Fantasy, Loss, and Summer Love

My father introduced me to a girl named Katherine that would be a freshman at my college in September. She was cute. And attentive. A country girl, she got me to promise to help her get accustomed to going to college in a city. Celia stayed busy with Mom while I flitted between helping my father, meeting new people, talking to a few I already knew, and trying to avoid Katherine without being obvious or hurtful. She was cute and appeared interested in me. But I really wasn't interested in her. But it would be awkward and raise suspicions if I paid a lot of attention to Celia. It wasn't going to happen anyway.

When I went into the kitchen to fetch burgers and hotdogs for the second round, Mom was introducing Celia to a late arrival named Harold Chapman. When introduced to me, it was Dr. Chapman; he was one of the residents at the hospital where Mom was working. Much to my dismay, Celia ended up spending most of the afternoon with him. I fretted about it. But under the circumstances, there wasn't much I could do.

The party went well into the evening. Katherine had to leave at seven with her parents but made a point of talking to me one last time before she left.

'I'll be at the beach club tomorrow. Maybe I'll see you there,' Katherine told me. 'I'll be with some friends. But I'll have my own car. In case you'd like to escape for a bit. There's a place in town that makes its own ice cream. Their peach cobbler ice cream is amazing. A ripe, young Georgia peach is the best you'll ever have,' she told me suggestively.

I knew immediately she wasn't talking about fruit. 'Maybe we'll see each other there. But to be honest, Katherine, I think my parents will be pissed if I wander off. This is the first time they've seen me since Christmas.'

'I understand.' But I could tell she didn't.

The last of the crowd wandered off by nine. There wasn't much of a mess. Nearly everyone had pitched in with cleaning up. Mom, Dad, Celia and I sat on the deck for a while after everyone left. The evening was still sticky and unpleasant. But it was cooler than the house. As I sat there, I was thankful the yard and deck were almost completely shaded all day by big maples. It had been oppressively hot. Without shade, it would have been unbearable. My father said he was glad the usual three o'clock downpour didn't materialize. It would only have made the heat worse.

My father motioned for me to help with two big trash cans still on the deck. When we got to the garage, he stopped to have a smoke. He offered me one, the first time he ever had. I declined.

'How'd you like Katherine? She's going to be at school with you in September, you know. Her father said she's never lived in a city the size of Hartford. Or been away from home, completely on her own.'

'Neither had I until you and Mom dropped me off at the dorm two years ago. She'll make friends. She'll be fine,' I told him.

'You weren't impressed,' he said.

'She's nice. You don't have to fix me up with girls, Dad,' I said with a grin.

'I wasn't trying to,' he laughed. 'Her father is one of the engineers that will be staying with the plant when it starts up. He's worried about his little girl being up there all by herself, far from home. Or as he put it, 'roun' all dem Yankees'. I told him I'd introduce her to you, so she already knows someone. I assured him you'd help if she needs it.'

'Sure thing, Dad. But I doubt she's going to need my help.' I didn't say why I thought that. 'But if she does, I'll take her call.'

We stayed in the garage and talked until he finished his smoke. Then we went back to the deck.

Mom went to bed first. A few minutes later, Dad stood up and said, 'I better get in there, too. Don't stay up too late. The air conditioner guy will be here at eight and as soon he's done, we're headed to the beach club. Good night, Keith. Celia.'

Celia and I sat and enjoyed the quiet for a few minutes. The only sounds came from crickets and the buzz of an occasional mosquito. The moon was high. Behind a haze but it still provided enough light to see each other clearly without the deck lighting. Celia was the first one to speak.

'Katherine's cute. I can tell she likes you,' she said.

'She is cute. Probably easy, too. She practically offered herself to me if I could get away from the beach club tomorrow,' I told her. 'I'm not interested.'

'I was surprised your father tried to fix you up with a girl,' Celia giggled. 'That must have been awkward.'

'He wasn't trying to fix me up. I met her father, too. Dad said her father is worried about her being in a city all by herself. He offered to introduce her to me. So she'd already know someone when she gets there.'

'Well, maybe you'll change your mind about her once you get back to school.'

I turned the topic back on her. 'How did your day with Dr. Chapman go?' I asked, feeling a bit nervous.

'I definitely wouldn't have come if I knew your mother was going to try to fix me up again.'

'With a doctor here in Georgia? That's a long way from home,' I laughed. 'It'll be tough to go on a date.'

'He finishes his residency in a few months. He's going to a practice in Shrewbury and will have privileges at UMass Hospital in Worcester.' Worcester and Shrewsbury were not far from home. My lack of a reply amused Celia. She giggled softly. Her giggle stopped me from going into a funk.

'Did you like him?' I asked.

'He's pleasant enough. Very full of himself.' After a pause she added, 'Apparently, I'm having dinner with him tomorrow night.'

I relaxed a little. Celia didn't sound enthusiastic about the doctor.

'Let's go for a walk,' Celia said. 'I'm not ready to go to bed yet. Besides, this is cooler than my bedroom.'

'Okay. But I should tell my parents. So they don't worry.'

'Don't wake them if they're asleep already.'

'I won't.' I went into the house and down the hallway. The door to my parents' room was open. Their bathroom light was on. When my father came out a moment later, I knocked on the door frame. His head snapped in my direction.

'Something wrong?' he asked.

'No. Everything is fine. Celia wants to go for a walk. I'm going with her. Just so she's not alone.'

Dad didn't say anything for a moment. 'That's nice of you, Keith. Don't be too late. We're up early tomorrow.'

Neither Celia nor I had been away from the house. It was dark when we arrived. There was no street lighting. There were no neighboring houses visible from either the yard or the front of the house. When we got to the end of the driveway, Celia looked left and right.

'Which way?' she asked.

'Mom turned left into the driveway. Let's go right and backtrack. See what we missed.'

Celia reached over and took my hand once the house was out of sight. We walked several hundred yards and saw only two houses, both well back from the road. We didn't really see the houses, just a light that indicated something was at the end of a driveway. We passed two brick pillars with adjoining walls and nice landscaping. A closed iron gate barred entrance. A light was mounted on top of each pillar. A brass plaque on one of the pillars read 'Tilton Meadows'.

'Must be a private estate,' I said as we walked past. 'Can I ask something, Celia?'

That got a little laugh. 'I think you already know you can.'

'Mom always told me it's impolite to ask a woman her age, but I can't help being curious. How much older than me are you?'

'Not that much. I'll be twenty-six in December. On the seventeenth if you're curious what day.'

I stopped. 'You're only five years older than me? I thought you'd be twenty-eight. Maybe thirty.'

Celia laughed. 'So, already into old lady territory.'

'That's not what I meant. I just wanted to know our age difference. Get more of a sense of my chances.'

'You're doing just fine, Keith. I was just out of school when I moved into the house next to you. Bishop O'Malley is my first teaching job.'

'You weren't married long, then.'

'Not long. Terry and I got married in June after my junior year. He was six years older than me. We were married less than six months when he died. He left me well off financially, but he wasn't a good husband. The way he treated me changed completely after we got married. Terry got sick in October. He needed surgery in November. He had a bad reaction to the anesthesia. He lasted about three days after coming out of the operating room. Even though he treated me badly, losing him was still hard. His family just made it worse.

'What do you mean?' I asked. 'Why did they make things worse?'

'Terry had life insurance policies that paid off the house we lived in and provided me with a nice nest egg. Both quickly became an issue with his family. They wanted me to give them the proceeds of his life insurance and sign the house over to them. Said I wasn't married to him long enough to have a claim on it. I told them to go to hell. I was the named insurance policy beneficiary, and I was the only one in his will. They went out of their way to make me miserable. I sold the house and moved away as soon as I finished school. I didn't tell them where I was going.'

'What are we going to do in the fall, Celia?'

'How about we play it by ear? See how the rest of the summer goes? Now can we change the subject?'

'Just one more question. What about the doctor?'

'Not interested.'

'Why not?'

'Married or single, he'll be screwing every pretty nurse that wants a doctor husband and doesn't care whether he's already married or not. I'll play nice tomorrow to make your mother happy. But I really wish she'd stop trying to fix me up.'

We'd been walking a while, holding hands. Celia kept her left hand in her pocket the whole time we walked. Our conversation was leisurely, like our walk, with periods of easy quiet between exchanges. We came upon a recently paved road. The asphalt smelled fresh. A large sign read. 'Tilton Meadows Estates'. A second line read 'A Development of Custom Luxury Homes'.

'Let's check out the neighborhood,' Celia said.

We turned up the road and walked for about a quarter-mile but there wasn't anything to see. Both sides of the road were lined with empty lots backed by a dense stand of trees. We got to the end of it just as we began talking about turning around. The road dead-ended at a low, professionally built stone wall. When I looked beyond the wall, I recognized the terrain immediately. A line of trees, a narrow strip of coarse grass and scrub, a wide expanse of nice grass, and off to the right a bit, a sand trap. Taunton Meadows was a golf course, probably a private club.

'C'mon,' I said, 'Let's check this out. We scrambled over the stone wall and onto the course. We walked first in one direction, until we came upon a green. A tee was off to the left. It looked like the hole ran parallel to the road we'd just walked. We retraced our steps and continued past the road until we came upon another tee. A short distance to the right was a green and another fairway, paralleling the other side of the road for a short distance before ending at a stand of trees.

Taking Celia's hand, I pulled her toward the green. When we got to the apron, I stopped. 'Kick your shoes off,' I told her. She was wearing sandals with no heel, which wouldn't damage the green. But I wanted her to walk on the green barefoot.

She looked at me kind of strangely but complied. 'Why?' she asked.

'Humor me,' I grinned, kicking off my sneakers.

I took her hand again, tugged gently, and stepped onto the green. Celia followed. I waited for her reaction.

'Oooooh. That's the nicest grass I've ever walked on,' she cooed. 'What kind of grass is it? Can I get it installed at home?'

'It's called bentgrass. It's very expensive seed. Bentgrass turf is really expensive. And maintaining it like this requires a very expensive mower. You can't cut it with a regular lawn tractor or lawn mower. The mowers we have at Forrester are only sixteen inches wide. You'd have no time for anything but cutting your grass.'

'It feels nice under foot. Soft. It tickles a little. It's nicer than the carpeting in my house.'

I pulled Celia toward me and embraced her. After not being able to hold her all day, she felt good in my arms. She sighed softly and rested her head against my chest. I didn't intend any more than holding her before heading back to the house. But my body reacted like it always did when I held her. I felt myself lengthen and within moments, I was hard and pressing against her.

'Mmmmm. I like that. It feels nice,' she said softly. She pushed against my chest and broke our embrace. She turned away from me and walked a few feet then turned toward me again. She took something out of the pocket on her sundress and tossed it to me.

I caught it instinctively. It was her panties. 'When did you take these off?' I asked with a grin.

'Well, I didn't take them off for the doctor. When you went in to tell your father we were going for a walk.'

'Why did you take them off?' I asked hopefully.

'I thought it would be cooler. It is. Having a little air make its way up there feels good.'

'What do you want me to do with them?'

Celia didn't answer. She was looking at the flag. 'This is the third hole.'

'Yeah. So?'

'We're near the beginning of the course. Think they have a pool?'

'Probably,' I replied. 'At least, it a good possibility.'

'I want to go for a swim,' Celia said. 'Which way should we go?' she asked.

'I don't know how the course is laid out. Let's follow the holes. It can't be too far.'

Celia went for her sandals and slipped them on. I put on my sneakers and retied them. She didn't wait for me. I had to catch up.

'We didn't bring a bathing suit or towels,' I said when I caught up with her.

'You've never been skinny-dipping?' she asked.

'The opportunity never presented itself. I've never gone swimming at night, either.'

'When I was in high school, a couple of my girlfriends and I used to sneak out of the house at night during the summer. Make our way to a nearby golf course and go skinny dipping in the pool. It was exciting. Probably as much because we might get caught as anything else.'

'Did you ever get caught?' I asked as I conjured an image of Celia and girlfriends swimming naked in a pool.

'Just once. By someone dressed like a cook. He must have heard us. We weren't exactly being quiet. When we heard a door slam shut, we grabbed our clothes and high-tailed it out onto the course. He didn't chase us; he was an old guy. We watched him from behind some shrubs while we got dressed. As soon as we started to get dressed, Sarah cursed. She'd dropped her bra and panties when we started running. Eve and I giggled when we saw the old perv pick up her bra and panties and sniff them. I thought Sarah was gonna die! Then he stuffed them in his pocket and left with them!'

When we spotted the clubhouse, we were able to cut across a fairway. Everything was mostly dark except the parking lot, which wasn't well-lit.

'I don't see any cars,' I said when we got to the pool. 'I only see a few lights on the outside of the pro shop and the clubhouse. That looks like the locker rooms. It looks like no one is here.'

'Let's go,' Celia said. She stepped out of her sandals, pulled her sundress up over her head then strode toward the pool. She took her bra off, turned around and tossed it back toward her dress.

I grinned to myself as I watched her go. A few months ago, I never could have imagined Mrs. Heywood, the pretty teacher next door, going skinny-dipping. I stood where Celia's clothes were and stripped, adding mine to the pile. Celia opened the gate, leaving it open, and walked into the pool without breaking stride. I was right behind her.

The water was cool enough to feel good. We swam around for fifteen minutes or so before Celia left the pool. I stayed and swam around a little more but watched her closely. She got up and walked over to a set of shelves that were under an overhang and took several towels. She tossed a few of them on a chaise lounge and then spread one out at the edge of the pool. She sat on it with her feet in the water. I stopped in the middle of the pool and looked back to where she sat.

Despite all the time we'd spent together, I rarely got an opportunity to openly admire Celia's naked body from a distance. I'd memorized every bit of it from up close. Seeing her naked from thirty feet away was a vision I wanted to remember forever. The moon was bright enough through the clouds that I could see reasonably well. Her wavy, dirty blonde hair hung straight, still dripping water. I was too far away and the light too poor to see her eyes, which I knew were a dazzling blue. Her breasts weren't large or small but fit her slender form perfectly, firm and still unaffected by time or gravity. Her areolae, already contracted while her skin dried, were dark, the nipples darker little balls. Even sitting, her belly was flat.

While I watched Celia, she looked up at the sky. There wasn't much to see. The moon, obscured by the nighttime haze, was a just a glowing disk high overhead, lacking the details seen on a clear night. The haze hid any stars that might have been visible. After treading water for a few minutes while I admired her, I swam toward her. I stood in front of her in chest deep water. She flinched when I put a hand on her knee.

'Your hand felt cold for a second,' she said.

'Want me to take it away?' I asked.

'Not at all. I like when you touch me.'

'Good, I have plans for it.'

'Oh? What kind of plans?' Celia grinned.

'Something I've wanted to do for as long as I've known you,' I laughed.

I grabbed the towel with both hands and pulled her a bit closer to the edge of the pool but not into it. I hooked my arms under her knees and pulled her a little further, forcing her to lean backward, supporting her upper body on her elbows while I kept her legs apart, my shoulders between them.

'What are you doing?' she asked as she instinctively fought a little, probably thinking I was going to pull her into the pool. When instead, I nibbled on her inner thigh, she said, 'Oh!'

I nuzzled first one thigh and then the other, alternating which I nibbled on as I worked my way toward my goal. I'd tried to do this before, but Celia always found a way to redirect me. This night, I was determined to take advantage of having her at a disadvantage. Celia was tense at first. But as I worked my way up her thighs, she relaxed. When I got so far up her thighs that I could go no further, Celia stiffened again.

'Keith! Nnnn . . . uhhh!' she groaned as I flicked my tongue at the spot I knew hid her clit. After she took a deep breath, she tried to object again. But when the tip of my tongue parted her labia, whatever she tried to say dissolved in a soft moan.

I took my time. Nibbling, licking, teasing her while she kept whispering, 'No. Stop! Don't! Uhhh! Oh, god, don't stop!' One moment she was trying to push me away, the next she was clutching my head, guiding my efforts. Celia was clearly ambivalent about what I was doing, though I didn't understand why. Because her physical responses clearly showed she liked it.

I paid close attention to Celia's responses whenever we were together. I knew what she liked. What excited her. The signs that preceded her peaks. But her responses were different this time. More intense. She wasn't quiet when we were making love. Louder still when we fucked. But she was getting louder with each passing moment. One moment begging me to stop at the top of her lungs. The next begging me not to in a whimper. I was sure we didn't need to worry about disturbing anyone at the club. But not knowing the area, I was unsure whether there were any neighbors nearby. But honestly, I didn't care. I was glad to finally get to enjoy returning the oral pleasure she never hesitated to bestow upon me. And ecstatic that the first time I was ever allowed to, I was apparently doing something right.