Heart's Fall

"Kerry, you're the one person who doesn't have to be anxious about what I think of you. You're gorgeous. I think I owe you though."

"What do you mean, you owe me?"

"I mean that you were naked and vulnerable the first time, and you trusted me so much. I guess it's my turn."

Kerry understood. As I took my top off I felt her hands eagerly undoing my belt and button. As I dropped my shirt she looked up at me as if for permission. I nodded and she pulled my pants and boxers down, my hard cock popping out, eager to say hi.

"Oh...I missed this," she said, licking her lips, "and...and you look amazing. Not like someone near thirty at all. God, James, are you sure you want me?"

I stroked her hair reassuringly and nodded.

"I want you so much, Kerry. I...I never stopped loving you."

Kerry smiled and took me in her mouth, briefly. I moaned. She released me again, quickly.

"You can have more of that James. As much as you want. Later. I need you inside me. Please."

She pulled her sweater off, revealing her breasts. They might have been a little bigger, sagged maybe the tiniest bit, but I wouldn't even have noticed if Kerry hadn't been worried. Her stomach wasn't completely taut like when she ran every day, but neither was mine. And really, she looked amazing. My cock twitched as I took her in, which probably did more for her self-esteem than any comment would have. It didn't have any idea how to lie, after all.

I needed to see the rest of her and as soon as she unzipped I was pulling her jeans off, and then her small black panties. I wanted to take more time but I needed to be inside her, needed it like air, like water. Her hips were a little wider, but somehow, all of the changes together made her even more attractive than she was at eighteen.

Sometimes I think that love, real love, is about appreciating someone and all the things that they have been through. We'd been romantically separated for a long time, but I appreciated every part of Kerry, and that included her past and any changes she'd experienced while we were apart. I loved all of her.

"God, Kerry. You're still so sexy."

Kerry blushed, beautifully, reddening not just in her face but chest and belly and the top of her thighs. She didn't respond, but she moved backward and turned, spreading her legs for me. She smiled at me, shyly. I moved over her, careful to support most of my weight on arms. I'd been with women closer to my own size or height, and for them, I could rest more of myself on them, but I was always afraid that I'd crush Kerry, no matter how tough I knew her to be. I think she loved the way I was careful with her.

My cock was at her entrance. Before I could do anything more, I felt Kerry's small hand on my shaft, guiding me in, impatient for it, demanding it. She made a little high-pitched noise, like a chirp, when I entered her. At first I thought I'd hurt her but I saw that she was looking at me with the most intense expression that I'd ever seen her make. It scared me a little, but it also aroused me even further.

"Oh, fuck, I forgot how good you felt inside me...James...oh god why...why did you ever leave me?"

That was, even in the heat of the moment, an odd question. Leave her? We mutually broke up, and by the time I met someone serious, she'd already been married for a year. I think I understood, though, deep within. Shanon had been the first real serious relationship I'd had after her. Prior relationships had been light, or one of us was more serious than the other, as happens often. I think Shanon might have loved me though, and I knew that I'd loved her.

Kerry must have felt like I did when she'd told me about the man that she would marry. Happy for me, sincerely and truly, but also dying a little inside. All of this flashed through my mind as I bottomed out in my best friend, the love of my life. I was careful. It was easy for a larger man like me to hurt a small woman like her. I wasn't huge or anything, just about average for someone of my height, it was just the relative differences between our sizes.

"Fuck, Kerry, you're so tight, like...like before..."

Kerry smiled now, her old adoring smile. I knew that I was showing the same emotions. In that moment, there was nothing held back. We were both vulnerable and true. As I moved so did she. We were in perfect harmony, made for one another, flowing like water down a hill. We sped up and I edged her like the old days. Neither of us ever really had any trouble getting the other off, so we instinctively tried to make each orgasm better.

Kerry's nails dug into my back as she held on to me tightly. She was so close, so near, but I drug it out, slowing down, pulling just a little bit away. Then I returned, hard and fast, not rough, but certainly not gentle. She ground and rolled her hips against me. Her breath came in brief cries, She leaned back, desperate to kiss me, her small hands on my face, holding me where she needed me. Her body shuddered as the orgasm kept rolling through her, pleasure making her its puppet. At least, with a brief cry, the long, drawn out process ended. She relaxed in my arms, but I kept fucking her, bringing her back to the moment.

There were tears in her eyes, but I knew it wasn't from pain. I felt the same way, even if I couldn't express it. I was suddenly grateful for my bad fortune, for life putting me here at this moment, the right moment. Nothing was like making love to Kerry. At least in this way, nostalgia didn't lie. Each stroke brought me closer to my own moment.

"Oh James, that's it baby, let me make you feel good."

"Kerry, I'm..."

"I'm on the pill and I don't care. I don't care, baby. I need your cum and if I get pregnant, I'm ready."

Holy shit, that was too much. I came inside of her, rope after rope of cum filling her. She came with me, her muscles clutching me, milking me like she was feeding off of my life. I found myself looking into Kerry's beautiful eyes. That was when I saw it, just for a moment. Sadness and guilt, unmistakable. Replaced with love and pleasure as she came with me, more gently than before. Maybe she still felt a little bad about having sex with someone other than her husband. It wasn't uncommon and I wasn't going to say anything about it just because I wasn't decent enough to feel the same way about Shanon.

At last, we were finished, panting like we'd just run a triathlon, our foreheads pressed together. I rolled off of her and after a moment she cuddled against me. I felt her wet crotch pressed against my leg and I didn't care. It all felt right. I pulled a sheet over both of us, knowing that she'd get cold fast. She hummed in a brief noise in appreciation.

"I'm sorry I was so distant for so long."

"I think you know that you're forgiven, right? I just want to know why. I kind of thought that...that you'd outgrown me. You'd seen me for who I was and just left me behind."

She sat up on one elbow to look down at me fiercely. A light sheen of sweat covered her, her small breasts shifted as she did. I already felt myself start to harden again. How could she do that to me so easily?

"No! It wasn't like that. I could never...I never would."

"Can you tell me why? I just...I kind of need to know."

She lay back down and I heard her sigh, then she reached out and held my hand, as if drawing strength from it.

"It was me. I know how that sounds, but its true. I think the first time that I saw you with Shanon was about a month or two after you two started dating. I visited you with Bill, like we did sometimes. When I saw you two together, it was different from with the other girls you'd been with. I could see...I could see a future between you. She was so gorgeous, and she looked at you the right way, you know? And that was when my marriage started its downturn. I had suspected Bill was cheating but I didn't have any proof, and I realized something..."

"What was that?"

"I realized that I would be bad for your relationship. Really. I could pretend to be just your friend, and I am your friend, but my attachment to my husband was breaking. Was already broken, really. So I didn't feel particularly strongly towards my vows. I knew that the next time I visited you, I would be alone, and I knew that...Jesus this makes me sound like such a slut. I knew that I would make myself 'available' to you. As it I might tell myself otherwise, but I would have tried to seduce you. And if you wanted to stay with her and keep me on the side, I wouldn't have liked that, but I would have done it. I'd hate myself for it and you'd either reject me and it would hurt or you wouldn't and you'd hate yourself for it too. I didn't want to break up something that looked to be really healthy and good for both of you, so I stayed away. I always wanted you to be in my life, but I knew I had to keep some distance between us. That's it."

"Wow," I said, genuinely flattered. As weird as it was, I could have seen it happening. And neither of us was big on cheating, but there was an undeniable attraction between us, even when we had been happily platonic.

"Now that I know she cheated on you I kind of wish I'd just beaten her up and then had my way with you. Fuck politeness."

I sputtered laughter.

"That does sound more like your seduction style."

"Shut up. You know you like it."

"I do. No other girl ever made me feel like you do."

She rolled over to face me.

"Dammit you're going to make me fuck you again, aren't you?"

She rode me this time, but it wasn't rough or hard. It was slow and languid and I couldn't believe how right it felt. When we were done we showered together, changed her sheets while making dumb jokes, and then I fell asleep spooning her. I knew, in my heart, that everything would be fine from then on. I'd been through a rough patch, but it was over now.

I did not have any idea how wrong I was.

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Then - The Invisible Line

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The day things changed for Kerry and I was about a week after I had turned eighteen (she had turned eighteen a few months earlier). We were still best friends, but all the college applications that we were filling out gave the time we had together a different perspective. I wanted to go into history and she wanted to be a corporate decision maker so she wanted to pursue finance. We both had decent grades and we knew we would end up going to different colleges. My pick was Stanford and hers was between MIT and New York University.

We knew that if we got what we wanted, we wouldn't really have each other as best friends any more, and it lent a sense of urgency or even desperation to the time we had left. I don't think anyone else sensed it, but we both hung out as often and for as long as possible. We also started talking more about our fears for the future. And, naturally, we started to see different sides of each other.

The day in question I was supposed to head over to Kerry's house to study with her for a chem test the next day. I kind of sucked at it and it really helped to have a partner to explain things. As I was planning on heading there anyway, I decided to just wait until Kerry was done with soccer practice. I was sitting on the bleachers, doing some casual reading, which for me at the time was philosophy. I could really be pretentious, although I did honestly enjoy Meditations a great deal.

Kerry was a winger because she was fast, had tons of stamina, and could outthink defenders. I'm not huge on the sport, but I usually watched her home games and sometimes we watched pro soccer together. She was impressive, typically zipping up and downfield, crossing, and leaving her coverage in the dust to either take the shot or feed the striker. The team had done a lot of running and speed exercises today, and currently were playing a scrimmage.

Despite not being much of a sports guy, there was a certain appeal to watching girls my age run and jump. Kerry would always roll her eyes at me but I pointed out that she got more excited when dudes wore gray sweatpants to track practice and she'd blush and get quiet. Today I wasn't paying much attention to the field and honestly was eager to get going.

I heard a brief shout, and I recognized it immediately. It was Kerry. She'd taken a slide tackle and she hadn't gotten back up. The player who'd tackled her had run over to her, obviously concerned. I ran down to the sidelines, watching apprehensively. The coaches ran out and leaned over her. She was sitting up and talking so hopefully it wasn't that serious. She stood up with some help, and those of us on the sidelines clapped, but she needed support to get back. She'd obviously messed up her ankle. I walked over to where she was sitting on the bench. The coach was speaking by the time I got there.

"You've gotta stay off it and ice it. It's not so bad now but you could have some awful swelling by tomorrow. No tournament for you. Sorry."

Kerry's face showed clear disappointment. She really enjoyed playing and competing and was looking forward to the trip out of town. Her team would miss her skills, too.

"Shit, that's tough," Amanda, her friend and a backup striker said, "do you need help getting to your car? You can lean on me..."

"No need," I said, finally speaking up. I could be shy with girls but I knew most of her teammates at least as acquaintances. I'd even gone out with one of them. "If one of you gets her stuff from the locker room then I'll just carry her to my car."

"Are you sure?" Kerry asked. Her teammates looked at me doubtfully. I was big but the parking lot was a few hundred yards away. I laughed.

"Kerry, you weigh like two pounds and you're the size of a baby mouse. It'll be fine."

Kerry chafed at the obvious dig on her size and her teammates chuckled. Some of them gave me a weird look but I didn't worry too much about it.

Once Amanda came back with her backpack I slung it over my shoulder with my own, then knelt slightly and lifted Kerry into my arms, easily. By this point I was over six feet and naturally kind of beefy, and I worked out a bit, mostly push-ups. I'm not trying to make myself seem super-strong, either. Kerry really did weigh less than one-hundred. It didn't occur to me until much later that I carried her like a bride.

I also noticed that quite a few of her teammates were watching me now, some with little smiles on their faces. I just figured that they were assuming that Kerry and I were dating. It was a common misunderstanding and I didn't really worry about it any more. Those people who knew us closely knew that we were a lot more like siblings than lovers.

I carried her to the car, trying to go gently to avoid jostling Kerry's injured leg too much. She was silent except for an occasional small noise and I was worried that she was concealing pain so I slowed down a bit.

"Are you doing ok?" I asked.

"Huh?"

"I mean, are you hurting too bad? Am I making it worse?"

"No. No, James...you're being perfect."

I nodded and kept walking, enjoying the feeling of her small, warm body against mine. She leaned her head into my chest for the last part of the journey, and it felt almost like she was cuddling into me while we walked. I set her down on one leg, then loaded her and her stuff into the car and we were off.

"Thank you," she said as I drove.

"No problem," I said. It really didn't feel like a big deal for me. I did not consider the greater implications of what I'd done or how it might have been interpreted.

"Really," Kerry said, suddenly serious.

"You're welcome," I said, a little more formally, smiling at her sideways.

I caught sight of her, briefly, before my eyes were back on the road. She had wide eyes, and her adoring smile was back. I felt my heart beat faster and my face felt warmer. I noticed some other stuff happening in my pants and adjusted myself a bit.

"Oh my god, stop," I said, finally.

"What?" Kerry said.

"You're staring at me and I love that smile but you're making me incredibly self-conscious."

She laughed, gently. Normally she would have made some kind of comment about me being girly or something and teased me. Not today.

"You're amazing, you know that?"

Now I laughed.

"Why?"

"You just carried me like four football fields and you did it so carefully that I barely felt any pain. And my ankle hurts like a fucking bitch. Oh, and I'm pretty sure half the soccer team wants to bang you now."

"What?"

"Didn't you see how they were looking at you when you picked me up? Do you really not understand girls at all?"

"I think we both know that I do not."

We laughed together.

"Oh my god. This is why I lo...why you're amazing, you idiot. No matter how tough we are, every girl out there has been reading manga and watching Sailor Moon or Disney movies with strong, handsome, and slightly moody men saving women in distress. So I fall down, right, and I'm really hurt. You come over and basically pick me up like you just came off the cover of a shitty romance novel. And that makes you great, ok? Everyone one of those girls who were looking at you wished they were me. Every one. I'm not being sarcastic or mean or anything, cuz I know how your mind works."

"Oh," I said, trying to process all the really wonderful things Kerry had said about me. I felt a really warm feeling spread through me.

"And what makes you amazing is that you just did it because it was the right thing, and you wanted to help your best friend. You had no idea whatsoever how you looked doing it. You were masculine but modest. Any woman would be lucky...to be yours."

Then she seemed to realize the depth of what she'd expressed and grew silent. A gentle rain started to fall from the cloudy fall skies, and neither of us spoke for the rest of the short drive. My mind was racing. I may not have been experienced with actual romance, but I had heard the depth of feeling in my friend's voice. Hell, I had felt it in the way my body reacted to it. I had to adjust my pants a few times. Thankfully, Kerry was looking out the window, watching the rain as she loved to do.

When we arrived Kerry touched my arm and I jumped. Then she laughed.

"Sorry. I can walk to the door if you give me your arm. It's only like ten steps."

"Sure."

I grabbed both our packs and helped her to the door through the rain. It was getting worse so I moved carefully. Better that we both got wet than she fell. When we got to the door we were almost run over by her mother, who was obviously going out.

Kerry's mom looked like a middle aged Eva Green. Every guy I knew had some kind of crush on her, myself included, although mine was pretty tame. She was dressed to kill, in a black dress that you wouldn't call scandalous by any means but that left no doubt as to sensuous nature of the woman who wore it. She had darker brown hair than Kerry but they shared big beautiful blue eyes and high cheekbones. Kerry was athletic and slender, whereas her mom was, uh, "voluptuous". She filled that dress out and she knew it.

She smiled at me, the friendly smile she saved for friends of hers and of her daughter. Both of our moms had a standing invitation if one of us needed to stay over or any other help. They weren't exactly friends but they'd grown to respect one another.

As soon as she saw me though, something odd happened. She had a look in her eye when the door opened. It was odd, like she was happily surprised to see me but then realized that she'd mistaken me for someone else. Her expression shifted, ever so slightly. I wasn't that smart then, but I like to think that I would have picked up on it now. How much different things would have been.

"Oh my goodness. What happened, Kerry?"

She stepped aside to let us in. Kerry looked oddly annoyed at her mother, and nervous about her being there.