That Night in March

         It starts as a joke.
         “I can get you off,” she says.  You giggle, thinking it’s a joke.  One of those jokes that friends have -- you know, ones you’ve never heard because you’ve never really fit in.  You still don’t, but you don’t care because she’s making jokes with you -- dirty ones, too.  Secretly, you like those.
         You’ve been talking about what friends do for each other.  She is willing to do anything, it seemed.  Then the joke follows, and then the laughter -- awkward, to be certain -- but still laughter.
         Except it wasn’t a joke.
         You have to share a room because she lives with her parents while her divorce finalizes -- after all, she is 26, with two of the cutest children ever, Raven and River.  You don’t care, you have a friend.  A real one, who wants to do things with you.
         You don’t know she wants to do this.
         Lying in bed, you prop your hand on your head and look over at her.  She is nothing exceptional to look at, when you think about it, but you don’t care.  You open your mouth to ask a question, but you don’t know if you dare, so you quickly close it.  She sees you, and asks what you wanted.
         “Did -- did you mean what you said?” you ask in that shaky, shy voice of yours.
         “What did I say?”
         “You know…you said…you know,” you’re embarrassed to even say it.
         “Oh, you mean that.”  You nod.
         She doesn’t answer with words.  She leans over, grasping the side of your face, and kisses you.  For your first kiss, it isn’t too bad, but looking back, it isn’t a thing like you expected either.  There is no tongue, no romance, no real feeling.  She just sort of…nibbles.
         You pull back from fear and a great deal of nerves.  Asking what’s wrong, she seems oblivious to the total terror you feel inside.  You mumble a response of “nothing” and roll over to get out of the bed -- after all, you do have that notoriously weak bladder.
         An arm reaches out to stop you.  You try to wriggle around it, but to no avail.  The last thing you hear is “You won’t do this to me.”  The next thing you know, you’re lying flat on the bed with an arm draped across your chest.
         Her hand finds its way up your shirt, though for all the wriggling and struggling you’ve done, you’re not certain how.  It’s the first time anyone besides you has ever been there, too, and once again, it’s nothing like you expected.  She thinks she’s making you happy (even with the wriggling and struggling) but when you finally gather up the courage to say no, she looks shocked.  And then she looks pissed.
         “You wanted this, you asked for it.”
         Maybe she’s right, maybe you did.  But oddly enough, you don’t remember asking.
         What you do remember is trying to forget.  You try to forget those hands, those wayward hands.  You clamp your legs together and draw your knees to your chest in a futile attempt to get her to leave you alone when she slips her hand inside the front of your pants.  She shoves them apart -- the only sound is the sharp intake of your breath.
         When that happens, you somehow go from fighting mode to survival mode.  You know it’s over, subconsciously.  You don’t like it, but you know.  So you lie limp.  You desperately try to ignore the probing hands, roughly grabbing at your nipples.  She gets your legs apart and takes full advantage, poking, prodding at what was to be promised to the one you fell in love with.
         This is never what you imagined.
         You were supposed to spend this night -- preferably married -- with the one you loved.  You don’t love her, right now you don’t even like her.  You will never have the warm, glowing feelings that everyone else will on this night.  You may never feel (or be) normal ever again.  She takes that right from you -- literally -- in the blink of an eye.
         Your body feels like it’s on fire and not from the warming sensations of passion, of love, of contentment.  You aren’t ready for all the poking and prodding, the groping and searching.  It isn’t as rough as you would think, but it hurts all the same.  You remember more than anything the scratching, the burning between your legs.  Vaguely, you think that she really isn’t trying to hurt you because she isn’t holding you down -- she just held you back.  But she of all people would know that you aren’t ready and she should, by all rights, stop.
         But she doesn’t.
         The scratching and burning continue until she -- to your amazement -- begins to groan in her own personal ecstasy.  You haven’t touched her, except for those few feeble attempts to brush her hands away.
         “You’re so warm,” she mutters softly.  Strange, you don’t feel warm.  You feel cold, you feel…scared.
         She places her fingers tenderly on your lips so you taste yourself.  The damp saltiness assaults your dry lips, forcing you to turn your head away in disgust at the taste.  But another thought occurs to you -- your body has betrayed you.  When she kissed you, you thought things that you didn’t want to think.  The warm fuzzies, you think they call it.  Shit.
         “You don’t like it?”  Her voice disturbs your thoughts.
         At the shake of your head, she replies, “That’s too bad because you taste awfully good.”  Then suddenly, her head dips and she begins that nibbling thing again, this time inside of you.  It wouldn’t be that bad if it hadn’t been for that damn scratching and burning you feel. The burning intensifies with every stroke of her tongue.  It’s worse with the tongue, somehow, and not the fingers.  So you begin to move again, writhing in agony, trying to escape the pain.  In her perversity, she thinks that you’re enjoying this and begins to laugh.  You continue to moan in pain and tears try to form in your eyes.  She thinks you’re getting off -- so she stops.
         Finally.
         With that, she leans over you and presses her lips into yours.  Your first thought is sheer happiness that she’s finished, that you don’t have to deal with this anymore.  Your next, following almost immediately, is that when she kissed you, you somewhat enjoyed it and how ashamed you are of that feeling.  You don’t enjoy it now, of course.  Eventually you realize you taste bad, at least in your mind.
         She settles down beside you, draping an arm around you.  You turn on your right side, with your back to her.  You can’t stand the sight of her right now.  You really don’t want to look at yourself, either.  Waiting until her breathing slows, you remain still.  When you know she’s asleep, you let go.  You began to weep softly, to shake, and to mourn.
         You mourn the loss of everything you had prior to that night -- happiness, lack of fear, trust, and even your virginity.  You especially mourn the innocence that made you giggle earlier.  You know that life will never, ever be the same for you.
         You wish you hadn’t giggled now.
         Because it wasn’t a joke.