Fire

Part 4

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I thought of Jennifer often, wondering if she'd ever come to visit. Or maybe she had forgotten the whole incident by now. Surely it had simply been the moment; the romantic air of a moonlit starry night by the fire. For some reason she got caught up in that, and chose me to satisfy whatever romantic needs she had at the time. But she touched something deep within me as well. There was a... connection of sorts. It was hard to explain, but when she held me it felt natural, correct, and very calming; as if something had been resolved. She was on my mind almost as much as Holly was. I wanted to see Jennifer again, but she wasn't there, and it had been weeks. Being a songwriter, I had to put these feelings to words and music. I began by writing these words:

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By the time my wife and I were invited to the Thanksgiving dinner, I was starting to think I'd never see her again, and kept hoping for more times with Holly. The dinner invitation, however, changed that. I couldn't wait to see Jennifer again, wondering if the spark from the fire was still there. If it was, great; if not, that's life. But I hoped for the spark, even though I also hoped for Holly. In retrospect, I wonder what the hell was I thinking. The reality of it was, I wasn't. These girls had grabbed my heart and weren't letting go. The Bible, whether you believe in it or not, speaks some very true words: the heart is treacherous.

So the following week we enjoyed that second Thanksgiving dinner; this time with Wendell and Eileen, Holly, her parents and little brother, and Jennifer with her mother. The conversation flowed freely, the food was out of this world, and I got to sit directly across from the two girls, which was all the dessert I needed. Why didn't twelve-year old girls look like that when I was young? Whatever the present-day moms and dads were doing, they were doing it right. Holly and Jennifer had totally dissimilar looks, but they both looked gorgeous. A blonde and a... whatever you call reddish-brown hair. A tallish, thin girl with pretty features; and a shorter, tomboyish one with tomboyish face, yet not too boyish. One was just as physically appealing and attractive as the other. Here we were sitting down to a culinary feast, and my pleasure was doubled with a feast for the eyes. Thank you, Lord, for the bounty I am about to receive.

After we ate, the grownups went into the the other room to sit and talk about stuff that didn't really matter. Joke telling, gossiping, politics, and all the normal grownup chatter that bores me to tears. My mind was on Holly, and now she wanted to talk with me about "something serious". She was in her bedroom with Jennifer, doing whatever twelve-year old girls do when grownups are being boring, so I waited for Holly to initiate the serious talk. Hopefully it would be after Jennifer left; unless she did know what happened after the bonfire, and she wanted Jennifer there for a confrontation. The choking fingers of paranoia started creeping in from all sides, and I completely lost track of whatever conversation everybody else was into.

Thankfully, a few minutes later Jennifer came down from the bedroom and left with her mother. She gave me a smile and wave as she left, so that was a relief, and my lungs started functioning once more. Then a few minutes later Holly came down from her room and asked me to come up and look at something on her computer. Everyone there knew I'm a computer whiz, and thought it was cute that Holly wanted me to check something out for her; perhaps to help her with a computer problem. I knew better; this was the "serious" talk coming, so up I went up to the second floor with her.

Soon as I got in her room she closed the door behind us, which made me a little uncomfortable simply because of what people might think if they came up to see that. It wasn't shut all the way, however; just enough that it was closed but not latched. Then she actually did show me some stuff on her computer. There were family pics, her school website, and other things she was interested in. I went along, the whole time wondering if "the talk" had been forgotten, and this was simply a social visit. I hoped that's what it was, and I was a little antsy about the whole situation. A forty-something married man in the bedroom of a twelve-year old girl, with the door all but locked. Would the jury believe that I was innocent?

As we sat there at the computer, me sitting right next to her, my face close to hers as we looked at whatever was on the screen, she suddenly turned her head, looked at me square in the eye and said:

"Did you do something with Jennifer?"

My mouth tried to answer, I blinked a couple times, but I guess my complete inability to answer immediately gave me away. After all, I was more than a little blown away by this question.

"I already know you did", she said matter-of-factly, showing no sign of any emotions that I would expect to accompany such a statement.

Then I said: "Well, actually... Jennifer came to ME. I just went along with it."

"I know", said Holly. "She told me allllll about it." Then she went back to showing me things on the computer as if that little piece of conversation had never happened. Then, maybe two minutes later, without taking her eyes from the screen, she just came out with: "I like you more than Jennifer does".

My heart started racing. My mind became spaghetti. I had no idea what to do with that statement. She likes me?? And... Jennifer likes me?? I figured right away it was some kind of preteen crush on an older man, coupled with two friends being in competition with each other. So here was Holly making her pitch to win before her best friend does. Internally I laughed it off as such, and decided to not take it too seriously.

"Do you like me best or Jennifer?" she asked.

Damn, did she really think a guy my age would be interested in a kid? She was 100% correct in her assumption, of course, but I didn't think girls her age would seriously consider that older guys would be truly interested. But she had popped the question, and I was willing to play along, if only for the extremely outside chance that anything could possibly develop between me and one of them.

"Well", I began, "actually, I like [b]both[/b] of you quite a bit".

"How can you like her so much if you only just met her a few weeks ago, and you know me for way longer?" Holly replied.

That was a very good question. All I could do was try to explain the effect that Jennifer's actions had on me that night after the bonfire, and yet it wasn't the same as how I liked Holly. Two girls, two different sets of feelings. I wasn't doing very well at explaining myself, either.

"Do you want to fuck her?" she blurted out.

Touching a blowtorch to my ass wouldn't have gotten me off the chair faster. I got up and tried to look oblivious to anything going on around me, much like how a cat tries to keep its dignity after falling off a chair. She had just asked a question that scared me to death and made me want to bust a gut laughing at the same time. Did she really just ask me that question? Yes, she did; and how would I answer?

"Well... no", I lied.

"Liar", she said, and then she giggled a self-satisfied but very cute giggle, and turned back to her computer to close out the windows on her screen. Then she got up, walked over to stand in front of me, and wanted me to kiss her. I said that might not be a good idea since we're in her house, the others are downstairs, and I've been in her room a while already; I should be getting back down to join the others. She looked a little hurt, as if she was taking my refusal personally, like I didn't want to kiss her. But I told her the difference. I said I would love to kiss her, but the time and place wasn't right; there was nothing wrong with HER. My insides were thoroughly useless to me now. This was a moment I had only dreamed of; the chance to take her in my arms and not look back. And I was saying no. Reality hit fantasy over the head to keep common sense from getting body slammed. I had to say no, and that was that. Right, I had passed my own test of whether I could stay on the legal side of the fence. Dilemma resolved.

She seemed to understand, turned and headed for the door. I started following, thinking we were going back downstairs, when she CLOSED the door and LOCKED it! Um... she closed the door and locked it. It was locked. Nobody could walk in to see that nothing was going on. That is what I hoped nobody would see. Then she walked up to me and planted a kiss on my lips that meant business. The waterfall I heard in the distance was actually the rushing sound in my ears. I had just been kissed by Holly. She was twelve. Her lips pressed against mine and stayed there for a few seconds. We had kissed. My natural reaction was to kiss her back. Not that I didn't want to, but... I didn't want to. Yes, I did. I wanted to very much. So I kissed her back, and if I was to never kiss anyone or anything ever again in my life, this was the kiss I would have wanted to be my last. It felt like my first. After a few seconds the kiss was simply a memory.

It was beyond my comprehension, but she had let me know that she wanted me to want her more than Jennifer. For a few seconds I forgot that I was a forty-something married man, and remembered being a something-teen school kid. But wait, no, being a something-teen school kid was NEVER like this! Girls like Holly never gave me a second glance in those days. Come to think of it, they didn't give me a second glance even now. So why...? It had stopped mattering once the kiss began. I was lost in it, and even though it stayed within legal boundaries, common sense itself had taken a nasty sucker punch to the head.

Afterward, I stood there and held her for a few seconds, completely overwhelmed by the all conflicting feelings running through me. I told her how nice the kiss was, and confessed that I had been hoping for such a moment with her since I first saw her. She was genuinely surprised, and maybe a little concerned about that, but it seems she quickly shrugged it off as she floored me with her next question. She gave me one more hug, wrapping her arms around my neck, pulling me in close so she could whisper in my ear: "Do you want to fuck me?"

For some reason I wasn't as shocked and blown away as I knew I should have been. My composure stayed intact, and I had to chuckle as I replied with, "Honestly, yes, but we can't".

"No, I don't mean tonight!" she giggled. She's so damn cute when she giggles like that.

I had actually meant that no, we can't EVER do it. Instead of clarifying that to her, however, all I could do was look at her and say I had to go, and off I went. My first stop was the bathroom, and while I took care of business in there she was standing outside whispering through the door asking if she could come in. Naturally, I didn't--couldn't--let her in, but the thought of it certainly added to the experience. I flushed at the right time to help mask any stray noise.

We had been upstairs for almost an hour by this time, and I rejoined the others while Holly stayed in her room. No one asked about the length of time I'd spent in Holly's room, but then who would suspect anything? I'm sure my wife wondered, but my relaxed and non-guilty demeanor threw her off. No problems arose from anything that happened that evening, and if you think I was distracted before, all hope for staying focused on anything now was lost forever. Whatever happened the rest of the evening is anyone's guess.