by Hayleigh Sol
As I got ready for bed and zipped the tent closed behind me, I wondered if he was crawling into a sleeping bag in a tent like the ones his parents had back in the day. That blue, two–person, dome–shaped tent Luka had slept in the last time we’d seen each other. All these years later, I still remembered my heart pounding to the sound of that zipper as it closed behind us, the cracks and pops from the Fourth of July fireworks fading into the background.
Bass Lake – 2006
To say I’d been thinking about losing my virginity every waking hour for the last year would’ve been an exaggeration. But not by much.
I was seventeen and four of my five best friends had already done the deed—in varying degrees of awkwardness and enjoyment. Holly had been the first of us, as she was in most things. She’d met some college dude at a concert and dated him for a minute. In her opinion, he’d been the perfect person with whom to cross the bridge into womanhood since neither one of them was about to fall in love with the other. Emma had been next, carrying on a brief but hot affair with a guy she’d met at some tennis camp. Their relationship had ended as amicably as Emma handled everything in life. Bailey and her boyfriend had planned the big event for their one–year anniversary, which also happened to be the night of Homecoming. Holly and I had teased her endlessly about Nick’s “coming home”. They’d been together off and on all year—as of last week, they were back together—and always seemed to be looking for opportunities to get it on when their families weren’t around. Even Lisette, whose nose was constantly in a book, had given it up to some guy she met at an academic decathlon competition. He went to a different school, so their romance fizzled out soon after what Lisette described as their “uninspired mutual deflowering”. Because, “why should the term ‘deflowering’ only apply to women?”
With Simone two years younger than most of us, I was the last of our group about to enter Senior year a virgin. Since I didn’t want to start college this way—I agreed with Holls on that point—I figured I had just over a year to find my own lucky dude. The problem was scarcity.
None of my guy friends from school were anything more than friends; the thought of one of them sticking his schlong inside my hoohah gave me the heebie–jeebies. The girls kept saying it would happen for me when the time was right but I was starting to feel like the unwanted heel in a loaf of bread. Sorta…there, but ignored in favor of the many, more appealing, slices.
On day three of my two–week vacation to Bass Lake with Gram and Pop, we’d ridden the boat across the lake to Willow Cove. The adults were arguing, as usual, so I grabbed my Regency romance novel—a genre I’d discovered on Gram’s bookshelves—and hopped on my air mattress, content to float away from the crowded beaches. A group of what I guessed to be twenty–somethings pulled their own boat into the cove, music blasting for all to hear. I floated for a few hours and the album must’ve been on repeat because I found myself singing some of the lyrics to a song I’d never heard before but was totally loving. By the time we headed back to the campground that afternoon, the song was stuck in my head but I still didn’t know who the artist was.
That evening, Gram and I were playing gin rummy at the picnic table when the music from this afternoon rang through the campground before it was turned down to a more neighborly volume. To me, it was exactly the kind of stuff cool college kids would listen to. I was itching to catch a glimpse of the group who’d laughed loudly and tossed beers to each other earlier in the day. When Gram got up to make dinner in the tiny kitchen of the trailer, I took myself on a walkabout.
I was nearing the source of my new favorite song—also the source of food that smelled heavenly—when a woman’s voice rose above the music. “Lukasz, Jakub…be careful!”
“Boys, why don’t you throw that football a little farther from the food,” a man’s voice added.
Tall and athletic, the two “boys” laughed and shoved each other as they barrelled out to the road I was on. The one with lighter brown hair turned my way as he tossed a well–worn football in the air and caught it. His grin stopped me in my tracks.
Paired with the name I’d heard his mother shout, I instantly recognized my old childhood friend in the supercute boy in front of me. But he hadn’t seemed to share my realization. He was already facing his brother again, throwing spirals and trading insults. I walked past him, then Jakub, far too shy to walk up and ask if Luka remembered a ten–year–old girl he’d once ridden bikes with and, on the last night of vacation, given a perfect first kiss.
“Heads up!”
“Look out!”
I turned in time to throw my hands up against the football flying at my head, somehow managing to catch it in the diamond of my hands. Two sets of feet jogged toward me.
“Holy shit, I’m so sorry about that!” Luka, the boy I was trying to pretend I didn’t know, reached me just as his brother praised my hands.
“Nice catch! And you didn’t even know it was coming.”
Still holding the ball, I closed my mouth and finally met Luka’s concerned expression. I laughed nervously. “To be honest, I’m shocked I caught it myself.” I reached to hand the ball to Jakub, when Luka peered more closely at my face.
“Hey, wait…is your name…Maya, is that you?”
I’m sure I blushed or tucked my hair behind my ear—something super shy and uncool. “Hi, Luka.”
“Oh my God, I can’t believe it’s you!” His grin was blinding, just as when we’d been kids riding bikes around the campground. “Jakub, you remember Maya”—his brother blinked at me—“the girl I ran off her bike and then we all ended up hanging out with the rest of that vacation? We were like, what, nine?”
Jakub was starting to nod, both of them staring at me now. “Ten, I was ten.”
And then, Luka surprised me even more than the shock of running into him here. He opened his arms and pulled me in for a hug, just as he would a close friend. It was probably only his soap or deodorant, but he smelled fantastic. Like Sexy Man, not the slightly dirty, sweaty pre–teen I’d known before.
“I can’t believe you’re here at the same time we are.” He looked over my shoulder. “Are you here with your grandparents again?”
After confirming that I was and pointing to our campsite when he asked, I didn’t really know what to say or do. He was even cuter than when we were kids—he’d definitely filled out in all the right ways—and it made me stupidly nervous. His brother started tossing the ball restlessly, clearly ready for our reunion to be over.
“Hey, my mom’s making dinner. You wanna stay and eat with us?” He must’ve sensed my hesitation. “It’s no big deal. Our other brother brought his girlfriend and a couple of roommates, so Mama had to make a ton of extra food anyway.”
How cute was the way he said “Mama” with a Polish accent! I wondered if he was still fluent.
“Oh, uh, I already ate. But thanks.”
Catching what looked like disappointment flicker across his features almost made me giddy.
“Okay, well”—I watched the wheels turn as he considered, brow adorably furrowed and the hands resting on his hips making his biceps strain against his white t–shirt—“why don’t I come by your spot after dinner and we can go for a walk or, I don’t know, sit around the campfire or something.”
He did come by that night and we walked, then talked in front of the campfire long after Gram and Pop had gone to bed. Over the next few days, we went on more walks, a long, mosquito–infested hike with his brothers, boat rides with his family, and played card games with mine. It was like when we were little all over again. Except, this time, there was decidedly more flirtation. Long looks and playful touches that lingered the more time we spent together.
Somehow, we managed to ditch our respective groups for a hike to Angel Falls and picnic along the creek that
fed the cascades—Luka’s idea—one hot and muggy afternoon. By the time we found the perfect spot away from passersby—my idea—we were both sweaty and immediately stripped down to our swimsuits. I’d noticed Luka checking me out the past week when he thought I wasn’t looking and it actually made me less nervous around his own tanned and toned physique. He reached for my hand as we walked toward a natural pool and my heart fluttered.
Bracingly cold water felt fantastic on my sticky, overheated skin once I was fully submerged to my neck. It was a deep enough pool that my feet couldn’t touch bottom, but Luka’s did. When he saw me treading water, he pulled me in for a hug and held me afloat. It was the first time so much of my body was touching so much of a boy’s. My mind raced with every naughty possibility, thousands of as–yet undefined wants and needs begging for something to just happen already, dammit!
Our faces were inches apart, breaths quickening, hearts thumping. He leaned in, his focus darting between my mouth and my eyes. I swallowed and subconsciously licked my lips.
I didn’t exactly remember our first kiss when we were ten but I’d lay odds that this one beat the pants off of it.
Luka’s lips were soft, coaxing mine apart as he slid his tongue in my mouth. He obviously knew what he was doing from past experience—or was naturally gifted in the kissing department. The few lip locks I’d had since his first peck years before had been too sloppy, too aggressive, or too bad breath–y. Luka’s was juuust riiight.
My entire body tingled, and not only from the cold water. His hands on the bare skin of my waist and back as they explored my shape felt amazing. Strong and seeking without being forceful or boorish. I let my own hands wander his chest and shoulders, down his back to grab his ass. He copied the move, which snugged our bodies up tighter. It was another first for me, my first time feeling a guy’s erection; the thin material of his board shorts did nothing to hide his size and shape.
Knowing I’d done that to him turned me on even more and our kisses grew hungrier. His hands roamed from my butt to my back, taunting me as they skimmed over the ties of my bikini top. Would he tug on the strings, make a move to grope my chest? Did I want him to?
He didn’t untie anything but his hands did slide up my sides several times, thumbs dangerously close to my breasts. I couldn’t decide if I was more nervous about him dipping those digits under my top or more frustrated that he hadn’t yet. My own thumbs had found a home just under the waistband of his shorts, restlessly gliding back and forth over those sexy–as–hell troughs on either side of his six–pack. I’d discovered the motion made him press closer to me. He even moaned a couple of times.
At one point, one of us wrapped my legs around him, which only intensified…everything. I was very aware of the minimal scraps of fabric that separated his boat from my dock.
I was also aware of how amazing—but unfulfilling—this all felt.
When we finally came up for air, Luka’s lips tilted in a drunken version of his usual grin and he kissed my cheek, still holding me in his arms.
“God, Maya. I have been wanting to do that all week.” He laughed slightly, the sound husky and deep. “Longer than that, if I’m being honest.”
At my look of confusion, he shrugged, sweetly shy for someone whose boner was still firmly pressed against my lady cave. “A guy’s first kiss makes an impression. I’ve thought about you a few times over the years.”
Squeee! He’s thought about me?! Be chill, Maya.
“Same for me.” I have no idea where my inner vixen came from, but I felt the flirtatious upturn of my own mouth. “Maybe we should do that some more.”
He agreed. With great enthusiasm.
Following our creekside picnic and makeout session, Luka and I found every opportunity we could to be alone. It wasn’t easy; our families were vigilant and quickly caught on that the seventeen–year olds in their midst were holding hands and sitting mighty close to one another near the campfire. One daringly exciting evening, we’d shared a blanket and my hand had wandered, undercover, into Luka’s lap. I’d relished his shallow breaths until he’d abruptly halted my movements with his own fingers wrapped around my wrist.
Worried I’d done something wrong in my inexperience, I’d started to pull away but he leaned to whisper in my ear. “If I don’t stop now, I won’t be able to hide the evidence of what you do to me.”
I was insanely proud.
Swapping spit wasn’t the only thing we did, of course. With his family’s boat, we went waterskiing, Luka showing off with different tricks and laughing at himself when he crashed. The only other time I’d attempted skiing had been with this same family seven years before. It hadn’t gone well that time—I’d never actually gotten my ass out of the water and stood up—but I gave it another shot now, refusing to quit until I’d conquered the basics. By the end of the afternoon, I was pretty good.
Personally, I’d never understood girls who pretended they couldn't do something or were less intelligent than they actually were. If a boy was stupid enough to believe he was automatically better than me at everything, simply by virtue of his Y–chromosome…well, I had no time for a dummy like that. Luckily, Lukasz was a better man at seventeen than ninety percent of the boys I knew from school.
There were more hikes, lazy days on beaches, jumping from the rope swing in Willow Cove, and even riding bikes like when we were kids. In that weird way summer vacation always seems to stretch on forever while simultaneously racing by, my time with him was both endless and ephemeral. Our romance had an expiration date but, by tacit agreement, we didn’t bring it up.
“Lukasz?”
“Yes, Maya?”
“I really like kissing you.” My head was on his abdomen as I looked through the branches of a tree at the puffy clouds above us, our towels lying perpendicular to each other. We’d just rejoined his family on the beach after taking a stroll with ulterior makeout motives. We were highly motivated.
Luka chuckled and squeezed my arm. “I really like kissing you, too.”
“You seem quite skilled at it. Makes me think you have some experience with the ladies up in Napa.” I turned my head from where it was resting on his stomach to catch him laughing again.
“Nope, I’ve been saving myself for you.”
I smacked him playfully on the chest and rolled my eyes but, secretly, I loved it when he said things like that.
“Luka?”
“Yes, Maya?”
Unsure I really wanted to know the answer to a question I’d been pondering the past week, I faced the blue sky again and swallowed. “Have you had sex yet?”
Good job, you didn’t ask if he’d “done it” yet like a timid little girl.
The hand that had been lazily stroking my arm stopped. “Uhhh, no, I haven’t.” His answer was quiet, almost as if he were embarrassed. “Have you?”
Okay, now I understood his diffidence. “Um, no. Not yet.”
We were quiet for several moments that felt like hours. I surprised myself by being the one to break the silence. “I want to, though.”
I felt him take a big breath, his torso moving my head up and down as he exhaled. “Me, too.”
Suddenly, I hated the idea of him losing his virginity to another girl. For that matter, I couldn’t imagine giving mine to another guy. Not with all the making out and hand–holding we’d been doing, the time we’d spent together, how close to him I felt. It was as if he were my boyfriend, though neither of us had said those words.
As we lay there, a seed of an idea had been planted.
No semen pun intended.
Back at the campground that evening, Luka’s older brothers and their friends had headed to The Pines for dinner, which everyone knew was code for “drinking alcoholic beverages”. As had become our habit, Luka and I went for a walk after our own meals and ended up kissing behind the restrooms. Not the most romantic ambiance, but we t
ook whatever privacy we could find.
A week and a half of making out, often in skin–baring swimsuits, had made us bolder. We were touching each other, under shorts, over underwear, but we both kept inching our fingertips toward the edges of that final barrier.
“Lukasz,” I managed between scorching–hot kisses.
“Mmhmm, yeah, we should stop soon. Right?” The rasp in his voice made it obvious he wanted to stop about as much as I did. His forehead rested against mine as he breathed, his hand resting innocently on my hip outside my shorts again.
I kept my own hand on his flat stomach, his happy trail my new favorite path to meander. “I’ve been thinking…” Oh God, was I nervous. “What if we were each other’s firsts?” I swear, he stopped breathing. His head lifted, an intense, searching look in his eyes. “More than first kiss, I mean.”
Brilliant. I’m sure he hadn’t deduced your meaning without that clarification.
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.” He watched me, making sure I had no doubts. There were none. “I want it to be you.”
I saw him swallow hard. “I’d like it to be you, too.”
So we made plans.
Luka managed to get a couple of condoms—not because either of us planned on more than one round, but in case the first broke. I was impressed with his foresight on that one. We discussed and rejected different scenarios that would get us away from our families longer than our standard makeout sessions and, more importantly, somewhere more private than the back of the building that housed the restrooms. A horizontal surface was a requirement as well. I’d read about sex against a wall or door in several romance novels, but I wasn’t brave enough to try it for my first time.
With only a few days left of the vacation, we never seemed to find our opportunity. I was getting desperate, worried it wasn’t going to happen now that I’d chosen the one. Luka was probably every bit as frustrated—I wondered what blue balls felt like to a dude—but, to his credit, he never let it show. Instead, he kept hanging out with me, holding my hand, kissing me like we weren’t both dying for more.
