Tilly and Elmer FlashbackX - Falling for a Kiss

by Gene Clements

Falling for a Kiss

  Tilly and Elmer FlashbackX

  Book 2

  Gene Clements

  Illustrations and Cover Design

  Gene Clements

  Falling for a Kiss

  Tilly and Elmer FlashbackX

  Book 2

  Gene Clements

  This is a work of fiction. Events, places, characters or names are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, places, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Any references to historical events, places, or real people are used fictitiously. All characters depicted in this work of fiction are 18 years of age or older.

  Copyright 2014, 2015 Gene Clements

  Table of Contents

  Author’s Note

  Falling for a Kiss

  About the Author

  Tilly and Elmer’s Web Site

  Other Titles on the Tilly and Elmer FlashbackX series

  Titles in the Tilly and Elmer Series

  Author’s Note:

  The fictional stories in the Tilly and Elmer FlashbackX series chronicle the romantic, sometimes erotic, and almost always humorous, adventures of Tilly and Elmer, a Midwestern couple in their late sixties. They’ve been married for close to fifty years, and would appear to the casual observer to be the definition of an “old married couple”. But while they ARE a couple, AND married, they don’t consider themselves OLD. In fact, they still feel like teenagers most of the time, although sometimes events remind them that they aren’t quite as athletic, skinny, or flexible, as they were five decades ago. No matter. They try to recapture their youth anyway; and when they can’t quite recapture it, they at least give it a good chase.

  In this series, Tilly and Elmer FlashbackX, they remember their high school dating years, from their first date to the day they leave for colleges 2000 miles apart. You may find these stories sounding a little familiar as Tilly and Elmer reveal the clumsy interactions, the shocking miscommunication, and the catastrophes that seem funny in retrospect, as well as the surprising delights and breathtaking pleasures of learning about sex and falling hopelessly in love.

  I’m primarily a visual artist and began writing these stories almost by accident, so it was natural for me to add illustrations to accompany the text. Tilly is a little shy about some of the illustrations, but Elmer likes them, although he doesn’t mention this to Tilly.

  I hope you enjoy Tilly and Elmer’s company as much as I do; if you do, check out the other titles in the Tilly and Elmer F;ashbackX series and the original Tilly and Elmer series.

  Gene Clements

  Falling for a Kiss

  Tilly and Elmer FlashbackX

  Book 2

  Gene Clements

  As usual, Elmer was spending the first part of his morning at Pearl’s Diner, drinking coffee with his friends at the “Geezer’s Table”. One of the attractions of Pearl’s, apart from Pearl herself of course, was Pearl’s waitress Molly; eighteen, slim, cute as a button, and flirtatious in a way that suggested she found the geezers so much like her grandfather as to be completely harmless. In this she was right.

  To Pearl’s mild annoyance, Molly’s boyfriend, Randy, had a habit of dashing in the door at some point each morning, winking at Pearl, giving Molly a passionate kiss that lasted a minute or so, then dashing out again. At the conclusion of this event, Molly was more or less useless as a waitress for a quarter of an hour. While Pearl wasn’t thrilled, Elmer and the “Boys” found this performance endearing, although each secretly wished he were as young and favored as Randy. The conversation at the table sometimes paused briefly while Randy was entertaining Molly, but this event soon became routine and often went unnoticed. One morning however, Elmer wasn’t participating in the conversation of the moment, a critique of the local Community College football team, and when the performance took place, Elmer found himself thinking back to his first kiss. He knew Tilly was the lucky girl and that it had taken place on her parents’ front porch, but apart from that and the fact that there was some kind of embarrassment involved, the details were vague.

  When he got home, Elmer found Tilly hanging laundry on the line and surprised her by attempting to mimic Randy and Molly’s passionate kiss.

  “OK Elmer,” Tilly asked, recovering her breath, “What were you boys talking about at Pearl’s this morning?”

  “Football,” said Elmer.

  “You should talk about football more often,” Tilly said with a smile.

  “Well, Randy and Molly engaged in their usual morning ritual and I got to thinking about our first kiss. There was something weird about it wasn’t there?”

  “I remember it intimately. It was sweet, but I’d have to say it didn’t go quite as I had pictured,” said Tilly, laughing.

  “I remember being very nervous about it, and that I was glad when we got it out of the way,” said Elmer.

  “Why were you so nervous? You didn’t think I was going to bite you did you?”

  “Everything about you made me nervous in those days,” laughed Elmer. “And I remember you WERE dressed like a vampire at the time.”

  •

  October 1961

  Elmer and Tilly had become friendly in biology class in the fall of 1961, had gone on a couple of dates, and Tilly was pretty sure Elmer would ask her to go to the Halloween dance with him. She was looking forward to it, but Elmer seemed to be dragging his feet a bit. Tilly didn’t know that Elmer had two reasons for his hesitation; first, he had never tried dancing, and second, he knew that he would probably be expected to kiss her good night afterwards. Since this would be their third date, and protocol required the boy to kiss a girl on the third date, this seemed like a very perilous event. Not that Elmer didn’t want to kiss Tilly. He really liked her and thought kissing would be interesting even though he didn’t think he would find it a major turn on. He knew, however, that if he were going to lose his virginity with someone, he would probably have to kiss her first. But the more Elmer found himself liking Tilly, the more he worried that something would go wrong.

  Elmer knew he couldn’t wait forever to ask Tilly to go to the dance. Each day they talked before biology class, and Tilly would often bring up the subject of Halloween. And each night, Elmer would lie in bed and try to imagine the actual kiss. Should he boldly take her in his arms and kiss her passionately, bending her backwards as they did in the movies? Whenever he imagined this scenario, she let out a yelp and pushed him away, just before her father burst out the door with his shotgun.

  Perhaps he should approach her slowly, gently holding her hand as he moved his face closer and closer to hers. Whenever he played this scenario in his mind, she slowly moved back so that he never got any closer to her. Eventually she would say, “Good Night, Elmer!” and hastily disappear inside, slamming the door a little too hard.

  Maybe he should ask her if it would be OK to kiss her. He had never heard of a real man doing this, and the phrasing would be awkward; “I’m going to kiss you now!”; no, too assertive. “May I kiss you Tilly?”; no, too formal. “Tilly, I think it’s time I showed my affection for you by giving you a kiss!”; no, they would both be laughing before they had a chance to carry it out. “Kiss me, baby!”; no, not in South Branch, Iowa. And, whenever he imagined asking her to indulge him in a kiss, he either heard himself say it in a squeaky voice that sounded like a chipmunk or he imagined accidently saying “May I lick you good-night!” That would get him thrown off the porch for sure. And, even if he asked her in any fashion, he fully expected her to say, “Not tonight Elmer, I have a headache!”, or whatever women said when they didn’t want you trying to trick them
into having sex.

  Elmer considered just waiting for Tilly to take the initiative. This didn’t seem like a good plan because, first, she might not do so, and second, it was a coward’s way out. Of course, Elmer understood that if he couldn’t even manage to kiss her, he would never be having sex with her, and that if he failed to ask her to the dance, she’d think he was an even bigger loser than she probably thought already. Each night, this would be the point in Elmer’s deliberations where he would slip into a distracting fantasy about his future adventures with Tilly.

  Finally, a few days before Halloween, Tilly pointedly mentioned to Elmer how much fun she thought the dance would be and how she didn’t have a date so far. By way of explanation for his lack of initiative in this matter, Elmer heard himself revealing to Tilly that he wanted to ask her, but that he didn’t know how to dance. It occurred to him when he said it that it might get him off the hook and that he could deal with the kiss problem another time. Instead, Tilly gave him a cute smile, touched his forearm, and told him if he would take her, she would teach him to dance. And anyway, she noted, even if he was awkward at first, no would recognize him in his Halloween costume. Elmer hadn’t realized it was a costume dance. Still, she seemed to want to go with him and he couldn’t back out after she offered to take care of the problem he had reported to her, so the date was set.

  The longer Elmer thought about the potential awkwardness of what he now thought of as “The Kiss”, the more nervous he got. As he often did on matters of girls and their desires, Elmer consulted his friend Eddie. Even though Eddie had never been on a date himself, his older brother was known to be a ladies man so Elmer figured he had some inside knowledge of the subject. Eddie suggested placing one hand behind Tilly’s head, the other on her butt, and pulling her tightly into a passionate hold that she couldn’t escape from.

  “Even if she tries to wiggle out of it, she’d be rubbing her tits against your chest. That would be cool!” was the way Eddie put it. Elmer enjoyed the mental image, but it didn’t sound like that great an idea. Eddie also mentioned that his older brother had assured him that “If a girl will kiss you, she’ll let you do anything with her!” Elmer found this quite mystifying since, while he could realistically envision Tilly kissing him on Saturday night, the idea that she would have sex with him on their third date was unimaginable. Eddie agreed it didn’t seem likely, but he suggested Elmer stop by Smitty’s gas station and load up on rubbers before the dance just in case.

  •

  October 28, 1961

  By the Saturday of the dance, Elmer was no closer to figuring out how to manage what he had begun to see as the gateway to his entire sexual future. What had started out in Elmer’s mind as a mild bit of potential awkwardness, was, by this time, the crucial event that would send him forth as a stud who would have women flocking to him for his reputation as a master of erotic expertise, or the beginning of his descent into the life of a hopeless virginal outcast, reduced to relieving his disgusting desires through self abuse until he was an old man of thirty. Elmer was distracted from his worries for a time on Saturday morning when he realized he would have to come up with some kind of costume for the dance. The only costume he could think of was a pirate, which was fine, maybe that would inspire him in his quest for Tilly’s treasure. He wore a pair of black cut-off shorts from his closet, put on one of his father’s oversized white shirts, partly unbuttoned and with the collar tucked under, wrapped a red bandana around his head and he was set.

  Elmer picked Tilly up in his father’s Ford at 6 o’clock. Tilly was ready on time on this occasion, not wanting to risk a repeat of their first date when she kept him waiting in the company of her father which had resulted in a bit of embarrassment all around. Elmer felt quite the buccaneer in his pirate garb, but he was amazed by Tilly’s costume. She had obviously spent considerable time and effort on it, consisting as it did of an elaborate blue dress with crinolines, bobby socks, and patent leather shoes, as one might find on a Dutch country girl, but evolving toward her head into a high collar, bloody plastic fangs, and her black hair slicked back and pulled tight. He thought at first that she had changed her mind when she was half way dressed, but decided not to say anything controversial. He remarked on how unusual her costume was and that seemed to please her. Tilly, in turn, complimented Elmer on how frightening he looked in his costume and expressed the hope that he would be gentle with her.

  On the way to the dance, Tilly explained the concept behind her costume (Elmer had not been aware that costumes HAD concepts). She was dressed as Dracula, but, in her interpretation, Dracula was in turn dressed as a young, innocent Dutch country girl, the better to carry out his nefarious plans. He was in the process of being foiled though, as, starting from the top, his real identity was beginning to reemerge. Elmer thought to himself that he would rather kiss an innocent Dutch country girl in a cute dress than Dracula, but didn’t mention this to Tilly.

  They entered the gym through a door decorated to resemble a huge mouth. Cardboard fangs, dripping blood, hung along each side and two squinty cardboard eyes were squeezed into the wall space above the door. Elmer shuddered a bit as he was reminded of the vampire he intended to be kissing later. The decorations inside were more modest, a few pumpkins and lots of corn stalks. Elmer looked at his fellow dancers. The boys were, without fail, dressed as pirates or hobos. The girl’s costumes on the other hand, were imaginative and elaborate. The gym was populated by princesses, Hollywood starlets, brides, society girls, debutantes, cheerleaders, nurses, and fashion models. One of the teachers was in charge of playing records, so there would be no danger of any questionable music. As they entered, the chairman of the dance committee was negotiating with the faculty chaperones over whether some of the high intensity gym lights could be turned off in the interest of achieving a more agreeable atmosphere for a dance party.

  Most of the music was at a fast tempo and, as a result, with the exception of a few show-off couples, the girls danced with each other while the boys watched. Slow dances were few and far between because the school didn’t want to encourage any cheek-to-cheek dancing; when a slow dance did occur, the participants pared off and held each other as close as they dared. Couples found to be too intimate would be reminded by a faculty member against PDA or Public Display of Affection. Tilly sat with Elmer along the side of the gym, but often danced the fast dances with one of the girls since Elmer expressed a clear disinterest in trying it. When a slow dance began, Tilly would take Elmer by the hand, and lead him on to the dance floor. She focused on teaching him the dance steps and telling him it was important to relax, but that wasn’t going to happen while he was holding her in his arms and feeling the back of her bra through her blouse.

  The upcoming prospect of “THE KISS” didn’t cause him any relaxation either. In spite of his agitated feelings, Elmer loved dancing with Tilly. Even though they were in no danger of a tap on the shoulder from the PDA monitor, it felt like making out with her in front of everybody.

  The dance was over before any of the participants wanted it to be, but ten thirty was the appointed time and most of the girls had to be in by eleven anyway. Elmer especially didn’t want it to be over because he was having a good time and because the entire future course of his life would be set in a few minutes.

  As they walked to the car, Elmer realized it was freezing outside. The weather had been mild when he put on his pirate shorts and left home without a jacket, but now, with the sun down, it was quite chilly. Tilly had brought a coat with her, which she had left in the car, so she had something to put on. Elmer couldn’t complain about the cold, it wouldn’t be manly. Fortunately, the car began to warm up after a few minutes and Elmer drove by the Burger Shack, just to delay the inevitable.

  On the way out to Tilly’s house, Elmer didn’t have much to say. Tilly had obviously had fun at the dance and complimented Elmer on his progress as a ballroom dance student. In fact he was hopeless, but Tilly was optimistic that, over time, she could br
ing his skill up to the point where he at least wouldn’t be a danger to himself or her on the dance floor.

  Elmer was in a somewhat agitated mood. For one thing, he had a little trouble understanding Tilly because she still had her fangs attached to her teeth, and whenever he turned too look at her, he was a little taken aback. He thought Tilly would look cute in any sort of costume, but the fangs did serve to exaggerate his awareness of the inevitability of “THE KISS”.

  When they reached Tilly’s house, Elmer got out of the car and slowly walked around to open the door to his entire future life of happiness or misery. He helped Tilly out of the car and slowly walked to the porch, then climbed the three steps to the stage where his triumph or defeat would play out as a condemned criminal might climb the steps to the gallows. They stopped in front of Tilly’s door and turned to face each other. Elmer began to shiver.

  “Thanks for taking me to the dance Elmer,” said Tilly. “I had a good time.”

  “Yes.”

  “Weren’t the costumes wonderful?” Tilly asked.

  “Yes,” said Elmer.

  There was a pause in the conversation. Elmer looked down at his feet. His legs were beginning to shiver noticeably.

  Tilly looked up at him expectantly. Elmer looked over her shoulder and watched a car’s headlights move past her driveway out on the road.

  “Um... Tilly?” he said.

  “Yes, Elmer?”

  “Um... Tilly. Uh.”

  “What is it Elmer?” she asked.

  “The decorations were nice too,” he said.

  “Yes, they were,” said Tilly. “The cornstalks were very appropriate. For a fall dance I mean.”

  She looked down at her feet and noticed Elmer’s bare legs.

  “Elmer, you’re shivering. It’s cold out here isn’t it?”

  “Not too cold,” Elmer lied.

  “I shouldn’t keep you out here in the cold too long,” Tilly said.