“Must be nice.”
“Nah. They’re like your breasts. They look good on you.”
“Don’t even say it,” Brooke warned Christy.
I capped the tube and returned it. “Are we ready?”
“I suppose,” Christy said.
“Do you remember our cover story?”
“No offense, Chris,” Brooke said, “but let Paul and me handle it.”
“Ugh! Fine.” Then she thought about it and reluctantly nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right. My mom’s kinda scary now that I know how much she notices.”
“Do you think she’ll figure out what we’ve been up to all afternoon?” Brooke asked.
“I doubt it,” Christy said, and I didn’t have the heart to contradict her.
“’Cause I was thinking,” Brooke added. “Maybe we can come back here after dinner. I… um… know a certain guy who isn’t a sexist jerk. If he’s interested, I thought maybe I’d have sex with him.”
“Oh, he’s interested,” I said as I put the car in gear. “He’s very, very interested.”
Chapter 25
The weather was so nice that we ate dinner with Christy’s parents on the screen porch. The temperature only dropped into the low sixties after the sun went down, which was perfect for sitting outside.
“You got some sun today,” Christy’s mother said to her. “Your cheeks are pink.”
She hadn’t gotten any more than the rest of us. Her cheeks were pink because she was still flushed from her intense orgasm. She couldn’t exactly admit that, so she tried to come up with an excuse on the fly. Fortunately, Brooke beat her to it.
“Paul and I wore sunscreen,” she said. “Li’l Miss Melanin here tans at the drop of a hat.”
“I’m the same,” Anne said. “My mother used to try to keep me inside when I was younger. Back then, ‘proper young ladies’ didn’t look like they worked outside. They were supposed to be pale, with creamy smooth skin.”
“They still are,” Harold said. “Or, they should be.”
“Oh, don’t be a stick-in-the-mud,” she told him fondly.
He shrugged at the admonishment, which he’d obviously heard before. Then he changed the subject and asked, “Who’s ready for whiskey?”
“We were thinking of maybe going back to Brooke’s house,” Christy ventured.
“Sick of us already?”
“Oh, Daddy, please. You know we aren’t. We… um… want to look at the stars.”
Brooke suppressed a grimace as we both had the same thought. The stars were the same for hundreds of miles in every direction, so one place was just as good as another. Harold knew it too. He frowned and started to ask a question.
“She means the Hollywood kind,” Brooke said quickly.
“We want to watch a movie,” I added, and Brooke relaxed. We worked well together, especially where Christy was concerned.
“Oh,” Harold said. “Something on TV tonight?”
“No, on VHS,” Brooke said. “Flashdance.”
Harold and Anne only had two televisions in the whole house—in their bedroom and in Anne’s day room—and neither of them had a VCR or even cable.
“Sure, go have fun,” he said, but Anne cleared her throat in the vocal equivalent of a kick under the table. “On second thought,” he said, “why don’t you stay here tonight.”
“We haven’t seen you all day,” Anne chimed in. “Brooke, dear, would you like to spend the night again?”
“Sure. Thanks, Mrs. C.”
“We should probably walk Brooke back to her house,” I said in a last-ditch effort. “You know, to pick up some fresh clothes.”
“Of course,” Harold agreed.
“Didn’t you want to talk to Paul?” Anne said to him.
“Oh, right! The cabin.”
I felt like we were in a tag team wrestling match, and our team was losing, even with the extra person. Brooke must have decided the same thing. She’d known Christy’s parents longer than I had, after all.
“C’mon, Chris,” she said. “Your dad obviously wants to talk to Paul about something.”
“Right you are.” He glanced at Anne before he turned back to me and said, “We bought a piece of property up by Lake Tahoe. We want to build a vacation house on it, big enough for family to use too.”
“The whole family?” I said.
“Oh, heavens, no,” Anne said.
“Not at once,” Harold agreed. “Not unless we want to hot-rack and sleep in shifts. But more than just a one-room cabin.”
I looked at the girls. “You go on. We can watch the movie some other time.”
Christy sat up and protested, “But—”
“I don’t know if I could stay awake anyway,” I told her. “I’m still worn out from last night. Not to mention the zoo all afternoon.”
“We didn’t get much sleep either,” Brooke agreed.
Christy couldn’t argue with both of us. “Fine,” she muttered.
“We’ll be back shortly,” Brooke said to the rest of us. They stood and left through the screen door, and some perverse part of me wanted to congratulate Anne on how thoroughly she’d outmaneuvered us.
“I’ll take care of the dishes and clean the kitchen while you talk,” she said.
I handed her my plate and then Christy’s and Brooke’s, and she smiled her thanks.
“I’m serious about a drink,” Harold said to me. “It’s a nice night, though, so I think we’ll stay out here.”
“What,” I teased, “no interrogation in your office?”
He shot me a dirty look that was the prototype of Christy’s. “Don’t push your luck, son. I still haven’t given you permission to date my daughter.”
“Oh, Harold,” Anne laughed as she disappeared into the house, “that ship has sailed!”
* * *
Sometime in the middle of the night, my bedroom door opened and then closed softly. I struggled to wake up as Christy lifted the covers and slid into bed. I scooted over to give her room. She was nude, and her body felt warm and soft next to mine.
“Fancy meeting you here,” I mumbled.
“I know, right?”
“What time is it?”
“A little before fellatio.”
I chuckled and wasn’t the least bit surprised when she slid her hand under the waistband of my boxers. She stroked my hard-on to life while I finished waking up.
“Couldn’t sleep?” I said at last.
“No. Take these off.”
“Insistent little thing, aren’t you?” Still, I lifted my hips and slid the shorts down my legs until I could kick them off.
“So sue me. Or use me. Or let me use you. Mmm, penis. But if you must know, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I sort of need you. Like, I can’t relax.”
“Did you and Brooke…?”
“Of course. And for the record, sometimes it still feels weird to talk about sex like this. See? I even called it ‘sex.’ Are you proud of me?”
“Very.”
She picked up right where she’d left off. “But it isn’t the same with her. She gets inside my head like you do, but the rest is… I dunno… softer. I never thought I’d need anyone like I need you. And I don’t just mean emotionally and spiritually. It’s physical too.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Do you? Really?”
“I think so. This is probably gonna sound weird, but it’s like when I have a hard-on.”
“Mmm, like now.”
“Right. I feel… an urge. It’s like a yearning, but that’s more poetic than the real feeling.”
She shrugged. “I just think, ‘I need him.’ And I don’t mean your penis. I need all of you. But sometimes, like now…”
“You need penis more than anything?” I was teasing her, but only a little.
“Yes, Mr. Smug.”
“That’s okay,” I chuckled. “I need you too.”
“Sometimes I’m not so sure,” she said a little grumpily. “I’m still a little scared about you going all the way with Brooke. That’s one of the reasons I couldn’t sleep. I kept imagining it. I get really hot and slippery when I think about it. Although I still wonder what’d happen if you like her better than me.