The road home from high school. Tall oaks shading me from merciless sun. Lower-than-normal humidity this day thanks to a breeze off the Bayou St. Genevieve, which ran deep and calm on the edges of the oaks. The spines of my schoolbooks were sticky against the dew in the crooks of my arms. My hair swung in a gay ponytail that bounced and swished with every jaunty step I took. I heard this rock song in my head and felt like dancing. A good day. And I'd been looking forward to this walk. I knew I would see him.

And there he was. Around the greenness of the bend past the convenience store. Waiting for me on this private lane sheltered from the view of the nearby state highway that sliced clean and narrow through the land of my youth.

Motorcycle. Big. Bad. Black. 

From a distance, his legs almost blended in to the bike's blackness. My pulse quickened. What kind of guy wears black leather pants in south Louisiana in late August? The kind who knows it will make you feel as hot as he must have known he'd be in them. Even though he was standing in deep shade and the sweet cooling breeze was rifling the Spanish moss-laden oaks, he still had to be some hot in those pants. He'd done it just for me, I knew.

Black. Leather. Pants.

I bounded up to him and pulled my armload of books around to my back, holding them there ... so coyly showing off my uniform. He considered me through hooded eyes and gave me a slow, very mysterious smile. Little cock to his head as he looked me up and down, from my saddle oxfords and white bobby socks to my little pleated skirt to my sleeveless pullover to my hair.

When he finally looked me in the eyes, I twirled a strand of hair that had gotten loose from its bindings. Popped a bubble with my gum and slunk out a hip. "Hi. Were you looking for me?"

Took him a moment. "Nah, not really, doll. Just having a bit of ... mechanical problems with the bike. Needed a cool place to fix it."

"Really?" I sauntered over, cautious not to get too close to the motorcycle jock, an obvious bad boy that good girls like me had to be careful around lest they talk us into unmentionable activities. "What's wrong?"

"Dunno yet. Just started looking at it. Wanna help?"

"Help? Won't I get dirty?" I batted innocent eyes at him as his smile broadened. "As you can see, I'm wearing my new varsity cheerleading outfit. Hate the thought of getting it all dirty. Just got it today at school when they announced who was on the squad this year. Like it?"

Twirled around; knew without a doubt the pleated skirt would flare up and show a bit of upper thigh. May have even shown some of the chaste, color-coordinated sports briefs underneath. When I turned back to face him, he looked a lot more serious.

"Yeah. Like it," he said, soft and like it hurt to talk.

"I do, too. Better than last year's skirts. These really look good when we do jumps and splits."

"You do splits?" His voice almost squeaked.

"Uh huh. Of course, silly. Can't make varsity unless you do." I bent straight over to put my books down carefully on the pavement, giving him a much more detailed peek. I glanced at him; he was sweating. Was it only because of his pants or was I having any impact yet? Straightened up quickly to sing out to him: "Hey! We learned our first cheer today. Want to see it?"

Shook out my pompoms from the bag I'd been carrying and didn't wait for an answer. Just launched right into my cheer, complete with stomping feet, high kicks and pumping pompoms ...

S - U - C - C - E - S - S

That's the way we spell success

V - I - C - T - O - R - Y

That's our Rats battle cry!

Squealing out in delighted excitement at the end, I finished with a little cartwheel and then sunk straight down into the best semblance of a split I'd done in quite a few years. His eyes were glazed over when I bounced back up to my feet.

I stood looking at him with the pompoms resting on my hips. Popping my gum. Waiting on him.

Finally, he swallowed and said, "That was a good cheer, honey. If I was on the team, I'd score a touchdown for you. Would you give me a little reward if I did?"

One more step toward him. Time to ramp things up.  "Two things. I would always give you a reward if you scored. And ... you are not just on the team, you are the team. See what's on my jersey?"

I massaged my hand along the three letters stitched along my chest.  B - U - D. Pointed to the rat emblem sewn underneath. "Stands for my favorite school -- Bud's University of Debauchery."

"Christ, Ann. Enough with the fucking play-acting. C'mere to me and let me show you what I've always wanted to do with a peppy little cheerleader like you." He reached for me, but I jumped back out of reach. He gave me this frustrated groan, closed his eyes and shook his head. "Can't we stop fucking around and just fucking get to it?"

"That's not how the game is played!" Giggling to him but instantly alert to the fact that he didn't seem at all amused anymore. Waiting until he was looking at me again. Saying it soft. "This was your request. You wanted me as a cheerleader. All I wanted was the bad boy in leather and on the bike. We're both getting what we want."

This time his face got much too serious and I had to look away. "This the only way you can relate to me anymore? Playing sex games? That make you feel safe from getting too close again, doll?"

Eyes at the ground and I noticed the scruffs on my shoes. Sharp black lines against the white sections of leather. "You've never minded playing with me before, Bud. But if you don't want this, then ... Hey, it's okay. I'll see you back at the house. Just give me about a half hour's head start so I can take a shower and turn back into plain old me. Christ, this is embarrassing."

His big hand on my wrist stopped me as I was walking away. When he touched my face, I shut my eyes and hid tears. Felt his lips soft against mine but I didn't respond. I knew my face was probably blazing with shame. He'd made a special request ... me in a cheerleader outfit ... I'd gone to extreme lengths to get the right one. What had I been thinking? Last time I'd been a cheerleader was as a sophomore in high school. I was the last person most people would have ever thought as the cheerleader type. But, hey, he had been cool about my request to come fulfill this itch I had to feel him in black leather pants and see him on a motorcycle.

So I'd tried to be and act like I thought he wanted ... but, once again, I seemed to be a bit out of step with things with the men lately. Like I just wasn't hitting the same notes I always had with them. I mean, come on. Look what's been happening. I totally let my guard down with Max and that's not like me to do with him. I'm beginning to wonder when Terry and I are simply going to have a nice easy visit where it's just the two of us and nothing weird or criminal happens. And now Bud ... it was always so easy with him; I never had to do anything but go on instinct with Bud but now I seem to have lost that touch with this adored man.

"Ignore me, doll," Bud whispered against my neck. "Just fucking looking for clues that aren't there, I suppose. You're right. I do like to play with you. All I ever have to do is think of that pool hall ... Snowflake, you got a style I like. What say we fucking get back into character?"

Shaking my head against his chest. "'Sokay, Bud. I'm parked around the bend. I'll meet you back at the house."

But rather than let me go, he backed up and tugged me with him until he was leaning into the motorcycle seat and nudging my reluctant body in between his thighs. "You good girls and not wanting to get your clothes dirty. Bad boys like me? We like getting dirty. Dirtier the better."

My eyes flew up and searched his face for a sign. All I really saw was that he was trying to understand just how I was feeling and that he wanted to make it right for me. I swallowed and tried to find my place in this little game again. If he was going to make an effort, then he deserved me making one as well. "You look pretty clean to me, Bud. Your t-shirt's still nice and white. But you do have this little smudge here ..."

Licking my fingers and using them to wipe off a small bit of grime from his jaw line.

He grabbed my hand and studied it. "Christ, little girl, you got such cute fingers. How 'bout you put them to some use for me?"

I couldn't help it. I hadn't really expected that out of him and his sincerity made me laugh. "I'm not that kind of girl," I snapped out at him and tried to get my hand back. I loved the way he held on and then snared me with his eyes.

Leaning slowly toward me like he was thinking of taking advantage of me. "All I was going to ask was if you'd help me fix the bike. Hand me some tools when I need 'em. What'd you think I was meaning? Sounds like I may have a dirty body but you're the one with the dirty mind, snowflake."

"I do NOT have a dirty mind," I shrieked in mock horror. 

His eyebrows shot up and he gave me this long, slow sneer. "It's always the cheerleaders, ain't it? You girls act all sweet and innocent but I bet you think things that'd fucking shock a little boy like me."

"Little?" I suddenly giggled and glanced down at his groin. "Well, somehow I got a different impression."

"You be a good girl and you may just get the chance to find out if you're right or not," he said, his face suddenly getting that serious, wolfish look to it. If I'd really been a good girl, that look would have scared me to death. Instead, it just made me wet. "How 'bout it? Help me get the fucking bike fixed and I'll give ya a ride. You're not scared to take a ride with me, are you?"

"You don't scare me," I said in the feistiest voice I could find. "Okay, I guess I could help you. But you may have to point to the tools you want cuz I don't really know that much about such things. Being a good girl and all."

Still in wolf mode. "Good girls are my specialty."

Saying it soft, like I was admitting a mortal sin: "Bad boys are my vice."

"Then we were made in heaven, little girl."

Even though it was a game ... there were always these moments, and this was one. When the game evokes some corporal memory that's so basic, you simply have no control over your response. When he said that, in that rough, husky voice ... my heart zinged and my knees shook. God, but I could just about taste those days when bad boys really did scare me. I savored the return to a corporal memory of what innocence felt like. Back before I made choices that complicated my life.

So I started helping him with the bike. I figured that all this was fake ... that there wasn't a thing really wrong with his bike but that he was giving me the gift of getting into this little episode with enthusiasm. Besides, one thing about Bud that I'd always suspected was that he appreciated the build up and the anticipation. Think it made the eventual capitulation to desire that much more intense to him if he had to work for it.

Picture it. We were by the side of this tiny private lane in the middle of south Louisiana's verdant countryside. Out in bayou country near where my aunt had been raised and such a pretty swath of quiet backwater. An hour north of New Orleans and near the small town that hosted an annual oyster festival that had been the main reason I'd ever come there. I'd picked this spot because it was where I could picture a little cheerleader walking home alone and where a bad boy might lay in wait with some assurance of privacy to do a bit of seduction. Perfect place for a bit of role-play.

And, I do believe even I knew why I was doing it. Bud was right all along. Not that that made it wrong. We each find our own way in this life.

He didn't talk much while he worked. Just asked me for various tools ... screwdriver, wrench, lugnut ratchet. Every time he asked for one, I'd pretend I didn't know what it was and he'd have to point it out to me. And then I'd make a show of retrieving the tool in the most obscene manner I could. Most often, it was the tried and true bending straight over maneuver. Once, I even looked back at him through my legs and loved seeing him shift on the seat. He was straddling the bike's long seat and leaning with his elbows on the handlebars. When I brought him the screwdriver he'd asked for, I thought I saw a new, more daring light in his eyes. I snapped to attention and hoped for the best.

His eyes left mine and he bent to his task. Suddenly, I heard him give this tight curse under his breath. Not even looking at me, he said briskly, "C'mere, Ann. See if your hand's small enough to fuckin' fit in here ..."

Standing next to him, bending over the bike to look on the other side of the fuselage where he was indicating. Following his direction and bracing myself with my right hand on the seat in front of him, I wiggled my left hand into this opening and felt the wire he asked me to jiggle.

"Nah, that ain't fucking working. Hey, hand me the crowbar, I got an idea."

But when I went to move, to walk around to the other side of the bike where said crowbar was on the ground just next to his foot, he barked out at me not to let go of the wire yet. My eyes widened at the tone of voice he used. "Well, how do you expect me to get the crowbar if I've got to keep my hand here and ..."

"Just reach down with your other hand, Ann. C'mon, I can't let go of this fucking screw yet. Don't be timid; just lean over my leg and grab the damned thing."

I shrugged and did as he ordered. Bent over the bike ... right over where he was straddling it ... my fingers outstretched ... up on my toes on the other side to help me reach over ... and ...

"That's it, doll. Reach for it. Here, let me give you a hand." Saying it low and silky. 

"Oh!" Couldn't help the little squeal of surprise and then the squeak as I felt his hand 'helping' me reach my objective. Not quite sure what he had in mind but only then realizing he'd been playing me all along. I swallowed on a giggle as the realization hit me and decided to play it coy. "It's a long, hard tool I'm looking for, right?"

"Think you might feel one?" Darkly heated voice full of suggestions of naughty things. Now moving his big paw smack onto my ass and pressing my groin down atop his impressive hardness. "Keep looking, little girl. Think you're getting warm."

"I think I'm getting hot," I muttered. I wiggled against his lap and stretched so far over the bike ... and him ... that my toes left the pavement. "Little help, Bud. I almost have it but please grab me so I don't fall on my head!"

"Ah, Christ." His husky voice thrilled into me. His hardness under me brought my attention to the element of this fantasy I'd let go for far too long.

Bud. In leather. 

I couldn't help myself. I simply caressed his calf through the leather. Feeling the way his muscle tensed as I stroked the leather. "Oh, Bud. You feel ..."

"Got it yet, doll? If so, let me help you up."

Snagging the crowbar at the last minute ... just before he slipped a hand under my jersey, latched onto a breast and lifted me up until I was sliding back to my feet. And then his other arm came around my waist and brought me to sit in front of him so I was straddling the fuselage and facing him.

"Your tool, sir," I whispered and held up the crowbar between us.

His eyes darted to it for a flicker and then they came back to my face. That hard smile he gave me was like the last thing I needed to see before I was so hot and wet that I was afraid I'd simply slide off the bike.

"Wrong fucking tool, little girl. No wonder you were having such problems finding it."

"Maybe you should describe the tool I am supposed to be looking for."

"Long. Hard. Hot. Encased in leather."

"That rules this out." I tossed the crowbar over my shoulder and it clanked three times until it finally stopped bouncing on the asphalt. "Let me feel around. Hmm. Only one long, hard tool I can reach that's covered in leather."

"Yeah. God, yeah. Fuck, little girl, think you got it now," whispering it to me. Bending his head down to kiss my neck as I stroked his crotch and smiled into his shoulder. "My hands are occupied. Need you to help me get the tool out. Think it needs to go back in that special socket it was designed to fill."

"Bud! I'm a good girl! We can't just ..."

"Take it out."

My hands shook as I unzipped him. He rose up before me and shoved the leather pants down over his hips until I could really reach him and then he sat back down. He gave me this huge sighing moan as I stroked him. God, but he is such a beautiful man. And when he gets so sexed up like this ... I would do about anything he asked. Including being obscene with him out in a place where we were running a risk ... albeit a small one ... of being discovered.

"That's right, little girl. Special tool. And now I need to find that socket it fits."

One big hand holding my ass. The other at first guiding my hand on his shaft and then leaving to touch between my legs.

"Look at me, Ann."

"God. Oh, Bud. You make me so hot when you look at me like that." Giving me full wattage tough guy Bud White. Staring right into my soul as his big fingers rubbed across the dampness of my panties. And then making me gasp when he swiftly shoved his entire hand under them and ... fingers moving in my slickness ... his hand on my ass working with his hand in my crotch to not let me make any independent movements ... forcing me to simply let him be in total, brutal control of me.

"Ann ... babe ... Christ," he was muttering to me, pausing in between sucking kisses on my throat. So taking me over physically ... so totally in charge ... so losing himself. "Ah, fuck, doll. Much more and I won't be able to stop."

"God, don't even think about stopping," I groaned to him.

"Not here."

"What?"

"Even a bad boy like me doesn't want to ruin your reputation, doll," he panted out to me as he dragged his hand away from my wetness and then edged my hands off him. "Heavy petting's one thing, but ..."

I was about to cry. "Heavy petting? That was heavy petting? Oh, please, Bud. Take me all the way. Don't leave me hanging like this."

He lifted me off the bike and set me on my feet as he followed me. He never tried to zip his pants back up, just sort of yanked them back into place. Reached into one of the saddlebag compartments and took out one of those silver solar blankets. Then took my hand and pulled me behind him as he walked into the woods. I tried to tell him that you don't really do things like that here but he just glared at me. I prayed that in his naivete of south Louisiana's various dangers that we ran across neither snakes nor fire ants.

Behind one of the big oaks, he spread the blanket. He ordered me to help him get his pants down. Oh, boy! Diary, he never had to ask twice. I'm a perve but I'm no fool. I took my time because the feel of him moving under those pants while I'd just spent the last however many weeks getting mental images that never did the reality justice ... but he was in such need that he kept telling me to hurry. When I had them down around his ankles, he shoved me away, sat down on the blanket and peeled them the rest of the way off.

"I must really like you, Ann, to wear these fucking pants down here in the summer," he grumbled. "Fucking hotter than Hades."

Grinning at him as he grumbled. He narrowed his eyes at my reaction and the next thing I knew, he was shoving me on my back and in one smooth move, yanking my red panties off me. Red. To match the red and black skirt and jersey.

He sat back and I watched, fascinated, as he seemed to suddenly get lost in what he was doing. He just twirled the little red sports briefs and when he turned back to me, I shook at the way he slid his eyes down my body.

"Do you have any fucking idea how I used to think about what I wanted to do to all you little cheerleaders? The way you'd prance around ... and then I just knew you were letting all us jocks see under those little skirts. All those jumps and ..." He crawled over me and I felt his mouth hard on my neck while one hand pawed over my breasts, squeezing and rolling with his big fingers. "The way you'd do those splits and I could just picture you spread so fucking wide for me and ... I always wanted to fuck one of you so fuckin' hard. Wanted to show you what ..."

"Show me what, Bud?" I whispered when he stopped. Squirmed under him as he rubbed my little nub with the heel of his hand. And then thinking ... a flash ... what would Bud the football lineman have wanted a cheerleader to want? Cooing it out to him: "Oh, Bud! Show me what I've been missing. Do me, Bud."

"Christ. I'll fucking do you. You fucking better believe it," he muttered into my throat.

Then showing me how well his tool worked. Ratcheting me up. Wrenching me down. Up. Down. Showing me the variable speed settings. Fast. Slow. Demonstrating the multiple torque adjustments. Hard. Rough. Gentle. Rhythmic. Harder than hard. Grinding into me. Sliding out. In. Out.

And if I'd known a good cheer for the occasion, I would have been chanting it. But all that came to my sex-soaked competitive mind was ...

"Go! Bud! Go!"

His own private cheering section.

"Time for that backover flip you promised me, snowflake," he growled to me at some point.

Hey, even in my advanced years, I still got the moves. Enough to take him to his knees. More than enough to get him putting in that extra effort to win the game for the home team. By the time it was over, I felt like I might never walk again.

I'd repeat our final cheer since it came out of our mouths about the same time, but you know I'm a good girl and good girls just don't talk like that ... well, they might talk like that, but they sure don't admit it in proper society. There was nothing proper about our words as we did the victory dance of coming so hard that they might have heard us scoring two bayous over.

"Want you to promise me something, doll," he whispered to me as we lay together after, both on our backs and staring above us at the majesty of the oak as its decorative Spanish moss swung like a drunk weaving down Bourbon Street.

"Mmm."

Felt him turn on his side and his leg plopped over my hip. He propped himself up on an elbow and looked down at me. That soft smile of his that he gives to women when he knows he's safe with them.

"Tell me you'll always remember this time with me," he whispered; his voice so soft that for a moment I thought I dreamed it.

Just then ... this moment? How could I have ever forgotten?

Except ...

Except I got this flash when he said it ... someone else had said that to me almost three months earlier and it wasn't that I'd broken my promise so much as I had purposely chosen to forget. No, I know I sometimes make no sense. But that's me, eh? And Bud's words shook me hard because it was this sense of déjà vu that made me remember and, for an instant, made me feel like I would have given a lot to have never gone back through my portal.

That damned portal. The way it seems to tug at me. The choices I make, eh? But I never have been into regrets. Is it ever wrong to know your heart and still know following it has a price?

What would you say if I admitted that I have been unfaithful?