Page 84 of Two Chances With You

***

I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I remain silent, floating, as if listening to my own life flowing over me, beneath me, inside me. In this decisive moment, so important to the rest of my life, unique, once and for all. I will never be able to erase it. My one and only first time.

And I chose it. And I chose you. It almost seems like that song. But it isn’t. This is reality. I’m here, me, in this moment.

And so is Step. I see him, I feel him. He’s on top of me. I embrace him, I hug him, I hold him tight, and tighter still.

I’m afraid, the way you are any time you do something unfamiliar. But it’s a normal fear, all too normal. Or not? Gosh darn it, Gin, don’t let yourself be caught up now in all your obsessions, the films you play in your mind. In other words, obsessed with everything.

I shut my eyes. I breathe, I sigh, but still, I like this. I’m resting on his shoulder, no longer tense, no longer worried. In silence, like this, carried, abandoned, shipwrecked. And I like it. I feel his hands, I can feel him touching me all over, pulling off the last article of clothing on my body, gently. Oh, yes, I practically don’t even notice. I don’t want to be lying here, thinking, seeing myself from outside, checking on myself, splitting myself into two consciousnesses, having this mind that continues talking and discussing. I want to let myself go. In the cradle of his love, in this sea of desire, slowly letting myself be carried along on its currents. Yes, without another thought. Lost like this in his arms…

Now. There.

***

A louder moan and then she’s mine. Mine now, mine for the moment. Mine at this instant, mine and mine alone. I can’t help but think it. Mine forever. Maybe. But right this second, certainly. Now it’s love, inside her. And more and again and more still, without stopping. Now she smiles, gently.

***

And just at that very moment, I feel him inside me. It happens in the space of an instant. A leap, an inside-out dive. A stabbing pain, like a pierced ear, a tiny tattoo, a lost tooth, a blooming flower, a plucked fruit, a hitched ride, a tumble off your skis…Yes, that’s it, a tumble off your skis onto the fresh new snow, cold, white, just fallen, directly out of the sky.

And there you are, face forward, still sliding, laughing, embarrassed, opening your mouth still full of snow. You so clumsy, you laughing helplessly, at your first tumble, your slide in the snow. That very snow, so clean and soft, the same way I feel right at this moment.

Finally. He’s inside, I can feel him…How nice though. And I smile. I go back to feeling, to testing, to trying, to savoring the pleasure, one tiny bite, a morsel. I feel good. I like this. I want him. As if his name, on my flesh, but from today forward, etched for all time inside of me.

“Step, I want you.”

***

Later, I don’t know how much later, I’m listening to Gin as she embraces me, sitting on my legs while I slide off the condom. “Wait, you’d never…?”

“No, I’d never made love in my life before, so what’s wrong with that? There’s a first time for everything, right? Well, this was my first time,” Gin says.

I’m left speechless. I have no idea what to say. Maybe because there really is nothing to say.

Gin is putting her clothes back on. She looks at me and smiles, shrugging her shoulders. “So you see how strange? Of all the boys, you were the one. You won’t blame yourself, will you? Or brag about it, I hope.”

She puts on the T-shirt and the jacket without bothering to put her bra back on. I still haven’t been able to utter a word. She slips her bra into one of her jacket pockets.

“And after all, what do I know. It might have just been the evening, but starting tomorrow—now don’t get any funny ideas—I need to make up for lost time. Because, really, statistically speaking, I’m four years behind the average. Most girls have already done it by the time they’re fifteen.”

By now, Gin is completely dressed again, and she’s already on the stairs under the streetlamp while I’m still zipping up my jacket.

Then she starts laughing. Confident, relaxed, perfectly at her ease. “But it’s also true that nowadays there’s something of a return to certain values of the past. So, to sum up, let’s just say that I comfortably occupy the middle ground.”

A little while later, I’m next to her, and we start to walk. This time, we walk in silence, in part because I’ve been unable to find anything else to say. Then, at a certain point, she puts her arm around me. I embrace her, pulling her close to me. We continue like that as I breathe her in. Gin, still redolent of her first love. Mine. Mine. Mine.

“You know, Step, I was thinking something…”

“What?”

She rests her head on my shoulder. “I had the strangest thought, or really I guess I could say I was curious about something. If you stop to think about it, do you believe that ever since ancient Roman times, right up to the present day, anyone else might ever have done it in this spot?”

“No one. Ever.”

“How can you be so sure of it?”

“There’s just no two ways about it. There are certain things that you can tell. You feel them, and that’s that.”

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