Taralee's First Time

I dozed fitfully on the 20-hour overnight bus ride home from Vermont to D.C., disturbed by scary dreams I couldn't remember when a bump would jerk me awake, and tears of regret about how I'd let Danny down. Mom picked me up from the bus depot, fed me warm soup and put me to bed, where I stayed pretty well round the clock. She was always my best friend.

Pierre phoned the next afternoon and I agreed, reluctantly, to him coming over. Truthfully, I dreaded seeing him. The last night with Danny at the hut was a raw memory, and I was still distraught about the hurt I'd caused both of them. I just couldn't face the sadness or anger I was sure was coming: my obsession with Danny had been so all-consuming that I'd barely thought of Pierre the entire summer.

An hour later I called him back, fibbed that I was unwell and made vague promises to see him in a couple of days.

Mom kept me busy shopping. At nineteen, I was too old to have my mom buy me school clothes, but I was grateful that she took a half day from her busy work schedule so I could spend it with the person I loved most in the world. Though I was mortified when she took me to the women's undergarments department at Woodward and Lothrop's, she was firm. I'd put on weight, and a lot of it was in the bust (I breathed a silent thank-you to The Pill) and my B-cup bras were not only worn out, they were, in her words, "indecent, with you spilling out all over the place." She bought me five pretty brassieres, 34C. Looking back, they lasted me right through the bra-burning years of the late Sixties!

We got home late on the humid summer D.C. afternoon, made a quick meal and took it out on the shady front porch to eat. Mom smiled when a snazzy Mustang pulled up in front of the house just as we finished.

My jaw dropped when Pierre got out!

He grinned, leapt up the steps to the porch, bent down and kissed my mom and shyly took my hand. My heart was thudding in my throat. I didn't know whether I was ecstatically happy or furious, specially when I looked at mom and realized she was part of the conspiracy. Pierre sat down, and mom went into the house to rustle up dessert.

Awkward silence.

I was tongue-tied. Emotions raged through me — happiness at seeing him, regret for our fight in June, sorrow for not writing him even him a postcard all summer, guilt for my transgressions with Danny, realization that I was still in love with Pierre, and a despairing hope that somehow he could mend things between us.

My face must've reflected what I was feeling; he watched me in silence, concern knitting his brow.

Mom came back in the nick of time, carrying three bowls of vanilla ice cream laced with Hershey's syrup, Pierre's favorite, and brightened up the moment. Gradually the ice between us thawed and I asked him about the shiny car, the hottest, sexiest ride of the time. He chuckled: A friend at the lab where he'd worked was out of town for a few days, and to Pierre's delight, had lent him the Mustang. He'd been tooling around town enjoying the girls' stares and hoots.

"Want a ride?" he asked.

"Really? May I?"

I practically skipped to the sidewalk and caressed the bodywork, its rosy beige paint glowing incandescent in the setting sun. He held the door and I sank into the cream-color bucket seat. Who said girls can't fall for sexy cars?

We drove off into the warm dusk, windows open, radio blaring "Ticket to Ride," "California Girls," "Mr. Tambourine Man" ... when the Stones' "Satisfaction" came on, Pierre reached past the shifter and lightly caressed my knee, laughing. The effect was electric. The memory of the summer's frustration boiled up and I burst into tears. At the same time, I was suddenly aware that my nipples were hard and my panties were wet. I wasn't ready for this, and instinctively clamped my legs shut. Pierre pulled his hand away with a frown and concentrated hard on his driving, though there wasn't much traffic.

As it got dark, the radio filled in our silence. Then I reached down and turned it off.

I'd been thinking of the words of Kahil Gibran — one of Pierre's advanced-placement teachers had given him

The Prophet

in June, and back then (it seemed like a lifetime ago) we'd read the poems together, he from his new volume, I from the dog-eared copy I'd had for as long as I could remember.

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.

It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

... let there be spaces in your togetherness,

And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

I knew the words by heart, and murmured them into the warm darkness as Pierre wheeled the Mustang around and drove slowly, reluctantly home. Tears burned down my cheeks and he stared straight ahead, wordless in the powerful presence of poetry.

He pulled up in front of my house.

Thank goodness he had the sense to shut the engine off and wait. When he walked around to open my door, I was shaking. He reached down and helped me up, and stood close. I looked up into his eyes, dark in the wan streetlight. They glittered with unshed tears. I leaned into him and he wrapped his arms around me. Our lips brushed lightly.

"Come inside," I whispered.

Mom was reading in the living room. She smiled, closed her book, said a quiet goodnight and climbed the creaky stairs of that warm, wonderful house with the squirrels in the attic that meant so much to me, offered me so much security in a storm-tossed world.

We were both feeling fragile, I think. I sat on the couch; Pierre sidled over to the easy chair till I patted the seat beside me. He sat down. Stiff, remote, looking uncomfortable.

There was no easy small talk to make.

"Danny?" It was more statement than question.

I nodded. He sighed, slump-shouldered, and looked away.

"But ..." What could I say? Unburdening myself to Danny had been disastrous. Would telling Pierre result in the same thing? I'd ruined my dream, my summer idyll. Should I risk repeating that mistake?

I'd been brought up that "honesty is the best policy." But the repercussions now seemed more complex than I could handle. And this wasn't a situation I was prepared to ask my mom to untangle. How much had she told my dad about that count with the Heidelberg saber scar, anyway? And how had he reacted? I wish I'd asked.

"... Do you really want to know?"

"No ... But tell me anyway. We're going to be apart this fall and who knows what will happen."

So I told him, as gently as I could.

His jaw tightened. Clouds of pain crossed his face as I whispered. And afterward, his tears mingled with mine as he held my face in both hands and kissed me softly.

He moved away, as if to go.

"Don't leave now, on this note," I pleaded.

We held each other there on the couch, shivering, and warming each other with our bodies.

Eventually the inevitable happened. Our tongues touched. Our hunger grew.

Before I knew it my blouse was open, the shoulder straps of my bra — one of the new, pretty ones — slipped off. Pierre was nuzzling my breasts, suckling my nipples, licking my belly, lifting my skirt. I pulled my panties off and fumbled with his belt and yanked off his pants and gasped as he spread my lips and entered my willing wetness. We wrestled for the right position, falling off the couch, laughing as quietly as we could. I straddled his glorious hardness, his palms reached up to fondle my breasts. He rolled me over and thrust into me, pounding me hard. I bucked and he moved up, his balls between my breasts as I slurped on his cock, then rolled him over and legs wide spread, slid up to give him his first real taste of my cunt.

"Sorry," he gasped as he fished a couple of hairs from between his teeth, then slid his tongue back into me and licked — he was a quick learner — then closed his lips round my erect clitoris and sucked me till the fireworks began to explode and I slid myself back and impaled myself on his gorgeous cock and it hit my special spot and we gasped together in the throes of our simultaneous spasms.

"Oh shit," he said, chuckling, as our breathing slowed. There was a wet spot the size of Chesapeake Bay on the carpet. Trying not to wake mom and dad in the room above us, we giggled as we mopped up my juice and his jizz as best we could with towels.

I tucked him into bed in the guest room at the other end of the hall from mom and dad's room. "Oh Taralee, I do love you so much." I held him tight, my heart nearly bursting with happiness, then leaned over for a last, sleepy goodnight kiss before creeping up the creaky stairs to my attic room. I woke up as soon as I heard mom moving around, and told her Pierre was in the guest room so she steered dad straight down to breakfast and off to work. She went with him.

As soon as the house was quiet I dashed upstairs, stripped off my nightgown and crept onto the bed where Pierre was sleeping. Straddling him gently, I kissed him awake. As our tongues twined, I pushed my hips down across his belly. Shared breath. Morning light in an east-facing room. Humid late-summer air. Bodies glistening with sweat. Him inside me. The rhythm of life. His hips making small, powerful circles. Who did he learn that from? Hell, who cares? Don't stop.

Please

don't stop! Now! I'm getting close! His calves pin my ankles to the mattress as he lifts his hips up. My clit, his pubic hair. Yes! Indescribably delicious friction. Yes, yes! My cunt clamps around his cock. His hands seize my hips. He thrusts up ... again ... again ... fireworks and ... Oh shit! Oh yes! Oh! Oh! Oh! ... Ahhhhhhhh!

The sun was high in the sky when we woke up. Pierre headed home to pack and I threw the fragrant sheets and last night's towel into the wash: even my very liberal mom didn't need to know those details.

On Saturday, my dad helped Pierre load our old canoe, with her fresh green paint and new varnish, on top of the '54 Ford, and we set off for her maiden voyage. She was blooming, sort of like our affair. Forgiveness and love can be like new paint, repairing — or at least masking — the scratches and dings of wear and tear and bad decisions.

A couple of hours drive and we stopped beside a quiet meander of the Shenandoah River. I stripped off my cutoffs; I still felt daring in the leopard-skin bathing suit Pierre had given me for my birthday. I filled the top out better now, and the stretchy fabric felt sexy and made my nipples stuck out. Pierre wore a soft old tan army shirt my dad had given him (yes, they always turned me on) and faded Bermuda shorts. We launched the canoe, crawled aboard and paddled away.

It was a glorious late-August day, hot and humid with the sun beating down through a light haze. I squealed when he splashed me with his paddle, though the water was almost blood-warm. We paddled upstream against the lazy current for a while, then let the old canoe drift when we started to make out.

"A real Canadian knows how to make love in a canoe," Pierre boasted with broad grin. "Why d'ya think I helped your dad with this every weekend?"

"Yeah? Ever fuck in a canoe then, wise guy?"

"Not yet ..."

I popped my breasts out of the stretchy suit and turned sideways on the bow seat, cupping them in my hands and pushing up to tease him with my already stiff nipples. He lay on his back in the middle of the canoe, unzipped his shorts and pulled them to his knees. No underwear. Handsome hard-on.

"Spoons?" I wriggled under the thwarts to lie with my ass against him, pulled the leopard-skin nylon crotch to one side, grabbed his cock and guided it between my slippery lips.

"Mmmm!" He slipped in almost all the way. A couple of strokes and I felt his balls slap the backs of my thighs.

The sun beat down lazily. Little ripples splashed against the stern of the canoe, propelling us downstream. We fucked languidly, his cock pulling almost all the way out so the bottom lip of his head tweaked my clit, then sliding in, stretching my G-spot and reaching all the way to touch my cervix. I quivered with anticipation. Every stroke sent electric shocks surging through me. "Slowly, slowly," I gasped as his hands gripped my waist tighter and mine tightened involuntarily on the gunwale.

We moved faster, urgently. The canoe rocked dangerously.

"Wait ..." I pulled away, reluctantly. There was just space between us to pop his rod out of my dripping cunt. "On top." I wriggled under him in the unstable boat: there was barely room under the thwarts for our chests, but with my legs spread wide in missionary position and my ankles on the gunwales his ass was free to move up and down in the space between the thwarts.

I stared up at his blue eyes, just inches from mine, closed my eyes and kissed him. He was moving inside me, quicker now, my climax starting as he slammed into me ...

Then ... laughter. Men's. A cool shadow on my skin. My eyes jerked open in horror.

Omigod!

We were drifting under the metal lattice of a bridge. Three leering rednecks stood a few feet above us.

"Give it to 'er, boy!" "Fuck that bitch good!" "Maybe that tight cunt would like this here pecker after your'n!" "Mine too! I'll show yuh a good time, baby!" "This here big'un would stretch that young pussy of her'n but good!" "Pull over t' the side of th' river an' us three'll fill that college cunt with strong hillbilly spunk!"

Their dungarees were open and they were jerking their cocks as they watched us drift helplessly. One held an enormous engorged penis, bigger than I'd imagined possible; my vagina spasmed uncontrollably around Pierre's and I climaxed with a gasp of fear, horror and — dare I say it? — lust. As the canoe floated on, the one with the huge hard-on dashed to the downstream side of the bridge, jerking furiously and shooting gobs of ropy semen that splashed in the water inches from my wide-spread legs.

The good ole' boys laughed so hard they doubled over as we extricated ourselves from our tangle beneath the thwarts, grabbed our paddles and sent the canoe shooting toward the next bend. Pierre kept us in the middle of the Shenandoah, well away from the banks. But we realized we'd drifted way past the car, and would have to paddle upstream and beneath the bridge to get back.

I was shivering with fright, and something else, at the thought of being raped by those yahoos. But as we turned the canoe around there was a crunch of tires on gravel and a short honk. As we peeked round the bend we saw a state trooper's blue-and-grey Ford with its slowly flashing cherry on top, stopped on the bridge. He was out of the car, Stetson at a jaunty angle, talking to the good ole' boys. All four waved cheerfully as we paddled underneath.

We hoisted the canoe onto the Ford, tied it down and hightailed it out of there. Distance diluted the adrenaline and by the time we got back to D.C. we were snorting hysterically at our adventure.

"You two obviously had fun — amazing what a couple of scrapers, a coat of paint and a pot of fresh varnish can do to an old canoe, isn't it?" My gruff old dad seemed genuinely pleased that his summer project seemed to have lifted his daughter's post-Vermont blues and brought her so much laughter.

And then the inevitable day came: Pierre was off to college.

His mom was kind enough to drive past my house in her Ford Falcon wagon, groaning with suitcases, boxes and a trunk in the back and a rolled-up carpet on the roof, before they lit out for the Midwest. (Apparently the dorm rules required students to provide a rug to keep the noise down in the rooms.) It was a bright, warm morning, and Pierre was wearing tan slacks and a white, short-sleeved shirt for the all-day drive. He got out and hugged me tight for a long time, gave me a very genteel — mom-approved — kiss, got in the car and waved gaily as they pulled away. I stood waving as he looked back, trying to smile through the tears coursing down my face.

I was late for the first day of my senior year at high school.

There was the usual rush: trying to find our new homeroom, checking out books, checking in with the guidance counsellor, figuring out our schedules, meeting new teachers, reuniting with old acquaintances, catching up on summer adventures, realizing that the clique of bitchy girls was in my gym class and I'd have to shower with them, ogling the senior football team jogging around the field, riding the bus home with my best friend Jess, hearing about her summer romance, telling her about the disaster with Danny in Vermont.

The first couple of weeks was a blur, then the grind set in.

Not only was I struggling with calculus, home-ec, physics, civics and history (thank goodness for the one period of sanity I had, courtesy of the fantastic teacher in my advanced English class), but I was really feeling the pressure of getting into college. Mom drove me to visit the campus where my sister was now a junior, and I ordered admissions packages from Pierre's college (oh please yes, please!) and a couple of "safety schools" — good colleges with less famous names and easier admission standards.

My mom spent an hour with me most nights, first sifting through the brochures, then helping me choose and rank my choices, deciding which teachers to ask for recommendation letters, helping fill out the applications and proof-reading my admissions forms and essays (and writing the checks that went with them), and finally stuffing the four big brown envelopes to which I entrusted my future.

Now all I had to do was wait ... three months for early admissions results, another six weeks for regular admissions, then if I hadn't been accepted — God forbid — an indefinite, nail-biting period to see if a waiting-list spot opened up.

After that flurry, I had time to babysit George's kids a couple of evenings when he took Virginia out to the symphony or ballet — well paid work, but nothing more.

I admit I tried to peer through the dark mirror I'd noticed last spring, but I couldn't see anything. And I snuck a look at the big square box of Fourex prophylactics in their little blue plastic containers. It was more than half-empty.

Which made me horny.

To be continued ...