He looked so helpless, at the mercy of his libido.
Lily Putney’s derogatory words in the girls’ room before they drugged me returned. I knew what she meant. I’d probably ruin it by telling him exactly what was going on in his body and what was going on in mine while we were doing it.
Lily wasn’t completely wrong. My mind filled with knowledge of what was happening in both our bodies. All this information occurred to me, but I smothered it just as quickly as it had come. This was a time for feelings, not thoughts. I rushed at them, embracing them. They made me more aggressive than he was, but I was tired of being cautious and wise, brilliant and correct.
It was time to be a woman.
I undid my bra and brought my breast to his lips. I had fantasized this scene. Yes, I was a virgin, and maybe he was, too, but the rush of our pleasure was as overwhelming as a strong ocean wave.
Within moments, I was down to my panties, he was in his underwear, and we were kissing and caressing. How much further would we go?
“I really like you, Corliss,” he said.
Oh, don’t justify your desire, I thought. Embrace it.
Our kisses became more demanding. He pulled back and stepped off the bed, gazing down at me. But he wasn’t retreating. I sensed what he wanted, and that built even more excitement in me.
Yes, I wanted it, too.
I got off the bed, too, and we pulled back his blanket. Then he slipped out of his underwear, and I slipped off my panties. How ready was he? Had he ever done this with someone else? Was it part of his dream? Had he gone too far? Was it up to me to stop it now, to let the sensible part of me return? I wasn’t going to be another statistic.
“Jackson,” I whispered.
He put his finger on my lips, and then he surprised me when he opened the drawer of his night table. He paused before reaching in and turned to me. “We could stop now.”
I saw the condom in his hand. I wasn’t about to ask him why he had one at the ready. I knew that some boys had them as a sign of their manhood, even though they had yet to use one. It was enough to carry it in your wallet like a badge. I once overheard Ted Scott refer to it as his loaded gun.
Jackson was waiting for my permission. Was he being polite, considerate, or was he trying to avoid any sense of guilt? Did he think of it as sin? Did he think I would hate myself afterward and then hate him for tempting me? Why was it right for a boy to experience it, many times, in fact, and never suffer an iota of regret but instead feel he had accomplished something important, become an adult, become sophisticated, pound his chest and roar?
I hated having to think at all about it. That was what the old Corliss Simon would do, the Corliss Simon who hadn’t been baptized with the nasty drug trip that had crushed her innocence.
“It would be a worse sin to stop,” I said.
His smiled broadened. I got under the blanket, and after a moment, he got under it, too.
Yes, I knew exactly what to expect. I could take the teacher’s place in sex-education class, but nothing I’d read could bring the understanding that came from doing it. No textbook description of an orgasm could do it justice. No feeling could overwhelm and seize the core of my being as much. I was afraid he would rush through it and rob me of my expectations, but Jackson had lived his life fighting selfishness. Of course, I wondered if he was more experienced than I had thought, but I laughed to myself, thinking of one of my father’s favorite expressions: Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Don’t be ungrateful when you get a gift.
I wasn’t going to be.
Especially this time.
4
What I wondered most about myself afterward was whether my mother especially could take one look at me and know. Could my father? How changed was I, really?
I thought Jackson was as stunned by how far we had gone as I was. Afterward, when he walked me home, we were both equally silent, equally thoughtful. Once we left his neighborhood, he held my hand the remainder of the way. He seemed quite nervous again as we approached my house. I didn’t want to hear any note of regret or smell even a whiff of an apology.
When we reached my front door, I could see the hesitation in his face. I understood; he didn’t want to confront my father just yet.
“Thank you for dinner.”
“Yeah, it was great. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
He kissed me quickly and started away like a thief in the night.
“Jackson,” I called.
“Yes?”