Author's Note: This story is dedicated to Colleen Thomas whose work has been such an inspiration to writers on this site. I didn't know her personally, but perhaps to know a writer's work is to know her as she wished to be known. In that case, I can claim more than a passing acquaintance.
This story is not somber. I doubt she would have wanted it so. Her own work was anything but. It was playful and passionate, an unfailing celebration of life. One can only wish there had been more of it.
*****
She was sprawled across the bed, her limbs in sweet disarray.
Even in sleep, she can sense when our bodies are no longer touching. She moves without conscious bidding to recover the warmth of me, her lips coming to rest against my skin or her fingers finding my face in a soft, searching caress. I love the way her body moves against mine even without her willing it, like a lonely petal tossing on the crest of a wave.
I raised myself on an elbow and ran my eyes down her body, drinking in the pale sinuous vision of her, all luscious curves and waiting warmth.
I would have her exactly as she is. There is nothing I wish to change, not the fleeting flecks of green in her blue eyes, the soft ripe mounds of her breasts topped by strawberry pink nipples, the welcoming roundness of her tight bottom or the wet warmth of her when I dip my lips into her sex. I wouldn't have her any otherwise.
I love to watch her when she's still asleep, heavy and languid, bathed in early morning sunlight, her body all dappled shadows. It's the only time I can have my fill of her without having to explain, in response to a quizzically raised eyebrow, why my eyes are so unwilling to abandon her face or the liquid lines of her body. She is embarrassed by my dogged attention and she will, suddenly self conscious, scratch her nose or tug her collar or fiddle with her hair before breaking into a spasm of giggles. I will laugh too, with her, and finally look away ... reluctantly. I marvel at how different it is, this precious thing between us ... so unbearably fragile that I dare not look at it too directly for fear of jinxing it ... so different from everything that I had ever known before I met Nicole ...
*****
I had been a late bloomer and was singularly indifferent to the charms of the boys in High School. It was not for want of their trying. There was the usual - the clumsy words, the stolen glances. Now, those stumbling efforts at affection seem rather sweet. But back then, it was just an embarrassment I could do without. I wasn't sure why I was fending them off, but somehow I knew I had to. So, I pretended to a superiority I didn't really feel and acted as though they were all rather beneath me. Apparently, nothing piques their interest more than the seemingly unattainable and I spent my entire senior year fighting them off. The girls in my class thought I was nuts.
Finally tired of the veiled barbs and the pointed remarks that I had something stuck so far up my ass that I couldn't sit down in common company, I yielded to a passing impulse. I accepted an invitation to the prom from the school quarterback. He was good looking, well muscled and well intentioned, what generally qualified in those days as "dreamy." The other girls in my class were green with envy, but I was just nervous. Terribly clichéd, I know, but there it was, my first foray into the glamorously adult world of dating.
He picked me up in his beat up sedan on the night of the prom. I was glad he hadn't hired a limousine. They all seemed to be doing it. I would have died of embarrassment. The fact that I was on a date was almost more than I could handle without any added complications.
He tried very hard all evening to be the perfect gentleman - attentive, thoughtful, protective. He danced passably and didn't crush my feet more than a couple of times the entire evening. I was counting my blessings at that point. We attracted curious looks on the dance floor due, I'm sure, to my rather glacial reputation. A lot of the kids were surprised to find me there at all. He preened at having been the thaw. I for my part fixed any curious bystander with a look that I hoped was stern enough to discourage any attempts at small talk or any humorous remarks about my entry into polite society.
It was almost midnight when we left the hall. I had had a wine or two and was feeling light headed. I wasn't accustomed to drinking. His palm was sweaty in mine as we walked towards his car. It was at the end of the parking lot, wrapped in shadow. I supported myself against its comforting bulk, my palms flat against the cold metal. That's when I felt his arms encircle me. My body stiffened at first, but then I was overcome by a sense of resignation and a dull curiosity to find out what the fuss was all about.
He couldn't believe his luck as I yielded to his kiss. It was clumsy, our teeth grinding together before he withdrew a little and found my lips. He was almost slobbering in his eagerness, his arms wrapped tightly around my body as though he were afraid that I would fly away. He opened the rear door of his car and we stumbled into it, his weight crushing mine into the soft leather of the seat.
His limbs were uncoordinated in their frenzy. He struggled to lift the hem of my dress over my waist and I felt his fingers scrabble at my panties to sweep them aside. I heard the rasp of his zipper ripping open in the silence, a silence so profound that our panting breath sounded like a pair of blacksmith's bellows. What followed is, in my memory, a confused medley of sensation – the smell of cigarettes and stale beer, the heat of his wine breath on my cheek, the fabric of my dress clammy against my sweat-slick back, his flesh pressing insistently between my thighs, a moment of searing pain and then a dull ache. There wasn't much blood.
That night, my brief experiment with boys abruptly ended. My date had been hoping for more after an evening he regarded as an unqualified triumph. He was confused by my indifference. It was not his fault. He was nice enough. The problem, I realized, lay in myself.
