Changing Partners

"That's sweet," Shaune said. "But I wanted to let you know right away, I passed! I got a 150 in science, and over a 170 in everything else!"

"Oh, Shaune, that's awesome!" Daniel put the car back in park and leaned over to give her a congratulatory kiss.

She allowed a quick one, and then said, "Now drive! He's going to get up sooner or later and he's gonna be pissed!"

Just as Daniel pulled out onto the road, a police car turned into the parking lot. "They're probably here for us!" he said.

"Fuck, Chris knows where I live!" Shaune said.

"He doesn't know where I live," Daniel said. "We're going to my place."

"Your parents would never let me in!"

"That's why we're not going to tell them you're there," Daniel said.

When they arrived several minutes later, Daniel showed Shaune where to climb up the tree behind the garage and onto its roof, where she could easily climb into his bedroom window once he opened it from the inside. The ensuing five minutes felt more like an hour to Shaune, but soon he had her safely in the room. "Ken's out at a baseball game," he explained, "And Mom and Dad are just about to turn in. Their room is downstairs, so they never need to know you were here."

"Daniel...thank you."

"Thank you!" Daniel replied, throwing his arms around her. "God knows what Chris would've done to me if you hadn't shown up."

"You could've taken that asshole," she replied. "You just would've been a little more beaten up." Returning his hug, she also looked around the room a bit. "Say, Dan?"

"Yes?"

"Could I see...since we're stuck here anyway, could I see your records?"

"Sure, once I've had a shower. Want to join me for that too?"

Shaune opened her mouth to wonder what his mother would say, but just as quickly she gave up with a grin. "I'd love to."

"I don't get you, Dan," she said to him as loudly as she dared a few minutes later. "You won't make love to me all summer, but you jump at the chance to wash my body ever so gently, like I'm an antique or something."

"You're no antique," Daniel reassured her as he rubbed his soapy hands reverently over her breasts time and again. "You're a young woman who's a lot smarter than you give yourself credit for, and now you're on your way to college just like me!"

"Thank you, Daniel, but that's not what I meant and you know it!" She allowed a rare grin as Daniel knelt before her and ran a soapy washcloth over her belly and playfully flicked it at her pubic hair triangle. "Most guys I've let see me like this were on top of me in a New York minute, and here you just want to wash me."

"I never said it's all I want to do." But it was all he did, and Shaune had to be content with playing with his hard cock while he washed his hair. After they were rinsed and dry, he hung the towel up on the shower rod -- having been careful to use only one so his mother would never suspect anything -- and then took her in a naked hug. "It's not that I don't want to make love to you," he said. "I just want the timing to be right, so we'll both be really happy with it."

"And that obviously means not tonight, with your parents sleeping downstairs," Shaune said. "No way I can stay quiet enough for that."

"I don't know how I'd explain away the messy sheets, either," Daniel said.

"Geez, Dan!" But Shaune didn't argue the point further.

Having remembered too late that Shaune didn't have any clean clothes, they settled themselves nude on the floor beside Daniel's bed, once he had retrieved the records from their hiding place. He also brought out Aunt Arlene's yearbooks. "Thought this might give you a little more idea of why these songs speak to me the way they do," he explained.

As he shuffled through his records, Shaune flipped through one of the yearbooks. She guffawed at page after page of crewcuts and Peter Pan collars and ruffly dresses and horn-rimmed glasses. "Oh my God, Dan, so cute!" she said as Daniel made his selection.

A great day called for an upbeat tune, so Daniel settled on "Trickle Trickle" by the Videos. "Even if there's no summer storm for once," he quipped, settling himself back alongside Shaune.

Shaune paid the music no mind. She was too fascinated with the yearbook. "God, Dan, can you even imagine living like this?" she mused. "So cute...but I guess they didn't consider it 'cute' back then?"

"Nope, it really was just how people looked." Daniel leaned over to see which year it was. "Aunt Arlene's senior year," he said. "See?" He flipped through the book to the senior photos and pointed out the bright-eyed young woman who was barely recognizable to him, and new to Shaune.

"Arlene Martin," Shaune read. "And the quote...'If whosoever love to a high degree are fools, then I confess, madam, I am as great a fool as ever nature made.' Is that from Shakespeare or what?"

"I don't know," Daniel said. "I don't think so, not flowery enough. But I don't really care who wrote it. What I care about is even back then, she had a heart that big and she was so wonderfully proud of it, and knowing what I know about what her home life was like with my grandparents, well, that's amazing, that she could be so optimistic." He paused and gazed once again across the decades into his aunt's young eyes. "And to know all that was in her immediate future was to marry a man she couldn't really love, but it was either that or be disowned by her family, and it would take another forty-some years before she was really free to be herself and love someone openly that she really loved..." Once again he felt his eyes getting misty. "It's tragic, isn't it?"

"But she had her happy ending eventually," Shaune said. "That's something, Dan. Not everyone ever does. Believe me, I know."

"You're right!" Daniel forced a smile. "You're so right! I guess it just makes me wonder, all these other bright and happy young faces in the book, how many others were in that same boat? And that means it wasn't really that different from today, huh?"

"Dan!" Shaune squeezed his thigh playfully. "The record's over. Play something happy, please! I passed my GED! We ought to celebrate."

"Fast or slow?" Daniel snapped the yearbook shut, not wanting to dwell any further on the harsh reminder he'd just given himself yet again.

"Slow." Shaune gave him a serene smile and held out her arms, welcoming his gaze upon her body. "Play that one you bought that day you brought me to the record shop, I liked that."

Daniel flipped through the stack and found "Tonite, Tonite," and set it on the turntable. Then he stood up and walked into Shaune's waiting embrace as the song began. "Never thought you'd be up to this," he said. "Especially not dressed like this."

"Oh, shut up," she said, and before he could respond, she kissed him on the lips.

They danced and kissed all the way through the record. When it was over, Shaune drew back and gave Dan an expectant look. "Time for bed, dear?" she asked.

Dan nodded. "Just let me put the records away." He thought about explaining why he kept them hidden, and in turn he thought about telling her he finally had his $300 -- thanks in part to her coming to his rescue -- but he opted not to.

While he was setting the floorboard back in place, Daniel heard his brother on the stairs. Shaune heard it too, he knew, for he saw her holding a finger to her mischievous lips from the bed, where she was curled up under the lone sheet he always used in summer. It framed her body beautifully, and Daniel felt desire overcoming his nervousness effortlessly.

"No one needs to know!" she whispered as he shut off the light and climbed in beside her.

"No one but us!" he agreed, slipping an arm around her and nuzzling up against her. The feeling of her bare skin against his was delicious, and wonderfully comforting as they both fell asleep.

For all the times they'd been nude together on the beach and elsewhere, Daniel had never seen Shaune in a swimsuit. Not until that afternoon a few days later, anyway, when they both had an early shift at Jerry's and the rest of the day free. She was looking adorable in her red and white bikini, and didn't seem to mind him admiring her in it. She did, however, mind him just lying about on the sand. "Are you gonna get up or what?!" she demanded after several minutes of frolicking about in the high tide while he lay back and watched.

"Can't help it," Daniel quipped. "You just look so cute like that."

"You and your flattering mouth," Shaune said. Holding out her hand, she ordered, "Get up!"

"I already am," he said, glancing down at his shorts. "Oh, you mean..."

"Smart ass!" she pulled him by the hand and he did get up. Pulling him close enough to give her a fighting chance at a bit of privacy, she rubbed her hand quickly over his hard cock. "I can be a tease too, you know!" she said.

"It's been a great summer, hasn't it?" Daniel said.

Shaune put her arms around him and they rocked about together as the tide lapped at their ankles. "Thank you for your help with studying," she said. "I'll never forget that."

"I'll never forget you setting my head on straight about dropping out," he said.

"Don't expect me to believe you aren't thrilled about going back to California!" Shaune said. "One more week, huh?"

"I don't know if I'd say 'thrilled,' but yeah. It'll be good to get back in the game. How about you? Community college?"

"Classes start in September. Can't wait! No more bullshit from Jason at work either. But I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you too, Shaune."

"Oh, come on! I've been throwing myself at you all summer and we never did..." she lowered her voice and looked around to make sure she wouldn't be overheard. "...make love."

"Well," Daniel began.

"Don't give me any more maybes, Dan! Don't say anything unless it's 'yes' this time!"

"Yes."

"Really?!"

"If you want to," Daniel said. "I mean, we've gotten to know each other a lot better and it's nice. I just haven't asked lately because I figured the summer's almost over, and I didn't want you to think I was using you or anything."

"Dan! No!" Shaune threw her arms around him tightly. "Of course not!" Dropping her voice to a whisper, she added, "Mom and Gordon took off to Pensacola for the week. We can use her bed!"

Scarcely twenty minutes later, Daniel found himself curled up on Shaune's mother's bed. The room and the bed were just as he had always imagined: peeling ancient wallpaper, bare bedframe with thin sheets, a beat-up dresser crammed with half-full bottles of every beauty product he could have named, and a stereo on the far side of the bed strewn with cassette tapes that showed Shaune got her own tastes from her mother. "She probably doesn't know I know where she keeps her condoms," Shaune explained from under the bed. Then she popped up holding one triumphantly in her hand. "But I do. Same place since I was too young to even know what they were."

"Glad you did know," Daniel said, not wanting to know how. Noting that the curtains were flowing in the breeze and occasionally they whipped in far enough to provide a clear view, he asked, "Want to close the windows?"

"No need," Shaune said. "In this neighborhood everyone knows what's going on."

"And you're getting out," Daniel said.

"Eventually."

"You're sure you want to do this?" Daniel asked. "Knowing we might not even ever see each other again?"

Shaune climbed onto the bed and straddled Daniel, rubbing his sides playfully. "Yes," she said. "It'll be a nice memory of a not very nice place. You'll let me have that, won't you?"

"Let you have it? I don't see it that way, but yes."

Without another word, Shaune lay down atop him and kissed him. He still hated the smell of the cigarettes, but was nearly used to it by now. Besides, he appreciated what she had just said and was more than happy to make a nice memory with her if he could.

Every time he'd thought of this eventuality over the summer, Daniel had feared he'd find himself trying to imagine he was with Peggy Jean instead of Shaune and that he would fail miserably. To his surprise, it didn't happen. Maybe Shaune's presence was just too real and too different from Peggy Jean's imaginary one, maybe it was the surroundings or the smell or Shaune's uninhibited primal groans, or that he couldn't really remember just what Peggy Jean looked like anymore, but whatever the reason, there was never any doubt that it was Shaune in his arms, smothering him on the mattress, grazing his chest with her long fingernails, demanding that he fondle her breasts, which he did.

Shaune's style was a lot more deliberate than he'd expected, but Daniel had no complaints. He watched without a word as she slid the condom on more gracefully than he'd ever managed to do on his own, and drew him slowly but surely inside herself. "Mmmmmmm," she grinned down at him. "Worth the wait!"

"I agree," he said, and it was true.

"Then you won't mind me taking you for a rough ride!" she warned. And from that moment on, it was indeed a rough ride. She rocked hard back and forth, sometimes hovering over him with her breasts tickling his, sometimes leaning back on her hands, giving him an easy reach for her clit, which he rubbed eagerly and to her delight, sometimes bobbing straight up and down. For ten minutes she never let up, and Daniel lost count of the number of times she came.

Finally she slowed down just long enough to ask if he was close. "Ever gonna happen with you down there?" she asked.

"I don't know!"

"Well then..." Shaune pulled off and lay down beside him. "Your turn," she said, catching her breath.

Daniel didn't leave her much time to catch her breath. He climbed on top and was soon flailing away just as hard and fast as she had done to him. Shaune's already big mouth got a lot bigger as he humped her, and Daniel had little doubt she used "fuck" as every part of speech over the next couple of minutes. But above all, it was "Come for me!" that came out again and again. Cathartically, Dan pumped out all his frustrations about college and his family and Jerry's and the summer, and focused only on Shaune and the lovely sensations of her body and her voice, until all at once it was over in a burst for them both.

"Thank you," he said in a husky whisper.

"Thank me?" Shaune asked. "I think I had a lot more fun than you did."

"Believe me, it was loads of fun listening to you come again and again."

"God, where were you in high school?!" Shaune asked again, squeezing him affectionately.

"Home feeling like a loser most of the time because I wasn't out partying," Daniel reminded her.

"Stop that! You're the one who made something of yourself, Dan!"

"You will, too."

"Thank you, Dan." She took his hand and squeezed it. "I'm just sorry you won't be around to see when I do. But I understand."

She kissed him again, and pondered her mother's drab ceiling.

As if by mutual tacit agreement, they didn't make love again during Daniel's last week in town. Daniel never suggested it because he didn't want to risk a bad round in bed spoiling the memory of their delightful one, and he guessed Shaune was probably thinking the same. With Daniel and Martha going back to school, James promoted her to head waitress, which meant she had less free time anyway.

And so it was that he went to Waxie Maxie's and slapped down his $300 on the counter without her tagging along. "Honestly, I didn't think you were going to do it in the end," said Richard as he slipped the record into a bag and handed it to Daniel.

"I wasn't sure about much of anything this summer," Daniel replied. "But I am now."

Out in the parking lot, with the windows down and the radio playing commercials, Daniel took out his black and yellow treasure and pondered the decades-old grooves and label. Who else had pored over the very same record over the years? Or had any of the previous owners ever done so? It seemed almost tragic to think perhaps none had. But it seemed all too probable.

Daniel smuggled the record in under his shirt and tucked it away under the closet floor with all the others. He didn't take it out again until his last night at home, when he carefully stowed all the other 45s in his backpack to carry with him on the plane (he didn't have a record player in California, but there was no way he was going to leave the records anywhere Mom or Dad or Ken might find them). With his clothes and books packed and having said his discrete goodbyes with Shaune that afternoon on the beach, Daniel was just about to stow the old record player back in the closet where he'd found it back in May.

But something possessed him to throw caution to the wind with his treasure. He didn't know what it was, having not even thought about the dance since he and Shaune had made love. But the pull was irresistible. After a quick detour to make sure his door was locked, Daniel went to his backpack and got the record out, and placed it on the turntable for the first time. Then he lay fully clothed on his bed and closed his eyes.

The gym was empty this time, even as his record filled the air, scratches and all.

Or almost empty, he realized as a silhouette appeared in the doorway. Slowly she came into focus, swathed in another adorable outfit not unlike the one he recalled, the face he had nearly forgotten yet would always remember, the pink ribbon as fresh as ever in her dark hair. As she drew closer, he realized she resembled Shaune a lot more than he'd ever noticed -- a sheen of innocence and a sparkle in her eye that Shaune probably hadn't had since grade school, but the resemblance was there underneath it all.

"There you are!" She said it with a smile, but it looked like a rather sad one.

"Peggy Jean!" He all but threw himself at her, and she received him in an eager embrace that segued perfectly into a dance. "Heavens, I've been waiting all summer for this!"

"Such a perfect song for the occasion," Peggy Jean said.

"You said it!" Danny said with an enthusiastic squeeze.

"I don't think you understand." Peggy Jean pulled back, and once again he sensed a melancholy something in her eyes. "It's been such a magical summer, even if we kept missing each other at these parties, but..."

"But now we're here!" Danny said. "If it's just this once, at least we're making a lovely memory!"

I'll remember...those golden teardrops...for me

Peggy Jean blinked back a few tears of her own. "Oh, Danny, it's not just the end of the summer, it's the end of...of everything! We're moving to San Diego, Mother and I, and my father's getting posted overseas."

"Well, that sounds exciting," Danny said. "Where's he going?"

"Vietnam. They say we might have some troops there for a couple of years, even. I know Dad'll be fine, but...I mean, I was already going away for college -- I won that battle, you know -- but at least I thought I could come back here and visit my home and my friends. Now everything's changing, and Dad won't even be there when I come home to visit -- not for a year or two anyway. I hate this Cold War so much!"

"I'm so sorry, Peggy Jean."

"If this is what the real world is like, I wish I didn't have to have anything to do with it!"

"I know the feeling," Danny said. "But it's worth it in the long run, you know."

"I know," Peggy Jean said. "Yeah, I know. I just wish I didn't have to let go just yet."

Danny waited for the inevitable -- the alarm clock, his mother, anything -- but there was nothing. Nothing but Peggy Jean in his arms and looking sorry for herself. "Well," he said, "We've still got tonight, you know?"

In the absence of a deejay or anyone else, he welcomed the once-reviled opening strains of "Goodnight My Love". Peggy Jean took a deep breath and smiled as she realized her own last chance was at hand. "I sure will miss this," she said, "But isn't it lovely to have the floor to ourselves for once!" She led Danny across the empty dancefloor in a joyful swoop, and her tears turned to laughter as they clung to one another and swayed to the music.