It’s what I love about making out with someone. The possibility that this could be the one. Cue the lights. Cue the music. Love raining down on us all. Not that I’m all that experienced, especially compared to Alannis. I’ve officially given a few hand jobs and three or four unsuccessful blow jobs, had five and a half orgasms—not including the ones I’ve given myself—and made out with three boys, counting this one.
Shane is kissing me, and his hands are everywhere—Oh yeah, I think, there. That’s good. The kissing is strictly for my benefit because Shane, like a lot of other guys at Mary Grove High, is more about all the things that aren’t kissing. His goal, always, is to get in my pants. I know this and he knows this, and he will kiss me for a while just to get there. And I’ll let him because he’s actually good at it, and hey, I love kissing.
And then all he’s doing is grabbing me, but it’s working because he’s so obviously into me that I’m starting to feel a bit into me too.
I think, Don’t let it get too far, even as I’m helping him unzip his jeans. And then we’re kissing again, harder and harder until I half expect him to inhale my tongue and my mouth and my entire face, and in the moment I want him to because of the way my body is pressing into his, wanting to feel more. I feel swept away and powerful at the same time. What are you waiting for?
Shane has his tongue in my ear, but I can still hear the music outside. Laughter. Someone yelling something. At first I’m like, Oh God, yes, but then his tongue is a little too wet and he’s giving me swimmer’s ear. I want to push him away and shake the saliva out, but then he says, “God, you’re so hot.”
Being hot is not what I’m known for, so I kiss him a while longer. But then I can’t get over the fact that we’re making out in a barn. At first I think, Okay, this is kind of sexy and Oh, look at me, but now I’m not sure I believe it. I imagine losing it to Shane Waller here in this hayloft, but of all the ways I’ve pictured my first time, it’s never once been in a barn.
Then he gives my underwear a tug, chasing the thoughts away. Leaving just Shane and me, nearly naked on top of all this straw, which is jabbing into my flesh like sharp little pencils. It’s funny that I haven’t really noticed the straw before this moment because I’ve been so swept up in the feeling of my flesh against Shane’s flesh, the little fireworks that are springing up between body parts, threatening to set the hayloft on fire. This isn’t the first time I’ve been nearly naked with Shane Waller, but it’s the first time in a barn. I feel drunk, even though I’m not, and some far-flung part of me worries that if I can get turned on under these circumstances—sharp, jabbing straw, drunken classmates yelling outside—I will probably sleep with too many boys in college. Because making out is that much fun, even when you aren’t in love. Sometimes it’s just about his mouth or his eyes or his hands or the way they work all together. Sometimes that’s enough.
Shane’s hands are snaking their way down, and the thinking, responsible part of me—the one that’s saving herself for a boy named Wyatt Jones—mentally pulls back into the hay, just enough to separate from him, even as the physical part of me keeps right on going. I try to lose myself in him again, but the only thing I can feel is a million straw pencils digging into my back and the fireworks fizzling to an end so that all that’s left is the after-haze and a distant burning smell.
Suddenly there’s something hard and damp against my thigh, and I shift a little so he can’t slide it in.
“Claude…”
His voice is blurred, like he’s out of focus, and my name sounds like Clod, which I hate. I feel momentarily bad because I was never going to have sex with him. It always ends the same way—him coming into the air or into his shirt or onto himself or against my leg.
Saz says I feel safe in my virginity, like Rapunzel in her tower. That I let down my hair just enough, enjoying the shine of it in the sun and the way it temporarily blinds the poor bastard waiting on the ground, before I yank it back up out of reach. And maybe I do feel safe in it, not just because I’m saving it for Wyatt Jones, but because my life is safe and Saz and I are best friends and I actually like my parents and I don’t have anything to prove to anyone. It’s my body and I can do what I want.
Shane is staring at me and his eyes are rolling and his breath is coming faster and faster, and he’s humping my leg like a dog. His face is half lit from the sliver of moon that shines through the crack in the door. I’ll give him this: he’s pretty good-looking and he smells nice. And for whatever reason he seems to like me. From what he can tell right now, I’m still in it. I haven’t told him to stop or pushed him away. Until he strays a little too far from my leg and I go, “Slow it down, cowboy.”
He’s going to tell his friends either that I’m a tease or that we did it. I wish I could explain that it’s not about teasing or doing it; it’s about the possibility. It’s the almost. It’s the Maybe this time, the Maybe he’s the one. I want to say, For a few minutes I make you greater than yourself, and I’m greater than myself, and we’re greater than this barn because we are all this possibility and almostness and maybe.
But you can’t explain things like almostness to a guy like Shane, so I maneuver my lower half away from him, and that’s when he groans and explodes. All over my inner thigh. And this is where I freak out a little, because I swear I can feel some of it dripping into me, and I roll over fast, pushing him away.
He groans again and falls back onto the hay. I use his shirt to wipe myself off and then I untangle my dress from around my shoulders and smooth everything into place, and I can already hear what I’m going to say to Saz, the funny little spin I’ll put on it just for her: Unlike so many of our classmates here in farm country, I guess I’m just not a person destined for barn sex.
I stand up, and to make conversation, I say, “Did you know the Germans used to have a specific word for a male virgin? A Jüngling. Doesn’t it sound like it means the exact opposite?” I’m an almanac of virgin trivia, especially in awkward situations when I don’t know what else to say.
Shane says from the hay, “You know, you’re like this series of boxes, and every time I open one, there’s another one inside. It’s like box after fucking box, and I don’t think anyone will ever be able to open all of them.” He gets up, pulls on his jeans, pulls on his wet, crumpled shirt.
He stares down at the stain and I say, “Sorry.”
“It’s my fucking Snoop Dogg shirt. Jesus, Claude.” Clod.
I say, “I think we should just be friends.” Better to have too many boxes than not enough.
He says, “No shit,” and leaves me there.
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