Snark and Stage Fright by Stephanie Wardrop Page A

his jeans and joined me, nestled in the sheets and wearing only my underwear. I was suddenly petrified, even as he was kissing my neck and shoulder and chest in ways that made my toes curl up.
    This is real, I thought, this is really going to happen . Was I ready to be this close to someone, even to him? Because you can’t get much closer than to have someone putting a part of them inside a part of you. It would make everything different. How would I ever look at him afterward? How could we just sit across from each other at a table or on the couch in one of our houses, knowing what we had done to each other? Did I know him well enough to do that? Could anyone know anyone enough to do that with them? I realized that I wasn’t even sure what his favorite color was. I’d bet it was blue, but could I really get naked and invite another person into my person without knowing something that basic about them?
    To get a grip on myself, I focused on the stuff in his room, the stuff that was his, that revealed who he was and that meant something to him and my eyes landed on a photo of him and Catalina among those tacked to the small bulletin board over a small desk. They were both impossibly tanned and beautiful and smiling. They looked very happy. I wondered where they were when it was taken, what they were doing, and why he had kept the photo if he didn’t really care for her much. But then Michael gave me a lingering kiss on the lips, said, “I’ll be right back,” and shuffled over to a chest of drawers under the window as I sat there blinking and overwhelmed.
    I tried to forget about the photo and instead thought about what it would feel like when we did it. Would it hurt? I’d heard it did, but Tori said it didn’t really—but she also said the first time isn’t that great, not like in the movies where skyrockets fly overhead and the character looks like they’ve just had the secret to life whispered in their ear. And because apparently my brain would not take an hour off and leave my body in charge for once, I recalled what my dad, the Victorian lit scholar, had told me once about 19 th -century advice to women on their wedding nights: Lie back and think of the Empire . There was nothing even remotely reassuring about this thought. Or having my parents in my head as I was about to make love for the first time in my life and pondering whether I was ready to have another person enter my person, both literally and metaphorically. Especially since my dad, if he knew what I was about to do, would probably be unable to look me in the eye ever again.
    I closed my eyes and gripped the pillow to my chest. It smelled like Michael’s hair and that made me feel a little better.
    Michael returned and slipped under the sheets and thin woven blanket with me. His kisses felt as good and reassuring as the feel of his naked, strong legs beneath the sheets as they twined around mine felt new and slightly alarming. We continued to kiss as he got my bra off with impressive dexterity; for a few glorious moments I managed to stop thinking about anything else and felt like I was swimming in a sea of sensations and tangled arms and legs. Then he slid off to the side of the bed and slipped off his boxer shorts; on his return I felt the shock of his full nakedness beside me. My heart caught in my throat.
    I have only seen one penis in real life before, when I was about six. My family was living in New Jersey then and it belonged to my friend Tommy. I had opened the door to the bathroom at our house when he was using it and I’d caught sight of him standing up to pee; his struck me as a truly alarming appendage that was unleashed and streaming pee. I’d closed the door before he’d noticed me. I remember feeling sort of sorry for him.
    So much for penis envy.
    Now, as I couldn’t help but notice Michael’s as we were both tugging at my panties, every nerve in my body went on high alarm. As I kicked my underwear free from my ankles, I