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Welcome to the Church of The Reverend Cotton Mather. This story
is the sole property of the author, and may not be copied or downloaded
for the intent of profit. Permission is freely given for anyone to
download or copy for their personal pleasure or use, as long as there
is no intent to charge money or barter for the privilege of acquiring
this material.
(Copyright 2001, Rev. Cotton Mather)
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readers, so
drop me a line when you've finished the story.
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HARD PROMISE
Rev. Cotton Mather
- 10 -
The next few weeks were hell on me, but in my state of mind I didn't
much care if I was in pain or not. Actually, my attitude probably
helped me play football better, because now I had a nice, legal
outlet for the mayhem I wanted to inflict. I hit harder in practice
and during games, and jumped back up and asked for more if I was
knocked down.
Micki began dressing a little more conservatively, and stopped
hitting on other guys, seemingly having learned her lesson. On the
other hand, she turned her not inconsiderable charms in my direction,
trying to convince me through her sexual skills to be her boyfriend.
Brad and Jared and the other guys on the football team rallied
around me in support as much as they could, but I know that Brad,
at least, was taking considerable heat from Lindsey about our
continued friendship.
My class ring appeared in my locker one day, returned by Melissa,
who had not spoken a single word to me since our long distance phone
call. I heard through the grapevine that her friends were setting
her up with blind dates, trying to get her out of her depression,
but not many boys from our school wanted to get involved in this
bloody mess of ours.
Micki was not my girlfriend, despite her efforts to convince me
otherwise. I didn't call her in the evenings to talk, I didn't spend
a lot of time with her at school, I didn't hold her hand at lunch, I
didn't look for her on the sidelines during our games. She was a
receptacle for me, a cum receptacle. She did the work for me so I
didn't have to use my hand to jack off. Every Friday night, every
Saturday night, and one time on a Sunday afternoon, we managed to
meet somewhere to jump each other's bones. I ate her out, she gave
me head, I fucked her or she fucked me. But there was no feeling of
affection there, no inclinations of romantic attachment, no murmurs
of love afterward from me. Animal instinct took over as soon as I
felt her tits, or she shoved her hand down my jeans, and we just let
it happen. The only time any real emotion was shown was one Saturday
night when, having already blown my wad once down her throat, she
turned her slim ass toward me in invitation and said, "You want a
piece of ass, for real?"
I looked at her, not understanding, until she spread her cheeks for
me and slowly stuck a finger up her own butt. She looked back around
at me and said, "Got anything a little bigger you can use here?"
Just the thought of fucking her there made my cock stiffen, so I
started licking and kissing her ass and her pussy, spreading moisture
around. I paid special attention to her asshole, licking and drooling
all over it, all the while twisting my middle finger into her.
Finally she impatiently said, "Come on, stud, fuck me in the ass."
So I knelt behind her and rubbed my cock up and down her pussy lips
to add some of her oily slickness to me, and then I pressed the head
against her tiny brown asshole. I pressed forward while she held her
ground, and grunted when the head finally broke through her
sphincter into her.
"Oof," she said. "Go slow, Ray. Let me get used to it for a minute.
I've never done this before."
"What did you just say?" I asked in surprise.
"I've never done this before. Okay, Ray, I'm ready. Keep going in.
Ohhh, yeah, that feels good," she moaned as I flexed and pushed more
of my length into her. She was so tiny, barely five feet tall and
not even 100 pounds, and her ass was tighter than anything I had ever
experienced before. Looking down at her, it looked like she was trying
to stick a telephone pole up her ass. Slowly I was able to push about
half my shaft into her before I had to start pulling back out to
relieve the pressure. By the third time I had pushed into her, she was
taking most of my length, and her passageway was becoming slicker and
easier to move in. She was moaning and grunting with the effort of
taking me, her eyes closed and head thrown back, her long hair
cascading down around her face. Her forehead was sweaty, and strands
of her hair were stuck to her.
I, too, was grunting and sweating. I had my hands on her hips,
pulling her back onto me as I pushed in, then pushing on her waist
as I pulled slowly back out. It was a lot of work, but the results
were sure to be spectacular. As I watched, she reached down and
started diddling her clit, so I knew her orgasm was close. I struggled
to get as deep as I could in her, determined to shoot off with her if
I could. Suddenly, I felt her tense up. Her sphincter tightened on me
as she came, and I screamed as my cock expanded against her
constricting ring of muscle, then pumped painfully hard, unleashing
a torrent of sperm deep into her bowels.
Micki collapsed in exhaustion, and I fell breathless next to her.
After we had caught our breath, I asked, "What did you mean, you had
never done that before?"
Without looking at me, she answered, "Just what I said. You were the
first."
My brain was addled from spending the evening in carnal knowledge
with her. "What made you decide that tonight was the night you
wanted to pop that particular cherry?"
She turned her head away and didn't answer.
"Micki?"
No answer, no reaction. It was as if she had fallen asleep, which I
knew didn't happen. Micki really got energized, almost manic, after
sex. I, on the other hand, had trouble keeping my eyes open sometimes
afterward.
"Micki, answer me." I grasped her shoulder and rolled her over to me.
She resisted momentarily, and then allowed herself to be turned.
Tears were streaming down her face.
"What, Micki? Tell me what's going on," I insisted.
She sobbed, and it was if the dam broke. She put her hands to her
face and bent over as if she was in pain, the top of her head
pressing against my sweaty chest as she cried miserably.
"B...b...because i...i...it was the o...o...only thing I could g...g...give you,"
she hiccupped. "I...I couldn't be a virgin for you....and I
couldn't think of anything else..." she paused.
"Anything else what?" I asked, a little impatiently.
She looked up at me dejectedly. Her makeup was smeared from her
crying, her hair was plastered to her face, and the tears were
still coursing down her cheeks. Her eyes were red, and for the first
time I saw she had dark circles under her eyes. She looked miserable.
"I had nothing else to give you," she whispered. "Nothing else but
that to give you, to try to make you love me." She started crying
harder again.
You stupid cunt, I wanted to scream, you can't make me love you!
Almost immediately, however, guilt and common sense combined to make
me look at myself. I didn't like what I saw, but I was trapped in
this loop of my own making. I sat up and turned away from her, my
head in my hands, and surrendered to the depression that was
constantly hovering around me.
I just wished I could find my way out of this miserable maze.
HARD PROMISE
Rev. Cotton Mather
- 11 -
The next Friday night, after the football game, a big crowd was at
Fabrice's as usual. I had been feeling sorry for myself, and feeling
sorry for Micki, so I tried to act more like a boyfriend for her
sake, even though my heart really wasn't in it. We were sitting
together in a booth with Jared and Mattie, and for a change my mood
wasn't as black as it had been. I was almost having fun.
I got up to go to the john. As I was finishing up, standing at one
of the row of urinals, I heard the bathroom door open. I was just
zipping up when Donny Hammach, Brittany Felson's old boyfriend,
stepped up to the urinal next to mine.
"How ya doin', Kennedy?" he drawled. "How's your love life?"
"What's it to you, Donny?" I said. He was talking like he had
been drinking. Normally he was such a chickenshit, especially
after Jared had cleaned his clock when he broke up with Brittany,
that he wouldn't have said more than two words to me.
'Oh, just wonderin'," he said lazily. "By the way, mine's just
fine, thanks for asking."
"I didn't ask, and I don't want to know," I said angrily.
"Hey, it's all right, I don't mind you asking," he continued, as
if I had asked him to elaborate. "You wanna smell?" He held up
the middle finger of his right hand to me, offering me to take a
sniff. "No? Don't mind if I do." He raised his finger to his own
nose and inhaled deeply. "Ah, luscious," he sighed. He slipped
his finger into his mouth. "And tasty, too," he said, looking at
me craftily. "Tastes like a...hmmmm....like a Samuelson to me!" he
said gleefully.
Just the thought of this mope touching Melissa was enough to set
me off. In a rage, I grabbed the back of his collar as he was
standing there and pulled him back and down onto the restroom
floor. He was taken by surprise, before he was done urinating.
His flabby prick was still sticking out of his pants, and he was
peeing on himself. I dropped to my knee on his stomach, and he
let out with a breathy "Hoooofffff". I reached down and grabbed
him by the hair and pulled his head up toward me, my knee still in
his gut.
"If you want to stay alive, you'd better be telling me you're
lying," I said quietly.
"Take...it...easy...Ray...Let...me...up...can't...breathe..." he
gasped.
"Too fucking bad," I said. "Is it true?"
He didn't have enough breath to say anything, so he shook his
head violently from side to side, not caring that some of his
hair was coming out in my hands as I held on tight.
I let up on him just enough for him to take a long, panicky gasp
in, then pressed down on him again. "Are you going to tell me
what that was all about, then?" I asked.
"Yeah, okay, get off me first, will ya?" I clear look of panic
was starting to show itself in his eyes, which I liked to see.
"Nope," I said, smiling. "I'm not letting you up yet." But I
did let up on the pressure on his spasming diaphragm so he could
painfully take small breaths. "Talk, motherfucker."
"All right, all right," he said. He knew his situation was not
good, and his best hope was to come clean with me. That panicky
look faded a little, but he was still scared. "I got someone to
fix me up with her on kind of a blind date. We were out tonight,
but nothing happened."
"How much of 'nothing' are we talking about here, Donny?" I asked.
"Nothing nothing, goddamn it!" he cried. "She wanted to go home,
so I took her home. I tried to get her to at least kiss me good
night, maybe cop a feel, but, man, what a cold fish!" I pressed
down harder on him for that comment. "Hey, take it easy, Kennedy!"
he wheezed, the panic rising again in his eyes. "You wanted to
know what happened, I'm telling you. I thought you'd be happy she
was cold to me, for crissakes!"
"You're right, I should have known better than to think she might
have let a loser like you into her life," I said. I stood up and
looked down at him. "Get up, you human waste of skin. Can't you
see you're lying down on a filthy restroom floor? And by the way,
you pissed all over yourself," I said as I headed for the door.
Wow, I thought, now THAT put me in a good mood. All I had to do
was beat on someone not wearing pads, and I was happy. I laughed
as I sat back down again.
"What's up with you, Ray?" asked Jared.
"Let me take a look at your face," said Micki, grabbing my ear and
turning my head toward her. "Jesus, is that a smile I see there?
Where'd that come from? It looks so strange on that face."
"Cut it out, Micki. Can I help it if I'm in a good mood?" I said.
"Hey," said Mattie, looking past us toward the back of the
restaurant, "isn't that Donny Hammach coming out of the john?"
Jared looked up, his eyes narrowing. "Where? I told that
buckethead not to show his face anywhere near me or Brit."
"Hey, what happened to him? He looks like he fell into the
toilet. Oh, it's okay, Jare, he's leaving," said Mattie.
Jared looked over at me, a sudden realization dawning. "Was he
in there while you were there, Ray?"
I smiled at him happily. "Oh, yes, he was," I said with a grin.
"And did you assist in getting him to look like he does?" he
asked, smiling.
"Well, his parents had a lot to do with the way he looks, but,
yes, I assisted in his current state of disarray," I said.
We all burst out laughing, and Jared gave me a high-five. Kids
at the other tables looked at us, and were probably wondering
about what happened. The Ray Machine hadn't laughed in a long
time, and it felt kind of good.
By Thanksgiving, Micki and I had evolved into a more comfortable
relationship. We weren't as close as Micki probably wanted us to
be, but I had begun to appreciate her as an individual, and most
of my friends were accepting her.
The biggest fallout, other than Melissa and me, was that eventually
Brad and Lindsey broke up. Knowing Brad, it was probably
inevitable, but what happened at the campout accelerated the
disintegration of their relationship. Hardly missing a beat, Brad
asked Jared's sister Brittany out, and they were now a pretty
steady couple. Lindsey and Missy, from what I heard, did a lot of
double dating, but not with anyone steady. Missy still wouldn't
talk to me, but I was slowly getting beyond that.
Or, at least, I hoped I was.
Just before Thanksgiving, Marcus's two brothers, Jerry and Ev,
came home from college for the holiday. By Friday afternoon, the
day after Thanksgiving, the North High telephone tree was
a-shaking. It all kind of started right after Marcus called me,
around noon.
"Hey, Ray, Marcus here. How are you doing?"
"Okay, I guess, what's up?"
"Jerry and Ev are home. They told me what happened at the
campout. Why didn't you tell anybody, man? You were a fucking
hero, and you didn't say a word to anybody."
"Wait a minute, Marcus. What did they tell you?" I was a little
puzzled.
"They told my whole family about it at breakfast yesterday,
about how you fought off those two other guys and kept them from
raping Micki. Why didn't you tell us? You could have saved
yourself an awful lot of grief if you had just told us all about
what happened, Ray."
"I couldn't tell anybody, Marcus," I said. "Micki made me promise
I wouldn't tell anybody about it."
"Oh, man, I can't believe you kept that promise, buddy. It really
cost you."
"Well," I said, "it would have cost me more in the long run if I
hadn't kept my promise."
"I'm not so sure, Ray. But I admire you for keeping your
promise, despite all that's happened. Anyway," Marcus continued,
"I wondered why Jerry and Ev and their friends had just packed up
so quickly that morning and left without a word, and now we
know. Jerry says that that guy got back to campus in even worse
shape than you left him, and he ended up dropping out of school.
Jerry said that he was really impressed with the way you took care
of things, and told me to tell you that if you need a reference
to help you get into the university, that you've got it. Both he
and Ev, and that other guy Carl, are now huge fans of the Ray
Machine."
"Wow, that's really great of them, Marcus. Thank them for me,
will you? I really appreciate it."
"That's not all, buddy. The word is spreading. I think your
days as a pariah are over. Expect a bunch of phone calls, Ray.
There are a lot of kids who will be swallowing a lot of words
over this one. And Ray?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm a huge fan of the Ray Machine, too. That was a hell of a
thing you did for Micki."
"Thanks, Marcus. Thanks for calling."
Marcus was right. The rest of that night, and all weekend, the
phone hardly stopped ringing. Around midnight, Micki called,
very upset. We were on the phone for a good two hours, reliving
that night, while I tried to reassure her that nobody would think
she was a bad person. She was afraid people would see her as
dumb for being caught in the position she was in, and she was
afraid people would hold it against her that I had kept my promise.
I was finally able to convince her that she had no control
whatsoever over how I kept any of my promises, and she reluctantly
agreed that, now that the story was out, we could tell our version
of what happened in the woods.
I stopped answering the phone by the next day. Brad and Brittany
came over around noon, and we hopped into Brad's car and drove
over to pick up Micki. The four of us then headed out to a big
shopping mall in another town, just so we wouldn't have to run
into anybody we knew. We spent the entire afternoon shopping,
laughing and joking and deliberately keeping off the subject of
the campout.
After we were all shopped out (or at least Brad and I were shopped
out. I don't think either Micki or Brit could ever be said to be
"shopped out"), we stopped at a Chinese restaurant for dinner. We
passed around kung pao chicken, sweet-and-sour shrimp, Mongolian
beef, and vegetable chow mien in a frenzy of hunger, and
afterwards, over tiny cups of green tea, we talked, finally,
about that weekend.
"I can't believe that you refused to say anything, even to me,
that whole time, Ray," complained Brad. "You're my best friend,
and you wouldn't even tell me what went on that weekend."
"A secret isn't secret if someone outside the circle knows it,
Grasshopper," I replied.
"Ah, so," said Brad, smiling. "Is this Oriental wisdom you
picked up during your time in the monastery, oh wise one?"
'Nah," I said. "It's what my fortune cookie says." I passed
around my fortune for all to see.
"How appropriate," said Micki. "Here's mine."
She passed the slip of paper over to me to read. Behind her
smile, I could just detect the beginnings of tears filling her
eyes. I read the paper, and silently passed it around to
Brittany, who read aloud, "'That which was lost may soon be
found.' Very mysterious."
Brad cracked open his fortune cookie, popped half into his
mouth, and extracted the slip of paper from the other half.
"'Good luck smiles most often on the industrious.' Damn it,
I guess that means I'd better study for that physics test,
then. What about yours, Brit?"
Brittany opened her cookie, dropping both halves onto her plate
as she unfurled the scrap of paper. Brad immediately reached
over and grabbed the pieces of cookie and ate them.
"Well, mine seems to fit the occasion, too. It says, 'The boy
on your right must pay for your dinner.'"
"Hey," said Brad as he tried to grab the paper from Brittany's
hand. "Does it really say that?"
She moved her hand out of his reach, laughing, and said, "No,
Brad, I was just funnin' ya. It says, 'A true heart can move
the world.'"
"Well," said Brad, it sounds like we all got some little bits
of wisdom that fit our situations. So now what?"
We all sat there, thinking our own thoughts.
"I don't have a clue," I finally said. Micki reached out and
took my hand in hers. Her hand was icy cold, and I could feel
her trembling.
On the way home, Micki stayed snuggled up next to me, her head
down and resting on my chest as I held her. Every now and then
I heard her sniffle, and felt her breath catch, and I knew she
was crying, and trying not to let me know. Brad dropped us off
at my house, and we went down into the basement and turned on the
television. I kissed her tenderly as I held her, down there on
the old couch, trying to kiss away all the tears, the pain, the
uncertainty.
Silently we undressed, hardly looking at each other, until we
were both naked as newborns. We melted into each other, our
fingers and our palms, our lips and our tongues no longer needing
to explore, but rather needing to give comfort. Her cheeks were
salty with the tracks of her tears, and her tiny breasts and
expressive nipples were warm and inviting.
With a minimum of movement, a minimum of fuss, we positioned
ourselves on the couch. Her legs opened to envelop me, and
wrapped around my waist tightly as we made love. It was the
tenderest, quietest, sweetest time ever for us, and when we had
each worked to our climaxes, we kissed, eyes closed, and each
silently sent up prayers of thanksgiving and forgiveness.
In a reversal of our usual roles, Micki fell into an exhausted
sleep afterward. I, on the other hand, was up and awake. I
covered her with an afghan, and crept upstairs quietly. I needed
time alone to think things through before I woke her and took her
home.
HARD PROMISE
Rev. Cotton Mather
- 12 -
On Sunday morning, my parents and I got home from church to find a
car sitting in front of our house. When we walked from the garage
toward the house, a car door opened and Melissa stepped out. She
looked over the hood of the car, as if waiting for a signal of some
sort. I stopped when I saw her. My heart was beating fast, and
there was an empty feeling in my stomach. Finally, I looked away
from her, and continued into the house without acknowledging her.
I figured that if she wanted to talk about something, she could come
up and knock on the door, but I wasn't going to make it easy on her
by inviting her in.
Finally, after about fifteen minutes, the doorbell rang. My mom
opened the door and let Melissa in, and called up the stairs to me
to come down. Mom left Melissa standing by the front door instead
of inviting her in, an indication of her displeasure in seeing her
there.
When I came downstairs, Melissa was standing there, still wearing
her long wool coat. Her hair was pulled back into a severe
ponytail, and her face was very pale. She looked nervous.
"Hello, Ray," she said hesitantly.
"Hi. Why are you here?"
Tears started to form in her eyes at my harsh words. "I...I need
to talk to you."
"Why?"
"Why? Because Lindsey called me yesterday and told me what
happened."
"Okay, so Lindsey called you. Why do you want to talk to me?"
The tears spilled over and down her cheeks, but I don't think she
noticed them. "I...I...you..." And, like a summer squall
overpowering a hot and humid day, her face collapsed into a series
of sobs she could not stop. She stood there, hands to her cheeks,
looking forlornly at me, and cried.
As hard as I tried to be, I could not be that cold-hearted. I took
her hand and led her into the living room, and sat down beside her
on the couch facing the cold fireplace. I waited until the squall
passed, holding her hand passively, until she took it away to rummage
in her coat pocket for a tissue. She blew her nose and wiped her eyes.
"What happened, Ray?" she asked. "I want to hear it from you. I
don't want to hear it from Lindsey, or from Brad, or from Marcus, or
from anybody else. Just from you. What happened?"
"You want to know what happened?" I was angry, and she was about to
be the unfortunate recipient. "Okay, I'll tell you what happened.
You hung up on me, that's what happened."
She looked up at me, startled and hurt. Without a word, she stood up
as the tears began again, and strode to the front door. She opened
the door and never looked back as she walked down the sidewalk to her
car, got in, and drove away. The momentary satisfaction I felt when
I let my tongue wag before I put my brain in gear left me suddenly,
and I felt terrible. Maybe she deserved it, maybe she didn't, but I
should have been a bigger man than to let such pettiness take over.
I mentally kicked myself, and closed the door.
So of course, like a hangnail or a paper cut you just can't leave
alone, Missy's visit gnawed at me all day. By that evening, I was
irritable, unfit company for any other human in the vicinity. I did
the only thing I could do. I called her.
"Look," I said when she finally came to the phone, "I'm sorry I
treated you like that this morning. I really am."
"Don't apologize, Ray. I deserved it. You're right, I did hang up
on you, and I never gave you a chance to explain." She sounded
subdued, depressed, and near tears again. "I knew I could trust
you, and I still doubted. I thought I knew Micki, and I was eager
to put all the blame on her. Oh, God, now I have to call Micki and
apologize! Oh, God, I was such a raving BITCH to that poor girl!"
She started sobbing again.
I heard her mother in the background. "Melissa? Are you all right?"
Missy covered the handset and called out, "Yes, Mother. I'm okay."
Then, back to me, she said, "I don't know what to do, Ray. I don't
know how to fix this."
"I don't know if it's even fixable, Missy."
She sobbed again. With a hitch in her voice, she finally said, "I'm
so sorry, Ray. I love you." She hung up the phone.
Now I really felt like shit.
HARD PROMISE
Rev. Cotton Mather
- 13 -
As you are no doubt all too aware, when you're 15, or 16, or 17, or
18, emotions rule your world. The blackest day can be followed by
the most marvelous evening you have ever known, and it all seems so
natural at the time. It's only with the passage of years that you
look back on that time with a mixture of awe and humor that you
managed to live through those times relatively unscathed.
Yes, that one phone call opened up the lines of communication
between Melissa and I. Within a couple of weeks, we were actually
on friendly terms. The summer's upheaval, if not exactly forgotten,
was pushed into the background, where it mercifully faded away to
practically nothing. Melissa and Micki were never going to be best
friends, but they at least found a way to put aside their animosity
for my sake. I, on the other hand, faced a dilemma that kept me up
nights for a long time. I had learned to respect and appreciate
Micki, and maybe even to love her, during our time of stress. I
wasn't about to abandon her now, especially considering how fragile
she seemed to be. I couldn't help thinking, however, that maybe it
was Melissa who was supposed to be my soulmate. Wait and watch,
wait and watch was my mantra for a long time while I tried
untangling that lovers' knot. Eventually, I saw the solution, the
one that was probably there the whole time, waiting to be seen in
its elegance.
The Ray Machine saw a real surge in popularity, which culminated in
my election in the spring as Prom King, with Brittany Felson
reigning as Prom Queen. True to his word, Ev Delaney provided a
character reference for me that was almost embarrassing in its
praise, but it helped get me into the University in the fall.
And, of course, in the fashion of a good old romance, after I
graduated from college, I was proud to stand up and make my high
school sweetheart my wife, to love and honor and cherish forever.
HARD PROMISE
Rev. Cotton Mather
- 14 -
Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you:
She was surprised and delighted by my news when finally, after a
tender lovemaking session, I remembered to tell her about our
surprise vacation. She loved the idea of going to Bermuda on a whim,
and we both managed to get a week off from work.
And Bermuda was lovely, as delightful as she remembered, as beautiful
as she described. And on our last night there, we were standing on
the balcony of our hotel room, watching the sunset, when she turned
to me and took both my hands in hers. We were dressed for dinner,
enjoying a glass of wine before going down to the restaurant. In her
high heels, she was nearly as tall as I. Holding my hands, she
leaned closer and kissed me softly before whispering, "Darling Ray,
light of my life, holder of my heart, and now the father of our child."
I was dumbfounded. "What? You're...you're..."
She simply nodded, a small, secret smile on her lips, her eyes
glistening in joy, squeezing my fingers in hers.
THE END