“Zoe, these are the plans for our dream house.”
“Word?” My smile was hanging so wide open, I looked like I had more teeth than a set of triplets.
“Word, Boo. One day, after we’re married, I’m going to build you this house so we can raise Peter in it and live happily ever after.” I threw my arms around his shoulders and hugged him with all the strength I could muster. He started pointing out certain things to me on the blueprints. “These are all skylights. Practically the whole house will have a glass ceiling, so we can see the stars from every room. So we can see our star.”
That was it! The moment I knew it was forever. Three significant things happened after that. We never made it to the restaurant to meet our friends for dinner; we never made it to the prom; and we made love for the very first time. The plans we had for waiting until after marriage became nothing more than a memory.
I was so overwhelmed by the blueprints, my heart started jumping out my chest. It was the single most romantic thing in the world to me. The mere fact Jason had spent so many hours designing the place where he wanted to build a life together made my love and admiration for him even stronger, made my desire to do something just as special for him flourish, made my pussy wet.
“Jason—” I started tugging at his bow tie, trying to get it unfastened.
“Yes, Boo?” He grabbed hold of my wrist, trying to get me to stop. “What are you doing? We have to meet Brina, Cordell, and the others at the restaurant in twenty minutes.”
I got up off his lap and stood in between his legs, carefully placing the blueprints on the coffee table. “Fuck them.” After grabbing both his hands and pulling him up off the chair, I added, “Better yet, fuck me.”
Jason took a double take at me, trying to come up with a response. “Zoe, you’re trippin’.” He slightly pushed me aside with his chest so he could make a path to the door. “Come on, baby. Let’s go! We’re going to be mad late!”
“I’m not going anywhere.” I finally got up the nerve to stand my ground. “I’m not leaving this house until you make love to me.”
He turned to face me, a perplexed look on his face. “Zoe, why are you doing this? We agreed we would wait until after we got married to make love.”
I walked over to him, reached my hands into the opened jacket of his tux, and placed them around his waist so I was pressed as close against him as I could possibly get. His body was so incredibly warm, and I craved to feel him inside me. “Don’t you want me, Jason?”
I didn’t look at him, afraid I might see a look of rejection in his eyes. Instead, I rested my head against his chest, taking special care not to get lipstick on his crisp white shirt. “Baby, you know I want you. Don’t be ridiculous.”
As I began to run my fingertips up and down his spine, I lowered my voice to almost a whisper for no other reason than it seemed appropriate at that moment. “Then why can’t we make love right here? Right now? We’ve waited so long. It’s driving me crazy.”
“I know, Boo, but it won’t be that much longer. We graduate in a few months.”
I felt his dick growing in his pants and started hoping he was fighting a losing battle. I still didn’t look at him. I could feel his cool breath on the nape of my neck and was just glad he was holding me back. “I think about being with you all the time, Jason. I can’t concentrate on anything else.”
“I tell you what. Why don’t we go to dinner and to the prom and see what happens after that? Your mother won’t be home until morning, so it gives us plenty of time to be together.”
That’s when I looked him dead in the eyes. “You promise we’ll make love later tonight?”
Then the dreaded words escaped his lips. “We’ll see, Boo.”
I hate the words we’ll see: they almost always mean no. My parents spoke those words to me as a child when I asked for a new, extravagant toy or dress. They said them when I asked to do something we all knew I had no business doing. Thus, when Jason said them, they cut like a knife.
I started crying, and the tears were far from fake. My fragile and oversensitive nature, which had always been present but tripled after the death of my father, came out. I let go of Jason and used my hands to gather up the bottom of my tight dress so I could run up the stairs faster in my high heels. I ran into my bedroom, slammed the door, and flung myself on the bedspread, burying my head into a pillow to catch the tears. He was right behind me. I could hear his footsteps coming down the hall.
Jason opened the door, and I could feel my mattress sink farther as he sat down on the bed beside me, seconds before he began caressing my back with his strong, warm hands. “Baby, look, if it really means that much to you and you don’t want to wait, then sure we can make love. We can make love right now. I don’t want to see you upset like this. It breaks my heart.”
I turned my head away from him, letting my lipstick smear all over my pillow when I changed positions. “Jason, you just don’t get it. I shouldn’t have to beg you to make love to me. This is supposed to be something we both want.”
He started running his fingertips through my hair. “We do both want this. I was just trying to do right by you and wait, but make no mistake about it, I do want you. I’m not even going to fake the funk about that.”
After that, we were both silent for what seemed like an eternity. He was running his hands from my hair down to the small of my back, and I was trying to control my sobs, which were eventually replaced with shallow breathing. “Zoe, are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” I turned over onto my back so I could look at him. He took the tip of his thumb and cleared the smudged mascara away from my eyes. All of my lipstick had been transferred to my pillowcase. “You ready to go to the prom?”
He didn’t answer but got up and walked over to my bookcase instead, putting on a cassette of slow j
ams that he’d made for me to remember him by when his parents once took him out of town for a week. He was always such a romantic—making me tapes of love songs, carving our names inside a heart on every tree in his yard and mine, calling me late at night so he could hear me breathe after falling asleep on the phone, letting me wear his varsity basketball jacket.
At six-five, he’d finally stopped growing and was the captain of the basketball team, taking them all the way to the state finals two years in a row. He had the smoothest skin for a man, and he still does to this very day. My husband has always been fine, but he’s never been finer than the night we first made love.
“Dance with me, Zoe.” He reached out his hand for me, looking so sexy and debonair, as the first song started playing. I took it and let him pull me up off the bed into his arms. We danced, our bodies swaying back and forth slowly in the moonlight invading my bedroom through the windows.