18
...it's a sad, sad situation, and it's getting more and more absurd... Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word (Elton John)

	When I woke up the next morning with a sick feeling in my stomach and a gaping hole in my chest where my heart used to be, all I could do was wonder how long it would take before the cops finally did show up.  There was probably all kinds of paperwork they'd have to fill out first, and the thought of my sweet little Rose, shivering and afraid as she sat across the desk from some big dumb cop as he looked her up and down and asked her humiliating questions, made my blood boil.  Didn't those stupid cops have anything better to do than get their jollies by asking a twelve-year-old girl about her first sex?  But as the day wore on and no cops came, I started to get worried, then even more heartsick.  Where was she?  What was she doing?  What was she feeling?  Was she somewhere alone and scared, crying harder than I had cried last night?
	I was to suffer those questions for more than a week, during which time I didn't see Rose so much as once.  I was afraid to go anyplace where I might see her by accident, so I kept as close to my room as possible.  I was being devoured alive with regret and desire.  I had to know how my little Rose was doing, but I didn't dare try to find out.  Every day I vowed to end it all by going out into the complex and letting Rose find me and make whatever screaming scene she wanted to, letting the frightened residents call the cops to haul me away, letting Fortune have whatever kicks it felt like delivering, and every day the nauseous nervelessness and utter sense of loss peered out from the hole in my gut where they had taken up residence and refused to let me go out there.  The few times I ventured from my room to take care of duties I couldn't avoid, I ran like a maddened thing, sliding around corners and trying to get from one place to another without being seen, my heart threatening to blast itself into a million guilt-stained shreds.
	Self-torture became my constant companion.  When I wasn't trying to picture Rose, my head filled with the nightmares yet to be endured when my dad found out.  I hadn't seen him in over twenty years, not since I left home after school to strike out on my own, but I knew that this would draw him to me, would bring him to see me in jail, so he could lay his revulsion on me, blast me with the firehose of his righteous indignation while I cowered in the corner of my cell.  I even went him one better with my furious self-incrimination, replaying the accusations endlessly in my aching head, until I was ready to rip out my own throat to make it stop.  'You sick MORON.  You IDIOT.  What were you THINKING?  How could you RAPE a twelve-year-old GIRL?  You're a PERVERT.  You're a CHILD RAPIST.  Did that feel GOOD, RAPING that little GIRL?  Hope it feels that GOOD when they CUT your DICK off so you can't RAPE any more CHILDREN, you sick FUCK.'
	One day that week (was it two days after The Encounter?  Three days?  Five days?  the whole week was a nasueous blur), I saw Marjorie at Sav-Rite on 37th.  In fact, she was in line ahead of me at the checkstand, as I waited with the fifteen bags of salt I needed to spread on the complex's sidewalks and she waited with a package of sausages, a box of tampons, and a fifth of Jack Daniels.  I tried to exit the line, but I was trapped by the person behind me.  As I tried to make an excuse and back up, Marjorie looked up and recognized me immediately.  She moved in close to put the now familar hand in the small of my back.  I could smell a faint toxin of alcohol on her breath as she leaned in close to ask if Rose and I had had a fight.  I don't know how I answered her; my brain shut down, so my mouth must have been on autopilot.  Whatever I said, it must have satisfied her, because she backed off saying, "Well, I hope you make it up soon, she's been an absolute terror, ransacking through the apartment, tearing through my stuff like she was looking for something precious."  She gave my arm a half-hearted squeeze and vanished into the night, leaving me standing there trying ferociously to remember why I was in a Sav-Rite checkout lane with a cart full of salt.

19
...if I could reach the stars, pull one down for you, shine it on my heart, so you could see the truth... Change The World  (Eric Clapton)

	The night Rose came back to me was the single greatest joy of my entire life.  It was after 10:00 pm on Sunday and I was sitting in my room in the dark with the door shut, trying to pretend I was anywhere else and anyone else, when I heard her familiar knock.  I had thought I was ready for it, but the sudden prospect of opening the door to see her standing there next to my arrestors filled me with dread.  I turned on the light and opened the door and there she was; alone, sans police; and radiant like I'd never seen her before.  She was wearing lipstick, eyeliner and blush, and as she stepped into my room and whirled to face me, the scent of something sweet filled my head.  She was wearing perfume!  I was so knocked out that I felt my knees start to give, and I had to sit on the cot before I collapsed.  She was wearing her newest jeans and the "Dark Side of the Moon" t-shirt (small enough on her now that her midriff was constantly exposed), and as she leaned over to wrap her hands around my neck, I could see glitter on her shoulders and chest; and I could look down the front of the shirt to see that she wasn't wearing a bra.  The wave of scent that washed over me was a rush of relief that jumped up and slammed into my chest like a wrecking ball.  She closed and locked the door, then turned back to me with a haunted expression.  I could see in her eyes how badly she wanted me to be pleased with her looks and smell.  She had done this for me!  She had listened to my heart and heard it declare that what it ached for most in this world was a friend and a lover divine; the two most precious people in my life; and she had vowed to be both of those people.
	Sinking to her knees before me, she took my hands in hers and squeezed so hard that it almost hurt, as if she were afraid to let go, as if she might never have another chance to hold onto me if she released me.
	"Do you remember what you told me that night?  Right after we did that?  I mean, after we made love, after you, you, you... you ate... ate my pussy?" she asked.  "You said you loved me, like the way a man loves a woman."  I nodded.  "Was it true, Jack?  Did you mean it?  Is it still true?  Do you still love me?  Or do you want me to go away?  If you do, I'll understand Jack, I promise, I'll go, I'll go away and I won't ever bother you again for the rest of your life, but oh God, Jack, please please please before heaven and earth don't say no, I'm begging you please don't say no, don't send me away, Jack, please please please let me stay."
	"Oh my God," I breathed, still reveling in the feeling of release from dread and exulting in the fact that our friendship was not dead, "Rose, my little Rose, you are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen!  Nothing and nobody under heaven is as beautiful to me as you are, and more so at this moment that I ever would have dreamed possible!  Yes, Rose, I do love you.  I do.  I love you."  I took one of her hands and put it through my shirt, resting her palm on the left side of my chest.  She felt the rapid rhythm of my heart against her fingers, and through the layers of blush make-up, I could see a genuine blush, a furious rush of blood, come to her cheeks.  I tried to get the next part out before my tears of relief started falling, but I didn't quite make it.  "Rose, what happened?  Where did you go that night?  I've been worried sick about you, worried literally to death about you."
	"When you said you wouldn't... wouldn't fuck me, I was scared you didn't want me any more.  I was afraid you thought I was just a dumb, confused kid, and I didn't blame you for not wanting to fuck a dumb, confused kid.  But I'm not confused, everything is so clear, I know I'll love you forever, I swear I will.  I know you probably think I'm too young, but I'm old enough to know how badly I want to be your woman.  Even if we can't get married, it doesn't matter, I'll always love you, and it'll always be right.  Don't you remember telling me about Iris?  How you said you'd always love her to your dying day?  And Lilly?  You feel the same about Lilly, too, you said you did."  I nodded briefly, wishing I hadn't told her that.  How was I to know I'd be undercutting myself?  Rose pressed on, "Well it's the same for me!  I'll love you later the way I love you now, so we might as well be together right now!"  She leaped at me and hugged me around the neck, straddling my lap as I sat on the cot.  "You see that, don't you?  You see my love, you have to know how much I love you.  Please let me give you this."  All I could do in response was pull her close and hug her to me as tight as I could.  I laid back on the cot and laid her down beside me, stroking her hair, looking at those soft features that would never look like a child's face to me again, and a huge part of me moaned over that loss.
	"I'm ready now, Jack, as ready as I'll ever be.  Lay with me and love me, put your penis inside me and let me wrap my vagina around you and hold you close down there and make you cum, let me make you feel how much I love you."
	"Rose, telling you yes would give me the greatest pleasure I could hope for in this life, but for right now, you have to let me say No, not yet,"  I whispered, rubbing at my eyes.  "I'm not denying you, please believe that.  You just have to trust me.  We'll know when it's the right moment, we just have to be patient.  I swear to you it's true."  At her look of hope restored, I nodded.  "Yes, we will do it, and when we finally do, you'll understand why it's worth waiting for."
	She snuggled into me, and I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close once more.  The perfume was rich in my nose, and up close I could see how inexpertly the eyeliner had been applied.  It was too much to believe, too much to hope for.  The other shoe had dropped, and it was lighter than a ballerina's slipper.  The governor had called just before the switch was thrown.  I had drawn an orange card from the top of the deck to see my own "Get out of jail free" card.  She was here, now, wrapped up in my arms, and the relief was almost more painful than the ache that had preceeded it.  She buried her face in my neck and kissed my throat, and I was stroking her hair, caressing her back, running my hand hungrily over her soft rump, gently squeezing her thighs.  She giggled and reached down to my crotch.  "I can feel something getting big-ger," she said in a cute little sing-song.  She looked at me earnestly before saying, "Can I see it go from soft to hard?  I want to see how that happens."  I had to smile, knowing I couldn't deny her.
	"Oh, okay," I said in a mock growl of irritation; then, in all earnestness, "hang on, it might take a while to get it soft again, give me a moment," I said, and I laid back and thought of boring things until I felt the erection collapse.  "Okay," I said, "but we have to hurry, it'll probably start getting hard again right away."  I pulled my pants and shorts down to my knees and lay back.  My softness was already starting to leave as a full erection surged back.  She grinned to see it rise like that.
	"OhmyGod, that's like a magic trick," she purred, "that's so cool!  Can I touch it?"  And without waiting for an answer, she reached out to wrap her delicate fingers around the shaft, glancing nervously at me as I groaned from the bottom of my balls.  "What should I do with it?  How can I make you feel good?"  I put my hand on hers and showed her how to stroke the shaft.  She enjoyed that immensely, sitting up so she could use both hands, then leaning down to get a close-up view of what she was doing.  The feeling was incredible, her soft hands were warm and tender, and she was by turns gentle and vigorous.  "Hey, what's this called?" she asked.  "What I'm doing right now, is there a special name for this?"  I said I didn't know how special it was, but it was just called a handjob.  "But it's not a job, it's fun!" she laughed, and I had to laugh with her in spite of myself.  I told her it was also called jacking off.  She sounded it off silently to herself, then gazed at me with amazed humor, stroking me rhythmically and softly chanting, "Jack, Jack, your name is Jack, I love you Jack, I love to jack, I love to jack you off, Jack!"  I could only moan in response, it felt so good to be touched by her that I couldn't have stopped it for anything in the world, and the smell of her perfume just kept rolling over me.
	She paused, then leaned forward and put her hands on my chest to stare earnestly into my eyes.  "You know, it seems like more than half the pictures in your magazine showed those women putting a penis in their mouth, and I really want to do that for you.  Except I don't know what it's called.  If I put your penis in my mouth, is that called eating you?"
	"No, it's called a blowjob," I told her, my sense of shock definitely less than it should have been, and I could see a lightbulb come on over her head, "except you don't blow, you suck on it.  I don't know why it's called a blowjob, it just is."
	"Oh wow," she said, "that's a blowjob?  I heard Brittany use that word when she was talking to some of her posse, she said she gave her boyfriend a blowjob and that it was a big mess, and I had no idea what she meant, and I wasn't about to ask her, but I didn't know who else to ask.  I almost asked you, but I was almost sure it was probably something filthy, and I didn't want you to think I was a filthy girl.  So then, what Brittany meant about the big mess, she must have been talking about her boyfriend cumming.  OhmyGod, do you think he cummed in her mouth?"  Her soft eyes got so big at the thought that I started laughing uncontrollably, but she just ignored my hilarity.  "What happens if cum gets in your mouth?  You can't get pregnant from getting cum in your mouth, can you?"
	"No," I said, after I stopped laughing long enough to catch my breath, "you can only get pregnant if the cum gets in your vagina, if it gets anywhere else, you're safe."  I thought for a few seconds.  "It's also called sucking cock," I added, wondering if she had heard that one too.
	"Sucking cock," she repeated thoughtfully, "a penis is also called a cock," as she touched it reverently.  "I used to hear Brittany use that word all the time, like 'I won't touch his cock until he's taken a shower', and 'I never let him stick his cock in until he's been begging for an hour.'" She pursed her lips thoughtfully and started idly stroking me, then asked, "What it's like to suck cock, what does it taste like?"  I had to tell her I didn't know, but given the difference in smell between a cock and a pussy, and knowing how a pussy tastes, I assumed a cock would taste different.  Rose nodded thoughtfully for a moment, then bent down to breathe on the head.  We both held our breaths for a long second, and then she put her lips on the tip and slowly, slooowly took the whole head into her mouth.  Her tongue was running around the edge, lapping and tasting, and I could see her cheeks moving in and out as she sucked.  The sensation was unbelievable, and I could only groan helplessly, "Oh God, oh God, ohmyGod."  She kept it up for long minutes, working her way farther and farther down the shaft, until she had half the length in her mouth, her ponytail bobbing up and down as she sucked and sucked and sucked, until I reached the point when I knew I would only last for a few more seconds.  I stopped her by gripping her shoulder and pushing her back.  "What's wrong?  What did I do wrong?" she worried.
	"Nothing, sweetheart, you were doing great.  But we have to go a little slower, that's all.  We have to save some for later.  You were about to make me cum."  Her eyes flew open at the thought of her success.
	"You're kidding," she said, "you mean you were going to cum in my mouth?"
	"I would have, if you'd kept it up," I told her.
	"Then why did you stop me, Jack?  I want you to cum in my mouth, I want to make you cum like you made me cum."
	"Let's not think about that just yet, we have to take it slow and enjoy the wait, enjoy exploring each other and taking our time.  Here, let me give you a massage.  Oh God, Rose, I do love you, I swear I do."
	I slowly pulled her shirt over her head, stopping after it was off to admire her hard nipples and the glitter sparkling across her chest.   I pulled up and fastened my pants with some difficulty, stripped off my shirt, then slowly, teasingly slowly, I undid her pants and pulled them off, rolling her over on her stomach.  As I rubbed her shoulders and neck, she began making little animal moans of pleasure.  Her perfume was rich in my nose, and I lay down on top of her, burying my nose in her hair, kissing and nibbling her neck.  I started kissing my way down to the small of her back, then moved down to her ankles and kissed my way slowly up her legs, until I was gently licking the backs of her thighs.  I rubbed her beautifully rounded butt through the panties for a bit, then slipped underneath to continue rubbing.  She helped me slip the panties off, and as she lay there naked before me, I showed her what it felt like to have someone kiss her butt.  The gentle globes of her ass were tenderly delicious, and the soft, earthy smell between them was a magical aphrodisiac in it's own right.  At first, she clenched her ass cheeks together, trying to keep me out, not quite understanding what was going on, or why I was plowing my lips so deeply into the crack.  As my tongue made first contact, she suddenly relaxed with an almost soundless "ooooohhhhhhhhhh", and I gently pulled the cleavage aside to get my first glimpse of the puckered little rosebud of her rectum.  My tongue was doing all the work now, swirling around the hole, darting over it, gently gently gently penetrating the opening, and Rose made a series of little "ahh, ahh, ahh" noises, each one the punctuation of one of my tongue stabs.  As this was going on, my fingers were inching ever closer to her moist vagina, and as I touched the lips, it felt like she was getting ready to let loose a flood.  My erection was as hard as it had ever been in my life.
	The sound of the clubhouse door opening and someone walking back toward the pool threw us into a blind panic.  I pulled my shirt on and struggled to get my erection to go away, and Rose pulled on her panties and pants even faster than the other time I had seen her pull them on like that.  By the time the footsteps reached us, we were both fully dressed and sitting on opposite sides of the room from each other.  As we feared, there was a knock on the door.
	"Brent, have you seen Rose?" Marjorie asked from the other side of the door.  Rose's hands flew up to her mouth and she looked petrified.  I leaned over, put my mouth against her ear, and whispered so quietly that she could barely hear me, "It's okay, sweetheart, just be cool, I know you can do this."  Then to the locked door, "Yes, I have seen Rose."  I swung open the door and jerked a thumb over my shoulder, blocking Marjorie's view of her daughter to give Rose time to compose herself.  "She's in here with me, we've just been shooting the breeze.  She didn't tell me she had any certain time she had to be home, is she in trouble?"
	"Oh God no," Marjorie laughed, slurring her words almost imperceptibly, "I just didn't want to win any Worst Mother awards by not knowing where my child is this late on a school night.  I'm relieved to know she's with you, it's comforting to know she's here instead of out causing trouble."  Marjorie put a hand on my shoulder to lean around me and look in at Rose, and for the first time, I felt her breasts pushing up against my chest.  I glanced over my shoulder and was gratified to see Rose looking completely normal and relaxed.  "Rose, honey, it's very late, come on home now, I'm sure Brent needs his rest too, don't overstay your welcome."
	"Don't be silly," I said, a little too loudly, "Rose is welcome here anytime day or night, for as long as she likes."  Marjorie glanced at me just a shade too sharply for comfort, but then she just smiled and, as God is my witness, she ruffled my hair as she said, "Well don't be a stranger, feel free to drop over whenever, I know Rose would be glad of the company after ages and ages of her old battleaxe mom."  Rose made a face and stuck out her tongue at Marjorie, and the relief of being able to laugh at this was so intense that I knew I was in danger of becoming hysterical.   Marjorie wished me a good night, and Rose and I stood there in the door watching her stagger ever so slightly as she made her way out.
	When we were back in my room with the door closed behind us, Rose took my hand and put it on her chest, under her shirt.  I thought at first it was an overture to lovemaking, but then I felt her heart doing a staccato triphammer in her ribcage, and I knew she was sharing her terror with me.
	"It's okay, baby, everything's okay now."  I held her close, stroking her hair and cooing softly.  "You see?  We must have a guardian angel."  Rose made a noise that seemed perfectly balanced between a hearty laugh and a mournful sob.
	"Oh God, Jack, I love you so much it feels like my heart's going into meltdown.  I love you, I love you, please make it so we can be together.  Please make everything be okay so we can be like this always.  I've got so much love in my heart, I feel like I'm going to burst."  All I could do was sigh.  When she finally pulled away, she grabbed my neck to pull my mouth down to hers, for the most soulful and sincere kiss I've ever had, before or since.  After she was gone, I paid a visit to the shower, to clean off and give myself release; the release I hoped to be able to share with her sooner or later.  If we were able to tap dance our way through this minefield, that was.