Songbirds
The
Ballad of Bridget and Brian 
Kitty Schooley
Chapter
3
Turtle Doves
Table of Contents
Chapter 11
Getting Cocked and Cock Fights
We set up in his basement. Their house did not have the finished rec room like my house and we were on concrete floor, under rafters, and among the items stored for years at a time. We studied the manual with our heads bent together, and went over all the switches, buttons and stops the salesman had shown us. Playing was something I had to get use to. The feel of the keyboard was different and the sounds it produced were unlike the piano. I watched Brian as he explained something; guitar in his lap, his fingers spread wide in an encompassing gesture except for his thumb and forefinger that held his pick. I realized that he was completely serious about this idea. My brain felt like it was in a whirlpool, drained of any power to think a logical thought. I commanded my hands to listen to Brian and do as he said. He sighed and said, “Let’s take a break.”
He went upstairs. I sat there my fingers touching the keyboard but not playing studying all the buttons, switches, stops and lights as if I’d never seen them before. Brian slid on the bench backward again like he had the night before. “What ya thinking about.” I had been so focused on chasing my thoughts, I hadn’t heard him come down and set down the tray with snacks and refreshments. I looked up startled at his voice. His eyes danced over me. Was I imagining it? I had decided I would partake of his dream, but I had to know where we stood as a couple. Was last night an aberration? That day the hugs he gave me I could have seen him give his sister, Tracy.
I swallowed hard. “I thought last night we were going to be boyfriend and girlfriend.”
“Oh, Bridget, we’re so much more than that.” He encircled my waist again and kissed me softly on the lips. “I love you.” I felt like warm water was sluicing down my body. “Wanna come over after supper? I gotta baby-sit my bratty brother, but we’ll pay him to stay out of our way.”
“You just spent all the money you had!”
“Then we’ll tie him up and put him in a closet. Say you’ll come over.”
“Yes,” I said and he kissed me again.
“But now it’s practice time. You got a new instrument to get use to, OK?”
“OK.” Assured of his feelings, I could concentrate on the matter at hand and began enjoying making music with my love.
That night when he answered the backdoor, he smiled broadly at me. The light caught the metal wire of his retainer fencing in his teeth in. I wondered why I hadn’t even notice them the night before as my tongue pushed past his teeth. Maybe he had forgotten them as I recalled scenes of his mother always complaining that she didn’t spend all that money having his teeth straightened to have him mess it up by not wearing his retainer. Perhaps it had been a part of him that I had become so use to over the past year since he had his braces removed, that I simply hadn’t noticed. I was looking at him with new eyes now and noticing every detail. I wondered about how unlucky it was to inherit both a big nose and crooked teeth. The teeth were fixed now, and I supposed the nose could be eventually, but I didn’t want him to change too much. He took my hand, closed the door and pulled me into the middle of the kitchen. Only the light over the sink was on and it cast a strange glow throughout the room. “We lucked out. Chris decided to sleep over a friend’s.”
I imagined the scene in which his mother told him the little brother he was supposed to baby-sit had other plans. Brian would contain the excitement at the opportunity to be alone with me. His mother might ask him if he was going to do anything. He would say since he planned on baby-sitting he had no plans and would just stay home, watch TV or listen to music. The blood in his veins would have vibrated and pounded as first his parents left to drop off Chris and then go to their function. Then his sister, Tracy, would have peeled out in her car since she was eternally late. The music now wandered out of his room and down the hall to find us.
He encircled my waist, pulled me close to kiss me. He nuzzled my neck and said something. At that moment, I was not sure what it was. I know now that what he said was, “I want to see you naked.”
He took my hand again, guided me down the hall to his room. I had never been passed where the bathroom opened up to the hall. We crossed the threshold. Typical of two brothers who shared a room, there seemed to be a DMZ down the center of the room. Brian’s side was nearest to us and had his bed, dresser, night table, and desk. Stereo equipment and albums were strewn across the tops of all. Chris’s side showed the age difference of four years and had more youthful concerns of sports, games, and erector set toys. Only a small bedside lamp lighted the scene.
“Can I take your coat?” I unbuttoned it, shrugging it off my shoulders, hearing my house keys jingle in my pocket as I did. He took it and casually tossed it over the back of his desk chair. Suddenly he had me pinned against the door with a passionate kiss. He was learning fast, or perhaps he had experimented with some other girl who would have been less threatening because he wouldn’t have loved her. I wondered endlessly why he had waited so long.
I felt him fumbling with my buttons. “No, Bri, I. . .” Though I longed to be with him in that way, there were two big reasons I wanted to wait. Foremost I did not want to go to my parents with a hangdog face and explain that I was pregnant. Secondly, I was afraid that somehow if we did it, he would know what Roger had done. I was ashamed. My whole world had turned inside out and upside down since the past weekend. I used the argument that I thought would get most to Brian. “If I get pregnant, we’ll never have a band.”
“I promise. We won’t go all the way. We’ll just touch each other. Pet each other. Ah, gawd, I know it sounds like what any guy would say to try to get the girl he was with naked, but I mean it. I don’t know how else to put it. I love you, Bree-gee.”
I looked up at him, forest green meeting storm cloud gray. That was the first time he called me Bree-gee. Plus I realized in all the time I had been with Roger he had never said he loved me. I assumed he did, and paid for my mistake with my virginity. My fingers nibbled at Brian’s shirt buttons like moths trying to eat away the cloth.
“You want me to go first?” He grinned broadly at me. I bit my lip and nodded. He quickly undid the cuff buttons, front placket, pulled the tail out and shrugged it to the floor. In another sweeping motion he pulled his T-shirt over his head and dropped that.
I had seen him like that before. Many times mowing lawns, his back burning and sweating in the sun, his muscles bunching and unbunching as he pushed the mower. But in my upside down, inside out world, it was as if I had never seen him before. There was a ‘T’ of hair from nipple to nipple and down the center. I traced it with my fingers, stopping at the natural barrier of his navel. The hair continued down into his pants, but shyness forbad me to go further. I noted how his hipbones protruded above the hip-hugger pants we used to wear in those days. He was lean with youth. He took my hand. “Your turn,” he said and my hand trembled. He felt the vibration. “Want some help?” I looked down at the half-unbuttoned shirt and saw him working the rest of them loose. I pulled the tail out and he slid it off my shoulders. My shirt joined his on the floor. His eyes caressed me. He put his finger on my bra strap and traced down the front ‘V,’ biting his lip. I reached in back, and he said, “No, let me.” He reached back and unfastened the closure with clumsiness that spoke of his inexperience. He pulled the straps down and once I was revealed, he sighed. “You’re beautiful.” Dew collected on my breast and nectar dripped from my nipples. He bent down to savor the nectar. No, that was all adolescent imagining, and I bumped uncertainly against the door. He looked up from the nipple he had just kissed, “Maybe we should move.” He indicated the bed and I nodded. My throat was so dry, words stuck mid-way and I hadn’t gotten one out.
He took my hand and we left the rubble of clothes at the door. When we got to the side of his bed, the record changer clicked off. He put up a finger, “Don’t forget where we were.” I stood there uncertain if I should cover my breast with my hands and arms and ended up just fidgeting. He put on Carole King’s Tapestry album. He turned toward me again and put his hands on my hips and kissed me. I finally knew what to do with my arms that was put them around his neck. As my skin met his, I felt like photographic flash powder going off all at once.
“I love you,” I said. I realized that for a year and a half we had loved each other and never acknowledged the obvious.
He slid his hands around to the front of my belt buckle. He smiled an impish grin. “Want me to go first again?”
I looked down, wondering at what point it would be obvious to Brian that I had been with Roger. Brian was playful, like we were two kids playing doctor and he was only too anxious to show me his. He quickly undid his buckle, snap and zipper, and slid his pants, underwear and socks off in one motion. He stood there before me, his manhood saluting. When Roger and I had been naked together, I didn’t want to look. With Brian I was intrigued. It seemed natural to want to study him. I wanted to feel his cock, because it looked so strong and proud. I had only seen baby ones, usually limp, when changing diapers. To touch it without invitation would have been too forward and would speak of experience I didn’t want him to know I had. Instead, I fiddled nervously with my buckle. “Want me to help again?” He smiled delighted, then pulled me into his arms. I could feel his cock pressing against my abdomen. He kissed me and I could feel my nipples tighten. My skin tingled for every millimeter that was pressed against his bare chest. He loosed his hold, reached down and undid my buckle, snap and zipper of my pants. He didn’t do it with finesse, but with an urgency that was contagious. He reached around back, inside my pants and squeezed my bottom. He sighed something unintelligible.
I felt out of control. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. I pressed my cheek against his chest. “Oh, Bri.” I couldn’t manage any other words than that.
“Com’on.” He let loose of me and lay down on his bed. He was stretched out with his hands cradling the back of his head, smiling up at me.
I felt like it was someone else who pulled my shoes off, slid my pants, panties and socks to the floor, but it was I. Someone else crawled into bed next to him and put her head on his shoulder, because I hid scared in corner of my mind.
He lifted my face to his. He smiled at me and kissed me. What he lacked in experience and technique, he made up for in enthusiasm and delight of discovery. Every sigh, moan or groan I made encouraged him. He nibbled at my ear, tongued it. Moved to plant kisses at the base of my neck. He made rows and columns of kisses over my breast, took the nipples in his mouth. He even kissed and tongued my navel. His hand moved down between my thighs. I opened my thighs like a flower accepting a bee or a butterfly, I accepted his touch. His fingers slid in and out of the slippery moisture. My hips did a dance I did not know they knew. I knew that if he had rolled on top of me at the moment, I wouldn’t have stopped him. Then there was something strange. It was like hearing a light or color, or seeing a sound. I exploded into thousands of pieces of bright confetti, but somehow was melded whole after. “What happened?”
“You’re kidding, right?” I shook my head. He smiled. “Well, I’m no expert, but I think you just came for the first time.” I wanted him to hold me tight and never let me go. “Girls? I thought. . .” Sex education was severely lacking in anything more than mechanics. They explained women’s cycles, when you were most likely to get pregnant. But orgasm and climax were associated with ejaculation that meant male. They never tell you how pleasurable it is, or how much you’re going to want to do it. “What about you?”
“You can help.” He took my hand and placed it over his cock. His eyes rolled back and he bit his lip.
“How?”
He put his own hand around it, and moved up and down the shaft a few times. Then he put my hand back on. “I’ll tell you if you should go faster or slow. Harder or gentler. So don’t worry about doing anything wrong.” Brian was used to instructing me in music and now we were just making a different kind of music. I wanted to please him, but after a while I began to think this was why guys had bigger muscles because reportedly they did this often. Finally, he made a sound that he didn’t swallow. I realized what had happened the night before, why he had acted the way he did. He was embarrassed because he had cum in his pants!
I put my fingers in the sticky cream on his belly. “So this is the stuff that makes babies?”
“Half of it. The other half’s in you. So we just keep ‘em apart like this. . .” He kissed my brow. “I’d better get a towel.” He pushed up abruptly. I wondered if I should get up and get dressed, but he was back before I could make a decision. He handed me a hand towel for my fingers, and lay back down next to me. We cuddled and kissed. I was surprised to find that we were both getting excited. I thought once done, sex was not repeated for some time. After all, if the average was twice a week, that made the time span between two or three days. And Roger’s interest in me had immediately plummeted. So when he was erect between us again, and I longed to have him touch my pleasure center, I giggled. “What?” he asked.
“I didn’t know we’d be doing it so soon again.”
“Let’s try new stuff,” he breathed in my ear. I stiffened, because I thought he meant full intercourse. “Not that,” he cooed comfortingly. He kissed me like before his making patterns over my body until his head was between my legs. He gently separated my folds with his fingers. Every motion, timid, shy and showed inexperience but also enthusiasm. He breathed on my button, tested gently with his tongue. “It’s sweet.” Then he kissed and tongued again. I thought I would die if he kept it up and die if he didn’t. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew he smiled inside. My body went into a contraction; my head went up toward his and my thighs closed in on his ears. I had flashed into and out of eternity for a moment once more.
He crawled up over me and kissed me, my own self fresh on his lips. The taste was tangy, but not bad as I had thought. His smile told me what he wanted. Roger had asked. I had refused. My logic was that he peed out of that thing. But I wanted to please Brian. He had just done what I thought was unthinkable to me. “I don’t know how.”
“I didn’t either. I just figured it out. You can if you want to. But you don’t have to.”
“I want to.” He knelt closer to my head and I got up on my hands and knees. I kissed the tip. It was about the same texture as his lips, and there was no bad taste. I decided that I loved this young man and this was part of him. I wanted to show him how much I loved him and his most precious body part. I tried things: putting my lips over the top, moving back and forth, tonguing around the tip, using my hand to caress the sacs below and then moving my hand up and down the shaft. He grabbed strands of my hair like two reigns, and we were galloping toward his ecstasy. He groaned and thrusted toward the back of my throat. The creamy substance I had examined on his belly was now in my mouth and on my lips.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Why?” I grabbed the towel to clean up.
“Hmm, the old joke about not coming in your mouth? I didn’t think you’d want me to.”
“I don’t know it. It wasn’t that bad. A bit salty’s all.”
He smiled at me. “You’re the greatest you know that?” I was beginning to get the clue.
I looked at his alarm clock. “I should go. I said I’d be home by 10:30.”
“I’ll get dressed and walk you home.”
We didn’t see each other the next day due to family commitments. It didn’t matter. I felt him with me in thought. I imagined he felt me, too. He called me late when we couldn’t talk long. He said, “I missed you.”
Monday morning at the bus stop, Brian kicked at hard clumps of frozen ground. I looked beneath the veil of hair into the gray eyes. I could no sooner read those eyes than the low gray clouds that hung in the sky that day threatening rain, freezing rain, or snow. I chewed my lip, willing him to remember that we were something more now. He complained that relatives at the family gathering he had been at had hassled him about his hair. He hated going to those things. They used to pinch his cheek and smear lipstick on him, and now they derided him about his hair. They didn’t understand. His parents had finally laid off, but the rest of the family might never.
I wanted him to say things to me that would make me giggle like the other girls who had boyfriends. I wanted to bat my eyelashes at him and act coy. But he wasn’t even in the same theater as me, much less on the same stage.
We got on the bus, sitting next to each other automatically. I pushed close to him trying to get a reaction. He sighed. “Whacha thinking about?” I asked.
“What we need now. A bass player. Drummer. Where to find them.”
“Who’s going to sing?”
He looked directly at me. “We are. ‘Course maybe the bass player will be able to. Hey, I hear Paul McCartney’s not with Beatles anymore. He sings and plays bass. Maybe we could get him.” Brian formed his lip into an ‘o’ and did the famous head shake. We laughed. I pressed closer again. Our eyes met.
He put his arm around me. He nuzzled in my ear. “If I kiss you here. . .” he said in a low sultry voice. Then he leaned around and kissed me anyway. He hid his face in my hair. I looked down. I noticed how tightly he grasped his books, the spiral bindings cutting into his fingers. I realized he had an erection, and I felt a surge of power go through me. If I could turn him on so easily, when he didn’t even want to be, then he must love me. So my adolescent logic went. I sat there quiet in my confidence. The insecurity of less than a quarter of an hour ago dissolved.
Brian had relaxed and willed himself into a neutral state by time we arrived at school. Once inside the doors, he started to walk away from me as he had hundreds of mornings before. “Bri!” He turned and nearly fell over me because I had quickened my pace to be right at his heel. I looked up pleading him to make the unofficial announcement. He put his hand on my cheek, leaned over and kissed me. I heard a few tongues click, so I knew it was having the desired effect. By time we left school that day, everyone would know we were an item. “I’ll see you later.”
He rubbed his knuckles gently against my cheek then chucked me under the chin. “Hey,” he said at a loss for words. I read I love you in his eyes. I hoped that he could read it in mine.
I was right about the effect the kiss would have on the school grapevine. However, there was one consequence not calculated. After lunch, I had English with Roger and company in my class. When the ending bell rang, Mrs. O’Malley stopped me to ask me a question as everyone filed past me. When I got out to the hall, it was empty except for Roger. “What were you doing with that weasel this morning?”
“It’s no concern of yours,” I said and tried to step past him.
His athletic prowess showed, and he blocked every effort I made. I gave up, sighed and leaned against a locker. “You’re mine until I say you’re not.”
I looked up at him burning with anger. “You said that last week!”
He leaned against the locker with his outstretched palm. “I said we’re not going out last weekend ‘cause I had plans. Grandma came to town.” I knew he was lying.
“Get away from me!”
“Lose the weasel. Or I’ll smash him!” An evil smile crept over his face. “Better yet, I’ll tell him.” As much as I worried that Roger would leave Brian a helpless heap on the ground someday after school, I worried more that Brian would learn the truth about Roger and me: that Roger had done the famous four ‘F’s on me (find ‘em, feel ‘em, fuck ‘em and forget ‘em). He had seduced me and then quickly dropped me. The only reason he wanted me back now was the game wasn’t going his way. He looked triumphant as he turned away from me. Something primal stirred in me. There was no moment of logic. My books dropped to the floor in a loud echoing crash. I leaped up on his back grabbing him around the neck. He dropped his books, making another noisy bang. He swung around, slamming me into the bank of lockers. I lost my grip and slid to the floor. He was facing me, squatting to pick up his books. “You’re crazy, y’know.” He wasn’t looking, so I pushed off from the lockers and head butted him on the shoulder. The books went flying and we were sprawled on the floor. I dug my fingernails into the first exposed flesh that presented itself: his pretty face. He grabbed me by the wrist, twisted and tried to pin my arms to the floor. I kicked him in the knee. I figured he might be able to pin two limbs, but not all four. I forgot he had four also, and was stronger than me. He was working to pin my legs with his and my arms with his hands, but I was making him work for it. I scratched or kicked with every opportunity that came not caring where it landed as long as it landed some where on his body.
Then I heard a voice. A deep male voice that belonged to our vice-principal. “Mr. Stone!” He was accompanied by what was known at our school as the goon squad: the three largest and most intimidating male teachers. As they pulled Roger off of me, the vice-principal helped me sit up. “Ms. McIntyre, are you all right?”
I suddenly felt the side of my face where it had hit the locker. “Ah, he whacked the side of my face.” No one thought to blame me. I don’t think Roger would like to admit a girl had started a fight with him and managed to do as much damage to his face as I had. I noted the blood dripping from the places I had raked his face and the rueful look he had as they escorted him away. I wouldn’t see him for three days, as he was suspended for attacking me in the hall. He also would not see the beginning of the baseball season. I got some perverse pleasure in taking that away from him, as he had taken away something from me I could never get back.
I was taken to the nurse's office and given a bag of ice for my face. Of course everyone knew by the end of the day. The news was too big and our school too small. “Wow,” Brian said lifting his hand to my face, but not really touching it.
“You should see the other guy,” I kidded.
“Guess you’ll be really good if the fans get outta hand.” Then more quietly, he said, “He was really mad about us. I didn’t think it would matter to him.”
“It’s over. Matter-of-fact, it should’ve never started. Guess I had to learn the hard way.” I looked down at the floor. “I’m sorry, Bri.”
“What for?” He put his arm around my shoulder gingerly. “He’s the son-of-bitch.”
Because you were the one who should’ve gotten my cherry I thought. You were the one who deserved that honor. “Yeah, I just didn’t think you wanted a girlfriend with bigger muscles than you,” I turned to humor to save me.
“Bree-gee,” he whispered. “You’re exactly what I want.” We walked linked together to our bus.
© 2005 Kitty Schooley
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Broken Shell
