Chapter 2

The next day, when Steven called me, I was nervous. I kept telling myself that I couldn't keep dragging this relationship on, no matter how attracted to him I was. We'd both end up frustrated. Steven invited me over to his place that evening; he was going to cook for me. I almost chickened out and said no - I could just refuse to answer the phone ever again, couldn't I? - but remembering my promise to J, I accepted.

I was incredibly edgy that day at work, dropping things and confusing one patient with another. I tried to give an antibiotic prescription meant for an eighty-year old with a bladder infection to an eighteen-year-old kid with an obviously broken arm. Everyone kept giving me strange looks - I'm scatterbrained, sure, but not normally not that bad. I finally confided in J, telling him about my date, and he again extracted my promise to give Steven the reasons behind the break-up. Damn stubborn gay guys!

I called the doc who was scheduled to relieve me at three when my shift ended, and begged him to come in early, claiming a headache. I doubt he believed me, but hearing real frustration in my voice, he agreed and came in at two. I hurried home, stripped, and climbed into bed, planning on taking an hour power-nap before seeing Steven. He'd insisted I didn't have to bring anything for dinner, so I figured I had lots of time. I was exhausted from the evening shift the night before, but even so, sleep just would not come. I lay there, in bed, thinking about what I could say to Steven, and what his response would likely be. I was completely depressed at the prospect of dumping the only decent, funny, sexy-as-hell guy I'd met in years because of something that seemed so silly.

Trying to talk myself into ignoring my fear, my mind scanned back through a variety of sexual memories, eventually settling on the night I learned exactly what the doctor meant by 'problems' with having sex...

I was fourteen. Just four years after my accident. I hadn't really thought about it since; when I was ten, having surgery on a large vaginal tear and being told that sex might be difficult hadn't really made much sense to me. Besides, I don't think it occurred to anyone that I might be having sex at the tender age of fourteen.

I had always, as I mentioned, had a weight problem. Being chubby all my life, as well as having glasses, braces, and zits, had always made me the target of the school bullies. I frequently went home bruised and humiliated, hiding it from my parents, whom I had learned would phone the school and the parents of those responsible. Bitter experience had taught me I didn't want attention brought to my problems, or punishments to my attackers - it only made things worse. My insecurities also brought me some other attention; attention I didn't know at the time was a Bad Thing.

He was four years older than me, which now doesn't seem like much. But the difference between fourteen and eighteen is actually pretty massive, both from an experience and a confidence point-of-view. He was attractive and reasonably popular; someone whose name I knew but whom I would never dare talk to. Until one day, at school, he said a very casual "Hello," in the hallway. The few friends I had (also 'misfits', generally) were in awe of me for the rest of the week; Luke had actually spoken to me, at school, voluntarily in front of a whole bunch of witnesses.

Over the next three or four days I worked up the nerve to walk past the staircase where he and his friends hung out; normally I would not have been caught dead in that area. It wasn't an area known to be friendly to unpopular 'little kids'. But I'd figured that I'd already suffered the worst from several of Luke's friends, and there was nothing new they could do without being expelled. I was not, however, brave enough to look any of them in the eye as I rushed past during lunch hour.

I just about dropped my whole armful of books on my toes when a hand reached out and grabbed my arm as I started climbing the stairs; it was Luke.

"You're Sarah, right?" I nodded mutely. "Do you know who I am?"

"Luke Henson," I almost whispered, afraid I'd wake myself from this dream in which the boy of my fantasies knew my name. He smiled at me, a dazzling display of expensively maintained white teeth, and I just about swooned on the spot. He introduced me to his buddies, and then asked "Where are you off to in such a hurry?"

I told him I was taking the books in my hands up to my English teacher on the second floor, and to my utter amazement, he took the whole stack from me and offered to accompany me. I must have somehow managed a nod, and we soon climbed past his friends and through the second floor doorway. After dropping off the books, he gave me a bit of a strange look.

"You sure went the scenic way to get up to Mr. Hess' room, Sarah." I'm sure I blushed. I couldn't think of anything to say - surely he would realize I had a crush on him, had made too much of him saying hi in the hallway, and would expose my hopeless lunacy to the whole school. "I'm glad you did, it gave me an excuse to talk to you."

I blinked. Twice, I think. Hearing that after expecting to be told off as the pathetic little worm I felt like, it took me a minute to adjust. "You wanted to talk to me?"

"I was hoping you might go to a movie with me tomorrow afternoon," he offered. I stared at him for a full minute, before pulling myself together and stuttering an acceptance. "Great! How about we meet at three at the mall?" I nodded mutely. And before I knew he was gone - and I had a date.

I rushed home after school and called over all my girlfriends, and we frantically went through my closet looking for something to wear. I told my parents I'd be going to a movie with Michelle, and made arrangements to meet her in the mall at one o'clock. I planned to change and get ready there, where my parents wouldn't see. She left my house that evening with a bag containing my shortest skirt, most flattering top, and all the make-up I'd managed to hide from my parents. Her parents were more liberal than mine, and so she was going to lend me the full array of her make-up as well.

The next day at three I was waiting anxiously in front of the theatre, looking as good as I thought I could. My hair was pulled up into a high, off-centre ponytail (it was the eighties, after all), I had on a just-above-the-knee length denim skirt, and a blue blouse. My face was caked in all the make-up Michelle and I had been able to figure out how to apply, from eyeliner to foundation; I had scrupulously covered up every zit, and you could even notice my eyes through the thick glasses. I didn't wear lipstick - "What guy wants to get lipstick on him if he kisses you?" was Michelle's wisdom on the subject. I'm glad now that no pictures of me like that exist anywhere - I'm sure I looked like a clown from the circus, but that day I felt damn fine.

Luke showed up right on time, and even paid for the movie. I don't even remember what we saw; I don't think I saw much anyway from cloud nine, where I was seated. At some point, I remember watching him instead of the movie - if he noticed, he didn't give it away. By the end of the movie, he was holding my sweaty hand; I floated home, when it was over.

That was the first of many dates. He was a perfect gentleman, and it took him three weeks to kiss me the first time. I was so nervous I just about threw up when I saw him leaning in, but I managed to stay looking calm. His kiss was, well, wet, for lack of a better word. He slobbered on me a bit, not that anything he could do would have bothered me at that point. I was the first one of my school friends to kiss a boy, never mind one as cute as Luke Henson.

We didn't really hang out at school, but we saw each other after school almost every day. He frequently gave me a ride home, although he had to stop and let me out a block from home - my parents knew by then that I'd been seeing him, and although they didn't approve they couldn't really stop us from seeing each other. They could, however, make my life hell if I did anything that broke the rules, such as driving in a car with him. I don't know what it is that freaks parents out about cars; there was no way anything was going to happen in the racy but cramped sports car his parents bought him.

My parents also had this big thing about making sure we were never alone together. He was not allowed into my room, under any circumstances. The more humiliating part of it for a fourteen-year-old who wanted so desperately to be cool, however, was that if I was going to go over to his house, my dad insisted on driving me, and would actually walk me to the door to make sure his parents were home. I realize now that it was normal, sensible parent stuff, but at the time, it was horrifying that my parents still thought of me as such a child when I was dating Luke Henson!

The first time I was at his house was sweet. I met his mom, and we hit it off immediately. I think she thought I'd be a good influence on her son, who was a little too popular in her mind, and a little too uninterested in academics, which is why at 18 he was still in high school. I ended up talking to her most of the time, as he watched TV. Eventually after the first few times we spent more and more time alone in his room, playing games, but mostly kissing. His mom started going out after my parents dropped me off; I think she thought that some private time would cement the relationship.

While it initially took him a month to kiss me, it took him considerably less time to progress from that to other things; before I knew it his hands were sneaking up under my shirt, while he humped his cock against my leg. Thinking back on it, in my mind fooling around meant he must have loved me, and all I had ever wanted was to be loved by someone I wasn't related to. So despite being nervous and shy about my body, and getting no satisfaction from his fumbling, clumsy attempts to give me pleasure, we progressed until for the very first time I was on my knees, staring a very erect penis in the eye.

I had no idea at that point what normal size was for a guy, but Luke assured me he was very large (I've since learned differently - he would barely qualify as average). I hesitantly touched it with both hands, deciding that my sex ed classes were woefully inadequate in preparing me for how ridiculous a circumcised penis looks up close. It was wrinkly, even when hard, and there was hair everywhere. There was a huge, tortuous vein running along the underside of his shaft, and smelly fluid leaking out of the slit in the tip. What Luke lacked in patience, he made up for in enthusiasm, and I discovered the hard way why they called ponytails 'blowjob handles'. Taking a firm grip on my long, frizzy hair, he pressed his crotch into my face. Not being prepared for this move, I twitched as his precum was smeared across my face; some of his pubic hair got caught in the spring mechanism of my glasses, and my twitch forcibly yanked it out. Letting out a howl of pain, he released my hair and I jumped away from him and leapt up off my knees, in a hurry to apologize, without even knowing what I had done wrong.