Love Potion #9

Molly told me later that she danced all the way home from church that evening, all the way down the old dirt road toward her house. Like, actually danced instead of walking. This is what she said. I would have been floored if she'd told me that at the time. (I was even surprised when she did tell me, much later!)

What had happened: I'd been hanging out after the evening service, figuring that if I had to go to church I might as well try to talk to some girls, when I noticed one girl in particular. Actually, I noticed her ass first, because she had her back to me.

She had an amazingly beautiful ass, the kind that she couldn't hide under her dress, the kind of modest, full-length country-style dress that women in Watley wore. I could see how the dress was supposed to hide her shape, at least somewhat, but it did a terrible job. Really, it was her own fault, because her butt was so round and petite and bubbly and cute that there was just no hiding it. I found myself repeatedly gawking as she'd move around, walk a few steps; I was mesmerized by the sight of her ass cheeks undulating sensuously. And I'm not even really an ass man.

When she turned—had she sensed me staring?—I felt thunderstruck, gobsmacked. She was pretty, in a unique, wonderful, girl-next-door sort of way. I felt as though I somehow recognized her, even though I didn't know her at all. I knew that I had to talk to her.

So I did.

I felt so comfortable in our conversation that my proposal of a date came without even trying. Oh, I should mention that she didn't have an accent; I noticed that immediately. Everyone in Watley had a southern accent, that long drawl you hear in the Deep South. With girls it could be kind of charming, but I didn't talk like that at all, having mostly grown up south of Seattle, outside of Tacoma, and it was taking me time to get used to hearing these twangy sounding voices. It was refreshing to hear someone talking "normally," and since it was a pretty, somewhat soft-spoken girl around my age, this was especially nice. Her speaking voice was better than nice, in fact: it was soft, but had a throaty, sultry, sandpapery quality that I loved immediately. She sounded like a woman, when I was used to all these girls with chirpy voices that made them sound very young.

I asked her if she'd like to maybe just go for a drive sometime so we could talk more. I promised that I wasn't a serial killer or a date rapist or anything, which she seemed to think was a funny thing to say. ("I know you're not!") And she said yes, as casually as if she'd been asked if her name was Molly, or if her hair was blonde. Just an easy, casual "yes."

She gave no indication of how thrilled she was. Like I said, I only found out later.

I thought I was the one who was excited; here I was, having to live in this town in the middle of fucking nowhere—and I mean nowhere, because the nearest next town was like a half-hour drive and even it wasn't much to speak of. There was no cell phone coverage and no internet, so it was a lot like living on Mars. What made it worse was that I knew no one, save for the guys at the repair shop, and I had figured I would wind up spending my days working, or bored and alone, or guzzling beers with a bunch of off-duty auto mechanics.

But here was Molly. I found it hard not to stare at her face; she was so pretty, with large hazel eyes and pink bee-stung lips that made her smile enchanting. She had wavy blondish hair that ran down to the small of her back (every girl in Watley had really long hair). She wore cute horn-rimmed glasses; I liked girls with glasses, so she'd won me over right there. She was thin and sort of wiry, but her body still had distinct feminine shape: she was slender but with a figure. I liked the fact that while she did have pronounced boobs, they didn't seem oversized. So many of the girls I'd seen in that town were very busty. (What was it, I had to wonder, they were putting in the water?)

Since I thought Molly was pretty fucking hot, the idea that she was willing to stand around and chat with me was exciting—and a relief, because I had been starved for attention, just generally. She noticed quickly that I didn't have the local accent, so that didn't hurt my cause. I didn't really look like most of the local guys, either; they tended to have short hair, buzzcuts, or fades, and so my longer, almost-shoulder-length alt-rocker hair made me stand out.

After a few minutes, another girl came up to tell Molly something. Molly pointed to me with her thumb and said, in an offhand way, "We're gonna go out sometime." She moved blonde strands away from her face as she smiled.

The other girl—her name was Sarah, I came to know—squealed at the news. She covered her mouth with both hands and jumped up and down. I was thinking: was it that big of a deal? Molly was absolutely adorable. Why would male attention be such a surprise?

"Good choice," Sarah grinned to me. "She's a good one." Sarah did have the strong local accent. She was a svelte girl with long brown hair and large boobs; her body had an exaggerated, statuesque look. Sarah wore glasses, same as Molly did, which was not something you saw often around Watley. (Most people did not wear glasses at all, except for maybe sunglasses.)

Molly told me, much later, that Sarah had quietly encouraged her to give me some "love potion" on our date. Had I overheard this, I would have had no idea what she meant—not at that point. I probably would have assumed that they were aspiring witches or something. I did find out what the "love potion" was, though, not long after.

---

I pulled up to Molly's house in my Chevelle, prepared to behave as formally as possible. I would walk politely up to the front door, knock, and greet her father respectfully. I was ready to state my intentions toward her, and answer any other questions freely and confidently. This was the Deep South, and that kind of behavior was expected, right?

None of what I was imagining actually happened. See, my car was loud enough to hear from inside the house. Just as I shut off the engine, the front door opened and Molly came bounding out. She looked especially pretty, wearing a long, flowery, floofy white dress, and a big smile for me. She let herself in the car, closed the door with a solid thunk, and belted up.

"Hi!"

"Hey, Molly." I was grinning, too.

I watched as she tugged on one of the long sleeves of her dress, adjusting it, maybe nervously. One thing I had figured out very quickly: the women in Watley always wore long, conservative full-length dresses, or sometimes long-sleeved blouses with long skirts, but never anything else. No pants, no jeans, no shorts, nothing like that at all—nothing modern. Sleeves were always long, running past the elbow, and the dress and skirt hems ran down to the wearer's ankles. A hem as high as shin level would have been outrageous, scandalous.

Molly looked really nice, regardless of clothing style, and I was so happy to see her that I felt like kissing her right then and there. Obviously, I didn't do that, but I wanted to. I was happy she was with me. I was happy about how pretty she looked. I was overjoyed that she seemed to like me.

"So, did you have anything in mind? Like, in particular?" I asked. We hadn't made any specific plans. I expected that maybe we'd try to get ice cream or something. (I'd heard tell of an ice cream shop in the next town.)

"Oh," she said, her voice sounding dreamy, "I thought maybe we could drive somewhere and park and just talk for a while. And, you know, if things go well, maybe we can make out."

I sat there stunned for a second, and then I started laughing.

"What?" she said.

"I just love how, uh, direct you are."

She laughed a little, too. "Yeah, I know. I forget sometimes. I figure I should just be honest, though."

"I love it," I said, and I started the car again.

---

We did talk.

Molly directed me to the edge of town, to an open area with clusters of trees. I parked under the shade of a larger oak and killed the engine.

"Your car seems so powerful," she observed.

I fought the urge to go on a big tangent, explaining everything that was great about a '70 Chevelle. I knew better—she wasn't asking for a full tutorial on muscle cars of the 20th century.

"Yeah," I said, "I really like old cars. Especially ones from the '60s and '70s. The '50s, too, some of them. Big engines, well-built, not even all that hard to keep running if you know what you're doing."

"And you do."

"Cars are a thing for me, yeah. And I do it for work, too. My job is out near Bakerton, maybe five miles outside it, and we do a lot of older cars. Engine repair, body work, whatev. And trucks, too. So many trucks."

"Oh, you work at Abel's, that repair shop?"

"Yeah." I unbuckled and turned to face her. "Anyway, you didn't come to hear all about cars."

"Not this time," she smiled. "Maybe sometime, though. I don't know anything about them, really, but it seems sorta interesting." Molly unbuckled, too, and turned my direction. "So is that what you want to do, like, for a career?"

I shook my head. "It's more like a hobby," I said. "I mean, it's my job now, but I never wanted to do it for a career, really."

"Do you think you know what you want to do, then? Or are you still deciding?"

"I'm a musician," I told her. "Guitar, and I write songs. And sing." Right then, I figured she was probably thinking: Sure, guy, go ahead and try, but in 10 years you'll be back here repairing cars again.

"Holy shit, really? I love music. I like musicians." She giggled in spite of herself. "I probably would've made a great groupie. Do they still have groupies? I don't think they really have groupies anymore. My daddy told me about groupies."

"I honestly have no idea," I smiled. "If they still exist, I never met one."

"I can just imagine myself in the '70s, throwing myself at rock stars. So, you write songs?"

"Yeah, since I was a little kid," I said. "Like, I didn't even realize that everyone didn't do that. I'd make up songs and sing them for my mom, and I just figured that's what every kid did. And I really never stopped. I mean, I don't bother my mom with it anymore, but yeah."

"That just seems so cool," Molly said, smiling at me. "Have you ever been in a band or anything?"

"Yeah," I said, "back in Seattle, sort of a post-grunge band except not really grunge. More poppy than grunge. But if you're from Seattle, still, everything is automatically 'grunge' even if it's not. I mean, the '90s, that was years ago, and we just never shook the reputation. Everyone pretty much expects you to wear flannel and be depressed and play heavy guitar and scream."

"But you didn't? No heavy guitar?"

I laughed. "Some. Some heavy guitar. And flannel, yeah, sometimes. But—it was a lot more than just that."

Molly looked down for a second, then over toward me again. "Is there a song you can sing for me now?"

"One I wrote?" I sat there for moment. "Actually, yeah. I could. It wasn't really meant to be done a cappella, but it would be OK."

"What's 'a cappella' mean?"

"Just means without any instruments. Singing only."

"Sing it." It wasn't quite a command, but I was definitely on the hook.

So I did it. I sang my song "Bottle Top," kind of a personal song about—appropriately enough—being a kid who liked trying to write songs. It was kind of a banger when we did it with Earplug (my band), but I liked the melody and thought it would stand up even without any instruments.

It felt a tiny bit embarrassing to just bust out in song, right there in my car, but Molly was smiling and watching me adoringly, and that was encouragement enough.

When I finished, she burst into tears.

I almost panicked. "Are you OK?!"

"It was just so beautiful," she said, sobbing. "You're not just talented; you're really good."

I had no idea what to do. Say thank you?

She turned directly toward me. "You're really good."

And before I could even think, she grabbed me and pulled me to her and laid a gigantic kiss on me. I kissed her back, overjoyed. I didn't quite get why the song had made her cry, but as long as she wasn't actually upset, I didn't mind—especially if it had made her want to kiss me, because I sure as hell had wanted to kiss her.

There was something about that kiss, that first one, that made Molly become real to me. I hadn't realized it until right then, but she'd felt like a fantasy, a product of wishful thinking. That must seem crazy, but she seemed so amazing that I could scarcely believe she truly existed. But with her lips pressing against mine, our mouths opening and meeting—that snapped the bubble and made her indisputably real to me. Now I knew what her tongue tasted like, what her skin smelled like, how she kissed. She may have seemed to good to be true, but she was true. I was not imagining her.

It didn't take long for passion to build. It was obvious that we liked each other a whole lot, in a physical, visceral way as well as in a friendly, simpatico way. I could just sense that we were clicking on all levels.

I wanted to feel her physically, of course. I didn't dare try to put my hand on her, like, somewhere private—and yeah, I did have that urge. Instead, I lifted her up so she was partly on my lap—Molly was tall (5' 8") but very light, easy enough for me to pick up—and I used the fact that I was holding her as an excuse so I could try running my hand across her stockings a little.

Oh, stockings. Yeah, that was super-common in Watley. Even on hot days, women would wear these fairly thick stockings. Not pantyhose—even more old-fashioned, almost like really long socks.

Molly made no complaint about being picked up, or about my hand. This being the first-ever Watley girl I had kissed, I really had no idea what her reaction might be, so I was on high alert. The last thing I wanted to do was offend her, piss her off, make her think I was some kind of predator. But she made it obvious by her reaction that my hand on her stockinged calf was welcome. The stockings were black, and the material felt like cotton—not thin, but not super-thick either. I liked the contrast: white patterned dress (with flowers), black stockings. It sort of looked rock and roll, somehow.

Anyway, with just the small hums she made as we kissed, she sent the signal to me: your hand on my leg is fine, even desired. That was really nice to know. Molly turned out to be kind of an aggressive kisser, and her hands worked their way around my back, running across muscles, and that led me to think that maybe I was just being too paranoid about the whole situation. Whatever this girl was, she was not a prude.

So I ran my arm around her back and let the inside of my wrist graze the side of a breast. I figured: plausible deniability. If she objected, I could feign ignorance. What, I touched you there? Sorry, I didn't realize. But at least I would have touched it. Yeah, I was kind of chickenshit, but she was a Watley girl, so I did not want to push her too far, too fast—and at the same time, I was burning inside.

But she did not object. In fact, she did the opposite: she broke our kiss, grabbed my hand, planted it right over her breast, and squeezed. She smiled at me, as if to say, "I can see right through your devious little schemes."

I kissed her again, and kept squeezing. I was over the moon.

Before long, Molly broke the kiss again. She looked into my eyes, and started unbuttoning. I felt an enormous thrill build up in my stomach—was this real? Was this a dream? I mean, look, I was by no means a virgin, but I was also in Watley, and the town had a reputation for being hyper-religious. A minute before, I'd half expected her to slap me.

Yet, here was Molly, finished with the process of unbuttoning the front of her dress, down to her waist. She pulled the dress open to show me her white bra. Then, with a flick of her fingers between the cups, the bra broke open, and she moved it out of the way to show me her breasts.

They were the kind of tits I loved, round and plump, not especially big, the kind you could fit in your hand and hold. Perfect. Her areolas were very large, big enough that they covered most of her boobs, which I thought looked erotic and amazing. She had thick, oblong nipples that stood very erect. They reminded me of pencil erasers—seductive, sensuous pencil erasers.

I couldn't help myself: without a word, I let my hand hover over a breast, and then let a finger lightly trace the areola. Molly let out a tiny sigh of approval. I played some more, running my fingers across the breast skin, across her areola, across the very soft skin between her breasts. I noticed that her areolas looked like they were swelling.

She sighed again, and squirmed a little, agitated.

I gently pinched her nipple and gave it a slight tug, and Molly responded again, clearly excited. I tugged some more. Her nipple grew harder.

"Oh, god," she breathed, and she pushed her face into mine and kissed me with force and passion.

Then: "Keep doing that," she groaned with urgency, her soft breath in my face.

I tugged and tugged, and I pinched a tiny bit harder while I was at it. Her kiss was becoming more and more passionate as I worked.

After a minute of this, she broke the kiss and said, "Put your mouth on me. Down there. Put your mouth down there." She pulled the front of her dress open more, and moved the straps and cups completely out of the way. I had full access.

I moved my head down in front of her chest. Her skin smelled sweet and exciting and natural, as if perfumed (and perfume was not something a girl in Watley would have). I slipped my tongue out and brushed it across her areola; she let out a long sigh. It was firm and soft and warm, and tasted a tiny bit salty. I opened up and took her breast into my mouth. It was exciting to feel my tongue sliding across the big bump of her nipple.

"Yeah," she whispered in a breathy voice. "Suckle. Suckle me."

I didn't really know what "suckle" was supposed to mean, so I started sucking on her gently, letting her breast start to slide out between my lips, and pulling it back into my mouth again. On impulse, I started "chewing" on her—soft, gentle pressure with my mouth—massaging her breast a little bit while I sucked. It was my best guess at what she wanted. (I did not want to ask her what "suckling" really meant. Too proud.)

"Oh, yeah," she breathed. "That's perfect. Keep doing that. Feels really good."

I loved how her breast felt in my mouth. Her skin was soft, but the breast itself felt very full and firm. And, I loved her scent, and the sensations I was experiencing. Her thick nipple was grazing back and forth across my tongue, like a scratchy knot. I could even feel the tiny, hard bumps on her areola.

I was tempted to release the suction so I could lick her nipple and areola and let my tongue play around the breast, but she seemed to love the "suckling" so much that I figured I shouldn't stop. I also wanted to put my hand on her breast to squeeze it, but her own hand was already there, cupping and massaging, holding it to my lips. Her breast felt like it had gotten a little bit bigger, like it was swelling in my mouth. I could feel that her areola was really starting to puff up. Her nipple felt larger now, too, and had definitely grown harder. She was responding to me.

Then, I suddenly released her breast and sat back. "Woah."

"What?" she said.

I looked up at her, pretty; she was smiling warmly.

"I dunno," I said. "This might sound kinda weird, but—" I paused for a second. "It was like I tasted something."

"Was it sweet?" she said, without hesitation.