A Note to the Reader
This is a work of pure fiction intended for an adult audience. It's the first story I've shared publicly. Many of my stories have existed for only a day before being relegated to the trash bin, and gosh darn it I'm tired of doing that. This was a fun one to write, and I hope you find it enjoyable.
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Prelude: 1976
Katie was the kind you take home to mom. I never did. Embarrassment avoidance was an almost daily concern of mine back in high school days. Mom wasn't a beast and we didn't live in a hovel, mind you, but I tended to seek out the better-washed for friends and conquests. And this particular green-eyed girlfriend lived in a house exactly four times the size of my own. We met in fast-food, she a pretty and demure cashier with curly blond hair, and I a lanky and brazen burger flipper who smelled of garlic and grease.
It was the spring quarter of my junior year. Katie was a senior at a rival school in the county. Every time I picked her up, I talked with her dad in their formal living room. I never had to wait too long to be rescued. I later imagined that her father informed her to minimize the amount of time my Valiant spent in his driveway. I chatted with her mom a couple times, and I remember her as a hot one. It bode well for her daughter's future.
Sex wasn't a part of dating Katie. I liked being with her, talking with her, and smelling her. Damn, could she ever arouse through her scents alone! To hug her and kiss her neck was to be overwhelmed with desire. I tried my best to steer it toward the other senses, but it wasn't to be. Typically, it was just a kiss in the dark driveway that punctuated the evening.
The kisses at least got better over the three months we went to movies, dinners, some being double-dates, and that one killer party. Taking her home after that one was not any different, though. She had taken to holding my hands while we kissed, and that's how it went. And then she did what she always did, giving me the smile that said "I'm sorry." And it always morphed into a smile of genuine fondness for me. Yeah, that smile of hers is what kept me coming back.
On what ended up being our last date, we spent a little time at the local make-out zone. I don't know what I was thinking, really. Not so much as a kiss transpired there along the river.
"I can't, Jeffrey. I'm sorry."
And she gave me that damn smile. I've no idea what my expression conveyed.
I positively wrote-off getting into her pants. I wondered if she had a wiener or something and didn't want me finding out. Fine, fine; it's not like I wasn't making the most of the weekend's other date night, at least during a few of the weekends while we dated. But the summer was ending and big changes were coming. Katie would be off to college soon, and I had things to do in getting ready for senior year.
Off to college Katie went. I did some things. I ran into her mother at the grocery store one September morning. In the checkout line, we talked about what I had planned for after high school. She had only a basket of goodies so I waited for her and walked her to the car. She hugged me goodbye, and she apparently had no trouble reading my face afterward. And I'll be damned if a bittersweet smile didn't morph into sunshine. And then something like partly cloudy.
"Katie said you were always a perfect gentleman, and her father and I appreciate that very much. Take care, OK?"
I think I offered a "You too" in the awkwardness that followed. I jumped into her eyes and she allowed it.
She was peering inside me just as intently, and I glimpsed the lover she was. I opened my mouth to speak, but she put up a delicate hand and mouthed what I think was "Can't". And then it flashed again, the family smile that means all is good when all is not. It would be a number of years before I'd see her again.
That fall and winter Katie and I wrote all of four letters to each other, each increasingly shorter. And that was that. And then In the spring of my junior year in college, my mom called with news there was a letter waiting for me.
Chapter 1: 1980
"It's from Katie!"
Mom was acting her usual happy self when bringing news of a girl. She knew Katie was one of the special ones.
"I never met that one, Jeffrey."
No, she hadn't, I told her. It was convenient timing as I was to be home in a week anyway for a summer of absolute freedom. The digs, I should point out, were different. It would be my first time staying more than a night in the new house, and I was actually looking forward to it.
I finished the quarter's exams and made for home. I don't think I so much as turned the radio on. Katie was everywhere. I contemplated five or six glorious scenarios of how our reunion might go, never mind she might be writing only to ask for one of my friends' phone numbers. She did look at Mark a lot on double-dates.
Once home and unpacked, I lifted Katie's letter from the mantle as nonchalantly as possible. I didn't want questions. What I wanted was to run up to my new bedroom, lock the door, and tear into the envelope. Instead, I waited until after mom gave me a tour of the latest new furnishings, during which time it finally occurred to me that the letter might have been violated. It was known to happen years back. It takes only the desire and a steaming teakettle to open a letter, and she had had that one sitting around for at least a week. She was a curious woman, but that's a story for another day.
Katie's letter was full of promise. It didn't take a lot of reading between lines to see she had some regrets. I read the letter a second time to scan it as might a nosy mother. Not too bad, I thought. Ah, but I could see Katie's lovely smile through her hand-written words. She wrote she hoped I'd be home for the summer and that we could see each other. She closed with a phone number. I was on the horn within five minutes.
"Hello."
I almost couldn't speak. That voice! One silly word and I flashed back to 16. I regained my composure and we chatted for a half-hour. She had just graduated from another college and already had an apartment with a Kathleen, one of her past roommates from the school. Kathleen had graduated the quarter before to meet a start-date for a PR job. Katie was going into a finance position in a month's time. I told her that my earlier dreams in the field of psychology had become nightmares, and somewhere along the way I found my inner mathematician. She thought it funny since I had such a hard time with figuring the tip on our dinner dates. She offered no word about boyfriends, and I kept my cards close on that subject. We set a date for the next weekend, presumably when her apartment would be presentable enough to receive a gentleman caller.