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Welcome to the Church of The 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 2002, revisions c. 2007, R.C. Mather)

E-Mail all comments to RevCottonMather at hotmail dot com
Don't be shy!  I enjoy hearing from you.

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PLAYING THE GAME

A Novel

by R.C. Mather




- 27 -

A WALK IN THE SNOW



Ever since the All-State selections had been announced, my parents
had fallen back onto their old parenting ways, pretty much letting me
be a teenaged kid. As long as I didn't get myself into trouble again
(or found myself being dragged, kicking and screaming, into trouble,
such as what Jake did to me), and as long as I kept my grades up,
they were willing to pretty much stay off my back.

All during the playoffs, from the conference tournament all the way
to the state playoffs, Molly was acting funny around me. It was as if
she was distracted or something. And to tell the truth, all during
that month I was plenty busy. The homework load didn't ease up just
because we were still playing soccer and our games were no longer
local affairs. We were traveling longer distances to play and the
further we got in the tournaments, the further it seemed we had to
travel. As a result, I didn't have any time on the weekends to spend
with Molly, and during the week all I could spare was a quick phone
call occasionally.

She was still really friendly during school, but it seemed like she
was distant and distracted whenever I called her. Monosyllable
answers to my questions, no prompting from her to help the
conversation along, and uncomfortable silences were the norm. It got
so that I didn't like to call her at night, content just to see her
at school instead.

Finally though, the soccer season ended. I had a weekend free, so
when I saw her at lunch on Wednesday, I asked her if she could do
something on Friday night.

"Ummm... I don't know for sure yet," she evaded. "Call me tonight,
okay, Sean? Look, I've got to go. I've got a meeting set up with my
adviser. I'll talk to you later."

She abruptly got up from the table and threw the rest of her lunch
away and left the cafeteria, leaving me feeling awfully alone among a
sea of students.

That night, after dinner, I dialed her number. Josh answered the
phone.

"Dude, what did you do?" he asked.

I was puzzled. "What are you talking about?" I asked.

"Man, she's really in outer space tonight. She was snapping at all
of us at dinner, and even yelled at the dog. I laughed at her when
she did that and almost got my head handed to me."

"Great. I wonder what the hell is going on?"

"Well," he said, "I hope you can figure it out before she gets on
the phone. But you did something to piss her off, Sean, bet on it."

There was a loud clunk as he let the handset drop. 'Great,' I thought
to myself. 'I'm in trouble, and I don't know why.'

I heard Josh calling Molly to the phone. A few moments later, she
picked up the handset.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Mol. It's me."

"Oh. Hi."

Silence. Uh-oh.

"Um, you said I should call," I prompted.

"Oh, yes. That's right, I did." She took a deep breath. "Sean, I
need to talk about something, okay?"

"Sure, go ahead," I said. My heart started beating a little faster,
and my stomach was doing tricky things. I wished I had gotten myself
some water or something to drink before I dialed. Maybe that would
have helped calm me down.

"It's about us, Sean. I think we've got problems we're not talking
about."

"What problems, Molly? Besides, we're talking now, aren't we?" I
knew they were weak arguments, but they were all I had at the moment.
I was still trying to wade through the minefield of this 
conversation.

"We haven't been talking before now though. I'm just not comfortable
right now with where we are, Sean. I know you've felt it, too. Ever
since the costume party..."

"Wait a minute. The costume party? You mean the one at your house?"

"Of course the one at my house." She sounded exasperated with me.
"What other costume party have you gone to? Never mind, I don't want
to know."

"Molly..."

"Shut up for a minute, Sean, and let me work this out. Ever since
the costume party, when I saw you kissing Jake's little sister..."

"Molly..."

"I saw you kissing Kayla, Sean. And you both looked like you were
enjoying it."

"Molly..."

"And you were both enjoying it. I can't get that image out of my
mind, Sean."

"But you kissed Scotty..."

"Didn't you hear me? I said you were both enjoying it. That's the
part that has been really bothering me, Sean." I could hear the tears
just starting on the other end of the phone. My stomach dropped into
my toes.

"Look, Molly..."

"Just let me talk for a minute, okay?" She took a deep breath to get
herself back under control. I tried it, too, but it didn't work for
me. "I'm afraid you're not taking this relationship very seriously,
Sean. I thought you loved me. I thought you were committed to me. But
ever since that party, I haven't been able to convince myself that
you are in this with me one hundred percent." She stopped again. I
could just detect a sob trying to work its way out of her and into
the open. "I think we're going to have to stop seeing each other for
awhile," she whispered.

"Molly..." But I had nothing to say. She had said it all. When I
didn't respond, the sob that had been waiting for its opportunity
finally escaped. Without another word, she set the telephone down and
broke the connection. No slamming it down in anger, just a quiet
click. The thunderous sound of that click seemed to drop an entire
wall of bricks onto me.

Shit.

The whole next day at school, I walked around numb. At lunchtime,
Molly found somewhere else to sit. I ate with Jake and Eric and
Keisha and Toby, but I just couldn't track any of their
conversations. I thought Josh had probably clued in Jake about Molly
and me, so he at least was a little sympathetic. Even so, I really
didn't want to spill out my personal problems to the table, so I
endured some good-natured ribbing about my long face. It was a long
day, but at least I could go home right after school and try to bury
myself in homework. It was one of the few times I was grateful to my
teachers for piling it on.

Friday was a little better. I had gotten over the shock of Molly
calling it off, but it still hurt. I understood more now how Josh
must have felt when Shayna broke up with him back in September. I
thought I would make it through the day pain-free.

No such luck.

It all began around lunchtime. I was walking toward the cafeteria
with Jake, when Toby came up and grabbed my arm.

"Man, you're not gonna believe what I just heard," he said as he
tugged on me. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Jake
frantically waving his hand at Toby, trying to get him to shut up
about something. I turned toward him. His hand dropped like it
suddenly weighed about fifty pounds, and he got this innocent look on
his face that immediately made me suspicious.

"What?" I asked sharply.

"Who, me?" he asked. By the look on my face, he realized how stupid
that sounded, so he dropped the act. We made our way to some empty
seats at our usual table and sat down.

"Okay, guys, what gives?" I asked.

Toby and Jake glanced at each other.

"Okay," said Jake. "You're probably going to hear about it from
somebody else later today anyway, so you might as well hear it from
your friends first." He glanced around to make sure someone wasn't
listening in, as if it mattered.

Toby leaned in close and spoke quietly. "Molly's going out with
someone else on Saturday."

I stared at him, then looked at Jake. He gazed back at me solemnly.
"She's got a date?" I asked stupidly.

Jake nodded. "Scotty asked her out. She said yes. They're going to
some party that Tessa knows about somewhere. Hey, I'm sorry, Sean."

I nodded mutely. I told myself we had broken up, she was free to go
out if she wanted. It didn't help. 'It's only been two days!' I was
still trying to assimilate our conversation from Wednesday, and she
was already going out with someone else? It didn't make any sense to
me. 'And she told me she didn't enjoy her session with Scott in the
laundry room.' 

Or did she really say that? 

I started running our conversation back through my mind. Hold on,
there's something wrong here. She was upset that I seemed to be
enjoying kissing Kayla, but she never said she didn't enjoy kissing
Scott that night.

Maybe there was more to this breakup than she was telling me.

Not that, ultimately, it was going to make any difference. Whether
she and Scott were going out because of the costume party or not
didn't really matter. Whether there was an attraction there before
our breakup really didn't matter, either.

But this news really did hurt.

And Josh and Toby were absolutely right. I heard from five or six
other friends that Molly was going out with Scott on Saturday. 'Bad
news travels fast,' I thought to myself.

Then, just before my last class of the day, Jake found me in the 
hall.

"Sean. You're not going to like this news at all, but I just heard
from somebody who saw them together, that Molly and Scott went to a
movie together last weekend. While you were at the state tournament,
she was already going out with somebody else. Man, I'm really sorry
to have to bring you this news, Sean."

He looked as sorry as he sounded. I would have felt sorry for him,
but I was busy feeling sorry for myself, and couldn't spare any for
my friend.

Now I really felt like crap.

Friday night, Josh and Jake and I met at the mall, and I lost myself
in a maze of pinball and arcade games, dumping quarter after quarter
into the machines. Air hockey, I discovered, was a very good outlet
for anger and frustration. Even when you were winning, you were
slamming the puck as hard as you could, trying to break that little
disk into a zillion pieces. I felt oddly better after about a half
dozen battles at the table.

On Saturday, I tried to lose myself in chores around the house. The
grass wasn't growing, but there were leaves to rake, gutters to
clean, and the garage to sweep out. I finished the afternoon by
taking my soccer ball back behind the garage and kicking it against
the back, chasing down the rebound and dribbling back to an imaginary
line and firing the ball against the wall again. It was getting
pretty cold out, but by the time I was done, I was breathing hard and
sweating from my exertions. I just wasn't tired enough to stop
thinking about Molly going out with Scott that night, though. It was
like a splinter in my thumb. I had to worry it and pick at it until
it throbbed, so I could be unhappy about how much more it hurt now
that it was getting infected.

I trudged into the house and stripped off my soaked sweatshirt and t-
shirt. I dumped them in the laundry basket in my room, and headed for
the shower. The sky had just started spitting little wet clumps of
snow flurries. 'Oh, good,' I thought to myself. 'Now the weather is
turning bad on me, too. What next?'

I spent the next several hours looking at the television, but not
really seeing anything. I would switch to one channel, watch for a
few minutes, then get up and walk over to the selector on the TV and
switch to a different channel. I would sit back down, only to get up
a few minutes later and go through the motions again. Nothing grabbed
my interest enough to stay with it. I got more and more frustrated as
I continually flipped through all the channels, only to start all
over again at the beginning.

Finally, I decided that taking a walk in the freezing weather suited
my mood. Maybe I could walk far enough to tire myself out so I could
just go to sleep. I slipped on my letter jacket, slapped a baseball
cap on my head, made sure I had gloves in the pockets, and trudged
out the door.

I walked aimlessly around the neighborhood, not paying any attention
to where I was or where I'd been. I just walked through the building
snow and slush, head down, hands thrust in jeans pockets, staring at
where my next step would land.

Eventually, I found myself stopped on the sidewalk by Jake and
Kayla's house. No lights were on, but it didn't matter. I didn't want
to see anybody anyway. I walked up their driveway and around the
garage into the field in back. My body was on autopilot, my mind
switched off. I was letting my feet take me where they wanted to go,
or so I thought.

I shuffled through the accumulating snow all the way across the
field, and into the stand of trees. The snow was reflecting what
little light there was outside, and my feet found the worn path
through the woods easily. My body stopped, and it was a few minutes
before my brain reconnected. I was standing on the path, shoulders
hunched against the cold and wet. Ahead of me was the tree Jake and I
had climbed so long ago. I mentally shrugged, telling myself it was a
lesson in futility to even think of going up there, but my feet began
to move again in that direction.

I pulled out my gloves and put them on, and reached up to climb the
tree. The branches and limbs were slippery and wet as I climbed
higher. I got to the branch I had sat on months ago, and glanced at
the back of the O'Toole house. No lights were on here, either.

Wait a minute. There was a dim glow coming from one window. I slid
over to the branch on the other side of the tree and stood up on it
to try to peer into the window. I knew it was Molly's room. 'She
probably just left a closet light on or something,' I told myself.
'She's not there. She's out with Scotty,' I reminded myself. 'She's 
not there.'

My eyes adjusted to the light coming from the window, and standing
on the branch allowed me to see most of the room. The faint light was
coming from her bedside lamp. It was so dim because she had thrown a
dark t-shirt or something over it to cut down on the glare. Scott and
Molly were lying on her bed together, kissing and holding each other.
As I watched, my eyes grew more accustomed to the amount of light
available coming from her room. I saw Scott's hand move tentatively
up from Molly's waist, brushing along the nap of her sweater, to
softly grasp her breast. I saw Molly arch her back a little, making
her chest raise up, pushing her boob harder against his hand. Her
mouth opened as she kissed him harder, and she pulled him tighter to
her, keeping her upper body turned just slightly so that he didn't
lose contact with her sensitive breast.

I saw him drop his hand down and urgently scramble for the hem of
her sweater, anxious to slip beneath the sweater. I saw the fabric of
the sweater rise into a ridge as his hand and arm slid up, eager to
reclaim possession of her breast.

I stayed there in the tree, unaware of the temperature or the snow
or anything else surrounding me as I watched Molly push Scott away
for a moment so she could sit up and pull the sweater over her head.
Her bra was askew on her, one cup pushed up over an exposed breast
where Scott had wormed his fingers underneath. She reached behind her
and unfastened the bra, pulling it off her shoulders and tossing it
onto the floor. She lay back down and pulled Scott back to her for a
kiss. He took the advantage Molly was giving him and grabbed at her
breast clumsily as he was brought back down to her.

I continued to watch as Molly took charge of an apparently very
inexperienced Scotty. She rolled him over so she was partially on top
of him, slipping her knee between his legs as she rose up slightly,
guiding her swollen breast to his lips. He licked and kissed her
turgid nipple, but it looked like he wasn't sure what she wanted. He
let his hands slide down her bare back as he suckled at her breast.
He tried to slip under her jeans and onto her ass, but her pants were
too tight. He contented himself with grasping the globes of her ass
over her jeans, squeezing and pulling the pliant flesh.

I stayed there the whole time. I watched Molly unsnap first her
jeans, and then Scott's. I saw her pull out his dick and hold it in
her hand, playing with it and pumping it up and down while he was
frantically trying to dig his fingers into her cunt, all the while
staring wide-eyed at what Molly was doing to his hard cock. I saw him
jerk practically off the bed, unexpectedly shooting his seed straight
up into the air as she jacked him off. I saw her giggle, her boobs
quivering, as she rubbed her fingers in the mess on his stomach and
chest with one hand, hanging on to his re-inflating cock with the
other. I could only stand there and watch as Molly kissed him hard as
she held onto him, swinging her leg over to straddle him. I watched
as she held the tip of his hard cock against her drooling slot,
knowing what he was feeling, dreading what I was about to see. I saw
her drop down on him, letting go with her hand as she imbedded
herself on him. I felt the knife go into my chest and slice down to
my stomach as I saw her move, her hands now on his shoulders, her
head back in pleasure, her eyes closed in concentration. I watched
her fuck him, I watched as he watched her, unable to believe his
luck. I saw her open her eyes and say something to him, saw her reach
down and take his hand, saw her press it to her breast as she moved
up and down on him. I watched it all, hardly able to blink, as she
rode herself nearly to completion. I saw Scotty tense up, saw his
hips working up and down frantically. His movements were inhibiting
Molly's, keeping her from cresting, and I was glad to see it, in a
perverted way. His eyes opened wide as his climax came on him
unexpectedly, and I saw Molly jerk herself off him just as he started
to spurt. His hips thrust up into the air, his spasming cock
searching in vain for the warmth of Molly's encasing walls, as his
cum came spilling out of him, puddling on the bare skin of his
twitching stomach.

I couldn't bear any more. I closed my eyes against the vision, and
then concentrated on getting out of the tree. I did not want to look
at the window, so I turned to face back into the woods as I climbed
down. I dropped to the ground, slipped in the accumulating snow, and
fell on my ass. I leaned back against the tree as I felt the sting of
tears in my eyes. I intensely regretted coming to the tree, and I was
miserable and cold and wet and suddenly very tired.

I dragged myself up to my feet and shuffled back out to the path. As
I was making my way back toward the field, my subconscious noted, for
future consideration, something that I did not register at the time:
another set of footprints in the snow, feet quite a bit smaller and
narrower than mine, paralleling my path through the woods.





(Continued in Chapter 28)


  
PTG27