“I think you like helping me get dressed so you can feel me up some more!” I tease him.
He smiles and shrugs his shoulders. “Something like that.” He finds my dress and helps me put that back on too, gently tossing my hair over my shoulders. We kiss once more, tenderly, before he looks me in the eye.
“I’ll leave first and then you follow?” he asks.
I nod and he presses one last kiss to my forehead, smiling down at me. Then, he embraces me in a tight hug and quickly, after glancing down the hallway, exits my room.
I fall back on my bed, the place where we just made love. I can still smell him, and I feel like a different woman. I can’t believe that that just happened, and that I lost my virginity to the handsome soldier I’ve been dreaming of for more than a year. Everything happened so fast, but at the same time, it was magnificent. I sigh happily, and then readjust my bedspread and spray it with a couple of spritzes of perfume, hoping to mask any evidence of what just happened.
I waltz out of my room casually and head back down to the party. The crowd has dwindled slightly, and my parents see me from across the room and gesture.
“Susie darling, your grandma wants to leave. Go say bye. Hurry! She’s outside,” calls my mom.
I take a deep breath and then laugh gently to myself. Of course, my parents wouldn’t notice if I was gone for twenty or thirty minutes. It’s not that long of an absence, and they’ve been busy looking after their guests. I make my way outside to find my grandmother.
“Bye Mamie,” I say. “I hope you had a good time.”
My grandma says something in return, but I don’t hear because I’m watching the soldier I love cross our front yard and step onto the porch of his house. He’s gorgeous, huge, and more than a few female eyes follow his handsome form. But I smile to myself because Brady Firestone is mine, and mine alone.
10
Susie
* * *
I roll over and check my phone. Eleven o’clock? How could it have gotten so late? I never sleep in, so I must have been tired.
After Brady left yesterday, I mingled some more at the party, but I really didn’t want to be there. I wanted to go over to Brady’s and do what we had just done again, and again, and again. Thankfully, people started leaving soon after and going to other graduation parties or just going home after a long day.
I helped my parents clean up and then I went out with Marcella and some of our other friends. I didn’t tell any of them what happened because I wanted to savor the moment a little longer. Marc and I hung out until about midnight and I came home and found Brady sitting on the porch.
He looked tired, but said he wanted to make sure I got home safe. Both of us were too exhausted to do anything but talk, so we just sat on the porch and caught up. We laughed about how we sent all those naughty notes and pictures back and forth. Then he pulled out a pair of sexy pink panties that I sent him in the mail. The lacy frippery looked so incongruous in his bronzed hand. I tried snatching them back, but he held them out of my reach and stuck them back in his pocket, saying he would keep them forever.
We talked for about thirty minutes and then kissed each other goodnight. I went home and fell right into a deep sleep.
Now, it’s morning. Or almost noon, in fact. I lay there for a moment, checking my phone. I see a good morning text from Brady and smile. I text him back and check my phone for other notifications. While I’m lying there, my stomach starts growling, which causes me to roll out of bed and peek outside my room. There’s no noise, which means that my parents are likely already gone and lunch is going to be on my own.
While I’m brushing my teeth, I look at myself in the mirror. Is something different? Do I look different? I feel different, definitely. I feel older and more mature. I smile sheepishly at myself and continue my morning routine.
I go down to the kitchen and glance out the window, hoping to catch sight of Brady in the backyard, but I don’t see him. I’m a little sad, but then start thinking of last night again. It was magical and I had sex. And it wasn’t the normal awkward, fumbling, sneaking around, two-minute pump high school sex that my friends have had. It was so romantic and passionate. Brady took care of me and made sure I was okay. It was better than anything I’ve read in my romance novels, and I never imagined that my body could catch fire like that. I start to realize I’m a little sore down there, which is to be expected given his size, but I’m not hurting. It is a good kind of ache.