Separate Schools Read online

  8

  Harrison introduced the two guys, saying, “Hey Mikey, this is Brady, he’s here with Kelsey Kay.”

  “Hey Brady.”

  “What’s up?”

  They shook hands in front of Harrison and when they broke Harrison gave Mikey a hug, and Mikey said, “Hey buddy—how you been?”

  “Good,” he said, “how’s college?”

  “Crazy, man,” Mikey said, ran one side of his long hair behind an ear then put his hands in his pockets.

  Brady watched—no, ogled—the four girls as they got close together like the guys shouldn’t hear what they were saying. They talked over top of one another in hushed tones, each bringing forth their own strategy for obtaining alcohol, a devious roundtable of very serious young girl faces. Brady’s eyebrows were high as his gaze went up and down their bare, tanned legs.

  “This guy’s a little wide-eyed,” Mikey said in a drowsy drawl.

  Brady made a pssh sound through pouted lips, still leg-watching, turned, said, “Just trying to figure out how this lucky guy scored a girl like Taylor,” and he thumped Harrison’s shoulder amicably enough, but they weren’t exactly friends.

  Mikey said, “Most everybody at school wonders, too …”

  Harrison said, “Hey,” frowning at Mikey who just grinned dumbly.

  Mikey said, “Come on, you know you’re lucky.”

  “Yeah, I do,” he admitted.

  Now the four girls drew closer, but instead of talking they each had their phones thrust up to their faces, long thumbs tapping away madly. The close circle they’d formed began to loosen, and they all drifted toward the slope that headed to the back of the house.

  Alcohol was dumb and Harrison wished they weren’t so caught up in this. Not just because he didn’t want to partake, but because he had two things of most pressing urgency controlling his thoughts right now.

  1.) He had to pee. That wasn’t important, but it did need to be dealt with.

  2.) This new virginity thing. He needed to get Taylor up to their bedroom and into bed. Right now (Right now, after he peed).

  “Taylor, hey Taylor,” he called after her.

  “What?” She looked up, almost startled.

  “Our shit,” he said, “we got to unload. You have to open the house.”

  “Oh yeah,” she said, tucking her phone away in a front pocket.

  Back in the passenger seat of the Soob, she retrieved a keyring from her purse, trotted to him and pressed the keys into his hand. “Can you do it?” she said poutingly.

  “Yeah, sure,” he said, taking the keys and a peck on the lips. “What room am I in?” he asked. The focal point of their arrival should have been them having bare-penis-into-bare-vagina sex, but now it was about alcohol. Trish wouldn’t be there and that meant they were unchaperoned and could sleep together all night in the same bed which they’d only ever been able to manage twice in the past, and it was far more heavenly than getting loaded would be.

  The other girls gathered around, their energy bustling with haste, wanting to get on with what they wanted. Taylor looked back at them, then to him, said, “We can take my bed in my room.”

  Her bedroom had always been the second on the right side after turning left at the top of the stairs—a small room with a view of the lake and two double beds. Roxie, Shelby, Kelsey Kay, and Taylor would normally bunk in the same room.

  Roxie turned up her nose, looking at Harrison and saying, “I definitely don’t want to hear any sex sounds.”

  Shelby corroborated the sentiment, saying, “Gross.”

  Harrison leveled his eyes at them and said, “Then you girls may want to find another room.”

  Both of them eye-rolled with sagging shoulders, but Kelsey Kay said, “Let me stay in there, me and Brady. We won’t hear their sex noises ‘cause we’ll make our own.”

  It was a good solution, and Taylor brightened, said, “Like a competition.”

  In a squeaky, pre-pubescent teen girl voice, Kelsey Kay imitated Taylor asking: “Is it in yet, Harrison?”

  Harrison sucked his index finger, let Kelsey Kay watch him, taking his time, then jabbed it in her ear but missed because she saw it coming and hiked her shoulder up. He said, “She knows when it’s in, you silver-haired harpy.”

  She laughed and pushed him away with both hands, Brady saying, “What’s that?—a harpy?”

  To himself, Harrison said, Listen to an audiobook or something while you’re doing your bicep curls in the mirror, you idiot.

  9

  Their bags were carried up in two trips. Taylor packed a suitcase and a duffel bag, and he brought just a single knapsack. He also horsed their cooler into the kitchen and put the groceries away in the fridge, and the snacks were shelved in the cupboard; marshmallows, a few chocolate bars, graham crackers for s’mores, lots of pop, three dozen homemade burger patties his mother made, buns, corn chips, cheesies, and Taylor’s favorite: Great Lakes potato chips, Michigan Cherry BBQ. Her other favorite, gummy Gold Bears, were secreted in his bag.

  He’d gone into the main floor bathroom first thing and stood over the toilet thunder-draining himself for what felt like about maybe four to five minutes. A terrific pee, then, up in Taylor’s bedroom, he began putting away some of their things, hoping Taylor would show up soon. When she didn’t, he sent her a text.

  Harrison: where are u?

  It went unanswered.

  Ten minutes later and it was still unanswered. But at least now he could hear her laughing downstairs on the main floor.

  The idea that they would have real sex was driving him crazy. Felt like there was a lump the size of a fist right under his guts, and it was twisting and rotating, the knuckles grinding on the underside of his stomach like worn down gears.

  Now he was standing with both hands on the wide windowsill and looking down over the lake. You couldn’t see the neighbor’s yards from where they were, but the lake looked busy today. Lots of jet skis out there, and lots of boats zipping along the sunny sparkling water. On the farther side where it was a little more hazy from the heat, he saw some kids waterskiing.

  Taylor’s voice grew closer, and he heard her clapping Birkenstock-feet on the stairs. Then she stopped again, talking to someone, probably Roxie, their voices low so he couldn’t hear what was being said.

  Fuck’s sake, Taylor, you have to get in here before I explode.

  Thump, thump, thump, the sound of feet coming up the old wooden steps and onto the second floor landing. Now his palms were actually sweating, and he rubbed the tips of his four fingers over the heel of his thumb and felt how slick they were. Click clack, and the door was opening, and he swore if it was Kelsey Kay’s stupid face he might just lose his shit ...

  But it wasn’t. Coming in?—only the most beautiful girl in the world.

  He was on her in a heartbeat. His mouth went over hers and the door wasn’t even closed yet. His hands went to the small of her back and he pressed himself against her. She was mid-sentence, coming in and saying something but he disregarded it and put his mouth over top of her words. She made a mumph sound and laughed while he kissed her.

  When she pushed away, she gasped, “Oh my God, do you have a hard-on?”

  “I do,” he told her. No point in beating around the bush.

  “What the heck, Harrison?” she asked. She enjoyed teasing him and taunting him, and though her words seemed condemnatory, her expression was one of mirth and pleasure.

  Taylor had what he would describe as a perfect face. High cheekbones and a sharply angled jaw that came to a tiny pointed chin; a long, thin neck, and a narrow, well-formed nose. But it was her smile that would kill you. Wide, smooth and glossy lips, teeth in a perfect white line. And her eyes sparkled gray-green, but she liked to call it plain gray.

  He said, “What you told me in the WC?—am I supposed to forget about that?”

  She laughed. “Pervert. It’s the middle of the day and all our friends are here ...”

  “They’re going t
o be here no matter what. And who cares if it’s the daytime? I want to do it in the day, do it at night, hell, do it all night. We’re going to do it while we’re sitting eating pancakes at the breakfast table tomorrow.”

  He got closer to her, more gentle now, running his hands over her body in a friendly way. He did, however, also press his erection against her stomach again.

  “Right now? I thought we’d wait until tonight.”

  “I can’t wait until tonight, Taylor. With this little seed in my head, it’s gonna grow vines and strangle my brain if we don’t do it right now.”

  “Right now? Everybody is downstairs, people are going to be coming soon.”

  He narrowed his eyes and said, “I know two people who are going to be coming soon.”

  That got her. She giggled, covered her mouth, her posture slumping, surrendering. She hugged him then with one arm and pressed her chin into his chest.

  Bold words on his part, given he wasn’t one-hundred percent sure he had delivered Taylor an orgasm yet. One time she told him she thought she came, and they treated it as a fact ...

  She whispered, “Right now? Seriously?”

  “Come on with me,” he told her.

  By the hand, he led her to her bed. It was positioned on the right-hand side of the room, the headboard a brass trellis with porcelain balls at the posts. Part of the headboard blocked the view out the window. It was the perfect spot for them to express their union of love again. The last ‘first’ time had been in the room that he’d grown up in. The room where he’d been a boy and later became a dirty teenager and then became a man. This spot here at the lakeside home was more perfect. The happiest place they had as a couple. The place they spent time when they came together so many times as happy kids. Back when they were even only friends, this place meant so much to them. The sun was shining, and though there were sounds of voices in the house, it was the voices of their friends. There would be no way he’d be able to wait until nighttime. They could do it again at nighttime.

  “Don’t you want to?” he said, realizing he was putting pressure on her, but he just couldn’t help it. How could she not want to rip her clothes off and get this done? And how did she wait so long, knowing she was on the pill? Did she really need to wait to see her flow?

  “Baby, I do. I really do want to,” she said and put her long warm hand on his cheek and looked into his eyes. He could see the love there, the compassion. He held her wrist and stroked at the back of her hand with his thumb. She cocked her head, her wide smile widening. “Let’s do it,” she whispered.

  “Oh my God, yes,” he exhaled, showing her a comically earnest expression.

  10

  Harrison’s soulful blue eyes trembled over hers. The sunlight seeped through her bedroom’s dormer window and lit the slanted ceiling. The reflection off the angled ceiling made the gold-lacquered wood floor glow below them and lit her boyfriend’s eyes up making them almost seem to shine from within. Her sweet, loving Harrison ...

  “Tell me you want to,” he said softly.

  “I really do want to,” she said, and she stroked his cheeks again then put her hands on the bed behind her. Stooping over her, he kissed her lips, and she tilted her head up to receive him. His hands now cupped her neck, his thumbs stroking the tendons that supported her head. The hands roamed then, slipping down her collar, and so did his kisses, his pouting lips suckling on her throat. She began soft little moaning sounds. His knees pressed against the side of the bed, then dragged downward against the cotton quilt until he was kneeling before her. Her legs were open, and she regarded him as he kneeled before her. She played with his hair and looked in his eyes. She said, “You were my first. Do you remember that?”

  “Of course I do,” he said and kissed her hand.

  “You’re my best friend and I love that we lost our virginity together. I want to do it for real.”

  He smiled and said, “Did you have a speech prepared?”

  She sucked on her lower lip until her smile pulled her lip taught. She said, “Kind of. Would you let me just say it?”

  “I’m sorry. Go ahead.”

  “You’re my best friend, Harrison. I’ve known you my whole life it feels like. The parts that I remember, at least. You’re the best guy I know. When you moved to Saginaw, and we were nine-years old, it took, what?—two weeks before we were best friends. I want you to really be my first. They counted and everything, all those times with a condom and all, but I want you to be the first person that I really make love with. I always want to remember it was you. Really you.”

  “The first person?”

  She cocked her head and rolled her eyes, felt them swell up with a sudden, unexpected sadness. She whispered, “You know what I mean.”

  He said to her: “I love you.”

  Her thumb traced his brow line, and while she thought of the entirety of their time together—could picture it in her mind’s eye like a monolith growing hazy in an enveloping fog—her lips began to tremble. Before she cried, she managed to answer: “I love you, too, Harrison.”

  11

  Just the idea of what was about to happen had his erection painfully pressed against his pants. His breath was already coming quick. His thumbs went to her middle, found the hem of her T-shirt and slowly lifted it until he saw a seam of her tanned flesh. Just a sliver of her perfect feminine body where it was revealed under the hem of her shirt and over the waistband of her khaki shorts; her tight little navel, scrunched down in a horizontal dash; her tummy heaved in and out as she chuckled a little.

  “What are you doing?” she asked him.

  “You’re so perfect,” he said and looked up to meet her gaze again.

  She smiled affectionately and cocked her head at him again, ran her hand through his hair. Now he leaned forward, and he kissed her skin just above her belly button, taking a mouthful of her warm flesh and pressing it between his lips as his fingers came together under his chin and worked the button out of its hole.

  Taylor leaned back again, putting her hands out behind her and watching down her body as he sucked on her stomach. Now he drew down her zipper, sat more upright so he could see the spot where he’d left her wet with his saliva, blushing blossoms on her tummy where he’d suckled. There was a black slash of cotton panties visible in the open V of her shorts. He took the two open halves of her flannel shirt and slipped them over her shoulders, and she helped him, shrugging her arms out of the sleeves. While she tossed her shirt behind her, he was already taking the bottom of her T-shirt and pulling it upward.

  Now she sat and watched him, revealed in just a plain black bra sitting with her shorts open and her legs apart, just a spectator. He ran his hands through her hair and kissed her forehead saying, “You going to help out or you just going to let me do all the work?”

  She laughed and said, “I like what you’re doing.”

  “I do, too.”

  “Keep going,” she urged him.

  12

  He dropped to his knees again between her open thighs and kissed his way up her tummy till his nose touched her bra. She didn’t have big breasts like Roxie did, but he wasn’t kidding when he said they were his favorite. They were perfect. His hands went behind her and he unclasped her bra. Though her bosom was meager, he saw the slight sag when the support of her bra was released. He pulled away the fabric and her rosy-brown nipples extended and condense right before his eyes.

  “I love your breasts,” he said.

  “Do you?”

  Serving as an answer, he put his mouth over one of those perfect nipples. His nose flooded with the scent of her perfume and deodorant and the soap she used. Her familiar and welcome smell. He breathed her in while his tongue ran around the hardening shape of her bud. He took the other one and did the same, his hands coming up to press them together. She breathed heavily, and it urged his breaths faster, too.

  With his hands on her shoulders now he guided her to lay back, and he got over top of her. Downstairs someon
e yelled and screamed, something broke; there was laughter, and an Uh-oh. He could feel her flinch underneath him, and he shushed her, saying, “Easy, easy, it’s fine.”

  “I know,” she said, but she was distracted. He kissed her again, and she was happy with that, laying back sideways on their mattress, making out like they used to when they were just kids. His hand went down between her breasts and over her navel and traced the top edge of her panties. When she lay back on the bed like this, her stomach went concave and the points of her tanned hips stuck up. He ran his hand along the hollow, sweeping from hipbone to hipbone teasing her before his hand went inside her panties. She gasped into his mouth when he touched her between her legs. Now he knew they were going to do this. It was going to happen. He ached for her.

  The sound of her breathing, the lusty heaving and the more eager swirling of her tongue against his told him she was ready for this. Her hand went down his ribs running along his T-shirt to his shorts her hand fumbling with his belt. They made out like that for a little while, tasting each other’s mouths and playing with their tongues, and their hands undressed and teased each other.