Act IV

That same day during sixth period, I got a text from Sara.  Yes, you heard me right: I got her number and she reached out to me.  So yes, I’m a boss.

I still hadn’t wrapped my head around the consequences of… um… you know.

What do you do after school?

I lamented about my sad and lonely existence.

Not much, why?

Where are you 7^th?

118

kewl

Um…

OK, I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant.  Was she planning to meet me?  And if so, why?  Should I have made plans to skip the bus and get home by some other means?  These things I didn’t know but one thing was certain: Sara Temptation was asking where I would be at the end of the day, which gave me plenty of time to bite my nails over it.

It didn’t mean anything, or certainly not what I would have wanted it to mean.  Point blank, she liked girls, not guys.  So then even if she thought I was straight, there was just no hope there.  And no matter how illegally sexy she looked, that actually did make a difference.  So, when she came and found me after seventh period, I wasn’t so preoccupied with her exceptional body or her timeless face.  At first.

“So, what’s up?” I said.  I didn’t know how I was going to get home that evening, but surely something would have worked out.  At worst, I would have to call my mom.  No biggie.

“Come with me,” she smiled, then turned to walk down the hall.

I followed her.  Oh you know how I liked to follow her.  I had to be careful, though.  I liked her shoulders; she had the perfect, light, girly shoulders perfectly framed in her loose, oversized sweater that hung low enough to grace me with skin at the back of her neck and shoulders.  I liked her back; I especially liked the way the bottom hem of her sweater wrapped around that cute, perky butt made all the more adorable in those snug, purple yoga pants.  Mmm.

She would stop every little ways or so and turn back to make sure I didn’t get lost.  And trust me, I was not going to lose sight of her, no sir, I was not.  Maybe get lost in her magnificence, but if she’d have made her way through Bourbon Street on Mardi Gras my eyes were securely tethered and I was going to follow her.

We passed through a herd of students heading home, and I didn’t lose sight of those legs once.  You know it.  She brought me to the theater and led me up to the stage where, before rows of empty red seats, she explained her plot.

“I’m going to take advantage of you, exploit you, and use you for my own selfish, twisted ends.”

“Uh… OK?”

“The recital.  I really want to do a pas de deux.  Last semester, the only guy we had was Isaiah, so she had us all audition with him.  Lauren got to do it, I didn’t.  Now, he’s better than you,  so…”

“Gee, thanks.”

She giggled.  “I’m sorry!  That didn’t come out right!”  She bit her fingers at the remark.

“No, I get it; he’s been doing this longer than me.  It’s fine.  But I’ll catch up to him, you’ll see.”

“I know you will.  That’s because you practice hard.  So anyway my point is that right now all the girls want to dance with him.  So I figured, I could audition with him and possibly lose, or maybe you and I could spend this week working on something we can show to Ms. Rousseau, and then we could have our own pas de deux at the recital.  What do you think?”

God was playing a cruel joke on me, that’s what I thought.  The most beautiful girl in the history of creation was offering, no, asking me to practice dance with her all alone for a week, maybe longer, and then finish that with a pas de deux.  With her.  I would get to hold her in such ways as no man was worthy of holding such a female, touch her in places no man was worthy to touch.  I was afraid.  I was afraid that if I put my hand on her body I would turn into a goat, that’s what I thought.  And in the midst of that tornado, she was just… truly inaccessible.

I shrugged.  “Sure.”

So she began to walk through what she’d had in mind.  Mostly it consisted of me standing where she wanted me while she danced around me.  Some of the details she kinda stalled on, as though she wasn’t sure what to do next.  She would stand still, studying my feet and tapping her chin saying, “uh… OK wait a minute…”

I had to think.  Just hours ago this female had dazzled me so that no words could escape my frozen lips.  What right had I to offer some kind of input?  But then as my mind wrapped around the consequences of her sexual orientation I began to see there was no use in being so nervous.  I didn’t have to worry about whether I was watching her body move or if I was acting like some creepy idiot.  She was just Sara, that was just cool.

“How about this,” I interrupted her train, “come in close, I’ll catch you here and then push you back out.  Then pull you back in, and you hold my hand up and spin around…”

“Wait…” she kinda tilted her head to the side.  “Like this?”  And she did.  This was fun!

“OK now with the next turn, lift your knee up…”

She did.  It all felt so surreal, and for a moment, I could just be myself around her.  “And then two turns and extend out your leg…”

“You have to catch me,” she said.  “Put out your arm like this…”

I did.

“Let’s do that again,” she said.  Only on the next run, after she landed her leg on my arm, she bent her knee down trapping me there and leaned in real close, resting her arm across my chest and bringing her face within inches of mine while her other leg drooped down straight to the floor.

Ahh, screw it.  If she was going to improvise, I might as well, too.  I took my right arm and braced it across her back so as to provide support and twisted my whole body around, letting her fall near to the floor.

“Aaaaahh!” she cried out laughing.  The look on her face was one mixed with terror and delight.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t hold her there and started shaking.

“Wait,” she tried to twist around but I’d kinda trapped her by accident and I wasn’t strong enough to lift us out of that position.  I did try though.  Geez how embarrassing.

“I’m sorry,” I tried.

Still stuck, she laughed lightly.  “Put me down all the way.”

And she extended out her knee, releasing my arm to rest on the floor, where she was able to lower herself to safety with me looming over her like some predator.  I pulled away, and she rolled out from under me.

“Somebody’s ambitious,” she smiled.

I couldn’t look at her straight without the looming shame I felt.  “I am so sorry.  I think maybe you should do the choreography from now on.”

“Don’t say that,” she cut me off, “just place your feet differently.  You’re going to fall a bunch of times, and a lot worse than that.  Look… my nose isn’t even bleeding.”

That made me laugh.  It also made me feel a little better.  “It’s not?  We could try a second time."

She pursed her lips.  “Dance is a contact sport, you know.  If you don’t get hurt a few times you’re not doing it right.  And you can’t get discouraged every time something doesn’t go well; just dust off and try it again.  Now I like this idea of yours.  Let’s make it work.”

And so it was.  We ran through the bit once more, only I held out my knee some.  Better.  She suggested I move my foot over, which I did, and then I held her low to the ground and close to my face.  Damn did the way those brown eyes smile enchant me.  If only, right?  No matter, she ran her fingers across my face and rolled away from me, only to kneel up into the same stance I was left in.  From there we just looked at each other, smiling.

We danced.

Well, she danced while I kinda tripped and made her laugh, but I forgot all about worrying about where to put my eyes or any of that other crap.  My whole world shrouded in confusion melted into her as we flew through the universe together, swiftly moving on our feet and devising some kind of routine that was going to be excellent.  Even the janitor guy who wandered in at some point took notice of us.  She taught me about lines and how I was supposed to look, but there was no mirror so we had to take turns recording video and discussing the results.  I found I could stay with her, meld myself to her, move with her, and in that moment all my doubts, fears, and frustrations disappeared.  Gone.  All there was, was her and me.  Dancing.

Then my mom called wondering where the hell I was at because it was already 6:00.

Dinner that evening was, among other things, Brussels sprouts.  Now, I’ll eat broccoli.  I tolerate green beans as long as they’re not canned, but I draw the line at Brussels sprouts.  But no, they weren’t a side item; they were the entrée.  My mom knew this when she chose to make dinner.

“You know, son,” my dad spoke to me, “eating healthy fruits and vegetables shows a willingness to take care of your body.  That’s a sign of responsibility…”

And what, exactly, was that supposed to mean?  Mom looked at her nails and took a sumptuous bite of a fat, green blob of disgustingness.  She did this on purpose.

Then he continued.  “…staying behind at school for three hours without calling or asking if it’s OK, that’s not a sign of responsibility.  Now as I understand it, only responsible people drive…”

That punk gazed at me wide-eyed with a smug grin across his horrible face.  I appealed to a higher power, but I should have known better because she was the one who cooked that horse feed in the first place.  I was cornered.  Beaten.  Broken.  I had no choice but to pollute my body with that unholy gruel.

Bite after bite, no amount of salt could detract from the slime that oozed around my tongue and nearly brought my lunch up with it, but I was determined not to give that woman the satisfaction.  I chewed and stared as she feigned disinterest.  Meanwhile my dad studied me for some sign of weakness.  My response was to swallow the refuse and flash him a proud grimace.

It was a distraction.  The truth was that my day at school had become a turning point in my life somehow and my mental bandwidth was clogged up with trying to figure out what had just happened between Sara and me.  I didn’t know how, and I wasn’t even sure why, but something had definitely changed.  I’d spent three hours dancing.  I didn’t just dance with her; I connected.  We connected.

I didn’t know what to do with that.  All I did know was that I wanted to connect with her again.

Badly.

The next day, I wanted to see her first thing before class.  I had a good twenty minutes after the bus dropped me off, and I didn’t… I mean there wasn’t… I just wanted to see her again.

I don’t feel like it right now

Please?

Alright fine

And she agreed to meet me by the library.  I wasn’t thinking, so I gave her a hug even though I hadn’t been invited to do so.  But as I wrapped my arms around her, she winced.  Then she yanked her body to the side before pulling away from me.  I shouldn’t have done that.

“I’m sorry,” she lowered her eyes and spoke to me.  “It’s just, uh… I’m a little sore, that’s all.”

“From yesterday?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she nodded.  Then she made eye contact for the first time that morning.  “It was a good workout, right?”

I understood; I woke up pretty much the same way.  My legs burned, my arms hurt from lifting her up so much the day before, and so I got that she may have pulled a muscle or something.  No less, I walked her to class where she wrapped her arms around me real tight and just held me there.  I wasn’t expecting that.  I wasn’t expecting that, at all.  This girl pressed into me firmly and squeezed, literally squeezed, resting her head in my chest, and wouldn’t let go.  I put my arms around her in kind, mindful of the pain she was in, and rested my nose in her hair only to close my eyes and enjoy that fruity spray she’d put in her hair some time earlier.  We stayed there forever, and I can still feel her body against mine from that morning.  Then the bell rang, and she pushed me away like a spring smiling with her eyes.  “You’d better run!”

I did.

Things got weird during fourth period when we had a substitute.  While most of the class was content to play on our phones, I couldn’t help but to overhear a conversation between three girls.  One of them was dating this guy, allegedly, and I’ll spare you most of the foolishness I heard, but one part of it stuck out.

“…literally every time we’re together all he wants to do is put his hands all over me.”

“OMG that’s so annoying!”

“I know, right?”

I mean, there was more to it, but that was the part that stuck out.

It made me think.  If I’d had a girlfriend, maybe I’d want to put my hands all over her.  Was it really just that annoying?  Was this one of those things that the guy wanted to do but the girl didn’t like but she tolerated it?

Was it wrong?

It made me think about dance all over again, because for me, that was my whole reason for doing it.  If the girl was annoyed every time a guy put his hands on her, where did that leave me?  I didn’t want to be annoying.  I shouldn’t have been taking dance.  Worse, that morning, I’d put my arms around Sara and I didn’t even ask if it was OK.  Geez I shouldn’t have done that.

Who wants to be annoying to someone they care about?

If I was ever going to have a girlfriend, I had to make sure to never put my hands all over her.

Which would make me a wuss.

After school, Sara was in much better spirits, and we kept working on our routine.  She had a juicy imagination, too; she did all kinds of moves that weren’t part of the traditional ballet repertoire.  She’d pull up close to me and take my hand, placing her other on my chest.  Then she lifted her knee for me to grab her thigh, only to lift her up and spin around, setting her back down on the other side, only for her to spin away, extend out, and spin back, pressing her whole body against mine.

I was getting excited.

I liked getting excited.

I didn’t want to get excited.

I especially didn’t want to like getting excited.

But damnit she was exciting.

I had my hand on her waist as she spun out and away from me.  Watching her move was almost as exciting as touching her.  No less, I tried hard to avoid it as much as possible, and every time she came close and choreographed some move that put my hands in some covetous place, I gritted my teeth and tried desperately to remember to be about the business.

Don’t touch her any more than absolutely necessary or in any way that deviates from the prescribed routine.  I’d have annoyed her otherwise.  Better to be a wuss than risk losing the opportunity to dance with her.  Besides, I was gay, right?

From there, we trotted around the stage in unison.  My hand was excited to rest in the small of her back, but my heart wouldn’t stop pounding against my brain trying to remind me not to like such things.  I was annoying her, no doubt.

I stepped on her toes a few times.  That didn’t happen the day before.  Every time I chided myself and was afraid she’d get frustrated and give up on my clumsy behind but she didn’t.  With every mistake, she would say, “let’s try again.”  Then she would say, “you’re overthinking it.”

Maybe I was overthinking it.  We were supposed to be dancing.  We were supposed to connect like we did the day before, but all I could think about was how I’d allowed myself to get lost in the moment and forget how I wasn’t supposed to annoy her by touching her all over the place.  She was probably massively annoyed by then.  I had to control myself better.

Then I nearly dropped her when I was supposed to catch her.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.  I beat my head with my fist.

“Are you OK?” she said to me, resting her hand on my shoulder.

“I am so sorry,” I said.  “I’m not getting this right.”

She just smiled.  “Hey.  Let’s try something else, OK?”

“Like what?”

“Something simple.”

“I can do this,” I insisted.  But deep in the recesses of my mind I was afraid I’d already let her down.

“I know you can, but you seem really tense.  Let’s try something else.  Stop thinking so much, relax, and then we’ll come back to this when you’re ready.  OK?”

I took a deep breath and nodded my agreement.  And with that, she picked up her phone and browsed through it, only to cut off the Tchaikovsky we’d been working with and replace it with something a little more festive.  Something faster.  Something more upbeat and modern.

Something saucy with a hard-hitting Latin feel.

We spent the rest of our afternoon together going over some fun stuff.  There’s a nice rhythm to Salsa, one that lays the foundation for everything else, no matter how complex and complicated it gets.  In fact once you get your feet right, the rest is easy.

I took her hand and brought her close only to have her twirl away and come back.  She draped her hand over my shoulder and passed it all over my back side and came back around in front of me, where we once again stepped together.  I spun, she spun with me, I started to smile, and next thing I know she came behind me and smacked my butt hard.

I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to take that, but she certainly had my attention.  I looked at her, she grinned wide and nearly doubled over laughing.

“You should see your face!”

Right.  And I was afraid to say it out loud, but she could totally do that again.

I was energized.  We moved together as one, stepping in and out to the beat and gliding across the floor.  She’d bang her hip into mine and laugh, only to move in front of me, swiveling her hips with my hands where they probably didn’t belong but by that point I’d forgotten all about that and just danced with her.  Once again, I lost myself in her.

The notion wasn’t lost on me that even though Sara didn’t play for the team I’d hoped, just by practicing with her I would get really good, and that would give me access to some of the truly fine girls out there who did.  But forget about that; I was truly, basically, fundamentally, enjoying dancing with her.  Period.

The next day during lunch, we were talking, talking, what were we talking about?

Oh yeah.  I was explaining to her that I had ties to the Nigerian mafia, and that she shouldn’t steal any more of my chicken nuggets.  She countered that my friends in the Nigerian mafia had better be careful because she had connections to the IRA.  I asked her if they even still existed, and she assured me they did.  So I threatened her friends in the IRA with my friends in the CIA, who’d better watch out for her friends in the Illuminati, who’d better watch out for my friends in the Yakuza, who’d better watch out for her friends in the Kremlin, who’d better watch out for my friends in the IRS.

I got her with that one; she couldn’t beat that.

Then she stole another nugget.

“I’m going to get you!”

She laughed.  I laughed.  Anyway it was during that conversation that I broke character.  Gina from Algebra had come to school wearing a snug mini dress with black stockings and Oh.  My.  Gawd.  I was getting too comfortable with Sara and I’d forgotten I wasn’t supposed to look.  She turned to see what I was drooling at, turned back to face me, and slowly tilted her head all the way to the side, resting her ear on her shoulder with her eyes wide open.

“What?” I tried desperately to cover up the situation.

She looked at Gina again.  “Wow, she’s really hot!”

What would a gay guy say?  What would a gay guy say?  What would a gay guy say?

“That’s definitely her color,” I nodded.  I also tried to do the voice a tad.  Just a teensy little tad.  Not sure if it worked.  Sara looked at me sideways with a prominent squint in her eyes.

I swallowed.

That afternoon after school, we met at the usual place.  Together, we walked to the usual stage, where she set her phone down in the usual spot and played the usual violin piece.  Then, she did the usual thing, and we stepped the usual steps.  She had on a white summer dress that covered her knees, with a gold belt and gold sandals that wrapped around her ankles and halfway up her calf.  She looked good — like a Greek goddess.  Nothing unusual there.  But she kept looking at me.  She didn’t look at my feet or her feet or the wall or the floor or the giant, pink alligator in the middle of the room or basically anything at all except for my eyes.  She glued her eyes to mine in this most eerie fashion.  I tried to keep up with her, but damn she was persistent.  She just stared and stared and stared.  She paced around me in a circle, watching my eyes the whole time.  It kinda creeped me out.

“What’s up?” I finally broke.

She smiled and shook her head lightly, still not removing her gaze from me.  “Nothing.  What’s up with you?”

“OK, you keep looking at me?”

She snickered under her breath.  “Am I not supposed to look at you?”

How the hell does one answer such a question?  Obviously, something was amiss.  Obviously, there was something going on in her mind that compelled her to stare at me like a tiger waiting to pounce.  “Well… I mean… you don’t normally look at me like that.”

Her smile never faded.  “How should I look at you?”

“I dunno… just… normally.  I guess.”

She still stared.  Still smiling wide and gazing at my eyes as though they were going to jump at any moment.  I stopped, stood up straight, and covered my face with my hands.  I knew what had just happened.  This was how I stared at girls I liked: incessantly.  And this was why it made them feel uncomfortable.  There’s a normal amount of looking at someone, and then there’s this obsessive way of staring, staring, just staring.  It’s creepy, it makes the person feel uncomfortable, and Sara was showing me how it made her feel when I looked at her.

“Are you OK?” she asked me.

I had to take a deep breath and just try to act normal.  Look at her a normal amount, and just try to be normal.  “I’m normal.  Let’s do the usual routine, OK?”

“Fine.”

That’s when things got unusual.

She didn’t stop gazing at me.  Rather, our routine was supposed to begin with the two of us encircling one another before we came together.  But in the middle of that start, she stepped into a fast pirouette that flung her dress out to where I could see her white, cotton panties underneath.  Then she checked my eyes again.

Don’t react to that.

Then she stepped towards me.  She was supposed to come in close and put her hand on my chest, only to push away and move on to the next bit.  She did.  Kinda.  Close.  Real close.  Her body slammed into mine and she lingered there, gazing up into my eyes to where I could taste her breath.

Don’t react to that, either.

She flung herself around and whipped her soft hair across my face, then backed her butt into my hips, using that to push off and into the next part of the routine.  I was liking these new moves.  It wasn’t what we’d planned, but damn did I like it.  I liked it too much.  I should have said something, perhaps something like ‘what are you doing, this isn’t the routine.’  But instead, I kept my mouth shut, wishing she would stop but praying she would give me more.  And more she gave.  There came the part where I was supposed to put my hand on her hip.  I liked that part.  I rested my hand where it was supposed to be, and she swivelled her hips about, moving my hand into places it had no business being.  I tried to pull back some, afraid I was going to put her off and take her… um… style… the wrong way.  Instead, she grabbed my hand and placed it lower on her hips to where I rested my fingers in that sweet spot where I could almost feel the curve between her butt and thighs.  Then she turned around completely, brushing my fingers all over her body.

It was at this point I realized I was erect.  My heart shot a jolt of terror.  What if she found out I’d suddenly become aroused?  Good Lord, talk about making her feel uncomfortable.  She was just trying out some new moves; the last thing she needed was a pervert like me getting the wrong idea.  She didn’t even like guys, you know.

No matter.  The next move had us waltzing a few steps, but she didn’t keep any kind of distance between us, no.  Instead, she glued her whole body to mine pressing in tight and rubbing herself on me.  I could feel her breasts squeezed up against my chest, and her hips pressing into my solid member, pulled to one side, and everything about me was getting excited.  And terrified.  She held her gaze throughout and grinned wide as she pulled away from me.

“Somebody’s excited,” she teased, finally looking at my lap, where a prominent poking thing was poking a prominent peak in my pants.

“I’m sorry,” I begged.  “I’m so sorry!”  I tried to bend over some, maybe make an adjustment or something.  I had to cover this, but what was the point?  She’d already seen it.  She’d already FELT it!

“Why are you sorry?” she looked confused.

“Because.  I mean… you know.”  I looked down at my lap; this thing wasn’t going anywhere.

“I don’t know.  You’re weird.”

I took a deep breath and tried to collect my thoughts.  How could I explain?  “Look, I’m sorry about this.  I just want you to be comfortable around me.  I don’t want to be a creepy pervert.  I don’t want you to change everything up just because I… I don’t know.  I like you to be yourself.  I want you to feel like you can do whatever you want without me turning into some sick loser who only thinks about one thing.”

“I am comfortable around you.”

“Sara, I’m a creep.  I think about sex all the time.  I try to control myself, but…”

“You’re not a creep.  I think about it all the time, too.”

That made me laugh, and I lowered my eyes some.  A small part of me relaxed.  No, not that part, that part was still very much alert.  But I liked her.  Her face was so gentle, so kind.  She gazed at me with an unflinching smile, stealing glances at the bulge in my lap, and otherwise conveying to me that she was happy.  It made me feel happy.

“So,” she said, “you like my dancing?”  Still looking at it and smiling.

“Yeah,” I blushed.  “A little too much.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I’m flattered.”

“Really?”  I thought she’d be annoyed.  What was this?  Did she?

She nodded, then glanced at my swollen pants bulge again.  “I want you to feel comfortable around me, too,” she said.  “I want you to know that you can express yourself, anything you feel, I want you to  tell me.  And don’t be ashamed of that,” pointing at my tent.  “If you get it up for me like that, I mean, you have no idea how getting that reaction from you makes me feel.”  Still looking.  “We should do this more often.”

I choked on the words in my throat.  Sara had brought me to the brink of insanity.  You mean to tell me she a) wasn’t offended by my erection, b) appreciated my erection, and c) wanted to give me more?  Surely, this wasn’t real.  I looked around for the hidden camera but found none.  Something wasn’t right.  Someone had gone back in time and stepped on a butterfly.

Whoever it was, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!

Not sure what I was thanking someone for, it wasn’t as though she, well, you know.

Eventually, we got to regular talking, and managed to incorporate some of her more sexy moves into our routine.  I wasn’t sure how Ms. Rousseau was going to react to some of it but I didn’t give a crap; I was just looking forward to dancing with Sara.  “Put your hand lower.  A little lower.  Lower.  Just grab my ass already.  There you go.”

Damn her ass felt firm.  Got another one.  She smirked proudly at what she’d accomplished, never taking her gaze from the bulge in my pants.

Later, we just sat in the audience chamber and talked.

“Can you promise me something,” I said to her.

“Anything.”

“Promise me you won’t tell anyone else at dance that I’m straight.”

She pulled her face back and looked at me with eyes marbled over.  “Why on Earth would you want to keep that a secret?”

“I just don’t want anybody to think I’m a weirdo.”

“You know, letting everyone think you’re gay makes you a weirdo.  It’s OK, I like weirdos.  But seriously, you don’t know what you’re missing out on.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Lauren wanted to have sex with you.”

“Come on!” I blushed.  I knew she was joking, but still, that was a fun little fantasy.

“I’m serious.  She told me.  The first time you showed up, right after class, she told me.  ‘I’m so going to have sex with him!’  Then she found out you’re gay.  Rachel also wanted to have sex with you, and so did Cassie.  And Kelly, and Corey.  I think every girl in that class wanted to have sex with you.”

“My uncle once said to me, ‘you’re so full of crap your eyes are brown.’”

She pursed her lips.  “I’m serious.  Isaiah has a girlfriend and he’s one of those fiercely loyal guys.  He won’t cheat on her; they’ve tried.  Believe me, they tried.  Now you come in and I’m telling you, you go back there and tell them you’re straight, you could probably have sex with all of them…”

I studied her face.  I knew she wasn’t serious.

“…at the same time.”

That made me laugh.  I tried to shake it off, but this was just too funny for me.

“So which one do you want?  If you could only pick one, that is.”

“What do you mean?”

She smiled a sly expression once more.  “You know what I mean.  Of all the girls at dance, you can have sex with any of them.  Which one would you choose?”

The answer was staring me in the face, but should I have disclosed that?  That seemed like sensitive information.  Surely, if my erection didn’t put her off, a confession would have.

“Let me guess,” she said.  “Lauren?  She’s got the most amazing tits.”

Or maybe not.  Screw it.  She felt comfortable around me, I might as well just be open with everything.  “Honestly?  You.”

She giggled and her face turned red.  “I mean before that little thing we just did.”

“You.”  I was serious, and I let her know with my tone and expression.  “From the moment I first laid eyes on you, you were the one.”

It took her a minute of staring into my eyes to respond.  Strange, I didn’t feel uneasy about it; I just liked looking at her.

“I was the one, what?”

“You know.”

“I want you to say it.”

“Oh, you want me to say it, huh?”

“Yes.  I want you to say it out loud.  What do you want to do with me?”

Ahh, why not?  “I wanted to have sex with you.”

“Want-ed?  Past tense?”

“Now you’re playing with me.”

She smiled.  Damn I loved her face.  “Uh… present tense.”

“Then let me hear it.”

“Are you recording this?”

“Oh, shoot… no, I’m not.  Give me a sec.”

“What?”

She laughed.

“You’re crazy.”

“Say it.  I want to hear it.”

You know, those were the magic words.  If she’d prefaced anything with ‘I want to,’ I’d have followed with anything in the world.  ‘I want you to eat a Tide Pod.’  ‘I want you to stick a glass rod up your urethra and break it off.’  ‘I want to tape you to a rocket and blast off to the moon.’

So, I looked her in the eyes and told her the dirty truth.  “I want to have sex with you.”

“Nice!” she smiled.