I had a good Father’s Day today. The family piled into Sharaun’s car to head to church (not just because that’s where the carseat is, but because it’s cheaper per-mile than the Explorer too), came home and took a family-style nap (using both couches while Keaton napped), and then went back up to church for this Father’s Day barbecue thing they were doing. Just being outside was nice, and, for me, getting the time to hang out with Keaton on the playground and in the bounce-house things was a nice way to spend “my” day. The preceding weekend days were nice too, with an annual luau party at our friends’ place keeping us out until the wee hours on Saturday, and a nice post-work happy hour and dine-out with the crew on Friday. So, not bad. And now, it’s time to start another week. I’ll be in Oregon again a couple days this week, but I’ll do my best to keep bloggin’.
I got a story today, here we go.
I remember when you asked me to stay the night
Your parents were out of town and you had asked me over to “hang out.” On the surface, I was there to hang out… but something inside me knew there was a good chance I might be there for more. It was the Fourth of July, and when I got there it was still light outside, but you were dressed in those tiny little shorts that girls like to wear around the house or to bed. You know the kind, the ones that cheerleaders wear to carwashes; the kind that are thin and gray and cotton and look cheap like they probably came from a rack near an aisle at Target. You had them rolled up around the top elastic, folded up into themselves a couple times so they were even shorter on your legs. And, oh, your legs. Great legs: tan, athletic, and smooth. You had on a nondescript t-shirt, hanging somewhat loose on you, the looping armholes extending far past your arm and exposing skin as you moved. No bra; no bra at all. I remember that probably because of those portholes in your sleeves, I bet. You looked amazing to me, but, then again, I had always had a crush on you… you knew that.
Your house was huge and empty, just you, me, and that little dog. We watched TV on the couch, and you cuddled up right next to me. I put my arms around you and pulled you onto my lap, but didn’t dare do anything more forward. We sat there like that for at least an hour; I in pointed agony, wanting something to happen but not willing to extend myself without a few more go-aheads from you. I wonder if you felt the same way?
Or, maybe that’s the kind of thing that’s different between males and females? Here I was dying because I wanted you to let me know it would be OK to kiss you or more, and maybe your female brain was thinking nothing of the sort – maybe you were thinking how nice it was to not be alone, how “good” I was to come keep you company, whatever. Maybe not, maybe you were dying for me to be bold, wondering why I was resisting… I guess I’ll always wonder.
Eventually, as time passed, we wound up in your room upstairs. You know, that’s a distinct feeling: Being young and being asked upstairs into a girl’s room knowing her parents are cities and towns away for days. I mean, I was fresh in college, but I still lived with my folks; and you, you had yet to graduate high-school, being in your last year. But that feeling of careening, some kind of swirling towards the inevitable: both of us in the room together, the room where you sleep each night, on that bed right over there. The room that smells of a thousand intoxicating girl-smells, lotions like berries, sprays like flowers, soaps like honey and sugars and candies, all mixed together into a deadly mustard gas of womanly wiles. We were there under the pretense of listening to music, a pretense that has worked well for me, and in my head I was busy watching your body language for a green light.
Somehow we end up in your closet, a large walk-in. I’m flicking through your hanging clothes, commenting on them. I can’t remember why, maybe I knew that chicks dig talking about clothes, maybe it was a plan. I comment on a few particularly sexy-looking ensembles, about how awesome I bet they would look on you. We are both all smiles and slight touches and unnecessary hugs around the hips; we’re fawning, sickly if observed from the outside of our little bubble I’d bet. I, however, still don’t dare make a decisive move – I don’t cross that final line; I’ve always been somewhat cautious like this – slow escalations, that’s where I work. “I want to see this on you,” I say. A stroke of brilliance, appealing to both my lechery and your vanity, it can’t lose. “I’m going to pick out some clothes and I want to see you in them.” “OK,” you answer, “Go.”
I choose some dresses, some tight shirts, some small jeans, and, as a final grain of sand intended to tip this scale – a swimsuit, bikini. I leave them on a small dresser in your closet with you and walk back into your room so you can change. You do not close the closet door, but there’s no way I can see in, it’s around the corner and I’ve taken a seat on your bed.
It’s intimate for some reason, sitting on someone’s bed, and that just added to the moment. I could hear you changing. You came out first in one of the dresses, it was a lot more fitting than that droopy t-shirt, and your lack of bra was now pronounced – you held your hands to your chest in a halfhearted effort to hide the fact, but soon dropped them to give me a little twirl in the center of room. Trying to communicate intent, I told you you looked amazing. After a quick faux catwalk stamp around the carpet, you’re back in the closet.
Outfit after outfit I watch you parade in front of me as I lounge on your bed. I complimented you on each one, told you how awesome you looked. I knew the swimsuit would be last, it at all, I didn’t expect anything else, didn’t even really expect you to put it on at all. But you did. You came out in that bikini and did that little twirl and my head almost exploded. You looked so good. I’m not sure if I asked you to come over to the bed or if you just did, but that’s where you ended up. And that’s where we laid together, my front to your back, legs entangled, my arms around your tiny waist, brushing your warm bare skin.
Looking back, I don’t know why I didn’t think it more clear of a sign – but I was still wary, not wanting to press ahead. I’d made clear to you several times before the level of my attraction to you, but we’d both been involved at the time. So we just laid there, listening to the Police’s “Greatest Hits” and spooning. Your hair in my face nearly pushed me over the edge, so to keep busy I began running my fingers through it, collecting it in bunches to lift it and let it drop, twisting it around my fingers. I traced the curve of your hip with my hand.
It had become dark out, we could hear fireworks. The stage was set.
There was one problem: As much as I wanted you right then, I wanted someone else even more. And, even though I wasn’t, at the time, betrothed to another – I had dabbled enough in no-good low-down double-timing to know it wasn’t worth it to try and have everything. I was, in a word, torn; in two words, torn and weak. You rolled in my arms, turned to face me. “Stay with me tonight,” you said, “I’m afraid to be alone, the noise of the fireworks scares me.”
WhizzzzzzzzzzPowwww! ZzzzzzzzziiipBaang!! The barges fired their ordinance.
“I, I can’t,” I say. “I, I probably shouldn’t.”
“Please, I really am scared. I know it’s silly, but I want you to stay. You can sleep here with me, in my bed. Don’t leave.”
And there you were, pleading with me to stay the night with you, wearing only a bikini top and bottoms, next to naked in my arms. Internet, if you could have watched me on a movie screen, you’d be throwing popcorn and yelling at me for being retarded. The women in the audience gripping their seats while praying I’d stay strong and decide to go with the truth in my heart, men stonefaced for the benefit of the women yet secretly wanting me to take the chance and go with the truth in my pants.
C-c-c-c-crack! BangBangBang!! PopSnapSnapPop!! Light fuse and get away.
“I want to, you know how bad I do,” I said. “But I shouldn’t, I just shouldn’t.”
At this point you became upset, and started to tear up. I was still holding you, looking at you, when your mood changed from pleading to anger that I wasn’t choosing to stay. “Why won’t you stay?, I can’t believe you’re not going to stay here!” You got up from the bed, changed back into that loose t-shirt and those cheerleader shorts, but continued to ask me, beg me, to stay. I have to be honest, I’m still not sure if you were upset because I wasn’t going to stay and keep you safe and warm by spooning you all night in your bed, of if you were incredulous that I was passing on a sexual opportunity that you were finally offering and sure I’d take because, after all, I’d told you so.
Whichever it was, that evening did not end well. I left you mad and alone, and I don’t remember hanging out with you at all until again until one afternoon years later when we bumped into each other 300mi away on the green grass of a different college altogether. We grabbed lunch that day, sat and caught up. I was happy that you didn’t look quite as beautiful as you did from my memories of that night. Don’t get me wrong, you were that night and that day, a gorgeous little thing – I think I’d just idealized the situation in my head.
You know, I never even kissed that girl – not even a peck; not once.
Well, just when I thought I’d run out of adolescent tales of lust and love and fiery loins – I remembered that gem. I have, however, almost exhausted my real-life experience. If an encounter isn’t here, or here, or here, or here, or even maybe here – then it’s likely too close to the chest to put on the internet.
[Funny enough, I started thinking late Sunday night that I had written about this before. And, I had... but it was nowhere near as verbose. Plus, I remembered the details a bit different there (tight-fitting tank-top vs. loose-fitting t-shirt, as an example). I wonder which is right? I like this version better, so I think I'll remember it this way for a while. After all, it's my memory - and I seem to remember the major parts right.]
OK, I’m going to bed. Here’s another amazing candid Megan did of Keaton to tie-off the post. Goodnight.
Mike and Tricia Kosher
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