Last Evening
He and some friends had spent the greater part of the previous day roaming the grounds of the city carnival, boarding rides, playing games, munching high-calorie junk food, talking and laughing. The evening had grown hot and muggy with the falling of the darkness, and one girl had suggested a late-night swim in her in-ground, indoor pool—that girl being Stephanie Yoe, whose filthy-rich parents just so happened to be out of town on business ventures and whose boyfriend just so happened to be Joel's best friend, Roger.
The group had begun to disperse and return to their respective homes at around two-thirty A.M. Joel had been the last one remaining and since he lived on a dark dirt road an hour-long drive away, Stephanie had offered to let him spend the night.
Tiredly, the two had trudged upstairs to her bedroom, Joel lounging on her king-sized bed while she gathered pillows and blankets to make a temporary bed of the couch in her room. Having finished the task, she had stretched out beside him on her bed, and a sleepy conversation was stricken between the two.
Between that moment and the one in which their physical exchange began, the time-line of events became fuzzy in Joel's mind. He recalled her whining that the air conditioning was making her damp skin feel cold, after which she snuggled closer to him on the bed; and that the closeness of their bodies had had the same arousing effect on him then that the memory of it was having on him now. He remembered that he had made the first move, leaning down to plant an innocent kiss into her hair, then, for some reason that to him would forever be inexplicable, diverting his lips to hers and meeting them softly. The reaction that he had received from that soft kiss, though, was far from equal in force; she had responded strongly, fiercely, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him down to her. Exactly when they had squirmed free of their clothing and joined, or how long the process took, was what continued to evade him.
He wished he knew her motive for having slept with him; he knew what his own motivation had been. Since the moment he had first laid eyes on her at the start of freshman year, he had been attracted to her. She had cycled through three boyfriends in that period of time, and during each of her relationships, he had smiled wanly at the news, warmly congratulated and supported her, wishing he could wholeheartedly mean what he said and did. Wishing that he could fill the role of whatever consecutively-numbered boyfriend she was currently on, plus one.
Before the previous night, he had duly accepted that a friend was all he would ever be to her. With their night together so fresh in his mind, though, he could feel his hopes beginning to swell. He had climbed a rung higher on the relationship ladder, and now he would, he knew, most likely have to accept all over again that the next-highest rung was nowhere within his reach.
He closed his eyes, allowing himself to slip back into savouring their passion. He thought, all in all, that despite his virginity he had pulled off an excellent performance, and her screams had confirmed that. Those, and the headboard's fast, rhythmic slamming against the wall, now came echoing back into his conscious mind. He had deliberately chosen not to satisfy her immediately, not to maintain or build upon a steady pace, until she exploded into ecstasy. Rather, he would do that only until he recognized the tears in her eyes, the sharp rise of her temperature, the sudden spasms of her body and the tightening of her thigh muscles, when he would slow to a crawl, robbing from her all that he had awarded her with a sly grin and a kiss, as she whimpered below him, pitifully, desperately.
One such whimper escaped from her now. Joel turned his eyes to her blanketed form and, realizing that she slept still, sighed and allowed the backs of his fingers to trail lightly under her covers, his touch meeting her warm thigh and tracing its curve upward. This had been one section of her body he had always admired, secretly inspected every chance he got, feeling shameful and inadequate for doing so; she deserved to be revered for so much more than her figure, though he knew this wasn't the sole, or even primary, reason she intrigued him.
His mind again returned to her possible motives, a topic from which he had strayed before. He strongly suspected that her ending up with him had had less to do with her wanting him than a current dissatisfaction with her boyfriend. He had never voiced any of his secret mental curiosities, knowing that the answers were none of his business, so he had no idea whether Roger was giving her what Joel had the night before, or whether she had ever had what he had given her, and suspected he never would. Where before he had wondered, a little guiltily, about her sexual status, now he didn't want to know at what level she had been when he and she had become one. He certainly hadn't wanted to take her virginity from her in such a casual, immoral encounter as he was sure she would consider theirs, but at the same time, he held onto what little bit of hope he had that it had been as special to her as to him.
Having settled on the belief that she had come to him for something that Roger wasn't providing suddenly overrode his guilt and fear. Although he knew he hadn't yet come across the truth, he felt a sudden, illogical anger at his best friend for not satisfying his beautiful lover in every way she deserved to be sated. He felt a heat rise into his cheeks, and thought he detected the faint, dry sting in his eyes of oncoming tears, so he was incredibly grateful when another small sound wafted from the sleeping woman next to him, drawing his attention to her soft, subconscious smile and his thoughts to the conclusion that this was a happy woman.
His emotions calmed before they got out of control, which Joel had known would never happen, anyway. He gazed down at her smile once again, the way she nestled her cheek into her pillow and curled the blanket over her fists as she slept, and felt his own eyes soften.
Checking the clock on the wall, he acknowledged with a sigh that it was time to vanish, that she was due to awaken soon and he ought to be gone when she did. He toyed with the idea of leaving her a note, but could think of nothing imperative that needed to be said. He didn't want to ruin the moment, he didn't want to even face the moment, because that moment could never compare to their moments of last evening. He would duck out while he was ahead, and be left the victor, the man who had gotten what he wanted, who had greatly pleased the woman of his affection, even if just for a night.
Suddenly thinking of something he wanted affirmed, he silently slid out of bed and tiptoed around the room to locate pen and paper. He wrote his single statement, folded the paper, and set it gently on her nightstand by her clock-radio. Before he sneaked out of her room, his fingers revisited that part of her he'd admired from afar for so long, stroked its soft, high curve just once more because he knew it may well be his last chance to admire it close-up. And then he slipped from the room, as smooth as light fading to darkness, on his lips a smile as tiny as her sleeping sounds.
He left the victor. He wouldn't lose her; of that much he was sure.
This changes nothing if you don't want it to.