Читать книгу Steven. Crazy on You - Colin Palmer - Страница 4

He was fifteen, not quite had enough of school but damn closeto it. It was boring. It wasted those summer days when the beach beckoned, the swell coming in like they had just rolled across from the other side of the world. Not that he wanted the swells to be big, he was no “weed”. That was the name they used for surfies. All of them blonde. I reckon some of them deliberately bleached their hair as well, he thought, because the sun just wouldn’t do enough of a job on ‘em. But they get the chicks in that’s for sure. Every damn sheila that wanted to be known, that wanted to be a somebody, was a surfie mole. Only the virgins, and probably the really intelligent chicks (one and the same some would say), didn’t have anything to do with the surfies. And you had to like beer as well. He didn’t like beer.

Beer makes ya sick he thought as he gazed absentmindedly out the window at the school yard. A lone magpie waddled and hopped along the newly mowed grass, picking up insects to left and right just like a chicken feeds. Roast magpie he thought and conjured up thoughts of it being served at Sunday lunch with the baked potatoes and pumpkin and the peas and gravy.

“Steven, do you wanta leg?” his mother would say, standing poised over the kitchen table, the carving knife in one hand looking twice as big as the poor magpie sitting in the baking dish. “Steven?” his mother would say again, “Steven?”. Steven Terence Antony Gerald Smith; he was quite proud of his name really, his parents having overloaded him with christian names obviously to make up for the simplicity and commonness of the family name. Still, his initials meant that the other guys called him ‘Staggers’ while his friends (“Do I have any?”) called him Stag. But his mother continued to call him Steven. “Steven, Steven?” God, she was so insistent. He awoke with a start.

“Steven, what are you staring at? I’ve asked you three times for an example and you just sit there ignoring me.”

Her big brown eyes were looking at him pleadingly to help her out. He shook is head, looked slightly down and raised his eyes up at her within the same movement, knowing that the sadness he portrayed to her would melt her little heart.

“I’m really sorry Miss Hartley”. As he spoke he dropped his eyes and his head a little further to feign an even sadder attitude. “A snake got the little ducklings last night at ‘ome and when I saw the maggie outside it just reminded me, that’s all.”

Triumph! She placed a hand on his head and the other on his arm and he felt the sharp heat of her breast at it brushed almost imperceptibly against his shoulder. She softly sighed in his ear.

“I’m really sorry Steven, is there anything I can do for you?”

A quick head job would help he thought. “No, it’s okay, I’m sorry for the interruption Miss Hartley”. He looked straight at her cleavage before raising his eyes to meet hers. He had deep, dark eyes, and ever since he was a toddler he knew he could exert some sort of power over some, no, most women. And ‘though he hated it growing up he learnt to use it to his advantage. “Oh isn’t he just absolutely adorable”, he had heard it many times. It was also easier because of the total opposite look of his older, much older, brother. They doted on him like he was Jesus Christ but they would ignore his brother. Some in fact would recoil at their first sight of him. As he got older he began to appreciate that being adorable sometimes had its benefits. Mrs Harris from next door, a stunning woman in her mid-twentys, used to come over to see his mother and would sweep him up into her arms. When you were 12 years old this wasn’t exactly a cool thing; but he would bury his head into her bosom and more than once he could see down her blouse, or her husbands’ shirt tied at the midriff (why do woman wear their husbands’ clothes he often wondered?) when she wasn’t wearing a bra. He would gaze in wonder at the size of the exposed breast and the way her nipples would almost instantly become erect as he contacted them. Did I say contact he thought? Mashed is more like it, but she was in the main, oblivious to the fact that she was crushing his head to her with one hand while cooing sweet insanities about how gorgeous he was. He didn’t care. He could gaze for an eternity at those breasts. He wasn’t a big boy so Mrs Harris had no trouble lifting him, and she would probably be still doing it if they had not upped and moved away with surprising suddenness.

He recalled hearing some loud arguments between Mrs Harris and her husband a number of days in a row just before they moved. Once, he even snuck over the fence and listened beside one of their windows. He sat shaking like a leaf, frightened only because their volume meant that whatever they were arguing about was deadly serious. He recalled Mr Harris calling his wife a slut and demanding to know how many others there had been, and it was a couple of years before he knew what was meant by that. Mrs Harris cried a lot and Stag thought it was mean of Mr Harris to make her cry. They argued on for a couple more minutes before all of a sudden it seemed to him, they were producing the noises his mother and father did late at night when they thought he and his brother were asleep. Having sex. He believed then that sex was a load of crock perpetrated to undermine the sleep pattern of adults so that they could get up and yell at their kids the next day, just because they were tired. If only he knew then what he knew now, he would have slipped up the tree beside the fence and had a peek through the window. Just to see those magnificent breasts completely exposed, together at the same time instead of catching a peek down her top. These days he knew there was more to the female form than just tits.

He could make out the lace of Miss Hartleys’ bra through her blouse, but maintained his eye contact with her after raising his head. “Can we have a talk about it later, after class?” He asked in the most innocent voice he could muster.

Once again, he had learnt that eyes and appearance weren’t everything. He had learnt a lot in his still very informative young years. If you couldn’t back up the looks with the right combination of words and tone, if your delivery was to brash or the words wrong then you may as well look like Aunt Martha for all it would achieve (Aunt Martha had been dead for about 10 years now). He hit the nail on the head this time, Miss Hartleys’ face turning even sadder as she nodded.

“Of course Steven, but you really should be talking to your parents about these things…”. Her voice trailed off and he automatically responded.

“You know we don’t talk, not the way you can Miss Hartley, you’re much more understanding and anyway, Dad is never home and Mum is always too busy”.

She nodded again in assent.

“Alright, 3 o’clock in the music room, ok? Now please, try to keep your attention inside the classroom. You may be an excellent student (the volume of her voice raised so that most of the class would recognise an admonishment) but that does not mean you are precluded from classroom activities”.

She smiled a quick secret smile at him before turning away so that he would understand that she did not seriously mean what she had said and that it was for the benefit of the rest of the class. He watched as she walked back between the desks, her nice hips and thighs swaying slightly but most of his attention focused on her arse, contained by the firmness of the mid-thigh length skirt she wore. She had one nice posterior, that’s for sure.

Peter Gillespie was an arsehole, and he sat beside Steven in English. One day you and I are going to try and kill each other Steven often thought. Gilly leaned over toward Steven and whispered with a malevolent grin. “Sticky fingers, sticky fingers, Staggers is gonna get sticky fingers”.

“Yeah, and stick your own up ya arse”. Steven didn’t even bother looking at him. He knew the leering voice would be backed up by a leering face.

“Everybody knows Staggers is trying to root Miss Hartley” said the leering voice.

“What, so someone told you? That’s the only way you’d know you moron”. Steven knew there would be no reply. Gilly knew better than to encourage Stevens’ sarcasm and besides, Miss Hartley had reached the front and turned back to face them.

“You’re the moron Staggers. We all heard, ‘you’re much more understanding Miss Hartley” he mimicked.

Steven snuck a glance at Gilly this time, not so much surprised at what he said but that he actually chose to say it when he did. He frowned heavily and glared at him, hoping he would get the point that being a moron didn’t absolve him from having to think. Miss Hartley didn’t like her ‘young adults’ talking in class. Steven liked the way she described and treated them like adults, but attractive as she was and regardless of her manner toward them, when it came to being the teacher she did not like them misbehaving. Her reaction was swift, as Steven knew it would be.

“Mr Gillespie, perhaps you would like to explain your rudeness to Mr Reinfeldt”. Mr Reinfeldt, the deputy principal and one not backwards in using the cane when it was needed.

“It wasn’t me Miss Hartley, it was Stag, er, Steven”.

She looked at Steven, the disappointment in her eyes only just misplaced by her disapproval.

“You should know better Steven”.

He took heart that her voice softened somewhat but the disapproval was still evident. She was nothing if not predictable about her behavioural standards. She wanted to treat them like adults but she also expected them to behave accordingly, which wasn’t always easy when you are fifteen. Steven looked down and knew that he wasn’t about to let Gilly spoil his day.

“Miss Hartley, I’m sorry, I was just asking him what the question was that I had missed before”.

She visibly softened and Steven hoped the rest of the class didn’t see it.

“Onomatopoeia” she spoke so softly “give me some examples of onomatopoeia”.

“Squelch, bang, splash, crash, click, crunch, um…” Steven hated it when he reached the end of a roll.

“Excellent Steven” she smiled.

Steven smiled to himself but then grimaced when he heard Gilly whisper.

“Smartarse!”

The three o’clock bell went as he was making his way across from the math’s block to the music rooms. Kids were streaming out from classrooms, first formers who still enjoyed school, they always seemed to get the fun practical subjects to end their days on before going home to mom and milk and cookies. Out of the corner of his eye he noted that there were some bigger kids coming from his left, well bigger than first formers anyway. He didn’t take much notice, thinking about Miss Hartley and keeping his appointment with her. As always, and much to his chagrin, he noticed that he wasn’t much taller than most of the other kids now milling past him, and then Gillys’ voice cut across their excited, incessant and inane chatter.

“Staggers got sticky fingers”.

Steven stopped, and two or three of the kids ran into him. He turned to look at Gilly, and saw Steve Shaw and Ian Brady fanned out on either side of him. Gilly and Brady were wearing silly lopsided grins as if they knew something he didn’t. Snake looked concerned (that’s Shaws’ nickname because he had this nervous habit with his tongue. He and Snake actually got on quite well mainly because they always seemed to be placed together. They always seemed to do that, as if it was the easiest way, put them in alphabetical order. Whenever they had to form any sort of queue he was always directly behind Snake.) His tongue was doing its bit at a hundred miles an hour, and Steven knew that the speed was relative to the amount of nervousness being experienced by Snake at any given time.

“How ya goin’ Snake?” he ignored the other two.

Snake looked toward Gilly and damn if his tongue didn’t start working at closer to two hundred miles an hour. Now Steven was worried.

“Leth juth go Gilly” said Snake.

As a consequence of his habit Snake lisped and he was now lisping badly. Steven worried a bit more and thought it was premature for Gilly and he to begin killing each other even though he knew it was bound to happen sooner or later. Gilly was just one of these mean kids who for no reason other than he was bigger (and dopier) than most his age, liked to play the bully. What happened next would go down in school history.

Brady would recount to others that he didn’t see Staggers move, but he’d decked Gilly with one punch. Snake would just nod in agreement, happy he wasn’t the only witness probably.

Steven knew that it was all just blind fool luck, that if Gilly intended to bash him, then he didn’t stand a chance especially as Brady and Snake were obviously there to assist. He saw red fury and just stepped forward and struck in the general vicinity of Gillys’ face. It was a punch that Mike Tyson would have been proud of, striking Gilly immediately under the nose and above the top lip. Steven stood there above Gilly, not knowing really how Gilly came to be on the ground at his feet, oblivious to Snake and Brady standing there open mouthed. Even Snakes’ tongue seemed unable to move, also stunned at the speed of the event. Steven held up both arms and formed peace signs.

“Luv ya’s, luv ya’s all.” And then he turned and ran.

He stopped running when he hit the top floor of the music block and then walked slowly toward the open door where he knew Miss Hartley was waiting. He heard voices and knew that she was there probably talking to one of the other of her ‘gifted’ children.

Steven used the time to draw in some deep breaths, check that his shirt was still tucked in, and then he realized that there was blood on his right hand. He was reaching into his pocket for a hanky when he realized that the blood might be his and not from Gilly’s face. He looked closely at his fist and saw a small incision on his middle knuckle, the blood just slowly welling into it. He held the hanky tight on top of it but every time he pulled it away the blood would ooze slowly again. He wrapped the hanky around it tightly and then placed the bulk of it into a ball in the palm of his hand and curled his fingers around it. He hoped it would look normal or at least innocuous.

He stood in the doorway and surveyed the room, chairs in a semicircular pattern with music stands in front of and between each two chairs. Posters of musical instruments and composers adorned the walls. Miss Hartley was across the room kneeling in front of a young female first former explaining something about the recorder to her. He looked past her out of the far windows and heard the noises of the street as kids left for home, in buses, on bikes, in cars with their mums or in groups on foot on their way to the local servo take away. He saw the top of the milk bar across the road, which was out of bounds to school kids until three p.m. on school days, and knew that there would be fifty kids in there by now, buying lollies and milkshakes and whatever else they could afford with what they didn’t spend at tuck shop.

Miss Hartley rose and the girl smiled at her, tucked her recorder and a sheet of music under her arm and jumped up and started walking toward the door. Steven didn’t see her until she was immediately in front of him. He smiled at her, made a mental note that she would be cute one day, and stepped in and to one side to let her pass. She stopped when she reached him and turned back to her teacher.

“Thanks heaps Miss Hartley”.

She didn’t so much say it as chorus it, like she was still in class with 20 other kids saying the same thing all together.

“That’s okay Rebecca – just keep practising.”

Steven closed the door after her. He turned around and was startled as Miss Hartley was only a few feet from and moving toward him, an arm coming up as if she was about to grab him. He was just about to throw his arms around her when she spoke.

“I think that should stay open, school policy you know”. She said it so personally than he didn’t feel offended but he still backed up against the door and said “No”, and held up his hand with the bloody handkerchief. Her eyes opened wide when she saw the blood and he felt powerfully mischievous at her concern. “What have you done?” She was so concerned that she forgot about the door. “What happened”? She reached for his hand now instead of grabbing the door handle and he let her lead him to the closest chair.

“It’s okay, I just scratched a knuckle playing football.”

She unwound the hanky anyway, the bleeding had ceased and the blood welling into the cut had started to congeal, but it still looked worse than what it really was.

“Let’s get you down to the infirmary” she said.

“No, really, it’s okay.”

He felt himself getting excited as she continued to express her concern at his well being. She was standing and leaning forward toward him, her eyes intent on studying the cut. Her blouse could do nothing to defy gravity so he enjoyed the unobstructed view of her white lace bra cupping her small breasts. He felt himself sigh uncontrollably, and she looked quickly at his face, her concern still quite apparent.

“Are you sure you’re alright?”.

“Yes, I’m absolutely on top of the world” he said without a trace of a lie.

“Well, okay then, but you make sure you have your mother look at that when you get home”, he was nodding before she finished. “Now, tell me about your ducklings”.

She stood and moved the chair from beside him so that she was sitting in front of him now. He had no idea why she always did that, but she would sit down directly in front of him. He supposed it was something they train them to do to make it more personal or something, or to make the kid feel more at ease, whatever, it didn’t matter, but since his first ‘counseling’ session with her at the beginning of last year she had always done it. The big difference was he hadn’t noticed any other teacher doing it except Miss Hartley who was young, attractive and always wore skirts. He recalled that first session when she sat down and crossed her legs, he could immediately see straight up her skirt to a pair of pink panties. From that day on he was in love with her. The strangest thing was that she never seem to realize he could see or was even looking up her skirt. It was no problem for him to “arrange” the extra counseling as she was his teacher in English and Music and was always willing to provide assistance.

Today though, today was the best yet though it did not start out that way. She sat with her legs straight out in front of her. Worse still, she clasped her hands in her lap which meant he could not hope to see a damn thing. They shared some inane conversation about ducks, he willing her to cross her legs, never understanding why she did not see him continually glancing down to them. He was becoming jittery and impatient and he was pushing the discussion without really thinking about what he was saying, knowing that the longer he kept going the more likely the chance of her doing it. Once she lifted her hands slightly and sat back in her chair, lifting her right foot slightly off the ground. He leaned forward expecting her her to cross her legs finally but instead she leaned forward also and her foot came back into contact with the floor. Again, he sighed audibly. When he did this she leaned back again and this time, lifted her right leg with no pretence other than to cross them.

As she lifted her leg the door to the classroom opened and Mr Reinfeldt entered announcing loudly “Miss Hartley!”

Her reaction was to hesitate with her leg up and then instead of going through with the movement, she moved it instead to the right, thereby parting her legs and granting all Steven’s wishes for the next ten Christmas’ at once. For that split second before her right leg came down followed by her left to stand up and face Mr Reinfeldt, Steven stared into her open crotch, silky black panties stretched across what he dreamt was his idea of heaven, even wisps of downy light brown hair peeking out in a few places. Steven spent many hours thinking about that second in his life, how imprinted it became on his mind, how vivid it had been considering the short length of time it actually took to occur. It was the first and only time he had seen her in anything but light coloured panties and it took his breath away and gave him an instant erection.

He didn’t always see anything at every counseling session but the expectation and thrill when he did was incomparable to this time. He could even see where her buttocks began to sensually curve out but it was the sense of what lay behind that black veil that always remained with him. He didn’t want to stand as his erection lay uncomfortably obvious, at least sitting he was able to hide it with his hands.

Reinfeldt was not happy. “Smith here has been fighting”

Erection gone. Steven knew he was in trouble now. He looked down and smiled as he saw that he had placed his hanky back into his pocket sometime while he and Miss Hartley had been talking.

“When?” she demanded.

Steven looked up at her with a curious frown, this was a different voice than what he was used to. Reinfeldt must have also been taken by surprise because he visibly stepped back.

“Some first formers reported that three bigger boys were fighting with a younger boy as they were leaving school.”

“Nonsense, it could have been anybody, and besides, Steven arrived here before the bell and the first formers would not have left the classroom until the bell went off”.

To Steven it wasn’t accurate but he liked it. He supposed as Miss Hartley had the other little girl with her when he arrived she might have thought that he had been there waiting since the bell.

“That’s right Mr Reinfeldt, it weren’t me fighting, I had an appointment here with Miss Hartley and I’m never late, and if I been fighting I would have been late”.

It sounded like crap and he wished he hadn’t said it, but he didn’t really care anymore because he realized that he had got far more than he could have ever hoped for this afternoon anyway. Miss Hartley turned back to face Reinfeldt and Steven looked at her profile, trying to switch on some sort of x-ray vision so that he could see her standing there in those black panties. He thought he could make out her panty line as she shifted weight from one leg to the other.

“Mr Reinfeldt, it would also be preferable if you knocked before entering my classroom”.

Steven beamed with pleasure, obviously she believed him.

Reinfeldt squinted at Steven.

“If I find out that it was you, it will be the cane, not for fighting, for lying, and (turning to Miss Hartley) it is this schools’ policy that after school assistance is conducted with open doors”.

He turned to leave feeling that he had just had the last word.

“It was a confidential counseling session Mr Reinfeldt not just assistance with school work, and how would you feel if Mr Murray our esteemed Principal held his personal interviews with you with his door wide open for anybody to walk past to see and hear what was going on?”

Steven was impressed. Reinfeldt obviously was not.

“Well we may just take this up with Mr Murray Miss Hartley”.

He strode out the door. And left it open of course. Miss Hartley looked around at Steven, a little smile playing at the edge of her lips.

“Well, did you like that?”

“Wouldn’t have missed it for the world Miss Hartley”, and Steven knew what he was talking about.

Funnily enough, from that time on at school, Gilly was almost friendly with Steven, well courteous most times. Steven often caught him looking at him when he thought he wasn’t being observed. The look was almost always the same, a strange sense of studious interest or curiosity mixed with a little annoyance. And he called him Stag. Steven wasn’t fooled one bit though, he knew that deep down, Gilly had been severely embarrassed before not only two of his mates, but also in front of what Gilly perceived, was all the first formers, as if Steven had arranged for them to be there as witnesses.

Gilly wasn’t a total fool, he now knew what Steven was capable of but he also harboured half a belief that it may have just been blind fool luck (Steven knew this as a certainty but there was no way in the world he was going to let on to anybody, especially Gilly). Gilly was going to play this game a little more careful from now on, study his opponent a little more, get to know him better, maybe even befriend him if he had to. But when the time was right, he would plan it down to the most trivial detail before striking. And strike he would, he told himself every day.

The most perplexing thing for Gilly was Stevens’ reluctance to boast or even casually mention the incident to anybody. Gilly himself wanted to discuss it with Steven because he wanted to be sure in his own mind that Steven wasn’t some black belt in Judo, or Aikido, or some such thing. Gilly waited oh so patiently for Steven to mention something whenever one of the other kids asked him how he had done the deed but every time, Steven brushed them off or shrugged his shoulders as an answer. Even Snake and Brady said that Steven wasn’t saying anything different whenever Gilly wasn’t around. And of course, after a couple of days, nobody talked about it anymore because it was old news.

To Steven, this was the coolest thing he could do. He let people think whatever they wanted to about how he managed to deck Gilly. He wasn’t going to add or take away from it knowing full well that they would eventually come to their own conclusions that he was in fact something more than he was ever going to let on about. That was the cool thing, you achieve something by sheer luck and you get turned into a legend by basically acting ignorant.

Even some of the teachers looked at Steven now with a little bit more respect (Reinfeldt wasn’t one of them). Steven showed no interest and absolutely no aptitude for mathematics and old Mr Temple (the boys called him Shirley, but not to his face of course) had given up a year ago trying to get him to do anything positive about it.

“Steven, would you like to give me an answer to this equation?”

Temple asked him in class the very next day. Steven was shocked, Temple had hardly said two words to him in class in almost a year, and now here he was asking him to act as if he was a normal member of the class. Steven looked at Temple and saw a glint of hope in his eyes. He shook his head and wondered how in hell punching somebody one day made him any different in maths the next but there was Temple, looking expectant and hopeful.

“Ah, Mr Temple, if you could just move away from in front of the board?. I’m sorry Mr Temple…”

Mr Temple resumed normality almost immediately, totally oblivious that he had placed such high hopes onto Steven just because he had slugged a bully yesterday when nobody had expected him of being capable of such actions. Temple realized he had clutched at straws, he knew Steven to be bright but as they say, you can’t lead a dead horse to water. Or was that flogging a dead horse? Whatever, it didn’t matter anymore, the boy was just as dumb as the Gillespie kid that he had punched. His attention in an instant, was on his more favoured students, knowing that the right answer was but seconds away.

Steven graduated from High School with excellent results. He excelled at athletics and ball games such as softball and cricket and got high distinctions for English (of course), Geography, Social Studies and History, distinctions for Science (“it was rigged”! ) and Technical Drawing, and a pass for Maths. Such was the education system at the time, because Steven sat for advanced classes, his maths exams were marked according to his student rating. He couldn’t fail even if he didn’t answer one single question! You just went down a level as far as your mark was concerned (or two levels in Stevens’ case). Steven was not amused to discover this fact as he knew he would have done the same for geography and probably tech drawing as well, and that way he would have had more time to do the things he wanted to do, like English, or girls.

He always maintained a bevy of girlfriends throughout school, they all thought he was cute and because of his slightly smaller than average statue, they probably believed he was quite innocent as well. Two or three of them knew better than that and if they talked as much as most girls seemed to, then more than likely quite a few other girls probably knew as well.

That Glenda Archer, she was a honey, tall and slim with beautiful blonde hair and blue eyes, but a surfie chick. He recalled first seeing her one Saturday night sitting on the brick fence around the Catholic Church with about six other girls and a couple of weeds hanging around them like flies, but there was something about Glenda that made him look twice.

He and a couple of friends had just come from the local servo where they had scoffed hamburgers and chips to satisfy the hunger perpetrated from sharing a bottle of Blackberry Nip. They had pooled their resources and got one of the other kids’ elder brothers to buy them the bottle ($3.95 plus the buck he pocketed as his, for expenses) from the local bottle shop. They had sunk the contents quite quickly behind the aforementioned church fence with all intentions of going on to the teenagers dance in the church hall next door but hunger had seen them go off to the servo first. And now, on their return, (minus Harry who had raced off to the toilet at the first sight of his burger) was this smorgasbord of girls with only a couple of weeds to deal with first.

“Oy, surfs up guys.” Steven said this as his way of introduction. Hardly any of them looked. Except Glenda that is. The weeds were doing their best to impress a few of the girls, and they didn’t let the presence of Steven and Hardy bother them for a second.

Brad Hardy was one guy Steven had time for. His parents were rich, he had an elder brother that played in a band and best of all, he had an elder sister who took an interest in Steven whenever he went over to visit. She had left school about two years ago and was either 19 or 20 when Steven first met her. Brad introduced him as Stag and Steven then spent a very fruitful five minutes explaining his name to her. He managed to progress onto english, and then social studies when he found out she was doing political science and law at uni. All in all, after being initially greeted as just a young friend of her little brother, she now found herself taken in by this somewhat precocious little man. He had a charisma that she could not firstly identify, and then realized afterwards that he portrayed himself as a boy when his mind and his eyes were that of a man.

Sarah Hardy, as most young woman her age did, wore short skirts almost exclusively during summer. And this first time that Steven met her she had little else on either except a bikini top. She stepped upstairs after saying “nice to meet you Steven” (very, very few, if any girls Steven met, liked to call him Stag) “we’ll catch up sometime and talk about federation”.

“Anytime” Steven told her as he watched her disappear upstairs, disappointed that she was going but elated at getting a glimpse up her skirt even if only to see that she was wearing bikini pants underneath and not knickers.

One afternoon, Steven and Brad were playing pool in the back rumpus room, while Sarah was sunning herself in the backyard, lying face down with her bikini top undone. Steven had seen better bottoms but the view wasn’t bad all the same; very few boys his age would see her as being anything other than an attractive and extremely desirable older woman. Steven bided his time, losing more often than winning against Brad as his mind was on something else. Steven knew she would have to turn over sooner or later and he wasn’t going to miss it.

About the fourth or fifth game, the phone began to ring. Brad started for it (the phone was in the kitchen) and Sarah turned her head, heard Brad saying “I’ll get it” and then rolled over onto her left side to face the house and Steven; without making any attempt to do her top up or cover herself in any way. As she propped herself up onto her left elbow, she looked directly at Steven.

“Like ‘em little man? I know you’ve been watching me”.

He stood there almost awestruck but answered immediately with his usual aplomb.

“Yeah, not bad at all” as if he seen hundreds of them.

She must have sensed the pitch of his voice was slightly higher than normal, the giveaway that he wasn’t as composed as he was trying to portray, so she reached up with her left hand and started rolling her right nipple (both of which were already erect Steven had noticed) between her thumb and forefinger.

“It’s Mum for you Sarah,” Brad called from the kitchen as he headed back to the games room.

She pouted exaggeratingly at Steven and reached for her top. She sat up and turned just as Brad reentered the games room.

“Sarah?” he called again

“I’m coming” she shouted.

Steven couldn’t help but think that he would like to help her do just that.

“She’s going the other way” he told Brad as he came up beside him. Steven watched her rump disappear out of sight through the sliding door into the dining room. Brad was more intent on seeing where the game stood to take any interest in what his sister was up to, but he did give Steven a sideways look as he remained standing at the doorway.

“You perving on Sarah?” he said.

“She has nice tits” was Stevens’ reply.

“You should come over on some Fridays or Saturday nights when she brings a guy home” said Brad, and Steven looked at him in a new light.

“You sly perv, checking out you your own sister. How?”

“You’ll see, I’ll give you a call the next time”.

Brad liked Steven and was only too eager to share everything with him. He didn’t have many friends, and even though Steven used him as much as everybody else because his family was well off, he didn’t mind because at least Steven was blasé about it. Brad could handle that, at least Steven didn’t directly ask for anything from him as other so called friends had done in the past.

Brad and Steven now stood in front of the girls, most of whom were perched on the church fence. Glenda was still eyeing off Steven and he realized quickly that what set her apart was her apparent maturity compared to the girls around her.

“How’s the dance goin?” Steven asked, walking directly up to stand in front of her.

“‘S’okay. Hey, you’ve been drinking! Got any more?”

Her enthusiasm to share something from him made Steven smile – he thought he knew how to get somewhere with her now.

“No, but let’s go down and get some?”

He invited her with an exaggerated flourish, holding out his arm as an open gesture for her to lead off. Steven glanced behind and saw Brad standing back, uncomfortable in the presence of girls but warmed by the alcohol in his belly.

“So, lead off Stag” she said.

She dropped her legs off the wall and looped her arm through the crook of his elbow pulling him slightly off balance. He fell a bit further against her than he would have normally, probably because of the alcohol but mainly because she had addressed him as Stag.

“My, you are a forward young thing” Steven told her.

They fell into step, her arm rested comfortably in his, their shoulders touching and their hips brushing against each other as they walked.

“Hey, Glenda where ya goin’?”

Glenda looked back over her shoulder, stopped and turned around, swiveling Steven around with her.

“C’mon Cass” she yelled back and noticed Brad for the first time. “What d’ya want?”

“He’s with me, ok.” Steven replied instead. He made it a statement not a question as he knew he needed Brad to buy the booze. “Cassie is it?” said Steven, “this is Brad, I’m Steven.”

They were both ignored as she rocketed past Brad, and up to Glenda, where she stood on her toes and whispered something in her ear. Steven then realized that Glenda was the same height as he was, or close enough to it, and that was something he hadn’t noticed before.

“Oh c’mon Cass, it’s okay. Do you listen to everything your mother tells you?”

Cassie evidently didn’t, because she mulled it over for at least half a second before grabbing Glendas’ other arm.

“Ok, let’s go then, you too” she said back over her shoulder to Brad.

Steven shot Brad a ‘you’re in like Flynn’ look, and Brad needed no more encouragement to step forward and catch them up. The alcohol in him made him braver than ever and he grabbed Cassie by the trailing arm so that they were all walking down the street arm in arm. Only Cassie looked uncomfortable, but Steven knew a couple of quick shots of Blackberry Nip would relax her. They shared another bottle (an obliging passerby having agreed to buy it for Glenda “for her Mum to cook with”) in the park beside the river, laughing and carrying on, mucking around climbing the monkeys bars, and taking turns to push each other on the swings. Steven managed to avoid most of the drink, but made sure the girls got more than their fair share.

He was a bit concerned about Brad, who seemed to be drinking too much when he needed to be in control of his faculties, but he was coming out of his shell and having fun, so Steven let him be, after giving one frown in his direction when he had taken a particularly deep shot out of the bottle.

Steven and Glenda melted into one of the little picnic huts, after Brad and Cassie ran off down to the beach. These were the type of huts that were divided into four, a solid brick wall between them so that on two sides, they were completely blocked from view. They sat nursing the bottle between them, and Glenda was very tipsy and being quite physical with Steven, though their conversations had been little other than fun small talk.

Steven just leaned over and kissed her while she was still talking. She appeared startled but she already had one arm over his shoulder and the other in his hands. She hesitantly responded by tightening her arm around him and crushing her lips back against his. Steven leaned backward to release his arms and slid one around her waist, not wanting to break the kiss. She cuddled in tighter though, and slightly parted her lips so Steven began teasing her with his tongue. They both fell back to lean against the wall behind them, at the same time Glenda opened her mouth and began to wildly devour his tongue. Steven gently placed his free hand under the hem of her skirt and brought it down on her bare leg. Glenda clutched him tighter, so Steven began sliding his hand slowly half way up and down her thigh, moving ever so slowly toward her inner thighs. She closed her thighs against his hand the first time he went a bit higher but her lips and mouth, and now her tongue, were playing a different tune to Steven so he put pressure against her outer leg and she slowly parted her thighs to allow him to slide his hand higher.

They made out that way for some time, Steven ever aware that Brad and Cassie could come back at any time and spoil the moment. Glenda opened her eyes and looked at him, the pleasure evident on her face. She leaned forward to kiss him again. She was no longer thrusting at his hand but sort of maintaining the pressure and rotating her hips against him now. Steven felt one of her hands slide down off his shoulder into his lap, the contact even through his jeans made him involuntarily shudder.

“One day we’ll deal with that.” She whispered at him and Steven opened his eyes to look at her again. As their eyes met she grasped him through his jeans and gave him a little smile and a little squeeze down there. “Know what I mean?” she asked, quickly kissing him again before he could answer. “God, my first ever orgasm, I am so wet, that was unbelievable!”

The words were just tumbling out of her mouth now as she removed his hand from between her legs. Steven looked down as she adjusted her panties to cover herself. “I am so saturated” she half whispered, half giggled. She drew her skirt down and threw her arms around him again, kissing him hard on the lips. “You’re not saying much.”

Steven responded by putting one hand down directly onto her upper thighs this time, comfortable with their physical contact. His other arm was still around her waist and he pulled her closer and likewise, kissed her hard on the mouth. He was still stunned at the speed of all that had just occurred.

“When?” was all he could say, breathless and a bit befuddled.

“You haven’t said hardly a word since we sat down” she said.

“I mean when are we going to deal with this?” He glanced down toward his groin as he spoke. Glenda giggled again, but this time she jumped up and bounded over the table, her blonde hair trailing off behind her.

“C’mon” she yelled back at him “let’s go find the other two”.

“Hey, but when?” he yelled at her fleeing back.

Glenda stopped and turned around about five metres from him by now. She cocked her head to one side, and looked at him smiling.

“When I’m ready Steven”.

He hated that, all of a sudden he was Steven now.

“What’s wrong with now?” he mumbled frowning heavily at her.

She stopped smiling. “You’re serious aren’t you, our friends are just over there somewhere, I’ve only just met you, it’s late, and you expect me to give you a hand job or go down on you or something, here in the middle of the park?”.

“I was thinking more of fucking you.”

Steven said it without thinking; he was angry at her attitude, angry that she had let him give her an orgasm, her first apparently, angry that they seemed to be getting on so well, and angry that she was standing there looking incredibly desirable, wet and willing, he with the biggest hard on he could ever remember having, and she was refusing to do anything except walk away. Glenda was in fact, now walking slowly back toward him. She stopped about a meter away.

“I don’t know if I’m ready for that” she said softly.

Her puzzled look making Steven boil a bit more.

“Fine, so it’s okay for me to get into your knickers and get you off but all I get in return is you running away telling me to wait”. Steven was not amused and in no mood to discuss anything. He felt he deserved something in return for giving her a moment she would probably remember all of her life. He yelled straight into her face, “You’re a fucking prick teaser Glenda, ya know that?”

Involuntary tears sprang into her eyes as the words lashed her. She couldn’t understand how this cute looking boy who she had just gone further with than anybody else could all of a sudden be turning on her. All she had wanted to do was go off and find Cass, to share what had been a momentous event in her life and then come back and cuddle up with him under the stars and dream of how she was going to tell her other friends that she was going steady with an older boy. And now here was that same boy standing there yelling at her so loud that everybody for two blocks could hear. She did all she could do, all that her young mind would allow through the fear numbing her brain, she turned and ran. She could hear him as she ran toward the road out of the park.

“Come back and finish what you’ve started you fucking bitch.”

All she could remember was his face, a monstrous mask of hatred, screaming at her.