Permanent Foreplay

Missy was a virgin and she wanted to get laid. But she had a problem: none of the boys she liked were interested, and she wouldn't put out for the ones who were. She talked about it a lot, but I didn't mind. The more she complained the harder she worked my back.

"I'm so horny all the time," she'd groan. Then she'd lean into a big knot beneath my shoulder blade and something would pop.

"Guhhhhh," I'd reply.

I don't remember exactly how it started, but I think we were both a bit drunk after a party and the subject of massages had come up. Missy lived down the hall from me in our dorm at the University of Chicago. I had never given a massage before, so Missy showed me what to do. "You just imagine what would feel good to you," she said, "then do that to the other person." I tried it. It worked. After a while I got pretty good. Missy would smile, and sometimes she'd sigh, give a little gasp or a pleased giggle as I worked on her. Mostly she'd just moan softly.

Missy was a real farm girl, from somewhere down in southern Illinois. That's why she was so strong, she said, and why her hands were like a man's. She said she learned how to massage from her father; she had given him massages every evening when he came in from the fields, ever since she was a little girl. She had big, strong hands. They were the most beautiful hands I'd ever seen, and I told her so.

At the time I was fucking some bubbly little slut from Connecticut. She had walked into my room the first night, closed the door and dropped her robe. I was spoiled. Sex was easy, sex was obvious. Missy and I would talk about our experiences during our sessions. I'd tell her about my sex life with the girl from Connecticut, and the obscene things we did, and how I suspected she was fucking half the guys in the dorm (I was wrong: she was actually fucking half the guys in the University). Missy had much less experience but was eager to talk about it.

"There's a boy from Burton-Judson that I've gone out with a few times. Last week I gave him a blowjob in the study room."

"The one right across the hall?"

"Yes. He wanted to come here, to my room, but I wouldn't let him. I don't really like him, but I like giving blowjobs. I actually really like the taste of a man's come."

"How about having your pussy licked? You like that too?"

"Oh yes."

"Ow."

"I'm sorry, am I being too hard?"

"No, I am. Just shift your weight a little."

Our massages became more erotic. I would gently stroke Missy's ankles with my fingertips, and watch with pleasure as she shuddered all over. I would gently reach between her thighs, and stroke the downy underbrush where her pubic hair began, or reach around her back and caress the sides of her breasts that were bulging against the mattress. Missy would return the favor, raking her fingernails over my butt and sometimes sucking my fingers one by one. By the end of our sessions the air would be heavy with pheromones, the room would literally reek of sex. The front of my underwear would be damp and sticky, and Missy's inner thighs would be hot and humid. I would leave Missy's room and go straight to my Connecticut slut's room, or if she was out I'd go back to my room and smell my fingers as I jerked off. No matter how close we came, Missy and I never crossed the line, never touched each other's parts or kissed for real. It was Tantric massage, an agonizing bit of foreplay where the tension became more exciting than any imaginable release. Sometimes the best sex is the sex you never have.

My friends all assumed I was fucking Missy; even my slutty girlfriend from Connecticut thought so. I'd smile my cool enigmatic smile and say, "We're just friends, nothing more."

I once heard it said that there are two reasons for doing anything: the good reason, and the real reason. I told myself, with a callow chuckle, that to get involved with Missy would be to lose the beautiful sexual tension in her virginal hands. Once we were sleeping together, I reasoned, we would lose the intense erotic charge between us, like static on a doorknob. We would want to cuddle, and hold hands, and talk silly talk. I convinced myself that, really, by not having sex we were giving each other something much better. That was the good reason. The real reason was more complicated.

All my life I had wanted to fit in, to be like other kids. But to fit in one had to know one's place. I was ashamed of who I was, and where I'd come from. A girlfriend meant a relationship, and a relationship meant being honest and sharing yourself with someone. It meant talking about where you were from and where you thought you were headed. Those were exactly the things I most wanted to avoid talking about. Forget a relationship: I couldn't have taken Missy to dinner and a movie if I'd wanted to, and even though such things wouldn't have mattered to her, they mattered desperately to me. And what if we did have a relationship, what then? I had no home. Home meant a place you felt safe, where you were welcome, where the people all looked out for each other and helped each other. How could I bring a girl home to that apartment on Long Island overlooking the oil tanks and the shopping mall, that depressing place with the dingy furniture and all the cats and their smell everywhere? It was better not to get involved than to go through all the pain that would inevitably follow.

Besides, Missy's room was a refuge for me, a cozy place she had all to herself, and which she had decorated as if she had always lived there. There was warm soothing light, big soft pillows, pretty curtains. It didn't look like a dorm room, and when I went in there I felt safe and secure. And I was terrified of losing that.

My first week back sophomore year I ran into Missy at a party. She had the same ripped faded jeans on, but her hair was done a little differently. We wound up back in my room and celebrated our reunion with a couple of quick massages. When she had finished I lay contentedly on my stomach and she sat at the edge of the bed. I asked Missy how her summer was, and her shoulders slumped. "I'm still a virgin," she sighed. I had never seen her look so beautiful.

"Let's go back to the party," I said.

College didn't work out for me, and at the end of my second year I had to leave Chicago. That last night some of my friends got together and threw me a little farewell. There was some drinking and smoking, and we all wound up in someone's room watching television. I sat on the bed with Missy, and for the rest of the night she held me in her arms and gently stroked my hair. She hardly spoke, and when she did her voice was hoarse and somber. I got back to my room late and passed out drunk. In the morning I was gone. I never saw or spoke to Missy again. I hope she found someone who appreciated her kindness, who knew what to do with that miraculous body. Whoever he is he's a lucky bastard.

I still think about Missy a lot. Sometimes late at night I light a few candles and lie in bed and imagine she's there. I can feel her strong, confident fingers touching and stroking me, kneading out the tension in my neck and shoulders, telling me everything will be all right. Only in my fantasies we don't stop with a massage, and at some point I turn over and pull her down and she gives herself to me. We make love, again and again, with no chance of heartbreak, fear or regret. And for the thousandth time I come across my belly and dream myself to sleep.