Just Naked

I made you wear a blindfold the first time you came in my house. You protested, but I said you weren’t coming in unless you wore it. It was a scarf, leopard-print. I held your hand and you banged into pile after pile, and by the time we made it to my room, we were both giggling like little kids.

I closed my bedroom door. “Okay. You can take off the blindfold.”

You ripped it off and surveyed my room, grinning, and turning in a circle. “Hey, it’s not bad. It’s cool.”

I laughed because my room is immaculate compared to the rest of the house. You had no idea.

We were kind of awkward then. It was weird, I guess. I mean who has to blindfold their boyfriend to let him come into the house?

Then, you walked around the room looking at my collages from when I was younger, when Mom and I used to do art together, and she was only a little crazy. I told you my favorite was the one with the endangered animals. You said you liked the one with all the weird world records. You let out a howl when you saw the woman with the long fingernails.

“Okay, must choose,” you said. This was the first time we ever played it. You lifted up one finger. “Either, you must have long fingernails like that woman.” You held up your second finger. “Or you must have hair so long, it drags fifty feet behind you, on the floor. Must choose.”

All I could see was the dirt my hair was gathering. “Nails,” I said.

“Oh no…Hair,” you said. “At least you could do things. Can you imagine?”

You hung your arms down in front of your body, weighed down by massive imaginary fingernails, and mimed lifting them up and dropping them on the desk. You’re a pretty good actor. I laughed and fell back onto the bed, and as I was laughing there, I thought this might be okay, you being in my house and all. It might really be okay.

But then, before I knew what was happening, you strode past me, out of the room, with no blindfold. I jumped up.

“Stop!” I yelled.

You called, “Can’t stop me, I’m the gingerbread man.” You thought it was a big joke, and you loved calling yourself the gingerbread man on account of being a fast runner and loving gingerbread.

I was too late. You were rounding the piles in the hallway, like you were rounding bases. “Stop,” I whimpered at your back, a whimper that you ignored.

You gazed across the garbage dump of our downstairs rec room area. Clothes. Newspapers. A bunny cage even though we never owned a bunny. Old art projects. A bunch of random cords that someone could use to choke themselves with, if they wanted.

“See?” I said. “It’s a garbage dump.”

You turned around and stared at me. Disgusted? I didn’t know. “I don’t want you to think you have to hide anything from me.”

My arms wrapped tight around my body. I was shaking, I don’t know why. Maybe I figured you were dumping me? You must have seen something in my face, or my eyes filling with tears. “It’s okay,” you said, waving your arms out at the mess. “This is all okay, you hear me?”

I nodded. But it wasn’t okay.

You stepped with your long legs over the mess and reached me, resting your strong hands on my shoulders. “This isn’t you, okay? And I’m never going to judge. Never.”

Tears tumbled down my face.

“Come on.” You guided me back to my room, steering me around the piles, down the pathways. It was so embarrassing. I gripped my mouth, sobbing. Could not stop. In my room, you wrapped your arms around me and held me there for a real long time. “Hey now, hey, hey, it’s okay.”

I felt like a young girl, crying like that.

Finally, I managed to get myself under control, and I just stood there, gripping you. I murmured into your warm shoulder. “I don’t know why I’m crying. It’s just hard, you know? I don’t let anyone see this. I don’t let anyone in here, ever. Only Steph. And she’s known me my whole life. No boyfriend ever came here before. No other friends.”

“Thank you for bringing me.” You pressed me into your chest.

“I clean it up, but my mom fills it with more crap,” I tried to explain. “I can’t stand it. I hate her.”

“Shh,” you said. “It’s okay.”

You gave me small kisses all over my forehead, my ears, my eyelids, my nostrils, and then, I couldn’t help it, I giggled. “What are you doing?”

“Kissing your sadness away. Is it working?”

Kissing my sadness away. Oh my god. “Maybe.”

“Let’s be naked together.”

I laughed. “Nice change of subject.”

“Just naked, that’s all.”

We hadn’t had sex. We’d only got to second base. Tops off. That’s it. No BJs, nothing. “You think you can just be naked with me?” I laughed. “No sex?”

“Definitely. I have control.”

You believed I was this happy nudist girl. Why wouldn’t I want to be naked with you? But I didn’t know if we could control ourselves, and I didn’t want to have sex, not yet. Maybe one day, I thought. “I don’t think so.”

“I want to worship your body, that’s all,” you said. “No touching allowed.” You gazed at me with your deep brown eyes, your dimple playing at your cheek. “Please?”

You already saw me naked, really. So what would it matter? You thought I was wild and brave and experienced. So I acted like I did this sort of thing all the time.

“You have to be naked first,” I said. “And then I’ll decide.”

A laugh. “Fair is fair.”

“You stand over there.” I pointed to the other side of the red shag carpet.

You took a few steps back. “Ready?”

I nodded.

It was hot. Not because you were a wild stripteaser, but because you were the opposite of that, shy, really. You pulled off your gray T-shirt first. Your chest rippled. Even though I’d seen it before, our rule of no touching made it sexier. Your gaze flicked up to me, then down.

You took off your socks. And folded them together. Which was funny. Even in this moment, you had to be Mr. Neat. The belt was next, slowly undoing it, and then sliding it through the belt buckles like a snake slithering through grass. You placed it carefully on the edge of my chair by my desk.

I swallowed—yes, I kept swallowing—I had a river flowing in my mouth, no joke, I was literally salivating.

You undid each button of your jeans, looked up at me, and let out a chuckle, like you were embarrassed. Your jeans slid down and you stepped out of them. You folded the jeans and placed them on the desk. You were wearing tight black boxers. I held my breath. They showed everything. Your trail of hair led from your belly button like an arrow. You slid them down your thighs. Stood there, lifted your chin. I tried not to stare, but I did stare. I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t my first time seeing a penis, just my first time seeing yours. It was regular. Not to put it down. But I was curious.

“Boing!” I said to ease the tension.

You laughed and then slid your boxers down the rest of the way to your ankles and stepped out of them.

“Leave them on the floor,” I said.

You hesitated but left them there. “Your turn.”

It was too serious, too intimate, I don’t know, it freaked me out, and I almost changed my mind. You wouldn’t have made a big deal if I did. But then, I just thought, Why not? You saw everything already on the first day. I slid my pink top off, dropped it on the ground, and then my black skirt. I stood there in my bright pink bra and unmatching white cotton underwear. I reached around the back and took off my bra.

“Boing,” you said.

I laughed, then hesitated. You hadn’t seen everything at the river. Though my underwear might have been see-through. You gave me a little hopeful smirk and raised your eyebrows. And that’s what did it. That hopeful smirk. I slid down my underwear.

You gulped. “Wow,” you said, just like you do when you watch the sunset, all breathy and astonished. “I want to touch you, but I want to look at you, too.”

We stared at each other. Your gaze traveled down me. “This is weird,” I said finally. “And I’m dying here.”

You laughed. “I promised.”

“We can just lay with each other,” I suggested.

You frowned. “I’m going under the covers. You go on top.”

“Deal.”

So that’s what we did, and we kissed, too. Your hands rested on my back, didn’t slide down even—it was like a soft sticky kind of glue held them there. I was dying for your hands to move across my body, but they didn’t, not that time.