First Touch

We pulled up to the deBoers' house half an hour before eight. We were supposed to be there at seven, but my mom had this thing about being "fashionably late."

Dad parked on the street, and we all got out of the car, and headed up the block to the deBoer's well maintained front yard. Mom carried a crudites platter she'd spent all afternoon arranging, and Dad lugged a case of Schlitz.

It was cool this late September Saturday evening. The nip in the air that fortold of winter was countered by the struggling forces of Summer. Soon it would be snowy and horrible, but for now, it was balmy and wonderful.

My pink party dress swished as I walked, and I liked the sound of my heels clicking on the pavement. Pink with puffy shoulders, ruffles at the hem, white socks and my pink heels. Mom had suggested I wear the pink party dress Aunt Pearl gave me for my birthday in August, and I jumped at the opportunity. It's too fancy to wear to school, and just fancy enough to wear to church. Maybe it's a bit "girly" for a 18 year old to wear, but that's probably one of the reasons I liked it. There was a large part of me that wasn't ready to be a woman yet, that still relished "girly" things, that still preferred Barbies to boys. It was easier to indulge that side of myself when I was around my parents' friends, mostly because they expected a littler girl, instead of the young woman I was grudgingly becoming.

Mr. deBoer's brand new cherry red '76 Mustang was conspicuously parked in the driveway, a testament to his promotion--the reason for this evening's get together. Just so you know, the only reason I knew it was a '76 Mustang was that he told simply everyone about it. The whole neighborhood knew it was a '76 Mustang. It wouldn't have been surprising to see Mr. deBoer had taken an ad out in the paper informing the whole town that he'd just bought a brand new cherry red '76 Mustang.

We walked in the house without knocking, and we were greeted with a gaggle of adults, all of whom cheered when my dad entered with the beer. I shook hands with a bunch of people, but being painfully shy around people I don't know, I sort of melted into the background. Mr. and Mrs. deBoer said hi to me and Mrs. deBoer said I looked adorable in my frilly pink dress. I pretended to be coy and polite, but I was really basking in the attention. All the people from Dad's work were there, names I knew only from him talking about them at the dinner table. They made a fuss over me, and said my dress looked cute and asked how school was going. I was never good at small talk, though, and these conversations usually ended as quickly as they began.

Mrs. deBoer handed me a Coke and asked me what I was going to do next year. I told her I was headed to CalTech, where I was going to study Astrophysics. She nodded politely (it was obvious she had no idea what Astrophysics even meant, let alone why a girl would be interested in it) and told me that Jackie was downstairs if I wanted to say hi.

Oh, boy. Jackie. I had no desire to hang out with Jackie here or anywhere. But if she was here, I might as well say hello. Be polite and all.

Mrs. deBoer ushered me toward the basement door and opened it up for me. "If you need anything," she said, "just holler."

I came down the carpeted steps, rounded the corner, and found Jackie in the basement, ignoring the TV in the corner which was showing a rerun of "Happy Days." She was hunched over the deBoers' octagonal bumper pool table. Her bell bottoms hugged her ass (which I had always sort of envied), and flared widely at her knees, completely covering whatever shoes she was wearing. She had on an orange blouse under a sweater vest. She cocked her arm and took a shot at the balls on the table, and they clicked loudly, caroming off the felt sides of the table.

"Hey," I said.

She turned around. Her long, dark, perfectly feathered hair swung as she turned, and bounced back into place as soon as she was done. She must have taken hours in front of the blow dryer to get it to stay like that. She suppressed a smile as she looked at me. "What's with the dress?" she asked.

I was suddenly mortified to be wearing my dress, but I think I covered it well. "My mom made me wear it," I said, rolling my eyes. It stung, her dismissal of my favorite thing.

Jackie and I weren't much more than acquaintances. She runs with a different crowd. She's a cheerleader and on all the school dance committees, and I'm kind of a science geek. She spends her time hanging out with her gaggle of friends and I study physics so that I can someday be the first American woman astronaut (the first woman astronaut had been Valentina Tereshkova, and I was endlessly jealous of her, even though she was Russian). I see her in the hallways at school and she has Typing class with me. Polite, but distant.

She looked like she was biting back a criticism of my dress, examining me with her eyes. "It's..." she started, "nice."

Which meant "It's ugly and stupid and you're stupid for wearing it to a party. Check out my hip duds. I'm hip and cool and you're ugly and stupid." All of a sudden I wanted to be back upstairs with real adults, people who wouldn't look down at me for not being popular.

"Wanna play some pool?" Jackie asked. Maybe she sensed that she'd put me off, and was trying to make amends. Maybe she was looking for ways to tear me down again. Either way, she handed me a pool stick and started setting up the red and white balls.

I grabbed the stick and we started playing, mostly silently, every now and then we'd congratulate the other one on a nice shot. Fonzie and Richie and the Cunninghams went about their wacky lives on the black and white in the corner.

My dad came down at one point, holding an open beer. He watched the game for a little while and made small talk with Jackie (How's school, what do you want to do after you graduate, any boys in your life, etc.), and then cruised on back upstairs.

I was winning the game, four of my balls were pocketed to two of hers, and I bent over to take a shot at my final ball. It would be a tricky shot since one of hers was blocking the pocket and there was a bumper in my way. I concentrated on the shot, thinking about mathematics and physics, angles of carom and velocity. I pulled back my arm and got ready to shoot.

And then I noticed that Jackie was standing really close to me. She was leaned against the table, chalking her cue. I could smell her perfume, and even though I didn't know what brand it was, it didn't make the smell any less pretty.

Distracted, I shot at my ball. The ball bounced off hers AND the bumper I was trying to miss and caromed off into a completely different area of the table.

"Whoops," she said.

"Yeah, whoops," I answered.

She leaned in for her turn while I chalked up my own cue. She bumped me with her hip, and I noticed that she was shooting at the wrong ball. There was an easy shot right next to the pocket, but she was aiming for one that would go all the way back where it started from. I thought about commenting on it, but then wondered if she wasn't playing some kind of strategy.

She shot, and the ball, as expected, missed the pocket entirely and rolled harmlessly into a corner. "Whoops," she said again, shrugging her shoulders. Her dark feathered hair bounced up and down once as she shrugged. I noticed how close she was standing. Close enough to make me feel uncomfortable. She was about six inches shorter than me, and she was looking up at me with her brown eyes, which I noticed all of a sudden were very large.

I didn't say anything, but I really wanted to break this uncomfortable proximity. I turned to the game, and got ready to put her away. I moved all the way around the table for a shot on my last ball, and just as I bent over to shoot, Jackie was right next to me again, too close for comfort. Again, I stayed silent, and concentrated on my ball. I could feel her watching me, and it was ruining my concentration. I stood up and demanded, "What?"

"Nothing," she said, innocently. She moved in and put her arms around me, pulling me into a close embrace.

Not knowing exactly what to do, I let her hug me. She put her head on my chest and we stood there for a few moments. "Jackie," I said finally, "what is going on?"

She pulled away from me, but didn't break the embrace. "Have you ever had a lesbian experience?"

"No!" I said, pulling away from her. Lesbian! It was practically a naughty word! It was like saying shit or fuck!

Sensing my discomfort, she pulled away a little bit, leaning on the back of the overstuffed brown couch next to the bumper pool table that pointed toward the television, where the Cunningham family still went about their lives. It was quiet and awkward in the room, so I, not knowing what else to do, turned back to the pool table.

I was getting ready to shoot again--maybe finish this game and lie about having to go upstairs or something--when she sighed pathetically. "It's just that Marie Farmer and Joanie Richards say they have had one."

"That so?" I asked, feigning interest, mind still buzzing that Jackie had said the word 'lesbian' out loud.

"And Kasey Billings and Lori DiArman have too." These were all her friends. Girls she hung out with, they were on the cheerleading team and the pep squad and the booster club. They were the popular girls, way more concerned with makeup and boys than science and physics, therefore, completely the opposite of weird little me.

"So what?" I asked.

"So I wanna have one too," she answered. "I don't want to be left out."

"Ask Kasey Billings or Joanie Richards," I said.

"I can't. I already told them that I had one too."

"But you haven't."

"Nope."

"And you want to."

She nodded coyly.

"Did you ever think that none of them has ever had a lesbian experience either?"

She nodded. "But I don't want to take the chance that I'm the only one."

"And you want to do it with me," I said.

"Megan!" she whined. "I don't want to be left out!" She picked at her fingernails, newly painted a perfect wet shade of red. "I just figured, we're going to be alone all night, none of the adults are going to come down here when they can get drunk and be loud up there. Plus," she said, eying me, "you look really cute in that dress."

The dress she was making fun of not five minutes earlier. "Forget it, Jackie," I said. "Not interested."

"How about just a kiss?"

"Like on the lips?" I asked. "Ewww!"

"Just for a second. Just to see what it's like."

"But I don't want to kiss you." I think this came out kind of unconvincingly. Truth was, ever since she'd brought up the topic, I'd been picturing myself kissing her, just to see if I could stomach the mental image, and I found that I could pretty easily. This surprised me more than Jackie wanting to kiss me. The idea that kissing her wasn't such and awful idea. I wondered what her lips would feel like on mine. Bobby Jolson and I had kissed after Sophomore Homecoming, but it wasn't an experience I was interested in repeating.

"Just a kiss," she said, moving toward me. "Closed mouth."

"Closed mouth?" I asked, uncertainly.

"Promise," she said.

"Just one kiss."

She slunk towards me, devilish smile on her face. "I'm not going to bite you, Megan."

"I know," I said sheepishly, suddenly extremely nervous. "It's just that..."

"I promise it won't hurt," she said slinking ever closer and closer to me.

I shook my head no, and tried to keep my knees from shaking. Tried to ignore the trembling in my heart and my hands.

"I promise I'll go easy on you." By now, she was right in front of me, inches away from me.

I laughed nervously. "I don't know about this," I whispered.

"One kiss," she promised, and before I knew it, she was leaning in, putting her hands on my shoulders and kissing me on the lips. We stayed like that for a moment, me totally afraid to do anything with my hands, Jackie squeezing my shoulders with her hands, our lips pressed together. Her eyes were closed, but mine were open, terrified that someone might walk downstairs at this moment and catch us. God, if my mom caught me kissing another girl, I'd never leave the house again. I'd be grounded for the rest of my life!

But there was something irresistible in her proximity to me. Something primal and wonderful that I wanted to surrender to, but I was too afraid.

She broke the kiss and pulled away from me, and I opened my eyes, only just realizing that I had closed them.

"There," she said. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

I shook my head no, and my hand went instinctively to my lips, pressing on the place where her lips had been. I could taste her raspberry lip gloss, and I was aware of a tingling between my legs, the kind I only felt when I imagined David Cassidy or Leif Garrett sharing my bed with me. It was only a million times better than Bobby Jolson's kiss had been.

"Want another one?"

I nodded dreamily, and without warning, she was leaning in again, locking her wrists behind my neck and craning up to reach me. This time, we kissed for a few moments before I felt her tongue prodding at my lips, and I opened mine. I could feel the bumps on her tongue, I could taste her breath. We stood there, in the middle of her basement, the last few minutes of "Happy Days" playing on the TV, jaws open wide, lips locked, tongues pressing against each other. My hands found their way to her hips, and I locked them behind the small of her back. She pulled herself closer to me, and our bodies were touching. I could feel her breasts pressing against mine, and the sound of our nasal breathing was at the same time funny and exhilarating.

Then, without warning, she unlocked her hands and they floated down my back to my butt. She squeezed my butt roughly and this shocked me back into reality. I pulled away from her.

"Whoa," I said. "I thought we were just going to kiss."

"Megan," she said, as if I was the dumbest person on the face of the earth. "Just kissing doesn't make it a lesbian experience."

"Stop saying that!" I said.

"Come on!" she prodded. "A minute ago, you were having the time of your life! You were loving it!"

"No I wasn't!" I lied. I didn't want to admit to even myself how great it felt kissing her. The tingling feeling in my crotch and the surrender to (what was at the time) the ultimate taboo.

"Come on!" she said. We'll just touch each other. We're not going to take off our clothes or anything, we'll just...pet."

"I don't want to pet with you, Jackie!"

She rocked back and put a hand on her hip. "A minute ago you said you didn't want to kiss me, and look at how much fun you had!"

It was a convincing argument, but the idea of touching her body, and having her touch mine was...taboo. Which was what the kiss had been, and that hadn't been so bad. The earth hadn't split open, and I wasn't wearing combat boots and a crew cut.

"Come on, Megan," she said, again pulling closer to me, "don't be such a tease!"

I let her put her arms around me, and she started kissing my neck, where my little gold heart bauble dangled on the gold chain my Mom had given me for my fifteenth birthday. Again, the moment of surrender came, whether I wanted it to or not. I was pulling her face to mine, and we were kissing again. This time, when her hands crept to my butt, I flinched a couple of times and giggled once, and then relaxed and let her play. "You can touch me," she said between kisses. "It's okay."

And then I did something I never thought I'd do. I willingly touched another girl's butt. It was firm and warm in her tight bell bottoms, and she moaned and wriggled as I squeezed her cheeks together. This went on for a while, and when she released my butt and moved her hand around to my front side, I was prepared--indeed anticipating--it.

Her fingers traced lightly on my belly, up and down my side, and along my pasty white freckled arms. This emboldened me, and I moved my own hands up and down her back, feeling her warmth, feeling her smoothness, feeling dirty and naughty and altogether okay with it. When she traced her fingers along the underside of one of my breasts, I giggled, and let her go. Eventually, I was holding one of hers, squeezing gently and while I continued exploring her back.

And then, before I knew it, her hands were behind my back again, and I could feel her fingers playing at the zipper of my pink party dress.

"Jackie!" I said, backing away again.

"What?" she asked.

"You said we weren't going to take our clothes off!"

"Oh man," she said. "You are square. You can't have a lesbian experience without taking some clothes off."

"But you said..."

"I know what I said, but I was just trying to get you to touch me. Honestly, just let me take off your dress and that's the farthest it will go."

"But what if somebody comes downstairs?"

She rolled her eyes. "They're all drunk up there, they've totally forgotten about us. They always do, you know."

"But my dad came down before!"

Again, she moved closer to me, and I was out of backing-up real estate. My butt hit the back of the overstuffed couch. "But he's drunk by now!" Jackie argued as she continued walking toward me. "He doesn't care what we're doing down here. He probably thinks we're watching TV."

"I don't know..." I managed.

"Just let me take your dress off. That's as far as we have to go."

"Serious this time?"

"Serious."

Nervous as hell, but curious, I asked, "Are you going to take something of yours off?"

"No," she said, "you are." By now, she was up against me again, nuzzling my neck and lowering my will.

"Okay," I whispered. Anything to continue kissing her.

She smiled and reached around me, unzipping my dress. She kissed me as the zipper went slowly down my back, to my tailbone. I felt her hands on my shoulders, pulling the sleeves down. Soon, the dress was in a puddle on the floor at my feet and I was standing in front of her in my white slip.

Without pausing, she went to pull the slip off my shoulders.

"I thought you said just my dress!"

"Slips don't count," she said simply, and before you knew it, my slip was falling down my legs to join my dress, and I was standing in front of her in nothing but my bra and panties.

She stepped back and looked at me, and I was so self conscious I crossed my arms in front of my breasts and pulled one leg in front of the other. My body was so pale and my freckles were so prominent and my breasts were shaped weird and my butt was too big. My red hair was too stringy and my face was too small for my big Irish head.

"Well?" she asked, ignoring my little bout with modesty.

"well what?"

"Are you going to take my clothes off?"

It was hard to get over my embarrassment. It helped to know that Jackie didn't seem to care how ugly and awkward I was. She was just interested in continuing our little adventure. And hadn't it been nice to have her hands on my breasts and back? Yeah, it had, more than a little bit. Hadn't it been nice kissing her? Absolutely. Wouldn't it be nice seeing her in her own underwear? I didn't know, but things were rapidly progressing in that direction. I was only a hair's breadth from chickening out, putting my clothes back on and going upstairs, but Jackie was standing in front of me, arms outstretched and eyes wanting. I inched forward and put my hands on the bottom of her sweater vest.

She lifted her arms up and I pulled the vest off her. Her orange blouse was thin and silky, and it only took a moment to notice that Jackie wasn't wearing a bra. Her nipples poked alluringly from behind the material, and I admitted to myself that I really wanted to see them. I started unbuttoning her blouse, and then pulled it out of her jeans, and then off her shoulders and threw it onto the pool table. Her breasts were perfect. Not too big, not too small. Not saggy like my Mom's, not shaped weird like mine. They were the things Playboy centerfolds were made of.