The Christmas tree lot is strangely jam-packed, on this, the final night to decorate over-glorified shrubbery. Kids run wild with cups of cocoa while clusters of people stand about, talking and laughing. I get the feeling this is what social gatherings will look like in the collegiate afterlife, once you gravitate outside the Greek system and procreation instincts take over.
The clouds overhead wear dusty purple skins, yet somehow the evergreens still manage to lend their shadows over the pale dirt that spreads wide for acres.
"Last day at the tree lot is always a madhouse," Cruise says, navigating us through the melee. I watch as the muscles in his neck pop when he swallows, his jaw redefines itself with even the slightest inflection. He offers a soft smile to the kids who swim past us with glee, and that simple show of affection warms me to him. Everything about Cruise has my interest piqued, and it makes me wonder where these feelings came from. Had I been saving them up for someone like Cruise all along? Had my mother ever felt this way during one of her serial marriages? Maybe this is the magic that starts the ball rolling, then it evaporates, and you find yourself looking for an apartment with two kids in tow.
"It's the opposite back home," I tell him as we step through a cushion of pine needles at least a foot deep. "Everyone I know starts decking the halls the day after Thanksgiving - and the tree lots are bare two weeks into December."
"Sounds like home is a nice place." A plume of fog emits from his lips as he eases into a smile - this time it's all for me. He picks up my hand and leads me through the crowd. "You mind?" He gives my fingers a gentle squeeze.
"Not at all," I say as my shoes crunch over the discarded boughs. "We need to start somewhere if you're going to teach me your womanizing ways." I try to sound like it's no big deal, but in truth, I feel weak, nauseated, and extremely giddy at the prospect of holding his hand. It's electrifying - an honest to God high that rivals any narcotic known to man. The boys back home didn't have the power to make me feel this way. And I certainly don't have any desire to touch any part of Pennington, let alone any of his drunken frat brothers like I may have eluded. And since when did I add the fine art of lying to my personal resume? And for what? To trick him into some kind of twisted relationship? Although, someone like Cruise isn't interested in something long-term for the same reason I'm not. It never works out in the end.
I shake the thought loose.
"You'll be a man-eater by New Years'," he guarantees as we make our way through the crowd gathered by the register. "There's a special event today - local churches come out to buy trees for less fortunate families in the area. It's sort of a tradition around here."
"That's so nice." I like this altruistic side of Carrington. I try to catch my breath as he leads us to the distal end of the property, and a clearing opens up with dozens of trees to choose from.
Cruise heads over to a tiny anemic tree with sparse needles and gauges me for a reaction.
I shake my head at that one. I don't tell him that's the same tree my mother bought year after year because it was all we could afford - that I dreamed of trees fat enough to eat up the living room, dripping with jewels and a shiny white star on top. I suppose transferring all of my fantasies over to Cruise isn't the greatest idea, but I can't seem to help it. For some reason, I want him to be the one to make them all come true.
Odd, since I hardly know him.
"So you're a size matters kind of girl," he says it low, far too seductive for this early in the morning.
Soft bites of rain land over my scalp and I hold out my hand, surprised to find tiny white flakes amassing over my fingertips. "I've never seen snow," I whisper the confession. "It's magic. It's beautiful."
"You're magic." He takes a step in until we're a breath apart. "You're beautiful, Kenny." He showers me with his gaze, watching as the snow freckles my dark mane.
Cruise leans in.
I can feel it coming.
My lips ache for him to do it.
My palms start to sweat, and my heart feels like it's about to jackhammer out of my chest - killing us both in the process.
"This one," I say breathless while plucking at the branch of a Douglas fir before I pass out from the idea of a kiss.
"Looks like we got our first tree," he says, never taking his gaze off me.
My insides bisect with heat at the thought of a future with Cruise that could string out into the unknowable future, spending Christmas after Christmas with his heart-stopping smile.
"Kenny..." His minty breath rakes across my cheek like a fire. "You mind if I kiss you?"
I shake my head, looking a little more than overeager in the process.
"It's Christmas." A smile slides into his cheek. "And it's snowing. I think your first real kiss should be memorable." He washes his eyes over me with heartfelt affection. "I want to make everything we share memorable for you."
Good God he's going to take me right here in the snow. I'm going to lose my virginity on God's birthday in front of unsuspecting church folk. In just a few minutes, those children running wild will be screaming for another reason entirely.
"Merry Christmas, Cruise." I pant out of breath like I've just sprinted for miles.
He wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me in. I can hardly look at him. Cruise is far too gorgeous for me to ever comprehend.
"Merry Christmas, Kenny." His dimples dig in. "Thank you for my gift."
"What gift?"
"This." He closes his eyes and sweeps his feather-soft lips over mine before indulging in something deeper - something that feels so alarmingly holy and right it makes my insides implode with pleasure. I give an involuntary groan as his tongue flicks over mine, flirting, caressing. The exquisite exchange goes on for miles.
We kiss for hours, weeks - decades as the snow piles up around us. It tries to cool the inferno we've lit, but it's impotent with its efforts.
We're building a memory that can last a lifetime - two lifetimes. It's bliss like this with Cruise.
This is a Christmas wish come true.
One I didn't even know I wanted.
Cruise
Kenny and I leave the tree lot, one bushy evergreen richer, and enjoy the ride home, still hopped up on that lip-lock we shared. I've kissed my fair share of girls. I've logged some mileage with these lips, and swear to God have never experienced an out of body experience like the one Kenny just provided. Maybe it had to do with the fact I'm aroused as hell at the thought of touching a virgin, guiding her down some dark carnal path, but whatever it was, it sealed itself in my memory as a holy shit moment.
We arrive at the house and I pull backward into the driveway, trying to ignore the fact I just took out the border garden my mother planted last spring. In my defense, a blanket of snow dusted the ground in the time it took to get to the tree lot and back. Parking in reverse was never my forte, although I'd never confess to being anything short of an ace behind the wheel.
I glance over at Kenny with her hair slightly wet from the snow, the skin on her chest quivering, and the breath escapes my lungs like it were a building on fire.
Damn she's hot. I blink a quick smile and pat her on the knee like some perverted uncle.
"Let's do this," I say.
Kenny helps me drag down the furry monster that once stood proud as a card-carrying member of the forest and is now reduced to living room decor for all of one night. But I don't mind. I can't remember the last time I had a tree with the exception of living in the bed and breakfast with Mom and Molly.
"It smells so good!" She inhales deeply as her lids flutter. She looks as if she's about to have an enriched sexual experience, and with me a good ten feet away, missing out on all the fun.
"Sure does. God's perfume," I say, dragging it into the house and leaning it against the wall farthest from the fireplace. No use in burning down our love shack before giving it the proper conjugal usage.
I step back and lose myself just staring at Kenny.
"What?" She bites down on her lip, and her hip juts out like she's making me an offer. For a girl who claims to never have had more than one drunken kiss, Kenny sure knows how to bring the heat without trying. And what the hell am I saying, conjugal usage? Kenny isn't one of the tramps I pick up on my nightly panty raids down on sorority row. I'm pretty sure this is one fountain of youth and beauty I won't be tapping anytime soon. The nice guy in me won't allow it. I'd like to take that part of me out back and knock the shit out of him with a shovel - bury him in the process for morphing into a bleeding heart without my permission.
Kenny comes in close with those pale, sky-washed eyes, and I have a hard time catching my breath.
"Boy, you're quiet," she whispers.
"Just enjoying the view." God's honest truth right there. Kenny is a goddess who should be admired by the entire human race. "So what are we going to do with this thing?" I dig a smile in the side of my cheek and try to pull her in the way I do with other girls. But for her, my heart skips a beat, and I'm not sure I like what this means - not sure I've ever felt this before.
"Come on." She pulls me down to the carpet, and we lean back admiring its crooked form.
It's comfortable like this with Kenny. I push into her shoulder playfully, and she reciprocates with a bubbling laugh.
"You kissed me," she whispers, looking up from under a thicket of lashes.
"Only because your lips were begging for it."
"You wish." Her cheeks fill with color like maybe they were begging for it after all.
Kenny locks those steel-colored eyes over mine and doesn't let go. For a second I envision straddling her - hell, her straddling me with that impossibly perfect body, her warm limbs wrapped around my back like a bow.
A wave of heat washes over me, and I glance down at the bare stump of the tree in an effort to deflect the hard-on in my jeans rising to salute her.
"You think we should decorate it?" She rakes her foot over mine, and an electrical jolt fires up to my groin.
Yes, with a condom, I want to say. Instead, I opt for something more appropriate and likely to happen. "My mom probably has an entire crate of ornaments she'd gladly gift us." I tap her foot with mine and feel a surge bullet through me once again. I'm fascinated by the physiological effect she has the power to invoke. Obviously sex with someone as physically charged as Kenny would kill me instantly. But what the hell, I say get the paddles ready boys. I'm going in on a suicide mission.
For a moment, I envision myself stretched out on a gurney with my dick smoking.
I pluck my phone out and shoot a quick text to mom before I get off track and end up dry humping the evergreen just to keep from going insane.
"Ornaments are just what we need." She shifts and appraises me as if seeing me for the very first time. She looks up at me with those bowtie lips, and my insides come to life in a flaming ball of fire.
Shit. I'm not used to this. I haven't had a real girl over in so long - ever in fact, and it's quickly becoming obvious my body doesn't know what it's supposed to do with her. Hell, I know what it demands to do with her - and most of those things aren't legal in any of the fifty states.
"Tell me something about yourself," she says, lying on her back. "What turned you onto women en masse?"
I roll onto my elbow and take her in from this aerial vantage point.
"You're a beautiful species. Can you blame me?" I won't be filling her in on my heartbreak anytime soon. Besides, I'm over that. This is the new me, the one that doesn't need assurances, just a pocket full of condoms and I'm good to go.
She adjusts herself and her chest ripples in all the right places, eliciting a groan from me in the process. I can feel the old me wanting to burst through and make Kenny my own in a far more intimate way than any of the long string of girls I've reduced to body parts in the last several months. But body parts in and of themselves are fun, and having your balls handed to you spiked on a stiletto, not so much.
"Well I think you're a beautiful species." She nestles in a little closer. I can feel her gunning for another kiss, but she's too shy to go there on her own.
She kicks off her shoes exposing her glossy red toenails. Kenny rolls into me with her hip seductively hiked, her shoulder turned in until it looks as if she's downright posing. My body starts in on the shakes, and my breathing picks up pace. I bow into her like a warning and she doesn't resist the effort. Instead, her eyes enlarge, and her breathing becomes erratic, letting me know she wants it. I close my eyes and go in for the kill.
"So" - she bolts up as if waking from a bad dream - "we should roll some ideas around for our experiment. You know, set some ground rules."
"Our experiment?" I slouch after having my lips shot down like an incoming missile.
"Yeah, you know." She pushes her shoulder against mine and that same surge of electricity vibrates through my chest. "You're my fearless leader. You're going to teach me the ropes" - she ticks her head toward the leash on the floor - "literally."
"You really want to do this?" A thin rail of disappointment speeds through me. I thought maybe she'd cave, decide that she's a one-man woman and maybe, just maybe, that man could've been me.
"Yes." She pushes it out as if she's unsure. "I mean, only if you're interested. If you find me repulsive, I could look elsewhere for instruction." Her lips twitch under the duress of her words, as if she meant it as a joke and had a reality check that stunted her ego.
"I definitely don't find you repulsive, nor am I willing to relinquish my star pupil. Trust me, I'll have you bedding your way through fraternity row by New Years'."
She ticks her head back rebuffing the idea.
Knew it. She's a big phony.
A smile twitches on my lips, but I won't give it.
"New Years'?" She shakes her head. "How about Valentine's Day? That might be a nice touch. I'm sentimental that way." She gives an impish grin.
I'm quick to do the math. "Nine weeks without sex? What planet are you from?"
She opens her mouth to protest, and I place a finger over her butter soft lips.
"I'm teasing." I trace the outline of her mouth as she arches back with pleasure. "I haven't forgotten your virginal standing. And believe me when I say, I'll prepare you well." I pull my finger down her neck, and she gives an uncontrollable shiver.
"I'd hate to take up too much of your time." She looks down forlorn for a moment, like maybe she wouldn't mind taking up a little more of my time than she's letting on. "I mean, you know, I'd hate for the scoreboard on your bedpost to go stale because of me."
I drink Kenny down with her wide-eyed innocence, her spectacular level of vulnerability that sends my testosterone into overdrive.
"The scoreboard should probably take a breather. I was thinking about taking a break, anyway. That way I can hone in all my efforts on you." I stop shy of any sexual illustrations that were begging to fly from my lips. There's no way I'm going to feed her to the masses at Garrison or anywhere else. I'll simply teach her a thing or two about the male anatomy. Hell, maybe she'll like this slice of genetic pie enough to want to stick around - come back for seconds, over and over again.
"So, I guess you'll be my first." She leans in and her breasts ripple out of her low-cut sweater. I try to keep my eyes level to hers, but it's like holding up a battleship.
"I guess I will."
I'm mesmerized by this goddess before me. The idea of being with Kenny, of touching her heated skin to mine, burying myself inside her, sends blood rushing to places that will make for an interesting conversation in a few minutes, and I start to sweat.
What the hell has me so rattled? I do this all the time. It's practically a vocation I'm participating in on the side. I've completed a forensics exchange with an indiscriminate number of women every week for the last seven months, and not once have I felt like a schoolboy about to ask the prettiest girl in school to prom. Kendall Jordan simply wants me to teach her the fine art of screwing her way around campus - nothing more, nothing less.
"Where should we start?" Say bedroom.
I lean in and wait for a reply.
"Maybe take it sort of slow." She winces. "Maybe we can start with a movie?" She shrinks a little when she says it, and I wrestle back a laugh that demands to bark from my lungs.
"A movie." I nod. Seated in opposite ends of the theater I'm suspecting.
"Yes." She closes her eyes a moment. "Then, we'll round out the bases. What exactly are the bases?"
"First base." I run my finger over her bee-stung lips. "Second base." I drop my hand just shy of her left boob then back up. "Third base is holding me naked." I give the impression of a wicked smile. "With the lights on."
"Is not." She scoffs.
"It can be. Anyway it's just a step away from turning in your v-card, so use your imagination. We can employ the leashes if you like."
"No thanks." She's quick to reject the idea. "That's an advanced field of sexual aerodynamics I am far from ready for."
There's a brief knock at the door before it swings open. I keep meaning to take the key away from my mother.
Mom drops an industrial sized plastic storage bin onto the floor with the words X-Mas scrawled across the side. She gawks over at the two of us like she's never seen a creature quite like Kenny before - and I'm damn sure she hasn't.
"You have company!" Her frizzy blond mane has ballooned twice its size, and she's donned her signature leopard print coat for the occasion. Kenny jumps up and is quick to greet her. I can't remember the last time Mom met a girl I was with, although technically I'm not with Kenny. I'm little more than a talking dildo at this point, but I accept the challenge. In fact, right about now, I'm feeling kind of lucky for hitting the party last night and embroiling myself in an agreement with one of the hottest girls on both the East and West Coast.
I hop over. "Mom this is Kenny. Kenny, this is Samantha, my mother."
"Oh please, call me Sam." Mom lunges into her with an awkward hug and for the first time I do believe my mother is getting more action with a girl I'm "with" than I am. "Hey" - she dips into her purse and pulls out a little pink envelope - "I happen to own the hottest salon this side of New York City. Why don't you come down and get the works, on me!"
Kenny takes up the envelope and peers inside. "Wow, thank you! I've never been to a salon before. My mom usually cuts my hair." She plucks at an errant strand, and it shines like glass in the light.
"Dear God, child - you have been abused!" Mom rattles out a laugh that ends in a cough, which seems par for the course these days. She's running herself ragged, and if she doesn't watch it, she'll end up taking a nice long dirt nap to make up for the lost shuteye. "Molly's with Brayden." Mom frowns at me. Brayden is my seventeen-year-old sister's boyfriend, and neither of us approve too much of Brayden. "I'm headed out to see Aunt Donna. Wanna come?" She presents the offer to both Kenny and I.
"Thank you," Kenny says, "but I promised my mom I'd spend it with her friend Jackie." She looks to me. "I told Pennington I'd be there."
"Jackie Alexander?" Mom arches a brow at the news. "Suit yourself. Sounds like a waste of a perfectly good Christmas if you ask me." She makes a face. "Ta-ta for now." She waves, making her way down the driveway and groans when she sees what my Michelin's have reduced her marigolds to.
"I guess she doesn't care for the Alexanders," Kenny muses, tucking a lock of hair between her lips like a beautiful black rose.
I don't tell her that I don't think too much of them either - that I'm biologically one of them.
"I'll give you a ride if you want," I offer.
"Sounds like a plan." She glances up at the mistletoe hanging over the door and steps into me. "Butterfly or Eskimo?"
"Foreign import." I step in until I'm pressed against her. "I say we implement the French."
"Definitely French." She pants into the fog until it encircles us like a wreath.
I close my eyes and land myself over the soft pads of her lips. She swipes her tongue over mine and I lose it. Her clean scented perfume lures me in like opium. I dig my fingers into her lush hair before indulging in a series of kisses far more animal than either of us had bargained for.
Seismic. Kissing Kenny shifts the landscape of everything I ever thought I knew about the lingual art in general. Kenny blows every kiss I've ever known off the map and pins her star high over the geography with perfect mouth-watering splendor. I've had sex that was less erotic. This was the pinnacle of wanting, a nirvana of passion - sublime in every way.
Kenny brings the magic, the miracles - her kisses are better than wine and I can never get enough.