| An Anniversary of Sorts, Part 1 Sometime, right after the New Year, I realized that the year 2006 was going to be the 40th anniversary of two life-defining events for me. The first one was reading Catcher in the Rye and the second was falling in love for the first time or at least realizing that it was love that I was in. I grew up in a really small town in the Midwest. During Christmas break of the year I was a senior in high school, my best friend Jane's father was transferred out East and the family moved, just like that. Jane was two years younger than I. I had turned 17 that fall. She was a sophomore and just 14, turning 15 in January. Going back for my last semester of high school was going to be hard enough but now I had to do it without my best friend. Jane and I lived near each other on a street with a lot of boys on it. There were very few girls so Jane and I, even though we were different ages, just naturally hung out together. We were born right after the war and I wonder if there weren't more boys being born to make up for all of the ones that had died. Jane and I did everything together and it was painful for us during those years when our ages put us in different schools, but eventually she would catch up and we could come and go together and see each other at lunch time. I think our age difference had an influence on both of us. She was probably more mature for her age and I was less. By the second semester of my senior year, I had already taken all of the classes I needed to graduate and to get into college. I wouldn't hear for a couple of months but I was nearly assured a place at the big state university where my family had planned for me to go. I was a bit scared about it because there were more students enrolled at it than there were people in the town I lived in; but I was reconciled about going there. Besides, I really wanted to go to college. I was tired of small-town and stupid girl and boy cliques and tired of high school subjects that seemed vacuous. I wanted something of substance in my life and I thought that college would provide it or at least provide some cheap thrills while I waited for the real thing. So without my friend and a whole semester left, I dragged myself off to school after the break. I was enrolled in Sociology, speech, typing and an English class on American literature. I was looking forward to the English class because I liked to read. It was a great form of escape. The other classes were a throw away as far as I was concerned. Of course it has turned out that the typing class was the only useful class I ever took in high school, but who was to know? Typing was taught by the assistant football coach. He was about six feet five inches tall, nearly as wide and had no neck that you could see. He also taught drivers education and I knew he could be a real bastard. We were being taught touch typing so we weren't supposed to look at the keys. We had to know where they were by memory. If he caught us looking, he would slap the backs of our hands with a ruler. Everyone in class mastered the keyboard in record time. The first assignment in English was to read a fairly recent book of fiction and the teacher provided us with a list to choose from. I didn't know at the time that the list of authors, mostly published around 1950, were quite controversial and if any of our parents had been paying an ounce of attention to our education, my teacher probably would have found herself on the street. But we had just come out of the feel-good fifties and the part of the sixties that would change our lives forever, hadn't happened yet. Out of a list that contained Kerouac, Capote, Steinbeck, Baldwin, Burroughs and Salinger, I picked the latter and immediately became completely absorbed in Holden and his adventure. I was already feeling at sea without my friend and wanting to escape when here in my hand was a book about someone my age who did just that, at least for a little while—long enough to sort things out. Of course, long enough to go crazy too but I didn't really believe that bunking school and being on your own would really make you crazy. I bet Salinger doesn't believe that either. I think he put that in there so that the book would not be banned entirely. Crime doesn't pay kind of morality shit. Anyway, I identified with Holden and became him that semester. Actually, as I read the story, I was convinced that Holden was more like a girl than a boy and that was just another trick that Salinger had used because no one would have believed at that time that a girl could or would do those things. But I knew we could and would and were way more in tuned with phonies and ourselves and empathetic to others, especially young kids like the ones that Holden wanted to catch in the rye, than boys that age. Holden would have had to be an exceptional 16-year-old boy. I was so convinced that Holden was a girl that when it came time in the class to write a short story, I rewrote Catcher with a girl as the main character. My teacher gave me an F, accusing me of plagiarizing, which I guess I did but it really pissed me off anyway. I left class and stood at my locker and tore the story up into really small pieces and threw them in the air like confetti. The assistant principal caught me doing it and gave me a detention. I think it was that evening while I cooled my heels in the cafeteria with the other delinquents that I made up my mind to spend the summer with Jane before going to college so that I didn't have to be there in my home town any longer than necessary. Jane and I would write to each other every day. I wrote to her about how miserable I was without her and she wrote to me about how cool it was where she lived and went to school. About the ocean, the beaches, fog rolling into Newport, light houses, parties with kids when parents were away, a boy named Rob that she had a crush on. Jane was really beautiful and always had guys swooning all around her. I was sure she was the hit of the high school, being the new girl. I wrote to Jane to see if she'd even like to have me out for the summer. She did and then I started working on my mom. I already had a life-saving job at the community pool from the summer before and I was expected to work to earn some college money. I promised mom that I would find a job out there if she let me go. She talked to Jane's mom and it turned out that Jane was going to work at their country club bussing tables and helping out with functions and that I could do that too. I went through the motions the rest of that semester. I had a few other acquaintances but no real friends among them. I was dating a boy that was nice enough but didn't really love him. And in the mood I was in, I was simply awful to him most of the time but he didn't seem to get angry with me or want to break up. I was not beautiful and guys were not swooning all over me. I was a late bloomer, still didn't have any tits to speak of, skinny with no real butt or curvy legs. I envied Jane her looks. My boyfriend and I had kissed and petted above the waist as they said then but nothing below. I agreed that on prom night he could touch me down under but there wouldn't be any intercourse. You had to ask a pharmacist for condoms and abortions were performed in back allies with coat hangers. Roe v Wade was 7 years away. My mother had gotten pregnant in high school with me and it derailed her life as she imagined it would be. He brought some whisky that he had snuck out of his parent's house and we went out into the country in his car after the dance. We got smashed on the booze, drinking it out of paper cups with coke. We climbed into the back seat and took our clothes off. I was fascinated by his dick and how it went from floppy to big and hard as he released it from his pants. I was tempted to let him slip it in but I thought about how badly I wanted to be somewhere else as opposed to married to this boy and raising a baby. We gave each other hand jobs. Mine was better for him than his was for me because he squirted all over the place and I didn't even start breathing heavily. He kept wanting to see how many fingers he could get into my vagina and I kept putting them on my clit where they would make a difference but he didn't get it. And then after he came, the alcohol caught up with him and he passed out. I drove him home to his house, parked him and his car in the driveway and walked home barefoot carrying my stupid high heel shoes, lifting my long gown so it didn't drag on the ground. I left the next day on a train to Chicago where I would take an overnight Pennsylvania Railroad train to New York City. I had a few hours layover in New York and I thought I would walk around the city. I stowed my gear in a locker at the station and went outside. I was taken aback by the enormity of New York. It took me a bit of time to get my brain wrapped around the fact that the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State building and Brooklyn were not within a few blocks of one another. I was even more impressed by Holden after this experience because I suddenly couldn't imagine being on my own in that city as he was in the story. The last leg from Pennsylvania Station to Rhode Island was on the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. The government hadn't yet taken over the railroads and created Amtrak so they were all separate companies. The NYNH&H was a bit of a joke and the last part of the trip was accomplished in fits and starts. When I got to Providence, I saw Jane standing on the platform waiting for me. The instant I saw her, I knew why I had been feeling the way I had been the last few months since she left. I was in love with Jane. Not just friend love, there was that too, but I was romantically, down to the core of my very being, in love with Jane like boys and girls are in love. I went into a panic. I almost didn't get off of the train. Thoughts of going on to Boston and then turning around and going back home rushed though my head. The train conductor asked me if I was all right and started to pick up my stuff and move me and it off of the train. I couldn't speak and found myself on the platform next to Jane. I was crying and shaking and she gave me a big hug and asked me what the matter was. I stammered that it had been a long trip and that I was really happy to see her. Her mom was waiting for us and drove us to their house down by the shore, just a block from the beach. It was all very lovely and I should have been ecstatic that I was with my friend that I had missed so much but I wasn't. I was overwhelmed and completely confused with my new insight. I didn't know what I was going to do with it and all I could think of was running away. Being with Jane and her parents though was really comforting and I was very happy that I was away from home and in this very exotic, to me anyway, place. Besides, if I was right about my feelings for Jane, I wasn't going to be able to realize them if I wasn't with her. My only hope was to be with her and figure out a way to tell her how I felt and hope that she would see it the same way I did. When I realized that we were to sleep together in the same double bed, I had another panicky, emotional moment. I wasn't sure what kind of control I was going to be able to have being in bed with her. Being with her, I was constantly pushing out thoughts of wanting to touch her, kiss her, hold her tight to me. Getting into bed that evening, I was incredibly anxious. It was pretty warm for late June and there was a fan in the window trying to bring in the cool, evening air. We had just slipped off our shorts and planned on sleeping in our T's and panties. Jane didn't make a move to kiss me or give me hug. Why I thought she might I haven't a clue. It was my fantasy that she would and likely wasn't hers. Instead, she went pretty quickly to sleep while my body was aching to ravish hers and unable to settle down. I pulled off my T-shirt and snaked my hand down into my panties and, as quietly as I could given my heightened arousal, jigged myself off to a bunch of orgasms with visions of what I wanted to do with Jane as soon as she came to the same conclusion as I had. The work at the country club was easy enough, walking around with trays of food at weddings and parties and cleaning up afterward. We didn't work every day so we had time for the pool at the country club, the beach and evenings with her friends. Jane's boyfriend Rob was movie-star cute and he had some friends that showed me some attention but I was in such a state over Jane that I didn't have the inclination or the energy to reciprocate. One night we went to a party at someone's house and both of us had drank quite a bit. I spent the night mostly by myself in a corner, watching Jane hang with her new friends and Rob hang on her. I was jealous and aroused and anxious to get home so that I could diddle myself in bed with Jane lying next to me. That activity had become a regular thing for me. Sort of a water water everywhere but not a drop to drink problem. So tantalizing that her body was next to mine but I couldn't really touch it. We got ready for bed as usual after one of our party nights which was more like falling into bed and crashing. Being a bit tipsy though, I didn't wait the prerequisite amount of time before I pulled off my T and panties and started to fuck myself. Just as I got really into it, Jane stirred and asked me what I was doing. "I got horny tonight with all of those cute guys around," I lied. "I'm doing myself." "Boy me too," she said. "I wanted to fuck Rob desperately but he said he didn't have a rubber." "You fuck him?" "Well, we have a few times." "Want to jack off with me? I'm going to do it because I won't be able to sleep otherwise." "Okay, sure. I'm horny too," and she stripped off her T and panties in the dark next to me. We worked on our own cunts for a few minutes. My success so far and the alcohol made me very brave and I made a suggestion. "Want to do each other? It's better if it isn't your own hand." "Oh, I'm not sure. I've never done it with girls only guys. Have you?" "No me either but it is better with someone else's hand. Let me show you." "Okay," and she brought her body next to mine and spread her legs so that I could finger her. I was so happy and excited to be diddling her. I kissed her on the lips and she returned the kiss. I stopped a brief moment and let my hand roam her body, feeling her breasts and her bum but quickly got back to her action so she wouldn't lose sight of the goal. In a brief moment she was breathing heavily and only a bit later was squeezing her thighs together. Her pussy was sucking my hand into it as she came a couple of times like waves hitting the beach. When she caught her breath she told me how great that had been but that she didn't think she could do it to me like that. I told her it was okay, she didn't have to but would she just lie close to me while I did myself? Of course she said and snuggled in my arm and put one of hers over me just under my tits. I put the hand that had touched Jane up to my nose and inhaled her scent. It turned me on even more than I had been and as Jane fell asleep, I happily jigged myself to a terrific orgasm of my own. After I got off though, I began to despair. I knew that this was the only physical contact I was going to have with Jane. In the morning she might throw me out but at a minimum, she was going to tell me that it had been a weak moment for her and that we wouldn't be doing anything like that again. I tried my best to hold onto the good feelings I had from having made love to her but they slipped away to be replaced by the dread of facing her in the morning. It took me forever to get to sleep and just as I did and caught some precious sleep, it was light and I opened my eyes to Jane sitting in a chair across the room. She had pulled on her T and panties. As I became aware of her looking at me, I pulled the sheet up to cover my nakedness. I was feeling exceptionally vulnerable and being naked just made it worse. "About last night," Jane started out. "Do you hate me?" I blurted out before she could finish her thought. "No, of course not but I have to ask you if you are into girls? I mean girls instead of guys?" "I don't know about being into girls but I know I'm into you." "I'm into you too but not like that. You know you are my best friend and nothing that's happened will change that. I love you terribly much just not like that. Not like I think you are in love with me." I started to cry but after a bit I bucked up. "I'm sorry I, you know, made a pass at you. It won't happen again. Do you want me to go home? Will you be uncomfortable with me around?" "No, I don't think so. I don't want you to go. Let's see if we can't go on from here. I really like having you here and I'm going to miss you terribly when you go back and go to college." "Okay, thanks," is the best I could do and I started to cry again but silently by biting my tongue, the tears streaming down my face. After a long silence where I just sobbed and sobbed and Jane was looking miserable, probably wishing she could have made it better somehow— "You know the girl that life guards at the club in the afternoons? She has short blond hair and is built like a jock. Great body." "Sure, what about her?" "Jackie is her name, she's into girls too. It's not a secret with her either. She's usually moping about though because there aren't any girls like her in the high school. I'll think of a way to get you two together without it being, you know phony." Well, Holden and I didn't want phony, did we? Jane told her that I was a certified life guard and wondered if they didn't need any more guards at the pool. That I would rather be doing that than passing around stupid hor d'oeuvres, she told her, which was true. Jackie said that they did, indeed, need life guards and I started to work right away. Jackie started to work right away too, hitting on me the first chance she got and I rolled right over like a puppy wanting its belly scratched. I wanted more than my belly scratched but that was a good start. Jackie had a lot of good ideas about how two girls could be with one another that she had been able to only think about, not having anyone to try them out on. I was very happy to let her experiment on me. Before too long, I was sleeping over at Jackie's house instead of Jane's and seeing what I could do to get a provisional acceptance into the college Jackie was going to go to.
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