Her parents had already chosen the name, April, when she surprised them by arriving on March 26. They had been much too busy dealing with her to consider another name. April liked her name, but had often considered choosing another birthday. This March 26th, however, she was turning sixteen; waiting any longer would have been torture.

Brian, seven months older and already licensed, drove her to the state facility after school. "Right hand side," he said as she left the building with her learner's permit clutched in her hand. Brian knew his April.

"You're a licensed driver," she replied, though she did get in the passenger's side. "It's legal."

"Your father would kill me! It's rush hour, and that piece of paper doesn't mean that you know how to drive."

"When it's something you want to do, you don't care that my father would kill you." Of course, she knew, her father would kill her first if he knew that she let Brian kiss her breasts and stroke between her legs. At least he would ground her for life. But the exquisite sensations were worth the risk.

"When it's something I want to do," he pointed out, "you don't care that it's legal when you're sixteen." Brian was making debating points with half his mind. The rest was concentrating on the driving. His desire for April, never really absent, was far below his consciousness.

April hadn't thought about sex as legal or not. She enjoyed everything she did with Brian, but feared the next step. And desired the next step. And wanted to be a woman. And didn't want to be a bad girl. She loved Brian, and wanted to be with Brian forever, and wanted a life before she was tied down. Brian had enticed her, rather than pushing her, into each step. But they never went back. She loved the sensations he could evoke, and everything she read told her that the best was yet to be. But she rather liked having some limits, something in the future. And the first time hurt. "That's not the same," she said slowly.

"It's your comparison. Anyway, save a little of your excitement for the party tonight. 'What was your favorite birthday gift, April?' 'The only one I care about came from the Secretary of State.' That would throw a real damper on your party."

Her mind freed from the labyrinth of desire-and-reluctance, she contemplated instead the simple joys of anticipated fun, anticipated attention, and anticipated gifts. "So, what are you giving me?" she asked.

"Well, you know I have a rule against telling before you open the package; but this year you'll already have guessed. My gift was a ride to the State License Facility."

"Liar. Tease."

"I love you, Ape. That's no lie."

"I love you, too. But I want to know now." And she did want to know now. She also wanted to be surprised. The good thing about Brian was that she could tease and tease. He would still surprise her.

"Well, I thought of buying you a car in case you survive Driver's Ed. But Mom refused to raise my allowance two thousand percent. So I settled on a postcard for the next time your parents cut you off from the phone."

"Meany! Anyway, you are on the other end of most of my long phone calls. Tell me! I'll leave the car without kissing you if you don't." She withdrew the threat when it didn't work. Their kiss was long and sweet, worthy of sending Brian off to war. Instead, he was at her door three hours later for her birthday party.

When the party was in full swing, the time came to open his gift. It really did contain a postcard, but the card had a charm bracelet taped to it to muffle the tiniest rattle. The single charm was a car.

Brian's humor was notorious, as were April's phone-time violations. So the attention of the party focused on the postcard. A charm bracelet was more significant to April than anyone in the room realized. Her great aunt had shown one to her on a long afternoon, a biography kept in a box. Even though Great-Aunt Amber had skipped over two stories, April had felt deeply honored at being allowed to share so much of that life. Since her sister Carla hadn't received that honor, April hadn't mentioned it to her. Brian was the only person that she had ever told. He had sensed what she didn't say, which was that she wanted to be able to hold her own life on her wrist one day.

Brian held his breath. He was her steady, which was a temporary arrangement. The bracelet, meant to hold her life, had to be a gift from someone significant in her whole life. He wanted to be that significant to her; he wondered if he was. He desperately hoped that he was.

She saw the hope and fear in his eyes, and immediately needed to kiss away the fear. The gift had nearly brought tears to her own eyes. She crossed to him and said "Thank you." She had intended a light kiss, but her emotion overcame her.

She was suddenly conscious of her nipples' sensitivity as they firmed against his chest. She was conscious of his erection growing against her leg as she opened her mouth to his tongue. She was conscious of her own moistness as his tongue found hers. She was belatedly conscious of the whistles of their friends. She and Brian broke the kiss to look into each other's eyes for a moment that was hundreds of times more erotic than the kiss. Love was in his eyes, and a desperate plea that she would find him worthy to be significant in her life. How could she not? She'd shared the secret with him alone.

"Put it on my wrist, would you?" she said. His relief showed that he had heard the acceptance she had intended.

"What was all the excitement?" her mother asked from the doorway.

"Isn't this a marvelous bracelet?" April said. "Brian gave it to me."

"Yes dear, it's lovely. Does everyone have enough to eat? I think I'll stay and see the other presents opened." She did, without hearing any more whistles. April was properly appreciative of each gift and more appreciative of her friends and their pleasure.

At the end of the night Brian stood with April's sister Carla as April and her mother said goodbye to the guests at the door. Carla started to clean up the mess as the last couple left. Brian carried one load into the kitchen for her. "Two minutes," said April's mother when he got back. "It's a special day."

April walked him out. "I love you," he said when the door was safely shut.

"I love you, too," she responded. "More than two minutes can tell." When the porch light went out, they melted into each other. His tongue searched her mouth as his hands clasped her hips. Hard nipples and wet crease told her of her excitement; his erection told both of them of his. She ground her belly against it as his hand came around to her front. He reached her mound just as the lights came back on. She jumped back and grabbed his hands, but then she squeezed them tight. "We'll talk."

"We'll talk," he agreed, and kissed each of her hands before letting go of them. He walked a little awkwardly toward his house, turned sideways in hopes of hiding his groin from April's parents.

She helped clear the worst of the mess and start the first load of dishes. "Was it all right, dear?" her mother asked. "I know the Easter holidays made it difficult."

"It was lovely, Mom. Really it was. The party was great, even if it was a school night. I can't blame you for that. I know that you wanted to hold it on the fifth."

"I very much wanted another child, but the date wasn't critical. It was the doctor who said that you'd be born April Fifth. Carla was a week late. How was I to know that you'd be impatient all your life? I was surprised when you decided to be born on the 26th, not disappointed." It was an old subject, they could continue the dialogue even when they were out of earshot. Soon her mother said, "We'll vacuum tomorrow. Go to bed."

They headed upstairs. April was dressed for bed when she heard Carla's unique knock. She let her in and lay under the covers on one side of the bed. Carla took the invitation to sprawl on the other side before she spoke. "What happened, Sib?"

They'd been referred to as "siblings" when April was eight and Carla fourteen. That led to the joint nickname and, much later, to the rule that talk under that label was absolutely private.

"Don't be hurt?" April began. Carla nodded curtly. "Great Aunt Amber has a charm bracelet. Every charm has a story. She told me most of them back last summer when she visited. I couldn't tell you because I was afraid that you would mind that she told me and not you."

"I'm not hurt. She likes you better, but you like her better than I do, too. It's not like being Mom's favorite, or Dad's, or even Gramp's."

"Anyway, it was like magic. The charms weren't expensive, but each held a story. The bracelet held her whole life. Each charm was significant; each was given her by a significant person. I told Brian the story, back then. What was nice, was he remembered and could tell that I wanted something like that. What he was asking was 'Do I think he is significant in my life?' I figure he is. He was also saying that he wanted to be."

"I would think he's significant," said Carla. "You spend more time with him than at home."

"You sound like Mom. Look, Sib, who was your steady when you turned sixteen?"

"Hmmm? Sixteenth birthday? Joey. Remember him? Coached you in basketball sometimes."

"Is he significant in your life?"

"Not anymore." Carla waited for more. None came. "I see what you mean. So you think that Brian may be permanent?"

"I'm sure that he is permanent. I'm sure that he's sure that we're permanent. I'm not sure that our being sure is a guarantee. I watched you, remember?"

"Was I that bad an example, April?"

"Sib, you were a great example. I'm trying to be Carla. But you were in and out of love a lot."

"You'll never be Carla, lucky you. Try to be April. You're in love with Brian?"

"And in lust with him."

"You haven't?"

"Nothing has changed since we last talked ... Except the bracelet. We still do everything else but. Does it hurt the first time?"

"I did, and cried on your shoulder. And you never told. Thank you, Sib."

"You've done it for me loads of times. Brian said something, though." Carla looked interested. "You're a paralegal and all. Brian wouldn't let me drive home when I got the permit."

"Sib, you are an idiot. I can tell you didn't drive home, you're still alive."

"Well, I pointed out that it was legal."

"I don't know about that one. There might be some obligation for the licensed driver to use good judgment. Why else have him along? Want me to look it up?"

"No. Brian said that other things were legal when I turned sixteen but I wasn't rushing to do them."

"Not quite true. Yesterday, it didn't count whether you said 'yes' or 'no.' He'd still be committing a felony. Tomorrow it matters what you say. Are you thinking of saying 'yes'? He should know that age doesn't matter if you say 'no, ' to him."

"Brian's not like that. So the law is all about him, and not about me. I'm not thinking enough about saying 'yes, ' if you know what I mean. Every time I'm with him, even the two minutes on the porch -- that went awfully fast, by the way. Did Mom change her mind?"

"I handled the light switch. You had two and a half minutes, not counting the time before I turned it off. Anyway..."

"Anyway," April cut her off, "every time I'm with him, I really don't feel like stopping. Then I feel all scared of going on. Does it always hurt the first time?"

"My first time hurt like hell. I don't know about anybody else's. I was eighteen, and I came back to cry in the arms of my thirteen-year-old little sister because there wasn't anybody else I could tell. And I went on to have several romances where it didn't cause pain, but ecstatic pleasure. Then I fell in love with my boss who is happily married to a pregnant woman who is perfectly nice to me every time she calls and whom I hate with a passion. And my little sister has had more romance in her life than I have for the last six months, and more sex, too. And I don't know if it hurt anyone else."

"Look," April said, "I'm sorry about this."

"No. You aren't to blame. Jeff Benton isn't to blame. Mrs. Benton isn't to blame."

"And you aren't to blame. You haven't done one thing wrong."

"That's because I haven't done one thing. Anyway, the law says that you weren't competent to give consent last week, but you will be next week. That's about you. That doesn't mean that you should, or even that the law permits you to have sex. What it means is that it makes a difference whether you say 'aye' or 'nay'."

"And which do you think that I should say?"

"'Nay.'"

"Huh? My non-judgmental sister?"

"That's a decision that you can change," Carla pointed out. "The other one isn't. Besides, when you want my advice, you aren't ready to take that step." She got up. "Sleep tight, Sib." April, to her own surprise, did.

She and Brian couldn't really talk seriously at school the next day, but the day after was Good Friday and school was out. Brian drove her over to the school parking lot and let her drive in low gear. In the pauses, they talked. "The gift was sweet, but did you really mean that you want to be someone I'll remember at sixty?" she asked.

"Ape, I want to be someone you talk to at sixty." He loved her. Couldn't she see that?

"You scare me." He did. She was terribly frightened of saying that she felt that way, of saying that she didn't.

"That isn't a proposal. It's what I want. That's what you asked, after all." And it was what he wanted, one thing he wanted.

"I'm still scared," she said.

"Never be afraid of me. Look, this isn't getting us anywhere. Let's try again, and this time move the wheel half as far as you think that it needs to move." Inevitably, however, they did talk more, then and Saturday. Sunday was Easter and a family day. Monday night, Brian took her to the movies. Afterwards, they parked in a very secure place.

For a while, they shared the back seat while they kissed and hugged. Then, she had the whole seat -- but still needed to bend her knees too much -- while Brian knelt on the car floor beside her. He eased her jeans and panties down to her ankles but started again to kiss her mouth. His hand stroked her thigh while his tongue licked hers. She wanted his caresses, she wanted more, she wanted him to talk sweetly to her as he used to when these caresses were new. When she parted her thighs wider, he stroked up to their junction. She gasped into his mouth as he clasped her there.

"I love you, Ape," he said. He did love her, and he wanted her, and he wanted to speak of his desire, but he knew that she wanted to hear of his love. He parted her lower lips and dipped his fingers into her moisture. His mouth switched to her breast. They both were silent as he licked her nipples and stroked her clitoris until she tightened in preparatory agony. He had to keep himself from rushing it. He thirsted for her response, and he ached for her fingers to bring his own. When he saw that she was about to begin, he thrust two fingers into her and sucked hard on her nipple. His thumb brushed circles over her clitoris while she bucked and gasped through her climax.

The tension pulsed through her like storm waves hitting shore. She loved him, she wanted him. He continued to stroke her until she collapsed.

"I do love you, darling April," he said. At that moment, he loved her more than life itself. "I'll love you forever. Can't you believe that?"

"I love you, too, Brian," she said. She loved him with all her heart, and she wanted him more than that. "God! I wish we had something."

"I do," he said. "Do you mean that?"

She had when she said it. She wondered if she did still. She did, but she was cramped, and the clock was ticking. She started to struggle back into her clothes.

He was ecstatic for one second. They were going to do it. He was going to do it. He loved her. And wanted her, and wanted desperately to be a man, and wanted to claim her as his. Then he saw what she was doing. "You didn't mean that."

"I meant that. I wish we could. But not here. And we have what? Fifteen minutes to get me home." Why had she said that? Why had she said it then? Why hadn't Brian, supposedly so empathetic, understood that it was a wish not a promise.

"You didn't have to say it if you didn't mean it." Brian was already getting behind the wheel. April got out, redid her bra, and straightened her other clothes. "I meant it when I said that I love you."

"I meant it, Brian. I love you and I want to show you that I love you. A girl's first time is special. It should be a special person and a special place. You are a special person; you are important to me. But..."

"But that would have been a horrible place," Brian was already driving close to the speed limit. The evening was over. "I can live with that. I can't find you a special place with silk sheets and champagne in an ice bucket. You couldn't get out overnight even so. It's just cruel to say that you would do it under impossible conditions."

She usually took care of Brian after he took care of her; this time she hadn't, and now it was too late. He was taking all this in quite the wrong spirit. She dreamed of walking down the aisle with Brian, why was it wrong to dream of going to bed with him? But he treated sharing that dream as if it were an attack on him. "Not impossible. Just not there. I do love you."

Boys, Brian suddenly saw, spoke of love to justify sex; girls spoke of it to justify abstinence. Was he any better? Well, yes. He wanted April on a permanent basis, marriage; it was just that this permanent basis wasn't possible. "I love you, too," he said. "I wish I could just take you home. 'This is my woman, world; what do you want to do about it?' But that's a twin bed with cracks in the plaster over it. That's not special either."

April had a vision of a caveman dragging her off, but Brian's possessiveness was attractive as well. "I wish that I could take you home, too; but they would never understand. I'd be more nervous about them pounding on the door than about a stranger coming by when we were back there."

"My room isn't a special place, but I do have privacy until Mom gets home around six-thirty." He was desperate now.

"You're serious?" she asked. "Yes, you are serious."

"I'm one hundred percent serious. The question is are you?"

April thought that this wasn't really the question. She seriously loved Brian; she seriously wanted to be a woman. She also seriously wanted to avoid pain; she seriously wanted to avoid being a slut. She seriously wondered whether she was ready for this; she seriously wondered if she ever would really be ready.

If she were going to do it, she thought, this was the right time. She knew the joke about what you called people who used the rhythm method, but she wanted her timing to be safe, anyhow. She'd have her period Thursday, maybe Wednesday. She didn't want to be messy her first time, nor wait for weeks suspecting she'd caught despite everything. If she were going to do it, tomorrow was best.

Lord! She was thinking of doing it. He was special, could he be any more special? Waiting for the right man made sense; waiting longer with Brian didn't. He was the right man. She hoped he was the right man.

Brian had stopped thinking. The only thing in his mind was a picture of April in a bed. He drove while she sat silent beside him.

She took a deep breath and said, "I'll ring your bell tomorrow after school."

"Tomorrow?" he gasped. "Oh, my love. I do love..." He slammed on the brakes and turned to face her in the unmoving car. "Tomorrow! Ape you wouldn't! Look, I know that you love April fool jokes ... Between your name and your birthday, who can blame you? ... But you wouldn't play that game on me, would you? There's Brian waiting in his house, and April doesn't come, and doesn't come, and then she shows up with half a dozen girlfriends."

"I wouldn't do that to you. You're special to me. I can see doing that. Believe me, I can see it; but this is too important to me to make a joke of it. Look, start the car will you. I have to get home. If I get grounded, I won't come over tomorrow."

They made it just in time. For the first time in months, April left his car without a good-night kiss. April spent the night regretting her rash promise. She decided that the bracelet was causing her to make Brian more significant than he really was. If she lost her virginity to him, that made him significant. She was tempted to throw away the bracelet and wait. But that was ridiculous; she loved Brian, loved the way he could make her feel. Could another boy make her feel like that? In some ways, certainly; but loving Brian was part of the feeling. In any case, going to Brian's tomorrow was less sluttish than going looking for another boy to make her feel that way.

Brian had received no relief. He headed straight for his room when he got home. While he stripped, he pictured April in his bed. That was great, but anticipation would be better. He pictured her entering his room, pictured himself removing her blouse, pictured her looking about his room, pictured her being appalled at the mess.

That would be horrible. He started straightening his room. He put on his robe to take all the fragrantly dirty clothes from his corner to the laundry baskets in the basement. He grabbed a clean set of sheets and pillow case, but decided to wait until morning to change the bed. The Playboys went into his closet. While there, he gathered all the loose hangers and shoved the clothes to one side. Then he hung up everything that was sitting around loose. He fetched a condom from the hiding place, placed it in the drawer next to his bed, and dropped a paperback book on top of it.

With all the preparation that could be done in silence done, he set the alarm a little early and adjourned to his anticipations. He pictured April walking in the door and removing her clothes. When her image reached over and touched his cock, the real one erupted. He cleaned up and dropped off, thinking of the taste of April's breasts.

April alternated between a stew of reluctance and daydreams of anticipation that day. Not only did she not learn anything in any of the classes, but her emotions utterly defeated her deodorant. She felt sticky. She located Brian in the hall before his last class. "Look," she said, "I'll have to be twenty minutes late."

"That's fine," he replied. "I trust you to come."

She was a little dismayed by that easy acceptance; but Brian also had some preparations to do. On the bus home, he decided that showering was more important than vacuuming. After the shower, he dressed in shorts, slacks, shirt, and slippers. He shut the doors to his mother's room and the guest room before he started vacuuming his room.

He wasn't finished when he heard the doorbell. He ushered April into the house and closed the door before they kissed. She was wearing a nice dress, but not a fancy one. "Look," he said, "give me five minutes." April felt awfully lonely sitting in the living room, listening to the vacuum run.

"Couldn't he finish his chores afterwards," she thought. There was a clatter as the vacuum was pushed away into another room, and he was back.

"Sorry," he said. "I might not be able to provide the silk sheets and champagne, but I figured that the piles of junk and the dust bunnies would be a little much." She felt better about that, much better after he kissed her enthusiastically.

"You didn't have to do that."

"Sure I did," he answered. "I only wish that I could have done more. Do you want a Coke or something?" Slightly more than he wanted to strip her and enter her, he wanted to communicate that he cared for her as a person and wasn't only thinking about stripping and entering her.

The awkwardness of the situation had already made April feel uncomfortable; Brian's lame attempt at being a host made it worse. "No," she said, "nothing." When he took her hand and led her to the stairs, she realized that she had refused any chance at delay. On the top floor, only two doors weren't shut tight. The fully open door was obviously his room, and she walked into it.

"Why am I doing this?" she thought. She looked around. His straightening things up clearly hadn't been compulsive, but the floor was clean and no clothes were visible. Several sports posters were on his walls, dominated by a huge one of Michael Jordan shooting a basket. This was at the foot of his bed. The bed. It was neat with the sheet folded back and the blanket in a folded pile at the foot. It was really a narrow bed, as narrow as hers. Yet it looked awfully intrusive in the room.

This fulfilled Brian's fantasy of the night before, April in his room. He slowly came up behind her and put his arms around her. She turned, partly to take her eyes off the bed, and ducked her head into his shoulder. He kissed her forehead. "I do love you," he said. "I love you very much."

"Oh, I love you too." She must, or this afternoon was a horror. She raised her face for a real kiss, and he was gentle and tentative and kept his mouth closed. Then he licked her lips before penetrating them. The kiss was long and hot before he moved his hands from her back. Then he shifted, still with his mouth joined to hers, so that he could reach the buttons on her dress. He undid all of these before breaking the kiss. He brushed the dress off her left shoulder and kissed the point of her shoulder bone. Then he moved inward from that point, kissing to her neck and then her ear. She shivered at these attentions and wiggled to escape.

"Does this go up or down?" he asked, holding the collar of her dress.

"Huh!" she answered. "Down, I guess." He brushed the sleeves off her shoulders and held it as it fell away. Turning from hanging it in the closet, he got a clear look at her in her bra and panties. They were matching, frilly, and white.

"White for a virgin," he thought. He would be first; she was untouched.

She had chosen the sexy underwear for him, but hadn't imagined his staring at her from yards away. The light streaming in the windows seemed suddenly glaring. Her arms moved of their own volition to cover breasts and groin.

Seeing this, he closed the gap between them and held her again. "You look lovely," he said. They kissed again, while his hands passed all over her smooth back. She put her glasses on the desk. She felt less exposed when everything around her looked fuzzy.

She returned to his embrace. His hands resumed their wandering, passing over her hips and sides and back. They stopped, finally, at the bra clasp; he drew back. "Look at me," he said. With his eyes locked to hers, he undid the clasp and drew it forward. She shrugged the bra down her arms, and he took it from her. He looked straight into her eyes while tossing the bra onto the desk, then deliberately dropped his gaze onto her chest. She blushed again, but her nipples hardened. "You are so beautiful," he said.

When he kissed her this time, his hands slid all over her breasts. He hugged her with his left arm until his right hand was trapped between her breast and his chest. She was aware of his kiss, and the fire spreading from her breast, and his hardness against her belly. He moved her backwards until she felt the bed pressing against her legs. She pushed him away and sat to remove her shoes.

Insufficiently hidden by the sheet, she watched him strip. She'd seen that naked chest before, although seldom so pale. She thought that his tented underpants were ridiculous, but he kept them on when he followed her into bed.

Again, he kissed her. Then his kisses were roving all over her face as his hand roved over her torso. His mouth passed down her neck and chest to her breast. He held the breast up to his eager mouth as he licked and sucked. His hand spread her thighs and caressed them as he switched to her other breast. She was flushed and panting, and her hips were seeking his hand before he moved back on his knees. "Help me," he said as he tugged at her panties. She slipped them down off her hips. He removed them the rest of the way.

The afternoon light gave him a clearer view of her nakedness than he had ever had before. Her face was slightly flushed as it was after she ran hard. Her breasts were whiter than the rest of her skin, firm mounds topped with red-brown areolae and nipples. Her slim belly led to a sparse patch of hair, gold rather than the bronze on her head. Even from his position he could see through the hair to the engorged outer lips and a faint line that suggested the inner ones. Much as he regretted covering such beauty, he couldn't resist touching it. He rested his palm lightly on the delta before looking in her eyes. "You are so beautiful," he said. Then he closed his fingers on her fleece.

She warmed to his touch before flushing at the compliment. She yearned for his fingers and knew how they could thrill her. She feared his intrusion which seemed so imminent now, but wanted this waiting to end -- if even in pain.

He eased himself down on his side again. As he began a deep kiss, he parted her labia with his fingers. He stroked her moisture upward, then across her clitoris. He repeated this for what seemed to be forever, but finally she stiffened. He broke the kiss to say "I love you, April." Then he moved back to the peak of her breast.