Beautiful

It took me a long time to like myself. When I was younger, I was very overweight, bordering on obese. I had all sorts of related health problems, not to mention self esteem issues. It's a pretty widely accepted fact that overweight people tend to have good personalities because their looks can't speak for them.

So I tried to console myself in the fact that I was a good person with a great sense of humor. I had intelligence and was driven. I genuinely cared for other and never wanted to harm anyone in any way. I just couldn't seem to escape all those extra pounds.

Where the weight hurt me the most was in the romance department. Sure, I had a pretty face—bright blue eyes, high cheekbones and full lips, but boys didn't look at my face so much as my fat stomach and double chin. It was so discouraging.

But I did have one really good guy-friend, James. James didn't care about how I looked, he just liked me for me. Now, I knew he'd never want to date me, but we had a great relationship. We talked about almost everything and made each other laugh. James was my most surprising friend, because he didn't fit his stereotype. See, James would have fit the whole bad-boy stereotype if it weren't for his friendship with me. He didn't care what people thought, he dated all the prettiest girls, he partied harder than anyone I knew.

Yet he was friends with me. I didn't disgust him. In fact, when I'd go on a diet, he'd ask me why I was doing it. He told me he just wanted to make sure that I was changing because I wanted to. He only wanted me to do it if it would make me happier.

And thus my crush developed, obviously. But I never said anything. I never acted upon it (hello, my self-esteem issues prevented that, obviously).

One night my junior year of high school, I was sitting at home on a Friday night, watching TV in my room when suddenly there was a tapping on my window. I looked over and saw that James was sitting on the roof outside my window, tapping on it. I looked at the time. 2 AM!

I hurried over to the window and unlatched it. Clad in only my pjs, I hugged myself from the cold outside and to cover my unsightly body from him. He stumbled in and nearly fell, but caught himself. Oh how drunk he was.

"James, are you all right?"

He smiled as he turned and looked down at me. I could get lost in those light brown eyes. His shaggy brown hair was a mess, falling everywhere and he was wearing a useless leather jacket that obviously wasn't keeping off the cold. "I'm great," he practically shouted.

"Shh!" I insisted. "My parents are asleep," I whispered.

James laughed softly and lifted a hand to his lips in an imitation of me. "Shh!"

"Just how drunk are you, James?" I asked rhetorically as he fell onto my bed. "Do you need somewhere to stay for the night?"

James just smiled serenely and laid back on my comforter. "That's why I love you."

The words made my heart skip a beat, but I knew they didn't mean what I wanted them to mean. "I'll take that as a yes. But you know you can't sleep in here. So, come on, you can take Shannon's room 'cause she's away college." As I had done many times before, I moved over to help him up so we could walk. How he managed to climb up to the roof was beyond me.

But as I moved closer to him, he just ended up pulling me down on the bed too so we were both sitting. He opened his eyes to look at me and our faces were very close. He lifted a hand and tangled it in my hair by my left ear. "You're so... pretty." He mumbled and moved in. He kissed me! Our lips actually touched and he didn't pull away.

But I did. He was drunk, he didn't know what he was doing. "Ok, Mister. You're drunk, let's get you to bed." As much as it pained me to, I ignored it. And the next day I found out he didn't remember it at all.

Then his parents, apparently fed up with his antics, decided to send him to military school. I was devastated. He was my best friend. But, I decided to make the most out of my misery and make a change. So in the year that he was gone, I completely revamped. I went on my first successful diet and exercised regularly. And it really did work. I was a completely different person and all the boys noticed. I got asked out numerous times (as I was fairly hot now), but I turned them down. Boys were only noticing the outer beauty and I wanted someone who noticed the inner beauty.

And then he came back. One night at around 10, I was sitting in my room reading one of my summer reading books and that familiar tapping came on the window. I looked up with butterflies flapping around in my stomach and there he was. Sitting on my roof like he hadn't ever left. Well, his hair was a bit shorter and he seemed a bit buffer from all those push-ups, but all in all he was still my James.

I fairly ran over to the window to let him in. When he stepped inside, he lifted me off my feet in a hug and spun me around. "I just got back an hour ago. I had to come see you," he explained.

"You look great," I breathed, noting that the push ups had done wonders for his biceps.

"Me? What about you? You said you'd lost weight over the phone, but I wasn't expecting a swimsuit model," he laughed.

"Shut up, I'm nowhere near that," I protested. "But come on. I want to hear all about it."

"Well..." he began as he took off his jacket and dropped it on the ground. "It was awful, but I had a lot of time to think."

"What'd you think about? Come up with the great American novel?" I joked.

"Mostly I thought about you," he admitted, staring right at me. No nonsense, so pussyfooting, just strait honesty, as James tended to do.

"Me?" I was shocked.

"Remember that night when I came here right before I left? Remember when I kissed you?"

My breath caught. Of course I remembered, I hadn't thought he did! Oh my.

"I wasn't drunk that night," he said honestly. "I meant it. I had been meaning to for a long time you just... you pulled away and I realized I was going about it the wrong way. Now I know I should have told you this before, but I didn't want to say it over the phone. I wanted to show you."

He reached out and grabbed the small of my back to pull me close and cupped my cheek with the other hand. His kiss was so deep and so breathtaking that I saw stars. Of course I kissed him back, this was what I wanted! I wrapped my arms around him and smiled against his nearly desperate kiss.

He reached down with both hands and grabbed my butt and lifted. I dutifully wrapped my legs around him so he could walk us both to my bed. Honestly, the whole being lifted thing made me nervous, but he managed. Hey, former fat girl here.

Carefully, he laid me down and then just went at it. He climbed on top of me and proceeded to explore my body with his hands without ever breaking our kiss. I was at a loss for what to do with my own hands until I figured it out. I pulled the bottom of his shirt up and tugged it until it was near his neck. He sat up and finished removing it himself, before coming back down on him.

His hands on me felt so many things. It felt wrong, because I hadn't really been touched like that before, but it also felt amazing and it felt like I was loved. He began unbuttoning my pj shirt and I was not protesting. This relationship was 3 years in the making and I was 18. If it came to sex tonight, I was going to do it.

He removed my shirt, leaving me bare-chested, and leaned down to take one of my firm nipples into his mouth. I moaned low in excitement. He moved to the other, all the while removing both my shorts and underwear simultaneously. He was clearly an expert at this. All I could do was pant and wait for his next move.

He sat up and admired my body, which made me feel uncomfortable—like I needed to cover it. But I was embarrassed to because he seemed to be getting happy because of it. And I do mean happy in the "erection" sense of the word because he was getting hard against my leg.

He followed my eyes with his own and looked down. Wordlessly, he unbuckled his belt and threw it to the ground. I sat up and helped him undo his jeans and pulled them down with his boxers. He had to stand to drop them to the floor, but after he was right back on me. He was beautiful, not that I had anything to compare it to, but all the same.

Our naked skin felt amazing when it touched and made me almost want to cry with emotion. After all these years, it was finally going to happen with James. I loved him, I really did. And even if he didn't love me the same, it was worth it to experience this with him.

I wasn't sure where the condom came from, but it was there before I knew it and James was pausing for the first time. We didn't need to speak. He just asked with his eyes and I nodded with a smile.

Then came the brief pain followed by bliss. As he moved inside me, I raked his back with my nails, adjusting to the pressure and pleasure at the same time. It felt like nothing I'd ever experienced, and clearly he was feeling the same thing I was because he kept moaning.

Feeling sort of small with him looming over me, I whimpered as he started moving faster and thrusting harder. It was still my first time, so it was rubbing a little raw. It felt really good, but a little painful at the same time.

And then I felt his hand on me. On my clit. He was rubbing it gently for me while he pumped in and out. The result was almost indescribable. Almost at once, I came in a blinding flash of colors and sounds and shakes. It was so powerful and mind blowing that I swear I blacked out for at least a second.

He came soon after and collapsed when he finished. Laying half on top of me, he closed his eyes and panted for a few minutes. When he pulled out it felt like a small part of me died. But he laid right next to me, pulled me into his embrace and whispered into my ear, "You really are beautiful."