Then, very softly and very honestly, she said: “I don’t know.”
He waited for her to go on.
“I like you,” she said. “I like you very much and I’m very strongly attracted to you. Is that enough?”
“Enough for what?”
“Enough for me to sleep with you.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “That’s something you have to decide for yourself.”
She nodded, understanding. “I’m glad you asked me this way,” she said. “Just simple and straightforward, without kissing me or anything like that. It makes more sense this way.”
“I don’t like to play games. Back-seat seductions are all right in high school but they get boring after awhile. As well as uncomfortable.” He said the last sentence with a grin, and she returned it.
“I’m... a virgin,” she said. “Does that matter?”
“Not to me. It might to you.”
“I’m not sure whether it does or not. I didn’t plan on waiting until I got married or anything like that, Don. I came here and decided before I got here that the first man I wanted to sleep with would be the first man I would sleep with. I don’t like to play games either.”
“It’s up to you,” he said. “I like you and I want you very much. You’re a very beautiful girl.”
“Do you think so?”
“Of course. You should wear your hair loose, though, and get rid of that pony tail. Your hair is lovely. It shouldn’t be all bound up like that.”
She pulled her pony tail around and removed the rubber band. Then she fluffed her hair back in place.
“Is it better this way?”
“Much,” he said, reaching out a hand to stroke her hair. It was the first time he had touched her since he placed his hands on her shoulders in the office, and now a little shiver went through her.
“Don,” she said, haltingly, “if... if we made love, where would we go?”
“I have an apartment off-campus. I don’t have a roommate and it’s completely private. No one would bother us.”
That was the way she wanted it, of course. No quick tumble in the back seat of a car, no furtive fumbling in a dormitory room where you had to hurry because somebody might come in, where you had to be very quiet because somebody might hear you through the thin walls. It shouldn’t be that way, not the first time. It should be free and easy, with plenty of room and plenty of time.
And he would know what he was doing. He would be sure of himself, very sure, and he would know how to make love to her properly.
“I probably won’t even know what to do,” she said, but she had already decided what she was going to do. “I probably wouldn’t be much good at all, Don. Are you sure you want me?”
He smiled. “You’ll learn.”
“Will you be... gentle with me?”
He pulled her close to him and kissed her twice, first her lips and then the tip of her nose.
“You’ll be gentle,” she said. “I know you will. I... I want you to make love to me, Don. I want it very much.”
He kissed her again, a soft kiss, a gentle kiss. Then he turned the key in the ignition and pushed the starter button and backed the car out of the parking lot. She moved closer to him on the seat and their bodies were touching as he drove, more quickly this time, to the house where he lived.
His apartment was off on the other side of town, a ground-floor apartment in a brick building on Nemo Street. It was small — one room with a private bathroom — and it was only slightly less disordered than the Record office. Discarded clothing carpeted the floor and there were books everywhere, overflowing the bookcase and covering the top of the cigarette-scarred dresser. There were empty beer cans piled in an incongruously neat pile in one corner of the room.
She heard him close the door and bolt it and she turned to him. “Here we are,” she said.
He walked to her. He took her in his arms and kissed her, and this time the kiss was not like the gentle pecks in the car. His lips came down on hers like a hawk on a field mouse and he crushed her tight against him so that her breasts were pressed against his chest. He twined his fingers in her long blonde hair and parted her lips with his tongue, exciting her more with the kiss than anything had ever excited her before. She clung to him and returned the kiss, touching his tongue with hers, moving her hands over his back, pulling him close to her.
When they parted he walked to the bathroom and turned on the light. Then he came back and turned off the overhead light so that only the soft, indirect light from the bathroom illuminated the room. He came to her and took each of her hands in one of his and looked into her eyes. She thought that it was clever of him to turn on the bathroom light and she wondered how often he had done it in the past, how many other girls he had made love to in that very room. She pushed the thought out of her mind; she didn’t want to know, not now.
“Now what?” she asked shakily, knowing she shouldn’t be talking or asking questions. “Do you want me to take off my clothes?”
He smiled softly. “Not now,” he said, and his voice was low and husky. “Not the first time. I want to undress you.”
He sat down on the bed and she sat down next to him. He held her close and their mouths fused together, their tongues working. He kicked off his shoes and stretched out on the bed and she followed suit, wondering if whoever lived upstairs would notice the four shoes dropping. Then he took her in his arms and she was taut against him from head to toe and the thought went out of her mind.
She closed her eyes. His hand touched her breast and she reached out a hand to touch him but he pushed her hand aside.
“Lie still,” he told her. “Lie very still.” She did as he told her and his hands were light and skillful, touching and stroking her breasts and working her into a quiet frenzy. His lips were busy planting small kisses on her eyelids and lips and ears. Then he unclasped and unzipped her black skirt and drew it down over her hips. She was wearing thin white silk panties and she wondered whether he could see her through them now, but she forced herself to remain motionless on her back, her eyes still closed, her arms still at her sides, her heart beating like a time bomb minutes away from a shattering explosion.
He began to stroke and caress her legs, starting at her ankles. He touched her knees, then her thighs, and it was with an effort that she kept herself from reaching for him and hauling him down on top of her. Every touch of his sure hands had the desired effect and excited her as she had never been excited before, and she wondered how a man could know so much about women, could be so certain of the ways to arouse her and work her into a frenzy.
When he took off her sweater she arched her back to help him and then raised her head. Her long hair got tangled up in the sweater for a second or two; then it was free and his hands were all over her, touching her. He removed her bra a second later and his hands on her bare breasts were fire upon silk. He held them and squeezed them, pinching the nipples until they were harder than they had ever been. His mouth kissed the hollow between her breasts and his cheeks burned against the sides of her twin globes of smooth flesh.
He kissed her breasts in turn, kissing with his lips and tongue, kissing and licking and sucking at her breasts and sending her pulse racing still faster. She couldn’t control her breathing any longer and she was panting audibly.
“Don!”
“Shhh. Lie still.”
Her panties slipped slowly over her hips and thighs and calves and the silk was smooth as a caress on her bare flesh. Now he was stroking her thighs again with one hand while he undressed himself with the other, but when she looked up and saw him lying naked beside her she was afraid again, afraid of being hurt, afraid of doing something she had never done before.