Today you'll make me say that I somehow have changed
Today you'll look into my eyes, I'm just not the same[1]

 Misjudgment & Virginity

 

The idea that Harley knew or Rita told him about us scared the hell out of me, and at the same time, kind of flattered me.  I was still considering it when I arrived at Rita's house and walked along the side of her home engulfed by the smell of the jasmine that paralleled the pathway. That idea quickly disappeared when I heard music coming from the backyard.  I twice considered turning around before reaching the pool area beyond the house's wall.  Once I stopped to think about what I was doing: betraying my best friend, possibly losing Harley's trust forever, or perhaps having sex with Roger's daughter, the man who had told me, "Don't you kids do anything, I wouldn't do." I wasn't even sure if I was about have sex.  One thing was certain—I had fallen in love with her.

She had called me every night over the last week since the day her dad caught me in the pink towel. We talked for hours about music, movies, other kids I usually didn't know, and school. She laughed at every stupid joke I told her and when I told her that Harley and I would someday move to Hollywood and become movie stars, she said I was more handsome than Paul Newman.  I knew it was bullshit, but she said it in a way that I believed she meant it and perhaps she did. I didn't know.  I just knew I had made a connection with this girl.  She had told me how easy it was to talk to me and that her boyfriend, Phil, always tended to talk about himself. She loved that I would ask about her and her friends and her dad.

But as I reached the corner of the wall, the music got louder, and I wondered if she was doing her little strip tease for Lance or somebody else.  If perhaps I was just being used.  Maybe she would charge me this time . . . Or maybe I could change her, I thought.  Maybe I could help her find a different way to make money.  She told me she was only doing it to buy her dad a particular golf club for his birthday. Maybe it was only the one time, I reasoned.

I slowed to the opening and peered around spotting Rita in the pool.  She was with someone else, their face turned from me, their hair long falling down their back.   She's busy, I'll come back, I thought to myself.  I went to turn around, but Rita saw me and waved me over.  The person turned.  It was Melanie Fisher.  She smiled and turned back to Rita.  They looked at each other and giggled.   
As I was moving towards the pool, Melanie was exiting it;  her bathing suit struggling to hold the enormous breasts that had been victims of the horny hickey guy or guys.

"Hey Harry," she said.

I didn't know her, just of her, and I would never have even considered her knowing my name if it weren't for Rita.

"Hi, Melanie," I said.

She moved towards a table where near an ashtray sat a pack of Virginia Slims.  She pulled one from the pack and lit it.

"You want one," she asked.

"I'm trying to quit," I said, not being sure if it came across as a joke or the truth.

"Me, too," she said.  I could tell she was new to the habit.  She neither inhaled like Harley nor held the cigarette in that swank style you might have found in a Faye Dunaway or Bette Davis.

"Rita, how about you?" She asked.

I pulled my shirt off and dove in.  The answer didn't matter.

Underwater I swam towards Rita.  I could see the bottom half of her body through the clear water.  I saw my friends the dolphin and the turtle.  They appeared happy I had returned.  I surfaced near Rita as Melanie was leaving and heading towards the house.

"My mom should be here soon," she remarked, as she made her way to the sliding glass doors.  "I'll meet her out front." She smiled at Rita and said, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” opened the sliders, flipped her cigarette into a nearby bush, walked in, and closed them.

Ah, geez why do people keep telling me this? I thought.

"She wouldn't say anything, would she?" I asked.

Rita smiled, "About what?" She moved closer to me.

"You know . . . about me being here? While Phil's gone."

She came up close and put her arms around me. 

"Phil who?"

Now you have to understand, the only woman I had ever seen with a look the way she looked at me at that moment was in a movie and more than likely a James Bond film.  Again I searched for that coolness, that suave, debonair smooth-tongue sophisticated, confident savvy that oozes from Bond's essence and all I could say was, "Phil. Your boyfriend."

You would have thought, me reminding her of Phil, would have set her off. Perhaps even angered her. But instead she held me tighter and as she slid up towards my face, the bare part her breast brush my chest and I could feel her covered nipples pressing against me.

"Forget Phil," she said and then she kissed my cheek and smiled. 

"You know I like you. Don't you?" She turned towards the water, went under and pushed off from the wall.

I dropped down to watch her as she swam towards the deep end, did a spin and then resurfaced.  I felt I missed my chance to kiss her the last time and only time I was here, and I wanted to badly.  It wasn't just the stiffness I had felt in my bathing suit or the sexy beauty of her behind as she trailed off under water.  She liked me for all I was: a kid from nowhere with one friend and a complete ignorance of women and the world.

She swam back to me and again put her arms around me while placing the left side of her head to my chest.  It was as if she realized I wasn't James Bond, and I was just a child wanting to be a man, but having no idea on how to get there.  She lifted her head from my chest and looked up at me.  I stared down into her blue eyes.  I felt my breathing get heavy as my heart pulsated like the times I had to stand up before a class of strangers and do a speech about a current event. I touched her wet black hair moving my hand across her head and down into the back of her neck.  The smell of jasmine had disappeared, as all I could smell was the pool's chlorine and the coconut sun tan lotion that held glistening beads of water on her vanilla skin.  I could feel my erection being straddled by her warm groin below the water's surface.  She slowly rocked the space between her thighs onto my crotch.

“Can you keep a secret?” She asked.

Of course, I thought. Didn’t she tell me I was the strong silent type? Would I tell Harley? Of course not. He’d kill me. My friends? My friends were her and Harley. But, what kind of secret is it?

“Just call me 007.”

 She laughed, maybe starting to understand me.

"Come on," she said.  "Follow me." 

I wanted to kiss her.  I felt dizzy as she pulled away.  Lost outside reality. A place I had never been.  I wanted to feel her delicate lips on mine.

"Hold on," I said.  I wasn't sure if I had found the courage to kiss her or if it was just the intoxicating bliss that was making me drunk with confidence.  I stopped and put my lips to hers.  I felt her tongue in my mouth gently working its way around.  I thought I might pass out.

"Come on," she smiled and tugged at my arm.

As we were entering the cabana, Rita was undressing.  She went through a door towards the back, and I followed. 

In the room were twin beds and Rita made her way to the back one nearest to the far wall.  She sat down and motioned me over.  I went over and sat next to her.

"Are you going to take off your bathing suit?" she asked.

I had never been naked with a woman in my life. I was in fact still trying to get used to the idea of having to shower with other guys in gym class, but at that moment I had no fear, no anxiety, no doubts.  Rita's nakedness completely enamored me.

I removed my pants as Rita lied down.

"Oh shoot, wait," she said.  She got up, went into the other room. I heard the music that was playing stop. A few seconds past. I heard a swift scratch and then a song I had never heard before. It was kind of slow; almost folksy. I would later find it was called Today by Jefferson Airplane. She returned with a large towel. 

"This will be our song, Harry." I nodded, lost in sensual bliss. She asked me to get up. I did. And as she doubled up the towel and neatly laid it on the bed, I couldn't resist putting my arms around her from behind—my hard-on riding up under her round bottom.  I kissed her neck.  I could hear her sigh, as her breathing got heavier.  She reached her hands around me and grabbed the cheeks of my ass before slowly turning and sitting on the towel.  As she lay back, her hand reached up and held my erection and pulled me on top of her.  She gently worked it into her warm wet vagina.  She moaned, and we struggled a bit to get it in.  I thought I was hurting her from the sounds she was making.  I didn't understand any of it and didn't care.  I was in ecstasy and when I did come I looked down to see blood over her thighs, and I wondered what I had done. 

I had heard of women having periods, and I knew women had them after a certain age, but my closest experience was having found my mother's tampons.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Yes, it hurt a little."

"Are you having your period?"

Rita smiled and laughed.  "No," she said.

She was getting up to remove the towel and wipe the blood.  She also cleaned my groin area as well.

"Are you sure you're okay?" I asked with concern.

"Harry, I'm all right.”

“So what’s the secret?”

She smiled, and kind of rolled her eyes while glancing at the bloody towel.

“So you’re not going to tell me?” I asked.

“It was my first time. You’re not upset, are you?"

"Your first time . . .what?"

It had never crossed my mind.  I had heard the expression: popped her cherry, but I never considered this would happen on this day, between me and the girl that did strip teases so her father could get a new golf club for his 40th birthday. 

She gave me another kiss on the cheek.

"Thank you, Harry. Come on, we'll take a shower."

Did she just thank me? Was the secret: that she was a virgin and she didn’t want anyone to know? I didn’t understand. It was totally confusing. I looked into a mirror that hung on the wall to see if there was a reflection or some other reality in some strange parallel universe. Did this really just happen? Was it a dream? Was it the best dream I’d ever had?

“WAKE UP.” I yelled at my reflection, but it was still there, smiling at me, joyous, in this new reality of hope . . . And love.

“What, Harry? Are you coming in?” The world was calling me to a new place.

The bathroom had already started to steam as I entered.  Rita was in the shower and when I stepped in she gave me a hug like the one in the pool with the side of her head on my chest.  I felt like she was thanking me for what I should be thanking her.  I held her for a long time.  I wondered if true love is supposed to feel like this.  I wondered if it was wrong to feel this happy: to feel this good.  Wasn't having sex at this age, wrong, I thought. Heck, I'd be 14 in a couple of months. I reasoned about how my mother had talked about her great-grandmother, giving birth at 13 years old.  Yes, perhaps a different time but it was still the same act and similar ages.  Could I deny the physical reactions of my body to hers?  The hot water poured over our naked bodies, and I wanted to tell Rita how much I loved her, but I had been told I was too young to understand love, and my dad had once said after a heated fight with my mother, "Love is bullshit.” I just knew that during that moment when we were holding each other in complete silence, that we were thinking the same things about each other.  That she loved me and I loved her and nothing, not Phil, not her Dad, not Harley, my dad, or mom, nothing could come between us.

Rita slid her hands down onto the cheeks of my butt and looked up.  Again I felt blood pumping to my groin.

She mischievously smiled. "Again?"

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[1] written by Paul Kantner and Marty Balin, performed by Jefferson Airplane - Today