Centerfold Ch. 01

Winter, 1982

Cami and I had met up behind our high school auditorium. It was night, but the area was lit because the drama club had a production of "Death of a Salesman" running. As promised, Cami was wearing my letterman's jacket. I could see her short dress, too short for this time of year, poking out below the hem, and I could only see skin above the top button. She undid the top button, and I could see a little cleavage. She undid the other two buttons and started to open the jacket up. The dress had a neckline so low I couldn't see it yet. "Do you like what you see, Trent?" I was frozen in the moment, unable to actually see her boobs. Then I felt something touching my gut. I looked up, and I was in biology lab. Cami had just passed me, and she had put something in the hand warming space of my running suit. She looked back at me and made me palpitate with her blue eyes. I put my hand in and felt a folded piece of paper. Since the teacher was talking to two other students, I took it out and glanced at it, confirming that it was a note from Cami.

Winter, 2007

I had just come back from dinner with a novelist, going over the changes I had made in the middle chapters of her latest. She was being difficult. I could not get her to see how much clearer it was with the changes I made. I entered my apartment building hoping to catch up on my TiVo, but a new priority presented itself. My advance copy of "Casanova" had arrived, the one with the short story I wrote freelance. Editing pays the bills, but my own writing gives my life meaning. The cover looked like just another issue with The Girls Of Whatever Conference, but when I turned to the table of contents to see where my story was, it turned out it was a retrospective commemorating 30 years of those pictorials.

They started with a couple pictures from the very first one. One woman was wearing bell-bottoms and no shirt. Most of the school name on the pennant behind her was obscured by her arm, but I could make out the mascot of San Diego State. I tried to turn to the page where my story appeared, but I did a bad job of estimating where page 70 would be. Instead, I opened to a picture from Central Iowa Tech. CIT was the main rival of Ames College, my alma mater. Intrigued, I looked more closely at the two women from that spread. "JerriLynn and Cameron root for the CIT Braves, who made the NCAA tournament for the first time in 20 years," the caption read. I remembered that I was in attendance for the game at Ames when CIT clinched the conference championship. JerriLynn was shelving books at the library. She was naked, but her long, red hair covered her boobs, and her pubes, which "matched the curtains," as they say, covered her pussy. Cameron was setting a book down on the desk in her dorm room. You could see the CIT emblem on her short shorts, and she was topless. I started to turn the page to find my story when I noticed a familiar birthmark on Cameron's neck. My blood went cold when it dawned on me that Cameron was Cami Welles, my could-have-been girlfriend from high school.

I found my story. I didn't think it needed any pictures, but the illustrator they hired did a good job. I read it, mainly to make sure they didn't mess anything up, and they didn't. I dug out the plastic protective sleeve I had bought for this issue, folded the magazine open to my story and put it in the sleeve. I set it on my dining room table until I could get to a home furnishings store to buy a stand for it. I went to my computer and checked my e-mail. I got a message from Classmates telling me who had looked for me recently, but I didn't recognize any names. What the heck, I thought. I did a search for Cami Welles. She didn't have a degree from CIT, but about five years ago she got one from an online university.

I had a hunch that if she didn't finish as a traditional student, there was a good chance she was still in our home town. I did a search for her name by ZIP code. There weren't any matches, so I changed it to everywhere within 20 miles. There was a Cameron D. Welles. I couldn't remember Cami's middle name, but I thought I remembered that it started with L. There was also a C Welles, the only Welles at that address, in Harperville, only a few miles away from my parents' house. I clicked on the link for additional information. She was 41 and graduated from Van Buren High School. Pay dirt. I did something I'd never been willing to do before. I splurged on the Public Records Search. The only records they showed were a complaint that she swore out against some guy for assault and her license as a Certified Nurse's Aide. There was no record of a marriage, not even a license. I lost either my nerve or my interest, not sure which, and went to a message board for editors.

Cami and I were in home room together for all four years of high school, and we flirted innocently almost from the first day. The flirting wasn't constant, but it continued even when one of us was dating someone else. She didn't act that way with anyone else, as far as I'd seen. She never got in any trouble. She didn't dress provocatively, except in my fantasies, and she didn't have a reputation, either easy or virginal. She was on the short side, with a bust that was nice but not so large as to invite jokes. She looked okay in jeans, but her dresses made her butt look really cute. Despite all this, it was her blue eyes that made me melt. I sat as much as I could in home room and in the two or three actual classes that we shared just in the hopes of glimpsing into them as she passed by. Early in our junior year I finally got the courage to ask her out. We went to a couple movies and a school play. After one particularly romantic movie where the leading lady put the guy's hand over her heart, Cami did the same to me, and I felt part of her breast. Then she met another guy who swept her off her feet. I don't think he knew what a lucky bastard he was. Somehow, from then until a month before graduation, one or the other of us always had a boy/girlfriend. I thought about asking her to walk with me at the commencement ceremony, but I couldn't get my nerve up. As luck would have it, she and a guy from our French class were not far ahead of us. When we all tossed our caps in the air, she gave me a friendly celebratory hug. I got to look in those eyes one last time, and I had to restrain myself from trying anything.

When I got off the computer, I went to bed and masturbated as I remembered the jacket fantasy. A couple times I'd imagined that she didn't really have my favorite dress on, just a skirt that looked like it, and she was topless under the jacket. I'd feel her boobs, she'd feel my crotch, and my imagination would fast-forward to us both losing our virginity with my jacket as a blanket. I got off, but somehow the fantasy wasn't as exciting now that the image of her boobs was real, rather than the product of my imagination.

A couple nights later, I checked my e-mail. I had five new messages, two from unknown senders. My heart jumped when I saw that the second was Cami. "Hi, Trent! :) I see you were looking for me," she wrote. "I'm a CNA at the nursing home here in Harperville, been here over ten years. How's life in the Big Apple?"

Over the next few weeks, I learned that she had dropped out of college after two years. She said she worked as a dancer for a couple years, and the assault charge was against a customer at the bar where she worked. She'd had a few relationships, the last of which ended a couple years ago when he had a heart attack. He was only 40. I told her I was sorry to hear it.

I told her I'd interned at Simon & Schuster, and that got me an easy entry into Markham House. I worked in the mail room until they had an opening for a proofreader. From there I worked up to fact checker and now editor. The only drawback is the non-compete clause that prevents me from publishing anything over 2,000 words with any one else. (Markham only does full-length books.) I'd met a lot of interesting people since I moved to New York, but no one had really sparked my interest as far as relationships were concerned.

When I turned my calendar from March to April, I saw the final Saturday circled. My cousin Stephanie was getting married, and I was taking several days off to go home for the wedding. I couldn't believe I hadn't pieced these two things together. I e-mailed Cami and told her I'd be home for a few days, but I'd already RSVP'd for one. She said that was okay, she'd just be happy to see me again. It got even better a week later when Steph sent me an e-mail. I'd told my mom about getting back in touch with Cami. God bless my meddlesome mom, she called Stephanie and they arranged for me to bring Cami. Steph's older sister and I were close, so she knew how I'd felt about Cami. Fortunately, it was early enough that Cami was able to request that day off. She normally worked the late shift on Saturday, so she could have made it anyway, but this way she could stay for the whole reception.

I flew home on Wednesday night and had dinner with my parents before adjourning to my hotel room. I caught up with some of my old buddies during the day on Thursday and then got ready for my first real date in some time. At least, it was the first date that really mattered to me. We agreed to meet in the parking lot of the Dairy Queen where she worked senior year. Clever me, I'd forgotten to ask her for a picture, so I hoped she hadn't changed too much. I saw two spaces open that were opposite one another and pulled through one to the other. (I like to look forward when I get out of a space.) Another driver was pulling into the space on my left. I shut off the engine and opened the door. The other driver started to open hers, but pulled back when I started opening mine. I got out and turned around to close my door. I hit the button on my key chain to lock the door on my rental. I walked toward the aisle when I heard the sound of metal softly touching metal. I turned back to see whether my car was okay—and I was literally shaking in my shoes when I recognized her baby blue eyes.

"Trent!" she cried. We rushed to gether and put our arms around each other. We kissed each other, and she said, "It's so good to see you again!" I kissed her a couple times on the nape of her neck before I let go of her. There was the birthmark that I'd recognized in the picture.

"Let me look at you," I said as I stepped back. She gave her hair that model toss and then leaned on the hood of her car. "You're as beautiful as you ever were," I told her.

"And you're as inept at lying as you ever were," Cami answered.

I wasn't lying. She was the same age as me, 41. She looked it, but everything that captivated me before was still there. Her eyes were still blue, obviously. Her boobs were still ample, and if they were no longer firm enough for her to go braless—not that she ever had when I'd known her—at least her bra did a damn good job of supporting them. She was wearing a dress that looked kind of like one I'd seen a couple nights ago in an Old Navy ad, as if she were going to a family picnic. Looking at her butt, I guessed that she liked fast food as much as I did, but the dress still made it look damn sexy. Funny, for all the feelings I had when we were teenagers, I never really thought of her as looking sexy. Cute, rather than sexy, and it was more her personality anyway. Her face didn't hide her age, but all I saw was my Cami. "So, what about dinner?" I asked.

"There's a deli over there," she said, pointing across the parking lot of the shopping center. "We can get some sandwiches and head to Scaggs Park."

"Sounds good," I told her. "I'll treat." Cami got a chicken sub with their lightest dressing, while I got one of their steak sandwiches.

When we got back to our cars, she said, "Since you bought, I'll drive." She put her key in the driver's side door lock, and all four doors opened.

As I sat down, Lionel Richie's "Hello" was on the radio. "That brings back memories," I said.

"You mean how boys in the locker room would change, 'kiss your lips' to, 'kiss your,' well, 'lips'? We could hear that outside, you know."

"No, I mean before we went out, I used to imagine singing it to you."

"That's so sweet," Cami said. We reminisced about early eighties music, and we made the typical complaints that 40-year-olds make about the music that's popular now.

When we got to the park, we found a secluded picnic table and ate our sandwiches. After we shared various and sundry anecdotes about our lives, I told her about my fantasy.

"That would have been better," she said.

"Better than what?"

"Well, I mean, I never really thought about having sex with you when we were dating, but I lost my virginity a year later, and I realized afterward that it didn't feel as special as I'd hoped it would be. Once in a while I've thought that it would have been nice if we'd been each other's first."

"Damn it," I said. "You mean I could have had it if I'd asked?"

"No, I wasn't ready then. I'm just saying, I'd feel a lot happier when I remember my first time if it had been with you." We talked about other things until it started getting dark. (This was April, remember, so we're talking about a very long conversation.) "Why don't you come to my place?" Cami asked once we were back in her car.

"I don't know my way around Harperville," I told her, hoping to get her to my hotel room.

"I'll take you there."

"What about my car?" What the hell was I doing? The girl of my dreams was inviting me to her place, and I was coming up with excuses not to go.

"Hand me my purse," she said. I reached behind her seat and found it. She opened it, found her cell phone and dialed. She hit the "send" key just as the light changed. "Sherry? ... Cameron. My friend's in town ... Yeah, him. Anyway, is it okay if he leaves his car there? ... Yeah, you'll know it's his 'cause it's a rental. ... Thanks!" She closed the phone, turned to me briefly and said, "Sherry runs the Dairy Queen. You won't get towed or anything."

"There goes my last excuse," I said. "Drive on!" The light changed to green. I noticed a smile on Cami's face as she stepped on the gas. I made note of the streets and turns, as I'd need to remember them when I picked her up for the wedding. I didn't have anything to say at that moment, so I put my hand on her thigh. She was steering with the left, and she wrapped her little finger around mine. I felt a charge deep inside me, but I didn't do anything more be cause I wanted her to keep her eyes on the road.

Wanting to say something, I asked, "So, why didn't you finish college?"

"I did, a couple years ago. But you mean why did I drop out originally? It was partly money, partly the fact that I just wasn't that interested in my studies. But I was also embarrassed to go back." Her voice lowered. "I posed nude for a men's magazine. The administration didn't seem to care, but it hit the stands right before finals. For a week, it seemed like I'd see guys staring at me, even though now I realize I was just being paranoid."

"So you did it for the money?"

"No, I just did it on a lark. If I'd known that my dad was about to be downsized, I would have done it anyway, but I would have asked for more money. But it's not something I like to talk about." I wondered now whether she had actually been a stripper and just called it dancing because she was embarrassed about it, but I let it go.

We had just turned onto a residential street when Cami told me, "I have something I want to show you when we get to my house."

"What is it?" I asked.

"You'll see," was all she'd say. She pulled into a driveway that ran around the left side of a duplex. We got out and went to the front door. As soon as we were through the door, I put my arms around her, and we shared a long kiss. "God, Trent, I'm so sorry we didn't stay together," she managed to say between mutual gropes. She let me in and led me to a guest room. I sat on the bed, and she told me, "Wait here."

I stayed on the bed but turned to face the door. A few minutes later she came back wearing a jacket and a short skirt. "My jacket!" I exclaimed.

"I asked your mom if you still had it," Cami explained. "She did. I picked it up at your folks' house last week. I think she would have brought it to me if I'd asked."

Now that we'd had that moment, I asked her, "Would you turn around, please? 360 degrees." She did, slowly. I concealed a sudden erection when I saw how her skirt made her ass look sexy, just like before. When she was facing me again, she walked right up so we were face to face. Well, not quite, because I was sitting and she was standing. I noticed that my jacket didn't appear to be covering a shirt. I put my hands back at my sides, realizing that she probably wouldn't mind if she saw that I had a hard-on. She didn't see it, though, because she was leaning down and looking me square in the eye. "So that's what you wanted to show me?" I asked.

"Not exactly," Cami told me. She stepped back so I could see her from head to toe. She undid the top snap, which didn't actually expose anything new. She undid the next one and held the two sides down, exposing enough of her chest that I knew she was indeed naked above the waist, but still not showing anything you couldn't see on a Bond girl.

"Nice," I said. "My mom must be cooler than I gave her credit for."

"I told her I wanted to wear it for you," she said. "If she assumed I'd have something on underneath it, that's her problem." She undid another snap, and now I could see a lot of her boobs, but I couldn't see the nipples. Another snap, and I could see the space between her boobs. If she'd held the sides apart like before, her boobs would have been completely exposed. She put her hand between the folds and undid the last two snaps in one downward gesture. "Wanna see more?" she asked.

"For 25 years," I told her. She had both hands between the folds and opened my jacket slowly. Lightning didn't strike me. I didn't find that I was lying in my bedroom at home or sitting in bio lab. I was looking at the same boobs in person that I'd seen in print a couple months ago. Cami walked toward me, and I put my arms around her waist. My dick got even harder as I held each breast up to my mouth and kissed it.

"Oh, Trent, ...," she moaned. I let go so I could stand up. While I was getting off the bed, Cami took the jacket off and put it over the back of a nearby chair.

"Fair is fair," I said. I pulled my T-shirt over my head and set it on the same chair. We put our arms around each other and shared another long kiss. We swayed back and forth. She could not have failed to feel the bulge in my jeans. She laid her head on my shoulder, and I could feel her boobs pressing just below my nipples.

I held her closer so that I could kiss her earlobes. When I did, I pressed my erection into her even harder. "Mmmm," she murmured. I wasn't sure whether she was responding to the kiss or the hard-on, but I hoped it was the latter. I felt around and found the zipper to her skirt, toward her right hip. I unhooked it and tried to unzip it, but she pushed me away. "Here, let me help you with that," she said, and she unzipped it for me.

Cami removed her skirt and put it on the chair. I did the same with my pants, and she lay on the bed, her legs spread, and she beckoned me with her index finger. "This isn't how I dreamed about it," I said. I took my jacket off the chair and spread it on the floor. "We're outside, remember?"

"Oh, right," Cami said. She got off the bed and lay on her back on top of my jacket. I lay down next to her on my side, and she leaned over on hers. I put my arm over her side and pulled her face to me. This time when I kissed her, she opened her mouth. I did the same, and soon our tongues were touching.

"You never kissed me like that when we were dating," I told her.