The Love Language of a Redhead

To Heather, with remembrance, love, and a smile. I hope life turned out the right way. Thank you for redheads, teasing, the sounds of sex, and mostly for teaching me what safe feels like.

We were both older than 18.

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Every single person we meet along the path of our lives leaves an indelible fingerprint, usually so small that we are unaware of their impact, and sometimes in ways so large they completely change our course. Those latter people stand like signs along the path: "Turn right here" or "Stop!" Heather was one of those people for me, a very long time ago when I was young and so wonderfully inexperienced in life. Middle-age cynicism hadn't yet arrived, although unbeknownst to me, it was boulder already started on its roll down the mountain. The word mortgage wasn't in my vocabulary, and my parents certainly weren't worried about "launching" me. I was 19 at the time, which makes it the better part of 3 decades past. I think I was very sophisticated about some things, maybe many things, but certainly not about inter-personal relationships and definitely not about sex. I might have kissed a few girls and gone the "hand in gland, gland in hand" route on a couple of occasions, oral a few times, but that was about it. I think more than anything I was clueless about women's intentions; I guess I just didn't understand the subtlety of attraction between a man and woman. Not that I didn't want to have sex, I just didn't understand that it was probably available. "D'oh! You mean I could have gotten laid?" A lot of it was probably also a lack of confidence, as in "I know she can't be interested in me, so I won't even try." It's better to set the bar low. That way you'll never be disappointed.

At the time, I had a friend who I've long since lost touch with -- Brad - that lived in my neighborhood; across the street, along a path through a patch of woods, and across another road. Close enough that it was almost faster to walk there than to call on the old rotary dial phone (remember how much phone numbers with a lot of zeros sucked?) Brad and I were both products of single parent homes in which our fathers were absent, and in any event, ours was not a generation in which it seems parents had 'the talk' with their kids. Most of what we learned came through blundering experience or the random Penthouse Forum ("Dear Forum, you'll never guess who I banged 30 years ago...") I can't remember the first girl I kissed, but I can remember the first whose genitals I touched. Katie was a charming and rather toned competitive ice skater. Her Dorothy Hamel "wedge cut" hair was a sandy blonde and she had this cute little horizontal wrinkle just above her top lip that showed when she smiled. I can remember with clarity the day she straddled me and began to rub my back. Her inner thighs would clench along with her hands; who knew that wasn't normal? See what I mean? D'oh! I don't think Katie and I were ever 'going steady', maybe more of an early form of 'friends with benefits' type deal. At some point, we ended up in the back of a car, hands down pants, steamed up windows, and mutual hand jobs done with a couple of fleshy gonad hammers. I just hope I didn't cause any tissue damage. Katie was the first person I was ever intimate with, at least as far as it went.

Brad and I had found common ground in being the products of broken homes and shitty fathers, and through that connection, grew a strong friendship. We spent a lot of time together and over the course of our friendship, I got to know his mother. And this is where the story actually begins. Her name was Heather, and ultimately she became the first, and most significant, sign post along my path of sexuality. Since this story is about her, it would be fitting to describe what she looked like, being certain (and freely admitting) that time has left me with an augmented image of the stunning Ms. H. Red hair, more copper colored, long and with big 80s curls. God, I miss big 80's hair...Her eyes were dark brown and a bit more doe eyed, think Isla Fisher if you need a reference point. Heather always seemed to be taking in everything at once, but when something was off, her eyes would narrow and her forehead crinkle just enough that you knew the wheels were turning. She was subtle with her make-up, but always perfectly put-together, and her face was incredibly expressive. Smiles, laughs, scrunches, all of it spoke far more compellingly than mere words alone could. It's curious that I look back on my memory of her and know that feature-by-feature, she was probably pretty average, but it was the sum of her parts that made her so special.

She had a wonderful body full of curves and allure. I always remember her as having a big chest, but I think that could have been the view through the lens of adolescent lust. Regardless, they weren't small. What I do remember for sure is that she wore tight earth tone turtlenecks. I know she must have worn other clothes, but I simply can't remember anything else. I'm not being descriptively dramatic when I say that her nipples were always on display. I know this because I looked, a lot, and later I found out that she wore what is known as an "open cup bra", or perhaps you've heard it called a "shelf bra". If you're unfamiliar with these, you should educate yourself, but in the interest of literary expediency, it is a bra that supports the breast from underneath but does not cover the nipple. You're probably wondering how I knew this. In Brad's house, Heather's bedroom was upstairs, and his was downstairs next to a family room and the laundry room. There were actually legitimate reasons to be in the laundry room, and less legitimate reasons to innocently inspect her unmentionables. Anyway, to put it in a mathematical context, large breasts + tight turtleneck + open cup bra = big problem for a 19 year old man-child. Lest you think the ensemble complete, no, it wasn't. The 80s were a time of designer jeans for women, and that meant tight, tight, and tight, and the good Ms. H was never one to shirk her fashion duties. Sometimes she wore skirts, just normal workday skirts with panty hose. You'll see why this latter detail is important in just a second. But what killed me, and by that I mean kept me chronically dehydrated, were her boots. Simple fucking cowboy boots pulled over her jeans. I think I speak for men in general when I say that cowboy boots and jeans on a woman are like a salt lick to deer -- completely irresistible. While time may have spruced up her reality for me a bit, I really can't say for sure, the Heather of my memory was the Goddess Freya. Like layers of an onion, she always seemed to find a way to go one step further. Hopefully you have a vision in your mind of what she looked like. Maybe redheads aren't your thing (although I can't ever remember hearing a man actually say that...), but I trust you get the general sense of things. I look back and wonder if she had some sort of fetish that probably bordered on unhealthy. But as they say, there's a seat for every ass. Let me give you an example.

Brad and I would come and go from each other's houses freely; even if the other wasn't there, we would often hang out and snack, watch TV, whatever. On this particular day, I walked down and found no one home, so I let myself in with the 'hidden' key. Just off the front entry was the kitchen, and the far side of that was a bar with stools. Pretty regular. Except on this particular day, pantyhose were draped across the back of one of the bar stools. I'll admit it. I examined them. Judge me not, because what 19 year old man in this situation would not have done exactly the same thing? If they took the moral high ground and passed up the opportunity, I would argue that they're either gay or home-schooled by their mother. The crotch, or to use the seamstressly correct term gusset, was tinted with dried fluid. I'm not proud to admit it, but I smelled it. I gave it a bloodhound going-over. Just the faintest hint of that wonderful musky scent. You may as well throw a blind dog into a meat house. I sat there smelling this damn pantyhose crotch, about to baste myself in my own shame sauce, wondering what it was that got Heather wet. You know what question didn't cross my mind at the time? Why were her gently used pantyhose draped across the back of a stool in her kitchen? Maybe it was purely an accident, or maybe it was a booby trap.

Heather was always nice if a bit standoffish, and I was fortunate to learn later how gentle and compassionate she was underneath the daily grind. Being around Heather was a complex of mix of obvious and awkward attempts to look at her nipples without being noticed, and feeling like prey uncertain if the predator was about to strike. All of us have known people -- men and women -- who exude sex. This was Heather. It was like she was filled with sexuality that seeped through every pore on her body. Think about this -- many of today's kids learn sex through internet porn, which is not a very healthy or realistic introduction to human sexuality (I have to wonder how many young men have been shocked to learn that there are actually women in real life that don't orgasm when someone splatters semen across their face. Ah, to be young again...) My introduction to sex was through my friend's mother, and more specifically her pheromone-infused pantyhose trap. Like porn, not very healthy, but also like porn, a lot of fun.

Not long after my encounter with the Venus flytrap of the underwear world, the lovely Heather stepped up her game by going from scents to sights. It was spring, and on a particularly nice weekend morning I had gone over to Brad's early to go fishing. Instead we ended up getting lazy and sitting in front of Saturday morning television. The downstairs family room had a large screen TV (at that time, those were rare and expensive) with a sofa and chairs across from it. To the left of the sofa was a sliding glass door that faced the morning sun, and on the right were the stairs. With the morning sun pouring in, we had to close the curtains in front of the glass doors in order to see the television.

"You guys need to open the curtains and let some light in," Heather said, coming down the stairs, "It's a beautiful morning."

She was wearing a simple, light weight mint green bathrobe that went to mid-thigh, loosely belted so that it hung open just enough. Have you ever gotten caught staring open-mouthed? It's embarrassing until the woman you're staring at gives you a big smile and says "Hi Hon. How are you this morning?"

I tried to smile back, but it probably looked more like I had gas. "I'm ok. How are you?"

"Better now that I saw you," she teased, and gave my shoulder a squeeze as she walked by, stopping in front of the glass doors to pull the curtains open, flooding her with morning sun. "What an amazing day," Heather said, stretching her arms over her head, which had the effect of pulling the bottom of her robe up another couple of inches. You can't tear your eyes away from something like that; that robe sliding up her smooth thighs and stopping just short of the Promised Land, her legs spread slightly apart. But the funny thing about being backlit by bright sun is that it has the tendency to silhouette a person through thin clothing. That morning, God treated me to a perfect outline of her womanhood, down to the labia splitting her mound. Her long, red hair spilled down her back, the big curls like cresting waves of copper. Heather held this stretch for what seemed like minutes, although I'm certain it was only a few seconds. It didn't matter -- that image is so perfectly burned into my memory that it may well be the last thing I think of as I get to what Steven King called "the clearing at the end of the path." I think even at the time I realized it wasn't an accident. There was so much deliberateness in the whole thing and such a powerful outcome that there's no way it was unintentional. There was a sense of being completely overpowered, and completely vulnerable, by the whole thing. I felt like I had absolutely no say in what happened, and more than that, there was the feeling that something was already in progress. What Heather did was the most wonderful, erotic tease that turned my brain into semen and testosterone mush. The entire world simply shut down for those few seconds.

I didn't see Heather again for a while after that, at least not in real life. I saw her plenty in the dark of night where young men debauch themselves to beautiful redheaded women dancing through their imaginations. In fact, the next time I crossed paths with Heather, I didn't see her at all. I heard her.

Weeks after the labial silhouetting, I was spending the night at Brad's. There was nothing unusual about that; we spent the evening downstairs watching TV or playing an early version of Atari. He and I always slept on the sofas, which, to be honest, weren't all that comfortable. It's hard to sleep late when you're folded up on the shorter sofa. It's also hard to sleep late when you hear a bed banging against a wall. I can remember looking at the clock -- 6:18 a.m. I have no idea why that memory is so specific, but it is. These days, I sit in bed and wait for 6:18 to roll around. It remains a magical minute for me. The thumping was like this loud, sexual metronome. Bump... bump... bump... bump... In retrospect, I have to give whoever that guy was credit for both his endurance and his sense of rhythm. The bed-banging went on for a while, stopped for a bit (during which I was excruciatingly disappointed and sporting excruciating wood), then started up again. How do you secretly rub one out at your friend's house while his mother is having sex about 20 feet above you and him 5 feet away? That's a tough nut to crack. I lay there motionless, barely breathing but needing to hyperventilate when Heather moaned. A couple of short ones and then one long "Honnnnnnnnn". This, too, is a sound so clear in my mind that I can replay it anytime in mental Dolby Surround. Which sense do you find most erotic? Sight? Touch? For me, it's sound and I think it comes from this minute in my life. I heard a woman in a hotel a few years back vocalizing her pleasure and it was the most incredibly transfixing thing. I was afraid to move for fear of breaking this enchanted moment. I shut my eyes and could see a beautiful woman on her back, long hair spread across a pillow, chin tilted towards the ceiling and her face wearing that perfect expression of erotic agony. City lights through the open window sharing just enough romantic light to see her lover sliding so slowly inside her, filling her need, her breath catching as she begins to orgasm, and then a long, honest moan as she is finally able exhale. That's what Heather left me with that morning.

The summer went on after that as it's prone to do and changed into fall. As always seemed to happen with her, Heather became scarce after she made oak out of my penis, which was probably for the best. As the days passed, I became increasingly certain that her actions were simply coincidental; I guess I didn't want to end up disappointed and embarrassed in some way. Oh, but woe unto the unwary!

The final chapter in my Big Busty Book of Heather took place at the height of the fall foliage show. In the north, everything changes from green to gold and auburn in the blink of an eye, and the smell of decaying leaves and impending cold is always there. For us hardy true Northerners, fall is the calm before the endless freeze of winter; it's a time to take that last deep breath of warmth before covering your mouth with a musty woolen scarf. Brad and I had both started college that fall; I stayed local and he left the state on an athletic scholarship. It was the start of fall break and I had walked down to Brad's house late in the afternoon and, as I often did, let myself in.

"Hey Hon," Heather smiled, "Brad's not here. He has to stay at school for football for a few extra days. Remember?"

"Shit, I totally forgot. If you talk to him, tell him I said hey and to call me," I turned to leave, feeling awkward and vulnerable with just Heather. I wondered if she knew I heard her having sex, or saw the silhouette of her vagina, or smelled her pantyhose...A wave of shame washed over me as it occurred to me she probably had no idea about any of those things, which made me feel a like some sort of stalker. She reached out and touched my arm. "You don't have leave. You're hardly a stranger here anyway. Plus some company would be nice." I almost melted, or at least spilled semen in my lap. For the first time, I noticed what she was wearing; standard issue jeans and a tight, rust-colored turtleneck with a couple marbles tucked inside. "Stay and eat," she said. Yeah, stay and eat. Right.

"Sure," I said wittily, "What can I do to help?"

"Can you cut this up?" she asked, handing me a cucumber. I chuckled to myself, more out of adolescent nervousness than anything else. "What's so funny?" She tilted her head and scrunched her face up, "Seriously? It's a cucumber."

"But it's a big cucumber..."

She slapped me on the arm. "What do you know about big cucumbers?"

I held the cucumber up. "Probably not as much as you." She gave me a little smirk and a wink, and turned back to the stove while I cut up my big cucumber.

"See, Hon, this is part of what women find most attractive. A sense of humor," she said with her back to me.

I looked up at her, red hair spread out across her turtle neck, her ass and legs outlined by tight jeans and cowboy boots.

"So you're saying I'm attractive in funny sort of way," I answered with a skeptical smile.

She set the large spoon down and turned to face me, "Yes, you are. Incredibly attractive. But you don't know it. I can promise you have no idea how many times women have offered themselves to you."

"For sex?" I said.

She shrugged her shoulders, causing her chest to bounce a little, "For companionship, intimacy, fun, whatever, but yes, definitely sex," then she smiled, one that lit up her whole face, "But it's so cute that you don't know how sexy you are. Girls will want you to sweep in and take care of them, have all the answers, but a woman will just want you to be who you really are."

She turned back to the stove and we sat in silence for a while. I was trying to figure out what was happening. Ms. H had always been nice, but not on a level like this. I couldn't decide if she was being motherly or trying to make me horny (too late...)

She turned to me again and matter-of-factly asked, "Have you ever had sex, Hon?"

I must have turned crimson with embarrassment, "Not really."

"You're shy around me?" Heather said with mock seriousness, "You've either gotten laid or not. I don't think there's a part way on this one." She held up her hand to stop me from answering. "Wait. That was kind of unfair to ask. So, to be fair, if you answer it -- honestly -- you can ask me any question you want."

That caught me completely off guard. My mind started spinning with possibilities. "No, I haven't had sex yet. But I think you already knew that."

That smile again, framed in copper hair, "I was pretty sure, but I wanted to see if you could be honest about something like that. It's nice that you can be vulnerable around me." She reached over and rubbed my arm, "Now your turn."

I couldn't think of anything. My mind was sexual chaos, so I just asked her, "Are you trying to have sex with me?" I tried to pull the words back before they got out, but it was fraction of a second too late. I immediately regretted it.

Heather crinkled her forehead, "That's not what I expected, but ok. The answer is maybe. I don't want to end up hurting you and doing the wrong thing, but right here and right now...it's on my mind."