Sitting awkwardly, each waiting for the other to say, or do something, Christine Sanbourne and Mitchell Lipensky drank their drinks, and because Mitchell hadn’t had anything stronger than beer—and then only one or two—since the unhappy night of his eighteenth birthday, the Scotch going to his head immediately, wanting to kiss Chris, momentarily wooden, and at a loss for words, “Mmmm,” he said, “this is nice.”

“Yes, it is. But let me show you what I really love!” Standing, going into the kitchen, turning the lights off on her way out, returning with the bottle of Chevas, Chris refilled both glasses. Leaving the bottle on the coffee table, turning the combination television, phonograph and radio to a classical radio station, “Excuse me a minute.”

Knowing what she wanted to do, and well knowing from past experience what pancake makeup could do to a navy-blue tunic, going through her bedroom into the washroom, appraising the image of her face negatively, using cold-cream, she removed her makeup.

Turning the lights off as she went, coming back to the living room, their thighs touching, sitting alongside Mitchell, taking a long pull of scotch, laying her head back on the sofa, Chris closed her eyes.

Soft, beautifully melodic music filled the room as the diffused, flickering light from the lights of the city coming through the large window danced upon the walls and ceiling.

“Isn’t this beautiful!”

Putting his glass onto the coaster, “Yes.” No longer wooden, no longer needing words, moving his face to hers, their lips brushed, touched, and made contact.

Tasting the Scotch on her lips, and in her mouth… His hand, moving to beneath the bottom of her sweater, rested upon her warm, rock-hard stomach.

Feeling his touch, her tongue probed into his mouth.

Encouraged, his hand moving upward, “Wait,” Knowing, thinking she’d know how to placate him when the time came, “let’s go into the bedroom.”

Oh, yeah! The bedroom! Pulling his shoes off, “Yeah!” he said, pulling his socks off. “Let’s go in the bedroom!”

Standing, Chris took a step, turned back, lifted her glass and handed him his. Watching each other over the rims, each drained their glass, then, wobbling a bit, she led the way as Mitchell, wobbling a whole lot, pulling his tunic and T-shirt over his head, leaving a trail of his clothing, was fully nude by the time they’d made the short journey from the living room to the bedroom.

The curtains before the picture window in the bedroom were fully open and the city lights, additionally reflecting off an oversized dresser mirror, cast a flickering kaleidoscope of light throughout the room.

Not realizing that he’d undressed, turning, looking at him, Chris could not tell if he truly looked as good as she thought he looked, or if it was the effect of about four, or more, ounces of quickly consumed Scotch, because—seeing Mitchell as Sally Brockman and Elsa Schmidt had seen him in approximately the same amount of light—darkly tanned except for the area between his navel and crotch, Mitchell’s chest and pubic hair appeared to be pitch black and his turgid penis stark white in the reflected, dancing light and…

Sensing a warmth in her abdomen—Could be the Scotch?—and a twitch in her ovaries, her breath catching, “Mitchie,” she asked, her words a bit slurred, “how in the hell’d you get undressed that fast?”

As always, feeling a heightened—and more so due to the Scotch—sense of eroticism at being fully nude before a girl, or, now for the first time, an adult woman, “Magic.” Putting his hands on her waist, moving firmly against her…

“Mitchie,” feeling his unrestrained penis prodding into her skirt, “uh,” momentarily forgetting what she wanted to say, forcing her nails into the flesh of his buttocks, “wait!” Pushing both hands against his chest, separating their bodies, her eyes traveled from his face downward… then back to his face “I’ve got to tell you something!”

“No!” His words very slurred, “Don’t tell me you’re not eighteen yet and your dad’s a cop!”

“No!” Flattered, looking years younger than her thirty-one, knowing that he was—setting a trend for the rest of her life—minimally ten years younger. “I’m… uh, trust me, I’m older’n eighteen. And ‘a cop’? No, my father’s a stockbroker. Why?”

Relieved, “Oh, nothing,” he said, tightening his hold.

“Mitchie,” Now seems like a pretty good time to tell him.

“Chris, get undressed, please.”

“I will, Mitchie…”

She will!

“… but I’ve got to tell you something!”

“Yeah, baby?” Rubbing his nude pelvis—penis—against her skirted pelvis.

“I’ve my period.”

“Huh?” Light-headed, not sure he’d heard right, “Your, uh, period?”

“Yeah. It’s my time’a month. Guess I should’a tol’ you before, huh?”

“Your time’a month?” In his inebriated condition not quite sure what period or time’a month meant, “Huh?”

“I’m menstruating!”

“Oh!” his erection beginning to wilt, “No!”

“Yeah. Sorry, but…”

“I should’a guessed that somethin’” he said with a drunken giggle, “was gonna happen.”

“You do know what I mean?” Her words becoming even more slurred, “Don’t’j’ya?”

There was not a girl that he’d ever known, including Susan, or maybe especially Susan, that had been uninhibited enough to discuss with, and explain her menstrual cycle to him, but yet he did have some foggy idea—although foggier now than normally.

“Uh, it means I can’t touch your,” pointing downward, “uh…? An’ we can’t, uh…?”

“Yeah. It’s only my second day, an’ I bleed like a stuck pig, an’ believe me, you wouldn’t want to…Yucky!”

Yucky? Mitchell didn’t know how to respond to yucky. “Why’d,” he asked, “you bring me home then, Chris? An’ how’s come we’re in your bedroom? An’,” looking down at his, by that time fully-retracted penis, “how’s come I’m all naked?”

“You’re a nice guy an’… Now don’t let this go to your head, Mitch, but you’re like, uh, one’a the best lookin’ guys I ever been with. An’ you’re such’a… like a kind’a innocent guy.”

“Innocent’?” As though he’d been insulted, “I ain’t so innocent!”

“Yeah, you are! Come on, Mitchie! Ain’t too many guys I know that get a boner just by dancin’ with me. Specially since,” looking down, cupping what breasts she did have, “I don’t have any tits for you to feel when we were dancin’. An’ that’s kind’a why I was so surprised when, bam, I saw you all undressed just now.” Looking at him, fighting the temptation to take hold of his shriveled penis. “An’, to tell the truth, I didn’t think it would go this far— yes she did— the first time we’re together.”

“How’s ’bout the guys you work with?”

“Huh? What guys? What’d’ya mean?”

“Actors you work with. They’re good lookin’, too, ain’t they?”

“Yeah, some’a them. But most’a ’em’s either married or queer.”

Even though he was drunk, Mitchell began to feel downright foolish standing fully naked with a completely deflated penis just talking to a fully dressed woman, so, sitting on the edge of the bed, crossing his thighs, holding his hand in his lap, hiding as much as he could hide—which, in his present condition, was just about everything, “So, if we ain’t gonna do anything,” he asked again,” how’s come we’re in your bedroom?”

Her eyes moving from his face to his crotch…

Feeling thoroughly exposed and really dumb, Mitchell considered grabbing the pillow from under the comforter to cover himself with.

“I’ll tell you why!” Completely contradicting her earlier statement regarding not thinking it would go this far the first time they were together, “There’s more ways to skin a snake, uh, cat,” said as a statement of fact, “an’ there’s other things we can do, you know.”

“Yeah,” remembering Elsa, he knew there were other things they could do, but, Yucky, he thought, that sure ain’t one of ’em! “What?”

“I’ll tell you what. Hold on a second.”

Rushing into the living room, refilling both glasses, returning, “Here,” handing one to Mitchell, taking a long drink, putting her glass onto the dresser, she hesitated a second, then, pulling it over her head, Chris placed her sweater next to the glass. Hooking her thumbs into the waistbands of her skirt and slip, she pushed them off her slight hips, small buttocks, diminutive thighs and stalky calves.

Watching her. Oh, yeah, watching the woman before him, he took a sip and—the ice having melted, finding the taste of warm Scotch repulsive, putting the glass onto the nightstand—bringing his full attention back to Chris, sensing a rebirth in the juncture of his crotch, Mitchell raptly watched, as…

Thinking herself an actress playing a part—which in fact she was—and also, as a woman in the throes of passion… a drunk woman in the throes of passion—which in fact she most certainly was… Chris took another drink, and because she was ashamed of her body, and in particular her breasts, waiting another moment, taking another drink to ratchet up her courage, reaching behind her back, unhooking the two hooks of her brassiere, crossing her arms to hide her breasts, taking a deep breath she let the brassiere drop to the floor then, dropping her arms, she quickly pushed her panties off and stood, actress or not, drunk or not, self-consciously nude.

Thin? Christine Sanbourne’s breasts looked to be little more than slight mounds of protruding flesh, the dark nipples appearing to be as large as the breasts themselves. Her chest narrow, the sharp ridges of her ribs easily seen. Chris’s stomach was deeply concave and due to this, unhidden by the excessive mass of black pubic hair, the mound of her vulva projected sharply from the juncture of her crotch. But…

To Mitchell Lipensky—especially in his inebriated condition—all breasts were beautiful and, yeah, more than a handful may be nice, but, hey, little tits, after all, are still tits, and, to Mitchell Lipensky, all naked ladies were beautiful and Chris—especially in his inebriated condition—was no exception, so, uncrossing his legs, his penis snapping to attention, “Chris,” he said as sincerely as he could say in his inebriated condition, “you’re Be-U-ituful!”

Put at ease, warmed by his words, and about six ounces of Chevas Regal, coming to the edge of the bed, taking his head in her hands, Chris moved her chest, rubbing her breasts… really, her by-then turgid nipples across his, oh, yeah, open mouth, as…

Reaching to her rear, holding a small, hard, but very smooth, very warm buttock in each hand, as, savoring the taste and texture of her nipples and the feel of her buttocks, “Chris?” he asked.

Savoring the touch of his hands and the feel of his lips, “Yes?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Huh?” Leaning back so she might see his face, “What don’t you understand, Mitchie?”

“I don’t see any, uh, Kotex or anything.” Though passionate, though drunk, “And if you’re bleeding so hard that you’re, uh, yucky, how do you keep the, uh, stuff from coming out?” Mitchell was also inquisitive because, after all, this, too, could be a learning experience, couldn’t it?

“A plug, Mitchie.”

“A plug?”

“Yeah.” Taking a step back, reaching between her thighs, arching her pelvis forward so he might better see it in the flickering light, “See?’ Chris lifted the end of a piece of string that had been dangling unseen.

Looking, squinting, he saw it. And even if he were sober, which he sure wasn’t, not understanding—though appreciating the invitation to look very closely at a vagina—Mitchell, drunkenly, thought the little piece of string was somehow a hanging stitch from some kind of female surgery so, “Jesus,” he said, “that’s not from a, uh, operation?”

Operation? “No, Mitchie,”

Giggling, “A teabag?”