Author's Note: This is the first chapter in the blossoming and soon-to-be-enduring romance of Peggy and Alex. At the end of this chapter, there is a question. Your comments will help shape Chapter 2, and your votes are always appreciated.
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Peggy and I had been married for six years when
it
happened. During those six years, our sex life had become more passionate and varied. At the beginning of those six years, though, on our wedding night, we both lost our virginity, and it wasn't pretty.
We were both twenty-two, and we had decided to wait until we were married to have intercourse. Oh, sure, we had masturbated each other, but we hadn't even engaged in oral sex, let alone intercourse.
In this day and age, you ask, how did we make it to the ripe old age of twenty-two without having intercourse?
But I'm getting ahead of myself. I need to go back to the beginning to explain how simple the answer is.
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When we first met we were shy, awkward, and acne covered. Oh, yeah . . . one other deal breaker.
We were geeks. Taped-glasses, pocket protectors, mismatched clothing, the works.
She was chemistry major with an emphasis in materials applications. I was a mechanical engineering major with an emphasis in industrial process.
We met at a job fair towards the end of our senior year. Whittenstone Industries was looking for employees in their injectable plastics division. Peggy was applying for a position as a chemist, and I was applying for one of the production equipment design jobs. We had finished filling out our applications and we both reached for the stapler at the same time to attach our CVs.
Our hands touched. We turned to look at each other. I pushed my glasses up on my nose and looked at her as she smiled at me, revealing her braces.
Before me was a woman with short mousy brown hair that was probably brushed a day or two ago. She was wearing a T-shirt and wrinkled, striped Bermuda shorts. She was wearing white crew socks and black shoes. The T-shirt read, "There are only 10 kinds of people: Those who know binary and those who don't." The freckles on her face competed for space with a half-dozen pimples.
She was slim, with about A-cup breasts and narrow hips.
She was wearing a pair of black heavy-framed glasses with a paper clip at one temple where the screw had fallen out, and there was a little tape holding the paper clip in place.
Behind those glasses were the softest, prettiest brown eyes I had ever seen.
It was love at first sight!
Her roommate, Goldie, was with her. Goldie was graduating with a degree in international relations. She had a minor in
sexual
relations
with anyone she had an inkling was going to get a job with a high enough salary to support her in the manner in which she intended to become accustomed. She had a plan. She was going to get her minks the way minks get minks. She was a knockout!
She was wearing a white blouse and a plaid miniskirt. The blouse was open for the top three buttons, and her C-cup plunge bra was visible. Her shapely legs were terminated by bobby sox and penny loafers. Her long blonde hair was tied in a pony tail, and her blue eyes flashed as she spoke.
"C'mon, Peggy. Are you done yet? There's, like, some law grads over there talking to the law firm, y'know, uh, interviewers. I have, like, a list of the companies that pay the highest salaries, and I want to hang out there and, you know, listen to their recruiters to see what guys have the best chance."
When Goldie spoke, I turned to look at her, and I got an eyeful of her outfit and shapely form. I looked at her for a couple of seconds, and then back to Peggy.
Peggy was looking down, obviously looking disappointed that I had seen Goldie. It was apparent that she was used to being treated with indifference whenever she tried to speak to a man when Goldie was around.
"Could you tell your friend you'll meet her later?" I asked Peggy. "I'd like to get a cup of coffee with you"
Peggy's mouth dropped, and then she smiled again.
"Goldie, could I meet . . . could you, uh . . ."
"Yeah, Peggy, like, whatever. I'll see you back at the dorm."
Looking relieved that she would not have Peggy with her while she was talking to cute boys, Goldie made a beeline towards her prey.
Peggy said, "Uh yeah, well, uh, I don't drink coffee after breakfast . . . soda . . ."
I screwed up all the courage I could muster and said, "Uh, well . . . Peggy, is it? . . . I'll get you whatever you want. For me, all I . . . all I want . . . is, uh,
to-drink-in-those-beautiful-brown-eyes
."
I said the last part so fast that I wasn't sure it was intelligible, but I knew she understood it when I saw her reaction. Her knees buckled slightly and she fell back against the table behind her.
I reached out my hand and grabbed her arm to steady her. She looked at me with those big brown eyes and my heart melted.
That first "date" was a trip to the café at the Student Union, where I bought her a soda. I told her my name, and we talked about our majors and what we wanted to do with our degrees.
I told her that she had the prettiest smile I had ever seen, and she blushed.
"My braces, uh, come off . . . two weeks before, um, graduation. Finally. The first thing I'm . . . I'm going to do is, uh, go the movies and have popcorn. I missed that the most!"
"I would like, uh, maybe we could, um,
share
that popcorn?"
"I'd like to share . . . yeah, we could . . . uh, yeah, I'd like that."
My hand reached out for hers, and she reached out for mine. When our fingers touched, we both pulled back as if we had received an electric shock. We inched forward again, only to retreat a second time. We succeeded on the third try, and we held hands and talked for an hour, sometimes in complete sentences, but not often.
We began dating when we weren't studying for our finals. After the second date, we actually started talking to each other in complete sentences with fewer than six "uhs" a minute.
Having Goldie for a roommate turned out to be a plus. When she found out that her hapless, hopeless roommate had a boyfriend for the first time in the three years she'd known Peggy, she decided to make a project of the two of us.
In her usual tactful, thoughtful manner she explained her motivation.
"I'm, like, going to give each of you a makeover. I'm going to help the two of you look, you know, decent for once because I would feel guilty if I didn't, like, help you look decent for the first time in your sorry-assed lives. If I don't, you know, you may never have, like, another shot."
You know, tactful. And articulate as always.
She took Peggy to her spa and treated her to a full treatment. Hair, nails, the works. The beautician there told her about all of the acne medications that were available, and gave her a Proactiv treatment.
Goldie took Peggy to a couple of stores and told her about matching articles of clothing with each other. They spent an entire day, with a couple of follow-up sessions.
One of Goldie's jock boyfriends was tasked with taking me shopping. He got me reasonably coordinated, and took me to his barber for a haircut.
By Graduation Day, we both actually looked halfway decent. Peggy's braces had been off for two weeks by then, and her smile was even better than I imagined it would be.
The two of us had no illusions. We were not "A-List" material. We were not particularly athletic, and we looked a bit . . . well, we looked a bit dorky. My nose was a bit long, and my chin was just shy of nonexistent. I thought my eyes were too close together. We both hated contacts, so we wore glasses. We had traded the heavy black frames for something a little more stylish by then, though.
The Proactiv was working, finally, and both of our faces looked somewhat less like pepperoni pizzas. The near-absence of pimples let Peggy's freckles really stand out. With her slightly pointed upturned nose, I thought they made her cute as a button!
I will never forget our first kiss. It was on our third date. We had gone for lunch together at the main dining room. I walked her back to her dorm. In the common room on the ground floor, we watched TV for a little while.
"I have to go study," she said.
"Okay, well so do I."
"When will you be free again?"
"Uh, I dunno. What's your schedule like?"
"Test tomorrow at 10, and then I think I'm free. How about you?"
