'I can't go out with boys. My mother won't let me until I'm sixteen.' Her tone was martyred.
Why in the hell is she encouraging me to ask then? Doug was outraged. 'You could tell her you were visiting a girlfriend,' he said mildly.
A knot of sorrow caught in Angie's throat. How she wished she could! She'd wanted to have a close friend for so long. But the girls never seemed to notice her. She'd even thought of going up to one — Mary Jane Watson especially, she was so popular — and starting a conversation. But she'd never had the nerve. At the last moment, she felt cowed. Out loud she said, 'My mother knows I don't have any girlfriends.'
'Oh.' Doug felt defeated.
Angie saw the disappointment on his face. Maybe he is ready, she thought. What we couldn't do together. She leaned closer to him. 'But you could come to my house.'
Doug looked at her and blinked his eyes. She was such an illogical girl. Jumping from negative to positive.
'Unless you're afraid to,' she jibed.
At last! A proposition. Loud and clear. Why not? Her parents probably went out a lot anyway. He smiled. 'When?'
'Tonight?'
He could re-arrange his schedule. Put off starting that new research project. 'What time?'
'7:30?' Will he have enough nerve to come? she asked herself.
'Okay,' Will she let me do it to her? he asked himself.
That night it seemed as if everyone was watching him as he walked the two blocks to her house. He stood uneasily on the doorstep and rang the bell. As soon as she opened the door, he escaped inside.
'Come,' she said.
She had on some fancy lounging pajamas in a slinky material that moved sensuously with every step she took. Her smooth undulating buttocks fascinated him. What law of engineering did they operate under?
The room was way in the back of the house, isolated from the other rooms. He felt a little shocked as he stepped into it and saw the bed. This was her bedroom!
'Drinking?' She held up a bottle of wine.
Doug nodded casually. He thought, anything you can do, I can do.
A stereo on the wall was blaring rock-n-roll music. 'Let me, baby, baby, won't you let me?' the young voice sang sensually to the pounding beat. Doug felt his heart begin pounding.
Angie smiled slyly as she handed him the large wine glass filled to the brim. She held up her glass in a toast. 'To your health,' she said and drank.
Nervously, Doug gulped the wine down, hardly tasting its sourness. Angie refilled his glass. Her liquid brown eyes were excited. They kept looking at him expectantly.
What did she want of him? 'Did you get a book?'
'Oh, I meant to tell you,' she said casually. 'My mother doesn't allow me in the office. We'll have to break in.'
'Break in?'
'You're supposed to be a genius,' she cooed. 'It isn't that hard to pick locks, is it?'
'Depends on the lock. I don't have any tools with me.'
They went to the front of the house and Doug inspected the office door. He shook his head. 'The spring is too heavy. It would take me two or three hours to open it.'
'Damn!' Angie said impatiently.
'Any other openings to the office? Doors? Windows?'
'No other doors. There are windows in two walls, the front of the house and the side.'
'Let's go out and look them over.'
Outside, Doug decided it would be easier and less conspicuous to climb the tree on the side of the house and try to open the side window. He climbed up the tree and walked along the branch toward the window. The limb was weak and every time he neared the window, he would dangle just out of reach of the window sill. He bounced several times before he finally caught the sill; then he laboriously pulled himself up until he had both elbows on it. Gently, he pushed at the window, hoping it was unlocked. It was. He pushed it open and scrambled inside.
Angie ran inside the house and Doug let her in the office. Together they read the titles of the books on the shelves. Encyclopedia of Sexual Behavior looked promising but turned out to be a book of definitions. Sterility and Its Treatment contained nothing of interest at all, at least, what they could understand of it. The Principles and Practice of Gynecology had some large diagrams of female genitalia drawn from about every angle. However, the pictures were so detailed that both Doug and Angie got lost trying to understand them.
'Doesn't your father have any easy books?' Doug asked despairingly. 'Something for beginners?'
'He might at the hospital. I don't know.' Books, she thought contemptuously. How much do you learn from books? Damned little!
'There's only one other way,' Doug said, eyeing her tentatively. Will she or won't she? he kept asking himself.
'What?' she asked innocently. Does he mean what I think he does? She didn't know him well enough to guess.
'Try it,' he said firmly. He was shaking inside, waiting for her explosion. Suppose she laughed at him?
Angie stared boldly back into his eyes. 'How much do you know about it?'
He might as well take the chance. 'Nothing. How much do you?'
'Nothing.' I might as well admit it, she thought.
'Well?' he said matter-of-factly, 'are you game?'
Her eyes recognized the challenge in his. 'If you are.' Can I go through with it? She wasn't sure.
'Let's go back to your room.'
They carefully arranged the office as they had found it and went out the door, setting the handle, so it would lock behind them.
Back in her bedroom, Angie opened a dresser drawer. 'I'll put a nightie on.'
'You don't need one. It's better naked, they say.'
'I'd rather.' She dropped her eyes and rushed past him to the bathroom and closed the door.
Doug felt curiously abandoned. He undressed slowly, piece by piece, and waited, sitting on the bed. Time passed and he shivered. Was it anticipation or was it cold? His mind was racing. Was he really going to find out what sex was like? He hadn't thought his chance would come so soon. He glanced at the clock on the nightstand. 8:30. Angie had better start moving, he couldn't stay much longer. And he was getting cold.
An idea came to him. He went over to the dresser, rummaged through a drawer, picked out a frilly short nightgown and put it on. He knocked on the bathroom. 'Angie? Angie?'
No answer.
He tried the door knob gently. It turned. He opened the door slowly and peeked in. Angie was sitting on the toilet, staring at the floor in front of her.
Doug stepped into the bathroom, walked into her line of vision and stopped.
Angie's eyes slowly took in the long bony feet; they followed up the hairy skinny legs and on up to the bony knees just below the edge of the ruffle. Then her eyes jumped to his face.
Doug simpered. 'When is the slumber party going to start?'
He looked so grotesque pretending to be a girl that Angie had to laugh, 'Now. I'll be right out,' she said when she could stop laughing.
'Hurreee,' Doug said in a forced feminine falsetto. 'I've got so much to tell you. And we've got so much to do!'
Angie started laughing again and motioned him out.
Doug fluttered his fingers goodbye to her and clowned like a showgirl before he closed the door. He grinned to himself as he slipped out of the nightie and climbed into bed. He laid his glasses on the nightstand. The price one had to pay for a woman! He felt old and experienced.
Angie bustled into the room, avoiding his eyes. She turned down the stereo. 'It's too light in here.' She turned off the lamp; the room became black. Shyly, she climbed into bed beside him.
