Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2014 01:31:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: DJAkeeba@aol.com
Subject: Tragedy in the Blood, Chapters 10 & 11

This story is about male/male relationships and contains graphic
descriptions of sex.  You should not read this story if it is in any way
illegal due to your age or residence.

This is a work of pure fiction. This story is the sole property of its
author and may not be copied in whole or in part or posted on any website
without the permission of the author.

Questions and commentary can be sent to djakeeba@aol.com


----------------------

Chapter 10

*I'm lying alone with my head on the phone/
Thinking of you till it hurts/
I know you hurt too, but what else can we do?/
Tormented and torn apart*

I was lying on my bed with my Walkman on, listening to a cassette tape of
Air Supply, tears running down my face and my heart aching like never
before.

Thankfully, Rex and Tynah had already gone to bed when I came in through
the sliding-glass door to the backyard.  I wasn't sure if I would have been
capable of answering any questions at that point as to why a second
sleepover in a row had ended with one of us leaving while the night was
still young.

My mind raced with images and sounds of what had happened at Taine's house
two hours before, and it was all jumbled up with what had happened in this
very room less than twenty-four hours ago.

It was a lot to take in, and my 15-year old mind and heart weren't quite
ready for how... intense it all was.

So I lay on my bed with my eyes closed, trying to process it all, listening
to the sad, sweet songs, and letting the feelings just come as they would.

Was it real?  Did it really happen?  Did he run away from my kiss, only to
kiss me back the next night... and then run away from it again?

And why had Taine kissed me tonight?  Was that even me he was kissing, or
did he just need someone in all of his pain and longing for his late
mother, and I had just happened to be there?

I knew my love for him, my devotion to him, my thoughts and dreams of him
were real... but what did he feel for me?

Anything?

Did he just ask me to leave because he was afraid that kissing me would
mean he was gay, or did he ask me to leave because, in all of his pain over
his mother, he realized he had made a terrible mistake?

Was I his mistake?

*Always denied the right to live my life the way I want/ I want to share it
with you*

"I want to share it with youuu," I sang along in a hoarse whisper, and that
just made me burst into tears again, because I had no reason whatsoever to
suspect that such a life was even remotely possible, and I couldn't stand
it.

When my tears subsided, I finally faded off to sleep, with the sweet memory
of Taine's kiss on my lips and nothing but confusion and longing in my
heart.

-------------------

Thursday was a pretty bad day.  Taine didn't sit with me in the morning,
wouldn't even return my gaze, and rushed off the bus and into the school
building as soon as we got to Polk.

I was afraid that he had scared himself so badly by the intensity of what
had happened in his room the night before that he was going to shut down
completely, fold into himself as he so often did, but this time the brim of
the cap would never come up for me again.

My fears were only compounded in Mrs. Colby's class when the cap didn't
rise at all for the entire fifty minute lesson.  And then came lunchtime,
and when I got to the cafeteria, Taine was nowhere to be seen.

That day it was me who was picking at the food, leaving it mostly untouched
at my table and scraping my tray sadly into the trash as the next bell
sounded.

By the time Drama rolled around, I couldn't even muster any enthusiasm for
that as we prepared for the first tournament of the year, which would take
place in eight days across town at Chamberlain High School.

I ran listlessly through my Humorous Interpretation cutting, a ten minute
selection from "Titanic" by Christopher Durang.  It was a raucously funny,
somewhat racy choice, and when I picked it, I had been sure I could bring
the requisite high-camp flavor to each of the three characters in the
piece.

But that day, I ran the lines in a flat, subdued manner, raising some
eyebrows from Mr. McRory, who had been very impressed with my delivery and
character differentiation when I had first performed it for him two days
before.

"What's the matter, Rick?" he asked.  "It's like you're not even trying."

I mumbled an apology while hiding my face from him and asked to be excused
to the restroom.  I ran down the hall, clutching my pink hall-pass in my
hand, and got to the boys' room just as the tears of despair started to
flow again.

*I'm all out of love/
I'm so lost without you*

My hands on the sink, I leaned in toward the large, waterstained mirror and
looked myself in the face.  I looked like a wreck, and I was.

*I'm all out of love/
What am I without you*

I got back to class just as the bell rang, and I was relieved to just be
able to slink back out of the class with everyone else before Mr. McRory
made me do the piece again.

I didn't see or hear from Taine for the rest of the day, and after going
home to feed the birds and eat dinner, I spent that night in the same way I
had spent the previous one: laying on my bed and crying to Air Supply.

*I wish I could carry your smile in my heart/
For times when my life seems so low*

I tried to think optimistically.  I really did.

Maybe Taine just needed some time to process what had happened, just as I
obviously did.  Maybe tomorrow, things would be normal between us again.

I didn't even dare to think that maybe there might be some progress in our
relationship.  I would just be happy to return to the status quo, but I had
the sinking, awful feeling that things would never be the same between us
again.

I heard Foxy whining at my bedroom door, so I got up to let him in.  He
frisked in happily, tail wagging a mile a minute, beside himself with joy
to see me, even in my sullen despair.

Closing the door again, I went back to bed.  Foxy jumped in behind me, and
I let him lick the tears from my face and cuddled with him -- my loyal,
loving doggy -- until morning.

----------------------

Friday's school day passed much as Thursday's had, with me being sullen and
Taine avoiding me.

The only noteworthy thing that happened was when Kathy Witcher came into my
Drama class to hand in her tournament entry form for the Chamberlain meet.
This was her senior year, and she would surely add to the impressive
amounts of hardware which she had already earned for the team trophy table.

Besides that, this would be her last chance to do well at the Texas
Forensic Association State Tournament in March and qualify for Nationals.
To do that, she was hoping to qualify for State in as many events as
possible.  That's why she was entering a whopping five events at
Chamberlain: Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Original Oratory, Dramatic
Interpretation, Girls' Extemporaneous Speaking, and Student Congress.

As she handed Mr. McRory her form, Kathy's eyes caught mine and she came
over to my desk.

"Are you still coming out with us tonight, Little One?" she asked with a
faint, seductive smile playing on her lips.

Depressed as I was, I decided that I had to do something to get my mind off
of Taine, so I nodded.

"Good!" Kathy exclaimed.  "Be ready at eight."

With that, she hurried away.  My fourth period was her lunch period, and
seniors at Polk could go off-campus for lunch.  I imagined that she was off
to Bill Miller's Barbecue across the street, where many of the seniors
spent their lunch hours.  I wished I could go to Bill Miller's for lunch.
I had grown very addicted to their pulled-pork sandwiches and gigantic cups
of sweetened iced tea.

Meanwhile, the school cafeteria's offering that day -- only picked at by me
-- had been a square, slightly cardboard-tasting "pizza" covered with an
oily white cheeselike substance and disturbingly dry nuggets of what I
assumed was the leftover ground beef from the previous day's Sloppy Joes.
Blah.

Anyway, I somehow managed to put some performance into "Titanic" that day,
drawing some appreciative laughs from my classmates and Mr. McRory, who
only gave me a few minor notes about my character transitions but
complimented me on my work.

Ms. Ogretz was flirting with Mr. Arispe when I went into my Biology class
that afternoon, and I wondered if her date with Sly had been mentioned
between them.  It was too much to consider, so I just spent the rest of the
day thinking about Taine.

-------------------------------

*Back in black/
I hit the sack/
It's been too long/
I'm glad to be back*

We were tooling down the highway in Kathy Witcher's car, blasting AC/DC on
the cassette deck and feeling young, free and alive.

I sat in the backseat with Mark Urrutia, a good-looking Hispanic junior
with an amazing smile and a mouth full of shiny silver braces.  Kathy was
driving, and in the passenger seat was Jeff Salzburg, a sophomore with a
perfectly chiseled face, piercing blue eyes and jet-black hair.

I didn't know Mark, but I had talked with Jeff once or twice in Drama
class.  Jeff was pretty open about his homosexuality, and I knew that he
and Kathy often frequented the Saturday midnight showings of the cult
erotic musical "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" at the local theater.  I had
never seen the film, but what I had heard of the music struck me as
tantalizing, sexy and forbidden.

Then again, the AC/DC tape we were listening to struck me much the same
way.  KISS was about the hardest music I had previously been exposed to,
but these Australian headbangers sounded new and different and wild to me,
adding to my euphoria about the speed of Kathy's driving, the older kids in
the car, and the night air buffeting my face through the open windows.

I was so excited to be out at night with these upperclassmen, zooming down
the road toward unknown adventures, that I actually managed to stop
thinking about you-know-who.  Well, at least I only thought of him once
every few minutes instead of all the time.

I didn't say much in the car, because I was a freshman and I was already
learning that it was best to not speak to upperclassmen unless spoken to.
I didn't want to say anything stupid and risk the amazing privilege which I
had been granted, but it wasn't like I was too intimidated to have fun.  It
was exciting, especially when Mark produced a bottle of whiskey.

My only personal experience with alcohol (other than negative observations
involving what it did to Rex's temper) had been an aversion experiment by
my biological mother back in South Carolina when I was around ten years
old.  She gave me about two fingers of vodka in a coffee cup and told me to
drink up, obviously foreseeing my look of revulsion, followed by my
spitting it out into the sink, vomiting, and rinsing my mouth out about a
zillion times.

I had been in no hurry to taste alcohol again, so I guess her experiment
was a success in keeping me sober for the next five years.  But this night
was different.  I felt like I was with "adults," doing adult things, so I
wanted to prove myself.

I accepted the bottle from a grinning Mark, his braces catching the lights
from the Walzem Road strip as we drove along, and took a good-sized shot
into my mouth.  I grimaced, swallowed, and forced myself to hold down the
burning liquid.  To my surprise, this tasted a lot better to me than the
vodka had, and the burn was actually a good one, spreading warmth through
my body.  Now, I was a man!

I started laughing crazily, and Mark joined in, squeezing my leg
encouragingly through my tight Sergio Valente jeans.  Kathy pulled the car
behind the local elementary school, where -- to my surprise and delight --
there was already quite a party going on.  Six other cars were parked
behind the school, and I recognized most of the other Drama upperclassmen
milling about, drinking and smoking and talking.

Kathy grinned and got a joint out of a black enamel cigarette case in her
glove compartment and handed it to Jeff.  He lit it, inhaled and held the
smoke in, suppressing a cough.

I watched his technique carefully, as I had never done that before either
and didn't want to look like a jackass rube when my turn came.  Mark took a
swig from the whiskey bottle and passed it back to me.  I now felt
confident about this drinking thing, so I took another big swallow and
smiled.  Mark smiled back, the security lights from the school dancing in
his rich, chocolatey brown eyes.

*I got nine lives/
Cat's eyes/
Usin' every one of them and running wild*

Jeff passed the joint back to Mark, who cast me a sly, sidelong glance
which I couldn't quite read.  Then he took a long, sucking drag off the
joint and held it in without coughing.  Jeff and Kathy were sharing the
bottle, and I caught Kathy watching me in the rearview mirror.

"Breathe out, Little One," she said. "Let all your breath out."

I did as instructed, and Mark took my head in his hands, pressing his lips
to mine.  Startled, I opened my mouth, and Mark began blowing pot smoke
into my mouth, hard enough that I didn't even have to inhale.  The smoke
filled my lungs.  It felt hot and thick, but Mark's hands felt good on my
face, and his lips felt warm and soft.

"Now hold it in," said Mark gently as he released our liplock.  His eyelids
had grown heavy, and he had a goofy, sexy smile on his face.  I was really
not sure if I wasn't over my head as Jeff took a swig of whiskey and I felt
the first spread of a warm fuzziness which I assumed was from the pot.

"That's called a shotgun," Jeff said, wiping the bottle and handing it back
to me.  "You like it?"

I slowly released the smoke, took a swig of the whiskey, and began to
answer.

"Yeah, it's pretty coo..."

I was cut off by Mark's mouth on mine, his tongue probing my own as it
forced its way past my startled gasp.  His kiss was hard and clumsy and
wet, and both his stubble and the press of his braces hurt my sensitive
lips, but my cock still responded to the new and ruthless sensation.

I felt Mark's hand moving up the inside of my pants leg as the bottle was
taken from my hands.  Mark pushed me back against the door and then he was
climbing on me, the intensity of his kiss increasing as his hand closed on
my balls, rubbing its way up my hardening penis through the thin denim of
my jeans.

I dimly registered Jeff and Kathy making out in the front seat, or maybe
they were shotgunning.  I don't know, because the pot and the whiskey had
seriously affected me by that point, and I was both distressed and aroused
by the fervor of Mark's kissing and rubbing.  He had his arms around me
now, his obviously hard erection insistently grinding against my own as his
hot pink mouth-muscle explored my lips, teeth and tongue.

Suddenly, he stopped, and he got out of the car.  Kathy did too, and came
around to Mark's side, climbing into the backseat next to me.

Kathy's eyes blazed with obvious desire as she looked at the stiffened
bulge in my jeans.

"That looks promising," she smiled.

Her gaze traveled up to meet my own, and she slowly unzipped her tight
black blouse.  Jeff and Mark had left the car, moving into the group of
Drama kids sitting and smoking by the bike racks in back of the school.  I
watched, unable to speak, or even to breathe, really, as Kathy took off the
blouse, then undid the front hook of her lacy black brassiere.

"Come to me, Little One," she whispered, as her large, creamy breasts fell
free of the bra and she moved carefully to lay on top of me.

--------------------

Chapter 11

*She was a fast machine/
she kept her motor clean/
She was the best damn woman that I ever seen*

AC/DC was still playing on the cassette deck in Kathy's car, and she was
topless in the back seat above me, kissing my lips and neck as I lay stoned
and awe-struck against the inside of the left-hand back door.  I was
wearing a black dress shirt and tight blue Sergio Valente jeans.  My shoes
had been kicked off onto the floor, and Kathy rubbed her stockinged toes
against my bare feet as we both stretched out across the back seat.

Her eyes were closed as she began undoing buttons on my shirt and kissing
her way down my body, rubbing her large, creamy breasts against my bare
15-year old chest.  I could scarcely believe what was happening, but my
cock knew, and was straining against the bonds of my zipper, pressing at
the warmth between Kathy's legs, as she had hiked her skirt up around her
waist and was grinding her crotch against mine.

She moved off of me, scooting backwards and pulling my legs up around hers
as she continued kissing my chest, her small pink tongue flicking teasingly
at my small, sensitive nipples.  All of these new sensations were
intoxicating and overwhelming to my virgin body, and my head lolled back in
stoned ecstasy as she undid my belt and zipper, freeing my hard young cock.
A soft moan escaped my lips as her tongue trailed down my flat, hairless
belly, snaking its way toward my pulsing erection.

"Mmm," she purred.  "My Little One isn't so little after all."

With that, she slowly ran her tongue across the length of my cock from tip
to base, sending an electric charge through my entire body.  I tensed and
shivered as she gently licked my hairless ballsac, flicking her tongue
beneath it to the sensitive area below.  A low groan escaped my lips as she
reversed course, licking and nibbling my throbbing boyhood from base back
to the tip, running her tongue lightly across my sensitive coronal ridge
before engulfing the head of my cock in her warm, wet mouth.

I looked down through pot-heavy eyelids to see more and more of my long,
thin cock disappearing into Kathy's skilled, hungry mouth, her tongue
working against my frenulum and sending paroxysms of pleasure coursing
through my entire body. I sighed and let my mind drift on waves of pure
sensual bliss as she sucked me, running my fingers through her soft, shaggy
hair.

My first blowjob was actually happening, I thought, unable to process being
introduced to sex, liquor, drugs and rock and roll all at the same time by
this voracious and skilled "older woman."  She downed my cock to the base,
breathing around it as she licked and sucked, dragging her long nails
lightly down my chest and abdomen and making me shudder in aroused
excitement.

I dimly registered the sounds of the front doors opening, but it was too
late.  A wave of orgasmic ecstasy was building through me, spreading
through my body to my fingers, my toes, my face.  The sensations mounted,
enhanced by the whiskey and the drugs, rolling from the very center of my
being to every molecule of my skin.  Kathy could feel my climax approaching
and began sucking harder, her warm hand stroking my tightening balls as I
began to moan and buck my hips to meet her busy mouth.

"Ohhhhhhhhhh shitttttttttt," I gasped, as every nerve in my body overloaded
at once.  I held onto her hair for dear life, thrusting my throbbing cock
deep into Kathy's mouth as I exploded spurt after spurt of hot, molten
boyjuice deep into her eagerly awaiting throat.

My mind seemed to melt, and my eyes were closed so tightly in the intense
release that I saw concentric circles of wild, crazy colors, melding and
blending into each other as spasms wracked my entire body and I shot what
seemed an endless amount of thick, white cream from my pulsing cock.

Kathy expertly swallowed every drop, and continued lapping as my spasms
subsided, licking me clean while I slowly came back to my senses, my
drained balls -- which had retreated into my abdomen with the power and
intensity of my first non-solo orgasm -- slowly returning down into their
smooth pink pouch.

"Mmm," cooed Kathy, as she licked her lips and pulled back from me,
reaching for her bra and slipping it on over her shoulders.  "Not bad for a
virgin."

It was then that I heard the applause.

Oh, shit!

I blinked my eyes back to some semblance of reality, and saw Jeff and Mark
grinning and clapping in the front seat.  They had seen it all, and
apparently were delighted with what they witnessed.

"Kathy strikes again!" Mark exclaimed happily.  "Corrupting Polk High, one
virgin at a time!"

"Thank you, thank you," Kathy smiled, as if accepting an award.  "I
couldn't have done it without Mark Urrutia and Jeff Salzburg, who have both
forgotten more about blowjobs than I will ever know."

Everyone laughed except me.  Something felt wrong.  This was a momentous
occasion in my life, I thought, and here it was just a joke to these
experienced, jaded older kids.  And from what Mark said, I was apparently
just one in a long line of Kathy's conquests.

She began to kiss me then, but I suddenly didn't want her to.  It was hot
in the car, I was starting to feel upset, and the steamed-up windows began
to look to me like a cruel, cliched Lover's Lane joke.  In fact, I wanted
nothing more at that moment than to get out of that car.

"I have to piss," I said as they continued their merriment.

"You can go in the woods," said Jeff, pointing toward the right side of the
car.

"Yeah," grinned Mark knowingly.  "The woods here are niiice..."

I imagined that Jeff and Mark had been fucking in those woods, and as I got
out of the car, filled with a sudden, hollow feeling of emptiness and
regret, my thoughts turned to Taine.  Although I was technically still a
virgin, I had harbored some crazy, irrational hope that he would have been
my first.  That was gone now, left back in that steamy, cynical, confusing
car.

As I walked toward the woods, I passed another car and recognized Roger
Walburg, another senior in Drama.  Roger didn't go to tournaments, but was
active in the school plays and also did a lot of work on stage crew.

Roger was a husky, big kid with freckles and glasses.  He dressed in the
strange, country-hippie style popular among stoners in Texas at the time,
with denim overalls over an old striped shirt and worn flip-flops. As I
passed him, I saw him drinking the same brand of whiskey which I had tried
earlier.

"That's good stuff," I ventured, hoping that conversation with a respected
senior might make me feel better.

But Roger just glowered at me, swigging from the bottle.

"Don't talk to me," he said flatly.  "Just don't talk to me, Rick."

I was surprised that Roger even knew my name, let alone that he seemed to
be angry with me for some reason.  I just kept walking until I was a few
dozen feet into the woods, where I ducked behind a tree to piss.  I was
starting to sober up pretty quickly, and was at least aware enough to check
the immediate area for rattlesnakes before unzipping and watering the tree.

When I was done, I zipped back up and began my return to the car.  I didn't
really want to go back, as I felt like the last thing in the world I wanted
was to get in the middle of the celebration over Kathy's corrupting another
innocent virgin to add to her list.  I got to the car and found that the
decision had been made for me.

The car doors were locked, and I could see enough through the steamy
windows to determine that Kathy, Mark and Jeff were in the midst of a hot
and frantic three-way makeout session.

I turned away and walked toward the school, feeling pissed off and used.
Even though I hadn't wanted to get back in the car, I felt bad anyway, like
I was the virgin sacrifice for whatever kinky occult ritual they were
engaged in, and had been cast aside after serving my purpose.  Pretty
shitty way to treat a guy, I thought.  Even a freshman.

As I approached the school, I saw Carter Middleton, a hip, blonde junior,
smoking a cigarette with Linda Folman, a tall, slender blonde who was my
age and in some of my classes.  I realized I wasn't the freshman at this
party, and wondered if Linda might be Carter's choice for a sacrificial
virgin.  My concern was allayed when he beckoned me over, smiling.

"Hello, Rick," Carter said in a hokey British accent. "My name's
Whapcaplett, Adrian Whapcaplett!  I'd like to take this opportunity to
welcome you to Mousebat, Follicle, Goosecreature, Ampersand, Spong,
Whapcaplett, Vendetta and Prang!"

I stared at him dumbly, realizing that I had just met the first person in
my life other than myself who was familiar with "Monty Python's Flying
Circus," the groundbreaking British sketch-comedy show which I would later
learn was both inspiration and gospel text for many teens on the tournament
circuit.

"I love Python!" I said, breaking into a grin.  I was glad I had come over.

Carter showily looked at me, then looked back at Kathy's car and back to me
again.

"That much is obvious," he replied, still in the British accent and
wiggling his eyebrows comically.  "Do you know Linda?"

"I know Rick," Linda laughed.  "We're going to be Duet partners!"

Linda and I had just begun to rehearse a Duet Acting scene from Bernard
Slade's "Same Time, Next Year," a comedy about a couple, both happily
married to other people, who meet in a hotel room once a year for a fling.
It was obvious that we were both virgins and had no idea what to draw from
for the scene, so we'd decided to skip Chamberlain and wait until the next
tournament in Austin two weeks later to debut the piece.

"Hi, Doris," I smiled, using the name of her character in the scene.

"Hi, George," she giggled back amiably.  "Looks like you've been getting in
trouble."

I swallowed hard, praying that she hadn't seen what had gone on in the car,
although since Carter seemed to be well aware of what had happened, I was
pretty sure that Linda was, too.

"We're just about to blow this banana stand," said Carter in a different
goofy voice.  He shook a cigarette out of a pack of Marlboro Lights from
his shirt pocket and offered me one.

Since I had already experienced my first sex, liquor, pot and heavy metal
music, I decided that I might as well go for all the vice that was offered,
and took the cigarette.  I had smoked a few menthol Newports back in the
South Carolina woods with Jay, who had stolen them from his dad's seemingly
unlimited supply of cartons in the garage, but that had been years ago.

I put the cigarette in my mouth and let Carter light it, feeling the smoke
fill my lungs.  I expected to cough, but I didn't.  It felt and tasted
good, making me feel mature and elite.  I guessed I was a grown-up now, and
when I was a kid, smoking always seemed to me to be a sophisticated, adult
thing to do, so I took to it like a fish to water.

Carter smiled at me as we smoked, and looked at me with his piercing grey
eyes, which had that knowing glint that I was coming to associate with
stoners.  It was as if they were deeply amused by a vast wealth of secret
knowledge about you which they alone could perceive.

"What's bugging Roger?" I asked.

"Roger's on acid," Linda explained.  "He's been acting weird all night, and
seeing you in there with Kathy didn't help."

I cocked my head in puzzlement.  Carter exhaled a long stream of smoke and
nodded toward Kathy's car.

"Roger has had a crush on Kathy since middle school," Carter said.
"Everyone knows about it, but he doesn't have the balls to tell her.  So he
follows her around to these things like a puppy dog, drops acid, and then
gets all moody while Kathy... uh... does what she does."

"Warren found a notebook in Mr. McRory's room," Linda added, indicating
Warren Filanski, a crude, drugged-out junior who was lighting the stream
from a can of WD-40 in a small group to our left.  "It was Roger's
notebook, and the first section was just all the same sentence, one per
line, going on and on for fourteen or fifteen pages."

"What did it say?" I asked.

Carter smiled grimly.  "'I love Kathy Witcher and always will.'"

"Great," I thought, feeling as if I had just made an enemy of Roger, who I
took to be one of the two or three most respected seniors in the Drama
department.

"Are you riding back with Kathy or can we give you a lift?" asked Linda.

"I'd like to ride with you, if that's okay," I said, grateful for a ticket
out of the party.  Linda lived about ten blocks from me, so I didn't feel
as if I would be imposing by accepting her offer.

"Great," said Carter, flicking his cigarette butt into the parking lot and
throwing an arm around my shoulder.  "Stick with us, kid!  You'll go far."

He had switched to a 1940s movie voice, and now added, in a low mumble:
"Although not as far as you went tonight."

I smiled in spite of myself and followed them to Linda's car.

As we drove home, I thought back on what had happened in Kathy's car, and
decided that if she had used me -- which she had -- I had used her as well.
I had been sad, horny, lovestruck and frustrated, and although I was still
sad and lovestruck, the other two things had been taken care of.  Still, I
ached for Taine, and wondered if we would ever be friends again.

A Stephen Stills song came on the radio, and I smirked bitterly as tears
came to my eyes.

*If you're down and confused/
And you don't remember who you're talking to/
Concentration slips away/
Because your baby is so far away*

I was thinking of Kathy's blowjob, Mark's forceful but exciting kiss, and
how much I deeply missed, loved, and yearned for Taine.  The song seemed,
in that moment, to have been written just for me.  I turned my head toward
the window so that Linda and Carter wouldn't see me crying.

*Well there's a rose in a fisted glove/
And the eagle flies with the dove/
And if you can't be with the one you love, honey/
Love the one you're with*

Carter, in the backseat, must have caught my reflection in the car's
window, because he put a comforting hand on my shoulder and squeezed.
Linda glanced over and put a hand on my knee, gripping it tightly and
warmly.  I finally relaxed, knowing that I was, at last, among friends.

I wondered what Taine was doing and sighed heavily, letting Carter and
Linda silently comfort me while I yearningly gazed out the window into the
night.

-------------------------------

Thank you for reading Chapters 10 & 11.  To be continued...

"Sweet Dreams" by Graham Russell. Performed by Air Supply. c 1981 by Arista
Records.  "All Out of Love" by Graham Russell and Clive Davis. Performed by
Air Supply.  c 1980 by Arista Records.  "Back in Black" by Angus Young,
Malcolm Young and Brian Johnson. Performed by AC/DC. c 1980 by Atlantic
Records.  "You Shook Me All Night Long" by Angus Young, Malcolm Young and
Brian Johnson. Performed by AC/DC. c 1980 by Atlantic Records.  "Love the
One You're With" by Stephen Stills. Performed by Stephen Stills.  c 1970 by
Atlantic Records.

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