Safe Harbor

by Judith Arnold

  Maybe the letter didn’t bode well. Maybe he’d keep writing letters and never come. Maybe she and her mother ought to go home and help him.

  No. Shelley refused to let pessimism ruin what was left of her summer. She would interpret her father’s letter in the most favorable light. He thought she was smart and mature, and he loved her. He wanted her forgiveness.

  She forgave him and loved him back, and that was that.

  Below her, Diana and Mark had stopped talking. Mark nuzzled Diana’s neck, and she leaned closer into his arms.

  “Do you date a lot?” Kip asked abruptly.

  Shelley flinched. Given that he hadn’t even noticed her string bikini, she figured he didn’t pay much attention to that sort of stuff yet.

  She herself was on the slow side when it came to dating—compared to some of her classmates, anyway. Rumors had run rampant through the school last April that Kim Shearson had had an abortion over spring vacation, and once in the gym locker room Carrie Billington’s purse had overturned, and among the scattered contents Shelley had noticed a plastic case of birth control pills. She knew some girls—girls her own age—were sexually active, while all she herself had done was a little kissing and touching and a lot of resisting and arguing, none of which she had found particularly satisfying.

  Still, she had to be more advanced than Kip, who seemed to think his sister was some sort of a freak for wanting to make out with Mark. He read Playboy, for heaven’s sake. What could be more immature?

  She gave herself a moment to consider possible answers to his question. “What’s `a lot’?” she equivocated.

  Kip narrowed his eyes on her. “Do you date at all?”

  “Sure. Do you?”

  “Yeah.”

  It was her turn to narrow her eyes, to regard him skeptically. If he were aware of the opposite sex enough to go out on dates, he should have been aware of her bikini. Then again, maybe he had been aware of it, but it had looked so awful on her he’d tactfully refrained from commenting on it.

  “Have you ever gone steady with anyone?” she asked.

  “No,” he said.

  “How many girls have you dated?”

  “I don’t know, a few. Parties and movies and stuff. I took this girl to a school dance, that kind of thing. How about you?”

  She knew he was being honest with her, which meant she would have to be honest with him. “Pretty much the same,” she conceded.

  “Do you make out with guys?” Kip asked in so casual a tone Shelley almost forgot to be offended.

  Almost. She gave him such a hard shove he lost his balance and fell against the side wall of the cupola. “Hey,” he protested, “it was just a question.”

  “And that was my answer,” she snapped.

  “I was only wondering.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “We’re friends. Friends ask each other stuff. I’m sorry,” he concluded, sounding less apologetic than peeved as he pulled himself back up onto his knees beside her.

  Chastened, she turned away. What he’d said was true. She and her friends in Connecticut asked each other how far they let a guy go on a date, and Shelley saw nothing wrong with it. In his own way, Kip—his gender notwithstanding—was as close a friend as any of her girlfriends at home.

  “Well...okay,” she mumbled. “I’ve made out a couple of times.”

  “You don’t sound real thrilled about it.”

  “I’m not. It wasn’t much fun.”

  “No?” He eyed her curiously, his lips twitching into a bashful smile. “Jeez. It bothers me that I might kiss some girl and then she’ll say good night and go inside and say, ‘That wasn’t much fun.’ I mean, do girls really do that?”

  Shelley’s heart swelled in her chest. How rare it was for a boy to express his self-doubt so openly. The boys she knew back home all behaved cocky and arrogant and overwhelmingly sure of themselves. Whenever she wrestled with one at the end of a date, his attitude was always that there was something wrong with her, not that he’d been any part of the problem.

  This was why she loved Kip—because he hid nothing from her. Because he didn’t put on an act with her, or pretend to be some creepy macho dude.

  “I suppose it depends on whether the guy is a good kisser or not,” she said.

  “How do you get to be a good kisser?”

  “Practice, I guess.”

  As if on cue, both of them rose up and peered over the window sill. Judging by the evidence, Shelley had to conclude that Mark was a good kisser. Diana didn’t seem to have any intention of breaking away from him, let alone going inside and issuing a negative critique of his performance.

  “He’s using his tongue,” Kip noted, observing Mark’s technique with scholarly intensity.

  “That’s gross.”

  “It’s supposed to be exciting.”

  “It isn’t,” Shelley said.

  “You’ve tried it, huh,” Kip easily deduced.

  She felt a faint flush warm her cheeks. It faded as quickly as it came, though. She had no reason to be ashamed with Kip. “Yes,” she admitted. “I’ve been kissed that way a few times. It’s kind of...slimy.”

  “Maybe the guy needed practice.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Or maybe you did,” Kip contended.

  Shelley opened her mouth to refute him, then shut it without speaking. If she could lecture him about male-female equality in literature, he could lecture her about male-female equality in kissing.

  Kip continued to gaze at her, his eyes hypnotically dark behind his eyeglasses, his mouth curved in an enigmatic smile. Shelley knew what he was thinking. She was thinking the same thing.

  Slowly, without having to explain or ask, Kip leaned toward her and brushed her lips with his. “Was that slimy?” he asked once he’d pulled back.

  “No.” She swallowed, reconsidered the wisdom of what they were doing, and decided that if she did need practice—and there was no question in her mind that she did—she could imagine no one she’d rather practice with than Kip Stroud. He would never laugh at her, never get pushy with her, never force the issue. All he wanted was what she wanted: practice.

  “It’s the tongue part that’s slimy,” she explained.

  He nodded and glanced out the window again, observing Mark and Diana. “I think,” he said, twisting back to Shelley, “we’ve got to tilt our heads a little--you this way and me that way. So our noses don’t collide.”

  With a shy smile, Shelley tilted her head one way and Kip tilted his the other. He seemed to be tilting too far—his face was practically perpendicular to hers—and she reached up to readjust the angle of his head. Her hand bumped into the side of his eyeglasses and he winced and jerked away. “Ow! You could break my nose doing that,” he groaned.

  “Well, take them off then, if they’re so dangerous.”

  He did, setting them carefully in the far corner of the cupola so they wouldn’t get crushed. Shelley rarely saw him without his eyeglasses. The bridge of his nose was narrower than she’d expected, with a slight bump in it. It was a really handsome nose. His eyes were handsome, too, larger and more thickly lashed than she’d realized.

  He tilted his head again, this time only a few degrees, and covered her mouth with his. His lips were warm and dry. He moved them. She moved hers, too.

  “I’m going to try my tongue,” he whispered, causing her to giggle from the tickly sensation of his breath against her nose. “Let me know if it’s slimy.”

  “I will,” she promised, bracing herself for this new phase by taking a deep breath and tightening her hand on the molding of the window sill.

  His tongue touched her lips and she reflexively pressed them shut.

  “Shelley—come on! You’ve got to help me out a little.”

  Shelley checked the action down below on the veranda. There was no question that Diana was helping Mark out a great deal. “Okay,” she murmured apprehensively, settling down on her haunches and tilting her head again. �
��Why don’t we just, like, touch tongues and see what happens?”

  “Okay.” He leaned toward her.

  “You haven’t got a cold or anything, do you?”

  “No.”

  “Because I don’t want to get sick from you.”

  “I don’t have a cold,” he swore, then closed in on her before she could stall any longer. Tilting his head just a fraction, he molded his mouth to hers.

  She forced herself not to react as his tongue slid between her lips. She refused to shrink back as he probed her teeth. And then she acknowledged that it was all right to react, because there was nothing slimy about this at all. It felt—well, strange, but really not bad.

  She opened her mouth and rubbed his tongue with the tip of hers. Then they separated and let out their breaths.

  “Well?”

  “It wasn’t gross,” she said.

  Far from being flattered, he looked disturbed. “Well, like—on a scale of one to ten, how was it?”

  “I don’t know.” She sighed, trying to sort her thoughts. “It wasn’t bad, Kip. Maybe we’re supposed to do it for a longer time.”

  “I think you’re right.” Kip slid his arm around her shoulders, urged her toward him, and fused his mouth with hers again, exploring her lips and then her teeth with his tongue until she opened fully for him.

  Once his tongue found hers he moved it from side to side. That made her want to laugh. She started to shake her head, but he stayed where he was, denying her the opportunity to break away. His arm held her close to him, and his fingers coiled through her hair to the nape of her neck, keeping her head at the proper angle. It felt surprisingly pleasant to be caressed on her neck that way.

  After a moment, the urge to laugh faded and she relaxed in the curve of his arm. He moved his tongue again, this time deep into her mouth and out with a stroking motion that didn’t make her want to laugh at all. She felt peculiar all of a sudden, unreasonably warm, as if her heart was pumping blood too rapidly through her body.

  He thrust his tongue deep again, and her pulse raced even faster, causing her flesh to tingle with heat. For a fearful moment she couldn’t breathe. Her mind went blank, her muscles grew tense. Her breasts felt almost uncomfortably tender, and a fiery sensation gathered between her legs.

  “Oh, God,” she moaned, twisting away and gulping in a frantic breath of the cool night air.

  Kip instinctively tightened his arms around her, drawing her against him. She rested her head on his shoulder and let out a shaky sigh.

  “How was that?” he whispered, sounding more than a little breathless himself.

  “I don’t know,” she mumbled, “Okay, I guess.” She reconsidered and decided she owed Kip her total honesty. “It was scary, Kip. It felt a little too good, maybe.”

  “Yeah?” She could almost feel his smile. “On a scale of one to ten—”

  “Shut up.”

  He toyed with her hair again, twirling his fingers through the soft waves in a soothing pattern. His chest rose and fell against her as his breathing slowed. She took comfort in the rhythm, in the solid feel of him. This was Kip. She was safe. Everything was all right.

  Gradually her pulse returned to normal and the muscles in her thighs unclenched. It dawned on her that she was as much on the spot as he was. “How about me?” she asked timidly. “Did I do okay?”

  “Oh, I think you need more practice,” Kip declared in a deliberately pompous tone. She poked him in the ribs and he grunted and slapped her hand away.

  “I’m being serious, Kip. Tell me the truth. Was I awful?”

  “No, you weren’t awful.”

  “Well...how not-awful was I?”

  “On a scale of one to ten?”

  She considered poking him again, but decided not to. Maybe it was better if they joked about this. If she didn’t laugh, she’d dwell on that strange, tantalizing heat that had infused her breasts and hips. “Okay. What’s my score?”

  “Maybe an eight,” he said.

  Eight! What an insult! She pushed as far away from him as she could get in the cramped space, and glowered furiously at him. “If I were going to grade you, I would have given you a ten,” she said, her voice hushed but bristling with indignation. “And all you can give me is an eight?”

  “Hey, I’m a tough grader. Like Mr. Goober.”

  “You’re a goob, all right.”

  His dimpled grin assuaged her anger slightly. “Come on, Shelley—we’re both beginners here. If you’d given me a ten I would’ve called it grade inflation.”

  “You didn’t think it was that good?”

  “I thought it was terrific,” he said, his eyes solemn despite his smile. “I thought it was better than any kiss I’ve ever had before.”

  She eyed him suspiciously, but he looked so earnest she had to believe him. “Then what did I lose two points for?” she asked.

  He shifted his legs, bumping hers. She was acutely aware of their lightly haired texture against her smooth skin. After extensive reflection, he said, “You lost two points because you pulled away.”

  “I was running out of breath.”

  He shook his head. “I’ve seen you swim under water for a long, long time before you have to come up for air.”

  She traced the curves of the sill molding and stared out at the sky, at the nearly full moon blurred behind a layer of fog. “I told you, I was scared,” she mumbled, willing to tell him the truth as long as she didn’t have to look at him when she did so.

  He didn’t speak for a while. A breeze rustled through the leaves of the red maple that stood just south of the house. A cricket roiled the air with its persistent chirp. Kip was so still, so silent that Shelley jumped when she suddenly felt his hand on hers, folding tightly around it. “You know I’d never do anything bad to you,” he murmured.

  More than before, she couldn’t bear to look at him. “I know,” she said in a tiny voice.

  “I’d never admit to another girl what an amateur I am,” he continued, his voice soft and sincere. “But with you... Well, you know me. I can’t pull a fast one on you. I’m not going to go crazy with you. You know that.”

  “I know that,” she agreed. “That’s not why I was scared.”

  He gave her hand a slight tug, forcing her to look at him. How much did she have to say? How much did he need to know?

  Only the truth. “I told you—” she cleared her throat “—it felt too good. I was afraid if I didn’t stop right then...”

  “What?” he coaxed her.

  “I don’t know. Something might have happened.”

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  It’s me I don’t trust, she almost blurted out. Her cheeks felt warm, her extremities chilly. Closing her eyes, she recalled the sensation of his tongue filling her mouth, retreating and then filling it again in that slow, relentless rhythm...and she experienced the same frightening rush of heat, gathering in two points at her breasts before surging down through her body to her hips, to her womb. She felt heat and dampness and an aching hunger for something. Something more. Something she’d never wanted before. Something she knew instinctively she shouldn’t want.

  Mortified by the raw emotions rampaging through her, she broke from Kip and fumbled with the trapdoor latch. Before he could stop her, she raced down the ladder to the attic, down again to the small bedroom on the second floor and through the hallway to the bathroom. She locked herself inside.

  Gripping the edges of the porcelain pedestal sink, she forced herself to look into the oval mirror above it. She looked feverish, her hair tousled, her eyes watering with tears.

  This was too humiliating. Did Kip understand what had happened to her? Did he know about the throbbing, the warmth and dampness, the quivering in her flesh and the inexplicable longing she’d felt when he’d held her against his chest? Did he comprehend what his kiss had done to her? Would he use his knowledge against her?

  Would their friendship ever be the same again? Would she ever be the same?
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  She doused her face with cold water, dried it off on one of the towels hanging on a towel ring next to the sink, doused her face again and dried it. Digging a comb from the back pocket of her cut-offs, she did her best to straighten out her hair. Then she took a few deep breaths, prayed that Kip wouldn’t be waiting for her on the other side of the door, and opened it.

  Of course he was waiting—not exactly on the other side of the door but halfway down the hall. He leaned against the railing of the first-floor stairway, looking relatively calm, although his dark eyes glowed with concern. “Hi,” he said.

  She lowered her gaze to the rug beneath her feet. “Hi.”

  “Are we still friends?”

  She took another breath and realized that her lungs felt better. Whatever Kip did or didn’t understand about what had happened to her up in the cupola, he clearly understood her biggest fear—that because of what had happened they couldn’t be pals anymore.

  But if being pals meant as much to Kip as it did to her, they would survive this. They would be fine.

  “Yes,” she said, lifting her eyes to him and smiling shyly. “We’re still friends.”

  Relief crashed over his face like a breaking wave. He pushed away from the railing, strode down the hall to her and slung a brotherly, wonderfully unthreatening arm around her shoulders. “Let’s get some lemonade,” he said. “How about it?”

  “Sounds good,” she said.

  He bowed and kissed the crown of her head. It was a friendly kiss, Shelley acknowledged, a kiss that comforted her as much as his earlier kiss had flustered her. It was the kind of kiss that reminded her of what friendship and Kip and the summer’s magic were really all about.

  With a quiet smile, she slipped her hand into his and walked with him down the stairs.

  Chapter Four

  THAT NIGHT, SHE DIDN”T DREAM about pop stars, or even Danny Clayburn. She dreamed about Kip.

  Maybe it wasn’t a dream. She couldn’t tell whether she was asleep or awake or somewhere in between. But her eyes remained closed, her mind floating. The air in her bedroom was warm and humid, and the top sheet caressed her body like hands.