Hal Story

Once I was in the car, he closed the door and then slid into the driver's seat. Starting the engine, he asked where to go. I gave him the address, and he immediately headed off in the right direction. He'd lived in and around the city for years and knew the most direct route to my apartment. When we arrived, he parked, and then he opened the passenger door for me. Once again, he offered me his hand, and once again I took it. And once again, I didn't let go until we reached our destination, my apartment door.

Stepping inside, I beckoned him to follow me. He did, and I closed the door behind him. As I kicked off my shoes, his eyes took in the sparse furniture, sparser decoration, and the mountains of books. When he had been encouraging me to write, he'd also encouraged me to read. Advice that I had followed. Noticing I was barefoot now, he followed suit.

"Sebastian, I am so nervous. No one has been to my place before. And I've never felt this way about a person. And I have never done this. I know what I want, and I know why I do. And I'm nervous." I smiled a bit weakly.

His hazel eyes never left my face as I spoke. He raised his arms, inviting me in. Stepping close, I nestled my head on his chest, hearing his heart beat, feeling his arms encircling me. No one had ever made me this safe. I couldn't remember the last time I was held, let alone held like this. My hand on his chest, I looked up. He kissed me then, and I melted. His lips soft on mine, enticing me, drawing me out and into him. His right hand cupped the back of my head, his left caressed my cheek. I sighed and pressed tighter against him. I felt his lips open slightly, and by instinct my tongue darted forward, seeking entry into his mouth. His tongue found mine, and things simply exploded. All the warmth and moisture I felt was replaced by an intense burning need. My nervous energy gave way to a determined passion.

I pulled back and unbuttoned my shirt. It fell to the floor as he watched. I undid my plain cotton bra, and hesitated. I closed my eyes, afraid of what his face would show. Dropping the bra too, I stood before him, bare-breasted, my nipples hardening in the air. But he was seeing my scars too, some of the remains of my assaults against my body.

My breasts had been frequent targets of my razor blade before I first found him. I opened my eyes, dreading rejection or pity. Instead, I saw longing and a sweet type of awe. He took me for who I was, his eyes drifting from my breasts to my mouth to my eyes, and a smile playing across his lips. Not predatory, no. Kind and happy.

I loosened my drawstring pants and let them fall. More scars were revealed, the thick ones on my upper thighs. Still no sign of disgust on his face. Everything there was gentle and tender. The moment of truth. I pulled down my sodden panties and stepped out of them. The most dramatic scars were here. My pubic hair covered many of them, but angry, livid marks stood out in puckered lines. I had savaged this part of me. I stood naked before him in more than one sense.

He was seeing all of me, all of the layers of my experience that made me who I was at that moment. He saw the wounded girl he met when she was ready to die. He saw the angry eighteen-year-old who couldn't believe someone cared for her without an ulterior motive and who cut him out of her life. The twenty-two-year-old virgin, just within reach, ready to give herself to the only man who'd ever shown her love. A man who had given what her parents hadn't, couldn't, even though he had never met her. Sebastian saw all of that when he saw me.

Moving towards me, Sebastian pulled off his flannel shirt. Dropping it, he undid his belt and unfastened his jeans. He stepped out of them as they fell to the floor, the belt buckle clattering on the tiles in the kitchen. He slipped his briefs off. He was now as naked, as vulnerable, as I. He too bore scars, some clearly the marks of surgery, others were the roadmaps of his own journey from self-loathing and self-destruction to wholeness. Once again, I took his hand, this time leading him to my bed.

We kissed again, our naked bodies entwining, merging and separating. My nipples burned against his chest. His erection pressed tight against my belly. He laid me back onto my bed, my small breasts with their pale nipples sitting firm. My legs slightly splayed, the wetness of my hunger slicking down my pubic hair. I didn't shave. I had no lovers, so saw no need. And I thought being bare would serve only to remind me of the unhappy years of youth.

He didn't touch me right away. He caressed me with his vision, drinking in all that I was with his look. Finally, he moved, gently pulling me to the edge of the bed, then kneeling. His fingers traveled up my thighs, dancing over my scars. There was nothing cursory, nothing hurried either, about his touch. He moved with patience, with a finely honed hunger that was better sated with nibbles than with gorging.

His fingertips grazed my lips and I gasped. If this touch was so exquisite, I wondered if I could bear having him inside me. He traced my scars, soothing and arousing me with the same movement. His mouth on my thigh, I moaned. He moved steadily to my pussy, kissing and licking. He took my wet lips between his and pressed, then licked. My fingers knotted the sheets.

His tongue pierced me, moving upward until he licked my clit. My hips snapped upward, driving him into closer contact with me. The feeling was almost overwhelming. Then his lips closed on my sensitive bud, and his tongue darted over and around it. An incredible pressure built up deep within me, and with one more swipe of his tongue, it erupted.

My first orgasm of the night carried me away. I was adrift on a wave of tension and release, wrestling with each other. I cried out, begging him to never stop. Little by little my body relaxed. His fingers now explored me, opening me, probing softly. I trembled as his middle finger slipped between my lips and moved ever deeper into me. His gentle thrusting set off another avalanche, accelerated by his thumb brushing over my clit. Orgasm number two wracked my body. I could feel my pussy sucking at his finger, drawing him deeper. My body was thrusting up, swallowing his finger.

"Hal," he said. "Is this what you want? Are you sure? You can tell me to stop, and I will. You can tell me that at any time."

"It's what I want, but I am still nervous. I want you in me. All of you in me. Will you be upset if I ask to guide it?"

He answered by removing his finger, leaving a void that I immediately needed to fill, and turning on his back. "Hal, you are in charge."

I took his cock in my hand and studied it. I'd never seen, let alone touched, a soft cock, much less a hard one. There was a velvety marble feel to his. I stroked and it twitched. The head glistened, and I drew my fingers through the wetness there. He gasped, and I pulled my hand back. "No, Hal, it's good. Don't stop. Please don't stop." As I played with his wetness, my own increased. His noises, emanating from his need, harmonized with my own. It was time.

I moved now so that my knees were on either side of his hips. I pressed my pussy against the hardness of his shaft. I drew myself along it, feeling my lips play along the length of him. My clit stroked the veiny underside of his cock. I lifted, took it in my hand and put the head between my lips. I moved it up and down, sliding it from my clit to the bottom of my lips and back up. Each time his head bumped my clit, electricity coursed through me. I moved it back down, slowly, until the mouth of my pussy captured it and it sank in just a little. All my awareness focused on this sweet intrusion.

My hands rested on his chest, one on either side of a scar that ran down the middle. Lowering myself slowly, I felt my pussy opening to him. I couldn't tell if I was consuming him, or the other way around. I met resistance, and my fists clenched on his flesh, my nails biting into him. I met his eyes, and there was a mix of tender loving sweetness and hunger in them. "You really are a virgin, aren't you?" I nodded, biting my lower lip.

He smiled and gasped as I lifted a little. "Set the pace you need Hal, fast or slow. This first time will never happen again. Make it what you want it to be." Closing my eyes again, I pressed myself down, feeling something give way with a brief flash of pain. His hands were on my hips, drawing small circles with his fingertips. Lifting slightly again, I felt something like a tug inside, urging me back down. Despite all I had been through, I never felt this vulnerable, this exposed, but at the same time, I never felt this safe.

My downward motion continued until I found I could go no further. Sebastian was inside me entirely. I leant forward, almost falling onto him, my breasts pressed to his chest. Lifting my head slightly, I looked up at him again. He moved a hand from my hip to the back of my head and pulled my mouth to his. His kiss completed the circuit, running from our lips down to where his cock was lodged in my pussy and back up. I felt myself tighten around him and release. He groaned into my mouth and that made me shiver. That in turn made him groan again.

I began to move my hips. Up and down, feeling the length of him travel inside me. I rocked back and forth and made small circles. These rubbed my clit against him, sending jolts through me. They also made his cock touch every place inside me. It was tender, both in terms of hurting a little, a good hurt though, and being gentle and loving. I began moving with a steady rhythm, my tongue darting, dueling with his as I rode him.

This time I recognized the start of my orgasm, like a train coming through a distant tunnel, ready to burst into the open. My rhythm faltered, and I stayed down, holding him deep inside me. I spasmed, starting in my pussy, spreading outward, drawing me up to the apex of this roller-coaster ride I was on. And I felt him throb inside me, tensing as he called my name. He burst inside me, his cock emptying his passion, his need, his love for me, deep into me. My own orgasm took full control of me as he came inside me.

We each surrendered to the flow of instinct, to the spiritual side of a biological process. I'd never felt closer to a human being than I did now, and not just because I was naked, on top of him, with his cock inside me. Sebastian had taught me how to trust, even when I refused to allow it. And that trust led to this moment.

I relaxed (collapsed, more like it) on top of him. He gently tickled my back and turned us onto our sides. I showered his face with kisses, finally finding his mouth. Releasing his lips from mine, I spoke. "I never believed it would be like this, this right and good. And I certainly never believed it would be with you." His smile lit his eyes and I heard him take a deep breath.

"Hal, I knew it could be like this for you, once you found the right man. That there was a man for you who would wait until you were ready to embrace joy and happiness and until you decided that you deserved to live well. I didn't expect that to happen here, or for that man to be me. But it has, and I am the happiest I've been since the first day I met you."

I nestled against him as he continued. "We have so many opportunities, so many paths to explore. If you're willing, let's walk those roads together." I kissed him then, giving my answer with my flesh. And I remembered what he had said those years before, that just because a boy was willing to kiss me wasn't the same thing as that boy loving me. He was right, but he didn't tell me that the inverse was true. That the man who loved me was willing to kiss me, to wait to kiss me, and more.

We bathed together then, and ate, feeding each other morsels while sitting nude with our legs twined together. We made love many more times that night. I tasted him, felt him throb and release in my mouth. We explored each other's body. We fell asleep in my tousled bed and woke up to find ourselves face-to-face, relishing the fact that the first thing we saw was the eyes of the one we loved. We had sex again, flesh slapping, incoherent moaning, toe-curling sex. Never having known any sort of love, I was unprepared for how physical love made me feel. I wanted more. I wanted all that Sebastian could give me.

Before the semester was over, I had moved into Sebastian's house. I kept my job, but now my supervisor smiled when she saw Sebastian come into the shop. She understood that I was right when I had said I thought I was happy. School continued, and just before I earned my MFA, we got married. It was a small event, and it was capped by a staycation honeymoon. Some staycations mean you stay in town, some you stay at home. We stayed in bed, with brief forays for food and bathroom trips.

My MFA thesis piece was a fictional biography of a girl who grew up unloved, bent on self-destruction, alone and adrift until she found the one person who she needed. A man who'd been in her life forever, but who she hadn't seen until it was almost too late. A man who didn't complete her, but rather a man who saw her as complete already, and who simply reflected the beautiful wholeness he saw in her, every day. It was published, received good reviews and was eventually incorporated into the curriculum of my writing program.

I began teaching at the same school as Sebastian. We grew ever more comfortable and ever more deeply in love. We had a child together. Our daughter is fourteen now. She has no questions about whether she is loved by her parents, nor about whether her parents love each other. Every day, we model for her what we each wanted, longed for, and eventually created for ourselves. I just turned forty. Sebastian is seventy-six. And you know what? He is, forever, the boy who spends his days loving me. And his kisses are sweeter for it.