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Subject: {ASSM} rp Hard Promise, Ch. 11-14/14 (mf rom) by Rev. Cotton Mather
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 20:10:02 -0500
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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)

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HARD PROMISE
Rev. 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.




HARD PROMISE
Rev. Cotton Mather


- 12 -

On Sunday morning, my parents and I got home from church to find a 
car sitting in front of our house.  When we walked from the garage 
toward the house, a car door opened and Melissa stepped out.  She 
looked over the hood of the car, as if waiting for a signal of some 
sort.  I stopped when I saw her.  My heart was beating fast, and 
there was an empty feeling in my stomach.  Finally, I looked away 
from her, and continued into the house without acknowledging her.

I figured that if she wanted to talk about something, she could come 
up and knock on the door, but I wasn't going to make it easy on her 
by inviting her in.

Finally, after about fifteen minutes, the doorbell rang.  My mom 
opened the door and let Melissa in, and called up the stairs to me 
to come down.  Mom left Melissa standing by the front door instead 
of inviting her in, an indication of her displeasure in seeing her 
there.

When I came downstairs, Melissa was standing there, still wearing 
her long wool coat.  Her hair was pulled back into a severe 
ponytail, and her face was very pale.  She looked nervous.

"Hello, Ray," she said hesitantly.

"Hi.  Why are you here?"

Tears started to form in her eyes at my harsh words.  "I...I need 
to talk to you."

"Why?"

"Why?  Because Lindsey called me yesterday and told me what 
happened."

"Okay, so Lindsey called you.  Why do you want to talk to me?"

The tears spilled over and down her cheeks, but I don't think she 
noticed them.  "I...I...you..."  And, like a summer squall 
overpowering a hot and humid day, her face collapsed into a series 
of sobs she could not stop.  She stood there, hands to her cheeks, 
looking forlornly at me, and cried.

As hard as I tried to be, I could not be that cold-hearted.  I took 
her hand and led her into the living room, and sat down beside her 
on the couch facing the cold fireplace.  I waited until the squall 
passed, holding her hand passively, until she took it away to rummage 
in her coat pocket for a tissue.  She blew her nose and wiped her
eyes.

"What happened, Ray?" she asked.  "I want to hear it from you.  I 
don't want to hear it from Lindsey, or from Brad, or from Marcus, or 
from anybody else.  Just from you.  What happened?"

"You want to know what happened?"  I was angry, and she was about to 
be the unfortunate recipient.  "Okay, I'll tell you what happened.  
You hung up on me, that's what happened."

She looked up at me, startled and hurt.  Without a word, she stood up 
as the tears began again, and strode to the front door.  She opened 
the door and never looked back as she walked down the sidewalk to her 
car, got in, and drove away.  The momentary satisfaction I felt when 
I let my tongue wag before I put my brain in gear left me suddenly, 
and I felt terrible.  Maybe she deserved it, maybe she didn't, but I 
should have been a bigger man than to let such pettiness take over.  
I mentally kicked myself, and closed the door.

So of course, like a hangnail or a paper cut you just can't leave 
alone, Missy's visit gnawed at me all day.  By that evening, I was 
irritable, unfit company for any other human in the vicinity.  I did 
the only thing I could do.  I called her.

"Look," I said when she finally came to the phone, "I'm sorry I 
treated you like that this morning.  I really am."

"Don't apologize, Ray.  I deserved it.  You're right, I did hang up 
on you, and I never gave you a chance to explain."  She sounded 
subdued, depressed, and near tears again.  "I knew I could trust 
you, and I still doubted.  I thought I knew Micki, and I was eager 
to put all the blame on her.  Oh, God, now I have to call Micki and 
apologize!  Oh, God, I was such a raving BITCH to that poor girl!"
She started sobbing again.

I heard her mother in the background.  "Melissa?  Are you all right?"

Missy covered the handset and called out, "Yes, Mother.  I'm okay."
Then, back to me, she said, "I don't know what to do, Ray.  I don't 
know how to fix this."

"I don't know if it's even fixable, Missy."

She sobbed again.  With a hitch in her voice, she finally said, "I'm 
so sorry, Ray.  I love you."  She hung up the phone.

Now I really felt like shit.




HARD PROMISE
Rev. Cotton Mather


- 13 -

As you are no doubt all too aware, when you're 15, or 16, or 17, or 
18, emotions rule your world.  The blackest day can be followed by 
the most marvelous evening you have ever known, and it all seems so 
natural at the time.  It's only with the passage of years that you 
look back on that time with a mixture of awe and humor that you 
managed to live through those times relatively unscathed.

Yes, that one phone call opened up the lines of communication 
between Melissa and I.  Within a couple of weeks, we were actually 
on friendly terms.  The summer's upheaval, if not exactly forgotten, 
was pushed into the background, where it mercifully faded away to 
practically nothing.  Melissa and Micki were never going to be best 
friends, but they at least found a way to put aside their animosity 
for my sake.  I, on the other hand, faced a dilemma that kept me up 
nights for a long time.  I had learned to respect and appreciate 
Micki, and maybe even to love her, during our time of stress.  I 
wasn't about to abandon her now, especially considering how fragile 
she seemed to be.  I couldn't help thinking, however, that maybe it 
was Melissa who was supposed to be my soulmate.  Wait and watch, 
wait and watch was my mantra for a long time while I tried 
untangling that lovers' knot.  Eventually, I saw the solution, the 
one that was probably there the whole time, waiting to be seen in 
its elegance.

The Ray Machine saw a real surge in popularity, which culminated in 
my election in the spring as Prom King, with Brittany Felson 
reigning as Prom Queen.  True to his word, Ev Delaney provided a 
character reference for me that was almost embarrassing in its 
praise, but it helped get me into the University in the fall.

And, of course, in the fashion of a good old romance, after I 
graduated from college, I was proud to stand up and make my high 
school sweetheart my wife, to love and honor and cherish forever.




HARD PROMISE
Rev. Cotton Mather


- 14 -

Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you:

She was surprised and delighted by my news when finally, after a 
tender lovemaking session, I remembered to tell her about our 
surprise vacation.  She loved the idea of going to Bermuda on a whim, 
and we both managed to get a week off from work.

And Bermuda was lovely, as delightful as she remembered, as beautiful 
as she described.  And on our last night there, we were standing on 
the balcony of our hotel room, watching the sunset, when she turned 
to me and took both my hands in hers.  We were dressed for dinner, 
enjoying a glass of wine before going down to the restaurant.  In her 
high heels, she was nearly as tall as I.  Holding my hands, she 
leaned closer and kissed me softly before whispering, "Darling Ray, 
light of my life, holder of my heart, and now the father of our
child."

I was dumbfounded.  "What?  You're...you're..."

She simply nodded, a small, secret smile on her lips, her eyes 
glistening in joy, squeezing my fingers in hers.




THE END

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