She quickly shook her head. “No, he didn’t pressure me.” I was still dubious. “Seriously,” she went on, “I wanted to do it. It just wasn’t what I expected.”
Grace looked like she needed a hug so I scooted close and wrapped my arms around her. “You don’t have to talk about it.” I said when we separated. She looked like she felt a little better and I didn’t want to pressure her into talking about it if she wasn’t ready. I knew the horror stories all too well. I’d heard girls talking about how much their first time hurt and how much they’d bled.
“It wasn’t that bad,” Grace forced a smile and tucked a wavy lock behind her ear. “Seriously, it only hurt for like a second. It just wasn’t as magical as I expected, I guess.”
“Do you love Carson?” I asked, and she laughed at that.
“Hell no.”
“Then why did you do it?” Maybe Grace and I were prudes but we’d both been holding off on punching our cards until we found a guy who was worth it. Most of the guys at school were just pathetic losers not worth the privilege. I think we both wanted our first time to be magical, and it made me sad that Grace’s wasn’t.
Grace shrugged her shoulders. “I guess I was just tired of waiting and wanted to know what all the hype was about. And Carson doesn’t go to our school, so I don’t have to worry about him bragging about it to everyone.”
I gave her another hug and she happily accepted it.
“It wasn’t that bad,” she said as she pulled away. “It was just really, really quick.”
She smirked and I burst out laughing. “What?” Was she being serious?
“Yeah, it hurt but then it stopped. And then it started to actually feel good but then…” She started laughing and I couldn’t help but laugh with her.
“Oh my god, Grace,” I blushed and wiped tears from my eyes. We both needed that laugh.
“Maybe next time he won’t be a minuteman.”
I gasped and she burst into another fit.
“Next time?” I squealed.
Grace enthusiastically nodded her head. “Yeah, now that I’m remembering it, I think I’d like to try it again.”
Holy shit. Well, if that’s what she wanted to do more power to her. I was just glad she seemed happy now. I hated to see her sad.
“Shit, that reminds me!” I pulled out my phone and quickly swiped through my favorite bookmarks.
“Yeah?” Grace asked, tilting her head.
“I read this article… Here.”
Grace leaned close to look at my phone and she gasped.
It was all I could do to keep from bursting into another fit of laughter. “Yeah, according to this it makes them last longer if you tug on them…”
Brett
I made it home earlier than I had hoped, but considering how my evening went I wasn’t too surprised. At first my parents were concerned that the date had ended awfully early until I gave them the full story. I’m not sure who was laughing harder, me or them when I told them what Mandy had yelled at Eric when I confronted him. I was really proud of how Mandy told him off. I guess it was a bit odd to tell my parents everything like I usually did, but that’s how it was in my family. We were very open, and I considered my parents’ excellent judges of problems.
Saturday morning saw me up and early with the sudden realization that I didn’t have Mandy’s cell number or home telephone.
Fuck and shit. How was I supposed to talk to her and see if she was okay?
I knew I could go over to her house but that felt like an invasion of privacy, especially if she was catching hell for returning home as smashed as she did. The only reason I even knew where she lived was because the tutoring department at school had handed me a slip with her address on it. I had signed up to tutor World History and Chemistry. I wasn’t too sure either had much call for it but it gave me a little extra cash to go towards my gym membership.
Ugh, gym that day. I needed to get moving if I wanted to make my Brazilian Jujitsu class. I went to that class two times a week, and a strengthening class two times a week, in addition to kickboxing once every two weeks. I repeated that all month, from November to December, no breaks.
It was becoming a kind of addiction for me to go and see how far I had progressed, especially in the BJJ class. The instructor had been riding me the last couple of months to push harder and act more aggressive. He seemed to think I could do well if I was to try my hand at MMA, which was a kind of pipe dream at that point.
That morning was brutal; I had switched from an intermediate class to advanced. Chase was leading the class and even back then he was one big hulking fuck of a man. The guy was already fighting towards the heavyweight class championship, and he was there to show us how to do things to people I had never even thought of much less witnessed. He was only an assistant at the time though to Mr. Faddo. And dear god, Mr. Faddo was probably three-fourths the size of Chase but he put Chase down, often.