Good Karma

by Donya Lynne

  Brian’s mom had been out for the evening, and he had stolen a condom from her bedside table before rushing back into the living room where Karma waited for him, half naked, on the floor.

  He began to put on the condom, and then, “Damn it!”

  “What?” Karma frowned as Brian scampered bare-assed out of the living room and down the hall toward his mom’s room again. The only light came from the TV, which was fine by her. The less light, the better.

  “Condom broke,” he called back.

  Karma sat up in the shadow-strewn room and straightened her work shirt, which smelled like buttered popcorn, then pulled her jeans over her lap, waiting for him to return. The only way she could do this was if she could keep on some of her clothes. No one had seen her naked before. Brian didn’t seem to mind her shyness, though. Then again, he was an eighteen-year-old virgin, too. He was probably just happy he was finally getting laid.

  She tucked her long, mousy brown hair behind her ears and looked around. Some B-rate monster flick was on TV, and the smell of two-hour-old pizza wafted from the open box on the nearby coffee table. This wasn’t how Karma imagined she would lose her virginity. On a hard living room floor, which was covered with carpet that looked like dirt and felt like fuzzy tree bark, but at least tomorrow she could wake up and know she had finally done it.

  She eyed the afghan tossed over the back of the couch. A blanket was a good idea. This carpet didn’t exactly look sanitary on her bare bottom. She pulled the afghan to the floor and spread it out, sitting back down and covering up with her jeans again just as Brian returned from his mom’s bedroom. He held two more condoms in his hand.

  “Just in case I break another one,” he said breathlessly, dropping to the floor in front of her as he tore one open.

  Unlike her, Brian was naked, and his erection strained toward her. It looked a little too big to fit.

  She gulped and took a nervous breath as he put the condom on.

  “There,” he said with a smile and wiped his hand on the blanket. “Did it right this time.” He laughed nervously. “I tried to put the last one on backward.”

  “Oh, okay.” Karma nibbled her lip. She hadn’t known there was a right or wrong way to put on a condom, but now that she thought about it, it made sense. “So…now what?”

  Brian clumsily lurched forward and kissed her, pushing her to the floor. She bonked her head.

  “Sorry,” he said, wriggling around on top of her.

  “No, it’s okay. Just…” Her leg was pinned, and she worked it out from under him. “There.” She bent her knees on either side of his hips as he fumbled around, pushing against her like an excited bull charging a matador.

  “Am I in the right place?” Brian grunted and shifted, and his erection bumped and pushed against her.

  “I don’t know…ow!”

  “Sorry.”

  “That’s okay. I don’t think that’s—ow!”

  What were they doing wrong?

  “Here, maybe if I…” Brian reached down, grabbed his penis, and began shoving it against her private parts as if it were one of those round blocks in a children’s game and he was trying to jimmy the thing inside a square hole. “Can I move these?” He let go of his erection and tugged on her jeans, which still lay over her hips.

  “Um…I don’t…” She didn’t want to lose her security blanket, but it was dark…and he wasn’t looking at her down there…and she was more concerned with keeping her top half covered than her lower half, anyway…and maybe it would be easier for him to get inside her if her jeans weren’t in the way. “Okay, sure.”

  He yanked them out from between their bodies and tossed them under the coffee table.

  “That’s better,” he said, taking hold of his penis again.

  He pushed, he prodded, and then, with a sigh of relief, he unceremoniously found where he had been trying to go for five minutes.

  “Ow!” Karma winced and dug her nails into Brian’s shoulders as he gained entry. Ow, ow, ow! Damn! Was it supposed to hurt this much? She’d read somewhere that a girl’s first time could hurt, but she hadn’t expected this kind of pain. In the movies, women usually looked like they were enjoying this, but there was nothing enjoyable about what Brian was doing to her. At all.

  Brian bucked and looked like he was having a seizure as he began hammering away, and it felt like it, too. Her poor vagina. Would she even be able to walk tomorrow? God, what was he doing?

  “Oh, uh-huh. Good…yes…is it good for you?” Brian was like an overly excited jackrabbit, and he spouted words in a way that sounded foreign on his tongue, as if he’d heard them in a movie—maybe the same ones she’d seen where the women actually enjoyed having sex—and thought he was supposed to say them.

  Karma held on to his spasming body and tried to nod. “Yes.” It wouldn’t help to tell him the truth that this was the worst kind of pain she had ever felt, except for that time when she fell and cut her leg on a jagged rock poking out of the ground. But even that had lasted only a few seconds. This pain had gone on for almost a minute already, and it was getting worse.

  Brian’s eyes were closed, so he couldn’t see the distress on Karma’s face as he continued bruising her tender flesh with his penis of death. “Yes, so good…I can’t stop…Karma…oh…oh…uh-huh…there…” Brian huffed, puffed, and made like a giant jumping bean as he pounded her fragile flesh even harder.

  OOOOWWWW!

  Her back and hip bones ground against the floor, and white-hot pain seared her insides. She wanted it to be over. Just hurry up already and be done. This shit hurt.

  In less than two minutes from start to finish, Brian’s body began to jerk. His breathing intensified and his animalistic grunts rose on a crescendo. Then he slammed his hips into her and fell into epileptic shudders. A long, ragged exhale poured from his open mouth. Then he collapsed on top of her. Done.

  Thank God.

  Afterward, Karma had stared at the water spot on the ceiling, numb, with flames licking the inside of her vagina as Brian remained on top of her, gasping for air. But the pain had been a small price to pay for achieving a rite of passage.

  “I’d begun to think I would never have sex,” she said, coming to the end of the story. “But there, on Brian’s living room, with Godzilla roaring from the TV and cold pizza on the coffee table, I finally did it. I lost my virginity.” When she finished, she glanced at Mark, who had grown so quiet it was almost as if he weren’t there.

  “That was your first time?”

  She nodded and looked down at her hands, but not before she saw a flash of emotion pass through his eyes.

  “Did the two of you have sex again after that?”

  “A few more times.”

  “Did it get better?”

  “No, not really. It didn’t hurt as much, but it was always rapid-fire fast, like he didn’t want to get caught or something.”

  “And you never had an orgasm?” Mark watched her closely, as if he were taking each of her answers and building a file in his head.

  “No.”

  “And how many lovers have you had since Brian?”

  She knew Mark already understood there hadn’t been many, and now was the moment of truth.

  “I’d like to say none, but there was one more, but I don’t really count him.”

  Mark’s eyes narrowed briefly, and he tilted his head slightly to one side. “Why not?”

  “Because we only did it once.”

  “Only once? Was that your choice or his?”

  “His, but after I found out why, it was mine, too.”

  Concern etched the lines of Mark’s face as he shifted on the couch. He appeared both worried and concerned, as if he wanted to know what happened but wasn’t sure he should ask.

  “Richard was an ass,” she said, making the decision for him. “He only wanted one thing, and I was too gullible at the time to know that. He seduced me, and I use that term lightly, because all he wanted was sex.”

  “How
did you know him?”

  “He was part of the crowd Daniel and I hung out with in college for a while. He got to know me, and after a couple of ‘dates’…” she made air quotes with her fingers, “we had sex.”

  Mark sat forward. “Did you want to?”

  “At the time, I thought I did, because, like I said, he seduced me. He told me how much he liked me, and how alike we were, and how he knew from the moment we met that I was special. Blah, blah, blah.”

  Mark chuffed. “He didn’t seduce you. He lied so he could use you.” He sounded disgusted, and didn’t that just make him seem like her knight in shining armor.

  “Yes, I figured that out the hard way.” Silence stretched between them for several seconds. “A few weeks later, I learned that was Richard’s MO. He moved in, targeted girls who were shy and quiet, then did his thing.”

  Mark pressed his lips together and his face grew tight, but he didn’t voice whatever frustration she could tell sat on the tip of his tongue. A moment later, he said, “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” she said.

  “I made you think about it.”

  She smiled. “I’m pretty tough. I can handle it.”

  He gestured toward the cards. “If you want to stop playing, we can—”

  “No, I want to continue.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.” Talking about all this was strangely freeing. She felt like she was molting, shedding old layers of herself to reveal more of the woman within.

  He sighed and sat back. “Okay then, it’s your turn. Pick a card and ask me a question.”

  She could tell that, at some point, Richard would come up again, even if only in passing or indirectly.

  “Okay,” she said, picking up a card. She snickered when she read it. “This is a good one. What’s the most flexible sex move you can do? Tell me why it’s awesome?” She emphasized awesome even though it wasn’t emphasized on the card.

  Mark burst into laughter. “What? Seriously?” He grabbed the card and read it to himself.

  Karma laughed, which was a nice change from the oh-so-serious line of questioning she had just endured. And maybe channeling all that seriousness was why she and Mark both continued laughing a little too hard for several seconds.

  “I can’t say that I have any flexible sex moves,” he said, flicking the card toward the table. It fluttered and spun on the air before gliding to the floor. “Unlike you, I don’t do yoga. I think I’d break something if I tried to get flexible. Ask me another,” he said. “I didn’t like that one and can’t answer it, anyway. Besides, I owe you after that last round of questioning.”

  She snagged the next card on the stack. “Would you rather be lightly spanked in bed or have a feather run softly over your whole body?”

  “Mmm.” Mark sank into the cushions and looked up at the ceiling. “Definitely the feather. Or maybe hair.” He turned his eyes on her. “I like a woman’s hair to glide down my chest and stomach.”

  There was only one time a woman’s hair would glide down his chest and stomach, and that was if she was taking her mouth down there. So, yeah, this game had just taken an interesting turn.

  “Has anyone ever used a feather on you?”

  He licked his lips. “Once or twice.”

  Her mind took the next logical step. “Have you ever used a feather on anyone?”

  His single dimple dug into his right cheek. “Once or twice.”

  “And…?”

  “It can be very pleasurable,” he said. “Perhaps I’ll show you sometime.” Before she could say anything further, he grabbed the next card on the deck. “My turn.” He read it to himself first. “What’s the first thing that pops into your head when I say oral?” He lowered the card and gave her a slightly wicked smile. There was no doubt where his mind had gone.

  And considering where her thoughts had just been a minute ago with the whole hair-on-his-body idea, her mind had gone there, too, because her first thought was of giving Mark a blow job. But no way was she going to say that, especially when she had never given one. There had to be a law that stated if you’d never given a blow job, you couldn’t use the term.

  “Hygiene!” she said a little too forcefully.

  His left eyebrow rose as he narrowed his eyes. “Why don’t I believe you?”

  She shrugged and quickly picked up another card, trying to hurry ahead before he could entrap her into another long line of questioning that was sure to embarrass her. “Have you ever been aroused at work? Give me details.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I have been aroused at work. Very recently in fact.” He sat forward and leveled her with a look that held enough steam to hard boil an egg. “Friday, when I suggested that you unbutton your blouse, and when you did…?” His gaze swept her face, and a wistful smile played over his mouth. “That really turned me on.”

  Oh wow, okay, so…uh-huh. The game was definitely getting more interesting.

  He held her gaze for a long moment then picked up the next card as he cleared his throat. His smile brightened as he read the question to himself. “I like this one,” he said. “I can’t wait to hear your answer.” He looked up, eyes twinkling. “What physical trait of mine first caught your eye?”

  Way to put her on the spot. She pressed her lips together, thought about it for a second, and tried to envision him sitting beside her at the blackjack table. She had turned toward him, and a split second before she looked at his face, she saw his hands. He had rugged, sure hands. The kind that when they held you made you feel like you were really being held. She hadn’t known that at the time, but she’d found out soon enough.

  “Your hands,” she said definitively.

  “My hands.” He glanced at them.

  “Yes. Then your eyes, then your mouth, and then your chest when we were dancing.”

  A glimmer of recollection crossed his face. “Ah, yes, I remember.” He grinned, making her blush as she recalled feeling him up. “You did seem a little taken with my chest at one point.”

  Looking down, she forced herself not to laugh. “I guess you caught that.”

  “Mm-hm. It was cute how you reacted when I caught you, too.”

  She sighed. “Okay, you can stop embarrassing me now.”

  He laughed and settled into the cushions again. “Are you a chest woman?”

  “A chest woman?” She frowned in confusion. “What’s a chest woman?”

  “You know how some men are leg men, some are boob men, stuff like that. Are you a woman who likes men’s chests? Do they turn you on?”

  “I never thought about it that way, but yes, I guess so. I also seem to notice a man’s arms and his hands, too.” She gestured toward his. “Obviously, since that was the first part of you I noticed. Hmm…chests, arms, hands, shoulders. I guess I’m more of an overall upper body kind of gal.”

  “I see.” The file he was building on her sounded like it had just grown a bit more interesting, much like the conversation.

  She snagged the next card before she could dork out any more than she already had then almost choked as she read the question. “Do you think toe sucking is totally hot or really gross?” She started laughing. Toe sucking? Really? Who came up with these questions?

  “Totally hot, for sure,” he said without hesitation, cutting off her thoughts.

  Karma’s mouth fell open. “What? Really?”

  He nodded emphatically. “Oh God, yes.” He glanced down at her sneakered feet. “I’m what is called a foot man.” As evidence, he lifted hers and unlaced her sneakers without pulling them off, even though it looked as though it took all his willpower not to as he caressed her ankles. “I thought you would have figured that out already. I haven’t done a very good job hiding my interest in your feet.”

  She remembered how he’d looked at them last Friday at the department store, how he’d moaned just a little, and how he’d seemed so affected when he’d told her she had beautiful feet, but the thought had never occ
urred to her that there were men in the world who got turned on by feet or that he was one of them. Discovering this little nugget about Mark was like finding a chunk of gold in her carpet, and his reasoning for asking her to wear the black peep-toe pumps to the concert suddenly made more sense. Finally, this game had given her something she could slip into her mental Mark file.

  “You mean, if I took off my shoes right now…” She gently pushed her toe against the heel of one sneaker so that it pushed halfway off her foot. His eyes instantly flared as he dropped his gaze. “Does this distract you?” She grinned daringly as the vixen side of her personality shoved her conservative persona into the shadows.

  He moaned and laid his head back, taking a heavy breath. Then he cast her a warning glance. “Yes, that distracts me.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said as innocently as she could muster as she began to tuck her foot back into her shoe. “I’ll just put my shoe back on and—”

  He grabbed her foot and pulled off her sneaker. “No. Don’t.” His heated gaze raked her face. “Please.” He dropped her sneaker to the floor, pulled off the other, and dropped it as well. “If you don’t mind, I’d like you to keep your shoes off.” His breathing sounded labored, as if he was forcing himself to calm down, and his eyelids drooped, giving him a sexy, drowsy appeal.

  His expression lit something primitive and debased in the pit of her stomach. “My feet really turn you on that much?”

  He blinked heavily, and as if he were holding a sacred gift, he lifted her right leg by the ankle, opened his legs, and nestled the sole of her foot against his crotch. He was hard. Very hard. An airy moan broke in his throat. “Yes. Your feet really turn me on that much.” He took a heavy breath and blew it out like he was trying to meditate. Then he swallowed and, holding her sole against him, leaned over and picked up a card. “Your turn.” He took a moment to compose himself then read the question. “Which do you think is hotter: sex standing against a wall or bent over a table?”

  Karma had never done either, so how could she answer honestly? “I don’t know.”

  “Let me guess, you have no experience with either way, right?” He still sounded sexually bent but a bit calmer.