Message-ID: <36988asstr$1024751402@assm.asstr-mirror.org> Return-Path: From: pred@altavista.net X-Original-Message-ID: <20020616220136.79714.qmail@iname.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary X-Originating-Server: ws1-11.us4.outblaze.com X-ASSTR-Original-Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2002 17:01:36 -0500 X-Original-Subject: {ASSM} The White Knight (Rom Fest, MF, Inter, voyeurism) Subject: {ASSM} [rom fest] The White Knight (Rom Fest, MF, Inter, voyeurism) Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 09:10:02 -0400 Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail Approved: Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d X-Archived-At: X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation X-Story-Submission: X-Moderator-ID: dennyw, newsman -- _______________________________________________ Sign-up for your own FREE Personalized E-mail at Mail.com http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup <1st attachment, "The White Knight - ROM FEST.doc" begin> {ASSM} The White Knight (Rom Fest, MF, Inter, voyeurism) The White Knight My Uncle Stephen is just about the most awesome guy in the world. Just don't tell him I said so because me and my sister Katie are always telling him he's such a TOTAL geek. It's kind of a running joke with us because he's always on our cases to do good in school and donate our time to charities. Which makes sense I guess, because he's a minister and everything. Now, don't get me wrong. He's not some scary, "you're all going to burn in hell" minister who hates EVERYONE that doesn't think or talk or act or believe a certain way. He's a real Man of God. When I think of Jesus, I can't help but think of him sometimes. In fact, me and my sister Katie have this joke when we have a problem. We'll look at each other say "What Would Uncle Stephen Do?" Uncle Stephen's not really our "uncle" either. He's my dad's best friend, and he's kind of our "godfather" in a way. Since we're Catholic and he's Protestant, I guess he couldn't be our REAL godfather, like in church and everything. But that's what we've always called him ever since I can remember. We'll say, if people ask us who he is, "That's Uncle Stephen. He's our godfather." My earliest memories of Uncle Stephen were on Friday nights when I was REAL little and he'd come over take care of Katie and me. He still takes care of us every Friday, too, just like he did when we were little because Friday is my mom's and dad's "date night." The way it works is like this. Mom and dad go out on a date, sometimes ALL NIGHT into the NEXT MORNING even, and Uncle Stephen takes care of us. Only now that we're older, we go over to Uncle Stephen's house and he handles everything " dinner, entertainment, bedtime, the whole nine yards " with our help, of course. Once again, don't tell him I said this, but he would make an AWESOME dad. In fact, that's what me and Katie say to him ALL THE TIME. He'll give us some kind of advice or just help us take care of a problem, and we'll say: "You are SUCH a dad." Of course, he'll pretend like it annoys him when we say that. He's like: "Don't call me that! It makes me sound old." But we can tell he gets a kick out of it, just like he's really laughing inside when we tell him what a geek he is. He'll dance around to this real atrocious music like Billy Joel or Bruce Springsteen, and then he'll tell us we don't KNOW what REAL music is. Then we'll say: "You are SUCH a geek." That's just the way we communicate with him. To us, he's not totally a grown-up like mom and dad. I mean they're our parents, and they're REALLY REALLY great. But Uncle Stephen's like this cool, goofy, fun guy who you can hang out with and watch TV or just talk to for hours because he knows EVERYTHING about everything. And I don't mean in a bookworm way, either. He can tell you about math or science or history or economics or ANYTHING and make it interesting, like it actually matters to a kid my age. I sometimes think he'd make a real cool teacher, but then I realize he already has a job he loves, which is being a minister and helping people. He saves alcoholics and depressed people all the time, and he has this way of making everybody feel better. I sometimes think he should be president or at least a diplomat or something. I honestly think people like the Israelis and Palestinians or the Irish and British would stop fighting if they just listened to him for ONE HOUR. I kind of wonder why there aren't people like Uncle Stephen in politics, you know, people who care about doing good instead getting votes. He once told me that KNOWING what's right is easy, that DOING what's right is what's hard. When I asked him why, he said: "Because doing the right thing for everyone else is usually contrary to what we WANT for ourselves." I thought about that, and he's right. We don't give money to the poor because we want it for ourselves, or we don't give time to helping people because we want it for ourselves. Uncle Stephen says everyone's like this, even him, but I've never seen him act that way. Like I said before: "What would Uncle Stephen do?" Sometimes, though, I think being so concerned with other people actually hurts him sometimes. He is so busy helping others that he doesn't help himself. Take women for example. Uncle Stephen's not a bad-looking guy (DON'T tell him I said that) and I know plenty of ladies would love to date him, or marry him even. When we go to his church events, it's like women are swarming all over him. It's funny but kind of pathetic really. A lot of times, they'll see he's with me and Katie, and they'll try to get all buddy-buddy with us. Most of them are WAY beneath him, you know, ugly or not very smart. Uncle Stephen needs a pretty, intelligent woman. Kind of a female version of him. She also has to be the kind of woman who will grab him by the collar sometimes and tell him to slow down and think of himself. She should want to GIVE all the time like him, but she should also want them to take some time for themselves. Katie and I talk about Uncle Stephen finding someone all the time these days, especially when we see or meet someone we think would be perfect for him. We once tried to fix him up with Miss Fowler, this WAY cool, WAY pretty teacher at school. They did go out for like a month or so, too. But then something happened, and they just stopped dating. My mom and dad said that sometimes stuff just doesn't work out with people. They can like each other as friends and be attracted to each other, but still not fall in LOVE. I still think Miss Fowler did something, though, because a few weeks after they stopped dating she quit teaching at our school and moved to another state. I even heard she's married now. Katie says she probably loved another guy more than Uncle Stephen, but I just find that hard to believe. I think she was dating Uncle Stephen and two-timing him with this other loser. Then she got pregnant and HAD to marry the guy. I bet she REALLY loves Uncle Stephen, though. I bet she thinks of him every night when she's with this other loser guy, wishing Uncle Stephen would have been the father of her baby and not him. But Uncle Stephen wouldn't do that. He'd never have sex with a woman unless he was REALLY seriously in love with her. And I KNOW he's not a virgin because he counsels married people in his congregation, and I'm sure a lot of that stuff has to do with sex, or as he calls it "intimacy." Intimacy is probably a better word, too, because sex is what animals do, you know -- NO emotions, just reproduction. "Intimacy" is what people in love share. He told Katie and me all this stuff about intimacy and sex when she started dating this guy, Brad, who wanted to, you know, DO stuff with her. I don't know how it all came up exactly, but one Friday night we just started talking about boys with him. We asked him what boys wanted, and he told us the truth. I mean he wasn't gross or anything, but he was HONEST, a lot more honest than I've ever heard another adult be, even mom and dad. He just gave it to us straight and didn't prevaricate at all (that was one of my vocabulary words this week " "prevaricate: to act or speak evasively." Cool, huh?) I can understand, though, why it would be hard for mom and dad to talk about that stuff with us. I mean they're like our parents. I know I DON'T want to know what they do when they're "intimate," so I can imagine it's probably the same gross-out factor for them hearing about our sex lives. Which is why it was SO COOL talking to Uncle Stephen. He's just like: "Listen, I won't lie. Sex feels great, so great that boys and girls get hungry for it all the time " like pizza or chocolate. The problem is they let the hunger take control of them, and then they start making bad decisions. It would be like deciding to eat triple-threat chocolate-caramel-fudge cake for every single meal because it's your favorite food. No vegetables, no meat, just triple-threat chocolate-caramel-fudge cake. You would over-indulge .." I remember those were his exact words. Then he said: "The reason triple-threat chocolate-caramel-fudge cake tastes so good is that we DON'T eat it all the time. We save it for special occasions so that it ALWAYS tastes good." I remember we teased him about his TOTALLY geeky explanation, but that was because it made total sense to us. Lots of times that's what we'll do, you know, totally mock on something so adults don't know what they're saying is really getting through. We have to look cool, you know. We can't let adults think they have ALL the answers. So now you know about me and Katie and Uncle Stephen. Which means I guess I can start the story now, about how Uncle Stephen fell in love, and how we helped, and how I think he's finally going to be really happy forever. It all started on a Friday afternoon, and Uncle Stephen was picking up Katie and me from Thomas Jefferson Middle School. Katie's in 8th grade and I'm in 6th if you need to know. Katie and Kelly, the Miller girls " that's how the teachers know us. Now, Katie can be a pain sometimes, especially when she wants to get all bossy big sister on me, but honestly she's my all-time best friend. I know she feels the same way, too, which is probably why everyone thinks of us together -- Katie and Kelly, the Miller girls. Mom and dad's "date nights" started beginning earlier the older we got. That means Uncle Stephen started picking us up from school, and we'd hang out with him the rest of the day. You see, Dad's an engineer and mom's a lawyer, and when he gets off work on Friday he drives to her office and then they go out ALL NIGHT " sometimes out of town even. These days, they usually don't get home until Saturday morning, and then the whole rest of the day they act just like dumb kids around each other, just like Katie and her new boyfriend, Kenyon do. Of course, I HAVE to act like I think it's disgusting because I'm their kid; and what kid doesn't act that way when their mom and dad are crunching on each other? But really, I think it is WAY cool having parents who are, you know, still hot for each other (Don't EVER tell them I said that!). Sometimes, when I see mom and dad kiss, I get all warm and mushy inside, and I feel REALLY safe, almost like I'm a little kid again. Like I said, I know they DO it, and that is REALLY gross when I think about it. But when I just see them kissing and ignore all that other stuff, it's like I know what love is supposed to look like and how it's supposed to feel. That's why Friday Night "date night" is so important I guess. If I ever get married, I'm going to make my husband do the same exact thing. I just hope we have a friend like Uncle Stephen around to watch our bratty kids. On this particular Friday, Uncle Stephen has a lot planned for us. He's already promised us his famous angel-hair pasta for supper, and then WB-TV afterward, followed by any video from Blockbuster that we choose. Katie and I have already decided on "She's All That" with Rachael Leigh Cooke because it's our favorite movie, and we haven't seen it in over a month. After we go to bed, Uncle Stephen will probably just watch some dumb documentary or something. So, we knew we were going to have a killer evening. But it was still afternoon, and we were a little curious what Uncle Stephen had planned in the meantime. When he pulled up in his Dodge Caravan, we could barely see him through the windshield wipers. The weather had been miserable and disgusting all day. It was mid-November, a week before Thanksgiving, and the rain turned most of yesterday's snow to slush. The sky was this gross black and blue color, like a big bruise or something, and it felt totally icky just BEING outside. "Hey!" Uncle Stephen greeted us as we piled inside the mini-van, trying to keep our hair from getting wet. "You're late!" I scolded him. We'd been waiting outside the school for almost ten minutes after the bell. "Sorry, traffic is bad with the rain," he explained. "The roads are pretty slick." "Then I say we go the video store, get our movie, and go back home for some hot chocolate," Katie suggested. "I have homework, too." "You just want to go on AOL Instant Message with Kenyon," I joked. "Oh, and like you don't want to go online and chat with Michelle and Sarah?" Katie fired back. "Well you can quit bickering right now" Uncle Stephen interrupted. "BOTH of you. Because we're not going back to my house to play with the computer .. at least not right away." "Where are we going then?" I asked. "On a mission," Uncle Stephen smiled. Now when Uncle Stephen says "going on a mission" he means "going on a mission." And not just any kind of "mission," but a "mission from God." Uncle Stephen's missions are about helping people, saving people even. Once, when we were driving to the mall, we saw this totally gross-looking homeless woman crying by the side of the road, and he pulled over. We asked him what he was doing, and he told us he was "going on a mission." We had no idea what he was talking about, but we followed him out of the van and watched as he started talking to this woman, trying to find out was wrong. It turned out that she'd had a pet stray cat that was hit by a car. She took us to the animal, who was barely still alive. Uncle Stephen got down on his knees over the cat and started praying for it. The woman seemed shocked. We told her it was cool because Uncle Stephen was a minister. Then she said: "That won't help Scraps because he's a cat, and cats don't have souls, do they ..?" Uncle Stephen looked up and told her that any creature that loves has a soul, and since Scraps loved the woman he had a soul. The cat died in a few minutes, but the woman was somehow cool with it. I mean she was sad and everything, but kind of peaceful. She asked Uncle Stephen if Scraps would be in heaven when she got there, and he told her that everyone she loved would be in heaven with her. Then he hugged her, gave her some money and asked if we could take her anywhere. She said she was fine, and she went away skipping .. I mean SKIPPING, really. I don't think I've ever felt so much happiness coming from another human being, before or since. That's what Uncle Stephen's missions are like. They may seem kind of lame if you just hear about them. But when you're there and you see him do these things, it's like, wow, people really can make a difference. If only they'd just try and put others above themselves. "What's our mission then?" I asked. Part of me wanted to go back home to our nice warm house, but a stronger part of me knew that Uncle Stephen's mission was going to be another adventure we'd never forget. Even Katie seemed interested, and she had a boyfriend waiting online for her. "We're going to help someone who needs helping," he explained as he drove. "And you're going to choose the person." Now this did seem interesting, REALLY interesting. "We can choose anyone?" Katie asked. "Anyone," he answered. "You better let me choose," I told him. "Why?" "Because if Katie does, she'll just choose the first person she sees so she can go home and chat with Kenyon," I answered. "I will not!" Katie protested, but she laughed, too, because she knew I'd read her mind. "You both have to decide," he told us. "That's my only stipulation. It can be anyone from anywhere .. here or in the city .. you just both have to decide." "Then let's drive into the city," I requested. "We can go into one of the not-so-nice neighborhoods, you know ..? I bet we can find someone who really needs help there." "That sounds good," Uncle Stephen agreed. "Katie?" "Sure, whatever," she shrugged her shoulders. "Let's just make this quick, okay. I really do have homework." The rest of the way into the city, as Uncle Stephen drove, we talked about the various people we could help and what we could do. Katie and I pooled our money together, and minus the four dollars we'd need for the video we had $50 between us. Now, I have to admit. Part of me figured how much we could get away with spending on a meal for a hungry person, and then how much we would still have left. But then I heard Uncle Stephen's voice in my head saying: ".. doing the right thing for everyone else is usually contrary to what we WANT for ourselves." He was right, AS ALWAYS. I looked down at the money again, then back at Katie. I knew she'd been having the same shallow thoughts as me, too. We kind of smiled at each other, and I whispered "What Would Uncle Stephen Do?" to her. She nodded. Somehow I knew we'd be doing A LOT of good today with all that money. Uncle Stephen just had that kind of effect on you. "Where are we?" I asked after we'd gotten off the highway and driven into this pretty run-down neighborhood. "Yeah?" Katie chimed in. "I don't think I've EVER been in this part of town." "This place is known as the Tenderloin," Uncle Stephen explained. "That's a funny name for a neighborhood," I commented. "It was originally called the Tenderloin because geographically it's shaped like a tenderloin of beef," Uncle Stephen began another one of his geeky yet interesting explanations. "Do you see the water down there?" he pointed to this muddy river you could see between the buildings as you drove by. "It surrounds us on three sides down here. Do you remember what that's called?" "A peninsula, right?" I answered. "Brownie .." Katie accused me under her breath. She didn't mean it. She was just ticked I got the answer first. "That's right," Uncle Stephen nodded. "This is a natural peninsula. Since the neighborhood only had one entrance, it became separated from the whole city. That's when they started calling it the Tenderloin District. This used to be where all the ore boats and other ships docked and unloaded their goods. There also used to be a big fish cannery down here. When he was young, my dad used to come down here and buy fresh fish right off the boats, at least that's what he told me." "So how come there's no boats or anything down here anymore?" Katie asked. "Yeah," I added. "The only thing that's down here looks like homeless people and run-down shops." "During World War II, the government decided the Tenderloin wasn't big enough for the amount of shipping it wanted to come into the city. So they cleared out a bunch of land north of here and made North Harbor. When they did that, the Tenderloin started losing business. Then the fishing boats told the cannery they wouldn't sail into the Tenderloin anymore, and if they wanted to stay open they would have to build a new factory up in North Harbor or go out of business." "That's blackmail, isn't it?" I asked. "In a way, I guess it is," Uncle Stephen smiled. "Anyway, once the cannery pulled out of here, everything was adversely affected. The closed cannery meant no more jobs for the people who lived here, and all the fresh-fish markets had to close, too. The process was slow and gradual, but this went from a pretty nice blue collar neighborhood to what it is now." "Well, I feel bad for what happened and everything, but I really don't like it down here," I kind of whined. I couldn't help it. Every corner we passed, real creepy bums would look in our windows, or gangs of black men would just peer at us like they REALLY hated us. Which freaked me out, I guess, because they had no reason to hate us. It's not like I'm some white person who doesn't like African Americans or is afraid of them. We go with Uncle Stephen all the time to visit The Mount Zion church downtown. They have pretty cool services down there with this awesome music, and they do a lot of cool fund-raising carnivals for inner-city youth. In fact, that's where Katie and I met our real good friends Latreesha and Mikia, and a lot of other cool kids like Damon and Franklin and Elijah. "Why don't you like it down here, Kelly?" Uncle Stephen asked. Katie looked at me, too. She was feeling exactly what I was feeling, I'm sure. But how do you put it into words, especially to Uncle Stephen? "I don't like the way the men on the corners keep looking at us when we drive by them," I finally replied. "It's like .. they hate us or something. I mean we're down here to help someone, and they just look at us like they .. like they hate us .. for no reason." "I see," Uncle Stephen nodded. "Do you want to go somewhere else, then? Somewhere it'll be easier to help someone." I wanted to say "YES! Please!," and I'm sure Katie did, too. But we both knew what the right thing to do was, and how doing the right thing is lots of times not what you want to do. "No," Katie answered for us. Sometimes she is SUCH a big sister. "I mean this is where people really need help, right ..?" Uncle Stephen nodded. "Are those men .. like drug dealers?" I asked the question I knew Katie was dying to ask, too. "Probably," Uncle Stephen replied. "Not all of them, I'm sure, but some of them .. yes," he nodded. "That's probably why they are looking at us so strangely. The only white people they tend to see all day come down here to buy drugs from them." "They might think we're police detectives, too," Katie offered. "I doubt that," Uncle Stephen grinned. "They probably think we're just lost." "So why are they angry at us, then?" I still didn't understand. "They aren't angry at us, really .." Uncle Stephen started. "They're angry in general .. at everyone. They direct a lot of that anger towards people who don't have anything to do with their situation." "That's kind of dumb, isn't it ..?" I asked. "To be angry at someone when you're your problems aren't even their fault." "It's not dumb, Kelly," Uncle Stephen tried to explain. "It may be mistaken or misguided, but it isn't dumb. Emotions aren't smart or dumb, they just are." "So why don't they just stop being angry?" Katie asked. "I mean I get angry all the time, but I get over it." "Anger is an insidious emotion," Uncle Stephen answered. "It works its way into your identity " who you are, how you act " and you don't even know it. It gets so ingrained that you start rationalizing your behavior to justify your anger." "So it kind of becomes a habit or something?" I was trying to understand. Uncle Stephen nodded. "Just imagine if you were poor and people treated you badly because of the color of your skin. Then, instead of going to high school and college to get a good job, you had to become a criminal to support your family so they could eat. Wouldn't you be angry, too?" "Why don't they just stay in school and get good jobs, too?" I asked. "They do," Uncle Stephen responded. "Many of the people who live and grow up in this neighborhood work very hard, and they succeed against great odds. But there is still so much prejudice in our world that a lot of these men and women will never even get a chance to interview for a good job because of the color of their skin." "I guess that would make me pretty angry, too," Katie observed. "But I still don't think I'd become a criminal." "But what if your family was starving?" I asked her. "Or like what if I was real sick and needed money for medicine, and the only job you could get was criminal? What would you do then?" "I .. I don't know," Katie stammered. "Save you, I guess. But that's different." "Why?" Uncle Stephen asked. "Why is it different, Katie?" "Because I'd be helping someone," Katie replied. "But it'd still be breaking the law," I pointed out. "The judge wouldn't care why you did something illegal, would he, Uncle Stephen ..?" "He's not supposed to," Uncle Stephen agreed. "Justice is supposed to be blind " especially color blind. But you see, that's where a lot of the problems started .. with the judges." He paused. "Katie, I bet if you went into your school tomorrow and sold drugs, that you'd be treated far differently if you were caught than one of these kids out here on the streets. You'd probably get a much lighter sentence, maybe no sentence at all. When these kids are caught, however, some of them are put in prisons " adult prisons " and they're your age." "That isn't fair," I was angry now. "That just isn't fair." "The world isn't fair, kiddo," Uncle Stephen agreed. "That's why we all need to do good, to offset the unfairness." "Are those ladies prostitutes?" Katie asked as we passed a corner. Three black women were standing around in tight spandex clothing, boots and fur coats. When they saw Uncle Stephen, they whistled to him, and one of them blew him a kiss. "They might be prostitutes," Uncle Stephen answered. "But why would you say that?" "Because they look like prostitutes," Katie replied. "I mean the way prostitutes look in movies and TV." "You shouldn't judge people on how they look," Uncle Stephen reminded us. "Why would ANYONE be a prostitute?" I asked. "And, you know, sell themselves like that ..?" "It's like the drug dealers, stupid," Katie scolded me. "They don't have a choice. They're probably trying to help their families, too. Maybe even their babies." "Well, would YOU, you know .. do that to help your family?" I challenged. "To save my baby?" Katie fired back. "Wouldn't you?" "I .. I don't know .." I admitted. "I don't think I could." "What if your baby was starving?" Katie kept at me. "I .. I don't know," I repeated. "Really .." "Let's just pray none of us ever have to make that kind of decision," Uncle Stephen interjected. "I want to help one of them!" I blurted out. "One of the women .. one with a baby. I want to help her so she doesn't have to do THAT to feed her baby." "So you only want to help one of these women if they have a baby?" Uncle Stephen asked. "What about the others? They don't need help?" "That's not what I meant," I felt stupid now. "I mean .. maybe that IS what I meant when I said it, but I wasn't thinking." "I know," Uncle Stephen smiled. "Helping one of these women would make a good mission, though." He looked at me thoughtfully, and I beamed proudly. THIS WAS MY MISSION. "There are lots of young women out here who need help. Some of them aren't much older than you two." "But how do we pick who to help if they all need help?" Katie asked the question I was thinking, too. "Let's just drive, and you two look out the window," Uncle Stephen replied, turning the mini-van down a side street. "If you trust in God, He'll reveal an answer to you. He'll guide you. You just have to Trust Him." We drove down the street, turned and went down another and then another and then another. We saw some more prostitute-looking women standing on the corners or in doorways. Lots of them were talking to white men who just stopped their cars in the middle of the street. We saw women get in the cars, and we also saw cars on side streets where the women were sitting with the white men inside parked cars. When I saw one of the women duck her head into a guy's lap and then start bobbing it up and down I thought I was going to puke. I wanted to cry because this was SO WRONG. I could tell Katie was feeling the same way, too. But she just bit her lip and kept looking. I huddled up next to her and looked out her window, too. She held my hand and whispered: "Just trust in God, okay ..?" As soon as she said that, I saw HER. She was on a side street, standing against the brick wall of a building. She was tall and very beautiful. She had these long cornrows like Brandy used to have, and her skin was a very deep, rich brown. She was dressed in a purple Nike running suit, which must have cost a fortune. She looked young, too, like maybe she was still even in high school. Katie saw her, too, at the same time I did, and we exchanged glances. "Her, Uncle Stephen," Katie pointed the black girl out. "That's her. I can feel God telling us." Uncle Stephen smiled and pulled the mini-van down the side street. The black girl looked at us as we approached and parked across the street from her. When she saw Uncle Stephen, she smiled and reached in her jacket. She took out a box of candy and popped a couple of pieces in her voice. Then she started walking over, still smiling. But when she saw me and Katie, she stopped and just kind of stared, like she was scared of us or something. "What do we do?" I asked, suddenly scared myself. Talking about helping someone is one thing. Actually doing it is another. I mean where do you even start? "Yeah, Uncle Stephen, what do we do now?" Katie added. "Even the longest journey starts with the first step," was all he said back to us. I got it. I opened the mini-van door and stepped outside. Katie was right behind me. We faced the black girl and walked over, holding hands .. TIGHT. I still couldn't judge the look in her eyes. She looked kind of scared, I guess. But why the heck would she be scared of us? She was like living on the streets seeing all sorts of REALLY scary stuff EVERY day. Me and Katie were just two kids who wanted to help her. So why should she be scared of us at all? "What is this shit?" She looked right past us, directing her question to Uncle Stephen who was standing outside the open driver's door of the mini-van. I thought he was right behind us, but he wasn't. Then I realized why. This was OUR MISSION, not his. COOL! "I SAID what is this SHIT?!" the black girl repeated, this time with more hostility. I looked back to Uncle Stephen nervously. He smiled. "You really should talk to them," he answered the black girl. "Listen, if this is some kind of sick shit here, I don't DO that shit, all right ..?" she continued ignoring us. "We want to help you," Katie got up the courage to speak to the black girl first. "Say what?" she looked at us, I mean REALLY looked at us for the first time. "We want to help you," I spoke now. "You look like you could use some help. God directed us here." "Listen, I don't need no help, all right ..?" she shot back. "Especially from you. Now get out of here before you get hurt." "What's your name?" Katie asked, trying to ignore the girl's warning. My older sister was shivering, but she was standing her ground. "What the fuck business is that of yours?" the black girl replied. The "F" word made both me and Katie flinch. But I was going to be just like Katie and stand my ground, too. "My name's Kelly and this is my sister, Katie," I stated. "That's my Uncle Stephen. He's a minister. We want to help you." "And what makes you think I NEED your help?" the black girl snapped. "God told us," I half-whispered, not so sure now that God had made the right choice. "Shiiiit," she sneered at us, turned around and started walking back to where she'd been standing. I looked at Katie, who looked back at me, and then we both looked back to Uncle Stephen as if waiting for him to do something. But he just stood there, looking at the girl as she walked away. "What would Uncle Stephen do?" I asked myself. Katie must have been asking herself the same question because suddenly she grabbed my hand and pulled me after the black girl. In a second, we ran past her, then turned back around to face her. "Get OUT of my way!" she hissed at us. "Not until you tell us your name," Katie glared back. This was going to a battle of wills now between the girl and my older sister. I just hoped she didn't hit Katie because she was like a half-foot taller than both of us put together. "I ain't going to tell you my name, girl," the black girl snapped back. "Now just step off, all right ..?" "No," Katie answered. "It's not all right. We're not your enemies. We want to be your friends, and friends know each other's names, right ..? I'm Katie and this is Kelly, and you are ..?" "Yakeesha!" a man's voice suddenly called out from behind us, and we spun around. An older black man walked towards us. He was dressed in nice clothes, a pin-stripe suit and a long leather raincoat. He also had on a bunch of gold chains like I see a lot of black baseball players wearing. "What the fuck you doing, ho'?" "These people is lost," she shouted back. "I was just giving them some directions." "What you think you are, ho' ..? The mother-fucking triple-A ..?" He speaks in short, clipped bursts as he nears us. "You're supposed to be pullin' that lazy black ass of yours out here and workin' me some green, bitch! Which brings me to my MOTIVATION for trackin' down your cheatin' ho' ass. Word is you gots you somethin' that belongs to me, bitch! Give it up now, and Ol' Pine'll take it easy on you, only beat your worthless nigger ass unconscious 'stead cavin' in that empty black-eyed-pea-brain skull's yours ..." "D..Don't talk to her like that," Katie suddenly stammered. Her face was beat red, and she was shaking. I knew she was just as scared as I was, but she was angry, too. Me, I just wanted to run back to the van and get the heck out of there, but not Katie. She may have been just as scared as me, but she was going to stand there and DO something about it. "What the fuck you say to me, girl?" the black man was now standing there, like not even two feet away. He stared at Katie and looked like he might hit her or something. "She's just a kid, Pine," Yakeesha cut in. "They were just going, weren't you, girls?" "Yeah," I whispered, tugging on Katie's arm. But she wouldn't budge, not an inch. "You can go," she told me. "But I'm going to stay here and help Yakeesha ... just like God wanted." "Crazy little cracker bitch .." Pine huffed. "They ain't crazy, Pine," Yakeesha protested. "They just religious, all right ..?" She turned back to Katie. "Now you think you can find your way out of here?" she asked, nodding towards the mini-van. There was definitely concern in her voice now, concern for me and Katie. I looked back to Uncle Stephen, and wanted to run to him. But he was walking up to us now, his hands in his pocket and a smile on his face. Then I knew this wasn't over, not by a long shot. "Hi!" he called out, extending his hand to black guy. "I'm Stephen Kautz. These are my nieces, Katie and Kelly. Is there a problem here?" The black man looked at Uncle Stephen's hand, then put out his own. He tried to do some kind of black handshake like I see black rap guys do on MTV, but Uncle Stephen just held his hand out. The black guy huffed, shrugged his shoulders, then just shook Uncle Stephen's hand normal. "Cornelius," he said. "They call me Pinecone. You lost or something, ofay?" "No," Uncle Stephen shook his head. "We were thinking maybe she was lost." He nodded to Yakeesha. "That's why the girls wanted to help." "Well, she ain't lost, all right ..?" Cornelius Pinecone answered. "So's you all can just be on your way .." "We won't go until we help her," Katie cut in. "Ho' don't need your help, girl," Pinecone fired back, his voice rising. "Don't call her that," I jumped in now. "She's not a whore." "Listen," Pinecone sounded like he was trying to keep from shouting. "I don't got no problem with you crazy crackers, all right ..? You want to do your Jesus stuff, that's cool. Just take it up a few blocks, okay ..? I got business around here .." "Prostitution business?" Katie demanded to know. Pinecone's eyes flared, and then he suddenly broke out into a big, chilling smile. "I got me a lot of business enterprises down here, blondie. And ain't none of them your concern." He turned back to Uncle Stephen. "Like I said, cream, I don't got no problem with you and yours. Far as I'm concerned, you just got off the highway on the wrong exit, all right ..? Now, if you just get back in your mini-van over there and start driving, old Pinecone'll be more than happy to just get on with his business, and then we'll all be happy, all right ..?" "Do you want to be a prostitute?" Katie blurted out to Yakeesha. "What's your fucking problem, girl?" Yakeesha fired back. "Answer me," Katie demanded. "And you'd better tell the truth, too, because God is listening." "You're crazy?" Yakeesha tried to laugh, but she didn't sound too amused. "Answer her question," Uncle Stephen stepped in. "Answer truthfully. If you say that you like what you're doing, we'll leave you alone. If you don't and you our need help, we'll stay and help you." He looked at Pinecone. The black man still had the chilling grin on his face. "You heard the man, ho'. So go on, answer him." "Leave us alone," Yakeesha shivered as she whispered. "Answer the question," Katie demanded. "Who the fuck you think you are, girl?" Yakeesha spat back. "I want to be your friend," Katie held her ground. "Me, too," I added. "You're both crazy," Yakeesha turned around and started walking away. "I TOLD you to answer their question, ho'," Pinecone snarled. He gripped Yakeesha's arm and twisted her back around. "Let go of her!" Katie shrieked, pouncing on the black man's arm and clawing at him. In a second, Pinecone raised his hand and was just about to hit Katie when Yakeesha's leg lashed out. She kicked him right in the .. well, you know. I mean she KICKED him. He went down on the ground spitting and swearing his head off. Now it was our turn to grab Yakeesha's arm. Suddenly we were all running to the mini-van. Uncle Stephen used his key-chain remote to open the automatic doors, and we all piled inside the back while he hopped in the front. The last thing I saw as we raced down the street was Cornelius Pinecone lying and rolling around on the street right where Yakeesha kicked him. "FUCK!" Yakeesha exploded as we rounded the corner and turned onto the main street that took us out of the Tenderloin. "What the FUCK did you just do to me?!" she glared at us all. "W..we helped you," Katie answered bravely. "You WHAT?!" Yakeesha shouted back. "You almost got my ass capped is what you did. In fact, you just GOT my ass exterminated the second I step one foot back there. Do you understand that? You just GOT my ass dead. I am now one mother-fucking dead ho'!" "You don't have to go back there," I responded. "Never." "Who the FUCK do you all think you are?" Yakeesha roared. "God damned craziest bunch of cracker-Jesus freaks I ever fucking saw in my whole entire life." Suddenly Uncle Stephen burst out laughing. The sound caught all of us by surprise " me, Katie and especially Yakeesha. "What the fuck you laughing at, Casper?" Yakeesha bellowed. "We're all alive," Uncle Stephen answered. "Tell me, have you ever felt so alive?" He was right. My heart was racing like 200 beats a minute and my body was like totally covered in sweat. But I felt so .. INCREDIBLE .. like I could perceive every single thing around me, and it was all equally important. It all mattered, every broken down car, trashcan, traffic light, shop window and gray cloud in the sky. Then I started laughing, too, and without thinking I reached out to hug Yakeesha. She froze up as stiff as a board, but I just kept hugging her. And so did Katie. We were both hugging her, and as we did, we felt her relax slowly, until she was kind of just limp in our arms. "Crazy-ass cracker Jesus freaks," she kept repeating until she finally just let loose with a snort. "That was the god-damn craziest fucking thing I ever saw in my life," she began laughing uncontrollably, too, now. "Who's hungry?" Uncle Stephen suddenly asked. "Because I am starved." "Do you like angel-hair pasta?" Katie asked Yakeesha. "I .. I don't know .." Yakeesha stopped laughing for a moment. "I don't even know what the hell that is." She broke down into another fit of laughter, and we all started laughing hysterically again, too, for what seemed hours. "We're going to eat dinner and then watch TV and some movies," I told Yakeesha after we got done laughing. "What movie do you want to see? It can be anything you want. You're the guest of honor." "You're crazy," Yakeesha shook her head, tears of joy in her eyes. Suddenly, she looked even more beautiful than she'd ever looked on the street. She was just shining. I don't know how else to describe it. "We're serious," Katie insisted. "We're going to the video store, so pick a movie. Your favorite movie in the world." "You're serious ..?" Yakeesha seemed shocked. "Of course we are. Now come on and pick," I replied. "We're almost there." "You're crazy .." "Pick a MOVIE!" Katie and I demanded in unison, and then we all laughed again. "How 'bout 'Romeo Must Die'?" Yakeesha offered. "I always wanted to see that." "We didn't see that one yet, cool." I clapped my hands. "And Aliyaah was like the coolest. It's sooo sad what happened to her." I looked at Katie, and I could tell she was remembering the day we both heard about Aliyah's plane crash at school. Poor Aliyah ... "What about Jet Li?" Uncle Stephen cut in from the front seat. I could tell he was trying to get our minds off Aliyah so we wouldn't start crying again. Like I said, Uncle Stephen is THE GREATEST! "Martial arts and a love story, too," he added. "Good choice." "You all are really serious," Yakeesha suddenly stopped laughing. "I mean really serious ..?" "Yeah, so just relax, okay .." Katie reached out and hugged Yakeesha. "Nothing bad is going to happen now. So just have fun." Before I could say anything, Yakeesha just broke down crying. The rest of the way to Blockbuster, she cried with her head in Katie's lap and we hugged her. When we pulled into the strip-mall where the Blockbuster was, Uncle Stephen finally turned around. "If you all want to stay in here, I can go inside and get the movie." "No," Yakeesha shook her head. "We should all go inside." Uncle Stephen paused and looked directly at Yakeesha, giving her a BIG smile. "Okay, then. We'll all go inside together. Don't say I didn't warn you, though." Yakeesha grinned right back at him. Then she reached down into her pocket and took out the candy box again. Ju-Ju Fruits. Boy, that sounded good right now. She must have read my mind or caught me staring because after she popped in a few she kind of looked at me and hesitated. "You want some?" she offered me and then Katie. "No thanks," Katie answered. "Not before dinner." I didn't say anything, though. I mean I REALLY wanted a Ju-Ju Fruit. "What about you, homegirl?" Yakeesha laughed. "No thank you," I smiled. "Katie's right. Not before dinner." "I only got one left," she observed. She shook the almost-empty box, and it sounded like there was a marble inside. "How 'bout it, Reverend?" she asked Uncle Stephen. Obviously, she'd figured out by now that the "not before dinner" rule was an adult thing. "Can she have the last Ju-Ju?" Uncle Stephen looked at his watch. "Okay," he nodded. "But that's IT before supper. If I'm going to slave over a hot stove making you ladies angel-hair pasta, I certainly expect you not to let it go to waste." "No problem," I agreed. I stuck my hand out and let Yakeesha pour out the last Ju-Ju into my hand. Katie was glaring at me as I popped it into my mouth. "Ask and ye shall receive," I wanted to tell her so bad. But I knew Uncle Stephen wouldn't think that was so funny. Next we all got out and went into the Blockbuster. I have to admit, a lot of people stared at Yakeesha. I think it wasn't so much that she was black as she was so tall and beautiful. Even after crying like that, she looked so .. AWESOME. I mean it was like impossible to believe that she was .. you know .. doing what she was doing when we found her. If you just saw her and didn't know where she'd come from, you would be like: "Man, she is sooo classy and refined." I mean she looked like Iman or Naomi or one of those models you always see on the covers of Vogue and Glamour. Every eye in the place was on her, men and women, and it felt so cool just hanging out with her, to be seen with her, like being with a movie star. It was a feeling me and Katie definitely wanted to last, which wouldn't be hard in Blockbuster. You see, even though we already knew what movie we wanted, we still had to go over the whole wall of New Releases just to make sure we hadn't missed anything. And that ALWAYS took awhile. This was a tradition with me and Katie. We looked at EVERY movie and commented on EVERYTHING. At first, Yakeesha just looked at us and stayed quiet, but then we got to "Girl, Interrupted." "What is up with her lips?" I asked Katie, pointing to Angelina Jolie. "They are so huge!" Katie replied. "Did you ever notice they were chapped, too?" Yakeesha suddenly cut in. We both turned to her, waiting for further explanation. "Look," she pointed to the box cover. "The girl has these big freaky lips and there's always all these bumps and kind of loose little patches and stuff hanging off." I inspected the box and nodded. "You are SO right. Eeyck, it's like she's never heard of Chap-Stick or something." "I like Winona better with short hair," Katie joined in. "I'm going to get mine like that." "I'm going to get cornrows," I added, then looked up to Yakeesha. "Can I do that, I mean with my hair?" "Jewel did it," Katie offered. "Yeah, but hers looked horrible," Yakeesha laughed. "We'd have to work on yours," she rubbed my hair affectionately. "But, yeah, I can see that .." "Maybe I could get mine done, too, before I cut it short," Katie jumped in. "Copy cat," I snapped. "You girls look and act WAY too much alike," Yakeesha commented. "I think it would do good to get different 'do's, you know ..? It'll give you your own personal styles." Suddenly, I noticed something. Yakeesha wasn't swearing anymore. Not at all! I think sometimes I could hear her start to swear, but then she would stop herself and kind of look around nervously. Uncle Stephen was occupied looking at boring old movies and documentaries, so I knew we had some more time. We kept walking down the New Release wall commenting on EVERYTHING, but when we were into the "S's" Yakeesha suddenly stopped. "I'm going to go over and talk to your Uncle for a minute, okay ..?" she asked. "Sure, but watch out," Katie laughed. "He's looking at boring movies." "That's all right," she smiled, reaching out and caressing both our shoulders before turning towards Uncle Stephen. Katie and I watched her as she walked over to him. In a few seconds, they started talking in hushed tones. "I wonder what they're talking about," Katie said after a minute. "I bet she's thanking him for rescuing her," I offered. "You think?" "Isn't she like totally the most beautiful woman you've EVER seen?" I asked. "Totally," Katie agreed. "But she's so not stuck up about it either." "I think that's because she's had a hard life," I observed. "Do you think she has any kids?" Katie wondered. "I mean what if she has a baby or something back there." "I don't think she does," I replied. "Or else she would have had us get the baby. She wouldn't leave a baby like that. She's way too nice." "How old do you think she is?" "I don't know," I answered. "She could be like 19 or 20 or something, don't you think ..?" "Do you think she's too young for Uncle Stephen?" Katie finally asked what I'd been thinking ever since she walked over to talk to him. "Do you?" "He's like what .. 38?" Katie asked. "Yeah, he and dad are the same age." "So he'd definitely be an older man," Katie mused. "But it's not like he's OLD old or anything, not like dad. I mean he still knows stuff that's going on, even if he does listen to dorky music a lot." "I think he kind of likes her," I observed. "Look at the way they're talking." "Wouldn't that be SOO cool if they got together," Katie gushed. "He saves her and everything, and then they get married. She could be our aunt. That would rock." "Do you think Uncle Stephen would care because she was a .. you know ..?" "Uncle Stephen?!" Katie was flabbergasted at the very idea. "He is like so totally cool about people. You know he never judges anyone. That would like totally make no difference to him at all." "You're right," I agreed. "Come on, let's see if we can eavesdrop." I walked up to them with Katie following me. " .. let's just take a few days so you can unwind .." Uncle Stephen's voice came into focus as we drew closer. "You've been through a lot. I think before you go out and try to solve all your problems and build a new life for yourself that you need to know what kind of life it is you want to build. If you don't, if it's just about getting a job and some money, you may just go back to where you were." "I don't get what you're saying," Yakeesha replied. "Basically," Uncle Stephen grinned, "I think you need to kick back and have some fun. I think you need to remember what it's like to enjoy life. Then you'll be in the frame of mind to really affect positive change in your life because you'll know what you're shooting for." "But I have to eat .." she seemed puzzled. "I have to find some place to stay .." "I have plenty to eat and a guest room at my house," Uncle Stephen suggested. "You can stay there as long as you need." "I .. I can cook," Yakeesha offered, "and clean .." "So can I," Uncle Stephen smiled. "Listen, you'll be living there, so whatever you want to do is fine. I don't want you to think you have to be my maid, though, because I don't need a maid." "Not when he has us," Katie chimed in as we approached. She hugged Uncle Stephen, a big smile on her face. Yakeesha looked like she needed a hug, so I hugged her and she hugged me back. "Listen to Uncle Stephen," I told her. "He's pretty smart for a geek." I turned to him and playfully stuck out my tongue. "I think you should relax and have some fun," I turned to Yakeesha. "You've been through a lot, and I think you need to remember how cool life can be." Yakeesha shook her head. "This is just too weird .." "Just go with it," I told her. "Good things do happen if we let them. Isn't that right, Uncle Stephen ..?" He nodded. "Now who's hungry?" "Me!" Yakeesha burst out, as we walked up to the check-out counter. After Uncle Stephen paid for the video, Yakeesha picked up a box of Ju-Ju Fruits and set them on the counter. When Uncle Stephen started trying to pay for them, Yakeesha shook her head and held up her hand. "I can pay for those," she told him, almost like she was suddenly ticked off or something. "I know," he nodded. "But not today, okay ..?" He put a dollar on the counter, and when the clerk handed him back his change he tossed the coins into one of those charity donation cups. "Thanks," Yakeesha kind of whispered. She had this weird look in her eyes, too, almost like she was more suspicious than grateful. "All I ask is that you share them with the girls," Uncle Stephen joked. "That's the rule in this family ..." "SHARE AND SHARE ALIKE!" Katie and I suddenly called out together. Yakeesha looked at us all, and then she just started laughing. "Can't figure out what I'm doing here," she muttered, shaking her head. "I must be crazy ..." "Welcome to the club!" Katie chimed in. Everyone was laughing now, and we laughed all the way home. Uncle Stephen was inside cooking and Katie was on the computer chatting with Kenyon. Yakeesha told us she wanted to take a walk, which seemed weird because of the weather. But she told us that she didn't get to take walks where she lived, and she just wanted to walk. So I agreed to go with her. It really wasn't that bad since I was with her and we were talking. I hardly even noticed the rain and slush. "Can I ask you a question?" I finally spoke after a kind of awkward silence. "Sure," she answered, but she didn't so sure. "Do you believe in love?" I asked. "That's a strange question." "I mean doing what you did," I tried to explain myself without sounding too judgmental. "That was like selling love, and .." "It wasn't anything like love," she interrupted me. "I sold sex, not love. No one can sell love." "But you know what I mean, don't you?" "Mmm hmm," she nodded her head. "I know what you mean. And maybe you are right. Maybe I don't believe in love anymore, at least for myself. Not after what I've been through. But that doesn't mean I don't believe in love for everyone else. Just not me." "You're lying," I told her. "What?" "You're lying," I repeated. "You still believe in love for yourself, you just don't want to admit it because you're afraid you'll get hurt. You don't have to lie to me, though. I can tell you still believe in love for yourself. You have a strong heart. I sensed that the minute I saw you. That's what God showed me." "Who are you people?" she laughed. "Your friends." "Why? Why are you my friends?" "Because God pointed us to you and told us you needed friends." "And you really do believe that?" "Don't you?" I replied. "Think about it. A few hours ago you were .. a .." "Prostitute," Yakeesha finished my thought. "You can say it, Kelly. That's what I was. I don't like it, but I'm not going to deny it and pretend that's not where I came from." "You're right," I nodded. "You were a prostitute, and now you're not because of us. That's kind of a miracle, don't you think ..?" "I guess .." "And who makes miracles?" She grinned. "Well, you got me there." By this time we had turned around at the end of the street and started back to Uncle Stephen's house. As we walked, we passed the Garapeck's house where Pete and Paul were outside shooting hoops. The ball hit off the backboard and came bouncing right at us. Suddenly, Yakeesha scooped up the ball. Then she set, paused a second, and put up this like awesome jump shot from the end of the Garapeck's driveway. I mean it was a total SWISH. Pete and Paul just stood there looking at her. "Wow!" I said, still shocked. "I used to play a little," she smiled, but I thought I saw a tear in her eye maybe. Looking away from me for a second, she reached in her pocket and took out her box of Ju-Ju Fruits. After she opened them, she offered me some candy first. "Don't worry, homegirl," she smiled. "I won't tell the Reverend." I smiled, stuck out my hand, got some Ju-Ju's, and popped them into my mouth. Yakeesha smiled then, too. Then she tilted the box to her lips and jiggled her wrist until a few Ju-Ju's slid into her mouth. "That was a nice shot!" Pete came walking up dribbling the ball. "Hi, Kell." Pete was a grade older than Katie, and everyone knew he had a BIG CRUSH on her. He always treated me like a pest, though. "Who's this?" he asked, eyeing Yakeesha oddly. It wasn't every day that he saw some six-foot tall, TOTALLY gorgeous, supermodel-type black woman in this neighborhood. "This is my friend, Yakeesha," I told him. "This is Pete, and that's his brother, Paul," I told Yakeesha. "Hi Pete, hi Paul," she smiled. "Was that a lucky shot?" Paul asked from the driveway. "Because Pete said it was pure luck." "That was NOT luck, Pete," I snapped. "You saw it. RIGHT through. Nothing but net." "It was a good shot," Pete agreed. "But lucky." "And what if we play you guys two-on-two and kick your butts," Yakeesha laughed. "Would that be luck, too?" "There's no way two girls are going to beat us," Pete challenged. "I don't care how old or how tall you are. You're still a girl." "We challenge you!" I burst out before I knew what I was saying. "Two-on-two." "Get out .." Pete laughed. "Chicken," I sneered at him. "Okay," he nodded after reconsidering a moment. "Two-on-two up to five baskets." We walked to the driveway court, and Pete threw the ball to me. "We'll give you first in-bounds." I nodded and watched as Yakeesha set up a few feet away. I tossed the ball to her and she looked at the hoop. Pete grinned and stepped back, inviting her to sink a fifteen-foot shot with no defense. Yakeesha smiled back at him, set her shot, jumped and put it up. A second later, the ball ripped through the net. Paul glared at his brother, got the ball and started to take it to the back of the driveway. As he set himself to in-bound the ball, Yakeesha called out. "What rules are we playing here?" "Huh?" Pete asked. "Where I play, whoever makes the shot gets the ball back," Yakeesha smirked. "Those are street rules. That is unless you all want to play like a bunch of white boys." "Okay, then." Pete barked, totally embarrassed. "Street rules then." "No way," Paul protested. "Give her the ball, Paul," Pete yelled at his brother. Paul flipped the ball to Yakeesha, and she in-bounded it to me. I dribbled up and stopped, feeding the ball back to her. She started dribbling like crazy until both boys started after her. After she got them all twisted up for a minute, she turned back to me. I was just standing there under the basket laughing my head off. Then she passed the ball to me. When the guys saw I was all alone under the basket, they screamed and dove at me, trying to get to me before I shot. But I just dribbled and laid the ball up to the hoop. "That's 2," I jeered at them as me and Yakeesha exchanged high-fives. For the next five minutes we totally rocked on those guys. Yakeesha was awesome. She could have beaten those guys all by herself, but she didn't. She passed to me again, and I made another basket before Paul started covering me, too. Then we actually played them two-on-two, and even though Yakeesha was taking it easy on them, it was a lot of fun. For the fifth and final basket, however, she cut loose, driving right by them, jumping up in this super-cool spin move, and then just laying the ball gently in the basket. "Are you like WNBA or something?" Pete asked as gasped for breath. Yakeesha just smiled and shook her head. "You guys need to work on your jump shots," she told the boys. Then for like ten minutes she showed them both how to coordinate their arms and legs together. By the time, she was done they were shooting a lot better. "You are like the best basketball player I have ever seen," I told her as we walked back to Uncle Stephen's house. "You could definitely be in the WNBA." "Maybe once .. yeah," she smiled. "But that was a long time ago." She stopped and looked in my eyes. "Kelly," it was the first time she'd ever used my name. "Let's not talk about this for awhile, all right ..?" "Okay .. sure .." When we got back inside, she went in the kitchen to talk to Uncle Stephen, and I went into the study with Katie so she could help me look something up on the computer. As we booted up the system and opened Internet Explorer, I told Katie everything that happened on our walk. Katie said she had an idea, and a minute later we were surfing the web and running a search for the name "Yakeesha" and the word "basketball." In a few seconds, about forty web pages popped up. Yakeesha was Yakeesha Thomas, and she was a high school basketball star in our city about five years earlier. She had a scholarship to the University of Connecticut and everything. Then she got injured in a game during her senior year and lost everything. The articles stopped after that. "That's what happened to her," I whispered after we'd read all the web-pages. "I wish we could have been there to help her back then," Katie added. "We're ready for dinner, girls," Uncle Stephen announced. He entered the dining room carrying this like super-huge vat of angel-hair pasta. Yakeesha was carrying a salad bowl. They looked REALLY good together. "Oh, cool," I exclaimed as Katie backed up the web browser to our home page. When we all sat down, I looked up at Uncle Stephen. "Can Yakeesha say grace?" I asked. "Uh .. " he was stunned. "I .. uh .. Kelly," he began. "I'd be honored," Yakeesha cut him off. "Really, Steve." STEVE! I looked at Katie and we tried not to giggle. Yakeesha looked at us, too. She's a woman, so she knows what we were thinking. She looked like she was trying not to giggle, too. "Thank you, God," she began. "It feels really weird saying this after all these years, but thank you .." her voice kind of got choked up a little at the end. "Amen!" me and Katie chorused. "And DIG IN!" As we started eating, I couldn't help but notice Uncle Stephen's eyes. He was like totally crunching on Yakeesha. Katie noticed, too, and she looked at me about a thousand times during dinner. "We'll clean up and everything when we're done," Katie offered as we cleaned off the last bit of pasta from our plates. "Now that's a switch," Uncle Stephen remarked. "It's usually like pulling teeth to get you two to do the dishes." "You and Yakeesha have had a tough day," I jumped in. "I'm sure you'd like to relax in the living room and watch TV or something for a bit before Sabrina comes on." "Sabrina?" Yakeesha asked. "Sabrina, The Teenage Witch," I explained. "It's a TV show. Then we watch Maybe It's Me, Reba and Raising Dad." "I've never heard of any of them," Yakeeesha admitted. "You have a lot to learn about cool TV shows if you're going to hang out with us," I grinned. "Just wait until Tuesday night .." "BUFFY!" Katie and I said together. "And Wednesday ..?" Uncle Stephen baited us. "DAWSON'S!" we screamed gleefully. "Pacey is THE cutest guy in the world." "I see," Yakeesha laughed. "We'd better clear out of here fast, before they change their minds," Uncle Stephen chuckled. He and Yakeesha went into the living room, and Katie and me started clearing. "They are like so totally going to fall in love," I whispered to her. "This is going to be SO COOL." "Wait until mom and dad find out," Katie giggled. "They are going to so totally wig out." We tried to listen in as we cleaned, but Uncle Stephen and Yakeesha were talking pretty quietly. We decided to make popcorn, and then Katie found this bottle of wine in Uncle Stephen's cupboard. "Hey, mom and dad gave this to him like two years ago at Christmas." "Well, I say we open it for them and make this a special occasion." So we opened it and got out these nice wineglasses that he must have never used before. MEN! Then Katie cut up some cheese, and we took it out to the living room on this platter " popcorn, wine and cheese (and grape juice for us). Uncle Stephen acted like he was annoyed at us opening his wine, but when we all started laughing at him, he finally chilled out, too. It was all an act, too. Like I said, that's just the way he is. Then we all started watching TV. Katie and I got out our TV quilts and plopped down in front of the TV. That left Uncle Stephen sitting in his chair and Yakeesha on the couch. "Can you get us more juice, Uncle Stephen?" Katie asked at the first commercial break. "Sure," he got up and went into the kitchen. Then Katie hopped up on his chair with her quilt. Yakeesha just eyed her and tried to hide her smile. When Uncle Stephen came back he looked at Katie as he handed her the juice. "The floor is cold," Katie pouted, then went back to watching Maybe It's Me. Shrugging his shoulders, Uncle Stephen gave me my juice then hesitantly turned to the couch. Yakeesha TOTALLY smiled and made room for him as he sat down. I turned back to the TV. I was dying to see what was happening on the sofa, but I was determined not to look until the commercial break. I mean we'd set it all up for them, so now it was their turn. I mean Katie and me can't do EVERYTHING. At the commercial break between Maybe It's Me and Reba, I felt Katie's toe nudge my ribs. I looked up, and she moved her head slightly to the side, in the direction of the couch. I nodded and stole a quick peek back. Yakeesha was nuzzled against Uncle Stephen with her head on his shoulder. At the next commercial break, I snuck another look, and saw that his arm was now on her shoulder and she was totally being cuddled against his chest. I flashed a thumbs-up to Katie, and we went back to watching TV. By the time Raising Dad ended and we were putting in "Romeo Must Die," Uncle Stephen and Yakeesha were SUCH a couple. Then we all sat there and watched the movie, which was WAY COOL, and I think kind of romantic, too, for Uncle Stephen and Yakeesha. Finally, it was over, and Katie starts dragging me up to bed. "We could have watched TV some more," I complained. "Dummy," she teased me. "If we didn't come up to the guest room right now, Yakeesha would have taken it, and she and Uncle Stephen wouldn't have any more time to be alone. Now they're down there, and he'll offer to let her sleep in his room while he takes the couch. Which will show him what a gentleman he is. But she'll say no, which will tell him how unselfish she is. And they'll keep talking until, you know, something happens." "You're crazy," I shook my head. "They just met. Nothing's going to happen." "I bet he kisses her," she insisted. "Uncle Stephen? You're kidding, right ..?" "Bet!" I agreed, and we shook hands. "Let's wait and sneak down in like half-an-hour." She agreed, so we sat up there in the dark whispering about boys and stuff, until Katie thought it'd be clear to sneak down. We had to be real quiet, too, because Uncle Stephen's wood floors creak all the time. From halfway down the stairs, you can look into his living room. The only light was the TV now, and we could see them together on the couch. The jacket part of her Nike suit was off now, and she was in her red tee shirt. But Uncle Stephen had his shirt OFF, and they were totally KISSING! Katie jabbed me in the shoulder and gave a silent "I told you so." Then we went back to watching them. She was on top of him, and they were rubbing their bodies together. I started to feel very sweaty, especially when she lifted her arms and let Uncle Stephen slide his hands under her tee-shirt. I think Katie and I both knew we should have gone back to the room, then, but we couldn't. We just couldn't move. Yakeesha slid off her red tee shirt, and she was just in a bra. Then she unsnapped that, and let it fall on Uncle Stephen's chest. Her body was awesome, her breasts all dark and sleek. She reminded me of a dark cat, like a panther, slinking up and down Uncle Stephen's glistening white body. Uncle Stephen was really into her, too, I mean he must have been by the way he was kissing and licking every part of her, especially her breasts. She rubbed his shoulders while he sucked on her breasts. Then he whispered something to her, and she laughed. "Oh, my God," Katie whispered when we both watched Yakeesha slide off her running pants, and then her panties. Suddenly she was NAKED, and Uncle Stephen was REALLY kissing her body .. I mean ALL OVER " her privates, her butt, her legs, her feet. She kind of turned around and squatted down over his face then, and he began kissing her .. RIGHT THERE. "Oh my, God," This time it was my turn to be TOTALLY shocked. She bent down and began kissing Uncle Stephen TOTALLY down there. They were talking to each other, too, real soft and romantic. I tried to hear what they were saying, but the TV was just too loud. They kept on whispering, and I saw Yakeesha reach down to her jacket on the floor and get her Ju-Ju Fruits. She was so into it, though, that she dropped the box, and it spilled everywhere on the floor. When Katie saw that, she started giggling. Suddenly a cold chill shot up my back. I'd just die if they caught us there! So I put my hand over her mouth so they wouldn't hear her and catch us spying. Katie just couldn't stop giggling, though, no matter how tight I covered her mouth. She finally stopped, though, when she saw what was happening next. "God .." we both gasped together in shock as Yakeesha started pulling down Uncle Stephen's pants. Then we were silent, like our whole bodies just became two big pairs of eyes. Neither of us could even speak as we watched her undress Uncle Stephen. I guess somewhere in the back of my mind I always wondered what Uncle Stephen looked like down there. One time when I was little, I ran into the bathroom without knocking because I REALLY had to pee. Dad was standing there naked in front of the mirror, shaving. I closed my eyes as I sat on the toilet, but I peeked when he wasn't looking. His penis was so weird-looking, all soft like a little hose made out of skin. Uncle Stephen's penis didn't look anything like that, though. It stuck up from stomach like a hard white horn. Now I knew why boys called them "boners." I had no idea they looked like that, or that they could get that big and swollen. "God .." Katie kept repeating. I think she was wondering if Kenyon's penis got that big when he was excited. Or maybe she'd already seen Kenyon's erection, and now she was amazed how much bigger Uncle Stephen's was. I was amazed, too, but I was even more amazed when I saw what Yakeesha did next. She opened her mouth real wide, and then she .. you know .. swallowed all of it all at once. It just disappeared between her lips, and then her cheeks started .. you know .. sucking .. hard. In a way, I was totally grossed out. But in another way, it was like the most TOTALLY beautiful thing I'd ever seen, and I couldn't take my eyes off of them. Neither could Katie. She was even more into it than me. I know she was thinking about Kenyon and her together. I mean I've had boyfriends and gone out with guys, but it's just kissing. I know about all the other stuff, but I figure that's for when I'm more grown-up. But Katie's different. She probably feels she's grown-up enough now to start getting more serious with guys. I think her and Kenyon might have even gone past first base ... maybe. Watching Yakeesha and Uncle Stephen, then, was probably giving her some ideas. But, still, I knew there was no way she would EVER do what Yakeesha was doing. Was there ..? I looked into Katie's eyes. She saw me and looked away, like I'd suddenly caught her doing something. Then I knew the truth. I knew someday that Katie would do what Yakeesha and Uncle Stephen were doing. I looked back down into the living room, and I knew that someday I would do it, too. I knew that mom and dad did it, that everyone in love did it. For the first time, I guess I realized how important sex was, that it wasn't just a joke. "Intimacy", that's what Uncle Stephen called it. And he was right. Sex certainly was intimate and very private. But now it wasn't dirty to me anymore. Sex was beautiful, like a sunrise, or the first snowfall, or the night sky when you finally get out of the city and REALLY see the stars for the first time. So I went back to watching, not because it was dirty, but because it was so beautiful. After they kissed each others' privates for a while, Yakeesha spun back around, and then she sat on Uncle Stephan, and they made love. Their bodies moved real slow at first, and their breathing stabbed into the air every time their bodies collided into each other. Then they picked up the rhythm, kind of like they were dancing, and the music changed from Mariah Carey to Britney Spears. Yakeesha kind of wriggled around on him, sliding her hips back and forth while he was deep inside her. Then she leaned over and kissed him, and he began driving his hips up into her while she moaned. "Yes .." I heard Uncle Stephen moan as he tensed up. "Yes .." she replied, collapsing into him just as his body suddenly went limp, too. Then they just laid there in each others arms, kissing and giggling and licking each others' sweaty bodies. Katie took my hand, and we looked into each other's eyes. Without a word, we silently crawled back into our room, shut the door, and went to our separate beds. "I told her she still believed in love," I said to no one in particular. "What?" Katie asked. "Nothing." "That was the most beautiful thing I ever saw," Katie spoke again after about a minute of quiet. "Me, too," I whispered. "Do you feel funny?" she asked. "Mmm hmm," I answered. "But good .. warm, you know .." "Mmm hmm .." She paused. "I want to do that someday." "Me, too .." "But not with Kenyon," she spoke after another long pause. "I don't love him .. not like that, I mean." "You don't ..?" "We're just kids. We couldn't possibly be like that. I mean I want to do that so bad, but that's why I want to wait. So it's just like that .. JUST like that," she repeated for emphasis. "Me, too." I paused. "Do you think mom and dad are like that?" "Yea," Katie giggled, and so did I. "All except that .. sucking stuff. Mom and dad would NEVER do that." "Yeah, you're right," I agreed. Only I knew we were both lying to each other and ourselves. Our parents loved each other, and they did EVERYTHING together. Just like Uncle Stephen and Yakeesha, and just like we'll both do when we finally fall in love. "Did you see the way that Pinecone guy went down after Yakeesha kicked him in the nuts?" Katie laughed. "That was SO AWESOME!" "I bet he didn't think so," I quipped. "This may have been the best day EVER," Katie said after more giggling and a moment of reflection. "God's always right," I added. "That's why he's God," Katie sighed. "Night, Kel." "Night, Kate!" I knew that when we woke up our lives would never be the same again. And I LIKED that .. A LOT! <1st attachment end> ----- ASSM Moderation System Notice------ Notice: This post has been modified from its original format. 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