First Dance (5 page)

“Dude! This is so delicious!” I groan as I
take a bite of pasta. James could defeat an Iron Chef with his eyes
closed.

He chuckles and smiles proudly, watching me
savor another big bite. Aside from cooking me dinner on the
regular, James is always taking care of me. Growing up, he was like
my big brother and he always looked out for me. I remember him
fighting off bullies for me when I was going through my gawky,
tween phase in seventh grade and how he’d intimidate boys who got a
little over-amorous with me once I hit puberty and emerged with a
pair of D cups and a healthy dose of low self-esteem. He’s like my
bodyguard, my protector, and he’s the only person I can share
absolutely everything with.

“So, how’s that Eric dude?” He asks, zapping
me out of my nostalgic childhood memories.

“Oh, he’s good. He knew Peter was making me
work through lunch, so he brought me one of those portobello
sandwiches I love,” I reply. Eric is the hot guy who works at the
law firm on my floor. He’s about 6’4” and he works out like crazy.
He’s got blonde hair and blue eyes and he looks like a hulking
viking. At 38, he’s 15 years older than me—which worries James, I
know—but he’s sexy and he flirts with me all the time.

James raises an eyebrow and gives me a
look.

“What?” I laugh, feeling my cheeks starting
to flush.

“He likes you, you know?” He grins with a
teasing undertone in his voice.

“Maybe he’s just being nice,” I reply,
knowing very well that it’s not true.

“He’s been really ‘nice’ for the past three
months since you met him,” he teases. “I’m telling you, Lo, dude’s
trying to hit that.”

I laugh and continue to blush before
retorting, “You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t take advice from a
guy whose relationships with women begin with ‘action’ and end with
someone yelling ‘cut’!”

“Cold as ice tonight!” He laughs, grabbing
his heart.

I shoot him a smirk and then impersonate the
girls in his videos. “Yes, Master Langdon,” I mock, “I’ll be a good
girl. Don’t give me a spanking.” I chuckle and roll my eyes. “I
swear, how these girls can let you boss them around like that!”

James has done videos that fall under every
category and appeal to almost every fetish, but his most recent
genre is BDSM porn. His scenes usually involve a buxom woman tied
up or hand cuffed or bound in some other fashion while he goes to
town on her with a riding crop or a flogger or whatever instrument
is the tool of the day. There’s a lot of “yes, Sir” and “please,
Master,” and I’ve never really seen the appeal.

“I guess I just don’t see the point of
spankings and all that,” I shrug. We’ve had this debate since he
first got into this particular genre, but he’s never managed to
sway me on the whole Dominant/submissive thing.

“It’s acting,” he chuckles at my eye rolling
and mocking.

“Is it?” I laugh. “Because you don’t see
Meryl Streep doing movies that involve ball gags and nipple
clamps.”

I can see him trying to resist it, but he
laughs hard at that comment. I’ve spent over a decade sassing James
about his extraordinarily active sex life and, now that he’s doing
porn, I have so much more material.

“Hey, some girls dig it,” he shrugs. “They
like giving up all control and being totally at my mercy.”

“Yeesh! Not me,” I shake my head.

“Ok, like you have room to talk!” He teases.
“You’ve never had sex at all, so how would you know what you’re
into?”

Immediately, I blush. It’s true, I’m a
virgin. Pretty funny considering my best friend is a porn star,
right? People can’t wrap their heads around the fact that I made it
through my horny teenage years without falling pretty to my
Casanova best bud. In truth, James was always very cautious when it
came to me and he never made an attempt to seduce me. Now he likes
to pull the purity card on me every time I tease him. I can joke
about his sex life a million times a day, but when he turns the
tables around, I go all pink cheeks and giggles, and he loves
it.

“Shut up!” I say, trying to sound stern
despite the fact that I’m giggling like a Japanese schoolgirl.

“Ah, there’s that blush,” he chuckles,
tipping his wine glass to me. “Not so tough anymore, huh?”

“This is about you and all the fake-titted
girls you screw on film,” I protest, still laughing uncontrollably,
“not about me and who might or might not be between my legs.”

“I certainly hope no one’s between your
legs!” He says with surprise. “Otherwise I’d have to kick
somebody’s ass.”

James is always protecting my virtue like
some kind of knight. He’s done this all my life and I’m sure he’s a
big reason why guys were too intimidated to ask me out in high
school. Who wants to date a girl with a big, hulking bad ass just
waiting to beat the crap out of you if you hurt her?

He yawns and stretches in his chair, his
t-shirt lifting up just enough to reveal a glimpse of his toned,
tanned stomach. The sight of his six-pack is so commonplace that
it’s almost boring to me at this point. I’ve lost track of how many
times I’ve seen him naked, so his bare skin is like wallpaper,
always visible, but not all that noticeable until you focus your
attention on it.

“Sleepy? Must have been a very rigorous
scene,” I say with a smirk.

He chuckles and gives me his patented
devilish grin. “Two girls can wear you out, dude, you don’t even
know. We had to stop for stills, like, a zillion times and they
fucked up and entire section of close ups so we had to do those
over. Plus, I had to do, like, seven pop shots,” he says casually
like he’s talking about sending some faxes instead of ejaculating
all over some poor, shackled starlet.

“Well, isn’t life so hard for you,” I
tease.

“You try coming seven times and see if it
doesn’t wear your ass out!” He chuckles. Suddenly, his eyes flash
on me and he gives me a cartoonishly exaggerated version of the
James Laird Sex Laser Bean, the look that might as well be a gamma
ray burst of pure sexuality. “I could show you, if you want,” he
says, his voice filled with overplayed sensuality. “I’ll put your
ankles behind your head and show you exactly what it feels like to
come seven times in a row.”

“James!” I squeal with laughter.

He throws his head back as he laughs at my
shy response. He loves riling me up like this. We’ve never really
been sexual with each other before—our relationship has always been
a brother-sister, platonic one—but there were a few times during
our teenage years when my highly skilled friend served as a lab rat
for my sexual experimentation. James was responsible for my first
orgasm, his was the first penis I ever saw and he was the first boy
to touch my breasts, but that was a log time ago. We haven’t done
anything like that in years.

“I’m just fuckin’ with you, kid,” he chuckles
and stands up to clear the table.

I help him put all the dishes in the
dishwasher and we move into the living room to watch TV. This is
how we spend most evenings. I lie back against the arm of the couch
and stretch my legs over his lap. By the second commercial break in
The Colbert Report, I’m nodding off. I’m half asleep when I hear
him turn off the TV and I feel his strong arms scoop me up as he
carries me off to my bed. I remember how I always used to fall
asleep before him every time I stayed over at his house when we
were little kids He’d opt for the air mattress on the floor and
he’d pick me up and get me comfortable in his bed. Some things
never change.