Rehearsal


Home was…weird, after New York. All those invisible milestones.

I suspect we all go through this. You do or experience or accomplish something, and to your mind, that changes everything.

To the rest of the world, though, life goes on. It’s like, “Hey, I have a driver’s license!”

“That’s great, dear, take out the trash.”

“I’m in high school, that much closer to being a man.”

“That’s wonderful, son, now the lawn needs mowing.”

“I own a sylph! I caught her myself!”

“Great! Be sure to feed her and clean her cage and the following rules apply to her clothing and…”

Which is not to say that my parents ignored my achievements. They were nothing like Electra’s stories of barely-there parents.

It’s just… It seemed like they’d have noticed something basic had changed, there was something different about me, you know?

I went through it, a little, after Mrs. Branch took my virginity. I was now, by almost all measuring methods, a man, and still had to do the dishes after dinner.

I always kinda wonder if Jesus had to sweep up his dad’s carpentry shop, muttering how no one notices when you bring a stray dog back from the dead or cure your sister’s leprosy…

Whatever.

It really seemed like I cut a lot of notches in that one week. My first airplane ride, my first time in The Big Apple, my first time on television-NATIONAL television… And my best friend and I made passionate love. And it was so good.

Don’t get me wrong, I will always be grateful to Mrs. Branch for what she did, for me and to me, but I never felt like it was something we did together.

This… This was so perfect, and so beautiful. I wished I could write poetry.

But then again, maybe it was best as an invisible milestone. How do you tell people you fucked your pet? Everyone’s going to have an opinion about coercion or force or manipulation, no matter who started it.

And I started to wonder if I DID force this. I mean, I know I didn’t just force her to undress. And everyone would know I didn’t trick her into undressing. I can’t outsmart her unless I get her horribly angry first.

And I had no regrets the morning after. Or the flight home. Or that afternoon. I got a little uneasy at dinner. Mom and Dad asked about New York. We both talked about everything right up to the bakery and the cupcakes.

And then skipped to ‘we were so exhausted.’

And they treated both of us as if nothing had changed. And we fell into our normal at-home behavior. Just like it never happened.

Almost like it never should have happened.

And there was no one to talk to. How do I look a beautiful woman in the eye and ask if fucking her was a mistake? Especially since I never really questioned being intimate with Mrs. Branch.

On the other hand, of course, my pet syolph was still talking to me, so I couldn’t have screwed up THAT badly. She’d have let me know in no uncertain terms…

Then again, she hadn’t been nude in front of me since we got back. I didn’t know if that was a once-in-a-lifetime thing or if it was more ‘not under your parents’ roof.’

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Anyway, the days after New York were spent packing my room. Either packing things to put in the Tantive IV’s cargo hold or in storage in the attic.

I had a cousin living on the outskirts of Boise that we’d be staying with for a little while, until we could find a place of our own.

I was interrupted every so often to hammer a nail into a wall. Mom was rearranging the wall art to make a place for two framed diplomas.

She asked Electra’s opinion about the placement, too. Was this wall too showy, where people would see it as soon as they came in the door? Or would this wall look like we were ashamed of the accomplishments?

“I would think deeper into the house, myself,” Electra said.

“Why’s that, dear?”

“Because if every person that comes to the Loudon house gets a glimpse of the sheepskins, they’re going to be asking you who ‘Jennifer Beatty’ is.”

“Good point,” Mom said.

“They always are,” I said, shifting Mom’s signed Star Trek poster to the front hallway.

Then it was time to go to rehearsal.

It was just like the dream. Rows and rows of folding chairs in the middle of the basketball court, a stage at one end.

We were seated almost alphabetically. They fudged it a bit so that Jennifer and my seats were on the end of the rows.

So we took our places and practiced standing, sitting, filing.

When the first row stood, so did I, coming up to play stevedore, rolling her along in the line. They had a ramp placed alongside the steps.

We played with that a bit, finding that my backing up the ramp tipped her the least.

We also found that my going ‘vroom vroom’ before pushing was not going to be allowed, tolerated, permitted…

Jennifer argued that it was best to let the kids get it out of their system before the grownup ceremony. Bower rolled his eyes. I gunned the engine. And carefully rolled her back down the ramp to her seat and went back to mine.

If I timed it right, I got to my seat just as they told that row to stand up.



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Index

66. Let Me! (N)

68. Bonfire and Bullies