I'd been seeing Carla for almost three years. It was a fading romance, with the emphasis on fading, rather than romance. A year of separate colleges hadn't done anything to pull us back together after the fading started in our last year of high school. I'd looked forward to the Memorial Day holiday as we'd both be home and maybe things would be better. In hindsight, looking forward to spending time with Carla and rejuvenating our relationship was optimistic of me.
We'd gone out for a reunion dinner on the Friday night and while it was pleasant, the spark still wasn't there and I didn't even try to prolong the evening by inviting her to visit to my bedroom. We'd made a tentative arrangement to meet up Sunday and planned to spend Saturday with our families. it was hard to figure what had gone wrong as we still liked each other and cared about each other, but the excitement that keeps a young relationship fired up was absent with no recent sightings. It seemed like all we needed for one of us to be brave enough to stop the agony.
I didn't rush over to Carla's house early Sunday. There seemed little point and I didn't know what we were going to do anyway. Her car was there when I pulled into the driveway just after lunch, so I expected her to be at home but I think that if no one had answered the door I would have been relieved. There was movement inside though and Kristi, Carla's older sister, opened the door, held back their golden retriever and let me in.
"She's not here." Kristi hugged me. It had been a few months since I'd seen her. "They all went out to look at a house dad is thinking of buying up by the lake. She didn't say you were coming around."
I screwed up my nose and tried not to show either relief or disappointment. "It's okay, we didn't have a firm plan."
Kristi walked through to the kitchen, obviously expecting me to follow. "Well, come in. Least you can do is have some coffee."
She had long flowing brown hair that ran down her back and a muscular body that made her clothes bulge without looking like any of it was fat. Kristi was on a softball scholarship, had played at state level in high school and while she'd always looked great, she was the family jock. Her jeans always seemed to be tighter than medically recommended and it took all of her sports bra's strength to keep her figure under control. I liked Kristi, despite the high school rumors, as she'd always been fun to be with and seemed to be a genuine person.
I sat at the counter while she bustled around fixing coffee for us. I laughed at her jokes about no longer knowing where things were in her own house and enjoyed the bright smile she always seemed to have on her face.
"So,' she finally started pouring, "what's new with you? Will I be getting a wedding invite soon? Carla's been very coy lately."
I gave a half-laugh and answered, "I don't think you need to worry about buying a new dress right now." Again, I tried not to give a facial expression that could be misinterpreted but Kristi didn't need the visual cue.
She looked at me for a few seconds and simply said. "I wondered." Kristi sighed knowingly and pushed my cup over to me. "Well, stuff happens."
She left the topic of Carla and me at that point and asked me all about my first year at college. I enjoyed sharing the ups and downs of a freshman with her. She'd become more academic that year, matter-of-factly noting that she'd finally acknowledged that a degree would be more help to her after college than winning a few more softball games. It seemed that she'd grown up without me noticing until then.
The phone rang and she excused herself, taking the call in the lounge rather than in front of me. When she came back she announced that the call was from her mother and that the real estate agent had let them down and couldn't show the house until five that afternoon, so they would be staying up there for dinner. "Apparently there's some leftover pasta in the refrigerator that I can have." She mimicked her mother's voice, rolling her eyes to show a mixture of mirth and contempt.
"You want to get a pizza?" I made the offer. I'd planned on having dinner with Carla and wouldn't be expected home.
"Sure." Kristi didn't pause to consider the offer and grabbed her car keys. "I'll pick up the pieces for my sister... who's obviously stood you up." She playfully punched the top of my arm.
"I don't need charity," I joked.
Kristi stopped and looked back at me, letting her eyes appraise me from head to toe. "Yes you do," she said, then turned and led the way out.
On the drive into town we decided on Chinese instead of pizza and when we were settled in the restaurant and had ordered Kristi offered, "You don't have to talk to me about you and Carla, but you can if you want."
I thought about the offer and declined. I'd got to the point that it seemed pointless and more pain to continue than end. We veered off into small-town small-talk through appetizers and by the time our entrees arrived Kristi was reminiscing about her high school days.
As she started to tall me anecdotes about old boyfriends I felt a tightening knot in my belly. I'd known about the rumors for years, been intrigued and excited by them and wondered now if I could ask her how true they were. I might never get a better chance and, as I watched her face as she told me about a disastrous date that ended up with her walking ten miles to get home and figured, I had nothing to loose.
"People still talked about you at high school, long after you'd left," I ventured.
Kristi's face took a slightly puzzled look and she assumed I was talking about her athletic abilities. "You mean how I lost the state finals because I dropped that catch?"
"No." I spoke solemnly, knowing I'd committed to the question now.
"What then?" she appealed, completely open and not obviously hiding any skeletons.
I took a deep breath and felt the tingle of anticipation as I steeled myself. After another look into Kristi's eyes, just to be sure I wanted to open the box, I told her, "Something about gloves? Silk Gloves?"
Her face ran through four emotions in about two seconds—shock, fun, confusion and trepidation. She settled on an uncomfortable smile. "I should've figured they'd talk about that." The giggle she made was all nerves.
I hadn't meant to put her so ill at ease, and tried to retreat. "It's okay, you don't need to say anything if you don't want to."
"It's okay," she shrugged. "It's not like it's a huge deal. Well, not for me anyway."
I waited, not knowing what else I could say. Kristi took along drink of her soda before she came clean.
"Firstly, it wasn't gloves, it was glove." She smiled and took another deep breath. "Secondly it was velvet, not silk."
So, there it was. The rumor was technically incorrect, but substantiated. My heart was pounding. Kristi was reputed to have given many boys at school handjobs while wearing her velvet glove. I'd heard various estimates of between thirty and a hundred boys. Because of my association with Carla I'd been asked many times if the stories were true and while I'd dismissed the enquiries, I'd also been interested to know the truth, and why.
Now I was silenced by her admission.
"What did they say I did with it?" It was a forlorn request, almost like she held some hope that her use of the glove hadn't carried with the fact that it existed.
"That you..." I stumbled over the words, "masturbated them."
Her face took on a resigned look and Kristi asked about the extent of the rumor. I assured her it had almost died by the time I'd left school. I felt bad having brought the topic up and now I wanted to quash it... but I also wanted know more.
"So..." I ventured, "can I ask why? What was the whole glove thing about?"
Kristi shook her head and sighed. "It was just me being rebellious, kind of, I think. I'd always been fascinated by... penises. It was a little girl thing really. I wanted to hold them and play with them, but I didn't want to have sex with a load of boys. No, it doesn't make any sense to me now, but back then I had this idea that if I wore a glove and avoided skin contact, it somehow removed me from the sexual act that I performed for them so that they'd let me hold their... dicks."
I tried to make sense of the logic and failed. Kristi saw that and added. "After that it just became kind of a quest, to jack off boys, all with the same glove. It wasn't the smartest thing I ever did, but the glove kind of normalized it for me and I have to say... it was fun and exciting at the time. I didn't have many complaints from the... subjects."
"And you just... did them? When they asked you?"
"Some did," she considered. "I asked others. Some we just kind of arrived at the situation mutually. I discovered that boys were pretty easy to get out of their pants."
I was feeling braver now that she'd been so open. "I heard that you... did one boy in class."
Kristi laughed. "That's definitely not true. I had a few trips into the boys' washrooms, but never in a class. Mostly I'd go to their bedrooms, or in their cars. There wasn't a lot of planning involved. I stopped when it started to get out of..." she laughed, "hand. It seemed like the secret just got out and everyone knew. It was hard to live down for a year, but that was my own stupid fault."
"I'm sure there are girls who've dome worse." I tried to sympathize.
"Oh yes," she agreed. "But I seem to still be living it down... if people are still asking me about it."
I still felt a little guilty for having brought the subject up, but at the same time I'd enjoyed the discussion and was feeling aroused at the images Kristi relayed. "I'm sorry," I grimaced, "I didn't mean to..."
"It's okay," she assured me. "Like I said, it's my own stupid fault."
