All of this analysis I did automatically. I was 16. I thought about sex and girls constantly. So it was easy to ogle Megan without being obvious about it and still notice that Megan had led me to the back of the school, to the bleachers by the football field. There was one other couple there, making out in the shade beneath the bleachers towards one end. Megan took me to the other end but we actually ascended a few rows rather than tuck ourselves away beneath the gleaming aluminum.
“So what’s up?” I asked casually once we’d sat down. I talked with Megan every day; there was no need to be nervous.
But she was nervous. Megan wouldn’t look me in the eye and she bit her lip before mumbling something so quietly that I couldn’t make out her words.
“Excuse me?” I leaned in. “I didn’t catch that.”
Megan glared right into my eyes as if it were my fault I couldn’t hear her. And then in a louder voice she asked, “Do you still like me?”
I arched an eyebrow and answered like any other 16-year-old might answer. “Huh?”
“Do you still like me?”
“Of course I do.”
Megan’s tone dropped, emphasizing the seriousness of her question. “I mean, like-me-like-me.”
My eyes popped open. She was asking if I were still interested in her as a potential girlfriend. “Uh, well…” I stalled, and Megan’s face fell as I didn’t immediately give her the answer she’d been looking for.
I’d first dated Megan because she was a willing female, period. Back then, if I had to come up with a top list of girls I wanted to date, she was maybe 26. But since 1 through 25 wouldn’t go out with me, I’d been content to get what I could from Megan.
But since then, we’d gotten to be friends and I found I really liked her. She still wasn’t in my top 10 or anything. Those slots were reserved for the girls who put out or had big tits. But recently I’d found that when I tried to mentally assemble the list, I’d simply been leaving Megan out of it entirely. She defied those categories, since when I saw Megan, I saw my friend; I didn’t see a sex object. Megan was almost like my sister Brandi, a cute girl who attended my school but meant more to me than any position on a list of girls I secretly wanted to have sex with. So I simply hadn’t thought about the possibility of dating Megan again. I’d just assumed we’d be friends forever.
Wincing at the awkward situation, I shrugged and looked away before answering. “I… I haven’t really thought about it much, Megan. I mean, I did… like-you-like-you. But you said you weren’t ready and you know I’d never push you to do anything you weren’t ready for.”
“I know. Thank you for that,” Megan managed a weak smile and leaned towards me. “But what if… what if I were ready now?”
My mind was racing. I hadn’t had a date in forever. The same thing had happened to me last year. At the beginning of the school year, everyone wanted to hook up with everyone else and the dates had come with some frequency. But some people settled into boyfriend/girlfriend relationships and others just got bored of the whole thing. And by the end of Spring, the only girls I was kissing were my mom and sisters on the cheek.
This year, since my two-week thing with Megan, there had only been one three-week thing in February with Stephanie Vo before she went to go flirt with an upperclassman on the tennis team. So the idea of getting some action, even just first base with a friend, sounded like a great idea.
“Uh, you sure?” I asked, intrigued.
“Yeah,” Megan gave me a stronger smile.
I knew what I was supposed to do. “So Megan, you doing anything Friday night?”
Now she was beaming, her eyes lit up like fireworks. “No, why? You have something in mind?”
“Have you seen Gladiator yet?” I asked, excited about the upcoming swords and manly-men epic.
“Uh, no,” Megan frowned. Perhaps she’d been thinking of something more romantic. But there was no WAY I’d go to see Center Stage or any other ballet movie. I was friendly with girls, but I wasn’t gay.
“Well, I’ve got a car now. Can I take you to dinner and a movie?”
That was really all Megan wanted, so she smiled and shyly replied, “Sure.”
When Megan blushed and glanced down, I was struck by how pretty she was growing up to be. Gone was the little flat-chested, underdeveloped girl. In her place was a young woman of 15 rapidly on her way to becoming an adult. And when her dark eyes flicked to me with a hunger no little girl ever displayed, I found myself moving on instinct again.
My hand reached out to her cheek and Megan gasped when she felt the gentle touch of my fingers. And then I was leaning across the bleacher bench, and automatically my eyes began to close as I tilted my head and brought my face up to hers.
Megan stopped breathing for a moment and her eyes flew open wide when she realized I was about to kiss her. She neither shied away nor leaned to meet me, but when my lips touched hers she puckered up, and then two seconds later I heard her moan and begin to flow into my kiss.
It wasn’t electric, but it was sweet. I peeked for a second to see that Megan had closed her eyes, and then I half-smiled into the kiss as I pressed a little more firmly, calling upon all my knowledge for how to properly kiss a girl.
Kissing felt good. I could have stayed there and kissed her forever. But I didn’t want to push my luck and so I broke away, leaving Megan gasping with her eyes still closed. Her head followed me for a few inches before she rocked back to regain her balance. I touched her cheek one more time before getting up and turning to head down the stairs to where we’d left our schoolbags.
“I’ll pick you up at six,” I said brightly.
Megan just glowed and smiled.
For the next couple of days, Megan and I got positively giggly around each other. We were flirting constantly, and we cheated twice, sneaking kisses even before our first date (well second-first date).
Cassidy caught us once and complained, “Knock it off, you two. Can’t it wait until Friday’s date?”
I just shrugged and asked, “Why? I want to. She wants to, right?”
Megan giggled and nodded her head. So I kissed her again.
Cassidy growled and then Megan declared, “You had your chance, Cass.”
It was just after dinner on Thursday and I’d beaten everyone to the TV. The video game console was powered on and I was button-mashing my way to glory while little Eden and Emma leaned against my sides and watched the on-screen violence with wide eyes.
“You know, the twins probably shouldn’t be seeing that,” Brandi snarked and folded her arms over her chest, glaring at me with all her big sister disdain.
“YOU try getting them to leave.” I shrugged and kept mashing. “I told them to go to their room and play.”
“I wanna stay with Ben!” Eden complained.
“Yeah!” Emma chimed in.
“You COULD play a less violent game, Ben,” Brandi tried to reason.
I shrugged again. “Girls gotta learn sometime. Besides,” I reached out with my off-hand and tousled my baby sister’s hair. “You guys are big girls now, right?”
“Right!” both Eden and Emma chirped. But then a second later, I took a big swipe with my battle axe and both twins gasped before covering their eyes with their hands.
“See!” Brandi said in her best I-told-you-so big-sister tone.
I paused the game and was just about to say something stupid when Mom’s voice cut in. “Ben?”