Grandma's Christmas Secret

"Don't remind me!" Lindy said. "And I'll be out East."

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder," Cap said.

"I sure hope so," Lindy agreed. "But for now..." She slid her arms around him and they danced to "White Christmas" as best they could. Though still nervous about his reaction to her body, Lindy was replenished with the joy she had so lately been deprived of.

"This'll be worth waiting four months at a time for, won't it?" Cap surprised Lindy by unbuttoning her dress. She returned the favor on his shirt, and set about rubbing his chest to his clear delight. "Oh, that feels great!" he exhaled softly. Lindy felt him pull the unzipped flaps of her dress apart in back, but then he stopped. "Wait," he said, and pulled back.

"Yes?"

"Your secret. You said after the prom you had some secret I'd have known if we'd done it then. And it wasn't that you were a man."

"I'm definitely not." Lindy laughed through her growing fear that she was in for a reprise of that morning.

"Are you going to tell me now?"

"Undress me already, and you won't need me to tell you. You'll see it!" To help the process along, she pushed his now-unbuttoned shirt off his shoulders. He was wearing a t-shirt under it, and she lost no time in pulling that up as well.

After letting her pull the t-shirt off, Cap at last followed her lead and lifted her skirt up with both hands. Lindy raised her arms and let him pull it over her head. He looked quizzically at Lindy in her bra and tights. "Just what I expected so far," he said. "And beautiful, mind you."

"Thank you!" Lindy's heart was pounding for more reasons than one. "Let's see just how beautiful you think I am!" She undid his belt buckle, and welcomed his hands on her bra clasp. To her surprise, he was just as skilled at undoing it as Jimmy had been. But Lindy had bigger issues on her mind than that.

She unzipped his pants and pushed them down, along with his underwear. He was hard as a rock. "Well, I guess you do like what you see!" she said, rubbing it playfully.

"And feel!" With her bra out of the way, he caressed both of her breasts. "They're just as beautiful as I always imagined!"

"And to think you could've seen them months ago!" She squeezed his erection just a little harder, to his delight.

"My loss! But what's this horrible secret of yours?"

"It's not horrible!" Lindy drew back and put her hands on her hips. "All right, Cap, here it is. It's natural, I think it's beautiful, and I can only hope you agree!" She pushed her tights and panties down, and after an awkward moment pulling them off, she stood naked and unashamed before him.

Cap looked nonplussed. He gaped at her, open-mouthed and maybe-maybe-not smiling a little. "Oh, Lindy...you're beautiful!"

Lindy's heart melted afresh. "Thank you!" She opened her arms, then stopped short of embracing him. "Wait, do you really believe that, Cap? Now's your last chance to tell me if you think I'm a freak or ugly, because this is who I am and it's not changing!"

"Promise?" He gingerly reached his right hand to place on her bush, and she looked down and watched as he began running his fingers playfully through it.

"You really do like it?"

"I love it! And I love you! So beautiful!"

"Oh, Cap, I promise!" She threw her arms around him and they fell on the bed, where he let his fingers frolic through her bush to both of their delight. "Oooh, that tickles!" she laughed joyfully. "But I like it!"

"Glad to hear it!" Then he leaned down and kissed her breasts, and slowly but surely worked his fingers all the way down while she spread her legs to welcome him.

"Fingers, please! Inside!" Lindy moaned.

"Just don't make me call it your 'tight', okay?"

Lindy laughed. "Been talking to Ruth, have you?"

"A guy can learn a lot from her," Cap said.

"Wait!" Lindy sat up. "Did you and Ruth..."

"Only once, before you and I became...official. It was that first day I helped her with her math while you were with Jimmy."

"I was wondering where the two of you went off to," Lindy said. "And that's how you knew how to undo my bra, isn't it?"

"She made me undo hers four times, until I could do it without fumbling." Cap confessed. "Look, I'm sorry, but we weren't even a couple yet!"

"No, it's okay!" It wasn't, entirely, but then hadn't she nearly gone to bed with Jimmy that very morning? "You're right," she said. "What happened before doesn't matter."

"God is my witness, Lindy, she said it was for both of our good. She wanted to teach me how to please a woman."

Lindy lay back on the pillow and laughed. If that wasn't just like Ruth! "Let's see how good a student you were, Cap." She took his hand and placed it back on her vulva.

He went back to feasting on her breasts, and slipped just one finger inside her. For Lindy, it was a sensation unlike any she'd ever known, even those happy moments on her own bed. She gasped loudly and her eyes flew open, causing Cap to stop with his finger still nestled in her vagina, which at that moment she vowed never to call by another name again.

"Did that hurt?" Cap asked.

"No! It felt wonderful!" Why hadn't those long-ago filmstrips about making babies said anything about this? But it was a delightful revelation for Lindy, and from that moment on she had no inhibitions about drowning out the Christmas songs on the little radio, or about wiggling around the mattress in pleasure as Cap showered her deep, dark secret with pleasure and joy.

She tried to catch her breath and avoid getting too loud when she came, but it was no use. She let out a throaty moan of delight that surprised even her. And Cap, who gazed down at her in amazement. "That was beautiful, Lindy," he said. "Did you know it was...anything like that?"

"Told you I wasn't that kind of girl, didn't I?" Lindy grinned up at him. "Mind you I said wasn't. Now haven't you got something else you want to put in there?"

Cap got up and collected the foil-wrapped rubber from where Lindy had left it on his dresser. "This'll just take a second," he said. "Only did it once before."

Lindy could only wonder what Ruth might have done or said while watching him put it on. But she didn't ask. She spread her legs wider and welcomed him back on the bed once he'd rolled it on. "Practice makes perfect, huh?"

"Yeah, but it looks to me like we're pretty good at it already, aren't we?"

Lindy laughed, and her laughter turned to another involuntary moan as she welcomed him inside. Such a beautiful sensation, and all those years she'd been conditioned to think she'd hate it! Lindy clutched at his buttocks with both hands and pulled him as far inside her as she could. "Yeah, we're good at it all right!"

They laughed and shared a kiss, and Cap set about pushing rhythmically in and out. Lindy abandoned all pretense of trying to be quiet. Sometimes her loudest moans frightened her -- what if his parents came home? -- but that only added to the joy of the long-delayed event. She gazed up at him throughout, feeling more in love by the moment. She said nothing, but made plenty of noise as he worked her ever closer to another orgasm.

Years later when she was in graduate school, Lindy would read that a woman almost never has an orgasm on her first time. At that point she could only marvel at how fortunate she'd been that afternoon in Cap's bed, where she most certainly had come and Cap had known it.

"Can I now?" he asked once her joyful screams had subsided.

"Please do!"

At her word, he flailed at her harder and faster than ever. He didn't have to do it for long before he echoed her response with a long and loud "Ohhhh!" of his own. He stopped, deep inside her and propped up on his hands, and savored the moment while Lindy looked on in amazement. It was nothing like she'd expected; it was a hundred times better!

When his body went limp, Lindy welcomed his head on her shoulder and wrapped him tightly in her arms. "That was worth waiting for, Cap," she whispered in his ear.

"I love you, Lindy," Cap said. "You and your secret!"

*****

"You dated all through college?" Kelly asked. "A thousand miles apart?"

"We did break up junior year," Grandma said. "It was just too frustrating for both of us, the distance. But a year and a half of dating others just convinced us we were the one for each other. After graduation he got a job out in California and I had my teaching certificate, so I could teach anywhere. Once we got settled on our own out there, so far away from our families and their old-fashioned values, we knew it really was meant to be. His parents never really warmed up to me, but we didn't care."

"Whatever happened to Jimmy? And Ruth?"

"Jimmy, I don't know and I don't care. Ruth went to New York and lived just the life you're thinking she lived, all through the sixties and beyond. Never married, and I think she was happy that way."

Kelly could see Grandma was getting misty-eyed again. "I miss him, too, Grandma."

"Well, like I said, dear, I know I'll see him again soon enough," Grandma said. "Tell you the truth, Kelly, I'm a little jealous. Wherever he is now, he's young and strong again and probably enjoying a malt at Teddy's right now, and saving the next dance for me. And look at me, I couldn't even slow-dance right now!"

"I'll bet he's lonely without you, though."

"It was worth it, Kelly. Every Christmas we had together, it was remember when, and how lucky were we to find each other that day!"

"If you don't mind my asking..."

"Good heavens, Kelly, what would I mind you asking after all I've just told you?!"

Kelly laughed. "Good point! Did you ever tell him about what Jimmy did to you?"

"Yes," Grandma said. "He felt so guilty about Ruth, I couldn't have him thinking he was the only one who'd been elsewhere. And he felt even more blessed after I told him the horrible things Jimmy had said. It did leave us with the problem of how do you explain you fell in love because someone else had insulted your body?"

"But don't most people just accept 'We met in high school?'"

"Everyone always has," Grandma agreed. "Kelly, I'm sorry if I overshared here. But no one else has ever heard the whole story, and in a world when women still have ridiculous beauty standards and kids are bullied for being different...well, someone somewhere deserves to know I found the love of my life not in spite of being unusual, but because of it!"

"Couldn't agree more, Grandma."

"As long as you're single, I hope you'll take that lesson to heart, Kelly, whatever you might be insecure about."

The sun was long since down by then, so Kelly turned on the Christmas tree lights. "Ready for dinner?"

"Let's eat it in here and watch a movie, like you probably think we always did in the fifties. I'll have you know we never did it in my house, and I always wanted to! What's your favorite Western?"

Kelly didn't have a favorite Western. But spaghetti and meatballs and High Noon, colorized by the reflections of the tree lights, made for a pleasant ending to a far more memorable day than she'd dared hope for. As the credits rolled, Kelly whisked the dishes off to the kitchen before Grandma could offer to help with them. "Need anything else from out here?" she called over her shoulder.

"Just another trip to the bathroom," Grandma said. Kelly found her shuffling through the kitchen behind her sooner than expected, and let herself believe sharing her story had helped. Kelly herself still wasn't quite sure what to make of it all.

"Let me at least help you to bed," Kelly said once she'd finished the dishes, as Grandma made her way back through the kitchen.

"Happy to have help with that," Grandma said. "I hope I haven't been too standoffish with you."

"Oh, heavens, did Megan say that about you?"

"There's a reason why you're the one I opened up to," Grandma said with a wry grin.

Once she'd shut the bedroom door behind her, Kelly turned off the television and the tree lights, not wanting to risk anything to keep her grandmother awake, and tiptoed up the stairs. The story had left her mind much too alive with questions and surprises and tender affection for Grandma and Grandpa both to have any hope of sleeping soon. So she went into the upstairs bathroom and put the plug in the tub, and drew a hot bath.

While waiting for the tub to fill, Kelly went back into her mother's old bedroom and undressed. Once she had her clothes off, she did something she had carefully avoided doing for quite some time. She took a look at herself in the mirror. With Marcus gone and the chilly weather and being too busy to think of going anywhere she'd need to think about wearing a swimsuit, Kelly hadn't bothered with intimate grooming in months.

Did Grandma know Kelly had inherited her secret? Not likely, for Kelly had been barely aware of it herself for quite some time.

After years of fighting the battle of the bush, recently with the constant encouragement of Marcus -- Nair, shaving, tweezers, and she had considered more drastic measures -- she had lately found her lack of concern refreshing. But she hadn't really given any thought to her appearance, and having not seen her natural state in years, she'd forgotten all about how furry she could get. Not like Grandma, but close enough.

Now, she found for what may well have been the first time ever, she liked it. A family heirloom to be proud of, and who cared what any man thought?

Well, Kelly cared. She cared about finding the right man, but there was no doubt he would like it, too. There was no longer any doubt of that in her mind.

The tub was probably full. Kelly ran her fingers lovingly through her bush and stepped off, head held high, to relax in the bath.