Kathie's eyes were glued on Jerri and Rodney and she was manipulating the lips of her pint-sized organs as though nobody else was even present. Karen was stupefied. She had been craving for a long time to do the same-thing to herself-and the only reason she didn't was out of fear that Kathie would see her… the same Kathie who was now diligently fingering her immature, completely hairless genitals. It was too much.
She started to say something, then had a better thought. Just leave her alone and attend to herself like she'd been wanting to do. Her little sister obviously wouldn't raise a stink and tell their mother on her for doing the same thing she was doing. Karen let her sister be and turned her attention back to Rodney and Jerri, who were both now groaning together like a duet, Not, perhaps, the kind of duet you'd hear in a Sunday school choir. But a duet nonetheless.
Jerri still had one of Rodney's legs trapped between the damp surfaces of her thighs and was rising off the bed to meet his every thrust. But his motions, which had been slow and purposeful for so long, were rapidly increasing the pace. He was saying something along with all his moaning but Karen couldn't, make out what it was and she didn't think Jerri could either. Jerri's long black hair was all messed up. The ribbon had long since fallen onto the bedspread and she appeared so excited to Karen that she didn't believe her sister would've cared what Rodney was saying even if she could hear him.
Her own panties were thoroughly wet by now and Kathie's surprising and blatant masturbation removed the last barrier against her getting in on a little of the action too.
Her lips felt dry as paper. Watching the pair for so long on the bed had made her pubescent genitals crave attention for ever so long. Now she was finally going to be able to do something about it. She glanced aside at Kathie to make sure she was still occupied with herself, and saw that she certainly was. She seemed totally oblivious to everything except the couple on the bed and the touch of her fingers against the soft, damp vulva. Karen at last hoisted the hem of her shift to a point just below her bra and eagerly stuffed her hand into the damp front of her panties.
With the moans of Rodney and her older sister filling her ears, she delicately felt her way through the sparse, moist ringlets of her blondish pubic hair and felt the slick surface of her outer lips at her fingertip. She rocked forward and moved her finger and thumb across the sensitive wet flesh while her glazed eyes locked on the scene in the other room. She felt her breath catch at the thrill of the touch and sensed a mellow warmth filling up her entire pubic region. She knew then that she had to keep doing it no matter what Kathie was or was not doing, or anyone else.
Rodney still had his mouth plastered on the tip of Jerri's moisture-beaded breast, but their movements had become so vigorous that he was losing it every second or third time he stroked her clamoring vagina. She strained hard against him and the move took her breast entirely out of his mouth. She was rising nearer and nearer toward her release and the only thing that mattered to her was keeping the stiff, wet shaft of his organ going in and out her soft front.
She stretched her arms as far down his back as possible in a desperate attempt to get more leverage. She felt the hard muscles of his thighs grinding against the smooth tops of her legs and heard his breath growing more and more jagged. Her heels were all the way down against the bedstead now and she was pushing against it with the soles of her feet. The hot well of her desire was filling fast and she needed all the help she could get to absorb the ecstatic frenzy of Rodney's powerful thrusts.
They were no longer groaning; they were grunting now, grunting with irregular noises as though speech were beyond them. She heard Rodney begin rasping like a coal burner and then felt her vaginal heat surge toward the flash point. A rapid quivering shook her loins to the core. Suddenly she heard a deep, muffled sob and felt a stream of hot liquid erupt against her ravenous vaginal walls. Even her grunting stopped. She sank her teeth into Rodney's shoulder and with a stab of ecstasy that seemed all the more intense for her complete silence, she was impaled on the quick, bright point of a screeching climax.
For a few seconds she pushed hard against the bedstead and treated herself to the sensual, quivering little orgasms that followed the first one. Then a wave of heavy torpor enveloped her body and she sank with pleasant fatigue into the damp bedspread.
Rodney was still breathing hard and lying with his spent organ against the drenched, springy coils of her muff. It was too much, she needed more room now. She rolled sideways and he fell like a rock, burying his shoulder in the mattress and then sprawling on his back beside her. She wiped her brow with her forearm and lay luxuriating in the mellow afterglow of their heated lovematch.
The girls still stared through the air-conditioning duct. They hadn't missed one second of the performance and their activity well demonstrated it. Both youngsters still applied their industrious fingers to their exposed organs-maybe Jerri and Rodney were finished, but they were not through by a long shot.
The neophyte masturbators had reached a point of diminishing returns with themselves and were succeeding only in prolonging the pleasurable sensations without any real chance of enjoying the kind of release that had apparently been shared by both persons they'd been watching.
The fact was that although both girls had indulged a few times in self-stimulation neither of them had ever experienced an orgasm. Karen had been amazed when she discovered Kathie playing with herself because she remembered that she'd never started doing any herself until she was eleven or twelve. She thought back and remembered several times when her genitals had felt awfully good while in a hot tub of water or maybe after one of those dreams she could never quite remember, but she was certain she'd never consciously touched herself there with her fingers as Kathie was doing.
At first it had been merely pleasant to touch herself in the forbidden place between her legs but during the past several months it had become deeply pleasurable to her even though she didn't do it all that often. She'd heard from a few older girl friends at school enough to make her aware of what might generally be expected. It seemed to her that sometime the groovy thing her friends called "coming" would happen to her.
Even though the ultimate thrill had thus far been denied her the torrid sex session she had just witnessed drove her closer to it than she had ever been, she believed. She slowed her manipulations of herself to a gentle, irregular touch and felt the excitement ebb away as gradually as it had come. When she looked at Kathie she saw that she, as well, had slowed the movements of her fingers inside the tender swelling of her tiny orifice. She was mystified by the way Kathie was bent over with her face as close as she could get it to the smooth, hairless little lips. She seemed to be examining her genitals more than playing with them.
"Does yours do like this?" she said abruptly, looking up suddenly and catching her sister's eye. Her guileless attitude made Karen feel guilty and embarrassed by comparison.
"Uh… what do you mean, does mine do like what?" asked Karen with only a trace of impatience.
"Well, it feels real good to rub it but after a while it gets real dry, you know, till it kind of hurts unless I stop," Kathie replied matter of factly.
"Oh, well, that's just because-”
"You mean yours does the same thing?" Kathie broke in.
"No, but it did when I was your age." Karen's continual preoccupation with her developing body was once more exhibiting itself. It occurred to her that this was yet another way in which she was more, "grown-up" than Kathie, so she was delighted to explain.
"No, silly, mine's different. Yours will be too when you get as old as I am. See, what's wrong is that it's too dry. When you frig it, it feels good but it needs to be real wet to make it keep feeling good for a long time without hurting.”
Although Karen's sexual excitement was gone, the dampness was still quite present on her genitals as well as on the fabric of the panties that covered them. Because she was still wet there it was very easy to answer Kathie's question. But she was naturally curious about Kathie's practice of the secret act. "How long have you been doing that, anyway? I didn't know you ever did things like that. You better not ever let Mom catch you at it”
"Oh, I learned how from seeing you do it." Karen gave a start, surprised and more than a little embarrassed. But Kathie continued, "I saw you fooling around once under your nightgown in bed when you didn't know I was watching. I just stayed real quiet and watched you till I found out just what you were doing, then I tried it on myself. I knew you'd be real mad if anybody saw you because Mom came up the stairs for something and when you heard her you stopped and didn't do it anymore.”
It irritated Karen that Kathie had been spying on her, but there was hardly anything she could say under the circumstances. The little minx! The way she was talking, she must have been doing it to herself a lot. Probably even more often than she did.
A noise in the other room attracted their attention and they saw that Jerri and Rodney already had their clothes on and were going out the door. They hurriedly shifted things back to normal at their viewing post and ran back into their bedroom. Minutes later when Jerri opened the door to check on them, they were innocently watching their television set. Rodney was right beside her but she didn't introduce him to them. She told them to be good and not go running around the house, that she and Rodney were going out for a few minutes to get something to eat.
They nodded obediently and Karen gave them a big smile. Actually the smile was all for Rodney, but it wouldn't do to have Jerri know her intention. She remembered how groovy he looked in bed with her sister and how she wished several times while watching that she could have him doing things to her. And when Jerri opened the door, she was certain that Rodney had looked in and seen her even though Jerri hadn't bothered to introduce them. It just so happened that she was sitting in an awfully careless position and she knew that he could have seen a long ways up her loose-fitting dress with very little trouble. She smiled to herself and hoped he'd got a good look. Had he, she wondered? And if he had, did it give him, maybe, any ideas?
There was always Kenny, of course, her fourteen-year-old boyfriend. But all he'd ever tried to do to her was just kiss her a few times and she thought he was probably afraid to try more. If only he knew the things she was willing to let him try with her if he would just do it. She could hardly wait to put into action a lot of the things she'd seen Rodney and Jerri doing and to have someone make her feel the way Rodney made Jerri feel.
The night was filled with unspoken desires. At the restaurant where their mother was finishing dinner with Terry, the man was wondering just how frank he should be with her. He was completely dazzled by her good looks and a few years before he would have already been trying to get her in bed. But since the accident his sex life had undergone a radical change. He had learned from bitter experience that it wasn't every woman that could accept having a man make love to her with his mouth alone. He was only going to be in town for one week-end, should he risk revealing his secret?
Jane interrupted his train of thought. "The dinner was great," she told him. "If it weren't for having my daughter home from college and a whole houseful at home, I'd ask you by for coffee.”
Terry told her she had to be kidding. "A daughter in college? Impossible!" He had said things like that before to women at one time or another but this time he really meant it.
She smiled modestly. She had already decided that Terry was good-looking. Now she was beginning to like him quite a lot.
He thanked her for the invitation she wasn't able to extend and told her if she could make it, he'd love to have her drop by where he was staying before taking her home. His cousin, the same friend of Jane's who had arranged their meeting, was away for the night. That's why they had been especially concerned about having someone for him to go out with. Before another hour had passed, he was parking the car in front of their house.
"See,” he said to her, throwing open the door, "nobody around but us, Hope you don't mind.”
"Not at all," she responded, "after all those people in the restaurant, the quiet is a pleasant change from all the bustle. The food was great but there did seem to be quite a crowd there.”
"What would you care for?" he asked her. When they sat down to drink the nightcap, he shifted his feet restlessly for a minute and then plunged on. He told her he knew of her husband's fairly recent death and offered his condolences. She thought it was awfully nice of him, but was afraid he'd think she were still grieving. When she explained her acceptance of his death and her new life without him, Terry nodded in warm approval.
He told her he hoped that because of her own personal troubles she might be able to understand one of his. They were already sitting close to each other on the couch. She was touched by his candor and said she didn't know why not, touching his wrist in understanding as she spoke. He turned his hand and grasped her forearm, pulled her gently toward him, and met her lips over the top of her drink. He took the glass from her hand, sat it on the table, and pulled her close.
When she didn't protest, he gripped her waist tightly and pressed his hard chest against the resilient bounty of her yielding breasts. The firm pressure made him anxious to have her torso naked before him and see what she looked like. Although he was completely impotent he had found that he could sometimes achieve climax even though his penis was soft.
But before he could go into detail about his problem she pulled back from him slightly and said, "Wait, Terry. I don't want you to think I'm not enjoying your company. I am. Maybe too much. But we… we can't let ourselves be so-”
"Then you admit you're attracted to me! But don't you see? There's no problem then. Because I feel the same way about you. The minute I met you tonight I wondered where in the world my cousin found such a beautiful date for me," he gushed.
"But that's just it," she went on. "The… the way we're making each other feel might make us allow each other too much.”
"No, no," he rushed on. "Let me explain. You're probably worried about being with a man so soon after your husband died. You're probably thinking -let's be mature about it-that you don't want to let another man have you like your husband did, isn't that it? You'd feel bad about letting a man make love to you, about letting him enter you and consummate the relationship as he did with you?"
The sudden rush of new ideas stunned her. His very nearness to her started a physical response in her even though she didn't want to admit it. And the things he was saying were adding more to her anxiety. "I… well, I don't know. I guess if you mean… maybe I do feel a little bit that way but I can't-”
Her indecision was all he needed. He grabbed her close again and this time she felt his hand touch her in a place that made it difficult for her to think straight. Drawing her close to him again with his brawny left arm he dropped his right hand into her lap and began shamelessly caressing her there. He put his lips to her ear and whispered, "Relax, Jane, I can give you what you need without taking you. I can leave you intact and still give you the kind of love you need.”
Now he was irrepressible. He saw the possibility of the only kind of love he was able to have and wasn't about to let the opportunity escape. In an instant he had urged her backward onto the couch and had his hand on her legs.
"Terry, Terry, what… what are you doing? Please, I don't understand… wait-" she faltered. But he wouldn't let her finish.
"Don't talk, Jane. No questions, please. You understand this, don't you?" He traced his thumb and forefinger up the inside of her panty hose and she moved her legs nervously. "And you understand this, don't you?" he pressed. He stuck his hand under the bottom of her blouse and she felt the warmth of his hand on her naked stomach. "You understand this," he insisted. His hand disappeared all the way underneath her skirt and still she felt his fingers. Now she felt herself opening her thighs, felt herself yielding. "And this!" he exclaimed.
And oh she did, she did. His aggressive fingers now busied themselves at the very apex of her long, slender legs. The only thing between his fingertips and the damp seat of her desire was a few millimeters of the mesh fabric of her all too thin panty hose crotch. She told herself this couldn't be happening but some hungry part of herself she didn't even want to lay claim to would have things no other way.
In some dim corner of her brain she imagined him jerking his pants off and burying a giant erection in the tight vee of her firm thighs. There was no way for her to know that something quite different was about to happen to her. She half rose on her elbows in a feeble attempt to loosen herself from his potent love grip. But when she reached toward him to make some sort of resistance, her hands somehow settled around his neck and only pulled him closer.
"Oh God,.you want it, don't you? You know what I can do for you with my face between your legs and you can't wait!" he gleefully rasped.
She started to speak. She started to answer him, she had to say something. But when she opened her mouth all she seemed able to make a few ineffectual mumbling noises amid short, breathy sighs.
"I know, honey," he mumbled, his mouth in the folds of her skirt. "You can feel it coming and you need it on your cunt. Don't worry, here I come with it!”
With that he rooted his nose around on the front of her skirt until he succeeded in gaining entry to the dark, humid interior of her clothing. His fingers were already at work on her mesh-encased genitals. When his hot breath filtered through the fine material of her panty hose she experienced a warm rush of blood through her veins. She knew he was bound to touch her soon with his mouth but she couldn't be sure when or where.
The warm, musky scent of her femininity wafted into his nostrils like an aphrodisiac. He pressed his finger into the humid confines of her hot orifice and with a crazed twisting motion of his neck he snapped his teeth together on the waistband of her panty hose. He jerked his hand back and with his teeth clenched tightly on the wispy undergarment, he reared back and ripped it all the way down to her knees. Diving over the remaining shreds of the fabric, he slid his face up her glistening inner thighs and planted his open mouth on the thick growth of her blondish muff. The wet touch sent a hot flash through her groin and she threw her legs open as wide as they could go. "Oooooh," she moaned.
With his free hand he loosened his pants and jockey shorts to midthigh. His penis, though not small, gave no indication of his passion. It hung from his pubic hair in a state of semisoftness. But what Jane couldn't see didn't bother her, and his intense oral attack on her sex made it completely impossible for her to rise even if she'd wanted to. She didn't. At first only the general form of his face could be felt by her. Then his ravaging mouth worked through the thick protective curls and he plastered his lips directly on the sweet open slit of her moist mound.
Now it dawned on her what he must have meant about his "problem." For some reason or rather he must be the kind of guy who prefers to- "unghhh." she groaned, loosening the thread of her thought as his wet lips worked on her pussy-but it didn't matter. The oral caress he was bestowing upon her heated organ was making much more sense to her than anything she could manage to piece together in her brain, anyway.
A few times when her late husband had been drunk he had made love to her like this and she had loved it. But she could never get him to do it any other time and she now realized something inside her had been wanting this to happen for a long time. He was driving her mad with the sensual, attentive touches of his lips and fingers. He crouched on his knees and went down on her like a gourmand at a holiday feast.
Terry added a new thrill. With drops of sweat coursing off his face, he lovingly stretched the skin back from the top of her aroused clitoris. The sensitive tip of the tiny organ glistened like a meaty pearl in the tight folds of her moist outer lips. Massaging the inner surfaces of her vulva with the thumb and forefinger of one hand, he stretched the skin of her upper genitals tight with the other hand and generously applied the fat red end of his tongue to the wet flesh inside. With tantalizing stabs of his tongue he worked his way nearer and nearer to the exposed jewel.
Thus far she had only been able to moan softly and twitch her nervous thighs back and forth against his rugged face. But now she had to make herself heard. "Oh my God, touch it… please touch it!" she cried.
He didn't answer her with words, only with the action of his mouth. She didn't expect him to speak to her; she didn't want him to speak. It would have meant precious seconds away from her warm, moisture-laden sex flesh.
"Oh, mouth it for me… please, Terry, tongue it off for me. You're driving me crazy down there!”
The words she was uttering made her terribly embarrassed. She felt like the lowest kind of slut for saying such things but she was so excited she couldn't help it. Her face turned crimson from shame but it was already so flushed from the heat of her arousal that there was little change in her appearance.
Terry was receiving a tremendous thrill from her. She was obviously either a woman who dearly loved to have herself stimulated by a man's mouth or else one who had maybe never experienced such a thing before. He felt a spark of life in his penis. He knew it would be too much to expect to have it grow stiff, but maybe, just maybe…
"That's it, oh yeah, that's it… that's what I need," she crooned. His tongue was making little circles around and around the little organ and she could feel it graze her there as he worked in closer and closer. She was sure now that she was going to feel the tip of his tongue on her at any moment. She was humping her pelvis upward now, doing everything she could to affect the long-desired contact.
Her enthusiasm charged Terry with excitement. The spark of energy in his penis flickered a little brighter. By God, I’m gonna make it, he thought to himself, I can feel it now for sure. I may not be able to get a good enough hard-on to cram up her cunt but I can sure as hell get it up enough to shoot my wad.
He was ecstatic at what was happening to him and was determined to give Jane abundant satisfaction. He began exhaling short bursts of hot air onto her clitoris as he traced a trail round and round it with his tongue. If she had ever thought anything unusual about the fact that he wasn't using his penis on her, any such thoughts had completely vanished by now. His tongue was pleasing her so much that she intuitively knew she was going to be able to reach her orgasm.
It was true that she'd let Harry get her awfully excited the night she was with him. But when his premature ejaculation ended things a little too soon, she fell short of gaining her release even though she pretended to be so drunk it didn't matter. Now, with Terry, she joyfully realized it was impossible for her to have any such thing happen. His tongue would hardly go limp and give out on her, that was for sure. And the way it was madly moving inside her vulva, she wouldn't miss at all the spurt of sperm a penis could provide.
"Go on, lover. Lick it good for me!" she squealed. "Tongue it like a bastard, lick it good for me!" she squealed, "Tongue it like a bastard, lick it till I'm dry!”
He at last raised the spongy tip of his tongue from the tender flesh at the base of the organ and applied it to the sensitive spot itself. He felt her wrench her pelvis spasmodically, quivering her thighs and shaking her rear under the intense excitement.
"Oooooooh… oooh… oh," she wailed. "That's doing it, that's doing it… oh my God, that's doing it! That's the way to lick it! Oh my God, I'm coming… I'm co-co-coming… aiiii!”
She flapped her wet, slick inner thighs back and forth against his ears like a set of seal flippers and he knew she must be getting every ounce of satisfaction she could from him. It was then that his afflicted member strutted for a brief second and experienced a climax. A few drops of spermatozoa dribbled from his glans in mute testimony to the infrequent achievement.
He was so filled with gratitude at the cooperation she had given him that he kept his face glued to her organs for much longer than she would ever have anticipated. In fact Jane began to feel the stirring of a completely new arousal because of it. By this time, however, several minutes had passed. The primitive part of her mind, the dark little corner responsible for the strong sex desires she couldn't usually handle, had been temporarily satisfied.
Now she was much more clearheaded than she had been at any time during their love bout. It was depraved, she thought, to ever have let herself get so carried away. The shame she felt from what she'd let him do to her and the obscenities she had uttered to egg him on were more than enough to suppress the new warmth that was building up. The more she thought about it the more she hated to have him raise his head from her loins and meet her eyes. She really must exercise a lot more control over herself in the future.
Terry was not entirely free of a few misgivings himself. The promise of getting what he was so seldom able to find had made him a little more aggressive than he liked to remember. Not to mention his hang-up with impotence and his total inability to engage in normal sex. Had she noticed his limp excuse for a penis, he wondered? Had she thought he was a crazy animal for using his mouth on her and not even being able to get a proper erection? How was it going to be when he had to face her again? He was not, after all, presently situated in the most decorous posture with respect to their position on the couch.
Accordingly, they both behaved with exceeding humility if not with downright guilty consciences. In other circumstances their actions might have been laughable.
"Ah… Terry, I guess-" she finally began.
He extracted his face from her crotch with as much dignity as he could muster and slowly drew himself backward. Somehow his eyes discovered articles of incredible interest on the other side of the room and he concentrated on them and continued turning sideways as he spoke.
"Yes, Jane,” he weakly replied. "I suppose we'd better-”
He risked a furtive glance in her direction and when their eyes met they both nervously said, "It's getting pretty late, I guess we'd better go.”
Chancing to say the same banal words to each other filled them both with chagrin and they each gave a nervous laugh. Then Terry stood up and walked away from the couch. He got exactly one step away, then fell forward like a brick. He was in no frame of mind to remember that he had neglected to pull his pants up.
Jane earnestly wished at the moment that she had gone to the club meeting she'd originally planned to attend that night. Or that she was home arguing with daughters. Or even that she was back in the front seat of Harry's car with her brain full of alcohol and her ears filled with his drunken prattle. Anywhere but here.
But Terry handled things rather well, actually. He remembered to buckle his belt so that his pants wouldn't fall off a second time. He broke only one of the wine glasses they had used, and he managed to affect an air of pure detachment as Jane went about collecting the remains of her panty hose from the couch, floor, and coffee-table. As soon as she had rolled the filmy pieces into a ball and stuffed it deep into her purse, and after Terry had removed from his shoes all the loose change that had fallen there, they were ready to leave.
Somehow they arrived at Jane's house with a minimum of conversation and within two minutes he was driving away. It was well past midnight by this time and Jane was definitely ready for bed. She stopped in the living room and looked around the house. It was good to be back home again, back where the most exciting thing that ever happened was when her daughter came home from school to visit or one of the younger girls stayed awake a little too late. She had been spared, of course, any knowledge of the diverse activities that had taken place there that very night.
After a hot shower she was fully ready for sleep. It was so late that Jerri was even home, she noted. As she drifted off to sleep she couldn't help but feel much better about the time she had spent with Terry. Sure had been a lot of embarrassing incidents, but looking back on the whole evening, it didn't seem nearly so bad. Although she didn't want to dwell too much on it, she had to admit to herself that the night had been a far cry from the night when Harry had tried to seduce her and left her all frustrated from the aborted attempt.
After all, when she came home from being with Harry she had been tense and unable to go to sleep until-well, until the dream she'd had. She would rather not recall that with too much detail. But tonight she felt completely different. She had to face facts. Terry's lovemaking had been wonderfully satisfying for her. The warm lassitude that permeated her body gave ample proof of that. She was quick to remind herself that she definitely shouldn't have let herself get into such an immoral situation. But as for the way it had felt to her… well that was an entirely different matter. Entirely different. She drifted away to sleep and there were no dreams.
Kathie and Karen were the first ones up the next morning because they had gone to sleep hours before either Jerri or their mother. The incidents surrounding their secret spying on Rodney and Jerri seemed to have created a bit of camaraderie between them. At least they weren't arguing with each other as much as usual.
Watching their sister and her boyfriend make love had been very exciting in itself. But the discoveries they had made about each other and the confidences they'd exchanged about the forbidden practice of masturbation had created something of a common bond. One way to think of it was that they were both guilty of something they didn't dare let their mother know. Kathie, of course, was still pretty jealous of Karen's slightly advanced age and her superior physical development. And Karen was still awfully proud of the "grown-up" attributes she possessed that Kathie still lacked. She was also still somewhat resentful of how Kathie always seemed to be meddling in her business and couldn't keep her mouth shut. Yet the pair were considerably chummier than before, in spite of their differences. When Jane finally woke up and got dressed she was pleasantly surprised not to hear them yelling at each other. Jerri soon joined them and breakfast was long and enjoyable.
It seemed to Karen a good time to get her mother's permission for something that had been brewing in her mind for a while. "Mom," she asked, "can Kenny come over some night and study with me? We're in the same class and he's a real brain in match. He said he'd come help me with my homework sometime if he could.”
"Well, well," chided Jerri. "Looks like you have a new boyfriend. I thought the kid that was waving at you the other day when you and Kathie were riding your bicycles was your boyfriend.”
"Naw," Karen said, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "He's creepy. I never did like him. But Kenny isn't my boyfriend either. He just wants to study with me. Honest.”
"From the way your grades were on the last report card you sure can use some help," said Jane.
Jerri winked broadly at Karen. "Looks like you're in, Sis," she said.
Karen felt her cheeks get a little rosy. Her real reason for wanting to have Kenny over was nothing she could talk about. And the way Jerri acted about it, although she was just kidding, was far too close to the truth to be comfortable.
"Well, I suppose you can have him over sometime," said Jane. "But if you start raising a ruckus like you and Kathie usually do then I'll have to have him go home.”
"Oh. we won't," she assured. "Not if we can study up in my room where nobody'll bother us." She cast a sidelong glance at Kathie. "I'm not the only one around here that makes noise, you know," she said acidly. "If everybody'll leave us alone and let us study, we sure won't be the ones to make any noise.”
But Kathie already had a gripe. "Your room?" she shrilled. "It's our room together, not just yours.”
Karen backed down a little. "I know it is," she admitted. "I didn't mean it that way.”
"You wouldn't mind staying out of the room for a couple of hours or so while they do their studying, would you, Kathie?" asked their mother.
Karen's half-apology had cooled her down some. "I guess not," Kathie said. "If I can do the same thing sometime.”
"Then it's okay," Jane told Karen. "Just as long as you tell me ahead of time which night you want him to come.”
"My my,” interjected Jerri. She smiled at Kathie and said, "Do you have a boyfriend that you want to have over some night too?”
"Well, not really. There are some boys at school that have asked me to be their girlfriend though," she responded.
Karen looked at her with an air of condescension as if to say that one one her age could possibly have a boyfriend.
"But I might have a girl friend over sometime to study with me or something," she went on, ignoring Karen's disdainful look.
"Speaking of boyfriends, when do we get to see a little more of Rodney, Jerri?" asked Jane. "Your sisters haven't even met him yet. You certainly have been seeing enough of him. You must like him quite a bit. How about it?”
"Oh, he's pretty nice but there's no big thing between us. We both date other people a lot when we're back at school. I'm not about to get married or anything if that's what you're driving at, Mom. We just enjoy each other's company-actually we just have a very casual relationship.”
The girls had been listening attentively ever since Rodney's name had come up. At this point they gave each other a meaningful look and a quick grin. But Kathie couldn't carry it off. She started to giggle and in a desperate attempt to keep from it, she slapped her hand over her mouth and blew out a great gust of air.
"What's wrong with you?" asked Jane, as everyone turned their eyes on the girl.
"A grapefruit seed, Mom," she lied. "It got stuck. Sorry.”
The phone rang. Jane picked up the kitchen extension and turned to Karen with a puzzled smile. "It's for you, dear. Know anybody named Kenny?”