David Scott. The yearbook picture was something like eighteen years old and yet, except for the length of his hair, he looked almost the same. The chiseled face was one of youthful confidence, with a cocky, alluring smile, impudent eyebrows, and haughty forehead. But it was the soulful, piercing eyes that grabbed you, that made you want to stop and look and never turn away. The rest of the package was pretty, too, but the eyes revealed the fathomless depths of his soul.
Holding the yearbook, David flipped back to Holly's senior picture. Sitting beside him, she groaned and tried to cover it with her hands.
"Now stop," he said, pushing her hands away. "You got to see mine, now we get to look at yours."
She cringed at the bespectacled Holly Alexander of the Class of 1990. She looked like a total dork with her enormous dark brown curls, oversized plastic glasses and silly Material Girl outfit. The plastic jewelry alone was an embarrassment.
He looked at the picture with an objective expression, then at the current Holly. "That was a really hot look for you," he said straight-faced. "Maybe you should go back to it."
"Thanks," she said sarcastically even while he cracked up laughing. She grabbed the yearbook from his hands and closed it. "So much for walking down memory lane. Now I remember why I didn't want to buy one of these yearbooks my senior year. And the sad thing was, that was the
best
of the pictures the photographer took of me. I vaguely recall that the rest of them made me cry."
"Well, the important thing is, you're hot now."
"Yeah, right. Drink some more sangria and tell me more lies."
Sitting on the sofa in his den, Holly was struck by the irony that of all the girls in her senior class, she was the one sharing a pitcher of sangria with David. She hadn't been popular in high school; in fact, if it hadn't been for art, she would have been a total social misfit. Her art had distinguished her in her high school and beyond. But for David, beauty had been his birthright. And not just beauty, but charm and wit and athleticism. Captain of the swim team, top honors on the wrestling team, a standout in track. And wildly popular, not just with the girls, but with everyone. Everyone loved David. He was easy to love.
She felt an arm stretch out on the back of the sofa behind her. His body was close to hers, close enough that she could feel his body heat through his t-shirt and her top. She looked down at his thigh as it rested beside hers. It was hard to believe now that she had sketched him in the nude, stroking himself to the point of orgasm. But she had, and the memory of it gave her a thrill that made her heart race.
"Holly," he said, setting down his glass on the end table beside him. "There's something I need to make clear to you. I've had relationships with women as well as men."
He stopped, looking into her eyes as though to gage her reaction. Then he continued.
"I can't tell you what the trigger is, why I feel attracted to someone. I just know it's there. Someone once told me that bisexuals are greedy. We want it all. I don't know, maybe it's true. I just know when I'm around someone and it clicks, I want to get to know that person better, and part of that 'getting to know you better' is having sex. Maybe I'm wrong to think that way, but I do."
She shrugged. "I don't think you're wrong in feeling that way. I think most of us are just too afraid to act on unconventional feelings."
"Have you ever had sexual feelings for a woman?"
"Sure. Everyone has same-sex feelings now and then. But I've never felt those feelings so strongly that I wanted to explore them. I don't really click very often anyway. My former fiancΓ© was the only lover I ever had and I haven't been with anyone since him. I guess I'm just not a very sexual person."
She had said all this while staring down at the design on his t-shirt. Now David was silent, and her gaze lifted to look into his dark eyes. It was easy to mistake them as brown; up close, however, as she was now, she could see the blue flecks against the darker shade. She remembered thinking once that his eyes were the color of the ocean at sunset: like fire on water. Perhaps it was that enigma that made him so irresistible.
His hand moved over hers while his gaze searched her eyes for some telltale sign. Holly felt a blush rising on her cheeks. His words echoed in her ears: "When it clicks, I want to get to know that person better...." Was he looking at her that way, holding her hand, because he wanted to get to know her better?
His face grew closer and she closed her eyes. A moment later she felt his lips. Raw desire possessed her; she opened to him, giving herself over completely to his roving tongue. She had no defense against his kiss. It was unlike anything in her experience. His tongue was like a creature with a life of its own, not even a part of him. It filled her, possessed her, made her subject to its will. She was enslaved and joyful to be so. She gave back to him out of instinct, hardly cognizant of her own actions. The world was reduced to wet lips, probing tongues, clashing teeth, and hungry sounds.
The sighs that came from her wouldn't be silenced. Her hands, too, willfully went where they wanted, up his arms, over his shoulders, to his hot neck. His arms at the same time were bounding around her, hard muscles crushing her ribs as he dragged her against his chest. Muscle and heat enveloped her. Holly felt his hand in her hair, against her scalp, as he relentlessly kissed her. She felt faint for lack of air and overwhelmed by the passion pulsating in her groin. What had she said only minutes ago? That she
wasn't
a sexual person?
His grip loosened as one of his hands effortlessly swept up her flowing top. The lacy fabric of her bra almost melted under his scorching touch as he fondled her breast. David felt a large, erect nipple against a hard areola. He broke the kiss and looked down at her breasts, at the nipple he held, and distractedly bent over to suck it. His full lips took in more than just her nipple; her whole breast seemed to disappear into his mouth. Holly laid back her head on the sofa and stared unseeing at the ceiling while he administered his seduction to first one breast and then the other.