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Heart Ball
If you are under the age of 18, or otherwise forbidden by law to read electronically transmitted erotic material, please go do something else. This material is Copyright, 2001, 2003, Uther Pendragon. All rights reserved. I specifically grant the right of downloading and keeping ONE electronic copy for your personal reading so long as this notice is included. Reposting requires previous permission. All persons here depicted, except public figures depicted as public figures in the background, are figments of my imagination and any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental. |
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Heart Ball
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She was rather frazzled when Steve appeared. More than that, this Kyle was a different boy; she no longer trusted him to sleep through the night. The house was a "ranch," and the door to Kyle's room was not six feet from the living room. When their books were spread out, she led Steve into the kitchen before giving him a welcoming kiss. "What is this?" he asked. "As much privacy as we are going to get. I'm nervous." "Where is a glass?" "Here." She got him one. He ran the water, filled the glass, poured half out. "Now," he said, "we have a reason to be in here." He had a wad of tissues in his coat pocket just in case she would repeat her delightful strokes. That possibility was looking dimmer. "You have a devious mind. I like that in a guy." When they kissed again, she began to relax in his arms. He felt her breasts press into his chest. He left her mouth to sprinkle kisses over her face, but the differences in height made that uncomfortable. He stopped on her forehead while pulling her sweatshirt out of her skirt. He raised it enough to reach her bra clasp. He liked the next kiss better, with her breasts a little softer and an inch lower on his chest. Even through her sweatshirt and his clothes, he could feel the hardness of her nipples. Shannon never mentioned the annoyance of a bunched-up bra. The alternative was obvious, and she didn't want to remove her bra here. The kiss was great, though, and there was always something sexy about having her breasts swinging free. Steve hunched down, hugged Shannon to him, straightened up, and set her on the edge of the countertop. After a little adjustment, he was standing between her legs, and her face was above his. They kissed again, his tongue playing in her mouth. He ran his hands under her shirt, up her back, and then around to cup her breasts. All that smoothness was against his palms; his thumbs played with her nipples. Somehow, the different angle made the kiss different for Shannon. She had her arms about Steve and her face above his; his hands were busy at her breasts but not holding her to him. She was kissing him rather than his kissing her. At that thought, she broke the main kiss to kiss his nose and forehead as he sometimes did for her. When she returned to his mouth, she invaded it with her tongue. She felt daring, as well as turned on. Steve's mind was concentrating on keeping his hands gentle on Shannon's breasts. It couldn't handle her tongue in his mouth. His body, with no such limits, arched forward rubbing his hardness along her belly. Luckily, their clothing interfered. Shannon had felt his erection pressing against her many times at dances, but usually closer to her rib cage than to her groin. Indeed, those experiences usually marked the less erotic parts of their evenings; and she'd always thought of the male reaction as slightly humorous. This time there was nothing funny about it. This time Steve was pressed against her mound, an inch from their having real sex; and it turned her almost all the way on. When she curled her legs around him and hugged him to her body with all four limbs, the action was only partly motivated by her realization that they couldn't go further while pressed together. Mostly it was instinctive acceptance of her mate. Somehow Steve realized through his fog of lust that Shannon's lovely breasts were being crushed by this position. He dropped his hands from them and hugged her. His left hand pulled her hips towards him while his right petted compulsively up and down her back. They had to breathe, and eased back. When Steve put his hand on Shannon's knee, she loosened her legs. His stroke up the inside of her thigh tightened them again. "I'm not trying to stop you," she said. "That's okay." He reached between them to caress her mound. They kissed again, but his fingers couldn't quite reach where he wanted them. Which was where she wanted them, too. "Did you mean what you said about knowing that there were things that you can't have?" she asked. "I guess so. What did I say?" "I'm going to wear white on my wedding day. Do you know what that means?" "You mean that you are going to be a virgin then." "Will you respect that limit?" "Of course, Shannon. What do you think I am?" She thought he was a male, a teenage male at that. But she didn't have quite the words to express that. "Bring that chair over here so it faces this way. Then sit on it." He wondered what he had done, but he obeyed her direction. She hopped down and walked over to him. She sat on his lap straddling him, careful that she wasn't sitting on any part of her skirt. "Are you comfortable this way?" He shifted until her weight was balanced. "I'm okay." More than okay, the discomfort of her weight hardly compared to his delight in her accessibility. "Don't lift my top. I don't want Kyle coming out and seeing me." That sounded more limiting than she had intended. She took his hand and put it under the sweatshirt. Steve couldn't kiss her breasts like this, but it was Shannon's call. Besides, she knew the kids; he had to trust her judgment on that. Her breasts were delightful, but he began stroking her thigh after a minute. She made no move to stop him. Shannon was actually enjoying this less than she had the kiss on the countertop. She'd jumped down, after all, so that he could touch her between her legs. Finally he did, stroking so softly that it tickled. Even the tickle was arousing, and his tongue was delightful in her mouth. Steve was trying to figure out Shannon's shape through the layers of cloth. He'd seen diagrams in sex-ed books and pictures in the raunchier magazines; but all he'd seen of Shannon was the mound, and that only once. His curiosity didn't mean that he wasn't enjoying the feel, of course. He was also enjoying her response. She was breathing into his mouth, and he could gauge every increase in her excitement by the raggedness of her breath. Her hand was on the back of his neck, controlling the firmness of the kiss. As she would press her mouth more firmly into his, he would press more firmly with his fingers. Shannon didn't want to break this off, but her breast was starting to feel sore. She grabbed Steve's arm through her shirt and switched it to her left breast. "More gently," she said. He felt guilty. He knew that he should move from one of her breasts to the other. He touched her much more gently, above and below. Shannon broke the kiss and touched the arm that he had thrust between her legs. "Less gently," she said. Then she had to wait for Steve to stop laughing. Soon, however, he was again brushing her nipple very gently. Soon he was stroking her lips quite firmly through her panties. Soon she, kissing him, feeling all of these sensations, started on her journey. Steve could feel more dampness through the cloth. That must have made his detection of her shape easier, because her lips felt as if they had become larger. The confinement of his jeans was becoming a torture, but he could bear that torture for the rewards his hands and mouth were receiving. Shannon pressed harder against his mouth and breathed more rapidly. She was soaring. He was taking her as high as she had ever taken herself. Then she shattered with a gasp. Unable to support her own weight, she slumped in his arms. Steve felt her gasp into him. Then he had to abandon his stroking to keep her from falling. She gasped an inch from his ear for what seemed like a really long time. Maybe it was merely that his foot had fallen asleep. Anyway, he figured that an armful of Shannon was worth a little discomfort. Finally, she gathered herself together and stood up. She was not quite steady on her feet, but better than Steve. He didn't even attempt to rise for another few minutes. He was on his feet, and considering whether to mention the Kleenex he had brought for his own relief, when the garage door opened. It made an unholy racket, startling them into action. Shannon fixed her bra immediately; Steve headed for the other room. His coat would hide his erection. Mr. Pollock didn't seem to be in a very good mood when he came in, especially considering how much liquor he had obviously consumed. He paid Shannon, though, and accepted Steve's offer to drive her home. Steve would have worried with Mr. Pollock at the wheel. Steve thought about the Kleenex again on the short drive, but there wasn't really anywhere to park. Shannon stopped him a block from her house to give him a big kiss. He dropped her off at her door, drove home, marked the mileage and gas level, and went upstairs. In his room, he savored his memory and the odor still on his fingers. He felt too sleepy, though, to linger on his road to completion. He still had the sticky Kleenex in bed with him when he awoke the next morning.
"Valentine's Day? Definitely more slow dances." For that matter, Steve and she sat out half the fast dances these days. "Well, you know, if you were on the committee for that dance, you could represent that view." She laughed. Ken might play the fool, but he wasn't one. "Why don't you ask Steve to be on the committee?" "I plan to," he said. "I thought that he'd be likelier to agree if you already had." "I hadn't thought about us both being on a committee together." "Do think about it," he said. "Frankly, there are places where I wouldn't want a pair of lovebirds like you. Get twice the attention to the subject from one of the couple than from both. But this dance is about romance, and my ideas aren't going to be sufficient." "I'll think about it." She would also think about a new view of Ken. Student council was enough of a joke that having the class prankster as president had made a twisted kind of sense, but it had functioned under Ken as well as it had the previous three years. And the themes for the balls had been somewhat more original. English, her only class with Steve, was already over for the day; but she mentioned Ken's question at lunch. "We're both awfully busy," Steve said. "And we'd have to help decorate on a Saturday morning. I work then." "Well, neither of us has been what you'd call active in extra-curricular activities, your chess club excepted. This might be sort of fun. 'What did you do in high school, Mommy?' 'I babysat, dear.' That doesn't sound like much." The concept of Shannon with her children distracted Steve. Would they be his children? "You decide. If you want it, we can." He'd worked extra time for Hauksbee to cover for others; he'd dropped the chess club because too many of their matches were on Saturday mornings. The old man would let him off for one day. "Tell me what you decide." Their conversation veered in other directions, and the subject had entirely slipped Steve's mind by the time he walked into calculus class. It hadn't slipped Ken's mind. "You know, Steve," he said. "The ball for Valentine's Day is coming up. I talked to Shannon about having the two of you on the committee. Frankly, when I think of romance, you and Shannon spring to mind. The school has a lot of more demonstrative couples, but I don't think that their idea of romance would fly by the administration." "She told me." "What do you think?" "It's her decision." "For both of you?" Ken raised an eyebrow. "You sure aren't going to get me on the committee without her." Ken didn't get to Shannon before the end of the day; he had other people to ask as well. The first thing he did was to raise her left hand for an ostentatious examination. "Steve said that you are going to decide for the two of you," he explained. "I thought that I should check for a wedding ring." "It's not like you think." Though she didn't mind the suggestion that it was. "He said I could decide this for the two of us." "And have you? We could really use your input. The two of you come to the dances, so you must know what you've enjoyed and not enjoyed. You show brains in class, which many on the planning teams don't, quite frankly. Some of them have brains, but shut them down for class; even so...." "I think Steve was just tired of your bull. If I decide, you won't bother him. I haven't decided yet." "You won't be disappointed if you decide to do it," Ken said. Since she had no particular expectations, the promise was more certain than Ken probably had intended. Steve was still taking the bus; the weather -- while clear -- had been windy and bitterly cold. This afternoon, however, was still and only a degree or two below freezing. You could almost see the piles of snow receding from the center of the sidewalks while you watched. On the walk home, she could stroll and think about deciding for Steve. She had previously thought of marrying Steve, from picturing him in a tux waiting for her at the end of the aisle, to imagining a honeymoon with him, to considering what their kids might look like. She hadn't thought about couples sharing decisions; indeed, for the last four years she had been anxious to get out of her house and make her own decisions. But her parents shared decisions, especially about her. She had a pretty good idea about the fault lines, but seldom could use that knowledge. The last time her dad had spanked her, it was because she'd gone to a horror movie with his permission after her mother had refused hers. "You don't have permission," he'd told her, "when you cheat to get it." But, she had figured out even then, he wouldn't have spanked her for sneaking out. Trying to play one parent off against the other raised the penalties. The past few months, however, Steve and she had been sharing a lot of decisions. School was most important. But was it really? Several times, Steve had backed off because she wouldn't make out when he expected her to. Was that sharing a decision? Maybe it was just his realization of her body belonging to her, and he didn't have a right to vote on what he did with it. Even in the meadow, when he had gone way over the line, he had let her end it when she wanted to. And, if it was her body and her decision, where did breaking in on him in the bathroom fit? It had been his body then. He'd tried to hide, and she hadn't let him. She was thinking so hard that she almost walked into Mr. Markham from two doors down. "My! Shannon," he said, "you were really concentrating there. What do you have to bother your pretty head about, a pretty young girl like you?" Her face flamed. "I'm really sorry I wasn't watching where I was going." She ducked away before he could repeat his question. Her mother was off showing a series of houses to demanding clients and not due back for hours. She'd left detailed instructions for dinner, and Shannon started in on them immediately. Half an hour later, her mother walked in saying, "They made an offer on the first house. Now we have to see whether the seller will come down." "Want me to finish?" Shannon asked. If she did, she didn't have to do dishes. "Let's work together. We'll shove the dishes off on Dad." So they cooked together, her mother actually taking the helper role when the jobs divided that way. The good feelings lasted through dinner, which was dominated by her mother's blow-by-blow account of getting the clients to see the advantages of the house she had been showing. Allison Bryant broke out the mint chocolate chip ice cream she had bought to celebrate. Next year, they'd be celebrating her sales and Wayne's raise with wine again. But she'd rather have her daughter with her and stick to ice cream. For that matter, they let Shannon drink when she was home. Better learn moderation at home than taste her first booze in the company of boozing fellow adolescents. "Do you have a job tonight, Shannon?" she asked. "No. Not even a date. I need to get on top of 'Romeo and Juliet.'" And Steve needed that more, although she didn't want him getting on top of Juliet. She felt her smile, and was briefly afraid her mother would see it. "I was just thinking," Allison continued. "Your father and I used to celebrate my sales with wine. The ice cream was to include little Shannon in the celebration." "Gee thanks, Mom." The response was perfunctory. She knew her mother only currently used the term to describe her in earlier times. Still, it was worth some response to remind her she shouldn't. "So. Should I have bought wine for the three of us instead?" Well, Shannon appreciated the offer. On the other hand, it was a big bowl of ice cream, and her mother usually poured Shannon half a glass of wine -- sour wine, to boot. Wayne Bryant didn't like the idea at all. He remembered the wine less as celebration than as getting Allison in the mood for the real celebration. He could pour his own glass of Maker's Mark when he chose, but his diet didn't allow for ice cream unless Allison made the exceptions. He looked longingly at the bowl of ice cream until inspiration led him to the liquor cabinet in the living room. He came back to the table with a bottle of creme de menthe. He poured a little on Shannon's ice cream, more on his own, and passed the bottle to Allison. She took very little. "This is good!" Shannon said. If she had known that her parents had this stuff, she'd never have sampled her father's whiskey back when she was in eighth grade. Of course, if she'd sneaked samples of this stuff, she might not have stopped so soon. They tasted chocolate, and mint, and a small celebration. They tasted the good feelings of being in a family. "Really," said Mrs. Bryant, "we're going to miss you next year, Shannon." "I'm going to miss you, too, Mom. Miss both of you." And she knew that this was true, crazy as they drove her sometimes. "We know you have to grow up and leave," Mrs. Bryant continued. "By the way, have you sent your acceptance in yet?" "No, Mom. I haven't even decided where I'm going to send the acceptance yet. I have until May first, and there are good reasons to wait till nearly then." "I can't believe that you are considering going to the U of I when Albion has accepted you." Wayne Bryant sighed for the feeling of togetherness which had lasted so briefly. Maybe he could lighten the conversation. "Well some people choose their schools for the faculty; some for the student body." "If Steven felt as strongly as she does about being together, he would go to Albion." The two of them were going on fewer dates; Shannon had stopped campaigning for a later curfew. Allison could see that the first intensity was wearing off; why couldn't her daughter. She turned towards Shannon. "Maybe he's right; maybe it's time for you two to give each other a little space." Shannon stared at her mother. Steve had never asked for "a little space." A little privacy for immediate relief was the maximum he'd wanted. He'd never said that he wouldn't go to Albion, though he had never said that he would, either. The point that her mother couldn't see is that asking Steve to change colleges for her was promising to marry him. It was worse than accepting an engagement ring. Break an engagement, and he had a ring that another girl might not want; her mother wanted her to ask Steve to accept a life that he did not want in order to be with her. And, of course, if they did marry, she wanted Steve to be well prepared for his profession. They would get more money, and Steve would be happier. He wanted to be a good chemical engineer, maybe a good chemist. "You know, Mom," she said, "if I had to choose today between a future in which I certainly will marry Steve, and a future in which I certainly won't, I'd choose the future including Steve. Just so you know what the choice is, if you make me choose." Allison couldn't guess what had brought that on. The last thing that she wanted was to make Shannon choose so young. The problem with Shannon's fixation on Steven at seventeen was seventeen not Steven. She knew that Shannon would never admit it, but it was her happiness they worried about. Steven was great from a parental viewpoint -- sober, hardworking, reasonably clean cut. It wasn't as if he wanted to play baseball professionally or even go to medical school; chemists were paid well, but anybody who took the classes could get the work. She would love to see them give each other a little space for four years. If Shannon still wanted Steven after seeing a college full of boys, God bless her. And if Steven's eyes wandered, better before marriage than after. "Well, Chick," Wayne said. "I think you should consider what your mother is saying. But this is your decision. If the school will take you and we can possibly afford it, we'll send you off and pay the tuition." Which was, he figured, the minimal expression of what he and Allison had decided years ago. They continued eating their ice cream as separately as three people can at the same table. Strangers thrown together by restaurant crowding would have related more closely. Shannon went upstairs to do her studying; her parents stayed behind. Wayne suddenly remembered what Shannon was going to read. "'Romeo and Juliet'! Why can't the school system teach them The Story of O? She'll be planning an elopement within the hour." His wife wasn't amused. "It's generous of you to promise her the college fund that I earned." "As opposed to the money which bought this ice cream? And this house, and the gas you put in your Taurus to take your clients around, for that matter. That's all our money, the money that I earned. Look, we agreed that your commissions would go into college bonds for Shannon; we didn't agree that they would go into a fund which you could use to blackmail her." "First she tells me that I am forcing her to marry Steven, and then you tell me that I am blackmailing her." "No," he admitted, "you are not. If she sent a rejection letter to Albion and an acceptance to U of I, you would agree to her decision. But you can't have it both ways. If telling her that fact is a betrayal, then you want to use that money to persuade her to accept your school choice." "I still don't see why they couldn't both go to Albion. Do you?" "Yes." He figured that, if Allison wanted to hide from the truth, she shouldn't ask point-blank questions. "If you want to do something, something particular, you prepare as best you can to do that thing. You don't buy the generic-brand education and pretend that it is as good as the custom model. And employers know that. Go to the personnel department of a chemical firm and say, 'I have a good, well-rounded, education; I want to be a chemist.' They'll ask you, 'Then why didn't you get the best preparation to be a chemist?' And the best preparation is not in a small school with no great interest in the natural sciences." He could distinguish among her tears, even from her back. They had been married more than two decades, for God's sake. The tears she took from the table were those of anger. He finished her bowl of ice cream before stacking the dishes in the dishwasher. He figured that he deserved the treat; he wasn't going to get any other pleasure that night. Shannon did the minimum necessary on her other homework before opening "Romeo and Juliet." She wished she could look up the notes in the big copy of Folger's Shakespeare that her parents kept downstairs, but she didn't want it badly enough to return to the front lines. The language was such a trap, both in its beauty and in its strangeness, that she'd read passages without noticing what was happening. This time, she put a list of the parts of each scene down on paper, then she listed what she knew because of that section. The flow of the play started to become clearer. Midway through this exercise, she got a call from Mrs. Jensen. They wanted her for Tuesday a week from then. She checked her calendar and agreed. While she was downstairs, she did get the Folger's and lug it upstairs. Apparently families had always resented their daughters' falling in love. The Capulets, at least, had some excuse. The only thing that her parents had against Steve was that she loved him. And, for her mother, that he might interfere with Shannon's going to Albion. She should send an acceptance to the U of I tomorrow; that would show Mom! The problem was that she didn't want to go there without Steve. And Steve might get into IIT. Would he go to IIT without her? Should he go to IIT without her, if it were her decision to make? Well, he shouldn't because that would tear them apart. But a degree from IIT might produce a greater income for him for their entire lives together. And would their lives be together? At this point, Shannon realized that she was done studying for that night. She got into her night clothes and into bed to do her worrying in comfort. Albion was not that much farther from Chicago than Champaign was. Either distance would require an overnight stay to make a visit worthwhile. With any luck at all, IIT would turn Steve down; but she felt like a dog for even thinking that. She added a quick mental note to God that she had not asked for that. If they accepted Steve, the same conditions applied as the ones on Albion which anyone but her mother could see. If Steve turned down his best chance at education to be with her, she owed him permanence. (If he wanted it; he hadn't quite said that he did.) Ken had thought that putting them both on his piddling committee needed a wedding ring. Now she was making decisions for both of them for their entire future. Assuming that Steve would go along, and she had to assume that for these decisions. She could sure see being married to Steve. What she'd told her mom was perfectly true. But she didn't want to make that decision tonight, and it was likely that Steve didn't either. And was it fair for her to decide in ways that she would resent Steve's doing? What if Steve had broken into a bathroom knowing that she was there? Of course, he was really in that house under her invitation; but that didn't work. She'd have screamed if he'd interrupted her in a bathroom in his own house. And that didn't even take into account what she'd known he was doing. Somehow, it was different; but she couldn't say how. Steve might well disagree with her on the difference, and it would be fair if he did. They could wait for the next step until she was ready; it was still her body. Steve could decide to go to school where they couldn't be together; it was still his future. She didn't want to put the same demands on him that her mother was putting on her. She would even give him one more chance to back off before she put them on the dance committee. And she would apologize for breaking in on him and holding him there without his permission. That, however, led to her memory of the sensations when she did that holding. It had been hot and firm, it had jumped in her hand when the stuff had spurted out. That, she realized, was how it would act inside her. It would not only penetrate her, it would jerk in her depths as it had jerked in her hand. Somehow, the thought was very sexy. Her nipples were suddenly hard, and she stroked them. After she moved her right hand between her legs, when her tension was building, she remembered the moment. Something inside her, where that pulsing would be some day, pulsed in sympathy with it as her time came. Her mind was still struggling with putting all these sensations together as she curled up to sleep, but she didn't worry much about that. Her body seemed ready enough. She caught Steve when they were leaving English the next morning. "We have to talk," she said. "Here?" He turned in her direction. Her next class was clear over on the other side of the building. Usually, she was the one who didn't want to talk that time of the day. "No. We need to talk at some length. But one thing. Do you mind if I sign us both up for Ken's dance committee?" "Go ahead. I said that. But I didn't drive today." Which meant that he couldn't drive her home. His mother, who was the office worker for a suite of dentists, worked Saturdays but not Wednesdays. Sometimes Steve took the car. "I'm sitting for Mrs. Green tonight. Come over after work." That was news worth slipping half a minute late into physics class. All that earned him was a glare from Mr. Babaian and the next question. He had to fumble with his notes, but his answer was correct. Shannon caught up with Ken on her way out of lunch period. "You can sign both of us up," she said. "That's great! Thanks." And he was off pursuing another victim before getting into line himself. In AP history just then, they were studying the election of 1860. The war itself would occupy the rest of the year. Mr. Peters took the whole period to deal with the Constitutional Union party, which refused to discuss the slavery issue, even though that was the issue. The Green brats were at war with one another. She had to referee three fights and patch up a bloody nose, but it was better than when they were conspiring together. She fixed dinner for them while they bitched about the menu. Each of them ate twice what she did, and then complained about the meal until she chased them to bed. As a substitute babysitter, she assumed that their mother was taking care of baths. She took a second helping as soon as her nerves settled down. Then she ran through her homework, leaving Shakespeare for last. She made her preparations for Steve a few minutes before he was due, taking off both bra and panties. Somehow, she always felt hotter in the time just before her period. And, of course, the consequences of going too far were less. Not that she was going to go too far tonight. She looked out when the bell rang, and then opened the door to Steve. "Lo, what light through yonder doorway breaks?" he proclaimed. "It is the east and Shannon is the sun." Meanwhile she was holding the door open and getting cold. "I'll kiss you," she said, "but keep those cold hands to yourself." Even so, his lips and face were cold. They ended up rubbing noses. Cute, but Steve's was a bit runny. "Want me to wash my hands?" He figured that it had worked before. "Later. We have to talk." She pointed him to the other side of the dining room table from her books. He took off his coat; then he spread his schoolwork out while he asked, "What's wrong?" "I am. Or I was. The last time you were here." She took a deep breath. "If you ever come into the bathroom when I'm using it, I'll kill you." "Okay, I won't." He wondered briefly whether she would consider that promise binding in marriage, but they never quite used that word. "But I did that to you. And I'm sorry." "Look, that's different." He couldn't say how it was different, but it was. "I thought so too, but I couldn't really see how." "Let me think about it. Anyway, I accept your apology even if I think you're making too big a deal over what you did." She had more on her agenda. "The way that I see it, either we'll both go to U of I or I'll go to Albion while you go to IIT. I don't want to be at U of I without you." "I don't want to be anywhere without you. But..." "Yeah. But!" "How will you tell your mother?" he asked. The trouble with fights at home is that you have to go back there sooner or later. "As late as possible. Now, why don't you go wash your hands?" He used the facilities first, then left his hands under the hot water as long as he could stand it. Instead of anticipating the pleasures awaiting him, he thought furiously. She was standing by the couch when he came out. Shannon found his tongue nice and warm, even if his cheek was still cold. Steve could tell from the softness against his chest that she had removed her bra. Instead of diving inside her shirt, he clasped her face to guide her response to his kiss. He broke for air. "About our last time here," he said while his hands began to unbutton her shirt. "Yes?" "I would rather that you don't come into the bathroom when I've closed the door. On the other hand, you say three things to me about... well, about things like this. You say 'no,' and 'not yet,' and 'not now.'" "And if that's all I say, how come you're so sure that you can open my shirt?" she asked, pulling away from him. "Oh, you say 'yes,' too. Or at least give permission. I don't mean that you are always negative. It's just that those are the three negatives. "Anyway," he continued, moving over to her again, "I want you. Of the three, I will never say 'no' to you. I can't imagine saying 'not yet.' I might say 'not now.' So, your breaking in on me to take us to another step is quite different from my breaking in on you for the same purpose. Does that make any sense?" She'd try to figure that one out later. "Kiss me." He did. Slowly, as the kiss grew hotter, he moved his hand up her side until he was cupping her breast through the shirt. Her nipple firmed into his palm in greeting. Shannon, he thought, was right; this was much more important than expressing things in words. He gloried in her warm mouth and the soft breast in his hand. Shannon enjoyed the taste of his tongue on hers, and the warm lift that his hand gave her breast. She'd made a risky decision, however, and worried still whether it was the right one. Steve didn't seem to be in any hurry. That was good to know in one sense, but her nervousness increased. When he had unbuttoned her entire blouse and she was soft in his arms, Steve helped Shannon lie back on the couch. Even kneeling there, he enjoyed another duel with her tongue and the feel of her smooth skin against his fingers before he kissed down to her breast. Once sucking on the hard nipple, he allowed his hand to roam down her leg and back up under her skirt. She clasped her legs together. Didn't she want this? He raised his head to see her expression. Shannon felt him abandon her breast. She guessed that he was looking her in the face, but she kept her eyes closed. For another minute, she kept her legs closed too. When she eased them open, Steve kissed the other breast before sliding his hand forward. He slowly stroked back and forth on her smooth thigh while sucking the nipple, going a little further every time. On the one hand, he certainly wanted to clasp her panties; on the other, he wanted to postpone the end of the evening. Finally, however, he brushed back to the soft concavity just above her knee and returned more slowly than ever. He stopped sucking to concentrate on the first touch of her panties. Shannon knew that his hand wouldn't stop this time, his stroke was too determined, and too slow. She held her breath. He didn't feel her panties, however. He brushed forward until his hand was tickled by her hair. Her legs came together, not quite trapping his hand because there was still space just there. "Oh Shannon!" he whispered. She couldn't help clutching her legs together, his presence was so ticklish, and so scary. But it was exciting, too. And there was awe in his voice as he spoke. She parted her legs to give him more access. He loved the warmth, loved the acceptance he felt when her legs relaxed. He could finally feel those folds he had guessed at for so long. But he didn't know what to do. He stroked the outer folds lightly, acquainting his fingers with her hair. Then another thought struck him. "I don't have anything," he said. It took a moment for her to understand what he meant. He thought that they were going to.... "We can't do more than this," he continued. "We aren't going to do more than this. Not ever. I told you that I would wear white on my wedding day." "Well, I can't even do this right. Tell me what to do." She pulled him down for a kiss. "The first thing is to be very gentle. I'm full of nerve endings down there." He nodded. She moved his head back to her right breast. "And you don't have to stop doing other things." "Tell me when I'm doing something wrong." But he kept doing things right, first clasping her mound while he kissed over the breast. Once attached to her nipple, he slowly moved a finger between her lips. She was nervous about the moisture down there, but his only response when he reached it was a harder suck on her nipple. He explored her with one finger in her valley and then two. Steve was about to explode in his pants. He'd have liked to see her, but touch was more important. He recalled the diagrams he had seen, the hard-core pictures of women revealing themselves, fingering themselves. He located himself on those pictures as he would orient himself on a map. He moved one finger into Shannon, tentatively feeling the entry into her ultimate secret. "No," Shannon said. That was too intimate, even for Steve. Besides, she wanted him to stroke her like she stroked herself. Steve immediately pulled his finger out. Now he'd fouled the whole thing up. Instead of Shannon's pushing him away, however, she lay back. He clasped her for another minute, taking that time to kiss the smoothness of her breast again and lick around the areola. When he dared part her labia again, it was to stroke the inner ones. He had no problem remembering to be gentle with these, they were so thin and delicate -- and delightful; but he finally parted them and ventured into the wealth inside. She was wetter than before. Biology was Steve's weakest science by far; he knew that the ulna was somewhere in the arm, but would have one chance in three of locating it on a diagram. One aspect of human anatomy, however, was imprinted in his memory. He could locate the labia majora, labia minora, vagina and clitoris on a diagram. He could even draw the diagram. He knew that Shannon's moisture meant that he was doing something right, that the two of them were doing something right. And it meant that Shannon desired him. Which meant that touching that moisture was its own reward, but he knew that it served a practical purpose as well. Gentle as he tried to be, he was conscious of the grossness and roughness of his fingers. So he returned repeatedly to the pool of lubricant and spread it upwards as he went. The only thing he could think to do was the same game he played on her legs. He stroked slowly upwards, returned, stroked as slowly but just a little further. When he actually touched her clitoris, however, he couldn't stop himself from feeling all of it. Shannon jumped, and he stopped immediately. "Did that hurt?" he asked. "No. Go on." Now, his stopping had hurt, had done something; but she could tell that wasn't what he meant. She felt his motions resume tentatively, teasingly. He could have been a good deal less gentle for her taste, but the gentleness was part of Steve's care for her. She could trust him, could lie back and let him take her where she had only gone alone. Yet, his slow tickling was leading her past that point. She needed something more, something now! She hugged him more tightly to her, pulled his face and chest into her breasts. Still, his suction was soft, still he only licked her nipple occasionally, still his fingers moved slowly -- playing around her instead of rubbing the bump insistently. She felt herself moving against him, pressing herself into his hand. But, somehow, it was too late to tell him anything. She was growing hotter and hotter. She could feel perspiration bursting out of her face and running down into her hair; every time he licked a nipple, she felt a burst of fire in her breast; her center burned like a furnace, and yet his fingers scorched her there. When he switched breasts, the fire ran to her toes and lifted her off the couch altogether. She pulsed and pulsed in time to his suction. Then his mouth hurt her nipples, the weight of his head was pressing one breast and his chest was crushing the other, his hands rasped her most sensitive parts. She pushed him away. Steve had been reveling in Shannon's response to his efforts. Her nipples had hardened to his mouth, her hands had pulled him against her, her legs had spread to his hand's approach and her groin had risen to meet his hand, her lungs had sped until he could hear the breath rasp. Her center had run with the magic liquid. The sudden rejection broke his rapturous mood. But, from the end of her left arm, he saw a stranger -- a Shannon he had never believed possible. Her skin was mottled from her chest to her face, and the facial expression was stranger yet. There was a wildness in her eyes, a grimness to her mouth; tangles of her hair were stuck to her face. Then, as he watched, Shannon reappeared in her own face. It softened and grew familiar. He kissed her then, welcoming her back. First her forehead, eyebrows, hair-streaked cheek; then her sweet mouth which opened for his as always. There was only the faintest taste, almost metallic, to remind him of the passage of that stranger through the girl he loved. Instead of letting his hand go, she relaxed that arm. It tensed again when he returned his hand to between her thighs, but it didn't push him away. He held that sweetness, warmly, closely. He was careful, though, to keep his hand still. Gradually, her arm relaxed. With her mouth against his, one breast pressed into his chest, and warmth radiating from her sex into his palm, his own arousal returned. The erection was in a new position and even less comfortable. He staggered when he got to his feet. She felt cuddled and comforted. She almost pulled Steve back when he got up. Should she follow him in? He'd said that he didn't like it; besides, she was comfortable just lying here. A little later, though, the chill made her don her bra and rearrange her clothes. Steve thought of the Kleenex he had brought, but Shannon didn't look as adventurous as she had looked the previous times. In the bathroom, he sniffed her odor from his hand. Then he brought himself off rapidly using his memories of her rising against his hand and of her face afterwards. That face had scared him then, but it spelled passion in his memory. He was determined to see that response again sometime soon. When he got back, Shannon was sitting at the table writing in a notebook. "Look," she said. "I shouldn't have done that. I wouldn't have if I'd known that it would give you ideas. We've done all we're going to do. I am going to wear white on my wedding day." She didn't know why she was being so hard on him. Maybe she was a little afraid that she was fighting herself as well. "I'm a little tired of hearing about what you'll wear on your wedding day!" He said. "What about your wedding night? Whatever you're wearing, will I get to take it off, remove each piece of clothing? Will I see my bride in her skin?" She thought that she'd just heard a proposal. She'd thought of him as her future husband. All this talk of staying together was nonsense if they didn't plan to get married, but they'd never quite said that. He was rushing on. "Will I get to kiss you? All over? Not just your face, not just your sweet breasts?" When she started to answer, he held up his hand. "Because, if that is so, Shannon, there are a lot of things we haven't done yet. I'm not saying we'll do them before that night, though I hope so. I am saying that agreeing that you'll wear white to your wedding doesn't mean that we stop here." He had no idea where that had come from. He wasn't going to tell her that, though. And he did want to see her lovely mound again. "Did you look? Isn't it shaped like a heart upside down?" She was lost. He didn't quite sound angry, but almost. She stuck to the most important question. "Are you asking me to marry you?" If he were, she'd ask for more time. Was Shannon really so naive as to use preserving her virginity for her husband as an argument on him without implying that he was that future husband? There was a limit on anyone's self control. He could wait for Shannon to be completely his. He certainly wasn't interested in restraining himself to see her completely another's. "I'm nowhere near the Christian you think I am." Turning the other cheek had its limits. They stared at each other while she tried to figure what relationship his answer had to her question. Then she realized that she didn't want an answer to her question. She started back on her homework. He pictured a faceless stranger stripping a wedding dress from Shannon. His stomach felt sour, and he started to harden again. Time for him to dig into his own books. But they kissed goodbye sweetly when it was time for him to go. Shannon returned to her books while Steve drove home. He figured that he had taken quite the wrong tone with Shannon, but that his basic position was correct. Shannon had been controlling their making out, which was fine while she was drawing new -- more permissive -- lines every time. If she thought that they had reached the real limit, then he should take back control. No rapist, he would honor her limit. It's just that they could do so much more without crossing that limit. And, one day, those limits would be gone. He lay in bed imagining that day. Hampered a little by ignorance of what brides wore under those fancy dresses, he got her down to some sort of underskirt while he kissed her breasts. Then his current needs overtook his imagination of their future. Shannon, meanwhile, stretched on Mrs. Green's couch with her coat over her. It had been quite an evening. Steve, she decided, hadn't proposed to her. He just assumed -- as she did, as Ken did, as even her parents did -- that they were headed towards marriage. It was also too late to argue about what he had said earlier in the evening. Really, he had said that they could not go farther. Merely mentioning it had scared her, but it wasn't like he'd said that they would. He had his own boundary; a rather weak one, though. He worked in a drugstore, after all; he could get protection any time he wanted. And what had he really said about her breaking in on him in the bathroom? He wished that she wouldn't, but that he would never say no to her. That wasn't the clearest statement he had ever made. She remembered his thing jumping in her hand; did she want to feel it again? And his description of their wedding night. Now, she did want to hear that again. She wanted to have sex; her reluctance didn't mean absence of desire. She thought of it as something that married people, all adults really, did. They did it instead of making out, or -- rather -- she and Steve made out instead of sex. Steve seemed to think of it as something in addition to making out, and the bodice-rippers agreed with him. She was fairly sure she knew what Steve meant by kissing her "all over." Did she want him kissing her down there? It was rather gross to think about, especially this time of the month. She knew she wouldn't allow it when she wasn't excited, and getting excited meant getting all messy down there. If he really wanted to kiss her 'all over,' there were parts he hadn't touched since the summer. On the other hand, the books made a kiss there sound out of this world. Could it happen? What she'd had tonight, then more? And sex was more after that? She held the memory of what she had experienced that night in her mind while she dozed off. They didn't speak after English because Mrs. Foster kept Steve back to give him a warning. The whole class had been confused by Shakespeare in the beginning, but most of the kids who usually got good grades were showing some comprehension. Steve was a conspicuous exception. Shannon ate lunch with a group of girls sharing half a birthday cake. Steve found a table full of his friends. They weren't really geeks -- Jeff was even on the football team -- but they were all interested in science and got decent grades. All of them were taking an Advanced Placement course in either Calc, Physics, or both. "Nice you could make it, Mr. Anderson," said Terry. Steve grinned and nodded politely. The more he responded, the more they would ride him. "He heard I'd made another," said Dave. The others passed a disk apiece down towards Dave. He gathered them up. "Actually...." Steve began. He hadn't known that Dave had made another disk. Then he thought again. He rummaged in his backpack until he found a disk. "Sorry. You'll have to wipe it. Is tomorrow okay?" "Monday morning, and you'll have to wipe mine too." said Dave. That got a few chuckles. His father had Adultcheck; his mother had computer ignorance. His parents had a divorce. Dave downloaded pictures every other weekend. He packed a disk every few visits. If you lent him a disk, he would return a disk later -- always off school property. It wasn't the same disk, and you'd have to remove his files to use it for storage. If you didn't wipe it, of course, you would see all those horrible pictures of naked women or of people having sex. But Dave wasn't giving you those; he was returning a borrowed disk. Whether that would persuade a principal, much less a judge, was another question. Steve was not wild about the pictures, many of which were fuzzy. The colors seemed off, maybe because of his monitor; and you couldn't take them to bed as he did the magazines. On the other hand, disks were a lot cheaper than magazines. They all started to tease him. "Steve doesn't need your pictures. He reads all those magazines at Hauksbee's." "Doesn't need magazines. He has Shannon." "For as much of Shannon as he sees, he could read People." "No. Modern Bride." "Look," Steve said, "I don't read the stock at Hauksbee's. I pay for everything, full price -- not even a discount." "The question isn't how much of Shannon he is seeing. I see a Honda parked around after dances. Steamy windows." "So that was you creeping between the cars and peeping in the windows." "Get smart, Steve," said Phil. "You're a senior. You're only in high school once. Shannon's price is a wedding ring. Find yourself someone else, someone fun." "Y'know, Phil," he answered. "Sometimes I think that one time is quite enough to be in high school." There were some smiles at that. He'd thought about his a lot in the past couple of months. "Most of the girls in this school will be married in a few years. Shannon will,..." he couldn't use the name of Phil's current girl, Tanya. He searched for a name that he could use. "Jennifer will." Jennifer was an even more notorious slut. "Girls like Shannon will; girls like Jennifer will. And, horrible as it sounds today, most of us will end up married, too." There were a few groans around the table, but fewer and less heart-felt than they would have made their freshman year, "Now, Shannon is already taken. But I don't see girls like Shannon falling into the arms of a guy who says, 'Well I'm tired of playing with sluts; will you be my loyal wife?' Maybe it will happen, but I don't see it. I expect that the one-guy girls will mostly end up with one-girl guys. So who is left to marry the Jennifers?" "Do you really think that you and Shannon will end up together?" Terry asked. "I hope so! I'll try to make that happen, but I know that the odds are stacked against us. On the other hand, look at the prize I'm trying for. A less than half chance at a lifetime with Shannon. Against what?" "I dunno," said Jim. "Life is now. Maybe we will all end up as old married people like Steve says. But I wouldn't trade experience now for a comfortable old age." "Growing old doesn't look so horrible when you consider the alternative." "I'm not sure that Steve was talking about retirement living. More, you know, getting married and having your own room in your own house. No more back seats, no more picnic blankets, no more 'What if her family finds out?'" "You're taking all the fun out of it." "I bet I could find a way to have fun going to sleep in a bed beside a woman, waking up beside her. I could find something to hold our interest. It would be hard, I know. But I...." "It would be hard, you hope!" "I know there are people not much older than us married," Jim said. "Heck, kids in this school. It's just that when I think of married people I think of, you know, my parents and their friends." "You're here, aren't ya?" "But," said Dave, "these days, when your parents go in their room and carefully shut the door, they're just afraid that their snores would keep you awake." "You," said Jim, "are just jealous." Everybody was quiet at once. Teasing was one thing, this was another. Dave had asked for it, but he wasn't the only guy at the table whose parents were divorced. Soon, people were finishing their food or talking to those next to them. Shannon stopped by Steve's table on her way out of the lunch room. "Remember the first committee meeting is today after school." "I remember," he said, "and speaking of dances, Miss Bryant...." "We'll talk," she answered and hurried out. She had to get to the girls' to change her Tampax before class. Steve knew that he should have invited her to the Friday dance earlier than Thursday afternoon. The invitation was a mere formality, but his mother had dinned into him that formalities like that were important to girls. Still, it wasn't like Shannon to react that way; she preferred to read him the riot act. Well, they would talk. Steve got to the committee meeting early. He was surprised to see Mr. Babaian there, not who you'd expect to see as faculty advisor for a dance. Probably the teachers were required to put in so many hours on Mickey-Mouse stuff. There were small paper hearts and saucers with straight pins already on the table. Ken ushered Shannon in. He began talking before she sat down beside Steve. "I expect a few more people, but let's get started. I'd like to call this the Heart Ball. To get in the spirit of things, let's pin the hearts you see here on our shirts. I would especially like every boy here to have a heart on." "Ken!" said Mr. Babaian. "I'd hate to write the U of C that you'd been suspended from school. Even a one-day suspension would mean that you lose your position as president of the student council. And this is a committee. You may propose playing 'Heart Ball' with this dance, but the committee makes all those decisions. I had to read Robert's Rules of Order to be advisor to this committee, and I'll play hard ball with that." "Yes, sir," said Ken. And he was strangely subdued from then on. After a half-hour of wrangling over the name, Ken's suggestion won. The decor scheme, not something Steve thought had many alternatives for St. Valentine's day, was not quite settled when Ken had to call time. Shannon waited while Steve got his bike. "Look," he began, "I know that I should have asked you to the dance sooner...." "If we go to the dance Friday, when are you going to study?" She did want to go to the dance; she did want to park afterward. On the other hand, her period rather spoiled both. And he did have to study. "Well, tonight," he answered, giving particular attention to the bike he was wheeling along. "And Saturday afternoon." "You don't know," she said, "whether Romeo or Juliet is the girl." "Hah! It's Juliet. I think of her looking just like you." "I'll call you tonight," she said. She called much less often than he did. She blew him a kiss from her door. "Mom," she said at dinner, "you made me help the other day when we were cleaning out the attic." "After all, Shannon, it's your house too." Allison Bryant was surprised. Despite a few complaints about timing, Shannon had participated pleasantly enough in the workday. "And that means that I should be able to invite my friends over? Right?" "Why do I always walk into these? Anyway, who do you want to invite over when?" "Steve," Shannon answered. "For a study date. Tomorrow." That shouldn't cause trouble, but who could predict her mother's reaction? "Fine." Mrs. Bryant said. If Shannon had to be with Steven, studying was the best activity; and their house was the best location. "I'll clean up my room tonight," Shannon said. "Now dear." "Then where are we going to study?" Her parents pretty much monopolized the living room evenings. "I think we can allow you a little space, dear," Mrs. Bryant said. "Could we watch the TV in our room, Wayne?" "Sure." It was really the only solution, not that he couldn't see through Shannon's manipulations. "Invite him to dinner first if you wish," Allison finished the subject. The snow was already coming down, having deposited an inch of a threatened six, when Steve arrived in his mother's car. He was dressed in a suit. The conversation at dinner reminded Shannon of the lecture on the Constitutional Union Party, which proposed to solve the slavery issue in 1860 by not discussing it. Everybody studiously avoided the topic of Albion College. By that time, her mother was avoiding the topic of the U of I even when she had Shannon alone. They spent more time on the dance committee than it deserved, and her mother expressed pleasure at their social success. Shannon didn't mention that the prime requirement for a senior to be on a dance committee was willingness. "I'm interested in synthetic chemistry," Steve answered a question. "I want to make things. There are a lot of career decisions within that field, but there is no sense in trying to make them when I don't have the knowledge. Even so, I suspect that I would enjoy almost any phase of that." Later, he helped Shannon clear the table. Her mom filled the dishwasher. "Mom," Shannon asked when that task was done, "can Steve use the Folger's?" Allison Bryant was perplexed and a little annoyed. Steven was welcome to the coffee that was sitting in the pot, and he had turned that down at dinner. But she thought that guests shouldn't express a brand preference; this wasn't a restaurant. "I don't think we have any, dear." "It's right there in the bookshelf." Oh that. It was Wayne's book, they should ask him. Why the hell should they? "That's perfectly all right, Steven. Help yourself." "Shannon asked me to lend your copy of Shakespeare to Steven," she told Wayne in the bedroom. "I told them to go ahead. After all, what's mine is yours. Isn't it?"
"Much better notes," she said and walked over to kiss him briefly. "That's for your performance at dinner. Tonight we're operating under the positive reinforcement principle." "In that case, I deserve a longer kiss than that one. I feel like I was being interviewed for the position of son-in-law." "How do you think you did?" "Didn't seem in any hurry to fill the position." "Anyway," Shannon said, "the Folger's comes later. Look in your book. What happens in Act One, Scene One?" She kept standing while he sat down. "Well first these two guys," he glanced down at the book, "Samson and Gregory, trade insults." He'd needed to read that passage a dozen times to get those insults, and some of them still went over his head. "And then they,..." well, they tell a dirty joke, but he could skip that, "they pick a fight with guys from the other side. And then...." "Steve," their first kiss was scheduled for his identification of the parts of that scene. He might be there the whole night before that kiss. "It's nice that you're reading the book now, but you were supposed to have read it earlier. What are the three things that happen in the first scene?" He looked at the book to check where that scene ended. "There is a fight, the Prince breaks it up, and Romeo shows up." A lot of things happened in that scene. She was about to correct him. Her notes put the prince in the first third, Lady Montague's description of Romeo mooning about in the second -- Steve had missed that completely. Then she realized that if Steve didn't remember Mrs. Foster's summaries, he wouldn't remember hers either. He needed to learn to do summaries. "Okay, write that down on this card, leaving a third of the lines after each statement. This card is for this scene." She handed him a three-by-five card. When he'd written it down, she put a finger on his chin to tilt his head up. She kissed him. The card was already labeled "Act I, scene 1" in her pretty, if not very neat, script. He filled out the information with the lettering he'd learned in drafting class. Her kiss was sweet, but a little grade-schoolish. He reached out to pull her in to it. She pulled away. "No hands, no hands at all. If my father came down and saw your hands on me, he'd throw you out and call the cops. Now what do we learn in the first part of the scene?" His answer earned him another kiss. Finally, she asked: "And what do we learn in the third part of the scene?" "About Romeo." "And what about Romeo?" She felt that she was pulling it out of him. Telling him would have been so much easier. "Why he was so melancholy." At her exasperated look he continued, "It was because he was in love." "In love with who?" "With Juliet, of course. No. With...." He scanned the page but couldn't find the name. Shannon looked like she was going to cry. "Fair Rosalind." She had so looked forward to his positive reinforcement, too. Besides, Mrs. Foster had covered that, and it was the entire point of the play. Well, she would give him a chance. "Extra credit. Closed book. What were the families?" That he could do. "Montague and Capulet. RoMeo Montague," he emphasized, "and JuliET CapuLET." Shakespeare confused the issue with all of this fancy language and byplay, but the dramatis- whatever in front had been in plain English. Those had been three of her planned extra-credit questions. Shannon figure he certainly deserved a reward. "Stand up with your hands behind your back." She pulled his head down into a kiss. Lip met lip, breast met chest, tongue met tongue. Steve, with his mouth invaded and the touch on his chest much softer than when he was in control, hardened immediately. What Shannon felt was not a roll of flesh pressing out from his stomach; it was still pointing down but felt hard as wood. She twisted her belly against it and stepped back. He visited the downstairs john to readjust his clothes, coming back with the jockeys pulled up high enough under his trousers to keep the semi-erect member pointing in the right direction. "Now," she said, "are you ready to deal with Scene Two?" They got back to work, and that scene was shorter. Wayne Bryant rose while the closing credits to "Norm" were playing. With any luck, he could make both the bathroom and the kitchen before "CSI" got into the actual plot. "And the last half of Scene Three," Shannon asked, "what does that tell us?" "Her parents are pushing her towards this Paris guy." Steve was starting to get the hang of this. "Oh Steve!" And she had thought that he was starting to see. "This is what the play means! Shakespeare tells us that she has never been in love at all. Her parents want her to love Paris, and she'll give it a try. "On the morning before Romeo wanders into her garden complaining of the fate that deprives him of Juliet, he roams the outskirts of town complaining of being deprived of another woman. He is in love with being in love, but she.... But her love is genuine. She has never been in love at all." Steve clearly didn't know the play, but how could he have missed that? Steve felt accused. Hell, he felt guilty. He just couldn't figure out what the crime was. He hadn't wandered the outskirts bemoaning another love. "And I wasn't your first love," a voice sounded in his head. He almost said it aloud, "How about Curt?" Wayne saw them as he came downstairs. She was standing about four feet from where Steven was sitting. The emotion between them was thick enough to cut with a knife, and quite different from what he had expected. He went to the kitchen for a can of mixer and a glass, stopped for the whiskey from the liquor cabinet, and went back upstairs without hearing either of them say one word. When her father had retreated from his intrusion, Shannon sighed. Steve had to know the test details, even if he overlooked the point of the play. "Okay," she said, "what happens in Scene Four?" Although her reinforcement got more positive during Act Two, Shannon could tell that Steve had passed his limit well before they got to Scene Six. And the class was in the middle of Act Four! "Well, here are the rest of the cards. Don't come to Mrs. Green's tomorrow unless you have Act Three filled out." It was too late for the Folger's; Steve didn't need any more facts tonight. They could try the language. "Do you want to act out the balcony scene?" This was the first that Steve had heard about Mrs. Green's. But that was all right, he'd find a way to study his other subjects on Sunday. And anything, let alone the balcony scene, was better than filling out another card. Wayne was thinking about getting the mixer for another drink when the sounds reached them from downstairs. "What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun." "It's good that he wants to go into engineering," he told Allison. She chuckled. "He does sound like a ham." It was the warmest moment they had had together in more than a week. He put his hand over to her bed. She held it until he got up. They couldn't go any further. After all, both were fully dressed; and Shannon was not only still up -- Steven was visiting her. He got up. He'd go around the kids and get another can of diet ginger ale. He was silently cursing his diet when he got to the head of the stairs. Shannon was, reasonably enough, using the stairs as her balcony. He retreated to the doorway of his room. He didn't mind the kids declaring their love, so long as they were on different levels. Besides, he could hear Shannon from where he stood. She wasn't bad, not projecting like an actress, but not hamming it up like Steven either. He'd seen the book in her hand, but she sounded like she knew her lines. Steve had long had that first speech by heart, the second less so. And, after he had sailed upon the bosom of the air, he had to sail upon the bosom of the book. That was fairly choppy sailing. He, having most of the longer speeches, could rarely even look at her. Still, it was fun; and it was a chance to declare his love in a way that would have been utterly mawkish if they hadn't been playing parts. Finally, he read, "O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?" She didn't respond. When he looked up, she was grinning impishly and slowly nodding up and down. Tease! He slid his book through the bannisters to have both hands free, then seized the hand she had resting on the rail. He kissed the back, kissed down her middle finger to the end, and then kissed the end of the other fingers as well. When he looked up, she looked pleased but embarrassed. He drew the index finger into his mouth for a gentle suck and lick. Her first thought was where her hand had been. She would have washed it before putting it on one end of a spoon whose other end would go in her mouth. But the kisses were exciting nevertheless. By the time that he was licking and sucking her palm, her nipples hardened. And then her father came out. The recitation was over. Wayne figured that he could get his mixer now. Steven was still hamming it up when he got to the top of the stairs, kissing Shannon's hand. He knew it was a real kiss pretending to be a Shakespearean kiss, but so what? They'd done worse on his front step for the neighbors to see, and God- knew-what in Steven's car. His daughter rushed past him up the stairs to the bathroom, while Steven pulled his book off the stairway. When he came back from the kitchen, he told Steven, "I don't mind your borrowing my Shakespeare, but be sure to bring it back. Okay?" On the other hand, he could keep the book at home if he let Shannon alone. But Wayne could see that this wasn't in the cards; Shannon was flying out of the nest sometime soon. Getting rid of Steven would disappoint her -- he could still remember the month after she dumped Curt, but it wouldn't keep her in the nest. "Uh? Sure I will." When Shannon got back he told her, "He says that I can use the Shakespeare, but I should put it back." She couldn't see what was so important about putting it back in the same place. She'd already used it, and put it back in the hole she'd made removing it; but her father hadn't said a word about that. "It's too late for the footnotes tonight." Parting was more sweet than sorrow. She flowed into his arms, put both hands on the back of his neck, opened her mouth for his kiss. When he clutched her hips and placed his leg between hers, she arched a bit to reduce the pressure on her too- sensitive breasts. That increased the pressure of her groin on his thigh. His tongue played with hers, and she rubbed against his leg. Her belly warmed; her nipples firmed. She felt lovely, though there was no danger of the desire spiraling out of control. They stopped saying good night, however, long before it was morrow. It was, indeed, well before her eleven-o'clock curfew that he drove home. Now how would he do his other homework and still have time for this? Well, he could do the calculus tonight. |
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Write Uther
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