I reached out toward Kristen. "I want to be your friend, too. I know I made you do some bad…"
Kristen put her finger to my mouth, shushing me. "I forgave you, Jim."
"Kristen, I want you to know…"
This time, Kristen silenced me by putting her lips against mine.
Kristen’s lips were warm, and I could smell her unique perfume from her close proximity to me. The scent of Kristen seemed to make a bee-line from my nose straight to my balls. I was instantly erect.
I touched my tongue against her lips, and they opened, inviting my tongue inside. I withdrew my tongue, and found hers at the entrance of my lips.
Kristen’s lips quivered slightly, giving me the feeling that she was nervous. Why would this gorgeous creature be nervous kissing a boy two years younger than her?
My arms pulled her body against mine, and the two of us hugged. She returned my hug, and I heard her exhale contentedly through her nose as we continued to kiss.
After a few moments, we broke the kiss.
In the past week or so, I had kissed a few girls. I was by no means a man of the world, but I had shared friendly kisses and sensual kisses. The one I shared with Kristen was tender, but it seemed to give me a reaction that no other girl had managed to yet achieve. I had an erection that had started the second I had smelled her perfume and which had since grown to what felt to be epic proportions. This girl knew how to kiss!
The record player was playing a repeated scratch, scratch, scratch, as the needle was stuck in the run-out groove signaling the end of side one. I looked at the clock… Was it true? Had twenty minutes already passed?
The smell of my mother’s sauce permeated the entire house now, although it was Kristen’s perfume that my nostrils tried to search out. I told Kristen that we should head downstairs, and she told me that she needed to make a detour at the bathroom first.
I wasn’t sure of the etiquette of this situation. Should I wait for her outside the bathroom, or should I go downstairs and wait for her there?
I wimped out and waited for her in my room, the bathroom being between my room and the stairs. I stood outside my door once she was in, and when I heard the toilet flush, I started walking slowly, as if I was heading downstairs without her, and that meeting her at exactly that time was a rather pleasant coincidence.
I led her downstairs into the living room. My step-father and Merry were watching T.V. I introduced Kristen to my step-father.
"Nice to meet you, Kristen. I enjoy meeting Jim’s friends."
"Thank you," Kristen said.
My mother called dinner a few minutes later, and the four of us moved into the dining room.
After we sat down, Kristen said, "Mrs. Cummings, I really love your china!"
I realized that my mother had set the table with the stuff that she usually reserved for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
"Thank you, Kristen. It was a wedding gift…" My mother looked a bit uneasy, mostly because it was a gift from her first marriage.
"It’s lovely," Kristen repeated.
Supper went well. Kristen didn’t seem to be as tongue-tied with my family as she had been with me earlier. She handled herself very well with dignity and aplomb, and it was apparent that my entire family was quite taken with her.
And why should they not? Kristen presented herself as a lovely, articulate, and intelligent person. She knew just enough about sports to know the rankings of the local baseball teams (neither the White Sox nor the Cubs had any chance at the series this year) to impress my step-father. She said all the right things to everybody, even to the point of not speaking down to my younger step-sister.
After dinner, Merry offered to do the dishes, and the rest of us went into the living room and continued our dinner conversation in there.
I don’t remember too much of the conversation; I spent my time watching Kristen. She was a whole other person than the one that I had known the past thirty-six hours. I guess she was on her own turf — social situations.
Kristen excused herself to "powder her nose" (do girls actually carry talc in their purses?). My mother invited me into the kitchen to help her dish out some ice cream.
Once in the kitchen, my mother said, "This girl’s a keeper."
"Mom, she’s a friend!"
My mother smiled at me. "And she’s a girl. Girl plus friend equals Girl friend. Do I have to spell it out?"
"Mom!" I whined. I hated when my mother tended to find things that just weren’t there.
My mother shook her head. "Oh, Jim. I’ve seen the way you’ve been looking at her the entire evening. And I’ve seen the way she looks at you when she thinks nobody’s looking. I can tell when two people are in love."
Me? In love? With Kristen? My mom must have been smoking dope!
I had accepted Patty’s announcement that Kristen loved me earlier that day, but it hadn’t really registered in my mind the way that Patty had put it. Patty was very specific when she talked about love. For instance, Patty said that she loved me, but insisted that she wasn’t in love with me. To Patty, there was a subtle, but noticeable, difference.
Patty had described Kristen’s attitude toward me, as Kristen being IN LOVE with me.
Maybe that was so. But my mom said that I was IN LOVE with Kristen. The two of us hardly knew each other! My mom had to be way off base there.
To Kristen’s credit, I had to admit that she was probably the prettiest girl on the face of the earth. She was very intelligent; so much so that I had decided during dinner that the stories about her father bribing her teachers were probably apocryphal or vicious gossip. She also kissed better than anybody else I had ever kissed.
But was I in love? I couldn’t help but think that my mother had her wires crossed.
"Whatever," I finally said to my mother.
At seven, Kristen and I told my family that we were going out. I made it a point to tell my mother that I’d be home by midnight, a good two hours past my current bedtime. My mother didn’t give me any argument.
Patty arrived precisely on time. Merry said "Hi" to her, and looked out, disappointed that Patty was not driving Kristen’s Camaro.
We smiled, and bid our good-byes.
Chapter 10
Once we were outside, Patty gave me a kiss. I felt a bit uncomfortable doing that in front of Kristen, but I didn’t understand why I was uncomfortable.
We switched cars when Patty drove us back to her house.
I pulled Kristen’s passenger seat forward to put Patty into the nearly futile back seat of the Camaro. "I still think we should take my car. I’d hate to see a Camaro damaged by driving it on a dirt road…"
Kristen said, "Better my car than yours. If anything happens, the dealership will send out a tow truck and I’ll have a rental within an hour.
"Even at this hour?"
"Twenty four hour service," Kristen said, smirking.
Patty couldn’t argue with that. "Well, at least my car has more room for passengers!"
Kristen and I both laughed and agreed with Patty. Kristen pulled the Camaro out and headed on the street toward Kneely Park.
"Slow down once you pass the main entrance," Patty instructed. "It’s just a quarter mile or so past it on the right."
Kristen followed Patty’s directions, and she didn’t miss service driveway, even though it was just barely visible. Kristen followed the dirt road to the path, and up to the barrier. "It’s closed!"
I smiled, and got out of the car. There was a locked padlock on the barrier, but it was only attached to a chain. The gate wasn’t really locked. I opened the gate and waved Kristen through. I closed the gate behind her, leaving the barrier the way that I had found it.