9781618856357HavingItAllStorm
Page 6
“How did you hear? It ended less than an hour ago.”
“Word gets around, babe. The blogs are all agog. The twits can’t stop twittering.”
She pushed him away, gently extracting the slab of prime beef.
Distractedly, she continued to undress, after grabbing a nearby hand towel and mopping herself and Chad. As a good housewife should. “I thought I had figured out how to present our suggestion so that it wouldn’t come as a shock. People can get, I don’t know, funny, when it comes to sex. And particularly, sex education.”
Chad’s blue blues narrowed as Syble continued her recital of how the PTA evening had unfolded while she stripped naked before him, carefully folding her pants and shirt and hanging them on a chair in the dining area.
“Well, the high-school guys sure as hell need a dose of it,” he noted, his gaze traveling up and down her shapely frame. She noted his intense observation and smiled. It was nice to be appreciated.
Not that Stephen didn’t, she quickly noted to herself. He just had so little time to think of anything but the damn dissolution of his corporate life lately—damn, endless, endless months!
“They’re really uptight.” She took off Chad’s team jacket and pulled his polo shirt over his head and tossed them aside, not wanting to leave him. Her palms flattened against the hard planes of his pecs and six-pack abs, her spread fingers sucking energy from the hard muscles. “I just barely got out that the young people of this town obviously need more knowledge and guidance as far as their sexual activity is concerned, when they all but started to holler me down. I was stunned.”
“Is that what you said? Their ‘sexual activity,’ meaning their little darling virgins know about that stuff and actually engage in it?”
“Chad, it’s not funny.” She tied on a frilly, transparent apron—Chad licked his lips—and began to gather the makings of dinner. “There are four teenage pregnant girls in this town, right now, and they need to know that we support them and are here for them.”
“There are probably a hell of lot more, from what the guys tell me.”
“What? You talked about,” she gestured helplessly, “the…situation?”
“Yeah. Why not? Like you, I figured it was time to find out if we were barking up a tree that cared a shit about whether we were barking up it or…or whatever.”
“What did they say, your students, the guys?”
“To cut to the chase—and you ain’t gonna like it, pretty librarian lady—they don’t see what the big deal is.”
“You’re not serious.” She paused mid-flight, frozen chicken breasts suspended before the microwave. Chad took the package from her and put it in the machine to defrost.
“The girls, shall I be blunt? It’s that ‘friendship with privileges,’ thing. Blow‘em in order to be in the right crowd. Some of the guys decide they want more and the girls are willing to give it. They figure—the guys, that is—figure it’s their problem—the girls’ problem, that is—if anything goes wrong. They should be on the pill; they should know they can get knocked up. The guys supply the ready and willing dick, the rest is the girls’ problem.”
She was furious. “That’s appalling!”
“Uh, well, yeah…” He took a very sharp knife out of her hand. “I agree, but it did make me think maybe we’re biting off more than we can chew. It’s gonna be hard to point out something is bad that they seem to have grown up thinking is okay.”
“That’s disgusting! What do these people tell their kids about sex?” She already knew the answer.
“Apparently nothing.”
“Then somebody had damn well better. I refuse to live in a town with a bunch of irresponsible teenage studs growing up to be community-approved predators.”
“Whoa. That’s heavy.”
“The girls are pregnant, Chad! Those young women have to make responsible decisions about what to do about their pregnancies! This could scar them for life! That should also be the responsibility of the stupid, irresponsible, teenage males who just fucking lay back and got fucked or sucked or leap on them like dogs.” She slammed a pan down, rattling the kitchen. “The girls need some talking to, too!”
“Uh…yeah, I guess.” He seemed confused. And distracted. Maybe it was the crisp, transparent fabric behind which her pussy peeked that was mesmerizing him, and the dark fur of her crotch winking in and out making his mouth dry. Her gleaming, bare ass mesmerizingly beckoning as she stalked about the kitchen, slamming pots and pans, throwing stuff into them. His palms were sweating. His dick reached for the fluorescents.
“Men are such total animals,” Syble snarled to herself. How could she ever have thought…
Chad sat, his muscular, damp thighs very wide spread, his broad shoulders slumping.
“The guys figure the girls’ll just go away for a while and have the kids and then give ’em up.” He addressed his nervous hands. “They don’t even consider there might be options.”
“Do any of the dads care?”
“Uh…you mean the dads of the guys? Not really. Their precious sons are all pretty much on a fast track to college and having a kid would kind of cramp their style. Uh…Syb, maybe we should talk about this later. I’m, uh…I mean, can I help you with dinner or something?”
She had just put the frozen peas in the oven and the chicken breasts back in the microwave.
“Oh…” She took a moment to calm herself. She was pleased that he looked concerned. Animal that he might be, he was at least an observant one…responsible. Maybe there was hope. “And what did you say to your hormonally charged charges about this situation?”
He shrugged. “I told them they were a bunch of creeps and would get ten extra laps at practice this afternoon. Couple of ’em dropped, too.”
She stared at him for a long dark moment. She could tell he had the feeling that was not the punishment she had in mind.
Chad looked worried. “I should have given them twenty?”
* * * *
Dinner was not comfortable. Syble kept straightening up, glowering, pushing her breasts at Chad and driving him bonkers. Testing; re-testing. Rinsing the dishes got a lot more fun. He shoved his hard dick into the crack of her butt and she responded, pushing back, teasing. He began to relax, which was a good thing, she thought, considering her sloppy meal didn’t seem to have gone down that easily. She was angry at the wrong guy. He was on her side. Their side. She tried to calm herself but her mind was in turmoil. It had been way too full a day. At least Chad had finally begun to relax, if warily.
They were in the den, stretched out on the couch listening to Michael Bublé. Her choice. Definitely her choice. She was lying in his lap. She flipped the see-through apron. “I was going to meet you at the door in this. Forgetting that you come in the back door.”
He smirked. “I haven’t yet, but however you’ll take it, I’m willing. Just be sure and leave the chain off.”
It took her a second. She punched him lightly in his abs. “We can get kinky later about you coming in my back door. And what I might do with chains. It took Stephen and me three or four years before we ever got out of the missionary position.”
He tensed. “Wouldn’t it be better if we didn’t mention your…”
“The other man in my life? He’s going to be in yours, too. You’ll like him. He’s a great guy. He’s smart and…”
“Okay. Okay. But he’s also screwing you and…”
“And very well too, thank you very much, young stud. And considering what he’s been going through these…”
“I know, I know, I just…It’s an unusual situation, Syb, I’m just trying to get a handle on it. You and me. And Stephen. That’s a little…not what I’m used to. Or him, either, I betcha. Unless… Hey, were you guys, like, swingers in the city or something? Is he getting it during the week, too?”
“No, we weren’t swingers. We were enough for each other. I don’t think it ever dawned on either of us to even think about looking anywhere else. And, no, I d
on’t think he’s getting it. If he is, it sure isn’t helping.”
She could tell Chad didn’t quite get it…yet. She wasn’t even sure she had it all worked out in her own mind. And she was definitely sure Stephen didn’t have a clue. But she knew what she wanted. And she was going to get it.
“Nurse Syble,” the young coach murmured. “Always trying to help. You want to nurse me back to health? I’ve been away from you a long time.” He pulled close and began to fondle her.
She poured the few remaining drops of her wine over his chest, her determined look morphing into a seductive one.
“Well, I guess it’s the least I could do.” She began to lick. You’re going to need all the health you can get.
Chapter Four
“Hey, hear you really started somethin’ last night.” Andy leaned over the counter, grinning.
It was nice to see she could rouse him to show some sort of energy. Syble sighed. “I also discovered the word really gets around fast in this town,” she answered him. “How fast did the news of the girls’ pregnancies circulate?”
He looked slightly chagrined. “Practically as soon as they missed their periods.”
“What about the guys who did it?” Andy frowned, puzzled. “I suppose their names were all over the place, too?” Syble pressured.
“Not exactly. It was…uh…” Cool Andy instantly lost his cool. “It was, like, a party.”
“You mean in someone’s house?” Syble could imagine a wild teenaged, unchaperoned…
“No. Hayride. Right under all the blankets and stuff. Two or three guys…”
Syble’s jaw dropped, quickly putting it together. “It was a game. To see what they could get away with right under the chaperones’ noses. Two or three guys,” she took a breath, “impregnated each girl.”
Andy nodded.
“Everybody thought it was neat.”
“Awesome,” he agreed.
“Awesome.” She said, flatly. “Were you there?”
“Nah. I don’t get invited to those kinds of parties. Only the hunks. The girls want to, like, show off in front of the guys. You know, so they can boast.”
Syble’s mind raced. “Andy, you and I need to have a really good talk. Chad and I…the coach and I could use your expert help. Go get Meredith and tell her to look after the desk. And tell her, when Mrs. Abernathy comes, to send her back to the stacks.” She grabbed her folder marked “The Lesson Plan” and headed toward the locked area. “Move it, Andy. Now.”
Two hours of talk about promiscuous teenage sex was almost more than Mrs. Abernathy could handle. “I think I’m going to be faint,” she said more than once.
In the midst of it, Chad eagerly rushed in, still flushed from the afternoon’s practice and looked around, miffed at everyone present. All it took was one look at his moist eagerness and subsequent disappointment and Syble, too, began to feel anxious. If she and Chad didn’t get a chance to be alone soon, they wouldn’t be able to have sex until tomorrow. Chad had a post-game follow-up with the team tonight and her coffee klatch had insisted they get together since Syble hadn’t been available for the last two weeks. And with the ‘incident’ of the PTA on everyone’s blog, the klatch girls were anxious to get the word from the horse’s mouth.
Still, as desperately as she wanted to be with Chad, this was more important. They had each other. She and Stephen had each other. The girls might have no one, except an anxious family, probably frantic with the consequences of what had suddenly burst into the middle of their perfect suburban life.
Syble knew she was pushing for them to be able to do something, but she felt a sense of urgency, which escalated wildly the more information the kids supplied. With that kind of sexually promiscuous attitude prevalent among the teenagers, who knew who might be getting into trouble even as they discussed it? Meredith and Francine, her two other teen-aged library assistants, had proven harder to get information from, at first, but once Syble folded Andy—a boy, and not even one of the popular ones—into the mix, their junior high competitiveness took over and they were a font of jargon, attitude, gossip, and detail.
The most unnerving attitude Syble uncovered was the general opinion that a lot of fuss was being made about something that was really nobody’s business. Except the ones who had gotten knocked up, of course.
“They just got caught between a rock and a hard place,” Meredith announced primly, trying to explain the situation that had caused them to go over the line in the first place.
“They got caught between a hard thing and a bunch of straw,” Francine sniggered, considering herself the more imaginatively literate of the two. Meredith snickered in smug agreement; Mrs. Abernathy fanned herself. Andy snorted. To be the only guy with a couple of the girls—Chad didn’t count—was obviously an unusual deal for him. And the three teenagers had been working together in the library for a couple of years, Syble marveled.
“We should bring them all up for detention,” Chad muttered disconsolately, feeling totally overwhelmed.
“Yeah, you’d say that,” Andy muttered, under his breath.
“What was that, young man?” Chad snapped.
“He said you’d say that,” Syble instantly snapped back. “And don’t ‘young man’ him. His name is Andy and he’s being invaluable to us. As are Meredith and Francine.” Chad stared at her, his jaw tight, his handsome face reddening. The kids went wide-eyed. Mrs. Abernathy looked as if she might think about feeling faint again.
Syble put her arm protectively around the seated assistant coach and absently ran her hand over his buzz-cut. “Andy, it was Chad in the first place who wanted to help you guys, the guys who did it, and the poor girls who are suffering the consequences…all of you. He’s really the one who started this whole thing. We have him to thank if we can get one, just one teenager to think responsibly when this whole thing is over.”
“I didn’t know that. I mean, about the coach wanting to help.” Andy bit his lip. “Sorry,” he mumbled in Chad’s direction.
Chad jumped up and hugged the shocked kid around the shoulders. “I don’t have a very good rep with you guys, do I?” He included the girls in his question.
“Oh, no, we think you’re cool,” Meredith bubbled.
“We think you’re hot!” Miss Mouth chortled.
“Andy?” Syble asked.
“Gee, you’re strong.” Andy was still basking in the coach’s embrace. “Well, you can be kinda tough, but I guess that’s what we need. But, boy, you really blew it with those ten extra laps. They didn’t all screw around in the hay, y’know.”
“Then I’m the one to apologize, Andy. But how do I get through without being a wimp?”
Andy shrugged, but looked pleased the coach had asked for his opinion.
Syble broke in. “I want you kids to put together a presentation, a PowerPoint thing. Be as explicit as you think is necessary. And present it for us. Right here…the adults. We need to know where you’re all coming from before we can even begin to think where to lead you.”
Mrs. Abernathy spoke up. “Well, certainly, Syble, we know where to lead them. After all…”
“Sorry, Mrs. A., and no offense, but we don’t know. We’re acting as if the kids have done something wrong and they haven’t. They’ve done something that came naturally to them that they have not been trained to understand the social consequences of. They responded to hormonal and outside pressures and now the outside has deserted them. That’s not fair. We all know about it. Everyone in town…everyone everywhere, if what you tell me about the blogs and the Facebooks and the twittering is true. The grown ups are trying to pretend it didn’t happen. It did, and we have to let the girls, and the guys, know that we’re on their side, that we will stand behind them however they choose to deal with the situation. They are not alone.”
Mrs. A. looked shocked. “How they choose… But there’s no choice. They’ve done what they’ve done and it’s unfortunate but now they have to…”
“What?” Sy
ble turned on her. “Now they have to what?”
“Well, have the babies.”
“Are you going to take care of those unwanted babies?”
Mrs. Abnernathy stared, dumbfounded.
“In this country, women have a choice. In this town, women have a choice. And the men responsible should be involved…must be involved in that choice. And if we as adults have compromised that choice and ignore that responsibility by our inaction and lack of information, then we are just as culpable.” Her voice rose. “If we have to have a Town Meeting with the girls and their families and the young men who might have impregnated them…and their families…up on that stage to debate the issues, out in the open, where we all have to face ourselves, then so be it! But pretending it never happened is idiotic. Unconscionable. It will scar those girls for life. I will not let that happen!”
There was a sudden banging on the lower door of the stacks. Mrs. Lopez, who came to the library every day to read the foreign newspapers to which she could no longer afford to subscribe, and who had been pressed into duty to man the desk while all the library personnel were having their ‘big, important meeting’ in the stacks, threw the door open.
“Is everything all right in there? You’re making an awful lot of noise!”
“Yes, Mrs. Lopez!” Syble shouted. “We’re going to be making a hell of a lot of more noise before this is over.” The stacks, the entire library, vibrated.
“Wow,” Andy beamed, admiringly. The girls looked stunned. Mrs. A. looked faint. Chad looked smug. They might not be able to get together tonight, but he would bet tomorrow night was going to be a doozie.
“That’s my girl,” he said, proudly.
They all turned to stare at him, including Syble.
“Um, I mean, that’s all our girl. Our hero. Our leader! Right on, Syb!” He raised his fists. “Right, everyone? We’ll win this one, yet!”
“Yes, indeed, I agree. Right on,” said Mrs. A., somewhat hesitantly, “but rather than concerning ourselves with winning,” she continued, astonishingly, “perhaps we should focus on just being able to present our case well.”