Chapter 12

I was following the fluffy white robe up the long stairwell and I could hardly believe it was happening!

My heart was pounding harder than it had been when Paul Warren had inserted me, without ceremony, into the Yankee game.

Derek Jeter had been pretty scary, but he was a walk in the park, compared to Amy. Now that I was going to get what I had wanted for what seemed like years, profound fear was setting in.

There were only about 4 or 500 stairs for us to climb, there, and my busy brain was running through all the calming exercises I'd been taught by my coaches and by my Dad.

The breathing thing. The focus thing. The optimism drills.

When we got to the top of the stairs, I thought Amy would head for my room, but she kept on going down the long hallway, back toward her own room.

Was I supposed to follow her? I was pretty sure I was, but again, the doubts were setting in. Maybe the whole issue was still up in the air. Maybe I'd misunderstood something.

But I followed her anyway.

I guess I was OK. When Amy opened the door to her bedroom and entered, she held the door open for me. First time I'd seen it since I'd helped move in one of her bookcases.

She didn't seem as nervous as I was. Maybe a little nervous, but not like me. I was considering a lifetime of celibacy as an alternative.

Jeter hadn't been all that nervous either, facing me. I guess some people are just scarier than others.

Amy sat down on the side of her bed and patted the spot next to her. I sat down, too.

She started to remove the fluffy white robe, and I got a quick glance at a thin little ribbed-cotton shimmy shirt she was wearing under it. But I stopped her and re-fitted the robe over both her shoulders.

Maybe I was going to screw this up, but, by God, I wasn't going to screw it up by hurrying!

I wrapped my arms around that warm fluffy robe and gathered Amy in. It was my first time to be the one making the first move, and it felt good. I kissed her gently and, since I was in charge this time, the kiss listed quite a lot longer than the ones I'd gotten, as passive recipient.

As soon as I let her come up for breath, I kissed her again.

Guys are bad, about kissing. When relationships are just starting, the guy seems to understand that lots of above-the-neck work is important. It's not only important, it's thrilling and stimulating as hell -- for both participants.

But after the relationship is solidly established, guys usually forget all about kissing. They're in a hurry to get to the Good Stuff. They may know all about foreplay. They may even continue to pay careful attention to the importance of foreplay in assuring their partner's arousal.

But even these careful guys -- these guys who want very much for their female partners to really enjoy the whole ride -- even these guys often forget about plain old kissing.

Women don't forget, though. Women like kissing.

A lot.

So the robe stayed on, even though Amy already had shown a willingness to take it off. And we kissed.

Several times.

She was responding to me, and I could tell she didn't care how long we kissed. Part of me was desperate to move this thing along, but part of me -- maybe my feminine side? -- was liking the above-the-neck stuff just fine. It was very, very pleasant, and there didn't seem to be any danger that Amy was going to get up and walk out on me.

So I kissed her for a ridiculous amount of time. She didn't get tired of it.

Me neither.

And then I kissed her neck, and she seemed to like that just fine, too. Amy shivered and reached for me with her free arm and wrapped her hand around my right ear and tugged on my head in such a way that I got the clear message: "Kiss my neck like that until I scream!"

Finally, I tugged the robe down over one of Amy's shoulders and laid a few wet ones on her bare shoulder. The thin strap of the shimmy shirt came down her arm along with the fluffy white robe, and the expanse of bareness grew. I got acquainted with Amy's shoulder, and that little spot in front where the collarbone makes a little depression above her chest, and the expanse of upper shoulder blade visible at the back.

My kisses were warm and wet and way too sloppy for planting on her lips, but they were fine for shoulders and little collar-bone places. And for occasional return visits to her neck.

What the hell? She could take a shower, later.

Hopefully, much later.

So the other shoulder got liberated, eventually, and I had to get up from beside Amy to reach everything over there that I wanted to kiss, and she still didn't seem to be in any big hurry, and the longer this took the better I was feeling about the whole thing.

Even though I was into this with both feet, I realized, suddenly, that my erection was gone. That was alarming, because it had been there when we were downstairs, and when we were on the stairs, and when all this kissing had begun.

What if it was gone for good? What if it decided not to come back?

But something told me that was not a matter I should spend much time worrying about. I was pretty sure that it would be there when I needed it.

Meanwhile, the rest of me had an erection.

Now the fluffy robe was resting around Amy's hips, and the little ribbed shirt was off both shoulders, and although it still covered her breasts, it hid practically nothing, because it was thin and stretchy and Amy's lovely breasts were stretching it all to hell. It was the first time that I'd seen her breasts this way -- the way a man wants to see his lover's breasts -- the nipples prominent, the chest moving a bit with her deepening breathing, the fullness, roundness, firmness of them so very evident.

I gently tugged on the shimmy shirt and it dutifully came down and over and then under Amy's breasts, and there they both were, bare and lovely and fully exposed.

I kissed her there, too. I figured an hour or two would be enough. I had thought that, if this moment ever happened, I'd be tearing off her clothes, and my own, in frantic haste to get to it. It wasn't like that at all.

I didn't care how long this took. The longer the better.

There were still encouraging noises coming from Amy and I stopped kissing her breasts and started sucking on her nipples like a hungry infant. I gave them equal time. I was on my knees now, on the floor in front of her. Amy was still in her original place on the edge of her bed.

The shimmy shirt joined the fluffy robe in a heap around Amy's hips, and now she was nude from the waist upward. The robe was free of her body and I reached it and pulled it away, letting it fall to the floor beside the bed. The little ribbed shirt formed a crumpled cummerbund, just above her panties.