“It would be natural for you to be nervous, Jennifer. It’s mostly fear of the unknown. After we get started everything will all fall into place. In the morning we’ll look back and have a laugh on it.”
“The morning!” They would be waking up together. It was a thought that hit Jennifer all at once. She hadn’t thought about the impending finality. She wondered how it would change her. She finally understood that what she was planning was more than an adventure like shopping at a new mall. As she and Tracy had planned out the tryst it had all seemed so matter-of fact. It was detail-oriented: the pills, the weekend alone, getting the right guy. Now it took on proportions of an important lifetime event.
Jennifer cast her eyes down to the table. Steven sensed there was more to be discussed.
“I think there you have something more on your mind, Jennifer.”
“Steven”, she began, “I hope that you won’t be angry by my asking you this.” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “Have you ever taken a girl through her first time before?”
The question gave Steven a sudden alarm. He had a formula that he always relied on. One constant in the equation: never divulge what he had done with one girl to another one. He had never been guilty of it. He learned his lesson the easy way, by observation, as friends’ secrets told returned in their inevitable circular path at the worst possible moment.
Jennifer saw the angst in Steven’s brow. “Oh, no!” she thought, “I’ve done it again!”
She paused a moment, then spoke again, thinking that honesty might save the day. “I only asked you that because…” She paused again. She lifted her head up and said. “I don’t know how to ask you this. Will it hurt? Tracy said that it really will hurt a lot. She thought that I should have some drinks first to, you know, dull the pain. What do you think?”
Steven lowered his defenses. He felt the fear contained in Jennifer’s voice. He sought to comfort her if he could. It was wrong of Tracy to set her up with such dread expectations. Perhaps Tracy wished to limit their success.
“I had an experience before I started going with Tracy. It was nice, I think, for both of us.”
Steven continued, “It won’t necessarily hurt. It might, a little. I can’t say for sure, but I think that it depends on the individual. Forget about the drinking, I don’t know how that would help. One thing I do know: you have to relax. There’s more pain involved in pushing apart muscles that are cramped up than in breaking through a hymen.”
Jennifer sat pensively for a moment, summoning courage for her final confession.
“Steven, I might as well tell you everything. I don’t have any experience at all. It’s not just being a virgin. I’ve never even had a boy make out with me or had one see me with any of my clothes off. I’ve never even been kissed, at least the way I’ve seen you and Tracy kiss. I know that you must think I’m pathetic, but I had to tell you this, so that you can understand why I’m so nervous.”
“Jennifer”, Steven said, “I’m not that surprised. When people start making out it leads them go a little further every time, until they’ve gone ‘all the way’. So, when I found out that you’re a virgin, I really didn’t expect you to have a lot of experience. You don’t have to be ashamed about it. The right moment comes at different times for everyone. If you have any doubts about going through with it, just say the word. You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to.”
Jennifer listened to him. Steven’s answer gave her some comfort. She still had a case of nerves, but was thinking that Steven would make everything alright.
Steven saw her thinking on what he’d said.
“Take it one step at a time. You’ll feel some new things that you’ll really like. Concentrate on those. Just remember that you can call it off at any time…and we’ll still be friends.”
The last part, about “being friends”, made Jennifer smile. As they rose to clear their table Jennifer thought that she was taking her last walk after her last meal.
“This is it!” she said to herself. She barely heard Steven speaking.
“I’ll give you awhile to get ready. I thought that I would take a shower first. I’ll knock at your door at eight.”
***************
As they left the dining hall Steven and Jennifer parted to go to their separate dorm rooms. As Steven walked he thought to himself that he would have liked to have a little more time to think things over. He found himself uncomfortably in the middle. He didn’t know Jennifer well enough to have deep feelings for her. Now, after their dinner together, he knew her too well to want to bed her purely out of lust. Jennifer and Tracy were expecting performance from him. If he were to back out Jennifer would think it a sign of rejection, not consideration for her.
Steven started thinking about Tracy and asked himself why she had arranged to have him and Jennifer in the positions that they were in. He wasn’t sure that Tracy’s motives were so altruistic. He had never known a female to relinquish a hold on a man ‘unselfishly’, just to give a sexually underprivileged friend a chance at bedroom bliss. Women hated comparisons of themselves with other women, particularly in matters of their nude bodies and sexual skills. This setup was sure to create just such an evaluation. Was Tracy so confident that she sought a comparison in order to reinforce Steven’s preference for her? Was she so sure to hoist the bedroom trophy? Maybe Tracy had set a test for Steven. Perhaps Tracy’s motive was her penchant for manipulation that Steven knew too well. In Tracy’s world sex was an activity with many uses. At any rate, Steven never fooled himself that he was in love with Tracy, but he enjoyed her talents and the security that their steady relationship gave him. The importance of it seemed to be dimming in the light of the present circumstance.
As he ambled to his dorm, Steven tried to sort his way through his conflicted soul. He gazed at the prospect of a weekend of carnal delights with his girlfriend’s roommate on loan. For a total commitment of forty-eight hours, he would be free to wander wherever his creative libido and persuasive talents with Jennifer would lead them. Jennifer didn’t look like she would require a lot of persuading. After that, he could catch up for lost time with Tracy. Who knew, maybe Jennifer could be on call, or more. Many possibilities entered Stevens mind. Instinct told him to stop complaining. Jennifer had made her own choice.
It was the nagging whisper that irritated him. During their dinner together Jennifer had exposed her vulnerability so openly. Maybe she would lead a happier life if she allowed herself to be wooed and courted by a young man who sought to be her first lover. Maybe the young man would be as inexperienced as Jennifer, and they would learn love’s delights together. Steven knew that he could do a credible job in the physical initiation of the naïve girl. How could he give her the thrill of mutual desire that every person seeks. He sought the answer, but it was not in him.
Jennifer became human during their dinner together. She had feared Steven’s pity in her confessions of sexual naiveté. She was mistaken. Steven admired her bravery in opening her secrets to him. He started liking her for her honesty. Her partial innocence was a mystery. She was inexperienced, to be sure, but was responsible for the contrivance that he was now a part of. He decided that she might be a diamond in the rough. He wondered about the person hiding underneath the façade of social bumbling.
At least Jennifer rated a shower, shave and change of clothes. He had time for that, and to purchase a bottle of wine for them to share.
************************
Steven arrived at Jennifer’s room cleaned up, and with a bouquet of flowers and bottle of rose’. He wasn’t sure what to expect from Jennifer or himself. It was an unusual assignation.
Steven was used to the customary baking that took place in almost any first-time date. There would be a careful testing and measuring process followed by period of mixing and kneading. He would check the temperature by gently pressing in a digit like a baker trying a loaf of bread to see if it was ready to come out of the oven. Sometimes it would be just right and ready to enjoy. At other times the loaf might need more baking. When that would happen the flavor would be all-the-better because of the longer warming time. He would never let a loaf become overdone. It would be hard and crusty. Sometimes it would be apparent that the loaf would just never be right for his palette, so he would let it go, to be finished by another baker with different tastes than he.
The contrivance to which he had agreed was a bypass of the traditional process. It was like buying a loaf of store-bought bread. It was ready to eat but with an unknown taste. He told himself to be happy that the work had been done for him. It was unsatisfying, however, and bread is always best fresh and warm from the oven, prepared in just the right way so that the eating of it yields the greatest pleasure. Perhaps he could reheat Jennifer to a golden brown toast, and she would taste good, too.
As he mounted the stairs to Jennifer’s floor he wondered how he would find her. After the conversation in the dining hall he half-expected her to have run away in fright. Possibly Tracy had issued some pre-flight instructions prior to her departure. Probably, he thought, he would find her in her jeans and sweatshirt, not knowing what to do or how to start. He was determined that the final decision had to be Jennifer’s. It could not be because Tracy wanted it, or that he had been promised her favor for the night. If Jennifer was unready, he would accept that she was one of those loaves better passed on to another baker.
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