My Little Gem Ch. 05

Readers, this story stands on it’s own, as most of them do. Of course it’s helpful to read the earlier chapters just for to be more familiar with the characters. I’ve foiund it easier to people my stories based on folks I’ve known. The girls in these five stories all existed and were in my life. The quarry exists as descibed as is the apartment where Theron lived. Oh, and Harvey the squirrel appears as himself. Please enjoy now and let me know your thoughts. -puppop

****

It dawned on me as I was parking that I hadn’t anything to fix for dinner. It was Friday night after a hot day at the quarry, with the evening sun blaring in at me on the way home and I’d just zoned out.

There was a 3×5 card pushed through the slot in my mailbox from Jenny. Did I have dinner plans? There were credit card bills and a flier from Beaudry Ford assuring me my trade in was valuable. My grandpa’s truck has a historic plate, but whatever.

“Hey you! Can you check my mail too?” Jenny, leaning over the rail upstairs.

I grinned, she threw down her key.

“I guess you found my note. I was making a pasta salad and thought of you.” She thumbed through the stack I’d brought her, arching her eyebrow at one of them before glancing at me.

“Sounds good to me. What can I bring?”

“Just a screw top if you have any. I meant to grab some at Kroger’s but Jimmy started fussing. I wish all of his teeth could just come in at once and be done!”

“Poor guy. Gotta be hard on both of you, huh?”

Jenny smiled. “Mom’s dealing with it tonight. She’s taking him to Olan Mills in the morning for pictures, so I..am..free! Tada!”

“Good on you!” I paused as she glanced up at me coquettishly, doing the secret smile routine and batting her lashes.

She poked me in the chest. “You..are one dusty boy. Go put your stuff away, grab something clean to wear while I draw you a cool bath. Deal?”

I must have looked thoroughly confused.

She burst out laughing. “Now go on, do as I say. This offer expires soon!”

Harvey was waiting on the ledge when I pushed through my door. He’d watched from high atop the oak tree as I pulled in and had assumed the position already. It was the daily saga of The Squirrel Who’d Never Been Fed. I set my lunchbox and mail on the old console stereo, which startled itself into life with Merle Haggard telling me it was a great afternoon. I was inclined to agree, given the last ten minutes, thereabouts.

As I got down the peanuts for Harvey, I had to wonder at my luck. Down the Hall Jenny, as I thought of her, seemed an unlikely sort to be a single mom at her age. In her late thirties, she eked out a living being a home health care nurse. Child support was sporadic for her and was supposed to come every Friday. Judging by her expression, today was a good day for her too.

Setting out the little foil schooner of nuts and such, I refastened the screen and put the box fan back up. Tickets were going fast for something at the Ryman Auditorium, the console reported before suddenly falling silent once again. My phone had been ringing and I almost missed it. Vicky.

I sighed, “Hello.”

“You ’bout wore out?”

I had to smile, “Fixin’ to take a bath. You Ok?”

“Gotta few questions. Heard the news. Wondered why Gem was acting all stove up.”

Picking through the bureau, I dug out some shorts. “Do you really want to care, Vic?”

Softly, “I might. They say time heals and shit. I don’t know. We all fuck up sometimes Theron.”

(!!!) That was unexpected, coming from her, after all the mess..”Hey, thanks. Uh, do you mind, my water’s ready and I don’t want to drop the phone in the tub.”

She sighed. “It’s all good. I’m goin’ skating at Sparkles later on. Call me tomorrow if you get a hankering, Ok?”

****

I wore flip flops down the hall instead of my boots. Jenny noticed as she opened her door, gaze falling as fast as her smile came up. “There’s just something about a dusty young cowboy in Wranglers and floppies! Come in, gimme hug!”

She helped me get undressed, watching carefully as I stepped into the cool water. She sighed, “Don’t mind me. Grown boys are in short supply around here.” She giggled like she was fifteen. She’d changed out of her scrubs into a faded yellow duster and put her hair up. She tugged at the hem. “Sorry, my cocktail dress is at the cleaners.”

I settled in, scrunching around some. “You got anything on under that “

Jenny looked mock aghast. “A gentleman doesn’t ask those kinds of questions! But, um, yeah, I’ve got on some high tops. I haven’t trimmed down there and the forest has kinda taken over?”

We laughed as she squeezed a sponge over my head. “We really should wash your hair. I’ve got some product we can use later on it. Girls’ll be chasing you down the street!”

Ruefully, I thought to myself, yeah, they may chase me, but not like the way she’s talking.

Her fingers were strong, bringing up a lather. I watched the flexing, the bounce of her boobs moving, hidden from view, but fun anyway. kapaklı escort “Do you have to work tomorrow? I can’t keep up.”

My eyes were screwed shut, but I smiled. “My Saturday off. I’m glad too!” I was just tired of the summer glare, the heat boiling off all the rock surfaces in the quarry and the dust, always the damn dust. Never, ever, take clean air for granted. Dump trucks, loaders and equations populated my dreams, all part of my work/study routine. And in the middle of it, I’d found a way to ruin a budding relationship.

Jenny pushed me under. “Rinse, then we’ll condition, Ok?”

The sudden silence was broken only by the gurgling of the water and a splash as I went under soaked her shirt. I could see her laugh, looking down and shaking her head. Her fingers had followed me, rubbing and rinsing, rubbing some more before trailing down the cut of my chest, my abs..

She looked back down at my opening blues, meeting hers as she found what she quested, stroke and a pat before I emerged. I got a glance, just a glimmer of her wantonness, summarily disguised once again in wholesome goodness, nothing to see here.

I let her have it, my insides flattered at her lust, yet cautioned by her circumstance and inability to have much in the way of any social life. If she wanted to fuss over me, so be it. It was just a Friday night.

She pulled her shift up and off, chunking it on the counter.

“You’re not wearing your nursing bra.”

She started in with the conditioner. “Oh, you noticed! This one’s new. It won’t be much good after Jimmy quits nursing, cause I’ll shrink up, but for now..yeah, I like it. You?”

Jenny was a skinny thing, almost bony, but motherhood had provided her a beautiful chest, absolutely entrancing. “Yep. I like what they’re holding too. You should be proud.”

A giggle, obviously pleased, “You’re silly. Did you know that as long as a mother nurses, her ability to conceive is greatly diminished?” She pushed me back. “Lift your arms.”

“Sounds like you’ve been studying. Where’d you read that?”

She poured water down my front. “I forgot. But another thing they said is nursing helps tighten and restore a woman’s coochie after giving birth. I’m sorry, I just babble on about this stuff.” She breathed through her teeth. “Jimmy is my little miracle. But when his front teeth come in, we’re going Gerbers. Rise up so I can get the rest of you.”

I complied. “So, were you worried about having more kids?”

“Hold onto the tub, be still. No, but if I did get in a family way at my age, the baby might not be healthy.” She dropped the washcloth in the water, soaping her hands. She encircled my sex with them, carefully bathing me to rigidity, my scrotum tightening, my shaft responding to her slick soapy ministrations.

She was watching, that secret smile returning. “You tell me when it’s clean enough, alright?” She pulled the drain plug, “Just remember you’ll need some water to rinse. She handed me while tickling me below, faster, faster.

I gasped, “You ain’t right. You’re gonna make me..”

She stopped, splashing bathwater on my disappointment, “Nope, Not just now. I don’t need the rolls to burn. Here’s a towel!”

****

Her Alexa played softly in the background, something late fifties early sixties. I could just imagine the June Taylor Dancers and Jackie Gleason with his coffee cup, strolling out to proclaim how sweet it is as palm fronds waved in the wind. I wished I had a TV that linked to the past like my console stereo did to Nashville. My addiction to Nick at Night was fading, but I had the niggling feeling that we of this day were missing something, something magical that wouldn’t be repeated, not now, not ever.

Dinner was done, the cool pasta and ho-made yeast rolls were the perfect antidote to the hot day’s past. We kicked back on the couch and Jenny told me about her break up with her truck driving boyfriend.

She stretched her feet out in front of her, wiggling her toes, “I think I told you about him and that he decided to leave, right?”

I thought back, “Yeah, I guess you did. I might have been kind of in boobland at the time, so..”

She punched my arm. “Boys are all the same, every one of them. Hmmph! Well I actually invited him to go. It just felt like I was a rest stop with benefits for him, not much more.”

“Oh. Are you better for doing it? I mean just you, going it alone?”

She played with a strand of hair. “It was a relief more than anything. Sorry for my little lie to you. It’s just, I dunno, embarrassing.” She touched my arm. “You seem a little different than before. Has something happened to you?”

I shrugged. “Things happen all the time. Stuff you don’t have any control over.”

“No, huh-uh. You seem sad. Are you missing that blonde girl that I saw yell at you?” She took a sip. “She was your girlfriend, wasn’t she?”

I snorted. “She was a lot of guys’ girlfriend in a way. Things just got..crazy.”

She nodded. “I’ve got a couple minutes before you karabağlar escort need to kiss me, if you want to talk.” She patted my hand, looking at me expectantly.

I felt the wine in my mind. I didn’t know how much to say without her thinking less of me. But, shutting her out wasn’t exactly friendly. So I formed the first sentence, followed with another, then another..

****

I had called Gem after not hearing from her most of the week, I think it was a Wednesday. Yes, it was Wednesday, now two weeks ago. I called it wash day, because that’s when I started getting low on socks and underwear.

She seemed remote and listless when she answered. I asked her how she was and she replied that she’d been better.

“How can I make things better for you?” I asked, but little warning bells were starting to go off in my mind.

Quietly, “I don’t remember you saying anything about a turtle.”

I had to think for a second. “Oh. I forgot. There was a turtle crossing the-“

“Theron. Livy filled me in already. Remember we were besties?”

And the walls..come tumblin’ down. And the walls..tumblin’ tumblin’.. down. It was all happening again. The washer was thumping. I watched it sightlessly as it spun, soap suds on the glass.

“She wasn’t the first to tell me, Theron. You should have been the one. We could have worked it out, since it WAS Livy afterall. Alicia, Theron. She saw you with her own daughter out on the FUCKING ROAD!” She sobbed, “What, just what the hell were you thinking?”

“Gem, listen, I should have told you. It just..happened, I don’t know.” In my mind I saw the doom clouds of yet another embarrassing situation coming to the fore.

“Oh bullshit! You and my sister, nothing but alley cats. And to think of some of the things I DID with you. I was going to give you all of me, can you believe that? Can you?”

“Gem, it just started out doing Livy a favor, moving a piece of furniture, that’s all. I didn’t plan any of it-“

“Yeah. Doing her a favor. Listen, my FRIENDS call me Gem. You can call me Gloria. But even better, Just. Don’t. Call. Got that?” She was gone.

Numbly, I finished my laundry. The rain came in as I went back upstairs, cars swishing down the street, an accompaniment to my apocryphal frame of mind. I almost expected the console to play ‘Requiem for a Friend’.

How do you explain that coming of age and mainly being ignored or made fun of by the opposite sex becomes its own assumption? And then, when, in a short space of time everything changes radically, you’re supposed to respond in some sort of idealistic fashion?

I likened it more to a caged lion when the door is suddenly thrown open. I set the laundry basket on the table and punched Livy’s number.

“Well hey!” She purred into the phone. “I wondered if I’d hear from you. It’s been pretty quiet down your way.” Her voice, so silky, just like her girlhood, her hand reaching under her..guiding me into her liquid heat, her dimpled ass firm against my belly..stop it! Focus.

“I put in a lot of overtime last week, then I had study tests. What have you been doing?”

“Well, let’s see. I’ve been shopping a good bit. I found a pair of sun dresses that are completely adorable at TJ Maxx. Other than that, swimming and waiting for my car to get out of the body shop. It’s been in for two months. Remember that moving van backed into it and-“

I cut in, trying to keep the impatience from my voice, “Did Gem go shopping with you?”

A pause, fuzz in the phone as she blew out, “No, something happened and really, it came out of nowhere. Gem was over for lunch last week and Mom started talking about the turtle we almost had to save. Remember? That’s when we stopped out there and, um, well anyway.”

Have you ever wanted to know something, but not know it at the same time? “So, it was just an innocuous conversation but somehow-“

“Theron, innocuous? You talk funny sometimes!” (giggles) “I shouldn’t laugh but Mom’s birdwatching binoculars aren’t the best, thank God. She thought we were dancing.”

“Ok, so she didn’t tell Gem about us.” I turned up the fan and sat down on the good side of the sofa.

“Um, back then, you told Mom about saving the turtle and she thought we were dancing over our good works. So, we were having cucumber sandwiches when Mom said something about our ‘victory’ dance.” Her voice dropped a little. “Gem looked across the table at me and said she hadn’t heard this before and pushed her plate away.”

I could envision it, right down to the look on Gem’s face.

She continued. “Anyway, I followed her outside and she asked me why I’d kept it a secret. She knew right off we’d done it and felt betrayed.”

Her voice triggered the memory that burned into my mind. Her flowered panties at her ankles, change spilling out of my pushed down jeans when I stepped up to her as she leaned over the trunk of the car. Her ass was high, perfect. Her entrance was so wet and welcoming as I pushed in, that perfect moment of heaven karabük escort that you never forget, not ever.

“Theron..are you there?”

“Ah, yeah, yeah, just thinking about you. It was just so brazen. Unplanned.”

“I loved it Theron.” Voice lower, “I didn’t want to tell her right off. I mean, she still hasn’t done IT, right? Didn’t seem fair. It just looked like I was trying to steal you for myself and do stuff with you, you know, that she doesn’t.”

“I think about it all the time, Livy.”

“Me too. Did she write you off?”

“Yeah, told me not to call anymore.”

“I called her the other night and we talked some. Let’s just see where it goes, I guess.” Livy laughed, “It’s not like we robbed a bank, right?

****

I didn’t tell Jenny all of this. It seemed too graphic, my inner thoughts darkly lustful, so I made it more conventional and spared her the dalliance scenes so alive in my young mind.

“Sounds like you still have time to get yourself in trouble. I remember all sorts of trouble too.” Jenny smiled, eyes crinkling. “But I was seldom involved, thank God. I thought this was going to be about that blonde girl, so pardon my surprise.” She sipped her wine, glancing sidelong at me. “But I do have a question. You said something about coming of age and being made fun of when you were younger, is that so?”

I nodded, “Yeah, I had braces and glasses and I was really skinny. I always had my head in a book and wasn’t much for social graces. Then the braces came off, I got Lasik and ditched the specs. I hired on at the quarry at sixteen, shoveling out pits and repairing conveyor belts and gained thirty pounds. But inside I still felt like a doofus.”

Jenny clambered over to sit facing me on my lap. She leaned forward, squeezing my arm and breathing in my ear. “You don’t feel like a doofus, hon. Not to me.”

My hands went to her waist.

She pulled back, her dark eyes sparkling. “Comfy?”

I nodded, grinning.

Her face got closer. “Got any plans the next little while?” A smile was trying to escape her lips as she looked down at mine. There wasn’t time to answer before they met.

Her kiss was soft, yet chaste. “I have some plans, but in another room. Care to join?”

****

The evening traffic sounds were muted back in her bedroom. An oscillating fan was running quietly in the corner and in the dim light I could see the sheets were already turned down. A small Tiffany lamp glowed on the nightstand. She went to it, throwing a scarf over it. She saw me watching. “Adds to the romance and my self esteem.”

Jenny reached under her shift, her high tops emerging. Then she did that miracle thing that women do, pulling the straps of her bra out the armhole. She grinned, teeth white in the dim, “What?”

“My sister used to do that. It’s like pulling a rabbit out of a hat.”

Now she laughed. “Rabbits? Oh, that’s good! No, but really, that’s my version of a fan dance. Want to climb in?”

In seconds, we were stretched out on our backs. The scarf over the lamp made loopy patterns on the ceiling. Somewhere in the building, I heard a door slam along with the rustle of the sheets as she sidled over.

Tasting of wine and just barely of scallions, she pulled my tongue to hers for a brief dance, her breath gentle on my cheek. I knew from the past that she liked being semi aggressive and direct the pace. The back of my mind was winding down from our talk. Jenny had an adept tongue, her lips soft, her eyes closed. All the while, her hand softly rubbed my shorts clad thigh, never straying, almost a reassurance.

In the silence, I heard a moth banging against the window screen, attracted by the lamp and off in the distance there was the clashing of railcars in the switchyard. Quiet jazz leached in from the living room as my hand crept under her duster, finding shaved smooth thighs, then her hand interceded, tugging mine away.

(???) She grinned, still kissing, never stopping and placed my hand on her waist and hers resumed the spot on my thigh. Instead of laying on my back, I shifted more towards her on my side. Her hand brushed my budding erection and mine found her tightening nipple.

She broke away, giving me a squeeze. “Is that our kiss doing that to you?”

I gave her a tweak, smiling. “Maybe just like you!”

“Whew, behave now!” A quick peck on my cheek. “I pumped this afternoon, but pinching will get me started, right?”

Her hand gently touched my cheek, guiding my mouth to hers as her fingertips trailed ever closer to where I wished they’d already be.

Her slim hip was in my hand, a squeeze of her small butt and I pulled her more tightly to me. Her hand was trapped between us and she wiggled it, giggling into my mouth.

“I like the way you grab me, Theron.” She suddenly palmed my distension, fingernails lightly scratching at my base. I jerked. “Oh, you like that?” A chuckle. “We should maybe pull these shorts down just a little for now. Do you think that would be alright?”

I winked, “Depends on your intentions.”

She licked my cheek, “Silly. You’ll just have to wait and see.” She pushed at my waistband as I rose up to help. “There, that’s good for now.” Jenny pushed me back down, my shorts low on my belly, my man half evident. “Ahh. That’s better, now let’s see..”