The remainder of that year was pretty dismal and so was summer vacation. My grades continued high but my spirits were extremely low. It was hard to work up any enthusiasm for the job I had taken on as an R.A., even though the poly sci prof I was doing research for seemed very pleased with my efforts. He assured me that if I chose to pursue graduate work at the university, he would give me a strong recommendation for a T.A. position. That was nice to hear, but I really had no idea what I was going to do after graduation the following May. Especially with a degree in history.
 

Then, the first week in August 1965 -- the first Saturday: that's important -- I was in the Barker Texas History Center digging through some archival materials (one of the privileges of being an R.A.), when I heard the muffled thud of books toppling off a loaded book truck a few aisles over. This was followed by a subdued female voice indulging in some unladylike language. I went around the end stack to see what had happened and found a young woman kneeling on the dusty floor, gathering up an armload of bound journals; it looked like she had turned the corner too quickly and the truck had overbalanced.

From above and behind, all I saw was very dark brown hair, almost black, above rather wide shoulders, and the back of a denim skirt and western-style shirt. She was muttering under her breath.

"Can I help you with this?" I asked.

She turned and looked up, a bit startled. Her eyes were large and soft brown and her lips were sensual. She had the kind of creamy complexion that appears in magazine cosmetics ads. Pretty but not gorgeous, no extra weight but not slender, either. Somehow very competent-seeming, despite her present chore. I didn't wait for an answer but hunkered down beside her and started gathering up the rest of the volumes and putting them rapidly in order.

She laughed and said "You've done this before." Her voice was melodious but sort of no-nonsense.

"I've been working in libraries, off and on, since junior high." I smiled back at her. "You wouldn't believe how many book trucks I've crashed." We both stood up and dusted off our hands. "Your knees," I said with a nod.

"What?" She looked down at the two gray patches on the front of her skirt. "Oh, rats. I gotta get an apron if they keep me up here. I've been clerking part-time in Technical Services over in the main library. They lent me out as a page for the last part of the summer and I'm still getting the hang of it."

"Well, I'm around here a lot. Feel free to ask an old library hand." I don't why, but I hesitated. "I'm Mike, by the way."

"Jean," she said and flashed me a smile so brilliant, I blinked. Then I went back to my carrel and she went back to her shelving.

The Barker closed early on weekends in the summer and when they chased me out at 5:00 that afternoon I ran into Jean again on the outside steps. We both said "Hi" . . . and then one of those rare events occurred that make you seriously consider the existence of fate, or predestination, or guardian angels. Without thinking about what I was doing, I said, "Can I give you a lift?"

She smiled but said, "No, that's okay. I'm just over in Jester."

"Doesn't sound very exciting in the summer . . ."

"No, but it's *quiet*. Lots of vacant room and no waiting for a washer."

Jester Center is the largest single dormitory in the country; nowadays, it has its own ZIP code and includes *two* voting precincts. It's also overcrowded most of the time.

She sighed a bit theatrically and added "I just have to round up some friends to go out for a hamburger."

Yes -- I'd forgotten. The dorm cafeterias didn't operate on weekends in the summer, either. If you weren't headed home to Mom's cooking, or out on a date, you had to find your own meals. We walked another few yards toward the parking lot; Jester stood two blocks beyond. I made up my mind very fast.

"Listen, . . . I usually only eat one meal on Saturday, and I was planning on going over to the Colorado Cafe for a chicken-fried steak. Would you like to join me?"

An air of caution descended. "I, uh-- I'm afraid I don't go on dates on the spur of the moment, with guys I've just met." She seemed tempted, though.

"Well, we can do it Dutch, if you'd rather. Then it wouldn't be a date. And I don't like eating alone." That was a bare-faced lie. Give me a plate of food and a book and I didn't care if I was in the middle of the Gobi. I could sense the struggle in her mind.

"Uh, well, . . . Sure, okay -- but I pay my own way!"

"Fine. You can buy *me* supper if you want." And I grinned like an idiot and she grinned back. It was only the second or third time in my life that I had even tried to pick up a girl.

I unlocked the passenger side of my little faded-red VW and did some more fast thinking as I went around to the driver's side. As I climbed in, I said, "Would you mind if we stopped at my place?" Her eyebrows rose a fraction. "I mean, just for a moment," I added hastily. "If you wouldn't mind waiting." I indicated the three shoeboxes of note cards in the back seat. "It's more than my life's worth if I lost all the citation cards to Dr. Gardner's book! I don't want to leave them in the car." She nodded and seemed appeased. I was relieved she hadn't thought I was trying to lure her up to see my etchings. And then I wondered why it seemed to matter so much.

I parked at the curb outside our building, hopped out, and pushed the seat forward so I could grab the card boxes. "Be right back," I said and hurried inside. I dumped the boxes on my bed and hollered "Gary? Ed?"

Gary's voice came from the kitchen. "Yeah?" I skidded around the corner and he stopped trying to unstick the ice tray in the freezer compartment and sort of stared at me.

"Man, am I glad you're here! Have you got $10 you can spare until I can write a check on Monday?" That was the real reason I had to run by the apartment: I had only a dollar and change in my pocket.

"Well, yeah . . ." He started digging his wallet out of his pocket. "What happened? Your car break down?"

"No! I got a date! Unexpectedly! No money!" That bounced his eyebrows *way* up. He extracted his last two fives and stuck them in my shirt pocket with a broad smile.

"As long as it's in a good cause. . . ." And I was out the door again.
 

It was the most pleasant meal I'd had in months. Neither of us had to be back anywhere in a hurry so we took our time, enjoyed the food, nursed our iced tea, and got acquainted. I learned that Jean was also a senior, that she came from Sherman (which explained why she preferred to stay in Austin for the summer), that she was a biochem major with medical ambitions, and that she was the oldest of three kids.

She also made it known, subtly, that she wasn't seeing anyone in particular. In fact, she turned out to be something of a loner who didn't date much at all. That part sounded familiar.

Over the previous three years, I had learned how to be a good listener; for one thing, it kept me from having to explain myself. But Jean was -- or seemed -- genuinely interested in whatever I had to say. After a while, I was startled to find myself pouring all my personal problems with girls into her sympathetic ear. At that realization I stopped and apologized, but she waved that away and asked a couple of perceptive and leading questions and got me started again. Jean would have made a good shrink.

When it was finally time to leave, I asked if she would *please* let me pick up the check. She gave in gracefully. It seemed she had decided we were on a date after all.

Taking Jean back to the dorm, I drove more slowly than usual because I enjoyed her company (and her sympathy) enormously and I was reluctant for the evening to end. But we got there and I parked and walked her into the lobby. I was torn between wanting to kiss her goodnight (would she expect me to?) and wanting to avoid the stupidities for which, in my own mind, I was infamous. But there was no problem after all. Jean climbed the first step of the stairs, which put us on about the same level, and laid one hand on my shoulder. And we flowed into a graceful, warm, quiet kiss as easily as breathing. It was friendly, in a way, rather than passionate; undemanding rather than urgent. It made me feel so good about myself, about us, I actually had to tell her so.

"That was nice," I said softly, touching my forehead to hers.

"Yes," she whispered. "It was. And it's been a wonderful evening. Mike, I'd like to see you again, soon. I hope you'll call me."

"I'll call, I promise." There was an itch behind my eyeballs . . . my imprisoned emotions trying to escape. I stood at the foot of the stairs and watched until Jean reached the switchback landing, where she paused and gave me a little wave. My friends tell me I think about things too much. It's probably true. All the old cautions echoed in my mind on the short drive home. My feelings for Mary had centered on romantic passions -- the "fire that burns twice as hot." It was still painful to think about Mary and I tried to avoid that corner of my memories.

With Rose, it had been mostly bad timing. I regretted acting like an immature fool with her, but she was a nice person and there was no guilt attached, . . . or not much.

Jean was completely unlike the other two women in my life. She was calm and unflappable, not a blazing sex bomb. She inspired emotional intimacy and trust, not immediate Romeo-and-Juliet passion. I had no idea whether the seed we seemed to have planted would germinate, but I discovered I really wanted to explore the possibilities. From past experience alone, that realization should have set off alarm bells of anxiety, but I felt only a relaxed optimism. Good, very good.
 

So I took Jean to the movies, and out to Lake Travis, and to Fredericksburg for Texas German food. We held hands when we walked and as the summer wound down we kissed more frequently and spontaneously. There was no sense of pressure in any of it, no promises or declarations or demands. I never felt the need to impress her. It was as if each of us was the missing piece in the other's jigsaw puzzle.

I knew I was gradually falling in love and I welcomed it with an open heart. That also surprised me. Nevertheless, I was reluctant to say anything overt to Jean because I didn't want to tempt fate again.

Labor Day came and went and Jean and I saw a little less of each other as classwork piled up. She was wading through advanced cytology and I was sorting out the Peace Party Convention of 1864. Probably a good thing because it slowed the pace of what was becoming a courtship and it gave us more time to find out about each other.

The remarkable thing was how little sexual contact we actually had. We necked like teenagers in high school, dueling with our tongues, stroking cheeks, breathing warmly into an available ear. A few times, I gently squeezed her breast during a lengthy kiss or ran my hand over her flared hips and across her firm bottom, but it was always a caress, not foreplay. So we moved slowly, but we kept moving.

By the end of October, my inner thoughts about Jean had shifted from "if we . . ." to "when we . . ." and I knew it was time to find out how she really felt about me before I got in any deeper. Naturally, she beat me to it.
 

It was the first Friday of December and thousands of fall term papers had just been turned in. Jean and I had agreed, regretfully, that school work took priority -- especially this late in the game. For two weeks, we had seen each other only briefly each day, and then it was off to the library or back home to a hot typewriter. It seemed like a very long time just then. First-term finals would be coming up shortly, but we were both doing well and we had set this weekend aside for ourselves.

It was a little unsettling to discover just how much I *had* missed her, so I invited her over for a big, homemade Saturday morning breakfast, complete with biscuits and gravy. She turned up about 10:00.

She inhaled deeply as she came in and dropped her purse on the couch. (Breakfast is one of the things I do best.) "Mmmmmmm . . . One of the few things I miss about living at home!" she said and smacked her lips. We kept busy for an hour with eggs and sausage patties and hash browns and real biscuits and buckets of cream gravy.

"If you're going to feed me like this all the time, I'd better start letting out my seams!" she said as I refilled her coffee cup.

We stacked all the dishes and skillets in the sink for later and moved into the living room. "I just realized I haven't heard a peep from your roommates," Jean said. "Still asleep?"

"No, Gary-and-Sherry drove up to Fort Worth yesterday after classes, and Ed is off in the Hill Country somewhere for the weekend." Which, of course, was why I had suggested she come over.

Jean caught me off guard, though. "There's something I want to ask your advice about, Mike. Uh, we're friends, aren't we?"

Friends? Yeah, at least. She sat in the more reputable of our two armchairs so I sprawled on the couch. "Of course we are. What's the problem?"

"Well, . . ." She was studying her nails and glancing at me out of the corner of her eye. "I've met this guy who I like a lot . . ."

Oh, God. Now what? The breakfast began to congeal in my gut. "He's very nice," she went on, not meeting my eye at all, now. "In fact, . . . I think I'm in love with him." I felt cold. "But he hasn't said how he feels about me. How do you think I should approach him?"

My stomach was filled with hardening clay but I looked down at my own hands and said, "Just ask him, I guess." Why did this keep happening to me? I was desperately in love with this girl, a fact that was only now sinking in. I was so shocked by the abruptness of events, I didn't realize for a moment that Jean had gotten up and moved to the arm of the couch. Then I felt her warm hand curl around the back of my neck.

"Michael," she asked softly, "do you love me? Or what?"

I looked up at her with my mouth open. Then I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her onto my lap. I hugged her so tightly she wheezed and I buried my face in her neck.

"Sweetheart, I could *kill* you for doing that to me, . . . if I didn't love you so much!"

I hung onto her and she clung to me and neither of us moved very much for several minutes. Then I loosened my hold just enough to be able to kiss her, and it was a demanding, aggressive kiss -- not like me at all. But she responded just as insistently until our mouths felt bruised.

When we came up for air, she said "I'm sorry I had to do that, Mike, but I didn't know how else to ask. And I love *you* so much!" And we disappeared into another smoldering kiss. She was stretched out crosswise across my lap, convenient to my wandering hands which were making up for lost time.

She was wearing light wool slacks and a plaid cotton shirt with buttons down the front. I undid the first few buttons before she pushed my hand out of the way and nearly ripped the rest of them off getting her shirt open and pushed back. She was almost frantic, fumbling her arms out of the sleeves, and her unmistakable passion quickened my pulse. Then the front closure of her bra popped open, and it was off and on the floor.

Then she was up and sitting astride my knees, back arched, her breasts on display to my hungry gaze. Jean's tits were a little larger than average but were balanced by her broader-than-usual shoulders; otherwise, they were unremarkable . . . but they were *hers* and I adored them. I massaged and squeezed them for a few minutes and her respiration increased. When I rolled her lengthening nipples between thumb and forefinger, she hissed in between her teeth and moaned "Oh, God-- Suck on them, please! Mike, suck on my tits! Put your mouth on them!"

When I pulled her closer and inhaled her breast, she locked her hands behind my head and tried to draw me into her. Small tremors traveled up and down her body and my own arousal increased.

Then she was off my lap again and hurriedly unhooking her slacks and pushing them to the floor. Her socks and panties followed. She stood naked before me, eyes glowing. I was still completely dressed and my newly-confirmed love was displaying her body for my viewing pleasure. Again, her figure was trim, her complexion beautifully smooth and clear, but I couldn't objectively say she was a traffic-stopper. But she was *Jean* and that made her the most desirable woman I could conceive of.

"There's something else I should tell you," she said as she slipped back across my thighs. "I went on The Pill six weeks ago because I suspected we'd be in bed by now. I want you to make love to me, Michael. In fact, I'm not leaving here until I fuck you!"

Her knees were spread and the aroma of her drifted upward and fired my own furnace. My hands slid up and down her thighs and moved around to measure her ass. She groaned a little and leaned against me. I slipped one hand between her legs from behind and brushed my fingertips against her moist labia. She had another fit of trembling.

Then she was on her feet again, pulling me up. "Come on, come on, get your clothes off! I *want* you!" I unfastened and unzipped and she quickly knelt and hauled my trousers down. Her feverish hurry was blinding me with lust. My cock sprang out, hard and rigid, and her mouth instantly fastened on it.

What she lacked in polished technique, Jean made up for in ardor. Like me, she was an enthusiastic amateur at sex -- and, also like me, she'd obviously had relatively little experience. I found that reassuring, even if it meant the blind leading the blind.

She tried to take in all of my quivering cock and nearly choked when it hit her throat. I eased her head back a bit and she concentrated on washing my penis with her tongue and manipulating my balls. The sensation was like nothing I had experienced before. I had engaged in oral sex, of course, but only for recreation. This was a woman with whom I had fallen in love and who loved me. And I wasn't seventeen any longer.

I could feel the pressure building in my groin but I didn't want to climax. I gently retrieved my cock and pulled her to her feet. Jean was several inches shorter than me and when we wrapped ourselves up in each other, standing there in the living room, she nuzzled under my chin and nibbled at my throat.

My cock was sandwiched between us, and when it twitched Jean wrapped her hand around it and pulled and squeezed as we kissed. I bent one knee and she closed her thighs on it and humped a little. She was so unrestrained in her lust, now that we had declared ourselves, she was producing more than the expected reaction in me.

I trailed my fingers up and down her back and she shivered and laughed under her breath. "C'mon," I whispered, "we gotta find a bed -- fast!" Making sure the front door was locked (the first opportunity I'd had to see to that), I turned to find Jean already disappearing into my room. When I hurried in after her, she was arranging herself on the bed for me, knees spread, arms reaching, and a wanton grin on her face. But things were going so well I chose to take my time -- our time -- in this delightful morning lovemaking.

I went to the foot of the bed and started up toward Jean on my hands and knees. She leaned her head back and spread her legs wider, expecting me to aim my cock straight at the target. But I ambushed her, dropping flat and covering her open pussy with my open mouth. She jumped a bit and squeaked in surprise, but she liked it.

I spread her labia apart with my fingers and stuck my tongue into her cunt like a spoon in a pot of jam, plowing through her juices from bottom to top. Her clitoris protruded from its hood and I moved my tongue all around it and then sucked it in between my teeth. Jean jammed her hands under the pillow behind her head; her eyes went out of focus and she was breathing in gulps. Her candid reactions to my advances were stimulating but I also felt completely at home, as though we were old lovers rather than new ones.

She also had my cock as hard and stiff as an iron pipe, and after a few minutes of teasing her pussy with my tongue I climbed farther up her body. When I eased myself into her, she gave a loud, ragged gasp and hung onto my neck as if we were about to be launched.

Jean wasn't a screamer, a thrasher, or a talker, but there was no doubt whatever that she loved what we were doing and was totally caught up in it. Sarah Bernhardt couldn't have faked a sexual experience so intensely. I was under no illusions that this terrific girl might be an unfulfilled virgin, but I knew instinctively that her experience was at least as limited as my own. Maybe she reacted this way *every* time she got laid; I didn't know and I didn't care. The fact that *I* was able to put her into orbit was more than enough.

I moved in her erratically, unpredictably, and was rewarded with little mews and gasps and catches in her breathing. Her sexual flush became bright scarlet. Her hands clutched at my back and arms and I was glad she wasn't a believer in long nails; she'd have drawn blood. When I settled into a galloping rhythm, she moved her legs higher, locking her ankles so I could penetrate deeper.

We reached the peak almost together and the release of my orgasm was exquisite. Jean held tightly to me for perhaps half a minute as she shuddered through her own climax. Then she relaxed and gave me a hug filled with satisfaction and love. And it dawned on me, quite suddenly, that we had both been in control of events the entire time. Every move we had made had been an unspoken but mutual decision. No pressure, no anxiety, no worries about inadequacy. Jean might not be a sex goddess, but I wasn't exactly a hunk, either. I leaned back and studied her face, and saw only happiness, love, and pride in one's partner -- exactly what I was feeling.

As my cock shrank I slowly pulled out of her cunt, . . . and I found a quiet pleasure in the momentary look of loss that appeared in her eyes. She really wanted me. Me!

I rolled off her and propped my head up on one elbow as she stretched her legs and back muscles. "Still love me?" I asked quietly and with a smile. She seemed to examine my face minutely and then reached up to touch my cheek. "Oh, yes . . ." No declamation, no poetry: Just a whispered "yes." A simple affirmation. It sounded real and believable and truthful. It sounded wonderful.
 

The next six months passed more quickly than I could believe. Jean came over to the apartment for at least an hour or two almost every evening. Any more than that and we were concerned that our grades might suffer. We were head over heels in love, but we were both still too pragmatic to allow *that* to happen. Gary and Sherry and Ed took one look at the two of us together after that weekend and smirked at each other -- our feelings were that obvious. We had sex only once or perhaps twice a week; we knew we'd be together a long time and so we tortured ourselves pleasurably with semi-denial. Jean didn't sleep over, though, for the same reason Sherry didn't: It would have been an imposition on the other two guys in the apartment. And, not surprisingly, Jean and Sherry became good friends, even though their other interests were so different.

. . . Such good friends, in fact, that Sherry was delighted to be Jean's maid-of-honor when we were married in June, two weeks after graduation and ten weeks before I began work on my M.A.
 

It's been 26 years now, and Jean and I are as much in love now as we were then. It hasn't all been smooth sailing -- no real marriage ever is -- but our spats have never been serious and are usually resolved by a competition to be the first to apologize.

I'm a tenured full professor in American history and I love it. We'll never be wealthy but we're comfortable, and the life of the mind (and the classroom) suits me. Jean spent several years as a medical lab technician, . . . and then as a supervisor when she discovered a talent for scientific administration; now, she's in charge of the technical side of the largest commercial medical lab in Texas -- earns more than I do, in fact, and deserves every cent of it.

Two of our three children are married and the youngest is engaged, though she swears she'll wait until she graduates from UT to be married.
 
 

Now that we have the house to ourselves again most evenings, we've found time to reenact our first lovemaking on that old apartment couch; the only difference is newer furniture. We know each other so well after a quarter-century, you'd think it would be difficult for either of us to arouse the other as we used to. But Jean still excites me . . . though I do get winded more easily.
 
 

Copyright 1993 by Michael K. Smith. Copies may be made and posted elsewhere for personal enjoyment, but all commercial rights are reserved.