The Last of the Dogteam

by William W. Johnstone

  His slacks were down around his ankles and he stepped out of them, wondering how it happened so fast.

  Dream-like, they were on the bed, and Terry didn't remember getting there. His shirt was off and all he had on was his socks and T-shirt. He felt kind of silly. Vera was putting

  22

  one of those things on his jutting stiffness and then she was naked beside him. He touched a nipple, timidly, then cupped a round breast, feeling the nipple grow in his palm. Vera groaned, took his hand, and placed it between her legs. Right there! She was incredibly wet. 'You're ... I'm ... we're Catholic," iTerry gasped, as she touched his rubber-|povered hardness. "We're not supposed to use those things. Are we?"

  Despite her heat, and her longing for a I'man, Vera chuckled and moved under him, ;^asping him, guiding him. "Terry, don't be such a dumb-ass."

  Suddenly, boyhood began the sexual march to manhood as he'felt himself pulled into the ^: vortex of life, sinking into the soul of woman, exploring all the heretofore subtle mysteries and much talked-about and fantasized and masturbated dreams of, "getting some." j "Oh, my God!" Terry said, pumping his flips frantically, toes digging in the sheets, 'seeking leverage.

  'Not so fast, baby," Vera schooled him, ^calming his hunch ings. "Do it slow. Measure t. There! Right there. Now . . . make it good

  Vera."

  Her hands and legs and arms were all over i, so it seemed to Terry, enveloping him. mouth kissed his face and lips and neck. "God, you're all man," she said, pulling him to her, her breasts flattening on his "Terry-boy, you are a studl Now, do it

  23

  harder and faster!" She was panting out he* words, her phrases exciting the young man.

  Holy shitl Terry thought. I'm really doing it.

  "Slam it!" she panted in his ear. "Hard! All the way!" Her hips rose to meet his lunging and she shuddered beneath him, her hands tightening on his back.

  "Did you come?" Terry asked. "Is it over?"

  "Yes. No. Shut up."

  Terry felt certain he was hurting her with the force of his thrusts, but if he was, she liked it. Her tongue licked him like a cat and her face was contorted. His eyes were wide with sexual excitement and fright. He wondered what would happen should his father suddenly come bursting into the room, hollering. He wondered how many bones could be broken from being thrown out the second-story window?

  Time moved onward, the young man beginning to experience a slight feeling of nausea. Then he was cold, and he began to shiver in anticipation of climax.

  "Come, baby!" she urged him. "Come. We don't have much time."

  He exploded against the confines of rubber. Boyhood crumbled, then shattered, rebuilding into young manhood as Terry jerked and hunched. It was over. Terry collapsed on the softness beneath him. His initiation into sex was over, and he could scarcely remember any

  24

  part of it. He felt drained—which he was. He felt sick.

  "Oh, God, I'm going to throw up!"

  "No, you're not," Vera stroked his back, then pushed him off her. He lay panting on the bed.

  He was still, watching her as she pulled the rubber from his slackness, got a towel from her dresser, and cleaned him. She looked out the window: Mother Kovak was nowhere in sight. Vera walked back to the bed, her breasts swinging with each step. Terry could not take his eyes from her pubic area. She had more hair than he would have imagined.

  "Do you like looking at me, Terry?" She stood over him as he reached up to stroke her belly.

  He nodded, not trusting himself to speak at this moment. He had read somewhere, or heard, that some men did not like to touch the woman after . . . after . . . what? What had they just done? Make love? Screw? Fuck? : Whatever it was called, Terry could not understand why men would not want to touch the woman.

  Vera sat on the edge of the bed and put her -hand on his hard stomach. "Don't say a word ,ffoout this, Terry. Not ever. I know how boys """ to talk. But you keep your mouth shut and be other times. I'll show you things a lan can do for a man."

  25

  "I won't tell anyone. I promise."

  She moved her hand to encircle his penis* "You're built up good, kid. You are what I said you are. A stud." Her hand left him and the moment was gone. Passion sated. Desire whipped into submission.

  "Get up and get dressed and go wash yourself—get the smell of sex off you. Act natural at the supper table; don't give anything away."

  Dressed, a bit shaky on his feet, Terry stood at the door for a moment. "Vera?"

  "Yeah, kid?"

  "Thank you." He said it shyly.

  She laughed very softly, then grinned, shaking her head. "Terry, that's the first time a man ever said: thank you."

  "What does a man usually do?"

  "They usually roll over and go to sleep. Now get out of here."

  She clicked on the radio by the bed and Floyd Tilhnan sang the country hit: Slippin' Around.

  "Terry can't decide what to wear tonight," Mother Kovak said with a grin, as she spooned gravy over her meat and potatoes. "He's took two baths and changed clothes twice already." She smiled at her youngest son.

  His father looked up from his plate to wink at Terry. "Got a hot one tonight, huh?"

  26

  "Poppal" his wife protested, amused, but still feeling it necessary to object.

  I had a real hot one about an hour ago, Poppa, Terry thought. "Yeah, Poppa, I got a date with Clarissa."

  "That Baptist girl," Mother Kovak said, "from the ritzy part of town. Her father owns two big gas stations and I don't know what else. Property, I think. I'm surprised they let her go out with a Catholic boy." She chewed for a moment, then added: "If you marry her," and Terry choked on a piece of meat, "the children will have to be raised in the Church."

  His father roared with laughter, banging his hard fist on the table. "Momma," he patted her hand, "the boy is just fifteen and a half, he's not thinking about marriage." He sobered and looked at his son. "Are you, Terry?"

  "No, Poppa. What would I do with a wife?"

  The family laughed, all except Mavis, and everyone helped themselves to more food. All except Mavis; she was on a diet—again. Just a small piece of meat, a little carrot for her. She ate in silence, seldom raising her eyes from the plate. She was on another of her religious lacks again. Hair pulled back tight in a bun, no make-up, gray, loose clothing to hide her figure: and she had a knock-out of a figure—better than Vera. Terry thought—and suspected what everyone else in the family did, too—that Mavis was a great big bore. But Terry felt—sensed—something the

  27

  others didn't about Mavis. When she looked at^ him, her eyes changed and she licked herlijWv Now, he knew what that meant. He abo suspected that Mavis, unlike Vera, was not playing around, but oh, would she like to.

  She's a fraud, Terry thought. I bet she fingers herself and thinks about it.

  Shirley excused herself from the table and went back into the playroom to look after the children. She loved children, making her spending money baby-sitting around the neighborhood.

  Mavis mumbled something about working at the church that evening and left the table. She gave Terry one quick, furtive glance, and did the same to Vera.

  She suspects, Terry thought.

  Poppa Kovak looked at her retreating back and shook his head in disgust. He had made the comment several tunes that his oldest son had really picked a ball of fire when he married Mavis. But this evening he said nothing, just shook his head and helped himself to more of everything on the table.

  "You save room for apple pie," his wife gently scolded him. "You eat one more onion and you'll be up with gas all night."

  The man grinned, patted her hand, rolled his eyes, and chewed, exaggerated groans rolling from his mouth. Under the table, Vera was rubbing her leg against Terry's. The boy knew if he stood up to be excused, a slight swelling just might be evident. He decided to linger

  28

  over his huge chunk of apple pie, hoping his co
ndition would go away.

  "You be careful driving around tonight," his father cautioned him. "The weather man says more snow is on the way. The streets will be slick."

  "We're just going to the movies, Poppa. Here in town." Vera had ceased her rubbing and Terry was thankful for that.

  "You still got to drive from here to her house and to the movies. Then you got to drive back to her house and get back here, so be careful." His father always got in the last word and then the subject was closed.

  Vera and Mother Kovak laughed at the exchange and the Elder Kovak looked around. "Well, I'm right, ain't I?"

  "Yes, Poppa," Terry smiled. His condition was gone and he stood up.

  "Don't you be too late, now," his mother said, putting a large piece of pie on her husband's plate. He patted his flat stomach and grinned, smacking his lips.

  "I promise 111 be in before dawn," Terry joked, waiting for the inevitable response from his father.

  "When that hall clock strikes twelve," Poppa Kovak said, around a mouthful of pie, "you better be in bed, in this house, or you and me will have a talk about it at dawn, and you won't be sitting down all day. Now then, we will all go to Mass in the morning. All of us. Awake and alert." He laughed at his own

  29

  threat, but Terry knew it was very real. When Robert was eighteen years old, just before he joined the Marines during the Second World War, Poppa Kovak had thrashed him, and thrashed him good. When Robert had protested the whipping, trying to take the belt from his father, balling his fists and foolishly offering to fistfight his father, Poppa Kovak had shown his son how the Cow ate the Corn. He broke Robert's nose and knocked him out cold with a crashing right cross. The Elder Kovak was all muscle and gristle and bone—strong as a bear.

  "Don't worry, Poppa," Terry moved around the table and put his hand on the man's shoulder. "I'll be in by two."

  "Play games with your old man, huh? Twelve-thirty."

  "One-thirty."

  "Forget it. One o'clock at the most, and now the conversation about time is closed."

  Vera winked at Terry, her eyes projecting a silent message as they sparkled with mischief: you'll be in something before one, Terry.

  Terry returned the wink, kissed his mother's cheek, and went up the hall steps two at a time to get. his coat. At her bedroom door, Mavis watched him, her breasts rising «od falling as breathing quickened. .

  Poppa Kovak met his son at the bottom -'it. the steps. He held out two crumpled one bills, then smoothed them with work-

  30

  hands, tucking the money in Terry's jacket pocket.

  "Thank you, Poppa." He had six dollars now. Enough to buy some whiskey.

  "You're a" man grown, Terry," his father was serious, no smile on his lips as he walked his son out the front door. They stood on the porch. "Grown at fifteen. I don't know how you did it, but you did. I've watched you these past months, and worried about you. You've come up faster than your brothers; there is a restlessness in you, a something I hope you can push back for a time. I mean nothing ugly when I say there is a ... difference in you: a coldness in a hidden part of you that no one seems able to reach. I don't know how to say this. Your Momma don't believe it's there, but I do. You're moving too fast into manhood. I was like you, some, when I run off from home in the old country to join the AEF in France in '17. Stay a boy a little longer, Terry." He turned away, stepping back into the warmth of the house, leaving Terry to wonder what his father was talking about. A minute later, driving off down the snowy street, the young man" was thinking about Clarissa, the conversation with his father forgotten.

  Mr. and Mrs. Chambers had already left the house, to attend a party at the Country Club. Clarissa invited Terry in, asking if he'd like a Coke.

  31

  "Yeah," Terry said. Just looking at her brought the hotness to his blood. "That would be nice,** He watched her swaying rump as she walked into the kitchen.

  Coke in hand, she asked, "What's playing tonight, some old war movie?"

  Terry took a drink from the bottle. "No, it's a Western. Duel in the Sun, something like that."

  "I don't like Westerns, either," she made a face, pouting, her lips full and red.

  "What do you want to do?"

  "Well, I . . ." She looked down at the carpet, then moved to the window, glancing out. "It's snowing again. We can't go to the lake and park, listen to the radio. We might get stuck, then we would be in trouble."

  "Yeah, that's right." Terry shuffled his feet on the rich carpet, hooked his thumbs behind his belt buckle, and winced at the static electricity that jerked through him.

  The boy and girl looked at each other, the unseen word moving between them, heavy as it touched them. "Whatever you want to do," she said.

  "I bought a pint of Four Roses from this guy . . .** He let it drift off, leaving the final decision up to her.

  "We could stay here, listen to the record player, maybe dance some."

  "Got any popcorn?**

  "Sure!"

  32

  Terry zipped up his jacket. "I'll go get that bottle."

  Hie fireplace was blazing, logs popping and cracking, the Davis Sisters singing "I've Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know About Him," and Terry and Clarissa lay on the floor, under a thick blanket, the empty Four Roses bottle dead and pushed to one side. The young people were half looped.

  Ten o'clock, and all was quite well, indeed, thank you. The dance at the Club was an hour old, and Clarissa's parents had called just after nine, concerned about her. She had told them she had decided not to go out, the weather was just too bad, and Terry had gone home. That's good. Going to bed, dear? Yes. Her parents were much relieved. They would be home about two. Have sweet dreams, dear.

  Uh-huh.

  The album changed on the Hi-Fi. Nat King Cole's "Too Young."

  Terry French-kissed her, putting his hand under her sweater, snapping the bra hook free. He put his hand under the cups and touched her breasts.

  She groaned. "I'm so hot, Terry," she said against his mouth and probing tongue.

  "How hot?" he asked, a hopeful tone in his voice.

  "Hot enough to do anything."

  "Anything, Clarissa?"

  33

  *Do you love me, Terry?"

  "Yes! I do."

  "Do you really, really love me, Terry? With all your heart and soul?"

  What is this? Terry thought: Hit Parade? "I love you, Clarissa. I really, really do." At that moment, he did. "More than anything else in the world, I do love you." It was not a lie ... at the moment.

  She kissed him, again and again, and Nat King Cole sang Mono Lisa. Suddenly, Clarissa was naked from the waist up, her young breasts exposed to Terry's mouth.

  "You take your shirt off, too," she suggested, and he quickly obeyed. As an afterthought, and to save time when things got down right, he took his boots off. His big toe stuck through a hole in the right sock.

  They kissed, deeper, searching; the young man felt sure his erection would rip his slacks. The room seemed to fill with the heady scent of musk, although Terry didn't really know what the odor was.

  I hope it's not my feet, he thought.

  She groaned. "Sex is not wrong when two people are in love, is it, Terry?"

  "Oh, hell, nol" he gasped, almost sick at his stomach from desire.

  "I don't want to have a baby, Terry. If we do ... it, 111 have a baby."

  "No, you won'tl I brought some rub ... I brought something." He began unzipping her plaid skirt and she sighed, grabbing his hand

  34

  for a moment. She released his hand with a faint sigh of resignation and let him have his way. Her head on the pillow, eyes very wide and dark, she watched him. After much rumbling, he managed to slip off her skirt, then with more fumbling, her half slip.

  Jesus! Terry thought. How many clothes do girls wear?

  She groped at his belt buckle, at his fly, and the boy was stripped down to his boxer shorts, which did very little t
o hide his erection.

  Putting her hands on his arms, she pulled him down to her, on the blanket. Young hands, soft and call used, moved over strange flesh, exploring, feeling, touching heretofore forbidden places. Then, almost too suddenly for her, and almost too late for him, they were naked, underclothes in a heap on the floor.

  She grabbed his penis as one might grab the handle of a hoe. "Ohh, it's so big!"

  "Yeah, I guess," Terry said,, embarrassed. He didn't know quite how to say it, but with her holding on to him like she was about to chop cotton, he couldn't reach his rubbers in his slacks. "Uh, Clarissa, would you ... ah . . . mine ... ah ... you know, turning loose for a minute?"

  "Ohh, I don't ever want to turn loose." She began pumping him.

  "Oh, God! Don't do that, Clarissa!"

  "Don't you like it?"

  "Yes! But ... ah ... let me reach my pants—please?"

  35

  Terry, free for a moment, almost ripped his slacks hunting for the package of prophylactics. He broke the first one trying to put it on. He recalled Vera had put it on him hours before. Hell, he couldn't ask Clarissa to do that He finally managed to get the sheath on and glanced over at the girl, to see if she had observed his clumsiness.

  She had. Lying on her back, legs spread, eyes open, she giggled at him.

  Damn I

  He crawled between her legs and almost fell on her, catching himself with one hand.

  He parted her and pushed, harder as something blocked his penetration. He was almost in a panic, thinking: Now what? He pushed; it was like trying to shove his pecker through a Wet wall.

  "What's wrong?" he asked, desperation in his voice.

  * "It's my maidenhead," she said from beneath him, beads of sweat clinging to her face. "You've got to break it! Oh, Terry, don't you know: I'm a virgin. Do something, Terry, I can't stand this."

  She was almost in tears; he was almost in tears. "It's gonna hurt you," he said. He didn't think a cherry would be this tough.

  She grabbed him with both hands, hunched her hips upward, and moaned as the tissue-thin maidenhead broke and he slid into her. She brought her mouth to his, kissed him, and let womanhood take the initiative. "Do it to

  36