Requiem for a Friend

So long my friend.

Today we bid her a final goodbye at a memorial in the church that we'd grown up in. Listening to her brother, and others, relating stories of my friend, memories flooded to the front of my consciousness. Many stories related at that memorial service were of her and me, often stories and memories that I didn't recollect, or didn't remember, until someone else related them.

We'd been virtually inseparable as kids. She was almost exactly a year younger, often we celebrated birthdays together. I didn't remember but a listing on a table of memories showed that my older sister and I had been key participants in her third birthday party oh so many years ago. Although we went to different schools together, and lived in different neighborhoods, our parents had been good friends. They bought a cabin in the mountains together and many was the time that we spent all weekend long being kids in that wonderful place.

We were never lovers, although I know she always thought she would like that. I never had any romantic attraction to her -- although in many respects she became "my first". Late in high school, after having been raised with a "boys are aggressors and thou shalt not or you'll end up in jail" ultra conservative upbringing, I was -- to say the least -- a bit timid around girls.

I was voted "shyest" in my Senior Class, which I only found out when a friend who was on the Senior Class Committee told me so. I never heard another word about that until the school Annual came out -- and the Captain of the football team, who happened to share my exact first and last names, had his picture under the picture entitled: Shyest. I always thought that I'd been shafted a bit on that. He was very popular, had the prettiest girl in our class as his girlfriend, and that I was too shy to question why I hadn't heard any more until it was too late had something to do with it.. I'm sure that had a lot to do with his picture being there. Most of the 'popular' crowd didn't know me from the man in the moon and it always stuck in the back of my mind as a "what if," of my life. It didn't hurt my ego that many of those that I did know commented that they had voted, with me in their mind, but that is ancient history.

I got my first girlfriend, Kathy, (yes, her real name) a mutual friend of the two of us, along about the time I was a high-school senior. In my ultra-conservative 'thou shalt not" upbringing, I had the idea that getting to first base was holding hands, second base was -- maybe -- getting a kiss, and anything beyond that was - well, way out of my thought range. That Kathy was hot and sexy, I knew as she had a penchant for halter tops and bikini tops (which I didn't realize was mostly when I was around) and wanted my hands on her, wanted me to be kissing her, wanted to take our relationship further physically, than I was mentally ready for. Although Kathy didn't tell me this, she told our mutual friend. And, when my friend told me this, (which, knowing she would, is I expect why Kathy told her this) I admitted that I had no clue about sex, no clue about girls, no clue about what they wanted -- as I'd always been told that "good girls don't."

That my friend had been having sex since her first Junior High boyfriend, I knew. Was she promiscuous? That was the word back in those days -- but although she had sex with her boyfriends, it was only her boyfriends, and to her -- it was just another step in a relationship. That she'd had probably a dozen boyfriends by that time -- some for a month, some for much longer -- and had sex with all of them, didn't factor into the equation. She had a relationship with those boys, and having sex be part of that relationship was as natural to her as not having sex in my relationships was to me. She was no beauty queen -- but I never got the feeling that having sex was her way of attracting or keeping boyfriends. She was just a free spirit -- back in the days where the pill had first made sex, without as many consequences, possible.

But when she related to me that "Kathy" thought I was moving too slow, I admitted to her -- I hadn't a clue of what to do. Eventually I said I'd never fondled a girl -- although I'd dreamed of what breasts were going to feel like. I told her that Kathy had an amazing bottom and had wondered what it would feel like if I tried to touch it, but that I couldn't do that as she was a "good girl" and... she interrupted. "Do you know what she told me?" I admitted I had no clue, and she told me Kathy had told her "Just once I'd like him to put his hand down my pants and finger me off."

I think my mind exploded.

And I also admitted, I had no idea how to do that, and reiterated that I'd never even touched a girl before in any way. When she asked what happened when we "made out" and kissed, I admitted our kisses had been mere 'pecks on the lips' to that point -- we really hadn't "made out." She didn't say anything for a moment, and then said, "I'll be right back."

Getting up she left the room, and returned a few moments later. She'd changed into a mu-mu (changed from what, I don't remember) and sat down next to me. She immediately reached over, just took my hand, and placed it on her near breast. "Girls like their breasts to be touched," she told me as I gently squeezed her breast, feeling her nipple growing to my touch. The mu-mu had a wrap over neck line, which plunged between her breasts without showing anything, but when she chided me for being "too gentle" and needing to concentrate more on her nipples, and then asked me if she had a bra on. I knew she didn't, there was no cloth between her breasts and my hand except for the mu-mu, and admitted it. She asked if I hadn't noticed that Kathy wore a lot of halter tops when I was around, and said that was because they gave easy access and she wanted my hands on her. She then told me to slip my hand inside her mu-mu and feel her bare breasts, which I did -- the first time I ever felt a girl up.

"Thumb and fingers," she instructed, my hand still just cupping her bare breast, feeling her nipple growing to my touch. "That feels good, play with my nipples. Squeeze and roll them. Uhmm... yeah, like that."

I should have expected it, but still I flinched and shied away when her hand reached over and squeezed my erection in my pants. "Has anyone ever touched it before?" she asked. "I thought not," she said when I told her no, her fingers then slipping inside my belt and against my erection, her fingers caressing the head of my cock. "Undo your pants for me."

I hesitated momentarily, but when she reached over and fumbled for my belt, I followed suit, loosening my belt and zipper, and without pulling my pants down, her hand now slipped completely inside my underwear and fished my cock out. She stroked me momentarily, pulled her hand back and then raised her bottom off the couch to lift the mu-mu out from beneath her bottom, before reaching back to grip my erection.

Once again, she reached over to take my hand and unhesitatingly guided it to her pussy, although she wouldn't have called it that. Her parents were both schoolteachers, and she knew the "proper" name for everything. It was a clitoris, it was a vagina, it was a penis, those were labia, that was a glans. For her, it was never a pussy, or quim, never a dick, nor a cock. Although I'd had sex education classes, at least the euphemistic hints at sex education that they gave us back in those days half a century ago, I really had no idea about what a woman's anatomy really was.

At first all I felt was her pubic hair, and although I knew somewhat about labia and vaginas and a clitoris -- I found I really had no idea about how everything was actually arranged. Her instruction to "lower" my hand had my fingers searching lower through the muff of her lower belly until she said, "OK -- that's my clitoris." I guess I didn't realize that her vagina was closer to her ass, the idea of a "taint" still foreign to my obviously limited knowledge, but her "Get your fingers wet so it's slipperier and then rub back and forth," had me understanding that I needed to find her vagina. Once again, I slipped my fingers further down, slipping a finger between her labia, slipping seemingly impossibly lower, fumbling for her vaginal opening. Finally, she took my hand again, lowered it much lower than what I expected, and my fingers found her warm and inviting wetness. "That's my vagina," she explained. "Get your fingers wet, and then go back and rub on my clitoris."

I did as she instructed; I guess inherently understanding that repeated trips to her vagina, where I found her wetter and wetter, and transporting that moisture to her clit, were in order. Her instructions about what felt good in fingering her I followed precisely, touching harder, touching softer, rubbing back and forth directly on, or just above her clit as instructed.

Initially she was reaching across her body to grip my penis, I was reaching over her body one handed to finger her. Unable to interact like this, she turned sideways in the couch, her back to me, and pulled my right arm over her shoulder. Slipping my hand through the vee of the mu-mu, I was able to fondle and play with her nipples right handed, and at the same time reach across with my left to play with her pussy while she stroked my cock. Soon enough her body convulsed and quivered in an orgasm, the first orgasm that I ever gave a woman. Her extended verbal "uhhhhhh" as she came accentuated that she was orgasming. I didn't at first pull my hand away, not sure when to stop what I was doing, and her body quivered and shuddered each time I moved my fingers. After a short time, she reached down and pulled my hand away from her.

She'd been continually and slowly stroking my dick. "You've never had a hand job?" she asked, her complete grip relaxing a bit and her thumb rising to smear the seeping pre-cum around the head. I told her no, and she asked if I liked to do it fast or slow. I told her I always started slow, but had a hard time staying slow as I got closer. "That's one of the advantages of doing it for someone else," she said, and continued to stroke my cock at a leisurely pace. Even when I began to quiver myself and thrust my hips upward, she moved her hand with me so that the effect was the same.

Finally, I erupted to her touch, spraying cum into the air, onto my shirt, onto my belly, in one of the strongest orgasms I'd had to that point in my life. Just as I hadn't pulled my fingers from her clitoris when she came, she continued to rub the head of my cock with her thumb, smearing my cum over the sensitive flesh until I grabbed her hand and pulled it away, protesting that I was too sensitive. She stood and went to the bath. I heard the water turn on, and then moments later she returned with some toilet paper for me to clean up with.

I didn't immediately put my cock away, I was still hard as a rock even though I'd cum, and was now holding and stroking myself. She'd given me a hand job, had allowed me to touch her, had taught me how to get her off, and immediately all the sexy, naughty, ideas I'd ever had came to mind with thoughts that maybe I could get something more. Here I was with my cock out, my friend having just given me my first hand job, and didn't seem to object to me stroking myself. "Have you ever sucked a dick?" I asked, essentially hinting that I'd like her to. She admitted that she had, often, but her "No, I won't suck you, you can ask your girlfriend for that" even before I asked, put an end to that thought. When I reached again for her breasts, this time she fended me off refusing to allow me to touch her again. When I asked if I could see her breasts, she also told me no -- that she was pretty sure that my girlfriend Kathy would love to share hers with me.

My friend was right, my girlfriend shared her breasts with me on our very next date. Having finally realized that the "good girls don't" edict of my mother, thanks to my true sexual education from my good friend wasn't quite true -- my girlfriend and I rapidly moved into a physical relationship. And, although my friend and I remained friends forever, it wasn't until several years later that I actually saw her naked.

My girlfriend Kathy and I eventually separated and went our different ways, and years later Kathy followed in her father's steps, becoming the second person I know of, who was my age, to die. The first was a friend from school days who became a stewardess, (back in the days when flight attendants were required to be young and sexy and were still known by the "stewardess" name) who unfortunately was on PSA Flight 182 in September, 1978. The midair collision with a smaller plane killed everyone on both planes and several people on the ground.

Mental illness is hard to fathom. It often shows no symptoms, or provides thoughts and ideas and symptoms that are foreign to our own way of thinking. Kathy put the pointed end of a pistol into her mouth and pulled the trigger -- exactly as her father had done while we had been dating. What caused such mental anguish, such mental pain, to want to end your own life, I can't imagine.

Later, when I graduated from college and went to work at a large utility, I took the place of a long-time employee, who retired the day before I started, someone whom I never met, but had, in turn, been friends with all of my future co-workers. Unknown to me, this man also suffered from mental illness -- and almost a year after I started -- he took his life.

He'd left the city when he retired, moved to the country. One Saturday he went out to his garage and cut his head off with a chain saw. His wife found him; the chain saw on the ground still running. Later, in discussing his demise with one of his former co-workers, who did and had known about this mans mental anguish, he told me his friend had confessed that the pain in his mind was just like the physical pain of a broken bone, or an extreme cut, and that sometimes he just wished he could cut his head off to make it go away. Eventually he did exactly that.

~

My friend and I never had another one-on-one sexual encounter.

Several years after my friend taught me the in's and out's of the female body by braille - we went up to the cabin in the mountains, used it as the kick-off point for a winter hike to the top of the highest peak in the area, along with another mutual female friend. The weather hadn't been bad to that point, but rapidly turned bad as we proceeded to the top -- finding ourselves in the fog, the rain, the sleet, and finally the snow as the storm came in and got progressively worse. By the time we got back to the cabin, we were all frozen and on the verge of, or suffering from, hypothermia. We got a fire started in the Franklin stove to warm the cabin, and stripped off most of our drenched clothes. Down to my skivvies, the girls got down to their bras and panties, and with all of us shivering together, we climbed into the large double bed and got under the covers.

As our mutual body heat started warming our bodies, the near nakedness was enticing to all three of us. Touching led to tickling, tickling led to groping, and to my friends hand on my rigid cock and attempting to entice our mutual friend to touch me the same way. Unknown to me, this woman was much as I had been when my friend had introduced me to physical pleasures; she had never had a boyfriend, had never 'been touched', was a virgin in all respects. Laughing, giggling, and 'pretending' that this shouldn't be happening - although I wasn't really averse to it at all, led to my reaching over and squeezing my friends breast, slipping a hand inside her bra, and then turning the other way to fondle our mutual friend. My friend reached over and took our friends hand and led it to my cock, which immediately freaked her out. Jumping out of the bed, she had to be convinced that the giggling protest that I was putting out wasn't really a protest at all, I hadn't "really" been protesting -- but the moment was over. The fire had built up so that now huddling around the old Franklin stove we rapidly warmed up.

Nothing was ever again said between the three of us about that experience. Several years later our mutual friend identified as lesbian, and eventually married another woman whom she has been with ever since. Was that her only encounter with a male? Is she still a 'virgin' -- at least technically? I don't know and it really doesn't mean anything, nor is it any of my business so I've never asked.

As for my friend -- that was the last time that I ever touched her with a hint of anything sexual.

~

Living at working at Lake Powell for multiple years, during one of my visits 'back home', I hooked up with a woman who had multiple times over the years indicated she thought I was attractive. The feeling had been mutual, but circumstances had just never been right for us to hook up. She was yet another mutual friend of ours and when I returned to the Lake, the two of them decided to come visit me later that summer.

I had a one-bedroom apartment; my girlfriend and I slept in there, had rambunctious and practically non-stop sex in there, while our mutual friend was in the living room sleeping on the couch. They visited for a week, and after a couple of days, we took off to go boating and hiking -- no longer separated by the thin walls of my apartment. It didn't keep us from having sex, although my friend was still there, and unable to not watch us pleasuring each other unless she purposely looked away. We were often naked; skinny dipping, boating naked, hiking naked -- and, at night, when there was never anyone else around, there really wasn't any reason for us to get dressed either. One of the nights, after dinner, we were lying out on our sleeping bags getting amorous. Slipping around into a 69, both of us ignoring our mutual friend. It was just by chance that I glanced over and found her watching us and masturbating. She hadn't been oblivious to our sexual action, nor had she been unaroused by it. The events in my semi-fictional story "Dark Canyon" were partially based upon this real event.

Life moved on and several years later, after returning from Lake Powell, now in my early twenties, I hooked up with another woman. She hadn't been anything more than an acquaintance with my friend until then. Sexually this girlfriend was the most uninhibited woman I've ever been with. We were as compatible sexually as it's possible to be. She wanted it, I wanted it. She was uninhibited -- and I'd grown out of most of my mother induced inhibitions. My friend had also hooked up with someone, her boyfriend, and we ended up with several mutual friends for a weekend at the family cabin. The four of us ended up staying in the small detached bedroom at the back of the lot -- with my girlfriend and I sleeping on a mattress on the floor while my friend and her boyfriend slept in the bed.

The first night, the lights were out, but they were having sex -- and so were we. When I heard her moaned "uhhh" -- I recognized it immediately as the same sound she'd made that one time that I'd masturbated her to orgasm.

The second night, the lights were still on when my girlfriend and I arrived at the bedroom. They had gone up earlier, and when we arrived, the two of them were lying naked on top of the covers with my friend sucking her boyfriends dick. He was sitting up in bed, with my friend lying sideways, the only time I ever saw her totally nude. "We, uh, thought that was pretty hot last night, hearing you two," her boyfriend said as we came in, "and thought it would be a lot more fun if we could watch, too."

I had never spoken to my friend about that very first educational encounter of ours. Now, holding her boyfriends' cock upright, she pulled it out of her mouth momentarily, giggled, and looking at me asked if I remembered asking her if she'd ever sucked a penis before. I told her I most assuredly did.