"Clean Sweep"  (mf f-solo pett)

"Well, at least I can wash the dishes," Whitney said when Uncle
Jeremy had set out for work.  Not that loading the breakfast
dishes into the dishwasher was any large chore.  She'd begged a
visit to her Aunt Cassandra on the excuse that she would be more
help caring for the newborn baby than she would increase the
burden of housework.  And then her period had finally surprised
her the night of her arrival.

"Don't sweat the petty stuff, Whitney.  It's not the first time
those sheets have seen a little blood; it's part of being a
woman.  Anyway, I'm going to exploit you all week; I thought that
was the reason for your visit."

"You're sweet, Aunt Cassandra."

"And, when you've loaded the dishwasher, you can hold Joshua."

"Really!"  Whitney said.  She rushed to clear the table.

"But bring me a spit cloth first."  Whitney brought back a diaper
from the changing table in the bedroom.  Her cot was in what
would be Joshua's room; but he was, at two months, a little young
to be away from his mother all night.  She watched as her Aunt
Cassandra carefully placed the baby on her shoulder and pounded
on his back.  It looked a little rough to Whitney.  Then she
finished loading the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher.

While her aunt closed the cup of her bra and then her blouse,
Whitney carefully supported Josh's head in the bend of her elbow
and the rest of his weight on her arm.  He was such a dear!  He
looked up at her while she sang to him, and then sank into sleep.

"You can put him down now," Aunt Cassandra said.

"Do I have to?"

"You'll tire of that soon enough.  But come into the living room
and talk to me."  They settled on opposite ends of the couch,
Joshua still in her arms.  "Is there anything you want to talk to
me about?"

"Not really," Whitney said.  Everything was fine, now.  She felt
a little guilty about imposing on her aunt, even.  But she did
plan on cleaning the place during her school break.

"I'll probably try to get to the store this afternoon.  Is there
anything you need?  Do you have enough Tampax?"

"Sure."  Although she almost hadn't brought the box.  "I have a
couple of cheap recipes that I know how to cook.  I'll write out
the ingredients for you and then I'll be able to relieve you in
the kitchen for two nights."

She did fix lunch.  Then, having been checked out on her ability
to change Josh's diapers, she held him while Aunt Cassandra
readied herself for the store.  "I'll be back in a little bit,"
she said.  "Feel free to munch or watch TV while he's asleep."

"Do you mind if I make a phone call?  I have a phone card in my
purse."

"Be my guest."

This time, she did set Josh down in his crib when he fell asleep.
She made sure that he was on his back and tucked the covers over
him.  Then she made her phone call.  She was running the vacuum
when her aunt came back.

Aunt Cassandra did work her, but she also let her hold Joshua
whenever he wasn't at her breast or in Uncle Jeremy's arms.  The
next afternoon, when Aunt Cassandra brought a broom and a bag
from the store into the living room though, she insisted that
Whitney leave him in his crib and again take the other end of the
couch.

"Like holding him, don't you?" she asked.

"He's so....  I don't know, trusting or something.  And warm."

"Tell me true.  Any time in the future, if Joshua and I wanted
absolutely opposite things, can you imagine siding against him?"

Could she?  Against that warm bundle of trust and those tiny
hands on her fingers.  "Well, if what he wanted was wrong...."
But Whitney wasn't even certain about that.

"Oh sure.  You don't love a kid if you can't say 'no.'"  Whitney
had often thought how different her aunt and her mother were, but
*that* line showed their sisterhood.  "The thing is, you weren't
much older than that when I first held you."

Whitney had heard the stories.  For that matter, she did trust
Aunt Cass to side with her.  That's why she had called her in the
first place.

"Honey," her aunt continued, "you've been a wonderful help these
two days, and I knew that you wanted to see Joshua.  But I still
wasn't ready for a visit.  And you're not the sort of kid to
suggest a visit the day before you get on the bus.  There was
worry in your voice when you called."

Was she that transparent?  "Everything's fine now.  Really."

"And you're not the sort of girl to let her period take her by
surprise."

"I said that I was sorry."  Not that she couldn't see where this
was going.

"How late was it?"

"Four days, maybe five; but everything is fine now."

"This time.  Did you tell the boy?"

"Yeah.  I asked if I could call, remember."

"What did he say?"

"He was out, but I told his mother to tell him that I was having
a great time.  He knew what I meant."

"When you told him that you might have caught.  What did he say
then?"

"That it couldn't have happened.  I mean I still had my panties
on, but he sprayed them good.  He was right."

"Well, I would never recommend that procedure to a couple trying
to have a baby," Aunt Cassandra said, "but it was a risk."

"I know that it was stupid."  It hadn't felt stupid, though.  It
had felt exciting.

They'd been kissing for an hour, and she was hot.  Jim had kissed
her breasts and petted her thighs.  Finally, he'd eased her
panties down far enough to allow his fingers inside the leg
bands.  She'd writhed under his ministrations, feeling the climax
come closer and closer.  When it had reached her, he'd covered
her mouth with a long kiss.  Then she'd tugged the panties tight
to keep that moisture inside.

It was also a promise that they'd made to each other, that one of
them would always be covered down there.  For Jim had dropped his
trousers down around his knees and had crawled on top of her.  He
had covered her and clasped her legs between his.  That had
seemed safer, but it had also felt as if she were his captive.
He'd held her tight while his hot stiffness had stroked along the
insides of her thighs.  She'd reached down as far as she could,
and he'd moved up until her hands were on his hips.

She'd enjoyed the strokes on her thighs, enjoyed his hands on her
breasts and his mouth reaching hers on the top of his strokes,
enjoyed the driving force of the muscles clenching under her
hands.  Most of all, she'd enjoyed the sense of his excitement.
He'd been puffing like a steam engine, grimacing as if he were
under torture; and it was all because of her.

He had pressed into her panties, providing a sensation which was
exciting all by itself, and she'd felt him shaking above her and
throbbing *right there*.  Then her panties had been much wetter
than she had made them.  She'd had to rinse them and wring them
out in a gas-station women's room.  Bothersome as cleaning up had
been, she'd replayed the first part of the evening in her mind
again and again.  She'd repeated those memories for the two weeks
until her period had been due.

Then her memories had turned to terror, but she knew that she was
panicking unnecessarily; it was only a day late.  When it was two
days late, she'd talked to Jim.

"Couldn't happen," he said.  "I wasn't in you.  You didn't even
have your panties off."

"But I'm never this late.  I'm regular as a clock.  What if...?"

"If it is true, then we'll have to decide.  I'll try to find the
money for the doctor.  In the other alternative, all I have to
buy is the license and the ring."

"You'd marry me?"

"I *will* marry you.  If you'll have me.  I just don't want it to
be now and this way.  I think that you are making a mountain out
of a molehill; we're talking 'what if' again.  I'd vote for an
abortion, if it turns out to be real -- and if I had a vote.  But
I don't; it has to be your decision.  I'll back that decision.
Anyway, whatever other problems marriage right now would bring,
I'd really enjoy sleeping beside you every night.  I just think
that you are borrowing trouble."

And, in the outcome, she had been borrowing trouble.  But she'd
called Aunt Cass that night.  Aunt Cass had been available when
she'd needed her shoulder to cry on, had thought that she would
need her shoulder; and she deserved more attention than Whitney
was giving her.

She brought her attention back from the past.  "Catch!" Aunt
Cassandra said.  She flipped something through the air.  After
catching it, Whitney looked closely.  Her face burned when she
saw that it was a condom.  "It's the wrong time to blush.  When
every student in your school is talking about that stupid Whitney
girl who let herself get pregnant, that's the time to be
embarrassed."

Was she supposed to give it to Jim?  She'd die.  Anyway, he'd
take it as an invitation to intercourse; and who could blame him.
She wasn't ready for that yet, was a lot less ready after the
recent scare.

"I don't know..." she began.

"That's why you came to your Aunt Cassandra.  I do know, I'm
going to teach you.  And if your mother hears about this, you'll
never hold Joshua again.

"Now take this broomstick, pretend its your boyfriend -- what is
his name?"

"Jim."

"Pretend that the broomstick is Jim.  Well, not all of him.  I
want you to open the package and roll the rubber onto the
broomstick as if you were rolling it on Jim."

The broom was some sort of industrial-grade push broom with an
awfully heavy handle.  Whitney fumbled with the packet.  It was
greasy, and she started from the wrong side and had to flip it
over.  Finally, though, she got almost all of it unrolled.

"Is he *really* that long?"  Aunt Cassandra was obviously trying
to hold back her laughter.

"Not really."  She rolled it up to where she guessed it would go
on Jim.

"Okay.  You got it on, which is the main thing.  That little flap
at the end is where the sperm should end up.  If you buy a box
which doesn't have that, unroll a little before you place it
against his dong.  That'll give them a place to go.  Now give it
to me."

Aunt Cass rolled it back up, taking obvious care to get it into
almost the original shape.

"These things are use-once.  And it is his job to remove it and
dispose of it.  For practice, however, I think we'll reuse this
one, and take it off carefully.  It's not as if a tear is any
danger so long as you're using a broomstick.  Now, think again.
This is Jim, or the next boy."

"Hey!  What do you think I am?"  Whitney was fairly sure that Jim
was the one.  There wouldn't be a next one.

"Or imagine that it's Brad Pitt.  I don't care.  Just don't treat
it like a broomstick.  C'mon, Whitney.  This is what the guy
thinks is the center of his being, the center of your
relationship.  Point again about where it would join his body."

Whitney chose a place.  She wasn't at all sure, anymore.  "Now
put two fingers of your left hand around it there.  You can hold
it firmly, he won't even mind a gentle squeeze, but don't hold it
tighter than you would want him to hold your arm."  She got two
fingers and her thumb around the broomstick.  "Hold it with the
fingers.  Place your thumb on the side closest to you."  She did
everything she was told.

"Now," Aunt Cass continued, "that's his ego you're holding, his
sacred identity.  Touch the right side to the top.  He'll feel
that and react to it.  Slowly, as if the organ meant as much to
you as it does to him, roll it down until you reach your left
hand.  Now, you would let go of it.  Instead, take a lower grip.
Okay, roll it down to cover the last little bit.  When you
actually do it, make sure to brush the pubic hairs out of the
way."

She felt embarrassment over her clumsiness, but also
embarrassment over the pictures that Aunt Cass's words brought to
her mind.

"I really think that you have it," Aunt Cass said.  She waited
while Whitney rolled the condom back off into a tight ring.  "Now
look at these."

"These" were a box of 11 more rubbers, and several compacts.
"Thanks," she said.  "I think."

"Well," Aunt Cass said, "it's not the sort of gift that I'll be
offended if you don't use.  It's just that I want you to have
them when you want to have them, if that makes any sense at all."
It sort of did.  "These compacts all are empty, but they all
latch well.  You can have one or two of them for carrying in your
purse.  A couple of rubbers will fit inside any of them.

She took a deep breath.  "Look, put the broom in your room and
hide these and the practice rubber in there somewhere.  Don't
hide the broom.  If we need it, it will be where you used it
last.  Anyway, you know how to put it on.  You can practice
without an audience."

Whitney followed instruction.  Her aunt went to start dinner
preparations.

"Your father," Aunt Cass continued when Whitney joined her, "gave
me the sort of advice that only a brother-in-law can.  A father
can't say it to his daughter.  I was getting towards the end of
puberty, and feeling weird -- I had all these feelings and all
this equipment that was new or newly active.  I was supposed to
be something which I had no idea how to be, and I wondered how I
stacked up.  You know how that is."  Whitney knew quite well.
"He took me for a walk around the block, we circled it four
times.  What he told me was that boys *did* think about me as
sexy; I didn't need to worry about that.  Boys my age didn't look
at me and figure that I had less bosom than the playmate of the
month; they were trying to get a guess at the shape of my
breasts.  And, he said, they were trying to figure out what was
between my legs.  So I never needed to worry about them thinking
I was sexy.

"The next step, he said, was that a boy had the same worries I
had with a lot more to justify it.  The boy thought about sex
morning, noon, and night; and he was pimply-faced with a breaking
voice.  He told me that when I found the man I wanted, he would
almost certainly think of me as sexy; he would almost certainly
not think of himself as sexy.  If I found a way for *me* to think
of him as sexy, and live in a way that showed that I thought him
sexy: then the man would not only think of sex when he thought of
me, he would think of me when he thought of sex.  Which, your
father suggested, was about a hundred times an hour."

Whitney nodded.

"Now, he didn't take that any further.  The next time that he
mentioned that discussion was in a letter after I told you guys
about the pregnancy.  But I'm not a total dummy.  Do you really
think that I took all those psych. courses because I was fond of
rats?"

"That's what Mom always said."

"Well, not the four legged kind.  You and Kristin are only two
years apart; that's why you always can tell what the other is
thinking."

"Pfft!"  Whitney could hardly remember one occasion when her baby
sister had understood what she had said, let alone read her mind.

"Well, must be.  You wouldn't think that *my* sister could speak
for me, otherwise.  Anyway, when you've been to college and seen
the wide assortment of boys available, you make your choice.
Then come see your Aunt Cassandra about being happy with that
choice."  Whitney really believed that she had already made her
choice.  But she knew that tone of voice, the seriousness trying
to hide its seriousness.  Her mother couldn't be wheedled out of
such positions; she was sure that Aunt Cass couldn't either.  She
wondered if she and Kristin sounded alike to everyone but
themselves.  Horrible thought.

But that night, with everyone else asleep, Whitney thought about
her lesson.

She dug the opened condom out of the bag and dragged the broom
over to the bed.  Resting the broom over a chair made both the
angle and the height more realistic.  Was Jim that large around?
He'd sure looked huge the first time she'd seen him, but she'd
come to accept that organ as just another part of him over later
petting sessions.  But Aunt Cass had told her not to treat it as
just another part.

She remembered the first time that she'd let him undo her bra.
"Ohh, Whit, ney" he'd said, dragging it out into three words.
He'd touched her skin lightly, as if it might bite his fingers;
and then his lips had attached to her nipple and sucked until it
hurt.  She hadn't meant to let him kiss her breasts that time,
had meant to save that until later.  But he had seemed so
worshipful at first.  Maybe that was how she should treat his
organ, as something important in itself, the way he had treated
her breast.

The way, for that matter, he had reacted to her lower hair the
time that she hadn't worn panties under her jeans.  He'd felt it
often enough by then, felt the lower and more important parts;
but when he'd pulled the jeans down and seen that she had nothing
on underneath, he'd taken one deep breath and stared and stared.
"It's so beautiful," he'd said, "you're so beautiful."  She'd
been afraid for a minute that he would kiss *that*.

Should she kiss him there?  Should she express its importance
that way?  Girls did, but -- however excited he made her -- what
she and Jim had between them was an expression of love.  Kissing
*there* seemed plain dirty to her.  So she wouldn't.

She would treat it as important, though.  She sat on the bed so
that the broomstick was level with her breasts and pointing
almost straight towards her face.  She brought her fingers around
it in a light grip.  What would it feel like?  Not as hard as
this, but warmer.  And *alive*.  Every time she had seen Jim's it
had been moving slightly.  Which was why she had to hold it.

She tried to pretend that the cold wood was Jim's living flesh.
She brought the rubber to his tip, his sensitive tip.  After she
felt the first rotation, she looked up into his face.  She had to
close her eyes to imagine it, but she pictured his reaction.  He
would smile, and she would see him blink as she pressed until the
next little bit rolled on.  She looked down to check how far she
still had to go.

It was a live thing in her hands, now.  It was Jim, the part that
would enter her, the part of her love which would make her a
woman.  She rolled it down about half way to her fingers before
looking again to his face.  He was enjoying the experience, but
he was also looking at her with desire -- and with love.  Of
course, he did love her; and he would only love her more when she
pleasured his most sensitive organ.

She slowly rolled the band down to her fingers, and then dropped
her fingers and rolled it down a further way.  All the time, she
imagined his loving, and lusting, face.

After rolling the rubber up again and dropping it into the bag,
Whitney got into bed.  Too turned on for immediate sleep, she
thought about what she had done.  Then she thought about what she
would do.  Would she really put a condom on Jim?  Would she
really let him push himself inside her?  It was her *self*, not
something to share with Jim.  But she had once thought that about
his touching her between the legs, and now she wouldn't even
consider his stopping that.  She reacted to his fingers in ways
she didn't to her own.  Not that her own weren't nice, just that
his were different.

Part of the problem, she decided as she began to play with her
nipples, was that she had been playing out a scenario which she
wouldn't really accept in real life.  And Jim wouldn't expect her
to walk up to him and roll a rubber down his cock without any
petting.  That wouldn't be how they started.

He would undress her first, but her body was wearing only a night
dress, and her mind was well beyond that stage.  She pulled it up
to her neck in one motion.  He would stroke her breasts as she
was doing now.  She tickled them lightly, dancing her fingers
across their tops.  Wishing that Jim were there to really apply
his lips and tongue, she kept her left hand brushing over her
nipples while her right delved between her legs.

For as long as she could bear it, she imitated Jim's teasing
technique on her vulva.  First she slipped one finger between her
outer lips to tickle the joined inner ones as lightly as
possible.  When these parted, she moved the finger between them
to carry her lubrication all around the magic button.  She
couldn't continue the teasing much further, though.  As her
crisis neared, she rubbed around the neighborhood of the button.
Then she stroked directly over it and soared.

And crashed.  She barely managed to pull the night dress down and
turn on her side before she fell asleep.

Her mind didn't quite wake up for breakfast, though her body
managed to make it to the table.  That afternoon, though, she
cooked dinner for three, leaving Aunt Cass responsible only for
Joshua.  The pots were scrubbed, although still out, when Uncle
Jeremy got home.  She filled the dishwasher as well, taking full
responsibility for the meal from first to last.

This hadn't allowed her much time for Joshua that day, but she
did change him and hold him while his parents bathed.  They shard
the bathroom, which -- she supposed -- was fairly common for
married people; it would bother her, though.  Uncle Jeremy, who
had been effusive in his praise during dinner, seemed almost like
he was avoiding her after his shower.  He ducked into his room
without a word.  Aunt Cass came out of the bathroom two or three
minutes later.  She was a high color from the shower, but she did
speak to her, after -- of course -- speaking to Joshua.

"Are you going to thank your cousin for her nice care?  No!  All
that interests you right now is Mama and food.  Well," she said as
she adjusted Joshua on her breast, "Mama is grateful.  And Jeremy
is grateful, too, Whitney.  There aren't many times that we can
both take our attention off Joshua at the same time.  And the
dinner was superb."

The dinner hadn't been bad, but Whitney guessed that the best
flavor to Aunt Cass was the fact that somebody else had cooked
it.  When Whitney got out of her own shower, Aunt Cass's door was
closed, and no light shown under the door.  Suspecting that they
would *not* appreciate a good-night from their guest, Whitney
hurried into her room with its wooden facsimile.  She felt
suddenly jealous of her Aunt Cassandra for the flesh and blood
that shared her bed.

Tonight, she wasn't satisfied with an illusory Jim.  If she had
to play with an imaginary playmate, she'd conjure up the sexiest
one she could.  Having had intermittent times to think during her
dinner preparation, she'd toyed with several possibilities before
settling on Ricky Martin.

For Ricky, she'd wear the robe without the night dress.  He'd be
surprised to find her in his room, but soon intrigued by a woman
who was willing to undress *him*.  When she got him down to his
shorts, he'd remove her robe.  She could feel his hands all over
her, her breasts, her thighs, between them.

When she was at the highest level of excitement where she could
possibly stop, she pushed his hands away.  Now it was his turn to
be naked.  She admired the lithe, bronze, dancer's body before
stripping the shorts away.  The organ matched him perfectly.  It
was long and straight, and his control of it was as perfect as
his control of the rest of his body.  He froze in place with it
proudly thrust out while she placed the rubber against him.

She slowly stroked it as she rolled the rubber down its length,
but his slow smile was her only reward.  Ricky enjoyed her
teasing him, but he wasn't going to give in to that teasing.
When she reached where she thought the base must be, she let go
and sprawled back on the bed.

His hands were on her immediately, teasing her breasts again,
tickling the insides of her thighs.  And he penetrated to her
wetness in a few seconds.  There his strokes began gently, but
soon turned commanding.  She spasmed, spasmed again.

It was a long time before the cold brought her out of her daze.
Then she had to roll the rubber up and drop it into the bag yet
again.  By the time she had leaned the broom up against the wall
and got under the covers, she was shivering.  The night dress and
robe were too far away, though, and she soon warmed the sheets.

The next day was her last full day -- and the last time that they
would have without Uncle Jeremy.  Not that she didn't like him,
but he did limit the topics which she could discuss with Aunt
Cass.

Whitney thought, while she was cleaning up the kitchen, that she
was less sure than she had been on the previous night that Ricky
Martin would be surprised by a girl ready to undress him.  In the
cold light of day, it seemed to her that there were girls all
over the world *eager* to undress him.  Jim would never be as
sexy, but being number one for Jim was one hell of a lot sexier
than being number one million, or whatever, for Ricky.

"I want to say again," Aunt Cass said, reminding Whitney that she
was not alone, "I'm not recommending that you use my gifts.  I'd
hate it if I learned that you went all the way because protection
was available.  And you should know that they are by no means
perfect, a good deal less safe than what you have been doing."

"Yeah.  Which you said wasn't particularly safe."  She was in  no
hurry to use those gifts.  She was still a bit scared from the
experience of the previous week.  And Jim's response, even if he
had turned out to be right, hadn't been the most reassuring one.
He could have hugged her tight and proposed on the spot.  On the
other hand, he could have told her that it was her problem; at
least, he had seen it as their problem.  But she could tell that
she would use the gifts sometime.  It didn't take a genius to see
that they wouldn't stop where they were, and -- scared as she had
been -- she didn't feel like going back to chaste kisses fully
dressed.  Was that even possible with Jim?  "Where does this pan
go?"

"Where you got it, the lower cabinet right next to the stove.
No!  Left-hand side.  Anyway, I'd think that panty-liners would,
if not solve that problem, improve the odds at least.  I could
put those pans away, if you wait fifteen minutes."

"No.  I want to say that I handled the whole thing.  Will Uncle
Jeremy mind if I cook again tonight?"

"Mind?  Jeremy loved your dinner."

Whitney decided not to mention his avoiding her later that
evening.  "This go in the same place?"

"You got it.  Mind you, he may well have liked even more the
later half hour that you held Joshua.  It was the first shower
that we have shared in months.  I kept to the tub after the third
month; people slip in showers, even when they aren't huge like I
was."

Whitney hadn't thought of Aunt Cassandra's time in the bathroom
as erotic.  Her face began to burn.  She turned all her attention
to the counter top she was cleaning.

"Anyway," her aunt continued, oblivious to her blush, "you've
been a great help in all sorts of ways.  I just hope that I've
been as much help to you as you expected."

"Well, you've been a great help in unexpected ways.  And I *have*
enjoyed holding Joshua.  As for the help I *expected*, I'm not
complaining."

"That's fair.  You're being more thorough on that counter than I
ever was.  Finish it up a little faster; you're about to have a
cousin who would enjoy your attention."

And she enjoyed his attention as well.  On her last day, she
spent time with the baby unless she were cooking or he were
feeding.  Uncle Jeremy took over the after-dinner cleanup.  "I
know Cassandra is anxious about my bonding, but I'll have plenty
of time tomorrow.  Joshua won't see you for months."

So Whitney spent almost no more time consciously thinking about
Jim until she started packing that night.  It was much harder to
imagine any way that she and Jim could share a shower than to
figure out a way for them to share a bed, maybe because they had
managed the latter already.  Well, they just would; her parents
and sister could all be gone, or his family.  Anyway, she needed
to concentrate on the packing.  She hid the practice condom under
her pillow, buried the sack that Aunt Cass had given her among
her clothes, put aside the clothes she would wear on the bus, and
saved a place in the suitcase for her night clothes.  These she
wore to the bathroom for her shower.

She washed her face and got all her hair into the shower cap.
When the water temperature was adjusted, she stood with her face
under the shower rinsing it one more time.  That was when Jim
slipped into the shower behind her.

When she stepped back, it was his hands which spread soap over
her upper body.  He touched her everywhere except a little patch
along her spine, but he lavished most of his attention on her
breasts.  He lathered the soap in his hands, spread it gently but
lavishly over the entire surface of both breasts, and waited
while she rinsed off with her hands raised above the shower head.
Then he repeated the process with what soap remained, caressing
the breasts everywhere, but paying particular attention to her
areolae and erect nipples.  This time when she rinsed off, his
hands continued to caress her, still concentrating on her
breasts.

She hesitated on the question of having his hands between her
nether cheeks, but he spread the soap there as well; and his were
the hands which spread her cheeks as she bent over to let the
shower rinse there.  After both their hands were clean again, he
soaped each of her legs from mid-thigh to the foot as she lifted
it to the rim of the tub.  When she bent over and her breasts
pressed into her knee, she was conscious of them in a way that
she hadn't been since the year in which they had first appeared.

She took a deep breath as he lathered up his hands again.  Then
his soft caresses were on her lower belly.  He soaped across her
back and returned to the spot just under her navel.  From there,
his hands slipped downwards.  He brushed the soap into her hair,
and then massaged it in -- pressing on the top of her lips on
each pass.  He soaped her right hip and the outside of her right
thigh; then her leg quivered as he brushed soap upwards on the
inside of that thigh, letting only the soap touch -- not his
hand.

He followed the same pattern on her left leg, but he continued
further upward.  She spread her legs as the lather passed between
them.  The foam tickled her lower lips, was pressed into her by
his hand, and then collapsed under the pressure of that hand.
She moved her groin under the shower.  Each of his hands rinsed
under the driving spray, stroked soap out from between her lips,
and was replaced by the new-rinsed other hand.  When there was no
soap left, she stepped back; but the hands remained.

One pressed the top of her cleft, one stroked lower.  For some
unmeasurable time, she thought only of the thrills those hands
brought.  But then the water splashing her feet chilled her.

Whitney turned off the cold water and took a brief rinse from the
tepid water flowing from the hot pipe.  She dried herself, being
too cold to enjoy the comfort of Jim's imaginary presence.
Indeed, she banished him while she changed the tampon and used
the toilet.  One last glance in the mirror, however, showed her
the high color -- and erect nipples -- that Jim would see in her
room.

In night dress and robe, she crossed to her room.  She latched
the door and adjusted the broom across the chair once more.  When
Jim returned to remove her robe, she laid it on the far side of
her bed.  She'd learned *something* from the previous night.

Jim spent the longest time simply tickling her nipples through
the night dress before raising it enough to reach her mound.
That hair was still damp, and he combed it with his fingernails.
When she began to feel too heavy for her legs to support she lay
down on the bed.  With her cooperation, Jim raised her night
dress enough to reveal her breasts.  One hand divided its
attention between the two breasts, the other caressed between her
legs.

That hand smoothed the skin of her inner thighs until it was half
way to her knees, returned as slowly until it just brushed over
the hair on her lips, and then rose again.  Only when she could
no longer stand that teasing, did Jim finally part those lips.
He stroked across the sensitive flesh she exposed as well as she
was able while her emotions spiraled towards ecstasy.

She resisted, however.  Slamming her legs together, she rolled to
a sitting position.  Jim stood proudly erect in front of her
while she retrieved the condom.

And he should be proud.  Whitney had high standards, and she'd
found him worthy.  She was a precious prize, and she'd been
rewarded to him.  He was the man who'd stood by her when she'd
thought both their futures ruined.  Before her was the first
organ which she would allow inside her, probably the only one;
how could she treat it other than with solemn respect?

She touched it to steady it, and then to stroke it once.  She
fitted the condom to its tip.  She looked once upward to kiss
towards the place where Jim's face should be.  Then she slowly
and carefully rolled the latex down to where her finger were.
She brushed away the hair before rolling it further.  She took
one more glance upwards while holding the latex to Jim's shaft.

Then she rolled back in the bed.  This time, her night dress went
to her neck and her raised knees spread until she could feel the
strain.  This time Jim's hand cupped her breast instead of
tickling it, and his other hand took only one, quite gentle,
squeeze to her lips before parting them.  This time the strokes
between them were firm and directed upwards.

When the passion rose within her this time, she neither resisted
nor dawdled.  His fingers soon concentrated on her button.  She
took a short breath, then another and a third without exhaling.
When she had to let them out, the sound was a faint moan.  Her
nipple was pinched.  Then the climax hit her and carried her over
while the finger rubbed her clit as rapidly as possible.

When it finally passed over, she pulled the night dress down.
She grabbed the blanket so that it covered her when she rolled
towards the side of the bed.  When she woke in the morning, she
saw the rubber-covered broom handle.  Luckily, the door was
latched and nobody else saw it.  She rolled the stiff condom up
for the last time, bundled it in some tissues, and hid it in the
wastebasket.

She continued to cuddle Joshua or help with the housework until
it was time to leave for her bus.  One of her last tasks was to
empty the wastebasket in the room she had been using into the
kitchen garbage.