She Is Beautiful

"You did not!" Belle laughed.

We had finished dinner when she told me me she wanted to learn more about me. Truth be told, I wanted to learn everything about her. So I agreed to tell her about myself if she traded me for info on her life too.

"I did," I replied. "You wanna see it?"

"Oh my god, yes!" she said.

I stood up from the couch and went up to my room. I pulled a shoe box from under my bed and went back downstairs with it. I flopped back down next to her and smiled. I handed her the box, and she took it happily. She opened the box and immediately began shaking her head. She held up the small doll figure.

"I cannot believe you actually stole baby Jesus and dressed him up in a Del Taco outfit," she laughed.

"I was pretty proud of that thing when I was 22," I sighed. "My dad was so pissed at me for like a month. I was going to put it back while I was moving into this place, but I don't know - it's nice to have hanging around at Christmas time."

"Where do you even put it?" asked Belle.

"Uh, well, if you turn it over, there's a hole in the back. I use it as my tree-topper."

She laughed and held the little plastic doll to her chest. "He's precious."

"Okay," I scoffed. She handed the doll back to me and I put it back in its box. "Now it's your turn."

"Ummm..." she took a sip of her wine and squinted her eyes. She set her glass down and said, "Oh, okay! So there was this lady that lived down the street from me who was always spying on me. Her name was Mrs. Greene. She would take walks three times a day - 7:30am, 4pm, and 10pm. I think she spied on everybody, but it didn't really bother me until I was 15. This was around the time I started...experimenting."

I raised my eyebrows and said, "Go on."

"There wasn't much to do in Dayton for a 15-year-old girl," she continued, "and I didn't really know what my body and mind wanted. One day, this senior in high school - a girl named Frannie - told me that she would give me some weed if I had sex with her. I told her my only condition was that I wanted to get high first. She agreed - the better the high, the better the sex."

I adjusted in my seat. She pulled her legs up onto the couch and turned to face me.

"The high was...incredible," she sighed longingly. "And the first idea I had was to go to my house and-"

"Oh my god," I said.

"Yes. My first idea was to go to my house and have sex with Frannie at exactly the time I knew Mrs. Greene would be walking by."

"Holy shit. Did she see?"

"Frannie and I had started making out and taking each others' clothes off. Right as I started - how do I not make myself seem like a slut? - going down on her, Mrs. Greene walks by and looks directly into my eyes."

I started laughing, half turned on.

"Have you ever looked an animal right in the eyes before it gets hit by a car? That was exactly the look on her face."

"Holy shit, holy shit, oh my god," I said. I didn't really know what to say, so I just kept repeating it. "What happened?"

"She never walked past my house again, I'll tell you that. Unfortunately, everyone in our tiny little town found out, and I was kept on a short leash the rest of the summer."

"Wow..." I chuckled. "My girlfriend's into other girls."

She tilted her head slightly, and my eyes widened with embarrassment.

"Shit, I didn't mean-"

"Is that what we are?" asked Belle.

"If that's what you want to be," I replied. "Would you be my girlfriend?"

She smiled and leaned closer to me. She put a hand on my cheek, the touch sparking my heart. Longing to feel that heat again, I leaned in and kissed her. Her lips were so soft, and when she pulled away, I touched her chin and pulled her back to me. My tongue slipped past her lips, but I pulled it back, thinking maybe I was being too forceful.

She moved away from me slightly and put her thumb on my lips. "Yeah, I'll be your girlfriend," she said.

I laughed and put my arms around her. She hugged me in return.

"It's your turn, though," she giggled.