It had been a cold, icy Christmas, but the weather warmed up just in time for New Year's. A yellow van rumbled down the street and turned up my driveway, plowing through the knee-deep water that backed up from the slush-clogged storm drains.
The van was delivering Mom's old piano - now my piano - a mahogany upright that had been in the family for about a hundred years. It made sense that I'd get it when Mom died; I was the only one of the kids who took playing seriously. Not that I'd played much recently, of course.
Two guys in faded jackets dropped out of the van. The big guy went to work dragging out ramps. The short guy walked up to me with a clipboard in his hand.
"Where you want it?" he asked.
I had cleared a space for it in the living room, where I once kept a rickety wicker chair. The movers quickly wrestled the piano into place.
They also brought an old, beat up bench, which looked ridiculous sitting in front of the meticulously maintained piano. Mom must have planned to refinish the bench. She did that kind of thing a lot - she'd pick up old, broken down furniture and fix it up until it looked better than new. But she apparently never got around to the piano bench.
I took the piano for a quick spin, playing a few old simple songs. It was still in good tune. I stroked the black and white keys and brushed my hands across the shiny wood surfaces.
It would have been nice to sit and play for a while. But I had Andy's party to get to.
This was the second year running I was going stag to Andy's New Year's party. The year before, I'd just broken up with Sylvia, and I had to endure the constant queries: "Really? I thought you two were perfect for one another! What happened?"
Fortunately, I would not need to explain anything this year - Peggy and I split up months ago, and only a few of my friends knew about Peggy in the first place.
I dressed quickly and went back to look at the piano one last time. I found a bunch of old sheet music inside the bench. A lot of the stuff I used to play when I was a teenager. * * *
I gave up playing the piano in high school when I started going out with Pamela. Pamela was my first serious girlfriend, and we had lots of romantic notions, none of which included the piano. We were both virgins - or at least I was, and she said she was. Back then, I had doubts about her honesty concerning her experience. These days, I am more inclined to believe she told the truth.
I was endlessly fascinated by Pamela's naked body. Given the opportunity, I could have lain for hours just looking. My stares made Pamela uncomfortable, so I would fumble around, stroking her awkwardly, while I studied her on the sly.
I loved her hips, and the first time I went down on her happened by accident. I was kneeling between her legs, running both hands up and down over her bare hips. Pamela lay passively, and I wanted a closer look. I leaned closer while I caressed her hips and thighs, and as I closed in, I caught a whiff of her arousal.
Pamela protested meekly, but I was drawn inwards. I stroked her hipbones with my fingers, and my attention focussed at the warmth between her legs. I rubbed my nose through her dark hairs and inhaled her aroma.
"No," she whispered, and she placed her hand on my head.
I swept my head back and forth and settled my mouth between her squishy outer lips. I stuck my tongue out, pushed it between her hairy lips, and got my first taste of pussy.
"No!" Pamela said, and she wiggled out from under me. I was left with a lingering taste on my tongue and a hard-on that demanded relief.
Pamela and I split up after just one year because she said I was boring. "You are so
dull
," she said during one of our infrequent arguments. That hurt a lot. She apologized the next day, and she said she didn't really mean it. I accepted her apology, but the damage was already done.
It took me a long time to recover from Pamela. People always say there is something special about your first love. I suppose it's true, but I wonder what people mean by "special." I always assumed people meant it was special in some pleasant way. But for me, my relationship with Pamela made me acutely aware of my limitations. * * *
I plunked a single key. Middle C. I sighed.
It was time to go.
I drove to Andy's, where the party already thumped along with a boisterous rhythm. Someone had pushed the living room furniture against the wall, and people were dancing to some fun music played a little too loud. One couple was making out under a sprig of mistletoe. Women drank wine out of clear plastic wineglasses, and men drank beer out of yellow plastic cups.
I made my way to the kitchen and decided to try the wine, since it was a kind I'd never tasted before. I thought it was pretty good. I said hello to the people I recognized and made my way back through the house. I sat down in a folding chair and looked at the dancers. A girl on the floor was dancing wildly by herself and drawing quite a bit of attention.
I had to adjust my position to control the beginnings of an erection. Obviously, it was too long since I broke up with Peggy. I was horny. Maybe even too horny. Sometimes a man gets a little desperate. * * *
Sometimes I think Sylvia and I would have never got together had it not been for my sexual desperation. The fear of another rejection like Pamela's kept me out of circulation for a long time. And then Sylvia entered the picture.
Sylvia was the daughter of one of my mother's friends. After a polite introduction one day at my mother's house, we kept running into each other at random times: in the grocery store, in line at the movies, at the student union cafeteria. Sylvia was attractive, with dark curly hair and bright eyes, and I began to center every sexual fantasy around her. I would lie in bed and masturbate as I imagined stripping her out of her clothes. In my mind, our touches would begin softly and tentatively, and then grow bold as our arousal built. I invariably reached orgasm as I imagined my hand slipping between her thighs to touch her steamy cunt.
Although my sexual fantasies revolved around her, I was too afraid to ask Sylvia for a date. As we built a casual acquaintance, our circle of friends somehow combined. I often sat across a crowded table from her at some pizza joint, staring, while my penis rolled and shifted in my pants. When she caught me looking, I glanced away with embarrassment. Later, she told me she thought it was cute the way I blushed when she caught me staring.
Thankfully, Sylvia finally asked
me
out. We quickly became a couple, and I was deliriously happy that we did.
Sex with Sylvia was OK. I had built up a huge library of sexual fantasies in the months leading up to our first date, but there never seemed to be an opportunity to live them out. And it felt so good to finally have
any
sexual relationship again that I wasn't prepared to risk it all with an out-of-the-ordinary request. So we had a pleasant, unremarkable sex life. And, as far as I could tell, Sylvia was not displeased.
Later, I learned that "not displeased" summed up her opinion pretty well.
We had spent several hours in bed one night. A long, slow bout of foreplay transitioned into a long, slow, undulating, missionary position fuck. I came, filling her pussy, and we slumped together, side-by-side.
Sylvia reached across my chest and hugged me. "I didn't expect us to have sex like this," Sylvia said.
"What do you mean?"
"Jon, you are a different person when we make love."
My face burned with fear of an up-coming criticism, but Sylvia did not elaborate.
It seemed like I was always trying to read women. And without much success. * * *
The girl in the middle of the floor danced like a whirlwind. She wasn't much like Sylvia. Or Pamela. Or Peggy. She was short, curvy, with honey-colored hair. She wore a T-shirt and a short skirt - more a summer costume than one for New Year's. She did not wear a bra, and her ample breasts bobbed under her shirt.
There was a lot about her to watch. Her breasts - I could tell she was proud of her breasts - were out for display. But I also liked the way muscles in her legs flexed as she bounced around. And when her back was to me and she shook her ass, I knew I would love to have my arms wrapped around her luscious thighs.
But those were just my fantasies talking. I wasn't the kind of guy who suddenly attracted women. It always took a month or two knowing some girl before I even had the guts to ask her out.
