Prima Nocte.  The first night.  I think couples have a lot of first nights.  The first night you met.  The first night you went on a real date.  The first night you shared a vulnerability.  The first night you made love.  The first night you fought.  The first night you said 'I love you'.  Sometimes those things happen over a lot of nights.  Sometimes some of those firsts happen in the same night.

For us, tonight was the first Friday night we'd ever stayed in because I was still recovering from the flu and my adorably macho nursemaid had ordered up a quiet evening at home.  His apartment, not mine.  It's quieter.  We had mugs of steaming hot tea with lemon instead of wine.  Soft music that was soothing rather than romantic.  And intimate conversation instead of lovemaking.   

I think he was enjoying taking turns switching off between pampering me and tormenting the crap out of me.  Well, at first it had been mostly just looking after me... making sure that I was warm enough or that I drank enough or holding me up in the shower while he washed me.  Now that I was on the mend there was a lot more of the tormenting side of things.  Last night it had been his favorite childhood board game.  The night before last, we played a cutthroat game of dominos.  For money.  Quarters.  He shamelessly cheated me out of eight dollars and seventy-five cents. 

Tonight when he stripped down to his shorts and hopped into bed with a chuckle and this goofy grin and smoothed out the covers between us, I was expecting Go Fish or Old Maid played on a deck of cards with naked ladies on them or something.  As it turns out, I was half right.  It was a dirty deck of cards, just not the kind I'd been expecting.  Each one had a candid sex question on it, designed to spark conversation about our thoughts, feelings and experiences pertaining to all things sexual.  He simply sipped his tea as he watched me flip through a few of them. 

Some were serious.  Have you ever cheated on a lover?  Have you ever gotten or given an STD?  Some were funny.  Have you ever been caught masturbating?  Sex with food... yummy... or icky?  Some were designed to spark deeper conversation.  What do you think about homosexuality?  What is more important... sex or love?  Some were just deliciously erotic.  What's in your toy box?  In explicit detail, what's your naughtiest fantasy?

He shook his head at me when I tried to read another and took back the pack of cards, tutting and wagging his finger in my direction.  Heh.  He is so cute.  With a sparkle in his eye, he reshuffled the deck with a flourish and gave me the juice straight up.  The game had no rules.  Instead you were encouraged to make up your own.  We did.... and, no, I'm not telling what they were.  We settled on seven cards, figuring that would give us more than enough fodder for an evening's conversation.  He cut the deck and offered it to me. 

So, without revealing any of the (incriminating!) peripheral details....

Age you were when you had your first real kiss?  Me: seventeen.  Him: thirteen.

What was your last erotic fantasy starring your lover?  Me: oral.  Him: anal.

Ever starred in your own blue movie?  Me: no.  Him: yes.

Wackiest place you've ever had an orgasm?  Me: a taxi.  Him: a canoe

What makes you blush?  Me: talking dirty.  Him: a sincere compliment.

We talked.  We laughed.  We had a pee break and got more tea before crawling back into bed and cuddled a bit before we got around to the last two cards laying face down on the covers between us.  I had enjoyed the conversation so far; learning all his little private details surrounding the scenario each card brought up and sharing my own in return.  Sometimes we stopped there, but mostly after we had each answered each question as it applied to ourselves, we would speak about how that question applied to us together; reminiscing about our wackiest encounters together (inside the Statue of Liberty's head was quite memorable) or discussing bringing a video camera into the bedroom (still negotiating) or laughing about the last time one of us had made the other blush and laugh (butterflies, anyone?).

It was fun and intimate and cozy.  Some of what we said was erotic and crude and it was arousing in a way that led us to touch and hold hands and lay close... but it was different from a prelude to lovemaking.  There was a sense we were both consciously trying not to let the conversation end prematurely.  A catharsis of a different sort.  His erection came and went as the topics ranged from sweet to dirty to funny and back again.  What remained the same was this thread of intimacy, this feeling of safety as we were open and candid with each other.  We often speak honestly as lovers do, but this was something.... more. 

What do you remember about the first time you had sex? 

My eyes scanned the card in my fingers.  I won't lie.  The question unnerved me and excited me at the same time.  Let's be realistic.  We are new lovers.  There is a lot we haven't talked about.  But there's really only one thing we've purposefully avoided.  And that's it.  The night he took my virginity.  We'd spoken about the years before that night... and about the years that came after it, but he'd never once made any reference to that night.

I know he remembers it, if only because he so studiously avoids any mention of it.  Still, I don't get the sense that he wishes it hadn't happened.  He is too proprietary to wish that away.  It's more like he keeps that night apart from his collected memories of us.  Probably because he feels guilty for it.  I think it was partly the age thing.  He would feel that he took advantage; a jaded man of thirty with a naïve girl of eighteen... but I think more than that, it was our history.  My brother had been his best friend back then.  I was his buddy's kid sister.  I think he felt like he'd taken something from someone he thought he should have been protecting.  And I think what really makes it hard for him is that it wars with his honorable conscience because thinks he shouldn't have done it... and yet he can't bring himself to be sorry he did.  And so he simply avoids talking about it.

Until now, that is.  

He's much too savvy for this to have been an accident.  If he really wanted to be sure that night remained buried, he could have simply removed that card before we started playing.  I also know he knows how to cheat at cards.  He was the one who taught me how to do it.  He could have easily worked that particular card into the chosen seven without me being any the wiser.  Come to think of it, he could have even manipulated it so that it wasn't the first one we picked out to answer.  Who knows?  Maybe he had.  It made me wonder what question was on the last card face down between us.

I looked again at the card in my hand and worried it between my fingers.  Two nights ago, he'd made a point of playing a game from his childhood.  Something from his past.  Last night, he'd made a point of cheating at dominos, quite obviously I might add.  Was that all a prelude to this night?  Clues for me to work out that he'd manipulated this game so it would bring up for us another memory of the past?  I wouldn't put it past him.  He can (and does) speak plainly when he wants to, but he is also a man who likes his secrets.  And he likes to have to work, and to be made to work, at unraveling the mystery of each other. 

Or it could all just be some strange coincidence compounded by my cough syrup conspiracy theories.  

You can never tell with him.

His face gave away nothing, of course.  He was just lying there on his side, looking at me with an unreadable expression.  His watch shone softly in the low light that also reflected off the gold St. Jude Medal nestled in the red-gold hair over his heart.  I'd asked him about it once.  He'd told me St. Jude was the patron saint of hopeless causes.  He'd been flippant at the time, but the fact that he never took it off seemed to suggest it was far more to him than some remnant of his lapsed Catholicism.  Maybe it was a nod to the hopeless causes he worked with every day in his line of work.  Or maybe he thought of himself as the hopeless cause.  I wouldn't put that past him either.   

He chuckled and bumped my foot with his.  "So, you gonna read the question....?  Or you just gonna stare at my chest all night...?"  More sarcasm, but I noticed that his fingers absently strayed to the little circle of gold.  Interesting. 

I huffed in amusement but when it came time to actually read the card, I found it hard to keep my voice even.  There was a long moment of silence after I finished.  "Dean...?"

"Hmm... First times?  I guess it's a good thing that it's my turn to answer first."  Typical response.  He can be so evasive when he wants to, never confirming or denying anything that might incriminate himself.  Until he's ready, of course.  And then he usually cops to whatever it is with childish delight. 

I admit was curious about the answer to this particular question because in his effort to avoid conversation about my first time, he'd been closed lipped about his first time as well.  I wondered what his had been like.  I wondered what memories he'd taken from that night.  Just as I wondered what memories he'd taken from the night we'd shared so many years ago. 

Men and women remember things so differently.  I also wondered how his memories of his first time would be different from his memories of our night.  He'd been drunk.  So had I.  But I still remember everything.  Every detail.  I wonder if he does?  I doubt it.  Men rarely do.  Despite that fact, I knew he was holding on to some memory of that night.  He wouldn't have such an aversion to talking about it unless it held some power over him.  Or for him.   

Still, I wanted to be sure this was what he wanted.  "You sure you want to do this?"  I handed the card over.  He could always choose not to answer.  But we'd already set the terms of this game.  Silence had a price.  Each of us had named something the other would have to forfeit.  And as you can imagine, the stakes were high.

"Her name was Claire," he said by way of answer.  He had a goofy grin on his face but I didn't miss the softer look in his eyes, nor the way he reached out and curled his fingers around mine.  "I was a very mature fourteen...."  He is so shameless.  He didn't even have the good grace to blush.

"How old was she?"  

He laughed.  "Fifteen."  It amused me that their tender ages didn't seem to bother him at all, where it was clearly something he had issues with when it came to us.  At least back then.  Men!  I've always found it amusing how they can rationalize away two similar things so very differently.  "She was my girlfriend.  We'd been going steady a couple of months by then-"

That made me laugh.  "Do you even know how old 'going steady' makes you sound?"

"Hey!"  He kicked me under the covers and then grinned.  "You have to understand, I was totally insane for her.  She drove me nuts... in the best way.  All I wanted to do was impress her and it always seemed that the harder I tried, the more goofy stuff I wound up doing instead."  And then his smile softened.  "But she liked me in spite of that."

"Or maybe because of that."

"Maybe."  He squeezed my hand.  "She made me crazy.  Just the scent of her hair would make me hard."  He shook his head ruefully.  "She sat in front of me in religion.  It was not an easy year...." 

"Religion?"  

"Catholic school.  You have all the regular classes plus stuff like Introduction to Catholicism, Sacraments, Church History...."  He had a far away look in his eyes.  "She was a nice girl.  A good girl.  Not a screw-off like me.  And she wore these little white panties under that damned uniform that had me hiding my dick behind a book nearly every time I was ordered to the board." 

Now that made me laugh.  It also made me want to know how he knew what kind of panties she wore.  

"Kissing her made me dizzy.  I dreamed of touching her.  She was a virgin too... but she was also young and curious... like me.  It was forever before she let me touch her.  She'd rub on me though... while we were kissing."  He shook his head.  "She wouldn't let me touch her with my hands and she was scared to touch me.... but I think we set a new world record for dry humping that fall."  A bemused chuckle rumbled in his chest.  "I'll never understand why straddling me was okay but the less explicit stuff was still too much for her."

I just smiled.  I understood it just fine.  I'd been a teenage girl too once, after all.  "You liked it?"  I wondered if she'd made him come in his pants doing that.

He nodded.  "I liked making her come."  And then he grinned shamefacedly.  "Of course, it took me a while to figure out that's what was happening."  His smile got more predatory.  "But once I did...."

I raised my eyebrows.  "Once you did...?"

He just shrugged and said instead.  "She used to like to ride me.  We'd fool around... kiss for a while and then eventually I'd wind up on my back with her straddling me and I'd put my hands on her hips to feel her move..." 

"Did it make you come?"

He nodded again.  "Chafed me raw... but it was just enough pressure, and at that age, it was more the excitement of just touching this girl who drove me so damned crazy."  And then this strange little smile lit his face and he looked down.  "It wasn't what she was doing that excited me though.  It was that I'd put my hands up under her skirt when she did it.  Hold her cute little butt in my palms with my fingers under the edges of those fucking white panties while she rode me."  There was a slight blush on his face.  "Jesus... her skin!  The way it felt in my hands...... That's what did it."  The way he shuddered just then was quite revealing about how intense it had been for him.  All these years later and the memory still affected him physically.  "It was the only place she'd let me touch her at first.  I can't tell you how many hours I spent that way, fantasizing about actually getting to see what was in my hands.... while we..."

He was still talking but I was suddenly caught up in my own thoughts just then.  Was that what had shaped his adolescent desire into something that had grown into a man's mature appreciation for a woman's backside?  Or had Claire's naïve actions only added fuel to a spark that was already there?  I didn't ask.  He's not the only one who likes to savor unraveling a lover's secrets over time.

"It was months before she let me do more... but everything happened faster once she did."  His eyes were dreamy.  "She let me touch her tits and then kiss them... and then in no time, we were taking our tops off... and then all the rest happened one afternoon during Christmas vacation."

"And you didn't get caught?"

He shook his head.  "Nope.  My parents were at a Christmas party.  We were downstairs in the basement watching 'It's A Wonderful Life'..." he blushed.  "Well it was on... we weren't exactly watching it.  We were kissing... and then she whispered into my ear that she had a Christmas present for me.  She pushed something into my hand.  It was her underwear."

God, the way his voice dropped when he said that made me blush.  "What did you do?"  I don't know what I was expecting him to say.  Something smooth?  Something sweet? 

"Undressed her before she changed her mind."  His predatory grin was back.  "Christ, I was fourteen.  Well, almost fifteen.  It was the best kind of puppy love... and I was so horny I couldn't even think.  It was like my body just suddenly took over."

"What do you remember?"

"Not much really until we were both naked.  I asked if I could look at her... she blushed and told me yes, but only if she could look at me too...."  He trailed off.  "Girls were such a mystery.  Everything hidden.  Not like us."  He casually stroked the length of his erection through his shorts.  "Clumsy.  Awkward.  If I felt something, she sure as hell knew it... Everyone knew it.... but with a girl, it's different..."

I just smiled.

"She opened her legs and I went a little crazy.  It was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen in my life.  Pink.  Wet.  And then I realized I could smell her.  I felt like an animal.  Like I couldn't even make my mouth work to talk.  Something in me was just driving me to put my face right there and smell her.  Taste her.  Every book on sex I'd ever read, every shred of information I'd ever gleaned on how to finger a girl or lick a girl or please a girl... it scattered in the wind.  Just like that."

His hand was tight on mine as the memories flooded back.

"Instinct, I guess.  Something primal in my brain just drove me.  And I can't even tell you what the smell did to me.  Christ, and the taste!  Fuck...  And then I felt her.  Put a finger in her."  His face was flushed, but it wasn't a blush this time.  "I just kept licking her.  And then she shook and tightened up on my fingers.... and then she did the best thing of all."  He paused, obviously reliving the moment.  "She said my name in this way that nobody ever had before.  In a way that made me feel....." 

"Proud?"

He shook his head.  "No... better than that.  Powerful.  Like a man.  I didn't know what the hell I was doing; all I knew was that I liked it.  That I wanted more.  And that I wanted her to say my name like that again."  He sighed.  "And then while she was still shaking in the aftermath, I crawled up and pushed in." 

Silence.   

It stretched out until I couldn't stand it.  "Well....how was it?"  I was expecting him to say something like hot or tight or wet.  

"Painful..... for her, I mean.  She cried.  I thought I'd done something wrong."  He looked away.  "I just...."  He sighed again and shrugged slightly.  "It felt good.  Better than anything I ever felt in my life.  But it was scary too.  I couldn't control it.  Like my brain had disconnected and there was only feeling and this instinctive drive to move.  In.  In.  In."  His smile was wry now.  "I guess it was a good thing for her I didn't last long."

This time it was me who squeezed his hand.  Quite a vulnerability for a man to admit.  Even a self-assured man like him.  

"I thought I had it all figured out.  I didn't have a condom but I thought I could just pull out..."  He made a noise of disgust.  "Another lesson for me that night.  I felt the orgasm coming and couldn't pull out.  Not if my life had depended on it.  I just held her so close, pushed in deep and buried my face against her throat until it was over.  It was so damned good."  His smile had changed again.  "She said I told her that I loved her.  Christ, I couldn't even remember my own fucking name, much less what'd I'd babbled in that moment."

I laughed at his joke, but I felt for him too.  It was obviously a very vulnerable moment for him.  

"I never really thought about that part of it.  Afterwards... I was embarrassed for not being able to stay in control.  Worried that I'd hurt her.... Suddenly afraid my parents would catch us.... There was come everywhere, which only made me more flustered and self-conscious.  I liked how cleaning her up made me feel though.  That she trusted me to do that, even after I'd messed up."

"Sounds like you learned a lot of lessons that night."

"Oh yeah."  His grin was back.  "And I spent the next two weeks kneeling in the chapel until my legs went numb.  I think I lost count somewhere around the 17,000th Hail Mary.  I cried with relief when she got her period.  She did too." 

It was a good story, but I couldn't help but think about the deeper implications of what he'd said.  How what he remembered about the moment of penetration when he lost his virginity wasn't that it felt good.  It was that he thought he'd done something wrong.  That he was scared he'd hurt her.  It spoke to the selfless man he would eventually grow into.  The man I'd fallen in love with. 

"I did a lot of thinking too.... in the chapel," he added.  "I was such a stupid kid.  I didn't know what I was doing but I still wanted to be the one in control."  That made me smile.  It's just in his nature to take the lead with a woman.  Funny that it's been that way from the beginning, but not really all that surprising.  "She seemed to expect it of me too, which just made me feel even more like I couldn't let her down."  He grew quiet.  More introspective.  "I felt bad for hurting her.  I wanted to be sure I never did that again.... with any woman.... ever." 

I wondered if that had been the impetus that ultimately grew into the smooth persona he used with women.  He rarely drops that and reveals the goofy guy underneath unless he's certain he's safe.  It was another of his secrets I was going to enjoy unraveling over time.  And I was savoring what he'd shared with me tonight.  The knowledge that boys learned from a girl's reaction.  He'd learned that he had power.  That he could hurt someone he cared about if he wasn't careful.  That it felt good.  That he could lose control.  That he'd have to let someone see him at his most vulnerable. 

It was such a contrast to how he'd been with me that first time.  And how he was with me now.  An experienced man is not at all weakened by showing his fragility... as he'd just done with me tonight.  And that night so long ago.

"First times, hey?"  I gave his hand another squeeze and looked up at him with a shy smile.  

He shrugged and held my gaze with his.

"You ever wonder about her?  Claire?"  He blinked.  "I mean, surely she's had this same conversation in bed with someone.  I wonder what she told him about her first time with some skinny redheaded boy named Dean."  I bet she remembered him so fondly. 

He snorted.  "I'm sure it wasn't flattering."  But then he just laughed.  "We learned though.  It got better.  I was never much for homework, but that was one subject I didn't mind working hard at mastering."  Now he was just smug, lying back arrogant and confident in his abilities.  And why shouldn't he feel that way?  He is an incredible lover.  But I think what I loved most was that his old memories still had the power to move him.  He was still that goofy boy under it all, even if he'd acquired an impossibly smooth tongue and had a range of experience with sex that was frightening... to say nothing of his impressive skill in the art of love.

I cuddled closer and we kissed softly.  "As I recall, even a decade ago, you'd mastered those lessons."  

He drew away and passed the card back to me without looking away from my eyes before whispering, "So, I guess it's your turn, honey."  We kissed again and it almost felt like he was bracing himself.  It made me want to cry.  And it made me glad for the chance to tell him my memories of the night he taught me about love.

DINO

To tell the truth, I was a little scared of what I might hear.  Things were going pretty well so far.  My plan had worked.  She was still not feeling 100%, which made her a bit more reliant on me than she usually is.  Which I am not ashamed to say I enjoyed.  Nor am I ashamed to say I used it to my advantage.  Keeping her close.  Helping that feeling of solidarity and safety grow.  Our conversation had steadily grown more intimate as it got later and later and we got closer as more of our walls came down. 

I think she'd probably figured out that I'd set this up, but I'm not sure she had figured out why yet.  I wanted more from her.  A deeper relationship.  And I couldn't do that while still holding on to these ghosts from the past.  Over the years, I've learned how to be pretty slick with women, but the real truth is that I have the same insecurities as any other man.  Especially with the women who really matter.  It doesn't make a shit of difference how much experience I have or how sure of myself I am, when I'm with a woman like that, I still feel a bit like that skinny boy who does goofy things because she makes him want to.  Because being with her makes him feel good.  Makes him feel like himself.  Like he doesn't have to be smooth or slick to be wanted.  Or loved.

"What do you remember?"  It was a question I'd asked her in my head a thousand times since that night.  I wondered how she remembered it.  And I wondered how she'd talk about it.  Where did it begin for her?  What little detail had her memory latched onto?  When I showed up at her door with pizza in hand?  When we hugged and I held on longer than I should have?  When we sat down on the floor and had a picnic in her tiny shitbox campus apartment?  Maybe when I'd opened the drinks I brought?  Beer for me.  Piña colada wine coolers for her.  Or maybe when I'd just dropped the pretense and kissed her.  Christ, she'd been so young and sweet.  I'd felt like such a shit.  And yet it still hadn't stopped me.

"He touched my foot."  

I looked up.  That wasn't what I'd been expecting at all.  "Yeah?"  And I wondered who she was trying to make this easier for by speaking of it in the third person, me or herself?  Probably me.  But I like that she looked out for me like that.  It felt good.  Safe.

She nodded.  "Yeah.  He stroked my instep and then put his fingers around my ankle.  It felt nice but made all the butterflies that were in my stomach lodge somewhere in my throat.  So I touched his foot back."  Her shy smile was back.  "He had a hole in his sock.  It made me feel sad, like nobody was taking care of him."

A hole in my sock?  How do girls remember that shit?  I felt my face heat a little.  But she was right.  Nobody was taking care of me then.  The rudeness of life had more than seen to that.  At that point in my life, I had been utterly alone in the world.  Except for her.

"He touched my cheek.  I can remember thinking: Oh God, he's going to kiss me!  And then he did." 

I'd had more beers than I should have by then, but that moment is burned in my brain forever.  Her mouth opened under mine.  She tasted sweet, like coconut and innocence.  She tasted the way sun block smells.  And for a moment, I was transported back to my youth, to a happier time; to those easy days of summer when you could feel the warmth of the sun on your back.  She was a better kisser than I thought she'd be... but then she gasped softly against my lips and gripped my shoulders with her little hands and I knew I'd need more than just one kiss.  A lot more.  And like that stupid goofy boy, I wanted to impress her.  To give her back something as valuable as she was giving to me.  I wanted to give her a good memory. 

I'm not sure if I did.

"Nobody had ever kissed me the way he did."

Nobody?  I felt an absolutely irrepressible surge of masculine pride that felt so damned good.  "What made it different?"

"The way he touched me.  He put his hand on my neck."  She shrugged and played with her fingers the way she does when she's nervous.  "I can't really explain it.  In that one touch, it was like he let me feel his power but showed me that I had my own as well.  Like I was a part of what was happening between us.  It wasn't something he was doing to me."

I wasn't sure I believed her.  "How did he do all that just by touching your neck?"

Her smile became that one that has been beguiling men since the beginning of time.  Sometimes, I think women are born with that intuition; some inner barometer that takes men years to figure out.  If we ever do.  "I could feel his hand tremble.  Just for a moment before it tightened."

It had?  I didn't remember that.  All I could remember was how good she'd felt under me.  How she tilted her hips instinctively when I rubbed against her.  How she wasn't forward, but she wasn't passive either.  My strongest memory of that moment was that she rubbed my back in her hands in a way that some part of my brain recognized as real affection. 

"Then what?"  I prompted softly, when it appeared she was lost in the memory.

"Then I melted."

"Heh."

There was a warm light in her eyes.  "He told me that he wanted to put his mouth on me."  I felt the heat of a flush that wasn't entirely due to embarrassment creep up my cheeks.  "He whispered against my skin while he undressed me."  I had?  I just remember thinking a whole lot of things in my head that no girl that young needed to hear.  "He touched my skin and said 'like starlight'.  I liked that he said it that way instead of just telling me I was pretty.  That's always sounded like a line to me.  The way he said it made me think he just opened his mouth and his thoughts came tumbling out."

They had.  So much more than she even knew.  

"He said other things too."  

The way she said that made me nervous.  I swallowed hard.

"He said he wanted me.  That he'd always wondered what color my nipples were but that now he knew and he'd never forget."  Jesus.  I said that?  Of course, it goes without saying that I hadn't forgotten the color.  "And then he kissed me and said that he wanted to kiss my pussy the same way."

I blushed and looked away.  "Christ."

She was blushing too, but she kept on talking.  "It was the first time I'd heard a man say the word 'pussy' where it sounded erotic and exciting instead of dirty and degrading."

"It was?"

She nodded.  "He kept on whispering while he took his shirt off."  God, I wasn't sure I could take any more of this.  "He took my hand and guided it down the front of his pants and said, 'Feel what you do to me, honey'."  I remembered doing that, but not saying the words.

Heat pooled heavily in my groin.

"I won't ever forget that moment.  It was the first time I'd ever touched a penis."  Shit.  Now that I hadn't known.  "I never imagined how soft the skin would be.  Or that flesh and blood could feel so hard."

"Yeah?"  Pretty lame response, but I wasn't exactly sure what to say to her just then.

"Yeah.  I wanted to keep on touching him, but he pulled his mouth off my breasts and my hand from his pants and then he finished undressing.... but he crawled back up beside me before I could get a good look."  She had the sweetest blush on her cheeks.  "I was too embarrassed to tell him I wanted to look at him."

"I think he probably knew that, honey."  I knew she was curious but I'd wanted to make her come first.  I'd wanted it to be for her.  About her.  Not me.  Not the first time.

"He slipped down my body, kissing as he went, but I knew what was coming because he told me what he wanted to do."  Christ.  What I remembered was wanting to feel her come on my mouth.  Wanting to be sure it was good for her.  I hoped whatever I'd said hadn't been too crude for her.  "I was so scared."

Four little words.  I felt an icy rush of reality sit like a heavy stone in the pit of my stomach.  Jesus.  I never wanted that for her.  I'd scared her?  I can't begin to explain how shitty I felt in that moment.  But then she took my hand in hers.  She must have seen the horror on my face because her next words were so soft.

"I was scared.  Excited.  Nervous.  But he didn't hesitate in how he touched me.  Or where he touched me.  Not once.  He knew what he was doing and that made me feel safe."  Her words trailed off and got quieter.  "He made me feel so safe." She repeated softly.

I felt tears prick the back of my eyes.  "Did you like what he did?"

She nodded.  "While he was kissing me there, he put his fingers inside me and did something that made me even wetter than I already was."  

"Yeah?"

"And then he slipped his fingers out and I could see how wet they were.  He brought them to his face, breathed me in and then licked them."  My heart was beating fast but I was surprised by her next revelation.  "He told me I tasted good."  Well, that wasn't too bad..... "And then he asked me if I'd ever tasted myself."  I winced, suddenly remembering that.  It had been too salty a question for her.  She'd said no and turned her face away.

Her eyes fell.  "I lied to him."  My head came up.  "I was too embarrassed to tell him the truth."  

Strangely, that made me feel better not worse.  She hadn't been as innocent as I thought then, thank Christ.

"I touched him.  I was curious.  I wanted to make him feel the way he made me feel... but I also wanted to feel what I knew he was going to put inside me."  This time her smile was wide and her eyes glittered and I knew I was going to like what she said next.  "It was so big.  I didn't think we'd fit.  It didn't seem possible."

I chuckled.  Fourteen or forty.  What man doesn't like to hear that from his woman?  Her hand wormed under the blankets to stroke me gently, not to arouse me.  It was softer than that, like saying hello to some old treasured memory that makes you smile.  She was smiling now.  She'd been smiling then, too.  That I do remember.  Vividly.  Her eyes were glassy but she had this soft little smile as I moved over her and she reached for me.

I couldn't help but smile back at her.  Then and now.  Her breathing grew more shallow as the memories came faster and faster.  "Then what happened?" I whispered softly, wanting to be sure my voice didn't break the spell.  I know how I remembered that moment.... but I wanted to hear how she remembered it.

"He got a condom and asked me if I'd put it on him."  She smiled.  "I told him 'no'."

"Why?"  For years, I'd wanted to know the answer to that.

She cuddled closer and whispered into my ear.  "Because watching him touch himself was the most exciting thing I'd ever seen in my life."

Her answer stunned me.  "Really?"  She nodded and I felt about a hundred feet tall.

"Really."  

Lucky for her then that I was drunk enough that it took me longer than it usually does.  It had made me feel vulnerable.  Worried enough that I wanted to be absolutely sure it was what she wanted.  And so I teased her.

"He teased me with the tip.  Up and down.  Rubbing the inside of my thighs.  Rubbing my sex.  Wetting the condom.  Caressing me, but never enough.... Making me wild for him.  Like I was coming out of myself.  I couldn't tell him how much..."

Yes, she could.  And she had.  She might not have known what to do, but her body had arched in welcome and her head tossed as she said my name over and over in a way that had made me glad to be me for the first time in so long.  I pushed inside.  Slow.  So slow.  "Did it hurt?"  I'd never wanted to hurt a woman like that ever again. 

"Yes."

"Aw, honey...."

She sighed softly.  "Not like that.  Not like you mean."  

"No?"

"In a good way.  He was a part of me and too much for me all at the same time."  A soft smile touched her mouth.  "A breaking," she said simply.  "I would have been disappointed if it had been effortless.  I wanted to feel it."  Her hand found mine.  "I did.  And it satisfied something in me that has no words....."

I knew just what she meant.  It hurt me too, for different reasons.  And it had satisfied something deep inside me as well.  After that, things went hazy.  It had just felt so good... in every way an experience like that can make a man feel good. 

"I can't remember if I said anything to him."  She hadn't.  

"Did he say anything?" 

She looked away.  It was a reaction that niggled at me.  "He held me tight, kissed me-"

"Did he say anything?"  

This time, she nodded.  "Against my throat.  I almost didn't hear it."  I waited for her to continue.  "Just two words.  'Sorry Gens'."

I closed my eyes, hating that I'd done that.  I'd never meant to put that on her.  Losing Gen had broken something inside me.  I hadn't been with anyone but her in years.  After I lost her... Christ, I wasn't even sure I could perform with another woman.  I was afraid.  And I was hurting.  Gen had been gone about four months when I finally found my way to Heather.  It wasn't for sex.  At least, not for the reason you might think.  She was the only one left that I felt safe with; with that part of me that was struggling to hard just to stay above water.  I wasn't desperate for sex.  I was desperate to feel safe.  And I was selfish enough to want to lay a claim, however misguided, on the one good thing I had left.  The one thing that hadn't been touched by the rudeness of life.

Someday when I'm ready, I'll tell her all of that.  But not tonight.  Some journeys are so hard they can only be walked in small steps.  

I just held her and rocked her.  Her hand was soothing on my back like it had been that night.  We stayed that way a long time and then she spoke softly into the darkness.  "I wouldn't change a single thing about that night, Dean."

"No?"

"No.  It was perfect.  Everything was just as it should have been....."  I could feel her smile against my neck.  "And it felt so good."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah.  He didn't treat me like spun glass.  He treated me like a woman.  Told me how good I felt.  How tight it was for him.  How much touching me excited him."  She took a long breath and then let it out slowly.  "And then he stopped talking and just fucked me."

I felt a hot rush at her blunt words.

"He made me come twice, just from the feel of him in my arms and how he wasn't afraid to push in deep... to give me all of himself."  God, I had.  In more ways than she knew.

And I'd made her come twice?  "He did?"  I hadn't known that.  I had wondered, but I was too far inside my own head to be sure.

"Yes."  There was a smile in her voice.  "I wasn't sure I could again... he seemed to be waiting for it though.  Holding me tighter and tighter.  Pushing deeper.  His fist was in my hair.  So close... it was like being one person.  I thought I was dying."

"Starlight."  A whisper.

"Starlight."  We smiled at each other.  "He was grunting against my throat with every thrust."  I blushed at the candid description of myself lost in my own pleasure.  "It was the sound that pushed me over."

"A grunt?"

She shook her head.  "No.  He froze.  Shuddered so hard.... and he made the softest noise in his throat....."  She sighed.  "It was the most erotic sound I'd ever heard."  Her voice got softer.  "It still is."

Something inside my chest warmed at her quiet revelation.  As for that long-ago moment, mostly I just remember how it felt holding her after.  I'd pulled away only long enough to peel away the condom and then I'd pulled her into my arms.  She'd cried a little.  I had too.  And then we'd just rocked each other until we fell asleep. 

It was the first time I'd felt safe since I'd lost Gen.

I sat up and looked down into her face.  "Do you know what he was doing that night?"  I might not be able to tell her all of it yet, but I could give her something.  Hopefully it would be enough.  She shook her head.  "Claiming a piece of you, in my own fucked up way."

I wondered what she'd make of that... but at least I'd finally owned up to it.  No more pretending.  She just took my face in her hands and shook her head.  "That part of me has always been yours... nothing you did or didn't do could ever change that." 

It was more than just the sentiment that struck me. It was how she said it.  Like it was some fact she'd always known to be true.  I didn't know what to say in response, so I just held her close.  At the feel of the tip of her nose rubbing my neck, I rumbled a contented sound and felt her smile.

"I never thanked you.  For that night."  Her voice was soft and shy.  "You were gone when I woke up."  There was a reason for that too, but I wasn't sure I could tell her that part of it yet.

"I'm sorry."

"Me too."  This time her voice was lighter.  "I wanted more of what you showed me during the night."  She didn't say waking up alone had been hard for her.  She didn't have to. 

"You remember that?"  I did.  I didn't drink any more after that first time.  I wanted to be lucid enough to make the rest of that night something amazing for her.  And I wanted to be sober enough to remember every second of it after I'd gone.

"Most of it.  It gets a little hazy toward the end....."  I'd encouraged her to drink more.  Not a lot... but enough to relax her a bit, lower her inhibitions so she'd enjoy it more.  We didn't sleep long after that first time.  Just a few hours.  I woke her up with an orgasm and then we'd showered together.  I'd wanted to show her just how much there was for two people to share together.

We danced afterward.  Naked.  Right there in the center of her tiny little room.  It wasn't how a man dances with a girl.  It was how lovers dance.  Wrapped around each other.  My hands on that sweet little rump of hers, pressing her into me.  Feeling my dick rub over her soft belly while we kissed and swayed.  Whispering to each other.  Learning each other's little details. 

We wound back up in bed.  That time, I'd just let her look and touch and explore as much as she wanted.  It is a memory that still brings a smile to my face, even after all this time.  I'd never had a lover who'd been as excited about playing with a soft cock as she was about a hard one.  My body had fascinated her.  She must have spent an hour just looking at me all over.  Tasting my skin.  Rubbing her cheek on me.  Smelling me.  Teasing her fingers into the hair on my head.  On my chest... into my armpits and down my belly to my groin.  Even down my legs.  Mostly I remember how much her eyes glowed while she did it. 

And then, when she was done... I taught her how to give head.  There are some women who just refuse to do it and some who do it only because their partners ask them to.  She didn't even do it because she wanted to pleasure me as much as she did it simply because she liked doing it.  Loved it even.  It was a gift to be a witness to that realization, to share in those first precious moments of another person's erotic self-discovery.  And I won't lie.  It was exciting to be the one to lead her through it.  To answer her questions and show her things she'd never even imagined.

Sometimes I think that's a part of why we're such compatible lovers today.  She's grown and matured in the years since that night, but the initial sexual imprint remains mine.  Almost like the things I showed her that night shaped her preferences too, in a sense.  Like it gave her a taste not just for the things I like best, but also for how I like them.  Combined with her own natural sensuality, it is an intoxicating combination.                         

I know showed her more than I should have that night, but we seemed to feed off each other.  I got off on teaching her.... and even when something made her shy, she was still insatiable for knowledge, for the experiences I could give her.  I think it was partly because I was older and partly it was because of who I was to her.  She felt safe with me.

Even though I knew better, I took advantage of that.  She let me make her fly because she trusted me to catch her if she fell.  And I pushed her higher because I could.  After I taught her how to use her mouth on me, I flipped her over and showed her what a man who knew how to use his mouth could do for her.  That time she shouted my name.  We dozed again afterwards. 

It was her caress that woke me.  I couldn't help myself.  I wanted her again.  I knew she'd be sore so I teased it out until she was begging me for it, until I knew she couldn't be any more ready... and then I made love to her again.  Slowly at first and then I introduced her to other positions and ways to enjoy what happened between a man and a woman.  And I tried to share with her one of the most important lessons I'd ever learned.  One that I wished someone had taught me in the beginning.  That there was nothing wrong or bad about what we were doing.  That she shouldn't be embarrassed to touch herself or her lover anywhere, in any way that felt good to them both. 

I taught her the finger trick because I like it.  I did it to her because I wanted her to know there wasn't anything dirty about that kind of sex..... but it wasn't entirely selfless.  I admit to wanting to claim as many pieces of her as I could.  And to give back as many pieces of myself as I was able.  She was limp with exhaustion when we finished.  Barely coherent.  Sleepy from the booze and the marathon sex and the wild excitement of this night that neither of us had expected. 

I knew she'd be sore.  Part of me hated that.  Part of me felt proud.  I'd also felt a strange sort of satisfaction in the fact that I was sore, too.  It was ironic.  I'd come to mark her and found myself marked just as deeply by her in return.  We collapsed in a sweaty tangled heap.  She fell asleep almost instantly.  I couldn't.  Despite my physical exhaustion, my mind was whirling. 

And then the one thing that I didn't want to happen happened.  She shifted in her sleep and murmured 'I love you' against my chest.  It scared me.  And it was somehow worse that she'd done it in her sleep.  Like she'd felt it all along but knew better than to say it to me.  And that had just made my heart ache.  Love.  It was the one thing I wasn't ready to give her.  I was still too fucked up, too hurt... and even if I hadn't been, she'd been much, much too young. 

And so I left her.  Dressed silently.  I thought about writing a letter to leave on her pillow, only I didn't know what to say.  But somehow, what I was feeling came out after all.  I looked down and realized I'd folded a paper crane.  I left that for her instead.  And then I walked away without ever looking back.

She said she loved me.  That's what I took from that night.  It scared me, but it gave me a kind of peace too.  Something to hold on to.  The knowledge that I wasn't alone in the world.  Somewhere, someone cared.  And for a man like me.... who lived his life on the edge... that was such a talisman.  A light in the darkness.

I didn't ask her if she kept the crane.  I know she did.  It's on a shelf in her apartment along with her other most treasured possessions.  She once told me they were the things that marked for her the most poignant moments of her life.  The crane sits next to a smooth red pebble from the beach where she scattered her mother's ashes.  I think that says it all.   

We never did answer that last question.  I just set that silly deck of cards aside.  They'd served their purpose.  I just whispered a goodnight into her hair and held her as she fell asleep.  I felt content.  And safe.  It felt good to be at that place with her where we could go to sleep and not worry we'd wake to find ourselves alone.

But see, that's the thing.  When I look back over that night.... I wonder if maybe we knew it was okay to let each other go because a part of us knew we'd end up here someday.  Together. 

Cranes.  

What a symbol to leave behind.  It wasn't a conscious choice, more like it appeared in my fingers when I couldn't find the right words to put to paper.  The Japanese have treasured them as a symbol of honor and loyalty for thousands of years.  They are strong.  Graceful  Beautiful.  A majestic bird that mates for life and is extremely loyal to its partner. 

I guess it just takes some of them a little longer to find the way home.