by Eastbayjag@aol.com

The author retains copyright. This story is posted for the exclusive enjoyment of readers of the Nifty Archive. While you are free to make a personal copy, no copy of this manuscript may be published, copied, posted to another web-site, or otherwise disseminated without express permission from the author.

The contents of this story are fictional. Any resemblance of characters to living or lived persons is strictly coincidental. Certain characters engage in sexual acts which may or may not be legal in the state or country in which a reader may reside. Any reader with objections to graphic descriptions of sexual encounters between males who may not have reached the legal age of consent, or whose local, regional, state or national jurisprudence prohibits such descriptions, should not read further.

Chapter VII

Thursday, July 1, 1993

I shook out the quilt, getting all the leaves off, and carried it into the cabin. I managed to snag it on one of the screws that holds the hand-carved Oak plaque my Great-Great Grandad had carved with the name of the cabin in big, bold letters. "Reston." (It's an amalgamation of our family name and his wife's name, Hester Radford. It was her dad that founded the Radford Timber Merchant Company, and gave the little village its name.)

Brad was already in the shower, and I took out clean sheets and made up his bed, so it wouldn't look like we'd slept together in just one bed when Mom and Dad got there the next evening. I even lay on it a little to make it look slept in. The quilt smelled a little of our loving on the leaf-pile. Nothing obvious, but my dick twitched, all the same.

The pipe rattled as Brad turned off the shower, and I got up to go take mine. He met me in the hall as he toweled off his hair, and I took another of those mental pictures of him standing there all golden in the light, his long lean body and swinging sex. I grabbed him and started kissing him like I guess lovers do all the time, tenderly and hard, all at the same time.

"Phew!" he said softly. "You smell of sex!"

"Yours, pervert!"

"No shower, no brekkies," he said, patting me on the butt as I let him go, reluctantly.

"I already had the meat course!" I said evilly.

He blushed -- actually blushed! "Me, too." He whispered, and gave my dick a little tug.

I drifted towards the shower while he went off towards the kitchen, hiding his butt from me by wrapping it around his hips. God sure made him a work of art.

I brushed my teeth and looked for hairs to shave - nothing that couldn't wait 'til tomorrow. I heard the sound of a pan coming off the rack as Brad prepared to cook something, maybe a slice of ham, a couple of eggs? I turned the shower up nice and hot, and stepped under it, thankful that we didn't have one of those new "low-flow" heads like at home. This was a real shower, lots of water cascading over me.

As I scrubbed, I hummed to myself, and replayed the lovemaking in the clearing a thousand times. Not the sex, though that was there, of course, making my dick tingle a little. The way he looked at me while he was inside me, the pure and strong love that was in his eyes. I washed my butt-hole carefully, and thanked Providence that it had been clean. I thought of his seed still inside me, and started to get a little turned on.

Naturally, just then, the hot water started to run out, and there's nothing like the fear of still being soapy when there's nothing but icy spring water to rinse it off to get you moving. My dick went back to sleep, and I shut the water off just in time. My butt still tingled from having him inside me, though.

As I stepped out of the shower, the smell of toast and frying ham attacking my hunger center, and I wasn't even dry completely when I sauntered into the kitchen.

"That smells cleaner," Brad said without looking over his shoulder, concentrating on the pan.

I went up behind him and circled his waist with my arms, pressing my body against him, the mound of my dick in the crevice of his towel-covered ass. I kissed the side of his neck, and looked over to see what was cooking. He'd cut the ham into tiny slivers, and the eggs were scrambling with it, a little nutmeg adding to the seductiveness of the smell.

"Butter the toast, will you?" he said, squeezing his asscheeks together, massaging my sex a little, backing up to me.

"First I gotta eat," I said as seductively as I knew how.

"Huh?" My humor went a parsec over his head.

"Nothing," I said, letting him go and taking the butter dish over to the other counter.

"What?" he said, pouring a little cold milk over the eggs to keep them from cooking any more.

"I was being vulgar," I said.

"How?"

"I was thinking about buttering your dick and eating that for breakfast," I laughed.

"Oh," he said, grinning. "That can be arranged."

"Mmmmmm," I said. I tried to manage a lascivious look, but I wasn't sure exactly what that looked like, so I probably just looked horny for his body.

"Toast ready?"

"Yeah." I said, putting a couple of slices on the two plates he'd left on the back of the stove to heat up.

He spooned the egg and ham mixture onto the toast, and put the pan in the sink to soak while we ate. I took the plates to the table, and suppressed a laugh as I sat in front of one of the places he'd set next to each other.

"What?" he said, coming up behind me and holding my neck the way he does, moving to sit.

"Just like home," I said. "Multi-vitamin and all."

"Gotta keep our strength up," he said, popping the lozenge into his mouth and raising his orange juice to wash it down.

"Yes, Mom," I said as I did the same.

"Pervert, to you," he said, smiling, his teeth blinding me, just a fleck of OJ pulp between his two front teeth.

I leaned over and kissed him, flicking away the little bit of OJ with my tongue.

"Let's eat!" he laughed. "Otherwise we'll end up going back to bed and starving to death making love."

I laughed and said "What a way to go!" The OJ flake was gone, his smile was Perfect again.

We scarfed the food, drank the rest of the milk, and quickly washed up, then went out to finish clearing the brush in the warm sun. It went slowly at first, as we worked out the stiffness from the labors of yesterday, but by noon-thirty or one, all the cutting was done, and we got the tractor out to pull out a few of the bigger roots. It went quickly, as the two of us went pretty much as a tandem, me driving, him attaching the hooks on the end of the chain under the center of each of the dozen or so "stumps" we decided would be too big to plow.

We quit at a little after two, surveying the four big piles of stuff we'd have to chip, and looked at each other, filthy from the work.

"Beach!" we said in unison, and we hosed each other down, grabbed the beachbag, donned our Speedo's, shorts and T-shirts and ran out the front. Brad went back in to get something while I put the tractor away, so I pulled the pickup out of the barn. Brad didn't even laugh at me as I ground the bones getting it into first after backing it out. We were off in the pickup before we were even dry. His hair was a mass of straw, and I smoothed it as he drove. Still wouldn’t let me drive. Another year to go!

"Last day before the Invasion," he said as we walked to the beach from the little parking lot. There were lots of people who came up only on weekends, and Sunday being the Fourth, a lot of people would take Friday off and come up that night. The beach would be busy tomorrow, jammed on Saturday. Or as jammed as it got, which was never like I imagined a beach would be in LA, wall-to-wall bodies and towels, umbrellas and ice chests. Even today, there were more people than normal for a Thursday.

"Hungry," I said in my usual shorthand.

"For you," he said softly. I think I blushed - my face felt all hot, anyway. It wasn't the sun.

We shagged a couple of pre-cut sandwiches at the bar of the hamburger joint - I wasn't ready to try another Big Giant -- much less a Monster -- yet, and the thought of fries made my stomach churn. Maybe later . . .

After stuffing down the food, we took our tea down to the beach. I looked for the Chains, but they weren't there. I wanted to thank them again for their kindness yesterday.

We soaked some rays for a while, then Brad said "Feel like a swim?" He made sure it was an hour from when we ate.

I thought of yesterday, and almost said no, but Brad would be there, and he wanted to cool off, so I said "Sure!" and then yelled out "Pervert!" at the top of my lungs, jumping up ready to run for the water.

Brad grabbed my ankle, and I was all of a sudden off balance, falling into the sand, getting it all stuck to the beads of sweat on my body. We ended up wrestling in the sand, rolling around like idiots, sand everywhere, yelling out "Loon!" and "Pervert" at the top of our voices. I copped a feel or three, and so did he, then we were running side by side to the water, splashing through it together, diving as soon as it was deep enough. I'm sure everybody thought we were totally deranged, but I didn't care.

Brad pointed to the diving raft, which was deserted, and we swam towards it, maybe a hundred yards out. I slowed down a little so he could keep up with me, and watched his body slice through the water every time I turned my head to take a breath. 'God, he's gorgeous. Can't believe he loves me! Don't let me wake up . . .'

We took turns jumping off the plank that they laughingly called a diving board, working off excess energy. I'd wait in the water below for him to jump, then scramble up the ladder and jump while he waited for me, doing can openers, cannonballs, and -- just once -- a slicing jackknife that took me almost to the bottom. I looked up and saw him against the silver of the surface, his slim, powerful legs treading lightly, his sex bouncing.

I surfaced next to him, panting, and he pointed at the raft. I looked at him questioningly, and he sputtered out "C'mon! Show ya something!"

We swam over to the raft, on the side facing away from the beach, hanging on the edge. There was a little ledge, just under the surface, so you could get up on the raft easily. I went to lift myself up on it, but he turned me around and sort of lifted me up so I was sitting on the ledge, putting himself between my legs.

I looked down at him, still in the water, and I knew what he was up to. "Pervert," I said softly, caressing the top of his head.

He reached for my Speedo's, and moved them aside, pulling my dick from its prison. It was soon in his mouth, and I sprung a hard like I hadn't had sex in a week. Never mind the cold water, never mind that there were people on the beach that might be watching me. I just leaned back on my hands, and watched my sex disappear into his mouth, and his eyes staring into mine, and it was Heaven, my heaven.

I couldn't believe how fast he made me shoot, even after the morning's excess. One second I'm only just getting hard, the next I'm telling him "Brad, get ready! I'm gonna . . . I'm . . ."

He went down on me half way and sucked my seed from me like a Hoover, my legs thrashing in the water on either side of him, my eyes scrunched up seeing nothing but red, my heart beating like a set of drums.

"I love you," I said as I came down the slide, my hand going to his ear, his lips still locked just behind the knob of my dick, his eyes answering back. Then I did what comes natural -- I shoved his head down in the water, my dick popped out of his mouth, back into my Speedo's.

He surfaced, sputtering, laughing. "I'm gonna get you for that, Loon!"

"Pervert!" I hollered out, jumping up and climbing the ladder. "Pervert! Help!"

And I jumped down, right in front of him, the best can opener of the day, half-drowning him in the column of water I sent up right over his head.

He started to scramble up onto the raft, but I grabbed his legs and pulled him back, his body against mine, and I looked in his eyes and said "your turn!"

He knew what I wanted, and just lifted his butt up on the ledge, opening his legs to give me access.

I reached for my prize, but he grabbed my wrist, and said "Hold it!" Which, of course, was exactly what I wanted to do, so I tried to push through his resistance. He pushed back, and said "Someone's coming!"

I lifted up a little, and saw two men swimming towards the raft. They weren't very good swimmers. I could make Brad come twice in the time it would take them to get there.

"Let's go, Loon" he said, and pushed himself off the ledge. I looked under his arms at the sharp definition of the muscle running from behind his shoulder, down the side of his ribcage, the ropes of muscles and tendons Perfectly outlined under the skin, his abs Perfectly protruding. Another Perfect picture of my man preserved in my head forever.

He started out with an advantage on me of five yards, but I quickly closed the gap despite starting from dead in the water, and we swam fast and hard back to the beach, panting as we stood in the shallows and started walking towards the beach and out towels.

"I owe ya one," I said with a fake scowl. "Gotta keep the score even!"

His face clouded up and he grabbed his towel and stalked off towards the parking lot. I was speechless. Now what had I done? What made him mad this time?

I grabbed the mats and my towel and the bag of stuff, and ran after him, catching up with him just at the steps leading to the tiny boardwalk.

"What?" I said to him, looking at the scowl on his face. "What?"

He didn't look at me, just walked across the hot asphalt to the pickup and went to open his door. I grabbed his arm and spun him around and said, "What the Hell's with you? What did I do?"

He yelled at me "This isn't a fucking game we're playing, you asshole! We're not just trading blowjobs! This is real! This is . . . this is . . .

I grabbed his shoulders and shook him. "I know that Brad!" I realized what he must have thought.

"I love you, man. I love you more than I know how," he said, looking in my eyes. "I never want you to owe me for making love to you. I . . . " there were tears welling up, in my eyes as well as his.

"Brad, I love you too, you know. I want you so bad I can't talk straight sometimes. I just wanted you to know how bad I felt. I couldn't love you out there like you loved me, like you made me feel so . . . " I couldn't find the words. "So whole!"

The mad went out of him. I almost saw it slink away. I put my arms around him and hugged myself to him, my head on his shoulder, my heart so full it was going to spill over any minute, as his arms went around me twice and drew me into him. Both of us were oblivious to the world around us, the heat of the asphalt under our bare feet, the hot metal of the old black pickup.

"I love you, Loon," I heard him say over and over. "I love you." His body didn't vibrate when he said it, although it was in a strong, normal voice. It just echoed into my ears, through my body. I knew it was true.

We broke apart, awakening to the fact that we were standing almost in the center of the parking lot, nothing on but skimpy swimming trunks, me getting aroused, and him a little too, and there could have been a hundred people staring at us for all we knew.

I bent down and picked up the mats and the bag and threw then into the bed of the truck.

"Well, now that that's clear, let's go get the chipper!" I said, trying to get things back on an even keel.

"Uh, yeah."

"Shit!" I said.

"What?"

"I forgot the Cash Fund!"

"No you didn't," he said, getting into the truck. "Sheeiiitttt!" he hollered.

"What?" I cried out, half way around the back of the truck.

"Hot!"

The sun was beaming through the windscreen directly on the seatback.

"I left the pouch in the safe!" I said, getting in. I leaned back carefully - it wasn't all that hot on my side.

"Nope!"

"Huh?"

"Under the seat," he said. The engine caught on the first half-crank.

I reached under the seat, and found the fanny pack with the plastic envelope of the Cash Fund. "When?"

"After you brought the truck out, and were going around to get in the other side." That's what he'd gone back into the cabin to get.

"You're amazing," I said without thinking.

"I know," he said, chucking the truck into gear and backing the truck out.

I punched him in the ribs.

"Ow! What's that for?"

"I hate conceited men!" I half-shouted over the engine's noise. They didn't make soundproofing when this baby was built. "Even if they are Perfect Perverts!"

He laughed, and the cold of our spat was extinguished. It's like that whenever we have a mad minute. Lots of heat, frustrations vented, a few minutes of cooling off, and the whole thing dismissed except for the solution to whatever was bothering either or both of us at the time.

We drove over to Bill Parker's to see about the chipper. Parker’s was a business made up half of equipment rental, the other half hardware store, on the other side of Murdoch's. Most of the stuff for rent was pretty cheap, and dependable. Bill Parker, Jr. bought it at auctions from people going out of business, or estate sales, that sort of thing. Anything to do with chopping, burning, clearing or otherwise maintaining wooded and farmed land was to be found at Parker's. I hear he's had it a little rough since they opened a Home Depot down in Redding, but that's a long drive away, so I guess he's safe for now. They'll eventually run him out, though, like they always do.

"You're in luck," Junior told us when we asked about a chipper. Bill Jr. is fifty years old, but his Dad is still going strong at eighty, so everybody still calls him Junior. His son is called "Three," because he's Bill Parker the Third. Some of us call him C3PO, because he's a chatterbox made out of skin and bones. He'll be Junior pretty soon, I guess. None of them have a middle name, which is weird.

"Why?" asked Brad. Junior was kneeling down under the counter, searching for something, and I guess he didn't hear.

"Only got the one left, " said Ed Bryant, Junior’s assistant, coming out from behind a log-pulling tractor, the kind that grasp the log in a claw and haul, pointing at a mid-size Craftsman chipper that had seen many a branch go down its maw. "That guy couple up on the North Ridge took the last big one for the week," he said. "And the other four are out for the next two weeks over at the PG&E lines, for the fire breaks."

Brad looked at me when Ed said 'guy couple.' Junior stood up from behind the counter, a rental contract for us in his left hand, brandished in triumph.

"What you mean 'guy couple,' Ed?" I asked evilly. Brad threw me a truly seriously threatening scowl, but it didn't work.

"Oh, just Mark Chatman and Don Mounty," Junior said, blushing a little. Never saw a grandfather blush before. "How many days you want it?"

"Two ought to do it," Brad said a little nervously.

Ed got going. "Mark's Chris and Sarah Chatman’s boy, the ones that used to own the hotel up at the Creek," he said as Junior wrote up the paper for us to sign. No, for Brad to sign, 'cause I'm too young, I guess.

I was fascinated. Who'd have thought gay people could live up here without getting burned out?

"Him and Don got hooked up a few years ago when Mark was doing a big road project down Redding way," Ed said, making everything as clear as mud. Chatman Construction built a lot of the roads in the county. I wondered if it was that Mark Chatman.

"Don's a artist or a dog breeder or something. They bought the old Hamilton place last Christmas, doing a bang-up job of restoring the old house, turning the barn into a studio of some kind."

"They . . . gay?" I asked, truly evil, now, putting Ed on the hot spot.

"Not like them folks you see on TV, all 'femminant and prancing and stuff," Ed said, kinda muttered. "They's just guys what fell in love with another guy." I never heard it put better.

"Just like Jim and Jerry, I guess," Junior said.

"Jim and Jerry?" Brad asked, in spite of himself.

"Yeah, you know," Junior said, pushing the paper around for Brad to sign. Twenty-five Dollars a day, fifty dollar deposit, seventy-five up front. "Jim Bradley and Jerry Brown, over t'other side o' the Lake. Been together -- let's see -- near twenty years, now, I reckon."

"Oh," said Brad. "You got the pouch, Loon?" he turned to me, effectively ending the subject.

"Yeah," I said, and dug out a fifty, a twenty and a five, passing them to Junior.

"Yeah, gotta get them two up to the house for dinner soon," Junior continued. "Jim's my nephew's brother-in-law, and godfather to Katie."

Katie is Junior's sister's first granddaughter. There's a pretty tight community up here. My Grandfather's brother-in-law (I don't know why he wasn't referred to as my Gran Weston's brother-in-law, because he was her sister's husband, not at all related to Grandpa Weston -- but that's how it works up here.) had married Bill Parker Senior's sister-in-law, so we're almost family.

Ed helped us hitch the chipper onto the pickup, then we walked over to Murdoch's to get some fresh milk and a few other things that Mom had on her list.

The store was busy. It was after five, so I guess some of the weekenders had already arrived. I didn't recognize but a few people in the store. Mrs. Thrush said hello, of course and the usual, 'my, how you've grown!' She said that every time, including Memorial Day weekend, which was only four or five weeks ago. I figured I hadn't grown noticeably in a month. But I was nice to her anyway. She's a distant cousin, something like three times removed, and means no harm, really.

We were at the meat counter, debating on whether or not to splurge on steaks for that night when Jill Starford accosted us.

Jill was with her Aunt Hortense, the spinster daughter of the grandson of the founder of Mcarthur. Jill was maybe eighteen, wearing a halter thing that showed off her tummy and an "innie." Jill had the hots for my brother, you could tell. She kept looking up at him and staring at his nipples through his T-shirt. I wanted to wring her neck. She prattled on, speaking only to Brad, looking at him with big eyes. I swear she batted her eyelids, and she touched his arm while she was talking to him. She was toast.

While Brad made little talk with Jill, I took charge and ordered two nice boneless ribeyes from Terry Brandon, Bertha's son. Bertha is the daughter of Rupert Murdoch, the guy who opened the store in the thirties. Terry is nice, but not too bright: Brad says there's enough empty space in his head for a tennis match. But he cuts meat good, and has three sweet kids and a dollhouse with his wife, Emmy.

When I got the package from Terry, I turned back to find Brad halfway down the beverages aisle, still prattling away with Jill and her Aunt, who leaned over the cart as if it was the back of a pew. I caught up, and slipped the parcel into the basket. We agreed as how it was going to be a hot Fourth, and that it would be good to see the fireworks, even if they did have to be done in the middle of the lake to be sure there was no risk of fire. This awful drought took up a second or two and we finally ditched them and got to the checkout counter.

Brad was taking the stuff out of the basket when I asked him if he enjoyed flirting with Jill. He looked at me as if I'd only that very second stepped off a spaceship and asked him if he was the one who offed Darth Vader. "Huh?"

"She wanted to eat you as an hors d'oeuvre," I said under my breath.

"Not a chance," he laughed at me. "My dance card is full!"

My heart danced on her memory, already distant.

"Got the steaks, huh?" he said, hefting the butcherwrap packet out of the cart. Then he put two bottles of red wine on the counter, and I looked at him nervously. He was going to get us in really hot brown stinky stuff one of these days. I hoped it wasn't today. I looked around to see if anybody noticed.

Mary Julep was checking us out, and Tony Dario, who worked there summers for as long as I can remember, was bagging the goods.

When she got to the wine, she looked up at me, then at Brad. "Wine?" Everybody turned to look at us, I'm sure. Tony smirked. I wanted to sink into the floor.

"For Mom and Dad," Brad said without batting an eyelid. I wanted to shrink down to the size of a mosquito and fly out the door.

"Two bottles?" she said, trying to catch him out.

"It's their anniversary," Brad said smoothly. "Their twentieth. They're coming up tomorrow night, and we want to surprise them."

She just shrugged and rang them up. Mary never broke the rules - she just made sure bending them wouldn't cause any real trouble.

I paid for the groceries -- he would have to buy twelve-dollar a bottle wine, wouldn't he? -- and Brad picked up one bag, letting Tony lift a second one into his arm.

"You almost got us busted," I said under my breath as we walked out the automatic door.

"Mary'd never turn us in," he said. "Besides -- Harry's got his hands full getting the boats ready for the weekend. He can't be bothered to come over here just because we're not technically allowed to buy wine."

Harry Turner is also the local constable. The sheriff's office is in Redding, I think, a long ride for anything but something serious, like last year when that cabin down by the lake got torched by the vagrant from Medford. Harry would have handled it, but the vagrant didn't get out in time, so it was arson with fatality, and the Sheriff had to come.

I still watched the street for Harry's jeep with the star on the side of it, just in case we had to make a break for it. It wasn't until we got to the road towards the cabin that I relaxed.

"Stop over there," I said as we came up to one of the lay-bys you have to use if an extra-big logger comes down the road at you.

"Why?"

"Just stop!"

"You carsick?" he said looking at me with an amused concern. But he pulled in.

"No, asshole," I said leaning over the space between the seats and putting my hand inside his shorts, under the Speedo's, pulling his magnificent dick, already showing the first signs of coming awake as it poked out into the fresh air. "Horny."

"Hey!" he protested. "Wha . . ."

I went down on him before he could get hard, and held it still in my mouth as he expanded, grew, filled me up, hardened, crept down my throat until I had to come up for air. He never said a word, just moaned.

"Lovesick," I said, pulling off him for a second. "Get it out for me."

He unbuttoned the shorts, and they were at his ankles along with the Speedo's as fast as we could get them down. I think I hindered more than helped, but I was in a hurry to taste him.

"You're crazy!" he said. But he was laughing. "Someone will come by!"

I just went down on him again and took as much as I could of him into my mouth from that angle, and sucked furiously, massaging the part of him that I couldn't get into my mouth with my right hand. I listened to him moan, hearing the pitch go up as he got closer and closer, and felt the shuddering in his legs that meant I was about to get my reward.

"Oh, Christ, Loon, here it coommees . .  ." he moaned, throwing his head back as the waves ran up and down his body. His dick pulsed and grew and sent my reward to me in great spasms, the juice coming out a little thick, almost lumpy, and filling my nostrils with the smell of his love. It's really a unique thing, the smell of the semen of the man you love. Intoxicating.

I held him in my mouth and swallowed, swallowed, swallowed, even after it started to get soft, trying to get more of him, get more of his dick deeper into my throat. I never want to feel any other way about him.

"Loon?" he finally said.

"Mmmmm?" I looked up at him out of the corner of my eye.

"I think I'm on empty."

I pulled him out of my throat, dug my tongue around the back of his knob, stuck the tip of my tongue into the slit and found no more, and let him out of my mouth with a sigh.

"Yeah, guess you are," I said dejectedly. "I'll never get enough of you inside me."

He bent down and lifted my lips to him, and said, "I love you, Loon." I wished I knew how he could talk with my mouth full of his tongue.

We heard a car coming up the road from behind us, and I looked out the back window. It was one of those big sports utility vehicle things that for the most part haven't been any farther off road than the supermarket parking lot.

Brad quickly picked up his shorts from down by his feet, and I grabbed a map from the doorless glovebox and opened it. We pretended to be looking at it as the monster lumbered by, the occupants invisible behind the tinted glass windows rolled tightly up to keep the outside out.

I giggled as Brad goosed me, saying something about me being insatiable, then put the truck into gear and drove on to the cabin drive, not five hundred yards away. I kept my left hand on his bulge all the way, happy beyond words, savoring the sounds of the forest, the smell of the woods, the taste of my man.

"Let's do a couple of piles before we eat," said Brad as we put the stuff away.

"We're gonna to have to get a couple more blocks of ice," I said as I closed the icebox.

"We'll do it when we call Mom and Dad," Brad said.

"God! Is it Thursday already?"

"All day!" he said. "I thought you'd have this all written down in your head: 'Thursday, the First of July, 1993 - that day I lost my virginity.' "

"What do you think I am, some teenybopper girl who keeps some kind of a secret diary?" I said in mock petulance.

"Not at all, Loon. Not at all." He said, folding me in his arms. "You're the man I love."

"Besides," I said. "I didn't lose it. I gave it to the man I love."

We kissed, light as feathers, electricity pouring through us.