Chapter Four
It was all right for him. All he had to do was zip up his fly and hide in the shadows for a couple of minutes until he could make his escape. She, on the other hand, naked and already breathing hard, had to jump down from the window seat, grab her underwear, and run through the house unlocking doors and switching on lights and appliances. Then she scrambled into her underwear, then the rest of her clothes and her glasses—snatched up from the floor where she’d dropped them—before dashing back into the living room to drape herself casually on the couch in front of the TV, using the hem of her shirt to wipe the perspiration from her face.
Though as it turned out her mother just stuck her head in to say good night before heading upstairs to bed.
For the next two weeks, the two of them played a kind of tag in school. Every so often she would look up—in study hall, or the lunchroom—to find him looking at her. Tag. And then his eyes would quickly look away. Walking out of a class he would spot her, just passing by in the hall, giving him a quick sideways glance. Tag. Once, at a school event, she had chosen an empty seat in the middle of a row he was sitting in and, squeezing past him, brushed his knees with hers, not looking at him. Tag. Once, standing at her open locker, she felt the back of a hand brush across the back of her skirt and turned to see his retreating back. Tag.
In the evenings she would often sit in the window seat with a book, every so often glancing down to where the drops he had spattered on the window, now dried and nearly translucent, still hung. (Her parents, if they noticed them at all, probably thought they were bird droppings.) If she were alone in the room, she might briefly cup and squeeze one of her breasts, or slip a hand into her shorts. But rarely for long, and never to completion.
She was waiting.
They never publicly acknowledged each other’s existence in any way, never spoke, publicly or privately. Yet somehow it was communicated that they would both be attending the school’s annual Spring Fling dance that Saturday. This was the last all-school dance before the Graduation Ball. Semi-formal dress was required.
Hers was not a church-going family so Jane had only one dress that met the guidelines: her ‘party frock’, as her mother referred to it, purchased in better days and so far only worn to family holiday gatherings. It was lovely, though: knee-length velvet, trimmed with a row of false buttons covered in the same fabric running down the front, and with touches of white lace here and there. The velvet was a shade so dark that it appeared black except under strong light, when its deep purple highlights were revealed. It was old-fashioned, she knew, but she loved it, loved the feel of the warm velvet on her skin. She even had sandals that matched.
As the day grew closer even the game of Tag dwindled and fell away. But Jane could feel the tension increasing; could nearly tell from it where he was at any given moment.
Friday, the day before the dance, she picked up the mail as usual from the box at the end of the driveway. As always she just tossed it into one of the bike baskets and continued home. There was rarely anything for her except near her birthday, or Christmas.
But when she brought it into the house she noticed a manila envelope with her first name on it—no return address. She opened it at the kitchen table…
And spilled out a white froth of lingerie: a lacy brassiere and panty set worked with delicate flower, vine, and leaf designs in pale pastel violets and yellows. The panties even had three tiny rows of ruffles across the seat, which she found rather silly, but didn’t care; they were the most beautiful, feminine underthings she’d ever seen.
But she wouldn’t allow herself to even try them on. She knew they would fit—he had a pair of her panties to go by, didn’t he? And he certainly knew what her breasts looked like. But she did allow herself to go upstairs to stand in front of the full-length mirror in her parents’ bedroom and hold, first the bra, then the panties up to herself.
She imagined him thinking about her wearing them, seeing her in his mind posing for him as she had before...touching himself while he thought about her...oh god. She saw herself blushing in the mirror, and went to hide the lingerie in her closet.
As she did so she wondered where he had gotten it. She tried to picture him walking into a department store lingerie department, selecting these undoubtedly expensive items, carrying them to a register, and paying for them. She could not. Oh god, he must have stolen them, for her, the former Thief of Ridgeton Community College. It was so romantic.
The next night at dinner she casually mentioned that there was a dance at the school that night so she probably wouldn’t be home when they got back from their meeting, but would return at around the usual time for after these events. This was acknowledged with the usual vague cautions and hopes that she’d have a good time. She did not mention the dress requirements. She had a plan.
The moment the door closed behind them she ran up the stairs to her parents’ bedroom and seated herself at her mother’s dressing table. She had been surreptitiously studying fashion magazines all week, trying to find something glamorous to do with her shoulder-length hair—something that wasn’t too complicated. She had finally settled on—and practiced until she could do it with ease—a simple braid, coiled and clipped at the back of her head. She did it now and admired the result in the mirror: the way it made her neck seem longer and more graceful, how it seemed to sharpen her features and bring out her eyes. Which brought her to Phase Two.
She had little experience with make-up, beyond a touch of lipstick and eye shadow for family events. Still, she was determined to try her hand at it tonight. So she experimented with almost everything on the table: liners and rouges and mascaras and foundations and shadows and blushes and glosses and things for which she wasn’t even sure of the purpose. She wound up wiping it all off again with cold cream and tissues and starting over. Twice.
Finally, she thought she had achieved the right balance: just enough shadow to accentuate her hazel eyes; a hint of rouge on her cheekbones; and a light layer of lipstick in a shade she felt would complement her dress. Her braces spoiled that particular effect somewhat, she thought, but there was nothing to be done. She added a pair of simple silver teardrop earrings. As a final touch, she sprayed some of her mother’s perfume into the air and walked through the mist as it fell, something she’d read about in one of the magazines.
By then it was nearly time for the dance to start. There was no way she was going to put on all her dress clothes and then ride her bike to school in them, and she had planned accordingly. In her closet was a garment bag—the kind that allowed you to put your clothes in it on hangers—and in it, she had put her clothing, her sandals, and everything she thought she would need, including, now, the last-minute addition of a small plastic bag of make-up for emergency repairs. She took the bag out to the garage and laid it across the back of her bicycle, carefully tucking the ends into the side baskets. Then she climbed on and rode into the sunset.
When she arrived at Ridgeton she parked and locked her bike, then retrieved her garment bag and carried it over her shoulder to the main entrance. Once inside, instead of turning left, which would have brought her to the hall where the dance was, she looked quickly around to make sure she was not observed and then took a right, heading down the other, dimly-lit hallway. She wanted to be able to change in private and there was a bathroom not too far from where her locker was.
When she arrived there it was deserted and dark, as she had expected. She switched on the light and carried her bag into the nearest stall, hanging it from the hook on the back of the door. It would be more cramped than changing in the open area of the bathroom, and she seriously doubted that anyone would come in, but she wasn’t taking any chances.
She took her time. She didn’t want to get sweaty, and she certainly didn’t want to smear her make-up if she could avoid it. To this end, she had worn an old button-front shirt so she could remove it without having to pull it over her head. As she began to unbutton it she couldn’t help but remember the last time she had undressed in a bathroom stall. She was glad he wasn’t here to watch this time, as the clothes she had on were even less attractive.
She removed her shirt, her cut-off jeans, and her old sneakers, piling them on the tank behind the toilet. She slipped out of her bra and panties and added them to the pile. Then her glasses. She stood quietly for a moment. Then she reached over, unzipped the garment bag, and reached in.
Her new lingerie glistened like dragonfly wings as she pulled it out and unfolded it. Ceremonially, she stepped into the panties and pulled them up, feeling as though she were putting on something magical, they were so new and beautiful. They fit perfectly, as she had known they would. The brassiere was perhaps a little tight but she decided she liked that, liked the slight pressure on her nipples. Unable to resist, she swung open the stall door and went to stand in front of the mirror over the sinks. She stood with her feet apart, raised her arms, and locked her hands behind her head.
Who was this exotic, sexy, near-woman looking back at her? She looked at herself. Imagined him looking at her the way he had outside her window that night. And felt herself tingle with pure feminine power. She wanted to go out and find him right now, just like this. Walk right up to him in the middle of the dance, strike this pose for ten seconds, and then walk away, slowly. He would follow her like a dog on a leash, she knew it. Well, that wasn’t a practical fantasy to carry out, but she would find her chance. She returned to the stall.
She had considered, and rejected with her usual distaste, wearing pantyhose. Had thought about surreptitiously borrowing one of her mother’s garter belts, along with some nylons, but it had seemed too unfamiliar and complex. Had finally settled for shaving her legs as close as she dared.
Now she carefully stepped into her velvet dress, struggling somewhat to reach behind her to zip and clasp it. She took out her sandals, brushed a tiny smudge from the side of one of them, and slipped them on. Then she took out her make-up bag and hairbrush, just in case, before folding up her other clothes and placing them in the garment bag. She placed her sneakers on top of the pile, sliding her folded-up glasses into one of them for protection. Then she stepped out of the stall and went to the mirror again.
Now she couldn’t decide if she looked like a woman or a little girl playing dress-up. The velvet dress had a lovely dark luster, and she had been right in her choice of lipstick to go with it, but it was, she thought, too shapeless. Hers was a petite figure and where the lingerie had accented her small curves, the dress seemed to hide them completely.
She desperately wished she had tried it on again before coming; maybe she could have found a belt or something to give it, and her, more shape. Too late now, she thought, somewhat discouraged. Still, there was somebody new there, someone with a graceful neck and beautiful eyes. And a few freckles on her nose. Oh well. Her make-up had survived perfectly and her hair just needed a little touching up with the brush. She was as ready as she was going to be.
She restored the make-up and hairbrush to the garment bag, zipped it up, and carried it out of the bathroom, turning off the light switch as she went. After squashing the bag into her locker, she made her way back up to the entranceway and mingled with the others heading into the dance.
As she entered, one of her teachers startled her by saying her name and telling her how very nice she looked; she hadn’t been aware that this or any other teacher knew her as anything but a name on an attendance record. A moment later a girl she had been friends with in grade school complimented her on her dress. Even one or two of the boys in her class seemed to be glancing at her with interest. She wasn’t at all used to being visible like this—except to him—and she wasn’t sure she liked it.
Well, if things got tough there was always the coatroom.
She settled for vanishing into the shadows that surrounded the brightly lit floor where the dancers were, losing herself among the shy, the unattractive, and the socially inept—the ghosts who haunt every such event. She looked around, wondering if he was here already. Or even if he were, whether she’d be able to spot him without her glasses on. She began to drift among her fellow ghosts, slowly making a circuit of the dance floor, squinting to see among the girls in their bright plumage and the boys in their darker hues.
There he was! He was on the dance floor, but he was standing with a small group of people in the corner, all moving intermittently to the music, but mostly just talking and laughing among themselves. As she got closer she was able to recognize some of them as people she’d seen performing in some of the school plays. One of them, a tall, skinny boy with horn-rimmed glasses and a shock of black hair that seemed to stand straight up, was apparently telling a joke or an anecdote, contorting his face into masks of surprise and anger and gesticulating wildly as the rest of them listened.
She watched, wanting to see him in this situation, to see who he became with other people. He was wearing a thin corduroy jacket the color of mahogany and a white shirt with a tie that brought out the color of his eyes. He stood with his hands in his pockets, watching the performance unfold with an expectant smile, waiting for the punchline.
Yet it seemed to her that he stood somewhat apart from the others. There was again, or still, that faint aura of sadness around him, a resigned quality, as if he felt himself to be among this group under false pretenses and was expecting to be discovered and cast out at any moment. She couldn’t understand it.
The skinny boy’s story reached its climax, which apparently had turned out to be an anti-climax, as everyone in the group began to groan and roll their eyes and wave their hands in front of their faces as if warding off a bad smell. The music changed just then and the group began to disperse as boys grabbed girls’ hands, and vice versa, and headed into the cluster of gyrating dancers at the center of the dance floor.
He had remained at the periphery though, along with a couple of the girls, both of whom seemed to be urging him to dance with them. He was holding up his hands, laughingly demurring, and at the same time, he seemed to be glancing over their heads, as if searching the room without wanting to appear to be doing so. The girls were becoming more insistent, grabbing onto his arms, laughing, and pretending to drag him into the dancing throng by sheer force.
Jane stepped out of the shadows.
She moved directly into his line of sight. She stopped and pretended to be looking at someone on the other side of the room. She pretended to yawn and stretch, briefly raising her arms and placing her hands behind her head. Then she lowered them to her sides. And walked slowly away.
She made her way out of the hall and headed back down the corridor where her locker was. She took her time, giving him a chance to disentangle himself from his situation and come looking for her.
As she knew he would.
To kill time, she slipped briefly back into her role as the Thief of Ridgeton, checking for lockers that weren’t quite closed and testing the locks on the classroom doors.
Near the end of the hall, she discovered a door that had been locked, but not closed tightly enough for the mechanism to latch. The sign on the door said “Band Room”. She eased it open, stuck her head in, and looked around, then slipped all the way in.
There was a door wedge near her feet, and she nudged it with her foot until it was where it would prevent the door from closing all the way. Then she raised her hand to the wall and fumbled until she found a panel of light switches. There were a lot of them, so she switched on the two nearest to her. Instantly a pair of floodlights came on, illuminating a small stage to her right, not much bigger than her living room, and raised about three feet off the floor.
On the stage was a jumble of heavy wooden chairs and silver music stands. Stray sheets of ruled music paper dotted the floor. In one back corner stood a group of microphone stands, angled every which way, looking like a flock of silver flamingos. Many of them had black microphone cords coiled neatly at their bases. At the back was a wheeled chalkboard scrawled with musical notation.
On the floor in front of the stage, facing it, was a wooden lectern, with a conductor’s baton, also wood, resting on it. Surrounding the lectern in a semicircle on the other side were several rows of folding metal chairs. The rest of the room faded into darkness, but she could tell it was huge.
She began walking toward the stage. She couldn’t imagine what it was like to be a musician or an actor or any other kind of performer. She’d had to read things in front of one class or another, of course—everyone had to—and she had hated it, hated having everyone’s attention on her while she spoke in a terror-stricken monotone. She couldn’t comprehend the people who sought out this kind of attention. She tried to imagine herself as that kind of person. Tried to picture herself on this stage, illuminated by bright lights.
Completely visible.
She was just wrenching her mind away from this horrifying prospect when she heard the door open, then slowly close…and latch.
He came to her in the darkness near the stage, took her in his arms, and held her without speaking. After a moment she heard him sigh, quietly, as if with relief—as if she had been missing and he had been looking and looking and had finally found her. She rested her head against his shoulder and felt him raise his arm and delicately stroke the back of her neck as if it were something fragile and precious. They stood there like that for several minutes.
Found.
He took her by the hand and led her up onto the stage, to the very center, and left her there for a moment, arms at her sides, eyes dazzled by the light, while he moved things away from around her, dragging chairs back and carrying music stands off to the corner where the microphone stands were. When he came back he continued past her then stepped off the stage next to the podium and turned to face her.
By now her eyes had adjusted to the light somewhat, and she could see his face, although not very clearly. He was once again simply standing there, looking at her. She wondered if he wanted her to lift up her dress—almost began to reach for the hem—and then thought: No—he just wants to look at me.
Strangely, she found that she didn’t mind, even though this was practically the nightmare she had been envisioning when he’d come in. But it was all right as long as it was just him. And as long as he didn’t ask her to read anything. He was just looking at her. Seeing her. Embracing her with his eyes.
He brought one of the heavy wooden chairs and placed it directly behind her, then placed his hands on her shoulders and gently pressed her down into it.
She watched him as he loosened, then removed his tie, which he then used to fasten her wrists to the back of the chair. Then he looked around for a moment, walked over to the cluster of microphone stands, and returned with two coils of black microphone cord. One of these he tied around her chest, just below her breasts, circling the back of the chair a couple of times before knotting it. The other he used to secure her ankles to the outside of the chair legs so that she now sat with her knees apart.
He knelt in front of her and rested his hands on her knees. He looked up into her face and said, his voice hushed, “You look so beautiful.”
It was the first thing he’d said to her since that day in the bathroom, she suddenly realized.
He rose up on his knees and, taking her face between his hands, kissed her with great tenderness.
And she felt safe.
When he had finished kissing her he continued to look into her eyes as he sank back onto his heels and returned his hands to her knees.
He continued to hold her gaze as he slowly began to lift the hem of her purple velvet dress, gently pushing it up her thighs; slowly, slowly continuing to lift the soft, heavy fabric until her beautiful new panties were completely exposed, glistening in the light. He carefully tucked the extra material of her dress into the cord at her breasts so that it wouldn’t fall down.
Then he lowered his head between her thighs and kissed her there, once, as tenderly as he had kissed her mouth. It reminded her of that day in the library, and she felt herself beginning to moisten where he had kissed her.
He stood and then once more walked to the edge of the stage, stepped off, and turned to look at her. As if she was a work of art that he was creating and needed to contemplate from a distance before continuing.
She liked that.
She watched him as he looked at her, wishing she could see his face more clearly, especially his eyes. She looked down, trying to imagine herself in his place, to see what he was seeing. Was he looking at her breasts, made more prominent by having her hands tied behind her, and the cord around her chest? (Guess I didn’t need that belt after all, she thought to herself.) Was he looking at the white curve of her belly as it appeared from under the mass of bunched fabric and vanished beneath the waistline of her panties? Or was it the panties themselves, the ones he had most likely stolen for her? Was he looking at the outline of the mound between her legs, where he had kissed her?
She didn’t want to speak, fearing she might break the spell, but finally, she whispered, “What are you looking at?”
“Your face.”
He stepped back up onto the stage, bent down, and, laying his hand against the side of her face, kissed her again, lingeringly, his fingertips tracing the shape of her ear, the line of her jaw, as he did so.
She wanted to touch him too: put her hand on his neck, run her fingers through his hair—and found that she loved the fact that she couldn’t. That all she had to do, all she could do, was to be kissed.
Eventually, he pulled away, just slightly. She followed his eyes, which were watching as his fingertip gently smoothed her eyebrows, then descended and began to trace the outline of her mouth, over and over, moving inward a fraction of an inch each time he did so.
She thought she had never felt anything so unbearably intimate; it seemed to accentuate her powerlessness, and yet it felt like an offering.
Now the side of his finger was moving slowly back and forth between her lips. She began to kiss it, holding it still with her lips every time it began to move. She felt it against her teeth, and opening them slightly began to nibble at his finger and tease it with her tongue. She felt it turning, and suddenly his finger was pushing slowly between her teeth and probing deeply into her mouth. She groaned aloud and felt her pelvis inadvertently thrust upward as she did so, the muscles inside spasming for a moment, then relaxing.
He began to slide his finger in and out of her mouth, and she met it with her tongue, continuing to moan, the helplessness of it exciting her beyond belief, her pelvis now bucking in time with each thrust of his finger, the tension there beginning to build...
His finger suddenly slipped out of her mouth. She threw her head back, gasping.
He waited until she was able to focus her eyes on his. Then he said, as if continuing a conversation, “Now, it seems to me that in our last conversation, before we were so rudely interrupted,” giving a puckish smile as he said this, “you were saying that there was something of mine that you wanted. We were at your house, remember?”
Oh god. Standing outside in her bra and panties. Whispering those nasty words to him. Pulling down his pants and then running away. Of course, he hadn’t forgotten. And of course, neither had she. She had in fact revisited that scene, that conversation, almost every time she stepped out of her front door, reveling in the way she had turned the tables on him. And now it seemed that the tables were turning again.
“Ye-yes,” she muttered, still having difficulty breathing. She looked at him. She had to say it—and anyway it was true:
“I want...your cock.”
She saw him take a sudden deep breath through his nose, and his eyes become bright and almost terrifyingly focused before he replied, in a near-whisper, as he leaned closer:
“Where?”
Jane was falling into his eyes, just as she had on that first day.
“In my mouth.”
He leaned even closer.
“Say it.”
She had to. She wanted to.
“I want your cock...in my mouth,” she whispered.
Now his eyes were close to hers. His face had become mask-like. He barely moved his lips as he spoke:
“Why? Are you a little slut?”
To Jane’s astonishment, the words that had once brought her to tears now caused her arousal to soar and she suddenly burst out, “Yes! I’m a little slut, and I want your cock in my mouth! Ohhhh...GOD!”
Just saying those final words had pushed her into a small climax. She breathed uncontrollably fast for a moment and felt a sudden rush of moisture between her legs. She marveled, again, that mere words could be so exciting.
He had seen it, of course, and to Jane’s surprise, he suddenly smiled, as if pleased for her.
He laid a hand gently on the side of her face and asked, “Did you just come?” And when he saw her puzzled look continued, explaining, “Have an orgasm? You know, that really nice feeling, here?”
He slipped his fingers between her legs and stroked her there once or twice, making her gasp, almost making her come again. She managed to nod.
“Oh, that’s great...I like that.” He smiled again, and kissed her, happily, as if he was proud of her.
When he had finished she smiled back at him, still aroused, her eyes half shut with it, and said, barely above a whisper, “But I still...want your cock in my mouth.”
And was thrilled to see him flush and close his eyes, and to hear a small groan escape from him.
He came and stood between her thighs, his legs almost touching her chair, so that the bulge in his pants was only a few inches from her face. She watched as he unfastened the top of his pants and began, with deliberate slowness, to unzip them. She was a little surprised when his cock sprang into view without any further preliminaries but found the combination of dressy clothes and no underwear exciting.
His pants dropped to the floor, something in his pockets making a small metallic jingle when they hit.
He stood still for a moment, letting her look at him there.
Then he took the shaft in his hand and began to do what he had done with his finger, using the tip of his cock to trace the outline of her mouth, teasing her with it. Rubbing the head back and forth across her lips; pulling it away if she tried to kiss or lick it until she was moaning with equal amounts of desire and frustration.