Do You Remember the First Time?

OK?’
    There was a sudden, perceptible change in the room. Justin was standing in the doorway, in his stocking feet, a bottle of Coke in his hand. He was looking at us, astonished.
    ‘What’s going on?’
    Clelland didn’t react. He just kept looking at me.
    ‘You’ll be growing up again soon then, won’t you?’ he said softly. ‘I’m sure everything will be fine. Now we’ve sorted that out.’
    I gulped, hard. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes.’
    He checked his watch. ‘OK. I’m late for Madeleine. I …’ He seemed about to say something about that, then didn’t. ‘OK, well, um, will I tell Tash and Olly you’ve decided?’
    ‘To go back? I have to,’ I said. ‘I can’t bear it.’
    He stood up, giving Justin and me a meaningful look.
    ‘You two behave yourselves.’
    Then he left.
    Justin continued looking puzzled. ‘Is he still giving you a hard time?’ he said.
    I nodded. ‘He’s not so bad.’
    ‘He can be a right dick, my brother.’ He offered me the Coke. I drank it, making heavy swallows. ‘He’s making me come to this stupid bloody wedding thing on Saturday too. I don’t even know these people.’
    ‘I’ll be there,’ I said.
    ‘Will you?’ His face brightened momentarily, then briefly coloured. Justin hadn’t quite learned proper diffidence yet.
    In that moment I realised something, something I must have known all along. That I was leaving and I wanted to give him a gift. Something that would hold him in goodstead. Something he could use for ever. Something I’d never given his brother.
    ‘Come over here,’ I said.
    He felt so beautiful; so lean and strong. His body was almost hairless, and his surprise exceptionally comical. When I had not only accepted but welcomed his skirmishes at my breasts, his eyes had popped open, widened as I gently showed him exactly how I would like him to caress and squeeze them, and how I would like it to go.
    ‘God,’ he sighed, and immediately I had felt him up against my leg. I pulled off his T-shirt, and I was going to take my bra off for him too, then realised that wouldn’t be terribly helpful for him in the future. So I took his hands and guided them into unclipping the clasp. He would have lain us both down on the linoleum floor at this point – blind with need, there is very little he wouldn’t have done at this point, I suspect – but I took his hand and guided us upstairs to his bedroom, which, as well as being comfortable and warm had the added bonus of giving us a few moments if anyone arrived back unexpectedly.
    As Justin, his sweat smelling sweetly on his body, buried his soft curls in my neck, and I could feel his disbelieving hands roaming everywhere, I couldn’t stop thinking of Clell and me, in this very same room. The same probing hands, but with me, anxious and uncomfortable, holding back, making us both embarrassed and frustrated and uneasy. I couldn’t think about that, and I certainly couldn’t think of what he might be like now. I had business to attend to.
    ‘What you’re looking for,’ I whispered tenderly in his ear,‘it’s here. Give me your hand.’ And I guided it between my legs.
    I laid back, revelling in the sweetness of my young body; feeling no urge to hide before his eyes, which were drinking me up like a dying man in a desert. I could tell what he was doing. He was desperately trying to imprint the sight of me on his memory banks in case he never saw another naked woman ever again.
    ‘Do you like it?’ I asked teasingly.
    ‘You’re … you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,’ he stuttered.
    I had never been the most beautiful thing anyone had ever seen. But I knew he would never forget me.
    ‘Come here,’ I said. ‘Have you ever put a condom on before …?’
    I hadn’t for a second thought that I would enjoy it. And I hadn’t thought I would feel pain. But both things happened. I was so tight – and Justin so unbelievably hard – it took a little while to get everything arranged just so. But once we did, the fit was unbelievably snug and perfect, and the sheer joyful plunging enthusiasm of him, the feeling of his strong young muscles under my hands; his inability to keep from muttering his astonishment into my hair. It was all so different, so old and new at the same time, and as he came, hard and fast, I took off with him, and felt myself bite his shoulders, pull him in and, eyes tight shut, squealing as he let out a depthless cry somewhere between a sob and a