by Till Ackermann
(01/19/11)
"You're not?" She asked, surprised, and I laughed, embarrassed.
"No." I repeated. "I'm not." And then, by way of explanation, "It's not as common as you think."
She shrugged, and that was the end of it, I thought, the slight calm of the moment interrupted by our other friends at dinner, and we laughed off the conversation as if it were natural, part of the grand freshman year expanding-your-horizons experiment, nothing to write home about.
Until later, when I got the text, the simple question unadorned by pretense or ulterior motives: "Can I see?"
And being myself, and in the middle of that grand freshman year expanding-your-horizons experiment, I said of course, why not -- but for a price. Show and show alike.
She was at my door within fifteen minutes, breathless but embarrassed, sheepish and confident all at the same time. Cheeks flushed red, though maybe that was from cold. I didn't know women well enough to tell the difference, back then.
"You first." I said, because I did know her, and I knew collecting afterward would be impossible.
And with a heavy sigh she lifted her shirt, and I saw her lovely, plump breasts, bigger even than I had thought they would under her sweater, and I breathed deeply, readily, the object of her curiosity growing noticeably in my shorts.
"Now you," she said, still sheepish, still lost, still breathless, and even more so.
And then my shorts were down, and I was naked in front of her, the first time I had been naked for any girl other than my now-ex-girlfriend, and it thrilled me, from head to toe.
She gasped and looked closer, but kept a careful distance. She reached out a hand instinctively, then withdrew it, unsure what to do.
"What do you want to see?" I asked. But she shook her head.
"I don't know..." she said, and stared and stared, and I took myself in hand, to demonstrate, and she gave a little cry, shocked at how roughly I treated it, staring and yet embarrassed by her curiosity, but unable to look away.
She nodded finally, satisfied, composed herself, and went. And only then did I feel the pounding in my head, the incredible immediacy of the moment, the charge of the air all around me -- around us. And when I came, finally, at my own hand, it was with the full force of ten long minutes of anticipation unlike any I've known since.
I have wondered many times, in retrospect, if that moment was perfect because it ended unfulfilled, or if she came wanting more than just the view, and if I was foolish not to pursue her, then or in the weeks after. I don't know the answer -- only that, even in my memories, I grow breathless just thinking about standing there, bare in front of her, entertaining her half-innocent curiosities about my uncircumsized penis.
