“Looking at the stars.” I moved over on the step a little,-away from his hand, because even a slight touch from him made me yearn for him. “Sometimes I close my eyes and imagine myself floating up among the stars. I feel weightless, and it’s such a weird feeling. Yet, it makes me feel so relaxed. It’s incredible!”
I darted my eyes down to his, and noticed he was looking at me like I had lost my fucking mind. “Sorry, Jason. I know I must sound plum foolish.”
“No, not at all. Tell me more about them, Zoe.” He sensed my hesitation. “Please, I really want to learn astronomy.”
For the next ten or fifteen minutes I pointed out every constellation I could recognize to Jason, including the Little Dipper, Big Dipper, and Ursa Minor. I was surprised he actually seemed to be interested in them.
“You see that bright star over there? The North Star?” I pointed as if my fingertip could land directly upon it.
“Yes, I see it. It’s beautiful. Just like you.” I started blushing and placed my hands between my thighs, clamped them shut, and pretended to look down the street at an approaching car.
“I wonder if that’s my mother.” I knew it wasn’t but was trying to change the subject. I wasn’t even prepared for the “beautiful” comment. Once the car passed, I continued, “No, that’s not her. Anyway, I renamed the star after my father, Peter.”
“That’s too cool!”
“Thanks.” Jason eased up and sat on the same step as me, pressing his leg against mine. I instantly started shaking, and my knee started going back and forth. Years later, as I began to understand my sexuality better, I realized I was deliberately causing friction on my clit because I was horny. “One day, I’m gonna have a little boy and name him Peter.”
“Maybe we can make him together.” He reached over and started rubbing his fingers up and down my leg. I tried to jump up, but he stopped me and put his arm around me. “Don’t run away from me, Zoe. Let’s talk.”
“About what?” I was frozen like a Popsicle. I couldn’t move right at that moment if my life depended on it.
“Which one of those stars is ours?”
“Ours?”
“Yes, ours. Let’s pick a star and make it our own special-star. For always!” I looked him in his sexy hazel eyes and wanted to kiss him so bad but didn’t have the nerve. “How about that one over there? You see it?”
I had no idea which one he meant, ’cause I was too busy looking at him. “Yes!”
“Cool! So that’ll be our star. Jason and Zoe’s star.”
The kiss began so fast, it took me off guard. It was the first French kiss of my life, and I will never forget it. His tongue was thick and soft and penetrated my mouth after practically having to pry it open. Once I was able to relax, it was great, outstanding, miraculous, the bomb diggity.
“Wanna go inside your house?” Jason stopped kissing me abruptly after a few moments and made the suggestion. I just sat there with my mouth hanging open and his sweet saliva all over my lips. He stood up, took me by the hand, and starting pulling me up to my feet. “Come on, let’s go inside awhile.”
We were standing in the doorway, tonguing the hell out of each other, with my arms over his shoulders and his around my hips, inching me farther into the house, his hard dick pressing up against my wet pussy through our jeans, when my mother pulled into the driveway.
We tried our best to play it off. Jason put his hands in his back pockets, and I crossed my arms in front of me, trying to pretend like we were just standing there having a casual conversation. “I’ll talk to you later, Zoe,” Jason blurted out as he began to walk away. He waved to my mother as she was getting out of the car and managed a soft, “Hey!”
“Hey Mom! Have a good day at work?” I moved out of the doorway so she could get in with the bag of groceries she was carrying. “Let me take that to the kitchen.”
“Sure!” She handed me the bag, and I started making my way toward the kitchen. I almost made it too without getting busted. “By the way, Zoe, I saw that!”
I turned around, getting ready to try to fabricate a story, but she wasn’t even looking at me. She was flipping through the mail from that day, so I left well enough alone.
While I was putting away the groceries, I started wondering what would have happened between Jason and me if my mother hadn’t shown up right then. I wondered if he wasexperienced,and hoped like all hell he wasn’t. I wanted to be his first.
After I went to bed and
made sure my mother was fast asleep, I masturbated for the first time. I didn’t know what to do exactly, and to this day, I’m not sure whether or not I actually came. All I know is thinking about Jason and feeling on myself at the same time made me feel damn good.
• • •
Well, I finally got my man, and Chandler got pushed to the curb. Jason told her the truth, that he and I were an item. She took it hard, but I didn’t care. That summer was the greatest one of my entire life. Jason and I spent almost every day together. We never did the nasty though. As it turned out, he was still a virgin and was not completely ready to do it, so we didn’t. We used to hold hands and hug and neck heavily. He wouldn’t let it go any farther, so I began to masturbate on a regular basis.I assumed masturbating at such a young age was probably strange but had no idea there were underlying reasons for it. What I did not know then but realize all too well now is that my battle with sexual addiction had already begun.
chapterfive
Things were going great between Jason and me. Just think! My soulmate had been staring me in the face all those years without me even suspecting it.
I was still completely devastated over my father’s death—Lawd knows no one and nothing could ever take his place. Jason helped me through it, though. We spent every second we could spare together. After school, we did our homework together unless Jason had practice. If he did, I would sit in the bleachers and wait for him.
Chandler couldn’t stand me being there. As far as I was concerned, that was her personal problem. I’m surprised her eyes didn’t end up permanently crossed from rolling them back and forth in her head at me so damn much. A couple of times, she almost fell flat on her ass during cheerleading practice because she was so busy trying to diss me.
Meanwhile, Mohammed was still trying. I have to giveit to the brotha. He didn’t give up on love easily. I tried to hook him up with Brina, but she wasn’t even having it. She’d developed this massive crush on Cordell. I used to beg Jason to sweat him about asking her out.
On occasion, we would all hang out together at the mall or the ice-skating rink in the Omni International Hotel. I hate the fact they closed the rink down some years ago. I would love for Jason and me to take the kids there and reminisce about the good old days.
Cordell and Brina did eventually hit it off, thank goodness—she was getting on my last nerve worrying about who else he might possibly like.
I hated it when Jason traveled to away games, because I didn’t have any way to tag along. I thought about pleading my way onto the cheerleading squad, even though I had no interest in it, just so I could be with him.
I wanted to take things further, but Jason was content with kissing and grinding with our clothes on. That night on the porch, I just knew he wasexperienced.He fooled my ass but good. Part of me was elated because that meant Chandler couldn’t throw having sex with him up in my face.
I was growing more and more frustrated. The more Jason refused my sexual advances, the more obsessed I became with getting him to go all the way. He would let the kissing get hot and heavy, and then just get up and leave me panting despondently on the couch.
I began to wonder if something was wrong with me. Most boys his age were all about trying to get some so they could brag about it to their friends—but not Jason. He wasn’t having any part of climbing up inside my sugary walls.
I was willing to deal with it, yearning coochie and all, until Brina called me up on the phone after 1A.M.one Saturday night.
“Brina, why are you calling me so late?” I whispered into the handset, trying not to rouse my mother. “My mother will have a fit if she wakes up.”
“That’s what you have your own phone line for, doofus!”
She laughed, but I didn’t see a damn thing funny. “Brina, what is it? Is something wrong, Sis? Is it your mother?”
“No, she isn’t even here,” Brina replied sarcastically. “She’s probably sitting on a barstool somewhere rapping to one of those ugly-ass men she keeps bringing up in here.”
I didn’t know what to say about that one, so I changed the subject. “Well, what’s wrong, then?”
“Nothing’s wrong, Zoe,” she chuckled. “In fact, everything is just spantacular.”
I sat up and turned on the lamp on my nightstand. “Okay, now that I’m completely lost, care to enlighten me?”