We recognized each other in a bar far from the life I’d left behind. We both had an agenda and love had nothing to do with it. Even though we’d known each other since the sixth grade, we weren’t necessarily friends. He knew my terrible secret, and at one point tried to convince me that I was worth more than red-rimmed eyes and bruises that became increasingly difficult to conceal. (Both were a regular occurrence handed down by the town bad boy.) Rather than telling him to fuck off after his good-intentioned speech in our Junior year of high school, I chose to avoid him like some horribly disfigured fourth cousin by marriage twice removed.
Jake was awkward and a bit of a loner growing up. Always wearing camouflage pants, he usually looked down at his combat boots, his long black hair falling forward as he made his way through the crowded hallways at school. He rarely made eye contact with others, which was a shame because he had green eyes to die for. He was ridiculously smart, and tutored me in Algebra when I desperately needed help because, as I’ve said many times over, I suck at Math. I paid dearly for that study session and ended up failing the exam anyway.
That innocent study session that had taken place in the lunchroom in front of a couple hundred witnesses busted the seal of violence wide open in my dysfunctional relationship. Later that night, my boyfriend toyed with me at first, asking odd questions about my day at school as he pressed his soft lips against mine, draining me of my will to resist. He knew exactly how to make me lose focus on everything around me. Everything but him. And even though I knew in my gut that something was very wrong, I was lost in the feel of his hands in my hair and his warm breath on my neck. So lost that I didn’t notice him open the passenger’s side door behind me until he pushed me out of it. Fortunately, my shoulder and elbow took the brunt of the fall on the gravel and dirt. It wasn’t the first time he’d hurt me, but it was the first time he’d made me bleed. As I lay on the ground with my foot caught in the seat belt, watching him come around the side of the car for me, I had no idea how bad things were going to get before we hit rock bottom.
That was four years earlier, and Jake had changed drastically. He wasn’t the socially inept Jake who once shied away from conversation. This Jake wore pleated khakis and a starched, button down Polo shirt. This Jake no longer hid his breathtaking eyes behind long hair. This Jake gave me a one-sided grin that I found remarkably sexy.
I’d changed too. I was no longer the small town girl who wore nothing but skin tight Levi’s and band t-shirts. I was older in many ways. I was much less trusting, and I was covered with invisible scars that I saw every time I looked in the mirror.
We flirted over drinks and made our intentions clear. He wanted to know me in a way he never had before, and I planned to use him thoroughly. We eventually found our way to my apartment. Once inside, I ripped his dress shirt open, buttons flying in all directions and I pushed him down to the bed. I told him not to close his eyes as I climbed on top of him wearing nothing but black thigh-highs and heels.
“I’ve always wanted you to be my first,” he said in between kisses.
“Huh?”
After he swore he wasn’t lying to me, I knew it could go one of two ways. It could be incredible fun, or it could be an absolute disaster. Oh God, why couldn’t it have been the first?
I willingly obliged when he asked if he could explore my body. He laid me on my back and slowly stripped me of my hose and heels. Starting with what was strikingly similar to my last breast exam by my gynecologist, he questioned my decision to get breast implants and studied the two inch scar underneath them at length. He said that bigger breasts weren’t going to erase my past. My body went rigid and I suddenly hated him. Who the fuck named him Judge and Jury? He had no right to bring my painful past to the forefront and I considered making him pay for that infraction with a severe case of blue balls. That judgmental comment was not the way to win the key to my vagina. But, I was willing to give him another chance when he spread my legs and settled between them. That is until he started inspecting my folds like he was making calculations for his next architecture project to present to his professor at Georgia Tech. Not giving him the chance to start poking my clit like a doorbell, I knew it was time to take control if this was going anywhere before I developed crow’s feet at the corners of my eyes. I made several attempts to guide him, but he pulled back each time because he just knew he was going to hurt me. I snickered when he said he hoped I could handle him. After I finally convinced him he wouldn’t split me in two, I handled him beautifully.
All three seconds of it.
