“So far.” Nell tugged the top of the bodice of my dress up, and then zipped it for me as I stuffed my br**sts further down. “Has he touched your boobs? Bare, I mean?”
I blushed and shook my head, turning from side to side to see how the dress fit. It was tight, and short, and it pushed my already-in the-way br**sts up so far I was sure they’d spill out if I so much as breathed wrong. “No, he ha-hasn’t.”
Nell giggled, covering her mouth with her hand, then leaned closer to me. “I wonder what it feels like?”
I bumped my head against hers, laughing with her as I tried to imagine how it would feel. “I don’t nn-n-know. Pretty amazing, though, I’d think. He’s touched me over my bra, and I feel like I’m on fire when he does that. I can’t even imagine what it would be like b-bare.”
Nell was blushing as hard as me. “I dare you to let him.” She met my eyes, serious, but stifling laughter.
I shook my head. “No! I’m not gonna do that on a dare. It’s hard enough stopping as it is.”
The laughter died in her eyes then, and she nodded her understanding. “It is for us, too. We have to keep reminding ourselves that we have to stop, or we never will.” She met my eyes. “Do you think you’ll go all the way with him?”
I shrugged. “I can’t say I haven’t th-th-thought about it. I want to, but I’m scared, too.”
Nell nodded, and the conversation switched to other topics as we tried on more dresses. After six stores, we both ended up with the perfect dress. Mine was a deep maroon sleeveless dress, made of soft silk that split between my br**sts and came up over my shoulders as straps, but left my chest bare from navel to neck, with a gauzy material stretched between the split so my skin wasn’t completely bare. The hem ended right above my knees, and I had a pair of black heels to match a coat that I’d wear over it when outside. It was sexy and daring, but not so skanky that Father would freak out. I knew Jason would love it, and that was all that mattered.
Nell’s dress was much like mine, but in dark blue, a shade that accentuated her fair skin. Hers was a bit more revealing, lacking the semi-see-through material that mine had, and the hem was actually two full inches above the knee. I couldn’t imagine Father letting me wear something like that, and I didn’t dare try.
We attended Winter Formal in January as a group of four, with Nell borrowing her dad’s SUV so we could all ride together. Jason was breathtaking in a black suit, cut tight to his impressive muscles. He had a black shirt with a thin maroon tie the perfect shade to match my dress. His hair was freshly cut, spiked and carefully styled, his jaw shaved down a shadow.
After the dance was over, we all four, plus a dozen of our other friends, crashed a Ram’s Horn restaurant a few miles from the banquet center where the dance had been held. I couldn’t keep my eyes off Jason, even as we both mingled with our friends, our entire school having basically taken over the nonsmoking section. Every once in a while I’d feel his gaze on me, and I’d meet his eyes, startled as always by their vivid green hue. I’d gotten a one-time-only extension of my curfew to two in the morning, but when midnight came around most of the other kids had split off into couples.
Jason had left his truck at my house, so Nell dropped us off there, and we slid into the cold seats, shivering and chattering until the heater had the cab warm.
“So where should we go, sexy lady?” Jason asked me, pulling away from my house.
I shrugged. “The hill?” That had had turned into our code for let’s go make out.
He grinned at me in anticipation, and I felt heat begin to boil in my blood before we’d even gotten there. He made it in record time, even with the snow. He cut the lights, left the engine on, turned the radio down low, and then unbuckled his seatbelt, waiting for me.
I was nervous, for some reason. I shrugged out of my coat, and felt exposed as his eyes roamed my body. Then I undid the seatbelt and slid across the cloth seat until my thigh touched his. My dress had hiked up a bit as I slid over, and the hem was now midway up my thigh.
I felt Jason’s eyes on my thighs, and then his fingers touched my knee. So far, our touch exploration had been from the waist up, but now, with this dress leaving so much of my body bare, I realized all bets were off. It hadn’t seemed so revealing in the store, or even at the dance. It was actually a very conservative dress in comparison to some of the barely there things other girls wore. But yet, this close to Jason, knowing how hard it was getting to stop when we reached that line, I felt nearly naked.
“You’re shaking,” Jason whispered. “You cold?”
I shook my head. “No. Just…nervous.”
“Nervous? Why?”
I shrugged, not sure how to put it into words. I was silent for a long time, planning it out, and Jason just waited patiently, one hand on my knee, a finger tracing distracting circles at the exact place where knee began to seem more like thigh.
“I’m nervous about us,” I said. “I’m nervous about how kissing you seems to be so hard to stop.”
“We can go, if you want.”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t want to. I suggested we come here because I wanted to. I’m just…nervous about where it’s going.”
Jason nodded. “We’ll stop whenever you want.”
“What if…what if…sometimes I don’t w-want to stop? But other times I’m afraid of what w-w-will happen if we don’t?”
“I know what you mean. I don’t ever want to stop, to be honest. But I also don’t want to pressure you.”
I finally was able to meet his eyes. “Are you ever nervous about…going all the way?”
“I want it to be right. I want it to be perfect.” He took my hand but left his other on my leg. “I’m nervous about that, yeah. But we don’t have to talk about it now, right?”
I shrugged. “Maybe we should? We can’t keep…ignoring the subject.” I held his gaze and said the words I’d been scripting in my head. “I don’t want being with you like that to be an accident. I want it to be on purpose.”
He nodded. “Me, too. Are you ready for that?”
“Are you?”
“I asked you first.” He grinned.
I shrugged. “Yeah? But no. I don’t know how to explain it. I love kissing you. I love touching you and letting you touch me. I want more. But that…going all way is…it’s a big deal, isn’t it?”