As we both stood and took in the space from the cream-colored walls to the pillows arranged on the king-sized bed, I could feel the nervous energy emitting from her, energy that matched mine. Yet, underneath that nervousness lay an assurance, a sudden sense of calm, as if at my very core, I knew this was right. In my soul, I knew this had been our destiny all along, to give ourselves to one another on this night, in this room. To be each other’s firsts.
I sensed her eyes on me and turned to see tears in them. Not even that made me feel unsure. So rather than ask her if she’d changed her mind, I simply said, “I feel it, too.”
What I felt in a way so overwhelming that it made me want to cry, was love, love so deep and real that I was sure it could, and probably would, kill me not to touch her.
“I love you,” she professed, and before I could requite the sentiment, her soft lips were on mine, her hands clutching the sides of my face. And then I was lost in the kiss, in her, in us. Wrapping my arms around her soft body, I pulled her into me, my heart threatening to beat itself out of existence, my body transmitting my need for her in ways that were foreign to me. No lie, the shit was scaring my big, tall ass.
She moaned into my mouth, grasping the lapels of my tuxedo jacket and pulling me toward the bed. I knew that without opening my eyes. Her mouth left mine once we made it to the bed, and she pushed me a little, leaving me just outside the boundaries of her personal space. We both fought to regulate our breathing as we stood, staring at each other. And then she turned her back to me and said, “Unzip me, Sam.”
I did, with trembling fingers and an anxious body, my eyes following the path of the zipper as it slowly revealed the flawless skin of her back. Once it was unzipped, I reached up and lowered the straps from her shoulders, leaning in to kiss the side of her neck. We’d kissed before, I’d tasted the skin of her neck before, we’d pleased each other with our hands before, so I was not completely unfamiliar with Temple’s body, but when she turned to face me, lowering the dress until it finally glided to the patterned maroon carpet beneath our feet, revealing a black bra and panties that she hastily shed, I couldn’t speak or blink or breathe. Temple was…art.
Her plump breasts and rounded hips gave me a new and damn near torturously carnal awareness of the fact that this was a woman standing before me.
I was on her in seconds, kissing and touching her as she hurriedly helped me out of my clothes. On the bed, I spread my body over hers. We kissed and touched, she helped me roll the condom down over me, and with tightly closed eyes, I entered her. Bursts of light and brilliant colors exploded behind my closed eyelids. Vivid images played like a movie as I sank deeper and deeper into her, her fingernails digging deeper and deeper into my skin, her moans filling my ears as my private film continued to roll—me standing before a crowd of brown faces being honored, venerated, worshipped.
Worshipped?
My eyes popped open, and that action plus the strained expression on Temple’s face made everything stop—the movie, the images, the movement of my hips, my heart—everything.
“I’m hurting you,” I said, realizing I’d been lost in the visions and had not been sensitive to her needs and feelings.
“Yes,” she whined, “but keep going. Please, keep going.”
“You sure?”
She lifted from the bed a little to kiss me and even though my eyes remained open, the movie resumed as I eased out and back into her. She felt so good, so…right.
“Ohhhhhh, shit!” I moaned.
The images, the feeling of being inside her, her whimpers, the electricity transmitting between us, it was a lot. It was actually too much, and then the words, the voices of my parents and Porter, my godfather, began to pelt my consciousness like balls of hail assaulting the earth during a storm. Lessons, warnings, admonishments, and by the time Temple and I had screamed our way to climax, I knew this had been a mistake. I knew that as right as it was, it was also wrong. I also knew neither of our lives would ever be the same after this night.
4
Sampson
Now…
“Sampson Ibrahim, are you telling me you’re sitting here, twenty years later, and apologizing for ghosting me after your prom? You know, totally disappearing, moving away? That?” There was fire in her pretty eyes. She was still angry, and rightfully so.
“Among other things,” I replied.
I watched her brow furrow as she asked, “What other things?”
“I…it would be better if I showed you.”
“Showed me what?”
“Why I left. Everything. But I can’t do it here. Will you come up to my room with me?”
“No,” she said without hesitation. “This is beginning to look like some sad scheme for you to fuck your first again or something. What’s going on, Sam? Things haven’t been working out with your wife or girlfriend or whatever you have?”
“I’ve…I don’t have a wife. I’ve been with other women, though. Many other women. None of them are the reason I’m here, Temple.”
“Why, then? A sudden case of guilt? Yes, you took my virginity and—”
“You took mine, too.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You took my virginity, held me in your arms all that night, told me you loved me, and then you left. Your whole family left like you were running from the law or something. After all those months we were together, all the things we shared, I gave you my fucking young-ass heart, and you didn’t even so much as send me a postcard or place a simple call to let me know you were leaving, but that was forever ago. I’ve lived several lives since then, and I—”
Leaning across the table and lowering my voice, because she’d slightly raised hers and I needed to calm the energy of this conversation down, I asked, “Have you been happy? Fulfilled? Have you felt unloved, unappreciated? Has there been something missing, a hollowness inside that you haven’t been able to fill no matter how hard you’ve tried?”
Her plush lips parted, but no words were spoken before she closed them.
“Come to my room with me. I promise you my intentions are pure. I won’t touch you, Temple…unless you ask me to.”
Her lashes fluttered and eyes lowered before she nodded her assent. “Okay.”
Temple
Twenty years earlier…
We had been boyfriend and girlfriend for a couple of months, and although I’d agreed to our little relationship on a whim, I was swiftly developing feelings for this hauntingly handsome boy with the extensive vocabulary and quiet confidence. Sampson was just different, smart but not obnoxiously so. My grades were actually better than his, but his mind? It was boundless. The things he said, the thoughts he shared, were beyond the scope of anything a regular teenager should’ve been able to grasp.
Sitting on a picnic table in a park that Sampson had determined was located at the exact halfway point between his house and mine, we huddled close together in the biting January air, kissing, talking, and just being together.
“Temple—a place of worship. Your parents knew what they were doing when they named you that.” Our foreheads were touching, and as he spoke, steam flowed from his mouth.
“Why do you say that? You worship me or something?” I asked.