“You’re more mature. Not in a stuffy sort of way. You’re more stable, secure. You’re not arrogant about it, but you’re a few hundred miles above your girlfriends, above just about every other girl in school, as a matter of fact. That used to intimidate me, but now I find it fascinating. I feel more mature being with you.” He put down his drink. “Duh! I sound stupid, I know.”
The first thing that came to my mind was that those were words I could imagine some girl saying to Christopher.
“Things happen that force you to be older than you’d like, Kane.”
“Yes, I know. I know the reason. I’m sorry for that, but I’m not sorry that you are who you are. I think I can trust you, depend on you, be confident being with you, and I can’t say that about any other girl in our school.”
He took my glass from me and put it down, then kissed me with such passion that I could feel the tingle travel down my spine and wake the sexual energy in me, nudge it, opening me like a flower longing to blossom, a flower feasting on the sunshine.
His hands moved over my body gently. I lay back and then slowly began to slip under him. He was kissing my cheeks, my neck, before going back time after time to my lips, as if that kiss gave him the fuel, the energy, the permission to return to my neck and then my shoulders, as his hands smoothly lifted my blouse and his lips traced along my stomach and up and over my breasts.
“Kristin,” he whispered. “I can’t stop dreaming about you.”
He fingered the clasp on my bra and lifted it slowly away from my breasts, touching my nipples with the tip of his tongue. I could feel myself sliding deeper and deeper down into the place where your resistance weakens. Was this it? Was this going to be my first time? His finger went to the buttons on my jeans. I didn’t stop him, but I couldn’t help the small sob, the tension that came into my body, and the way I simply froze.
He paused. “How far do you want to go?” he asked softly. I had the feeling that it was a question he didn’t bother asking other girls he had been with. “I’m prepared,” he added.
“Not that far. Not yet,” I said.
He nodded, kissed me quickly on the lips, and then sat back and looked thoughtful.
“What?” I asked.
“What makes some girls so easy about that decision?”
“It’s never a problem for boys?”
“It is if they don’t think ahead and get both of them in trouble.”
“Girls don’t always get into trouble doing it, Kane.”
“I know that, too, but the risk is much bigger, don’t you think?”
“So you’ve answered your own question.”
“Not really. That’s why some girls might not want to do it if their boyfriends are unprepared, but that’s all it answers.”
“Maybe you should attend the girls’ session of health class,” I said.
“I’m not sure Mrs. Kirkwood would let me in.”
“There are many answers, I guess. How you’re brought up is one. Some girls think of it as some accomplishment, a step into maturity or something.”
“You don’t?”
“I think of it as more of a commitment. No, I don’t want you to give me an engagement ring, but I don’t want to just hook up or something. I know some girls who think being as casual about it as boys makes them equal or something.”
He nodded. “I thought you’d have an intelligent answer. No,” he said, holding his hands up and standing, “don’t ask me to try again or ask you to stay over.” We looked at each other, and then we both laughed at the obvious reverse psychology attempt. At least he wasn’t as crude and immature as most of the boys I knew at school.
“I guess I’d better get going,” I said. I straightened myself out, checked myself in the closest powder room, and joined him in the kitchen.
“Can I take you somewhere tomorrow night? To dinner, a movie?”
“I’ll check my schedule.”
He looked stunned.