I didn't even care to answer my conscience. I felt so good, so warm, so detached from all the unhappiness and pain in the world.
His kisses grew more demanding, his fingers playing me, drawing the music out of me. I soon saw myself rolling down a hill of passion, speeding so fast, there was no possibility of putting on the brakes. He had his hands under my skirt. When his fingers went over the elastic band in my panties. I thought I had stopped breathing. Even my heart waited like some hammer held back.
He paused, too, and his hesitation was so long. I opened my eyes and looked up at him.
I felt him retreat.
He looked down at me with suspicion clouding his eyes. "What?" I managed.
"How many boys have you been with. Hannah?"
"None." I said. "Not like this."
His lips twisted with doubt.
"I'm telling the truth."
"Then why are you letting this happen so fast?" he asked. I pushed him away and sat up.
"Now you're making me feel guilty," I said and reached back to fasten my bra. I started to button my blouse.
"I don't mean to do that."
"Well, you are," I threw back at him and stood,
"I've been with other girls." he said. "and the ones who were fast the first time were always the ones who didn't matter to me after a short while or the ones I never mattered to very much at all. I just don't want that to be how it will be between us."
Now it was my turn to look skeptical.
"I mean it. Maybe I'm fantasizing, but I was hoping you and I were on the way to being very special."' he said. He looked so conflicted. I couldn't help but believe him.
"You're not fantasizing."
"I'm just tired of disappointments and
betrayals," he said with a sigh.
I stopped buttoning my blouse,
"I'm not going to betray you. Heyden, and when I do or say something. I mean it. I know you have trouble accepting what I tell you, but please try to stop thinking of me the way you think about the other girls at our school. I have a lot more than bubbles and straw in my head."
He laughed. "I know you do," he said. "And you're right. I'm being guilty of the very thing I accuse people of doing to me: stereotyping. Sorry," he said, holding up his hands.
"It's all right. Actually. I'm glad you hesitated and put on the brakes. We could have gotten into trouble, or at least. I could have. I'm dangerously close to that zone of ovulation. Imagine me making my mother a grandmother just when she has become a new mother." I said.
He nodded. "My fault. too. I'm usually not this carefree, forgetting to take precautions. Everything has just got me nuts. I feel like I'm sinking into some cesspool of oblivion."
"Well, let's get you up and out of that immediately," I said. standing. "Take me to your new guitar,'" I ordered.
He laughed and reached for a shirt he had draped over the back of a chair. Then he hurried to get on his sneakers.
"If you're really sure you want to do this," he said. "If you're really sure..."
"I'm sure. Heyden. Stop talking about it already and let's just do it."
"'Right," he said. "Right."
We started out of his room. He stopped in the hallway. Elisha's music was still loud. He looked at her closed door and then shook his head.