I adjusted my halter top to prepare for my first day of junior high school. One last glance in the mirror to appraise the shorts, and I was ready. Then, with my backpack thrown over my shoulder, I darted through the kitchen.
Mother glanced up from her coffee cup, and the color drained from her face. She slowly shook her head and pointed a trembling finger toward my room.
I swipe a wayward strand of blond hair from my eyes. "What!" I wrinkled my nose and asked in an indignant tone.
Her eyes rose from my tank top and skin-tight shorts to lock with mine. "No daughter of mine is going to school looking like a streetwalker."
I stomped my foot and rolled my eyes. "You're so square."
"And ditch the makeup," she said, rising from the breakfast table.
***
June 15th, 1973
A smile spread at the memory of growing up in my conservative blue-collar home in Modesto, California. Mother was forever complaining about my wardrobe, I could only imagine her reaction to my dreams. But that was my fantasy world. In the real world, I feigned no interest in boys to keep my urges at bay. Indeed, I suffered from some mental illness to crave something so immoral.
Throughout high school, I shied away from boys and did my best to avoid contact with them. But my body didn't cooperate in this effort. I towered above all but the tallest boys and with my breast at eye level most would only silently stare, so accepting Billy Davis's offer to take me to a movie to celebrate my eighteenth birthday in my senior year was out of the ordinary. But when the football team's captain cast those piercing gray eyes on me ...
By the time the movie ended, he had my juices flowing. Hand in hand, we left the theater without a word spoken between us. My brain swirled to the beat of my pounding heart as Billy drove. The light of town faded behind us until he parked his mother's Oldsmobile by the river in a secluded spot far away from prying eyes.
Caught up in the magical spell of being alone with a boy for the first time under a blanket of stars, he moved closer and touched my body. I pushed him away, but he persisted, wrapped me in his arms, and our lips met. The instant I came to grips with a boy's tongue in my mouth, he pulled away and dropped his pants, exposing his twitching erection. A bit underwhelmed by the size, I nevertheless took hold of the first erect penis ever seen outside my dreams. And the instant my fingers tightened around his shaft, cum spewed on my dress and in my hair. God, it even dripped from the headliner.
It took a few seconds for me to process what just happened. But my biggest shock came when Billy pulled his pants up and drove me home without so much as a thank you.
As his taillights faded into the distance, a sense of relief flooded over me. Billy wasn't worth what I was seconds from doing for him.
After my only date in high school, my full attention focused on academia. So after my senior year, when summer finally gave way to fall, I arrived on campus at UC Davis, an eighteen-year-old virgin with no plans of changing that anytime soon.
One Friday night, my best friend Gloria Nelson persuaded me to attend a sorority mixer, despite Greek life holding no interest for me. Little did I know that this would morph into the strangest yet magical night of my life.
The moment Dex and I locked eyes, we had an immediate connection. Electricity shot through us both as we spent hours dancing up close. Finally, he whisked me back to my dorm room, where he ushered me into womanhood with care and passion unlike anything else experienced before or since. As dawn approached, we lay intertwined, not wanting this perfect evening's end until exhaustion finally took hold - leaving an imprint on our hearts forevermore.
Dex released years of pent-up forbidden passion on a single mystical night and set me on the path of fulfillment. He unleashed my inner slut to explore every fantasy without judgment.
From that star-crossed night, our relationship flourished. By Christmas break, we had moved into a one-bedroom apartment near campus, and a strange transformation occurred. The shy girl who left high school yet to feel a boy's hand explore under her skirt morphed into a nymphomaniac. Our daily lovemaking sessions grew into legendary status. Every room in our small home evolved into a location of opportunity when the urge struck. Then, when the novelty wore off, the great outdoors offered an appealing option.
My dreams continued with one omission, Dex, instead of a stranger, did things physically impossible outside my dreams. But, with my urging him on, we introduced those positions in our love-making sessions because college is all about experimentation.
Our love and sex life rose to heavenly bliss. Then, in my sophomore year, everything came crashing down. Dex joined the Air Force after he graduated, and I learned the meaning of lonely sexual frustration during the following thirteen months apart. Nightly letters kept our relationship alive but didn't offer much warmth in bed.
But through our time apart, hope sprang eternal, and we married before he started advanced flight training at Luke AFB in Arizona. We settled into Base housing, and our sex life flourished again. We were together for a year, and life again morphed into a fairytale existence. But all too soon, our dream life became a nightmare when they shipped Dex to Vietnam.
Dex was the only aspect of military life keeping me sane. But, with him fighting in the war, I became an emotional wreck. So finally, heartbroken and feeling stranded without him, I reluctantly packed our belongings and returned to my hometown of Modesto, California, to await his return.
That's when Dad's best friend George Nelson stepped in, offering me a job at his law firm and renting me a cozy condo on Country Club Drive for just two hundred dollars a month.
Those twenty pounds I shed over nine months proved the only pleasant visage of living alone and wondering if Dex was still alive. His daily letters dwindled to three over the last four months. But that doesn't dissuade my daily dash home from work to check the mail.
The stifling solitude turned my lonely condo into a suffocating prison with no social life—it was too much. Finally, after nine months, one lonely Friday night, I couldn't take any more of this heartbreaking loneliness, so I decided on a night out. Not a fling, or a wild night on the town, nothing more than a quiet dinner alone at San Francisco's Omni Hotel. I needed a distraction from all these painful memories of Dex lingering in my head. I wanted something new to occupy my mind. Not anything scandalous, just a brief reprieve to tide me over until Dex returned from Vietnam.
Little did I know that fate had different plans.
My body quivered in excitement as I pulled away from my apartment for the first time in much too long. From the quiet residential streets to the freeway, I continued with a sense of adventure percolating. The whine of tires rolling over the pavement, the steady hum of the engine, and the wind noise combined to free my mind and pacify my troubled soul. But unfortunately, a two-hour drive fell far short of rectifying my problems.
Finally, I reached San Francisco and the Omni Hotel.
The dark wood and red leather furniture accented the classic bar of the affluent hotel. The aroma permeating from the steakhouse added a scrumptious allure. At a table, a mature, well-dressed couple chatted quietly. The gentleman took a furtive glance as I passed. He smiled, and his eyes quickly returned to his wife.
I settled onto a barstool and absorbed the ambiance. The bartender left the only other patron. His head tilted, and he said, "Don't tell me. Let me guess." He pooched his lips. "A vesper martini, shaken, not stirred." He grinned with a wink. "Am I right."
With no idea what a vesper martini was, I nodded.
He makes a production of preparing my drink and setting it before me. A single sip, and while not a drinker, I realized I had a cocktail of choice. I kissed my pinched fingers and said, "Perfecto."
The bartender left me with my troubles and he returned to the other customer. I focused on the imprint of my lipstick on the rim and allowed my mind to return to the downside of my life.
I took a deep breath and concluded to have dinner before returning home to my lonely prison. Then I saw him standing at the entrance. I studied his reflection in the mirror. His eyes swept the sparsely populated lounge as he approached, and a smile spread. A whiff of Brut aftershave tickled my nose as he stopped behind me.
"Excuse me," he patted the stool beside me. "Is this seat taken?"
I craned my neck, and our eyes locked. My gaze covered his chiseled face with agonizing slowness before sweeping over his chest, flat abdominal muscles, and the impressive bulge in his Levi's. My tongue slowly traced over my lips as I twisted on my stool to face him and crossed my long, shapely legs. "Is it the seat or me that captured your interest?"
His sheepish smile spread. "I came in for a beer, but you know what they say about indulging alone."
"Do you make a habit of skirting questions?"
He stammered, and I motioned to the stool.
He saddled up to the bar and held out a hand. "Frank Williams."
