I got the sweater out of the waistband of her skirt without too much trouble. But then I started to work one hand up under the front of the sweater, and she broke the kiss and put her hand on mine, and pushed.
“Please, Chip.”
“Francine, you’re so beautiful.”
“Chip, I don’t want you to do that.”
“I think you have the most beautiful breasts in the world.”
“I don’t — you do?”
“Yes.”
“You’re just saying that. Chip—”
A kiss, but not a very successful one.
“You have a great line, Chip. My goodness, what a line you have.”
“It’s not a line.”
“Oh, your hands just won’t behave. Please don’t do that.”
“Francine, I want to look at you.”
“Oh, come off it. I know what you want.”
“I have to see you.”
“Sure, you just have to see me.”
“Your breasts are beautiful, Francine.”
“You shouldn’t talk like that. I hardly know you. I mean, after all—”
“Beautiful.”
“Oh.”
“Beautiful.”
“If I thought I could trust you—”
“You can trust me, Francine.”
“I mean if it wasn’t so utterly physical—”
“You know it’s more than that, Francine.”
“I mean—”
“Francine—”
“Oh,” she said, finally, and shrugged me away, and just as I was about to reach for her again and start the whole process over, she gave a little sigh and pulled the sweater up over her head. There was a moment when the yellow sweater covered her head completely while leaving her chest uncovered (except for the bra, of course) and that image imprinted itself on my memory. There was something really appropriate about it, the whole image of Francine with the best part of her right out in the open and her stupid mouth covered up. If I were an artist I would paint that scene. I think if it was painted right you could look at it and know everything you would ever need to know about Francine.
But she was only like this for a second, and then the sweater was off and the arms were extended and the lips parted and the eyes glazed, and it was at that very moment that I knew for certain that I could forget about bases and goal lines and all, that I could stop crawling around inside my own head and giving myself halftime pep talks, because it was all set and all arranged and all decided and it was all in the bag and Chip Harrison was going to stop being a virgin and start being a man.
I kissed her.
And we stretched out on the bed together.
Her skin was so soft. It’s unbelievable how soft girls are. I got my hands around her and unhooked her bra, and although I am not the deftest person on earth it went well enough, and I eased it off over her shoulders and bared her breasts. And just as I was doing this our eyes caught, and I looked at her eyes and her mouth, the whole expression on her face, and she was pleased and amused and calm, and her eyes said that she knew what was happening and liked what was happening and that everything would work out just fine.
She was so beautiful.
I got completely involved in those breasts. I couldn’t stop touching and kissing them. It wasn’t a question of trying to do one thing and then another, of trying to get further and further with her, because it had already been established that we were going to do the whole thing and all that mattered now was to do it as well as possible. So instead of trying to put something over on her, I was trying to excite her as much as possible and to do things that I enjoyed, and it sure worked.
“Oh, Chip. That feels so nice—”
Her skin tasted of sugar and spice and secret girl smells. I liked her breasts like a little kid with an ice cream cone, wanting to take a big bite but wanting to make it last as long as I could. I nibbled and gobbled and she made these wonderful heavy breathing sounds and started squirming on the bed underneath me.
“Take off your shirt, Chip. I want to feel you against me.”
When I take off my shirt, you don’t get reminded at once of Greek sculpture. I’m not a ninety-seven pound weakling, but I’m not exactly Charles Atlas either. I’m sort of bony and undernourished in appearance. But I took the shirt off, and when I glanced at Francine’s eyes, she didn’t seem that disappointed with what I was unveiling. As a matter of fact, she looked hungry.
“Oh, Chip—”
I kissed her, and our tongues renewed their old friendship, and our chests pressed together. Mine got the better of the deal. Her nipples were as hard as little rosebuds and I brushed my upper body back and forth over them and she moaned and wiggled in response.
After a long time of kissing and touching and feeling, after I had told her how beautiful her breasts were and how delicious her flesh tasted and felt, and after she had told me how wonderful I made her feel and how sweet I was and how much she cared for me, after all of that, she lay down and closed her eyes and raised her hips a little so that I could take her skirt off. It wasn’t hard at all. I just opened the button and unzipped the zipper and pulled the skirt down and off — it was a green plaid skirt, for those of you who don’t have color sets. And then it was off, and she was lying there in her panties, and I discovered the half-inch crescent-shaped scar on the inside of her thigh, and I didn’t think of it as a fault at all. In fact, I didn’t think that Francine had any faults. Only good points, and an abundance of them.
I ran my hands over her legs. Until that moment I don’t think I ever realized just how important legs are. Girls’ legs, I mean. How important it is that they be great-looking. I had always paid a lot of attention to faces and breasts and behinds, and I knew the difference between great-looking legs and lousy-looking legs, but I was never that excited about legs.
You live and you learn. Francine had great-looking legs, and all spread out like that, naked except for the panties, I was really able to see the whole girl. As an entity, I mean. And I realized the importance of the legs.
(I don’t know if this is coming through very well. Call it an intuitive flash, a sudden burst of insight, which after all is how most great discoveries come about. The major breakthroughs never occur because someone sat down and thought things out. They come in flashes. Newton and the apple, for instance. Paul on the road to Damascus. Archimedes in the bathtub. Chip Harrison in bed with Francine.)
“Chip?”
Her eyes were closed, and if there was any expression on her face, I couldn’t read it. She seemed very calm, completely relaxed, but I could see she was trembling inside.
“You can take them off.”
I put my hands on her shoulders. I ran them very slowly down over her breasts and stomach and grazed her panties and went on all the way down those legs to her feet.
“My panties. You can take them off.”
“Yes.”
“You can... do anything.”
“Yes.”
“Anything you want to.”
Her voice was different than it had ever been before, older and younger, both at once. Softer, mostly. And as if for the first time, I was hearing Francine speak without any phoniness in the way.
I wanted to say something but I couldn’t. My throat was blocked, knotted up.
I took off her pants. I took off her wispy nylon pants and squeezed them in a ball and held on to them with both hands. I wanted to nail them to the wall over the bed as a trophy. I wanted to sleep with them under my pillow. I wanted to chew them up and swallow them.
“Chip—”
I put the panties aside.
I put my hands on her thighs and she opened them, parted her thighs, and I looked at her.
I could smell her.