I'm new at writing these stories. Please be gentle with your reviews, but feel free to make suggestions about how the stories can be improved. There is very little graphic sex in the story. I'm more interested in the narrative than graphic detail.
As always, any resemblance between the characters in the story and any real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Any person in this story participating in sexual activity is eighteen or older.
My special thanks goes to John Missouri, who graciously agreed to edit my early draft and whose contributions made a vast improvement to the story. Thanks John.
TWO PHONE CALLS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES
CHAPTER ONE
It's amazing how the consequences of a single telephone call and your actions after that call can be life changing. In my case, it happened twice, more than a decade apart. The first devastated my hopes, dreams, and ambitions, but also gave me a treasure. As for the second, it too was life altering, but in a different way. You'll have to read on to see the impact of that call and its aftermath.
The first call came in August of 1971, shortly after my 18
th
birthday. It was my friend, Brian. Brian and I had been best friends since grade school. We had graduated from high school that June and were about a week and a half from leaving to begin studies at our respective colleges. We were something of an odd pair. Brian was tall, slender, almost movie star handsome and a successful athlete. He'd had a series of girlfriends in high school, giving him a variety of "experiences" and had broken more than one girl's heart. I was short, slightly built, plain featured, wore fairly unattractive glasses, still had acne, and had been a complete nerd (or whatever the equivalent of a nerd was in 1971), although I had participated (badly) in cross country and track and field as a distance runner. I managed to graduate without ever having a date.
Brian's maternal grandparents had emigrated from Ireland to the U.S. and settled in our hometown shortly after the first world war. The town had been a market center for the surrounding farming communities back then but had become one of the outer edges of the Philadelphia suburbs by the time of these events. Grandmom and Grandpop, as we called them, even though they were no relation to me, had remained in contact with their families in Ireland and had even visited once or twice, as had Brian's parents.
Brian called to tell me that we had a double date arranged with two great-nieces of his grandparents who were visiting from the old country. Apparently, they had taken advantage of an opportunity to come to the U.S. to work on the New Jersey shore and were visiting Grandmom and Grandpop for a week to meet the extended American family before going home to Ireland. Grandmom wanted us to take them out, show them a good time and give them a chance to spend some time with people their own age. Grandmom was funding the evening and had suggested dinner and a movie as the evening's program. Because there were two women (the "dates" were 21 and 22), Brian needed a second and I was elected. You don't tell your best friend no in these circumstances, so I asked where and what time we were going to do this.
Brian picked me up in his car (a 67 Chevelle) and we proceeded to Grandmom's house to pick up our dates. They were introduced to us as Maeve (the 22-year-old) and Bridget (the 21-year-old). Maeve was reasonably attractive, probably a 7 on a ten-point scale. Bridget was, to put it politely, Rubenesque. She was at least an inch taller than I was, even in the flats she was wearing, and had a figure that was almost triangular - narrow shoulders, a small chest, a belly, heavy wide hips and meaty thighs. She did have a head full of gorgeous red hair and beautiful green eyes, but even with those two features she was a 4 at best. Needless to say, Brian got Maeve as his companion for the evening and I got Bridget. She and I climbed into the back seat of Brian's Chevelle and Maeve joined Brian in the front seat. We headed off to the local Italian restaurant, which was the extent of fine dining in our little town at the time.
Our local movie theater was a one screen facility and was showing a Disney animated feature, which got a quick thumbs down from all four of us. However, the local drive-in tended to get features later than the theater and had just started showing "Summer of '42", which interested our companions, so we decided to head there after dinner. At Maeve's request, we stopped at the local beer outlet and she went in to purchase a couple of six packs. Neither Brian nor I had much experience with alcohol (I because my parents were teetotalers; Brian because his Grandpop's family had several alcoholics in the family tree and his parents had strongly discouraged him from starting down a path that might result in a similar affliction). We got to the drive-in just as it was getting dark, parked out on the edge of the lot, which was quite crowded for a weekday evening, and went off to buy the girls some popcorn to go with the beers.
When we finally got settled in to watch the movie, Maeve slid over toward the driver's side of the front seat up next to Brian and Bridget slid over to passenger's side next to me, which allowed all four of us to see the screen through the windshield. Bridget's contact with me, my first real physical contact with a girl, was both anxiety producing and arousing. I liked having her lean against me, but was concerned about the reaction in my groin area that contact was producing. We cracked open a couple of the beers and drank them as the movie opened. Because of the August heat, we quickly consumed all the beers, wanting to drink them while they were still cool enough to enjoy. That turned out to be a very bad idea in retrospect.