Big Sweater

I was fourteen.
On a crisp, brilliant, sun-lit fall day,
under the brazenly reckless control of my old brother Dan,
a black '64 Ford Mustang,
loaded with carefree, impetuous teenagers
bobbed and weaved through the startled freeway traffic
to a campground
in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

My parents had granted permission for this weekend hike
with the proviso that I tag along.
Though chafing and resentful, Dan had accepted the terms.
To my elders in the car,
I was looked upon as a necessary annoyance
who,
despite the occasional emergence
as a fleeting, disinterested diversion,
was,
by and large,
wholeheartedly ignored.
In a clumsy attempt to elicit attention,
I wore my father's kitschy, reindeer emblazoned, maroon-colored sweater.
Flopping, poncho-like, down to my knees,
it was neither noticed nor mentioned.

In the front bucket seat next to my brother was his best friend,
the ruggedly handsome, happy-go-lucky Richard Dellinger.
I squat in the back,
awkwardly straddling the raised center hump.
On my left, Lovell Leonetti,
a Venezuelan exchange student.
A dark, breathtaking Latin beauty
with darting brown eyes, a noble, aquiline nose, sensuous, mocha-cream skin,
and endowed with an equally ravishing smile and scowl.
Serving only to further swell her bursting sensuality,
she was a fervently chaste Catholic.
On my right, Cathy Cooper-Ellis,
a local, bucolic farm girl.
Fresh, buxom, full-lipped,
with lascivious, hungry eyes, pouting lips, and half-open mouth
who,
with her budding youth,
her smooth, blush-pink, voluptuous skin,
and loose, revealing clothes,
was delectable as a ripe white peach in July.

The chatter in the speeding, veering car was spirited and non-stop.
Jostled by unexpected swerves,
amid high-pitched squeals,
and coupled by an electrifying grab of my body to steady themselves,
the beauties’ shoulders and thighs tantalizingly caressed mine.
At one point,
Lovell and Cathy leaned forward,
resting their arms on the front bucket seats
when,
between their shirts and pants
a sliver of forbidden flesh winked open.

The dam broke and,
flimsy to begin with,
all inhibition swiftly disintegrated.
Pulsating,
barely able to breathe,
I lowered my covered pants.

Lovell leaned back,
I didn't stop,
my ingenuous age and big sweater
made me invisible.
She lurched forward.
Again her leg brushed my thigh,
but this time
with a jolt of incalculable sexual consequence,
our limbs remained touching.

Cathy, in a rare moment of reflection,
her head resting on her forearm,
gazed back at me with a benign, quizzical look
just as my veiled love exploded into a delicious, releasing wetness.
I smiled weakly.
She sighed,
looked blankly past me for a moment,
then turning back,
laughed loudly at something Rich said,
and, oblivious to my moist predicament,
rejoined the raucous conversation.

Relieved, flushed, blissful,
I slipped my pants back up,
and as
I wiped my brow with a drooping sleeve,
I had no inkling that the carnal moment
would live for years
as a
treasured memory of ingenious slight-of-hand.