Orchard Flower (Version Charlie)

by Lubrican

Chapters : Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8-16 Available On

PLEASE NOTE: This is a preview of this novella. It is available for purchase in its entirety via

Chapter Six

In February, Jill suddenly stopped flitting around like a butterfly and started going out exclusively with a boy named Langston Carter. He was a senior and they went out somewhere about every other week. The rest of the time she'd go to his house, or he'd come to hers. If there was a dance, they went together.

But she never talked about him. I saw him at the house several times, and he seemed like a nice kid. He didn't paw Jill, or act territorial around her. I asked Lynne what he was like and she said it was hard to tell. She described him as polite, but somewhat distant. Jill asked if they could do homework in her room, and then didn't complain at all when Lynne said the door had to stay open.

It looked for all the world like they were just friends.

Of course neither her mother nor I knew what she was actually doing on the other dates she had with Langston. We would find out about that almost a year later, too.

It was Prom that turned everything upside down. Prom was special to Lynne. I would find out more about that while the kids were actually at the dance. But even before then I could tell, because I saw her going all out for Jill, taking her shopping for a new dress and all that kind of thing. On the big day she called me and asked me to come fix supper, because she was doing Jill's hair. It had been a while since I'd smelled that pungent odor that permeates the whole house when a home permanent is used. Jill came to the table looking like some insane artist had used her head to make a sculpture using tin foil and rollers. They ate quickly and went back to it. Lynne said "Don't leave."

Two hours later I looked up from watching TV and my breath caught in my chest.

They had picked a midnight blue dress that was quite simple, really, with spaghetti straps. It fell to just above her knees. Her hair was all up on her head, interwoven with dark blue ribbon going in and out and some kind of silver sparkles in it. She had on eye shadow that was the same shade as the dress, and lipstick that was pink. She looked nervous.

"Wow," I sighed.

"Is that good?" she asked hesitantly.

"Oh yeah," I sighed again. "That's very good."

Her smile made my heart hurt. I looked over to see Lynne leaning against the door frame. She had that look on her face that only a parent can get when she is so proud of her child that she can hardly bear it.

"And look!" said Jill, excitement in her voice.

She twirled quickly and the skirt flowed out and rose. I got just a glimpse of pale blue panties.

"Stop that!" chided her mother.

Jill turned until she was facing me again and stopped. "I got them to go with the dress," she said.

"You're not supposed to show them to anybody," said Lynne.

"Bob can see them," said Jill. "He's special."

The doorbell chimed. Lynne jumped. "He's here!" she said in what was a whispered shout. Jill glanced over at the door, but didn't look excited at all.

Lynne was wearing a sweatshirt with the arms cut off. It was too big and she'd obviously put it on as something that could get wet, or stained or whatever while she worked on Jill. It wasn't something for public consumption. Her jeans were old and I could see skin here and there through holes in the cloth. They still fit her like a glove.

"I'll get it," I said.

Langston was all dolled up too, in a tux. He had a corsage in his hands. He looked just as calm as Jill did.

I don't know why, but I watched his face as I led him in. He looked at Jill and smiled, but his eyes didn't widen, and he didn't react in the way I expected him to. Lynne was darting toward her bedroom, which wasn't surprising, based on how she was dressed.

"You look good," he said.

"Thanks," said Jill, as if what he'd said was expected. "You too."

He handed her the plastic box that held the orchid. She took it out and tried to put it on herself, which is when I stepped in.

"Let me," I said, and took it from her.

There was then a moment where I was transported decades back to a time when I pinned my first corsage on a girl's dress. It was a momentous experience for me, which might seem strange to most people. Part of that was because it was Samantha Cross I was pinning it on, and she was three inches taller than I was. We were both seniors and I'd worked on getting up the courage to ask her to prom for three weeks before I finally did it. Then I was astounded that she didn't already have a date, and almost lost my ability to stand when she accepted. The primary reason that was a turning point in my life, though, was that as she stood there, waiting for me to pin it to the strap of her gown, her parents were standing there beaming ... watching ... completely comfortable with the fact that I was slipping my fingers under that strap, just inches from her breast.

Sam was a 38D. She was completely ready to go out into the world, have triplets and have plenty of warm, yummy milk left over for somebody else's babies.

And I was sliding the back of my fingers across hot, smooth skin that was part of one of those breasts.

And her parents didn't care!

Of course now I understand that I was virtually miles away from the good parts of those impressive mountains Sam carried around everywhere she went. But back then, as she stood patiently, letting me practically feel her up, as I saw it, and her parents not only LET me practically feel her up, they took PICTURES of me practically feeling her up.

I got one of those instant boners that only teenage males are capable of producing, that go from limp to full hard in ten seconds or so.

That's where that memory stopped. If I'd have tried, I'd have easily remembered that that was as close as I got to the nirvana of Sam's breasts that night. Other than pressing my own chest against them, of course. Sam didn't fool around. She was a "good girl." It was fine to slide the backs of my fingers all over her upper breast while I was pinning her corsage on, but I got my hand slapped when I tried to cup the same breast. I was a very confused young man for a while after that.

Anyway, as I pinned the orchid onto Jill's dress, and looked at sweet, dark cleavage, and slid the backs of my fingers along Jill's smooth, warm skin, my prick took notice. She was looking down, at the flower, until I was done, and then she looked up and her smile was so beautific that I almost took her in my arms and kissed her. It was a moment of deja vu, except that it hadn't happened before. I just wished that it had happened before, and that I HAD kissed her.

I also wished I was Langston. I looked over at him, to share one of those man-to-man looks that says "You lucky son of a bitch!" He was looking at his watch.

They'd have left without a picture being taken if Lynne hadn’t run back into the room, holding a camera and yelling at them to wait. Apparently a picture of her little girl all dolled up took precedence over being seen dressed way down by that girl's date.

The sense that something was off continued, because those two kids acted for all the world like prom was no big deal, even though each of them had obviously spent a lot of time getting dolled up for it.

Lynne and I were having pie and ice cream. She'd made a pecan pie and it was perfectly gooey and sticky. We were taking our time. It was very relaxed. I noticed that Lynne didn't appear to have anything on under the sweat shirt, but I wasn't sure. I was trying not to stare too much and, at the same time, see if I was right.

"I guess things have changed since I went to Prom," sighed Lynne.

"How so?" I asked.

"It was a huge deal for me," she said. "Of course I had decided that I was going to let Paul ..." She stopped suddenly and her cheeks got pink.

I figured I knew what she was talking about. Prom has been like that for a long time. It was even like that for me, though I didn't have sex after my prom. A lot of my friends did, but not me. In fact, I didn't have anything even close to sex before, during or after prom. Sam really was a good girl.

"Ooooo. So you decided to give it up after Prom," I crowed. "Paul was a lucky guy."

She recovered nicely. "Yes," she said almost regally. "He was!"

"Didn't happen for me," I said, shaking my head. "I took a girl named Sam, and when the dance was over I had to take her home. Most of us had a curfew back then. We didn't get to stay out all night long like the kids these days."

"Poor Bob," she said, in exaggerated sympathy. She grinned.

"Was it everything you hoped it would be?" I asked.

"You mean Prom?"

"Of course I don't mean Prom. You know what I meant," I snorted.

"Why do we always end up talking about sex?" she asked, hedging.

"Do we?" I asked.

"Sure seems like it to me," she said.

"We're secretly hot for each other," I joked. "Our subconscious minds are trying to get us together."

"Is that so," she said. She smiled gently.

"Absolutely," I said, pressing on. "So are you going to answer the question?"

I didn't think she was, initially, and I wouldn't have pushed it, but finally she took a breath and looked right at me.

"It was awful," she said. "It hurt horribly, and I bled. We did it in the back seat of his car and I got a crick in my neck. I wrinkled up my dress to the point that I was sure my mother would know exactly what happened, and I had to throw my panties away because they were stained with blood."

"Wow," I said softly. "Sorry I brought all that back up."

"It's OK," she said, smiling. "The second time was wonderful, except that he didn't have a condom with him and I was so intent on trying it again that I let him go without one. So I was scared to death that I was pregnant for most of a month."

"And you married this guy?" I grinned.

"It was when I realized that if I was pregnant with his baby I wouldn't really be all that devastated, that I knew I loved him," she said. "Now, your turn. What was your first time like?"

I closed my eyes, like I was trying to remember. That wasn't the fact, actually. I'd never forget my first time.

"Her name was Phyllis, and we were in the chess club together. She was a wallflower. Her best friend,Samantha, was my prom date, and she made me dance with Phyllis, who didn't have a date for prom. A week later I walked her home from chess club and she invited me in. Her parents weren't home. I don't even remember how it happened, but she let me kiss her, and then she let me see her breasts. One minute I was playing with them ... and the next thing I knew I was on top of her and it was like riding a bull in a rodeo. She was my first girlfriend, really. I had tried to have others, but it never worked out."

"And how old were you?" asked Lynne.

"I was a senior and she was a junior."

"And you didn't stay together?"

"I went to college and after her senior year she went to her sister's farm in northern Missouri for the summer. There was a farm hand there. He had all summer with her, and all I could do was send letters. The next time we got together she confessed to cheating on me with this guy and we broke up. She went on to travel the world with an NGO. That's not what they called them back then, but that's what it was.

"You loved her." Lynne said it softly.

"Yeah," I sighed. "I didn't care about the cheating. I said it was just her curiosity. She couldn't understand that, though, and thought I must not love her if I didn't get raging mad.

"I'm surprised you weren't mad too," said Lynne. "Most men would be."

"I learned a long time ago that you can be in love with more than one person at the same time," I said. When I got engaged there were two other women I could just as easily have married. I mean I loved both of them enough to ask them. I guess I chose the wrong one, though."

"How can you love more than one woman at the same time?" she asked, sounding skeptical.

"Beats me," I said, shrugging. "I like a woman for who she is. I don't compare her with anybody else, I guess."

"So what's the difference between that and what your fiance did? I mean all she did was fall in love with two men ... right? Let's be fair here."

"Her new boyfriend didn't see things that way. Most people don't. You're a good example."

"I just don't get how anybody could have those kind of feelings for two people at the same time," she said.

"OK, think about it like this. Right now, the only women in my life are you and Jill. I like you both. I'd say I love you both, except that's a sensitive word and can be misunderstood. I don't want to choose which one of you I like more. Why should I have to? I want to like you both. I want you both in my life."

"OK, I get that," said Lynne. "But you're not talking about marrying one of us." She frowned. "Even if my daughter shows you her panties, she knows you're our boarder. She was only teasing you."

"OK then," I said, trying to communicate what I was feeling. "What if you had two kids. Would you love one more than the other?"

"Of course not," she said immediately.

"Then there you go. You are capable of loving two people at the same time, in the same way."

"That's different," she insisted.

"How?" I asked. "The love you feel for Jill is powerful, and will last forever. If you had another child you'd feel the same way about him or her. You CAN love more than one person in a deep and meaningful way, at the same time."

She closed her eyes. "Talking about this makes my head hurt." She opened them again. "Do you like brandy?"

"I don't know," I said. "I never had any that I know of."

"I have this bottle that's been sitting in the back of the pantry for years. Somebody gave it to us before Paul died and I never opened it. I think it's peach flavored."

"I'm game," I said.

Which is how I found out that Lynne would do well to stay away from alcohol in the future ... FAR away.

<< Previous Chapter | Next Chapter >>