.

"I blew the whistle," I said.  "And Mark...  Well, he was coming towards me, and he was reaching for the whistle like he was gonna take it away from me.  So I slapped him."

I noticed the slight traces of smile, quickly hidden, that flickered across my parents's faces.

"And then I guess Zach heard, because next thing you know...  There he was."  I shrugged.  "Him and Derek and that other kid.  I don't know his name.  Gabriel?  Anyway, they definitely outnumbered Mark Spencer, so he went home."

"And they let him," my mother said, incredulous.

"Well, he hadn't actually laid hands on me," I said.  "And I guess Zach didn't want any trouble.  The only person who actually got injured was Mark himself, when I slapped him."

My parents nodded.

"And after that..."

And after that, I found out that my dreams can be both perfectly right and perfectly wrong, all at the same time.

"After that, Zach helped me put myself back together, and he drove me home."

"Why were you naked?" my mother asked.

"Oh.  Because my clothes were in Mark's car and he didn't give them back."

This time my father wasn't able to squelch his smile.  "All that worrying," he said to Mom, "and it's all because of a locked door."

"Nobody did anything to you?" my mother asked.

"Nobody did anything to me," I confirmed.  "Everything that happened to me last night, I did to myself."

"Including your timely rescue by Zach," my father asked.

Well, considering how he has a crush on me...  But I wasn't exactly going to reveal that at the moment.  "Well, okay, that wasn't me, but it wasn't exactly to me either.  He would've done that for anybody, I think."

My father shrugged.  It was hardly a critical distinction to begin with.

"So, that's the whole story?" my mother said.

"That's...  The whole story," I said.

"Hell of a first date," my father said.

"It could've gone worse," I said.

"It could've gone better," my mother said.

"Mom, I can't go through life expecting perfection," I said.  "There'll be other dates.  I'm just glad I got through okay."

"Yes, under the circumstances, that's probably worth celebrating," my father said.

"All right, well," said my mother, standing up.  "I'm glad we had this talk."

She walked around the table and drew me up for a hug, and suddenly I saw the tears in her eyes.

"And I'm glad you're safe," she whispered.

I hugged her back as hard as I could.

 

 

 

 

Th.2

 

That morning, I had only two concerns on my mind: Derek, and Christa.  And with that in mind, I was kinda glad nobody pays me any attention when I do the strip-down thing up at the front at the school.  I was out of my clothes and on the trail in about a minute flat.

It was Derek I found first, talking with Brandon at the usual spot.  They were the only ones there.  "Hail the king of the hoop," Brandon said as I walked up.

"Hi, guys," I said.  "I heard something went down at your house," to Brandon, "last night after the game."

Brandon shrugged.  "The usual."  I could tell he was a little uncomfortable.

"So, what happened," I asked.

"We were just about to ask you that," Brandon said.  "We had to leave your crisis-in-brewing to go fix Arie's, and Derek tells me a lot happened to you last night."

"No, you first," I said.

Brandon looked at me for a moment, his head tilted to one side, expressionless.

"Well...  Arie just hit a bad spot," he said.  "Bad mood, razor blades, the works.  We ran home and kept her from doing anything to herself."

"Took until about 2 AM," Derek said.  "Long night."

"But worth it," Brandon said.

"Yes, definitely," Derek said.

Brandon smiled.  "You know, I'm used to doing these sorts of things over the Internet.  It's a whole lot different when the person's actually there in the room with you.  But you keep thinking, Hey, I've heard that before.  I've said that before.  I was on the computer, but I said it before.  It's really kinda weird."

I shrugged.  Search me.  These Save-Arie-fests are always a little over my head.

"Now," Derek said, like a cat pouncing.  "Your turn.  Spill."

I blinked at them.  Really, what was there to say?  I'd gone over the night's events with my mother already, and come to the conclusion that it was...  Inconclusive.  What had happened?  Nothing, basically, after Mark Spencer had hightailed it out of there.

"Well...  We caught up with Christa and Mark at The Lighthouse," I said.  "Christa was still naked."

"Seriously?" Brandon asked.  "I'd think she'd've gotten her clothes on as soon as possible."

"Yeah, it kinda made us wonder," I said.  "I mean, why's she—"

"Why's she what," Sajel asked, crashing through the conversation.

"Naked," I said.  "See, after you guys left the basketball game, we didn't get out to The Lighthouse until about ten-thirty or so.  And Mark and Christa were there—"

"Mark and Christa were where," Meredith asked, crashing through the conversation and sliding in under Brandon's arm.

"Oh, for cryin out loud!" I said.  "Where's Arie?"

"I dunno," Meredith said, a picture of confused innocence.

"Well, I'm not explaining a damn thing until she gets here," I said, crossing my arms across my chest.  "Christ.  Have to start over every time someone shows up.  This is getting ridiculous."

So we all sort of stood there, me fuming impatiently, the rest of them sort of glancing around looking confused, for about a minute, until Arie showed up.  "Hi guys.  Uh.  What's going on."

"Okay," I said.  "You're here?  You're here."

"Zach was just explaining what happened to him last night," Meredith explained, like a mother to a small child.  "But he wanted his entire audience, not just some of it."

"Well, I'm here," Arie said, catching the mood and leaning back against Derek.  "Talk."

Okay.  Well.

"Okay.  Team.  Lighthouse.  Ten-fifteen.  Everybody following me so far?"

Nods.

"Okay.  Christa.  Mark.  There.  Christa no clothes on.  Everybody following me so far?"

"We got you, Tarzan," Brandon said, totally deadpan.

"Okay.  Zach angry.  Zach smash!  No, not actually.  Zach talk to Mark's college friends."

"And Derek," that worthy inserted helpfully.  "Derek talked too."

"And Derek.  And Gavin," I said.  "Christa goes to bathroom.  Mark gives impression that the only reason he's interested in her is because she's naked, and therefore she must be the type that puts out."

I think it's a measure of how much we've seen, my friends and I, over the course of this year, that no one even batted an eyelash at this news.  Mark had been stringing Christa along for the most mercenary of purposes, and none of them were surprised.  Arie was the only one who even reacted: by wrinkling up her face and saying, "Eew."

"The good news was, after Christa got back from the bathroom, she demanded they go home.  It was pretty late by that point.  The bad news was, I couldn't think of an excuse to follow them."

"Gavin provided that," Derek said.

"So we got out there, and they were parked around the back, so we couldn't see them," I continued.  "But we could hear them."

"What'd you hear," Arie asked.

In answer I held up my whistle.  Like Christa, I hadn't ever thought I'd need it—that anyone would need it.  But as I'd gotten dressed this morning, I'd realized it wasn't near to hand—and it had stopped being a question.  I must wear the whistle.  That was simple fact.  It was common sense; Mark might try something, and it'd be foolish to go around without my forearms since I was already forewarned.  (Not to mention people would give me weird looks, walking around with arms ending at the elbow.)  But even more than that, it would be disrespectful to Christa, in a way I couldn't explain.

"She had hers?" Sajel asked, dragging me back to the present.

I nodded.  "She's a smart girl."

"That she is," Meredith agreed.

"So you and Derek and Gavin came charging around the corner like snorting bulls," Sajel extrapolated.

"Gored Mark Spencer on your raging horns," Arie said.  Derek cringed.  Arie looked up at him.  "What?"

"Guys, where do you think the term 'horny' came from?  It's because a certain...  Appendage...  Looks like a horn."

He faced a wall of blank stares.

"So, uhm," said Derek.  "I'd thank you not to mention my horn and Mark Spencer in the same sentence ever again.  I don't think I could ever decontaminate it."

"Hell, I'm not sure I'm gonna let him horn me for a while," Arie said, totally blank-faced.  Derek stared, crestfallen.

"Until it's properly cleaned," Meredith said.  "What's the word.  Sanctified."

"Yes," Brandon deadpanned.  "By great amounts of worship."  One eyebrow twitched.  "Oral worship."

Derek's face brightened significantly.

"Guys, can we not be putting words in my mouth, please," Arie said with a panicked attempt at wounded dignity.

"Yeah, leave room for Derek's horn," Sajel quipped.  "Since it has to—"

"Sooo, Zach," Arie said, totally red-faced.  "Now that we know that Mark Spencer was nowhere near your raging horn.  What actually did happen?"  Behind her, Sajel doubled over laughing and Meredith wiped at her eyes.  Brandon was grinning like an idiot.  Next to me, Derek looked inordinately pleased with himself.

"Well, there was three of us and one of him," I said.  "Four, counting Christa.  He backed down.  We got Christa home—"

" 'We'?" Derek said incredulously.  "You sent us away and dealt with her yourself!"

My friends looked at me, wide-eyed, expectant grins on their faces.

I sighed.  Now everyone's gonna think the wrong thing.  "Look.  First of all, you could've stayed if you wanted.  You know that.  Second of all, it was because she was shaken up.  I didn't think it'd be a good idea to have a lot of people standing around—"

"You just wanted some privacy so you could put the moves on her!" Derek retorted, grinning.

That wasn't true in the slightest—but since I basically had ended up doing that, there was no way I'd be able to prove it.  Christ.  What's the point of being a good person when everyone thinks you're just in it for your own good?

"Now hold on a minute," Brandon said.  "Zach may be insensitive at times, but not that insensitive."

Whoa.  Wait a second.  Brandon?  Defending me?

"Zach, what did Mark do to Christa?" Brandon asked.

"Honestly, I'm...  Not sure.  She said she wasn't hurt, just that she felt threatened.  He was asking for things she wasn't prepared to give.  And so she blew the whistle on him."

"Smart girl," Sajel said.

"She was really shaken," I said.  "I don't know if people normally feel that bad if they were just threatened, but I don't think so, so I think there might have been more to it.  I just don't know what."

"I'd been expecting him to treat me like a princess," someone said behind me.

I turned.  Christa.  Her hair curled in its oxbow bend; her greenish eyes were clear.  The whistle was around her neck, her mustard-colored backpack on her back.  Those and her flipflops were the only things she wore.

"Annnnnd..."  She sighed.  "He didn't."

"Well, not everybody's that sensitive," Arie said blankly.  You're quite right, Arie, not everybody is.  You aren't.

"Yes, but...  I thought they were," Christa said, her face bleak.  "That was my rude awakening, last night.  I believed that...  People would be generally nice to each other.  That they'd respect each other, and be nice to each other, and not just...  Blindly take advantage of each other.  I mean, sure, there were always some unscrupulous people, but...  They were few and rare.  The vast majority of people were...  Nice.

"That was what I believed."

Her eyes were distant, seeing something other than what was in front of her.

"I believed it very strongly."

"And so, to have Mark..." Meredith prompted.

"It took everything out from under me," Christa said.  "It was like everything around me was new and unfamiliar, and it was all...  Ugly."

"And then Zach," Sajel said quietly.  "Bringing something nice back in."

"With his horn," Arie said.

The mood was broken.  Sajel and Arie giggled.  "Your horn," Christa asked me, confused.

"Uh...  Believe me, you...  You don't want to know."  On my other side Derek rocked back and forth on his heels, stifling laughter behind cupped hands.

"Uh," said Christa, skeptical.  "Okay."

"You guys..." Meredith said, her eyes a million miles away from laughter.  "That's sort of an important thing.  You should tell Dr. Zelvetti about it."

"Do you really think so," Christa said.

"Yes," Meredith said.  "At the very least she'll be interested to know that the whistles worked.  And besides, Mark might try something.  You need to tell her immediately."

Christa and I glanced at each other.  And nodded.

"Wait, wait," Arie shouted.  "Christa, we're not done yet!"

"Only if it's quick," Christa said.  "Class is gonna start soon."

"Did Zach make any moves on you?" Arie said.

My stomach heaved in panic.  Oh, Christ, it was all gonna come out.  The story.  And the contents of my stomach.  But Christa said, "No, he didn't.  There was nothing inappropriate.  He was a perfect gentleman throughout."  Her eyes turned to me; a calm smile spread across her face.  "As perfect a rescuer as could be hoped for."

"Humph," said Arie, frustrated, and we went to Dr. Zelvetti's office.

When we were safely away from them, I asked her.  I didn't want to, but I had to.  "I'm not sure you quite got your facts straight."

"Hmm?" Christa said.

"About me being a perfect gentleman," I said.

"Nonsense," Christa said, "that's what you were."

Gulp.  Was she going to make me say it aloud?  "Well, what about the kiss, then?  That's gotta count as inappropriate."

Christa stopped and turned to me.  "Inappropriate," she said.  Her eyes bored into me.

Gulp.  "Um.  Yeah, probably," I said.

"Why?" she asked.

"Well, because...  I mean, you're not supposed to do that to girls who are in emotional distress or anything."  That's kinda mean.  Taking advantage of someone's vulnerability like that.

Christa considered that for a moment, her eyes looking through my head.

"All right, so maybe it was a little inappropriate," she said.  "I won't tell if you don't."

"What!"

She gave me a quirky smile.  "Which word did you not understand, Zach?"

"Uhm, something about the 'won't tell' part," I said.

She rolled her eyes.  "Zach, are you being deliberately dense?  Come on."  She grabbed my hand and led me to Dr. Zelvetti's office.  And...  That was that.  Except for the part about how she didn't let my hand go until we were right outside the office, petitioning for an audience.

"Well," Dr. Zelvetti said.  "What can I do for you?"

Christa took a deep breath.  "Mark Spencer tried to assault me last night."

Dr. Zelvetti didn't move, but the light in her eyes turned dangerous.

We spilled out the whole story, overlapping each other, running over each other, and yet managing to make it all make sense.  Christa's motivation for entering The Program.  The asking-out on Tuesday, the confusion, the conversations back and forth, the dreams clung to and shattered.  The bell for first period rang and we ignored it.  The date, the game, the conversations at The Lighthouse.  The confrontation in the parking lot, with all the ambiguities.  The only thing we left out, collectively and by silent agreement, was the kiss at the end.  "I won't tell if you don't," she'd said, and her word was good.  It was just as well; I still didn't quite know what she thought of it.  The kiss, I mean.

When we were done, Dr. Zelvetti directed us to the little waiting room adjoining her office and asked us to, appropriately, wait.  "It's time to get the other end of the story," she said.  She must have sent a runner, instead of using the PA system, because we heard no widespread announcement; only the tapping of footsteps, the opening of Dr. Zelvetti's door, the murmured "Ah, Mr. Spencer, come in please."  And then the slamming shut, and that was that.

Christa and I glanced at each other.  I didn't think we'd get in trouble (and neither did she), but...  Sometimes, you never know.  There was that slap she'd given Mark, which, under certain lights, could be interpreted as an unprovoked attack.  Of course, we'd told Dr. Zelvetti about that.  I had been going to leave it out, but Christa reported it, and instantly I realized she was right.  It was, to use Mr. Trineer's phrase, the flaw that makes the masterpiece.  If we'd tried to pass ourselves off as perfect, it wouldn't have been believable.  Admitting our mistakes made us seem truthful—because we were.

The interview with Mark took close to half an hour.  Dr. Zelvetti's waiting room was equipped with magazines, but not many of them—mostly education stuff.  Christa, always prepared, pulled out a textbook and read from it, curled up in her chair, evidently totally unconcerned about the fact that, from the right angle, I could see her pussy lips.  I tried not to look.  That would be inappropriate.

She caught me shaking my head, smiling—So calm, just studying for class! was what was going through my head at the time—and, completely inexplicably, she got up and kissed me on the cheek.  And then went right back to her book, smiling serenely, while I stared in wonder.

Finally Dr. Zelvetti came for us.  I did a double take—at some point between now and when we'd left her office, she'd misplaced her clothes.  (Out-reach!  Out-reach!)  I realized that this had probably been to put Mark off-balance—I mean, it's one thing to be around a pretty young girl with no clothes on, but quite another to be confronted with this sixty-year-old mountainous mother figure with liver spots and graying hair.  It was also, I realized, a way of showing her solidarity, of saying, 'Yes, I too am of The Program, and when you mess with one of my participants, you mess with me.'  With this in mind, her verdict was predictable.

"He's been suspended," was all she said, but it was a sigh of great relief for me.  To be immediately swallowed.  "Watch out for his friends.  He's shown a tendency to violence, and they may as well.  Keep your whistles on you at all times.  Try not to be alone in an exposed place."

"You don't really think they'll..." said Christa, fear evident in her eyes.

"No," Dr. Zelvetti said.  "But it pays to be safe.  You brought your whistle even though you might not need it, Christa.  I'd've thought you'd understand that."

"No, I do," Christa said.  "It's just that...  I'd hoped the danger would be over."

Dr. Zelvetti's face softened.  "So do I, child."

Feeling the hot whips of panic: "Do you need to talk to Derek or Gavin?"

"I don't believe so," Dr. Zelvetti said.  "I don't doubt their accounts would be similar to yours, and between you two and Mark, I probably have all the salient details.  I will call them if I need them, though, Mr. Crane, don't be alarmed."

"Easy for you to say," I muttered.  "What if someone comes at me with a baseball bat?"

But we already had the answers to that: stay in a populated location, where they won't try it; have friends near you at all times.  This was Stay away from the badlands times about three.  It was slightly alarming—just slightly—to think someone might be gunning for me.

Or Christa.

I looked at her, sitting there, her feet up on the seat (again; this time Dr. Zelvetti's desk prevented any peeking), her arms curled around her legs and her chin between her knees, looking stunned and frightened and worried...  And suddenly my feelings were clear.  Yeah, they might have something against me.  (Or Derek or Gavin too—Christ, got to remember to warn them!)  But Christa was in the same place I was—stunned and frightened and worried.  And for her sake, I needed to be strong—to get her out of that place, so that she could face whatever storm was coming.

"Is everything going to be all right," Dr. Zelvetti asked.

Christa opened her mouth to answer, but words tumbled from my mouth without thought.  "Yeah.  Yeah, it's all good.  Well.  Okay, maybe not all good, but we can handle it."

Christa's gaze was silent.  Then she turned to Dr. Zelvetti and nodded, slowly at first but gaining confidence with every moment.

Second period had started about ten minutes ago; Dr. Zelvetti wrote us a note that would get us into Mr. Cavanaugh's class without penalty; she slipped a similar notice into Ms. Sheldy's box to excuse us from 1st-period Geometry.  Halfway there, though, I stopped and turned to Christa.  "Okay, look, I have to ask you."

"What," she said.

"Are you...  Okay.  So, what about that kiss?  I'm so confused right now."  Which is an understatement.  I haven't been thinking about it actively because my brain would be rattling so badly it'd have broken loose of my skull by now.  "I mean, you know I'm attracted to you—okay, that's not the truth, I'm crazy about you.  If you've been kissing me just to be affectionate, well, thank you, I appreciate it, but please, stop, you're going to drive me insane."

I took a deep breath.  God, what a long speech.

Christa looked at me, quizzical, her head tilted to one side.

"Okay," she said.

Then she kissed me.

Ugh.

I forced a smile.  "Okay, you hear this noise?  Kre-chack.  That's my insanity-meter creeping another notch towards the red."

Christa gave me the sort of patient smile one gives to a deliberately obtuse child.  "Zach," she said.  "I'm not teasing you.  You said not to kiss you if I'm just being friendly, so I'm not.  What's the other reason people generally kiss each other?"

"...Oh," I said, feeling stupid.

She smiled up at me.  "You're sweet," she said.  "Now, come on.  We have to get to class."

This time I didn't feel nervous about being led around by the hand.

I like this, I thought.  I think I really like this.

 

 

 

 

Th.3

 

After History class (3rd period) Meredith and Sajel grabbed me.  And I mean literally grabbed me, to the point where, if they hadn't been friends, I might've gone for my whistle again.  As it was, they attracted Jane's attention.

"What'd she say?" they asked.

"Who, what did who say?" I asked, confused.

"Dr. Zelvetti, dumbass," Sajel said.  "Who else, President Rodham?"

"She said not to be alone," I said.

"Why shouldn't you be alone?" Jane asked.

I groaned inwardly—it would take ten or fifteen minutes just to bring her up to speed!—but Meredith, always clever, managed to condense it down.  "Mark tried something on her last night, and we think he might try again."

"Oh," said Jane, remarkably unaffected by the news.  Then she looked at us with a puzzled frown.  "What did he try?"

"Something I needed the whistle for," I said.

"Oh, said Jane.  Then, "What's the whistle for?"

Sajel made a show of tossing her hands.

"Dr. Zelvetti gave them to us," I said.  "If something bad happens to us because we're naked, we blow on them."

"Oh," said Jane.  "Oh!  Wow."  Now there was the startlement I'd expected.

She came with us to the normal place at north Stetsen, where Zach and I told the rest of them about what Dr. Zelvetti had said.  "The school doesn't know yet," I said.  "I mean, she hasn't made the normal PA announcement she does when someone gets suspended.  So maybe nothing will happen until then.  But it's best to be safe."  There was nodded agreement on all sides.

Derek and Zach and I went to warn our friends.  They left me with Megan and Debbie and then went to find Gavin.  My friends were a little amused at the security—and, of course, clamoring for details.  "We called you last night at nine, but you weren't home, and your mother said she'd ask you to call us, but you never did."

"Yeah, well," I said.  "My curfew was ten'o'clock, and even then I didn't get in until more like twelve."

"Wow," said Debbie.  "Must've been some date."

I sighed.  "Oh, you have no idea."

In a way, I didn't want to tell them at all; they'd been right, they'd been totally right.  And while I appreciated their advice, I wasn't in the mood to eat my words and watch them dance around me, We told you so, we told you so.  But they were my friends.  My best friends.  And they had a right to know.

And, once again, I was surprised at how understanding they were.  There was no gloating, no jeering.  Only indignation, when Mark began his advances, and applause when Zach came to the rescue.  And when I explained what I'd learned, Debbie gave me a hug and said, "I'm proud of you, Christa.  It's not easy to admit when you're wrong."

"No kidding," Megan said humorlessly.  "Every time I try, the words stick in my throat."

"So," said Debbie, resettling herself.  "What about Zach?"  And Megan's eyes lit up, and suddenly it was my two old friends as they always were, eager and stooping, waiting for the crumbs to fall from my mouth.

Good ol' Deb and Meggie.  I love these girls.

The only problem was, there wasn't really much to say.  "I...  Dunno," I said.  "Nothing's happened."  I'd kissed him—and not the affectionate friendly way either—but since then we'd barely even had time to talk.  What was going

on?  I didn't know.  "Ask me tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Debbie whined.  "But we don't have school tomorrow!"

A surge of mischief came from somewhere, and I grinned.  "Yes, dear.  Tomorrow.  But if you're a good little girl, maybe I'll call you tonight."

Debbie raised a sardonic eyebrow.  "Riiiight."

I suppose she would've badgered me over lunch as well, but she didn't really get the chance.  Because right about then was when things got really tricky.

 

 

 

 

Th.4

 

Before you ask, nobody got hurt.  And actually, something good came of it—I started to appreciate the game of chess.  Chess?  Yes, chess.  (Wow, I'm rhyming.  Sorry, folks.  I don't mean to rhyme, but I do it some time.  I'm a poet and didn't know it!  Hey, put that down, don't throw it!  I promise I won't blow it by rhyming like a...  Crap, what rhymes with 'blow-it'...  Okay, never mind.)

Hi, I'm Zach Crane, and I'm insane.  ...Straight down Crazy Lane.  Which is a real pain.

Okay.  I have got to stop doing that.

It started, maybe predictably, because Christa and I weren't very careful.  We met at Stetsen and then went over to the cafeteria to buy lunch.  We weren't paying attention; no, we weren't.  I mean, what do you expect?  We just...  Well, not really got together, I mean, we'd kissed just the once, and for some reason or another I didn't try for more, and neither did she.  But...  My God, we were gone.  I mean really, really gone.  I'm glad we weren't anywhere near Brandon, because he never would've let me hear the end of it.  Love bubbles times about fifty.  And all we were really doing, if you can believe it, is holding hands.  Kind of alarming, huh?

But eventually something percolated through Christa's brain, because she stopped giggling and whispered in my ear, "One of Mark's friends is staring at us."

"What?!" I said, looking around wildly.  "I don't see any—"

"You will," she said.  "Look carefully.  Behind us, to the left a little bit.  Black t-shirt and khaki pants."

The T-shirt said "Megadeth" on it.  So did his eyes.  When he saw me looking, they only narrowed.  He didn't seem to care that we'd twigged onto him—it was as if he had nothing to fear.

"Oh shit," I said.  "What are we going to do?"  Through the turmoil of thought and emotion in my head came a sudden, fleeting thought: I wish we'd brought Brandon or Derek or Meredith or somebody along.  But no, they were all at the north of Stetsen, a million miles away.

"Well, for one," Christa said, "we're going to get lunch.  And then we're going to eat lunch.  And then we'll wait to see if they're going to leave or not.  Maybe he's just angry at us but he'll walk away eventually.  Besides, Dr. Zelvetti said to stay in crowded areas.  They won't try anything here, there's too many people."

She was right.  She was absolutely right.  I gave her a resounding kiss on the forehead.  "You are a genius, you know that?  An absolute veritable genius."

She smiled playfully.  "Those are big words for you, Zach!  I'm surprised you didn't stumble on them!"

While we sat around in the cafeteria, eating and joking with each other, the most surprising thing happened: namely, Patrick Gardner and Louise Malatesta.  Surprising because neither of them is the kind of person who just walks up to you and starts talking.  In fact, I hadn't spoken a word to them all week, and I didn't think Christa was any different.  But here they were.

Christa didn't panic, though, she just took it in stride.  "Hey, it's good to see you two.  How've you been this week?"

"Pretty good," Patrick said.  He's tall and muscular, totally bald-headed, tending to dress in totally, you know, punk-rock or Goth or whatever, loud shirts with "Metallica" on them, but surprisingly quiet.  "More girls have touched me in the past four days than the rest of my life, that's quite a plus."

Christa laughed.  "No kidding, I think that's true of all of us by now."

"Girls have touched you?" Patrick asked.

Christa gave him a friendly glower.  "You know what I meant."

"And you?" I asked Louise.

She froze in mid-motion, her tray halfway to the table.  "I'm...  Okay," she said, blushing.  "I'm not used to getting touched this much."

"I can imagine," I said.

Her blush deepened.  "I'm not used to getting noticed this much."

"Well, that's a crime," I said suddenly.  "I mean, there's nothing wrong with you.  You're a perfectly attractive lady."

Yes, this is the girl with the face like a squashed dog.  No, I haven't been hit over the head or anything.  It's what Christa taught me: you look deeper.  Louise...  Louise is like Jane, frankly.  Neither of them go out of their way to really look attractive.  That doesn't mean they aren't, it just means you have to look harder to see it.   (Though I'm not making any statements about Jane here, 'cause she almost goes out of her way to look unattractive.)

Louise is nice.  Girl-next-door sort of look.  She doesn't have any outstanding features, but she doesn't have any bad ones either.  Except for that horrendous case of acne, of course, and the skin on the rest of her body shows what she'll look like when that clears up.  She has nice legs and nice boobs and pretty big nipples if you go for that sort of thing.  But she's the kind of girl just about everyone will overlook, except for someone who already met Christa (I bet Brandon would go for her—Louise, I mean—if it weren't for Meredith), and that guy—let's call him Percival—won't be able to believe his good fortune and Louise will feel loved and special for the first time in her life and they'll get married and be happy together for another fifty years or so.  And that'll be that.  And it's kinda too bad that nobody else has noticed her except for me.  And Brandon.  And Percival.  Because I think a lot more people would like her if they took a closer look.

Louise rolled her eyes, still blushing, now smiling.  "Riiight.  Well, thanks, Zach.  I know it's not true, but thanks."

"Yes it is," Patrick said.  "I've been trying to convince you of that for three days now, but you won't believe me."

"Well," said Louise, looking away, and while she did I saw Patrick's eyes, the way they focused on her, how the Friendly Conversation smile fell away but his gaze didn't soften.  Hmm...

I half expected Christa to take my head off for daring to say somebody else was attractive.  I mean, you know—you're kinda not supposed to do that, right?  But to my surprise, she pitched in.  "Who says it isn't true.  You're very attractive, Louise.  Anyone who doesn't see that is a dolt."

"Thanks," said Louise, now looking distinctly uncomfortable, and yet very pleased at the same time.

"Go figure," I said.  "She believes her," pointing to Christa, "but not me.  What's the world coming to these days."

"You think anyone's attractive, dear," Christa reminded me.

"Time was when a man's word counted for something!" I lamented.

"Maybe if you didn't talk so much, people would listen more," Patrick replied, totally deadpan.

"Yeah, so shut up!" Christa said, grinning.

"I can't not talk!  Talking's like breathing to me!" I cried.  "If I can't—"

Christa grabbed the bread roll that had come with my cafeteria spaghetti and stuffed it into my mouth.  "Hush, darling."

"Mff gmmm hmm fnnn GGG!" I said angrily.

"Keep an eye on him," Christa said breezily to the other two.  "If he starts to turn blue, then it means we should probably uncork him.  Otherwise..."  She gave a great, contented sigh.  "I'm quite enjoying the peace and quiet of—"

"Uhm, Christa," Louise said, a smile hovering about her lips, "what if he eats the cork?"

"Yagh, wha'iff I ead the cohk," I asked, my mouth full.

"Excuse me, did you just say 'cock,' " Patrick asked, somehow keeping a straight face.

"Nogh, I dinnt, I trah tah—  Excoo meh."

"Such a wandering eye he has," Christa complained.  "First he checks out Louise over here—"  That worthy blushed again.  "—and then he starts talking about cocks.  I'm not sure it'll be worth the effort."

"What will," I asked, having finally cleared my mouth of the dry and rather tasteless bread roll.

"Domesticating you," Christa said mildly, a predatory gleam in her eye.  "Making you fit for association with the female members of our race.  It's a lot of hard work, you know."

"Oh, come on, it's not like you have to train me not to crap on the carpet or anything," I said.

"Yes, but I will have to teach you to comb your hair," said Christa, running her fingers through it.  I'd never had a girl do that to me before and was surprised at how nice it felt.  (Note to self: play with her hair at first possible opportunity.  —The hair on her head.)  Christa, though, made a face and pulled her hand away: "—More importantly, I'll have to teach you to wash your hair—"

Louise held a hand to her mouth to keep from laughing food onto the table.

"So what's the deal with you guys," Patrick asked.  "You're...  What, together now?"

"More or less," Christa said happily.  Under the table, our hands intertwined.  "It was an unexpected development, but it's all worked out for the best."

"Seriously," Louise said.  "You two got together?  I didn't think he was your type."

"Well..." said Christa.  "He wasn't.  At first.  But then I realized I was looking at him all wrong."  Her hand squeezed mine.  "Besides—"  A sudden grin.  "—when a guy saves you from a rampaging baseball player, you really take a closer look at him."

Louise looked merely confused, but Patrick spoke up.  "Yeah, about that."

Sudden, icy terror spiraled through my gut: Oh yeah...  Patrick's a baseball player...

"Coach isn't pleased," Patrick said, poking at the tangle of spaghetti on his lima-bean-colored plastic tray.  "He isn't pleased at all.  One of his players getting totally suspended from—   Well, I mean.  He might be up on charges, so Coach is probably pleased to be shut of him, but—"

"Wait, what's going on? Louise said, now thoroughly confused.

"Mark Spencer—  You know Mark Spencer," Patrick asked, and Louise nodded.  "He and Christa went out last night.  I saw them at the basketball game.  Anyway.  Word came down to Coach Chen today and he called a meeting of the baseball team right at the beginning of lunch—you heard the PA announcement."  We all nodded.  "Evidently...  Evidently Mark was making unwanted advances on Christa and he's been suspended."

"Oh," said Louise, her eyes wide.

"His friends are pissed," Patrick said.  "I overheard them talking about it as we left the meeting—they weren't very quiet about it, I wonder why Coach Chen didn't notice.  Anyway, they said they're gonna keep an eye on you and if there's a chance, they're gonna...  Well, they couldn't decide what.  But when I saw you two coming in here—  Tom Cirrone is over there, he's—"

"Black Megadeth shirt?  Khaki pants?"  At Patrick's confirming nod, I said, "We noticed him."

"Oh, well," said Patrick, clearly having not anticipated that.  "Good.  That's good.  I know he's involved in it, and Dan Luthor, and Chris Black, and John Billingsly as well, but I'm not sure who else.  Keep your eyes open.  They might have—"

"Why are you telling them this," Louise asked.

Patrick started.  "Huh?"

"Why are you telling them this?"  Louise's eyes were steady, her hands composed.  "You're part of the team too, they might take action against you."

"Because it's wrong," Patrick said.  His eyes came up to meet hers.  "I don't know what actually happened between Mark and Christa, but there's no call to go beating up on people.  You take it like a man—by finding out what happened and dealing with it accordingly.  If Mark screwed up, he screwed up.  That's no reason to regress back to childhood and start beating people up."

He turned back to us, but I was watching Louise—the pale flush on her cheeks, the widening of her eyes, the way her gaze lingered on his face.  Hmm...

"I can at least get you past Tom Cirrone," Patrick was saying.  "The rest, though, I don't know—"

"We can deal with the rest," I said, my mind already on my friends.

"When are we going?" Christa asked.  I was startled to realize that her tray was clear, even more startled that mine was too.  We must have kept eating without realizing it.  All the better, though, if we needed to get out of here.

"Give it a minute," Patrick said.  "I know Tom.  He'll get bored and call somebody on his cellphone.  Then we go."

"Go where," Christa asked.

"Out," said Patrick.  "Past him.  If the rest of them saw you come in here, and I know they did, then they're probably waiting at the other exits, which are much quieter places.  We need to use an exit that leads into a populated area, so that they won't be tempted to try something.

"You sound like you've done this before," Christa said.  "How do you learn to anticipate their moves like that?"

Patrick eyed us for a moment.

"I know them," he said finally.  "They're cowards."

His predictions were accurate.  While Christa and I pretended we were still eating, we watched Tom.  Patrick and Louise got a few more bites in.  Sure enough, the cellphone came out.  "Go," Patrick said.  "While he's dialing.  Dump your trays and go."

Of course, there wasn't nearly enough time to get out the door while he was still dialing—how long can seven numbers take?  But he got caught between us and his cellphone: "Hi, Mary, how are you—  Stay where you are!  Stay where you a—  No, not you, Mary, it wasn't—  Stay where you are!  Stay where—"  Moving to stand between us and the door, still babbling into the cellphone.  "No, Mary, I'm not trying to talk to—  No, I—  Look, I'll call you back, K?  And don't—  Stay where you are!  Hey!  —Aww fuck it, she hung up.  Now look what you—  Hey, stop laughing!  It's not funny!"

"You're attracting a crowd, Cirrone," Patrick said calmly, and indeed, a number of people had gathered around us, or at least looked up.

"You're on the wrong side, Gardner," Cirrone retorted.

"No, I'm on the right side," Patrick said.

"Funny," I injected, "you're standing on my left."

"You're coming with us," Cirrone said to Christa and I.

"We go where we please," Christa said primly.

"You're coming with us," Cirrone said again.

"'Us'?" I said.  "I don't see anybody else.  Using the royal 'We,' Cirrone?"

"Yeah," said Louise, a nervous smile on her face, "for 'royal pain in the neck!'"

Tom Cirrone's face darkened.

"Look," said Patrick.  "You let us through.  All four of us.  And I won't tell Coach about that messy business back in December."

"What, you mean—"

"Yes, that one," Patrick said.  "You know the one I'm talking about."

"You mean, with the—"

"Let us through," Patrick said again.

A war tipped back and forth on Cirrone's face: expose his ass to Coach Chen, or expose his ass to his teammates.  Eventually the latter won.  "No."

"We have whistles, Cirrone," Louise Malatesta said suddenly, her face remarkably calm.  Her hand stole to the silver whistle dangling between her breasts.  "And we're not afraid to use them."

"What'll that do?" Cirrone scoffed.

"Not much," Christa said conversationally.  "Only bring every teacher and staff member in hearing range straight towards us.  These are panic whistles, Tom.  If anyone in The Program feels threatened, we blow.  And there's four of us right now, and we're feeling decidedly threatened."

Tom Cirrone may have been lacking in many things, but he knew when he was outnumbered.  We processed out of the cafeteria without any more incident.  After we had almost exceeded earshot, he started yelling.  "You'll pay for this!  You all will!  We're gonna..."

"Okay," I said, totally ignoring him.  "Christa and I are going to go hook up with Brandon and the rest at Stetsen.  You two—"

"We're coming with you," Louise said.

"That's why I came," Patrick said.

"Don't be ridiculous," Christa said, "there's no need to threaten your standing with the baseball team even further.  You've both done us a huge favor, but you're already going to pay for it.  Don't make it worse."

Neither of them said anything.

"Go somewhere safe," I said.

"Just the two of you," Christa injected.

"Maybe the Homer building," I said.  "There's plenty of empty classrooms to hide out in, and lots of teachers around.  They won't try anything there."

"Just, somewhere quiet," Christa said.

"Go," I said, and without further comment, they went.

Christa and I continued our journey towards safety.  "Just the two of them, eh?" I asked.

"Of course," Christa said.  "They're totally into each other.  Betcha the next time we see them, they're doing this:" and she caught my hand in her own.

I laughed.  "Only you."

Christa smiled in a very self-satisfied way.  "I'm special."

Brandon formulated a plan of action immediately.  "We'll split up.  Somebody needs to find Gavin and warn him—he may be a target too.  Derek, you and Arie go..."  A flicker crossed his face.  It's not exactly a secret that sometimes those two sneak away to have sex during school hours.  "...Go do whatever.  Derek, Meredith and I will find somewhere to hide you after we find Gavin—"

"My best friend Nastasya," Meredith said immediately.  "For hiding, not Gavin.  Finding Gavin is up to you."  Meaning me, of course, since I was the only one who actually knew him.

"Sajel," Brandon finished, addressing the only remaining person, "you can stay here, or come with whoever you want."

"You guys," Sajel said.  "I'd go with them two, just so it's not just the two of them, but I bet they—"  She started to gesture at Arie and Derek before realizing they'd already run off.  "Yeah, see.  Anyway.  I'm coming with you guys."

"We'll find Nastasya first," Meredith said.  "I think she's normally..."  And led the way, the rest of us following.

Nastasya Fyodorevna was a pretty girl, a bit fleshy but nowhere near large (though I bet she figures she's fifty pounds overweight, being a girl and all), long reddish hair, the type who actually looked good in glasses.  She spoke with a bit of an accent, swallowing certain sounds.  She identified her friends as Jeff Gainesborough, Emily Roberts, and Gavin Strickland.  Nastasya and Meredith chattered a bit while I grabbed Gavin.  "You know these folks?"

"Through her boyfriend," Gavin said, indicating Nastasya.

"Him," I asked, indicating the other guy, whose name I had already forgotten.  (Editor's note: Jeff.)

"No, he's not here," Gavin said.  "Her boyfriend's in college."

I glanced over at Nastasya.  Despite her ridiculous name and slight accent, she didn't look crazy enough to be dating a college man, who might be (depending on her age and his) anywhere from two years to seven years older.  But hey, I guess looks can be deceiving.  (Which is the absolute truth in this case.  I've had a chance to see Stasya and Caleb together by now, and their relationship rivals Brandon and Meredith's in terms of strength and stability.  And those two are practically married.)

Brandon was making some snap decisions.  "We can't stay here, that's too many targets all in one place.  If they catch wind of us...  We've got to find somewhere else to go."

"If that's the case," Christa said, "shouldn't we split up?  Zach and I go to some different locations."

"No," I said.

"But—" said Christa.

"No," I said again, and grabbed her hand.  She gave me a wry eyebrow and a smile.

Eventually we ended up on the football field—a little too near the badlands for my taste, but that's not the place we were worried about.  I was a little surprised when the school's official babe, Shannon Salvolestra, greeted Brandon with a hug.  As did Steve Proust, though it was more of a manly backslapping exchange than anything else.  Brandon, for his part, looked embarrassed and bemused, but he managed to take it in stride.

And that, to be honest, was it.  Shannon and her cheerleader friends helped us keep a close eye out (surprising how they can keep a hawk's eye turned towards the rest of the world while still chattering on about the latest fashions), and even if the baseball losers spotted us, the presence of basically the entire football team probably scared them off.  And of course I kept my eyes open, as did Brandon and Meredith and Christa and Sajel.  Which was a tense occupation, let me tell you.  In case you've, you know, never sat there looking all around you trying to make sure that nobody could bodily assault you.

"How do you people learn to think that way?" I said to Brandon.

"Learn to think what way," Brandon asked.

"The...  I dunno.  The way you did just now.  Keeping everything in mind.  Knowing where to go and what to do."

"Play chess," Meredith interjected.

"What?"

"Play chess," Meredith repeated.  "Then you have to start thinking about everything around you and the consequences of every move you make."

I played dumb.  "There are consequences?"

"See, there we go," Meredith said, grinning.

"It's a useful skill," Brandon said.  "When you have to start keeping an eye out for any possible thing to happen, you start doing that in real life too."

"Sounds paranoid," I said.

"Brandon's paranoia just saved you from having a baseball bat applied to your testicles," Meredith said, a totally innocent smile on her totally innocent face.  "Are you still complaining?"

"Hey," Brandon said.  "Who says I'm paranoid?"

"Who checks every door and window in the house to make sure they're locked before he goes to bed?" Meredith asked.

"Who lives in a house containing about forty gazillion dollars in technology and appliances?" Brandon retorted.

"It's mostly the refrigerator, and nobody's exactly gonna make off with that thing," Meredith reminded him.  She turned to me.  "Did you know his refrigerator cost like five thousand dollars?"

"I didn't know refrigerators of such cost existed," I said.  "Why's it so expensive?"

"Space," Brandon said.  "It's the size of a closet.  Well, that, and it's got a nuclear power plant so that your food will stay cold even in the event of a power failure."

I stared.

"He's not joking," Meredith said.  "Actually, yes he is."

"But it might as well," Brandon grumbled, "for the size of it."

"Wouldn't that be weird," I said, "if you had a meltdown or something?  'Honey?  The chicken's glowing.' "

Meredith mimed a news anchor by clasping her hands in front of her chest as though holding a microphone, affecting an officious tone, and tilting her head back and forth with each word.  "The explosion of a nuclear-powered refrigerator leveled several hundred acres of Red Plains today..."

"—When Brandon beat Meredith at chess and she got pissed and threw the board at it," Brandon said.

"Yeah right," Meredith said, sticking her tongue out at him.  "They're more likely to invent nuclear-powered refrigerators before that happens."

"Right, well," Brandon said with a big sarcastic glower at Meredith, and turned back to me.  "If you want to learn, I can teach you."

"We can teach you," Meredith said.

"Might be useful in basketball," Brandon said.  "Learning to keep an eye on what's around you at all times."

"Hmm, well, maybe," I said.  "Maybe.  If I'm really bored and don't have anything else to do."

 

 

 

 

Th.6

 

Seventh period could have been better.  It also could have been worse, but not by a whole lot.  Mostly because it's Mr. Trineer, and I don't know how he manages it, but he's got eyes like a hawk.  Tuesday and Wednesday he didn't do a whole lot; he'd contemplated getting us together just once, but something must have warned him off, because he hastily changed course and traded us off instead.  Christa or I had stood up at the front of the class in whatever poses he deemed fit, and unless Christa happened to be standing behind me, I'd often find my eyes lingering on her—with associated unwelcome problems and developments and such.  I'm not sure how I got through everything.

But today Mr. Trineer saw, somehow and instantly, that the situation had changed.

"Well, since it's the last day we'll have our models, I thought we'd set them up together.  Zach, Christa, if you'd come up to the front...  Let's see what we can do here."

The prop that day was a couch.  There had been various different ones over the past two days; I had to think hard to remember them.  When you're Zach Crane, naked in school with the girl of your dreams, you have two choices: stare and get the mother of all hard-ons, or shut your mind down and let everything go in one ear and out the other.  I had chosen the latter.  But now I didn't have to anymore.

The instructions Mr. Trineer gave us before beginning to maneuver us like mannequins was, simply, "Pretend you're watching TV," and all his stage directions made a lot more sense in that context.  The first thing he did was place me on the couch with my legs stretched out, casual and relaxed.  Then he placed Christa beside me, leaning sideways, her head on my shoulder, my arm around her, her arm across my belly.  The class let out a unanimous "Aww..." and Christa and I laughed and rolled our eyes.

"Now, they're just sitting there watching TV, and you're taking notes," Mr. Trineer was saying, "and—whoops—"  He almost tripped over my legs.  "—so draw what you see.  Everything you see.  Yes, even the fact that Zach is hard as a rock right now."  The class whooped and cheered.  "Come on, he's a sixteen-year-old boy, he's got a very pretty—"  (Christa blushed.)  —"sixteen-year-old girl snuggled up next to him, probably with at least one of her breasts pressed against him, of course he's going woody.  Ladies, I hope this isn't news for you.  You should be aware of the effect you might have on a young man."

He moved around the room, watching people draw.  "Now remember, this is life-drawing.  Get just enough of the details down that you can remember what they look like later, because I'm going to change their pose in about five minutes and you'll have to come back and draw from memory.  This is an important skill to develop as an artist because it's rare that you'll be able to get a subject to just sit there for an hour and a half while you keep drawing.  Or say you wanna paint a sunset.  Well, you've got fifteen minutes.  Hope you either have a Polaroid or a photographic memory."

The next set of stage directions didn't help my hard-on any.  Mr. Trineer set both of us into the corner of the couch, her back against my chest, a tangle of legs and our heads close together.  Her thigh brushed my hard-on; my arm around her waist could move up to her boobs.  Her hair smelled clean and feminine, a breath of fresh air.  On the other side of the couch, Mr. Trineer posed himself, an elbow on the opposite knee, looking at us quizzically.

We talked in low whispers.

"I like this," Christa said.

"You like what," I asked.  I liked it too, I liked it just fine, but there was a whole lot of 'this' to appreciate.  It was almost hard to believe that 'this'—she—was in my arms, reclining against me, my arm around her moving as she breathed.

"This," said Christa again, as though it should be obvious.  "I don't get hugged much."

The light is shed.  "I don't either," I said.  "The girls I normally date...  Yeah, they put out, but I don't think...  It's like a response, you know?  'I have boyfriend.  Must keep boyfriend.  To keep boyfriend, insert dick into pussy.'  They dig out the User's Manual or something."  I affected a scholarly air.  "Hmm.  'To keep boyfriend interested, allow sex at regular intervals.'"

Christa was giggling helplessly.

"And it's like, you know, 'Eeeeew!  Well, if I have to...'  But then you don't get this.  You don't get...  You know, just sitting around, touching each other, just because you can."

"Yeah," Christa said.  "I like it."

"I do believe you've said that," I grinned.

"Though you may have noticed—"  She shifted position, and then I did notice—  "It's getting me turned on."  —when something soft and warm and wet brushed across the surface of my leg.

"Think it's too late to ask for relief," I said.

"Nah, it's not urgent," she said.  "Class is over in half an hour."  Her voice took on a speculative tone.  "You could help me.  There's no practice of any sort after school, we have lots of time."

"Hmmm," I said.  "I may take you up on that."

This lasted for another ten minutes or so, until Mr. Trineer deemed that the class had recorded all the salient details.  Then he let us untangle ourselves—which we did, with some regret—and take a look at what the class was drawing.  I hadn't bothered to do this the rest of the week, because it was better to be zoned out than watch thirty pencils draw thirty versions of the girl I was getting constantly stiff over.  Now I wanted to see.

For whatever reason, I started on the side of the classroom that didn't contain Meredith, wandering around looking.  Christa's seat was understandably unoccupied; I didn't know anybody else in the room.  Some of the drawings were good.  Some of them weren't.  Some of them made me wonder if the artist needed glasses.  None of them were really bad, though—since, of course, I wasn't drawing that week.  When we did perspective cityscapes using rulers at the beginning of the semester, I kicked ass, but this whole organic curvy thing eludes me.

I meandered across the classroom scoping it all out.  Seeing pictures of my own dick was a little weird (Christ, does it actually look like that?), but there were other things to pay attention to, like Christa's boobs.  Depending on the artist, some of them looked incredible.  Though there was one disadvantage to all of them—I couldn't reach out and touch 'em.  That's kind of an essential quality to really good boobage.

Anyway.  I went from one side of the room to the other.  I'm sure you've noticed that by now, but I wanted to emphasize that, because without at all meaning to, I saved the best for last.

"Jesus, Meredith.  I had no idea you could draw like that!"

Meredith shrugged.  "Never had a reason to."

"You've never seen her draw before?" Christa asked, coming up behind me.

"No," I said, feeling defensive.  "I didn't even know she could draw."

"It's mostly only the people who sit near me," Meredith said apologetically.  "They see me doodling and they're like, 'Whoa, Meredith, I didn't know you could draw like that!'  But I'm not sure even Brandon knows."

"I look pretty," Christa said.  "And Zach doesn't look bad either."

"Oh thanks," I said, affecting a wounded air, "now I know how you really think of me."

"No, you look just fine," Christa said, "it's just that most other people didn't manage to capture it.  Meredith did."

After that we lapsed into silence, watching Meredith.  She had been working on the second picture the whole time while she talked, her gaze flickering intermittently between Christa and me and the paper.  Mr. Trineer was there in outline—his shirt in dark plaid, khaki pants, the goatee and moustache and glasses.  It was literally an outline, only a few pertinent details filled in, but they gave the empty space a sense of form and shape and presence.  She hadn't paid much attention to my dick, just enough to get it to look like it actually did; likewise, she hadn't paid much attention to Christa's boobs.  In fact, the couch looked more detailed than either of our zones.  (It was a really ratty old couch.)  The magic wasn't there, that's for sure.  The magic was...

"It's the eyes," Christa said after a moment.  "And the posture."

"We look like one person," I said.

"Well, that is how I drew you," Meredith said.  "I just sort of...  Drew an outline of the two of you, and then started filling in the details."

"We look..." I said.

"We look like you and Brandon do," said Christa.

Meredith blinked.  "Do we really?" she asked.

"Absolutely," said Christa.  "It's like...  There's this connection between you two.  And you'd have to be blind not to see it.  Every time one of you moves somewhere else it's like you're moving in relation to each other.  If I go here I'll be this far away from him.  If he moves there he'll be that far away from me."

"I must be blind then, I don't see it," I said.

Christa trundled on.  "It's kinda cool.  It's like you can just tell.  Yeah, they're together.  You take one look, and you know."

"Well, Mr. Trineer seemed to see the same thing around you two," Meredith said.

"Yeah," I said.  "He did, didn't he."

"Oh, that reminds me," Meredith said.  "We're meeting back at Brandon's house this afternoon.  Sort of a, oh, I dunno, a post-Arie-Trauma-fest.  Christa, we'd love to have you if you can make it."

"Let me ask my parents after class," Christa said.  "Why, what traumatic thing happened to Arie?"

Meredith blinked a few times.  "I'll explain later."

Walking around for the remainder of class more or less killed my hard-on, and Christa didn't seem to be in much discomfort as we left the classroom, pursued by Mr. Trineer's shouts of "Enjoy the long weekend!"  So we listened to Meredith as we walked.  I hadn't heard the whole deal either, so I was as interested as Christa was.

"It was Trina," Meredith said.  "They had a fight—Trina is Arie's sister, Christa—and...  Things were said.  You have a brother, don't you?  You know how it is."

"I don't," I said.

"You and Sajel," Meredith said.

"'K, now I know," I said, trying halfheartedly to get a joke out of it.

"And so, this..." Christa said, beckoning for more information.

"This put Arie into the sort of deep blue funk where you slowly start to believe that you're a waste of oxygen," Meredith said as though narrating a children's story.  " 'I'm worthless, I'm pathetic, I'm a waste of resources, everybody hates me...'  We all think that, a little bit.  On rare occasions.  This was about five years's worth of those thoughts hitting Arie all at once."

Christa's face was somewhere between dismay and compassion.

"Derek noticed," Meredith said.  "Brandon noticed.  Sajel tries her best, but she was lost, and of course I'm not very familiar with the warning signs yet.  We asked Arie if she had any sharps on her—"

"Any what," Christa said.

"Sharps," Meredith said.  "Sharp things.  The sort of thing you cut with.  With proper precautions it's pretty easy to carry one around on your person."  It was surreal, listening to these matter-of-fact bits of blood and horror coming from her guileless face.  Meredith can't flirt.  She's tried it.  Artifice is foreign to her.  Brandon is much the same.  When they say these things, it's terrifying, because you know it's impossible for them to lie.

Christa said nothing.

"Anyway.  We asked if she had any, and she said no.  She also said that she wanted to go somewhere more quiet, because the amount of noise and commotion was overwhelming her.  At this point there was less than ten minutes on the clock, so we agreed to leave the instant the game ended, as opposed to staying around and supporting you—"  She turned to me.  "—in—"

"What's going on," Brandon asked.  Without me noticing, we'd reached the north of Stetsen.

"I'm explaining last night," Meredith said.  "Anyway.  Derek offered to stay—Arie encouraged him to stay.  We thought about leaving someone else instead, but it was eventually voted down.  Arie had to go home, Brandon's the only one who really understands Arie—"  Brandon gave her a brief, quizzical look.  "—I'm not so great with Arie but better than with you, and Sajel..."  She trailed off, biting her lip.  "Well, Sajel is..."

"Sajel's still got issues," Brandon said diplomatically.  "Give her the weekend."

"So Derek stayed to help you in your situation," Meredith finished, "and the rest of us went to Brandon's house."

"We found out in the car that she did have sharps," Brandon said.  "Meredith managed to get her to give them up.  We got home and just sat around talking, really, until Arie felt better about herself."

"Bit of an anticlimax, really," Meredith said blandly.  "But preferable to the alternative."

"And what's going on today," Christa asked.

"Well, we're just going to...  Gather," Meredith said.  "Hi, Sajel.  We're just going to gather and make sure Arie knows we're there for her."

"Why, is Christa invited?" Sajel asked.

"Of course," Meredith said.  "Look at them."

Sajel gave us a disinterested once-over.  "Oh, did they finally figure it out?  Congratulations, you two.  I thought Christa was smart."

"So, we're going to grab Derek and Arie," Brandon said, taking charge like he normally does, "and I've got the van this time, so I can drive everyone.  It'll be a tight fit, but—"

"Oh crap," Christa said, her eyes popping wide, "I have to go ask my mom!  She's out in front waiting to pick me up!"

"That's where I'm parked," Brandon said.  "We'll meet you there.  Zach knows the car, he'll point you in the right direction."

So off we went, scampering to the front of the school, where the boxes with our clothes were—oh yeah, it's the last day of our Program weeks!  We get to put our clothes on again!  I pointed this out to Christa, and she said, "My God, I totally forgot.  That's pretty cool."

What we hadn't counted on, though, was the crowd.

I'd seen it on Brandon's and Arie's last day, but I'd never considered the same thing might happen to us.  But there they were—a pretty sizeable percentage of the school, gathered at the front entrance, gathered around the clothes boxes and making a pretty general mess of things.  A couple of wide-eyed freshmen were already being delayed as much as possible in putting their clothes on; the instant the crowd saw us, they leapt like starving wolves, waving suggestions and ideas that, under Rule Three, we were quite obligated to follow.

"So, what do you think," I asked Christa, taking her hand.  But she was staring, looking not exactly pleased.

"Look," she said.

I recognized Tom Cirrone immediately.  Which meant that the two guys standing next to him, similarly glowering, were probably pals of his and Mark Spencer's as well.  Their hands were behind their backs or in their pockets, and I didn't want to know what was going to come out.  And this time we didn't have the benefit of Patrick Gardner to protect us.

The crowd was still clamoring.  The air was a welter of sound and confusion.  Thinking themselves undetected, Tom Cirrone and his buddies began to work their way into the crowd, slowly narrowing the space between them and us.

"No, we can't," Christa said to the crowd, "we have to get dressed and go!"

There was no coherent answer, just a lot of yelling.

"Guys, if you want to see us torn apart," I tried.  Again, no answer.  A couple of the more impatient simply reached in and began grabbing at us.

Christa raised the whistle to her lips and blew.

Despite the chaos, the sound carried.  I could hear it, certainly, though it was probably the last thing I heard from my right ear for about a week.  The people nearest us heard as well and fell silent, staring, which allowed the people behind them to hear and fall silent, which allowed...  It was a chain reaction, and gradually silence fell until everyone, students, parents, teachers, was staring at Christa and the sound of her whistle was the only thing in the air.  Halfway across the parking lot I could see Brandon, half-in and half-out of his car, clearly poised to come running over; as I watched, Meredith extricated herself from the front passenger seat and stood, staring.  Beside me, the sound of the whistle fell and died as Christa finally let off.  And for a moment there was only the vague rumble of cars.

"I'm sorry," she said in the sudden quiet.  "We need to get dressed and go.  I'd stay if I could...  But I can't."  She tugged me towards the boxes.  "Sorry."

"Uh," I said, being tugged, looking at the blank faces all around me.  "Carry on."

Gradually the sound came back.  The two freshmen had already made good their escape, but there were still a number of people who hadn't dressed themselves yet, and the crowd had plenty more victims.  Not Christa and I, though.  We made it to the clothes boxes unmolested.

"I'm proud of you," I said, kissing her on the cheek.  "That was well-played."

She smiled, pleased.

"Okay, you two," said Tom Cirrone, his voice hard.

I sighed.  "Look, we just whistled at the mere hint of you guys, don't think we won't—"

"Dr. Zelvetti!" Christa said pleasantly.  "How are you this fine afternoon?"

"I'm quite well, thank you," Dr. Zelvetti said, smiling, still clotheless.  (In the distance I heard Brandon and the others shouting their approval.)  "What was all that about?"

"Oh, we just felt threatened," Christa said casually.  "Figured I've blown the whistle once already, another time couldn't hurt."

"I see," Dr. Zelvetti said.  Tom Cirrone backpedaled, clearly unsure how to deal with a woman who probably equaled his weight and had much bigger nipples.  "And it's been...  Dealt with?"

"Yes, it has," Christa said.

"You do realize you're not supposed to abuse the whistles just to get out of your Program obligations," Dr. Zelvetti said.  Her voice was silk shrouding sharpened steel.

"I do," Christa said evenly.  "That was not the case here.  For one, we felt quite threatened.  For two, even if not, the Pamphlet clearly states that we do not have to participate in anything we do not deem reasonable.  In this case Zach and I are in something of a hurry, and we thought it unreasonable to be delayed."

From the way Dr. Zelvetti glanced at Tom Cirrone, very calmly and very quickly, I suddenly knew that she understood what was happening, even though we had named no names.

"All right, well," said Dr. Zelvetti.  "You've both been model participants this week.  I see no reason to trouble you any further.  Enjoy the long weekend."

"Thank you, Dr. Zelvetti," we chorused.

Dr. Zelvetti moved away with the gravid majesty of a million-ton boat.  Something twisted in Tom Cirrone's face and he stalked in a different direction.

Five minutes later we were safely strapped into the Chambers family's van, the wheels humming under us, taking us home.

 

 

 

 

Th.7

 

Getting my mom's permission was surprisingly easy.  It helped that we didn't have school tomorrow; it helped that Brandon himself was there and came with us to ask her permission, and that he and Meredith were polite and charming and engaging; it helped that there were seven of us, which is probably a good sight if you see your daughter holding hands with some strange boy you only met yesterday—the more people there are, the less likely something, you know, inappropriate is going to happen.  (Much to my regret.)  And it helped that Zach was there; as far as my mother was concerned, he could do no wrong.  In only a few minutes we were all wedged into the car, with promises from Brandon to have us all back by six.

I had never been out with this group of people before, and it was an amazing trip.  For one, four of them can sing really well—which is something you may not be able to appreciate if you've never been wedged into a car with a fully functional quartet that isn't at all ashamed about bursting into song.  Add to this Zach's outrageous sense of association, the dry sarcasms from Brandon and Meredith and Arie, and Sajel and Derek sniping from the flanks, and just about any radio station becomes an instant comedy act.

"Jesus," I said as we scooted along narrow roads flanked by estates the size of Texas.  "You live all the way out here?"  A gated driveway flashed by, the actual house so recessed that I couldn't even see it.

"My parents liked Mount Hill High better than Westport," Brandon said.  "Probably the stronger humanities programs."

Arie, with a dull smile: "Wait until you see his house."

Wait until you see his house, indeed.  It was huge.  It was twice the size of the place my family lived in.  The others led me through the echoing halls, pointing out this room or that feature.  I just stared.

"Your parents don't mind you just having friends over unannounced," I asked.

"Actually, I imagine they do mind," Brandon said dryly.  "Fortunately, they're not here to complain."

"Where are they," I asked.

Brandon thought for a moment.  "Atlanta."

"Atlanta?"

"Until next Tuesday.  Well, at least that's where my mom is.  My dad's in Spokane, and tomorrow he leaves for...  Let's see here...  Florence."

"Florence?"

"Yeah, he's looking for antiques, I think is what he said.  That'll take him a few weeks at least.  And that's assuming he doesn't just get sidetracked and head over to Madrid or Rome or whatever."

"So there's no one in this house??" I said.

"Honey," Arie said with that bland, slightly sarcastic tone she uses so well, "welcome to the Chambers residence."

"They're politicians," Brandon said.  "They spend all their days up at the capitol.  I just got the e-mail from Dad that he's going on a shopping trip or something, and Mom represents Georgia so she's there right now.  They're out of the house about fifty weeks a year.  Basically I've been looked after by the housekeeper since I was ten."

"And my mom, on occasion," Zach volunteered.

"And mine," Sajel added.

"Oh, and Mrs. Krenshaw," Brandon said.  "Though not any time in the past few years."

"And so you have this huge house..." I said.  "All to yourself."

"Yeah," Brandon said.  He gave a humorless smile.  "Which is why I have friends over so often."

"Why," I exclaimed.  "I'd love this sort of privacy!"

A strange, pained look crossed Brandon's face and he said, "All right, we'll trade.  I'll go live with your family and you live here."

"I may just take you up on that," I laughed.  Then I caught Zach's expression.  "Why, what's wrong?"

"Enh," said Zach unenthusiastically.  "'s fine."

When Brandon had said we were there for Arie, I wasn't really sure what was going to happen.  But nothing really did; we sat around, talking, laughing, playing video games, borrowing Brandon's laptop to check our e-mail.  Arie spent about half an hour bent over it in intense concentration, occasionally IMing people.  Curious about what she found so absorbing, I looked over her shoulder once, and saw only an Internet bulletin board, black text on white background and red links.  Well, to each their own.

The others got involved in a video game I didn't recognize, something science-fiction-y with guns and explosions and shiny walls.  It was exciting to watch, but Brandon's half-hearted explanation, mumbled sidemouthed and frequently interrupted when something happened in the game, left much to be desired.  The only thing I could tell was that Meredith was winning, mostly because of how often Derek and Brandon and Zach cursed at her.  I had to go to the bathroom but I didn't want to disturb anybody, so I slipped away.

Thus began the closest thing to an acid trip that I have ever experienced.

No, I wasn't on anything.  It's just that the house was so big.  By the time I left the kitchen, I could barely hear the sounds of laser guns and grenades behind me; fifty feet later I was engulfed in total silence.  Around me were faceless white walls; under me was carpet, or wooden flooring.  My bare feet made no noise.  I wandered in silence.

It shouldn't've been that hard to find a bathroom, but wandering through this house put me in some sort of a trance state.  The hallways unfolded and unfolded; I passed through rooms I didn't recognize, some with furniture, some with objects, some bare.  There were windows; and then there weren't.  The ceiling was a few feet overhead; and then it was much higher.  I passed stairs and took them at random.  Somewhere, intellectually, I knew I must have wandered in a circle or backtracked my path or crossed it.  I knew it as one knows one breathes—casually, and with no attention; and then forgetting a moment later.  I searched.  The house called to me as a maze does: find my end, find my center; track my depths, map my paths.  Find the furthest point; as the sailors must have heard, six hundred years ago: find the edge.  Find the place where the water drops off into nothingness.  Find where it all ends.

It must have been nearly half an hour before Zach found me.  "Jesus," he said, "you gave us a fright, wandering off like that."

"I'm sorry," I said, still a little distant.  We stood in the middle of a room filled with pedestals, with hooks on the wall, with recessed niches, none of them used.

"It's a big house," I added.

"Yes, it's a big house," Zach said.  "Do you still need to use a bathroom, or did you pee against a wall or something?"

"Bathroom," I said, dizzy with space.

The bathroom was small, without even a tub or shower stall, simply a sink and toilet; being in such an enclosed room brought me back to reality.  I had had no idea a single building could contain that much space.  It was startling and humbling and disturbing.  Did Brandon ever get lost like that, wandering aimlessly through the rooms, seeing no one, not even his own reflection?  Did he ever get drunk on the vertigo, the lack of edges, the endless maze?  Did the housekeeper have to dive in to rescue him sometimes?

"I'm sorry I wandered off," I told Zach.  "You guys were really involved in that video game, and I just had to go."  A slight laugh.  "I figured I could find a bathroom by myself."

"Not in this house," Zach said with a dry laugh.  "I've known Brandon for six years and I still get lost."

But he didn't get lost on the way back to the main TV room, where everyone had been.  They weren't there now: "We split up to look for you," Zach explained.  "They ought to be back soon."  I sat on the floor, my back to the front of the couch, and Zach joined me.  "Sheesh," he said, "who needs to go to the gym?  Just let some kid wander loose in the house and send out search parties."

I laughed.  His arm around me was the most natural thing.  We were comfortable together.  We said nothing.  Nothing needed to be said.

"Thank you for rescuing me," I said presently.  Okay, something needed to be said.

"Ah, someone else would've found you if I hadn't," he said.

"No, I mean..."  I caught his eye, and his face fell to stillness.  "Thank you.  For...  I dunno.  For everything.  You've been so..."  I shrugged, unable to properly express it.  I'm never good at this, am I.  He had been sweet and charming and caring and gentle, and he had taught me so many things I needed to learn.  Mark Spencer was only the symptom.  Zach had turned my life around.

Sudden understanding bloomed in my head.  "No, nobody else would've found me," I said.  "I'd still be lost without you.  No one else could have found me.  It had to be you."  I didn't know how I knew this; only that I did.  Call it woman's intuition, maybe.  I just knew.

His face was inches from mine, and I could see the intense light in his eyes.  "I'm glad I found you then."

When we kissed it was like the collision of worlds.  And when he pulled away and I saw what was in his eyes, I knew what he wanted.  And I knew I wanted it too.  But I could also see him hesitating, worried, not sure what to do.

"Christa, I..."  He gulped.  "I have to ask—"

So I took my shirt off.

"—Okay, I think that answered that question," he said.

His hands on my breasts were warm, the palms rough, making my nipples tingle with gentle, tickling pressure.  I chilled, I shivered—I wasn't used to feeling that.  To feeling someone's hands on my breasts.  Zach's hands.

I slid my hands under his shirt, feeling the slats of his ribs, the wiry musculature, and then slid his shirt over his head.  "Zach," I breathed.  "I'm ready for you."  It was simple truth; in about a minute I had practically soaked through my panties.  I had gone into The Program to find friends, to find sex, to find true love—bared myself before the entire school to draw to me those who would be drawn.  It had worked, and the goal was within my grasp.

A moment later we were naked, his cock nestled between my thighs because of the difference in height.  We had stretched out on the floor parallel to the couch, lying on our sides, kissing.  Now he eased me to my back, his hand trailing down my body until it reached my legs.

His eyebrows jumped.  "Jeez, girl, you weren't kidding!"

I giggled.  "Do you like it?  I made it myself."

That wide, familiar grin lit his features.  "Yeah, I think I like it...  Hmm..."

His finger slid up and down my slit, rubbing against my clit on every stroke, which only made things worse.  I reached out, drawing him over to me.  "Zach?"

"Yeah?"

"Do it."

He paused for a second, suspended over me.  "Are you on anything," he asked.  At my confusion, he explained, "I don't want to get you pregnant."

"I got The Shot yesterday," I said.  "I'm not that silly."

A sudden smile broke over his face, warm and bright.  "No.  You're my girl.  The smartest, most beautiful girl in all the world."

Hee.  A girl could get used to hearing that.

Something brushed against my nether regions—something lumpy and hard.  Suddenly I realized it was his cock, moving ever closer as he moved up my body, his face giving way to his neck and collarbone as he struggled for the correct alignment.

I felt the head of his cock slowly spreading my pussy lips, felt the minor tingles of pleasure, the greater courses of anticipation.  And then he was inside me; a little, more, more.  There was no way to describe the sensation of him filling me.  It didn't exactly feel good—it didn't hurt (which I think is a big step as is) but it wasn't the greatest.

He was past the entrance now, over halfway in.  I wanted him to move faster, but he was taking it slowly, maybe anticipating a cherry.  Tampons had taken care of that, though.  And in the meanwhile was the constant, inexplicable sensation of him filling me, of my pussy expanding in ways it had never expanded before, to depths I had never predicted.  It was hard to understand anything of what was going on down there—just a mass of turgid pressure, of things moving in ways they had never moved before.  My body twitched on the confused impetus.

Finally I felt the pressure of his hips against mine (his pubic area against my clit the first pleasurable sensation I had felt) and he was holding himself over me with his arms, his eyes wide with concentration.  When he saw me looking, he gave me a quick grin.  "You have no idea," he whispered, "how good this feels."

I smiled.  "I'm glad," I said.  It wasn't great for me.  I guess I should've gotten him to go down on me first.  That probably would've helped.  But if he was enjoying it, then—well, hey, things could be worse.

He shifted his position a little, sending pleasurable shocks through both of us.  Every little movement either of us made, renewed my awareness of what was going on down there.  "And you're...  Really tight, too."

That, I wasn't sure how to take.  "Well, uhm.  I guess that—" (move shock tingle) "has something to do with me being a virgin."

"Brandon showed me a porn story once," Zach said, a quizzical expression on his face—not up to his usual standards, but hey, we were both a little distracted—"where the guy described it as 'trying to slide his dick between two bricks,' and I was like, 'Oh, that's an image...'"

I burst out laughing—which did unspeakable things to my clit, which was still pressed against him, and ended up with a messy combination of giggling, hiccuping and moaning.  "Wouldn't—  Wouldn't that be a little painful," I said.  "Bricks are kinda...  Coarse.  And rough.  And irritating."

"Yeah, exactly," Zach murmured.  "But... You're not.  You're warm and firm and wet."

I put my hands on his arms and felt them trembling.  "Zach, lie down.  You're not that heavy.  Don't hold yourself up like that."

He shook his head (move shock tingle).  "Then I can't...  See you."

I smiled at him.

He began to slide out of me, and I felt the way my pussy grasped at him as he left, felt it with an almost tangible need.  I wanted him inside me.  That was the one thing certain about all of it.  Tomorrow we'd try again, and it would be good, because today, I wanted him inside of me.  Come back, Zach, and make me whole.

I don't know what else to say about it.  We kept at it for a while, until he came and spurted inside me—which was something else, let me tell you—but it was all basically the same.  I didn't come (I guess that was normal), but I didn't mind either.  I had enjoyed it, maybe not physically, but certainly emotionally.  It made me feel close to him to know what I could do to him.

"Wow," he said, lying beside me, his breathing a rush.  "Wow."

I smiled and traced over his chest with a fingernail.

"What did you think," he asked, "how was it, did you like it?"

"It was..."  I shrugged.  "Okay."

He blinked at me.  "Okay?  Hon, if the sex is only okay, something's going wrong here."

I smiled—more over the 'hon' than anything else.  "Well, it was my first time.  I think you're supposed to take it as an achievement if it just doesn't hurt."

"Oh my God you're right," Zach exclaimed in tones of purest shock, sitting straight up.  "It was!  I am such an idiot!  I can't believe—"

"Zach!" I said, shushing him with a finger across the lips.  "It's okay."

"No, but I totally—" he protested.

"It's okay," I said again.  "Zach, listen to yourself.  What are you doing?"

"I'm apologizing for being a complete strudelhead," Zach muttered.

I giggled.  "Strudelhead?"

A flicker of a grin broke through his ire.  "Yeah, shut up."

"You're apologizing," I said.  "That's what you're doing.  Yeah, you kinda got lost in the moment, but if I had given myself to Mark Spencer, how do you think he'd be reacting right now?"

Zach blinked a few times.  "Well, probably he'd just...  Not even say anything.  'Wham bam thankyou ma'am' or whatever."

"Exactly," I said, putting my arms around him.  "And you're not doing that.  You're apologizing.  Which means that next time..."  His eyebrows jumped in a highly satisfactory manner, and I smiled.  "Next time...  We'll do it right.  And everyone will be happy."

His eyebrows bobbed and stayed up, his eyes closed, and he nodded a little.  "I like the way you think."

I kissed him.  "I thought you would."

 

 

 

 

Epilogue

 

When the others returned, they found us basically like that, naked and sitting hip-to-hip, side by side, our arms around each other, our clothes scattered about in various disarray.  Derek was in a fuss—as it turns out, whoever found me was supposed to call the others using cellphones.  Zach was crowned the bad boy of the hour, and immediately the video games resumed.

School on Monday was strange—walking in without having to take my clothes off, without having to be the center of attention.  I had a vague worry that people might object to how quickly Zach and I had left on Thursday, but no one seemed to pay us any mind.  It was just as strange to have two groups of friends to hang out with—great, but strange.  I'm really glad I met Zach and Sajel and Meredith and Brandon and all the others.  They're a great group of people.

Mark Spencer didn't show up in school for the entire week.  We weren't molested by any more baseball goons, but for the first couple of days we kept our eyes open a lot.  We couldn't be sure, especially with Mark not there.  When he showed up the next week, he too was going around without clothes.  There were rumors that he was made to go through The Program as punishment, but—  Well, it's Mark.  I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he'd signed up at some point (though clearly without really considering the implications, as his behavior on our date demonstrates).  Besides, I saw him being fawned over by a few of the more starry-eyed cheerleaders, and he's with one of them now—the very girl, in fact, that Zach had dated just prior to becoming involved with me.  When Zach saw who it was on Mark's arm, he laughed and said they suited each other.  Regardless, he leaves me alone, and I leave him alone.

Louise and Patrick did get together.  The four of us double-date sometimes.  Patrick can be loud sometimes, in more of a scornful, rebellious way than Zach does, and Louise is shy and hesitates a little, but it's obvious they really love each other.  You can tell especially when Patrick's trying to get her to do something she normally wouldn't, like going on rides at the county carnival.  You'd think he'd get annoyed and start pushing—but he doesn't, he softens up, he gets really sensitive.  In full view of others.  It's a bit surreal to see this bald-headed guy soothing his girlfriend's ruffled feathers with a line of staring teenagers piling up behind them.  They're awesome together, though.

Zach and I are having a lot of fun together.  'Next time' actually turned out being over a week later—I'm not really sure what Zach thought about that, but he didn't complain.  It's not like we could exactly sneak away and boff each other whenever we want.  We took our time, and it was great.  Honestly we don't do sex all that much, once every couple of weeks...  Which surprises me.  I had no idea Zach would stand for that, I figured he'd be beating the door down.  Zach, though, says it makes perfect sense to him.  "I've had too many relationships where we were just...  Joined at the hip.  We'd be fucking, but that's it.  But you—we talk.  We go out with friends.  We talk on the phone every night."  It's true.  I'm glad we live close by, or the long-distance bills would be insane.  "I like that.  Maybe we'll change the balance later when we both get hornier or get tired of talking, but for now...  I really just like having a girlfriend I can talk to."

The Program was not cancelled at the end of our week.  No one really expected it to be, but Dr. Zelvetti made a point of announcing it anyway.  And pretty soon, more people we knew were getting called in.

Who?  Well.  That's a story for another day.



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