Mixing and matching my fantasies and realities from various times of my life...

I have no idea what made me say it. Some cosmically retarded craziness took over my brain for two seconds and suddenly there I was, sharing the one thing I had been so determined to keep a secret for my entire life. Alyssa was sitting beside me on the couch on Halloween, the lights were out, and we were watching The Omen. Everyone else from our party had peeled off because they were tired, they wanted to have sex, or they had other parties to hit up before dawn. 2:00 a.m. left just me and Alyssa, half-talking, half-watching the third scary movie of the night. We were both just barely twenty-one, and I had finally been convinced to take advantage of my newly legal drinking age by indulging myself with a Budweiser. So there's the answer to my question, I guess; the alcohol and mostly my tiredness were bound to have an effect on me—it was after I tossed the Budweiser can behind my back that I casually made the following remark:

"Did you know that three years ago to the day, I really, really, really wanted to kiss you, sitting exactly where we are now?"

Alyssa, who was sober on account of being the designated driver, did not acknowledge what I'd said right away. God in heaven, she was beautiful. Sort of. This is hard to explain, but my attraction to Alyssa was a bit inexplicable. She's not the type of girl people stop to stare at in the street; her looks don't shout out "hey, I'm hot," and she rarely wears makeup. But there was something about her, her smarts, her voice, her laugh, that drew me so closely to her that for three years I'd been dying of want.

Three years ago, we were eighteen and we were at our friend Rob's house for a Halloween party. There was a contest going on in the neighborhood: a fifty-dollar certificate to the local music store to the house with the most jack-o-lanterns. Rob really wanted that prize, and for some reason we had all agreed to come on the thirty-first to help him carve some more pumpkins. Before that night I had met Alyssa only a few times, and to be honest I thought she seemed a bit stuck-up. She just hung out with her smart friends talking about things like Shakespeare and philosophy, and I got the general impression that she thought I was annoying. That night, though, was the first time we made real eye contact and it sort of changed my life.

I was pulling the gooey gunk out from a pumpkin when I realized the hole had been cut way too small. My hand got stuck in the pumpkin, and I could only laugh at myself and hold it up for Rob to see. Then I heard someone snickering near by and my eyes landed on Alyssa, who was stooped over slightly but looking up at me. My initial reaction was to take offense until I realized she was laughing with me, not at me. She was so serious most of the time that I was pretty sure it was the first time I'd ever seen her smile. It was wide and showed her slightly crooked teeth, with dimples that stretched her catlike grin from ear to ear. She tucked some dark brown hair behind her ear and held out her hand towards me.

"Hi, I'm Alyssa Richards," she said. "I think we've met a couple of times before now, but…"

"Yeah," I said weakly, totally freaked out by how my heart felt as if it was beating a million times a second. "I'm Erin." Instinctively I reached out my hand to shake hers, only to realize it was still stuck in the pumpkin. This was what Alyssa had been going for, and she laughed as she tried to help me pull the stupid vegetable off.

"Erin," she chuckled. "Nice to meet you."

Once that was all done, everyone settled down to watch some old horror flick. Alyssa had made a space for me next to her, which was probably unwise because I am easily scared and the movie creeped me out. Most of the time when I'm talked into watching a scary movie, I tend to grab whoever is sitting next to me or jump on their laps at the most frightening moments. Since I hardly knew Alyssa, though, I definitely wasn't comfortable with this—nor was I comfortable with the idea of what I wanted to do, instead. I wanted to jump on her lap and then stay there, and put my arms around her neck and kiss her…

What the fudge?

Anyway from then on I was tortuously, irrevocably hooked on her and I have almost no idea why. We went to separate colleges until she wound up transferring to mine for our junior year and I saw her much more often. I thought for sure I'd have gotten over her by now, but she still sent a very tangible, very real tremor through me every single time she caught my eye.

But it was only now, with a drink in me and some creepy-ass movie going on in the basement where we were alone, that I had suddenly decided to tell Alyssa all of this. She had a boyfriend, one she'd been seeing for two years. Despite knowing this and despite my obsessive need to remain closeted, I had just told her how much I'd wanted to kiss her once. What I didn't say was that I'd wanted to a lot more since then, and did now, but I don't think I had to bring it up.

There was a long silence after my random statement, then Alyssa finally turned to look at me. The room was dark, but light coming off the TV was cast onto her face, which was serious as usual. Even though it was her smile I'd fallen in love with, good Lord did she look sexy when her eyebrows were contracted like that and her lips were in that small frown of concentration. She had matured beautifully over three years; the lines of her face were darker and more pronounced, her hair was back to its natural blonde color, her commitment to the swimming team had given her the sexiest arms and shoulders that I saw so rarely… her dark brown eyes were boring into mine, but she stood up before I could launch my tipsy self at her. Probably just as well.

"I'm going to take Erin home, she's tired," she said, looking over me.

I glanced around and saw our old pal Rob standing behind me; I wondered how long he'd been there, but he didn't seem to have overheard anything I'd said. He merely nodded at Alyssa, yawned, and waved goodbye.

Alyssa silently grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me up off the couch, and we walked to her car. Or, truck, rather—she drove the rusty old white pick-up truck she'd had since she was sixteen. After helping me into the passenger's seat (I was kind of out of it), Alyssa got into the driver's seat and I was startled to a slightly more awakened state by the loudness with which she slammed her door. We were pulling out of the driveway; she put her hand behind the head of my seat and half-twisted around to look behind her. There was something strangely sexy to me about this pose that she held for as long as we were in the driveway, and then I noticed the bicep that was bulging a bit under the pressure she was exerting on the back of my seat.

"D'you know you really look hot right now?" I muttered.

She snorted a laugh but didn't take her eyes off the road. "Yeah…sure."

"I'm sorry, I'm gonna shut up now," I yawned.

A moment passed and I felt my eyes closing, but Alyssa said, "Erin. Don't fall asleep yet." Instantly I sat up a bit more in my seat, willing my eyes to stay open. I waited on pins and needles for her to say something else, but we drove for ten straight minutes without exchanging another word.

Fine. It would be up to me to break the ice. "So! How're things going with you and uh, that guy… that guy you're going out with?" Stupid ugly jerk.

"Darren?"

"Yeah."

"Dude, we broke up like five months ago."

"Whoa. What? When? What? Why?"

She chuckled at my drowsy interrogation, but the smile looked forced as finally she pulled the truck over. We were just outside a woodsy sort of area, pitch black in darkness, but a sea of stars spanned the sky above our heads. "Could you help me with some, uh, stuff in the back?" she asked. "I'd like to move it into the back seat, out of the, you know, the thing…"

I opened my door and got out, then went around and stepped up into the back of the truck. There were some random Halloween decorations she'd never put up in her apartment, and I handed these down to her. When I'd gotten the last box to her and she'd placed it behind the passenger seat of the car, she asked me if that was all. "Yeah, just a few blankets left, but do you want to keep them in here?"

"Yeah, I do," she murmured, and the next thing I knew she was clambering into the pick-up part of the truck next to me. We were shivering and it was freezing outside, yet Alyssa removed the small shrug she'd been wearing and I let out a small (visible, that's how cold it was) gasp at how sexy her body was. Without the shrug, her costume was shoulder-less and I had never before realized just how hot a collar bone could be. Or shoulders. Or guns. Or breasts, the top half of which were revealed to me. They were big… not too huge, but not small. I was overcome quite strongly with a desire to plant my face in them. But I looked right back up to her eyes when she spoke again:

"You want to know why Darren and I broke up? I couldn't do it anymore." Her voice cracked on the last word, and tears—two fat tears—rolled out of her eyes. It struck me then that I'd never seen her cry before, not ever. "I couldn't lie to him or myself anymore, Erin. You're not drunk, are you?"

"Uh…not really. I just had the one drink is all… why?"

Her lips were pursed together so tightly that I think only a crowbar might've been able to separate them. Or my tongue, that could also work. She opened her mouth on her own, though, speaking mostly through her teeth. "They say drunk words are sober thoughts and I guess I just wanted to know if you meant what you said. When you said you wanted to kiss me."

"I said I wanted to kiss you three years ago," I clarified.

Alyssa wasn't sad, she was afraid, I knew that's why she was crying, because I'd done the same thing. I'd been on my own when I finally confronted my own sexuality, holed up in my room and hugging myself and crying, sick of the lies. "Oh," she puffed out. "I guess I…um, I guess I…"

"No, no," I said in as clear a voice as I could. "I will kiss you right now. Alyssa Richards so help me God I will kiss you right n—"

She grabbed me. One hand was at the back my neck and the other on the small of my back and she yanked me towards her with enough force to have broken several small bones. Her lips were on mine and my body went numb from head to toe with shock before it felt as if I were on fire. Even if she hadn't been kissing me, even if she'd only been holding me with those beautifully muscular arms and latching on to me with those wonderfully strong hands I think I might have died; but the ferocity of her kiss was pure heaven, it had to be. The only words going through my head were take me, take me, and when she pulled away for just a second, I muttered them aloud.

"What?" she whispered.

"Nothing," I said back, my breathing as shallow and hard as if I'd just finished running five miles.

"Did I hurt you?" she asked worriedly, her lips still quivering from the crying she wasn't finished with.

My response was, "Yeah, like hell, but don't stop," and I pulled her back to me.

Though she was still trembling and I could still taste her salty tears sliding occasionally into my mouth, I was able to tell that Alyssa was finally smiling. This caused me to smile as well, and she let out a small, nervous laugh. Naturally her mouth had to open ever so slightly to be able to do this, and just as naturally I slid my tongue into it. For a moment she froze in my arms, but then she fell slowly into me, and I knew I had her. Her tongue circled mine as I rolled her onto her back; I pulled up a bit just to see if she would try to follow me, and she did—she pushed herself up onto her elbows, craning her neck to keep her lips on mine and I was so overwhelmed with complete and utter joy that I couldn't concentrate on what I was doing anymore.

In the brief moment I had taken to collect myself and think about how crazy it was that this fantasy I'd been carrying in my head for three years was coming true, Alyssa sat up. "Have you done this before?" she asked in a shy little girl's voice, wrapping her arms around her knees.

"Uh…done what?"

She scowled at me. "You know…with a girl."

My heart rate had just been getting back to normal, but she spiked it right back up again with this remark. Immediately I dove into over-analyzing mode, intrigued by the fact that she hadn't said "kissed" or "made out with" or "been with." She'd omitted any sort of specific verb, leaving me with the presumption that she was asking if I'd ever had sex with a girl before …and that we might tonight…

"I've never slept with a girl," I said hesitantly. "But I did make out with one once at a party. My friend and I lost a bet with some guys on our floor and we had to make out for them. Fully clothed, standing up… but I couldn't stop, and I pushed her down onto the couch and felt her up, but then she stopped it." With a short sigh I ran a hand through my hair. "That's when it sort of came together for me, that being with a guy just wasn't going to cut it anymore."

"I slept with Darren," Alyssa said, kind of surprising me (I wasn't surprised that she'd slept with him, just surprised that she'd come out and say it to me like that). "But… only a few times. I kept thinking it would feel more natural, that I would start liking it as much as I was supposed to. But we didn't do it very much because I was really, really terrible at faking it."

For a few moments I surveyed her, watching as she began to shiver again and avert her gaze from me. "He must have really liked you," I said.

She shrugged. "Guess so."

"Did you tell him why you broke up?"

"I didn't have to. We both just knew we were better off as friends, not… you know, something more. But I didn't tell him I was like… you know."

All I could do was nod. A strange air of solemnity had come down on us, and I wanted very much for it to go away. I wanted her to laugh again and I wanted to kiss her again, but neither seemed very appropriate at the moment. After a few moments had passed, I just reached out and put my hand on her arm. She jumped- "What's that?" Still in the Halloween mindset.

"It's my hand, Alyssa. Give me yours."

Her shoulders fell slightly and she took my hand, bringing it to her face. For a minute or two she held it to her cheek and I held my breath. Finally that small smile came back to her.

"So three years ago on Halloween, huh?"

I scooted closer to her with a small laugh. "Yeah, girl, you turned my head. I just remember feeling so overwhelmed with how smart you were, and how cute your smile was. You didn't smile enough."

Alyssa took my hand away from her face and held it more tightly in her own. "Oh, I remember. I remember that night, Erin. You were wearing a big blue sweater with a picture of Snoopy on it because we had The Great Pumpkin going on in the background. And you were barefoot, but I have no idea why. Your hand got stuck in this teeny tiny pumpkin and for some reason I thought that was just really funny." She let out an embarrassed laugh. "I thought you were funny, and it was a side of you I hadn't ever really known before. I thought you were cute."

This perked me up a bit. "Cute?"

"Yeah, but not like I liked you or anything. I was too in denial to ever even let myself think something like that."

"Oh. I'm pretty sure I fell for you right then, that night."

Normally I was never this open, and were it not for the drowsiness overtaking my senses I'd have been much more embarrassed about having just admitted that. There was also the strange comfort I felt in having Alyssa hold my hand in the back of that car, like she didn't want me to feel weird anymore. But then she let go of my hand, and for a brief moment I was terrified I might've said something wrong, but then she touched my forehead. Her fingers grazed my hairline, pushing away the bangs I was trying to grow back. She weaved her fingers through my hair and I shuddered involuntarily. With her other hand she stroked my cheek, my jaw line, my neck, and pulled me into a kiss. We moved at a more relaxed pace; she was tasting me, testing me out. I put my arms around her and gently lay her down onto her back again.

Neither of us had really done this before, but I felt as if my hands were moving of their own accord and I didn't have to stop to think about anything. I kissed Alyssa's perfect collar bone and moved slowly up her neck, eliciting faint moaning sounds as I did so. I cannot exaggerate how turned on I was by the sounds she was making; they had heightened in pitch as I moved upwards, balancing out into a satisfied moan as I gently teased her hair out of its ponytail. She eased my jacket off of me and instantly slid her hands underneath my tank top, feeling my back.

She broke off with a small gasp. "You're not—you're not wearing a—a thing!"

"A condom?" I joked, highly amused that she had forgotten the word "bra."

For a moment she gave me one of her patented confused looks, but then her face split into that adorable smile I had fallen so hard for. I shifted myself slightly and wound up with one leg between hers, my knee brushing between her thighs for a moment. "Ooh," she inhaled. "Do that again." I did, and she dug her nails into my bare skin—slight pain had never made me feel more alive or more enthralled. If touching her there with just my knee was enough to get her to do that…

But before I could attempt to do anything more, Alyssa had suddenly rolled over on top of me, looking down at me with a devilish grin. She had to know, she must have known how much I was aching for her, how much I was quite literally throbbing for her. I'd had other crushes, sure, but I felt right then as if I would never love anything so much as I loved the feeling of Alyssa on top of me. Her hands had started pushing my tank up, but this was where I rolled us over again and put myself back on top of her. I was deathly afraid, not so much of the sex, but of being insufficient. My body was insufficient, I was not anywhere near as fit or sexy as she was and I didn't want to her to be disappointed.

I knew she wouldn't disappoint me, there was just no way. She was a Greek goddess. Her back arched as I felt my way up her shirt, stroking her tense abs that were so insanely smooth and muscled. I reached her strapless bra, and my breath caught in my throat again at the thought of feeling her breasts. Alyssa whispered encouragement to me, swearing at me, telling me to keep going, and she felt so good and so right in my arms...We had entered that sweet intimate world where minds don't fully function, where language is made up of nothing but moans and whimpers and half-completed whispered words. The magic of this moment was broken slightly when Alyssa reached up to go underneath my shirt, and I sat up sharply.

"What is it?" she asked breathlessly. Geez, when did something like breathing become so sexy?

But yeah! What is it?! Why am I stopping?! "I just, I don't...think...we should go much further right now. It'd be too much for you."

"Why don't you let me be the judge of that?"

"Well, and for me."

She considered this for a moment, and I could see her breathing becoming less shallow. I lay myself gently down next to her, resting my arm over her stomach to feel it rise and fall. Alyssa stared up at the stars, her face once again the perfect image of deep concentration. I'd have given anything to know what was going through her mind.

"Alyssa," I said. "I don't know if anything like this will ever happen between us again, but I feel like I really have to tell you how much I… I…"

"Don't say it," she interrupted me, sitting up suddenly. In a softer voice, she continued: "Erin you have no idea how wonderful it is to…to feel loved, to hear that someone loves you. And, I mean, to reciprocate it. Darren told me he loved me, but it was never a comfort to me because I knew I didn't feel the same way about him."

"But Alyssa, I think I love you," I heard myself saying in a hoarse voice.

Here was a facial expression that I was entirely unfamiliar with: it was a mix of surprise, disbelief, a frown, and a smile. Why. Was she. So. Hot. "You mean that?" she asked.

How could I convince her? "Yes, I do. I mean it, ever since that stupid Halloween party three years ago, I've just wanted to… I've wanted you."

"Okay, so now you've had me." (sort of.) "Now what?"

Her voice was skeptical, and it broke my heart. "What do you mean, now what? I want to… I was, I mean, that was amazing. You're incredible, Alyssa. I want to get to know you better."

"Physically."

I bit my lip. "Sure. But as a person, too. I want to know you. I've always wanted to. And please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you feel the same way." She remained silent, staring at me, another frustratingly unreadable look on her lovely face. Pressing my luck with another joke, I whisper-yelled in my best Sally Brown impression, "You owe me restitution!"

This brought the slowest smile yet to her face… a closed-mouth smile that only showed her teeth when I had put my arm around her and we sat side by side to watch the sun come up on November.