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“Girls like Charlotte Lily always make me feel small, feel like something disposable.”

I saw how angry he became just thinking about it, so I leaned forward and kissed him softly on the lips.

“I’m not Charlotte Lily,” I told him, and the smile returned to his face.

“You sure ain’t,” he said, put his beer glass down, and kissed m

e on the cheek, the neck, and the lips while he turned me in so he could embrace me more easily. I felt his hands move down to the zipper on my skirt.

“I don’t want to get pregnant,” I said.

“Don’t worry, you won’t,” he promised. He paused, took out his wallet, and then took out a contraceptive.

He held it up as if he was showing off a diamond in the lamplight. My heart was pounding. He thinks I’ve done this before, I thought. I was going to tell him I hadn’t, but he kissed me again and then began to slowly undress me, kissing every naked part of me he uncovered until he stood up and undid his pants while he looked down at me and said, “You’re really beautiful, Robin.”

My heart was pounding so, I could barely breathe. When he was beside me, I finally confessed. He hesitated so long, I thought he was going to stop, but then he smiled and said, “You’ll never forget me then. Women never forget the first man.”

A part of me was disappointed in myself. When I had learned the facts of life, I used to fantasize my first lovemaking. It was always on some glamorous island during a wonderful honeymoon with music in the background and stars blazing above. Instead, here I was in some thrown-together, makeshift, dingy one-room apartment on a sofa that could have been rescued from a junkyard, both Keefer and I tasting the beer on our lips.

There were no shooting stars, no tinkling bells, no angels with magic wands around us. I was uncomfortable with my excitement, sensitive and nervous, moaning under his pleading to relax. Instead of being as soft and downy as a cloud, I was a tightening guitar string, stretched to the point of breaking, every nerve in my body cracking and snapping like a shorted electric wire.

“It gets better,” Keefer assured me when we were finished. He lay there, catching his breath, his head against my naked breast, listening to the thumping of my heart. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” I managed.

He lifted his head and kissed each of my nipples before pushing himself away.

“Be right back,” he said, and went to the bathroom.

I sat up and began to dress. When he came out, we heard the phone ringing in the shop.

“Who the hell is that?” he wondered aloud. “Be right back,” he said, and went to the door that opened on the shop.

I continued to dress.

“Got a message for you,” he said, returning. “That was Kathy Ann. She says your ‘sister’ called and said she was calling back in fifteen minutes and if you weren’t there to answer, she was going to call the police herself and report you.”

“She would, too, I bet,” I moaned.

“C’mon,” he said. “I can get you back there in fifteen minutes.”

He pulled on his jeans, slipped into his shoes, and grabbed his shirt as we started out.

“Hold on,” he told me after starting the engine. I had barely closed the door.

The rear wheels spun and kicked up gravel, and then he turned sharply into the street and accelerated. He wove in and out of traffic, cutting someone off at one point. The driver leaned on his horn. Keefer laughed and just accelerated again, turning abruptly down a side street.

“I know a little shortcut,” he said, gunning the engine.

He went through a stop sign and then made some sharp turns again, throwing me from one side of the seat to another. I screamed and he laughed. I couldn’t remember feeling more excited and afraid at the same time. Then, when he made a final turn into the street I knew brought us to my apartment complex, he side-swiped a small sedan we passed.

“Damn,” he yelled. “I ain’t stoppin‘. I’m not supposed to be drivin’ this truck. Izzy will throw me out.”

The driver of the car laid on his horn and followed us as best he could, but Keefer outran him and then bounced into the parking lot of my complex. I caught my breath, not knowing whether to cry or laugh.

“Get movin‘,” he ordered.

I jumped out of the truck and ran up the stairs. Just as I reached the apartment door, I heard the phone ringing inside. I threw it open and charged in. Kathy Ann had just picked up the phone.