Easy

By Lisabet Sarai

For G.T.

Sleet was the worst. He huddled under the awning of the shuttered refreshment kiosk, shivering as a gray veil swallowed the skeleton trees across the lake. It wouldn't take more than ten minutes for sleet to soak through his sweatshirt and the two sweaters he wore underneath. Then the wet clothing would freeze against his skin. The icy slush pooled at the curbs would leak into his battered shoes on his way back. Bally was a top brand, but the miles he had walked in the last six months had worn through the soles. Besides, even the best leather was never any good in winter weather.

He remembered his down ski parka – Columbia! – how toasty warm he had felt as he swooped down the black diamond trails up at Killington. Gone, like so many other things. If he had only realized what was happening, he might have planned a bit, held on to what was really important. It has happened so gradually, though. Plus it had violated all that he had believed and trusted. It had been inconceivable that he would find himself in this situation: jobless, homeless, broke and alone. On Christmas Eve, yet.

He had a Harvard MBA, for God's sake. Who would have thought that his plum product manager position at a top hi-tech, his BMW, his four bedroom colonial, his wife, his kids, his life, could all melt away like snow on a steam-tunnel manhole?

In the distance, the clock in City Hall tower struck three. Two and a half more hours and he could return to the shelter. He clenched his hands inside the canvas work gloves he had found discarded on trash pickup day last week, trying to reduce the surface area. His fingers were already numb. His feet were blocks of ice too. He had to get inside, somewhere. The temperature dropped as dusk approached.

He had two quarters and a dime hidden under his layers of rags, but he had already had his coffee today. He had made it last for two hours, while the Burger King staff glared at his bedraggled form slumped in the corner. Tough. He was a paying customer.

Cloud-colored ice skinned the lake where he used to take his daughter canoeing. Not strong enough yet for skating. He could start walking across. He knew the surface would crack long before he reached the boathouse on the opposite shore. It would be so easy. The lake was deeper than you'd expect.

The ice would freeze over his entry point. They wouldn't find him, not for days or even weeks. No one visited the park in the winter. That's why he came. The cops didn't hassle him here and he didn't have to suffer the looks of pity and disgust he got on the street.

Easy, yes. So tempting. Everything else was so difficult now, a daily struggle to survive. Why should he bother? Who, after all, would care?

He'd thought he was so clever, hiding his affairs, but his wife eventually lost patience. She took the kids out west, leaving him with the huge, empty house and an equally enormous alimony payment. Then came the downsizing—hell, how many “personnel reduction strategies” had he helped to plan? The bottom dropped out of real estate, but the mortgage had to be paid. No one, he discovered, wanted to hire a manager in his fifties, no matter how stellar his credentials.

His sigh hung in a white cloud before him. He had pawned his Rolex early on, but he guessed that about ten minutes had passed since the clock chimes. He closed his eyes, unutterably weary, longing for his cot in the shelter. It was hard to sleep there in the dorm, with the bums raving around him all night, but right now he would have given anything to be able to collapse onto the thin mattress and pull the rough blanket around his ears.

“Good afternoon, sir.”

He started, the youthful voice pulling him from his drowsy stupor.

“Ah—um—good afternoon.” She was a beacon of color in the monochrome landscape, with pink cheeks, copper curls and a long, holly-green coat. A matching green ribbon held her fiery hair away from her face. She was young, certainly no more than twenty, with a freshness that made her seem old-fashioned. That coat reminded him of one his mother used to wear in the fifties, shaped like the letter A with those funny sleeves—raglan sleeves, they were called. He felt irrationally pleased that he could remember. His mother's coat had been a sober brown, though. This woman's garment was so bright it made him blink.

She stepped closer, out of the sleet, joining him under the overhang. “Wintery weather,” she commented, smiling up at him. Her eyes were the same startling hue as her coat. Her lips formed a perfect bow. Even in the chill air, he caught a hint of her scent, cool and fresh like evergreens in snow.

He was suddenly aware of his own funky odor, his ragged clothing and his three days of stubble. He searched the girl's face for the inevitable sympathy or scorn. He found neither. Instead, inexplicably, he recognized desire.

His cock stirred inside his sweatpants. Was it possible? Exhausted and underfed, he hadn't been horny in months.

She took his hand in her own small, bare fingers. “I know someplace warmer. Come with me.”

She drew him along the slippery path that circled the lake. Needles of sleet pricked his cheeks. His sweatshirt grew wetter with each step. In her cashmere coat and patent-leather boots, the woman seemed not to notice the weather.

Another spot of color grew before them. A Japanese-style bridge, rust-red, arched over the narrowest point in the hourglass-shaped lake. The trail crossed the bridge. He had never noticed the stairway leading down the bank. There was a ledge underneath, bordering the water, making a snug private space. He had to crouch down to follow her inside. The bridge swept upward, just over their heads.

“We're out of the wind here,” she told him, her voice like bells. “Let's sit down.” She slipped the coat off her shoulders and spread it over the dry stone.

He couldn't believe his eyes. Under the festive-hued coat, she was naked. Her skin was a creamy peach tone. The buds tipping her sweet, small breasts were a deeper rose. A ginger tangle at the apex of her thighs hid her sex. She looked like an innocent angel. Her smile as she reached for his zipper, though, hinted of lascivious delights.

“Wait—I can't...” His erection thickened by the second as she worked at his jeans but his shame was stronger than his lust. “Please, I haven't had a shower in a week. I smell...”

"Never mind,” she murmured, peeling the denim away from his hips and starting work on the sweatpants underneath. “I like the way you smell.” She gripped his rod. Her flesh was hot against his chilled skin.

“But why...?” His protests grew weaker as she pumped her hand up and down his length. “Who...?”

She stopped him with a peppermint flavored kiss. “Because I want you. Now. I can't wait.” He surrendered, sinking back onto the soft wool, entwined in her arms.

After that, there was nothing but glorious warmth, luscious wetness, tightness coiling in his groin and then expanding into utter relief. I must be dreaming, he thought, as she wrapped her thighs around his waist and drew him deeper. Maybe I'm dying.

He didn't care. She offered him her fire and he accepted her gift. He forgot everything except her satin skin, her cushioned hollows, her scent of fir trees by the ocean. There was no past, no future, only an eternal present.

They drifted together, passion cresting and receding and peaking again, lost in the ancient rhythms of the flesh. Finally, even their bodies melted away. All that remained was joy.

The chimes woke him, five strokes that reached him through some kind of fog. Darkness had fallen. Shadows filled the cozy nook under the bridge. Even in the gloom, though, he could tell that he was alone.

His limp, sticky cock hung outside his pants. As he noticed, he realized how cold he was, not just his penis but his whole body.

A dream, he thought. Still, shreds of joy clung to him. A dream like that was far better than waking life. Perhaps he could recreate the dream tonight, in his dormitory bed. He closed his eyes, summoning her emerald eyes and plump lips. Yes. He would not forget.

He needed to hurry, though. The shelter opened in a half hour and beds were allocated on a first-come, first-serve basis. He zipped up and then pressed against the ledge to lever himself onto his hands and knees.

He felt the plush softness of cashmere beneath his palms.

It was too dark to see, but he knew it was her coat. But if she had left her coat here, did that mean that she was wandering naked in the park in these frigid temperatures? Was she crazier than the old coots at the shelter?

I've got to find her, he though, gathering the warm garment in his arms and crawling out from under the bridge.

The sleet has stopped. The December air was a knife in his lungs, clean and sharp. He peered into the darkness, seeking the slight, pale form of a nude woman.

A cluster of stars was born. To his right, twinkling points of brightness twined through the tree branches. Another tree leaped into light down the path. One by one the black winter skeletons transformed into fairytale shapes as the city turned on the holiday decorations.

Finally, surrounded by glory, he understood. He swung the coat over his shoulders and wrapped himself in its warm, pine-scented folds. Another gift, to remind him how precious life is. Even his life.

He headed for the street, humming an old carol under his breath. He had only twenty minutes to get to the shelter, but he wasn't worried. It would be easy.

---

Ashley, in posting this week's topic, asked us, "Who do you write for?" I don't know the answer in general. But this story was written for a man I've encountered on another writer's list, a man who is in fact homeless (though not, I think, because he cheated on his wife) and yet finds the time and energy to express himself in beautiful prose. I wanted to give him something to make his Christmas as merry and bright as he deserves. This story is all I can offer.

Wishing you all the joy and wonder of the season

Warmly,
Lisabet

The First Time

They had been doing the sucking and licking thing for two months now. She remembered the first time she let him pull down her pants so he could have a look at her. She was lying down and he unfastened her blue jeans and pulled on the zipper. Trying not to rush, but failing at this and rushing anyway, he tugged them down past her hips. Then he sucked his breath in sharply, and let out a low groan. Oh, she liked that sound. Just hearing it made her wet. He only wanted a look, only that, he had promised her. And then, there it was, her soft dark bush hiding the softer place underneath, and without hesitation he buried his mouth between her legs and she couldn’t say no.

After that they had shared their sexual histories.

She’d never done it before, but he told her that he lost his virginity in Viet Nam with a local prostitute, like so many of his soldier buddies. At least they wouldn’t die virgins if it came to that, he explained, apologetic in front of her.
They were on his bed, naked. They spent most of their time together unclothed. She was sixteen and amazed at all the sensations that could zing from this body of hers. Twang, whoosh, no wonder they called it a twat. And her big nipples stood out proudly on the small firm mounds of breast, curiously hard whenever he was around, bursting bundles of charged flesh that begged to be rubbed. Suck me, Baby, they called out in taut silky tones.

She thought of the first time she had seen him without his pants on. The sheer size of him frightened her. He stood across the room and it pointed straight at her, and she thought, oh no, what’s this? And then he crossed the room and his mouth was on her, kissing her breasts, each nipple, her belly and then his tongue was stroking her , stoking her and the heat was building and she felt like she was melting and she was overcome with the melting.

Then she felt a pushing at her, opening her up and she didn’t have time to think because then he was inside of her, and the tingling warmth moved up her hips and ended in a flush between her breasts. He coasted on her slippery wetness and after a few smooth pumping motions in and out, his body stiffened for a millisecond, then relaxed onto her. He let out a sigh and after a few moments pulled himself out of the hot wetness.

She could feel her cheeks burning. Her mind became very quiet and still. What have we done? What was this? She got up and put on his robe and walked into the bathroom. Sitting on the toilet, she felt the warm slick liquid of him trickle out of her. Oh my god, she thought, what if I’m pregnant? This wasn’t supposed to happen. She wiped herself slowly, thinking, feeling a sobriety she had never felt before. Standing, she stared at her face in the mirror. Was that her? Her long black hair was wild looking, spilling about her shoulders, her cheeks were red, her lips were red as if she had painted them with berry juice. She held open the robe and looked at her body. Even her breasts were flushed. What have I done? What has he done to me? She felt like an animal. Even as her body was resonating with new feelings, she couldn’t believe it belonged to her.

She went back to bed then and he held her.

“Are you alright? Did I hurt you? I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

“I’m alright.”

“Did you like it?”

“I liked it.” What she said wasn’t entirely a lie; it’s just that she was scared out of her mind. She stayed quiet as he drove her home. Pushing through the door, she saw that the lights were on in the family room. Her Mom and Dad had just made a pot of tea and were tidying the kitchen. They greeted her from what seemed to be a hundred miles distant.

I’ve crossed the line, she thought. And there is no turning back. Nothing to be done. Sadness wrapped itself around her.

She spent the next two weeks crying a lot, and making desperate promises delivered in prayer to God and the angels. She saw her entire life sinking down into a thick dark muck and disappearing. A baby at sixteen? Her life would be over. I’ll marry you, he told her. But that was not the life she had planned. She prayed to God and wheedled Him with bargains. Please don’t’ let me be pregnant. I’ll do anything. I wont have sex again, please. All of her prayers were the same.

When her period finally did come, she had worked herself into such a state of worry that she felt only a numb sort of relief. All the worry had changed her. Considering things she had never considered before had pulled her up from childhood, from being a little girl, and now she was
different.

The next time she was in bed with him, he entered her, and she thought of her broken promises. In her imagination – or was it real- she thought she heard the angels quietly crying.


Jicky Smith

The Most Beautiful Noise

The first time involved needles. Big, long, frightening needles. I am not normally bothered by needles, but I had already seen several needles that day, and it was only 8:30AM in the morning.

I sat on an operating table, facing away from the anesthesiologist, trying very hard not to think about what he was doing. "There will be three needles," he'd told me. "First one, then the other, then the final needle, each one getting me a little closer to your spinal chord. You'll feel them go in, and it may hurt a little, but it won't be that bad."

Right.

So I sat, hunched over in my hospital gown, waiting as he swabbed my back and prepped the first needle. Michael, my husband, was not yet allowed in the operating room with me. He had been with me constantly since the day before, not once leaving my side. He knew I was nervous, down right scared even. I hadn't let go of his hand since we'd arrived at the hospital, not until the nurse came to wheel me into the operating room.

I sucked in a sharp breath when I felt a pinch at my back. The first needle going in.

"Steady," the anesthesiologist said.

No husband to hold my hand. No mother either. My mom, a registered nurse who had been with me to every trip I'd ever made to any hospital, was there that morning, too. But she wouldn't be allowed to see me again until after I came out of the recovery room. I think not having her in the OR scared me more than not having Michael in the OR. Mom would have known what was going on. She would have described it to me and kept me calm. But she wasn't allowed in. It was just me and the guy with the needles. Fuck.

Another pinch and another gasp. "Steady," the needle guy said again.

I had forgotten at that point that he was the anesthesiologist, the man responsible for controlling my response to pain and keeping me breathing throughout the upcoming procedure. At that point, he was just the needle guy, the fucker who kept jabbing long pointy things into my back. I did not like him, no matter how pleasant he was, no matter how necessary he was to my life and the life I currently carried inside me. He was the bastard who had said no husband, no mom, just him and me and could I please hold still just a little longer because there was still one last needle to goooooooo...

The numbness came on slow, starting somewhere at my toes and fading up my body oh... so... slowly as the needle guy and a nurse helped me lay back on the table. The table was shaped like a cross and as soon as I was prone, the nurse and the needle guy strapped both my arms down, getting me ready for the c-section I was about to have. Up till that point, I had kept myself calm by taking deep breaths, but then the spinal block hit my lower abdomen and suddenly I couldn't take deep breaths any more and I was strapped to a fucking table like a fucking human sacrifice and where the hell was my fucking husband?!!

It did not help that I could actually see myself reflected in the shiny metal rims of the lights overhead.

Fuck.

I shut my eyes and tried to slow my breathing, to keep from panicking. The OR door opened up and in streamed more nurses and the obstetrician. A curtain went up at my chest, to keep me from seeing what was about to happen, to keep me from panicking at the sight of my skin being slice open, my innards being exposed. Apparently nobody else knew about the shiny metal rims on the lights over head. I suddenly wondered how many other moms-to-be had ended up watching their c-sections being performed thanks to those damned lights.

Oh fuck.

"Is the father on his way?" my obstetrician asked in his crisp, accented voice. He was oh-so-English, and apparently the best guy to go to for a c-section, though neither of those facts was giving me the warm fuzzies at that moment.

"He's coming," one of the nurses replied.

"All right, well let's get started. He'll be here before we're done."

"Oh, that's lovely!" I wanted to stand up and scream. "Can't you just wait another goddam minute? This is only the birth of our first child!"

But I was tied to the table and numb from the waist down anyway, so no standing and screaming for me.

Later on, Michael would tell me he came in just as the doctor cut me open. My lower abdomen burst like an over-sized water balloon, a detail that I actually never saw because once everyone crowded around me, my view of the lights overhead was blocked. Michael took a seat next to me at the head of the OR table. I felt a strange tugging sensation on my lower body.

"You feel anything?" the needle guy asked.

"It's like they're pulling stuff around down there," I told him.

"No pain though, right?" he grinned at me.

"Yeah, no pain."

No pain, but still plenty of panic. Michael leaned over and pressed his head to mine. I had so wanted to do this naturally. I had spent four years fighting to get pregnant. The conception of our child was not the result of two people entwined in bed, bodies so close that one was inside the other, but of a catheter fed up my vagina and through my cervix, the push of a button sending millions of sperm collected from my husband into my carefully prepared uterus. I was grateful for the results of that miracle of science, but so frustrated that once again science had to intervene to make this child happen. My baby hadn't turned, I would not go into labor. Was my body ever going to do anything like it was supposed to?

"What's going on?" I asked Michael, who could see over the partition at my chest. "What are they doing down there?"

"The doctor's inside... he's pulling her out... she's out! She's really out!"

"But I don't hear anything!" Panic rose up in the back of my throat like bile. "Why is she so quiet?! What is she doing?!" I didn't ask, but I know Michael heard, Is she alive?

"I don't know," he said. "Her eye are open. She's just... looking around."

Then we heard a small snap! followed by an outraged wail.

"Oh my god!" I cried to my husband. "Did we make that? Did we make whatever is making that sound?"

Michael laughed. The nurse handed him a bundle that still wailed like a siren. He brought it as close to my head as he could get.

"Here she is. Here's our daughter!"

I couldn't turn my head to see her face. The needle man had turned up the morphine and the last of my muscle control was slipping away. All I could see was the blanket and the tip of her little crocheted hat, but I could hear her cry. It was the most beautiful noise I had ever heard.

*****

The second time, three years later, was entirely different. I walked for hours that night around the labor and delivery floor, dragging a squeaky IV pole behind me as I worked to jump-start my contractions. The baby had turned, my water had broke. I would not have a c-section, in spite of my English doctor's cheerful predictions that he would be there in the morning to cut me open. Michael walked laps with me, held my hand, never let go. My mother was still in Arkansas, 18 hours away.

The walking worked. By midnight, the contractions were coming regular as clockwork. By 1AM, the needle man came to give me an epidural that never, ever took. By 2AM, I was screaming at the nurses to "come catch this baby!" Just before 3AM, my English doctor stumbled through the door, nurses doing their damnedest to tie up his smock as he took a seat between my legs. He almost didn't make it in time. The nurse almost really did have to catch. Five minutes later, I pushed out child number two. There was no cutting this time. Instead, I tore up the front, just a little, into the clitoris.

The one thing that didn't change was the little snap! we heard when the doctor thumped our daughter's foot, and the resounding wail that followed.

And it was still the most beautiful noise I have ever heard.

Cherry Popping

by Ashley Lister

This is the story of my first time. Technically, it wasn’t my first time. It was something I’d done as a child at school. And I’d also done it on the letters page of my favourite comic. But this is about the first time I did it and got properly paid for it. The first time I saw one of my own short stories in print.
The school magazine was probably an indication that I had a desire to write. A short poem about birthday presents. Don’t worry. I don’t remember it now, so I’m not going to repeat it here. But I do remember how thrilled I was to have been published.
The letter in the comic was more of an indicator about the writer’s attitude I’d been born with.
BROTHER: They spelled your name wrong.
ME: That doesn’t affect the money they’ve sent, does it?
BROTHER: But it’s not about the money, is it?
ME: Not entirely. I’m also pretty pleased to see my words in print.
It wasn’t until much later that I got back into print. Appropriately, it was because of one of the UK’s top erotic magazines: Forum. I’d always been a big fan. There was something about the blend of eroticism and intellectuality that appealed to me. And there were pictures of naked girls. They also appealed to me.
Forum, always a big promoter of erotic fiction, had started a magazine called Erotic Stories. The editor wanted well-written erotic stories and I thought, ‘I wonder if I could write one of those?’
It turned out I could. My short story, ‘Testing Times,’ was written, submitted and duly accepted and purchased. I danced wildly around the house, delighted to be holding a letter from a publisher that didn’t include the words, ‘we wish you good luck with publishing this piece elsewhere.’
Sex is good. Wealth is probably great (I imagine). But I doubt there’s an experience on this planet that can compare to a writer’s first legitimate acceptance from a publisher. In some ways it’s an affirmation that all those years stooped over a typewriter or notepad had not been wasted effort. Technically, it’s a professional editor saying, “I think your story is so well-written I’m going to pay money for it and place it in my magazine.
I danced for about a week and, each time I danced, I finished my steps near the letterbox. The acceptance letter I received had mentioned something about a contributor’s copy. I was bowled over that the magazine editor was actually going to pay me AND send me a copy of the magazine. This was better than I’d hoped it could get.
But the magazine wasn’t there in that first week. And it remained not there in that first month. I speculated about what might have happened to the magazine. The editor might have changed her mind. Or the magazine might have folded. I considered the prospects of alien abduction, a fire in the sorting office, and a potential conspiracy against me. In the end, I re-read the letter and discovered that the magazine wasn’t due out for a couple of months.
Which meant, every time I went shopping, I was constantly watching the shelves to see if the new issue had been released. And, each time I saw a new issue of Erotic Stories sitting on the newsagent’s shelf, I had to go over and flick through the pages to see if my story had been included in that issue.
People say it takes a certain amount of bravery to flick through the pages of an erotic magazine in a newsagent. I have to admit, under usual circumstances it’s not something I would do. The next step is cracking one off in front of the newsstand. But this was different. This was me trying to find out if I’d been published.
And it was in the local newsagent where I first saw my name in print. I’d spied a new copy of Erotic Stories sitting high on a book shelf. I’d lurched over to snatch it down. And I’d hurriedly flicked through the pages. I won’t pretend that I wasn’t expecting to see my name there, and go on to say I was shocked and surprised. As soon as I grabbed the magazine I had a premonition that this was going to be the issue.
And it was.
I have to admit the issue was a good one. Aside from my story there was also fiction from Josephine Scott who later became the senior editor at Olympia Press, and a story by Delaney Silver, a bastion of Nexus Publishing who later went on to write for Black Lace under the name of Portia Da Costa. I was published and I was published in very good company.
I went to the counter, paid the cover price, and rushed home with a copy of a magazine that contained a story I’d written. I held that copy like I was carrying a fragile and delicate baby. I was excited, thrilled, jubilant and so many other good adjectives it would be tedious to list them all here. And, when I arrived home, I discovered my contributor’s copy was already waiting for me, along with the payment.
It was a perfect moment: made sublime by the fact that they’d spelled my name right – on the story and on the cheque.

Everything Is Fine Part II: In The Garden

She came on the foundation of a great journey of fear. I had been afraid of girls all my life until high school. Didn’t know how to talk to them or be around them. They were supernatural beings, mysterious and exciting, vastly superior to boys. If a girl borrowed my pencil, I felt honored. If she chewed on it, I would meditate on her tooth marks. I had only been able to bring myself to talk to girls after my family broke up and instead of living in houses, we lived in low rent apartments, a precursor of the communal life that would come for me later. I ran into girls my age as often I stepped into the hallway, and in the summer time, there was the swimming pool. For kids, the swimming pool is the great gathering place. Even if you find girls unapproachable, walking to school, and there by the pool side, the girls find you. Even if you’re afraid of them, they come to you and speak to you. Some girls are not turned off by shyness, but excited by it. Breaking through your shell becomes an interesting conquest, as though taming a wild animal that has showed up at their door. You learn that with an effort you can be a little witty, get them to laugh at your jokes. Soon you’re going out with them instead of collecting comic books.

Coming home from the library, I walked into a store called Fin Fare, to find out why it was called that. She was working behind the counter and she told me she knew me. She was in my school. She liked to stand behind me in the lunch line and listen to my voice, watch me talking to my little gang of friends. She thought I sounded smart. She thought I would be interesting to know better. After that I came by to visit whenever I could. So the Fin Fare girl and I became close friends. I met her when she got off work, and we walked. Walking was the door into conversation I had discovered on my own. I had learned that walking and talking went together as naturally as books and coffee. She talked about her family, her feelings, her resentments, her dreams. I listened. It was the one skill I wanted to learn well for her. Look at her face, enjoy her eyes, ask a question. Be ready for a quiz. I have since lost the knack of listening well, having become more solitary after many years on the road. She was interested in ideas, the great adolescent questions. We began to go places together. This was back in the day in Minneapolis when the Guthrie Theater could be a cheap date. We went to see live plays performed, Shakespeare and Steinbeck, and I imagined myself as a playwright someday. She didn’t laugh at these things, she thought it was possible.

My mother moved us to Georgia and she and I wrote letters continuously, almost daily, just as people would email today. My Dad invited me back up for the summer to talk about future plans for college. She was waiting to see me again. We had never left each others' thoughts for a day.

I was allowed to borrow my Dad's old Mercury Cougar, in a time before seat belts and bucket seats, when a kiss and a furtive feel in the dark before saying goodnight, were only a matter of sliding to the other end of the seat and gathering the other in your arms. The conversations and the protests began. That's enough; I think we'd better stop before we get crazy. But I like crazy. See you tomorrow. Okay. Good night. But you'll see me. See you. Miss you.

Another night, sitting in the dark. My hands under her clothes, like a conquering army gaining ground yard by yard, night by night. She pulls my hands away, puts them in my lap. I don’t know. I don’t know if we should. Should? Should what? You know. No, I don’t. I'm just saying. Are you okay? Yeah, I'm okay.

Another night. Sitting in the dark. My fingers have attained her nipples at long last, under the cloth of her T-shirt, having slipped in unopposed under the loose rim of her bra. Did she wear it loose for comfort, or for me? I don’t know what to do with them, how they should be touched. I know nothing. With each progress, my ignorance is miserable, which only fuels my clumsy determination and vanity. Her nipples feel so different from mine. Bigger. Tougher. Purposeful. Real. A girl's nipples are not the same. Pulls my hands away. I'm not ready. It’s okay. I know you're a virgin, she says. Yes, I say. I know you want to lose it. Yes, I say, but I'm okay. I want it to be with you. But when you’re ready to lose it too. I can wait. Then we'll both be ready. I'm not a virgin, she says, but I'm not ready. Not with you. You’re my best friend.

Whoa whoa whoa. Not a virgin?

My face burns. She can't see my face in the dark. Thank God. I've been slugged in the gut and I want to shove her out of the car, dump her on the pavement, call her something but I don’t dare. She has already given to a boy what she will not give to me. I thought I was worthy, but I'm nothing after all. There are better men, men she wants. Men who know how. I am not sexy. I'm not desirable. Easy to refuse. Easy to push away, because I'm a nice boy. The kind you can always talk to. The kind of boy who stops when you tell him to, eager to please.

What happened? I speak with cheerful curiosity, as if asking for a funny story, some old family gossip. I keep the tension out of my voice. No, its nothing. No, come on, tell me, I want to hear it now. You can’t just throw that out there, tell me. It's okay. It happened at a party, that's all. There was this guy. Do you love him? No! - nothing like that. Just a guy. He's a jerk.

Yes, I think, just a jerk - so you took it all down and fucked a jerk. For him you do it.

I was a little drunk. He brought me upstairs. I was just curious. You know what I mean? You get curious to see what it is, and he was just there. So I just let it happen. You just did it? Just like that? Sure. How? Upstairs, like I said. But how? What do you mean how? On a bed. The people who lived there, their bed. You know. You want to hear this? Yeah, I really do. Sure? You okay? I’m okay. This is really great, go on. This is a really great story. So anyway. We went upstairs in a room and got on the bed. It was over quick. So you did it upstairs on the bed. I was drunk, okay? How was it? It was awful. It hurt. Then he told me I was lousy, I didn’t know how to fuck, he said. He said I didn’t know anything. Well, you were a virgin right? I mean, how would you know? Yeah, that's right. You know something, that's right. How would I know?

I couldn’t stop myself wanting her words. All her words. I wanted her story. All her story forever. The more the words hurt me, the more voracious I became to gobble up her story like rat bait. I was changing. The story. I want to know the story. The story! Words are powerful when they’re the right words. Words are demons that can get in your head. I didn’t know that. Now I knew it in my bones, in the yammering of my skull. Words could have a powerful and terrible magic.

are you okay

sure Im okay

I want you to be okay because youre so good for me

Im okay allright

you dont seem that okay

stop asking me if Im okay if I say I’m okay I’m okay

okay

There she is spread on a bed. Opening to him, to his boorish claspings. Beer on her breath as he puts his tongue in her mouth. There. And there he is. There, sticking up like a ball peen hammer. I see him! Why are the lights on? Does he insist? Drunk or not, pushing her knees apart, nude, and he has her now, the boy she has chosen for herself.

Climbing on board, really knocking it in there. Get it done, get your hammer in boy, fuck her up one side and down the other, make her yell and bang her up good so she knows she's been done good big buddy, this girl who has chosen you instead of me, this girl who will never ever forget you long after I’m washed downstream - and in my wretchedness I discover I am utterly poisoned with love. Smitten.

I hear his slapping belly on top of hers. Hearing it! Words. Seeing them entwined like worms. I hear his grunts. Her squeals. She monkey-grins at the ceiling. Burn eyes! I see them perfectly. I am there. The bed springs rising rhythm. She digs her nails in his back and I am there beside them, an enraged, murderous ghost.

She smiles at me, her confessor. I feel so close to you, she says.

Well, goonnight. Goonnight. Goonnight. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Kiss kiss.

I drive down the block, go around the corner and pull over. I turn off the engine and roll up the windows so no one will hear me as I scream and pound the dashboard with my fists. I get out and walk in the dark silent streets for an hour.

I don’t see her for a week because I have been seeing her every moment of every day, splayed on the bed with the boy she chose. Each time it’s a little different, but the ending is always the same. She finally calls me on the phone to see if I'm alright. I'm fine. I thought you might be upset. Upset? Why, what for? Well, you know. No, no. You seemed upset. No, no. Just busy. Let's go somewhere tonight. Let's go eat. Let's go talk.

There is the restaurant. After the small meal, and the last of my money, we walk down Nicollet Avenue. We talk. She’s in the mood to talk "gut level", her phrase for intimacy. I'm grateful to her for reaching out to me. For coming back. I tell her that.

She leans against me, wraps around me, and we walk dreamily, stumbling into each other. I'm so glad I have you. You’re the only one I can talk to.

Back in the familiar dark. Parked in her driveway. The lights of her house are out. Her parents asleep. This time it’s different. It feels different. The fumbling goes farther. She lifts off her T-shirt and looks in my eyes and I am seeing a woman's bare chest for the first time in my life. I don’t know if we should, she says, I want to, but I don’t know. Why? Because if we do, listen, if we do, everything is going to change I just know it will. Are you ready for this? Yes, I say. Are you sure you want this? I'm sure.

T shirt back on. Climbing over the back. Wait. Unfastening. Unzipping. Just a second. Breathing fast. Quick. Quick. She's changing her mind every second. I don't know if we should. Fumbling. I don’t know if we should do this. Hurry. Are you sure? Yes. Oh yes. Jeans off. T shirt stays on. Hurry. If my step-dad comes out and sees us doing it, he'll kill me, I’m telling you. He'll beat me up.

Only half naked for me. Was she naked for him? Half sure of what she's doing. Maybe the guy really was a jerk. Maybe it’s easier for a girl when she doesn’t really like you. Maybe it comes harder when she likes you a lot, because there's more to lose. Everything is going to change – how does she know this? It’ll just get better of course. Won’t it? So confused. I feel ridiculous. This isn’t what I thought. Terrified. But it’s fantastic, because it’s with her, because it’s with her its fantastic. She’s chosen me. Exhilarated. It would be easy to call it off. But I’m always calling stuff off. All my stupid life, I've been hesitating. Afraid. I don’t want to hesitate this time. Not about this. Maybe this will never happen again if I hesitate. This time I want to pull the trigger. Yes, I want this, I say. Let's do this together.

I want to say I love you, to seal the deal but I'm so afraid she'll laugh. She's heard that tacky stuff before, probably. Maybe the clever jerk who got her fucked said that just to get her pants down. Then he told her she was such an awful fuck, maybe to ruin her for other guys. I'm terrified it will sound stupid if I say it out loud - I love you! - at this moment when its all going to happen if I just don't do anything to mess it up. I'm terrified of the power I’ve given her to hurt me.

She reclines on the back seat like an offering on an altar. She knows this thing better than I do. Her upper body is in shadows. Her lower body is in light. She waits to see what I will do with her body, with her feelings. She’s waiting for me to be good. Am I good? Her face hidden in the dark of the door well. Between the lush valley of her thighs, the street light on a rich delta of dark curls. There is where it must be done. Somewhere there. I'm sure that's how it works. That's what it said in the medical dictionary at home. Panic. Do people do this? When the moment comes, it all seems so unnatural. When death comes to me, will death feel like that too?

Once ready, having taken up that ancient awkward posture, hovering over her, I withdraw into a self conscious workmanship. I’m learning a new skill, without a teacher, but in the presence of an audience and judge of one. She opens a little and waits. I hear her breathing; see her belly rise and fall. I touch her, to find the wet spot. She opens more, resolved now, and I lower myself gingerly, holding my breath. Poking and probing, I can’t find the spot. Jesus Moses, this is stupid. This is crazy. I can’t see anything. The other guy, he could probably see everything when he was giving her the time upstairs on a proper bed with the light on and everything. Oh shit. Drunk my ass. She was just making that crappy lie to protect herself. She loved it. Bitch! She loved it and she wanted him bad. She got down on her knees and begged for it and sucked his goddamned dick! For sure - they stayed up all night banging away at it like ferrets and she called him back to beg for it all over again!

Lying Bitch!

She gasps loudly in pain. Jesus. I don’t even know what I just did. It’s all falling apart. No, I can't let my clumsiness hurt her, I will not, no matter what, even if I have to give this up in defeat and call it a night. Anyway, she knows it now, I’m no great lover, I have no confidence, I don’t have a clue about how this works, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing this for anyway, how I got into this. The other guy who fucked her, he's just a better cocksman than me and that’s how it is. Now she knows it too. Goddamnit. Godfuckingdammit all.

In an agony of humiliation I whisper words like a prayer to the shadows where she lurks, "I think I’ll need your help." I feel her hand touching me softly down there. I feel how she touches me. Her generosity. Her patience. Like a tug boat bringing a ship to the dock she takes hold of me there, gently pulls and guides me home. Trusting, I let her lead me. When I arrive, I feel something strange and hot pressing tentatively against me. I give an explorative little bump and I’m startled to feel it sink like a blade, to feel the flesh parting. She lets go of me, like a mother letting her child learn to walk, to let me find my own way now. I impale her easeful deepness, feel it slip further, and there is the strange gross sensation of warm slick meat enveloping me. And all this time I am thinking - am I doing this right? It feels . . . it feels . . . icky. Like raw meat. Is this natural? Is this what people do? Am I disgusting to her? Is this what Jerome kept doing to my friend Terri, until he ruined her life? Is this what my dad did to my mom? This. . . wet meat . . . Like sticking it in raw liver. He did this to her? Like this? Many times? And then I was born?

Her hand on my back, pressing me down all the way, encouraging. Relax. You're shaking all over. Are you okay? I'm okay.

When she had hurt me before, butchered me with her story, I had loved her more in that moment of misery than I had ever imagined possible, but now having arrived in paradise, in this awkward moment of consummation, I just want it to be over.

I settle over her and wait for my racing heart to slow down. I’m covered in sweat like a race horse. She moves under me, then seizes me aggressively, shifts her legs under me, working her hips hard and fast against my groin, whispering "you’re beautiful, you're beautiful". Those are all the things I’m supposed to be doing and saying to her. I don’t know how to speak words like that- you’re beautiful. I don’t know how to say I love you. I never ever said those words to anybody. No one had said them to me. Instinctively I don’t feel this is some reckless kind of passion coming from her, this is something else. Something calculated. She is determined to be The Fuck of The Century, to impress me all the way through, to make sure she is not "a lousy lay" ever in my eyes. Suddenly it all lets go, my orgasm weak and transparent, a sense of something leaving me and that’s all, as she flogs away at me furiously, babbling angry things. She stops. She tries again. She stops. She bursts into tears. I listen helplessly to my girl shaking under me sobbing in the dark.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

“I can’t make you come.”

“. . . what . . ?”

"You didn’t come. I’m shitty at this, I’m no good!"

"But you did.”

"I didn’t feel you."

"But you did. You made me come good."

"Really?"

"It was greatest thing that ever happened to me. You made me come so good. You’re wonderful." I find her mouth by the sound of her sniffles, kiss her and hold her tight. I whisper in her hair "You were really great. I love you fine. You’re the best." I feel false. Selfish. Hollow.

I kiss her beautiful face; I kiss her ears and whisper assuring things to her. It’s what I’ve wanted all my life, ever since I knew there was such a thing, and it’s all going wrong. But there’s one more thing going wrong, the worst thing of all. The revelation. I get it now.

Now that we’ve both eaten the apple, the realization, the thing we can’t ever talk about is growing. She is right. She is right about everything. We’re not in the garden of innocence anymore. We’ll never get it back like it was. How did she know? It's all going to change now.

It feels like the first time ...

There are so many firsts that I could post about today. Like Lisabet, I was 15 when I lost the cherry. But unlike her's, mine wasn't such a wonderful experience. The schmuck tapped one of my friends later that night after pressuring me for weeks to have sex in the first place. So ... nope. Not posting about that.

Then there was the first, nope, not gonna do that one. Um, how about the, err, nor that one either.

Hum ...

Unlike, it seems, most of my fellow Grippers, I have never really lived.

I'm 31 years old, I have a husband, a preteen daughter, and I am in college. I went from living with my parents to living with my (then fiancee) husband at 17. I am also one of those scared at just about everything people. I have a more than healthy fear of death, so some of the funnest stuff I pass by. I have also never really traveled beyond the states (see that I am in college part --> no money LOL).

So for my 'the first time' post, I want to talk about the first time I really felt I have lived. It was this past summer, and I was terrifed almost the whole dang time.

See, I am a geek (see previous post if this fact is in double) and a biology major on top of that. So I get to do the fun classes like Marine Ecology, with the only problem being, we are in Missouri. Completely land locked. So, our field course portion took place in Belize. Because, well, why go to Florida or California when you can go just a bit further to Central Am.

It kicked ass! But well, for starters, we had to fly, which I am not to keen on. Then we had to take a little 12 seater out to the island of Ambergris Caye. The runway had dogs on it, and the baggage claim was a dirt patch. I was white-knuckled the whole flight. I even made my husband (who is also a bio major so he got to take the class too) take a different flight out, just in case my plane went down. The professors got a kick out it.

Then we got to our loggings, after the taxi ride from hell. Most everyone drove golf carts on the island and the taxis were the big vans which didn't seem to have brakes.

Long story short there, we got settled and the next day headed out to the boat.

I am terrified of boats, of drowning, of having my head under water, etc. And I am allergic to chlorine, so I wasn't able to proactice snorkeling in a pool much before hand. So I have to sit on this little platform on the back of the boat and puch myself into the water. After watching others go off the back and slide under the water. Boyant in salt water my ass. LOL

Well, it took someone pushing me off while someone else pulled me, but I made it into the water. Where I proceeded to wrap my arms and legs around the ladder and not want to let go. Thankfully hubby is well versed in my issues and managed to pry my hands loose and get me to moving. We repeated this pattern both dives of each of the seven days, although without the ladder part. Just a little paniced dog paddling.

I had a frickin blast! During the course of the week we swam with a loggerhead turtle, nurse sharks, green sea turtles, tons of rays, assorted other fish and had a manatee curious enough about us to come swim our way. We saw tons of different corals and a sunken barge that was becoming part of the reef. We went out to the Maya ruins at Lamanai and I (attempted to) climbed the ruins. I made it about a third of the way up and turned back.

We even went cave tubing on our free day, which shocked most of my classmates, cause I just don't do that kind of thing. I was even going to get into a cage at the Belize zoo and feed the "domesticated" jaguar, but we didn't have time. : (

In short, I was way outside of my comfort zone and loved every minute of it. Well, except for the food allergy where my mouth swelled shut.

If you're interested, you can read my posts about my vacation on my blog. http://eroticpen.blogspot.com/search/label/Belize (Unfortunatly, I couldn't figure out how to get them out of reverse order.)

I came back from that trip exhausted, emotionally and physically, but oh so glad that I went. I even told the professors I would go again in two years when it is offered again and I am a grad student. Probabaly still have to be pushed off of the boat, but hey. We all have our issues. : )

So that is my "first time" post.

Probably not what you were expecting, but I am a geek!

The I'm-Not-So-Smart "Learning Experience"

I was eighteen the first time I realized I wasn't as smart as I thought.

I spoke last week about being a precocious reader. Placed very early on in 'gifted' classes, I was buoyed  along in a wonderful school system that recognized and plucked us 'gifted' kids out of the regular classroom and placed us in a kind of free-form classroom, where we determined our coursework, challenged our peers, self-graded. I flourished.

Then we moved.

In seventh grade, I came into a school system that had no advanced track and few options. Along with the obvious upheaval that followed in my social life trying to find my place at that very tender age, I was lost in the shuffle. Anonymity isn't great for any kid, much less the antithesis of a 'squeaky wheel'.

"No grease for you, Rhody!"

So I slid along in regular classes, acing classes left and right. Barely cracked a book, even in high school. I could listen in class, read what I had to, and get A's in everything, with the occasional B+ in classes that didn't interest me or which had a teacher I didn't like.

Took all the college placement courses without difficulty.  Took all the tests too.  I've always tested well, and the PSAT's, SAT's and ACT's were no exception.  Had my choice of full rides and was accepted to every school I applied to. As a junior, I had was awarded a Nat'l Merit Scholarship, which basically gave me carte blanche to decide where I wanted to go for free.

I chose a huge state University in the south, in the state where I had spent my happy childhood. You know how they say you can't go back?  Very true. But that's another story.

My freshman year was unforgettable.  I was in this enormous U's honors program, in premed, living in the honor's dorm, and had a very heavy course load. I've blocked out most of my memories of which classes I actually took, but know it included honors chemistry and an interesting honors class, the Social Psychology of Friendship.

I flunked. Badly.

My GPA coming out of my first semester was less than 1.

You may think, oh, all that partying, those wild times. But I hardly ever went out, much less to parties.

Nope.  The reason I flunked out was simple: Smart as I was...I didn't know how to study.

Surely it's self-evident. You open the book, work things through until you have it all memorized, and spit it back out at test time. But through all my years of education to that point, I had never, EVER had to study.  So it didn't occur to me that I would have to start.

That was the first time I realized I wasn't as smart as I thought I was.

Home on holiday break, I was appalled when my grades arrived in the mail (this was the 80's, they're probably online these days).  I was still smart enough to realize my free ride was in jeopardy, confirmed by the 'warning' letter I got soon after. I also realized I would have a hell of a time trying to get admitted to any other college with this academic non-perfomance on my record.

I almost didn't go back. I literally stood there in the airport, listening to the last call for boarding, before sucking it up and heading back down to the place I now hated.

I knew that I needed to ace this semester to even have a shot at moving on, and either way my Merit scholarship would go bye-bye. Facing my parents, especially Dad, was just awful.  He swallowed his shock and disappointment and called it a "learning experience" instead of raging at me.  I moped around, depressed and lost for the first month I was back, and then somehow pulled myself up and privately vowed to do everything I could to dig myself out of this hole.

So I learned to study.

I had no dearth of subject material to practice on. I was matriculated right along, so now I was in second semester honors chemistry...and I had gotten an F in the first semester.  So I had to learn the whole first half of the book while trying to keep up in my labs and lectures in the second half of the book.

My insomnia was at its peak during this stage of my life, and it actually stood me in good stead.  I got to be a regular at the libraries and lobbies, anywhere that was quiet. I watched the students around me and even studied at the dorm complex pool (nobody ever swam there even though it was hot as hades most of the time, just tanned and flirted and studied). At first I memorized, then I actually worked through the process of studying to learn.

Just so I won't leave you hanging, I came back and aced that semester.  I even, in my chemistry lecture class that was over 1,000 students, got the high grade on the final.  Truly.  I checked the printout of the grades posted outside the department just before I climbed into the van and started the long drive home with my parents. 

Twenty years later, I still haven't been back to that state. But I'll never forget the life lesson learned there.