JZL11_10R: Afterword - Life Lessons from Sitting In A Tree

Usual disclaimer:  This story involves sexual subject matter.  If you aren't old
enough to read this, go home!

Copyright by Jeff Zephyr (jeffzeph@hotmail.com) 2003.  Please don't distribute
in an altered form, or with any charges for acquisition.

Eleven, I get to actually experience this thing called sex. - by Jeff Zephyr
(jeffzeph@hotmail.com) 2000-2003.


JZL is my life story series.  You can find out more about the entire series at
http://www.asstr.org/~jeffzephyr/jzlstories.html, and more of year 11 at
http://www.asstr.org/~jeffzephyr/jzleleven.html.  This episode is at
http://www.asstr.org/~jeffzephyr/JZL11_10_Sitting_in_a_Tree_FUCKING.html.
     



JZL11_10: Sitting in a Tree on Saturday: F U C K I N G!
 (mf mff ff oral rom) by Jeff Zephyr

Coding note: The participants in this story are age twelve, or almost twelve.  If I
was going to tell a fictional story of young love, I'd advance them to age thirteen. 
Why?  Because that makes them teenagers, not preteens, so they get to use the m
and f codes.  But we were slightly precocious, doing things maybe a year or so
ahead of "schedule."  Yet I think that our interaction was much like that of
teenagers, not little kids.  Real people develop at different speeds, and some of
them mature early.

JZL11_10 Sitting in a Tree on Saturday is a very long "chapter" in my life story. 
It only covers one day, but it is a very eventful day for us, with a wide range of
activities.

Sherry and Jeff...... Sitting in a Tree.  F U C K I N G!  (on Saturday)

JZL11_10J-Q: Whatever happened after your honeymoon?
 .... the stuff after our nap...

- 10 R - One extra part...         




JZL11_10R: Afterword - Life Lessons from Sitting In A Tree
(nosex)



  Unconditional love.

As a child - even as a teenager - this seems like a natural situation.  What you
love, you love without reservation or qualification.  It seemed entirely natural to
me to fall in love with my friends, and to declare our intentions to be in love with
each other forever.

I never wanted to hate anyone.  This is a reasonable accompaniment to the faith in
love I felt, but it was more than just that.  I didn't enjoy the feelings of rage and
anger which came with hate.

My friends accepted me, unconditionally.  I'd confessed to doing some strange
things, and they'd done the same.  We were closer than before, knowing that our
secrets were safe together.

It was all playing.  Kids play.  Everyone knows that.  But like Peter Pan, I had no
desire to give up on playing when I got older.  It was just too much fun.

I had friends to share this goal with.  Sex and love were a very fun sort of playing. 
Not nearly so much fun to play in solitude, you need someone to share it with for it
to work right.


This feeling is so special that I couldn't resist celebrating it in my story.  Instead of
just doing a short, simple tale of the events of this day, I had to get into deep
detail.  To wallow in the pleasure of discovery, of sex, sensuality, love, and faith.  





Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Deep dark depression, excessive misery - 

  - Hee Haw TV Show, 1969-1993, "Gloom, Despair and Agony" skit theme.

  TV comedy makes it easy to look at the saddest things in a light, happy way.  But
real life depression and despair isn't the same at all.

One thing I don't emphasize in my story is my general state of depression.  Mostly,
that is because the cause was primarily my parents, and whatever your interactions
with your parents are, they are just ordinary, everyday events.  That is, if it
happens most days.  Adults call kids who behave like this "moody," but away from
home, I was often happy and playful.

My parents weren't consistent, but the bad times made up for a lot of good ones.  I
tried to harden my heart against the bad situations, to make myself indifferent or
even hateful, especially to my father.  But somehow, they'd always do something
to make me soften, or I'd remember something nice.  Plus like most kids, the really
bad events would be forgotten quickly as new things occurred.   We are all rather
resilient that way, fortunately.

I don't blame my parents for this, but only because I can look back and realize that
they were very screwed up themselves.  Plus the 1950s attitude of self-reliance,
and a dislike for seeking counseling, let alone psychiatric advice, meant that even if
they did realize there were problems, they couldn't do much about it.  Most
important, few people, especially those addicted to alcohol, can easily recognize
that their own life has problems which need such help.

As a kid, I didn't know about all of this.  I simply saw my parents being
unreasonable, mean, and overall, dangerous and untrustworthy to us kids.  I
increasingly avoided spending time with them.  At home, that meant being in my
room as much as possible, door closed.  I spent time out with friends as much as I
could.

I adored school as well.  There, the kids liked me, the teachers approved of me,
and I was somebody who fit in.  I knew pretty much where I belonged, and I was
loved there.  So unlike so many kids, I hurried to get off to school, and enjoyed
myself there completely.

Discount the sex.  My girlfriends were my friends, first and always.  The sex part
has a lot of nice benefits.  It makes it easy to feel close, makes intimacy easier.  For
me, it was always antidepressive, and doing it with someone else blows away
solitary action.

Yet I could have been totally happy without that.  At least, at age eleven, I
wouldn't have minded it at all if all we did was just hang around together and talk. 
It made me happy.  Being in love really did that, more than just the sex parts.  Sex
is just a wonderful way to show love, but it isn't actually love itself.

So when I decided that we could grow up and live together forever, it was an
obvious choice.  Yet it was also a strongly life-changing one.  I knew perfectly
well that we couldn't just go off and get married, not for a long while.  Over six
years, at least 2191 days  - I liked math and figured stuff like that in my head all
the time.

No, what I decided was that I really was going to make a life away from my
parents.  One which would be happy and loving, not filled with anger, hate,
confusion, and despair.  Most important, one which would treat our children well,
no chaotic anger.

It wasn't that my parents were intentionally mean.  They weren't sadistic, though
many of the punishments we received fell somewhere into that area.  The intent
was discipline, usually, or sometimes unreasoning anger, especially if they were
drunk.

Looking back, and knowing more than I did then, I know that my parents were
terribly unhappy.  Very close to divorce, and if it wasn't for having a new baby -
making four kids to feed, not easy to cope with at all for them - and the 1950s no-
divorce logic, they might have done it.   As a kid, what I learned from it was to
avoid them as much as possible, not knowing the reason for their actions or anger.

 
We were smarter than our parents, and wiser.  I felt I had good reason to make
that judgement, based on my school report cards and things like that.  And if we
were as good as we thought we were, our dream of a lifetime together could come
true.


I'd like to believe that we weren't naive.  That if we simply could stay together, we
could be together and be happy together.  Our childish "simplicity" wasn't the
result of ignorance, but of optimism.

 
I had one day which made me very happy, and I believed that I would have many
more.  Lots more, the rest of my life.

A way out of my miserable life.

A future so bright, I'd have to wear shades.

OK, Timbuk 3's song is an anachronism here.  But the thought applies.  My
friendship was my future, and I could see where I'd be when I grew up.  Not every
kid thinks so far ahead.  On my own, I don't know if I would have.


When I began writing about the day in the park, I didn't expect it to be such a long
story.  When I finished the first take on it, I felt that there was a lot missing.  I
could remember all the intense happiness, but my story dwelt on the basic facts.

I wasn't happy with that, so I created a new, in depth version.  I had the chance to
explore the memory of that day, and enjoy it all over again.  I hope that you can
enjoy it too, and maybe it will remind you of some happy times in love or
childhood.



My Girls:

I was blessed by having girlfriends who were enthusiastic about sex.

Girls like sex.

Just like boys.

By that, I mean, have you ever noticed how some boys get into playing video
games, or sports, or playing with their car, or watching TV, or just drinking beer,
and never seem to find time to actually have sex, despite having a willing and
interested partner available?

My girlfriends didn't play hard to get, or tease about wanting sex.  No guilt, either,
once we started.  It was good, and we were in love, so we were just going to do it.

If we got together, that is.  The circumstances which made that all work just
happened, luck or fate, not the result of intense effort.  We were friends, and
moving from friendly early-teen romance to love was a big leap.

I've known a lot of girls since then, and you probably know how it often goes. 
You go out, you maybe make out after a few dates if you're lucky, and if things go
really well, you get close enough to have sex.  If you're very lucky, you fall in
love.  

Only if things go perfect do you get sex, love, and intimate trust in one easy
package.

Getting three girls at once for that was a miracle.  The times mattered a lot.  It was
OK to have sex.

No STDs were a threat.  At our ages, we knew of a few but didn't expect to get
them from each other, and none were deadly.  No AIDS yet anywhere. Sex was a
wonderful thing, and the Pill meant that pregnancy was preventable.

Jealousy was a bad thing.  Some other set of girls would have brought jealousy
into the situation quickly.  Changing it, maybe ruining it, but not allowing a shot at
the ideal, dreamy lifetime of love with multiple partners.


Is there fate?

Jody doesn't play a big role in the love story, but she was critical to making it
happen.  It wasn't so much that her breasts were huge.  It was that she was new,
and an easy target for my new feelings of lustful affection.  Any girl can enjoy
having a boy, especially a sort of popular boy, pay attention to her.

Her body development was not a sign of her emotional maturity.  Or maybe she
just wasn't interested in me as a boyfriend, not knowing what to do if we got
closer than flirting on the playground.

Her Valentine's Day rejection of me exposed me as a boy interested in romance.
Everyone in my class talked about my embarrassment with Jody.  Sherry and
Maureen knew about my romantic side, but only in the familiar way we always
interacted.  We became closer, more romantic, and though it was nowhere near to
sex, our casual preteen romance was aimed at turning into something serious.

It may have taken a few more years, if not for Annie.

She was fun to play with, energetic, and unlike a lot of girls, interested in more
active athletics.  A tomboyish sort of girl.  I was happy to have her as a playmate,
but I'd revealed my romantic side to everyone.  She liked me, I liked her.  Those
words mean a lot to a 6th grader.

So on that day we walked into the woods, it was easy to let that feeling of
affection turn into something more.  But what made it happen?

Neither of us planned the event in advance.  The weather was right for it to work -
a sudden downpour, or someone coming along to interrupt us, and it would have
ended fast, the mood ruined. 

Everything else flowed from that one event.  I can't know what would have
happened otherwise.  But I figure that it would have been quite some time before
any of us got close enough for making out kissing, or "playing doctor," let alone
having sex. 

The desire was there.  The girls wanted it, and so did I.  But turning the fantasy
desire of sex into a relationship isn't all that easy.  Most of you probably have
noticed that.   If it goes well, the feeling is right, and it just happens.  If not, it is
hard to breach the barrier between friendly romance and sex.


Kissing is oral sex.  If you do it right, it is every bit as good as other sorts of sex,
and you get to do it in public.  The way I began kissing girls, in the deep wet hot
fashion, linked the sensation forever to sex itself.  I learned to enjoy the sensation,
and for Sherry and Maureen and I, it was often the only way we could make love -
unlike with Annie and me.


Boobie Ratings:

You know that a girl is growing up when she gets her boobies.  A girl with a flat
chest is still just a kid, but if she needs a bra, it means she's turning into a real
woman.

Or so some people think.  But my results were very different.

Jody was a nice looking blonde girl.  Short, she was shorter than many of the
others in our class, but her chest wasn't small at all.  As I was a tall boy, this
combination made for an interesting view when I stood in front of her.

I suspect that her boobie size encouraged her to flirt, in self defense.  Older boys,
maybe even men, tend to tease young girls about how they look. Or stare at them,
drooling over the shape.  For a twelve year old, that sort of attention is confusing.

Other boys in class teased her sometimes, but I felt an immediate attraction, and
chased her romantically.  In retrospect it seemed silly.  I had two fine girlfriends. 
Except that our relationship seemed stuck on friendship and play romance, and I
hit the point in my life cycle of wanting more.

Jody didn't give me that.  Some pushy boy might have found a way to seduce her,
but I accepted her rejection of romance and moved on.

Annie, Maureen, and Sherry.  That is the order, if you're counting sexiness by bra
size.  Annie needed none, and probably wouldn't for a few years.  She had a thin,
boyish body, like a younger girl.  But inside, she wasn't like that.

In a year or two, the girls would all look like young women, no longer little kids. 
Sex objects, because all of the characteristics would be there.  But the desire for
sex came before the body parts and hair grew, in all of us.  Maybe, in a lot of kids
it works like that?

It makes me feel a bit funny to mention the differences in sexual development in
my story.  At the time, I noticed it, but didn't think that it was anything unusual. 
Girls and boys both were going through changes, and I was in no hurry to find
more mature females to examine.

Stand us in a row, naked.  Annie would be the shortest of us, a girl with a bright
smile, green eyes, straight brown hair, and a straight flat body.  No boobies, just
nipples starting to plump out.  Barely any body hair, inspiring an attraction for the
hairless look for life.

She hadn't even had her first period yet.  Her waifish tomboy look, her tendency to
wear pants - even if one time it was very short sexy hot pants  -- and her exuberant
participation in sports, made her seem like a poor candidate for dating and
romance, let alone sex play.

Inside, where you couldn't see it, she burned with lust and love.  A secret wanting,
and once it was revealed, she was irrepressible.  Our romance did revolve around
our sex lives, but we had little private time at this point for anything else.  She
made sure to get together with me almost every day, while Sherry and Maureen
managed almost two weeks without seeming to die of horniness.

I was the tallest.  I wasn't the tallest boy in my class, but it was close.  My height
was all long legs and thin body, which made me feel awkward and clumsy.  My
growing hadn't caught up evenly yet.  I don't tend to describe myself much in the
story, because I simply didn't pay that much attention to those details.  I knew
what I looked like, after all.

Brown hair, brown eyes, a kind looking - nice boy look - rounded face, and at
school I smiled a lot.  Naked, while Annie called my sex organs big, I don't think
they were exceptional for someone my size.  It is just that I was bigger than most
kids my age, and it was only natural that all of me would be a bit larger than most
twelve year olds.

My body hair took a while to grow in.  I wasn't as bare as Annie, but it was still no
big bushy deal yet.  I think the girls appreciated that, because the hair can get in
the way for oral sex, at least until you practice it a bit.

Sherry and Maureen were a matched pair.  They weren't identical at all, but
together they were amazing.   Sherry's ordinary sort of light brown hair and brown
eyes meant that she looked like a lot of other girls, while Maureen's curly red hair
and light complexion, coupled with her amber eyes - almost blue-green in spots -
made her stand out as unique in our group.  Standing together, you could see the
connection between them, and that made them a perfect match.


Sherry's boobies were big enough to deserve a bra, yet I barely noticed them until
I saw her naked.  I was used to her, had watched her grow up like that, and it
wasn't special - until I saw them uncovered.

Maureen's breasts were still tiny, and she could easily have skipped a bra.  Yet her
pubes were fluffy, looking very mature, while Sherry's were covered with only a
soft bit of fuzz, covering no details, just giving decoration to the area.  It wouldn't
be long before both of them grew to have similar body elements.

I was lucky to see them when they weren't so closely matched.  The visible clues
of sexual maturity, big boobies and plump pubes, seemed to have no relation to
how the girls acted about sex.  Nor did it affect how I enjoyed myself with them.

Looks didn't matter so much either.  I considered them all beautiful, but being in
love can do that.  Objectively -  well, I couldn't be objective.  But much of beauty
is judged in the face, with the body adding only a few points - or taking them away
- for the right curves or lack thereof.  Clothing covers most of that in public
anyway, so we judge the quality of our prospective dates by their faces.



Don't know much about history
Don't know much about biology -

- What A Wonderful World It Would Be, Sam Cooke.

I couldn't exactly relate to that song.  I believe in love, and had found it, but I
didn't need to try to be an A student.  Nor did Maureen.  Sherry and Annie had to
work some, but we were all pretty good at school work.

Working on school projects was part of what made us closer.  We could find ways
to play together outside of school, but showing off our brains wasn't so easy there. 

I liked being a smart kid.  In school, that was a good thing, usually.  Despite a little
teasing about being "Teacher's Pet," everyone respected us for knowing things,
and being able to figure out stuff.

I could talk with my friends about ideas, and they could come up with their own
answers.  We weren't equal in all subjects, so we helped each other out, covering
the weak spots.  Together, we were better students than we could have been
separately.

Turning that cooperative friendship into something closer took time.  But we had
the time.  Sherry and Maureen spent time with me every school day, and we
walked home after school, often staying at Sherry's house to play.  I didn't do the
same much at Maureen's - her parents didn't encourage her to have a boy over as
often.

But I was a safe boy.  Smart, bookish, A+ student, an achiever.  Obviously, I had
no interest in girls in a romantic way.  I could be their friend, and that was the
important part of it all.  At least, that is how parents looked at me.

Sherry's mom didn't have a problem with me stopping over before she got home. 
I hadn't done that since we started having sex, because I was worried that our
obvious attraction - and kissing - would be noticeable.  But at Sherry's house, I
felt that I was accepted as a good "little friend," not someone bad, dangerous, or
stupid.

Annie didn't tease me much about my problems with sports.  Specifically, baseball
or other ball games.  I didn't know it at the time, but the reason I couldn't catch
the ball was because it is hard to grab something which is just a blur.  My vision
was bad, and nobody seemed to notice that.

Annie and I could hang around and talk about a lot of things.  A lot of girls didn't
play with boys so much anymore, but she and I did, and we always had fun
together.

 


They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot -

   - Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan. 

   Not the Counting Crows.  Their version is sweet and bright, and lacks the soul
of the original.  It is nice, but there is *nothing* happy about running over paradise
with a steam roller.

Times change.

But is change for the better?

Last summer - 2002 - we had a chance to visit my old home town, and spent a
little while exploring my old hangouts.  There were a lot of big changes.  It has
been over twenty years, so that was to be expected.

I wondered if we could find the treehouse.  Probably not, after all that time.  Even
if the tree was still around, the boards of the house would be rotted and gone.
     

The park was more open.  They'd cut a lot of the little trees and bushes down.  It
made it easier to see through it, and perhaps gave a bit more room to play.  But
there was no place to hide, or not much anyway.

The woods by the park with the treehouse?  An office building and parking lot.

I could have dared it, but there was a no-trespassing sign.  Part of the forest was
still there, but my best recollection would put the treehouse somewhere near the
building.  Long gone, no chance to look at it at all.

The spot where we skinny-dipped by the lake?  It was past that office area a ways,
but obviously still private property, with a fence all around.  

In any case, as always you couldn't get there along the water's edge.  You *had* to
go up top, which meant trespassing on the office building's place.

Of course, as kids we were probably "trespassing" when we did it.  Undeveloped,
but not unowned.  It wasn't part of the public park, which made it even more fun
for private pleasures.  The regular park visitors didn't bother with it at all.

Though it was July when we visited my home town, we saw few people in the
park, and none by the shore at all.  If we were brave enough, we could have
stripped and gone skinny-dipping.  It was tempting.  But we weren't kids, and we
could find a private place just fine when we went home.  It was nice for a kiss,
remembering what happened not so far away in distance.

The lake itself looked much the same.  A bit dirtier, more trash around, but not
that different at all.  The rickety stairs was replaced with a fine, solid, easy to climb
walkway that anyone could use.  The paths, as I mentioned, were clearer, easier to
walk on and also easier to spot anyone on or near them.


The treehouse in the woods had been delightfully isolated.  If it hadn't been, we'd
never be able to spend a whole day there, hanging around naked and making love,
without someone interrupting.   

The little woods where Annie and I first got naked together wasn't quite as
isolated.  But the spot we picked inside it was about as secure.  In two weeks of
meeting there every weekday, not once had we been interrupted.  We could see the
sky, but no one could see us, and our hiding spot wasn't on one of the clearer
paths.

When I drove by it to look, it fit that song.  Our paradise place was turned into a
parking lot for a strip mall.  What if I asked Annie go behind the mall with me and
get naked?

Nope, even if we might find a dumpster to hide behind, I just wouldn't have felt
safe doing that.  Sex just would have had to wait for us, to find someplace private.

The forest along the railroad tracks, with all its bushes and nice hiding places?  

They paved that over too.  It is a highway now.  Can you imagine dashing across
that in the nude, or even just dodging the fast moving cars with your clothes on?


All that isolation gave us room to discover things for ourselves.  Our parents gave
us the freedom to do that as well.  We could go off for hours, and no one worried
all too much about it.  The neighborhood was quite safe, and overall we were
pretty good kids.

So maybe, we used some of that freedom to do mischief.  Maybe some would say
that going off, making love, and falling in love so young counts as mischief.

We did use the places for other things.  I didn't bring some of it up, because it has
little impact on the story about sex and love.  Our little hiding-place "forts" were
nice for looking at porn mags - even Playboy - without risk of parents finding us. 
We tried cigarettes, but I hated them and didn't bother trying them again for a long
while.  Peer pressure, you know?  It is hard to say no to "Just try it, you might like
it."    We drank beer, but not much of that either.  My dad had lots of it from his
friends at the brewery.  I took mostly the darker German-style ones, because they
tasted better warm.  We only took bottles from the cases in the garage, not out of
the refrigerator - our parents might notice those, while extra empties in the case
would never be spotted.

None of that stuff was noticed at all.  I trusted our secret places to be secret. 
When we used them for making love, I felt that they were secure, as good as being
behind a locked door.  Far less likely to be caught by our parents than doing it in
anyone's house.


Where will the kids in the city find to go for their private needs now?  I imagine
there must be some places, but none of my favorites remain.  It was easy then to
go off and do anything, no one to get in the way.  I could find my freedom, and
with my friends, we charted our own path to freedom and love for our futures.

               
  
 

  The Dream:

I had a recurrent dream.  Lots of people do, you know, where you're outside
naked.  Or flying.  This particular one kicked in around the time of this story.

I can't pinpoint this one to this weekend, but sometime around then, I dreamt about
flying around naked.  Swooping, floating, landing in front of friends and talking.

It wasn't embarrassing at all.  The usual "naked at work or school" dreams are
always scary and humiliating.  You can't get away, somehow you can't run.

I could float away at will, but I didn't need to run.  I was happy being naked. 
People liked seeing me like that.  I could be with my girlfriends, and we could fly
around free, naked, and in love.

  



-- 
                                        
Copyright by Jeff Zephyr (jeffzeph@hotmail.com) 2003.

 Please don't distribute in an altered form, or with any charges for
acquisition.

If you liked this story, want to put it in a free collection, want to
tell me how I could write better, or just say hello, write to me at my
hotmail address. 



You can find more of my stories and other things at my website:

http://www.asstr.org/~jeffzephyr/

or via FTP:

ftp://ftp.asstr.org/pub/Authors/jeffzephyr/

