The Cheerleaders

The Cheerleaders

Aloha was ahead 24--13.

In the locker room, Coach Blake warned the boys not to get bigheaded. Mooresville was a tough team, and the game wasn't won yet. If they fucked it up now, he'd have those big heads on platters.

Assistant Coach Jeffries followed him step for step, clipboard in hand and pen poised as though Blake might utter some prophecy that needed to be preserved for future generations. Every other line, he muttered, "Uh-huh," for emphasis.

In spite of his dire warnings, Blake sent in the second string to get some experience.

Outside, the band was showing its spirit, and the cheerleaders had whipped the crowd into something resembling organized chaos. One minute they were driving the Aloha fans into a frenzy; the next, they were shouting taunts across the field at the opposing cheerleaders.

In the stands, Jonathan Mills sat beside his father.

Jonathan was the epitome of STEM--science, technology, engineering and mathematics--and he looked the part: short hair, button-down white shirt and heavy black glasses.

His father looked like an older edition of the same textbook. White shirt, heavy glasses, pocket protector and at least two dozen different pens, even though this was football night. He was an engineer at the aluminum plant, loved everything STEM and, at the moment, was hooting and cheering like a maniac. He also loved football.

Jonathan loved Brandy Jo Woods.

Or at least he thought he did. Maybe it was only lust.

But who could blame him?

Brandy was one of the cheerleaders--the hot one, the blonde one, the one in the raffia Stetson. She was shaking her ass at the crowd, occasionally making eye contact with Jonathan, and leading the other girls in some sort of taunting cheer for them to hurl across the field.

"Twenty-four!"

"Thirteen!"

"Aloha's looking mighty mean!"

"Mooresville girls, enjoy the view--"

The Aloha cheerleaders spun around, flipped their skirts and shook their asses across the field.

"WE'VE GOT MORE SPIRIT THAN ALL OF YOU!"

The Aloha fans went wild.

Jonathan checked his watch.

"I'm going to get a Coke," he said.

His father fished a ten-dollar bill from his pocket without taking his eyes off the field. That was the signal for Jonathan to bring him one as well.

Jonathan slipped out of the stands.

He didn't make it to the concession stand.

Instead, he hooked a right and made his way beneath the stomping feet and hooting fans, heading for one of the darkest places under the bleachers.

Brandy Jo Woods joined him only a moment later.

She smelled like sweat and shampoo and cotton-candy lip gloss. Jonathan was instantly aroused and more than a little embarrassed by how obvious it was.

Brandy wasn't embarrassed in the least.

Her hand went straight to his crotch, finding the bulge in his jeans.

"I hope you're fast, Rabbit Boy," she said. "I'm horny as hell, but I've only got a minute."

She stripped off her shorts and kicked them away into the darkness. Then she hooked her thumbs into her panties, pushed them down and flicked them in Jonathan's face.

They smelled like Brandy.

She kissed him.

"These are always in the way," she said, taking off his glasses.

Jonathan was blind without them. Brandy turned the glasses around and put them on her own face while he slipped her panties into his pocket.

He fumbled with his fly. She fumbled with his fly. They finally wrestled his pants down around his skinny knees. His cock wondered what had taken so long. Brandy pushed him back against the supports.

The clang of metal could probably be heard directly overhead, but at that moment Brandy Woods didn't care.

She impaled herself. Outside the band was playing Rock You Like a Hurricane.

She matched the beat.

Jonathan had the prettiest girl at Aloha riding him, and somehow his brain was doing multiplication.

One hundred thirty beats per minute. Three minutes. Three hundred ninety beats.

Assuming one complete stroke per beat.

Brandy rocked harder against him.

Four hundred, he revised. The drummer was rushing.

Stop doing math, Jonathan.

"Quit counting," Brandy said, as if reading his mind; she redoubled her efforts.

She was almost at the finish line. She balled her fists in his shirt and rode him harder, faster. Almost there.

She felt him come. That pushed her across the finish line--and just in time.

Above the music, she heard Claudia Bush, the Aloha team captain, shouting through her megaphone and stirring the fans into another frenzy. The band launched into its next rousing number: Bruno Mars's "Runaway Baby."

Brandy kissed Jonathan hard, then left him sagging against the supports beneath the bleachers.

A moment later, the band stopped in the middle of a beat.

There was a collective gasp.

Then a deafening roar.

It sounded as though the bleachers were coming apart around him.

Jonathan Mills felt around for his glasses to see what was going on.

All he found was a pair of panties.

***

Aloha won the game, 32--19.

Jonathan's father was still celebrating as he drove them toward the soda shop.

"You picked a hell of a time to go after a Coke," he said. "You missed the best show of the night."

Jonathan stared vaguely through the windshield. Without his glasses, the lights outside were colorful blurs.

"What happened?"

"One of those cheerleaders cartwheeled halfway across the field. Flashed the entire home side. That's probably what won the game."

Jonathan sank lower in his seat.

His father drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Sang one of the silly cheers.

Cheerleading was about making people happy. Whatever else anyone could say about then, the Aloha cheerleaders had made several thousand people very happy that night.

***

By the time everyone crowded into the soda shop, the football players had already transformed the victory into legend.

"That last touchdown was all me," Adonis Smith declared. "Their corner never had a chance."

"That touchdown was all Brandy," Claudia said.

Adonis stopped admiring himself long enough to look at her. "Brandy wasn't even on the field."

"She was on the field," Patty corrected him. "That was the problem."

"Their corner missed me because I put a move on him."

"Their corner missed your moves because he was watching Brandy's moves," Claudia said. "So was their safety. So were all of the referees."

"You boys would've gotten your asses handed to you in the second half if Brandy hadn't distracted the entire Mooresville defense," Patty Lightfoot said.

Brandy sank lower behind her menu.

Bruce shook his head. "That isn't fair. We still had to execute the play."

"You ran straight while eleven other men stared in the opposite direction," Claudia said. "Congratulations on mastering straight."

"Could we please talk about something else?" Brandy asked.

"No," everyone said.

Brandy sank until only her eyes showed above the menu.

Jonathan sat down beside her. He didn't say anything. He simply placed his hand on the seat between them, palm up.

Brandy looked at it for a moment.

Then she lowered the menu with one hand and took his with the other.

Jonathan Mills looked absurdly out of place among the football players and cheerleaders crowded into the soda shop. He had the the general appearance of someone who had arrived to repair the jukebox (and yes, he could easily have repaired the jukebox). At least he had his glasses back now and could see what was going on.

Nobody asked what he was doing there.

The football players had accepted him. The cheerleaders had accepted him. Somehow, without changing anything about himself, Jonathan Mills had become one of them.

It had begun at Bruce Janger's kitchen table.

***

Jonathan Mills had drifted through most of his school career unnoticed.

Books had been his friends, along with Wikipedia, the Encyclopedia Britannica, stacks of PC World and DC Comics. He had other friends too. He had belonged to the science club and the German club. He had even tried playing trumpet in the band, but he was neither musically inclined nor particularly interested.

He was a science geek, not a band nerd.

There was a hierarchy, just as there was in every school. The jocks occupied the top. The cheerleaders came next. That was the established order of things, and Jonathan Mills was not inclined to challenge the established order of things.

The guys who would eventually attend MIT or Caltech inhabited the bottom of the social order. They were permitted to remain invisible and go about their quiet lives, provided they never did anything foolish enough to appear on somebody else's radar.

Jonathan never did.

He liked it that way.

Then one day Bruce Janger cornered him in the restroom.

Bruce was also known as the Bruiser--except on days when he came out on the bottom of a dog pile, when everyone changed it to the Bruise.

Jonathan had been in a hurry. He had stayed late in one class to copy notes from the board, which made him late for the next one. Unfortunately, he was also about to piss himself. He ducked into the boys' room and noticed too late that Janger had followed him inside.

Another jock, one Jonathan recognized as Adonis Smith, remained outside and stationed himself beside the door.

Janger leaned against it and let it click shut.

It was all Jonathan could do not to piss himself.

His mind immediately began cataloguing every possible offense he might have committed.

Had he bumped into Bruce?

Had he knocked a book out of his hand?

No. That probably wasn't possible. The guy never carried a book.

Maybe Jonathan had looked at one of Bruce's girlfriends. Maybe he had looked at one of the cheerleaders.

Goodness knew he had stared at the cheerleaders often enough.

Shit.

He couldn't think of anything he had done that warranted an ass-whooping, but that didn't necessarily mean he hadn't done it.

The big kid only stared at him. His throat made a little bobbing motion, as though he wanted to say something but couldn't quite force the words out.

That was more or less how Jonathan had always imagined the jocks communicating--in some rudimentary Cro-Magnon pidgin.

Me want woman.

Under any other circumstances, Jonathan might have laughed.

He understood that laughing now would be tantamount to requesting an ass-whooping.

Still, Janger said nothing. Eventually Jonathan ran out of possible reasons why he was about to get his ass kicked.

He pointed hopefully toward one of the urinals.

Finally, Janger spoke.

"Hey, little bro."

Jonathan barely heard him. Bruce sounded as though he were trying to speak underwater.

"Look, man, I--I--" He swallowed. "Look, it's like I need some help."

There.

The jock had finally said it.

Now the words came tumbling out. Coach had given Bruce an ultimatum: no pass, no play. His grades had been bad for months. Now the situation was desperate, and if he failed the next test, he was off the team.

Jonathan pointed toward the urinal again.

Janger seemed to notice his predicament for the first time.

"Yeah. Oh, yeah. Sure."

Finally, relief.

Bruce stepped up to the urinal beside him.

Close, but not too close. There was etiquette about these things.

There was also a ritual. Guest-right, as it were. Two men standing at adjacent urinals entered into a temporary truce. You couldn't beat a guy down while you were pissing beside him.

Jonathan relaxed.

Bruce continued his story. Coach had given him two weeks to get his shit together. He had to show some improvement in his grades or take a hike.

It was that simple.

Bruce didn't want to take a hike. Unfortunately, he had no idea how to improve his grades. He had approached Jonathan out of desperation--and because Jonathan was invisible.

Invisible people knew how to be discreet.

"Right?" Bruce asked. "Cool?"

How could Jonathan refuse?

He agreed to help. A deal was made.

Bruce finished, zipped up, flushed the urinal and extended his hand to seal the agreement.

That was where Jonathan drew the line.

Jonathan looked at his hand, then at the sinks.

"Yeah. Oh, yeah. Sure."

They began meeting in Bruce's kitchen.

That was where the friendship started.

Jonathan helped him with algebra, social studies, history--basically every subject Bruce was taking. In return, Bruce taught Jonathan about sports.

Jonathan's father loved football and had tried to explain it to him many times. Somehow, it had never taken. His father would begin by describing a play in terms of angles, vectors and mathematical probabilities. Then, without warning, he would leap from the couch, spill his drink, knock half the pens from his pocket and shout at the television:

"Run left, you nearsighted bastards!"

Bruce's explanations were easier to follow.

Bruce was the baby of his family. He had two older sisters. One was already married. The other, four years his senior, still lived at home.

She often emerged from her bedroom wearing granny panties and a bra--or sometimes nothing but a towel--and wandered into the kitchen to rummage through the cabinets or refrigerator. She would collect a snack and a soft drink, then disappear into her room again.

She never paid any attention to Bruce.

More importantly, she never paid any attention to Jonathan.

It was one of the perks of being invisible.

The arrangement worked for everyone.

It turned out that Jonathan Mills had a knack for teaching. He was organized, could devise a study plan and could execute it as efficiently as any play the Bruiser ran on the football field. More importantly, he could break a complicated subject into small, easily digestible pieces.

Janger's grades improved.

Janger's mood improved.

Before long, Mills found himself invited to Bruce's house for reasons that had nothing to do with studying. Sometimes Bruce's mother made spaghetti. Sometimes Bruce's sister joined them at the table and almost noticed Jonathan staring at her.

Almost.

She would glance across the table with the vague suspicion that something was there that hadn't been there before. Something slightly out of place. Her eyes would pass over Jonathan as though someone might have left the back door open and allowed an unusual beetle to crawl inside.

Jonathan began to find his invisibility amusing.

Other members of Bruce's cadre started appearing with pizza. They included Jonathan in their conversations. Eventually, when they went somewhere else, they invited him along.

Now Jonathan was the one who felt out of place.

Nobody else seemed to notice.

He was one of the guys.

It felt good.

Inevitably, during one of the backyard pizza parties, the conversation turned to girls.

Jonathan felt like an outsider again.

These were the guys. These were the jocks. They knew the cheerleaders--all of them, by name. Jonathan knew their names too, of course, but knowing a girl's name and having her know yours were entirely different things.

Then the Bruiser surprised him.

"We've got to get you introduced, little brother."

Jonathan wasn't exactly sure what to say to that.

"Then maybe you'll quit staring at my sister," Bruce continued. "I mean, I guess she's hot and everything. But she's my sister."

The other guys agreed that Bruce's sister was hot.

There was, however, an etiquette about such things.

You never said it out loud.

So, rather than discuss Bruce's hot sister, they came up with a plan.

Being jocks, they came up with a surprisingly simple and straightforward plan.

How did you make something invisible visible?

You threw a spotlight on it.

The next day, the plan was put into action.

No one formally discussed it. No one called a meeting or took a vote. The guys had been playing ball together since grade school. They knew how one another thought. They could execute a play without calling a huddle.

A remark was casually dropped where someone might overhear it.

A phrase was whispered into the right ear.

A secret was entrusted to someone incapable of keeping one.

By that afternoon, Patty Lightfoot, second in command of the Aloha cheerleaders, was leaning against the locker beside Jonathan's.

He slammed his locker shut.

She was just... there.

"Hi," she said. "Jonathan, right? My name's Patty."

She held out her hand.

Jonathan took it.

"I wanted to thank you for helping Bruce. You probably saved the team from getting our butts kicked this week."

Jonathan felt his face growing hot. His throat tightened around every word he attempted to produce, which was probably fortunate. Anything that escaped would almost certainly have been stupid.

Patty continued before he could embarrass himself.

"We're going to the Dairy Maid for sodas after class. Why don't you come with us? The guys will be there too."

His first instinct was to decline.

In another kind of story, this might have been a trap devised to humiliate the school geek. Jonathan waited for the laughter, the furtive glance toward hidden accomplices or any other sign that the invitation was a joke.

None came.

"I'd like that," he managed.

"Great. You know where the Dairy Maid is?"

"Yes."

"See you at four."

Patty kissed him on the cheek.

Then, just like that, she was gone.

Something magical had happened.

The kiss felt like a visible thing--a warm mark Patty had left on his face for everyone to see. It was the first time a girl had ever kissed him like that.

Jonathan thought of all those corny movies in which the hero or heroine declared that they would never wash that cheek again.

Now he understood.

He drifted through the rest of the day with no idea what any of the lectures were about.

***

Jonathan didn't own a car, so he borrowed his father's.

This was a special occasion, after all.

His father was an engineer. His father drove a Nissan Maxima. He frequently extolled the virtues of Nissan engineering and the exceptional value it offered compared with other vehicles in its class.

Jonathan pulled into the Dairy Maid parking lot at precisely four o'clock.

He checked his watch.

It was a Seiko. An expensive watch--or at least expensive for Jonathan--because, like Nissan, Seiko offered the best combination of quality and value. Jonathan had saved for more than a month to buy it.

The watch still said four o'clock.

Jonathan forced himself to remain in the car until five after. He didn't want to appear too eager.

He wanted desperately to be one of the guys.

When he finally went inside, he discovered that he was.

Jonathan Mills was no longer invisible.

The guys were laughing and talking and telling football stories. The cheerleaders were dancing and singing along with the jukebox. Then the cheerleaders told stories, and the players interrupted them, and everyone argued over which version was true.

They were all telling stories together.

They were all laughing.

Someone made room for Jonathan.

He ordered a Coke.

Before long, Jonathan was laughing with them.

They laughed and joked and sang and danced until after dark.

Then the party began to break up. There were classes tomorrow. More importantly, there was a game.

Coach Blake demanded no drinking and no smoking before a game. He might have preferred to add no cussing and no sex, but Coach was also a practical man. Of the four traditional vices, he required complete abstinence from only two.

That was fifty percent of the list and one hundred percent of the two he was a stickler about.

Coach called that reasonable.

The players agreed.

Patty asked Jonathan for a ride home.

He remembered the kiss she had given him that morning and readily agreed.

They finished their Cokes and walked outside to the Maxima.

"Nice car," Patty said.

"It's my dad's."

"Your dad has good taste."

Jonathan decided not to explain the engineering, reliability and comparative value of Nissan automobiles.

They drove.

Patty found some music and turned it up.

"I don't have to be home until ten," she said. "We've got an hour, and I don't want to go home yet. Do you?"

Jonathan didn't.

He didn't have a curfew. That was probably because Jonathan had never gone anywhere that required him to come home at a particular time. He had never needed a curfew.

Patty pointed toward the lake road.

"I like it out there."

The lake was fine with Jonathan.

They drove beneath the moon with the windows down and the music playing. The night was easy. For once, Jonathan didn't feel any need to fill the silence--or worry that his silence might seem strange.

Patty looked over at him.

"Has anybody broken in the back seat yet?"

Jonathan wasn't entirely sure what she meant.

He sort of was.

But he also sort of wasn't.

Patty smiled.

"Maybe we should try it out."

They moved to the back seat.

Jonathan hurried around the car and opened Patty's door to let her out. Then he opened the rear door and held it while she climbed inside.

Patty looked pleasantly surprised.

"A gentleman," she said. "That's hard to find around here."

Jonathan was grateful for the darkness. It hid how deeply he was blushing.

Then he crawled into the back seat beside her.

Now came the awkward part.

But Patty was a cheerleader.

Patty didn't do awkward.

She simply ducked beneath Jonathan's arm. When she straightened again, his arm was resting around her shoulders.

It was as simple as that.

"Let's get rid of these," she said.

She removed his glasses and tucked them safely into the pocket on the back of the front seat.

"And let's get rid of these," Patty said.

She kicked off her shoes, drew her legs beneath her and shifted closer. When she extended them again, one rested on either side of Jonathan.

Somehow, just as easily as she had placed his arm around her, Patty had arranged them together along the seat.

Jonathan kissed her.

It was an awkward, fumbling kiss, but she seemed to like it. She kissed him back--more slowly this time, and with considerably more finesse.

He was not sure how the next part happened. He had read about fugues, but he had never experienced one until now.

But somehow Patty's uniform was around her waist, her bra was over the back of the seat, and his mouth was on her breast, her nipple firm against his tongue.

Oh shit, oh shit, this was really happening.

Jonathan Mills had read stories such as this in that repository of scientific knowledge, Penthouse. He just never imagined something like this could happen to him.

His belt was undone, his pants were in a knot around his ankles, and his tongue was locked in a clinch with Patty's.

"Let's pull these aside," she said.

She did.

This is really happening, his mind screamed. This is really happening, his cock screamed.

And then he came.

He sagged.

Shit, he was dead. He would die from embarrassment, and if he didn't die from embarrassment, his dad would kill him for leaving tracks in the Nissan. Either way, he was dead.

But Patty didn't seem to mind.

"Hey, don't worry," she said. "It happens to everyone."

She took his hand and guided it to her.

"Just use your fingers."

***

Jonathan had her home by ten, on the dot. He walked her to the door.

She was impressed. She said so.

"You're still a gentleman. You still respect me."

She kissed him, right there on the front porch, right there where anyone in Aloha could have seen. She promised that they'd do it again.

But the next morning, it hadn't been Patty standing there when his locker shut.

It had been Claudia Bush, the cheer captain.

"Hi," she said. "I just wanted to say I was glad you came to the soda shop with us last night, and I would like to ask you a favor."

"Anything," he stumbled.

Rob a bank. Jump off a cliff. If she had asked, he would happily have done it.

"Will you kind of, um, will you ask me out for Friday? The other girls all have plans, but I don't have a date."

She tried to look innocent.

It worked.

"Um, Claudia, would you like to go out with me?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"Um, Friday?"

"Friday would be great," she said. "There's a Linda Blair double feature on at the drive-in over in Lincoln."

"Um, can I ask you--I mean, Patty?"

"Oh, Patty? I think she's got diarrhea or something."

"Oh. Okay. But Friday's the day after tomorrow."

"Is it? Oh, good. It takes me a long time to get ready, so see you Friday."

Just like that it was settled.

***

Jonathan asked to speak to his father in private, you know, just man to man. They went to the garage.

He couldn't go so far as to show his dad the accident in the back seat, but he set his jaw, clasped his hands together and looked his dad straight in the eyes.

He fessed up.

"Bad?" his dad asked.

"About eighteen years' worth," Jonathan answered.

His dad looked at him for a moment, then burst into laughter. The hands-on-your-knees, stitch-in-your-side kind of laughter.

He crushed his son in a bear hug and clapped him on the back until it hurt.

It felt great.

He fished out his wallet and found a fifty.

"Drop that off at the detailer tomorrow," he said.

"Hey, um, Dad? I kind of have another date Friday."

"Same girl?" his dad asked.

"The, uh--well, with the cheerleader captain."

His dad stared at him, then fished two more fifties from his billfold.

"Hey, son, why don't you throw a blanket in the trunk?"

Jonathan Mills had that best dad in the whole world.

***

He picked up his date at seven. He had used one of the fifties to buy a new pair of Levi's and a rose for his date. He met her at the door and presented her with the flower.

"Wow," Claudia said. "I'm spoiled already. Patty said you were a gentleman."

"Oh," Jonathan said. "Yeah, about that."

"About what?" Claudia asked. "We have a rule."

She didn't tell him what the rule was. She simply left it at that.

She showed him later, though.

Sort of.

Claudia had on a green tube top when the double feature started.

Ten minutes later, she didn't.

Ten minutes after that, all she had on was her panties.

She rolled across the seats into the back. Jonathan, possessing little dexterity or agility, slammed his balls into the seat rest trying to do the same. He opted for the old-fashioned way: get out one door and get in the other.

Claudia was waiting.

Claudia wrapped herself around him like an octopus. Claudia found the bulge in his new jeans. Claudia found the zipper in his new jeans.

Twenty seconds later, he was inside her.

Twenty seconds after that, he was spent.

Claudia made no move to put her clothes back on.

"It's a double feature," she explained. "How's your reboot time?"

She sent him out for concessions: hot dogs, popcorn, Cokes and M&M's.

"Get two of everything. You're gonna need your strength."

He did, and he surprised himself. He lasted considerably longer the next go-round.

Now they ran into a different problem.

On the big screen, Linda Blair had been rescued from prison. They were racing toward the border.

"Two-minute warning," Claudia said.

She slapped Jonathan's bare ass.

He blew his load inside her.

The credits rolled. Lights were coming on. People were getting out of cars, straightening their own clothes and heading for the restrooms and refreshments.

Damn it. She had been close.

She shouldn't have smacked him on the ass.

But now she knew something interesting about Jonathan Mills.

She grabbed her top and jammed it on, just in case anyone walked by a little too close. As if they hadn't seen titties on the big screen.

"Here," she said, handing Mills a Coke and a package of M&M's. "We've got one more feature to go."

This time they found their rhythm. They ate all the popcorn and candy, drank all the Cokes, and now Claudia Bush was as horny as all those women in the prison shower.

This time she wasn't fucking around.

Well, at least not figuratively.

She pushed Jonathan onto the seat.

Damn it. He had forgotten the blanket in the trunk.

She wrapped her hand around him, slow, easy strokes until he was ready. It took only a minute.

Damn, this guy had phenomenal reboot time.

She straddled him, guided him inside her, eased herself onto his cock and let it fill her.

She sighed.

The reports had been exaggerated, but not by a lot.

She rolled her hips forward, taking his entire length. His hands found her breasts and squeezed a little too hard. She took them in hers and moved them to her hips, coaxing him to draw himself even deeper.

"Almost there. Almost there."

She found herself speaking the words aloud, like a mantra, as she pumped her hips.

"Almost there."

Claudia Bush crossed the finish line, the orgasm almost doubling her over. She gasped. The muscles inside her clenched.

Ten, fifteen, twenty seconds.

She felt Jonathan inside her, felt him come.

Twenty-five.

On the big screen, Sybil Danning slumped, sagged.

In the back seat of Jonathan Mills's dad's Nissan, Claudia Bush slumped, sagged, spent.

"Whoa. That was great."

Claudia Bush sat in the back seat as naked as the day she was born, munching fresh popcorn and balancing a Coke on her knee.

Jonathan Mills was watching her. He had reluctantly left her, tugging on his jeans and shirt--misbuttoned, of course--to make another run to the concession stand.

He put a hand on her bare shoulder, just to make sure she was real.

She smiled at him and threw a piece of popcorn.

He was going to have to get busy mowing yards so he could get his dad's car cleaned again.

It was so worth it.

But when Monday morning came, it hadn't been Claudia Bush or Patty Lightfoot at his locker when he closed the door.

It had been Brandy Woods.

It had been Aphrodite called down from Olympus.

"Hey, Jonathan," she said. "Sorry I couldn't go with y'all Friday. Family stuff, you know."

He didn't.

He did, sort of.

"Anyway," she said, "I really love those old Linda Blair movies. I know you just saw it last week, but I was wondering, you know--"

"Would you like to go Friday?" he blurted.

"This Friday?"

"Yes."

"I'd love to."

She gave a little clap, and then she was gone.

What the hell was happening? Jonathan thought.

He wondered if someone had cast a spell on him, or maybe slipped him a love potion, or if somehow he'd gotten pheromones in his underarm spray.

He didn't know why the cheerleaders had suddenly become interested in him. He only understood that the results appeared replicable.

That made it science.

And following that logic: Si fungitur, noli id futuere.

If it's working, don't fuck with it.

But he still sniffed under his arm before he went to class.

***

Friday took forever to get here.

This week was an away game, and he didn't go. It didn't matter. He was mowing yards like a gorilla on steroids just to have his dad's Nissan steam-cleaned so, hopefully, he could ruin it all again Friday night.

Please, please, oh please.

And then it was Friday.

The alarm went off at eight a. m.

The clock seemed to stop.

He had two classes today: trigonometry and economics. They were the longest classes in the history of classes. He usually enjoyed both, but today...

Finally, it was four p. m.

He mowed one last yard--the house next door--pocketed a twenty and ran upstairs. He showered, no need to shave, put on his newly pressed jeans and made sure his shirt was correctly buttoned this time.

He ran a chamois over the Nissan, making sure it gleamed, and precisely at seven, he arrived at the Woodses' house.

Brandy's mother answered the door and invited him in.

"Brandy will be down in a minute. You know how girls are."

He didn't, but he didn't say so.

"Would you like something to drink? Iced tea? A glass of water?"

"Water would be nice, thank you."

And then she appeared.

One minute the stairs were empty, and then a boot, a leg, a short black dress--and he tried so hard not to gawk. He so did not want Mrs. Woods to return with a glass of water and catch him looking up her daughter's dress.

But he did look.

It was like Brandy was walking in slow motion, her hair billowing around her, masses of honey-blonde hair that seemed to be the only thing moving. He was trying so hard not to think of that song by The Lonely Island. The one about jizzing in your pants.

Then Mrs. Woods was there, holding a glass of water. Her mouth was moving. She was saying something, but he couldn't hear the words.

"To the movie, over in Lincoln," Brandy was telling her.

Her mother said something else.

Then: "Y'all have a good time."

He handed her back the empty glass. He thanked her and handed Brandy a yellow rose.

***

At the drive-in, he bought Cokes. He bought a hot dog. He bought popcorn. He bought one of every kind of candy except Mentos.

He had heard stories about Brandy Jo and Mentos, and while he was extremely curious as to whether these were true, this was his dad's car, after all.

It was always better not to tempt The Fates.

On the screen, East German agents had just abducted the defector, Hedda Kleemann. They noticed Linda Blair and grabbed her as well.

Brandy sipped her Coke, set it carefully in the console cup holder and put everything else aside.

"They just kidnapped Linda Blair," she said. "We've got forty minutes to kill before she shows her boobs."

She shrugged her dress down to her waist.

"Until then, you'll have to settle for me."

Jonathan Mills was definitely going to check the ingredients in his antiperspirant. Mow more yards. Buy a case of the stuff.

Then his hand was on her breast.

Then his mouth was on hers.

He kissed her neck. She smelled like flowers, something sweet. He didn't know one perfume from another, but he knew he loved this perfume.

He thought briefly of his own deodorant.

Pheromones.

It had to be.

Her hand was on his buckle. His hand was still on her breast.

How was this happening?

Three of the most beautiful girls in the whole--

She had fumbled his cock free.

Three dates with the most--

She slid his cock into her mouth, and he came.

"Oh, shit."

Brandy grabbed the cup from the console and spat.

"I think some of that went up my nose," she said, laughing.

Jonathan was mortified.

"I'm so sorry."

Brandy grabbed a napkin.

"For what?" she asked. "I take it as a compliment to my womanly skills."

"Really?"

It sounded so lame, but it was the first thing that popped into his head. It helped that she wasn't put off by his lack of endurance.

"But now it's my turn, Rabbit Boy."

She turned in the seat, her back against the door, slipped her panties over her hips and hung them on the mirror.

"We've still got forty minutes until Linda Blair shows up in the shower."

Unlike his peers, Jonathan did read the articles in Penthouse.

He'd read exactly what to do.

He set about it.

"Whoa," she said, squirming beneath his ministrations. "We've got forty minutes until the hot part."

She put a hand over her sex, then used one finger to trace slowly along one lip, circle her clit and travel back along the other lip. She slid a finger inside herself, then placed it against his lips.

"Eating pussy is not an assault. It's a dance. You lead; I'll follow. You tell me when to come, and I will. Use the flat part of your tongue, not the tip. And you can put your fingers here, but never here without asking. Every woman is different, and the best way to find out what she likes is to ask."

Brandy took him by the hand and guided his face to her pussy.

"And what I really like is your tongue so far inside me, you can feel my heartbeat."

***

Brandy Woods was spent.

She had incredible endurance. Jonathan found out he could make her come in English, German, Latin and Klingon, but he would never again admit that he was fluent in that nerd language.

They missed Linda Blair's infamous shower scene.

Oh well.

Red Heat would be playing again next weekend.

***

Jonathan Mills had PE Monday.

He hated PE. He sucked at sports, and he knew it. Despite Bruce's coaching.

Cooper Harris--the one the team called Meatwhistle--had sprained his fingers, and they were all taped together. His hand looked like a catcher's mitt, but they weren't playing baseball today.

They were playing football.

"You suck anyway," the other guys joked as they headed past him and out onto the field.

Meatwhistle looked at Mills.

"Looks like you and me team up today," he said. "Grab us a couple of those practice balls from the bin."

Mills did. He followed Cooper onto the field. They found an unoccupied corner and began tossing one of the worn-out practice balls.

"You kind of suck at this," Cooper said after managing to catch Mills's third throw. "Here, let me show you a trick. Don't just toss the ball. Own that bitch. Look first, then throw. Let your hands follow where your eyes are looking."

Jonathan tried it.

It worked.

"Fuckin' A. You got it now," Cooper said. Then he held up his good hand. "We're going to get you on the team yet. One more."

Jonathan threw the ball. Cooper easily snatched it from the air with one hand.

"You're throwing like you're tired."

He stopped and grinned.

"You're not, are you? Tired, I mean."

Across the field, the cheerleaders were making a pyramid.

Sort of.

They were a few short. Patty Lightfoot and Brandy Woods were the bases, Stacy Charm was on top, Claudia Bush was shouting instructions, and the girl named Rainbow--the one with the baby bump-- stood to one side shouting encouragement.

"You guys helped me out, didn't you?"

"No idea what you're talking about, bro."

Donny lateraled the ball. Jonathan caught it, surprisingly.

"It's not our fault if word on the street is that Jonathan Mills is packing a nine-inch cock."

Jonathan looked at him and grinned.

Across the field, the pyramid collapsed.

The girls clapped. The girls laughed. Stacy Charm rolled to her feet, brushed off her uniform; saw the boys staring at them. She locked eyes with Jonathan and smiled.

She called something over her shoulder to the other girls.

They whooped, hooted and cheered her on.

Cooper shrugged.

"So they fact-check," he said. "Is that such a bad thing?"

Across the field, Stacy began walking toward them.