"About last night? No, I'm very glad. I'm very glad. The more time I spend with you the gladder I am. You're, like, so different from the people I'm used to and so different from what I thought you were and you're just... so real. I'm, like, glad I did it and glad I'm did it with you, and I'm going to do it with you for as long as... Hey, I wish I had more courage."
The air suddenly seemed to collapse out of her baloon, all her gladness just collapsed.
"What do you mean?"
She brushed distractedly at some lichen stain on the sleeve of her jacket.
"I'm not going to stand up in church tomorrow and say I'm not a virgin, but that's not really the thing, because that would be a big dramatic thing and anybody might be scared about that... but sometime soon I'm going to have to tell my family that I'm going with you or they're going to hear that I'm going with you and there is going to be this unholy row. And it's better if I tell them because it'll be even worse if they just hear but like... I'm so scared... Hey, we're an item and I'm telling you we're an item and I mean it and pretty soon it'll come out anyway and I want us to be able to go around together everywhere but like... like would you dreadfully mind..."
"Secret for now?"
"Please.. if that's OK... I'm sorry to be such a..."
"It's OK."
She hugged me again, and I had to ease her arm off my ribs. After a moment she broke away.
"Hey, it's getting late, I'll have to be going back soon. Do you think there's much risk of anyone coming up here?"
"Why?"
"I want to have sex with you like properly before I go home... I've brought rubbers," she said, pulling a pack out of her pocket.
"Snap," I said, doing the same.
-----
That next week was like weird all ways. I'll have to skip though some of this real briefly, because it kind of isn't part of the story. But it kind of is too, and it's also kind of funny.
Sunday it's kind of a family tradition that I go over to my father's for the evening meal if Mom's working, which she was. And it's been kind of like traditional for a couple of years now for Dad to ask me whether I'd got a girfriend yet. And of course I couldn't tell him, so I sort of didn't answer, which was what I usually did anyway... and then after the meal he took me out the back to see the latest gizmo he'd got on his pickup, and said real serious about if I was gay that was OK by him and I was still his son and how if I wanted to bring a boyfriend round that was OK too and I just started laughing and he wanted to know why and of course I couldn't tell him and he said well, it's OK, you're still my son. Which kind of felt good in a way.
Monday Nancy looked past me at school like I wasn't there. She didn't look happy at all and I wanted to go over to her but I got the signals that she really didn't want me to. And that did not feel good. Then sometime Mandy came up to me in the corridor and said congratulations. I hadn't yet got the thing between Nancy and Mandy because they didn't like hang in the same group at school, but I knew that it was at Mandy's house that Nancy was supposed to have stayed on Friday night when she'd been with me. Mandy said was it OK for Nancy to come over to my place that evening sort of like seven and I said I didn't finish work till seven and could she make it half past... And then kind of like inspiration I said what was Nancy's bra size and Mandy said with the falsies or without? and I said without.
Then after school I went and did something which was nearly as hard as talking to Nancy in the first place - I went into this classy women's underthings place down in the mall (and the woman there was actually quite friendly and helpful when I explained what the problem was) and got her this tiny little simple vest and panties set in plain white silk which cost most of the money I'd been saving up for a new camera and when I gave them to her that evening and she unwrapped them she was like totally blown away but also I could see that as well as being pleased she understood all of the different layers of stuff I'd been trying to do with the present which kind of like felt like playing chess with someone who's exactly as good as you only better. And then we went the whole way on the living room carpet with the light on and it was - no messing - good and I saw that her face when she came was just exactly the way I'd imagined it would be.
Tuesday Nancy was waiting for me outside the school gate and she was all puffy from crying and she pulled me into a clinch right there in the gateway and kissed me in front of everyone and my face was sufficiently better by then that we could do it properly and I could feel she had the vest on under her blouse but no bra. And then she didn't let go of my hand all day except to go into class and people's reactions were interesting. We went into the paper office to pick up some drawings and the atmosphere in there was like Siberia which hurt a bit. And then we saw the cow pie man coming towards us in one of the corridors and he just about turned and went the other way. And it was kind of like obvious that some of the Bibbie crowd were sniggering about us which I could see hurt Nancy but it only made her make even more of a show of being my girl. But several people came up and congratulated us which felt, like, amazing and then Mrs Price saw us in a corridor and said, like, "did I do this?" and I said sort of yes and she said she was amazed but really pleased for both of us and that felt great.
Wednesday sort of nothing happened. I mean, nothing that dramatic. Stuff about getting stuff organised for the official movie was happening and we were both involved with that, and also we snuck away at lunchtime and had sex standing up in the back of the school theatre props room which felt totally wicked and amazing, and after school we went down to the store where Mom works and Nancy introduced herself and I honestly think Mom wasn't sure she wasn't hallucinating, only a good hallucination.
Thursday Lill was sitting around the place looking stunned and dreadful - it wasn't like she was crying it was much worse than that. Then sometime around the end of the morning Mandy came up to us and said that Paul had been going around telling people about screwing Lill and like saying how she wasn't much good but she'd do like totally anything. And that seemed to mean something to Nancy and Mandy which I didn't quite get. And then we went into lunch and Lill was sitting by herself and we just went and sat one either side of her and hugged her and like we didn't actually say anything but the rest of the day we went round in a bunch and Mandy joined in and that kind of felt good too and that evening after I'd finished work we went and saw a movie the four of us and Lill suddenly said to Mandy about the sex scene stuff and Mandy said like yeah she knew and Lill said would she do it and Mandy said like Paul is the stud and we said yeah sort of dubiously and Mandy said "I'd like that" sort of wolfishly so you could see there was something complex there as well but at that point I didn't much care.
Friday nothing much happened to report.
Saturday we had the second meeting up at the barn which I'll come to in a minute but from the point of view of what was happening in people's lives Nancy was officially staying at Mandy's which meant she was staying with me and what was surprising was that Mom was completely cool about us sleeping together and offered us her bed which we didn't accept but the offer was nice.
Sunday Mom made us breakfast in bed, and we didn't actually get any clothes on until about lunchtime. Then I phoned my father - I'd told Nancy about the gay thing which amused her greatly - and asked him if I could bring a friend over that afternoon, like carefully not saying anything about gender. And Dad said yes of course and you could like hear him girding up his loins and then we went up onto Prospect Hill with a video camera and a tripod and did some test shots for the movie and went to Dad's and his face was really funny but he was really pleased and his wife and the kids were nice to Nancy, too, which was a bit of a relief. Then we went back to Mom's (Mom was working) and watched the video and were both of us blown away by the shots of Nancy's face when she was coming just like I'd thought it would be, and also Nancy agreed that her breasts were, actually, just fine, and then of course we had to have sex again and it was like fierce so that we found out that my ribs were mending but they weren't completely mended yet; but we found we liked it fierce and Nancy really liked it fierce and we went to bed tired and a bit sore and very happy. And Monday we went back to school and Nancy went home and that was the end of a very weird week but also a very good one.
