A Stitch in Time Pt. 04

He was very disappointed.

"But I'm going over to Tanya's house, man," I said quietly.

"Trick," he pleaded, "I really need to get some serious playing time this year. I've gotten a couple of feelers from some Division II schools because of those games I caught Billy in last spring. My folks can't pay for my college tuition."

"All right, all right. Hey, I know, I have the key!"

"To what?"

"The weight room," I said. "We can go in there on Saturday morning and lift. How 'bout it, buddy? You get your lifting, I get my Tanya-time. Besides, I already told Coach you were my catcher this year."

"Seriously?" he asked, his eyes alight.

"Seriously," I nodded.

"What'd he say?"

"Actually, he said you better start lifting," I admitted.

"See?" he laughed. He punched me on the arm. The right arm, fortunately.

On Friday afternoon, I drove Jeanne home, shoved her out of the car, and raced off to Tanya's. Maybe I was a little more polite than that. The car probably came to a complete halt before Jeanne exited.

I rang the doorbell. My phone started ringing. Yeah, like I was gonna stop and take a call. I waited a minute and knocked, peering through the glass windows on the side of the door to see if I could catch a glimpse of Tanya inside.

I rang the doorbell again. My phone started ringing again. I finally understood. With a smile on my face, I pulled the phone out of my pocket and saw Tanya's number on the screen.

"Where are you?" I asked.

"Upstairs," she answered.

"Upstairs where?"

"Upstairs in my house."

"Well, why don't you come downstairs and let me in?"

"I should come downstairs to open the door when I'm naked and about to step into the shower?" she countered. "Why don't you just turn the handle and see if it's locked?"

I did. It wasn't. One of these days I would actually go up the stairs in the Szerchenkos' house one step at a time.

Tanya had her own bathroom off her bedroom, and she was waiting for me in the bathroom doorway. She was standing with her back to me, looking back over her shoulder at me. I tried to keep looking at her face, honest, but with those long legs, that tight little butt, and the way her blonde hair cascaded down around her shoulders, it was a battle that my good manners had no chance of winning.

"Coming?" she arched her eyebrows.

Not yet, fortunately, but I was damn close. She walked into the bathroom, out of my sight. I heard her start the water as I pushed my pants and my shorts and my socks off, hopping ever closer to the door. I heard the shower curtain being pulled back as I unbuttoned my shirt. By the time I added the shirt to the trail of clothing and entered the bathroom, the curtain was already closed again. It was a combination bath and shower, with more than enough room for two. I reached for the edge of the curtain farthest from the showerhead, and pulled it open enough to slide inside.

"Mmm," Tanya purred without looking at me. She had put her hands against the tiles on the front of the shower, and stood there with her legs spread, as if I was being invited to frisk her. Instead, I simply watched the water stream down her shoulder blades until it ran in glistening rivulets off of her incredible ass.

"Patrick," she hissed, her voice barely audible above the sound of the water striking her back, "put it in."

"Condom," I gasped.

Damn it! I'd left them in my pants.

"Patrick," she whined. "I've been on the pill for a month. Please put it in."

She reached down between her legs with one hand and used her fingers to slowly expose herself to me. Did women do this on purpose? Did they want us to come even before physical contact? Stepping up behind her as quickly as I could, I slid my hand around her waist, sliding it along her stomach, and then underneath her hand to feel the smooth, bare skin of her completely hairless—

"Oh my God," I cried, paralyzed by the thought that she'd shaved her pubic mound bare.

She laughed softly, and reached back between her legs to grab hold of my cock. Aiming it, she pushed herself backward, impaling herself on me as I just stood there and let her fuck me.

"Tanya," I cried out, shooting the product of three weeks of celibacy into her.

"Oh, Patrick," she murmured. I'd been in the shower for all of two and a half minutes when Tanya pulled herself off of me.

"That was cruel, wasn't it?" she said over her shoulder.

"God, Tanya, I'm so sorry," I said.

Her body was shaking and I grabbed her shoulders.

"You doof," she laughed in my face as I spun her around. "Not you. Me! I was cruel."

"You?" I said hesitantly. "But I only lasted —"

She put the fingers of her right hand to my lips.

"Exactly as long as I thought you would," she said.

Her other hand held a bar of soap and she quickly lathered both hands up and returned the soap to its dish.

"I've been getting myself ready for you since I got home from school," she said, applying her soapy hands to my cock and smiling up at me, "because I wanted to get this one over quickly. The water tends to wash away all the natural, um, lubricant. It was perfect. Sometimes I like to just feel you spurt, you know? Don't worry, I enjoyed it. Maybe not as much as you did, but I expect you'll make it up to me when I've got you cleaned up. Now, do you see anything you want to soap up?"

As much as I enjoyed having my cock lathered up, I did have more fun of rubbing the soap all over her breasts, and then all around her ass and pussy. By the time I was done, she was not only clean, but she was breathing harder as well. I was harder too, so we decided to move things back into her bedroom.

Actually, she decided that. My only decision was that this time was going to be all about Tanya. I didn't even climax a second time. I put her on the bed and sucked and licked my way around her thighs, drawing ever closer to her pussy. I stopped just short, and turned her gently onto her stomach. Then, parting her legs, I knelt behind her and gave her pubic area a long, slow massage. When I finally turned her over again onto her back, her eyes were nearly closed, her body trembling beneath me. I thrust slowly into her, watching her face, feeling her nipples, listening for her breaths. After she finally stiffened and trembled in what I hoped was an orgasm, I pulled out. I lay back, pulling her over on top of me, and stroked her back with my fingers as she lay on my shoulder.

She slept for a while, and woke up to find me watching her.

"Mom wanted me to make sure you aren't interested in converting," she said, drawing her fingers across my nipple as she lay propped on an elbow.

"Mom wanted?" I asked.

She blushed

"I hate not being your girlfriend," she said. "Will you do me a favor?"

"Sure," I said. "Anything."

"I don't think I could take knowing that you were with somebody else. So I'll be available to you whenever you want, okay? Just promise me that if I can't find a nice Jewish boy while I'm here, you won't start publicly dating some hot little shiksa."

"Okay," I said. "What's a —"

"Hush," she said. "It's my turn to be on top now."

I never did find out what that shiksa thing was, but if Tanya Szerchenko was going to make me feel like this, I honestly didn't care if it was some sort of porn star. I left about nine o'clock, with an invitation to return the following evening, when her parents would be home to celebrate something called Purim.

My alarm went off the next morning at eight, and I dressed and drove to the school. I didn't see Tommy's car in the parking lot, so I figured I'd wait for him in the weight room. I opened the locked door and was more than a little surprised to find three people in there before me: Andy Lebo, Jesse Trasker, and a small, pretty brunette whose scared eyes locked on mine as soon as I entered. Andy and Jesse had both tossed their shirts onto the weight benches. The girl was wearing a jean jacket on top of a T-shirt and jeans.

"Shit," Jesse muttered as he looked at the floor.

"Sterling, this don't concern you," Andy said with a scowl.

"Thank God," I said. "What's your name, honey?"

She looked from Andy to Jesse and back to Andy, as if she needed permission. They just looked angry, so she finally returned her gaze to me.

"Marcia Burns," she said.

Marcia Burns, I thought. Marcia Burns. Where the hell did I know that name from? I'd certainly never dated her; she was, like, Jill's age. And the only "M" in my girlfriend mnemonic, "Some bakers like baking honey muffins and delicious rolls," was a Maria Torres. I'd spent a good bit of time trying to figure out who all the girls were, mostly by looking at old yearbooks. Maria's picture had been in my tenth grade yearbook but not the one from eleventh grade, so I figured she must have transferred out. In any event, Marcia wasn't a girlfriend.

Then I suddenly realized who she was. This was the girl who, according to Jill, had been watching me fuck her sister Liane. Liane Burns, the "like" in my mnemonic, had actually been the hardest of my former girlfriends to find. She'd been a senior when I was a junior, and it had simply never occurred to me that I would have dated an older woman. Fucked them, sure. Apparently I did that all the time. But to have one of them actually date me, in public? That was a surprise. Particularly, as I discovered once I had found her picture in my eleventh grade yearbook, when the girl-slash-woman in question was a hot-looking brainy older cheerleader.

"You need a ride home, Marcia Burns?" I asked.

"Sterling, why don't you just give yourself a fucking ride home?" Andy said.

Just then the door banged open behind me. I was unwilling to turn around and look, but Jesse's disgusted "fuck" told me all I needed to know.

"Hey, Tommy," I said as he came to stand beside me.

"Problem?" he asked.

"Not any more," I said.

"Tell you what, Marcia Burns," I said. "When Tommy and I are done lifting, how 'bout I give you a ride home?"

"Okay," she nodded vigorously.

"Good," I smiled. We stood there for a while, the five of us, until Andy finally tired.

"Fuck this shit," he said to Jesse as he reached for his shirt. "Let's go, Jesse."

"Have a good day boys," Tommy said to them as I watched Marcia slump down onto one of the benches.

"Oh God," she was hyperventilating. "Oh God. Oh God."

She looked up at both of us, seconds away from crying.

"I just," she started. "I just..."

"Yeah, but nothing happened, honey," I said. "You're fine. But this is a weight room, so we only talk about manly things. You know anything about baseball?"

"I play jayvee softball," she offered.

"Good," I said. "Explain the infield fly rule to Tommy here while we lift."

Neither one of them knew the first thing about the infield fly rule, but neither was willing to admit that to the other. By the time we were finished, the rule had metamorphosed into a strict injunction against an infielder catching a fly ball that should actually be played by an outfielder, upon penalty of the batter's being awarded an additional base. Listening to the two of them, I could barely stop laughing long enough to do any serious lifting. Tommy was stoked, though, almost as if he was showing off. Maybe he was, come to think of it. Maybe I should have let him drive Marcia home. Ah well, he could always ask her out. I burst out laughing again on my way home. Like that would ever happen.

I didn't see Jill the rest of the day. By evening I was caught up in Purim, which is apparently a holiday devoted to getting drunk. Sort of like Saturday for Episcopalians. It began at sunset, and I arrived a few minutes later, just after six. I was in my best suit and tie, a bouquet of flowers for Mrs. Szerchenko in my hand. She answered the doorbell and reached up to grab my ears. As she pulled me down to kiss me, on the lips, it became apparent that Mrs. Szerchenko had already started celebrating. She managed to put the flowers in water, though, after yelling up to Tanya that her friend was here. Tanya came thundering down the stairs to greet me, and before we could walk into the kitchen, she gave me a little primer. The first rule was that I shouldn't mention the Lord's name. Her parents were very strict about that. I could call Him Hashem. I nodded, repeating it several times. As for Purim, she said, the idea was to get so drunk that we couldn't tell some guy named Haman from some other guy named Mordecai.

"Are they here, too?" I asked.

"They're from the book of Esther," she giggled, whacking me on the arm.

"In the Old Testament?"

"In the Testament," she corrected me. "Now, hush, you're supposed to be a religious scholar."

Mrs. Szerchenko tipsily explained the meaning of the holiday to me all over again, and I chimed in "from the book of Esther, right?" at the appropriate moment, leading to smiles all around.

And then I was presented with a glass of wine that would have gotten a small pony drunk. My attempt to remind Mrs. Szerchenko that I was still underage, by slightly more than three years, was pooh-poohed instantly. She might have actually said, "oh, pooh-pooh," in fact. Or maybe it was "oh, pish-tush." My second attempt, where I invoked my having to drive home tonight amid all the drunken Purim revelers, was much more successful. Although Mrs. Szerchenko was heard quietly grousing about the fact that the only drunken Purim revelers in the city lived in this particular house.

It was fun watching Tanya get tipsy, and Mr. and Mrs. Szerchenko get drunk. I left shortly after dinner, vowing to take a quick look at the book of Esther that evening when I got home. It looked like a fine piece of writing, with your good guy, Mordecai, and your bad guy, Haman. But as an excuse for a party like that? I was pondering that thought when the phone in our kitchen rang. I hadn't gotten a call on that line since, well, since the ninth grade, so I was shocked to hear Jeanne call out my name.

"For me?" I yelled downstairs.

"Yes," she yelled back.

We passed each other on the stairs.

"You stupid, fucking ass," she muttered.

I was looking back over my shoulder at Jeanne, wondering what had gotten into her, and ran into the kitchen table.

"Hello?" I said absent-mindedly when I finally located the receiver.

"You stupid, fucking ass. Where the hell are you?"

"Hello?" I said again, buying time.

"You know perfectly well this is my night at the observatory," Cammie said. "I knew you'd fuck this up."

"I'll be there in five minutes, Cammie," I hung up the phone. The observatory was six miles away. I was there in four.

"Cammie, honestly," I said as I walked in. "It's just been a bad day. I came across two of our classmates with a very scared tenth grade girl in the weight room this morning."

Her anger dissolved instantly.

"Seriously?" she said. "Who?"

"Well, I can't tell you that," I said. "But tell me, what do you think of Andy Lebo?"

"He's an asshole," she said.

"And Jesse Trasker?"

"He's another asshole," she answered.

"Got it," I nodded. She'd already set the telescope for the proper coordinates, so I simply got ready to take down her observations.

"One more question before we start."

"What?" she gave an exasperated sigh.

"Andy's an asshole, Jesse's an asshole, and I'm an asshole," I said. "Any distinctions in there at all for me to hold on to?"

She gave me a long look, and I finally got a Cammie Rowe smile. What I didn't get was an answer.

Instead, she handed me a copy of the picture that Mr. Carruthers had taken of her star. She had marked it off with a grid, A through J along the side, 1 through 10 on top, like it was some sort of road map.

"What are you, some sort of frickin' scientist or something?" I asked.

"Yes," she stared at me. "I am."

Oh, right.

We were at the observatory until just before midnight. Cammie spent most of it bent over looking through the eyepiece of the telescope, so in addition to a Cammie Rowe smile, I also got to see some nice Cammie Rowe butt.

I thought about the asshole issue again the next morning in church, as I watched a sleepy Cammie Rowe join my sister in the front pew. We didn't go in much for the book of Esther in the Episcopal Church. But if there was a line to be drawn among the various assholes of the world, I was hoping to be on the Mordecai side rather than the Haman side.

Chapter 14

"So what should we do for Trick's half-birthday?" Jeanne cheerily asked the usual group sitting at our table at lunchtime on Monday.

"My what?" I asked.

"Trick's birthday?" Tanya asked in a quiet tone of voice that nonetheless commanded the attention of the entire table. Her look was directed not at Jeanne, though, but at me. I gave Jeanne my most baleful stare.

"His half-birthday" Jeanne corrected her. "He found out two years ago that he shares a birthday with Missy Josephs, so he started making us celebrate his half-birthday."

"I do not," I protested.

"Hah!" Cammie said. "Last year I heard you had the frickin' baseball team carry you around the cafeteria in a chair."

I blinked at her.

"Seriously?" I asked, looking at Rabbit and Tommy.

"Not us," Rabbit said. "It was Jim and Carl and Paul, I think."

"Chip," Tommy was very helpful. "Jim and Carl and Chip."

I looked at Jeanne.

"Don't look at me," she held up her hands. "Cammie and I had fifth period lunch last year."

I gave Tanya a mystified look, noticing only who tightly her lips were stretched across her mouth.

"Excuse me," she said, standing up abruptly.

"Excuse me," I said as I watched her put her tray away and leave the cafeteria. "Jeanne, can you...?"

"I'll get your tray," she said. "Just go. You are such an ass."

I caught up to her in the hallway.

"Tanya," I grabbed her arm.

"Let go of me, Trick Sterling," she yanked it away, her eyes blinking rapidly as she tried to hide her tears. "Well thank you very much. That was just about the most embarrassing day of my life. Everybody knows it's your day except for me?"

"Tanya, can we sit down and talk? Please?"

She reluctantly let me lead her into an empty classroom.

"Look, I'm sorry," I began. "I just forgot."

"Forgot that your birthday was six months ago?" she said coldly.

"Well, no," I agreed. "I forgot that, um, that..."

"That you like celebrating your half-birthday?"

"Yes," I said. That was exactly it. Although, in light of the story about last year's half-birthday, that was probably going to be a bit of a hard sell. I looked at Tanya, my best friend, and took a deep breath.

"Okay, I need to be honest with you," I said quickly, trying to commit myself to finishing. "And I know it's going to sound a little weird."

"You haven't been honest with me?" her voice had lost none of its edge.

I found that I was squeezing my hands in my lap, and stopped only with an effort.

"I haven't been honest with anyone. Not you, not Jeanne, not Jill, not my Dad, nobody."

She waited for me to continue.

"The last birthday I can remember celebrating was in eighth grade," I said. "I turned 14 that year, and we had a cake and I got some presents, and it wasn't really that big a deal. It just wasn't. So my half-birthday means pretty much nothing to me."

Her eyes narrowed as she watched me.

"I'm sure I had birthdays in ninth grade and tenth grade and eleventh grade," I said. "Just like I'm sure I was just as big an asshole as Cammie says I was."

"Everybody says you were," Tanya pointed out.

"Whatever," I agreed. "But it wasn't me. I went to sleep on Christmas Eve, 2003, and I woke up two months ago, on Christmas, December 25, 2006. It's like I just skipped three years of my life. Somebody lived them, but it wasn't me."

Tanya cocked her head, no doubt torn between wanting to believe me and wanting to run away from the lunatic she was alone with. It was at that point that I elected to leave out the part about Santa Claus. That wasn't likely to tilt her decision in my favor.