By the look on Steve's face, I could see that the picture of me walking along the sidewalk with his cum running down my thighs appealed to him.
"Damn!" He said, shaking his head.
Bud and Jolene had cooled off and were waiting for me. Bud said, "Careful, Steve. Sam doesn't stop at sex below the waist. She believes in sex between the ears, too. She'll tell you things that get you so turned on that you'll want to fuck her on sight next time."
"Hush!" I said to Bud. "Don't spoil it for him."
"Not possible," Steve said, shaking his head again. "She's already messed my head up real bad. I've got a lot of things to think about before Monday. A lot of things I thought I knew about girls are turning out to be wrong."
"You too, hunh?" Bud said. "Jim and I had the same problem. She set us straight on a lot of stuff. It's made a big difference. Let me tell you, if she gives you some advice? Take it. She does very good advice. She will fuck with your head til you're dizzy, but she won't bullshit you. That reminds me. Sam, if you get a call from Joey Valdes, I told him he could talk to you about his sister. Is that OK?"
I nodded. Steve cocked his head and looked at me as though trying to decide whether to believe what Bud told him. He set his jaw and nodded with a thoughtful look. I decided that he'd had enough for one day and I stood up. Everyone else got up too and we all headed back to the schoolyard, Steve to get his car and Jolene to get her bicycle from the rack. Bud and I went with Jolene to keep her company and so she and Bud could be together as long as possible.
When we had covered the few blocks back to the school, Steve hugged me goodbye. It wasn't until I felt his hands on my bare butt that I realized that I didn't have anything on but the halter-top. I was so buzzed from the sex that I had forgot all about my shorts and had walked all the way back bare-assed. Good thing we hadn't met anyone on the way.
Steve smiled and held out my little pair of shorts. "Here," he said, "I thought you might remember these eventually."
I took the shorts and tried to hit him with them as he ran for the cover of his car, but he was too quick. When I turned around, Bud and Jolene were beside themselves laughing.
"Why didn't either of you say something?" I asked, crossly. I was more excited than mad. A small voice in the back of my head wished it had known all along so I could have enjoyed it more. I toyed briefly with the idea of seeing if I could walk home bottomless, but I decided I had had enough fun for one afternoon and I stepped into the shorts.
When Bud caught his breath, he said, "Sis, you and Steve were so in your own world back there that we really didn't want to intrude. And if you didn't notice, Steve should have said something. He had the shorts, after all. Anyway, no one who sees you walking along will be looking below your waist. You might be used to how you look, but the rest of us may never be. And, with your all-over tan and your, um, haircut, you have to look really close to see that you don't just have on a pair of tight tan slacks."
"Really, Sam," Jolene added, "I hardly noticed either until I saw that Steve had your shorts in his hand. After that, I was too eat-up with the idea of doing it myself to even think about whether I should mention it to you. Ever since we ran around naked the other day, I've hardly been able to think about anything else. That was just the sexiest thing and the biggest turn-on I've ever done."
Hearing that Jolene was obsessed with exhibitionism and risky behavior distracted me from dwelling on my own accidental exposure. Jolene was such an innocent that I didn't want her to try something on her own that might have serious consequences. I wondered if there was some way to allow her to safely explore her urges. It didn't take much thinking before I realized that the answer was right under my nose.
"Bud, have you ever seen Jolene naked?" I asked.
Bud's mouth dropped open and he looked Jolene up and down before answering. Jolene blushed a deep red and crossed her arms in front of her. The answer was obvious.
"No." he said.
"Well," I continued, "on Saturday you will. Now, Jolene, you go on home and think about that."
Jolene clapped both hands over her mouth and her eyes got real big. Clearly, the idea appealed to her, too.
After Jolene pedaled off unsteadily on her bike, Bud and I walked home. I felt confident that Jolene would not be getting in any trouble with something to look forward to. Looking down at the bulge in Bud's pants, he was looking forward to it too. I was even looking forward to it myself. Jolene's problem only manifested itself in situations where she was alone with a boy. In every other way she seemed to be as adventurous and as willing as anyone could want. She had been willing to do anything Janice or I could think of when the three of us were together. When we had to sneak through the locker room, she had been right there with the rest of us. When we lined up against the wall of the gym and offered ourselves to Steve, she hadn't hesitated to surrender her virginity right then and there. I thought that under controlled circumstances she could easily go all the way. I just felt that she was trying to ride the biggest bull at the rodeo on her first time out of the chute.
I was walking along and admiring the bull's bulge when Bud said, "How do you do that?"
"What?"
"You always know what to tell someone to make them crazy. It's like the trick with the blue monkey. You know, where you tell someone not to think of a blue monkey and then that's all they can think about?"
"I just try to put myself in their place. I try to think of something they would like to do, but wouldn't do on their own. Then I tell them that it's going to happen. Now they've got something exciting to look forward to. It's like I've given them permission to live out their fantasy. They keep thinking about it and how exciting it is and pretty soon there is no stopping them from doing it."
"But you seem to know what their fantasy is. I guess that's how you get people to go along with whatever you want to do. They put themselves in your hands and then you make their fantasies come true. That must be a great feeling, to be able to make people's dreams come true."
I stopped right there on the sidewalk to think about that. It had never occurred to me that that's what I was doing. I had sometimes felt guilty about manipulating people. I justified it by telling myself that I wasn't really making people do things that they didn't want to do anyway. I never thought of it as making dreams come true.
"Is that really how you feel about it?" I asked.
"Sure," he said. "Like I know you are going to do everything you can to get me and Jolene together. I guess that's our dream. I don't see how that does anything for you, though."
I had to think about that. Getting Jolene and Bud in bed together had become one of my pet projects. I couldn't explain why it was important to me in any selfish terms. They had both asked for my help and I was determined not to let them down. They were my friends and their happiness was important to me. I was just as passionate about making them happy as I would have been about protecting them from danger. That thought resonated somewhere, but I couldn't put my finger on why. I gave Bud the only explanation that I understood well enough to put into words.
"Do you like being around people who are unhappy? Do you like hanging with guys who are moaning and bitching all the time?" I asked.
"No way. Some guys think it's cool to act like they're pissed all the time, but it's just depressing."
"I feel the same way. So I do the best I can to make the people around me; my friends, and my family as happy as I can. If I can do that in a way that makes me happy too, then that's just perfect!"