textfiles/sex/EROTICA/G/getting.txt

                              GETTING IT RIGHT
                               (A Beginning)



   Back in the Kennedy era, it wasn't easy for a 17-year-old male, going
to a good school in an upper-middle-class suburb, to lose his virginity. 
Not without having to pay.  Kids these days,... God, listen to the old
geezer!  Kids in the '90s who haven't fucked on the second date probably
figure they've screwed up (so to speak).  And that may have been the
case in L.A. or Greenwich Village when I was a teenager -- but certainly
not on the north side of San Antonio.
   That decade held world-changing surprises for all of us, but at its
beginning things still moved slowly and cautiously.  Call me a fogy, but
teenagers in the '60s and '70s gained sexual liberation at the cost of
romance.
   The Locker Room Liars Club used the classic baseball metaphors in
describing their alleged successes on dates.  "First base" meant the
girl had allowed you to squeeze her tits (through an armored bra) and/or
stroke her thighs (through a dress and petticoats); "second base" meant
removing the bra and petticoats and getting your hands on the girl
herself.  "Third base" was getting her panties off (and probably a
garter belt, in that pre-pantyhose era) and soaking your fingers in
nectar; this was as much a cause for rejoicing as a three-bagger out on
the diamond.
   A "home run," of course, meant replacing your fingers with your cock
-- and while the guys all talked like they were Babe Ruth, I doubted any
of them had actually scored.
   For myself, I was reasonably good-looking, reasonably smart,
reasonably athletic, and had a reasonable amount of pocket money to
lavish on a date.  So I had a lot of bases to my credit, but under 'HR'
on the scoreboard I was '0' for at least a dozen powerhouse swings.  And
it sure wasn't for lack of playing the game.
   Part of the problem was my practical restriction to "nice" girls ...
and nice girls didn't fuck.  No girl worth liking would allow such a
thing.  The "bad" girls were already hooked up with the bad guys, the
ones who hung around the school auto body shop in the afternoon.  They
were lightweights by '90s pistol-packing standards, but we referred to
them as "hoods" and we didn't encroach on their women.


   Then, quite magically, everything changed in September 1961, the
first week of my senior year.  We had "open" summer school, which you
don't see much anymore: You could take virtually any of your solids for
first-time credit, not just to repeat courses you'd flunked.  I'd had
most of my math, science, and language courses -- all of which I had
trouble with -- during the summers, so I could concentrate on a single
tough subject for six weeks, pass it, and get it out of the way.
   By my senior year, I had two open periods in my schedule.  One of
them was spent in the Journalism office, where I worked as Features
Editor on the school paper; I often worked there late after school, I
loved writing so much.  The other period I worked in the library or in
the language lab; we actually had the first such lab in San Antonio,
reel-to-reel wet carrels and all.
   On Thursday of that first week, I was sitting behind the check-out
desk in the library, saying 'Hi' to friends who had come to work on the
first round of themes and book reports, when a girl whom I hadn't seen
before came up to ask for directions.  That meant she was almost
certainly a new student and I noted that the American Lit book under her
arm was for senior English.  She was quite attractive and, in between
stamping book cards, I watched her moving in and out of the stacks in
search of her topic.
   Then it got kinda busy and I lost track of her.  When the rush died
down, I walked around the large room, discretely peering down the
aisles, but she'd already gone.  And she hadn't checked out anything so
I didn't know her name.


   The first school dance of the year was that Friday.  I went stag
since it was essentially a social mixer to kick off the year and I
wasn't dating anyone in particular.  Tommy Thompson, my chemistry lab
partner the previous year and a perfectly nice guy, brought a casual
date, a pretty brunette who had recently moved in a few houses down from
him.
   You guessed it: The girl from the library the day before.  Fate
works.  He introduced her to me as Mary McAllister, and I basically
stole her from him that night.  It wasn't intentional, I swear.
   Mary had moved down from Dallas that summer because her father was
the new head of the biology department at Trinity.  I knew Tommy lived
up in the Heights, off Cambridge Oval, so I could make a good guess at
Mary's social and economic status (the area was all big Victorians on
large lots, the kind of houses that sell in the mid-six figures these
days).
   I asked Tommy would he mind if I asked his date for a dance; he
laughed and told us to go ahead.  He'd only asked Mary as a neighborly
gesture so she wouldn't have to come by herself.  So Mary and I danced
during the slow dances and talked during the fast ones.  Each time
through the cycle, our dancing became slower and closer and our talk
warmer and deeper.  And I had the opportunity to catalog her more
closely.
   Her hair was down in waves and curls around her shoulders and it
smelled wonderful.  She wore a crew-neck cashmere sweater, pleated wool
skirt, and black suede loafers, just like 80% of the other girls in the
gym.  And her pearls emphasized her long neck.  But what captured me was
her face.  Her eyes were large and luminous brown with slightly arched
eyebrows that made her appear always a bit surprised.  Her lips were a
bit more full than average, soft and very red, even without lipstick.
   We ended up out in the gym parking lot, leaning side by side against
somebody's fender and holding hands.  I was smitten.  We eventually
realized, from the growing emptiness of the parking lot, that the dance
was ending and so was the evening.  We went in search of Tommy and found
him drinking a coke and gossiping amiably with two other guys.  We took
him aside and apologized abjectly -- me for absconding with his date,
Mary for deserting him.
   He took it all in good humor; he had seen us deep in conversation and
holding hands, and apparently decided to cast himself as unintentional
Cupid.  He'd gone off and found plenty of other girls who were delighted
to dance with him.  As I said: a nice guy.  Mary had come with Tommy,
however, and it was Tommy who took her home.  We had unwritten rules
about things like that.
   I spent most of Saturday and Sunday mooning over Mary.  I had already
asked if I could see her again, like that weekend, but she was committed
(regretfully, it seemed) to some kind of family get-together.  We had
agreed to meet at lunch on Monday, though, since we both ate following
Third Period.
   Lunch was a 45-minute hustle, but I beat my own best time that day
getting to the cafeteria.  Even so, Mary had gotten there first and had
staked out one end of a table off to the side of the big, noisy room --
the side that was, by general agreement, reserved for seniors,
especially couples who always ate together.  I took her choice of
seating as a signal.
   The way her eyes lit up when she spotted me in the jockeying lunch
crowd ... well, I never forgot it.  Her hair was pulled back in a
ponytail that bobbed as she smiled and waved to me.  God, she even had
cute ears.
   There was technically a rule about public displays of affection on
school grounds, but it was only enforced occasionally, when a couple
lost control of themselves.  Small infractions like holding hands below
the corner of the lunch table were winked at.  We didn't do much eating
-- just held hands, talked, and exchanged a number of long, searching
gazes.  Several of the guys I hung around with noticed my preoccupation,
naturally, and they grilled me without mercy at my locker that
afternoon.  I didn't say a word -- just grinned like an idiot.
   We met after school, of course.  Mary lived too far in the wrong
direction for me to walk her home and get home myself before supper, but
we were able to spend half an hour sitting under a tree at the edge of
the softball field behind the Band Hall.  And I worked up the nerve to
touch her hair, to wind the end of that bouncy ponytail around my
finger.  She blushed, but she liked it, and that gave me a tingly
thrill.
   We met somewhere, for a little while, every day that week.  Twice, I
walked her home anyway and the heck with supper (which got me a look of
disbelief from my mother).  And Friday night we went out on our first
real date.
   As an "only child" since my older sister's marriage a couple years
before, I had no trouble borrowing the family car, and I hurried home
from school to hose it down in the driveway and vacuum out the inside
(which got me a look of disbelief from my *father*).
   We were just going to go to a movie at the Olmos, with vague plans
for a hamburger after, but I was more nervous than I had been as a
freshman going out on my first high school date.  Mary could see I was
trying to do everything just right, just for her, and she seemed
flattered by the careful attention.  When I held her hand in the
theater, she squeezed it a little and laid her other hand on my arm. 
After that, I had *no* idea what was happening on the screen.
   Afterward, we walked up the block and split a big steak sandwich and
onion rings at the Nighthawk.  I know it all sounds pretty tame -- but
when Mary motioned for me to open my mouth and fed me an onion ring that
she herself had personally selected ... well, it was the best onion ring
I'd ever eaten.  That's romance for you.
   Back in the car, I hesitated before turning the ignition and asked
Mary if she'd like to go and see Eisenhauer Road.  She kind of smiled
and gazed at me thoughtfully, and then said "Okay, let's go take a
look."  It was obvious someone had already told her about our "legal"
parking territory.
   Eisenhauer Road was out on the very edge of town, out beyond
MacArthur Park, almost in the country.  Now it's in the middle of an
expensive housing development, but then it consisted of two straight and
narrow lanes edged by pasture.  Along one side was a wide gravel
shoulder overhung by big oak trees.  And not a street light for three
miles.
   The students at my high school had an informal arrangement with the
police patrols.  We could park on that gravel shoulder without being
hassled as long as (1) we didn't park too close together, (2) we stayed
in the car with the doors locked, (3) we didn't honk the horn and annoy
people, and (4) the patrol car that passed once or twice an hour could
see bodies above the lower edges of the windows.  In return, there were
no assaults or bottle-throwing and the patrol officers -- most of whom
were only in their early 20s -- effectively protected us from
interlopers.
   Parents, of course, weren't supposed to know about Eisenhauer Road,
but I'm sure most of them did.  They didn't say anything because they
knew their kids were going to go parking *somewhere*, and this was the
best option around.  Girls knew they could go there and be as safe as
they wanted to be.  It was a good deal all round.
   Driving slowly down the dark road, watching for a vacant spot, I
wondered if I was doomed to disappointment.  Then Mary pointed and said
"There!"  A big Olds I recognized as belonging to Roger Simak (to his
older brother in the Marine Corps, actually) had turned on its lights
and was pulling out.  Roger stuck his arm out the window and waved a
thumbs-up as I pulled in to take his place.
   I cut the engine and turned off the lights -- and suddenly it was
dark and very quiet.  Somehow, stupidly, I had forgotten about that. 
With my hands still on the wheel, I turned my head to look at Mary, and
my brain seized up.
   She was sitting quietly, gazing through the windshield at the shadow
patterns the oaks made on the hood.  Neither of us moved a muscle for
maybe thirty seconds.  Then she glanced in my direction and cranked her
window down an inch, so we could hear the cicadas.
   "I was looking at your profile in the dark," I said.  Which was true,
but I was mostly trying to cover my fumble-mindedness.  "I think you're
beautiful, Mary."  That got me a soft smile.  As my eyes adjusted to the
dimness, I saw that -- true to the game -- she was waiting for me to
make the first move.  Then she would decide how to respond to it.  Nice
girls didn't make the first move.
   I fooled her, though: I didn't *make* a move, or not much of one. 
Actually, I was nervous as hell.  I was already breathing faster than
usual.  There were all kinds of things I could imagine experiencing with
Mary, but I was afraid to attempt any of them for fear of rejection. 
This wasn't just some girl I wanted to wrestle with.  Mary was
different, special, and I didn't want to mess things up.  In later years
I read Sun Tzu: Never fight a battle unless you know you'll win.
   Mary breathed a little sigh, perhaps of exasperation.  "What's the
matter, Mike?"
   "You scare me a little," I replied candidly.  "Or, I guess *I* scare
me.  You're so pretty, Mary,... I'm afraid to touch you."  She looked at
me a little oddly; this probably wasn't the kind of thing she was used
to hearing back in Dallas.
   "Don't you even want to kiss me?"
   I moved hastily from behind the wheel and turned to face her.  "Oh,
yes,... very much."  She leaned her head back against the car seat and
tilted her face toward me.  In the body language of the time, that meant
'Do it, you idiot'.
   I leaned over carefully and kissed her cheek, then the corner of her
mouth, then her lips.  She kissed me back, which was what it took to
unfreeze my brain.  I slipped my arm around her shoulders and she leaned
closer and put one hand on my shoulder.  I took it slow, trying to be
very gentle and romantic.  I knew how to kiss, having deliberately honed
my technique: Romantic, respectful, and (usually) no tongue-play on the
first date.  But kissing Mary was very different, somehow.  In
retrospect, that was the night I fell in love for the first time.
   We only stayed out there an hour or so.  Mary had to be home by
midnight and I didn't want to push my luck; I knew already this was the
beginning of a unique relationship.


   Over the next few months, things really blossomed for us.  We spent
most of every weekend together, went to every football game together,
went for long walks in Brackenridge Park -- anyplace where we could hold
hands and neck.  We also spent a lot of time on her front porch glider,
since her parents wouldn't let her go out on week nights.  I stuck notes
through the slots in her locker and found replies in mine with tiny
hearts drawn neatly around the edges.  We spent hours on the phone, in
those days before call-waiting, which annoyed the hell out of both sets
of parents.
   After about a month, I overcame my fear of rejection; I told Mary one
evening, very earnestly, that I loved her.  I'd never said that to a
girl before.  She kissed me but didn't reply.  Two days later, she left
me a note: She'd been thinking about my declaration and examining her
own feelings, and had concluded that she loved me, too.  I carried the
note in my wallet until it was illegible tatters.
   For her birthday at the end of October, I gave Mary a modest pearl
ring -- not too expensive and not too personal a gift, so neither her
parents nor mine could object.  She understood that her acceptance of it
meant we were going steady; I was already regarding it as one step short
of an engagement ring.
   We went out driving and parking regularly after that and my hormones
were in full gallop.  Mary had very sensitive breasts and when I
squeezed them and sucked avidly on her nipples, she moaned and shivered. 
She liked to ride around with her back leaning against my shoulder so I
could slip my hand down the front of her blouse and play with her tits
as I drove.  As I rolled and pinched her nipples between my thumb and
forefinger she pushed her feet rhythmically against the passenger door.
   It's a mark of my own woeful inexperience that it took so long for me
to realize that sweet Mary was nearly as horny as I was ... and that it
embarrassed her.  Girls were supposed to submit (within limits) to a
boy's passion, not contribute their own.
   I began making territorial assumptions.  Mary would resist my
advances beyond a certain point and get angry; I'd apologize and we'd
make up -- until the next time.
   That "certain point" kept moving, though.  As an unofficial Christmas
present, Mary stuffed her panties in her purse and allowed my hands full
access to her cunt.  She also handled my cock for the first time --
something only a couple of girls had done before.  The feel of her soft
hands on me was almost more than I could bear.
   I really did love Mary; I convinced both of us, anyway.  But I lusted
for her, too, and that began to get in the way.  We also started to
argue a lot.  Our friends, in fact, joked that when we were together,
all we did was argue -- and when we were apart, all we did was talk
about each other.  Things were beginning to unravel, though I hadn't
realized it yet.
   Our dates now were just a pretense to get out to Eisenhauer Road as
quickly as possible.  We spent long hours passionately making out and
very little time cuddling or talking ... or listening.  But that was
what you did with someone you loved, wasn't it?
   I began pressuring Mary to "go all the way," which she adamantly
refused to consider.  You know: "If you loved me..."  It was a
reprehensible tactic and it made her cry more than once.  Then I'd be
miserable and ashamed and I'd beg her forgiveness, and we'd be okay
again, for a week or two.  It was like being on drugs, I guess: I was
high on Mary and no matter how much she gave me, I wanted more.
   Everyone, including us, assumed that she and I would go to the senior
prom together.  I'm not sure I ever explicitly asked her; I only
remember inquiring what kind of flowers I should get for her corsage.
   Neither of us thought very highly of orchids, so she ended up with
bright yellow roses.  I found myself holding my breath, watching her
come down the stairs in her strapless ball gown.  She was absolutely,
breathtakingly beautiful and I fell in love all over again.
   I beamed at everyone when I walked into the hotel ballroom with Mary
on my arm.  She was gorgeous and I was as solicitous as I had been that
first week in September.  We spent the evening dancing and exchanging
melting gazes.  Without doubt, one of the most memorable and romantic
evenings of my life.  And then I went and messed it up.


   Everyone else went to "Earl Abel's" after the prom and then to one of
the several parties that lasted all night.  Mary and I ended up at a
house party being hosted by a guy I didn't know very well, a friend of a
friend.  I wasn't a drinker, nor was Mary, but there was booze available
so we entered into the spirit.  It didn't take much to demolish my
resolves of good behavior and Mary's defenses.  And it didn't dawn on me
until much later that she might be as frustrated as I was at holding the
line on sex.
   Whatever the motivations, we found ourselves in a temporarily private
upstairs bedroom, behind a locked door.  Mary let me unzip the back of
her gown and she pushed it down to her waist herself.  I had never seen
her entirely naked from the waist up and her display was incredibly
exciting for both of us.
   We lay down side by side on the bed and her gown crackled and rustled
as I worked my hands under it and up her legs.  She raised her hips so I
could remove her petticoats and her panties.  This was going to be it, I
thought.
   My tux trousers were unzipped and Mary was slowly masturbating me as
we kissed very deeply.  I stroked her clit and she responded with little
jerking movements and squeezed my cock tighter.  And we held the kiss as
I began to maneuver my way on top of her.  I don't think it was until I
took back my rigid cock and settled myself between her wide-spread knees
that Mary really comprehended what was about to happen.  She got a
panicky look and struggled to push me off.
   "No, Mike, we can't!"  She didn't strike at me, though, or yell, so I
put it down to stage fright or denial 'for the record'.
   "Sure we can, Sweetheart.  No one's going to bother us here.  We love
each other, don't we?"  She continued to push at me as I got my virgin
cock into her virgin pussy on the second lunge, and gasped in momentary
pain.  A few tears showed at the corners of her eyes.
   "No,... no,..." she whimpered and her head swung back and forth.  On
my third or fourth shaky stroke, though, she stopped struggling and even
raised her knees against my ribs.  She began breathing harder and just
as she seemed to accept what I regarded as inevitable,... well, I came. 
I had been in her less than sixty seconds and it was over.
   I pulled out, leaving a sticky trail across her leg, and tried to
kiss her again, but Mary turned her face away.  I couldn't get her to
look at me at all.
     She got up from the bed, the top of her gown still flapping
loosely, and took some tissues from a box on the bedside table.  She
tossed the box to me without a word and then turned her back while she
cleaned herself up.  I wiped enough semen off myself so as not to stain
the tux and when I looked up again, Mary had her top back in place and
her undergarments back on.
   I got up, pulled on my jacket, and tried to put my arms around her
but she easily evaded me and grabbed up her clutch purse.  Then she
looked at me for the first time in five minutes, a very unhappy look,
and said evenly "Take me home, please."
   It was not a pleasant drive.  Mary sat miles away, over against the
passenger door, and all the way back to her house I kept telling her I
loved her and asking what I had done.  Hadn't she wanted to make love as
much as I had?  That only got me a stony stare and deeper silence.  When
we pulled up to the curb in front of her house, I turned off the engine
and set the brake, and turned to face her.
   "Mary, please -- for God's sake, *talk* to me!  You know I love you. 
You must have known this was going to happen--"
   "You keep *saying* you love me, but I don't think you really do," she
said.  There was bitterness in her voice.  "I trusted you to stop before
you went that far."
   That didn't sound quite fair.  "I wasn't there by myself, you know. 
And you seemed to be enjoying it."
   She looked down guiltily.  "You think only boys get those feelings? 
That's why I had to trust you."
   I didn't know how to respond to that and I was hurt by her
accusations.  I got out and went around to her side of the car but she'd
already opened the door and was climbing out.  It stung even more that
she hadn't waited for me to open her door for her (as I always did),
especially on such a formal date.  I walked up the flagstone path and
climbed the porch steps.
   When the evening began, I had expected we'd sit a little while on the
glider and talk about what a wonderful time we'd had at our senior prom. 
What actually happened was that Mary said, very politely, "Thanks for
taking me to the prom, Mike," and gave me a brief, almost ceremonial
kiss.  Then I was standing on the porch by myself.  I've never felt so
awful in my life, before or since -- except for two weeks later.


   When I saw Mary in the hall Monday morning, she smiled and greeted
me, but not very enthusiastically.  This rift wasn't going to go away. 
I spent all that day and most of the next writing a long note to her --
a combination love letter, apology, and plea for understanding and
reconciliation.  I've always communicated much more easily on paper than
in person.  I stuffed it in her locker on Wednesday morning and crossed
my fingers.
   And it worked.  Wednesday evening, I called Mary for the first time
in four days.  The conversation boiled down to her accepting my abject
apology and agreeing to give us another chance, and my promise that
things would be different.  We made a date for Saturday night -- the
last weekend before the early senior finals.
   It went pretty well, considering my nervousness.  I took her out for
a bite and then we came back and strolled for blocks around her
neighborhood, talking things out, agreeing that we were both to blame
for what had happened on prom night, and that we would both be more
aware of each other's feelings.  By the time we arrived back at her
front porch, we were holding hands and exchanging warm smiles.  Then we
sat on the steps and I got anxious again.  I squeezed her hand.
   "Mary, may I kiss you...?"
   "You'd better!"  Then she beat me to it by leaning over and kissing
me first.  We went into a clinch and sobbed quietly on each other's
shoulder.
   That should have been the end of our crisis.  I thought I had learned
my lesson and I tried very hard to behave myself around Mary for the two
weeks that remained until graduation.  We only went out to Eisenhauer
Road once more and that was mostly a replay of our first couple of
visits: Much hugging and passionate kissing, but only casual contact
below the shoulders.
   The next Wednesday was the last day of school for graduating seniors. 
We received our yearbooks and sat on the floor in the halls, leaning
against the walls, so we could pass the books hand-to-hand and sign our
pictures and write little messages and the traditional verses to our
friends.  Later, when we had a chance at privacy, I filled half a page
in Mary's yearbook with my hopes.  Her inscription in my book was much
more restrained.
   On Thursday afternoon we came back to pick up our caps and gowns for
Friday night's Commencement.  Mary and I posed in them in front of the
school while a friend took our picture; she wouldn't hold my hand.
   Looking at that photo now -- oh yes, I still have it -- looking at it
from a distance of thirty years, the sleepless worry lines on her pretty
face are obvious.  Why didn't I see them then?
   Commencement was held in the Japanese Tea Garden at Brackenridge
Park.  A nice setting, but the ceremony itself was as boring as I had
feared -- except for the part where they handed me my fake diploma
scroll; that was fun.
   Afterward, in the congratulatory crowd, Mary excused herself from her
family and motioned to me from across the expanse of folding chairs.  I
made my excuses to my folks for a few minutes and went to join her.
   "Congratulations!" I said and tried to give her a quick kiss.
   She turned her head away and said flatly, "We have to talk."  Her
expression hoisted all my anxiety flags.  There were a dozen all-night
graduation parties scheduled and I asked her hesitantly which she wanted
to go to first.
   "I remember the *last* party we went to," she said grimly.  I was
stunned.  I thought we'd put that behind us.  "I'm late," she whispered
furiously.
   "What?"  I had no idea what she was talking about.
   "I'm two weeks late on my period," she said.
   Oh, shit.  She was pregnant.  We were only eighteen and I'd knocked
up the girl I was in love with.  My parents would kill me.  Her parents
would kill me again.  I certainly wasn't so stupid as to think I could
support a wife and child on what little I could earn working in a
supermarket or whatever.  But this was Mary.
   "If I'm responsible--" I began.
   She turned on me with a hiss.  "Of *course* you're responsible!  How
many guys do you think I've *been* with?!"  I thought she was going to
burst into tears and slug me, and I put up my hands in a placating
gesture.
   "No, no -- I was going to say 'If I'm responsible, then I'm
responsible'.  I love you, Mary.  I hope you don't think I was going to
ditch you, run off or something...."
   "Oh...  No, I guess I didn't think that."  Her anger receded into the
background and she went back to being merely tired, unhappy, and afraid. 
"What are we going to do, then?  What am *I* going to do?"
   "I don't know yet.  Give me a chance to think."
   "Okay, but you'd better make it fast.  I have to know whether to
start looking for a job for the next six months, because we're going to
need money.  And whether or not we're staying in San Antonio, or moving
to Austin, or what."
   God, another complication.  I had already been accepted at UT for the
fall while Mary was committed to going to Trinity, her father's school. 
Seventy miles hadn't seemed far to travel to see each other on weekends. 
Now that whole future was in doubt.
   I suppose my abstracted expression gave Mary the wrong idea because
she grabbed my arm suddenly.  Her nails hurt.  "You *are* going to marry
me, aren't you?  If I'm pregnant?"  She managed to look aggressive and
defensive at the same time.
   I stared back at her in disbelief.  "Mary, I love you.  I *love* you. 
Haven't I said I want to marry you?  I just didn't expect it to happen
like this."  No, I sure didn't.


   I didn't have much to celebrate that evening.  My parents were
puzzled that I wasn't planning to go to any of the parties and they kept
asking prying questions, so I left the house after all.  But I didn't
party.  I just drove aimlessly around the north side of town, tailed
closely by guilt and despair, trying to figure out what to do.
   I didn't want to get married.  That is, I *wanted* to marry her --
but not yet and not like this.  We'd either starve or be forced to go to
our parents for financial support, and I wasn't sure which was worse.  I
finally went home after my folks had turned in and I lay in bed most of
the night with my eyes wide open.
   I got up the next morning tired and drawn and sat on the porch for
hours, becoming more and more depressed.  I didn't call Mary at all that
Saturday because I had nothing to say, yet.
   Sunday afternoon, Mary called me.  "I've started," she said with
unnatural calm.
   "You what?"  God, I was dense.
   "I started my period, just a little while ago.  Why don't you ever
listen?"
   The surge of relief left me weak in the knees and I had to sit down. 
"Thank God," I said softly.  "Mary, I'm so sorry you had to go through
this."
   "Not as sorry as I am," she replied, still very calmly.  "I don't
think we should see each other anymore."
   "But, Mary--"  She cut me off.
   "I've made up my mind, Mike.  Don't call me, don't try to see me. 
Not ever again."
   "But I love you, Mary...."  I could hear the despondency in my own
voice.
   "No," she said coldly, "you don't."
   "Please, don't do this--"
   "It's over, Mike.  I'm sorry, but it is.  Goodbye."  And the line
went dead.  I sat and stared at the receiver, shocked by the finality of
it, until the off-hook beeping started.
   I was seriously depressed for weeks.  I felt I didn't want to live,
not cut off like this.  If I'd really had a suicidal streak, I
undoubtedly would have killed myself.


   But I didn't, of course.  I sobered considerably that summer.  Losing
the girl I loved had the odd effect of maturing me, cold turkey.  I had
gone to the brink and peered over, and now I became much more cautious. 
And I did a lot of ruminating about the past year.
   A few days before I left for freshman orientation at UT, I sat down
and wrote Mary a calm, composed letter, apologizing for my behavior and
the emotional strain I had caused her -- not just for the pregnancy
scare but for everything.  I wished her the best in the future and hoped
she'd at least keep some of the good memories of our months together. 
She'd be in my thoughts and I hoped she wouldn't hate me.  I didn't
plead or grovel and I didn't throw myself on her mercy.  I accepted that
our relationship was dead.
   I didn't receive a reply, but I didn't expect to.  But making a
gentlemanly final exit made the whole thing easier to accept.
   I did manage to keep track of Mary for a few years, though.  A close
girlfriend of hers who attended UT for a year before dropping out told
me she had sobbed for most of a day after receiving that last letter. 
That made me feel much better -- not out of revenge, but because it
meant she *had* loved me, for awhile.  She had to have felt something,
to feel its loss.  There really *had* been two people in that
relationship, before I killed it.
   Other people we both knew updated me on Mary at intervals.  She was
married the year she graduated from Trinity, to a guy from Chicago.  She
had a son a couple years later.  And a couple years after that, she got
divorced.  Thereafter, she worked in a law office in Houston, the name
of which I discovered quite by accident.
   My last indirect contact with Mary was on her thirtieth birthday,
when I had thirty long-stemmed yellow roses delivered to her at work.  I
included no card but I was pretty sure she would know who had sent them. 
It was like a last apology.

                                 *  *  *  *  *



                             GETTING IT RIGHT
                                (A Middle)



   So I went up to Austin and waded through the history and political
science curriculum.  I certainly wasn't a monk my first two years, but
I'd gotten a couple of small scholarships and I worked hard to maintain
my GPA.  I discovered my element in the academic arena and I did much
better than I had in high school.
   I spent the first year and half of the second in a dorm, which was
okay, but I never really took to forced communal living.  Around
Christmas of my sophomore year, two friends took me aside one evening
and made me a proposition.  They had found a three-bedroom apartment not
too far from campus and they were looking for a third roommate to share
the expenses.  The had discussed the possibilities for several days and
I was their first choice.  Both of them were good students, neither was
addicted to wild parties, and the money was considerably less than I was
paying for room and board in the dorm.  The term was ending so I agreed
and cleared the arrangement with my folks (I was still under 21).  By
New Year's Eve, I was moved in.
   Gary and Ed, my new roomies, valued their privacy as much as I did
and we got along fine, each with his own room to escape to.  I was a
much better cook than either of them, though I taught them the basics. 
On the other hand, they didn't mind housework and I hated it, so the
chores divided up pretty evenly.  As it turned out, the three of us
shared quarters for 2-1/2 years until graduation with a minimum of
squabbling, and we parted good friends.  We all live in different parts
of the country now but we still keep in touch.
   Ed was from Baton Rouge and didn't know many girls in Austin, but
Gary, who was from Fort Worth, was luckier: His high school sweetheart
had also chosen UT.  She was a blonde, bouncy little drama major named
Sherry (I know: "Gary and Sherry," like a bad song) and she was careful
not to intrude when she came over to see Gary.  She was cheerful and
pleasant and pretty, and Ed and I quickly accepted her frequent
presence.  She never stayed overnight, though.
   Sometimes I'd come home and hear muffled sounds of bedsprings and
passionate moaning from behind Gary's closed bedroom door.  I'd go on
about my business and when they emerged, Sherry would pat me on the arm
in greeting and I'd give her a big smile in return, and no one would
mention the bedroom.  She was a sweet girl, very much in love with Gary,
and Ed and I silently envied them both.
   In mid-December of my junior year, almost exactly a year since the
three of us had set up housekeeping, Sherry took me aside one afternoon
and asked with elaborate casualness if I might be interested in meeting
a friend of hers who had just transferred from Texas Wesleyan.  Ed had
begun dating a certain special girl regularly by then, and I think
Sherry felt it was her responsibility to see that I wasn't left out.  I
was flattered, certainly, but I'd become cautious about women and it was
a habit I didn't intend to break.  I dated often enough, though only on
a purely social basis, and I enjoyed the occasional sweaty make-out
session with a girl at a party, but there was very little emotional
involvement.  The last thing I wanted was entanglements.
   Sherry was so earnest, I suggested she bring her friend to the
pre-Christmas open-house we were planning the next weekend.  That way,
if it didn't work out, her friend would have the party as fallback
entertainment.  Had I known what I was getting into, I might have
chickened out.
   I was bedding down a case of Lone Star in the ice-filled bathtub the
evening of the open-house when Sherry turned up with her friend in tow. 
She didn't seem to think it odd, making introductions in the bathroom,
and Rose and I hit it off immediately.  She was a compact little
brunette with sultry dark eyes and almost too much makeup, and lots of
tan.  She favored tight blouses and short skirts, which was okay with
me.
   Rose glanced around at the tile and the hand towels and laughed. 
"First time I ever had a date in the john," she said, and her eyes
twinkled conspiratorially, making it a shared joke.
   About a third of our small apartment complex was older students and
another third was young faculty, so most of the tenants were having
open-door parties.  I pulled on my Christmas sweater, the one with
reindeer all over it (my mother's idea), and Rose and I went out to make
the rounds of the parties while Gary and Ed and their girlfriends held
down the fort for awhile at our place.  She was the perfect date for
such an occasion: Pretty and charming, friendly and outgoing, and
apparently capable of drinking anyone under the table.  We had a great
time.
   After three or four hours of conviviality, we found ourselves back at
the apartment; Gary and Ed headed out with their dates and I wasn't
about to start on the litter until morning, if then.  I was a bit
unfocused, being unaccustomed to so much beer in so short a time.  I was
too gassed to drive but I could walk and talk if I took it slow.  Once I
sat down on the couch it seemed easier to stay there.  And when Rose
plopped down on my lap and kicked off her shoes, it seemed easier to
keep her there, too.
   I had nothing specific in mind when I gave her a friendly squeeze and
kissed her briefly on the neck.  I liked her and it seemed like the
thing to do.  Rose hooked her arm around my shoulder and studied my face
thoughtfully for a moment.  Then she leaned in and kissed me, long,
hard, and deep.  I hadn't been kissed with that much initiative since-- 
Well, since Mary.
   Then she put her lips close to my ear and said softly, "I really like
you, Mike.  Let's go in the bedroom and fuck."
   The seconds passed while I digested that.  It was a week short of
1965, but the Sixties hadn't really arrived in Texas, wouldn't for
several years yet, and I had never heard a suggestion like that from a
girl.  I must have been staring at her in disbelief, because Rose sort
of shrugged and said "Well, if you don't want to, that's okay..."
   At which point I said something suave like "No, let's do it!"  A bad
mistake.
   I don't know whether it was the beer, or the fact that I hadn't
gotten laid since I started college, or just general nervousness, but it
turned into a long evening.  When we got to my bedroom and shut the
door, I fumbled badly trying to take off Rose's blouse and skirt and she
had to finish.  I couldn't manage her bra at all.  Then she had to help
me out of my own clothes.  I was barely sober enough to be aware that I
was embarrassing myself badly.
   The next mental snapshot on that roll is of me, sucking Rose's lavish
tits and trying desperately to will myself into an erection.  We both
were doing a lot of moaning, but for different reasons.  She was very
understanding, though, and did a class job of sucking on my cock until I
was stiff enough to be useful to her.
   Then she climbed on top of me and stuffed my bewildered cock into her
cunt.  I squeezed her large, jiggling breasts and I squeezed her smooth,
muscular ass.  I squeezed every part of her I could reach.  Perhaps I
was still astonished at suddenly being completely naked and in bed with
a very sexy girl only a few hours after we'd met.  And perhaps I'm too
much of a romantic to get very worked up without foreplay.
   It ended after ten or fifteen minutes with Rose masturbating herself
to a climax while the head of my cowardly cock sat lodged just inside
her, as if it had dozed off.  When she finished her series of little
shudders, she slid off me and lay propped up on her elbow.
   She stroked my hair and said, not unkindly, "Don't worry about it,
honey.  You're just tired and you had a little too much to drink
tonight.  It happens to all guys once in awhile."  It was too much.  I
was frustrated, mortified, horny, and half-drunk -- and now she was
offering me a convenient excuse, like tossing a life preserver.
   "Don't be so fuckin' *nice* about it, for chrissake!"
   She snatched her hand back.  "Well, pardon *me* all to hell!"  She
hopped off the bed and began snatching up clothes from the floor.  She
was seriously annoyed.
   On the third try, I managed to sit upright.  Rose had her underwear
on and was yanking her skirt up over her hips.  "Please," I begged, "I
didn't mean that.  I'm sorry, Rose."  She was shrugging into her blouse
and moving toward the bedroom door, a stormy look on her face.
   "Rose, *please* come back, just for a minute!  I have to explain..." 
She glanced at me and, I suppose, saw the misery scrawled all over my
face.  She hesitated and then came back and sat on the edge of the bed
just beyond my reach while she put on her shoes.
   "I'm sorry, Rose, I had no right to be ugly when you've been so
terrific."  I was a little more composed and she sat quietly and waited
for me to continue.  So I gave her the two-minute version -- that she
was only the second girl I'd ever really had sex with, and what had
happened the first time with Mary, and why I had become unreasonably
angry.
   "Rose, if you'd gotten mad at me for conking out on you, I probably
could have handled it.  But you were so understanding about
everything,...  I just couldn't deal with it.  I'm sorry -- God, I'm so
sorry.  I seem to say that a lot to women I get involved with," I added,
and I heard the bitterness in my own voice.
   She gave me that thoughtful look again and scooted closer.  She held
my hand and her tacit acceptance of my apology almost brought me to
tears.  I guess it showed.
   "Want to try it again?" she asked softly.  "From the top?  I can even
stay the night if you think you want me to."  I almost accepted but I
knew I couldn't.  I squeezed her fingers.
   "I don't think you'd better," I replied, with an attempt at a wry
smile.  "I'm afraid all I'm good for right now is self-pity.  But you
don't know how much I needed to hear you say that."
   "Okay; I really do understand."  She leaned over and kissed me very
gently.  "I hope you find her some day."  I must have looked blank. 
"The right girl," she added.  She stood, touched my cheek for a moment,
and then slipped out.  I heard the apartment door click shut a moment
later.
   I lay on my side staring into the dark and wondering what it was
about me that attracted disastrous relationships.


   I don't know why it didn't occur to me earlier, but the first time I
saw Sherry after the Christmas holidays, I suddenly remembered that Rose
was a friend of hers.  Oh, God, I thought -- what stories were making
the rounds now?
   But Sherry grinned at me and said "Rose tells me you two really hit
it off at the open house."  I waited for the other shoe to drop.  "She
didn't give me any details,... but she *did* say you were *very*
interesting in bed...."  She gave me a friendly leer and I silently
thanked Rose for her discretion.
   "Rose is quite a girl," I agreed, with what I hoped was a mysterious
smirk.
   I didn't call her, but I bumped into Rose on campus a couple weeks
later.  She was in animated conversation with a tall young man in a
basketball letter sweater (she came up to the Longhorn on the front),
but when I gave her a little wave she put him on hold and detoured in my
direction with a big smile.
   "How you doing?"  She seemed genuinely interested.
   "I'll get by," I replied.  "I talked to Sherry; I wanted to thank
you."
   She glanced down and looked at me through her mascara.  "No problem. 
You *are* a nice guy, even though we, um, had a problem that night." 
She glanced back at the basketball player, who was waiting patiently. 
"I've been getting acquainted with Dave, over there, and I'm meeting a
lot of other people, too."  What she meant was that her free time was
taken for the foreseeable future.
   "Well, I'm glad your transfer to UT is working out so well."  Which
meant I understood and I wouldn't pester her for dates, trying to prove
myself to her.  She smiled again, patted me on the arm, and went back to
her tall friend.  I saw her occasionally, around campus or with Sherry,
and we exchanged greetings, but we never had another date.  I have no
idea what happened to her after we graduated.

                                 *  *  *  *  *



                             GETTING IT RIGHT
                                 (An End)



   The remainder of that year was pretty dismal and so was summer
vacation.  My grades continued high but my spirits were extremely low. 
It was hard to work up any enthusiasm for the job I had taken on as an
R.A., even thought the poly sci prof I was doing research for seemed
very pleased with my labors.  He assured me that if I chose to pursue
graduate work at UT, he would give me a strong recommendation for a T.A.
position.  That was nice to hear, but I really had no idea what I was
going to do after graduation the following May.  Especially with a
degree in history.
   Then, the first week in August 1965 -- the first Saturday: that's
important -- I was in the Barker Center digging through some archival
materials (one of the privileges of being an R.A.), when I heard the
muffled thud of books toppling off a loaded book truck a few aisles
over.  This was followed by a subdued female voice indulging in some
unladylike language.  I went around the end stack to see what had
happened and found a young woman kneeling on the dusty floor, gathering
up an armload of bound journals; it looked like she had turned the
corner too quickly and the truck had overbalanced.
   From above and behind, all I saw was very dark brown hair, almost
black, above rather wide shoulders, and the back of a denim skirt and
western-style shirt.  She was muttering under her breath.
   "Can I help you with this?" I asked.
   She looked up a bit startled.  Her eyes were large and soft brown and
her lips were sensual.  She had the kind of creamy complexion that
appears in magazine cosmetics ads.  Pretty but not gorgeous, no extra
weight but not slender, either.  Somehow very competent-seeming, despite
her present chore.
   I didn't wait for an answer but hunkered down beside her and started
gathering up the rest of the volumes and putting them rapidly in order.
   She laughed and said "You've done this before."  Her voice was
melodious but sort of no-nonsense.
   "I've been working in libraries, on and off, since junior high."  I
smiled back at her.  "You wouldn't believe how many book trucks I've
crashed."  We both stood up and dusted off our hands.  "Your knees," I
said with a nod.
   "What?"  She looked down at the two gray patches on the front of her
skirt.  "Oh, rats.  I gotta get an apron if they keep me up here.  I've
been clerking part-time in Technical Services over in the main library. 
They lent me out as a page for the last part of the summer and I'm still
getting the hang of it."
   "Well, I'm around here a lot.  Feel free to ask an old library hand." 
I don't why, but I hesitated.  "I'm Mike, by the way."
   "Jean," she said and flashed me a smile so brilliant, I blinked. 
Then I went back to my carrel and she went back to her shelving.
   The Barker closed early on weekends in the summer and when they
chased me out that evening I ran into Jean again on the outside steps. 
We both said "Hi" ... and then one of those rare events occurred that
make you seriously consider the existence of fate, or predestination, or
guardian angels.  Without thinking about what I was doing, I said "Can I
give you a lift?"
   She smiled but said "No, that's okay" I'm just over in Jester."
   "Doesn't sound very exciting in the summer..."
   "No, but it's *quiet*.  Lots of vacant room and no waiting for a
washer."  Jester Center is the largest single dormitory in the country;
nowadays, it has its own ZIP code and includes *two* voting precincts. 
It's also overcrowded most of the time.
   She sighed a bit theatrically and added "I just have to round up some
friends to go out for a hamburger."
   Yes -- I'd forgotten.  The dorm cafeterias didn't operate on weekends
in the summer, either.  If you weren't headed home, or out on a date,
you had to find your own meals.  We walked another few yards toward the
parking lot; Jester stood two blocks beyond.  I made up my mind very
fast.
   "Listen,... I usually only eat one meal on Saturday, and I was
planning on going over to the Colorado Cafe for a chicken-fried steak. 
Would you like to join me?"
   An air of caution descended.  "I, uh--  I'm afraid I don't go on
dates on the spur of the moment, with guys I've just met."  She seemed
tempted, though.
   "Well, we can do it Dutch, if you'd rather.  Then it wouldn't be a
date.  And I don't like eating alone."  That was a bare-faced lie.  Give
me a plate of food and a book and I didn't care if I was in the middle
of the Gobi.  I could sense the struggle in her mind.
   "Uh, well,...  Sure, okay -- but I pay my own way!"
   "Fine.  You can buy *me* supper if you want."  And I grinned like an
idiot and she grinned back.  It was only the second or third time in my
life that I had even tried to pick up a girl.
   I unlocked the passenger side of my little faded-red VW and did some
more fast thinking as I went around to the driver's side.  As I climbed
in, I said "Would you mind if we stopped at my place?"  Her eyebrows
rose a fraction.  "I mean, just for a moment," I added hastily.  "If you
wouldn't mind waiting."  I indicated the three shoeboxes of note cards
in the back seat.  "It's more than my life's worth if I lost all the
citation cards to Dr. Gardner's book!  I don't want to leave them in the
car."  She nodded and seemed appeased.  I was relieved she hadn't
thought I was trying to lure her up to see my etchings.  And then I
wondered why it seemed to matter so much.
   I parked at the curb outside our building, hopped out, and pushed the
seat forward so I could grab the card boxes.  "Be right back," I said
and hurried inside.  I dumped the boxes on my bed and hollered "Gary? 
Ed?"
   Gary voice came from the kitchen.  "Yeah?"  I skidded around the
corner and he stopped trying to unstick the ice tray in the freezer
compartment and sort of stared at me.
   "Man, am I glad you're here!  Have you got $10 you can spare until I
can write a check on Monday?"  That was the real reason I had to run by
the apartment: I only had a dollar and change in my pocket.
   "Well, yeah..."  He started digging his wallet out of his pocket. 
"What happened?  Your car break down?"
   "No!  I got a date!  Unexpectedly!  No money!"  That bounced his
eyebrows *way* up.  He extracted his last two fives and stuck them in my
shirt pocket with a broad smile.
   "As long as it's in a good cause...."  And I was out the door again.
   It was the most pleasant meal I'd had in months.  Neither of us had
to get back anywhere in a hurry so we took our time, enjoyed the food,
nursed our iced tea, and got acquainted.  I learned that Jean was also a
senior, that she came from Sherman (which explained why she preferred to
stay in Austin for the summer), that she was a biochem major with
medical ambitions, and that she was the oldest of three kids.
   She also made it known, subtly, that she wasnt seeing anyone in
particular.  In fact, she turned out to be something of a loner who
didn't date much at all.  That part sounded familiar.
   Over the last four years, I had learned how to be a good listener;
for one thing, it kept me from having to explain myself.  But Jean was
-- or seemed -- genuinely interested in whatever I had to say.  After a
while, I was startled to find myself pouring all my personal problems
with girls into her sympathetic ear.  At that realization I stopped and
apologized, but she waved that away and asked a couple of perceptive and
leading questions and got me started again.  Jean would have made a good
shrink.
   When it was finally time to leave, I asked if she would please let me
pick up the check.  She gave in gracefully.  It seemed she had decided
we were on a date after all.
   Taking Jean back to the dorm, I drove more slowly than usual because
I enjoyed her company (and her sympathy) enormously and I was reluctant
for the evening to end.  But we got there and I parked and walked her
into the lobby.  I was torn between wanting to kiss her goodnight (would
she expect me to?) and wanting to avoid the stupidities for which, in my
own mind, I was infamous.
   But there was no problem after all.  Jean climbed the first step of
the stairs, which put us on about the same level, and laid one hand on
my shoulder.  And we flowed into a graceful, warm, quiet kiss as easily
as breathing.  It was friendly, in a way, rather than passionate;
undemanding rather than urgent.  It made me feel so good about myself,
about us, I actually had to tell her so.
   "That was nice," I said softly, touching my forehead to hers.
   "Yes," she whispered.  "It was.  And it's been a wonderful evening. 
Mike, I'd like to see you again, soon.  I hope you'll call me."
   "I'll call, I promise."  There was an itch behind my eyeballs ... my
imprisoned emotions trying to escape.  I stood at the foot of the stairs
and watched until Jean reached the switchback landing, where she paused
and gave me a little wave.
   My friends tell me I think about things too much.  It's probably
true.  All the old cautions echoed in my mind on the drive home.  My
feelings for Mary had centered on romantic passions -- the "fire that
burns twice as hot."  It was still painful to think about Mary and I
tried to avoid that corner of my memories.  With Rose, it had been
mostly bad timing.  I regretted acting like an immature fool with her,
but she was a nice person and there was no guilt attached,... or not
much.
   Jean was completely unlike the other two women in my life.  She was
calm and unflappable, not a blazing sex bomb.  She inspired emotional
intimacy and trust, not Romeo-and-Juliet passions.  I had no idea
whether the seed we seemed to have planted would germinate, but I
discovered I really wanted to explore the possibilities.  From past
experience alone, that realization should have set off alarm bells of
anxiety, but I felt only a relaxed optimism.  Good, very good.
   I took Jean to the movies, and out to Lake Travis, and to
Fredericksburg for Texas German food.  We held hands when we walked and
as the summer wound down we kissed more frequently and spontaneously. 
There was no sense of pressure in any of it, no promises or declarations
or demands.  I never felt the need to impress her.  It was as if each of
us was the missing piece in the other's jigsaw puzzle.
   I knew I was gradually falling in love and I welcomed it with an open
heart.  That also surprised me.  Nevertheless, I was reluctant to say
anything overt to Jean because I didn't want to tempt fate again.
   Labor Day came and went and Jean and I saw a little less of each
other as classwork piled up.  She was wading through advanced cytology
and I was sorting out the Peace Party Convention of 1864.  Probably a
good thing because it slowed the pace of what was becoming a courtship
and it gave us more time to find out about each other.
   The remarkable thing was how little sexual contact we actually had. 
We necked like teenagers in high school, dueling with our tongues,
stroking cheeks, breathing warmly into an available ear.  A few times, I
gently squeezed her breast during a lengthy kiss or ran my hand over her
flared hips and across her firm ass, but it was always a caress, not
foreplay.  So we moved slowly, but we kept moving.
   By the end of October, my inner thoughts about Jean had shifted from
"if we..." to "when we..." and I knew it was time to find out how she
really felt about me before I got in any deeper.  Naturally, she beat me
to it.


   It was the first Friday of December and thousands of fall term papers
had just been turned in.  Jean and I had agreed, regretfully, that
school work took priority -- especially this late in the game.  For two
weeks, we had seen each other only briefly each day, and then it was off
to the library or back home to a hot typewriter.  It seemed like a very
long time just then.  Finals would be coming up shortly, but we were
both doing well and we had set this weekend aside for ourselves.
   It was a little unsettling to discover just how much I *had* missed
her, so I invited her over for a big, homemade Saturday morning
breakfast, complete with biscuits and gravy.  She turned up about 10:00.
   She inhaled deeply as she came in and dropped her purse on the couch. 
(Breakfast is one of the things I do best.)  "Mmmmmmm...  One of the few
things I miss about living at home!" she said and smacked her lips.  We
kept busy for an hour with eggs and sausage patties and hash browns and
real biscuits and buckets of cream gravy.
   "If you're going to feed me like this all the time, I'd better start
letting out my seams!" she said as I refilled her coffee cup.
   We stacked all the dishes and skillets in the sink for later and
moved into the living room.  "I just realized I haven't a peep from your
roommates," Jean said.  "Still asleep?"
   "No, Gary-and-Sherry drove up to Fort Worth yesterday after classes,
and Ed is off in the Hill Country somewhere for the weekend."  Which was
why I had suggested she come over, of course.
   Jean caught me off guard, though.  "There's something I want to ask
your advice about, Mike.  Uh, we're friends, aren't we?"
   Friends?  Yeah, at least.  She sat in the more reputable of our two
armchairs and I sprawled on the couch.  "Of course we are.  What's the
problem?"
   "Well,..."  She was studying her nails and glancing at me out of the
corner of her eye.  "I've met this guy who I like a lot..."
   Oh, God.  Now what?  The breakfast began to congeal in my gut.
   "He's very nice," she went on, not meeting my eye at all, now.  "In
fact,... I think I'm in love with him."  I felt cold.  "But he hasn't
said how he feels about me.  How do you think I should approach him?"
   My stomach was filled with hardening clay but I looked down at my own
hands and said "Just ask him, I guess."  Why did this keep happening to
me?  I was desperately in love with this girl, a fact that was only now
sinking in.  I was so shocked by the abruptness of events, I didn't
realize for a moment that Jean had gotten up and moved to the arm of the
couch.  Then I felt her warm hand curl around the back of my neck.
   "Michael," she asked softly, "do you love me?  Or what?"
   I looked up at her with my mouth open.  Then I grabbed her around the
waist and pulled her onto my lap.  I hugged her so tightly she wheezed
and I buried my face in her neck.
   "Sweetheart, I could *kill* you for doing that to me,... if I didn't
love you so much!"
   I hung onto her and she clung to me and neither of us moved very much
for several minutes.  Then I loosened my hold just enough to be able to
kiss her, and it was a demanding, aggressive kiss -- not like me at all. 
But she responded just as insistently until our mouths felt bruised.
   When we came up for air, she said "I'm sorry I had to do that, Mike,
but I didn't know how else to ask.  And I love *you* so much!"  And we
disappeared into another smoldering kiss.  She was stretched out
crosswise across my lap, convenient to my wandering hands which were
making up for lost time.
   She was wearing light wool slacks and a plaid cotton shirt with
buttons down the front.  I undid the first few buttons before she pushed
my hand out of the way and nearly ripped the rest of them off getting
her shirt open and pushed back.  She was almost frantic, fumbling her
arms out of the sleeves, and her unmistakable passion quickened my
pulse.  Then the front closure of her bra popped open, and it was off
and on the floor.
   Then she was up and sitting astride my knees, back arched, her
breasts on display to my hungry gaze.  Jean's tits were a little larger
than average but were balanced by her broader-than-usual shoulders;
otherwise, they were unremarkable ... but they were *hers* and I adored
them.  I massaged and squeezed them for a few minutes and her
respiration increased.  When I rolled her lengthening nipples between
thumb and forefinger, she hissed in between her teeth and moaned "Oh,
God--  Suck on them, please!  Mike, suck on my tits!  Put your mouth on
them!"
   When I pulled her closer and inhaled her breast, she locked her hands
behind my head and tried to draw me into her.  Small tremors traveled up
and down her body and my own arousal increased.
   Then she was off my lap again and hurriedly unhooking her slacks and
pushing them to the floor.  Her socks and panties followed.  She stood
naked before me, eyes glowing.  I was still completely dressed and my
newly-confirmed love was displaying her body for my viewing pleasure. 
Again, her figure was trim, her complexion beautifully smooth and clear,
but I couldn't objectively say she was a traffic-stopper.  But she was
*Jean* and that made her the most desirable woman I could conceive of.
   "There's something else I should tell you," she said as she slipped
back across my thighs.  "I went on The Pill six weeks ago because I
suspected we'd be in bed by now.  I want you to make love to me,
Michael.  In fact, I'm not leaving here until I fuck you!"
   Her knees were spread and the aroma of her drifted upward and fired
my own furnace.  My hands slid up and down her thighs and moved around
to measure her ass.  She groaned a little and leaned against me.  I
slipped one hand between her legs from behind and brushed my fingertips
against her moist labia.  She had another fit of trembling.
   Then she was on her feet again, pulling me up.  "Come on, come on,
get your clothes off!  I *want* you!"  I unfastened and unzipped and she
quickly knelt and hauled my trousers down.  Her feverish hurry was
blinding me with lust.  My cock sprang out, hard and rigid, and her
mouth instantly fastened on it.
   What she lacked in polished technique, Jean made up for in ardor. 
Like me, she was an enthusiastic amateur at sex -- and, also like me,
she'd obviously had relatively little experience.  I found that
reassuring, even if it meant the blind leading the blind.
   She tried to take in all of my quivering cock and nearly choked when
it hit her throat.  I eased her head back a bit and she concentrated on
washing my penis with her tongue and manipulating my balls.  The
sensation was like nothing I had experienced before.  I had engaged in
oral sex, of course, but only for recreation.  This was a woman with
whom I had fallen in love and who loved me.  And I wasn't seventeen any
longer.
   I could feel the pressure building in my groin but I didn't want to
climax.  I gently retrieved my cock and pulled her to her feet.  Jean
was several inches shorter than me and when we wrapped ourselves up in
each other, standing there in the living room, she nuzzled under my chin
and nibbled at my throat.
   My cock was sandwiched between us, and when it twitched Jean wrapped
her hand around it and pulled and squeezed as we kissed.  I bent one
knee and she closed her thighs on it and humped a little.  She was so
unrestrained in her lust, now that we had declared ourselves, she was
producing more than the expected reaction in me.
   I trailed my fingers up and down her back and she shivered and
laughed under her breath.  "C'mon," I whispered, "we gotta find a bed --
fast!"
   Making sure the door was locked (the first opportunity I'd had to see
to that), I turned to find Jean already disappearing into my room.  When
I hurried in after her, she was arranging herself on the bed for me,
knees spread, arms reaching, and a wanton grin on her face.  But things
were going so well I chose to take my time -- our time -- in this
delightful morning lovemaking.
   I went to the foot of the bed and started up toward Jean on my hands
and knees.  She leaned her head back and spread her legs wider,
expecting me to aim my cock straight at the target.  But I ambushed her,
dropping flat and covering her open pussy with my open mouth.  She
jumped a bit and squeaked in surprise, but she liked it.
   I spread her labia apart with my fingers and stuck my tongue into her
cunt like a spoon in a pot of jam, plowing through her juices from
bottom to top.  Her clitoris protruded from its hood and I moved my
tongue all around it and then sucked it in between my teeth.  Jean
jammed her hands under the pillow behind her head; her eyes went out of
focus and she was breathing in gulps.  Her candid reactions to my
advances were stimulating but I also felt completely at home, as though
we were old lovers rather than new ones.
   She also had my cock as hard and stiff as an iron pipe, and after a
few minutes of teasing her pussy with my tongue I climbed farther up her
body.  When I eased myself into her, she gave a loud, ragged gasp and
hung onto my neck as if we were about to be launched.
   Jean wasn't a screamer, a thrasher, or a talker, but there was no
doubt whatever that she loved what we were doing and was totally caught
up in it.  Sarah Bernhardt couldn't have faked a sexual experience so
intensely.  I was under no illusions that this terrific girl might be an
unfulfilled virgin, but I knew instinctively that her experience was at
least as limited as my own.  Maybe she reacted this way *every* time she
got laid; I didn't know and I didn't care.  The fact that *I* was able
to put her into orbit was more than enough.
   I moved in her erratically, unpredictably, and was rewarded with
little mews and gasps and catches in her breathing.  Her sexual flush
became bright scarlet.  Her hands clutched at my back and arms and I was
glad she wasn't a believer in long nails; she'd have drawn blood.  When
I settled into a galloping rhythm, she moved her legs higher, locking
her ankles so I could penetrate deeper.
   We reached the peak almost together and the release of my orgasm was
exquisite.  Jean held tightly to me for perhaps half a minute as she
shuddered through her own climax.  Then she relaxed and gave me a hug
filled with satisfaction and love.  And it dawned on me, quite suddenly,
that we had both been in control of events the entire time.  Every move
we had made had been an unspoken but mutual decision.  No pressure, no
anxiety, no worries about inadequacy.  Jean might not be a sex goddess,
but I wasn't exactly a hunk, either.
   I leaned back and studied her face, and saw only happiness, love, and
pride in one's partner -- exactly what I was feeling.
   As my cock shrank I slowly pulled out of her cunt,... and I found a
quiet pleasure in the momentary look of loss that appeared in her eyes. 
She really wanted me.  Me!
   I rolled off her and propped my head up on one elbow as she stretched
her legs and back muscles.  "Still love me?" I asked quietly and with a
smile.
   She seemed to examine my face minutely and then reached up to touch
my cheek.  "Oh, yes..."  No declamation, no poetry: Just "yes."  A
simple affirmation.  It sounded real and believable and truthful.  It
sounded wonderful.


   The next six months passed more quickly than I could believe.  Jean
came over to the apartment for at least an hour or two almost every
evening.  Any more than that and we were concerned that our grades might
suffer.  We were head over heels in love, but we were both still too
pragmatic to allow *that* to happen.
   Gary and Sherry and Ed took one look at the two of us together after
that weekend and smirked at each other -- our feelings were that
obvious.  We had sex only a couple of times a week; we knew we'd be
together a long time and so we tortured ourselves pleasurably with
semi-denial.  Jean didn't sleep over, though, for the same reason Sherry
didn't: It would have been an imposition on the other two guys in the
apartment.  And, not surprisingly, Jean and Sherry became good friends,
even though their other interests were so different.


   ...Such good friends, in fact, that Sherry was delighted to be Jean's
maid-of-honor when we were married in June, two weeks after graduation
and ten weeks before I began work on my M.A.

                                 *  *  *  *  *

   It's been 26 years now, and Jean and I are as much in love as we were
then.  It hasn't all been smooth sailing -- no real marriage ever is --
but our spats have never been serious and are usually resolved by a
competition to be the first to apologize.
   I'm a tenured full professor in American history and I love it. 
We'll never be wealthy but we're comfortable, and the life of the mind
(and the classroom) suits me.  Jean spent several years as a medical lab
technician,... and then as a supervisor when she discovered a talent for
scientific administration; now, she's in charge of the technical side of
the largest commercial medical lab in Texas -- earns more than I do, in
fact, and deserves every cent of it.
   Two of our three children are married and the youngest is engaged,
though she swears she'll wait until she graduates from UT to be married.


   Now that we have the house to ourselves again most evenings, we've
found time to reenact our first lovemaking on that old apartment couch;
the only difference is newer furniture.  We know each other so well
after a quarter-century, you'd think it would be difficult for either of
us to arouse the other as we used to.  But Jean still excites me ...
though I get winded more easily.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Copyright 1993 by Michael K. Smith. Copies may be made and posted
elsewhere for personal enjoyment, but all commercial rights are reserved.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~