“Yes!” He slipped the ring on my finger and stood, pulling me in for a big hug and a kiss on the cheek.
I was engaged, and I got a kiss on the cheek.
On the way back to our hotel, I pulled on his arm, tugging him into a drugstore.
“What are you doing?” He laughed.
I led him up one aisle and down the next, stopping at the condoms.
He narrowed his eyes. “Reese …”
“It doesn’t mean we have to; it just means … we’re prepared.”
“Prepared to sin?”
“Prepared to not have to explain why we need to rush our wedding if we do happen to sin.”
Brendon shook his head, and I knew he wasn’t comfortable with it, but I wasn’t comfortable marrying him and not having sex with him first. And that should have been the only sign I needed.
But I was still that teenaged adult with so much to learn, and my favorite teacher happened to be half a world away and retired from teaching me any more than tough love and the oh-so-important “sink or swim.”
With a miserable grimace and his teeth digging into his lip, Brendon nodded.
That nod led to anticipation.
Anticipation led to the allure of the forbidden.
He might not have initiated it on his own, but when we found ourselves in his hotel room after dinner that night, things quickly moved in the direction of that box of condoms.
“I love you so much,” Brendon chanted over and over between kisses and amid discarding our clothes. Maybe he thought God wouldn’t be so critical of our decision if he kept reminding me （and God） how much he loved me. It wasn’t merely a physical need—and hopefully not an immoral act; we were in love and committed to each other.
And by “we” I meant Brendon more than me.
I just wanted to know what it felt like to have sex with him. And I loved him; it just didn’t feel like it did with Fisher. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to feel like it did with Fisher.
“I’m so nervous my hands won’t stop shaking,” Brendon said as he fumbled the condom.
After he rolled it on, I closed my eyes—another sign things weren’t great with Brendon. He touched me, and I imagined it was Fisher.
He started to push into me, and I replayed moments with Fisher. But Brendon didn’t touch me like Fisher had touched me. He didn’t really touch me at all, just his cock suited up between my legs and his lips nervously hovering over my lips.
Did he not notice my breasts? Maybe he wasn’t a breast man.
Did he not want to kiss me between my legs? Locate my clit? Run his tongue along the length of my neck before biting my earlobe?
It was all so different.
I winced when he pushed all the way into me. It didn’t feel great, maybe because he wasn’t doing anything to make it feel at least a little less than awful and painful.
For the next five minutes, maybe not even, he jabbed me with an erratic rhythm. He missed my clit every time while his heavy breaths washed over my face—grunting and occasionally pressing a limp, sloppy kiss to my mouth.
“Oh my …” Brendon squeezed his eyes shut and stilled for a few seconds before a full-body shiver shook him. He opened his eyes and grinned. “That was…” he blew out a breath “…amazing. I love you so very much.”
When he rolled off me, I slowly sat up with my back to him and tears in my eyes. I gave him my virginity, and I didn’t regret it, not on my part. Brendon deserved it because it meant something to him. I think it meant more to him than it meant to me.