Chapter 2. It is about friends.

By Alice

I saw him having a drink at the bar of the nightclub we used to go to.

Most of the people who go there are guys our age.

They are between 24 and 25 years old.

He looked about 27 or maybe older.

He was tall, good-looking, and had black or dark brown hair. From where I was standing, I couldn't see the color of his eyes.

He had a muscular, very lean, perfect body.

You could tell he was different, as if this weren't his kind of scene.

I thought that maybe he was a private security guard for someone important because there were security guards at the nightclub, but no—he was drinking. Security personnel wouldn't do that if they were protecting someone.

"Who could he be?"

I wondered.

He wasn't a regular because we went every Saturday, and I had never seen him before.

"Stop staring at him. He won't even notice you're there," said Daphne, my really annoying friend.

"I wasn't looking at anyone."

She didn't care because he wasn't her boyfriend.

"He's looking at you."

Iris said quietly to me, "I don't think that's right—you're just saying that to go against what Daphne said."

I whispered back to her.

We both laughed.

"It's not like that. She's jealous, and you're naive. Come on! Pay attention—she's not the great friend you think she is."

When I turned to answer her, someone grabbed my hand, asked me to dance, and led me onto the dance floor.

It was him, the man I had been watching.

Did he think I was asking him to dance because I was looking at him?

The music was slow, so we danced close together. He pulled me close to him, so there was no space between us. It felt more like a hug than a dance. I was about to tell him to pull back a little, but then I looked up and saw that he was looking at my mouth. A second later, he started to kiss me. There's no other way to describe it. It wasn't just any kiss.

I had never been kissed like that before. He seemed hungry, and his passion made me tremble.

I felt a tingling feeling I had never felt before. I had no idea that such a thing was possible.

Yes, I had been kissed before. It happened about four or five times. Some of the guys who kissed me were my classmates. Others were boyfriends I had at some point.

But nothing compares to that kiss.

Then, he suddenly stopped kissing me and let go, as if he wanted to calm himself down.

He was looking at me very seriously.

He kept looking from my eyes to my mouth. It was making me really nervous.

"What's your name?"

He asked me as we kept dancing.

We started talking, but not a lot.

I looked around; we were in the middle of the dance floor.

I hoped my friends hadn't seen him kiss me.

It wasn't right to kiss a stranger, especially in that way.

He pulled me toward him again, gently touching my back. I felt his hand on my hip—or, rather, my butt.

How could he do that? I looked at him to complain when he kissed me again in that special way.

I felt his tongue inside my mouth again.

Instead of leaving and going back to my friends, I found myself kissing him back. I started to caress the back of his neck with my hands. Then, I felt something warm against my stomach. It was his erection.

I felt nervous; I felt aroused, and my nipples got hard.

I can't feel this way with a stranger.

This was the first time it had happened to me. I was even flustered.

There had been guys who tried to get too close, but I always pulled away. I never felt that intense heat, not even with a kiss.We chatted a bit. I wanted to calm down before going back to the girls.

Even his eyes made me feel embarrassed.

We agreed to meet the next day, which was Sunday.

My parents trusted me, so I had to tell them I was going to meet a guy.

I'm an adult. I study and work. I'm in my second year of the university teacher-training program in history.

I wanted to study philosophy and literature, but I had to choose a career that would allow me to work as a teacher because of my family's financial situation.

I had a very good memory and was great at teaching. I always practiced with my little sister, Aveline.

I taught her things, and she asked me all her questions. She was my older sister, since I was 10 years older than her. She thought I was like her heroines, like Wonder Woman.

Aveline always told me that Wonder Woman and I looked alike—that I was Lynda Carter's double.

I went back to my friends because it was already time for Iris's dad to pick us up.

He was the only dad there who had a car, and he was a saint.

He might have seemed strict and serious, but he never complained.

Daphne started talking in the car, and I remembered what Iris had said: "How could you kiss that boy?"

She said it loudly so Don Carl would hear, and I immediately felt Don Carl looking at me through the rearview mirror.

"That's not true—it was just a kiss on the cheek."

I said, disagreeing with her.

"I saw you two. Don't make things up."

Iris defended me.

"Well, kid, he wasn't exactly a kid."

He kept talking because no one had asked him a question.

"Venomous," I thought, and once again I felt Don Carl's gaze.

I lied and said he was 25, and that we just danced.

"And how they danced! They were glued to each other."

I'm going to kill her.

I looked angrily at her, then at Iris, and she gave me a look that said, "I told you so."

"I only danced with him to one song. What's wrong? Are you mad because he asked me to dance instead of you?"

I asked him, annoyed.

"Girls, don't fight."

Don Carl tried to calm things down.

"Don't worry, Dad. Everything's fine."

Iris said, in a very sweet voice.

The rest of the trip was spent in silence.

I didn't want to tell Iris that I was going to see him in a few hours.

I didn't want Daphne to find out.

I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. I felt many different things.

I felt butterflies in my stomach—the kind you feel when you fall in love.

Was it love at first sight?

Have I fallen in love?

Did the same thing happen to him?

And his erection... Was it because he fell in love?

"You idiot," I told myself. "Men feel that way about every girl they kiss."

He really knows how to kiss! You could tell he had a lot of experience.

It must have been a feeling he was used to.

I didn't think things always ended with a kiss because of his age. I guess he had sex with a lot of women.

With that presence, confidence, and sexual energy he showed...

That thought made me feel sad, even though I'd only just met him.

What if he got turned on and ended up in bed with someone else?

I started to feel more and more anxious.

"Calm down, Alice," I told myself. "You can't feel this way."

I just had the best kisses of my life, and I want to keep having them.

I want to savor his mouth; I want to have him close to me, to feel his erection—brought on by my kisses and his caresses on my butt—I want more; I want to feel more.

Wow! What am I thinking? This isn't fair—I'm a virgin. I'm not planning to stay a virgin until marriage; I just want to have sex with the right person. I want to do it out of love—true love—and I think I've just met him.

I sat up in bed, letting out a scream, which woke up my little sister.

We share a room.

Our house is neither big nor small.

We share a room, and we've turned the room next to ours into an office. It's our little hideout.

I love sharing a room with my little sister. I'm 10 years older than her, but we have a great time together. She's very smart and mature for her age.

"Go back to sleep, Aveline."

You woke me up by screaming. That scared me.

"I didn't even scream. I just met the cutest boy ever and fell in love."

-Tell me about it.

She was already sitting up in bed.

I told her what a 10-year-old girl could understand.

She fell asleep with a smile; for her, it was a love story... and for me, too.