A New Running Partner

In hindsight, it was probably a mistake to be so friendly with Julia. But I'd never thought it would be a problem; she was twenty now, two years gone from the high school where I taught. She'd come back the summer before to help out with the summer runs I led as assistant cross country coach, and she'd been an absolute Godsend.

The first couple years of college had left her lean runner's body completely unscathed, the dreaded "freshman fifteen" sliding right past her as she'd always slid past slower runners; even as a freshman, she'd had a fearsome kick that had won her races from 400 meters all the way up to 5k. She had the total package, athletically; she was tall and straight, with strong sure legs and a compact muscular ass to drive them. Her breasts she'd always kept mercilessly squashed beneath sports bras that had to have been working very hard; I remembered how I'd gawked when I'd seen her at her senior prom, on display, her cleavage deep enough to fall into.

She'd enjoyed my attention, I remembered. There'd been a momentary stare from me as she came up that night to greet me, but nothing more; I'd dragged my eyes to her face and made the appropriate compliments, but the sauciness of her smile told me she'd noticed where my eyes had gone. As she walked away, arm in arm with some insignificant date she'd swept into her life, she'd grinned whimsically back at me and wiggled that tight ass.

But that had been it, I swear; she'd graduated and gone on with her life, and I'd forgotten about her as I'd forgotten about dozens, even hundreds, of gorgeous female graduates.

And then, there she'd been last summer, having arranged with Coach Daniels to come help out while home for the summer. I'd seen the two of them talking as I'd pulled into the parking lot at the county park, and I'd remembered her at once.

"Julia!" I'd called out as I came up. She smiled calmly at me and flickered her eyes up and down my own body. I'd been running for over twenty years, but I was now past forty and the metabolism had slowed down; still, I tried hard to keep from developing a gut, even though my wife didn't seem to appreciate it much.

"Hi, Mr Herrick!" she replied. She'd held my gaze as she grasped her ankle and pulled it behind her to stretch her quad, balancing easily on her other foot. For an instant I thought about moving in for a hug, but there were cross-country kids everywhere. And of course Coach Daniels was right there.

"Julia's helping you out with the girls' soph/frosh this summer, Scott," he said. "She'll also stretch the varsity girls."

"Great," I said. She'd always been a favorite student, if a bit sassy. "Looking forward to it. Still running at college?"

"Sort of," she said. "I'm in ROTC, so we do a lot of running. But I'm looking forward to getting out and moving a little faster."

"Then you've come to the wrong place," Daniels laughed. The current mediocrity of our team was legendary. "Scott and I aren't exactly setting any records these days."

"Come on," she said, once again starting into my eyes as she switched legs. "Coach Herrick looks like he could beat me at any distance." We all laughed, but the lively spark in her eyes made me wonder.

And that was the summer. She'd promoted herself to coach the girls' varsity full time by July, but it was obvious that she wasn't feeling challenged by the few mousy young ladies we'd been able to recruit. She came in one afternoon, well out ahead of her girls, just as I was loading up my car.

"Leaving early, Coach?" She was breathing deeply, recovering, her chest moving evenly. I blinked as I realized I was staring at a bead of sweat, slipping quietly past her collarbone. She smelled like effort. I'd always liked her enthusiasm; she'd been the rare excellent runner on our subpar track team. A strand of her red hair, escaped from her ponytail, drifted across her cheek.

"What can I say?" I shrugged. "Gotta go pick up the kids."

"That's right! You had a boy last year, I remember." Her dark eyes twinkled slyly. "You never did let me babysit your daughter."

"Yup. You were a student; I couldn't do that." I was out of things to say, but her sweat was still distracting me as it spilled down toward her chest. For a second, I thought wildly about reaching out to flick it off her skin, but then I shook my head like a dog emerging from a bath. "Well, see you."

Only, I didn't. She'd disappeared after that, and Coach Daniels had told me she'd started lifeguarding down near the beach. Ah well. That was that; I'd gone back to my quiet, routine life, teaching history and running the middle-distance track team, complacently moving toward retirement. I certainly never assumed I'd see Julia again.

Which was why I was shocked to see her come back the following summer. She was her old self, the long body and the mischief in her eyes, but harder and more confident after two years of ROTC. I'd been in the National Guard once upon a time myself, so we made small talk about boots and M-4s as we waited for practice to start late that June.

"I'm glad you came back," I said.

"Didn't you think I would?" She grinned and winked. "I'm not easy to scare off."

"Well, I just figured you weren't getting much out of running with us last year. Let's say I wasn't surprised when you left us for a beach full of surfer-boys."

She barked a laugh. "Come on. The guys here weren't the problem." Again that disconcerting confidence, the cool deliberate glance up and down my body. She scratched absently at her belly, flat and bare underneath the tight singlet she'd chosen. "You're right, though; I did want to run a bit faster."

"I know what you mean. Coach Daniels has a stranglehold on the faster boys, though."

"Yeah, but you look like you're still getting out and breaking a sweat," she pointed out. "Maybe I should just run with you this summer. You do the JV boys, right?"

I was speechless. I was not the kind of man that attractive young ladies invited themselves to run with. "Well, sure, but to tell the truth they'll probably hold you back too. You were still real fast last summer."

"What, were you watching me?" She laughed again and touched my arm. "I'm kidding. Maybe you and I could shame them into getting better. You know, the old man and the girl beating them and all."

"I'd like that," I said, and meant it. She'd always been a lot of fun; borderline inappropriate in class sometimes, to be fair, but always bright and vivacious. Spunky. "I'd love to run with you."

"Good! It's settled then," she gushed, "and I'm not going to go easy on you due to your advanced age." She winked slowly, a lively grin making its appearance. I smiled despite myself.

"Just don't beat me too badly. I think it'll be all I can do to keep you in sight." The words came out without planning, my eyes flickering inadvertently down to her hips. Of course, she noticed.

"Oh, I dunno," she said. "I'm pretty visible." She laughed loudly at that, then hurried off to join the girls for their stretching. And visible she surely was; she was a fan of the newer, tighter running shorts that let her ass wiggle for the world, and she didn't seem to care who saw.

And so that was the new summer, and Julia and I grew more and more friendly as the miles passed. Our routine was to set a brisk but manageable pace for the JV boys, then keep it up until we'd gotten a few miles from the park; once we knew they'd have no choice but to run all the way back, we'd crank up the pace and start smoking them. We'd generally be alone within a mile or so, then we'd slow ourselves down and chat our way back.

I'd forgotten how much fun it was to run with a partner. It wasn't something I normally did, but Julia was easygoing enough that I started to forget she'd been my student so recently. We talked about college, about the Army; we discussed my kids, my classes, and her prospects. She confessed that talking to me had gotten her thinking about the National Guard instead of the active Army, and she was thinking of changing her major to early childhood education.

"Kids love me," was all she said when I asked about that. She was interning at a preschool, and she said she loved it.

"Teaching is great," I said one day, as we sweated our way through a small park. We were on a concrete footpath next to some grassy soccer fields. "Plenty of time for kids, plenty of time for running. Summers off; you could do worse."

"Huh." I glanced over; she'd been quiet all morning, preoccupied with her clothes. She kept tugging at her top. It was one of those tight tanktops, white, with a shoe company logo on it. It left her shoulders and midriff bare, and failed to completely cover the straps of a bright green running bra. The setup looked expensive, but clearly it was giving her trouble.

"You okay?"

"Yeah." She tugged some more, and wiped some sweat from her face. "Goddamn bra. I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable, Coach, but I don't mind saying there are times when boobs are just more trouble than they're worth."

This was a new kind of conversation, but my wife had large breasts and I knew it could be a problem. "Sorry to hear that, but I guess it's just what happens when they're, you know, big." She looked over at me, her mouth open, then laughed long and hard.

"Oh shit, Coach," she gasped. "You've got no idea. No, it's not the size," she pointed out, adjusting herself some more. "It's the chafing."

I understood at once. There are times, if you sweat a lot, that a fast run can make your nipples hard. On long runs, it can be very painful even for men. "Ah," I said diplomatically. There was nothing she could really do; men could pull off their tops and run shirtless, but of course that wasn't an option for poor Julia. "We can stop?"

"No thanks," she retorted. "The boys will catch up and stare at my nipples. They're goddamn huge right now." Somehow, it seemed appropriate for me to look over there; she wasn't lying. Neither the over-engineered sports bra nor the tight singlet were any match for the broad, prominent nipples poking like Braille from her chest. "Goddamn sore, too."

I shrugged while I ran. "Hell," I said, "just take everything off. Seems like the only solution." I wasn't serious, and she glared at me.

"Yeah, you'd like that," she muttered darkly. "Couldn't take your eyes off them at prom. You, a married man! Shame!"

"Hey!" I put my hands out in protest. "You can't blame a man for looking. It's biology."

"Yeah, but you teach history." She pouted some more, tugging viciously at her top. "It'd be like you running with a hard-on."

"Jesus, Julia!" I shook my head. "That's over the line."

"What? You've never had to?"

I increased my pace. "Not appropriate, Julia."

"No really," she pressed, catching me easily and running right alongside. Her shoulder brushed my arm, leaving a snail-trail of her sweat. "You've never tried to run with an erection? Because if you haven't, you can't say a word to me about my nipples."

I was getting very uncomfortable with the conversation, but I gamely thought back. After a few moments, I glanced over at her. "To be dead honest," I said, "no. I've never tried to run... that way."

I had absolutely no time to gather myself for what happened next. Good track runners know how to use their elbows, and Julia had always been one of the best; her vicious body-check now launched itself at me, shoving hard with her elbow to send me breathless to the grass. I must have looked pretty awkward as I tumbled down, landing heavily on my right side before I flopped onto my back.

Still no time to react; I saw sky, then the wild red whiplike ponytail, then her laughing eyes; even in that instant, I recognized the mischief in them as they swooped closer, her face falling toward me. The kiss was urgent, almost desperate; I'd been about to cry out in surprise, but she squelched it as she drove her tongue into my mouth and began to make out with me. She gave a satisfied, happy grunt as her teeth collided with mine.

It took a moment for me to realize that if I was on my back, and she was sucking my face off, then her smooth young body must be plastered on top of me; in that moment I felt her strong, supple thighs clutching my sides as she knelt in the grass; her sweaty arms slid along my body like a pair of greasy snakes. She laughed through her kiss as her tongue burrowed deeper and her nose tried to make a hole in my face.

"Jesus Christ!" I managed at last, twisting my head breathlessly aside. "Julia!"

"Calm down," she giggled. One of her hands came firmly up to grasp my chin and reposition my face for another kiss. This one was less violent, at least, but if anything it was even sloppier. My tongue wasn't used to this. "I'm doing an experiment."

"Eh?" Another kiss choked off whatever I was about to say, but she wasn't neglecting the rest of me; her body began to squirm astride me, her left hand reaching up to stroke my face while her other hand slid along my ribcage. I was suddenly very aware of her hips, which were now moving across mine in that special, rhythmic way that told my reptilian brain to get my body ready for her.

And, as if my hips could have missed that cue, there was that damned right hand of hers, now moving past my belly as I heaved for air. The kisses had settled by now into a steady, hungry pattern, both of us finding the rhythm, our tongues now cooperating instead of competing. One of us moaned again as her hand slid past the waistband of my running shorts, continuing along my naked hip until it stopped against the bottom of the liner.

Vaguely, I remembered the runners coming along a few minutes behind us; I remembered my wife and my job, and a conscious part of my brain started to panic a little; the other part, though, was well in control by then, and my own hands were starting to wander. I'd never in my life touched a female student, current or former, other than chaste hugs at graduation; it had been years, meanwhile, since my wife's body had been half as supple as Julia's. So my hands were exploring, kneading and rubbing, encountering firm unfamiliar muscles underneath clothes so tight they might as well not have been there. Tentatively at first, but with growing confidence, my hands found her muscular ass.

"Yeah," she grunted quietly. She gave another languid, easy kiss, then pulled back and stared into my eyes with an intense look of triumph. Our breathing was synchronized now, and her stare bored into me as our faces hovered just an inch apart; she shifted her hips a bit to let her hand come around the front of my shorts, sliding in sweat, tangling in my hair, to clasp firm, sure fingers around my penis, now as long and hard as I'd ever felt it in my life.

She smiled widely then, a conquering smile common to every woman who has ever found herself in such easy control of her man, and laughed huskily. "There we go," she hummed quietly, moving her hand firmly along my shaft. "More biology, Coach?"

I was absolutely speechless. She laughed again, then glanced over her shoulder at the footpath. "The boys will be along soon," she said lazily, her hand continuing along my dick. A finger found my balls, tested them. "Let's see you try to run now!"

Her laugh this time was full-throated and giddy, not the secret and mysterious giggle of a few moments ago. She sprang off me, her hand sweeping out to leave the head of my dick poking out of a pair of shorts that had never been designed for that kind of containment. "Come and get me," she tossed over her shoulder, moving away with that peculiar grace of hers.

There was nothing I could do. I was caught between the fleeing, laughing woman and the oncoming, tired boys; lying there was not an option, and as I watched Julia turned, running backward with a wild look in her eyes, staring to see what I would do. Her mouth was open slightly, half-smiling, and I got to my feet and began to run.

Straightaway I knew that this was going to be a problem. Any man who has ever tried to walk with their dick hard knows how odd it feels; even in tighty-whities and a pair of jeans, it's damn awkward. I can tell you now that it's ten times worse in flimsy running shorts, with their shoddy liners. Add to that the fact that I was trying to run hard in order to avoid the boys, and I was in desperate trouble.

The one saving grace, at first, was that I could feel myself deflating. My penis did not like being bounced around like that, so it was making its displeasure felt as it bobbed, inadequately supported, like a giraffe with a pulled muscle. My brain, at first, decided to pull things back and stop the hormones... until I looked up, and caught sight of Julia again.

She was still running backwards, still moving easily and surely, her nipples still like twin rifles aimed right at me. Now, though, her twinkling brown eyes were focused squarely on my dick, her half smile now a broad and knowing grin, laughter belting out of her as she took in my predicament.

Immediatlely I responded to her attention, once again going obscenely hard in my shorts; I hunched over in a vain attempt to stop all the bouncing, and with the sound of the JV boys coming hard on my heels I picked my moment and ducked off the trail behind a public bathroom, hiding my condition from my panting team who, soon after, passed the bathroom in a huffing, sweating pack. I stood there, still hunched over, as I heard Joey Witherspoon get a drink of water from the filthy sink inside the bathroom; I stayed as quiet as I could until they'd left at last, heading off on the mile or so toward the parking lot.

I was in a bind now. Presumably, they boys would catch Julia; I'd be coming in well behind, which was unusual enough that it would be noticed. And I couldn't claim to have been using the bathroom; Joey would have seen me in there. On top of that, my poor penis had no idea what it was doing; it was on its way down again, but slowly, warily, as if it no longer trusted me to quit damaging it by forcing it to run. Even those 200 meters or so, bobbing in my shorts, had made me sore and cranky.

I was debating all these options in my mind when there was a small noise above my head, from the little window in the side of the bathroom. "Well," said the voice merrily, "I guess they're gone, huh Coach?" The laugh that followed, like all the rest of what Julia had done in the past five minutes, was enigmatic and exhilarating.

"Shit, Julia," I accused, not even pretending to be calm, "what the hell was that all about?"

"Relax, Mr Herrick," she giggled back. I heard the sound of a toilet flushing. "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just in here peeing. That was kind of a hard run there, wasn't it?" She giggled again. "Get it? A hard run?"

"Good God."

"Well," she tsked, "it serves you right. Next time you mock my boobs, just remember it's not so easy." She washed her hands; I heard the bathroom door open on the far side, and the grating sound of her running shoes scraping impatiently at the path. "Coming?" She laughed again at the new joke.

And now I had a choice to make, for at the sound of her happy voice, my treacherous and mistrustful penis was once again tenting my shorts, obscenely large. I sighed pitifully. "Not really. I'm sort of stuck back here."

"Oooh!" Her squeal preceded her as she started to come around the little building. "Sounds like a problem." She snickered as she came into view, peeking around the corner as I looked over at her, hands on my knees. "Are you decent?" she teased.

"Goddammit, Julia."

"I thought not." She looked down at my crotch. "Oh, you poor man," she sighed. "I was just trying to have a little fun, but that looks pretty uncomfortable."

"Gee," I replied, heavy with sarcasm. "How would you know?" This was surreal. This girl, half my age, a former student who I didn't even know very well, had just jacked my dick and we were making jokes about it. I felt my face redden with embarrassment; things like this didn't happen to me.