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 16 ...strange what desire will make foolish people do...  Wicked Game
(Chris Isaak)
   A year had come and gone, more than a year, really, more like 14 months.
Rose was in sixth grade.  Apart from the impending transition to junior
high, she didn't find it to be much different than fifth grade, except
perhaps a little...  not really lonelier, she said, scrunching up her face
(adorably) and trying to think of a better way to put it, finally setting
for 'more isolated', because Brittany and her posse were gone.  She said
she didn't miss them, but the wistful way she said it made me think that
wasn't quite entirely accurate.
   We were in my room at the time, with the door ajar.  I was trying to
avoid any appearance of impropriety, and trying to keep myself honest with
myself.  The door to my room was at the end of the hallway, about three
feet past the entrances to the locker rooms, and I knew if anyone were to
overshoot those by even a couple of steps, they would see right into my
room.
   Rose was perched on the cot, her shorts displaying her gorgeous legs
from the top of the thigh down, and her blouse carelessly open at the top
button, so that every time she leaned forward, I was able to see the
faintest shadow of the cleavage that would soon be there in earnest.  I was
sitting cross-legged on the floor, leaning back on my hands, waiting for
the guts to ask my next question.  I think I might have been more nervous
than I ever had before in my life, when I finally screwed up the courage to
come out and say it.  "What about boys?  Are there any that look
interesting to you?" The responsible adult in me, the part that owned my
conscience and guilt and repression, the part that obeyed the law and saw
to it that I did the right thing by those less able to look out for
themselves, was anxiously hoping to hear that she had discovered some
stupid bohunk that took her breath away.  The starry-eyed adolescent in me,
the part that owned my sense of romance and love, my heart and soul and,
yes, my aching manhood, cringed at the thought that I might hear the answer
the adult was demanding.  The two halves were waging a savage battle
inside, kicking and gouging in the mud and the blood and the tears,
fighting so hard that my ears were buzzing and my lungs were unable to
completely fill.  Rose, knowing nothing of this death struggle, thought I
was teasing her, and she was just a shade put out as she told me that she
had no more prospect or interest in snagging a boyfriend now than she had
when they first arrived.  Then, as the resentment gave way to her usual
impish good humor, she slipped down to the floor and wrapped her arm around
mine and hugged it tight to her as she grinned, "Anyway, Jack, you know
you're the only man for me!" Holy God.  My mixed emotions at this display
were as divided as oil and water, and the play of of those emotions on my
face didn't escape Rose's notice, because she asked if I was feeling all
right.  "I'm fine," I managed to choke out, "I'm just a little tired, I
guess." Or a lot tired, of fighting with myself and playing with myself
and, and, and...  Goddamnit.  "Well, that won't do," she chuckled, "you'd
better lay down and rest for a bit." And she pushed on my chest until I
gave in and laid back on the floor, turning to face her as she lay down
next to me, her head propped up on her hand.  She grew just a little more
solemn as she reached over to brush the hair out of my eyes, and she said,
"You know how much you mean to me, don't you, Jack?  You're the best friend
I could ever hope for.  You look out for me and you take care of me and you
make me laugh and, and...  oh, Jack, I, I, I just, I just love you.  You
know that, don't you?" She was blushing, but only slightly, and I must have
been blushing myself as I reached over to stroke the side of her face. 
"Yes, I know," I said, and taking a huge mental breath, pushed myself to
say, "and I love you, too, Rose, with all my heart.  You know that, don't
you?" She flashed her usual pixie grin and and said, "What's not to love?"
I had to laugh out loud at that, "You minx!"
   I don't think I'll ever know which one of us moved then, or whether we
both moved at the same time.  All I know for sure is that the next thing I
knew, we were wrapped up in each other's arms, holding each other tight,
her face nestled into my neck, her gentle breath tickling my skin, her
aroma filling my nose.  I must have been acting on sheer instinct when I
gently kissed the top of her head, my hand caressing and rubbing her back.
The feel of her soft lips on my neck sent a delicious shiver down my spine,
a lovely sensation that I never wanted to end; not quite a kiss, but damn
near.  I don't know how long we lay locked together like that; it might
have been ten seconds, or a lifetime; before I became aware of my erection
surging, bulging in my pants, pressing into her thigh with an insistence I
couldn't deny.  We lay together like that for five or more minutes, the
worry over what she would think of the erection being overwhelmed by the
sheer joy of holding her close, feeling the mop of her hair filling my
face. I knew this could only end in one of two ways, and I had to make it
be the right way, for both of us.  Pulling away from her was like pulling
the flesh off my body, an agony that I forced myself to endure because to
do anything else would have been a violation of her youth and her
understanding of our friendship.
   We chatted for probably twenty more minutes after that, and after a
glance at the clock, I told her I needed to get started on shutting the
pool down for the night.  She nodded, her usual happy headbob letting me
know everything was okay between us as she bounced out the door for home.
   It was perhaps two or three weeks later when it happened.  The night. 
The night that changed everything.  The night that finally, firmly,
irrevocably started us down this path.  That night had been particularly
slow.  Rose had gone home at 7:00 to dinner and homework (an English paper
that she was looking forward to writing on the computer, a review of Lewis
Carroll's two Alice books), the last swimmer had left the pool at 9:30, and
as the clock slowly crawled around to 10:00, I decided nobody else would be
coming that night, so I went to the men's locker room to take a shower and
get ready for bed.  I took out my contact lenses and stashed them in the
locker I had reserved for myself, the one closest to the shower.  The
entrance to the men's shower area, on the far side of the locker room from
the entrance just outside my room, wasn't actually a doorway, really more
of a large opening, probably ten feet wide.  The shower area itself was a
large open tiled room with eight shower heads around the walls, half of
which could be seen from any angle in the men's locker room.  I went to my
favorite showerhead, the one with the softest spray, twisted the knobs, and
waited for a few seconds until the water was nice and warm, then cranked it
up as hot as I could stand it.  As I stood there in the spray from the
showerhead, I was thinking, as usual, about Rose.  Once again, I forced
myself to remember I shouldn't be thinking like that, and I tried to think
about Marjorie instead, but it didn't work; Marjorie just evaporated as
soon as I tried, and I was left with Rose by default.  I had a full
erection by now as I washed my body, and I slowly started to play with
myself, picturing Rose in my mind and stroking and fondling myself with my
right hand.  In one of my dreams from the night before, we had been in the
wave pool at some waterpark, the waves knocking us back, forcing her into
me, and she had been laughing as she turned to face me and allowed the
waves to force her deep between my legs, our crotches pressed tightly
together.  That was where the dream ended, and as hot water pounded down on
my head, I chose to revisit that scene as a daydream to see where it took
me.  Not surprisingly, my erection (in the vision) emerged from my
swimsuit, and as it ground into the panty of Rose's bikini, she looked a
little shocked at first, then smiled her biggest, warmest smile and wrapped
her arms around me, pressing up against me and straddling my leg, trapping
my hardness between our thighs and grinding her little pussy up against it.
I was breathing a little harder now, slightly shocked at my audacity in
letting my imagination go this far, and quite unwilling to stop it.  As the
vision continued, I noticed that even though the wave pool was crowded,
everyone else was too involved in their own struggles to stay afloat to pay
any attention to us.  I slipped my thumb under the material of her panty
and pulled it aside.  Her reaction was one of open-mouthed wonder, and then
she bit her lip and after nodding vigorously to tell me to keep going,
hugged herself close to me, her chin resting on my shoulder, her chest
pressed up tight to mine.  In one smooth motion, I slid my cock deep into
her, all the way to the base, and her cry was one of wonder and surprise,
with no pain whatsoever.  It was as if her hymen had already been broken,
there was no need to push through.  We continued to bob along together,
letting the ebb and flow of the waves gently push us together every time we
started to slide apart.  In the shower, I soaped up my hand again, then
used the feeling of stroking my cock with my soap-slimed hand as a stand-in
for Rose's little love tunnel wrapped around me.  I squeezed harder and
harder, massaging the head with my fingertips, and the familiar tingle
started to make itself known.  In the daydream, Rose had wrapped her legs
around my waist, hugging me tight between her thighs and forcing herself
onto me, to make sure I stayed buried deep inside her.  I could tell it
wouldn't be long now before I was shooting my load.
   As I turned around to feel the water on my back, I thought I saw a blur
of color by the outer door of the men's locker room.  I squinted, trying to
make it out; without my contacts or glasses, it was a struggle.  My first
thought was that it was a towel that some tenant had left hanging on the
hook by the door, but something about that explanation didn't seem quite
right.  Still I gripped my hardness, slowly stroking, and as I squinted
toward the door, I thought I saw the blur move a little.  I stepped out of
the shower's spray and reached into the locker to get my glasses, but by
the time I had them on and looked back at the door, there was nothing
there. "Hello," I called uncertainly, holding a towel around my waist and
sneaking over to the door to look out, "is someone there?" The hallway was
empty, but I was sure for a fleeting instant I'd seen something or someone
there, and I was scared that I had been caught jacking off.  Nothing ever
seemed to come from it, though, and I let it slip out of my mind.
   When Rose seemed to pull away from me a little over the next few days,
it literally never occurred to me to wonder if she had been the blur. 
After all, it was the men's locker room, I knew she wouldn't have come in
there.  As things seemed to cool down between us, I attributed it to
nothing in particular.  Maybe she was upset about something; if so, surely
she would tell me sooner or later.  We were pals, after all.
  
rj_chapter16