Alan said, "Yeah, but it's funny - it doesn't really bother me. Maybe I'll feel more sore later, but I think the bruises look worse than they feel. Anyway, I came here because I wanted to apologize. About a lot of things. But maybe we can get more comfy first?"
Christine was more aroused than she was letting on. She thought, Such as cradling you in my arms. I'd even let you rest your head against my breasts! But she merely said, "Yeah. Why don't we go lie on those lounge chairs?"
Once they were both settled in adjacent lounge chairs, Alan continued, "Like I said, I really want to apologize. You were such a great heroine, basically totally saving my sorry ass. I want to thank you a thousand times over for that."
"You thanked me earlier," she pointed out.
"I know, but I said I want to thank you a thousand times. So I still have something like nine-hundred and ninety-nine times to go."
She smiled. Thank me with another kiss on the lips!
"But I've been thinking, and the main thing I want to apologize for is that there never would have been a fight in the first place if I hadn't been such a bonehead. Remember when you were escorting me to the bathroom and all I could do was make those stupid, lewd jokes?"
"Yeah." She stared off into the distance and her face was very difficult to read. "But I have to admit that I was having a good time, even though I couldn't get you to stop staring at and talking about my breasts."
He stared deliberately at her barely covered huge boobs as he said with a grin, "Thank God the times have totally changed. I'm way more mature now then I was back then. I would never do THAT again." He ogled her tremendous rack yet more obviously, if that was possible, and even wiggled his eyebrows for comic effect. His dick was in no danger of going flaccid.
She grinned for the first time. "Way back then, huh?" She was happily recalling their earlier kisses, wishing for more like them. She didn't mind his ogling at all, but she felt like she had to put up a token protest eventually. She waved her hand across her face. "I'm up here, remember?"
"Oh yeah." He hammed it up, like it was a Herculean struggle, but he eventually managed to pull his eyes away from her cleavage and up to make eye contact. "What was I saying? I think I just lost about 50 IQ points."
She thought, I've always been flattered that he loves my breasts so much, but it wasn't that big a deal. Now, though, when he stares at me like that, I want him to touch me and kiss me. What if he were to not just look, but hold them and even kiss them? I want him to kiss me everywhere!
What plausible excuse could I come up with to take my bikini top off? Unfortunately, that's a bridge too far. Unless I just... up and do it!
However, she hid those feelings, instead just rolling her eyes. But then her grin turned into a big smile. "I'm not surprised you're staring now. Can you believe my mom made me wear this stupid bikini? She said it would help put me in a 'fun mood'. As if!"
She snorted derisively, again attempting to hide her growing arousal. She ran a hand over the fabric covering her left breast, like she needed to demonstrate what she meant when she referred to her bikini.
He didn't know what to say to that, since he wasn't sure if she'd respond positively to some more teasing. While his erection throbbed to the sight of her touching her breast, he couldn't believe she'd done that to deliberately provoke him, so he gamely pressed on. "I was joking too much and not taking the real danger that we were in seriously enough. And not just then, but all along. I kind of thought the whole bodyguard idea was a bit over the top. But you were totally right and I was totally wrong. I feel foolish. I just didn't think they hated me THAT much, and would go to such extremes and risk to get me."
Christine wished she could tell him what she really felt. Namely, that she hadn't really taken the threat all that seriously either. She'd seized upon the situation mainly as an excuse to be his bodyguard since that would give her an opportunity to spend more time with him, up close and personal. And then she'd gotten serious about strategizing for two reasons. One, it was a chance for her to impress him. And two, it was fun in and of itself for her, almost like playing some kind of war game or an advanced version of Cops and Robbers. The fact that there was a real danger was almost 'icing on the cake'; she would happily have done it all for a completely bogus threat.
She couldn't tell him that, at least not entirely. But she did say, "I didn't really think they'd go to such extremes, either. I was taking the 'better safe than sorry' approach, but I didn't really expect it to end up like it did. If I had, I would have been even MORE careful; I certainly wouldn't have run right into that trap. Talk about feeling foolish! I'm probably kicking myself even more than you're kicking yourself."
"No you're not. That one was just as much my mistake. And I have a bunch of other stuff to feel bad about too. For instance, there never should have been a threat in the first place. I was really, really dumb. Brain-dead, moronic, idiotic, imbecilically dumb. As I told you in the ambulance, some weeks back, Heather found me interesting, God only knows why - since she didn't know me from Adam at that point. But I haven't told you the full, painful truth. She started getting sexual with me while she was still going out with Rock. I mean, she started the whole thing by reaching over and feeling me up in that Baskin-Robbins while talking to Rock at the same time!"
Christine looked like she wanted to gag, because she was forced again to think of Alan having sex with Heather.
He continued, "She totally cuckolded and humiliated Rock, and I just went right along with it like a complete idiot. I wasn't even thinking about HIS feelings; I just thought he was a dumb jock and he could use a comeuppance. So it was my passive cruelty that really started this whole thing. He really was in the right and I was in the wrong. He has good reason to hate me. And I made more mistakes after that, like flaunting my new sexual good fortune without thinking about the consequences."
She grimaced, mainly because an image of Alan boning Heather had popped into her head. Despite the seriousness of their discussion, her arousal continued to slowly rise, so much so that even the thought of Alan having sex with Heather was actually kind of exciting, in a disgusting sort of way. She could easily see the outline of Alan's erection through his bathing suit.
Furthermore, the fact that she felt practically naked was making her tingle in strange ways. Alan's a virile stud. That's just a fact. I'll bet he makes Heather scream in ecstasy until her voice is hoarse. Is there any chance he's going to leave here without at least getting my bikini top off somehow, so he can finally play with my breasts to his heart's content? I doubt it, especially since I wouldn't exactly resist him!
Nevertheless, she stayed on topic, replying, "Yeah, but what you did didn't justify what they were going to do. They would have been after you even without any of that stuff that happened between you and him and Heather. Although I can't resist getting my little Heather dig in: what the HECK were you thinking?! That girl is like poison. Sounds to me like she's the one to blame for the whole cuckolding thing, not you. You were just a pawn in another one of the games she plays to amuse herself. You must have been blindsided by her slutty, er, appeal, if you could call it that, and not thinking straight."
"Well, that's partly true, as I told you before. I mean, you'd already turned me down, so I was willing to accept less. But you can't blame it all on her," he protested.
"Yes I can!" she grinned defiantly, knowing that it wasn't all Heather's fault, and maybe even partly her own. "In any case, I know through the school grapevine that Ryan's thugs beat up lots of kids before you, sometimes for the most flimsy excuses or sometimes no excuse at all, just because they could. They even picked on kids who were way younger and extorted money from them. They would have gone after you eventually, simply for dating Amy, because a 'nerd' isn't supposed to date a cheerleader, period. Maybe they wouldn't have been so fanatical about it, but they would have targeted and harassed you just the same, for breaking an unspoken rule. I know all about these guys from the rumor grapevine - believe me."
"Really? Wow. That makes me feel a lot better."
She added, "And thanks to our fight today, their little reign of terror is coming to an end. You made some mistakes getting to this point, but the end result is really good for the school as a whole."
"You think? I hope so, but a bad action that has good consequences is still a bad action."
She stared at him intensely, like she was seeing him for the first time. "Incredible. You're such a good, moral guy. That's one reason why I like you so much. But consequences DO matter. A lot. Pat yourself on the back. You made mistakes, yes, but you really helped the school."
He thought, Me? A moral guy? Ha! If she only knew! If she could have peeked into what I was doing to my family before I came here, she'd kill me!
However, he did find her words generally comforting, and he replied, "Man! Christine, I love talking to you. It's like you're taking a big weight off my shoulders. But the same applies to you: you shouldn't beat yourself up about falling for their trap. After all, it worked out for the best, right?"
She grimaced. "True, but it could have worked out even better. I made soooo many mistakes! What if I'd called at least ONE person before charging headlong after that Aaron guy? Help could have arrived in just a couple of minutes, well before the whole thing was over. If I had been even a little bit less hasty and stupid before the fight, they wouldn't have been able to hurt you at all! It really is a miracle that no one got seriously hurt, and that Rock didn't smash up your face. I keep beating myself up for that!"
She almost sobbed. "Dumb! Dumb, dumb, dumb!" She slapped herself on her forehead, which set her big breasts wobbling in delightfully distracting ways.
"Yeah," he said, "but they preyed on your inherent goodness, and there's no shame in that. You did about as well as you possibly could. You should be proud. You're a heroine."
He paused for that to sink in, then continued. "Besides, remember what I told you in the ambulance: 'Don't 'should' on yourself. No more 'should-a, could-a, would-a.'"
She smiled in memory of their ambulance ride. Her stomach was doing flip-flops as she recalled how he'd kissed her then, and again later in the hospital. Still, she played it cool, saying, "Funny you should say that, 'cos both Mr. Morgan and Mrs. Pestridge told me basically the same thing on the phone just before you got here. But I still don't believe it."
"Mr. Morgan?" he asked. "As in the father of your mortal enemy? The very man that begat the spawn of Satan? Doesn't that make him Satan?"
She chuckled a bit and broke into a big smile for the first time since Alan had arrived. "Yeah. The one and same. So you've finally seen the light! You've admitted that Heather is the spawn of Satan. I say we need to exorcize you or something."
Alan wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and with great exaggeration. He hammed up his voice like he was a sleazy pick-up artist. "You can exorcise me anytime you like, baby."
"Alan!" She obligingly protested, knowing he was just kidding around. "You're evil!" She got up from her lounge chair and went to his so she could mock-slap his face. She was well aware of how that would cause her incredibly enticing tits to dangle and sway.
He pretended horror. "Oh no! That means she got me. It's too late to save me, but save yourself! Quick, take your bikini top off, before it's too late!"
She laughed some more. "You silly. That doesn't even make sense."
"Yeah, well, I gave it the ol' college try." He was thinking, Damn! I swear, her breasts are like two squeezy bowling balls, just dangling down and begging to be fondled. I need to get her to change positions before I can't restrain myself!
She thought, Damn it! I should have called his bluff! He told me to take my top off. I should have up and done it! That was my perfect chance. I'm such a coward when it comes to sex.
He asked, "But seriously, how did Mr. Morgan treat you?"
She quickly turned serious again, sitting up on the edge of his lounge chair to answer (much to his relief, as that put her in a less enticing position). She replied, "He seems pretty okay. Maybe even more than okay. He certainly didn't have to track down my number and call me, but he did, and he made me feel a lot better." She scowled as an image of Heather came into her mind. "How can Heather be the way she is with someone like that as her father?"
Alan ignored that question by asking a question of his own. "I remember him talking to you next to the racquetball courts. What did he say?"
"He told me that it wasn't my fault. But IT WAS! I screwed up in ways I can't even begin to describe. I don't want to talk about it!" She sat up, folded her arms under her big boobs, and frowned to keep from sobbing.
Christine sat back in a less provocative pose. The topic was suddenly cooling her ardor. She was truly haunted and ashamed about the thoughts and feelings that she'd had when she decided to leap at Aaron. The specialized women's self-defense courses she'd taken, where she'd learned tactical breathing and other critical things not taught in her regular martial arts programs, had necessarily removed her female inhibitions about attacking lethally in self-defense. This entailed aggressiveness and ferocity to a degree which conflicted with the spiritual training and respect for life of her normal martial arts instruction. Christine had never needed to resolve this conflict, because it did not arise in her martial arts context; she hadn't even recognized that it would be a serious problem until this, her first real street fight.
The unexpected appearance of the behemoth Aaron, and his charge right at Alan, evoked the all-out fight mode of Christine's self-defense training. Her hasty decision to take him down had been based on sound trained logic - to deal with him once and for all - but the surge of adrenaline-fueled anger and outright vengeance (due to his pretended assault on the screaming girl) had led to her initial choice to cripple him, and she was deeply ashamed of that decision, even though she had relented before she'd struck. Worse, she knew that it had arisen through her own failure to read the fight scene in advance, to protect Alan from harm. True, she'd talked about some of this with Alan during the ambulance ride, and that had made her feel a little better, but the issues were so troublesome for her that they didn't go away after just that one discussion.
She felt like all her years of martial arts training to be "a force for good" had almost been for naught, and that she'd let her teachers down.
She'd talked about these issues with Heather's father on the phone. He'd explained that what she went through was perfectly natural and even typical, given the circumstances. He'd even been at pains to praise her for her self-restraint. But still, she had residual guilt and unease about the whole event.