Bobby's Good Deeds By Beating Off Bob

   Now that I think back on it, I suspect that the Boy Scouts probably
wasn't the best organization for me, when I was a kid.  I wasn't really
"the type", if you know what I mean.

   If you don't know what I mean, all you have to do is take a look at the
cover of a Scout manual.  The picture is always of an athletic, handsome
kid, who is obviously clever, and I wasn't any of those things.

   On the other hand, any good Scout executive would smile benignly and
tell you happily that, while the Scouts can't do anything about being
handsome, they are experts at helping boys become more athletic and clever.

   And, come to think of it, I wouldn't be where I am now if I hadn't been
a Scout.

   "Where am I now?", you ask.

   Well ...  I suppose that's the rest of the story.

   It all started when, as I was trying mightily to become a full fledged
Tenderfoot Scout, I learned the Scout slogan: Do a good deed every day.

   That's not so hard, right?  All you have to do is something nice for
somebody else, or something that helps someone.  How hard could that
possibly be?

   A lot of folks think that's the Scout motto - Do a good turn daily - but
that's wrong.  It's the slogan.  The motto is: Be Prepared.

   To get it right, you have to be able to do both of those things at the
same time.  That's where I had problems.

   I thought up all kinds of good deeds.  The trouble was, I didn't think
them through all that well.  I wasn't ...  prepared.

   Take, for instance, the very first official good deed I tried to do.  I
took my dad's new lawnmower and went down to old Mrs.  Jenkins house to mow
her lawn.  I didn't tell her I was coming.  That's part of doing a good
deed, right?  You want good deeds to be a surprise.

   So there I was, with my dad's brand new lawnmower, which was self
propelled, which was a new idea to me.  I think that's part of why I wanted
to do this particular good deed.  Dad wouldn't let me mow our lawn, at
least not with the new mower.  That was back before lawn mowers had five or
ten different safety features on them.  When you pulled the lever to make
it go ...  it went.  You had to push the lever to make it stop.  If you
didn't ...  well ...  it didn't stop.

   I guess I wasn't too well prepared, because when the thing lurched into
gear, and took off, and I stepped on my loose shoe string, chasing it, it
jerked out of my hands.  By the time I got hold of it, it had beautifully
cropped ten feet of lawn, and six feet of Mrs.  Jenkins' prized Azaleas.

   I have to tell you, that baby could cut good!

   I caught up with it, and pulled it up on the back wheels, so I could
turn it around and get out of the flower bed, and sort of got tangled up in
a Japanese Quince bush.  Those are thorny, and I had on shorts.  Who'd have
thought part of being prepared for cutting grass was wearing long pants?

   Anyway, there was a big bed of what turned out to be rare Calypso
Oleanders, and by the time I got hold of the mower again, there were pretty
pink petals scattered all over the place.  I thought it was a nice touch.
You know, it spread the colors out much wider than they had been.  Mrs. 
Jenkins wasn't impressed, though, and my first good deed got me grounded
for a month.

   I thought my next good deed couldn't possibly miss.  My mother sometimes
talked fondly about a cat she'd had when she was in college, and how much
she missed it.  When I found a stray cat on my way home from school one
day, it just seemed natural to take it home, clean it up and have it there
for Mom when she got home from work.  I gave it a bath in the kitchen sink.

   Who'd have thought cats hated water so much?  I mean everybody talks
about how they clean themselves all the time and all that.  And it let me
pick it up just fine when I found it.  But I guess my dousing it with water
made it not like me, because it tore all over the house trying to keep away
from me.  And, now that I think about it, why in the world would adults
choose cream colored furniture ...  and drapes ...  and bedspreads and
stuff?  My parents had all the breakable stuff up high, where my little
sister, Suzy, couldn't mess with it.  I learned something that day.  Cats
can jump really high when they're unhappy.  How could I have been prepared
for that?  I'd never been around a cat before!  That's probably why I
didn't think about the fleas either.

   After I got over being grounded for that, I decided to think things
through a little more before I did another good deed.  A long time went by
without me doing anything.  They don't make you keep a list of your good
deeds, and read it at troop meetings though, so my Scoutmaster, Mr. 
Timmons, didn't know I wasn't doing anything.

   In fact, I didn't try to do another good deed until after I was twelve.

   This one was a no brainer.  Dad was always washing his car.  It was new,
and he was real proud of it.  I thought about it real hard, and came up
with a way to do three good deeds in one ...  sort of to try to make up for
my inactivity in the good deed arena.

   First, the car would be washed.  Second, it would save him the money of
having to go to the car wash place.  And third, I'd let Suzy help me.  She
was six, and didn't get to do much of anything that looked like it was any
fun to me.

   I showed her how to spray water all over the car with the hose, doing
the driver's side first.  She got me wet while I scrubbed, but I didn't
care.  It was a hot day.  But I couldn't keep any of the suds on the car
with her spraying water like that, so I told her to go do the other side of
the car ...  kind of a pre-soak, like.  I didn't realize the passenger
windows were open until I tried wiping water off the window I was working
on, and figured out the water drops were on the inside, instead of the
outside.

   Well, I got her to stop, and rolled up the windows, so we could finish.
I meant to get a towel and dry off the seats, but Suzy got bored of
spraying the car, and sprayed the house instead, where there was another
window open.  My Mom came out and got all upset, and made me turn off the
water.  She sent me to my room, while she changed Suzy's clothes, and
wouldn't let me explain ANYTHING to her, which is why the car sat there for
five more hours, in the sun, all wet on the inside, with the windows up.

   I got grounded for another month for that one.  All for just trying to
do a good deed!

   Later that summer I was playing in the woods behind our house, about
four houses down.  It was really just a coupld of undeveloped lots, but we
called it the woods, because nobody had ever cut any of the trees down.  I
was practicing with my sling shot.  I got it with money from mowing lawns.
That's not the kind of thing you ask your parents if you can buy.  Parents
don't understand how responsible you can be with stuff like sling shots and
B-B guns.  They just say "NO!"

   The little steel ball bearings that worked best cost a lot, but they
were worth it, for accuracy purposes.  And, if you chose the right target,
you could usually find some of them to use over again.  That's why I was
four houses down.  Somebody had left an old sheet of plywood out in the
woods, and I had it set up so I could shoot at it.  I was real smart and
had the top tipped closer to me than the bottom, which meant the balls
bounced down, where I could find most of them again.  I was pretty good,
too.  I hit the circle I'd drawn on it maybe eight out of ten shots. 
That's eighty percent.  That's a "B", which was better than I was doing in
school.

   Now I know you aren't supposed to shoot a slingshot at animals and such.
But squirrels are different.  Who likes squirrels?  And on The Beverly
Hillbillies, they even talked about hunting them for food.  So, when I saw
this squirrel hopping along the fence of the Miller family - they live four
doors down - and he hopped into their yard, I went to look.  He ran
straight to this tree by their patio, and climbed up to where they had this
thing nailed to the tree that had a corn cob on it.  It was the dried kind
of corn cob, where the birds can come and pick the kernels off and eat
them, while you watch from inside the house.

   And if the squirrel ate the corn, there wouldn't be anything left for
the birds, right?  And I was pretty good with the slingshot.

   Now I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking patio sliding glass
doors and slingshots don't make a good mix.  But I thought of that too! 
Honest, I did!  I just meant to scare the stupid squirrel away from the
corn cob.  I did, too, except that the ball bearing bounced off the tree.

   Do you have ANY idea of how much sliding glass doors cost?  I sure
didn't.  And who in their right mind would actually want to FEED a
squirrel? I got grounded for TWO months for that good deed.

   I was fourteen before I decided to try it again.  The Johansens, across
the street, had a dog named Cricket.  He was friendly and all, and they
left him in the back yard all day so he could run and play and stuff.  I
went over there sometimes to pet him.  I was doing that one day when I saw
his water dish was empty.  I tried to fill it up with the hose, but I
couldn't get any water to come out.  Turns out they had this little thing
where the hose attaches to the faucet that has a little lever on it to turn
the water on and off.  I'd never seen one of those before, so I didn't know
how to use it.  Anyway, Cricket was thirsty - I could tell - so I looked in
the garage for something.  All I could find was a jug of antifreeze.  Well,
you put that in the radiator, along with the water, right?  So it must be
like water, except that it just won't freeze.  So I gave her some of that.
She liked it too.

   Thank goodness I bragged about my good deed to Mom when I got home.  I
know you aren't supposed to brag about good deeds, but I wanted to show Mom
I'd finally gotten it right.

   They took Cricket to the vet, and they did whatever was needed to save
her.  I got an education on anti-freeze.  I had plenty of time to research
it while I was grounded.

   The one I think was the most unfair of all happened later that year,
just before I turned fifteen.  I was walking along, minding my own
business, when I saw a briefcase sitting beside a trash can at the bus
stop. Obviously, somebody had gotten on the bus and left it there by
accident.  I looked inside it, to see if there was an address for the
owner. It was full of money!  I mean REALLY full of money, in nice neat
packets, with little bands around them.

   So now I had the best of good deeds right in my hands.  All I had to do
was take it to the police station and turn it in and everybody would be
happy with me.

   Except that I didn't have to take it to the police.  They came to me. 
There were like ten of them, and they were really mad.  First of all, they
arrested me.  It took a couple of hours to get that sorted out.  See, it
turned out that somebody was blackmailing the mayor, Mr.  Hildebrand. 
That's all I found out that day, except that the briefcase I had picked up
was put there while the police staked it out, to catch the blackmailer when
he picked it up.  They thought that was me, which was why they arrested me,
which was stupid, but they didn't know that then.

   The rest of it I learned while I was grounded, and had nothing better to
do than surf the internet.  See, the reason the mayor was being blackmailed
was because somebody had taken some pictures of Trudy Hildebrand, Mrs. 
Mayor, or whatever you call the mayor's wife.  Those turned up on the
internet, after the blackmailer saw the police scream in and capture me for
picking up the ransom money.  Those pictures were something else.  I'd seen
something like them before, when I accidentally got porn on the computer.
Good Boy Scouts don't look at porn on purpose, but if it happens by
accident ...  well, you can't do much about that, right?

   Anyway, I was surfing around and saw Trudy Hildebrand's name on a file,
and when I clicked on it, there she was, sucking on a big, black penis. 
She's white.  So's her husband.  Even I knew that wasn't her husband's
penis she was slurping on.

   The thing that ticks me off so much is that I was trying to do a good
deed, and it WOULD have been a good deed, if it hadn't been blackmail
money. And besides THAT, just about everybody agreed later on that it was
that picture that brought about better race relations in town.  It got
everybody to talking about race relations.  And it got us a new mayor,
which everybody said was a good thing.

   But I got in trouble for it.

   So, I gave up good deeds.  I stayed in Scouts, cause I liked going on
overnight camping trips, and I learned a lot.  I wish they'd have taught us
about the dangers of antifreeze before they did, but they eventually got
around to it.

   What brought the good deed problem to a head ...  OK, another head ...
was one of those camping trips.  One of the first things you learn in
Scouts is about fire safety.  Why they call gasoline "Scout Juice" is
beyond me, because you are NOT supposed to use gasoline to light a fire. 
Of course some kids don't get that lesson the first time they hear it, and
one of those kids was Jimmy Sprague.  So, when his cook fire wasn't going
as well as he thought it should, and I saw him stand over it and tip a can
of lantern fuel so it would dribble out and fall on the fire ...  and when
I saw the fire climb up that dribble and start the can on fire ...  well I
knew action was needed.

   Jimmy yelped and sat the can down on the ground, where it burned merrily
from the opening on top.  All I could think about was how badly Jimmy would
be burned when that can exploded, so I yelled at him to run, and I did some
running myself, so I could kick the can hard, and get it as far away from
people as possible, so that, when it exploded, nobody would be hurt.

   I wasn't thinking about being a hero or anything.  It was just a good
deed, to imperil myself, to save Jimmy.  I was fifteen, by then, and had to
set a good example, you know?

   I got in a heck of a kick, too, and the can went flying, end-over-end,
off into the woods.  It splashed on my leg, and set that on fire, which is
kind of hard to put out when you're wearing the clothing that's burning. 
Stopping, dropping and rolling didn't seem to do it, though it did set the
leaves on fire that my leg rolled over.  I finally slapped it out with my
hands.  When Mr.  Timmons got there, it looked like the whole forest was on
fire, but he ordered us to stomp it all out, which only took a few minutes.
Then he went over to the can, which was lying on its side, still burning.
He reached down, set it upright, and put his foot on the opening.

   Damned if that fire didn't just go right out!  Who would have believed
it?

   He couldn't ground me, but he talked about sending me home.  I explained
about the good deed, and all, and even threw in some of the other ones that
hadn't gone so well.

   "Bobby?" he said, when I was done.  "You're not stupid.  So how could
you do so many stupid things?"

   "I was just trying to do a good turn every day," I said sadly.  "Except
they never seem to work out."

   He looked at me.  "Maybe we should try to define a few good deeds for
you to try out."

   "You mean like walking little old ladies across the street?" I asked. 
Nobody wanted to do those kinds of good deeds.

   He laughed.  "Little old ladies don't walk anywhere" he said.  "They
ride those little scooters nowadays and hit you with a cane if you come too
close."

   "See?" I complained.  "That's what I mean!  How's a guy supposed to find
a good deed to do?"

   He looked at me, a little sadly, I think, and said all I could do was
the best I could do.  "HOld some doors open for people who are going into
buildings," he said.  "Or, maybe try carrying somebody's groceries for
them," he went on.  "But don't drop anything and break it," he added.  He
was smiling for some reason.  "You can't go too wrong with something like
that."

   Easy for him to say.  People go shopping every day, and they carry
groceries all over the place, but not when a frustrated Boy Scout is there.
They bring them home, and it only takes five minutes to transfer them from
the car to the house, so you hardly ever see them doing something like
that. You can go months and months without ever seeing anybody trying to
carry groceries anywhere.

   Well, you could go to the supermarket, where they carry them from the
store to the car, but if you try to help them there they get all suspicious
and surly.  I guess they think you're trying to get money, or steal the
groceries or something.

   Anyway, I was almost sixteen by the time I got my chance to pull off my
very first good deed that didn't go wrong.  I was shooting hoops in our
driveway when it happened.  I had six years of failure behind me, and when
I saw Mrs.  Wilson struggling to carry two big paper grocery sacks from her
sports car to her side door, I just knew my chance had finally come.

   I have to say something about Gloria Wilson before I go on.  She lived
two doors down, and she was the only neighbor on the street who people
didn't really think of as "a neighbor".  I didn't understand it back then.
Back then, she was just this really pretty woman who nobody ever talked to.
I knew she was divorced, but that didn't mean anything to me back then.  I
had no way of knowing that none of the mothers in the neighborhood trusted
her, or that all the dads jerked off thinking about her.

   Maybe I had a sheltered childhood or something.  And I'll be the first
to admit that my IQ is just average.  Now that I'm older, I imagine the
women all saw their husbands staring hungrily at Mrs.  Wilson, which was
why none of them would give her the time of day.  And none of the men could
actually do anything for her, because of their wives.  But I didn't
understand that back then.  To me, she was just a really good looking
woman, who always smiled, though she seldom spoke, and went about her
business, whatever that was, without bothering anybody.

   Well ...  she bothered the men ...  and she bothered the HECK out of the
women ...  but like I said, I didn't understand that, back then.

   Us kids knew who she was, of course.  "That Mrs.  Wilson", or "That
woman", was what she was usually called, by one of the moms.  I usually
heard her called that at neighborhood picnics, in the park, which were
announced by fliers, and which she always attended.  She always sat on a
blanket, by herself, after she went through the line like anybody else did.
She always brought pie to those picnics, and her pie tin always went home
empty.  I was a fan of her pies.  Most of the other kids were too.  Why the
adults didn't ever eat it was beyond me, but that left more for us kids,
which was fine with me.  My dad got a piece of her pie one time, and it
made my mom mad.  I didn't understand that either, back then.  It wasn't
like he took her pie instead of Mom's.  Mom always took green bean
casserole.

   Anyways, I was shooting hoops, and saw her down the street with the bags
of groceries, and off I went, a good Scout, on a mission, which I fervently
hoped wouldn't end up in some kind of disaster.

   I hit a gold mine.

   There's no other way to put it.  Gloria Johnson, being the pariah that I
wasn't aware she was, and not having a man around to be handy, turned out
to have more good deeds to be done than you could shake a stick at.

   But I'll get to that later.  First the groceries.

   "Can I help you with those, Ma'am?" I asked courteously.  Being
courteous is the fifth law of the Boy Scouts.  I was panting a little.  The
Boy Scouts had made me more fit, but I had run pretty fast to get there
before she got in the house.

   She turned to look at me.

   "Bobby ...  isn't it?"

   "Yes, Ma'am," I answered, politely.

   "Well, THANK you, Bobby.  Yes, you certainly can help me." She grunted
as she transferred the two bags in her arms to me.

   I've never been so careful of two paper sacks of groceries in my life,
even though I had no idea what was in them.  She got into her purse and
took out her house keys, and opened the door.

   "Just put them on the counter," she said.  "There's more in the car."

   I'd never been in her house before, of course.  She didn't have any
kids, and about the only houses you went into were those where your friends
lived.  She owned her own house, which meant she had to be
thirty-something, which, to a fifteen year old kid seemed like a lot older
than me, but she wasn't so old as to seem like somebody's mother.  More
like a teacher's age, or something.

   I found the kitchen and set the bags down.  I even waited to make sure
the stuff in them didn't shift, and tip the bag over.  I was right proud of
my self when I met her at the door.  She had two more bags in her arms and,
in the shifting of them from her to me, I felt my hands run into something
soft.  It wasn't until I pulled back, two more bags in my arms, that I
noticed it had to be her breasts I had touched.

   When you're a fifteen year old male, at least in American society,
breasts are a pretty big deal.  You don't have any, of course, which is
probably why they seem so fascinating.  I had been interested in them for
several years now.  My particular favorites, up to that point in time, were
a toss up between the ones on Mandy Templeton's chest, and the Playmate of
the Month for September of the previous year.  Of course I could look at
Miss September's pretty much whenever I wanted to.  It wasn't that way with
Mandy.  I looked at them as often as I could, without getting caught.  You
had to be circumspect about looking at breasts.  Women were kind of touchy
about that, it seemed.  Even my mom frowned when I looked at hers.  She had
a pretty nice set too, and even though they were my mom's, they were the
only ones around, most of the time, so I looked at them a lot.  That's how
I found out how impolite it is to stare at a woman's breasts.  My mom ...
educated me.  You can imagine how confusing that was.  I mean, Miss
September was showing everything she had!  Playmates don't seem to mind if
you stare at their breasts.  I'd always hoped to bump into one of them,
just so I could stare without getting in trouble.

   Suffice it to say I'd never actually FELT one.  Not until now.  It was
quite an experience.

   So, when I got caught looking at Mrs.  Wilson's, cause of how soft they
had felt and all, I expected her to frown too.  I stared right at them. 
She had on a halter top, and there was a LOT of breasts to stare at, quite
a bit of them uncovered.  Then I looked up to see her eyes looking at mine,
and she looked down into her cleavage, and then back up to my face, and I
expected to get a lecture.

   But all she did was smile.  "There's two more bags.  I'll get them," she
said.

   One of those bags DID tip over, so I kept everything from falling out. I
had to take some of it out, and by the time I got the bag sitting up
straight again, she was right there, with the others.  I was a little sad I
hadn't been able to feel her breasts by taking the bags from her, but she
set them on the counter before I could.

   "There!" she said, like we'd done something important.  "Thank you."

   "No problem, Ma'am," I said proudly.

   I'd FINALLY done it!  A good deed that didn't go bad!

   "I'm a Boy Scout," I explained proudly.  "We do a good deed every day."

   "Every day?" Her voice went up a little.  She had a kind of musical
voice, that was really nice to listen to.  I'd never talked to her before.

   Boy Scouts also tell the truth.  That's the first law: A Scout is
trustworthy.

   "Well, maybe not every SINGLE day," I hedged.  "But we try," I tried.

   "How sweet!" she said sweetly.  "A man who tells the truth."

   I blushed.  It was obviously a compliment.  Usually, when I told the
truth, I got in trouble.

   She got into her purse and pulled out a five dollar bill.  "This is for
your trouble," she said.

   "Oh, no, Ma'am," I said, holding my hands out, like she was a vampire or
something.  "I can't take any money for a good deed.  That wouldn't be
right.  I was just trying to be helpful, that's all.  Being helpful is the
second of the laws of the Scouts."

   "Oh?" she asked, pulling the money back, but not putting it away.  "What
are the other laws?"

   I stood up straight, but refrained from putting my hand up in the Scout
sign.  I thought that might be overdoing it a little.

   "A Scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind,
Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean and Reverent," I droned.

   "All those things?" she asked, one eyebrow rising a little.  I had never
paid any attention to a woman's eyebrows before, but hers kind of caught my
attention for some reason.  She had dark green eyes, with kind of some
brown in them too.  They looked really big to me right then, for some
reason.

   "Uh, yes Ma'am," I said, feeling kind of weak for no particular reason.

   "Courteous," she said.  "Wasn't that one of them?"

   "Yes, Ma'am," I answered.

   "Well, I know you're trying to be polite, but when you call me 'Ma'am',
it makes me feel like an old lady," she said, looking hurt.  "You must call
me Gloria."

   When you're fifteen, you don't call adults by their first name.  Not
ever, with the possible exception of an uncle or aunt, and then you have to
put Uncle or Aunt in front of it.

   "I couldn't do that, Ma'am," I said weakly.  "That wouldn't be polite."

   "Why not?" she asked.  "If I don't mind, how could that be discourteous?
Didn't you say a Scout is obedient?"

   "Yes, Ma'am," I said, feeling like I was in a trap.

   "Well, then, you must obey me when I tell you I want you to call me
Gloria," she said.

   It made perfect sense.  I couldn't argue with her about that, even if it
flew in the face of an unwritten rule I had always followed.

   "Yes, Ma'am," I said automatically.

   "Gloria," she said firmly, crossing her arms under her halter top.  The
naked tops of her breasts kind of bulged upward when she did that, and I
stared at them.

   "Yes, Gloria," I addressed her breasts.

   One long, slim finger came to my chin.  I had enough time to see that
the nail on that finger was painted bright red before my chin lifted and
those green eyes were looking into mine.

   "I'm up here, tiger," she said, smiling.

   "Uh ...  yes Ma'am," I croaked.

   "Gloria," she said patiently.

   "Yes, Gloria," I said weakly.

   "You are just a precious young man," she said, smiling.

   I had been chastised, but I didn't FEEL chastised, exactly.  It was my
first lesson in how people can communicate without always attaching blame
or guilt, or something like that to a "correction".

   "Sorry," I said.

   "How old are you?" she asked.

   "Fifteen," I answered.

   "Well, no wonder," she said, a smile in her voice.  "I thought you were
sixteen or seventeen.  You're a big one, huh?"

   I had never thought of myself as a "big one".  I mean I knew I was
taller than all the other boys my age, and usually stronger too, but that
hadn't really made any difference in my life, up to that point in time.  If
anything, it caused me grief, because people expect bigger kids to make
fewer mistakes.  I never understood that, but it was true.

   I didn't answer.  At least I don't THINK I answered.  I can't remember
for sure.  But she took her finger away from my chin and turned around to
start taking stuff out of the bags.

   "You want to do another good deed?" she asked.

   "Um ...  OK," I said.  I had one under my belt, and even though I felt
kind of strange, another one might be nice too.  Maybe I could get a streak
going.

   "Help me put everything away," she said, handing me a jar of peanut
butter.

   While she put some things away, she handed me others, or pointed them
out, and told me where they went.  There was no stress, and it was kind of
nice.  When we got done she smiled at me.

   "I could use a couple of nice young men like you around the house.  I'd
forgotten how nice it is to have someone to talk to."

   We hadn't done a lot of talking, but I wasn't going to argue with her.
I'd gotten to watch her walking around the kitchen in that halter top and
shorts.  She had muscular legs, that reminded me of a cheerleader's legs.
She was only about 5'-8" tall, to my six feet, so it wasn't too hard to
think of her as a senior or something, even though I knew she was lots
older than that.  I liked looking at her.  Her butt was really round and
firm looking.

   I know I wasn't supposed to be looking, but how often do you get to be
around a woman that age, and check her out?

   "No problem, Gloria." I was proud that I had remembered to use her name.

   "Well, thank you very much," she said, smiling at me.  "Any time you
need to do a good deed, just knock on the door.  I have lots of things a
talented young man like you could do for me."

   Now, I know what you're thinking.  Get your mind out of the gutter. 
That wasn't what she was talking about at all.

   How do I know?

   Easy.  I went back.



   Chapter 2

   Over the next two months of that summer, I went over there three more
times.  She DID have a lot that needed doing too.  I guess with no man
around, and her being what she called "mechanically challenged", there was
all kinds of stuff that had broken, and needed replacing or adjusting, or
oiled or something pretty simple.  Being a Boy Scout, I had learned how to
do all kinds of things, and most of what she needed done was easy.  She
never tried to pay me anything after that first time, but she did stand
there and watch, and talk to me while I did most of the stuff.  She baked
me a pie for my sixteenth birthday, and I got to eat the whole thing.

   Then school started up again, and I was busy all day, and most evenings.
It wasn't that I decided not to go over there ...  it just worked out that
way.  I saw her a couple of times, and she always waved and said she was
saving up good deeds for me to do for her.  It was kind of a joke between
us.  I'd told her about some of my earlier disasters while I did some
things for her that first summer.  She'd laughed, instead of acting like I
was a dufus or something.

   So, the next summer, during which I turned seventeen, the next time I
saw her, I told her I'd come over.

   I did too.  In fact, I went back a lot.  That summer, I stopped by
probably twice a week.  She HAD saved up a bunch of good deeds for me.

   For the rest of that summer I oiled hinges, and re-glued tiles, and
replaced faucet washers and other stuff like that.  And I got to know her
better.

   It turned out she HAD been a cheerleader in High School, which she had
only graduated from eight years ago, which made her twenty-six.  I didn't
tell her I'd assumed she was thirty-something.  I was a little dense, but
not THAT dense.  She'd gotten married to her High School sweetheart, who
went to college on a basketball scholarship, and took her with him.  He'd
been good, and got drafted into the NBA in his Junior year.  There had been
all kinds of interest in him his whole college career, including,
apparently, from the ladies, who, according to Gloria, swarmed around him
like bees around honey.

   "I just couldn't compete," she said one day, leaning against the
bathroom door, while I put a new flapper in her toilet.

   By then our first name basis was comfortable for me.

   "Come on, Gloria," I said, trying to get the flapper arm hooked on the
outlet flange.  "That's pretty hard to believe.  You're a stone fox."

   I had spoken out of turn.  I THOUGHT things like that ...  but I didn't
SAY things like that.  My attention on the flapper sort of distracted me, I
think.

   "Why thank you, Bobby," she said, with syrup in her voice.  "You know
how to make an old single lady feel pretty good."

   "Uh, sorry," I said, darting a look at her.  She had never berated me
for looking her over, after that first time.  I tried not to do it too
often, or too obviously, but she WAS a stone fox, and I had been a horny
sixteen-year-old all summer, and had just become a horny seventeen-year-old
a week past.

   "You don't have to be sorry," she said, her voice telling me she wasn't
mad.  "At least you're a gentleman.  I thought they were all gone until I
met you."

   "Awww," I said.  "I don't know about THAT."

   She folded her arms under her breasts.  She did that a lot.  It always
kind of put them on display.  I didn't find out until later that she did it
on purpose.

   "Well I do," she said firmly.  "After I caught Brett in bed with two
college freshmen, in our own bed to boot, I met a lot of men.  None of THEM
were gentlemen."

   "That sucks," I said.

   "I wouldn't say that, exactly," she said.

   I looked up, confused.  She had "that look" on her face again.

   I had named it "that look" because she used it on me every once in a
while, but I didn't know what it meant.  It was a look I didn't understand
at all.  It looked half like she was about to smile, like she'd made a
joke, except that I never understood the joke.  And it looked half like she
was curious about something, except she never asked me what she was curious
about.  It made me feel funny, when she used it, because her eyes seemed to
stare right into my brain.  There were times when I didn't want her peeking
into my brain, cause of the things I thought about.

   Like her.  I thought about her a lot.  I wasn't allowed to date until I
was seventeen, and having been that age for only a week, I hadn't been on
any dates yet.  But the girls I knew from school were, for the most part,
pretty self absorbed.  They liked to talk about themselves, and that kind
of thing.  Besides, they were always on a cell phone, so you couldn't even
try to talk to them.  So, in one sense, Gloria was the only woman, younger
than my parents age group, that I ever got to actually talk to on any
long-term basis.  Long-term, in this situation, means for more than two
minutes at a time.

   And, because we talked a lot, while I fixed this or that thing around
her house, it got kind of ...  I don't know ...  comfortable, maybe?  I
mean I liked her.  She talked about anything and everything, but not the
kind of stuff you'd remember for the rest of your life, or anything like
that.  It was just ...  conversation.  And she asked me what I thought
about things ...  like it mattered, even though I was just a kid.  I got
the impression, a couple of times, that she was lonely, though I couldn't
fathom a woman who looked like that being lonely.  Of course I was a kid,
and she was an adult.  There was a lot I couldn't fathom that summer.

   What I DID fathom was that she looked at LEAST as good as some of those
Playboy Bunnies, and I imagined her in all their poses.  I didn't have
enough imagination to decide what she would actually look like naked, but I
was able to put her head on those pictures, especially with my eyes closed,
while I beat my meat.

   I know what you're thinking.  Scouts aren't supposed to do things like
beating their meat.  I think it's a violation of the "morally straight"
part of things, or at least I got that impression.  On the other hand, no
adult ever said flat out "A good scout does not beat off!", and I didn't
feel the need to get clarification.  A guy needs an outlet of some kind,
you know.

   Which was why I hoped she couldn't actually see into my brain, like her
eyes suggested she could, when she had "that look" on her face.  I
eventually decided she couldn't, because she never threw anything at me.

   She never went to work.  It didn't matter what time of the day I might
be walking by.  I found out, during one of our chats, that, when she'd
divorced her husband, he'd been making a ton of money, and she got a lot of
it.  She was rich, really, which was why she didn't work.  It's not like I
asked her about that.  It just came up in conversation, like lots of other
things did.

   We saw a lot of each other, that summer.  I didn't do a good deed for
her every single time I saw her, but usually I did.  Sometimes she'd be out
in her flower garden, or on the porch, or walking to or from her car and
just wave.  Sometimes she'd call out to me and ask me if I had time to do a
good deed.

   I always had time to do a good deed for Gloria.

   My mom busted my chops about it at supper one night, just before school
started up for my Senior year.  Both Mom and Dad insisted that we have a
family meal every night, where we all sat down together and stuff like
that.

   My mother had a pinched look on her face as we sat down that night.

   "I saw Ruth Abernathy at the store today," she said, in preamble. 
Whenever she said she saw someone somewhere, it meant they'd said
something, and she was going to tell us what it was, and what she thought
about it.  What WE thought about it was less important.

   "Oh?" said Dad.  He knew the rules, and he knew his part in this little
ritual.

   "Yes, she said she saw Bobby going into that Mrs.  Wilson's house the
other day."

   "Really!" My dad actually sounded interested, for some reason.

   Mom looked at me with that level sort of look that said "You got some
'splaining to do, Lucy!"

   I was a deer in the headlights.  I had no idea of the storm that might
sweep over our household any minute.

   "Yeah," I said simply.  "She needed some help moving some furniture
around," I said.  It was true.  That's what she'd asked me to do the last
time I was there.  She was re-arranging the living room.

   "Move ...  furniture around ..." said my mother, staring straight at me.

   "Uh huh," I said, loading up my fork with potatoes.  "It was my good
deed for the day."

   "What?" That was my dad, and he sounded confused.

   "You know ...  Scouts?  Good deed every day?" I helped him out a little.

   "Oh," he said.

   "Your good deed of the day," said my mother, her voice flat.

   I had spoken clearly.  Now it was me who was confused.  Mom knew about
good deeds.  She had punished me for enough of them.

   "Yeah?" I said, not sure any more whether something was wrong.  Mom's
demeanor said it was, but I hadn't screwed anything up, like before.  In
fact, I really WAS on a streak at Gloria's house.  Everything I did over
there turned out just like it was supposed to.

   "What ...  exactly ...  did this ...  good deed entail?" asked my
mother.

   Suzy had stopped eating, and was looking on interestedly.  It sounded
like I was in trouble, and she always enjoyed that.

   Like a good Boy Scout, I told the truth.  "Well, she was rearranging her
living room, and she needed help with the couch and two chairs ...  we had
to pick them up so they wouldn't scratch the floor when we moved them."

   "And what ELSE did she do?" my mother asked.  There was almost a
triumphant note in her voice.

   I really WAS confused now.  She was obviously pissed off at me, but I
had no idea why.

   "She moved the lamps by herself," I said.  "I guess I helped with some
magazines.  I'm not sure about that." I frowned, thinking hard.  I smacked
my forehead.  "Oh yeah ...  NOW I remember," I said.

   My mother leaned forward, the fork in her hand somehow looking like a
weapon.

   "We moved the coffee table too," I said.  I looked at Mom hopefully.

   She blinked, and looked at my Dad, who was grinning for some reason.

   "This is NOT funny!" my mother snarled at him.

   "Clair, you're being ridiculous," he said.

   "I am not!" she said archly.  "Everybody knows what a harlot that woman
is!"

   "What's a harlot?" asked Suzy.  She was eleven, that summer.

   My mother almost choked and, for once, my father took the assertive role
at dinner.

   "He did a good deed, Claire.  Nobody has called us to ask for damages,
so I assume he's grown up enough that you don't have to worry about him
every minute of the day any more." My dad looked almost proud of me.

   "It's BECAUSE he's grown up that I'm worried," she moaned.

   "What are you worried about?" asked Suzy.  "And you didn't tell me what
a harlot is?  Is Bobby in trouble?"

   "Eat your supper," ordered my mother.  She looked at me.  "We'll discuss
this further after dinner." She shot a look at Suzy, who was still looking
at us interestedly.

   After dinner my mother tried to explain how it was completely
irresponsible for a young man, such as myself, to be invited into the house
of a divorced woman like Gloria.  Thinking back on it, if she'd have just
said "We think she'll try to have SEX with you!" things might have turned
out differently.

   But, instead, she hinted at all kinds of things that a teenager, such as
myself, would never associate with "We think she'll try to have SEX with
you!"

   For example, she said "What will people think?"

   Now, how the heck am I supposed to know what people will think, if I do
a good deed for Gloria Wilson?  I'd like to think they'd say "What a fine
young man ...  a true Scout ...  helpful all the way!" But I knew that most
people thought of me as a barely controlled menace, because most of my good
deeds had gone so ...  well ...  bad.

   It didn't matter what I thought people would think, though, because she
didn't actually expect me to answer that question.  She just went on.

   "That woman has no visible means of support!" She folded her arms under
her breasts, which, I have to say, didn't have quite the same effect as
when Gloria did it, though it WAS nice.  I knew better than to look,
though, at least not to look for more than a second.

   "She doesn't work ...  she gads about all day long!" my mother went on.
"She drives a sports car, of all things!"

   "She doesn't have to work," I got in edgewise.  "She's rich."

   My mother looked horrified.  Dad was just sitting there watching.  He
had a really interested look on his face, but wasn't saying anything.  Suzy
had been sent on to her room, to "clean it", but I knew she was right
around the corner, spying.

   "And how would you know THAT!" my mother gasped.

   "She told me so, when I was fixing her toilet," I answered truthfully.

   "You fixed her TOILET!?" My mother was beginning to look faint.

   "Yes," I said hesitantly.  "The flapper was worn out, and it leaked."

   "You've been in that woman's house more than once!?" my mother squeaked.

   Of course, by this time, I knew something was up.  I didn't know WHAT
was up, but I knew something was up.

   My mother's mouth was opening and closing, like the gold fish's mouth
that Suzy had in a bowl until she killed it by dumping too much food in one
week.

   My dad finally said something.

   "Claire, you're completely overreacting to this.  He's just been helping
her out occasionally."

   "Helping her out?" my mother gasped.  "My baby ...  in that den of
iniquity?" She turned to me.  "How many times?" she demanded.

   "Now many good deeds?" I asked.  That was, after all, what I'd been
doing.

   "Yes," said my father loudly.  "How many good deeds have you done for
Mrs.  Wilson?"

   "I don't know," I said helplessly.  "A dozen?  Maybe two dozen?  I
didn't count them up or anything."

   My mother turned this really pretty shade of purple, about then, and
started gasping and making these choking sounds.

   "You can go now, Bob," said my father.  He sounded stern, like I'd
broken some rule, maybe, but he didn't look mad, and he waved me out before
I could ask what I'd done wrong.

   He was a lot smarter than Mom, too.  Because when they started talking
again, he came and looked around the corner, to see if I was still there. I
was.  He jabbed his finger up the stairs, toward my room.

   "You too, missy," he said to Suzy, who was sitting on the top stair. 
"To your rooms ...  both of you."

   You didn't argue with that voice, and we both went.

   Even so, I heard bits and pieces of it.  I heard "Who KNOWS what that
hussy has done to our baby?" That was my mother, of course.  And later on,
what sounded a little like "I've SEEN how you look at her!", though I
couldn't be sure about that one.  I did hear her yell "You have to TALK to
him, John!" I didn't want to get caught trying to listen in again, though,
so I went ahead and closed my door.

   Dad came up about half an hour later.

   "Got a minute, Bob?" he asked, as he opened the door.

   "Yeah," I sighed.  "I'm in trouble ...  right?"

   "Depends," he said.

   "What on?" I asked.

   He didn't say "We think she'll try to have SEX with you!" either.

   "How friendly are you with Mrs.  Wilson?" he asked.

   "I don't know," I said.  "She's a nice lady."

   "Lady," he said, under his breath.  "And how friendly is she towards
you?"

   "She gave me a Coke a couple of times," I said.  "I didn't ask for them
or anything." We had been taught it was rude to ask for things like that.
"She talks to me and stuff." I added.  I didn't think it would be a good
idea to mention she'd baked me a birthday pie.

   He looked puzzled.  "What kinds of things has she asked you to do for
her?"

   So I thought up as many as I could.  I didn't exactly tick them off on
my fingers or anything, and they weren't in order.

   "Has she offered to pay you for any of this?" he asked.

   "Well, once, she offered me five dollars," I said.  "That was the first
time I did a good deed for her.  I carried in her groceries.  I explained
about how good deeds aren't for making money or anything.  She hasn't
offered me any money since then."

   He frowned, like he was thinking, and then smiled.

   "You're a lucky guy," he said.

   "Beg your pardon?" I responded.

   He looked at me, and the smile disappeared.  "Sometimes people jump to
conclusions about other people," he said.

   I could hear a lecture coming, but they didn't happen all that often,
and he usually had something interesting to say, so I listened.

   "When a ...  nice looking woman ...  like Mrs.  Wilson ...  isn't
married, and doesn't have a job, sometimes people begin to believe things
about her that aren't necessarily true."

   He stopped, like he'd said something important.

   "Like what?" I asked.

   He looked uncomfortable.  "Well, for instance, they wonder why she
doesn't have a man friend."

   What the heck did THAT mean?  I must have looked puzzled.

   "And," he went on, "They wonder where she gets her money."

   "Oh," I said.  "I know that.  She's divorced from a big time basketball
player, and he had to give her a whole bunch of money because she caught
him with two college freshmen in their bed."

   My dad looked stunned.  "She told you that?" he asked, kind of softly.

   "Yeah," I said.  "She was pretty bummed out about it.  She said she
couldn't compete."

   "She said THAT?" he asked, his eyes wide.

   "Yeah." I looked at him.  "Did I do something wrong?"

   He looked at me strangely.  "Did she happen to mention why she doesn't
...  date?" he asked.

   "Yes," I answered.  "She says that all the men who show an interest in
her only want one thing, and she's not about to give it to them."

   He looked positively stunned.

   "Did she ...  um ...  happen to mention what that ...  um ...  one thing
was?" he sort of gasped.

   "Not really," I said.  "But, come on, Dad ...  if she's rich, it isn't
too hard to figure out."

   OK, I know what you all out there are thinking.  But you see, you all
are ADULTS, so you think about this stuff like an adult does.  But I was
still just a kid, and I didn't make the connection.

   Now, I have to say here that part of the problem was a communication
thing.  When you're a seventeen-year-old male, you pretty much think about
sex constantly.  But what you don't know is that everybody else thinks
about sex pretty much constantly, right along with you.  And because nobody
ever TOLD you that, you think you're thie ONLY person in the world who
thinks about sex pretty much constantly.  So, while I was thinking about
Gloria ...  and sex ...  and Gloria and sex, it never occurred to me that
everybody else would think that too.  Nobody had communicated effectively
with me that I was completely normal.  So I didn't think that other people
would associate me and Gloria in terms of ...  sex.

   And, while I thought about Gloria naked, while I whacked off with a
vengeance, that's completely different than thinking you might actually
have a snowball's chance of actually DOING something with an older woman
like that.  I thought about some of my friends mothers, when I whacked off
too, but I would never in a million YEARS have tried to act on that.  It
was just to foreign a concept, to a KID, to be taken seriously.

   On the other hand, my father (and all of you) know EXACTLY what you'd
have liked to be doing with Gloria Wilson, behind her closed doors.

   So you're probably saying "Man!  Is this kid stupid, or what!?"

   But it wasn't that way.  If either my mother or my father had actually
come out and said "We're worried that she might try to have SEX with you!",
who knows?  I might have been able to make the jump to all that innuendo
they were beating around the bush with.

   And, if they had been asking, say, "What did you and Crystal Higgins do
in her room, while you were supposed to be studying for that Chemistry
test?", I'll be the first to admit that what would have come out of my
mouth instantly was "We weren't having sex!  Honest!"

   But that's because, to my young mind, Crystal Higgins was "possible". 
While I purely loved thinking about Gloria naked, and would have given up a
finger and two toes to actually SEE her naked, she just wasn't "possible".
So I didn't think of her the way that my mother, and father, and every
other able-bodied man and woman in the neighborhood thought about her.

   My dad, apparently thinking I was a complete, but harmless idiot,
basically gave up.

   "Just be careful, OK?" he ordered.

   "OK," I answered.  Wasn't I always careful?  I mean I tried to be. 
Sometimes it didn't work too well, like that time with the sling shot.  But
I always tried to be careful.

   "OK," he sighed.  "I'm glad we had this little talk."

   Such, is the wisdom passed on from parent to son, concerning the thorny
world of sex, and neighborhood politics.



   Chapter 3

   Speaking of "communication problems", nobody thought to tell me not to
do any more good deeds for Gloria Wilson.  I imagine, now that I'm older,
that my mother assumed that, during our "talk", I'd be told not to go back.
Dad didn't say that, and I doubt that he reported to her that he didn't say
that.

   But, let's be honest, since a good Scout is honest.  Even if they had
forbidden me from going back to her house, I'd have probably thought it was
so unfair that I'd have done it anyway.  I mean, in one sense, she was the
only person around who'd LET me do a good deed.  Nobody else trusted me.

   Somehow, she knew I had been asked about her.  I found this out the next
time I was walking by her house.  She was lying in a hammock that was
strung between two of the posts that held her porch roof up.

   "Hi, Bobby," she called out.  There was something different in her
voice, like she was worried about something.

   "What's up?" I asked.

   "You're still talking to me?" she asked.

   "I guess so," I answered.

   She got out of the hammock.  She was wearing a tank top, and she looked
really good in it.  She looked up and down the street.

   "Got time for a good deed?" she asked, hesitantly.

   "Sure, if it doesn't take too long," I said.  "I have to be home for
supper in half an hour."

   She didn't come out to the gate to meet me, like she usually did, but
just turned around and went in the house, leaving the door open.  I went
in. She was in the kitchen, under the ceiling fan, looking up.

   "Can you get that bulb out for me?" she asked, pointing to one that
wasn't lit.  "I'm not tall enough."

   There was a step stool between the refrigerator and pantry wall.  I knew
that.  She could have used that.  This is a good example of one of those
times I thought she was just lonely, and wanted someone to talk to.

   I went over and reached up and unscrewed the bulb.  She already had
another one in her hand, and gave it to me.

   "Your parents talked to you about the things you do for me ...  didn't
they?" she asked.

   "How'd you know?" I asked.

   "That awful Mrs.  Abernathy came up to me in the store the other day,
and told me that she'd fixed me good," said Gloria.

   "Fixed you?  Good?" I asked.

   "Yes, she said she told your parents that she'd seen you going into my
house, and that they were going to ...  do something about it."

   "They talked to me about it," I said, screwing the bulb in.  "My mom was
mad, for some reason."

   "She was, was she?" Gloria's voice sounded weird, like she was mad too.

   "She wanted to know what people would think," I said.

   "And what did you tell her?"

   "She never gave me a chance to say anything." I smiled.  "Parents are
like that.  They ask all kinds of questions that they don't really let you
answer."

   "So ...  what do you think people will think?" She had "that look" on
her face again.

   "How am I supposed to know?" I asked.  "Why would people think anything
at all?"

   She cocked her head at me, like the muscles in her neck went weak all of
a sudden, and her head just fell over.  I knew that wasn't true - about the
muscles, I mean - but that's what she did.

   "Why do you come over here?" she asked me.

   Now there was a pretty stupid question.  Why is it adults ask questions
like that, that they KNOW the answer to.

   "Come on, Gloria," I said.  "Don't play that stupid game with me.  You
know why I come over here," I said.

   "I do?" she asked.

   "Are ALL adults like this?" I asked, exasperated.  "You know I do good
deeds for you, and we talk sometimes.  What's the big deal about that?  Why
would my parents be upset about that?  Why would my dad tell me to be
careful?  Why would you ask why I come over here when you ASK me to come
over here?"

   "Your father told you to be careful?" she asked, ignoring all the other
stuff I'd said.

   "Yes," I muttered.  "Like I was going to be all wild and dangerous, all
of a sudden." I threw up my hands.  "I just don't get it!"

   "No, you don't," she said, with "that look" still on her face.  She
smiled suddenly.  "You are just the sweetest thing."

   Now what was THAT all about?

   I didn't have time to think about it before she said something else.

   "Bobby, did your parents tell you to stop coming over here?"

   "No," I said.  "Dad just said he was glad we had our talk, and for me to
be careful."

   She didn't have anything else for me to do, and I needed to get home for
supper, so I went to the door.

   "Bobby?" she called out.

   "Yes?"

   "Why don't you go out the back door tonight," she said.

   "How come?" I asked.

   "So nobody can see you leaving my house," she said patiently.  "Like
Mrs. Abernathy.  We wouldn't want her to bother your parents any more,
would we?"

   She had that right.  The fewer suppers I had like the one I told you
about, the better I'd like it.  So I went to the back door.  Her back yard
had this tall board fence all the way around it, so tall you couldn't see
anything in the neighbor's yard, and just the roofs of the houses next
door. There was a gate that led into the back alley.  Hardly anybody ever
went back there, except to take out the trash.  The woods were two doors
down from there, and trees and brush had grown up all along the alley.  I
guess people spent so much time on their lawns that they didn't have time
to do anything in the alley.  But she was right.  Nobody would see me, and
all I had to do was walk two doors down and I'd be home.

   "Bobby?" came her soft voice from behind me.

   "Yeah?"

   "From now on, when you come over to do good deeds for me, why don't you
come in the back way too."

   Anything to make life easier was fine with me.

   "Sure," I said.

   ===============================================

   The rest of that summer, whenever I went over to Gloria's, I went in the
back gate, from the alley.  Nobody else reported me to my parents, or
thought whatever the heck my mother was wondering what they'd think ...  at
least as far as I know.

   It got to be kind of a habit, that summer.  She almost always had some
little thing that needed doing, so I went over there two or three times a
week.  Sometimes she didn't have anything for me to do, and we'd just sit
around and talk.  She told me all about growing up in a town about forty
miles away from Clinton, where we lived, and when I asked her why she moved
to Clinton when she got divorced, she said she wanted a fresh start, in a
new place, where nobody knew her, and she could make new friends.  That
didn't turn out all that well, as far as I could see, because nobody talked
to her, at least nobody I knew.  That's part of why I thought she was
lonely.

   I asked her why she didn't get a job, just to meet some new people, and
she said she'd done that when she first got there, but her boss "wasn't a
gentleman", so she quit.  It turned out she bought and sold stuff on Ebay,
just for fun.  It was mostly collectibles, and she had a whole room full of
them.  She showed it to me one day.  It looked like half of the Antiques
Road Show had visited her, and just left all their stuff at her house. 
There was some pretty neat stuff in there too.  That room was actually
supposed to be a bedroom, but there was no bed in it.  It was full of
tables that were crammed with everything imaginable.  There were toys, and
dishes and statues and lamps and pictures of various kinds and sizes.

   She could tell I was fascinated by all this junk, and we stayed in there
while she told me about some of it.  She'd buy something and then do
research on the internet, like who the painter was and stuff like that.  It
was while she was gone to go get us some Cokes that I stumbled on the
painting.

   There was a stack of paintings, fairly big ones, that were stacked on
edge between the end of a table and one wall, and I started pulling them
out to look at them.  I got to this one, and my eyes about popped out.  It
was of a woman, lying on her side on one of those funny couches that don't
have any ends, and look like a wavy line from the front.  The woman in the
painting was naked as a jaybird, and she was gorgeous.

   She was also ...  Gloria Wilson.

   There was no doubt about it.  It was a painting of Gloria.  It had her
face, so finely detailed it almost looked like a photograph, instead of a
painting.  It had her hair, which was brown and was swept back in the
painting, held by a gold clip.  But the thing that made it undeniably her,
was that the woman in the painting had "that look" on her face.

   You've seen cartoons, where a light bulb lights up over a character's
head.  This was like that.  Looking at the face in that painting, on a
naked woman, made "that look" come to life in a patently sexual way that
was just obvious.  I'd gotten "that look" countless times, while we talked,
but I'd never attached anything sexual to it.  I'd even given up trying to
figure out what it meant.  It was just "that look".

   On the painting, it was obvious.  My eyes strayed to the breasts I had
tried to imagine, but couldn't.  They were gorgeous too, round and firm
looking, with dark, almost maroon nipples on them.  My eyes had strayed
just a bit further to the left, to stare at a thin line of pubic hair that
went from the shadows where her legs met, up, like a line pointing at her
belly button, which was also gorgeous, when she came back in with the
cokes.

   I heard her, and my head swiveled.  I realized I was hard as a rock, in
my pants, and I distinctly remember swallowing, because there was some kind
of lump in my throat.

   She looked at me, and her eyes went to the painting.  They got bigger
for just a second.

   "Well, it looks like you've been snooping," she said calmly.

   "I'm sorry," I said.  My voice wasn't working too well.

   "I wondered where I'd put that thing," she said.  "I didn't realize it
was in here."

   "I'm really sorry," I said, thinking about my boner, and how mad she'd
be if she found out I got it while looking at her picture.

   "My husband had that painted, right after we got married," she said
casually.  "I decided I'd take it with me when I left.  I should have just
thrown it out."

   "WHY?" I gasped.  The idea of the painting in my hands being in the
garbage seemed just horrible, right then.

   "I'd think that would be obvious," she said.  "It makes me look like a
slut."

   I looked at the painting again.  Then I looked away, because she was
right there, in the room, and I was embarrassed.  I held the painting
against my chest.

   "Don't you think so?"

   She could have gone all day long without asking that question, and I'd
have been a happy, happy boy.  I swallowed again.  Whatever was stuck in my
throat wouldn't go down.

   "Bobby?"

   It was obvious she expected me to answer her.  When you're a kid, you
don't face away from an adult and talk, so the natural inclination was to
turn and face her.  But I had this mondo boner, which I knew was about to
burst out of my pants, so, when I turned, I lowered the painting to cover
it up.

   Bad idea.

   Imagine yourself as a young man, seventeen for a whole month, who has
just seen the naked woman he'd give a finger and two toes to see, and now
that naked woman (OK, the picture of that naked woman) is pressed against
his boner.  Oh, yeah ...  you have to add that the REAL woman, wearing a
tank top and terrycloth shorts, is right there in front of you, wearing
exactly the same look on her face as the one in the painting pressed
against your manhood.

   Don't forget she just called herself a slut.

   Kids don't have strokes, like old people do.  Or maybe they do, but it
just manifests itself differently.  When I had my stroke, it all happened
in my penis.

   Yup, I shot off in my pants.

   I remember leaning forward slightly, so that the painting wouldn't touch
my pants as my penis spewed, and I remember making a sound.  Something
along the lines of "Ooooooooo" It wasn't very manly.

   "Bobby?" came her voice again.  She was walking toward me, going around
tables.  "That look" was gone, and had been replaced by a look of concern.

   "I have to go," I choked out.

   "Bobby, honey, it's OK," she said soothingly.  "I'm not mad at you."

   "OK," I said stupidly.  "But I have to go."

   She was blocking my way, and I couldn't get past her, especially with
the painting in my hands, but I didn't want to give it up, because that was
all that was covering what I knew had to be a huge wet spot on the front of
my pants.

   "BOBBY!" her voice came sternly.  My head jerked up and those dark green
eyes were staring right at me.  "What's wrong?"

   "Nothing," I squeaked, sounding like a twelve-year-old, whose voice is
changing.

   "Give me the painting, Bobby," she said, her voice still stern.

   "I don't want to," I whined.

   "Bobby!" she barked.  "You can't keep that painting!"

   "I know," I moaned.

   "Then give it to me."

   "Please?" I panted.  When did I get so out of breath?

   "OK ..." she said.  "Please give me the painting."

   The ridiculousness of her misunderstanding of what I had said was what
broke the grip of the terror that held me.  That an adult could be put into
a situation where she would say something like that, when she had every
right to demand that I unhand her painting instantly ...  just seemed so
bizarre that my mind kind of went into shut-down mode.  I felt her take the
painting from my limp fingers.  She turned to lay it on a table, but was
still in my way.  My hands went to cover my groin.  Yup, there was a wet
spot.

   She turned back to me, and her eyes went to my hands.

   Now that I'm older, I'm quite sure that, if I had just bluffed my way
past her, she would never have noticed the wet spot.  It wasn't all that
big, as it turned out ...  maybe the size of a nickel.  My underwear had
caught, and absorbed, most of it, but I was a healthy young fellow, and I
produced a lot of semen in those days.  A little of it leaked through, and
the cotton shorts I was wearing soaked it up nicely.

   What do you say when the woman you just shot off in your pants about is
staring at the hands covering the evidence of what you just did?

   "I think I had an ...  accident," I said weakly.

   She rocked back on her heels, enough that she had to take a step
backward with one foot.  Her eyes came back up to my face.  "That look" was
back.  And now that I had seen the painting, I knew what "that look" meant.

   She promptly poked a hole in my newfound belief that Gloria Wilson found
me ...  attractive.  She pulled my hands away from the wet spot and stared
at it.  Then she frowned.

   "You can't go home that way.  Your mother would have a hissy fit." She
turned.  "Come with me."

   Her tone was that no-nonsense tone that grownups are so good at, and
which assumes instant obedience will follow.  It did.  I followed her, my
hands covering my groin again.  She took me to the bathroom, held the door
open, and motioned me inside.

   "Take off your shorts and underwear and hand them out to me," she
ordered.

   "What?" I squeaked.

   "I'm going to wash them out and put them in the dryer," she explained
patiently.

   "Oh," I managed.  She closed the door.

   There I was, in Gloria Wilson's bathroom, undoing my shorts and pushing
them down.  It was unreal.  I stood up.  My underwear were a mess.  It was
embarrassing.  I looked up to see one of her bras hanging over the shower
curtain rod, apparently where she'd left it to dry out or something.

   "Hurry, Bobby," same her strident voice through the door.

   "OK, OK," I said.  I wadded the underwear up inside the shorts, and
rolled them up into a ball.  This was SO embarrassing.  I opened the door
and shoved the ball out.  It was taken from my hands with a completely
unnecessary "Wait there." Where the heck did she think I was going?

   You have no idea how long thirty minutes is when you're sitting in
Gloria Wilson's bathroom, naked from the waist down, waiting for her to
come back with your clothes.  I about jumped out of my skin when the door
opened and her arm snaked through with a magazine in it.  "Here," she said.

   I sat on the toilet and leafed through People magazine, while I waited.
I don't know if she knew it or not, but that stupid magazine helped me more
than anything else that day.  It was full of movie stars and important
people, parading around, getting their pictures taken, when everyone in the
world already knew what they looked like.  That, and the gossip about them,
which was completely stupid, made me realize there's a whole industry out
there, supporting thousands of families, on the basis of pictures and
gossip.  That's got to be at least as stupid as shooting off in your own
shorts because of a beautiful woman who gives you "that look".

   There was a tap on the door, but she didn't open it.  I did, standing
behind it, and she handed me in my clothes, which were still warm from the
dryer.  I got dressed, and then had to work up the courage to walk out of
that room, which suddenly seemed all safe and nice.  I worked up all that
courage for nothing, because when I finally went out, she wasn't there.

   "In the kitchen," came her musical voice.  That was where the back door
was.  I couldn't even sneak out.  So I worked up my courage again, and went
to the kitchen.  She was waiting for me, with a Coke in her hand.  She
shoved it at me and told me to sit down.

   A good Scout is obedient.  I sat.  A good Scout is sometimes terrified
too, even if that isn't part of the law.

   "Well," she said, sitting down opposite me.  "That was interesting."

   "I'm really ...  really sorry," I mumbled, looking down at the table.

   "It's quite a compliment, actually," she said.  "I wasn't sure you
noticed I was a woman at all."

   That got me to look up.  It was a mistake, though, because she had "that
look" on her face again.  I felt something move between my legs, and looked
back down.

   "Look," she said patiently.  "I don't want this to put a strain on our
friendship."

   "Kind of late for that," I said, half under my breath.

   "Don't DO that!" she barked.  I looked back up.  She looked almost mad.
"What happened was a completely normal result of a strange situation," she
said.  "You saw something that affected you the way it is SUPPOSED to
affect a man.  There's nothing wrong with you, and you didn't do anything
bad."

   "You're kidding!" I said.  I meant it too.  Shooting off in your pants
in front of a woman can't possibly be normal.

   "I am not kidding," she said.  "Why do you think he wanted that painting
made, anyway?"

   "To look at?" I said.

   "Yes," she said, "but for what purpose?"

   I said the first thing that came to mind.  "Cause it's beautiful?"

   Her cheeks got pink, and her eyes got sort of misty looking.

   "Thank you," she said.  "But that's not the answer most men would give."

   "I don't understand," I said.

   She looked up at the ceiling for some reason, then back at me.

   "It's supposed to make you want to have sex with the woman in the
painting," she said calmly.  "And that's what you did ...  sort of."

   "Oh, man," I groaned, covering my face with both hands.  I was glad I
was sitting down, because I was hard again.

   "Oh, Bobby, sweet, innocent Bobby," she sighed.  "That's why your
parents were concerned about you coming over here, and why Mrs.  Abernathy
tattled to your mother.  They all think that, because I'm young, and
divorced, and don't have a man in my life, that I jump the bones of every
man who comes in the house."

   That was ridiculous.  I knew this woman pretty well, and she wasn't like
that at all.  It got my hands off my face, and I blurted "That's stupid!"

   She smiled.  "I know that, but people think the worst, for some reason.
They think I'm trying to seduce you."

   "But you're not!" I gasped.

   "I didn't say that," she said calmly.

   "Didn't say what?" I asked, confused.

   "I didn't say I'm not trying to seduce you," she said.

   My mind whirled.  There were several negatives in that sentence, and I
was trying to parse out if any of them were double negatives, so I could
make sense of what she'd said.  It almost sounded like she was saying she
DID want to seduce me ...  except that that was ridiculous.

   "But you're not ...  right?" I asked, the confusion plainly in my voice.
"Trying to seduce me, I mean," I said, in an effort to make this crystal
clear.

   "I've thought about seducing you since the day you carried in my
groceries," she said, as if she were saying she noticed I was wearing
shoes.

   "You did?" My twelve-year-old cracking voice was back.

   "Of course I did," she said firmly.  "You're sweet, not to mention
trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful,
brave, clean and, as far as I can tell, thrifty and reverent." I looked to
see "that look" on her face again.  "You're not bad looking either," she
added.

   She blew me away.  She had just recited the Scout Law, flawlessly, if
you don't count "thrifty" being out of order.  I felt the lump that had
been in my throat, except now it was in my belly.  I had been paid a
compliment of the highest possible caliber, by a beautiful woman who said
she'd thought about seducing me.  My life was suddenly complete.  I could
have died, right then, and I would have died happy.  It was just amazing.

   Humility whacked me on the head.  Humble isn't one of the Scout Laws
either, but I had a special respect for humble people, who didn't toot
their own horn all the time.

   "I'm not really brave," I said, remembering my panic, with her painting
pressed to my spurting penis.  "And I sort of think that the clean and
reverent parts have taken a hit or two.  I blushed.

   "You're exceptionally brave," she said firmly.  "Most boys would have
run home to mommy, after what happened here today." She leaned forward on
her forearms.  "We can talk about the other too, if you want to, but I
think what happened today was just a logical and natural sequence of
events. Humans are part of nature, and everything in nature procreates, so
I'd argue that the urge to procreate is perfectly normal.  There are some
religions where it's even encouraged."

   That's what I'm talking about when I say we discussed all manner of
things.  She'd talk about anything under the sun.  Of course I had thought
she was just lonely, and wanted someone to talk to.  Apparently she WAS
lonely.  Just as apparently, she had more on her mind than just the verbal
kind of intercourse.  That was just shocking to me.  She wasn't "possible".

   "But you're ...  older." I actually said "old" at the end of that
sentence, and some nice part of my brain forced out an "er" on the end of
it.

   "Yes, I'm eight or nine years older than you," she said, smiling.  "I
know married couples where there's a ten or fifteen year difference between
them."

   "But ...  I'm just a kid!" I squeaked.

   "Which is why I decided not to seduce you," she said.  "You're too sweet
to turn into a full fledged man."

   That stung.  Guys my age thought almost all the time about being a man.
Nobody would LET you, but you thought about it constantly.

   "I'm a man," I said, in a little girl voice.

   She grinned.  "Yes, I'm sorry.  You are a man, a handsome, studly man,
who paid me a very nice compliment."

   I was mollified, even though I didn't think she really meant it.

   "I thought you'd be really mad," I admitted.

   "If it had been almost any other man, I probably would have been mad,"
she said.  "But I like you.  I like you a lot.  You're actually my idea of
what a real man should be." That sounded really good until she tacked on an
"almost."

   "Almost?" I was wounded.

   "If you were a real man ...  a grown man ...  I might have shown you
that picture on purpose," she said.

   "Oh." I was a bit deflated.

   "So," she said, standing up.  "The cat's out of the bag.  I really don't
want this to screw up a really great relationship.  What do we do now?"

   "I have no idea," I said honestly.

   "Can you still come over without remembering ...  that picture?"

   "No," I said honestly.

   "Have you ever ...  noticed me as a woman before?" she asked.

   "Oh, I don't know," I sighed.  "Maybe only two or three thousand times,
I guess." Under the circumstances, that admission didn't seem so outrageous
any more.

   She pinked up again, but didn't look at all unhappy.

   "You didn't act like it," she commented.

   "I was trying to be polite," I reminded her.

   "I think that's one of the things I find so attractive about you," she
said.

   If I hadn't already been rock hard, that would have done it for me.

   "You should probably go," she said.  "You've been here quite a while."

   "I can't leave yet," I said miserably.

   "Why not?" she asked.

   Since she hadn't laughed when I said I "had an accident", I felt pretty
safe saying "I have this problem." I looked at my lap.

   She did laugh, but it was tinkling laughter, full of joy, and I was
absolutely sure she wasn't making fun of me.

   "Ohhhh Bobby," she said at the end of that electric laugh.  "You have no
idea how good you're going to be with the ladies." She looked startled.  "I
never asked you about your girl friend."

   "I don't have one," I said, uncomfortably.  "I've only been allowed to
date for a few weeks, and I haven't figured out how to do that yet."

   "But you're seventeen!" she said, clearly surprised.

   "My folks decided I shouldn't date until I was seventeen," I explained.
"It's a rule."

   Her eyes went round.  "You mean you're a ...  you've never been with a
...  girl?"

   I have no idea why I blushed.  I was quite aware that being a virgin
made me different, at least if what I heard at school was true.  Every guy
I knew claimed to have screwed at least ten girls, even if all the girls I
knew claimed to be virgins.  Somebody was lying, and I had a feeling it was
about half of the guys, and half of the girls.  In any case, it made me
feel uncomfortable, for some reason, to admit it to Gloria.

   "I guess not," I hedged.

   "You GUESS not?" Her eyebrows went up.  "You mean you're not sure?"

   "OK, OK," I growled.  "I'm a virgin, OK?"

   Ohhhh boy.  There was "that look" again.

   "But you've fooled around," she said.  "with a girl."

   "Of course," I lied uncertainly.  She'd gotten all the admissions from
me she was going to get that day.

   "Bobby," she said, her voice sad.  "You've never lied to me.  Don't
start now."

   "I'm sorry," I said automatically.  So much for no more admissions.  "I
guess it's just embarrassing."

   "It shouldn't be." she said.  "I'm impressed.  Most young men throw away
their virginity under circumstances that are less than adequate, much less
memorable."

   That seemed like an odd thing to say, at least to me.  I mean, I hadn't
done it yet, but I was quite sure I'd never forget my first time, no matter
what the circumstances were.  It suddenly occurred to me that this woman
had at least thought about engineering that occasion.

   And that ...  along with "that look", and her casual acceptance of the
fact that I squirted in my pants over her ...  hit me like a ton of bricks.

   I put that all together and realized, quite suddenly that Gloria
Wilson's status had changed.

   Gloria Wilson was ...  possible!



   Chapter 4

   I have no idea why it bothered me that Gloria was suddenly "possible",
but it did.  Maybe it was because I really liked her, and the relationship
we already had, and didn't want that to change.  It's possible that I was
scared that, if I tried to "pursue things", or even if SHE tried to pursue
them, I might not perform ...  um ...  up to standard ...  hers OR mine.  I
don't think I was worried about getting caught, but who knows.  All I know
was that her being suddenly possible upset me.

   "I don't' want to think about you like that," I said suddenly.

   "Like what?" she asked.

   "It's one thing to close my eyes at night and ...  " I stopped.  You
don't tell a woman you beat off to her picture in your head.  Not even if
you squirted to a real picture of her.  "I mean, I don't want to come here
and only think about you ...  um ...  like your picture."

   "Is that how you think about me?" she asked, her voice very soft.  I
couldn't actually look at her.  "At night?"

   "You can't ask a guy a question like that," I objected.

   "Why not?"

   "Because a guy's not supposed to admit that kind of stuff, that's why."

   "Too late," she said.  "I already asked."

   "But I like you," I said.

   "Thank you.  I like you too." She wasn't making this any easier.

   I tried my trump card.  "You said you decided not to seduce me, right?"

   "Uh huh," she said.

   "Well, then, it wouldn't be right for me to think about you that way."

   I felt proud of myself for making such a strong argument.

   "What if I change my mind?" she asked.

   I looked at her.  She was messing with my head, and I was not happy
about it.

   "How would it make you feel if I said I lie in bed, and think about you
na...  like in that picture ...  and do things?  How would that make you
feel?" I asked harshly.  I didn't give her time to answer.  It never
occurred to me I was doing the same thing my mother did.  "It would make
you horrified!"

   She got a squinty look on her face, like she'd tasted something sour.

   "See?!" I said.  "Just thinking about it makes you get all icky
feeling!"

   She covered her mouth, but her eyes gave her away.  She was smiling
behind that hand.  I suddenly realized she had been trying not to smile,
rather than being horrified.

   "I'm sorry, Bobby," she said, when her face got straight again.  "I need
to tell you something."

   "What?" I said, my voice surly.

   "I find you very attractive," she said seriously.  "The thought of you
thinking about me like that doesn't horrify me.  It makes me ...  horny."

   I think I said "Ohhhh shit," or something like that.

   "If we're going to keep spending time together, I want us to be honest
with each other," she said.  "It won't be real, unless we're honest, and
one of the things I like about you the most is how real you are."

   "But I think about ..." I couldn't finish.

   "I think about it too," she said softly.  "I don't think we should do
anything about it ...  not yet anyway ...  but I like to think about it,
and it makes me feel really good that you think about that too."

   "You're kidding me," I groaned.

   "Why would I kid you about something like this?" she asked.

   "I don't know," I sighed.  "I just know this can't be real.  A woman
like you can't ...  feel that way about a kid like me."

   She stood up.

   "You need to go now," she said, her voice husky.  "Because if you don't
go now, I'm going to do something very stupid, and I don't want to do
that." She was breathing deeply, and it did the most amazing things to her
breasts.

   Something in her voice sounded ...  dangerous ...  and I got up without
thinking about it.  She looked right at my boner, and a little sound came
our of her throat that just about made me squirt again.  I knew, in that
instant, that Gloria Wilson was not only possible, but that somehow, some
day, Gloria Wilson would change my whole world.

   That, at that moment, was more than enough for me.

   I fled.

   ==========================================

   I didn't see her again for a week.  During that week, I thought a lot
about what had happened.  I thought about that one little three letter word
she had used when she said we shouldn't do anything about our feelings ...
"yet".  Just the thought that "yet" might eventually become "now" really
got me going.

   As a result, I beat my meat mercilessly, to the point that I got sore.
Slowly, the thought that there was something very precious over there
seeped into my head, in a way that made me want to be very careful of it. I
was still nervous, but knowing that a woman wants you has a way of settling
you down a little bit.  Your self confidence gets a big boost or something,
and the urgency to prove yourself, or whatever it is that drives boys my
age to have sex immediately, if not sooner, seemed to wane a little.

   And, in a strange kind of way, knowing that it wasn't "yet", was
comforting.  The world of sex was a big, scary world, for a kid like me. 
It was a little like standing on the high dive at the pool, for the first
time, and looking down at the water.  You want to go, but it's scary.  You
know it will be fun, but it's scary.  Sometimes, you climb back down, where
it's safe.  You go off the low board a few more times.  I thought like that
about Gloria.  I wanted to dabble in it ...  I didn't want to just jump
right in.

   Then again, maybe I got it out of my system by beating my meat until it
was sore.  I don't know.  All I know is that I wasn't afraid to see her
again.

   I also thought about how my dad had looked at me funny, during our
"talk", and said I was a lucky guy.  I wondered if he knew how lucky I was,
or was just guessing.  Either way, it was spooky.

   The next time I saw her was actually in public.  I had gotten my
driver's license, and I was Johnny-on-the-spot whenever Mom needed
something from the store.  She'd sent me to get some flour, because she was
baking cookies, and I ran into Gloria in the baking goods aisle.

   The first thing she did that made me feel good, was just smile a normal
smile.

   "Hi, Bobby," she said, as if nothing had happened.

   "What's up, Mrs.  Wilson?" My manner in public took precedence over her
desire for me to call her by her first name.  She didn't bat an eye.

   "Not much.  Just doing some shopping.  How 'bout you?"

   "My mom is making cookies and ran our of four."

   "Oh, then you'd better not delay," she said seriously.  "Baking cookies
is serious business.  Bring me one, OK?"

   "Sure," I said.

   Just like that.  There wasn't anybody around, and we weren't play
acting. It was just the two of us, and it was as normal as pie.

   Then I didn't know what kind of flour to get.  You'd be amazed at how
many different kinds of flour there are.  So, knowing Gloria baked a mean
pie, I asked her.

   "For cookies?  What kind?" she probed.

   "Chocolate Chip," I said.

   "All purpose," she said, pointing.

   Just like that.  I said "Thanks," and she said "No problem," and I was
on my way.  I didn't even get a boner.  I was amazed.

   When I got back home I was in a good mood.  I gave the flour to my
mother and told her I hoped it was the right kind.

   "Perfect," she said.

   "Good," I said casually.  "Cause I didn't know what kind to get, and I
ran into Mrs.  Wilson at the store, and she said that was probably it."

   My mother shot me a look, but even she couldn't make herself think that
"that woman" and I were having clandestine meetings at the supermarket.

   "It's fine, dear," she said.

   "When will they be done?" I asked.

   "Patience!" she ordered, and shooed me out of the kitchen.

   Mom never gave out cookies until she was completely done.  Don't ask me
why, but she counted them all each time too.  Two hours later I got my
day's ration of six cookies, and headed out the back door.

   One nice thing about being Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly,
Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean and Reverent,
was that your parents rarely asked you where you were going.  So, when I
hit the alley, and went two doors down to the gate, nobody was around, and
I opened the gate and walked on in.

   Gloria was lying out in the sun, getting a tan.  She had on a white swim
suit.  I'm being charitable here.  At first I thought she was naked, except
for a cord around her waist, and another one across her back that had a
knot, tied in a bow, in the middle of it.  I've been to the pool plenty of
times, and I've seen all kinds of swim suits, but not like this one.  Maybe
in a magazine, but not in public.  She heard the gate close, and lifted her
head to look my way.

   "Did you bring me a cookie?" she asked, like she was fully clothed.

   "Yes, I did," I said, with more dignity than I felt.  "Maybe two, if
you're good." I walked closer.  She was still looking at me.

   "You have six cookies," she pointed out.

   "My daily ration," I said.  "I don't get any more until tomorrow."

   "Please tell me you're joking," she said, smiling.

   "Nope," I said.

   "I should get three," she said.  "I wore this for you."

   I shoved all six at her and she laughed.  She took one, and bit into it.

   "Your mom's a good cook," she said.  "Me too," she added.  "I have a pie
in the oven for you.  Cherry ...  your favorite."

   "How did you know that?" I asked, amazed.

   "I've seen you at the picnics.  You always get a piece of my cherry pie
before you get anything else." She smiled.  "If it's apple, or lemon
meringue, or pumpkin, you wait until you've eaten.

   "You noticed that?" I asked.

   "I know who eats my pie, and who doesn't," she said cryptically.

   "You want another cookie?" I asked.

   "I don't want to dig into your ration," she said smiling.

   "It's worth it, if you really did wear that for me," I said.

   She smiled again.  "You always make me feel so good," she said.  "I
couldn't let you see me like I am in the painting, but I thought this might
do."

   "You have no idea," I said.

   It was amazing, once you got past the idea that you shouldn't talk about
things like that, how nice it was to just be honest about things.  I was
about half hard, but it didn't bother me that day, because I knew she
expected me to get that way.  She didn't mind me looking at her, because
she expected me to.  It was really cool.

   "I should go check the pie," she said.  "Besides, you probably want to
see the rest of this bikini."

   "In the worst possible way," I said, panting on purpose.

   She laughed again and stood up.

   Ooooooo man!

   There was actually more to it than I thought there would be, from
looking at the back.  The outsides and bottoms of her breasts were cupped
by the white fabric, revealing all the tops and insides.  I saw the hint of
a dark red smudge where the cloth went along each breast, about where an
areola would be, and my penis filled up the rest of the way.  The bottom
was wide, across her abdomen, but went to almost nothing where it
disappeared between her legs.  She was barefoot, and her toenails were the
same violent shade of red as her fingernails.

   "I see you approve," she said.  When I looked, she was staring at the
front of my shorts.

   "Ohhh yes Ma'am, I approve," I sighed.  She didn't correct me for
calling her Ma'am again.  She just walked into the house.  I stood there
and watched her butt cheeks move up and down, alternating from right to
left, and wanted to drop my shorts and whack off right then and there.

   I didn't, though.

   =============================================

   I followed her in the house and tried to get used to walking around with
a mostly naked woman.  I actually made a game out of trying to look at her
only when she couldn't tell I was looking.  I'd look, until her head
started to swing my way, and then I'd look at something else, like the
cookie I was eating VERY slowly, or the framed dried flowers on the wall. I
wasn't trying to tease her, but, as I found out later, I did.

   I noticed that, just below that dark spot where I imagined her areola to
be peeking out, dents appeared in the white fabric covering her breasts.  I
knew they were nipples, and it made my balls hurt.  I had a thing for
nipples, and I always liked the pictures in Playboy where the nipples stuck
out a lot.  I was too green to realize they were erect because she was
getting turned on.

   She did a lot of bending over.  When she sat me down, she put me facing
the stove, where I couldn't help but see her butt, while she bent over to
check the pies in the oven about a dozen times, over the next five minutes.
Her butt was completely bare, with a thin cord going from the waistband
down between her firm, round cheeks.

   I realized there was more to the bottom of her swim suit than I had
thought.  As she bent over, I could see a kind of rounded part, right up
there between her legs, with a dent running from front to back.  I'd seen
pussies in Playboy too, and I knew that that thin fabric was showing me
what her pussy looked like, under it.  Then she'd come over to the table
and lean over, to reach for a cookie.  She always broke off a piece of it,
instead of taking the whole thing, and she stayed leaned over while she
popped it in her mouth.  She saw me looking at her hanging breasts when she
did that.  There was nothing I could do about it, and no way that I could
keep from looking.

   "Mmmmm," she said one time.  "This is fun."

   "Fun for you," I said, somewhat breathlessly.  "It's killing me."

   She looked me dead in the eye and said "Good."

   A little while later I said "I thought you weren't going to seduce me."

   She turned halfway around, standing on the far leg, with the near leg
bent so she was must on tip toe, and looked over her shoulder.

   "I'm not seducing you." She grinned.

   "That's good," I said.  "Because if this isn't seducing me, I don't
think I could survive being seduced."

   I got some tinkling laughter for that one.

   She finally got the pies out, and set them on the top of the stove to
cool.  Then she sat down across from me and leaned to get the last half of
the last cookie I'd brought.

   "I like being able to be sexy around you," she said.  I watched her
pearly teeth bite into the cookie piece.

   "I like it too," I said, "but it's hard."

   "You're hard?" she asked, a hint of a smile on her face.

   "You're teasing me," I said.  "It makes my ...  it makes it painful."

   She looked startled, and then blushed.

   "Oh, I'd forgotten about that.  I'm sorry, Bobby."

   "It's OK," I said.  "It's worth it, believe me."

   She leaned back in her chair and tilted her head at me, while giving me
"the look".  It was a double whammy.

   "Bobby, if I wanted to do some more ...  would that be OK with you?"

   "What do you mean?" I asked.  Lots of things flitted through my mind.

   "I don't' want to make love with you," she said, crushing me slightly.
"I don't think you're ready for that, and I'm not at all sure I should be
the woman to take your virginity.  But I also love doing this with you, and
I don't want you to be in pain."

   "OK," I said.  I tried not to say it painfully.

   "There are ways to ...  relieve the pressure ..." She let that hang out
there.

   "What kind of ways?" I croaked.

   She gave me a little smile.  "I think you know what ways.  You mentioned
thinking about me ...  at night?"

   I knew the way I took care of relieving the pressure, and despite her
stepped up behavior around me, she had said she didn't want to make love
with me.

   "I don't think I could do that," I said.

   She looked a little crestfallen.

   "Not in front of you, anyway.  Maybe in the bathroom, but even then it
would be weird." I added.

   Her face lit up and her laughter tinkled again.

   "No, silly.  I mean I could ...  do that for you."

   "Please don't tease me," I begged.  "Not that way."

   "I'm not teasing, Bobby," she said, one eyebrow rising.

   "You'd really do that?"

   "If you're OK with it," she said.  She knew how to make it easy for me.
"Are you OK with that?" she asked.

   "I'm ...  I'm ...  uh ...  Oh man! ..." I finally just nodded
frantically.

   She stood up.  She licked her lips.  It's a wonder I didn't go off in my
shorts again.

   "Stand up," she ordered.

   My knees wouldn't work.  I realized I was panting like I'd run two
miles.

   "Here?" I gasped.  I was really just trying to get my body to work.

   "Why not?" she asked.  "Isn't this as good a place as any?"

   I nodded again, and levered myself up.  I had to bend forward a little
bit.  It hurt that much.  I didn't know what to do with my hands.  Sticking
them in my pockets didn't seem right.  Letting them drop to my sides made
me feel like Cro Magnon Man's earlier cousin.  I finally just bent my
elbows a little bit and stuck my arms out, like a department store dummy.

   She came over to me, but didn't touch me right away.

   "You're sure this is OK?" she asked, from an inch away.

   "Oh pleeease," I begged.

   She didn't laugh that time.  She turned around and said "Untie me?"

   "Why?" I asked.  I know it was stupid.  I was in overload.

   "I don't want to get my bikini all wet," she said, over her shoulder.

   What did that mean?  I reached out and the bow came loose.  By the time
she turned around to face me, the top was hanging from her left hand.  It
fluttered to the table top.

   There they were.  Right in front of me.  They were even more gorgeous
than the ones in the painting.  I know I moaned, like a drunken sailor with
a hangover.  She reached up and pinched those maroon nipples.  Her
fingernail polish went with them.  It was astonishing.

   "Easy," she said softly.  "I'll take care of you."

   I shut my mouth, because I was sure I was drooling, and she dropped
gracefully to her knees.  Her hands went to my belt, and then the button of
my cotton cargo shorts.  She pulled sideways with both hands, and the
zipper skittered down.  She pulled the shorts and my underwear down all at
once, and my boner sprang out.

   "Mmmmm" she said.  "You have a nice one."

   Would you believe I almost said "Thank you."?

   Then her hand came up and cool fingers grasped my meat, and slicked it
back and forth exactly three times, and WHAM!  I went off like a fourth of
July rocket.  I was staring right at it, when a thick stream of spunk took
off and splattered right between her breasts.  Her hand speeded up, and she
was jacking me harder, and it kept spurting all over her chest and breasts.
I saw her free hand come up and she laid her forearm across her belly, just
under her breasts, because my stuff was running down toward her bikini
bottoms, I guess.  For some reason I looked at her face, and she had the
tip of her tongue sticking out, and in one corner of her mouth, like she
was concentrating real hard on what she was doing.  The joy of the feeling,
combined with that silly look, made me start laughing, which is really hard
to do when you're having an orgasm and short of breath to begin with.  It
was probably more of a hacking sound, but she looked up, and when she saw
me grinning like the village idiot, she kept on going.

   She slowed down, like she was playing with it, as it softened in her
hand, until it was rubbery.  She gave it one final pull, squeezing, and a
big drip of spunk oozed out of the slit in the tip.  She leaned forward and
scooped that off with the tip of her tongue, and I about died.  I grabbed a
chair and sat, before I fell.  I felt stupid, sitting there with my pants
around my ankles, but I didn't care.

   Her hand went to her chest, and she slid it through the mess I'd made,
rubbing my semen all over those fabulous breasts.  She got both hands going
and leaned back, to rest her butt on her calves.

   "I shouldn't do this in front of you," she panted, "but I have to."

   One hand slid down, and into the bikini bottom, and her head fell back
like she was looking up.  The muscles in her neck corded up and her mouth
opened.  Her hand started jerking around in there and it looked a little
like a cat trying to get out of a paper bag.  Then she let out a long
groan. I thought of my spunk on her fingers, and where those fingers were,
right now.  I felt a tingling ache in my balls as my prick tried to do
something again.

   She had gone all tense, and she slowly relaxed, but left her hand in her
bottoms.  Her eyes came down and looked at me.

   "You'd better go," she panted.  "That was too good." Her hand started
moving in her pants again.  I had just had my first sexual experience with
another person involved, and, while I had had the time of my life, I got
the feeling that leaving now would be a good thing for both of us.  I think
my sexual radar was beginning to work, maybe.  I pulled up my shorts and
stepped away from her as her hand speeded up even more.

   "Thank you, Bobby," she moaned.

   Thank ME!  Was she CRAZY!?

   A good Scout is always polite.  "You're welcome," I gasped.  I headed
for the door.  The last thing I heard was another one of those long groans.

   Chapter 5

   There were three weeks left before school started again, when she did me
that first time.  I stopped in two days later, with my six cookies, and a
fluttering heart.

   I tapped on the back door and stuck my head in the kitchen and she came
in from the living room with a smile.  She usually wore shorts and a tank
top, or a halter top in the summertime, but this day she was wearing a
sundress.

   "Hi," she said.  "I shouldn't have speeded things up last time," she
said, taking a cookie.  "I hope you can forgive me."

   "There's nothing to forgive," I said.  "It was great."

   "It was too great," she said, with a small sad smile.  "We're going too
fast."

   "Not for me," I said.

   "Especially for you," she said, poking me in the chest with a stiff
finger.  "If I can barely control myself, how can I expect you to control
yourself at all?" she asked.

   "So what do we do?" I asked.

   "We slow down," she said.  "Can you do that?"

   "Yes," I said, with the overconfidence of callow youth.

   "We'll see," she said.  "Now, I have a list.  You want to do a good
deed?"

   "Sure," I said.  I was a little relieved, actually.  Had she met me at
the door naked and panting, which is kind of what my fantasy was when I was
going over there, I have no idea what I'd have done.  But doing a good deed
for her was as comfortable as an old shoe.

   It was just like old times.  She stood there, in the door, watching as I
changed her furnace filter.  Then she had me take down some curtains, so
she could wash them.  I could reach them easily.

   She asked me what I was going to do after High School, and I told her I
didn't know.  I'd thought about going to the Junior College, in town, but I
had no idea what I wanted to do.  My guidance counselor at school had tried
to get me to apply to colleges while I was a Junior, for pity's sake, but I
didn't do it.  My folks were doing OK, but my grades wouldn't get me much
of a scholarship.  I wasn't even sure I wanted to go to college at all, for
that matter.  I thought about the Army, but hadn't done anything about it.

   I told her all this as I vacuumed out the condenser coils of the
refrigerator, yelling over the noise of the vacuum cleaner.  When I was
done, and turned it off, it seemed really quiet.

   "I don't see much of you during the school year," she said.

   "Yeah, I get busy with homework and stuff," I said.  "But I can probably
come over sometimes," I added.

   "That would be nice," she said.

   "Can I ask you a question?" I asked.

   "Of course," she said, coiling up the cord to the vacuum cleaner.  She
was bending over.  There was no bra with the sundress, and I could see most
of her breasts.

   "How slow is slow?"

   She looked up at me.  She gave me "that look".

   "I don't want you to think only of ...  that ...  when you think of me,"
she said.

   "I don't ALWAYS think of that," I said.  "Usually, but not ALWAYS."

   Her laughter made me start to stiffen.

   "We'll do it again.  Don't you worry about that.  You're not the only
one in this partnership, you know.  I have feelings too."

   "Well, sure," I said.  That seemed obvious to me.

   "When we did that, the other day," she said, standing up, "I didn't want
to stop."

   "Oh," I said.  I think my eyes might have glazed over a little.

   She poked me with a finger again.  "You're not ready for the full
Monte."

   "How do you know?" I asked.

   "If we did everything, you'd think you loved me," she said.

   I thought about that.  The only people I'd ever told I loved them were
my grandmother, my parents, and Suzy, once, in a weak moment.  I didn't
think about Gloria the way I thought about them at all.  I liked her.  I
liked her more than any other adult, in some ways.  But I didn't love her.
Not in any way I was familiar with.

   "I don't think so," I finally said.

   She looked surprised, so I told her about what I'd just thought about.

   "That's what I mean," she said.  "When you love someone - truly love her
- it's something you'll know, instinctively.  You'll feel like you wont be
able to live without her.  You'll think about her all the time.  You'll
want to live with her, and be with her all the time.  But sexual feelings
are close to that, and they confuse people, sometimes.  You like what's
happening, and you don't want to live without THAT.  When that happens,
what you're in love with is sex ...  but not necessarily the woman you're
having sex with."

   That made sense.  I nodded, and told her what I thought that meant.

   "So slow is better, because that gives you time to think about things,
and keep things in perspective."

   "Exactly!" she said.  "My ex-husband and I thought we were in love with
each other, but he was in love with the sex, and I was just his chance to
have it whenever he wanted it.  When someone else came along, he did the
same thing."

   "But I don't want to do what we did with anybody else," I objected.

   She frowned a little bit.  "You will," she said.  "You'll start dating
this year, and meet girls, and you'll want to do the same things with them
that you've done with me.  When you're with a girl, the two of you may get
all mixed up inside, and want to go farther, or faster than is wise.  Just
remember, Bobby ...  slow is good.  Too fast makes it really hard to put on
the brakes."

   "Like you," I said, "wanting to keep going with me."

   She looked startled.  Then she frowned again.  "Yes," she said, but she
said it with some hesitancy.  "Yes." She said it more forcefully then.

   She looked uncomfortable, and the frown deepened.  Then she said she was
going shopping, and I left.

   I went back home and shot some hoops.  Suzy came out and began pestering
me to teach her to shoot hoops too.  I looked at her and thought about her
not being there ...  like she was in a car crash, or something, and had
died.  I got this huge lump in my throat, and it felt awful.

   I spent the next two hours playing basketball with a twelve-year-old
girl.  It was great.

   ===========================================

   One of the things I learned about women that summer, or at least about
Gloria, was that, while good intentions make the rules, they don't
necessarily stand up to really strong emotions.  She had said that, when I
dated, and began fooling around with girls, I would be all mixed up inside.
I found out that she knew this from experience.

   Though she didn't figure it out, or tell me about it, until much later,
Gloria got the most horny when she ovulated.  That first day, when she wore
the bikini for me, and showed me her breasts, and jerked me off, she was
ovulating.  That's why she got so wild, and did all that, or at least
that's what she claimed later.

   She ovulated two more times before I went back to school, and neither of
us knew why, both times, she went a little wild.

   Normally, when I went over, there was a casual atmosphere that was
flirty, and light and fun.  We didn't ignore each other sexually, but we
didn't push things either.

   Then one day, when I tapped on the back door and stepped in - I didn't
have to wait for her to open the door any more - she yelled that she was in
the living room.  She was putting a picture puzzle together, on a card
table.  Normally, that's kind of a sedentary sort of thing.  You sit there,
staring at puzzle pieces, trying one here or there, every once in a while.

   But she was acting all hyped up ...  almost nervous.  She had "that
look" on her face when I walked into the room.

   "Did you go?" she asked.

   She was talking about my first official date.  I had finally gotten up
the nerve to ask Charity Nelson to go to a movie with me, and had told
Gloria about it.

   "Of course I went," I said.  "Did you think I'd chicken out?"

   "Maybe," she said, drawing it out.  "Tell me all about it!"

   So I told her how I'd picked Charity up, going in to meet her parents,
like I had been taught to do by my mother.  I hadn't been able to think of
anything to say to them.  They'd wanted to know what movie we were going
to, and I told them I was going to let Charity pick one.

   We went to the theater, and she picked a movie, and we watched it. 
Afterwards she wanted to go to the mall.  When we got there, instead of
looking at things in the windows, she looked for her friends, and we spent
the next hour standing around while she talked to her friends.

   "Then I took her home, because she had to be back by ten," I finished.

   She'd kept trying pieces of the puzzle while I told the story.

   "Did she kiss you good night?" asked Gloria, fidgeting in her chair.

   "I didn't try to kiss her," I said.

   "Why not?"

   "I thought about it, but it felt funny," I said.  "I hardly know her. 
We didn't actually talk all that much."

   "Not even about the movie?" she asked.

   "It was an animated thing about a bunch of animals.  What was there to
talk about?" I asked.

   "Did she wait a few seconds, at the front door, before she opened it?"
asked Gloria.  "Did she look at you for a few seconds?"

   "Well ...  yeah, I guess so.  I couldn't think of anything to say,
though, and she went on in.  She said she had a good time." I added
hopefully.

   "You dope," she said mildly.  "She was waiting for you to kiss her good
night."

   "I don't know how to kiss," I objected.  "The only people I've ever
kissed are my mom and grandmother.  I don't think you're supposed to kiss a
girl good night on the cheek."

   She finally stopped looking at the puzzle and looked up at me.  She had
"that look" on her face.  She stood up.

   "I'm going to teach you how to kiss a girl good night," she said.

   Now, I have to tell you, the thought of trying to kiss Charity Nelson
good night left me weak in the knees, because it scared me to death.  But
the thought of kissing Gloria, just made my prick start to get hard.  How
funny is that?

   She came and stood right in front of me.  She was wearing a tank top,
and terrycloth shorts, like she did a lot.  I had grown some, and she only
came to my chin, these days, so she had to look up, and I had to look down.
Her cleavage was right there to look at, so I looked.

   She put her hands on my shoulders, just laying them there lightly.

   "Put your hands on my waist," she said.

   I did.

   Then she instructed me on tilting my head, so our noses wouldn't bump.

   "OK," she said.  "Now, kiss my lips just like you'd kiss your mother on
her cheek."

   I leaned down and did it.  It took all of about one second.

   She looked startled.  Then she took one of my hands from her waist and
told me to hold up one finger.  Then she told me to watch her lips as she
kissed my fingertip.  She held it there for a few seconds.  I was amazed at
how soft and warm her lips felt.

   "See how your fingertip was able to dent my lips?" she asked, when she
had done it.

   I nodded.

   "Soft lips are more fun to kiss than tight lips," she said.  "Even if
the girl keeps her lips tight, you should keep yours loose."

   "OK," I said.

   "Now, kiss me again," she said.

   She looked up, and closed her eyes, making her lips pooch out a little
bit.

   I got close, keeping my eyes open, so I wouldn't miss and hit her nose
or anything, and, just before my lips touched hers, I closed my eyes.

   This was NOT like kissing my mother's cheek.  I think I stopped
breathing for a few seconds.  Her lips were just as warm, and soft as
they'd felt on my fingertip, and just felt fabulous.  Then they were gone.
I opened my eyes to find hers staring into them.  She was blinking rapidly,
and her lips were slightly parted.  I had really enjoyed that, but it
hadn't lasted very long, so I just kissed her again.

   Two things happened almost immediately.  The first was that I figured
out right away, that loose lips meant you could move your head a little,
and sort of mash them around, and that felt even better.  The other thing
was that I felt a sort of urge to pull her body against mine.  I did that,
and felt her breasts press against my chest.  Then I felt her bottom half
press against my bottom half.

   That felt really good too.

   Her hands kind of slipped from my shoulders, around to the back of my
neck, and she pulled me down, pushing her lips against mine harder, and
moving her head.

   This was so much better than the last time it was like it was the first
time I'd ever done it.  It was so much better, that I just kept on kissing
her.

   I felt her hips kind of rubbing against me.  My prick was so hard, that
it wouldn't move, but I could feel her pushing it this way, and that, with
her body.

   Her hands came back to my chest and she pushed me back gently.  I opened
my eyes, and her face was all flushed, like she had a fever or something.
She stepped back and waved one hand at her face, fanning it.

   "Whew!" she said.  "You're a fast learner!"

   "I like that," I said.  I realized I was a little out of breath.

   "That last one was a little long for a good night kiss," she said, still
fanning her face.  "That's more of a make-out kind of kiss."

   "I liked the make out kiss better than the good night kiss," I said.

   "I could tell," she sighed.

   "Did I do it right?" I asked.

   "Oh, you did it just fine," she said.  "With a little practice, you'll
knock 'em for a loop."

   "Can I practice with you?" I asked.

   Something flickered across her face, and I thought she was going to say
"No" for a second there.  "Just for a little bit," she said finally.

   I didn't give her time to change her mind.  I put my hands on her waist
and pulled her against me and kissed her, like last time.  Her hands went
to my biceps, almost like she was going to push me away, but in a few
seconds they slid up and back around my neck.  This kiss was so long that
we had to stop to take a breath, but both of us snatched that breath and
went back to kissing.

   If this was what making out was like, I was going to like making out.

   She started pushing her lower body against me again, and she was
grinding, this time.  I could feel my lump go between her legs, and that
felt fabulous too, so I rubbed back, sliding my hands around to her back. I
realized she wasn't wearing a bra, when I ran my hand over her back.

   Quite suddenly I felt her tongue flicker between my lips.  The sudden
realization that I wanted to taste her lips made me open mine.  I knew
about French kissing, but had never done it, of course.  I'd always thought
it would be icky or something, but it wasn't.  It was even better than what
we'd just been doing.

   Now she was rubbing her whole body against mine, and we were panting as
I stuck my tongue out too.  Wanting to feel more of her lower body rubbing
mine, my hands slid down and I grabbed her butt cheeks, without actually
thinking about it, and pulled her against me hard.

   I just couldn't believe how good all this felt.

   She finally pushed at my chest with her hands, and I leaned back,
keeping our lower bodies welded together.

   Her eyes were only half open as she stared up at me.

   "You're very hard," she breathed, rubbing against my penis.

   "You're very soft," I said.

   "I don't want you making another mess in your pants," she panted.

   "Will you do it again, for me?" I asked.

   "Yes," she said.

   "Can I see you naked again?" I asked, hopefully.

   "I have to keep my panties on," she breathed.  "But I'll teach you how
to do me too."

   She started to lead me to her bedroom, but about half way there she
stopped, and shook her head.

   "Not in there," she said, like it was to herself.

   Instead, she turned me around and took me to the couch.  She wanted me
naked, and that was fine with me.  I almost tripped taking off my shorts,
as I watched her take off her tank top, and push her shorts down.  She was
already barefoot, so she was done before I was.  I kept staring at her
breasts.

   "You're so beautiful," I whispered.

   Her eyes raked up and down my body, settling on my prick, which was
jutting out and up a little bit.

   She had us sit, side by side on the couch, sort of half turned toward
each other, and her hand went to my penis.  She didn't move it ...  just
squeezed it.  Her other hand pulled my face to hers for another kiss.  It
lasted about half as long as I wanted it to, and her hand pushed my head
down toward those beautiful breasts.

   "Suck my nipples," she panted.

   It was like a dream come true.  I had thought about that for months, and
I knew they'd feel and taste good in my mouth.  I wasn't wrong.  Her moan
was of pure joy as I fastened my lips around one and sucked gently.

   "Put your hand in my panties," she gasped.

   Her hand went to help me, on top of mine, and, as I felt a trace of hair
under my fingers, and then slipperiness, she pressed my middle finger into
that slipperiness.

   "Feel for a bump," she panted.

   I found it almost immediately.

   "GENTLY," she gasped, as I pressed the bump.  "Slide your finger up and
down, rubbing the bump ...  gently."

   I guess I got the hang of it, because she went back to kissing me.  She
opened her legs wider, and her hand started moving slowly up and down my
rigid prick.  As I got more excited, I moved my finger faster, and that
seemed to make her move her hand faster.

   She started moaning into my mouth, and before long we weren't so much
kissing as just rubbing our open mouths together, and licking each other's
tongues, while we panted.  Her hips started wiggling, and she spoke right
into my mouth.

   "Oh yes," she said.  Then she said it again, and her hand speeded up.  I
remembered how furiously her hand had wiggled around in her panties, when
I'd seen her do this for herself, and tried to copy the speed.  I found it
was easier to go fast if I went side to side, instead of up and down, so I
tried that.  Her legs shot open even wider and she groaned "Ohhhh Bobby,
yes, baby YEEEEEEESSSS!"

   Her hips bucked and she lifted her butt clear up off the couch cushion.
The only problem was that her hand stopped jerking me.  It was obvious she
was having an orgasm, though, and I felt really good because it was ME who
had given it to her.

   Suddenly her butt dropped, and she went limp, while she closed her legs.
Her hand came to mine and stopped it from moving any more.  I loved the
warm, slippery crevice my finger was in, though, so I didn't mind just
letting it lie there.  She was panting hard, and her eyes were closed, so I
just looked at her, lying there, almost naked.  She was so beautiful it
almost hurt.

   It did hurt, in fact.  I realized my balls were aching.  I wanted her to
start stroking again, but it didn't seem right to say anything just then,
so I took my hand out of her panties, and moved it to hers, around my
prick, and sort of nudged her hand, up, and then back down.

   Her eyes popped open.

   "Oh, baby," she sighed.  "It felt so good I forgot about YOU!"

   "It's OK," I said.  I tried a short, good night kiss, to tell her it
really was OK.

   "You deserve something special," she sighed, as I pulled back.

   She lurched up, pulling herself, in part, by my penis, which hurt some,
but then she kept going to roll and kneel between my thighs, which I spread
open to make room for her.  She still had hold of my prick, and stared at
it.  I watched her push her hand down slowly, which pulled the foreskin off
the head.

   "It's so beautiful," she whispered.

   Then, before I could do or say anything, she leaned down, and my cock
disappeared into her mouth.

   =====================

   Once upon a time, we had this lamp in our house that had a frayed cord
on it, right where the plug was.  My mother bought a new lamp, and brought
it home and left it on the table for my dad to put together.  That was one
of my abortive attempts at doing a good deed.  I put the lamp together
while she was taking a nap, and unplugged the old lamp, at which point, I
learned a valuable lesson about electricity, because I grabbed the bare
wire.  When the electricity entered my body and I spasmed, I knocked over
her new lamp and broke it.

   Gloria's mouth on my prick, was a lot like that.  The electricity that
surged through my body when I got shocked by that lamp, made me go rigid
and yelp, while I kind of vibrated.  What she did to me that day did
exactly the same thing.

   I had a chance to feel how hot her mouth was, and how good her lips
felt, sliding along my shaft, and then I went off like a geyser.  I didn't
know anything about premature ejaculation, back then.  I just surrendered
to the feeling and loved it.

   She grabbed my hips, because I was bucking like a horse with a burr
under its saddle, but she never lost the lip-lock on my penis, as I spurted
over and over again.  She kept her mouth there, even after I went limp,
like she had done, and like I did after I let go of that lamp cord, when I
fell on my butt on the floor, next to my mother's brand new, broken lamp.

   The couch felt much better.

   Then she sucked hard, and pulled her mouth off my penis, which was
fading fast.  Her eyes were closed, and she let her head fall back as she
swallowed, smacking her lips and going "Mmmmmmmmm".

   "Wow," I said weakly.

   Her head came back down, and her eyes opened.  She licked her lips and
swallowed again.

   "You're a very fast learner," she said.  "Don't expect me to do that
very often."

   "Yes, Ma'am," I panted.

   "You have to leave now," she said, her voice low.

   "OK," I said weakly.

   She got up and went to her bedroom and closed the door.

   I got dressed, and went out the back door into the alley.  I think it
took me ten minutes to walk two doors down.

   Chapter 6

   After that, I couldn't resist kissing her.  Most of the time that's all
we did ...  share soft, warm kisses, with just a little stroking.

   I went on more dates, and eventually worked up the courage to try to
kiss Cathy Thompson good night.  She was willing, and it was nice, but it
didn't electrify me, like Gloria's kisses did.  When Gloria kissed me, I
got a boner.  It happened every time.  Sometimes she'd feel it, and smile,
and kiss me some more, and then tell me to go home and take care of it.

   I took Cathy out again, and this time she wanted to park.  She got very
excited, but was scared out of her mind.  She wanted a lot of things, but
she was scared to do them.  When I stroked her breasts outside her clothes,
she said she liked that, but then wanted me to stop.  I began to understand
what Gloria had told me about not being ready yet, for some of the things
we did.  Cathy's body was ready, but her mind wasn't.  She came to my
locker one day, not long after that and "broke up" with me, because things
were "getting too intense".

   That was a surprise to me.  I hadn't even realized we were "going
together".

   Gloria always wanted to know how my dates went, and what the girls
wanted and didn't want.  She said she was proud of me for not pushing
things with the girls I took out.  I didn't know how to explain to her
that, compared to her, all those girls were like puppies, wagging their
tails, with an attention span of about two minutes.

   My description of how I had been dumped, just happened to coincide with
the second time that summer that Gloria ovulated, before I went back to
school.  She, assuming I was crushed, which really wasn't the case at all,
decided to do "something special" for me again.  This time she got
completely naked with me, and we lay on the couch and made out like
teenagers.

   She started stroking my prick, while we kissed, and it was just natural
for me to slide my fingers into her slickness.  She humped my hand, and the
movement caused my finger to dip into her.  It was kind of amazing to me. I
knew she had a vagina, of course, but knowing is a lot different than
actually feeling that hot tunnel, with its clasping muscles.

   I could tell she liked that, because of the way she wiggled, so I went
deeper, until I couldn't get any more in her.  She lifted a leg, holding it
up in the air.  Her back was to the couch, and I was lying right on the
edge of the seat cushions, so we were pressed together pretty much.  She
was having trouble stroking me, because my prick was pressed against her
lower thigh.  With our head even, her pussy was about halfway between my
navel and my pubic hair.

   I rolled back a little, beginning to explore that hot tunnel with my
finger.  I could feel something deep inside of her that felt like a knot,
that was rubbery, and she went crazy when I tickled that with the tip of my
finger.

   She went off, and bucked her belly against mine, at which point I slid
off the couch cushion to land hard on my left hip.  It also jerked my
finger out of her.

   "Ooooo" she moaned.  "Where'd you go?"

   "I fell off the couch," I said.  "Wouldn't this be a lot more
comfortable on a bed?"

   Her face appeared, looking down at me.

   "I can't take you to bed.  That would be very dangerous," she panted.

   "How could it be more dangerous than lying on the couch?" I asked.

   "You didn't cum," she said, ignoring my question.

   She scrambled off the couch and pushed me onto my back, which left my
prick standing up, and leaning over drunkenly.

   She took it in her hand, and kissed the tip.  Then she slid her lips
down and over it, as she slid her hand down to uncover the knob.

   She did it differently this time.  She only sucked the knob itself, and
teased it with her tongue, while she slid here hand up and down the shaft.
I was trying to figure out whether I liked it this way better than the
other way, where her lips slid all along the shaft, when I felt my balls
bunch up, and delivered what she was after.  Keeping her lips sealed right
behind the head, she stroked my prick and made purring noises that were
just delightful.  She kept sucking until I went completely limp, and then
pulled off.

   She looked up at me and her eyes were kind of wild looking.

   "Soft is good," she panted.  "It needs to be soft right now."

   She rolled off me and spread her legs.

   "Do me again, Bobby, pleeease?"

   With her on the floor like that, I could put my finger in her, and suck
on her nipples at the same time.  I couldn't believe how long they got when
I did that.  They were a blast to chew on and play with, and felt so good
against my lips, and in my mouth.

   Her hips started bouncing off the floor and she made these funny
grunting noises, in time with the bounces.  She pressed the base of my
finger against that bump, which I'd sort of forgotten about when I was
poking my finger up in her.  Then she moved my hand back and forth,
sideways, like I had done before.  I knew what she wanted right away.  I
could keep my finger in her, and still put pressure on the bump.  In fact,
I could put a lot MORE pressure on the bump.

   She squealed and flopped around for a few seconds, and then her hand
came to mine and held it still.  After a few more seconds of that, she
pulled at it gently, and helped me take my finger out of her.  Then she
went limp.

   I don't think I ever saw anything as beautiful as she was, lying there,
one leg straight, and the other cocked at the knee, her breasts heaving as
she gasped for air.  It got me hard again.

   "I'm hard again," I said.

   "Noooooo," she moaned.  "Hard is bad, right now."

   "Why?" I asked.

   Again, she ignored my question, but rolled over to take me in her mouth
again.  Now it was my turn to lie on the floor and flop around.

   I did.  It took longer this time, to spurt, so I flopped around a lot.

   I think the reason she never told me how badly she wanted to fuck me was
because she was sure, if I knew that, I might try to do it.  I think she
knew that if I ever ended up, hovering over her, with my prick pointed at
her wet pussy, she'd have been helpless to stop it from happening.  I was
to find out later that that's why she wouldn't play with me in bed, and why
she tried not to play with me at all, at least not in a serious way, like
the one I just described.

   It was therefore, pretty inevitable that, for weeks after we did
something "special", she kept things really toned down.  Like I said, it
was mostly just some kisses, and a little stroking and teasing.  If I
played with her breasts too much, or tried to get them uncovered, she'd
stop me, and usually send me home.  I didn't like that, because I wanted to
be around her.  So, as nice as it was to get a look at her breasts, I
behaved myself, for the most part.

   ===========================================

   School was pretty easy that year.  I'd already taken most of the hard
courses that were required to graduate.  Only Chemistry and Calc were left
in the tough subjects, and I took Chemistry first semester, and Calc
second, so my homework load was manageable.

   As a result, I spent a lot more time over at Gloria's that year, than I
had in the past, during school.  She loved doing picture puzzles, and she
taught me how to do them with her.  She had a system.  It was mathematical,
really.  Depending on the puzzle, there are a set number of shapes, and
they repeat, in a more or less mathematical pattern.  If you separate all
the pieces by shape, and you can figure out the pattern, you know what
shape to look for next.  It really cuts down on the time you spend with
your glazed eyes just roaming helplessly over puzzle pieces.  She liked the
big puzzles too, with 5,000 pieces, so I needed all the help I could get.

   It's amazing how a good picture puzzle can keep your mind off of getting
the girl you're with naked.  It's very distracting!

   ==============================

   I don't think it had anything to do with her buying the hot tub, but it
was installed while she was ovulating again.  I say that not because we
knew it then, but to help you understand why she acted so erratically.

   You see, she was the one who regulated what we did.  She understood
things, both about me and about her, that I had no clue about back then.  I
loved being around her, whether we did anything sexual or not.  Well, we
almost always did something sexual, like teasing, or kissing, and stuff
like that.  But she kept the overwhelming kinds of things to a manageable
level.  I didn't know what I was missing, and she knew that, so she tried
to make sure I didn't have too much to miss.  She was wise that way.

   But wise people don't know everything.  They still make errors of
judgment.  For instance, she was completely sure that I would go away
somewhere after High School, and forget all about her.

   Like that could happen.

   And, when she was at the peak of her cycle, her control slipped badly.
She didn't know why it was slipping badly then - we only figured that out
later - but when that happened, if I was there, her control over things got
...  stressed.

   So, when I came over one night in December, and there was a brand new
hot tub on the back deck, and she wanted to try it out ...  and was
ovulating ...  things kind of sped up again.

   "Are you crazy?" I asked, when she wanted to know if I wanted to go hot
tubbing with her.  "It's twenty-five degrees out there!"

   "Not in the hot tub," she said, smiling.  "In the hot tub it's
one-oh-five."

   "Well, OK," I admitted, "but you have to get from the house TO the hot
tub, and then from the hot tub TO the house, and while you're doing that,
it's freezing."

   "Don't be a wimp," she said, poking me.  "It'll only take ten seconds to
run from the house to the tub, and when we get out, we'll be extra warm,
and it won't feel that bad for the ten second run back into the house."

   "I don't carry around a swim suit in December," I reminded her.

   "Who needs a swim suit?" she said, looking eager for some reason.

   Now this was a horse of a different color.  If I got to see Gloria
naked, then twenty-five degrees didn't seem like such a horrible price to
pay for it.

   Which is how we ended up, scampering naked through the freezing air,
naked as jaybirds, to her new hot tub.w Which, I might add, was WAY to hot
to just jump in.  I bet it took us five minutes of freezing on one end, and
roasting on the other, to finally get everything but our heads submerged.

   "Your plan has a couple of flaws," I said, my teeth chattering.  "Like
getting in, and I suspect that when we get out, it's going to feel twice as
cold as it does now!"

   "I didn't realize it would feel this hot," she complained.  She was
about halfway in, at that point, and her nipples were sticking out an inch.
She had goose bumps on the rest of her breast flesh.  She looked delicious.

   When we were finally submerged, it was really delightful.  There was
steam coming off the surface of the water, and the heat rose, so that our
heads didn't actually get cold, even though the air temperature was below
freezing.

   "This is much better," she sighed.

   "I probably caught pneumonia while we were getting in, though," I said,
not really complaining.

   "Let Gloria kiss you and make you all better," she said.  She had "that
look" on her face.  I was beginning to love "that look".

   She floated over to me, and gave me a kiss that would have warmed me up
even if I'd been standing naked beside the tub.  I kissed her back and
started sliding my hands all over her breasts.  I wanted to hear her moan
in that special way again.  I wanted to know I had given her another
orgasm, so I dipped my hand between her legs.

   We weren't sitting down this time, even though there were seats around
the outside of the tub wall, and we sort of went in circles as we kissed,
and my fingers probed.  With her legs spread, in the tub, I had all the
room I needed to slide a finger deep inside her and start playing with that
rubbery thing up in there.

   "Mmmmmm, naughty, naughty," she murmured into my mouth between kisses.
Her hand came to my prick, which was soft as it could be.  I didn't
understand that.  I had been hard when we ran outside, and I was excited
now.

   "Another flaw in my plan," she breathed into my mouth.  "The heat is
keeping you soft."

   That turned out to be a good thing after all, because as we swirled in
the water, kissing and groping each other, she ended up straddling me, and
pressed her pussy directly against my cock.  She was rubbing like crazy,
and I am positive that, if I'd been hard enough, I'd have fucked Gloria
Wilson that night.

   She knew it too, because while she was grinding her pussy against my
floppy prick, she murmured "Maybe soft isn't so bad after all."

   Instead, she taught me how to make love to a woman with my mouth, while
I held her hips level with the water and she held on to the side of the tub
with her hands.

   It was even better than her pies.  The noises she made got me almost
stiff enough to do some damage, but by then my mouth had taken its place. I
got to hear that whining moan twice, and then she held me up so she could
suck my balls dry, even though I wasn't completely had.  It was odd,
suspended in liquid, and feeling dry as a bone in my balls when she was
done.

   It was just plain fantastic.  There's no other way to describe it.

   ====================================

   I dated fifteen different girls that year.  My mother was ecstatic.  She
believed that a boy should take out lots of different girls, and not get
too close to any one.  If she'd have known about me seeing Gloria all the
time, she'd have had a cow, just because of the number of times, not to
mention all the ...  other things.

   But Gloria kept my visits to her house to an hour or two, generally, so
I wasn't gone for any long periods that would make my parents wonder where
I was, and what I was up to.  I was still involved in Scouts, and I hung
out with some of my friends too.  Everything appeared to be normal to them.
My sister wanted nothing to do with a boy who was six years older than she
was, whether it was her brother or not.  About the only time she came
looking for me was when she needed help with her homework.  We saw each
other all the time, of course, but didn't pay all that much attention to
each other, if you know what I mean.  She took off growing like a weed, and
started getting tall, like me.  The rest of her, though, stayed the way a
young adolescent should be, slim and fit.  She was flat as a board up top,
which was OK with me.  After feeling and sucking Gloria's breasts, my
interest in all breasts got kicked up a notch.  It was bad enough that I
checked out my mother once in a while.  I sure didn't want to get caught
looking at Suzy's chest.  Since she didn't have anything to look at, it was
pretty easy not to look.

   My parents started asking questions about what I was going to do after I
graduated.  Both of them wanted me to go to college, but I just couldn't
get excited about more years of school.  School was OK, and all, but I was
bored with it.  It consumed your whole life, almost, and I wanted to DO
things.  I had no idea what things I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to
DO them.

   On career day, I wandered around, from booth to booth.  Various
companies had set up displays, trying to convince teenagers that they
should spend their lives selling insurance, or working to cure cancer, or
become a chemical engineer so you could invent all sorts of new plastics
and such.  The fire department looked pretty interesting, and so did the
Police, which was right next to them.

   Then I stumbled on the Americorps booth.

   I had no idea what it was, but it had "corps" in the name, which
reminded me of the Marine Corps.  I had thought about joining one of the
military services, but hadn't investigated it.  One of my friends had
talked to a recruiter, and he complained that the recruiter wouldn't leave
him alone after that.

   There were only two kids at the Americorps booth.  One was Cindy
Watanabe, who I had always wanted to ask out, but who was so smart that I
felt completely stupid around, and the other was Jeff Heiser, one of the
geek crowd.  He was a pretty nice guy, though, and we'd been teamed up in
Chemistry, where he'd helped me out a lot.

   "'sup, Bobby," said Jeff, trying to be cool.  He failed miserably, but I
didn't make fun of him.  A good Scout is courteous.

   "What's Americorps?" I asked him.

   "It's kind of like the Peace Corps," he said, excitedly, "except you
stay in America.  They have all kinds of things you can do.  You can sign
up for different periods of time and do all kinds of stuff."

   The person running the booth was talking to Cindy, so I picked up a
brochure and looked it over.  They did everything under the sun.  Wherever
you went, they took care of room and board, and stuff like that.  There
wasn't much money involved, except that you could earn credit toward
college, and in some situations you got a stipend to help with living
expenses.  I looked at the list of jobs they had, and saw five or six I
thought I could do pretty well.

   But the thing that appealed to me most, was that it amounted to doing a
gigantic good deed.  Other than the things I'd done for Gloria, I was sadly
behind in the good deed department.  And one of the things I had learned
from doing good deeds for Gloria, was how good it felt to do that.  I'm not
talking about the sex.  That was something separate.  It didn't have
anything to do with the good deeds I did for her.  In fact, other than a
few kisses, in my Senior year, she never gave me anything for the things I
did for her.

   I liked how it felt when I'd done a good deed.  And it looked like
Americorps might let me feel that good a lot.  And besides, they planned
out the good deeds, so they weren't the kind that could go wrong, like what
had happened to me so often in the past.  I had years to make up for.  I
know that sounds stupid now, but back then, the thought of just doing
something good for somebody else was really appealing to me.  So, when
Cindy was done, I talked to the Americorps representative for an hour.

   I took home an application.

   =====================================

   My parents were more puzzled, than enthusiastic, I think.  They didn't
know anything about Americorps either.  All I could do was tell them what
I'd been told, but I probably didn't tell it quite as well as what I'd
heard.  When I compared it to the Peace Corps, like Jeff had, that seemed
to click, but my mother got nervous about it, until I assured her that I
wouldn't be sent off to Africa or something.  It was the college money that
got them on board.  I sort of let them think that I'd go to college, after
my time with Americorps.

   Gloria, on the other hand, displayed lots of emotion.  I could tell she
approved of the concept of Americorps, and she actually knew something
about it.  But she looked unhappy too.

   "When would you have to leave?" she asked, at one point.

   "It depends on whether they accept me, and what they assign me to," I
said.  "It would probably be sometime in the summer, though."

   She turned away from me.  "I'll miss you," she said softly.

   "It's only a year," I said.  "At least that's all I think I'll sign up
for at first."

   "Yes, but once you leave home, you'll go on to bigger and better
things," she said.

   She turned around.  Her eyes looked a little misty, to me, but she was
smiling.

   "But that's as it should be," she said firmly.  She came to me and got
up on her tiptoes to give me a kiss.  I squeezed her butt, and she slapped
at my hands.

   "Not now," she said softly, giving me another short kiss.  "I'm very
vulnerable right now."

   "Just the way I want you," I growled, and reached for her.

   She laughed, but wiggled away and put the kitchen table between us.  She
had "that look" on her face again.

   "You have no idea what you're playing at, buster," she said.

   "You could show me," I said hopefully.

   I got that tinkling laugh that made me so hard, but I recognized,
somehow, that she didn't want to be intimate right now.  I sighed, and
decided I could go home and beat off.  I still had a good time doing that,
even though it wasn't nearly as good as when she did it.

   "I made pie today," she said.

   So I sat down and had a piece of strawberry rhubarb pie, before I went
home.

   Then I beat off.

   =======================================

   I filled out the application and sent it in.  Then there was all this
stuff to do to get ready for graduation.  We had to practice, and get
pictures taken, and go to assemblies and all that kind of stuff.  I had a
big paper due, and I'd procrastinated on that, so I had to finally work on
it, and it was two weeks before I got a chance to go see Gloria again.  It
was a Friday night, and I didn't have a date.  My sister was at a
sleepover, and Dad was dozing in his chair, while Mom watched TV.  I
slipped out, and went over to Gloria's.

   When I got to the back door, there was a piece of paper taped to the
window, with the words "Not Tonight" printed on it.  It had to be for me,
because I was the only person who used the back door.  What was that all
about?

   A good Scout is obedient, so I didn't knock.  I did walk down the alley,
and around the block, to go by the front of her house.  The house was dark.
It was about 8:30, and daylight savings time hadn't kicked in yet, so it
was dark outside.  Don't ask me why I did it, but I stepped into the
shadows of Mrs.  Abernathy's bushes, across the street, and just stood
there for a while.  I felt pretty stupid.  For all I knew she had gone to
bed early, or maybe was off visiting some relative or something, and the
note had just been to let me know I was wasting my time, if I came over.

   I was about to go back home, when an SUV came slowly down the street and
turned into her driveway.  It sat running, for a minute, and then the
lights went off and the engine died.  Both doors opened.  A guy got out of
the driver's seat, and Gloria got out of the other side.  They walked up to
the door together.  They were talking, but I couldn't hear what either of
them was saying.  They just stood by the front door for a long time, like
whatever they were talking about was important, and wasn't finished yet.  I
saw the glint of light reflect off of something in her hand, and figured it
was her keys, but she didn't open the door.

   Their two forms suddenly merged, and I realized the guy was kissing her.
They stayed together for a long time, it seemed to me.  Then he was heading
back to the car and I heard him yell "I'll call you." She opened her door,
went inside, turned on a light, and the guy drove off.

   I had this really sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.  This really
... REALLY ...  sucked.  I wanted to go over there, and find out what was
going on.  But the note had said "Not Tonight".

   I went back home, but I didn't sleep very well.

   I waited until about ten in the morning, and went back over.  The sign
was gone.  I tapped, and stepped in.  She was standing at the counter,
cutting up celery, and humming.

   She sounded happy.

   She turned, and smiled the same smile she'd always smiled when she saw
me.  I started wondering if it was fake or something.

   "Hi," she said cheerily.

   I don't even remember what I said back, but it must have telegraphed my
mood.

   "Well," she said.  "Somebody's in a bad mood this morning."

   It occurred to me that I had no idea what to do now.  I couldn't just
ask her who the guy was.  If I did that she'd know I was spying on her.  So
I sat down at the table.  I didn't say anything.  She looked at me for a
few seconds, and then turned around and went back to her celery.  There
were strawberries, and grapes and other stuff on the counter too.  She was
making a fruit salad.

   The silence stretched out for another couple of minutes.

   "You want to talk about it?" she asked, not looking at me.

   Did I?  I didn't know what I'd say.

   "No," I finally said.

   "OK," she said.

   Another couple of minutes went by.

   "You all ready for graduation?" she asked.

   "I guess so," I muttered.

   She started mixing up all the stuff in a bowl.  She had on terrycloth
shorts again, and they clung to her butt like a second skin.  Her butt
jiggled a little bit as her arm moved rhythmically.  I wondered if the guy
had felt her butt while he kissed her.

   I finally couldn't take it any more.  I was mad, and I hated it.  I got
up to leave.

   "I'll see you," I said.

   "You're leaving?" She turned, and looked ...  hurt.

   "You're busy," I said.

   "What in the world is wrong with you?" she asked, putting her hands on
her hips.  You're acting like you hate the world and everything in it." Her
eyes narrowed.  "Did your parents find out you've been coming over?  Did
they forbid you to come back?"

   I almost wished they had.  If I hadn't come over the night before, I
wouldn't know there was some guy feeling her butt while he stuck his tongue
down her throat.  He probably felt her boobs too!

   "Is that it, Bobby?" she asked.

   "No," I said shortly.  "I have to go."

   "Bobby ...?" she said, but I left and shut the door behind me.

   For the first time in my life, I didn't want to be around her.  It hurt
too much.

   Chapter 7

   It hurt to be around Gloria, but the problem with not being around her
was that that hurt too.

   I was miserable all day long.  I wasn't hungry, and when I did eat
something, I couldn't taste it.  I yelled at Suzy, when she came in to ask
if she could borrow one of my Forgotten Realms books, which I had been
collecting for years.  That got my mom on the rampage, because Suzy cried
when I yelled at her.  My dad had been napping on the couch, and he woke up
and wanted to know what was wrong.  He told everybody to pipe down, but, of
course, everybody stayed mad, so it was tense all day.

   That night I hung out in Mrs.  Abernathy's bushes again.  It was chilly,
and I hadn't worn a jacket, but, like an idiot I stayed there a long time.
Her lights were on, and I saw her shadow moving around behind the curtains
a couple of times, but nothing else happened.

   I didn't go over Sunday either.  There were only two weeks of school
left, which meant just one for Seniors, and it was agonizing.  Nobody cared
what happened any more.  You had either qualified for graduation by then,
or knew you hadn't.  There weren't very many of those, and practically
nobody wanted to be there, inluding the teachers.  All I could think about
was that faceless man, running his hands over Gloria's breasts.  For some
reason I pictured them on the floor, in front of the couch, where my most
vivid memory of her lying naked was.  A couple of times that week I peeked
in through the gate, to see if anybody was in the hot tub, but it was
always empty.

   Then, suddenly, it was graduation day, and my mother was frantic.  She
ironed my gown, for pity's sake!  It had warmed up, and I wanted to wear
shorts under the gown, but she wouldn't hear of it.  She made me put on a
shirt and tie, even.

   Then there was the interminable wait, as we got lined up.  The girls
were all chattering like magpies, and all the guys had goofy grins on their
faces.  School was finally going to be over.  In an hour, they could flip
the bird to the building, and any teachers they happened to see, and laugh
like crazy.

   Finally the band started droning out the march, and two teachers,
frowning like they were on the front lines of battle, stood at the front of
the line, letting one of us go each time the approved ten seconds had
passed between walkers.  There were a hundred and nine of us, and it seemed
like the faculty was determined to make this stretch out as long as humanly
possible.

   Finally, it was my turn.

   We had to walk between rows of chairs on the gym floor, where all the
people sit who, for some insane reason, want to come to a High School
graduation.  There were way more than 218 parents there.  The bleachers on
the sides of the gym were packed too.  I met my partner from the other
side, and we started down the central aisle, towards our assigned seats.

   I glanced to one side, for no apparent reason, and almost stopped in my
tracks.

   Gloria Wilson was standing there, at the end of a row, grinning like she
was insane, and looking right at me.

   I took a long step to catch up with Roger Dalton, who was looking around
to see what had happened to me.  I caught up with him as we came even with
Gloria.  I could have reached out and touched her.  She looked startled,
and brought up a camera she had in her hand.  The flash went off right in
my eyes, and blinded me.  I stumbled past her, and Jennifer Sprague grabbed
my sleeve as I almost passed my row.

   "You're not supposed to get drunk until tonight," she whispered,
grinning at me.

   Everybody was grinning, and all I wanted to do was sit down and cry.

   =======================================

   We were all supposed to sit down at the same time, when the music
stopped.  It was about then that I realized I hadn't looked to see who was
sitting by Gloria.  What if the guy had brought her ...  or she had brought
the guy?  I turned around to look, just as every other Senior in school sat
down.  Jennifer tugged at my sleeve again.

   "Get a grip, Bobby," she hissed.

   I couldn't find her, so I sat.

   People made speeches, which I paid no attention to at all.  Mrs.  Finch,
the assistant principal got up to talk about how proud everybody was that,
of the hundred and nine of us, eighty-one were going on to college some
place, and six were joining the military.  Eight were going to a technical
school of some kind, and eight didn't know what they were going to do. 
That got a laugh.  Then she got all emotional, and said that this year, six
students had decided to get involved in selflessly making the world a
better place.  It was a record, and they were so proud of the six students
who had decided to join Americorps.  Those names she read off, and told us
all to stand.

   We hadn't practiced this, and hadn't known it was going to happen.  Not
only that, I hadn't gotten an acceptance letter, so when my name was read
off, I almost missed it.  Jennifer hissed at me and poked me, and I stood
up, looking around stupidly.  There was lots of applause, of course.  She
called us young heroes, and said we were the pride of Clinton High.

   She finished, and Mr.  Bigelow got up and harrumphed about how he had
power vested in him, and pronounced us graduated and all that, and, one by
one, we walked across the stand that had been erected.  When we did that,
they said what college, or technical school, or branch of the service each
one was going to.  The eight slackers just got "undecided" behind their
names.  And, of course, the whole crowd was reminded of the six of us who
were going to Americorps.

   Finally it was over, and people milled around like cattle waiting to be
fed.  For all that everybody had said they couldn't wait to be shut of the
school, they all seemed suddenly loathe to leave it.  I looked for Gloria,
to see if there was a man with her, but my parents intercepted me.  They
were grinning like idiots too.

   "I'm sorry, Bobby," said my mother, hugging me.  "The acceptance letter
came, and I meant to say something to you about it, but then I cleaned up
for the party, and put it someplace, and forgot about it."

   The party she was talking about was my graduation party.  My
Grandmother, two aunts, three cousins and an uncle were all there to see me
graduate, and we were going to have punch and cookies afterwards.

   It turned out that Americorps had notified the school of who was
accepted, which was how they knew.  I had thought it was just a mistake or
something.  Now, as I realized that I really was going off to some city
somewhere, for a whole year, it seemed like I had been given a
get-out-of-jail-free card.  I could leave Gloria Wilson, and her fucking
boyfriend behind, and start a new life.

   My parents whisked me off, and I never got to see who was with her.

   Back home, my mother tore the place apart to find my acceptance letter.
It stated that I had been accepted into the Vista program, and was to
report to training the day after my eighteenth birthday, which was a month
away.  It was a one year commitment, with the option to extend that.

   Because it was only a month until my birthday, and because some of my
relatives lived six or seven hours away, they had brought my birthday
presents with them too.  My mood improved a little as the cash built up,
and I got some pretty cool stuff.  I wouldn't be going off to Americorps
broke, which was something I had worried about.  All together I got over
five hundred dollars.

   ===============================

   It was five in the evening before everybody finally left.  I wasn't
feeling quite so surly any more.  I knew I was jealous, and didn't like
that.  It felt awful.  But she HAD come to my graduation.  There was no
doubt in my mind that it was me she came for.  As far as I knew, she didn't
know anybody else in my graduating class.  And, according to the tenth
Scout law, I had to be brave.  Courtesy was required as well ...  at least
a simple "Thanks for coming."

   So, while my mother collapsed, and my dad got into a bottle Scotch that
my uncle brought him, I slipped out and went over to Gloria's.

   It was probably habit that made me open the door, after I knocked, and
step into the kitchen.  She was sitting at the kitchen table, eating
something from a bowl, and reading a magazine.  She was wearing jeans and a
white button down shirt that was too big for her.  She looked up and
smiled.

   "Hi," she said.  "I was hoping you'd come over."

   She sounded so completely normal that it made my heart hurt.

   "I haven't gotten to see a lot of you lately," she said.

   "Yeah," I said, my voice tight.  The urge to cry was back.  She was so
beautiful, sitting there.  "I guess I've been kind of busy."

   "You're still upset," she said.

   She could read me like a book.

   "Thanks for coming to my graduation," I said, to change the subject.

   "I wouldn't have missed it for anything," she said.

   "We had a party at my house," I said inanely.  "A bunch of my relatives
were there.  They gave me money."

   "Oh!" she said, sitting up straighter.  "That reminds me.  I have a
graduation present for you too."

   She got up as I said "You don't have to ..." and just waved at me as she
left the room.  She came back with an envelope in her hand.

   "I was going to slip it to you at your graduation, but I didn't think it
would be a good idea to hand it to you while your parents were standing
there," she said.

   "You stayed?" I asked.  I thought she and her boyfriend had left right
away.

   "Well sure." She looked at me oddly.  "I wanted to give you a hug too,
but then I would have wanted to kiss you, and that would have caused a
scandal."

   My brain jerked around in my skull for a second or two.  Why would she
want to kiss me any more?

   She handed me the envelope.

   "Go ahead," she said, acting excited.  "Open it."

   I was still a little off kilter when I looked inside.  There were a
number of bills.  My eyes popped as I saw the face of one of them. 
Benjamin Franklin.  I leafed through the others.  There were ten of them.
My knees felt weak.

   "That's not for any good deeds you did for me," she said firmly. 
"That's just a graduation present."

   "Shit, Gloria, there's a thousand DOLLARS in here!" I gasped.

   "I know, silly." She grinned.

   "That's more than everything else I got combined, including my birthday
presents!" I said weakly.

   "Oh yes," she said, as if it didn't matter, or as if she'd forgotten. 
"Your birthday is coming up sometime soon." Her eyebrows wrinkled.  "When
is that?  July, or something?"

   I got wary.  Gloria Wilson was a sharp woman.  She'd baked me a pie for
my birthday when I turned seventeen, and she was the kind of woman who
remembers dates like that.

   "June," I said.  "Thank you.  I feel like this is too much."

   "Nonsense," she said.  "It's my gift to you.  I don't want you going off
to save the world and have to eat Ramen noodles or something." She perked
up.  "I have pie.  You want some?"

   She'd already turned around to get it, and I looked over at the calendar
on the wall.  It was still on May, and I went and pulled that page up.  My
birthday had a star drawn in the middle of the square.  I turned around to
find her standing there, with a plate in one hand, and a fork in the other,
a quizzical look on her face.

   Busted.

   "I was just seeing what day of the week I leave," I said, lamely.  "I
report for training the day after my birthday."

   She looked stricken.

   "Ohhh!" she moaned.  "That soon?" Her shoulders dropped.  "I was hoping
you'd have a month or so before you had to leave."

   My brain was screaming at me.  She was acting so completely normal ...
like she always had ...  like nothing had changed ...  I couldn't get my
mind wrapped around it.  I knew what I had seen, but she acted like she
still liked me.  I felt something trying to break out of my body, and felt
control flowing out of my very skin.  Suddenly tears were running down my
face.

   "Bobby?  Baby, what's wrong?"

   She put the pie on the table, and dropped the fork with a clang.  Then
she was right in front of me, her hands on my cheeks, her thumbs wiping the
tears away.

   "Bobby, sweetheart," she said in a voice that made my nuts want to tie
in knots.  "Please tell me why you're hurting,"

   I felt like an idiot.  My knees wobbled, and I got the sobs, where you
can keep from bawling, but not if you try to say anything.  If you say
something, a sob bursts out and makes it impossible to understand you.  But
I had to say something, because it was all bottled up inside me and I was
going to explode if I didn't.

   So I spilled my guts.  I told her how I'd seen the note, and how I'd
been in Mrs.  Abernathy's bushes when the guy brought her home, and how I'd
seen him stick his tongue down her throat, and squeeze her ass, and fondle
her breasts, and how it about killed me.  Then I spent a full minute trying
to apologize for spying on her, and said it was none of my business who she
fell in love with, and how she didn't owe me anything anyway.

   And then, words came out of my mouth that I didn't mean to say.

   "...  but I love you so much, and it hurt so bad, I thought I'd just
freaking DIE, and ..." I stopped.  I stopped sobbing too.  My brain was, in
that moment, as crystal clear as it's ever been in my life.  I had just
told Gloria Wilson that I loved her.  I hadn't meant to say that.  What
that really means is that I didn't INTEND to say that, and that's because I
had never REALIZED that, until that moment of pain and panic when I
expected her to snarl and throw me out for spying on her.

   I WAS in love with Gloria Wilson!

   Her eyes were open about as wide as the plate my pie was on.  Her mouth
was open too.  I swear it looked like three circles the same size.

   My brain went into super speed.  I thought about what she'd said,
before, about love, and about why she didn't want to do some things with me
because I would THINK I was in love with her.  But, in this instant, I KNEW
I was in love with her.  The thought of never coming here again was like a
red hot spike, being driven into my heart.  None of the girls I'd kissed
had made me feel even remotely like this.  I wanted to see this woman every
day, for the rest of my life, and get "that look" at least once a day, for
the rest of my life.  I felt it in my gut - all over my body, really - and,
like she had said, I just KNEW it was true.

   And, in the same instant of clarity, I knew it could not be.  There was
another man in her life ...  an older man ...  who would be here, with her,
while I was off saving the world.  Something died in me, right then.  It
both was and wasn't the catastrophe that I expected.  It was just reality,
crushing me a little.  In that instant, I grew up quite a bit.  Nobody with
a brain will tell you that life is fair, and you always know, deep down
inside, that you'll face bad things, but when it stares you in the face ...
it's hard to be ready for it.  Still, the values you cling to can give you
strength ...  and a good Scout is brave.

   "I'm sorry," I said suddenly.  "You've been nothing but nice to me.  I
have no right to put that load of shit on you." I took a deep breath.  "I'm
sorry I spied on you.  Thank you for the money.  If it's OK with you, I
think I'll pass on the pie."

   The look on her face was indescribable.  Her mouth was still open, and
her eyebrows looked like Mr.  Spock's on the Starship Enterprise.  Her
cheeks were a little blotchy too.  I couldn't figure out if she was
outraged, or disappointed, or maybe had just realized what a complete idiot
I was.

   Then her features smoothed.  "I mind very much," she said, her voice
strong.  "Sit down."

   "Awwww, come on, Gloria, I moaned.  "This has been hard enough already.
I feel like an idiot."

   "You ARE an idiot," she agreed.  "Sit down."

   "But ..."

   "Robert Dean Davis," she growled.  "You sit your ass in that chair over
there this INSTANT!" She ended up shouting at me.  How did she know my full
name?

   I sat.  Oh yeah ...  they read it off during graduation.

   "Gloria ..." I started.  She held up her hand, palm facing me.

   "You've said quite enough," she said.  She grabbed the plate and shoved
it in front of me.  "Eat!" she ordered.

   Then she paced.

   I had no appetite what-so-ever, but a good Scout is obedient, so I ate.
It was delicious.

   At one point she whirled and pointed her finger at me.

   "You said you loved me."

   I blinked.  Damn.  She'd heard it.

   "I'm sorry," I said.

   "You're sorry you love me?" she said acidly, "Or you're sorry you said
it."

   I tried to be brave and grown up.  "I shouldn't have said that, since
you have a boyfriend.  That's like trying to put a guilt trip on somebody,
and I don't like that."

   She rolled her eyes and made fists with her hands.  Then she took a deep
breath.  It did wonders for her breasts, and I saw the hint of darkness
through the shirt, where her nipples were standing out.  She wasn't wearing
a bra.

   "My ...  boyfriend ...  as you put it ...  is named Frank," she said.

   I felt crushed a little more, but fought the feeling bravely.

   "I met him when he backed into my car down at the mall." she went on.

   I thought "Who would have thought that's a good way to meet women?"

   "He gave me his insurance information, and then asked me out on a date,
to make up for the inconvenience." She was looking down her nose at me. 
"In a moment of weakness, because I haven't been on a date in over a year,
I accepted." She walked over to the table and leaned on it.  The shirt fell
away from her chest, and I could see her breasts.

   "Stop looking at my breasts," she said.

   I averted my eyes.  "Yes, Ma'am," I said, automatically.

   She didn't move.  "Look at me," she said.

   I looked up.  My eyes went to her breasts again.  I closed my eyes. 
Finally I was able to open them and fix them on her dark green ones.  There
was fire in those eyes.

   "He took me to dinner.  He brought me home, and tried to get me to take
him inside.  I told him no.  He kissed me good night.  He did NOT feel my
ass, and he did NOT grab my breasts.  He is NOT my boyfriend, and I am NOT
interested in going out with him again." She stood back up.  "He's a fairly
nice guy.  He's a little pushy, but he seems like a decent sort.  But I
didn't feel anything for him.  You know WHY I didn't feel anything for him,
Bobby?"

   "No, Ma'am," I whispered.

   "Because I was stupid enough to compare him to YOU!" she snarled.

   She folded her arms under her breasts.

   "Now, tell me why you think you love me," she said calmly.

   This, was something I could talk about.  "I don't THINK I love you," I
said.  "I love you.  I know you think I'm too young to know what that
means, and I know that it was wrong to be jealous.  But I love being around
you.  I love talking to you.  I love touching you, and I love it when you
touch me.  You have this look that comes on your face sometimes.  I even
have a name for it.  I call it 'that look'.  I love that look.  I love your
pie.  I love doing puzzles with you.  When I'm not with you, I think about
you all the time.  I want to touch you every time I see you, but I know
that's not what you want, so I don't, and it doesn't kill me not to,
because I care more about how you feel, than how I feel.  The thought of me
going away, and you staying here, with that man ...  well that was all
mixed up with the jealousy part, but the thought of that made me feel
physically ill, because he would get to see your smile, and hear you laugh,
and I wouldn't."

   I had to take more than a snatched breath, and held up my hand so she
wouldn't interrupt me.  Everything inside me demanded that this all come
out.  I'd explode if it didn't.

   "I love watching you move.  When I went out on dates, and kissed those
girls, it was OK, but it wasn't like kissing you.  There was no excitement.
Did you know that when you laugh a certain way, I get a hardon instantly? I
didn't used to.  Back when all I was doing was good deeds for you, I loved
doing them, just to see you smile.  And then one day, long before I ever
saw that portrait of you, you laughed, and I got a hardon.  I felt terrible
about it.  Now ...  I don't."

   Through the whole thing she just looked at me.  Very slowly her head
cocked to one side a little, and she got "that look."

   I pointed.  "There it is!" I said.  "That's the look I was talking
about!" I sat back in my chair.  "I love that look.  I love everything
about you.  I love ...  you."

   I finally ran out of things to say.  I felt completely drained.  I had
no idea what was going on in her mind, except that "that look" had
disappeared as soon as I pointed it out.  Now, she stood there, arms folded
under her breasts, just looking at me.

   "Your birthday isn't for another month," she said suddenly.  "And then
you're going away ...  the very next day."

   "I got accepted to the Vista program," I said, suddenly feeling the urge
to babble, and suppressing it.

   "You'll be gone for what ...  a year?" she asked.

   I nodded.

   "And while you're out there, wherever that is, you'll be meeting girls,
and experiencing new things."

   "And thinking about you," I said.  Like a blinding light, her words
finally sank into my brain.  "He's not your boyfriend?" I asked, my
twelve-year-old voice making me wince.

   She pinned me with her eyes.  "Not even close," she said grimly.  "I
can't believe you thought I'd do that to you."

   "Do what?" I asked.  I had been feeling a lot more confident in the last
few seconds, but now, I wasn't so sure.

   "Just drop you like a hot potato and casually replace you with some
other man, like I'm some kind of slut in heat."

   I was horrified.  "I never thought that!" I yipped.

   "That's what everybody else in this town thinks," she said, almost
absently.

   "I don't," I said.

   "Not even after all the things I did with you?" she asked.  "The
divorced slut, seducing the young man next door?"

   "You didn't seduce me," I objected.  "I wanted you to, but you didn't."

   "Only because I didn't want you to fall in love with me," she said
softly.

   That hurt.  She didn't want my love.  I fought back.  "Why not?" I
asked. "Why is it so horrible for me to love you?"

   She got a twisted look on her face.  "Because you're ten years younger
than I am.  Because no one in this stupid town would ever let us be in
love. Because you have your whole life ahead of you, and you'll go off and
find some sweet young thing to fall in love with and I'll be alone again!
And STILL I was idiot enough to fall in love with you!" Now there were
tears on HER cheeks.

   A burst of glory almost overwhelmed me, at her admission that she loved
me too.  My mind was very clear again.  I shoved my mostly eaten pie over
to her side of the table.  "Sit down," I ordered.

   "What?"

   "Sit!" I copied her earlier tone.  "You ARE an idiot.  Eat some pie!"

   She sat, looking at me strangely.

   "Yes, you are ten years older than me.  I'm amazed that you'd have any
patience with me at all, because I'm so young and stupid.  I mean, look at
the conclusions I jumped to about ...  what's his name?"

   "Frank," she said softly.

   "Yeah, Frank.  But you also told me you know married couples with that
kind of age difference.  I don't care what the other people in this stupid
town think of you.  I don't care what my mother thinks of you.  I love you.
I know you're not what they think you are.  I know you well enough to know
that you have all the control in the world, and that anything you did with
me was because you needed it, just as much as I did.  Yes, I have my whole
life ahead of me.  You do too.  You're only twenty six, Gloria.  You could
easily live another seventy-five years, with all the medical advances
they're making.  As for me going off and finding some sweet young thing ...
why in the world would I want to do that, when I have the woman of my
dreams right here?  Yes, you'll have to be lonely for another year, while
I'm gone, but I'll be lonely too ...  for you.  But after that's done, I
plan to see as much of you as you can stand."

   "You will?" her voice was very high.  "You'll come back and see me?"

   I looked at her as seriously as I knew how to.  "When my mother finds
out how I feel about you, I may have to beg you to let me crash on your
couch."

   "That look" flashed onto her face.

   "You wouldn't have to sleep on the couch," she said.  Her tone of voice
shot electricity straight to my balls.

   "So ..." I said.  "Does that mean I have your permission to be in love
with you?"

   "That look" intensified.  She stood up.

   "Kiss me," she said, softly.

   Electrified balls or not, all I wanted at that moment was to do just
that.  If a kiss was all I got that night, I wouldn't care.  The sun had
come out, and all the storm clouds had vanished into thin air.  I was so
full of ecstasy that I thought I would explode.

   She melted against me, and our lips met.  It wasn't urgent, but there
was incalculable passion, that she transmitted to me, through her lips, and
I gave right back, through my own.  It was the best kiss I'd ever gotten
from her ...  bar none.

   I realized her loins was grinding against mine.  She pulled back, and
her eyes were half lidded.

   "I have a confession to make," she said softly.

   "What?" I asked, looking at her lips.

   "I went out with Frank because I knew you were going away, and I thought
I'd never see you again.  That hurt so much I had to do something ...  had
to try to find someone ...  but when we were standing on my porch, I
couldn't do it.  He was nice, but he wasn't you.  I felt ...  nasty when I
let him kiss me."

   I kissed her, to wipe away his kiss, and she pushed me back, staring
into my eyes.

   "I was going to wait until you were eighteen," she said.  She licked my
lips.  "I wanted you to be completely legal." She kissed me again, three or
four times, gently, but quickly.  "But that's a whole month away, and
you'll be leaving the very next day." She gave me three more of those
kisses, and ground her pussy against my hardon.  "I can't do this just once
with you, before you go," she whispered.  "I'd just die.  I've been waiting
so long for this."

   "Waiting for what?" I choked.  I had a pretty good idea what she was
talking about, and my heart was in my throat.  I wanted to hear her say
what I hoped she was going to say.

   "To seduce you," she said.

   I felt all warm, all over, like I was melting.  But I accepted what
she'd said as if it were the most logical and normal thing in the world for
her to say.

   "I'm just a kid," I said, teasing her.

   "You're all the man I need," she said, her voice louder.

   She pushed my upper body back with one hand, while holding my hips
against hers with the other.  She stroked my chest gently.  She had "that
look" all over her face.

   She licked her lips.  "Tonight, we use the bed."

   Chapter 8

   It's hard to describe how I felt, as she took my hand and led me to her
bedroom.  I'd come there, that night, expecting to close one chapter of my
life, a chapter I loved, and would miss horribly.  I'd come to say goodbye,
and to mourn the death of love.  Now, though, things had changed to
radically that I was operating on auto-pilot.  It's a poor analogy, but it
was a little like I had been informed that my beloved dog had been hit by a
car, and died, but when I came to collect the body, I found out it was all
a mistake.  If you've ever had a dog you really loved, you understand what
I'm trying to say.  To find her alive, tail wagging ...  to find that her
love was still available ...  the sense of relief and joy is impossible to
describe.

   And now, as she led me to her bedroom, Gloria's love was suddenly
available to me again, when I'd thought it was gone forever.  Just the feel
of her hand in mine was ecstasy so strong that I wanted to weep.  Had she
only taken me to her bed to hold me, and murmur that she loved me ...  that
would have been enough.  I had an erection, but I think that was a physical
response to her as a woman.  What I felt in my heart was far beyond that,
and stronger ...  firmer ...  more rock solid than any erection could ever
be.

   Once there, I stood, mute and almost helpless as she unbuttoned her
shirt, and shrugged it off, exposing the dark coronas of her breasts, that
had hinted their existence, through the cloth.  My mouth watered, as I saw
her nipples were distended, and erect.  She looked at me as she slid her
jeans down, exposing that thin line of hair that was like an arrow,
pointing to her sex.

   Still, I had not moved, stricken immobile by her beauty.  I still wasn't
thinking about what we were actually going to do.  I was just drinking in
her beauty, like a long drink of cool water that satisfies and soothes a
parched throat.

   She didn't rebuke me for standing there.  She cocked her head, and "that
look" appeared on her face.  "That look" awoke, in me, something that
complimented the feeling in my heart.  I'm sure some would call it lust,
but I think it was more than that.  I had pleasured this woman in the past
- delighted in the signs and sounds that I was making her happy.  She had
pleasured me also, creating in me new feelings that soaked me like a summer
thunder shower.  Now, "that look" suggested there was even more ...  that
we could join in a way that would make us one being, inseparable.  "That
look" invited me to give her a part of myself that she would always keep,
that I could never get back, and would never want back, in any case.

   She came to me and unbuttoned my shirt too, leaning forward to kiss my
chest.  She kissed each of my own hard nipples, and rubbed her face against
my skin.  Her fingers flicked my belt and pants open, and she knelt to make
me naked.  She stared at my erect phallus, and kissed the tip, but stopped
there.

   I kicked out of my shoes by instinct, as she made me lift first one
foot, and then the other, to leave my pants lying in a heap on the floor.

   Then, gracefully, she stood and moved to the bed, sitting, rolling as
she fell backwards, to end up with her head on the pillow, her legs spread,
knees bent, in open invitation.  Her fingers went to slide across her belly
...  across that line of hair, following it to the split of her sex.  Her
pussy lips were already dark and engorged.  Her finger slid through
glistening moisture, and entered her body while she stared up at me.

   Her only sign of impatience was her soft comment.  "My finger isn't
enough.  I need you."

   I won't say that control returned to my body.  That I acted with
conscious intent is true, but I don't think I was in full control.  I
should have gone to her gently, but, the emotions I was feeling were so
powerful that they demanded a powerful physical response.  I had never done
this thing we were about to do, but I had some idea of how it should work.
From the time that my knee first touched the bed, to the time my pubic bone
crushed her clit, my prick fully embedded in her, was, perhaps, six
seconds.

   She gave a whining moan, equal parts discomfort and passion as I entered
her fully, and too quickly, in one lunge.  It had been two years since she
had accepted a penis into her, but I didn't think of that.  The pain in her
voice, combined with the sudden feeling of strong, gripping heat on every
square millimeter of my prick, caused me to pause, and my own groan
followed hers.

   "I'm sorry," I said.  I meant a lot of things by that.  I was sorry for
causing the obvious pain I heard in her voice.  I was sorry I had doubted
her.  I was sorry I had caused her emotional distress.  I was sorry that I
had wasted so much precious time, pouting, staying away from her, when I
could have been near her instead.

   "It's all right," she panted.  Her hands came to my back and smoothed
all over it, ending on my buttocks, which she gripped, and pulled toward
her.

   Lying there, on top of her, I suddenly felt like a bear, huge and heavy,
crushing my prey beneath me, ready to consume her.  Her breasts felt hot
and soft under my chest.  I had come to this room, willing to accept just a
kiss, or to be held.  Now, the feeling of my prick, joined to her, was all
I wanted.  It would be enough, if only I could stay where I was, not
moving.

   I felt a ripple of movement all along my penis, and her hips moved.

   "You feel so gooood," she moaned.  "I need this so badly."

   Almost every time she had touched my penis, it had reacted like it was
on amphetamines.  The first time she'd touched it, it had taken only three
strokes before I was spurting all over her chest.  The first time she'd
taken it in her mouth, I had spurted within fifteen seconds.  Other times
she had masturbated me, I had never lasted more than a minute.  By
contrast, each time I had touched her, I had wanted it to last forever. 
The sounds of her appreciation drove me to make it last as long as
possible. Of course, she could have multiple orgasms, and that helped, but
the urge to make her insanely happy, for as long as possible, had settled
into me as she had taught me to love her.

   Now, I had a new way to make her insanely happy, but only so long as I
didn't spurt.

   And THAT thought, gave me the control I had lacked, up to that point. 
Suddenly, I didn't WANT to cum.  I wanted to stay hard, and hear her tell
me how much she loved me filling her over and over again.

   Instinctively, I knew I should be moving.  So I moved.

   At first, I moved only a little, pulling out maybe a couple of inches.
Then I surged right back in, because the exquisite feeling of her pussy
clasping my prick brought back the urge to spew as soon as possible.  I
groaned, and fought back.  Her gasp helped, as pubic bone slammed against
hers.  My brain recognized that as a good sound, and I ground my bone
against her.

   "Oh fuck," she gasped, her hips lurching up at me.  "Oh yes, Bobby, Oh
fuck me baby," she moaned.  It was music to my ears, and I kept up that
short withdrawal and jabbing motion, with a little grind as I felt my prick
hit that rubbery knot deep inside her.

   She blubbered, her fingernails scratching my back, as her legs flopped
open and then her knees slammed against my hips.  She set up a litany of
little gasps, of "Oh fuck" intermingled with "Oh please" and "Ohhh YES!"
sounds that drove me to more or less pound her.  Her sounds got garbled as
I felt her pussy spasm all around my prick, and she had an orgasm.  It
didn't sound like the orgasms I had given her with either my fingers, or my
mouth, but I knew what it was.  It was violent, but not a bad kind of
violence.  She was a LOT stronger than I would have believed, and she
lifted both our weights, at one point.  Then she subsided into "Oh yes ...
oh yes ...  oh yes." Between each "Oh yes" she kissed my chest, which was
all she could reach, and, at one point sucked one of my nipples.

   That made me want to suck hers too, but I couldn't reach them, so I
fucked her some more, instead.

   She was breathing hard, and I looked down at her face.  She looked up at
me and there were tears in her eyes, but she was smiling.

   "I love you so much," she sighed.  "I tried not to, but you stole my
heart."

   I tried pulling out a little farther, and felt cool air surround my
prick.  I didn't like that, and slid back in, rewarded with her groan.

   "I'm so full," she panted.  "I love how you fill me."

   It took all my energy just to stop from cumming, so I concentrated on
driving her to another orgasm.

   "So strong," she panted, her hands sliding to my shoulders, and then
back to my waist.  "So HARD!" she gasped, thrusting her loins up at mine as
I slid back in her.

   I saw a drop of moisture drop and hit her nose.  I realized it was
sweat, dripping off my chin.  Her head arched up, and she licked my chin. I
dropped my face and her lips sucked at mine.  I was close to cumming again,
so I pushed in deep, and rocked back and forth.  Her lips got more urgent,
and then peeled apart as her head flopped back down and she wailed as
another orgasm hit her.  Her head flopped back and forth, and her hair flew
everywhere, getting in her mouth.  She spit it out and alternated between
sobbing breaths and laughs as I kept up the pressure.

   "I ...  can't ...  take it!" she gasped.  "You're ...  making me ... 
crazyeeeeeee" she whined.  Her legs came up and wrapped around my back, and
her arms went out to her sides, flopping on the bed as she arched her back.

   I wanted to go on.  I was driven to leave her helpless.  No ...  not
helpless ...  just intensely satisfied.  I wanted her to have no more
energy, to use up all the passion she had withheld over the years I had
known her.

   And then, suddenly, it was there, and I couldn't stop it.  I realized I
was holding my breath, trying my best to deny my balls, but it didn't work.
Air gusted out of me in a long groan as I felt the first streak of
unbelievable soothing pleasure in my prick.  Now, every iota of my
consciousness was centered on two balls, and my penis, as I gave up and
tried to aid them in delivering what would stay with her forever.  This
wasn't going to hit her chest, and be wiped off, or washed away.  This
time, my essence would flush deep inside her, where it would stay.  I was
offering something I had given no other woman.  I felt the urge to close my
eyes, and concentrate only on what I was feeling, but also I wanted to see
her face as I did it.  I wanted her to see my eyes too, because, while I
couldn't talk, every ounce of love that wasn't jetting through my penis, I
wanted to sent through my eyes.

   With wide open eyes, I stared into her dark green ones, as my prick
surged and spat, over and over again.  I felt like my whole body was trying
to enter hers, to merge with her into something that would be both Bobby
and Gloria, and would never be completely separate again.

   Her eyes opened wide too, as she felt the first thick stream hit that
rubbery knot in her belly.

   "Oh yessss," she hissed.  "Cum for me, Bobby ...  cum in me baby."

   Her hands came to my buttocks, and she held me deep inside her as I
finished.

   It was if every bit of strength I had in my body flowed from me to her.
Only because my elbows were locked rigidly, kept me from collapsing on her
and crushing her.  My head drooped, and I felt like I'd run ten miles, as
fast as I could, in a complete panic, and was now, finally safe.

   ==============================

   The aftermath of that first time, might seem anticlimactic to you, but
it wasn't to me.  When I finally got the strength to unlock my aching
elbows, she let me crush her for a few seconds, running her hands slowly
across my back, and then helped me roll sideways.  She hooked one leg over
mine, and rolled with me, to end up with us on our sides, still locked
together.  I was already soft, completely spent, and the lack of sensation
let me pull out of her and adjust, so that her face was level with mine. 
Her eyes stared into mine, and the look on her face was composed, but
didn't say what she was feeling.

   Neither of us said anything for a while, as we both caught our breath,
that breath mingling, with our mouths only inches apart.  Her hair was
sticking to her forehead and cheeks, from the sweat, and I lifted my hand
to sweep it aside with a finger.

   "I can't live without you," I finally said.

   She smiled a tired smile.  "You can't live without that," she corrected
me.

   "I can't live without YOU," I corrected her.  "I can't imagine doing
that with any other woman."

   Her eyes got misty again, and she blinked several times.

   "You said you loved me," I said.

   A tear broke loose and slid down her cheek.

   "I've loved you since you were fifteen," she whispered.  "It was wrong.
I knew it was wrong, but you were so sweet, and gentle and kind.  You were
more of a man at fifteen than most men will ever be, no matter how old they
get.  I DO love you, even more now."

   "Then let me be in love with you too," I said.

   "I just did, didn't I?"

   "No, you just had sex with me," I said.  "And as fantastic as that was,
and as much as I want to do it again, right now, it's more important that
you let me love you.  That's what I really want."

   "It will be hard," she said.

   "How hard can it be?  You love me.  Just accept my love back."

   "That's not what I meant," she said, wiping her eye.  "Your mother will
be furious."

   "You let me handle my mother," I said.

   "You're going away for a whole year," she moaned.

   "When was the last time you did what you just did with me?" I asked.

   She barked a laugh.  "I almost can't remember," she said.  "Years."

   "More than one?" I asked.

   She nodded.

   "Then you know how to go without that.  But you won't have to go without
knowing I love you.  For the whole time I'm gone, you can get up every day
of the week and look in the mirror and say to yourself "Bobby loves me." I
know that's what I'm going to do wherever they send me."

   She giggled.  "You're going to look in the mirror and say "Bobby loves
me?"

   "I'm going to look in the mirror and say "You love Gloria, and she loves
you, and it won't be long before you can hold her like this again."

   Her eyebrows wrinkled.  "I did this once before.  I thought that would
last, but it didn't.  I'm scared."

   "You got married," I said.  "Maybe you'll want to do that with me too
some day, but there's no hurry.  You took your time with me for two years.
Let's see how the next year goes.  All I ask is that you try to keep loving
me.  I'll keep trying to love you."

   "That sounds so ...  tenuous," she sighed.

   "It doesn't feel tenuous," I said.  "Not to me.  Does it to you?"

   Her eyes cleared instantly.

   "No," she said immediately.  "I know what I feel for you is love.  I
just can't believe that you love me."

   "I know exactly how you feel," I said.  I kissed her lips ...  just a
short one.  "Are you sorry you ...  did this?"

   Again her "No!" was instant, and emphatic.  "I loved every second of
it," she sighed.  "I needed that more than you could possibly know."

   "I think I can understand.  You haven't gotten to do it for years."

   "That's not what I meant," she said.  "I could have had sex hundreds of
times since I got divorced, but I never met a man I WANTED to have sex
with, until I met you.  I needed YOU, to make love to me."

   ==================================

   We lay there for another hour, just talking about this and that.  At one
point she traced a red lacquered fingernail up my side.  It tickled ... 
and it made me hard again.  I took the finger, and kissed it, and then put
her hand down to feel what she'd done.

   "Oh goody!" she said, smiling.

   She pushed me onto my back, and climbed on top of me, putting her hands
on my chest to keep me down.  At first all she did was rub her pussy all
over my penis.  She was messy with my earlier spend, but it just added to
the sensation of slippery heat.  She arched her back, laying her belly
against mine, and pushed down, and, just like that, my prick was again
surrounded with hot pussy.  In all the porn videos I had seen, the woman
bounced up and down, in a situation like this, but that's not what she did.
She rubbed, backwards and forwards, and that rubbery knot kissed and
stroked the tip of my prick.

   I forgot to take control of my own feelings, and suddenly, I was
spurting in her.

   "Already?" she teased me, her rocking unabated.  "Last time you went for
sooooo long."

   All she did was lean forward a little more, and then masturbate herself
on my limp prick.  As she came, she kissed me, panting into my mouth.

   ===============================

   I wanted to stay, but she made me leave.  She still understood the
realities of life more clearly than I did.  I thought, at some point in
time, that I'd inform my parents that I was in love with Gloria Wilson, and
that I'd magically be able to convert them from thinking she was a slut, to
welcoming her into the family.  I don't know if she knew better, or just
didn't want to chance screwing things up before it was absolutely
necessary.

   In any event, over the next month, I went back a lot.  The scenario was
almost always the same.

   I'd get there, and she'd try to resist the urge to splay herself naked
on the bed.  Sometimes she tried to distract us with a puzzle.  Sometimes
she tried to bake.  Sometimes she tried to have us sit and talk.  She even
went back to having a list of good deeds for me to work on.  Every single
time, I cooperated with her, doing whatever she asked.

   And every single time, a time would come when she got "that look" and
stood up, and held out her hand to me.  She let me experiment.  I wanted to
try it from behind.  That was different, because I could play with her
breasts, while I slid in and out.  I had more control that way too, and
could go for longer, but she didn't have as many orgasms that way.  We both
loved just the act of making love, so that was OK, but what she really
wanted was to be pinned to the bed by my weight, as I plundered her
luscious pussy, and spurted it full of spunk.

   She never said anything about birth control, and, to be honest, I never
thought about it.  Had I thought about it, I probably would have assumed
she was on the pill, but I never did think about it.

   We tried it with me sitting on a straight backed chair, and her
straddling me, sitting on my lap.  I liked that, because I could reach her
breasts with my mouth.  Again, though, it was merely pleasant, and did not
result in lots of orgasms.  The hot tub worked well, except that our
lightened weight made us use our muscles more, and we splashed a lot of
water on the deck.  Standing up in the shower together was good for her,
because I was so tall, compared to her, that she was suspended on my prick,
which put tremendous pressure on her clit.  She could cum three or four
times that way, because the pressure on my prick made it almost difficult
for me to cum.

   In the end, though, the two positions we gravitated to were with me
crushing her, her legs open wide to receive my seed, and her riding on top
of me, making that rocking motion that milked the spunk from my balls like
a vacuum cleaner picks up lint.

   At first, I went back every two or three days, trying to do other things
that my parents would know about, so the few hours I spent with Gloria
wouldn't be missed.  But, as my birthday got closer and closer, I had to
see her every day.  The week before I left, she gave up all attempts to
divert us.  I'd get there, and we'd be naked and rutting within minutes. 
THEN, when we were done, she baked, while I sat and talked, or we watched a
movie, or worked on a puzzle.

   ==================================

   On my birthday, my mother threw me a party.  She had arranged for some
of my friends to come, and, among them, were two of the other five
Americorps volunteers.  The other three had already gone.  It was nice, and
I recognized how much work she had gone to, to make this a special day.  I
had no clue about what she was feeling, knowing that her son was flying
from the nest, or that she dreaded that, because she assumed I'd be gone
forever.  Why mothers think their kids will abandon them is beyond me, but
that's the way she thought about it.  I didn't know that then, so my
announcement, after the party, that I planned on a last night spree, and
wouldn't be coming home until WAY late, if at all, was met with emotion I
hadn't suspected would be there.

   "But this is our last night with you!" my mother protested.  My dad
winced.  He knew what she was dreading.  She had talked to him about it.

   Almost thoughtlessly, I said "I'm an adult now, and I want to kick up my
heels before I go off to save the world." I was only half joking.  I
planned on spending the night with Gloria.  All night.

   I don't know what I'd have done if I'd have known my mother would bawl
when I left, or stay mad for the rest of the day.  Maybe it would have kept
me there, but I doubt it.  I wanted this night with Gloria more than I
wanted anything else in the world.  It wasn't just the sex.  I wanted to
see her sleeping.  I wanted to wake up next to her.

   My dad, bless his heart, took my side, which didn't help my mother's
mood at all.

   "Let him go off and have some fun," he said.  "He's growing up.  No
young man wants to spend his eighteenth birthday at home." Then he turned
to me, and said "Be careful."

   My mom wasn't done yet.  "But what will you do?  Where will you sleep?!"
she moaned.

   "Maybe I won't sleep at all," I said, shrugging my shoulders.  "Tell you
what...  if I get bored, I'll come back home." That was as much information
as I wanted to give them.  If they grilled me any more, I might have to
lie, and a good Scout doesn't do that.

   While Mom tried to argue with dad, I went and took a shower.  I shaved,
though that wasn't really necessary, and put on some after shave.  Then,
hearing my parents in the kitchen, I slipped out the front door.  I didn't
have a car.  I didn't need one, and didn't want to borrow the family car,
because then I'd have to park it in the alley, which wasn't a great idea. I
hoped they wouldn't wonder about me going off on foot, but there wasn't
much I could do about that, except walk down the street like I was going to
town.  I went the opposite way of Gloria's house, and all the way around
the block, to the other end of the alley.

   When I walked up to the door, it opened before I could do my tap and
enter routine.  She was there ...  had been waiting for me ...  and she was
crying.

   She practically bowled me over with her hug, and sobbed into my chest.

   "What's wrong?" I asked, stroking her back.

   Her tear-streaked face looked up at me.

   "You're leaving tomorrow, that's what's wrong!" She punched me, gently
in the ribs, like it was my fault.  "I only get an hour or two, and maybe
I'll never see you again!" she whined.

   I kissed her, and she was ravenous, almost eating my lips, with hers. 
She even grabbed my lower lip with her teeth, like she could hold me there
by doing that.

   "Owww" I said, pinching her nipple to make her let go.

   I turned her around and swatted her beautiful butt to move her into the
kitchen so I could close the door.

   "First off," I lectured her, "we've talked about this before.  I won't
be gone forever, and you know good and well I'm coming back." I stepped
closer, and put my hands on her waist.  "And secondly, I just told my
parents I'm staying out all night, having fun before I go off to save the
world."

   I couldn't help but tease her.

   "So, you can have ...  say ...  three and a half hours, before I go have
some fun ...  before I go off and save the world."

   The look of joy on her face, followed closely by a stricken look as she
believed, for just a second or two, that I would leave her, to go off and
have fun somewhere else all night, was so funny that I had to laugh.

   My laugh was cut off abruptly when her hand went to my balls, and she
got a grip strong enough to hang from them by.

   "You're not going anywhere tonight," she growled.  "And if you do,
you'll leave these behind."

   Then SHE laughed, and danced away from me.  She was wearing a T shirt,
and she whipped it up over her head and shook her breasts at me.

   "And you won't get to taste these," she said, cupping them.

   She yelped as I lunged for her, and tried to run around the table, but I
caught her by the waistband of her shorts.  There was a ripping sound, and
I lost my grip as the cloth was torn from my hands.

   She whirled, looking down at the shorts, which were now sagging, and
almost falling down.  She wasn't wearing panties.

   "You BEAST!" she yelled.  "Those were my favorite shorts!"

   Her hand went to the hip that the shorts were still clinging to, and she
pushed.  The shorts dropped, and she did a jump-rope jump to get both feet
out of them.  She had a gold chain around her waist, with a locket or
something positioned right below her navel.  Other than that, she was
naked.

   I had stopped, when I tore her shorts, and now, she jumped sideways, and
got the table between us.  She licked her right index finger, and slid it
down along the path of pubic hair to her pussy lips, and stuck it inside
her.

   "You won't get to put your nasty old penis in here, either," she said,
her voice threatening.  "I'll have to go find some OTHER nasty old penis to
make me feel good, and THEN you'll be sorry."

   I stood there, staring at her.  She had never acted like this before ...
so ...  wanton.  She pulled her finger out of her and held it up, looking
at it.

   "And if I have to go find some other nasty old penis to make me happy,
I'll SUCK it too ...  just like this!" Then she stuck it in her mouth and
sucked all along it.

   I shrugged my shoulders.

   "OK, if that's what you want.  I mean a man only turns eighteen once in
his life, so having fun on that night is pretty important.  I guess if
that's the way it has to be ...  that's the way it has to be."

   I turned and went to the back door.

   "BOBBY!" she screeched.

   I reached for the handle.

   "DON'T YOU DARE ..."

   I whirled.  Sure enough, she had come around the table towards me.  I
had a big grin on my face, and, too late, she saw I'd tricked her.  I was
on her like a lion, and just picked her up and put her over my shoulder. 
She was kicking and screaming and giggling, and gasping, because my
shoulder was right in her diaphragm.  I carried her to her bedroom and
tossed her on the bed.  She bounced and scrambled to all fours, facing me
like an angry cat, snarling.

   I stood there grinning, as I disrobed.  When I got naked, I grasped my
penis and stroked it a couple of times.  I was already hard, and it felt
good.

   "If you think I'm going to let you stick that thing in me now ...  after
TEASING me ..." she snarled.

   "I'm going to stick it in you a lot, tonight," I said smoothly.

   "No you're not," she pouted.

   I moved toward her, still holding my prick in my hand, and she crawled
backwards, off the bed.  I stepped up on it, and her eyes went wide as I
loomed over her, but she had no where to go.

   "Bobby," she warned, putting up a hand.

   "Grrrr" I said, and jumped to land beside her.  She tried to crawl back
onto the bed, and that was fine with me, because that put her butt right
where I wanted it.  I grabbed her hips and lifted.  She had to hold herself
up with her hands, which left her relatively defenseless.  She entered into
this new game, whole-heartedly, when she spread her legs wide, so I could
pull her toward me.  I had hoped to be able to enter her this way, but it
just didn't work.  My prick was bouncing all over the place, and I couldn't
steady it, to hit the target.  Nor could I see her pussy.  I would have had
to admit defeat, but she finally let her face down on the bed, and reached
with her right hand.  Capturing my prick, she aimed it, and I sank into her
with a groan.

   I let her knees down onto the bed, and she left her upper body, lying
there, ass high in the air, and moaned.  I prodded her several times,
holding her hips firmly.

   "Are you going to be good now?" I asked, slamming in deep.

   "Yes!" came her muffled reply.  "I'll be good."

   I let go of her hips, and she moved like a flash, rolling forward over
her right shoulder, spinning, and reaching with a claw-like hand.  I felt
her fingernails dig into the skin where my scrotum attached to my body, and
the dull ache of my balls being crushed.  Her other hand reached for my
penis as she fell on her stomach on the bed, and PULLED herself to me,
using my balls and penis as if they were fixed to a wall.

   I yowled, and moved forward in my own defense, leaning down to put my
hands on the bed, on either side of her.  I felt my prick engulfed by her
hot mouth and she sucked hard, and bit down gently.  She pulled off, and
her voice came from my groin.

   "Now, are YOU going to be good?" she asked.  Her mouth went back onto my
prick, and she CHEWED on it.

   "YES!" I yelled.  "I PROMISE!"

   The chewing went away, and all that was left was her hot, sucking mouth.

   "Mmmmmmm" I said, to tell her how good it felt.

   She pulled off again, and started to wiggle backwards.  Her round, white
buttocks were right in front of me, and I smacked one with a stinging slap,
as I jumped backwards.

   "OWWW" she yipped, rolling and rubbing where I'd left my hand print. 
"YOU PROMISED!"

   I opened my mouth and she held up a hand, palm facing me.

   "STOP!" she ordered.  "Don't say a WORD!"

   She scooted around until she was on her back, and spread her legs,
making a saddle for me.

   "Get up here and fuck me like you love me," she ordered.

   "Yes, Ma'am," I said, grinning.

   Our play made her wild under me, as I gave her what she wanted.  She
loved, more than anything else, to be pinned to the mattress by my cock, to
be skewered deeply, while her hands fluttered over my back.

   "You know what I want," she moaned, thrusting up at me.  "You know what
I need."

   "You need me," I said, stroking her slower than she wanted me to, still
teasing her, just a little.

   "Please, Bobby," she pleaded.  "I've been so horny all day long.  I
wanted to rub, but I didn't.  I waited for you."

   Then I gave it to her, pounding and grinding and she squealed her
happiness, telling me she loved me.  Now, that she'd decided to let herself
do that - love me - she did it with single-minded concentration.  I was
still too young to realize how precious that gift was, though I would
someday realize the value of her love.  For now I just submerged myself in
it, loving the way she reacted, and loving it when, as she went limp, she
asked me to spurt in her.

   "Now, baby," she crooned.  "I want to feel it.  Get it deep up in me and
squirt me full, lover."

   I did.  We waited half an hour, and I did it again.  She got up, naked,
stuffing a tissue in her pussy to keep from leaking, and fixed us something
to eat.  Then she dragged me back to bed.  My prophesy that I might not
sleep at all wasn't far off.  She was insatiable.  She woke me three times,
and when I just couldn't perform any more, she had to be satisfied with my
fingers in her pussy, and my lips on her nipples.

   I did get to wake up next to her the next morning, and got to see her
sleeping for about a minute.  My movements woke her.  She rubbed her eyes,
and rolled over to hug me, murmuring into my shoulder.

   "I love you."

   "I love you too," I murmured back.

   "I'm sore," she complained.

   "That's kind of your fault," I chided her.

   "I don't know what came over me," she said into my chest.  "I've never
done that before.  Not even when I was married."

   "Surely you made love when you were married," I teased.

   She pulled her head back to glare at me.

   "Not six or seven times in one night!"

   "I guess you DO love me," I said, kissing her.

   "Yes," she said into my lips.  "I do." She kissed me some more.  "It's
all your fault," she said.

   "My fault?"

   "If you weren't so trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous,
kind and all that other stuff you are, I wouldn't have given you a second
look."

   "Do I need to put a sign on the front door that says "NO BOY SCOUTS
ALLOWED!" I grinned.

   She looked at me, her eyes glinting.

   "Maybe," she said.  "If they're all like you, and one of them shows up
while you're gone, I might not be able to control myself."

   I pouted.

   She kissed the lower lip I had stuck out.

   "Don't worry," she said, rolling away and standing up.  She stretched.
"I've seen a lot of men, and there aren't any others out there like you."

   "I'm special," I said, grinning.

   With a quite serious look on her face, she looked at me.  "You have no
idea," she said.  "Now, special boy, you need to get home, and go off and
save the world, so you can come back to me."

   "I guess so," I said sadly.

   "And you need to go before I start bawling again," she said.  She picked
up a shirt and pulled it on.

   "Do you have to do that before I go?" I asked wistfully.

   "Yes," she said firmly.  "I know you, and if I stay naked, you'll maul
me again.  I'm too sore right now for that.  You did this to me, and so now
you'll have to pay the price."





   Chapter 9

   I went back the way I'd come, going around the block, to wander in the
house through the front door.  My mother was in the kitchen, and had
breakfast ready.  She came over and sniffed in my face.

   "Well, at least you're not drunk," she said darkly.

   "You know I don't drink," I said, wounded.

   "You smell like perfume," she said, looking at me.

   "I met a girl," I said.

   "I don't want to know!" she said holding up her hand.  "There are some
things a mother doesn't want to know."

   I grinned.

   "You will come back here ...  after Americorps?" she asked.

   "Yes," I said.  "For a while, at least.  I have no idea what I'll want
to do then."

   "Good," she said.  "You'll call sometimes too?"

   "Yes, Mother," I droned.

   "Sit down and eat.  Who knows when you'll get a decent meal again." She
bustled back into the kitchen.

   ====================================

   My dad took me to the airport.  I wasn't taking much.  The instructions
said to just bring clothing, and a minimum of personal property, and I took
them at their word.

   My time with Americorps would make a book, all by itself, but I'll give
you the bare bones.  I worked with disadvantaged kids, which meant poor
kids.  I was a tutor, and a mentor, and organized a team of them to build a
house in partnership with the Habitat For Humanity program.  I liked it,
and I was good at it.  They taught me the skills I needed, except for the
most important skill.  That's caring about people.  I already had that
skill.  I learned it in the Boy Scouts.  The hours were tremendously long,
but it was my life, for the most part, so I didn't care.  I got a chance to
call home, and that convinced me to get a cell phone with a plan that let
me talk to Gloria every night.  She seemed to be doing OK, but was lonely,
of course.  I was rarely lonely, because there were almost always people
around who needed some kind of good deed done.

   I'd never been much of a letter writer, but talking to Gloria for an
hour each night didn't quite do it for me.  It's so hard to talk into the
air, and actually say anything important, or astute, or whatever.  We
traded "I love you"s on the phone, but I couldn't put everything I was
feeling into words that I thought up on the spur of the moment.  So I wrote
her long letters each week.  Each night I'd add something to the letter I
was working on, and I was able to go into details about what I was doing.
Each Saturday I'd mail that week's letter.

   It wasn't just "I did this today" kind of stuff either.  They were
almost pornographic, those letters.  I told her what I wanted to do to her,
and what I wanted her to do to me.  I even wrote poetry.  And then there
were the times that I told her how much she meant to me, by comparing her
to all kinds of things.  I was barely eighteen, and I'm sure it showed, but
I did it anyway, because it made me feel better somehow.

   Whenever she got a letter, she was all weepy and stuff, and her voice on
the phone that night would just about kill me.  She wrote me letters back,
and hers were good enough to beat off too.  Of course, she was older, and
could express herself in a much more effective way than I did.  She fired
me up, and I used that energy to help kids learn how to read, or play
stickball, or whatever.

   ===============================================

   I found out I could take a one week leave, when I had completed six
months in the program.  I didn't tell Gloria.  I wanted to surprise her.  I
had to tell my parents, because I needed someone to pick me up at the
airport, and because I couldn't just show up out of nowhere.  Not for them,
anyway.  I could have taken a cab, and surprised them all, but I elected
not to do that.  I had no idea how I'd get away from my family to spend
time with Gloria, and that was the most important reason I took the leave
in the first place.  I decided to play it by ear, and hope for the best.

   So, I went home on leave with a secret.

   When I got there, I found out I wasn't the only one with a secret.

   ===============================

   My dad picked me up, and chatted about this and that on the way home. 
Mom was fine, and Suzy was turning into a young woman, and that was making
him nervous.  His job was fine.  Not much had changed since I'd left.  He
said how excited Mom was that I was going to be back for a while.  Stuff
like that.

   It was my mother who dropped the bombshell.

   She had a meal ready for us when Dad and I got home.  It was just like
old times as we all sat down to eat.  I had missed my mother's cooking, and
told her so.  She beamed.

   They wanted to know all about Americorps, even though I'd reported what
I was doing on the phone.

   "It's the best thing I could have done," I said.  "You remember how I
used to try to do good deeds, and screwed them all up?  Not any more.  I
get to do them every day, and there's nothing like it," I said.

   My mother snorted.  "Well, it's a good thing you went off to do them
somewhere else."

   I looked at her curiously.

   She got a superior look on her face.  "If you'd have stayed here, you
might have gotten caught up in a scandal," she said.

   "What scandal?" I asked.

   She smiled that tight smile that meant "I told you so" and said: "That
Mrs.  Wilson ...  that you did a good deed for that time?  She went and got
herself pregnant!" She sniffed.  "She's six months along!  I KNEW she was a
hussy ...  a divorced woman like that, inviting a young man into her house,
and if you had stayed here, you might have ..."

   She broke off, not because she was interrupted, but because I wasn't
there to talk to any more.  I jumped up out of my seat and hit the back
door running.  It was just habit.  I had usually gone out our back door, to
get to the alley, to get to her back door, and that's what I did now. 
Habit made me bang on the door before I opened it too.  I don't know what I
was thinking.  I should have called or something before I barged in. 
Luckily, she was in the kitchen.

   She turned, a look of panic on her face as the back door opened.  Panic
gave way to astonishment, as she saw me, which turned to relief.

   "BOBBY!" she screamed.  It was loud.  I think she was ready to scream
because of the panic of someone bursting in, but it all came out in my
name.

   She dropped the spoon she'd been stirring something with, and started
toward me.  Her hug was fierce, but there was something in the way.  I
pushed her back, and stared at her bulging belly.  She looked so much the
same, and at the same time so completely different, that I couldn't process
it.

   "What are you DOING here?" she cried, tears running down her cheeks.

   "I got leave," I stammered.  "I wanted to surprise you." I couldn't tear
my eyes off her swollen abdomen.  "My mother said you were pregnant."

   Her hands came to my face and made me look into hers.

   "I'm sorry, honey," she said, beginning to bawl.  "I didn't want you to
worry.  I know I should have told you, but I was afraid you'd ...  I don't
know ...  run away from there ...  or do something silly."

   "You're pregnant," I sighed.

   I dropped to my knees, so her bulge was right in front of my face.  She
reached and pulled her T shirt up, baring her distended flesh.

   "That's what happens when you let a Boy Scout do good deeds for you,"
she said softly.  "You got under my skin ...  see?"

   "You should have told me," I gasped, running my hands over her belly.

   "I knowwww," she moaned.  "I was worried about what you'd think."

   I looked up at her.  "What in the world are you talking about?" I asked.

   "Some men don't want children," she said.

   "So what were you going to do?" I asked, standing back up.  "Have our
baby and give it away or something, before I got back?" I was incredulous.

   "No," she swatted my shoulder.  "Of course not.  But I just thought that
you might do better if she was already born when you got home."

   "She?"

   "I had an ultra sound," she said.  She ran her own hands alongside mine.
"They're pretty sure she's a girl, because she doesn't have a penis, like
her daddy."

   Joy erupted in my heart, and I thought I'd pass out.

   "This is GREAT!" I shouted.  Then it occurred to me that some women
don't want to have children too.  "Isn't it?" I searched her face.

   She smiled, and the relief I felt left my knees weak.

   "This is great," she said, with dignity.

   "You have to marry me!" I blurted.

   "OK," she said.  "I'll have to give you lessons on being more romantic,
but OK."

   ===============================

   It was that easy.  I asked, and she accepted.  Everything was in accord.

   Then discord raised its ugly head.

   I wanted to get married immediately.  She flat refused.  Her reasons
were all quite logical, and understandable.  She couldn't throw a wedding
together in a week.  There were papers to file, and that would take time.
My parents had to be told, and she wanted their blessing.

   That last one made my gut hurt.

   "There will be plenty of time, when you get back, to do that," she said.

   "But what about the baby?" I asked.

   "I'll put you on the birth certificate as the father," she said.  "If
you want me to."

   "What?!  Why in the WORLD would I NOT want you to?" I gasped.

   "As soon as this baby is born, I guarantee you that at least six
hospital employees will take a little peek at that birth certificate, just
to find out who knocked up the town trollop," she said evenly.  "And the
word will get back to your parents that your name is on it.  Is THAT how
you want to start a family?"

   "I don't CARE!" I said, my voice surly.  "I'm PROUD you're carrying our
baby!"

   "Of course you are," she said, kissing me gently.  "You're loyalty is
one of the reasons I love you so much.  But why beat your head against the
wall when you don't have to?"

   "I don't understand," I moaned.

   "When we get married, you can adopt the baby," she said.  She made it
sound so simple.

   I thought about that.  I thought about her, here, all alone, with no
friends, pregnant.  I thought about what people were saying about her.  I
knew my mother wasn't alone.  Nobody ever talked to Gloria at any of the
picnics.  I had had to become a lot more assertive in my role in
Americorps. I had to be able to give orders, and make things happen.  I
also had to take the initiative, sometimes, and think outside the box.  I
could do that, and that was one of the things that made me good at what I
did there.

   "No," I said.  I said it with conviction.

   "What?" she asked.

   "I will not have you here, alone, with no friends, going through this."

   She looked astonished.

   "But you can't stay here, and I can't go back with you.  My doctor is
here.  Everything is here.  I already have her crib and all kinds of other
things!"

   "Come with me," I ordered.

   "Where?" she asked, confused.

   "We're going to tell my parents about all this right now," I said.

   Her eyes went round.  "Bobby, honey, I don't think that's a good idea,"
she said, her voice shaky.

   "I will NOT have you here, alone, with nobody to help you.  That's my
mother and father's granddaughter in there," I stroked her belly again,
"and they are going to be here to help you if you need it." My mind was
made up.

   She argued with me ...  all the way out the back door ...  through the
yard, and out the back gate.  Don't ask my why I went that way.  It was
habit.  She argued with me as I pulled her along through the alley, and
into my back yard.  She was still arguing with me, almost in a panic, by
then, when I pulled her through the back door into my parents' kitchen.

   Suzy was still sitting at the table.  My parents, frozen by shock when I
jumped up and ran out, hadn't known what to do.  My dad eventually followed
me, but couldn't find me.  It never occurred to him to check Gloria
Wilson's back gate.  They had been at a loss, wondering what had happened,
and were trying to figure out what to do, when I dragged Gloria into their
kitchen.

   Suzy's eyes widened, and then her face took on a look of interest ... 
almost anticipation.

   My father's face showed only shock.

   My mother's face went from surprise, to shock, to distaste, and then to
horrified curiosity.

   "I believe you all know Gloria," I said calmly.  "At least you know OF
her, since none of you has taken the time to actually meet her, and get to
know her."

   "What are you doing?" my mother's voice sounded strained, like she was
seeing a ghost, and was trying not to freak out.

   "I got to know her," I said.  "In fact, I fell in love with her." I put
my hand in her back and propelled her forward.  She resisted all the way.

   "Bobby ...  don't," she whined.

   I got behind her and slid my hands around, to rest on her swollen belly.

   "This baby is ours," I said, over her shoulder.  "Mine ...  and
Gloria's"

   I felt Gloria shaking.  She couldn't take it.  As strong as she'd been
for all the time she'd lived in Clinton ...  as high as she had held her
head, when no one would befriend her, and everyone assumed the worst about
her ...  as stubborn as she had been to hold on to her new start at life
... she couldn't take standing in front of my parents, with my hands on our
baby, under her skin.

   She turned, and buried her face in my chest, crying softly.

   "Th-th-th-that's insane!" my mother squeaked.  Her face began to screw
up into the face that I knew would be shouting very soon.

   "It's NOT insane!" I shouted.  "It's what happens when two people fall
in love.  It's what happened with you and Dad ...  TWICE!" I said loudly.
"Why is it insane for us, if it wasn't insane for you?"

   "But she's ...  she's ...  she's..." my mother babbled.

   "She's a woman," I finished for her.  "She likes to put together picture
puzzles.  She reads People magazine.  She goes shopping.  She bakes pies."
I stared at my mother.  "She's just a woman, and I'm a man, and we fell in
love and made a baby.  We didn't mean to make a baby, but it happened, and
I'm VERY happy about it!"

   "You raped my baby?" gasped my mother.

   "I'm NOT your baby," I shouted.  "I WASN'T your baby when I turned
eighteen and we were finally able to do what we both wanted to do.  I'm
going to MARRY, her, Mom!"

   "You can't marry HER!" my mother moaned.

   "Claire!" My father spoke for the first time.  The warning in his voice
was crystal clear.

   "But..." she started to argue.

   Dad simply grabbed her wrist, and dragged her toward their bedroom.  She
struggled and squealed all the way, spending half her time looking back at
us, with horror on her face, and the other half berating my father for
dragging her away.  The door slammed.  They started shouting.

   Suzy had watched the whole thing with her fork suspended halfway between
her plate, and her mouth.  With a jerk, she lifted the fork the rest of the
way, and took the bite.

   "You shouldn't have done this!" moaned Gloria into my chest.

   "She's right," said Suzy.

   Gloria looked over at my sister.  As far as I knew, they had never
spoken a word to each other.

   "I'm Suzy," said my sister.  "He's my brother."

   "Hi," said Gloria, her voice as high pitched as I'd ever heard it.

   "Is it really his?" asked Suzy, her face straight.

   Gloria stiffened in my arms.

   I snarled.  "Knock it off, you little brat."

   Gloria pushed me away, and turned to my sister.

   "Yes, it's really his.  I know this, because I didn't have sex for two
years before I had it with your brother, and I haven't had sex since he
left for Americorps."

   My sister didn't bat an eye.  "Cool," she said.  "That means the baby
will be my ...  what?"

   "Your niece," said Gloria.

   Suzy's eyes got wide.  "Wow!" she said, awe in her voice.  "I'm going to
be thirteen, and I'll be an aunt!  That's awesome!"

   "I'm glad you're happy about it," said Gloria, a little confused as to
how to talk to my sister.

   "I've always thought you were really pretty," said Suzy.

   Then, like she was starving, she went right back to eating, and ignored
us both.

   Gloria looked at me, an eyebrow raised.  At least she wasn't crying any
more.  I shrugged.  I didn't understand my sister any better than she did.

   Gloria wanted to go back home, but I knew my dad pretty well.  That tone
of voice meant that he was insisting on something, and he wouldn't stop
until Mom caved in.  It had been that way all my life.  Mom ruled the
roost, until she went too far, and Dad put his foot down.  When he did
that, things got jerked back into line, and then he let her be in charge
again, until it happened again.  He didn't do that very often, which is
probably why she always caved.  He picked his battles well, and she knew
that, deep down.  Still, her opinion of Gloria was kind of like that of a
racist.  It didn't have to have any factual basis, or justification.  It
was just there, and it was ingrained in a way that made it stain the soul.
I wasn't at all sure my father would be able to get his way this time.

   Still, I owed it to him to wait and see.  I wasn't going to stand for
any shit about this.  I wanted them to know how things were, and that they
couldn't do anything about it.  Hopefully, they'd at least be civil to her
from now on, at a minimum.

   =====================

   Gloria displayed a little of my mother's biased qualities while we
waited.  We could still hear the yelling going on, though it wasn't as
continuous as it had been in the beginning.

   "She'll never accept me, Bobby," she sighed, at one point.  "None of
them will." She drifted toward the back door, and I grabbed her wrist and
pulled her to me.  I kissed her.

   "Ewwwww," went my little sister.  "Get a room, you two."

   "See?!" Gloria said, pushing me away.  "Not even your sister accepts
me."

   "I didn't say that," said Suzy.  "But it's like watching Daddy kiss
Mommy.  It's just icky, that's all."

   Gloria snorted.  "You won't feel that way in another year or two," she
said.

   "I'm NEVER going to let a boy kiss me," said Suzy firmly.

   "Good!" came my father's voice.

   We all looked over in surprise.  Mom was with him, her face flushed and
her hair in disarray.  She was not happy.  We hadn't heard them come out of
the bedroom.

   "If you don't let a boy kiss you until you're thirty, I won't mind a
bit," he said heavily.

   He turned to my mother.

   "We have a guest, Claire," he said.  He turned to Gloria.  "Will you
have some breakfast with us?"

   My mother's hands were in fists, but she went to the stove.  Breakfast
had cooled, and she just started all over again.  Only Suzy kept eating.

   "I don't want to be any trouble," said Gloria, out of habit, I think.

   "Too late for that," said my father, but he smiled to show he wasn't
being mean about it.  "Please, have a seat."

   I didn't know if this was a good idea or not, but at least the yelling
had stopped, so I gave it a chance and pulled out a chair for Gloria.  She
shot me a smile, and sat down.  I sat next to her.  She was between me and
Suzy, and my father sat at the head of the table.

   "Well," he said, picking up his fork and playing with it.  "This is
quite a surprise."

   "I can imagine," said Gloria.  "The whole thing has been somewhat of a
surprise to me too." She winced.  "Not the baby." She rolled her eyes and
covered them with one hand.  "What I mean is that I didn't intend to fall
in love with anybody." She looked at me, a little guiltily.  "I couldn't
help it.  He was just so sweet, and so kind and ...  " She stopped and
looked helpless.  "He stole my heart.  I don't know any other way to
explain it."

   My dad looked uncomfortable.  "We think a lot of him too," he said,
obviously trying to put her at ease.  "We just didn't ...  expect ... 
this."

   My mother banged some pans at the stove.

   Nobody said anything for a while.

   The quiet got to my dad.  "Um ...  who else ...  knows about this?" he
finally asked.  He frowned, like he wished he hadn't said it quite like he
did.

   "No one," said Gloria.  "My doctor knows I'm pregnant, but not who the
father is."

   My mother snorted.

   "Claire ..." my father warned her.  He shoulders slumped.

   "It ...  uh ...  seems," said my father carefully, "that Bob wasn't ...
aware ...  of your ...  um ...  condition."

   "I didn't tell him," said Gloria.  "I didn't want him to get into
trouble, and I didn't want him to make any rash decisions." I took her
hand, and she squeezed it.

   "Such as?" asked my father.

   "I was afraid he'd do something silly, like leave Americorps without
permission," she said.  "We didn't ...  um ...  plan this baby."

   My mother couldn't take it any longer, and turned around, a spatula in
her hand.  She waved it like a concert master.

   "How in the world could you NOT plan for a baby?" she asked, frustration
all over her face.

   Gloria obviously felt guilty about that, and spoke impulsively.  "I
didn't' plan on anything to happen at all!" she blurted.  "Bobby was just
my friend, at first.  I didn't have any reason to think I had to worry
about getting pregnant!" She slumped.  "Then he turned eighteen, and was
going away, and I thought I'd never see him again, and ..." She dropped
off, looking very uncomfortable.  She darted me a look, and I just nodded.
She had bent the truth a little, but I didn't mind.

   My mother's jaw dropped.

   "You mean nothing happened until the day he left?"

   I took over, to keep Gloria from having to tell any more lies.

   "Remember how I went out that night?  I was going to go out and spend
the night with my friends, but I stopped at Gloria's first.  I'd been in
love with her for over a year, and I knew she'd bake me a pie for my
birthday.  I just ...  sort of never got around to meeting my friends."

   I thought a little of the actually truth might not hurt, so I added
some.

   "I think I took advantage of her, a little bit," I confessed.  "She
hadn't ...  um ...  been with a man for over two years, and I think I sort
of ...  exploited that."

   My mother looked over at Suzy, who was listening avidly.

   "Suzy, you're finished with breakfast," said my mother.  "Go on to your
room, or to play, or whatever.  You don't need to listen to this."

   "Maaaaahhhm" moaned my sister.  This had to be the most interesting
thing she'd heard in a long time, her protestations about boys to the
contrary.

   "Scoot!" barked my mother.  "You're too young."

   My sister made a huge production of being sent away, but eventually
dragged her feet out the door.  My dad got up and looked around the wall.

   "Go on," he said.  "Your mother is right.  Besides, I thought you said
you were never going to let a boy even kiss you."

   "Oh, all RIGHT!" shouted my sister.  "I never get to do ANYTHING fun!"

   We heard her stomp up the stairs as my father came back to sit.

   Mom yelped and turned around to deal with bacon and eggs that were
beginning to be too well done.  She might not welcome her guest, but she
wasn't going to serve less than perfect food to her either.

   "I'm not trying to be argumentative, here," said my father, "but I can't
help but have some reservations about the likelihood that Bob seduced you,"
he said to Gloria.

   Gloria's smile was a bit stressed.  "He's trying to protect me," she
said.  "I wanted what happened between us as much as he did.  I've been in
love with him for a long time.  I just didn't admit it to him until that
night."

   "How could a grown woman fall in love with a teenaged boy?" asked my
mother, not turning around.

   Gloria responded with some heat in her voice.  "He was nice to me!" she
said, a little too forcefully.  She shot a look at my father, who was just
sitting there, looking at her.  "He talked to me, when nobody else in town
would.  He did nice things for me - good deeds - and didn't want anything
for them.  He wasn't like every other man I met since I got divorced, who
wanted only one thing from me, and dropped me like a hot potato when I
wouldn't give it to him.  He accepted me for who I am.  He didn't treat me
like a whore!" She had tears in her eyes now, and I squeezed her hand
tighter.  "He told me about the Scout laws, and he was all the things the
Scout Law requires him to be.  Who COULDN'T fall in love with a man like
that?"

   My dad had a look of supreme surprise on his face, almost a look of
wonder.  He was quite familiar with the Scout Laws, having been a Scout in
his own youth.

   My mother, when she looked over her shoulder, had, for the first time
since Gloria entered the house, lost her frown.  Well, it was still there,
right between her eyebrows, but the rest of her face wasn't frowning, like
it had been.  She turned back to scoop things out of the skillet, and load
them on plates.  She had somehow managed enough bacon and scrambled eggs,
with toast, to feed four people.  Once that was served, she scooted to the
fridge and got the orange juice and milk out.  She set them on the table,
like she would for family, and got clean glasses for everybody.  She sat
down, and then realized she'd forgotten silverware.  Dad put his hand on
hers, got up, got the flatware and sat back down, handing it out while my
mother looked flustered.

   "So ..." said my father, looking at me.  "What now?"

   I was ready for that one.

   "I have to go back," I said calmly.  "I won't be here when our daughter
is born."

   "Daughter?" asked my mother, her voice cracking a little.

   "She had an ultrasound," I said.  "It's a girl." I went ahead and thrust
the knife in.  "Your granddaughter," I added.

   My mother blinked, and she went pale.  I think that was the first time
she'd thought of the fact she was going to be a grandmother.  I'm not sure
she was prepared to think of herself that way.

   "Gloria doesn't want a hurry-up wedding," I said.  "We argued about
that, but I love her, and I want her to have the wedding she wants to have.
So, when my tour is done, I'll come back here, and we'll get married.  I'll
adopt the baby, and I'll try to talk her into having another one."

   Gloria looked sideways at me, but smiled.

   "But she'll be alone!" said my mother.  She looked surprised that she'd
said that.

   "That's why I brought her here this morning," I said.  "I don't want her
to be alone.  I love her, and I'm going to marry her, and I want her to be
part of our family." The inference was plain enough that I didn't verbalize
that I expected my parents to learn to love her too.

   My mother bit her lip, like she was trying not to say something. 
Apparently it was something she really wanted to know, because she asked it
anyway.

   "So you never ...?  when he was younger?" Her inference was plain too.

   "He's been coming over more or less regularly for the last two years,"
said Gloria.  She was blunt about it.  "We never had intercourse until I
knew he was actually leaving.  That night ...  before he left for
Americorps ...  I couldn't control myself any longer."

   She said that carefully, but it didn't sound ...  careful.  I was amazed
that she could come up so quickly with something that was technically true,
but left an impression that was entirely incorrect.

   "Wow," said my father.  I looked at him, and he actually blushed.  I
think he was thinking what it had to be like for a teenaged boy, full of
hormones, to be around a woman like Gloria for two years, and ...  not ...
do anything.  She was a good looking woman.  Every man around had noticed
that.  So had their wives, which was the crux of the problem.

   "And you weren't on ...  the pill?" my mother couldn't resist asking.

   "I wasn't having sex with anybody," said Gloria clearly frustrated with
my mother's ingrained bias.  "I didn't intend to have sex with ANYBODY. 
Your son swept me off my feet.  If he hadn't been leaving the next day, I
would like to think I could have resisted him even then, but maybe I'm just
trying to make myself feel better about all this."

   We ate for a little while, not saying anything at all.  It was strained,
but not unmanageable.  That Gloria had any appetite surprised me.  Maybe
she was just being polite.  Then again, there was nothing to do, during
those quiet moments, except eat.

   Finally my dad asked another question.  It was to me, this time.

   "What are your plans after Americorps?" he asked.  "About employment, I
mean."

   "No idea," I admitted.  "I love what I'm doing.  I'd think about being a
teacher, but I'd have to go to college for that."

   "You can't support a family and go to college at the same time," said
Dad.  He was ever the practical man.

   Gloria blew him out of the water.  "I'm ...  well off," she said,
instead of saying she was just flat wealthy.  "College won't be a problem."
She smiled.  "Besides that, I have a little internet business that pays the
bills.  I spend a lot of time on that, since I don't have much else to do."

   There was more silence as breakfast got finished.

   "Well," said Dad, putting his fork down.  "Bob's an adult, and he's
completely entitled to make his own decisions.  It may take some time to
get used to the idea of all this, but I, for one, hope everything turns out
well for you two."

   Gloria gave him a timid smile, and reached for my hand.  My mother's
eyes followed her movement.  Now that I think back on it, that simple
gesture of affection, and relief, just may have spoken volumes to my
mother. It wasn't done in an obvious manner which, to my mother, meant it
was genuine.

   "Thank you," said Gloria.  "You have no idea how much that means to me."
She turned to my mother.  "And thank you for breakfast.  It was very nice.
I know you don't like me.  I hope that may change some day.  That would
mean a lot to me too."

   My mother looked uncomfortable.  She was, in the main, a very polite
woman.  I think the fact that a guest, however unwelcome, had complimented
her, pushed some button in her psyche that required some kind of polite
response in return.

   "I may have been ...  hasty ...  in drawing conclusions about you," she
said weakly.  "Perhaps we could get together and ...  chat sometime?"

   Gloria leaned forward, her eyes bright.

   "I'd like that more than you know," she said softly.  "Now, I should go.
Bobby dragged me over here and my hair's a mess, and I'm sure you want to
talk to your son some more, since he just got back.  He didn't tell me he
was coming home on leave, and I need to clean the house ..."

   She was babbling, so I leaned over to kiss her and shut her up.

   "I'll walk you back," I said.

   "Nonsense!" she said, blushing about the kiss.  "It's just over there."
She waved her hand in the direction of her house.  "Spend some time with
your parents.  You can come ...  say Hi ..." she blushed, "to me later."

   I didn't want to let her go home alone.  But I didn't want my parents to
sit and talk without me there to buffer that conversation.  I didn't know
what to do.

   "Why don't we all walk her home," said my father, being pragmatic.

   "Can I come too?" came Suzy's voice.  Her head popped around the corner
from the staircase.  Then she realized she'd blown her cover as a spy, and
she froze.

   "Suzy!" barked my mother.

   "Well!  She's going to be my sister-in-law, and she's going to have my
niece!" complained Suzy.

   My father laughed, and the tension faded a bit.

   Apparently we were just going to make a parade out of it.

   Chapter 10

   Again, I took the lead, and again, I went with habit, going out the back
door, and leading the whole party to Gloria's back gate.

   "I wondered why you always went out the back door," muttered my mother.

   "I had to, after Mrs.  Abernathy tattled on me," I said, grinning.

   "I remember that!" said Suzy, almost skipping along in her excitement.
"You mean she was your girlfriend way back then?!"

   "No!" I defended myself.  "I was just doing good deeds back then.  I
didn't think I should have to stop doing good deeds just because Mrs. 
Abernathy was a snoop."

   My mother made a sound in her throat, but she didn't say anything.  My
dad just grinned, for some reason.

   Gloria was obviously embarrassed that guests were in her house without
it being made ready for guests, but her personal daily habits obviously met
my mother's expectations.  Of course Gloria didn't have two teenagers
around to mess things up, so everything was already neat and clean.  She
had pretty good taste too, and the money to indulge it, though nothing was
really flashy.  Suzy wanted a tour, and the Ebay room got a lot of
attention.  Thank goodness her portrait had been put away.

   That notion was disabused when Gloria tried not to show them her
bedroom.

   "That's just my bedroom," she said.  "You don't want to see that."

   Suzy barged on in anyway, over the objections of my parents.  Her squeal
of surprise got us all in there.

   The portrait was on the wall above the headboard.

   My dad's eyes got a little glazed, while my mother shooed my sister out.
All the while, Suzy was craning her neck, trying to get another look at
Gloria ...  in all her glory.

   "Sorry," said Gloria, her cheeks stained red.  "Bobby liked that
portrait, and I put it up while he was gone ...  to remind me of him."

   My mother looked all tense again, and, when Suzy was out, went back to
get her husband.  He looked guilty when she dragged him back out into the
hallway.  He also looked like he was trying not to smile.

   ====================

   Gloria insisted that I go spend some time with my parents, and I think
that helped.  I'm sure my mother still thought this woman was trying to
steal me away from them.  It was a rocky start, but it wasn't as bad as I'd
thought it would be.  I think I have my father to thank for that.  On the
way back to our house, Mom and Suzy got ahead of us, and Dad walked along
beside me.

   "I thought I told you to be careful," he said softly.

   I blushed.  "Yeah ...  well ...  I guess everybody's entitled to one
mistake."

   "That's a heck of a mistake, son," he said.  He grinned, though.  "Your
mother's going to have to get used to being called Grandma." He was smiling
about that, for some reason.

   "You're going to be a Grandpa too," I said.

   "That doesn't bother me," he said.  He looked sideways at me.  "She
seems nice."

   "She IS nice," I said.  "Nobody ever gave her a chance to show that."

   "Yeah," he said.  "Well, that's life.  You're going to have to get used
to the idea.  I don't suspect a lot of other people will embrace this."

   "I don't care about them," I said heatedly.  "but I want you guys to get
along with her."

   "Give it time," said my father.  "Just give it some time."

   "You'll keep an eye on her?" I asked.

   "As much as your mother will let me," he said.  "She may come around
too, once she starts thinking about her granddaughter."

   "I hope so," I said softly.

   "Your mother is stubborn as a mule," he said, "but she's not stupid.  If
I could have been so wrong about Mrs. ...  Gloria ...  then she'll realize
she was wrong too ...  eventually."

   "I hope so," I said, again.

   =============================

   My mother appeared to "come around" a lot sooner than I thought she
would.  When we got back home Mom did the dishes, while the rest of us sat
around the table talking, mostly about Americorps.  An hour into that Suzy
got bored, and wandered off to her room.

   Maybe ten minutes later Mom looked at me and said: "We need to take you
shopping for a ring.  If you're not going to marry her this week, she at
least needs something to show your intent."

   My dad looked as shocked as I probably did.  "Don't you think she ought
to be the one to pick it out?" he asked.

   My mother darkened.  "Well ...  yes, I suppose so.  It's just a shame
the baby will be born without your name ...  don't you think?"

   "When you told me she was pregnant, I went over there and demanded that
she marry me today," I said.  "She's a stubborn woman."

   "They all say you pick a woman just like your mother," said my dad,
grinning.

   My mother shot him a dark look.

   "I'm just saying what they say in all those journals," he said, holding
up his hands to fend her off.  "Besides, she's almost as pretty as you are,
darling."

   It's amazing how a woman can be disarmed by a good compliment.  My
mother was quite aware that Gloria had spectacular looks.  That's one of
the reasons all the wives in the neighborhood disliked her so much. 
Believing she was a tramp just justified their dislike.

   "I saw how you looked at that portrait," said my mother, unwilling to
let him off easily.

   "We should find out who did that, and have one done of you," said my
dad, wistfully.

   My mother blushed like a new bride.  "That will be enough of THAT!" she
stammered.

   "I'm just saying ..." said my dad, smiling.

   "I know what you're saying, you old goat," sniffed my mother, but she
looked pleased.

   "That's how I feel about her." I threw in my own two cents worth.

   "I do NOT need to hear how my son lusts after some ...  woman," said my
mother.

   "I'm just saying ..." I said.  My dad grinned at me.

   "You two are peas in a pod," my mother snorted.

   "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree," said my dad, sagely.  "It's
only natural he'd pick a woman almost as good looking as his mother."

   "You're laying it on a little thick," said my mother, putting her hands
on her hips.

   "I was hoping I might get lucky ...  later," said my father, innocently.

   "George!" said my mother, flushing again.

   "He knows the deal," said my father.  "Remember?"

   "You are INSUFFERABLE!" squealed my mother.

   "Let's go to the bedroom and talk about it," said my father, smoothly.

   My mother objected vociferously ...  TOO vociferously, if you ask me,
seeing as how she stumbled along with him as he took her hand and led her
toward their bedroom.  She wasn't resisting all that much, and she was beet
red.

   "I'll just go see Gloria," I called out.

   My mother put her free hand over her eyes.  "GEOOOORGE!" she wailed.

   ============================

   Gloria was pacing when I got back.  She looked up in surprise as I
walked in.

   "I didn't think you'd be back so quickly," she said.

   "I think seeing your portrait put ideas in my father's head," I said
grinning.  "He just dragged my mother off to their bedroom."

   "Oh!" she said, bringing her hand up to cover her open mouth.

   "I've never made love with a pregnant woman," I said softly.

   "Ohhhh Bobby," she moaned, rushing to me.  "I was so worried."

   "Let's think about something else," I said, pulling her toward her
bedroom, copying my father.

   ===========================

   It was interesting.  Her bulge was much more prominent naked.  All her
curves were much more visible.  I don't think I've ever seen anything so
sexy as she was, rounded like that.  Just cuddling was hard, so she got on
top of me.  That worked really well.  She had a lot of time to make up for,
and she rode me for over an hour.  I spurted, of course, but she just sat
and rubbed anyway, until I got hard again.  She quoted from my letters. 
She knew all my poetry by heart.

   Her breasts had swollen some, and her nipples were even more sensitive.
She could have an orgasm just from me sucking them, if I did it just right.
Finally she wound down, and we spooned, her back to my front, and my hand
resting on our child.

   "I should have gone on the pill or something," she sighed softly.  "But
I really DID plan to wait until you were actually eighteen.  I thought it
would be just that one time, and I even planned it for when I knew I'd be
safe.  Then you showed up that night, and I found out you were leaving so
soon, and I couldn't think of anything except how badly I wanted to make
love with you."

   "I wouldn't have this any other way," I said into her hair.  "I love
you, and I love her too." I stroked her belly.

   She twisted around to face me.

   "I never wanted children," she said.  "I think something deep inside me
knew I'd made a mistake, even in the beginning, when I married him.  And I
think that made me not want children, because that would complicate
things."

   "I'm sorry," I said, not knowing what else to say.  "I can't help but
love our baby, though."

   "No, you don't understand," she said, kissing my nose.  "When I missed
my period, I just thought it was nerves.  Then there were ...  other signs,
and I missed another one.  I went almost crazy while I waited for my
doctor's appointment.  I couldn't bear to use a home pregnancy test,
because I read they're not always accurate.  And the whole time I was
hoping, almost begging that the doctor would tell me I WAS pregnant.  I
wanted to be pregnant with your baby more than anything else in the world,
Bobby."

   "Why in the world didn't you tell me, then?" I asked.

   "I didn't know how YOU would feel," she said softly.  "You're so young.
I think I still didn't really believe you'd come back to me." Her eyes were
wet.  "But I knew that if I had your baby, I'd always have a little piece
of you.  I didn't plan this, but if I'd have taken time to think about it
...  I probably WOULD have."

   I gave it another shot.  "Are you sure we can't get married while I'm
here?  Just to make it official.  I wouldn't have to adopt the baby then
... and you could still have the ceremony later, when I get back."

   "It's tempting," she said, kissing my nose again.  "I'd love nothing
more than to have your last name."

   "Maybe there's time," I said, hopefully.

   "I'll think about it," she said.  "I'm horny again, thinking about being
your wife."

   We tried it doggy style, this time.  It was fantastic.  Not only could I
play with her hanging breasts, I could stroke our baby too.  I don't think
it was quite as good for her.  She could reach her clit, though, even
though I couldn't, and she shuddered under me twice before I came as hard
as I ever did in my life.

   I couldn't wait to be able to do this any time we wanted to.

   ===================================

   That afternoon we went shopping for rings.  I didn't care what kind I
had, and I didn't care which one she picked.  Her tastes were simple.  I
learned later that her first ring had been garish and flashy, like her
first husband.  She wanted simple this time, because our love was simple,
and straightforward.  Maybe she was thinking about cost too, and the fact
that I wasn't making much money.  I paid five hundred up front, and put the
rest on a credit account.  I didn't tell her the five hundred came from her
graduation gift to me.

   When we brought the ring home, and showed it to my parents, my mother
nodded.  My dad took me to one side, got the information about where we'd
bought it, and the terms, and said I could pay him back.  He went down
there the next day and paid it off.

   We didn't get married that week.  It would have been possible, but it
would have been hectic, and we didn't want hectic.  We also found out she
could list the father's last name on the birth certificate.  We were able
to file a paper with the court that would allow the baby's last name to be
listed the same as mine, and for me to claim parental responsibility. 
Gloria was ecstatic about that, because she really wanted a formal wedding,
rather than some hasty legal joining.

   I spent the first two nights at home, and about half of each day.  On
the morning of the third day, my mother sat down across from me after
breakfast, looking uncomfortable.

   "I don't approve of sex before marriage," she said solemnly.  "But
you're engaged, and she's carrying my grandchild." She looked even more
uncomfortable.  "You should spend more time with her."

   "Thanks," I said.  "We're doing OK.  You're my parents, and this is my
family."

   "I know that," she said dismissively.  "But she needs you too, while
you're here." She looked positively ill.  "Maybe you should sleep ...  over
there." She looked down.

   I reached for her hand and she flinched.

   "Thanks, Mom," I said.  I meant it too, from the bottom of my heart.

   "I can't imagine George ...  sleeping anywhere else," she said weakly.
"Not that I approve, of course."

   "Of course," I said gently.  Now seemed like as good a time as any. 
"Will you check in on her ...  occasionally?"

   "Of course," said my mother.

   "Thank you for that too," I said.  I squeezed her hand.

   "When did you grow up?" she asked, tears in her eyes.  "What was I doing
while you did it?"

   "You were being my mother," I said.  "You did a good job."

   "Obviously not," she whispered.  Her eyes jerked up to mine.  "I didn't
mean that," she said.  "This is just all so new to me."

   "She's really a nice woman," I said.  "If you got to know her, I think
you'd agree."

   "I suppose so," sighed my mother.  "It's hard."

   "You think it was hard for you?" I smiled.  "I was in love with her for
years.  I knew nothing could come of it, but I couldn't stay away from her.
She was very proper, and it drove me crazy."

   "Obviously something came of it," objected my mother.

   "Yes, but neither of us intended that.  Not then.  Now, I'm so happy it
happened that I feel like I'm going to explode.  I knew I was going to come
back and marry her.  I told her so, even before ...  that night."

   "That has a way of lowering a woman's ...  resistance," my mother said,
her mind far away, and a long time back.  "I know that from experience."

   "Mother!" I said.  "Don't tell me you and Dad ...  before the wedding?"

   Her eyes cleared and she flushed bright red.

   "I never said that!" she said, flustered.  "And if you ever tell anybody
we did I'll ...  I'll ...  SPANK you!"

   "Your secret is safe with me." I grinned.  "I guess I did the same thing
...  only worse."

   "Yes!" she said.  "At least your father didn't get me pregnant before we
were married!" Her mouth snapped shut and she covered it with her hand. 
She got so red I thought she was going to faint, but she recovered.

   "Now, I have things to do!  Go on and see her!"

   She jumped up.

   I got up and went around the table to hug her.

   "Thanks, Mom," I said.

   She pushed me away.  "Go on, you've embarrassed me enough for one day."

   =======================

   I spent the remaining nights of my leave in Gloria's bedroom.  I went to
breakfast at my parents each morning, and took Gloria with me the last two
mornings.  It wasn't nearly as tense as I thought it might be.

   I also did one other thing that, thinking back on it, is one of the
greatest things I ever did.  I wanted something to document those glorious
curves on her body, where our first child had swollen her.  I talked her
into having a professional portrait made.  We had to do some shopping
around, but two towns over we found a young woman who had opened a
photography studio after completing college.  She was agreeable to our
request.  She took a number of shots.  My favorite one is of me, standing
behind Gloria.  Both of us were naked.  Gloria was seated, her knees
together, and slightly to one side.  Her sex wasn't visible, though that
little arrow of pubic hair was.  All you could see of me was my naked upper
body, and a sliver of one hip, to show I was as naked as she was.  I was
leaned over, kissing her neck, my hands on her swollen belly.  Her eyes
were closed and she was looking up, her head tilted to one side a little,
to let my lips find her throat.  It wasn't even posed.  I just kissed her,
and the photographer took the shot, seeing it was perfect.

   Then, sadly, I had to go back and finish my tour.

   ============================

   I've spent a lot of time looking at that portrait since then.  She sent
me a five by seven of it, which was my most prized possession, while I was
at Americorps.  I stared at it every night, after I'd talked to her, and
before I wrote something in the weekly letter, and then went to sleep.

   ==========================

   I found out bits and pieces of what happened after I left.  Some of it I
got from my nightly calls to Gloria.  Suzy wrote me a letter, for the first
time in our lives, and told me some of the rest.  My mother never said
anything in our calls, except that "Gloria is doing fine." each time we
talked.  Some of it I found out years later.

   My mother showed up at Gloria's back door, about a week after I was
gone, and I guess they sat down and had a heart to heart talk.  Gloria,
that night, said "Your mother came for a visit.  We had a nice talk." What
I later found out was that that talk went something like this:

   My mother took a plate of cookies over, and tapped on the back door. 
When Gloria answered it, she looked appropriately surprised, and invited
Mom in.

   Over cookies and milk, my mother grilled her on what had happened.

   Gloria described some of the good deeds I had done for her.

   "He was so sweet, and innocent."

   "He didn't stay innocent," my mother said.  "You were a woman of the
world."

   "It wasn't like that, Claire," said Gloria.  "I knew I was attracted to
him, but he was just a young boy.  He was fun to be around because he
didn't treat me like men did."

   "And how was that?" my mother asked suspiciously.

   "Men think that any divorced woman is only looking to get laid," said
Gloria, bluntly.  "I know that you, and all the other women around here
believed that too." She looked steadily at my mother.  "But that wasn't me.
I'd already made one huge mistake.  I wasn't about to make another.  She
slumped.  "I wasn't seeing anybody ...  not that way, I mean.  When I got
so attracted to Bobby, I even tried going out on some dates, but none of
the men I went out with could hold a candle to that young man."

   "Surely he noticed you ...  as a woman," said my mother.

   "Of course he did, but he didn't DO anything about it," said Gloria. 
"He was a complete gentleman.  It made him even MORE attractive!  I
couldn't do anything about it.  He was much too young.  But I couldn't
resist having him around either.  He talked to me.  I was so lonely."

   My mother looked uncomfortable.  "I suppose we treated you badly," she
admitted.

   "Yes you did," said Gloria, again bluntly.  "But HE didn't.  Can't you
see how irresistible that would be?"

   "I suppose so," she said.  "You really waited until his birthday?"

   "He wanted to kiss me goodbye," said Gloria, answering the question
carefully.  "I shouldn't have let him.  When I did, I was swept away. 
Everything inside me broke loose and I was lost.  I know I shouldn't have
done what I did, but I couldn't help it.  My honeymoon wasn't even like
that.  It was like it was my first time, all over again.  He stayed all
night, and I bawled like a baby when he left the next morning."

   My mother looked uncomfortable.

   "He knew what to do?"

   Gloria laughed.  "He was as pure as the driven snow, but he'd talked to
other boys, and I think he'd seen some things on the internet.  Ever since
he stumbled on that portrait, I take it he'd been ...  fantasizing.  He
managed rather well, but he was certainly a virgin, if that's what you're
worried about."

   My mother waved a hand to cool her face.  "This is a bit more ... 
detail ...  than I'm comfortable with."

   "All I can tell you is that he grew up right before my eyes," sighed
Gloria.  "I really didn't intend to do anything like that with him.  It was
fun to think about, but that's as far as I thought it would go.  I didn't
count on him.  That delightful sixteen-year-old boy was suddenly a man, and
the most attractive man I knew.  It took me by surprise too."

   "He said he told you he was going to marry you, even before that," said
my mother, checking my story.

   "Oh, he did that, but I thought he was just dreaming.  I never thought
I'd see him again after he left.  I thought he'd meet some fresh young girl
somewhere, and forget all about me."

   "You're not so ...  forgettable as all that," said my mother.

   Gloria shrugged.  "What woman thinks she'll actually find true
happiness? After my last stupid mistake, and living here where no one would
even talk to me, I just thought my life would go on like that."

   "I'm sorry about that," said my mother.  "We treated you badly.  I've
treated you badly."

   "Bobby even did something about that," said Gloria.  "If it weren't for
him, you wouldn't be here right now.  Things would be the same as they
always were."

   "He is a good boy," said my mother.

   "He's a good MAN," Gloria corrected her.  "I feel like the luckiest
woman in the world."

   "You are," said my mother softly.  "But then again, maybe he's pretty
lucky too."

   ============================

   Thus started the beginnings of a friendship that would haunt me for the
rest of my life.  Gloria and my mother WERE a lot alike, and given time -
and opportunity - they became the best of friends by the time I got back.
They still team up on me.  My Dad and I are alike too.  I only put my foot
down when I think it's really important.

   My mother was there with her when Katherine was born.  I was informed
that, since I didn't ask if I could get her pregnant, I didn't get any say
in the name of the first one.  My maternal grandmother was named Katherine.
Go figure.

   They planned the wedding together, even choosing my tux.  It was
scheduled for the day after I was due to get back from my tour.  I was told
that, without fail, I was to get a haircut two weeks before I came back,
and didn't have the faintest idea why that was so important.

   The wedding went off without a hitch.  There were only twenty-five
guests there, but they were all people we loved, and it was fine.  My
mother held Katherine, who woke up and cried for her mother during the
ceremony.  At three months, she thought the whole solar system revolved
around her.  They even planned for that.  Gloria kissed me, and, while
everybody else went to the reception, she took me to the bride's dressing
room.  She had me unfasten something at the back of her neck, and lowered
the whole front of her wedding gown so she could nurse Katherine, while I
kissed her.  I got my first taste of breast milk ...  well the first I
could remember, anyway.

   ===========================

   I did go to college, but only one semester.  I had made some friends in
Americorps who thought I should investigate the Peace Corps.  When I did,
and it was learned that married couples could participate, Gloria got
interested.  We still didn't have all that many friends in Clinton.  A few
of Mom's closer friends had thawed, but many did not.

   David was our second child, born in Senegal, at a Peace Corps hospital
where Gloria worked.  I was helping three men drill a well when a runner
found me and told me to come quickly.  We both ran five miles to the
hospital, and I made it in plenty of time to find out, first hand, what a
woman goes through for a man, to have his child.

   Tracy, our second son, was born in the Balkans.  We were finally back
home in Clinton, when Stephanie came along.  After that we started taking
assignments solo, so that one of us could stay with the kids.  I did the
first tour, and then came home for a year, after which Gloria did a tour.
The grandparents were heavily involved all through the years, so it worked
out pretty well.  We've done that four times each since then.

   Now, though, Katherine is fifteen.  She doesn't have her aunt to ride
herd on her any more.  Suzy graduated from college, and is about to have her
own baby.  Katherine has made it pretty clear she needs two full time
parents to get through her teens.  So we'll probably take ten years off, to
get all the kids through High School, and then see what we want to do.

   I'm not too worried about finding something to keep us busy when the
kids are all out of the house, though.

   There's always some kind of good deed, just waiting to be done.

   The End
   
