Northside Awakening

I reached down to her ass and traced her butt up and down. I started to kiss down toward her cunt. Mila rolled over to her back and spread her legs. I could tell she thought of fucking as missionary (as I imagined a few virgins of both genders have done before), and I could tell she was ready to see her virginity go. I quickly pulled a condom out of my drawer and put it on. She took over and spread it down the length of my completely engorged penis.

Mila took my covered erection and guided it toward her pussy. I let her control the tempo. I pushed slightly, as little as possible and slowly eased into her. I imagined her as stoic, and that she seemed. A farm girl who had experienced pain and wasn't going to make this anymore dramatic than necessary. She tensed slightly as I kept pushing into her cunt. She pushed back and we found a rhythm together.

I stole a look at her face and I will never forget the mix of surprise, pain and intense feeling she radiated. I love the way she looked. Thinking back on her face the next day, it occurred to me that I hadn't paid enough attention to the faces of my lovers when we were fucking.

I think Mila had a good first experience, but I knew that I had done my best for her. I kissed her face and held her for a long time after I had cum (we didn't discuss it, but I'm pretty sure there was only one orgasm that afternoon). After we recovered, Mila was grinning like she had won the big game, or gotten asked to the dance by the right guy. Her joy was patent, and infectious. No questions were asked, just happiness.

I made her a special lunch out of what I could find in the fridge and freezer—a soup with some frozen fish stock, left- over restaurant swordfish from a now-forgotten boring Friday date, a splash of pernod and some canned tomatoes. It came out great. I made a picturesque salad and set a beautiful table with a bottle of white wine. Mila had obviously never seen a guy cook, never imagined cooking something so off-beat for her, and I am sure she had no idea how happy it made me watching her exclaim over everything.

It was painful, but I actually had to send her home that afternoon. I had med school deadlines crashing on me. Just so there was no question that this was not a fuck the virgin and go situation, I made sure to get three dates to be together over the next week. As we started down the apartment hall so I could walk her to the El, I impulsively ran back and got an apartment key.

"I've never done anything like this, but here," I said as I handed her the key. "Will you take this? I don't want to see any other women and I want you to plan on being over here as much as you can. This was an incomparable weekend for me."

Mila started crying as she held me in the hall. "Me, too," was her only answer. It was plenty because I knew it was real.

POSTSCRIPT

I fell in love with Mila Wurtman that month. I was hauling her home to meet the parents by Thanksgiving and lying to her folks about my fervent religious beliefs by that Christmas. Mila was like a flowering vine that year. She was reveling in the richness of sensual pleasures that were opening to her—food, the Arboretum in May, available and comfortable sex, sailing on a borrowed boat in Lake Michigan. I was learning about poets from Mila and blown away by short stories she labored over like children.

The next fall she started law school at UC- Berkeley, Boalt Hall. I felt confident that we would make it even though we would be apart for a few years. I'm probably not the only guy to have made that miscalculation. We stayed together through the next summer, when she returned to Chicago. But I couldn't get a residency in the Bay Area the next year. I found myself doing serious flirting with a beautiful high school Chemistry teacher, and Mila's letters (we liked to write in long hand and send them with stamps) and emails started to get erratic.

We sent each other "dear john" letters that crossed in the mail. I called her to tell her how sad I was when I got her letter. She had just finished reading mine. Both of us cried a lot on the phone. "I can't believe that two people so in synch that they send crossing break-up letters really have to break-up," she said sadly.

I didn't talk to Mila again for almost five years. Then I saw her waiting for a plane at a gate in O'Hare. "Mila!? Is that you?," I ventured. "JAKE! Oh, wow. JAKE!," again. "I think of you so much."

I didn't want to offend, but I was pretty sure, "Pregnant?"

"Four and a half months," she replied.

"Mila, I'm glad you're married and I'll assume happy. I think of you all the time." We exchanged pleasantries. I had to cut to the real stuff with her. "I've never really fallen in love the same way. Remember that weekend we first met?"

"Better than anything else in my life. Some days I think that weekend is only the thing in color and everything else has been black and white."

We were silent for a minute. "So, let's hear the details. Who is he? Where are you living? Everything."

She looked down at the floor, then said, "he's a she."

I was really slow on that pitch. Finally, I broke out laughing. "You! My hottest memory and you are lesbian!?," I half-shouted and half-giggled.

"Well, I go both ways now. The Bay air did it!," she mocked. Then she got more serious. "I'm on my way home to tell my parents I'm pregnant with borrowed sperm from Joannie's brother so that we can have a kid. I'm scared to death. But things have been strained on that front for years. Basically since you corrupted me," she jokingly accused.

"Don't blame the lesbian—bi, whatever—thing on me!," I protested. "I wasn't that bad in bed."

"No," she said. "After sleeping with a few other guys I can definitely say nobody came close to you in bed or anywhere else." I smiled at her appreciatively. "But you know what I mean," Mila said in a conspiratorial way.

"Yeah, I know," I happily admitted. "Hey- this is nuts, but I have an idea. I just got back from a conference and I have tomorrow off. How about if I drive you up to the wilds of Wisconsin. You'll probably get there not too much later than if you hop this flight-- and we can talk. I'll go on to my brother's house in Minneapolis and come back tomorrow. What do you say?"

"That would be amazing. Yes. Thank you." She smiled at me radiantly. "I don't have any checked bags—let's go," she said.

As we headed down to catch the blue line L back to my place, I asked "And what's the word on the lawyer gig?" Mila paused longer than would be natural. "You did graduate?," I asked hesitantly.

"Yeah," she said, "but I quit the profession after about a year. Still paying off that mistake every month."

"So what are you doing?"

"Promise not to laugh," she begged.

"No," I retorted.

She looked at me with a grimace. "OK, here goes—I start as an Assistant Minister next month at a Unitarian church in El Cerito."

We both started laughing so hard that people walking by mostly got grins on, although some avoided us like we were on drugs.

"It's your fault, Satan ex-boyfriend," she said after we regained our composure.

"I guess so," I gleefully acknowledged as I gave her a hug and felt the clashing sentiments of deep loss and deep caring.