index


Message-ID: <30739asstr$992146204@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: RevCottonMather@excite.com (Reverend Cotton Mather)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
NNTP-Posting-Date: 9 Jun 2001 13:59:23 GMT
Subject: {ASSM} Hard Promise (11/13, Plus P.S.) by Reverend Cotton Mather (mf, rom)
Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2001 00:10:04 -0400
Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail
Approved: <assm@asstr-mirror.org>
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to the Church of The Right Reverend Cotton Mather. This story
is
the sole property of the author, and may not be copied or downloaded
for
the intent of profit. Permission is freely given for anyone to
download
or copy for their personal pleasure or use, as long as there is no 
intent to charge money or barter for the privilege of acquiring this 
material.

(copyright 2001, Rev. Cotton Mather)
------------------------------------------------------------------------


HARD PROMISE
by Reverend Cotton Mather

- 11 -



The next Friday night, after the football game, a big crowd was at 
Fabrice's as usual.  I had been feeling sorry for myself, and feeling
sorry for Micki, so I tried to act more like a boyfriend for her sake,
even though my heart really wasn't in it.  We were sitting together in
a booth with Jared and Mattie, and for a change my mood wasn't as 
black as it had been.  I was almost having fun.

I got up to go to the john.  As I was finishing up, standing at one of
the row of urinals, I heard the bathroom door open.  I was just 
zipping up when Donny Hammach, Brittany Felson's old boyfriend, 
stepped up to the urinal next to mine.

"How ya doin', Kennedy?" he drawled.  "How's your love life?"

"What's it to you, Donny?" I said.  He was talking like he had been 
drinking.  Normally he was such a chickenshit, especially after Jared
had cleaned his clock when he broke up with Brittany, that he wouldn't
have said more than two words to me.

'Oh, just wonderin'," he said lazily.  "By the way, mine's just fine,
thanks for asking."

"I didn't ask, and I don't want to know," I said angrily.

"Hey, it's all right, I don't mind you asking," he continued, as if I
had asked him to elaborate.  "You wanna smell?"  He held up the middle
finger of his right hand to me, offering me to take a sniff.  "No?  
Don't mind if I do."  He raised his finger to his own nose and inhaled
deeply.  "Ah, luscious," he sighed.  He slipped his finger into his 
mouth.  "And tasty, too," he said, looking at me craftily.  "Tastes 
like a…hmmmm….like a Samuelson to me!" he said gleefully.

Just the thought of this mope touching Melissa was enough to set me 
off.  In a rage, I grabbed the back of his collar as he was standing
there and pulled him back and down onto the restroom floor.  He was 
taken by surprise, before he was done urinating.  His flabby prick was
still sticking out of his pants, and he was peeing on himself.  I 
dropped to my knee on his stomach, and he let out with a breathy 
"Hoooofffff".  I reached down and grabbed him by the hair and pulled
his head up toward me, my knee still in his gut.

"If you want to stay alive, you'd better be telling me you're lying,"
I said quietly.

"Take…it…easy…Ray…Let…me…up…can't…breathe…"
he gasped.

"Too fucking bad," I said.  "Is it true?"

He didn't have enough breath to say anything, so he shook his head
violently from side to side, not caring that some of his hair was 
coming out in my hands as I held on tight.

I let up on him just enough for him to take a long, panicky gasp in,
then pressed down on him again.  "Are you going to tell me what that
was all about, then?" I asked.

"Yeah, okay, get off me first, will ya?"  I clear look of panic was
starting to show itself in his eyes, which I liked to see.

"Nope," I said, smiling.  "I'm not letting you up yet."  But I did
let up on the pressure on his spasming diaphragm so he could 
painfully take small breaths.  "Talk, motherfucker."

"All right, all right," he said.  He knew his situation was not good,
and his best hope was to come clean with me.  That panicky look faded
a little, but he was still scared.  "I got someone to fix me up with
her on kind of a blind date.  We were out tonight, but nothing 
happened."

"How much of 'nothing' are we talking about here, Donny?" I asked.

"Nothing nothing, goddamn it!" he cried.  "She wanted to go home, 
so I took her home.  I tried to get her to at least kiss me good 
night, maybe cop a feel, but, man, what a cold fish!"  I pressed 
down harder on him for that comment.  "Hey, take it easy, Kennedy!"
he wheezed, the panic rising again in his eyes.  "You wanted to know
what happened, I'm telling you.  I thought you'd be happy she was 
cold to me, for crissakes!"

"You're right, I should have known better than to think she might 
have let a loser like you into her life," I said.  I stood up and
looked down at him.  "Get up, you human waste of skin.  Can't you
see you're lying down on a filthy restroom floor?  And by the way,
you pissed all over yourself," I said as I headed for the door.

Wow, I thought, now THAT put me in a good mood.  All I had to do was
beat on someone not wearing pads, and I was happy.  I laughed as I 
sat back down again.

"What's up with you, Ray?" asked Jared.

"Let me take a look at your face," said Micki, grabbing my ear and
turning my head toward her.  "Jesus, is that a smile I see there?
Where'd that come from?  It looks so strange on that face."

"Cut it out, Micki.  Can I help it if I'm in a good mood?" I said.

"Hey," said Mattie, looking past us toward the back of the restaurant,
"isn't that Donny Hammach coming out of the john?"

Jared looked up, his eyes narrowing.  "Where?  I told that buckethead
not to show his face anywhere near me or Brit."

"Hey, what happened to him?  He looks like he fell into the toilet.
Oh, it's okay, Jare, he's leaving," said Mattie.

Jared looked over at me, a sudden realization dawning.  "Was he in 
there while you were there, Ray?"

I smiled at him happily.  "Oh, yes, he was," I said with a grin.

"And did you assist in getting him to look like he does?" he asked,
smiling.

"Well, his parents had a lot to do with the way he looks, but, yes, 
I assisted in his current state of disarray," I said.

We all burst out laughing, and Jared gave me a high-five.  Kids at
the other tables looked at us, and were probably wondering about 
what happened.  The Ray Machine hadn't laughed in a long time, and
it felt kind of good.




By Thanksgiving, Micki and I had evolved into a more comfortable 
relationship.  We weren't as close as Micki probably wanted us to be,
but I had begun to appreciate her as an individual, and most of my 
friends were accepting her.

The biggest fallout, other than Melissa and me, was that eventually
Brad and Lindsey broke up.  Knowing Brad, it was probably inevitable,
but what happened at the campout accelerated the disintegration of 
their relationship.  Hardly missing a beat, Brad asked Jared's sister
Brittany out, and they were now a pretty steady couple.  Lindsey and
Missy, from what I heard, did a lot of double dating, but not with
anyone steady.  Missy still wouldn't talk to me, but I was slowly 
getting beyond that.

Or, at least, I hoped I was.

Just before Thanksgiving, Marcus's two brothers, Jerry and Ev, came
home from college for the holiday.  By Friday afternoon, the day after
Thanksgiving, the North High telephone tree was a-shaking.  It all 
kind of started right after Marcus called me, around noon.

"Hey, Ray, Marcus here.  How are you doing?"

"Okay, I guess, what's up?"

"Jerry and Ev are home.  They told me what happened at the campout.
Why didn't you tell anybody, man?  You were a fucking hero, and you
didn't say a word to anybody."

"Wait a minute, Marcus.  What did they tell you?" I was a little 
puzzled.

"They told my whole family about it at breakfast yesterday, about how
you fought off those two other guys and kept them from raping Micki.
Why didn't you tell us?  You could have saved yourself an awful lot of
grief if you had just told us all about what happened, Ray."

"I couldn't tell anybody, Marcus," I said.  "Micki made me promise I
wouldn't tell anybody about it."

"Oh, man, I can't believe you kept that promise, buddy.  It really
cost you."

"Well," I said, "it would have cost me more in the long run if I 
hadn't kept my promise."

"I'm not so sure, Ray.  But I admire you for keeping your promise,
despite all that's happened.  Anyway," Marcus continued, "I wondered
why Jerry and Ev and their friends had just packed up so quickly that
morning and left without a word, and now we know.  Jerry says that 
that guy got back to campus in even worse shape than you left him, 
and he ended up dropping out of school.  Jerry said that he was 
really impressed with the way you took care of things, and told me to
tell you that if you need a reference to help you get into the 
university, that you've got it.  Both he and Ev, and that other guy 
Carl, are now huge fans of the Ray Machine."

"Wow, that's really great of them, Marcus.  Thank them for me, will
you?  I really appreciate it."

"That's not all, buddy.  The word is spreading.  I think your days 
as a pariah are over.  Expect a bunch of phone calls, Ray.  There are
a lot of kids who will be swallowing a lot of words over this one.  
And Ray?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm a huge fan of the Ray Machine, too.  That was a hell of a thing 
you did for Micki."

"Thanks, Marcus.  Thanks for calling."

Marcus was right.  The rest of that night, and all weekend, the phone 
hardly stopped ringing.  Around midnight, Micki called, very upset.
We were on the phone for a good two hours, reliving that night, while
I tried to reassure her that nobody would think she was a bad person.
She was afraid people would see her as dumb for being caught in the 
position she was in, and she was afraid people would hold it against
her that I had kept my promise.

I was finally able to convince her that she had no control whatsoever
over how I kept any of my promises, and she reluctantly agreed that,
now that the story was out, we could tell our version of what happened
in the woods.

I stopped answering the phone by the next day.  Brad and Brittany came
over around noon, and we hopped into Brad's car and drove over to pick
up Micki.  The four of us then headed out to a big shopping mall in 
another town, just so we wouldn't have to run into anybody we knew.
We spent the entire afternoon shopping, laughing and joking and 
deliberately keeping off the subject of the campout.

After we were all shopped out (or at least Brad and I were shopped 
out.  I don't think either Micki or Brit could ever be said to be 
"shopped out"), we stopped at a Chinese restaurant for dinner.  We 
passed around kung pao chicken, sweet-and-sour shrimp, Mongolian beef,
and vegetable chow mien in a frenzy of hunger, and afterwards, over 
tiny cups of green tea, we talked, finally, about that weekend.

"I can't believe that you refused to say anything, even to me, that 
whole time, Ray," complained Brad.  "You're my best friend, and you
wouldn't even tell me what went on that weekend."

"A secret isn't secret if someone outside the circle knows it, 
Grasshopper," I replied.

"Ah, so," said Brad, smiling.  "Is this Oriental wisdom you picked 
up during your time in the monastery, oh wise one?"

'Nah," I said.  "It's what my fortune cookie says."  I passed around
my fortune for all to see.

"How appropriate," said Micki.  "Here's mine."  

She passed the slip of paper over to me to read.  Behind her smile, 
I could just detect the beginnings of tears filling her eyes.  I read
the paper, and silently passed it around to Brittany, who read aloud,
"'That which was lost may soon be found.'  Very mysterious."

Brad cracked open his fortune cookie, popped half into his mouth, and
extracted the slip of paper from the other half.  "'Good luck smiles 
most often on the industrious.'  Damn it, I guess that means I'd 
better study for that physics test, then.  What about yours, Brit?"

Brittany opened her cookie, dropping both halves onto her plate as 
she unfurled the scrap of paper.  Brad immediately reached over and 
grabbed the pieces of cookie and ate them.

"Well, mine seems to fit the occasion, too.  It says, 'The boy on 
your right must pay for your dinner.'"

"Hey," said Brad as he tried to grab the paper from Brittany's hand.
"Does it really say that?"

She moved her hand out of his reach, laughing, and said, "No, Brad,
I was just funnin' ya.  It says, 'A true heart can move the world.'"

"Well," said Brad, it sounds like we all got some little bits of 
wisdom that fit our situations.  So now what?"

We all sat there, thinking our own thoughts.

"I don't have a clue," I finally said.  Micki reached out and took my
hand in hers.  Her hand was icy cold, and I could feel her trembling.

On the way home, Micki stayed snuggled up next to me, her head down 
and resting on my chest as I held her.  Every now and then I heard her
sniffle, and felt her breath catch, and I knew she was crying, and 
trying not to let me know.  Brad dropped us off at my house, and we 
went down into the basement and turned on the television.  I kissed 
her tenderly as I held her, down there on the old couch, trying to 
kiss away all the tears, the pain, the uncertainty.

Silently we undressed, hardly looking at each other, until we were 
both naked as newborns.  We melted into each other, our fingers and
our palms, our lips and our tongues no longer needing to explore, but
rather needing to give comfort.  Her cheeks were salty with the tracks
of her tears, and her tiny breasts and expressive nipples were warm 
and inviting.

With a minimum of movement, a minimum of fuss, we positioned ourselves
on the couch.  Her legs opened to envelop me, and wrapped around my 
waist tightly as we made love.  It was the tenderest, quietest, 
sweetest time ever for us, and when we had each worked to our 
climaxes, we kissed, eyes closed, and each silently sent up prayers 
of thanksgiving and forgiveness.

In a reversal of our usual roles, Micki fell into an exhausted sleep
afterward.  I, on the other hand, was up and awake.  I covered her 
with an afghan, and crept upstairs quietly.  I needed time alone to
think things through before I woke her and took her home.


(Continued in Chapter 12)

www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/ReverendCottonMather/www

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| alt.sex.stories.moderated ----- send stories to: <ckought69@hotmail.com> |
| FAQ: <http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/faq.html>  Moderator: <story-ckought69@hotmail.com> |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Archive: <http://assm.asstr-mirror.org> Hosted by Alt.Sex.Stories Text Repository |
|<http://www.asstr-mirror.org>, an entity supported entirely by donations.         |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+