I awoke that morning with a completely different expectation of what would happen that evening. It was Thursday, mid-May, and on Saturday I had a date for prom with my year-long crush on Kari. I had heard people talking about "blow-jobs," and "head," "going down," and a bunch of other things I'd never heard of. I realized I had no idea what any of it was. It sounds weird, I know, being an 18 year old in High School, about to go on a date, but having no idea what anything to do with sex was. Even sex itself was a mystery to me. I knew I was supposed to want it, that women were supposed to make it harder to get, but I didn't know why.
Let me explain why. My story is a bit unusual. I was put into foster care when I was three years old. My birth mother had died in a car accident, and apparently no one knew who my father was. My grandpa had died a year before, and my grandma was going into the worst stages of Alzheimer's. I had no aunts or uncles, since my mother was an only child. So I became a ward of the state. I can tell you this, people who want to adopt because they can't have kids want babies. A three year old is not a baby.
So I bounced from one foster home to another. I was a trouble maker, a rebellious kid, but I'd like to point out I was not a bully. When I was eight years old, I was put into the care of a religious family. I mean, hyper-religious, don't even think about sex or you'll go to hell, touch your penis and you'll burst into flame, type of religious. I spent the next six years in home school with two other boys, one a year older than me, and the other two years younger. We went to church on Sundays, and on Tuesdays, and on Wednesdays, and there was bible study on Fridays, and we never saw other children, except at church. We didn't even get to talk to them. We just sat next to Ruth, the foster mother, and Charles-never Charlie- her husband.
Schooling consisted of basic science, along with lessons on how Christian and science worked together, and the cases when science was absolutely without a doubt wrong. We also learned English, reading books that were clean of immoral descriptions, and basic history and politics and math. Now here's where things changed. I got viral meningitis, which is pretty nasty, and people can die, and all that business. The foster family could not pay for it, so I was put into a hospital until I was healthy. In the hospital I got pneumonia and had to stay there even longer.
I bounced around several foster homes for the next six months, getting kicked out because I got a cold and sneezed and they had a panic attack thinking they were going to rack up thousands of dollars in hospital bills, or I didn't "fit in." Then I came to Kate's and Jim's house. They were a single couple, both of them 29 years old, and they both came up in the foster homes when they were kids. So when they got married, they decided they wanted to help kids like them, who had gotten lost in the system, no longer "desirable," to adoptive couples. That's how they got me when I was 14, two months from my 15th birthday. I spent the next two years in home school with Jim. Kate owned and ran a boutique in town while Jim lived off a healthy inheritance, and day trading to keep it going. The adoption became official a few days before I turned 17, and during the summer Jim and Kate decided that Jim should take a job offer from a brokerage firm. It meant that I would be going to public school for my senior year.
When I started I learned I had a lot of catching up to do. Jim had mostly corrected all the mistakes in my education with Ruth as my teacher, and so I wasn't too far off the norm in education, but socially I was awkward. I'd never really interacted with people besides other foster kids. I'd gained a friend after a couple months of being a loner. His name was Pete, a nice guy who played on the baseball team as a pitcher during the spring, while during fall he played football as a quarterback, but he wasn't very good and kept the bench nice and warm during most of the games.
My first day I noticed this girl across the cafeteria, and I felt my heart race. She was different from the rest, long flowing ruby hair, curling and twisting as it fell across her shoulders. Her skin was fair, but flawless like she had been wrapped in satin, with the faintest of freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheeks. She had gorgeous emerald green eyes like I had never seen, perfectly manicured hands, long slender legs revealed by her capris, and a gorgeous figure which I later learned was referred to as the hourglass figure. She had amazing large breasts which always had little nipple buds leaping out from underneath her shirt. I saw her every day, and I started having dreams about her, kissing and hugging.
After I'd started hanging out with Pete I learned her name was Kari Patterson. I watched from a distance until winter quarter, when I had environmental science with her, and she was assigned to sit next to me, lab partners for the quarter. I couldn't talk to her for a week! I was too nervous. If she asked for something I'd pass it without saying anything. Over the weekend I explained my frustration to Pete, and he told me to suck it up and talk to her. On Monday I worked up my courage all day, and when we had class together in 6th period I told her I was sorry, I was just nervous around her. She told me to relax, and we could be friends and talk if I wanted. It grew from there until two weeks ago when I asked her to prom. She said yes, that she had been waiting for me to ask her out for months.
When I told Pete he was excited for me and asked a question that I'd never thought about in my life. He asked if I would try and sleep with her after the dance. I knew that sleeping together was a synonym for sex, but I'd never used either in any way that concerned me. I laughed, even though I was freaking out inside. I've spent the last two weeks trying to figure out what to do. I didn't want to look stupid to Pete, so I couldn't talk to him, and if I couldn't talk about it with my best friend I sure as hell wasn't going to tell any of my other friends. I only had one source left: Jim and Kate.
When I got home that afternoon, I found Jim packing a bag with clothes, and his suit bag was hanging from the door -- a sure sign he was going on a business trip. I told him I needed to ask him something, a serious but personal question. He told me he was too busy, he only had a few minutes left before he had to leave. I tried to pressure him to wait, but he told me to ask Kate. They had no illusions of being my mom and dad; we had been on a first name basis since they adopted me. The only thing we shared was a last name for legal reasons. We were more like good friends. I told him it was something I wanted to talk to him about, but I needed to talk before he left. He had already finished packing and had gathered up his bags. He told me to ask Kate, that I could tell either of them anything, and there was nothing I couldn't talk to her about that he wouldn't have the same answer for.
I waited until she got home from the boutique. She usually got back around six or seven in the evening, so I made my dinner and waited. She came home and she looked stunning. I commented on her hair and makeup and she said she'd had a guest instructor in to teach the girls new techniques for hair and makeup and she had been the model. She put her things away and asked if I'd eaten. I told her I had, which relieved her since she had eaten an early dinner before her workshop class. She came out into the living room where I was sitting and sat on the other end of the couch from me, opening a bottle of Riesling and pouring two glasses, one for herself and one for me. They were always relaxed and told me I could drink as long as I did it at home where they could keep an eye on me. Pete told me they were the coolest parents in the world for that.
I sipped at the glass while Kate swallowed hers in a single gulp, and poured a second to sip on. I swallowed a lump in my throat, working up to asking my questions. My palms were sweating, and I could feel my heart racing.
"Kate," I started, I hesitated when she looked at me, she looked a lot like Kari in a way.
She had brown hair, but because of the hair stylist it had a red glow to it, and while she didn't have Kari's emerald eyes, she did have sapphire blue ones that sparkled just as brightly. She had the same skin though, always soft and silky. She was shorter than Kari but not my much, and her breasts were larger, something I'd taken to noticing lately. She was a couple sizes larger than Kari, a size eight, while Kate was a ten or twelve, but her frame worked for it, accentuating rolling curves of her hips and breasts. I tried to start but found myself distracted.
"I have a problem." I finally got out.
"What's the problem?" she asked casually, sipping at her wine.
"I don't know how to say it. It's kind of awkward and personal. I tried to ask Jim but he was too busy and had to leave." I admitted.
She shook her head, "It's okay you can talk to me about anything you would talk to him about."
I nodded, "I know, I'm just nervous."
