But I’m too chicken to go there. In fact, I think I’ll head in the opposite direction just to be safe.
“It’s a big house.” My eyes expand a moment at my own brazenness. “We can always find a room.” Holy shit. Did I just go there?
Jessie takes ahold of my hand as we sail into the dimly lit cavernous mansion, for lack of a better word. The James’s home redefines huge, although Jessie’s house could easily dwarf this. Wall-to-wall bodies sway to the music. You would think this place has somehow transformed into the Florentine Gardens with the army of gyrating bodies.
Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire” starts overhead, and I swear, half of the girls in the room just let out a collective sigh. But Jessie and I don’t stop to dance. He navigates us past the crowd, up past the stoners getting high on the stairs, all the way up to the second floor. He seems pretty sure about where we’re headed—opening the door to make sure the room is empty before sealing us inside.
The air is cleaner in here, thinner, cooler, but I couldn’t care less about the air quality, air pollution, the ozone layer in general—something big is about to happen between the two of us. I want it to.
“You sure you want this with me?” Jessie steadies me by the hips, never taking those citrine eyes off mine, and I give a hint of a nod.
“I want everything with you.” There, I said it. He can do what he wants with it.
A moment passes between us, something still and tangibly real. It’s as if we had stepped out of our own skin—out of our playacting—pretending to be together for the sake of meeting our own non-altruistic goals, and somehow we had morphed into the very thing I had secretly wished we could become—a couple.
His heavy eyes drag over my features, and in a thunderclap of a moment, he pins my arms above the door, his mouth covers mine, hot and hungry, his roaming tongue melts over me while thoroughly exploring, hastily demanding my attention.
His breathing grows rapid, as does mine, and all I can hear is the heavy sound of our panting. Jessie kicks off his shoes and pulls off his shirt in one swift maneuver. My hands glide up and down his steely chest, bumping over the ridges of his abs as if reading Braille. He pulls back, his heavy gaze connecting with mine, and I memorize him like this with the silver tongue of the moon licking a line right over his body. Jessie Fox is an otherworldly god that deserves to be worshiped in this very same manner night after night.
Jessie pulls off my sweater in one slow drag as if savoring the event. He unzips my miniskirt, and I give a gentle tug, landing it to the floor. I step out of it with my heels still on, wearing nothing but my bra and panties while Jessie takes me in from head to toe.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispers, landing another kiss to my lips. His teeth rub over mine as I breathlessly shower him in lust-driven kisses. This is happening. I’m dizzy with the idea, drunk off the notion of Jessie making me his in the most intimate way. My fingers pluck at his jeans, and he helps evict them from his body, stepping out of his shoes and Levi’s. The hardness in his boxers grazes over my thigh as he gently pulls me toward the bed, our mouths still fused with passionate kisses, our tongues still leashed as if we could never get enough. Jessie picks me up and lands me square in the center of the bed, and we ride up and down in a watery wave while sharing a twisted laugh. Russell James has a waterbed. Of course, he does. Heather has mentioned it a time or two.
“This will be interesting,” I pant into his kisses as the bed continues to rock as if we were on the high seas.
“This will be perfect.” His eyes bear into mine a moment as if he means that in the most sincere way, and I believe he does. He reaches over and kicks up his jeans, catching them in midair while plucking a small foil square from his back pocket. “Anytime you want to stop, I promise we can.” There’s something sad in his voice, something heavy and weighted as if he were dragging around a body. “But everything in me wants this with you. I’ve never met anyone like you, Jen.” He gently places my hand over his chest, and the spastic drumming of his heart echoes straight down to my bones. “That’s what you do to me.” His gaze cements itself over mine, and even in this dim light, I can see his drugged eyes, glossy with an exasperated look of wanting. Jessie Fox is craving me as desperately as I am him. I have had many fantasies with this very scenario—many, many nights spent fantasizing of a world where Jessie Fox and I feel an unsurpassed passion for one another, but never in my wildest dreams have I thought that this night, this magical moment would ever arrive. That simply wasn’t my life—wasn’t who I was. And now, it miraculously is.
Jessie holds up the unopened rubber a moment. “You ready to meet the Barbarian?”
A wry smile comes and goes. “Genie and I were beginning to think he was an urban legend.” My heart thumps a riotous explosion of irregular beats as if headed into its grand finale. God, if I die in bed with Jessie Fox, in a horrific irony, I would have achieved my every sexual dream while living out my parents’ worst nightmare. An image of my mother wrapped in grief bounces through my mind, and I swiftly evict her.
Must NOT think of my parents seconds before losing my virginity.
I suck in a sharp breath. I’m losing my virginity to Jessie Fucking Fox! A burst of adrenaline spikes through me, giving this moment that hyper awareness you get when something big, something a little dangerous, is about to happen.
Jessie slips out of his boxers and kneels in front of me with his long hard—
“Oh my God.” Okay. Maybe I should have done a little research before getting myself into a pickle, or more like getting a flesh-colored pickle into me—even though it’s totally more cucumber in nature.
“Here.” He falls onto his side next to me, and the bed does a quick seaside maneuver, carrying us up and down in a watery billow. Jessie takes my hand and gently lands it over his expansive, might I add impressive, fifth limb.
“Lightning Bolt the Barbarian.” I bite down on a smile while wrapping my fingers around his heated flesh and gasp. Jessie Fox is hard as concrete. It doesn’t seem humanly possible how granite-like he’s become.
He pushes my hand down the length of him, then back up. “My turn.” His brows dip into that vicious V, and he sheds that naughty grin that makes him look ten times more dangerously handsome. He traces a line from the middle of my chest to the dark triangle at the base of my hips, and I freeze. What the hell am I supposed to do? Just open up and say ah? A serious paralysis just occurred, and I’m stiff as a board, unable to move, terrified at what actually comes next.
“I’m sure you’ve seen a thousand Genies.” I twist into him, my legs cinching hard at the knees. The bed bobs soft as a sigh as if agreeing with me. “Every single one of them granting you a wish.” Most likely right here on Russell’s waterbed.
His forehead wrinkles with discontent as if this hard truth weren’t at all what he wanted to hear.
“I mean, you know, this isn’t new to you.” Can’t I say anything right? God, maybe the bed will spring a leak, and I’ll drown.
Jessie shakes his head, his concern ever-growing, but his gaze remains leashed to mine.
“This is new.” He slips his hand over the back of my neck. “I’ve never done this before. You and me, that’s all I want to think about.” He swallows hard. “This is all I want.”
His lips find mine and offer a gentler, far more careful kiss than the one we shared at the door. Jessie is loving me, savoring me, drinking down every new moment as if it were his very first time. He pulls back and blinks a peaceable smile while tearing the rubber out of the package. He rolls it on and runs his hand down the length of himself, and something about that one swift maneuver knifes me with a lust so potent it rockets me to that magical nirvana. Jessie lands over me, his kisses more sincere, hot, wet, rinsing over my face, my neck, my chest in a heated rush. His knee dips between my thighs, and I open for him, slow and quivering, wanting this, terrified of this, raising my knees over his back. Jessie dips a molten kiss over my lips, suctioning my existence in
to his before pulling away. He spears me with his heated gaze, and we share a heartfelt sigh.
The noise from the party, the music tries to beat down the door, but it can’t have a part in any of this. This bubble Jessie and I have encapsulated ourselves in is beautiful, sacred, a heaven of our own making. His mouth finds mine as his heated hands run down my body. Jessie touches me everywhere all at once, familiarizing himself with the landscape, with every last part of me.
Jessie guides himself to me, and my body jumps when I feel the weight of him there as he presses his way inside, stretching, ripping, tearing away my innocence.
* * *
Dear Katie,
Emergency meeting! Who knew that a party at Russell James’s house (mansion, really) would turn out to be life-altering? Jessie was there. As soon as he saw me, it was basically game over. We couldn’t get enough of one another. Those kisses we shared were far beyond intense. He led me right upstairs into Russell’s bedroom, and well, Genie met the Barbarian on a waterbed. I can’t believe it finally happened. I can’t believe it happened with Jessie Fox. A part of me still thinks it was a dream, that these past few months have been a dream, but it’s real. Afterward, he asked if I could go to his place and spend the night. His sister was at a sleepover, and I’m not even sure if his dad lives at that house. But I said I probably couldn’t. Not only was it really tough to walk to the car (Imagine a sunburn where the sun don’t shine. It brings a whole new meaning to the words, Hello, Sunshine!), a part of me wanted to bawl for no reason. Anyway, Jessie was very sweet. He treated me like I was made of glass when we left the party. And when he drove me home, that look in his eyes when he walked me to the door was soul melting, but most definitely mixed with a touch of sadness. Dare I say, regret?
I’m not sure what I expected. A tiny part of me feels sad for myself, and it’s not because I regret anything. It’s because I broke my cardinal rule. I swore that when I finally did the deed, I would be in love. The irony is that I am in love—only Jessie isn’t in love with me. It’s funny that when Melissa and Heather were getting ready to do it for the first time, I was emphatic they exchange I love yous—and here when it came down to me, there wasn’t even a whisper of that four letter word.
I’m off to bed. But just between you and me—I really do love Jessie Fox. I just wish he loved me back.
I’m not feeling so wild anymore. Maybe mild wasn’t such a bad thing.
XOXO ~ Jen
Favorite song: Bruce Springsteen’s, “I’m on Fire” (Not only was it playing while I was introduced to the Barbarian, but Genie feels as if she can adopt this as her theme song.)
* * *
“Jennifer!”
My lids struggle to open, still comfortably sticky with sleep.
“Jennifer?” The rapid fire tapping of knuckles against the door sends me lurching to a sitting position, straight out of a dead sleep, and even that singular, seemingly simple motion, ignites a fire in me that Jessie and his Barbarian started. “Jen, are you awake in there? It’s almost ten thirty.”
“Mom?” God, it’s my mother! She can’t see me like this. I glance down at my sweats, my legwarmers wrapped to my knees, my Garfield sweatshirt set askew. Why exactly can’t she see me like this?
“Hon?” Followed by more insistent knocking.
God, she never knocks like this! She knows. She must have some parental virginity radar, and right about now, it’s going off like a smoke alarm.
“There’s a boy at the door to see you. I think he has flowers!”
“Shit!” I jump out of bed and straight for the bathroom. “I’ll be right there!”
It takes less than two minutes for me to toss my hair into a ponytail and wash my face. For a second, I contemplate doing a tribal amount of makeup. I look all of thirteen without mascara and eyeliner, but something in me chooses to forgo it. A part of me feels like I’m punishing Jessie by subjecting him to my fresh-faced look. As if I’m saying Look at me! This is who I really am! I’m the girl that’s been hiding under all the layers of foundation, the bubble gum lip-gloss. This is the real me, a person with feelings.
It occurs to me as I hit the final step on the way to the front door that maybe I did have my feelings hurt last night. Wow, I couldn’t be any more stupid if I tried. Jessie Fox hurt both my feelings and my vagina. I’m so ridiculous I want to shake myself. This is what I wanted. Isn’t it? For sure, it’s not the way I envisioned feeling the day after I sold my virginity to the highest bidder.
I open the door with the same inevitability as one would rip off a bandage.
There he is. The breath gets knocked out of my lungs. My entire body melts at the sight of this unfairly gorgeous boy with the serious amber eyes, that sad smile blooming all for me.
“You’re beautiful,” he says it so fast, so focused on my eyes, I’m not sure he noticed the beauty school dropout rebellion taking place, the cartoon sweatshirt that screams I’m anything but a sexpot. “I brought you something.” He pulls a bouquet of brilliant red roses from behind his back and holds them out like an apology. There’s something lingering in the air between us, an invisible wound we’ve both inflicted upon one another. “Would you like to go to breakfast with me?”
* * *
This time I do get ready. I put on my stirrups and a paisley flannel, toss a neon pink scrunchie into my hair, and slap two Swatch watches onto my wrist. I shove my feet into my new black granny boots and examine myself in the mirror. Here I am, a woman. A woman going on a breakfast date with the man she just slept with. A man who is pretending to be her boyfriend so that she, too, can pretend to be something she’s not.
We head out and hit a drive-through, picking up a couple of breakfast sandwiches before heading down to the beach, listening to Cyndi Lauper’s “All Through the Night”. It feels appropriate—somber and melancholy, and for a moment, I’m moved to cry.
Jessie takes my hand as we walk along the shoreline. He unfurls a blanket he keeps in the back, and we sit watching the waves crash over the shore.
“Are you hungry?” He tries to hand me something from our fast-food haul, and I shake my head. Somewhere, between yesterday and today, I not only lost my virginity, I lost my appetite.
“I’m sorry if I hurt you.” His features melt into that somber expression that has always scared me on some level. Jessie is a player, a bad boy, always quick with that devilish grin, and here Genie and I have reduced him to stone. God, I’ve not only damaged my own psyche, but I broke Jessie Fox.
“No, not at all. Like you could never hurt me.” Tears come as if to refute the theory. The sea breeze licks over my face, and I can taste the salt on my lips.
“There’s something I have to tell you.” Jessie scoops me into his arms until I’m settled on his lap, staring up at those long lashes of his. Why do boys always end up with the good lashes? My tears come faster, demanding to fall, but I won’t let them. God, now I’m crying over the injustice of eyelashes. My hormones really know no bounds.
“Last night meant a lot to me,” he whispers.
His own eyes glisten with moisture, and my stomach bottoms out at the sight. Jessie Fox has feelings, too. Of course, he does. And here I was the one putting him in that player, bad boy box. A breath gets caught in my throat at the thought of what this might mean, what the hopeless romantic in me wants it to mean.
“I don’t want this to come off the wrong way.” He wipes a tear from my eye before kissing the wetness on my cheek. “I have been with other girls. But the reason I’m mentioning it is because what we shared last night never happened before.”
Dear God, don’t let it be an allergy. Anything but an allergy.
“If the Barbarian is covered in hives, I don’t want to know about it.” I bury my face in my hands. “God, I knew I was a freak.”
“What? You’re not a freak.” He gives my shoulders a quick squeeze. I can feel his chest thumping with a rumble of a laugh. “No. I promise you the Barbarian is perfectly fine. In fact, he’
s missing Genie already. He’s greedy that way.”
“Really?” I peer at him from between my fingers before coming up for air.
“Yes, really. He’s hoping for a reprisal sometime in the near future, but only if you’re up for it. If you’re in pain, I can wait.” His cheeks flex. “I never want to hurt you.” His voice breaks just enough and lets me know he’s talking about a hurt far more visceral than the one that Genie is experiencing. “There was something I wanted to tell you last night—as soon as you arrived, I wanted to pull you aside and say these words, but I don’t know if I was too afraid you’d laugh, wouldn’t say them back, or would have hauled off and decked me. But all night I wished I could rewind time and whisper those words to you first. Jennifer—”
My mouth falls open at what might stumble from his lips next.
“I’ve fallen in love with you.” That grin of his blooms, and his eyes light up like flames. “I’ve never felt this way in my life, Jen. When I placed your hand over my heart last night, that’s what I was desperately trying to tell you. Every single beat belongs to you.”
“You love me?” Tears fall fast and hard, and I don’t bother to hide them. It’s impossible to stop them.
“I love you, Jennifer Barkly. Yes, I do.”
“Jessie.” His name comes out light, lost in my laughter.
He rolls me over onto his chest as he lies back in the sand.
“I need to say something, too.” My lips pinch tight a moment. “I like love you, too, Jessie. I’ve always been more than slightly obsessed with you, but, like, that day at your house—my first day with Jilly, just watching you with her, seeing how sweet you were, listening to you talk about books and like The Beatles, my heart gave way like a landslide.”
“Like a landslide,” he says, soaking in my features as if he’s never seen them before. “I love that.” He dots a kiss to my lips. “And I love you.”
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