Chapter 7

Lena’s turn:

The first night on the road with Jay. I have no earthly idea what I’m doing. I’m lying in my own bed, thinking that I’ll just drift off to sleep but that’s not happening.

My mind is going like somebody tossed marbles into a blender.

I’ve done what most people do sooner or later when entering adulthood – I left Mom and Dad’s house. I’ll even acknowledge that for many people that move involved taking off with a person of the opposite sex with whom one has a relationship of various different types.

Jay and I have a relationship of a different type. You see, I think he’s it. I love him. Sort of figured out in the weeks we talked since Christmas, almost every night. Christmas presents from Jay were an iPad and a MacBook and an iPhone, and he put me on his cellular plan. Darned right I’m gonna use it to talk with him every evening.

Friends at school, though, girls I talked with regularly, as soon as I mentioned my nightly sessions with Jay, well, they thought...

“Phone sex? Sexting?” Janine asked with a smirk.

“It’s not that kind of thing, Janine,” I replied. “We’re FRIENDS!”

“Girl, don’t give me that,” she retorted. “Older guy. You’re talking with him every night. That’s waaaay past ‘friend’. So you showin’ ‘im the goodies?”

“No!” I squeaked.

Left school thinking about it, though. Careful assessment of my relationship with Jay. I definitely know it’s a friendship, but it’s over a long distance.

Every night, though, he talked with me, listening to me prattle on about school stuff, we had serious conversations about current events, about who was reading what, about music, food. Every night I knew a little bit more about him and he knew a little bit more about me and I knew I was watching something growing within my mind. And my heart.

When Jay came down for graduation, we solidified a plan for my future, me leaving town with him. He’d managed somehow to convince people that I could be a documents clerk on a construction project that he was engineering. He offered me a bedroom in his apartment until I could get on my feet.

I thought it was cute. Here he is, thinking that we were going to have some sort of platonic ‘odd couple’ thing going, and I’m thinking that there’s a ninety-five percent chance that before we get too far into it, we’re going to be together in every sense of the word.

Now, you see, it’s easy to get all these bright ideas when they’re almost hypothetical. I mean, Jay’s five hundred miles away, working six days a week, and I can see his face every night and hear his voice, but it’s kind of disconnected.

Reality set in when he showed up and we actually decided. I started to get cold feet.

Then he warmed my feet up by proposing that he and I do a trip to satisfy some shared love of Civil War history. I know ... Slick devil, ain’t he? Using history to get me off away from my family.

So we took off on the trip and here we are in a hotel room together, having had a truly great day that culminated in...

Up to this point, I’ve been kissed. After tonight, I understand the meaning of the word ‘artless’. I didn’t realize that kissing would affect my whole body. I know I affected Jay’s body. It was visible and obvious and we came very close to losing control right here in this bed.

Between the two of us, though, we came up with enough brain to stop and pull back. Literally. I pressed against him and I could FEEL him and this was NOT supposed to happen to me.

Hypothetical. All I had was hypothetical knowledge of the way I thought things were supposed to work between a man and a woman, like they’d give cogent thought to each step of the path between holding hands and, like in those old movies, waves crashing on the beach.

We came (and that’s a bad choice of words, I think) close to being inundated by those waves. I keep telling myself that I don’t want to make that final move until, as I told Jay, we’re sure. Trouble is, I’m lying on my back in this bed and I’m pretty sure. That assurance partly comes from the fact that he didn’t push me any further than I wished to be pushed, maybe he didn’t even push as hard as I WANTED to be pushed.

‘Lena, you have a new view of yourself, ‘ I thought. ‘You totally failed to understand what you’ve read and what you’ve seen in movies and on TV and what you’ve heard in all those conversations at school. You just found out that there’s so much more.’

I tossed and turned for a while, then, “Jay?”

“Nnn-hnn,” came the reply.

“You’re not asleep, either, are you?”

“No,” he said softly, like he was afraid that speaking loud would further drive away any hopes for sleep.

“I know what’s wrong,” I said. “Don’t misread this.” I lifted up the covers on HIS bed and slid in beside MY Jay. He started to protest. “Jay, we were closer than this a while ago. Maybe this will let me sleep.”

“How about this?” he said, wrapping me in his arms.

“Mmmm,” I moaned just a little, then pushed up to kiss him. It was much better. I went to sleep with his nose in my hair, breathing me in.

We slept. We tossed and turned, naturally, and once or twice I woke with a start, then realized that this was Jay and I was supposed to be in this bed. I went back to sleep every time, and every time either one of us was facing the other, we held on. I was snuggling spoon-style into his back one time, putting my arm around him. It occurred to me that my hand ... But no. Not that night.

I do so much enjoy getting kissed first thing in the morning.

We went to breakfast. I teased. I know I teased, but I think Jay needs some gentle guidance. “Last night, Jay. Did you stop because you find me repugnant?”

He looked shocked. “There are a lot of things I see in you, Lena. Repugnant is not any of them.”

See?!? I make him admit it. Verbalize it.

“So why did you stop?”

“Because YOU said stop. And I value everything you already mean to me above the pleasure we might have enjoyed...”

Okay. I don’t play fair. “WE might have enjoyed? You presume, sir...” He almost choked on his coffee.

Our plates arrived.

“Saved by the bell,” I said to him. Maybe he knows it’s a game, too.

We spent a perfect day doing the Vicksburg battlefield, had a wonderful dinner and returned to our room.

I propositioned him. “Trade you?”

“Trade me what?”

“Foot rubs. After we shower, you rub my feet, I rub yours.”

After that, it seemed completely natural for us to get into some hugging and kissing and...

I love the cologne he uses. I should--I directed him to buy it and he smells good enough to eat. I had my face buried between his ear and his shoulder, just breathing, feeling him, holding him, letting his hands touch me so lovingly. Seemed to be just the right spot to kiss, so I did, mouth slightly open, a little suction, a little lick with the tip of my tongue. He almost came unglued.

“God, Lena ... You’re too much...”

I played innocent. It wasn’t difficult. I mostly am. “That really affects you that much?”

And he showed me. His lips, my neck, I felt my whole body start to glow ... I grabbed his head, not knowing whether to hold him there or to push him away. I squealed.

Too much more of that and I’d be throwing my clothes up in the air.

I took a deep breath. “Movie,” I blurted. “We need a distraction.”

“You ARE a distraction,” was his reply.

And I’m very happy with that.

We slowed down for a while, talked about the L-word we’d said to each other, then we read and watched TV, stopping to do just enough kissing to keep the glow going without letting it break into a full-blown conflagration.

A commercial break interrupted the movie. I put my book down.

“I’m about to be kissed, ain’t I?” he asked with a grin.

“If you can stand it.”

We started kissing. I started unbuttoning his pajama top.

“Uh, Lena...”

“I touched you there last night, Jay. Just wanna look, okay?”

“Uh, what if I tried that with YOU?”

Sanity kept me from just peeling my top off right then and there, but I’m trying to proceed slowly. I got his chest exposed, dragged my fingers through that curly hair, got moans from him. Learned that this guy’s sensitive to that. I like it. I laid my head on his chest, feeling his wiry hair against it. The movie came back on and I moved back to my pillow.

I noticed that his pajamas were poking waaaay up. Sexually aroused, was my Jay. He put a pillow on top of it.

“I know what that is, Jay,” I said. “It’s okay, you know...”

“I’m trying not to be obvious.”

“I’m not obvious,” I said.

“It’s YOUR fault,” he said.

“I get affected, too. We need to cool off.”

“Watch the stupid movie,” he chided.

I giggled.

“Lena...”

“Okay.” I played it to sound a little disappointed.

We watched until the next commercial break, then I turned back to him. “Wanna know something?”

“Is it going to kill me?”

“No, love.”

“Okay.”

“That’s the first time I actually CAUSED one.”

“Baby, it shouldn’t be a surprise. And it’s not the first. When you kissed me last night...”

“It’s the first. Not ‘this time is the first’.”