Soccer boundaries 2 - Ponderings

Coming home, Carl was torn between shock and confusion. Kathy? I didn't mean Barb had inferred anything else. Barb would have kept the thoughts not quite nailed. I wouldn't have blown up teenage fantasies. I would have talked to Andrea and Kathy wouldn't lie to her best friend. Barb had spoken to the knowledge that such things happen. Why shoot the messenger?

Parents can't think about your son, can they? It's not natural. Well, maybe it's biologically natural, but it's not supposed to happen. It's not right! Everyone knows. It's bad having sex together. Sex is something...

Nothing would happen because Carl knew it wasn't right.

It's so complicated. Sex is something...

Of course, Kathy might feel ready to become a woman (an undeveloped vision of her, anyway, recognized, but she's only 14), but why wouldn't it happen to fight with a 16-year-old driver's license? He answered that before the question ended. The child believes in himself, in the future. I was looking at the relationship. He probably already saw beyond what a 16-year-old could come back. Sure, I knew it, sooner or later he fired from a backseat mentality, but maybe he wasn't in a hurry.

What would you see in him? Well, a father I could trust. He probably found out he could flirt with him, he could draw his attention. He had realized his look when he was flying in a towel. I knew he'd smile after planting his good-day kiss. Sure, he admitted, saw someone who saw her as a young woman.

Was he handsome with her? I'm sure not, as she saw too much of him. But then, how would he even fit into his equation? I was safe.

At dinner that night, she was exactly the same. No eyes or agitated comments about being scared of the dark. The conversation revolves around the school choir. I wanted out. It's fair, he realized; he was making more of his own decisions.

But looking at Kathy eating peas and talking about Junior Rally testing next year, he saw things he had never noticed before: the vibration, the sweetest smile, the most complete face, the collar. Shoot, admit, saw someone who in his own school days would have wanted to know better.

When he took a second aid of fried onions, he saw the cup of his bra. I'd seen your daughter's bra probably that morning, but I haven't really seen him. It was no consequence. Now I was very imagined, a very nice bra.

No, he told him, he didn't give him an erotic feeling. His chest was pretty, it was all. It was his father, as Barb had said. He looked again; he seemed more round, more full than he once did. If you brush against her while she cleans the table, it would be soft.

It was soft.

And this was the first night.

The four weeks of skating, Kathy every day giving more signals. I had tried not to see, but there they were. Not that I hadn't noticed Kathy's emergency before, but his sexuality was so obvious now. Not only his femininity, he realized, but his joyful opening with her for him.

At least he had a friend to help him deal with it. Talk a little and it's easier to have a perspective. If only Barb told him how to stop him, but Barb stood firm, "Let her think for herself. But in her world, tell her what not to think, scare her and you know the rest... some faces with an asshole on her dick! Save your vent for me, buddy. I have time and, what matters, I care."

"He's kissing me differently at breakfast. I can feel it. You know it's not gonna happen, Barb. You know it!"

"Tongue? Hardly, right?" Barb answered himself as he intended to. "Maybe it's getting more lips or something. Sometimes kids get bigger by the week. Kiss her back as a father should. Brush your teeth first, though."

"She leaves her panties on top of the pile of clothes!" He did not add about noting what color he had chosen by revealing above his belt. Today they were their pale blues. I was looking for grapefruit juice when you saw.

"So leave your clothes on the machine. If you know how to say, your panties can tell where you are with your pills."

How would you say, Carl asked, but he didn't ask. I couldn't see anything different.

"Don't even press the bra half the time."

Barb gave him a persistent look. "So you say, 'Here girlie, let me trust him with your leash?' Don't put your nose down there."

"Maybe I don't know how to show her that I love her."

"What I know is you're the father Kathy needs."

Once Kathy tried to steal his cap after practice, he grabbed it, and maybe he was coming back. It was an accident, a elbow maybe. But that boy is so smart. He had sensed his chest with his forearm, accidentally slipped over him and they went back, but he didn't tell Barb that part.

"You weren't hard or anything, were you?" in Barb's mode, like they'd talked about erections before. Of course not. "But then?" he continued. Well, not especially, at first anyway. "It would be normal as hell," he concluded, but then added, "Plus get this way by remembering it," but not pursuing it.

When Carl had stumbled too much on the sides (girls ran 20 times more without such wear), Kathy rubbed his neck before dinner. I knew he liked it enough that sometimes he wouldn't even fibrite about having muscle cramps. His fingers could relax tendons in several layers. Okay?

"Your neck?" Barb twisted him like a coach. "I think so. You think he's planning on coming down? Once those fingers come to walk, are you asking me for the map?"

She laughed, "Tell you what, though, if Kathy starts to get fresh, you just come to me and I'll beat you for a while."

A chest sometimes showed when Kathy used pajamas. His was an island of young women, not widened as Wendy's mother. The largest diameter for a baby's target, was expected by Carl, would be the Darwinian explanation. He tried to think about the scientific part.

Barb said Kathy's tits were totally normal, that this was the age when the nipples started to appear more. I also noticed.

Showering made Kathy mock pretty obvious. He left the door open, suggesting "Sometimes someone has to pee." Of course he never came in, but he knew the sliding shower wall didn't get too dark.

When he finally succumbed, "Dad, is that you?" he asked behind the glass. "Okay, he's a fool," he said.

He had almost left behind, but instead he said, "I just need to brush my teeth." He didn't plan to lie, even though he thought enough about Kathy's dilemma asking him to do his shoulders. No, luckily. Although she was far from partition, she could discern the tones of flesh from her figure. It was so bad to see, but between his legs it was dark.

"Shut up, Dad. Leave in the cold." He had gone out of panic.

When she admitted the meeting to Barb, she was firm. "Keep your slender ass out of the bathroom.

Sometimes father and daughter saw television... "Mash," sometimes a movie. If the movie had an actor at the service of a naked actress (that's why the subscription channels won money, Carl guessed), Kathy wouldn't pretend not to look while Carl pretended to leave. It was not porn because perhaps the plot was about the life of a writer, only a life that included respiratory fornication. He would hear the sounds, knowing he saw the picture.

"Can you see their organs?" Barb asked, as if the actors played for a church service. No. Being Mr. Censor would tell Kathy to see X's in his friends, Barb agreed. Let the child be honest about his curiosity.

"Barb, this is a strange thing, but, you know, it's just Kathy and I in our house. He could be in his room or something. Or I could get into mine. If anything like that happened and your pill still doesn't work..."

"So don't go in there to check his window, or whatever," Barb thought obvious. "Don't tell him there's a more comfortable place when he rubs your neck.

Watching TV together made Carl a less passive challenge. Sometimes Kathy walked away, and sometimes he would almost be against him.

"Like that time at the hotel, Carl," Barb recalled, "when you have the girls to wake me up. Maybe I touched you a little not to mock me, but honestly, you're a real gentleman. So be like that with Kathy, okay?"

He pointed out that there were no teammates to ask.

"Carl, did you touch her?" Right where his hand was on his side. "Is that all?" Well, maybe a little more. "Have you come in, perhaps?" No, he was firm. He did not add how his hand had slipped his sleeve from where it would have been so easy to slip into his collarbone. But I wouldn't. I wasn't sure how it would have been, if I'd been in a shirt with buttons. He figured one or two would get undone.

"Scumbag fire!" Barb started when he read Carl's mind. "I could have woken up! Like he's wondering about sex and waking up with dad squeezing his tit! Damn it, Carl, you want me to hit you? Then keep your performance together! Don't scare her!

Barb was shaken. She told him she knew she'd end up doing it, and here she finds out how almost right she was. Are you surprised? It seemed odd for Carl, but not high on his "to resolve" list.

But Barb was there more than a guide on not being seduced.

When Carl felt totally confused it was when Barb did his best training. It was usually quite simple. "Women get frustrated. Men get frustrated. Same thing. We take care of it. We need to clean our systems. Shit, if we both decided to be lovers, that's what we would do. But we have the limits we agreed upon. You and Kathy. It's not ready yet, the pill. You keep it, but maybe more on your own. Shit, it's how we're connected. Don't tell me shit, okay, but just blink your eye or something I'll know."

They both handled a smile. Barb added, "You will not be blind or anything."

PLAYOFF

"Carl, we need to talk." Coach and assistant coach were on the sides, watching the girls run their final round. They had practiced well.

This was playoff time, Carl knew, the real one. Barb wouldn't have to talk about a football game. Kathy was ready to do it, his choice was just too obvious. But himself? It wasn't about being able or wanting to. God, I wanted! She'd gone to sleep too many nights with Kathy. I'd take him to the couch. She'd get naked. Naked, she crawled over her lap, looking, her breasts pressing, the virginity giving, closing around him. She would be in charge, as Barb had said. When his seed finally satisfied it, they kissed. Carl would vanish into the fullness of her. Having done a good job. He's so happy!

But he still wanted Barb to keep his determination. To give him the assurance that he will do well, be a loving father. Tell him again it's for Kathy. Barb knows.

"I'm ready," he agreed. "I love the child, but I needed these weeks to get here too. Like you said, I'll let her mark our pace. Maybe we'll start hugging."

Barb spoke slowly. "Carl, it's like the grass is listening. Can we go somewhere?" turning to a bank a few meters behind.

"Yes, not in the field." They both waved the team and sat down. "It's time, right?

"No, Carl, it's not."

"No?"

"She stopped the pill and won't sleep with you."

"Isn't it?" Carl felt the void before denying it. You didn't want to?

Barb took her hand to warm her up. "She knows she's very young."

"She's almost 15. Many countries, that's when they get married!"

"Well, she's not there, I guess." Barb rubbed his back from his knuckles. "Are you okay?"

"I guess," a mockery.

"You think so. Carl, damn it, you know? Look at me! You're ready to cry!"

"No, I'm not."

"Well, be an idiot and act like a statue. You want Kathy to take you to your fucking couch! You think I haven't been anywhere?"

"I don't know... he's so smart."

"As if you weren't?" as if you woke him up. "Like who's seducing who?"

"Do you still love me?"

"Shit is. Perhaps you should wait for someone of your age," Barb suggested. "Sex doesn't work; it's normal shit, Carl."

"Oh, God, Barb. It's been working, Kathy and I, you know, together."

"Oh, demons," he heard his groaning. But he didn't let his hand go.

A minute ago I was building a life around Kathy. It may seem strange, father and daughter living together, but people would get used to it. They'd have their two rooms. Maybe they could have a baby and say they adopted it or something. Consumption would lead to everything.

Nothing now. When she got divorced, at least she had a girl to plan for. Now what? A teenager who kisses a fly and runs to the practice of the rally.

"As if he were alone suddenly?" Barb interrupted his thoughts. "But Carl, it's not over if a friend is still there."

He looked closer to his partner. It was close. "It's you. Somehow, it looked like Kathy, even.

"Kathy is the one who did the job, whom you almost made love. You need to make love, Carl, a lover, over and over. Yeah. I'm not Kathy, but it's me."

"It's you."

A kiss was how they sealed it.

Barb looked up, then back, "Look back, Carl. See that basketball ring? He looked. "You know, Carl, my dad was my basketball coach." He thought for a moment. "And Mrs. Griffin, we called her Claire, she was her assistant. So it was different from now, but it was the same.

"And he loved my father. I always have. Maybe it was a silly decision, but maybe it wasn't. Anyway, it was my choice. Shit, after that I took all the limits that were, but at least I discovered it.

"And hell yeah, Dad and Claire have to be lovers. He must have been in a barbecue or something where I saw them wandering into the garage and knew it was shit. There they were, holding hands, just like us. I was scared, I knew the rest. Claire is my stepmother now," clarifying the result.

"Anyway, as I said," Barb returned to the most personal, "I fucked things up myself, I had not discovered the limits. We always have them." He raised his hand and made him see his eyes. "But a few more meters, maybe?"

Carl reflected. "How would I know?"

"I'm not your coach, maybe a partner."

Carl nodded, stopped and tightened his hand. "Why me?"

"Because we've been teammates for a long time, good teammates." He always loved to laugh, he did not expect more of him than he could do, but he asked perhaps more than he sometimes showed.

But, almost forgetting Kathy, you've never seen me play.

"So we just do a test," resting his hand behind his elbow and looking around. "Maybe not here, though."

Without allowing the opportunity to doubt your instincts, "One to One"? your decision.

Barb came behind him, as if he were for some invisible object, and Carl stood still like his drug on his arm. We had that fucking limit somewhere, but it got away. I suppose it will appear, you think?" he explained, without the need for an answer.