Don’t You Feel Dirty?

It was the day after my birthday; you took me out for lunch. We talked under glowing little lights in a café. I ate my too-spicy sandwich and tried to act normal, looking you up and down, gaze snagging on your bottom lip. I had this tantalizing secret bubbling up inside of me, and you didn't even <em>know</em> yet. Later, later.

When I came back to your house, and we were sprawled on your bed talking, I paused. Said, slowly, "I need a shower."

You grabbed my hand, but it took you a minute, to figure out what I was getting at; I don't think you really understood until I was kissing you, pushing you back against the wall, not holding back in the slightest. And I was glad, in that moment, that the mirror was fogged up so I couldn't see myself, naked and kneeling, looking up at you with big blue eyes. I didn't want to see myself, only you. You, asking breathlessly, "Are you sure?" You, shaking in my arms, crying out and pulling me in closer. I smiled, steam swirling between my lips and around my teeth.

Afterward, you asked me if I felt dirty.

You said you had, after your first time.&nbsp;

I blinked and shook&nbsp;my head.

My friends wanted to know the details, or at least they thought they did. When I told them, they looked away, and then turned back shyly&nbsp;and asked the strangest questions.&nbsp;

(Are you two in love?

What noises do you make?

Surely it doesn't really count.

Do you have hickeys places we can't see?

I'm&nbsp;going to stay a virgin until I'm twenty-one.

But you're so youn-)

I walked home. It was cold and you hadn't given me your jacket like you did all those months ago. I frowned, hugging my arms around myself tighter. Once I had passed the dull cream carpets of the entry-hall, I let myself into my apartment and sat down on the floor. I picked up the jar that I kept under my bed and took out all the folded pieces of paper. 'Reasons I Love You,' they were labelled. I spread them all out on the floor and read them, one by one. It was strange, because none of them said what I expected them to say. I bit my lip. No matter.

"Are you okay?" A voice calls from the hallway.

"Yes."

"You're awful quiet in there." A pause, then footsteps shuffling away.

Enough, I wanted to say. Goddamnit, enough. Don't they understand that I might want to be quiet, sometimes? Might not want to answer their questions because to them, my answers are unsatisfactory? They don't understand. Hell, you don't understand! This morning, I frowned at you over the breakfast table because you were pulling a marionette man's legs up and whispering that that's how I looked last night. I'd been utterly lost as to what to say.

Everyone seems to think I should feel dirty.

Some things, some things make me feel dirty. Nervous sweat, or the word 'jailbait'.

But you, peppering kisses over my body, flipping my hand over so you could reach the inside of my wrist, holding a whole universe in your hazel eyes - that isn't one of them.

I don't feel dirty.

I feel free.