Chapter 5
Till and Jack had their first date the following J night, and the tone of the occasion was set by the young man when he made a remark right after they left the office, about the classic connotation of their names.
"We ought to go out and climb a hill," he said with a grin.
"I guess that would be innocent enough," Jill replied.
"Depends," Jack said. "There are two versions of that old rhyme, you know."
"No, I didn't. How does the other one go?"
"I shouldn't tell you," he said. "Besides, you might take the words as an insult. I had nothing like that in mind."
"Now I really have to know."
"Okay. But the part about the money that certainly would have nothing to do with us."
"Tell me how the rhyme goes."
He told her: "Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water; Jill came down with a five-dollar bill; do you think they went for water?" He smiled.
She looked straight ahead.
"Are you insulted?" he wanted to know.
"Not exactly."
"Good. Because I know you aren't the sort of girl who would take money."
"I'm not the sort of girl, period," she snapped back.
"Oh. Well, pardon me all to pieces." He laughed, as if the entire exchange had been a joke, and hugged her around the waist.
Jill quickly abandoned her pique, and the drive to a restaurant, several miles out of town on the Boise highway, was a pleasant one. After eating, they drove on to the city and picked out a show.
Jill knew Jack would make a play for her that night, even though this was their first date, and she was prepared to let him go just far enough to keep him interested, no farther. There was a certain skill necessary to the game. She had to build him up high, so that when the climactic time arrived there would be the greatest possible excitement.
Jack practically ignored her during the show. He didn't press his leg against hers, take her hand, or try to caress her around the knees. He was too cool for such baby games. He figured, in spite of the way Jill had talked, that she was as hip as he and as ready to do what Nature had equipped them for. Either that or she was a teaser. If she merely liked to tease, he vowed to give her some education before the night was over. He would teach her not to tease a guy who knew the score.
After the show Jack invited her to go to a bar, but she demurred. Jill didn't care for the feeling liquor gave her, and on a date this interfered with her enjoyment of the game she played with men.
Jack didn't care, though he'd thought a little booze might loosen her up. They ended up at an ice cream store where they had a pair of mile-high sundaes topped with cherries and whipped cream. '
After they had returned to his car a three-year-old Plymouth he grasped her arm and drew her close to him. "Anybody would think you didn't like me," he said, "sitting way over there."
She smiled warmly as her hip came up against his. "This better?"
"Much."
"I didn't want to be too forward," she explained.
He looked at her the compelling pertness of her expression, the creamy texture of her skin, her wide, mobile lips, the hint of mischief in her eyes and he pulled her into his arms. He felt her breasts against his chest and they were like balloons filled with water.
His left hand went all the way down her side and grasped her at the right hip as she met his eager lips with her own.
Their tongues immediately kissed, and this convinced Jack that he had not been mistaken about the girl. One of two things had to be true: Either she was ready to go and awaited only a touch of the button, or she was out to tease him to the nth degree before she uttered the final and implacable no. He considered the latter possibility because he had known teasers before. After he had gotten through with them, they had been wiser, if not necessarily sadder, girls.
Now he was leaning forward and pressing Jill back against the car seat, his tongue drilling at her lips while his left hand made forays up and down her side. Her front remained jam-packed against him. She moaned a little and clutched him at the back, and she did nothing at all to restrain his hand.
He dipped under the hem of her skirt, felt her petticoat lace brush against the backs of his fingers, and slipped along the warm length of her nylon. He found the top of the stocking, traced the rim around her leg, and toyed for a moment with the clasp of a garter. She lifted her leg slightly, and he petted her there as well.
She moaned in her throat. Then, gently but persistently, she dislodged their mouths and pushed him away.
She was breathing heavily. "Ooo, you really come on!"
"Let's go to some place that's not so public," he said as he straightened himself behind the wheel. (They were parked on a side street in the central section of Boise at the time.)
"Just what did you have in mind?" she asked, and the husky warmth of her voice excited him further.
His glance read warmth in her eyes also. But there was something else there. He couldn't figure out exactly what this was. "How about a motel?" he suggested.
"There you go again," she said, "thinking I'm that sort of girl."
He started the car and pulled away from the curb. "You kiss like you know what lips were made for."
"But I'm no quick make. You'd better get rid of that idea about me."
"You have a way of turning a guy on and off," Jack said. "One minute you're sweet, the next you act real warm and willing, and then you turn ice cold. Make up your mind, girl."
"My mind's made up. There's no motel ... tonight."
"I see." {Tease, he thought. That's got to be the answer, Well, just wait!)
They rode along silently for several minutes. Jack found the road to home and they started rolling in that direction. Jill was still seated against him he could feel her warm hip and the warm thrust of her left breast whenever he moved his arm but she wasn't giving him any further encouragement.
He'd had all the encouragement he needed, though. All and then some.
When they were well out of town on the two-lane highway, which was lightly traveled at that hour of the night, Jack began to watch for a likely turnoff.
Take, her up in the hills and show her who's boss he thought. That's the only way to treat a teaser. Stop the car and gave her a choice: On the car seat or on the ground. State your preference, baby!
Jill expected something like this and she was prepared. She just wanted to handle the situation in such a way that Jack wouldn't be too angry with her. She wanted to stop him without driving him off altogether.
He found his road, a narrow, unpaved one that ran along the edge of a pasture where there was a row of tall poplar trees. Perfect. He braked quickly and Jill lurched against him as he pulled the steering wheel to the right.
"Hey!" she said. "What's the idea?"
"We're going to stop and have a little talk," he told her. The car was lurching over the ruts. That road was giving the Plymouth's torsion bars a workout.
"Talk?" Jill echoed. "What about."
"Maybe the birds and the bees."
"Now, wait a minute..."
He pulled up and stopped beside the poplars. As he set the parking brake and cut the engine, there was utter silence except for the sibilant rustling of branches above them.
"Afraid?" he asked with a rakish grin as he turned toward her. "Not at all."
"Good. That must mean you've decided to give in."
"Jack, I told you..."
"Yeah, yeah. But there's a language that speaks louder than words."
"What do you mean?"
"The language lips and tongues speak to one another that doesn't make any sound. The language of a girl's eyes, and the way hands pull against a guy's back. The way she switches her fanny at him, too. And the way she feels when she's jammed against a man's chest."
"Oh-oh. I can see you have the wrong idea altogether."
"Not me, baby. I got your message and I'm prepared to follow through. If you didn't mean what you were saying ... well, that's too darned bad."
"All I have to do is tell my uncle," Jill stated calmly.
"You tell your uncle and I'd be out of a job, yeah. But that wouldn't bother me. I'm about ready to make a move anyhow." He paused. "That is, I was until you came along."
"I suppose I should feel flattered."
"Not necessarily. You know what a warm little item you are. I'm sure other guys have told you."
Jill looked straight ahead. "I think we'd better drive on, Jack."
"We will ... afterward."
"There isn't going to be any afterward, because there isn't going to be any during."
"Oh, there isn't, eh."
"That's what I said."
Jack had taken about all the talk he had patience for. He felt the time was right to put their relationship on a strictly physical plane.
He reached for her.
Jill's warmth came to him as before her soft, firm warmth which arched high on the front of her and was soft at her waist where his left hand pulled.
Her mouth was sweetly inviting, the lips pliant and parted. Jack brought his mouth firmly against hers and they merged. His kiss went deep. To his surprise, she responded warmly, just as she had done the first time.
He released her after a bit. "Well."
"You kiss good."
"That's not all I do good. You ought to try me."
"How can you talk about that so casually."
"Say, what's the matter with you? Do you have a problem?"
"How do you mean?"
"Some sort of block like you want to but you don't dare. Are you afraid?"
"That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard in my life."
"Well, something's wrong. I've known quite a lot of girls..."
"That's an old line, trying to make a girl feel she's different that she isn't in unless she gives in."
"I'm not giving you a line. I'm just trying to understand."
"Well, pardon me if I don't feel like carrying on a debate."
"What do you feel like doing? Tell me the truth."
"I feel like going home."
Jack looked at her for a long time. "Not yet. There was too much come-on in that kiss."
"Jack, I'm warning you ... "
He leaned closer. "Let's see where that come-ew leads us, huh?"
This time he pulled Jill jarringly against him, and instead of sending his mouth on a direct line to hers, he went for her neck, his lips parted, his teeth coming against her flesh. His warm breath struck her ear and his hands pulled her waist against him, causing her upper body to bend backward.
He kissed along the side of her neck, the front of her throat, and downward. His hands slid quickly up her front to grasp both of her breasts. He squeezed those firmly, then pressed his mouth to hers just in time to stifle her excited cry. Pleasure or protest? He wasn't sure. But she wasn't fighting.
He worked her breasts for quite a while as they continued kissing. The rubbing of his fingers across the summits of her thrusting globes told him that her nipples were becoming very hard.
All the while his tongue worked to persuade her: to show her what the feeling of male possession was like; to demonstrate the darting, sliding sensation that she could expect to know on a much more exciting scale when she gave in to him and let him do with her as he wanted.
He didn't really think she was a virgin ... but a guy never knew. If that was her problem, she could he persuaded. Every girl was a virgin once.
Now his left hand skittered down her side, past her waist, and onto her leg. He reached the hem of her skirt and he lifted it deftly. He lifted her petticoat, too, and moved his hand quickly up her stocking. He slid to her bare skin warm and smooth and slick. Oh, she felt good right there!
He didn't play around her stocking-top and garters as he had done before. Now he meant business. His hand went all the way and began to pet the snugly-packed nylon at her middle.
Jill started to fight.
When Jack's fingertips moved to the elastic barrier at the top of her leg and lifted it to crawl under, she pushed against his chest with all her might. Their kiss ended and she propelled herself to the opposite edge of the car seat.
"Oh, no!" she said, breathing heavily, her face flushed. "That's far enough!"
"Far enough? We've just gotten started."
"Well, kissing and a little fooling around is all right, but don't touch my panties."
"So that's the boundary line, huh?" He was breathing heavily too, and his eyes glinted in the moonlight as he sat half-facing her, gripping the steering wheel with his left hand, his right extending along the back of the car seat.
"I don't let any boy go further than that," she stated firmly.
"You never have."
"That's right."
"You mean you're a virgin."
"Yes."
"Well, I'll be dogged:"
"You ready to take me home now?"
He stared at her, and then he did something which surprised Jill. She hadn't expected him to give up so easily. He faced front and reached to start the car's engine.
They drove the rest of the way to Fruitvale in virtual silence.