Going Under (30 page)

“Oh, I’m very responsible, Brooklyn. You
haven’t figured that out by now?”

I shrugged as he pulled into his
driveway.

“So would you like to come in?” he said.

I was nervous. I’d waited an eternity to
have sex with Ryan. I thought I even acted too brazen or too
impatient from time to time, coming across as a common street
hussy. Now, he was asking me, and I felt clammy and awkward, like a
virgin. I tried for humor.

“Come in for what?”

Ryan grinned. “Coffee.”

“Oh, I don’t drink coffee,” I teased.

Ryan leaned over and whispered in my ear.
“Then perhaps you’d like to come in so that I can kiss all over
your body and then make love to you.”

Yes. I would definitely like to come in for
that.

He placed his hand over my heart, feeling
the rapid, uneven beating. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.”

The last time Ryan saw me topless, I wasn’t
timid about it. I remember straddling his hips and giving him a
good view of my breasts, knowing he liked them, knowing I was in
control. But now I was suddenly shy, and I crawled into his sheets,
pulling up the comforter to hide my half-naked body from him. He
had stripped me down to my bra and panties during an intense
kissing session. Afterwards he asked me what I wanted him to do to
me. I blushed fiercely and made for the covers.

“Oh, Brooklyn,” Ryan said, crawling in
beside me. “Why so shy?”

I shook my head and grinned. “I don’t
know.”

“Well, I like you this way,” he said,
kissing my cheek.

I feared it would come out sounding corny,
but I took the chance. “I just feel like this is really special,
you know? What we’re about to do. I just want to do it right.”

“What do you mean by ‘do it right’?” he
asked.

I turned my face away. “I just want to be
good for you.” My cheeks were burning, and then the burning moved
down my arms and legs. Suddenly I didn’t need the warmth of the
sheets anymore.

Ryan turned my face to his. “Brooke, you
will be good for me. Better than I deserve. Do you understand? I’m
not expecting us to make love like experts. We’re eighteen. How
about you just relax and let me do all the work.”

“But that’s not fair,” I argued.

“Who said anything about fair?” he asked,
and kissed me before I could object.

Ryan didn’t do all the work, however. He did
for awhile, cradling me gently underneath him while he stroked me
softly, then more urgently when he told me he needed to feel all of
me. I wasn’t sure I understood what that meant until he reached
under me, lifted my hips, and drove deeper, eliciting screams that
he promptly stifled with his mouth.

He rolled us over and forced me to straddle
him, holding my hips and helping me move to a slow, almost tortuous
rhythm. I felt utterly exposed, and he stared at me unabashedly,
making my nipples harden without him touching them.

“I love your body,” he breathed, increasing
my speed.

I couldn’t sit up any longer, and leaned
into him, but he shook his head and smiled.

“Sit up, Brooklyn,” he said.

“I can’t.” It was exquisite torture now, my
legs shaking from the work.

“Yes you can,” Ryan said, and gathered my
wrists behind my back, holding them there with one hand while his
other rested, fingers splayed, on my stomach.

He tickled my skin, and I squirmed, but he
kept his hold on my wrists. The hand on my stomach inched lower,
lower until his thumb found my trigger, and I cried out for him to
stop.

“Do you really want me to stop?” he asked,
rubbing me slowly and gently.

I answered with a moan.

“Do you want me to stop, Brooklyn?” he asked
again, and I shook my head violently. He smiled, satisfied. “I want
you to ride me, Brooklyn. Nice and slow.”

I think if he told me to jump off a bridge
or rock climb with no safety ropes, I would. I moved my hips,
feeling him swell inside me while he stroked me with his thumb. How
did he do that so perfectly? Usually I was the only one who could
touch that intimate spot exactly right to send myself over the
edge. But he understood my body, bringing me to the heights of
ecstasy every time he touched me there. It was skill. That was
certain. But I thought that perhaps he and I had a deeper kind of
connection, like he always knew my body before we even met.

My legs were beginning to scream in protest,
and it was a delicious mixture of pleasure and pain. I couldn’t
hide my face from him when I came. He kept my wrists trapped, and I
struggled vainly, wanting so much to cover my face with my hands.
I’m sure I looked ridiculous, and he was kind enough to let go of
my wrists towards the end so that I could collapse on him and bury
my face in his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around me, murmured
things in my ear I couldn’t comprehend, and then moved his
hips.

I tensed immediately, then tried to break
free of his hold.

“No Brooklyn,” he whispered, and held me
tighter. There was no use trying to struggle. He was too strong,
and I had to accept what was about to happen. I was spent in every
way, but he made me work a little longer.

“I’ll die,” I cried in his shoulder.

“Look at me,” he demanded gently, and I
lifted my face to his. “You won’t die. I promise,” and he kissed me
while he moved his hips against me, finding a rhythm that I knew
would send him over the edge and me to my grave.

I cried in his mouth, struggled some more as
his rhythm came faster, but he held me still, forcing me to feel
every bit of it, something new and frightening and beautiful. A
mixture of heaven and hell.

I buried my face in his shoulder once more
as his thrusts became more urgent. Then jerky. He grunted from the
force of it, coming hard in me, his body drenched with sweat.

My hips and thighs were sore from my legs
being spread for so long. I rolled off of Ryan and pulled my knees
to my chest, sighing deeply as my muscles relaxed. He went to the
bathroom to dispose of the condom before climbing into bed
again.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked.

“Not at all,” I replied. I stretched my
legs, burying them once more under the sheets, and turned to face
my boyfriend.

“Did you like it?” he asked.

“What kind of question is that?” I asked,
chuckling. “Did I look like I liked it? Did I sound like I liked
it?”

Ryan laughed.

I eyed him curiously. “It’s not my business,
really, but how many girls have you slept with? I only ask because
you’ve got mad skills.”

Ryan pushed the sheet down over my hips. “I
like you like this. Full frontal.”

I tried to pull the sheet up once more, but
he pushed my hands away.

“You want to know the truth?” he asked.

“No, I want you to lie to me.”

“Funny.” He scratched his head and screwed
up his face in thought. “I’ve slept with six girls.”

“Holy shit.” The words escaped my lips
before I could stop them.

“And I suppose now we fight about it?” he
asked.

That irked me. I had no plans to fight with
him about anything. “No. Why would we fight about it?”

“Well, it’s happened in the past, is
all.”

“Well, I’m not your past. I’m your present.
And I’m fine with it,” I said. I didn’t know if I was completely
fine with it, but I didn’t think I had a reason not to be.

“What are you thinking?” Ryan asked.

“You said you hadn’t made out in a year,” I
said, just now remembering our first make-out session.

Ryan shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah, well, I
slept with those girls in tenth grade and part of eleventh
grade.”

“That’s kind of young,” I said.

“I know it’s young. And I know it’s a lot of
girls in a short period of time. That’s what you’re thinking,
right?”

“Well, no and yes. I mean, did you love
those girls?”

“When I was making love to them, yes.”

What the hell did that mean?

“Were they all your girlfriends at one point
or another?” I asked.

“No.”

“Are you a player?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t get it.”

Ryan looked like he was debating how much to
share with me. I didn’t like that either. I was his girlfriend. I
thought he should feel comfortable telling me anything.

“Some of the girls were my friends. I lost
my virginity to one of them. We both wanted to experience it with
someone we could trust. We dated briefly after that, but we weren’t
right for each other.”

“Uh huh.” I was utterly fascinated.

“Sometimes I did it as an escape, but I
always made sure she understood that.”

He rolled on to his back and placed his
hands under his head.

“Sometimes I did it because I wanted . . . I
needed to make someone feel good. It made me feel good to make
someone else feel good.”

He glanced at me briefly. “I suppose you
think I’ve got issues.”

“No. I don’t think you have issues.” But I
did think he was hiding something from me. Some sort of terrible
pain that made him seek solace in sex. No wonder he was so damn
good at it. What was that talk about not being “experts”? That
we’re just eighteen? He certainly was no amateur, and I suddenly
felt foolish and unstudied.

“And, really, if I’m being perfectly honest,
I just love a woman’s body. I love to touch it. I love to kiss it.
I love to make her feel important and special,” he said. “And I
really love to make her come.”

“Are you a sex addict?” Again, I did not
mean for those words to slip out of my mouth.

He chuckled. “No Brooke, but I can
understand why you would ask that.”

What I wouldn’t give to open his brain up
right now and peek inside. Get an idea about this stranger I’d just
given it up to.

“I hope this doesn’t make you look at me
differently. I mean, I understand if it does. I understand if you
can’t be with me.”

Whoa! Back it up, buddy!

“Who said anything about that?” I asked. I
curled into him, resting my head on his bicep and wrapping my arm
around his waist. “Please don’t ever say something like that
again.”

He kissed my forehead. “I won’t. I’m sorry.
It’s just I know what I must sound like. A sex-crazed teenager
who’s got an unhealthy obsession with the female body.”

I giggled. “I don’t know that I mind all
that much.” I thought back to my orgasm. No, I didn’t think I
minded at all.

But one little unsettling feeling poked and
jabbed at my heart. I was no psychologist, and I thought therapy
was a load of bullshit, but Ryan was sleeping with women because he
felt guilty. That was my assessment. I’m sure Dr. Merryweather
would concur. Guilty of what, I didn’t know. But he felt
guilty.

Eighteen

I missed the swim practice three weeks in a
row. I kept forgetting about it, and only showed up today because
Cal reminded me right after school. I still didn’t know how to use
the yearbook camera, and I wasn’t sure I felt comfortable being in
the same room with three predators.

The pool atmosphere was exactly as I
expected: sticky and humid. I had to work harder to breathe, taking
long, moist gulps of air in my mouth and holding it deep in my
chest before expelling it. I breathed through my mouth the entire
time. Boys were diving in here and there, swimming laps, yelling
and calling each other names the way men do to show camaraderie. I
felt out of place and turned to leave.

“There you are,” Cal said. “Glad you could
make it.”

He had on his swim gear which amounted to
basically nothing. Speedos, goggles, and swim cap. I could see why
girls thought he was hot. He had cut muscles, a ripped chest, and
strong, thick legs.
“All the better to pin you down, my
dear,”
I could hear him say.

“It only took close to a month,” I replied.
I got right to the point. “Listen, I don’t really feel all that
comfortable taking pictures. I still don’t know how to use this
thing.”

“That’s not true. You used it during that
chorus production,” Cal said.

“Yeah, but did you see those pictures?” I
asked, chuckling. “They sucked.”

“Well, nothing like taking pictures of a
practice to give you some practice, huh?”

Cute
.

I smiled begrudgingly.

“Here. Lemme give you a quick tutorial,” Cal
said, and ran through the buttons for me once more, watching to
make sure I understood how to zoom the lens correctly. “You’re a
pro,” he said afterwards, and dove into the pool.

I got splashed a little, and it annoyed me
to no end.

I walked up and down the side of the pool
methodically taking horrible pictures. In the beginning, I pulled
the camera from my face after each shot to look at it. And every
picture was the same: fuzzy splashes, and if I got lucky, maybe a
hand or part of a head poking out of the water.

I quit looking at my work halfway through
and decided it was time to leave. It wasn’t so much my irritation
at being the world’s worst photographer. I didn’t care. It was
really that I grew increasingly nervous the longer I stayed. Where
was the swim coach? There was no adult, I realized, and only a
handful of swimmers. Where was the rest of the team? I counted
them. Just six. The swim team had at least twenty members.

I caught Parker and Tim glaring at me from
time to time. I tried to ignore them. They were trying to
intimidate me, and I knew why. Tim probably told his buddies about
his thwarted dates and how I was responsible for them. He climbed
out of the pool along with Cal.

I turned towards my book bag sitting in the
far corner of the room.

“Hey, Brooke!” Cal called. “Hold up!”

I should have kept walking.

I should have.

“Let’s see what you’ve got,” Cal said,
extending his hand for the camera. I walked over to the edge of the
pool and turned it over with a huff.