The scene was already divine. The bright, mid-morning sun shone down upon her, illuminating and glorifying all of her majestic curves.
Then the soft spring breeze tugged at the slim tendrils of hair that had managed to slip free from her hair tie. They shimmered as they danced in the air, as if to torment Paul even further. He marveled at how the sunlight turned them from chestnut brown to gold.
Despite the clear, sunny weather, the air was still quite brisk. Marcy looked right at home in her tight, burgundy sweater and dark blue sweatpants.
Paul's coffee was getting cold as he gazed at her from all the way across the quad. He couldn't have cared less.
Something had made Marcy hesitate; made her stay in place for just a moment, giving him a clear, unobstructed view. Until that moment passed, Paul had no time for anything else.
He couldn't have been more wide awake; but his heartbeat was as calm and measured as a man fast asleep. That was normal. His heart was always peaceful when he caught a glimpse of her these days.
It had been very different in the beginning. In the weeks when Paul first became so wrapped up in her, the mere thought of Marcy used to make his heart race like crazy. Now, he only felt peace.
For Paul, there was no mystery about where all that boisterous spirit had gone. He was looking at it, right now: across the quad, sealed away inside that perfect swell in Marcy's belly.
He had given it to her in a fit of careless ecstasy, a little more than seven months ago. His energy, his strength, his flair - all the qualities that define a 20-year-old male striving to assert himself in the world - had exploded out of him in a desperate bid to reach her splendid womb. Even now, Paul could vividly recall how slow and weak his heartbeat had been immediately after it had happened; how he had realized almost immediately that his fiery male vigor had abandoned him.
Marcy, with all her feminine grace, had nurtured that power and grown it in to a magnificent baby bump.
Looking over at it now, so large and proud on Marcy's frame, he was pleased. His precious life energy was precisely where it was supposed to be. It was a truth he was certain of, on an instinctive level.
Paul wasn't oblivious to the complications of 'getting a girl in trouble'. Those concerns had caused him plenty of sleepless nights over the past few weeks. But all that anxiety went away whenever he saw Marcy; especially recently, with her belly growing ever bigger. Seeing her made all the first-world drama and sexual politics fade away; leaving only the memory of that amazing, primal act through which that bundle of complications was conceived.
Try as he might, Paul couldn't bring himself to regret such a perfect experience. At times, he couldn't understand how or why, but even after seven months and the benefit of hindsight, he was still thoroughly delighted that he and Marcy had sex.
It had forever changed him. It had changed her even more. In his mind, Paul was aware that they were bittersweet changes, at the very best. But in his heart, all he felt was satisfaction.
For a brief instant, he took his eyes off Marcy to take note of the trees lining the quad. High above her was a lush green canopy of spring regrowth. It reminded him of the brown, fallen leaves that had blanketed the ground that evening, many months ago; how they had decorated the sidewalks he had traveled on his way to that fateful encounter.
He smirked as he realized how the rolling of the seasons was not unlike the many timely changes that had occurred between Marcy and himself over that period. Fall had been a season of change for both of them, as the simplicity of their relationship, and the presumptions they both had about their futures gradually wilted away. Winter began with an abrupt and sobering chill, but quickly settled into a period of dormant numbness. Now, with the dawning of spring, came hints of a new beginning and bright, new opportunities. Once again, Paul felt that things were changing; though to what end, he couldn't say.
He mused that Mother Nature probably had a separate schedule for everyone and everything; trees, critters... even a couple of foolish young college kids. In a vaguely reassuring way, it felt as if the numerous changes that had occurred between himself and Marcy over these past months had all been running to some elegant, natural timetable. Yet it was hard to reconcile that idea with the fact that nothing about the past seven months had been planned.
Even the very beginning, the moment that had upended his entire life, had come without any warning. Nobody could've predicted what was about to happen, even a mere fifteen minutes beforehand.
-----
By all accounts, it
should've
been a relatively uneventful evening. Dan had invited ten friends over to his house for a cordial gathering; ten grounded, sensible people he could count on to not turn the evening into a shambolic, beer-drenched frat party.
Paul had been surprised to discover that Marcy was there, but her boyfriend, Jeff, wasn't. Dan whispered in Paul's ear that Marcy and Jeff had broken up.
Jeff and Marcy were well known for their fierce quarrels. It was a routine spectacle on campus to see them storming off in opposite directions with scowls on their faces. But they would always get back together and make up, usually very loudly.
But apparently, their latest fight had been a real doozy, and it seemed like they had really broken up for good this time.
It hadn't surprised Paul that their volatile relationship had finally fallen apart. But he was amazed by how at ease Marcy appeared to be, so soon after her breakup.
A conversation brewed up in the house's spacious living room. Various people joined in and left as time passed. Eventually, it dwindled down to just Paul and Marcy.
Ever since that night, he was able to picture her with crystal clarity, sitting on that L-shaped sofa, a good, respectable two or three body widths apart from him. He could picture the long, dark brown hair with the slightest hint of frizz, cascading over her shoulders. He could picture the sensuous movement of her full, pink lips as she spoke, and the glimmer where her feminine hazel eyes reflected the ceiling lights. He could picture her simple-yet-stylish black sweater, and the coarse, rich blue denim of her figure-fitting jeans.
But for the life of him, Paul could not recall a single word of the conversation they had shared on that sofa.
He had tried so hard, in the intervening months, to remember what had been said between them; as if remembering the conversation would somehow help him to make sense of everything else that followed. But no matter how hard he tried, he was unable to recall even the general subject of their discussion.
All he could remember was that, at some point, Marcy began flaunting her sexuality. Very gently - perhaps even accidentally, at first; but soon enough, with skillful potency.
He suddenly became very aware of the way her large breasts filled out her sweater. He had known Marcy for years, and she had never been shy about her voluptuous bust. But he had never looked at her body with such fixation before.
He remembered believing that they were simply playing a foolish game with one another, with all their subconscious signals and coy comments; a game more frustrating than fun, as far as he was concerned. Until the corner of Marcy's mouth twitched briefly into an odd smirk. In retrospect, Paul concluded that must've been the moment she'd decided, "What the hell?"
She turned to him with a smile and said, "Hey, why don't you come with me? I wanna show you something!"
He realized right then and there that they hadn't been playing a silly little game at all; they had been
negotiating
for actual sex! Yet despite this stunning turn of events, Paul agreed without hesitation. In fact, he never gave what he was about to do a second thought.
He got up and followed her, in a nonchalant procession to the second floor.
Back in those days, Paul was still deeply caught up in his longstanding, unrequited crush upon his high school dreamboat, Karen. Normally, he was constantly tormented by the fact that Karen didn't return his feelings for her. But as he made that journey with Marcy, up to an implied round of casual sex, Karen never once entered his mind. It was as if she had never existed.
When they reached the door of the master bedroom, Marcy quickly checked both ends of the hallway to ensure they wouldn't be seen. The entire floor seemed quiet; it felt like they were the only two up there. Nonetheless, Paul's heart was racing with apprehension.
"Okay," Marcy quietly signaled as she opened the door and smoothly slipped inside.
With a deep, nervous sigh, Paul followed. He rushed through the tight gap in the doorway, into the stylish, well-kept modern bedroom on the other side. He immediately spun around to close the door behind him. He tried to do it with perfect silence, as Marcy had managed when she entered the room. But his hand was trembling with nerves and he rattled the door against its frame as he brought it home. The noise was only soft - almost certainly inaudible to the rest of the household, but it still put a lump in Paul's throat.
He sighed again, a little shallower than before, as he stared at the well-finished wood grain of the door four inches from his face. He hesitated a moment before he turned back around, overwhelmed by the uncertainty of what was about to happen next. Of course, he knew there was going to be sex; but with nothing more than that vague assumption to guide him, Paul felt as if he was heading in to a situation he was totally unprepared for.
He turned. But he didn't even get a chance to take stock of his surroundings before Marcy's lips lunged upon his own. Her brazen advance would have banged his head against the door, if not for the hand she had slipped behind it, which cushioned the impact.
The austere silence of the room amplified the soft sounds of their foreplay; the moist smacking sounds of their lips working against one another, and the increasingly heavy breath rushing through their nostrils. Almost immediately, Marcy began dry-humping him through their jeans, with unambiguous, rhythmic thrusts of her hips.
Paul's arms were frozen, well away from Marcy's body, as if he were trying to grapple with some nonexistent sumo wrestler. Eventually, his shock began to subside and instinct began to take over. One hand closed around her upper torso to secure her hot body firmly against his own. The other began to fumble its way around her back, until Paul suddenly realized it was resting upon her ass. For a split second, he was actually embarrassed. But then he realized that they were well past the point where feeling up her ass was acceptable; in fact, it was now practically obligatory.
He sank his fingers hard into the yielding form of her buttock. Holding her like that, literally in the palm of his hand, was a sobering reality check. That was the moment when it truly sank in that he was about to screw this horny and exceptionally sexy coed.
He began to reciprocate Marcy's passion in his kisses, and soon began to overshadow her, as he finally accepted that she was in that room with him for him to enjoy. She was a feast of seductive sensations: soft, yet stimulating kisses; a firm, fit, youthful body; and an immodest warmth radiating from her belly, which seemed to be growing ever hotter. But what he relished most of all was the anticipation of the pleasures yet to come.
His reverie was broken when he felt her coarse woolen sweater rising up between them, in a harsh, wrenching motion. It interrupted their kiss, but only for a split second. The next thing he knew, his jacket was being pulled from around his shoulders.
They continued hastily undressing. Paul caught a brief glimpse of her crimson bra, and noticed how taut its straps appeared under the weight of her sizable bust. By the time their next kiss was finished, the bra was gone.
Amid the hectic juggle between their stripping and foreplay, Paul had only a limited opportunity to pause and admire Marcy's bare breasts. But in that fleeting second, he observed every little detail, burning the image of Marcy topless into his memory like a Polaroid.
