"What happened?"
"Came along while I was parked," he said in that abbreviated way he talked when he wanted her to know somebody was listening. Speaking so softly she couldn't hear all the words.
"What?"
"Said to get out of here or he'd call the cops on me. Underage. Throw me in. Get it?" He was whispering and not making sense.
"But we haven't done anything. I'm still a VIRGIN," she said, louder than she meant to, the word echoing in her bedroom like a pistol shot.
"Said if I did. Go to jail 'n' that. Going to tell my dad. See I never drive again. He thinks it was Dad's car. Called here and left word with Mom. You gotta stop him."
"I can't stop him. He's a madman. He hit me on the way home and called me a whore and a slut and all this stuff. Told me I was a stranger from now on and all this junk. And I can never see you again." She was sobbing again in spite of herself. "I told that bastard —" She heard the door downstairs. "Gotta go. I'll call you tonight," she whispered, and hung up quietly and waited for the footsteps on the carpeted stairway.
She said nothing when he knocked on the partially open door.
"We have to talk this out, Tiff. May I come in? There's no point in you sitting there not talking to me."
She sat perfectly still. Saying nothing. Looking at nothing. Trying not to show him anything. Let the bastard talk and then get out.
"I'm very sorry I slapped you but you pushed me too far, is all. I've never raised a hand to you in my life, as you well know. But I'm not sure that was the best way to raise a young lady, seeing how things worked out.
"Still. I love you very much, whether you want to accept that right now or not. I hope you'll understand that it was a combination of seeing you about to make a mistake that could ruin your life" — she allowed herself a smirk as he said this —"and the bad timing of it, coming right in the middle of what I think of as a marriage accident. I mean, here we are sitting in the middle of the wreckage of our home life. Mom leaving and all that, and you pull something like this." He shook his head in disbelief.
"I meant every word I said in the car. You've become a stranger to me. You're willful, self-centered, and this thing now — you've become wild. Dangerously so. And all the money and the luxury and no siblings — it's been a mistake. And we're both going to change.
"I'm going to have to start being a father to you for real. I'm going to start laying down the law, and even though it's for your own good, I know you're not going to like it. I allowed your mother to make the rules before, and she didn't care enough about you to do it, and I was too busy with my work. And you've been allowed to reach your teenage years without any parental controls. It isn't your fault. It's my fault. But all that is over now."
She took a deep breath, letting it out real slowly to show him how boring he was.
"We're going to start with the telephone. I don't want you to call Greg again. Is that perfectly clear? You just called him a few minutes ago, didn't you? I mean, even after what we just went through, you couldn't stand to not hear his voice, eh? So I can't trust you anymore with telephone privileges." He walked over to her bedroom phone and took out a large pocketknife.
She turned away while he sliced through the cord. She made her mind an absolute blank.
"I'm sorry I have to treat you this way. But you obviously are unwilling to meet me halfway. I can no longer allow you to have money of your own. You'll be given a small weekly allowance for your school things. I don't want you going out of the house except for . . . "
She had tuned it all completely out. She let herself think about Greg and those eyes and those soft hands and sweet ways, and let her mind daydream about how it would be that first time. It was going to be soon, she promised herself. No matter what she had to do.
"... while I'm at it I'll take the pills and whatever they gave you in the clinic today."
And she heard him searching for her purse and opening it and going through it and taking things, and she had to fight to keep from laughing out loud.
She had terminal cabin fever by the time the weekend rolled around, and her dad finally left the house for the first time in days. She ran downstairs and phoned Greg's number and held her breath, fingers crossed, praying he'd be home. She heard him pick up the phone and say hello on the second ring.
"Don't ask questions," she urged him breathlessly. "If you want to make love to me, hurry over to the house and pick me up. I'll be down by the highway where you turn off, okay?"
"Huh? Oh, oh, yeah. Okay. I'll be right there."
"Hurry," she said, hanging up while he was saying, "Don't worry. I will." And she dashed back upstairs and put some fresh lip gloss on, which she didn't need, and a little eye shadow, which she almost never wore, and checked her hair, and sprinkled some more perfume on, and made sure the pills were in her purse, and scampered off across Ruffstone Terrace to the highway. One great-looking fourteen-year-old virgin-but-not-for-long.
"Hey," he shouted through the open window.
"You got here fast."
"I don't mess around," he said as she ran to the car and got in.
"You got your dad's car." She was surprised.
"He's not home. I didn't ask. He and Mom took the wagon."
"Where do you want to go?" She said it almost absentmindedly.
"Huh?"
"I want to make love to you," she said, turning in the seat beside him, snuggling as close as she could. "Now."
In less than five minutes he was pulling off the road behind a motel-and-restaurant he knew about, and popping open the trunk. He gestured for her to get out. "Come on," he said. He'd produced an old army blanket.
"Where'd you get that?"
"We keep it in the trunk. For medical emergencies." He smiled.
"Is that what we are — a medical emergency?"
"It is for me, angel," he said, helping her step over the barbed-wire fence at the edge of a little triangle of woods.
"I'll nurse you back to health," she told him saucily, taking his hand.
"Yeah," he said, husky-voiced, looking at the way the soft cords gathered around that beautiful, high, perfect ass of hers. He crushed her against him. "Let's get you out of those pants."
"Ummmmm."
"God."
"Oh."
"Jesus."
"Oooooooooohhhhh." Suddenly it all burst loose like a damn being dynamited. All the weeks of wanting and waiting. And he was trying to get her clothes off, pull the damn pants down, she was tearing at his shirt, and the traffic was whizzing by in the distance, and they fell down on the old blanket in the woods behind where the motel-and-greasy-spoon dumped its garbage, which was at this moment in the scheme of events just about the sexiest, hottest, most wonderful and lovely spot in the wide world of sports.
"You know how . . . long —"
"Nnnnnn."
"How long . . . I've been —"
"Oh. Oh, God." She'd waited so long for this. She'd always known that they were going to be together someday; she just hadn't dreamed it might be so soon.
"Oh, baby." His mouth was a hot fire and she let him burn her tongue with it and tried to match the inferno with her wetness.
"Jesus, God, oh." She was smooth and golden tan. He loved the feel of those long, sleek, perfectly smooth legs and he eased into her for the first time. Was there anything like a cherry, sexy-legged, tight little fourteen-year-old pony who was in love with your ass. Oh, she was so tight.
"I'll be gentle baby." Oh, yeah. I'll bust that cherry for serious. Oh, yes. Ram this big mother home. Man, a cat could scratch on that hard-on. "Oh."
"You're so beautiful," he told her, kissing her gently now as he banged into her, "you're — so — beau-tee- fullllll."
"I've wanted you for so long."
"Kiss." Her tanned skin was flawless, velvety, baby-soft, and so incredibly smooth.