Wes Boyd’s Spearfish Lake Tales Contemporary Mainstream Books and Serials Online

Chapter 3

Once we were inside I got a couple beers out of the six-pack in the refrigerator, handed one to Debby, and plopped down in one of the armchairs. It could have been more comfortable; it had obviously been built for cheap and indestructible, not for comfort. She sat down on the bed, and sort of rolled over so she was resting on her elbow. She popped the top on her beer can, took a long swig, and said, “So what happened with you and this gal, anyway?”

“Fuck if I know what happened, other than the fact that she obviously found someone else she likes better. Of course, it would have been nice if she’d had the guts to tell me to my face, rather than sneak around behind my back.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Debby smiled. “At least that’s one thing John and I did right. We agreed that we couldn’t be exclusive when he was away at college with all of that prime young pussy running around. I figured he was going to sleep around anyway, so that way he ain’t cheating on me. I take it that it wasn’t anything like that with you.”

“No, hell no. Nothing like that. I mean, we didn’t have an agreement to be exclusive or anything, but we had a sort of understanding, if you know what I mean.”

“Sounds like you understood it differently than she did,” she said quietly.

“Well, I guess. Look, Brittany was almost the girl next door to me. We grew up in Wychbold, way the hell down in the south part of the state. She was a couple grades behind me, but we pretty well grew up together. My folks and my sisters all seem to think that she’s the little fair-haired girl who can do no wrong. I mean, she was about the age of my younger sister, and she always seemed to be around the house, so it wasn’t anything like we were strangers, you know.”

“Yeah. Sort of like John and me.”

“I guess,” I said, taking notice of the fact that she hadn’t been acting flirty like before. “Anyway, I can’t tell you when we started going with each other since it just kind of developed from that, but I’d say that by the time I was a junior and she was a freshman it was pretty well established around school that we were a couple. I mean, we went to the prom, we went everywhere, and we sort of knew where we were going. At least I thought I did, but I guess I was wrong.”

“People grow up, Jake,” she said, and nodded as she took another sip of her beer. “Things change.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I sighed. “Well, anyway, it was still a case of her being a couple years younger than I was, and she was still only sixteen. That was too young for us to do anything about it, and our folks all would have had a shit fit even though it seemed to them like Brittany and I were going to be permanent too. She had this idea about going to college, and I didn’t really want to, even if I could have afforded it, which I couldn’t. So, I got the dumb-ass idea of going to the Navy to wait it out. By the time I got out she’d be twenty, and we sort of agreed that we could get serious then.”

“But she decided not to wait,” Debby said.

“Must have,” I said, shaking my head again. “It damn sure looked like she was, though. Anyway, I spent four years in the Navy, and most of it on long deployments. I spent more than a year riding a carrier around south of the Persian Gulf, hot as hell and bored to tears, and then we finally rotated back to the states. I had a couple weeks leave at home, and it looked like everything was fine with her. Then back to the Navy in Norfolk I got transferred onto this tin can, the Morton. The next goddamn thing I knew I was right back to the Persian Gulf, and that turned into eighteen months. I don’t think we made more than half a dozen port calls, and I hardly ever got off that barge. I’ll tell you goddamn what, by that time I’d had all I wanted of the Indian Ocean, and then some. They wanted me to ship over, but fuck, I knew if I did that I’d be right back out to sea again. I mean, there wasn’t any chance I’d be assigned to some shore station for a while. The Navy wanted to fuck with me too much.”

“So what you’re saying is that in four years you hardly ever got to see this gal.”

“About six weeks out of four years,” I explained. “Not even any beer or anything like that to make life easier, they don’t allow it on ship. And then, if we did make a port call, it’d be in some goddamn Muslim country where they’d throw stones at you for even thinking about wanting to have a beer.” I used that as the inspiration to take a long swallow of the one I had in my hand, and went on, “Hell, I didn’t even have a chance to screw around on her. If they didn’t want you to have a beer, you’d better believe that you weren’t going to get to a woman.”

“Shit, they don’t make it easy on you, do they?”

“No fucking way,” I told her. “So anyway, I got out six weeks ago, and I’m thinking that finally I get to go home and do something with Brittany.” I leaned back in my chair, and looked at the ceiling for a moment before going on, “I guess the Navy must have kept me away from her too long. I mean, we got back together and it was OK, but only OK, if you know what I mean.”

“She didn’t exactly come rushing into your arms and tearing your clothes off?” Debby nodded knowingly.

“Well, let’s just say that she wasn’t as enthusiastic as I thought she would have been. I mean, we were getting along all right, but there was no rushing into bed.”

“Yeah, that ought to have given you some suspicions.”

“Not necessarily,” I said. “Shit, I don’t know how I can say this to you since I don’t even want to admit it to myself, but we’d never gotten any further than just a little serious making out. We never had sex, not once.”

“Not once?” Debby’s eyebrows went up. “God, that had to have sucked!”

“No, we didn’t do that either,” I said sadly. “The closest we got to it was when I was home on leave before I went to the Persian Gulf the last time, and I got to play with her boobs under her bra a couple times. I never even managed to get her bra off. And hell, she was so flat-chested, especially compared to you, that she didn’t really need one in the first place.”

“Holy Jesus, how could you stand it? You must have been so horny that you could have clawed a hole in a brick wall.”

“Fuck if I know how I could stand it. But we both understood that she wanted to be a virgin on her wedding night, that was her goal, and hell, I knew if I pushed the issue I could have lost her.” I shook my head, took another sip of beer, and said, “Hell, I should have pushed it, since I lost her anyway. At least I wouldn’t have spent the best part of three years out on some damn ship doing nothing but listening to guys talking about sex all the time, and looking forward to doing it with her. I don’t suppose it matters now, but when I got back to Norfolk after that last leave I even thought about finding a whore to try to get rid of the pressure a little, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

Once again she shook her head and smiled a little. “You couldn’t do it?” she asked.

“No, my heart just wasn’t in it. I mean, I was thinking all the time about what a shit I’d have to be to be cheating on the dear little girl waiting for me back home. Shit, I felt guilty about it for months just for even thinking about it. Maybe I still do.”

“Jake,” Debby said softly, “you have to give it up sometime. If it’s over with, it’s over with. Move on to the next thing. Now, what happened that got you all pissed off?”

“Well, I found out,” I said flatly. “Like I said, when I got back, it was OK, but well, we weren’t quite as close as I thought we should have been.”

“Or at least that you’d hoped to be,” she nodded with a look of understanding on her face. “Were you hoping for more than what you got?”

“Well, yeah,” I nodded. “Don’t get me wrong, she was still friendly and she was still glad to see me, but I guess that I’d been hoping that she’d be a little more enthusiastic than she was. I don’t mean jumping into bed, but moving ahead to what we’d wanted to do four years ago. But I guess I didn’t really notice all that much. It had been four years, after all, and besides, I couldn’t see her much, since she was in college and all. She had several projects she had to finish up, or at least she said she did, and she said finals weren’t all that far off. But I’ll give her credit, she came home to see me most weekends.”

“Considering everything else, it doesn’t sound all that bad,” Debby replied. “I mean, I don’t know shit about college, but I do know that John isn’t getting home as much as he’d like to. Of course, that goddamn Karen bitch is probably keeping him busy most weekends, anyway.”

“I do admit she had other stuff to do,” I told her. “And shit, I don’t begrudge her that. She had things to do, like I had things to do. Well, anyway, one of the things I had to do was to go with my folks down to my grandfather’s place in Kentucky. I hadn’t seen them for several years, since before I was in the Navy. I didn’t really want to go, but Mom wanted me along with them real bad, and hell, it was easier to say yes than it was to say no, you know?”

“I’ve had it happen a few times. Especially when Mom was still living around here. So, you took off for the weekend?”

“We planned to,” I admitted. I didn’t really want to say the next thing but it had to be said, however reluctantly. “We were going to go down there last Friday night and come back on Sunday afternoon. I’d already talked it over with Brittany, she knew it was happening, and she told me she could stand to spend the weekend studying in her dorm if she couldn’t spend it with me.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“I thought so.” The anger that had eaten at me for days was piling up on me and I had to spit it out. “Then along in the afternoon Mom got a call from her mother to tell her that Grandpa was sick with the flu or something and that maybe we’d better put the trip off for another time. So, I figured why waste the time? I figured I could drive up to her college, at least spend the evening with her, maybe go out on a real date or something. I tried to call her to let her know a couple times that afternoon, but I never got an answer. I figured she was in class or something, so I decided to just drive up there and surprise her.”

I paused for a moment, seeking the words to say what came next. “I guess I was the one who was surprised,” I said finally. “I couldn’t park right in front of her dorm, but close. I hadn’t gotten out of the car yet when I saw her come out. She had her arm around this guy, and he had his arm around her. They looked real lovey-dovey, and she was carrying an overnight bag.”

“She really wasn’t expecting you, was she?” Debby smirked. “You sure it was her?”

“Oh, yeah, there was no question it was her. The two of them wound up going to the second car ahead of me, so I got a good look at her. I’d just got the car since I’d seen her the last time, so there was no reason she could have recognized it.” I shook my head and went on, “And she sure as hell wasn’t expecting me. The two of them had kept it pretty straight while they were outside, but I could look through the windows of the car in front of me and see that they were real friendly with each other once they got the doors closed. I mean, she slid over on the seat and snuggled right up next to him.”

“I’ll bet you were pissed.”

“To be honest, I was too shocked to be pissed,” I replied. “At least right then. I mean, I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing, so I decided to follow them. I’d never tried to follow anyone like that before, and it’s not as easy as it looks in the movies, but I guess the guy wasn’t paying any attention to his rear view mirror, anyway. I didn’t have to follow them far, only about three or four miles to this big chain motel out on the edge of town. I guess he’d already checked in, because he drove right to the back. I parked around the corner and just saw them as they headed into this motel room. Now, by then I was getting pissed.”

“I’ll bet. It must have really hurt to see her heading off into some motel room with some guy after you’re respected her wishes to stay a virgin for years.”

“Goddamn right, it pissed me off like you wouldn’t believe, and it still really does. She could string me along for years, putting me off with half promises, and then give it up to someone else. And Christ knows how long they’ve been doing it. That’s what I fucking get for playing the goddamn game her way. What kind of a fucking fool am I?”

“One who’s a hell of a lot more honest and reasonable than she is,” Debby said. “Shit, that had to have hurt.”

“Oh, Christ yes, it hurt,” I said. “I mean, I still gave her the benefit of the doubt, even then. I knew I couldn’t stick around there too long, so I got back in the car, found a pay phone and called her dorm room again. This time I got an answer. It was her roomie, who told me that Brittany had told her she was going away for the weekend to be with her boyfriend.”

“So, what did you do? Get drunk?”

“I thought about it real seriously. But I was a hundred miles from home and figured that was too goddamn far to drive home if I was as drunk as I wanted to get. So, I drove home, just as pissed off as I could be, and on the edge of town I stopped at the party store, got a fifth of rum and a two-liter bottle of Coke, went home, went up to my room, and got shit-faced. It didn’t make me feel any better, but at least it deadened the pain for the rest of the evening.”

“But then you had a head on you the next morning.”

“No shit, and I was still pretty pissed off. Now, I probably ought to mention that Brittany has been friends with my family forever, especially my sisters and Mom. I mean, she can do no wrong as far as they’re concerned. So anyway, I came downstairs the next morning, and Mom said she thought I was going to be spending the weekend with Brittany since we didn’t go to Kentucky. I pretty well told her no way, I wasn’t going to have anything to do with the lying, two-faced bitch ever again.”

“If she was the fair-haired girl, I’ll bet that went over big time.”

“No shit,” I said, nodding. “I mean, I got my ass landed on by my mother and my sisters right then and there, wanting to know where I got off talking about their darling Brittany that way. I mean, it turned into a hell of a yelling match, and with my head the way it was I wasn’t in a mood to hold back. Anyway, they kept bugging me about what my problem was, and finally I told them if they wanted to know what my problem was they ought to go ask Brittany, since she knew exactly what it was. I couldn’t put up with that shit from them anymore, so I just went out to my car and drove off, with my mother and sisters watching and the smoke just about rolling out of their ears.”

“I’ll bet. So then what happened?”

I took a deep breath. “So, I drove back up to the town where Brittany goes to college. I mean, hell, I couldn’t think of anything else to do. The first thing I did was drive through the motel parking lot, and the car was still there. They must have been having an awful good time. I just sort of drove around, going towards home, trying to get my head around it. So, I got home about dark, and I no more than had my head in the door when my mother and my sisters got on my ass about Brittany again. I mean, why I would trash their darling Brittany like that, I had to be a real asshole. Then Lisa, my sister, the one about Brittany’s age, pipes up and says, ‘I’ll bet I know why you dumped her. She wants to be a virgin when she gets married and you won’t wait. You have to be a real asshole to expect her to put out for you.’”

“Oh, shit!”

“No shit,” I said with a sneer. “I told Lisa that there were three facts of life that she’d better understand. One, that Brittany wasn’t going to be a virgin when she got married; two, that there was no way in hell I was going to be the one to walk down the aisle with her; and three, that I didn’t have to put up with that shit from her. Lisa got on my ass and called me a sex pervert for wanting to get into Brittany so bad, and spouted off that I didn’t deserve a girl like her. And hell, I had to agree with her, I told her I don’t deserve a cheating bitch like that. Well, it got nasty after that, and even my father got on my ass, so within half an hour I’d packed and was out the door. The hell with them. Right now, I don’t care if I ever see them again.”

“So, you wound up here,” Debby said after listening to the story of how things had fallen apart between Brittany and me.

“Here is as good as anywhere else, and it’s not there, which is the important part,” I said, upending my beer and finishing it.

“So, what are you going to do?”

“Damn good question,” I replied, eyeing the refrigerator and another beer, even if I didn’t feel like I had the energy to get up for it. “I honest to God don’t know what I want to do, other than the fact that I have no desire to go back there. I’ve given quite a bit of thought to going back in the Navy, but I’m not ready to spend another fucking year in the Indian Ocean again right away. Since I wound up here, I keep thinking that this might not be a bad place to spend a few months cooling off before making my mind up about it. I told Barb earlier that I was thinking about going to college myself, but if I do it won’t be around home and I don’t know that I want to do it anyway, even if I could afford it. I have a few bucks stuck back that I saved while I was in the Navy. There isn’t any place to spend that kind of money at sea, anyway. But beyond that, I don’t know.”

“Well, honey,” she said with a smile, somehow reading my mind, as she rolled off the bed and went to get another beer. When she brought it to me, she swung around and sat in my lap, one leg up over the arm of the chair. “I think you’ve found a pretty good place to hang around while you get your mind off of her and make up your mind about what you’re going to do next,” she said, handing me the beer as she scrunched around to put her free arm around my shoulders.

Somehow it seemed to me that she was lighter than she looked, and the personal contact felt good. Without it coming to words, I knew that what I’d needed for days was a hug, not more static from everyone I knew. This more than counted as a hug; hell, even Brittany hadn’t sat in my lap since I’d been home. I set the unopened beer on the floor, then with my hand drew her close to me, and found that my chin was resting on one of her large breasts. “Thank you,” I said presently. “Debby, I needed that.”

“Lover,” she replied softly, “I think you need more than that, but it’s a start. Look, let me just ask you this: it’s all over between you and her, right?”

“I don’t see how it could be any other way,” I sighed. “I mean, I guess it doesn’t matter much what I want, it’s what she wants, and it obviously isn’t me. Damn it, Debby, I trusted her, and I got shit on for doing it. If she were to walk in that door right now and tell me it was all a mistake and she wanted me back, I think I’d still tell her to go to hell. She proved she can’t be trusted, so the hell with her.”

“Even if she was willing to go to bed with you?”

“Hell, that would make it worse if anything. I mean, she held her precious virginity out in front of me for all that time, just teasing, dangling it under my nose, and what was it worth in the long run? Jack shit, that’s what! After all that time, she was just toying with me!”

“You aren’t over her yet, are you?”

“No,” I sighed. “I’m afraid it’s going to be a long time before I am.”

“Look, Jake, I know I only met you this morning and we don’t know each other very well, but if you want I’m willing to help you put her in the back of your mind. In spite of everything, that’s what you really need, more than anything else.” She twisted herself around awkwardly to crush her chest up against mine a little more, and to put herself in a good position to kiss me.

“Debby,” I said in protest, “you don’t have to do this, you know.”

“I know, but I want to.” She didn’t give me any chance to protest more, but leaned forward and pressed her lips against mine.

I tried to pull away, but not very hard. Her lips were appealing, and they seemed to pull me in. It wasn’t a casual little kiss, either – soon our tongues were entwining with each other as they pulled themselves into each other. Within seconds the kiss had developed more power than anything I’d ever experienced with Brittany, and I felt like it was just the beginning. It went on for some unknown time, with Brittany fading in my mind every instant under the power of the reality of the woman in my arms.

Finally she pulled away a little. “Hey, can I make a suggestion?” she asked. “This is kind of an awkward position, you know. Why don’t we get over on the bed?”

“You sure you want to?”

“Would I have asked if I didn’t?” She grinned, twisting around to where she could get on her feet. She took me by the hand and pulled a little, not that I was in any condition to give any resistance just then. In a matter of seconds, we were kissing deeply and snuggling close together side by side, the first time I’d even been on the bed. I had one of my arms under her head while the other went to the most available mound on her chest. In recent weeks Brittany had let me play with her comparatively nonexistent and well-covered breasts just enough to say that she’d done it, but this was about as different as it could be. Debby’s big breasts were, well, big, and she seemed to enjoy my touch on them about as much as I enjoyed touching them.

I was well aware that her free arm was between us, and that she was getting a feel as best she could of the incredible hardness down in my loins. Brittany had never felt me there with her hand, even by accident. Again, it went on for quite a while, and time ceased to have much meaning. Some unknowable time later, she pulled her lips away. “Hey, lover,” she whispered, “I really hate to say this, but maybe I’d better go show you how to turn off the sign while we’ve still got some clothes on. Then we can come back and get serious.”

I’d been intensely enjoying myself, and her words seemed to indicate that things could go a lot further. For a moment I felt a touch of hesitation, since there was a small voice telling me that I’d be disloyal to Brittany if I went much further, but that was quickly overwhelmed by a much bigger voice saying that the time for such feelings was past. “All right,” I said as I rolled over a little, away from Debby’s eager body to give her room to sit up. “I better put my shoes back on, though.”

“Hey, lover,” she replied. “One thing you might want to think about is getting yourself some slip-on deck shoes if you’re going to be working around boats. With those leather soles you could slip and fall and break your ass.”

“I suppose,” I said as she sat up. “Never thought about it. We never worried about that kind of shit in the Navy, though.”

“Think about it,” she replied as I bent over to reach for my shoes, which I’d kicked off when we hit the bed an unknown time earlier. “Fiberglass is both slipperier and scratches easier than a steel deck.”

In a minute we were headed back to the snack bar, which had been locked up for the evening. Some lights had been left on to indicate that fuel service was on call, though no one had stopped by for fuel since before dinner. Debby unlocked the place, and she showed me the switches to cut off the power to the pumps and the big orange, white, and blue “Gulf” sign that overlooked the fueling dock. “There,” she said as she turned and took me in her arms. “We shouldn’t be bothered until tomorrow morning now. We probably shouldn’t go too late, since I’ll still have to get up at six.” She gave me a quick kiss and added. “Let’s head back and get serious.”

That seemed to indicate that she was ready, even eager to go all the way. It seemed incredible after all the agony of unfulfilled promises I’d endured with Brittany over the years. Scarcely believing I was saying it, I whispered, “Debby, you’re sure about this?”

“Of course I am lover,” she said, then giggled. “Your tool is telling me that you’re about as ready to go as I am, but I’ll bet you don’t want to admit it. Asking me is sweet of you though, you know?”

It was only a brief trip back to my room, but it seemed chilly outside now, especially when we got into the warmth of the room. I could see the lights were still on in Barb’s house, but apparently she didn’t notice the two of us. We were no more than back inside when Debby had me in another clinch and another kiss, this one even warmer than before. “Get a couple towels from the bathroom” she whispered finally. “I don’t like sleeping in a wet spot and I’ll bet you don’t either.”

Grabbing the towels only took an instant, but I was enough behind her that she had the covers pulled back on the bed before I caught up with her. She was peeling off her T-shirt as I got to her, revealing a solid-looking white, industrial-strength bra. She turned her back to me and giggled, “Unstrap me, would you lover? With honkers like these I have to keep them pretty well harnessed.”

My hands were almost shaking as I unhooked the row of little hooks that kept the bra closed. Though we’d already gotten further than I’d ever been with a woman, Brittany or anyone else, somehow this was symbolically better, a real watershed that I’d never before crossed. It took a few seconds of disbelief that this really was happening to me, but then I was taking the bra straps off of her shoulders and she was shrugging out of it. She tossed it in the chair with her T-shirt and turned around to me, giving me the most intimate look at bare breasts that I’d ever had. There had been times that I’d accidentally caught a glimpse of one of my sisters, and the time a few guys from my ship and I had visited a titty bar at some place in Italy – but none of that counted as I got my first look at her chest.

Yes, they were big and round, somehow not drooping as much as I thought they might, but so large that the two of them together were wider than her rib cage. On the front were two pink nipples with tiny areolas surrounding them. I tentatively reached out to touch one of them; they were nicely warm to the touch. “You like those, honey?” she asked.

“Very much,” I grinned “They’re so . . . nice.”

“You can play with them all you want to, but let’s get that shirt off you, first,” she said with a smile, reaching out to help me lift the sweat shirt over my head. In only seconds, it had joined the other discarded clothing in the chair, and we were back on the bed where, as our lips joined once more, I could give those magnificent breasts some serious examination. I soon learned that they really were fun to play with, and from what I could see she liked to have me playing with them.

Before long I couldn’t help but take the next step, sliding down a little in the bed to get my mouth on one of those little pink nipples. “Oh, God, I love that,” I heard her moan as I felt her hand on my head – it was clear that she didn’t want me to quit what I was doing, not that I wanted to either. I was lost in the enjoyment and the feelings of joy that seemed to roll off her. After a while, I decided that I’d better give the other nipple some work with my tongue, rather than just with my eagerly seeking fingers. We kissed and cuddled for a while, our hands roaming each other’s bodies, until it seemed like I was as hard as a nail. “You ready, lover?” she asked softly.

“If I’m not now I never will be.”

“God, I’m more than ready,” she said. “You’ve never done this before, have you?”

“No,” I shook my head. “Thought about it a lot, but that’s all.”

“No problem, first time for everything,” she said. “It’s just Tab A into Slot B over and over again. I’ll try to help.”

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