So Norah Pruitt and Macon Moultrie had been high school sweethearts. Norah would say it had all began that night in her bedroom, but Macon knew he’d loved her long before that.

He was just happy she’d finally caught up to him.

Not that their love made high school any easier. Norah was still bullied by the bitch brigade, and Macon was still only comfortable when he was studying or spending time with Norah. But they made it work. Their teenage years had been much better because they had each other.

Josh had a whole different experience, of course. By his junior year he was the star quarterback of Torrey Pines High School. With that came all the trappings of high school fame; friends, girls, and more attention than he could handle most of the time.

Yet, despite the difference in social status, the three friends remained as close as ever. Even if Josh didn’t always understand his sister. His loyalty would always be to her and to the guy who’d let them in his home and his heart, all those years ago.

* * *

All three of them had been eager to graduate from high school. Josh had enlisted in the Army, something Norah had been completely against for many reasons. Sometimes it felt like Josh was trying to relive his father’s life, the man they barely remembered most days. He’d been an Army veteran. And things hadn’t worked out so well for him.

Macon had gotten into every single college he’d applied to, including his first choice; Columbia. He was Ivy League bound and could barely contain his excitement most days.

Norah had gotten a full ride to UNLV, which she was ambivalent about for the most part. She wanted to be where Macon was, but they’d promised each other to remain faithful and true, even from a long distance.

“I know I’m young,” Macon had told her the night they’d graduated. “But I know you’re my destiny, Norah Pruitt.”

She’d smiled and kissed him, even though behind her eyes lay a sadness at the realization and inconvenient belief that it could never be that simple. Destiny wasn’t a real thing, not in her mind. Otherwise she’d have to believe that the terrible things that had happened to her had been for a reason. Something she couldn’t reconcile, even on her best days.

* * *

“What do you think you’re going to miss most about Las Vegas? Besides me, of course,” Norah asked Macon as the couple walked, hand in hand, toward In-N-Out for lunch on an unseasonably cool, comfortable late summer afternoon.

“What makes you think you’re what I’ll miss most? I’m pretty sure you can’t get animal-style fries in New York,” Macon joked as he reached to open the door for Norah.

Norah pouted playfully. “You can’t get this in New York, either.” She stood up on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on a surprised Macon, a deep, passionate kiss, a making-out-kind-of-kiss, despite an older couple walking through the open door behind them.

Macon was momentarily breathless, speechless, and caught totally off-guard. Norah smirked at him and continued into their favorite fast food joint.

“Good point,” a dumbstruck Macon muttered.

After ordering their food, they took their drinks to the table to wait; a cherry Coke for Norah and a sweet tea for Macon.

“Believe it or not, I think I’m going to miss the desert the most.”

Norah arched an eyebrow.

“After you, of course,” Macon corrected himself with a smile. “The wide-open spaces. The cliché answer would be ‘The Strip’, but Times Square has such a similar vibe that I don’t expect to miss the lights all that much. But there’s nothing in New York to compare to the desert. In fact,” Macon stood up as their order number was called, “my days in the desert are numbered. And it isn’t uncomfortably hot today. Let’s get our food to go, and have a picnic.”

“Right now? Are you serious?” Norah asked, following Macon to the counter.

Moments later, they were back in Macon’s car, heading east toward the mountains.

“Sorry we didn’t get milkshakes. It’s not that cool out yet. They’d just be sweet milk by the time we’d get around to them.”

“That’s ok,” Norah replied. “Where are you taking me?”

“The desert!” Macon answered, enthusiastically. “Nowhere in particular. I’ll know it when I find it.”

Singing along to the radio, they left the city behind, passing through the foothills of the Frenchman Mountains and out beyond, into the stark, featureless desert.

After a few miles on the windy, rolling road, Macon turned off onto an unmarked, dusty trail through the sagebrush that barely qualified as a path.

Slowing to a crawl as the “road” became less passable by the inch, Macon stopped the car.

“Up for a climb?” he asked.

“I’m up for climbing that,” Norah responded, pointing to a series of rust-colored boulders surrounding a butte rising a hundred or so feet from the valley floor. “But no way in hell am I going up there.” Norah motioned toward a jagged set of cliffs on the sheer face of a mountain a quarter mile deeper into the desert. “I just wish I’d worn different shoes.”

They both looked at Norah’s feet, clad only in strappy sandals.

“The Tarahumara Indians in Mexico run marathons, super-marathons, actually, in rougher terrain than this, and they do it barefoot,” Macon replied.

Norah rolled her eyes. “Let me guess. National Geographic?”

Macon nodded.

“You are such a nerd. I love that about you,” Norah replied.

“Guilty!” Macon happily pleaded.

The teenagers disembarked on the short hike through the desert, Norah carrying their bag of food and her drink while Macon lugged a blanket he had in the trunk and his own drink. Lizards scattered as the couple stomped through the scrub.

Coming over a rise and descending toward the base of the butte they intended to scale, they stumbled upon a glittering sea of broken, green glass and shell casings all over the ground.

Norah hesitated, and looked to Macon for reassurance.

“Somebody must have been out here drinking and shooting. Probably a bunch of somebodys,” he said. “But, it’s just us now. Come on.”

Macon forged ahead, reaching the boulders with Norah practically in his back pocket.

“This place is spooky, Macon. I bet there are bodies buried out here.”

Macon set his drink down and then tossed his blanket up and over a shelf in the rock and tested his footing on an outcropping.

“There are old mine shafts out here, so I bet there are some skeletons down below somewhere. But we’re going up, not down.” Macon hauled himself up onto the rock and reached down for the food and drinks, which Norah handed up to him. Macon reached a hand down and helped pull Norah up to where he was, and they searched for a path to the top.

Slowly, on barely-there hand and footholds, passing their lunch and blanket along, they ascended the butte. Nearer the top, the going got easier, and they found a rocky path that extended around behind what they’d originally seen.

When they reached the mesa, they lay down on their backs, using the folded blanket as a pillow, catching their collective breath.

“This is what you’re going to miss about Las Vegas?” Norah asked.

“I’ll admit, it sounded a lot more romantic talking about it at In-n-Out,” Macon conceded. “But it’s kinda cool, isn’t it? Let’s look around.”

They stood up and surveyed the desert surrounding the platform they’d claimed as their own. Nothing stirred as far as they could see, and their car and telephone poles were the only signs of civilization. Aside from some small cactus and a creosote bush with tiny yellow flowers on it, they had the mesa entirely to themselves; a rough rectangle of dusty red rock thirty feet long by twenty wide. A swirling breeze kept the relentless sun just bearable.

“This would be a cool place to read,” Norah said as they finished off their slightly soggy animal-style fries and perfect burgers. “It would be better with a chair or something, but I can totally imagine spending a day up here reading and napping and enjoying the peace. I’ll admit, there is something sort of magical about the desert.”

Norah rolled onto her back, propped up on her elbows, and they watched a bird, a hawk they guessed, gliding lazily overhead.

Macon laid next to her on his side, on the blanket, watching her mouth move. She was so beautiful, her hair windswept and the bright sunshine making the sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose more prominent.

He reached across and touched the strip of exposed skin where her t-shirt had ridden up. She looked at him and bit her bottom lip, fighting the natural urge to push his hand away.

Macon pushed her shirt higher, circling Norah’s bellybutton with the tip of his index finger. She watched his finger and then met his gaze, finding hope there.

Norah let her had fall back and she closed her eyes. Macon grew emboldened, easing Norah’s shirt higher and bending down to place gentle kisses up and down her ribcage. Norah’s breath caught in her throat as his hand reached across to mimic her mouth on her other side, gently caressing her.

The combination of Macon’s hand and mouth on Norah’s midsection made goosebumps appear all over her body, and she sighed contentedly.

“Macon Moultrie. What do you think you’re doing?” she admonished, playfully, as his hand moved around to the small of her back and down just beneath the top of her shorts and his lips reached her middle, kissing her belly button and then just below.

Macon turned his head so he could look at her face, and he found her smiling, so he grinned back and continued. He kissed softly across her stomach, his hand on her back moving up and down slowly, his fingertips exploring the supple flesh.

He reversed course and began to ascend toward her breasts, lifting her shirt up, tentatively toward her bra. When the bottoms of the lacy white cups came into view, his eyes met hers. She bit her bottom lip, but did not protest, so he worked her t-shirt up and over her breasts.

“Damn,” Macon whispered.

Norah glanced all around once more, and watched a motorcycle wind its way down the highway and out of sight. With the way the mesa tilted slightly away from the road, they were invisible to the infrequent traffic whizzing by.

To Macon’s surprise, Norah sat up and pulled her t-shirt off, balling it up into a makeshift pillow. She lay back on it, with her arms crossed behind her head. “Keep kissing me. And it’s only fair you take your shirt off, too, don’t you think?”

Macon surveyed the area and came to the same conclusion Norah had; only that bird way up in the sky could see them.

He tugged at his shirt and tossed it away.

“Have you been working out, Macon? Trying to get all buff for the New York coeds?”

Macon stretched and rolled his shoulders. He hadn’t told her, but he’d been doing pushups and sit-ups regularly for a few months now. His body was no longer that of the skinny kid that first met Norah; he was filling out into a young man. Lean muscle rippled in the sunshine.

“The only person,” Macon paused only to kiss Norah. He kissed her sides, her arms, the visible portion of her breasts, everywhere he dared to kiss her. “I want to impress,” he kissed her forehead and the tip of her nose. “Or will ever want to impress,” he finally kissed her mouth, and she responded enthusiastically. “Is you.”

Norah squinted up at Macon’s silhouette.

“Norah, you don’t get it, but you’re the most beautiful girl in the world. This world,” Macon swept his arms to indicate the endless desert around them. “That world,” he pointed back toward the Las Vegas Valley, the world-famous Strip that sat just on the other side of Frenchman Mountains. He was back to kissing her stomach, and then bypassed her shorts and began kissing her kneecaps, making Norah giggle. “And every other world.” Macon kissed and caressed Norah’s calves. He undid the clasps on Norah’s sandals and set them aside. He cradled her feet, each one in turn, in his hands and kissed the tops of them reverently. “I just want to keep kissing every inch of you, Norah.”

Norah purred her reply stretching her arms above her, basking on the rock. “Don’t let me stop you,” she said. “But is that all you want to do to me?”

From where Macon knelt by her feet, he looked up in surprise. “What?”

Norah let her head fall back gently, and raised a hand over her face to block the sun from her eyes. She couldn’t look at Macon as she said what followed; she’d be too mortified if he rejected her. She knew how she felt about Macon and was sure he felt the same, but she was jumping off the high dive here, and if she had second thoughts once she left the board, it would be too late to do anything about it.

“You’re going away. I know long-distance relationships don’t always work out, no matter how much the two people involved care about each other, or how many promises they make. But Macon, I can’t imagine my first time being with anyone but you. And I don’t even want to try to imagine your first time being with anybody but me.”

The wind blew across the desert, whistling as it was diverted by rocks and bluffs. Macon crawled back up to where he lay alongside Norah, and he kissed her deeply.

They turned to face each other, bare legs intertwined. Macon’s hands ran through Norah’s hair, and her hands clawed at his shoulders and chest.

Macon’s hand migrated to Norah’s hip, and she took his wrist and guided him gently to her breast. He could feel her erect nipple through her bra. He took a handful of her breast over the bra, then let his hand slip inside to free it. When his palm dragged across her bare nipple, Norah gasped.

She reached for the belt that held her boyfriend’s cargo shorts up, but the awkward angle made the struggle futile. Macon reached down and undid the clasp, shimmying them down. His own erection struggled against his boxers to be free.

Unnoticed by Macon during their frantic kissing, Norah had likewise divested herself of her shorts. They were as naked as they’d ever been together. In her trailer, in his bedroom, on occasion in the backseat of his car – but this time, their mutual desire would be realized; their passion no longer denied.

Macon straddled Norah, kissing her desperately as she writhed in anticipation.

He feared that he’d release too soon; just the thought of seeing Norah completely naked had him on the brink. He pulled away and took a deep breath, struggling to regain control of his rampant libido.

Norah took the initiative, yanking his boxers down, causing his cock to spring back up and slap against his midsection with a wet “thwack.”

Macon groaned as she took hold of his manhood, skin on skin for the first time. He was in serious jeopardy now. Her long strokes coaxed him inexorably toward the brink. He countered by leaning down and taking her nipple into his mouth, sucking and swirling his tongue as she stiffened and mewed.

“You’re sure?” Macon hoarsely asked.

Norah’s answer was a sleepy smile as she undid her bra and let it fall away, followed by slipping her panties down, and off.

Macon looked down from his perch above her, surveying her nakedness. It stacked up gloriously against fantasies that had fueled him since junior high.

“Slow. Just go slow. I love you, Macon,” Norah whispered, staring into Macon’s eyes.

“I love you, too,” he replied, and he slipped gently inside her.

She pulled him close at the moment of penetration, nuzzling his shoulder as he filled her. Halfway in, he paused and withdrew. Norah exhaled, thinking she’d cleared a hurdle; maybe it wouldn’t be so painful after all.

Macon had pulled out only so far as the tip of his cock, and only because another nanosecond inside Norah would have caused him to erupt.

He’d never felt anything so magical. She was a silken vise, her body specifically designed to give him pleasure. Nothing could possibly feel better.

Macon began to recite the Gettysburg Address in his mind, and then he silently cycled through algebraic proofs. Anything to distract and disconnect his mind from his body.

The pause served its intended purpose, and he drove back in, this time as far as he could go. Sheer ecstasy. She gripped him slightly, muscles inside her clinging to him as he slowly pulled out and thrust back in more quickly.

“Oh, fuck,” he exclaimed, increasing his pace despite Norah’s teeth sinking into his shoulder.

She’d crossed her ankles behind his thighs, holding on for dear life, and as he began to pound her in earnest, she bit down on his tanned shoulder in an effort to move past the searing pain in her core.

Norah had nothing to which she could compare Macon’s cock, but he felt enormous inside her. When he’d sunk all the way in that first time, she thought her pelvis would crack in half.

She was determined, however, to take it, no matter how much it hurt. To please her man. To make sure none of those pretty girls in New York would turn Macon’s head.

She clutched at him, desperate to somehow get closer to him. His skin felt hot to the touch, and she felt like she, herself, was boiling down there.

Macon settled into a steady tempo, keeping his premature ejaculation demons temporarily at bay, and the young lovers connected again through eye contact.

He’d never seen Norah look so beautiful; her cheeks were flushed and her eyes glassy. Her lips were wet from their kissing, her hair framing her face, splashed all over the red rock beneath her t-shirt pillow.

Norah had fallen in love with a mere boy. But what she looked up at now was unmistakably a man. Droplets of his sweat landed on her, one on her bottom lip, and she savored the salty flavor.

They each neared their precipice, Norah’s pain swallowed up by waves of pleasure from deep inside every time Macon went deep and he ground against her. Macon’s war was lost; he’d fought the good fight, but Norah’s body had zapped his strength, his will, and would soon empty him completely.

Their telepathy drove them to kiss, a powerful, gasping kiss as they crashed over the edge together. Neither had experienced an orgasm to match it. Macon broke their kiss to unleash a primal yell that sent every lizard and desert creature for miles scampering for cover.

Norah convulsed inside, every muscle clamping down around Macon’s erupting cock. Her thighs trembled and tears spilled down her cheeks. She’d do anything to freeze time at that moment, their shared climax bringing them closer, in her mind, than any two people had ever been or could ever be.

Macon noticed her tears as he recovered from his own wondrous trip to heaven.

“Norah, are you okay?”

She wiped her cheeks and grinned back at him. “I’m so fucking beyond ‘okay’.”

They kissed playfully, enjoying their final few spasms together.

“I have to… I can’t… I just need a second,” Macon apologized, letting himself slide out and collapsing onto his back. Complete exhaustion overtook him, and he inhaled deeply though his nose and let the breath out through puffed-out cheeks.

Norah sat up and leaned over him, kissing his forehead as they laughed and tickled each other.

Norah grabbed the closest article of clothing she could find, Macon’s green t-shirt, and pulled it over her head and fanned her hair out the back.

They held hands and turned their faces toward each other as they lay on their backs.

“I don’t have the words… ‘amazing’ falls so pitifully flat,” Macon’s words tailed away as he shook his head.

“Better than animal-style fries?” Norah asked, biting her bottom lip expectantly.

“No contest. If I could have you once or In-n-Out every day for the rest of my life, I guess I’d have to learn to make due with McDonald’s,” Macon replied, kissing Norah sweetly.

The couple went on like that, complimenting each other and making corny jokes. Eventually, Macon helped Norah clean up the evidence left behind by her lovemaking, and they decided to sacrifice their blanket to whatever desert gods were responsible for deflowered virgins.

They lay and sat on that rock for hours, basking in the afterglow. The sun sank, and the lights of the faraway Las Vegas Strip began twinkling in the distance.

Macon and Norah mulled over spending the night on their butte, but decided that night time in the desert meant creepy crawlies they’d rather not encounter, not to mention the possibility of drunks with guns.

They descended carefully, their blanket left behind, weighted down by a large rock Macon set atop it. It was stained with the remnants of what they’d just done, and a spilled drink.

Managing to avoid the nocturnal snaked and scorpions, they reached Macon’s car in the twilight. Waffles at Blueberry Hill awaited them.

And a night where they could both dream for the first time about what they’d actually done, rather than what they hoped and fantasized it might be like.