Out of Heaven's Grasp (16 page)

I didn’t know how to act. The few times I’d been alone with Abby were really the only times I’d ever been alone with a girl I wasn’t related to. With Abby, there had been this desperation to cram as much as we could into our stolen moments together. I hadn’t bothered to wonder if I was doing things right. All I had to do was look into her eyes, and I knew she accepted me.

Until she didn’t, of course. Until she told me to leave and never come back. Until she said I was evil.

This
was the reason I never thought about Abby.

The redhead was still staring at me expectantly.

“Uh, I guess I’m just new in town.”

“Oh yeah?” She smiled. “Where’d you come from before?”

I looked down at my shoes. I didn’t want to tell her that I’d come from the Life. I knew from experience that there would be a flood of questions.

“You’re kind of cute,” she said. Then she put her hands to her lips, giggling maniacally. “Oh my God, I can’t believe I just said that out loud. I must be drunk.”

I laughed too. It was easy to laugh, because I’d been pounding beers. “I came from Maranatha.”

“The weird Jesus commune?”

See. I knew it. “Bet you don’t think I’m cute anymore.”

“Are you kidding?” She tried to take a step towards me, but she stumbled a little bit.

I reached up to catch her, and then suddenly her body was pressed against my body, and my hand was on the bare skin of her arm. I could smell her perfume mingled with the sickly sweet scent of liquor.

The flood of sensations confused me. Aroused me.

I gave her a slow, easy grin, somehow emboldened by my sexual attraction to her. “Careful.”

“I think it’s cool you escaped from a cult,” she said.

I laughed.

“You did escape, right?” She hadn’t moved. Her body was still against mine. “You don’t still like live there?”

“No,” I said.

She craned her neck back, smiling up at me. “I never kissed anyone who used to be in a cult. Do you want to kiss me?”

I swallowed. Was
this
what worldly girls were like? So forward? I sagged against the wall, thrown by her question.

She leaned into me, giggling. “Was that a bad thing to say?”

My mouth was dry. I didn’t have words.

She rolled her head on her shoulders. “You probably think I’m some kind of slut or something.”

“No,” I said quickly. “I don’t think that.”

She found my open hand and put her beer into it. “Hold this.”

Unsure of what to do, I followed her instructions. Now I was trapped against the wall, both of my hands holding drinks, with a drunk redhead pressed into me.

She dragged her teeth over her bottom lip.

It was probably the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.

Then, on tiptoe, she closed her eyes and placed her lips on mine.

I didn’t fight her.

Her hands roamed over my chest and shoulders, and her tongue darted into my mouth, and it was heady and pleasurable. I couldn’t touch her, not while holding the beer, so I just had to stand there while she had her way with me.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like it. It was amazing.

She pulled back, giggling, and took her cup out of my hand. “You’re a good kisser.”

“Uh…” It was impossible to know what to say to this girl.

She backed away from me.

“Wait,” I said.

She laughed again.

“What’s your name?”

“Erin. What’s yours?”

“Jesse.”

“Jesse,” she repeated. “I like Jesse. That’s a good name.” She held out her hand to me. “Come on.”

I put my hand in hers and let her lead me away.

* * *

I intended to talk to Erin, and I think she intended to talk to me, but we were neither of us exactly sober, and we just kept kissing instead. I kissed her on the couch while other people at the party walked around us, making jeering comments. I kissed her on the porch, while she was smoking a cigarette. I didn’t even mind the way the cigarette made her mouth taste. There was something exciting and forbidden about it.

She stubbed out the cigarette and looked up at me. “You want to get out of here?”

I did.

She lived in the same apartment complex, only a few floors down. We stumbled into her apartment, her admonishing me to keep quiet or we’d wake her roommate, and then she was dragging me into her bedroom.

She pulled me down onto her bed, which was covered with scattered articles of clothing. We kissed more. I’d never kissed a girl like this. Not with both of us lying down on a bed. Not with her body squirming and wriggling against mine, her hands inside my shirt, running her fingers over my stomach. I loved it. It felt amazing. My body was awake, on fire, consumed with pleasure.

But I didn’t really realize where we were heading until she was taking off her shirt.

She rolled me over and climbed on top of my body so that she was straddling me, her pelvis against mine. Sensation shot through me. And then she tugged her shirt of her head.

She wasn’t wearing a bra.

I sucked in a noisy breath.

They were just… there. Her boobs. They were round and firm and white and tipped with tiny, pink nipples, and I just stared.

She giggled at me. “What?”

I tried to speak, but all I could think was,
This is happening. This is happening.

I mean, I wanted it to happen. I
really
wanted it to happen. But I didn’t really know Erin. At all. I’d met her only an hour ago, and…

She leaned down over me, planting a tiny kiss on my nose. “You okay?”

Now her half-naked body was touching mine. My cock throbbed.

“I’m fine,” I managed.

“Is there something wrong with me?” She sounded vulnerable, now that she wasn’t wearing clothes. She’d seemed so brash and sure of herself earlier, but now she looked in my eyes, and she looked just as young and confused as I was.

I touched her face. “There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s me. I…” I flicked my gaze up at the ceiling. “I never…”

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “It’s your first time?”

I squeezed my eyes shut.

She kissed my cheek. “That is so cool.” She kissed my jaw. She sat back up, and I could see her tits again. She picked up both my hands and placed them over her breasts. She gasped.

They were so soft and wonderful. I weighed them in my hands. I rubbed my thumbs over her nipples.

They stiffened, and she moaned.

Oh, so she liked that?

Fear seized me, suddenly, out of nowhere. Was I supposed to make her like it? There had never been much discussion of that amongst my guy friends, the only people that I’d ever really talked about sex with. I’d never given it much thought. I’d always assumed I was going to be assigned to a woman who I’d be married to for the rest of my life. She’d have to do it with me, and it didn’t really matter if she liked it.

But I knew right then that I wanted to make Erin like it, and I stopped, unsure of what to do next.

She was pulling my shirt over my head.

I let her, full of confusion and terror.

She lay down next to me, running her fingers over my chest. “You nervous?”

Was it that obvious?

Her hand settled on the button of my jeans. “Don’t worry. There’s nothing to it.”

She kissed me again, and I tried to kiss back, but now all I could think about was how much I was going to screw this up.

Her lips at my ear. “Undo my pants too.”

I obeyed her, sort of glad she was taking control.

She guided my hand between her legs, moving my fingers around. She was wet and warm there, and it turned me on more. At this point, I wasn’t sure which feeling was stronger, my fear or my desire.

“There,” she murmured.

There? Where?

She moaned.

I moved my finger.

She giggled, grabbing my hand and moving it back. “There,” she sighed.

And then I thought I felt it. It was tough to tell, but I thought there was some kind of little nub, just a tiny, slippery thing. I stroked it, and her breath quickened. She moaned again.

Okay. Okay. It was good, then?

But then her hands were inside my pants, and she had her hand on my cock, and that was…

I couldn’t think or move because it was too nice.

She giggled again, and she handed me something. A square little packet. I stared at it dumbly. What the heck was this?

She took pity on me. “Don’t you know what a condom is?”

I shook my head.

She snatched it from me, ripping it open. She pulled out something rolled up. It was colored bright green.

I made a face.

She laughed at me again.

Then her hands were on me, and I watched her roll the green thing onto my penis.

“It’s for diseases,” she said, pulling me on top of her. “And so I don’t get pregnant, but don’t worry, I’m on the pill.”

I didn’t know what she was talking about, but then I didn’t know what was going on most of the time.

It felt strange, having this constricting piece of rubber or whatever it was dangling off of me, but the minute that I was inside her, I didn’t care.

The first stroke into her body was more incredible than I could possibly ever have imagined. She was warm and slick and tight. I think I made a noise—some kind of funny grunty thing, which should have embarrassed me, but it felt so good that I didn’t care.

She moaned under me, wrapping her legs around my hips.

I gave myself over to her. I drowned in her.

And when I came, it was so intense, so nice, just pleasure gushing and exploding and twitching out of me.

I collapsed on top of her. I wanted to fall asleep there, still in that warm, tight place, feeling her surrounding me.

I lay there for several minutes, kissing her, feeling pleasantly tired.

Then she pushed on my shoulders, nudging me.

I raised my head, confused again.

“You have to move, or it comes out of the condom,” she said.

I disengaged. The condom was still stuck to my penis, which was softening. It had trapped my ejaculation, and it hung off me like a wrinkled, green second skin. What was I supposed to do with this thing now?

She pointed. “There’s a trash can.”

I sat up on the bed, trying to pull the condom off my body. It stuck to the base of my dick, and it was slippery with the juices from her body. A minute ago, that had been cool, but now I felt strange with it on my fingers. I looked over my shoulder. She lay nude and exposed, and something seized me inside my chest—guilt.

What had I just done? I didn’t know anything about this girl.

I managed to get the condom off and deposit it in the trash can.

She flung her arm up over her head. “You have a phone?”

I nodded.

She held out her hand.

It was in my pants, which were crumpled up at the bottom of the bed. I got the phone out and handed it to her. Her fingers moved lightning fast over the screen. I wasn’t that fast with it yet. Then she gave it back.

“You could call me sometime if you want.” She pulled the covers up over her body and rolled over onto her side, her back to me.

I sat there, naked and confused.

She yawned but didn’t look at me. “Have a good night.”

I was being dismissed, I realized. She wanted me to leave.

I shrugged back into my clothes and made my way out of the apartment.

Anthony was up on the porch where the party had taken place. The porch was practically empty.

“Hey, Jesse, where the fuck have you been?” he said, grinning drunkenly at me.

“Uh…” I looked back at the door the apartment.

He sprang down the steps. “I saw you go off with that girl. What happened, man?”

I shook my head. I kind of wasn’t sure.

He reached the bottom of the steps, raising his eyebrows. “Don’t leave me hanging, bro. You hit that or not?”

I looked down at my shoes. “Yeah,” I muttered.

He hooked an arm around me. “All right,” he bellowed. “You got
laid
, man.”

I raised my gaze to meet his. I hesitated for a minute, and then I tried a smile. “Yeah,” I said again, my voice a little stronger.

CHAPTER NINE

Abby

I sat at the table in the dining room of my parents’ house. My mother was sitting next to me. She had made tea.

“They hate me, Mother,” I said. “They all hate me. The children don’t listen to me, and the other wives don’t like me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

“It’s true,” I said. “Sally told Bob that I was abusing her children, and he
believed
her. He sat me down and told me that he wouldn’t stand for someone hurting his children. I tried to tell him that it wasn’t true, that Sally was just making stuff up, and he said that I shouldn’t argue with him, because he was the head of the family and my husband. He said I needed to be obedient to him.”