Chapter Eight – Falling Deeper.

"Come upstairs," Royce mumbles against my lips. His hands stroke down my back and then he grasps my hips and pulls me down at the same time as he pushes up against me. I'm on his lap and I groan softly as I feel his erection pressing in between my straddled legs. "Come on Rosalie, come upstairs with me…"

"Yes, okay…"

Royce doesn't wait, and he rises to his feet, lifting me with him, immediately. I kiss him again, and then he lets me slither down his body so that I can move with him as he tows me from the theatre room at his house and upstairs.

Royce's room is as messy as it always is on the weekend when they don't have the cleaners in. His pillows are scatted across the bed with the quilt half falling off one side, and he hastily goes and throws the pillows up to the head and folds back the quilt before he looks at me again. "Come over here, babe."

Slightly hesitantly I do, stopping in front of him and giving him a half smile. Royce's face softens and he wraps his arms around me, squeezing my butt and kissing the top of my head.

"This'll be good, I promise," he says sincerely. "I've waited for you Rosalie."

"I know," I say. I don't resist as Royce tugs my t-shirt off over my head and then fumbles with the catch on my bra until he unclips it and bares my breasts. He makes an appreciative noise and cups me with one hand while the other one hooks into the waistband of my jeans.

"You gonna help me out here?" Royce asks with a grin as he tugs fruitlessly at the buttons on my jeans.

I laugh a little self-consciously. "You're still wearing all your clothes."

"My bad." Royce immediately strips off his t-shirt and then sits down on the bed and starts unlacing his boots.

I step on the heels of my shoes and out of them, and then take a deep breath and unbutton my jeans and slide them off before I sit on the edge of the bed in only my panties. My hair falls down between Royce and I, obscuring my face, and for a moment I close my eyes. I want to do this, we've been building up to it, I knew that it would likely happen any day (and I've been wearing pretty underwear sets every time we're together- nice pink lace bikini pants and demi-cup bra today, not that he noticed the bra) but I'm still nervous.

"Hey," Royce says softly, pulling my hair back and nuzzling into my neck. His other hand runs down my belly and presses in between my legs, fingers searching. "You finally gonna let me take these off?" he says, his fingertips hooking under the edge of my underpants.

He feels so warm next to me, and he smells like cologne and boy and his fingers are making everything in between my legs tingle and throb with anticipation. I cup his face with my hands and kiss him, letting him push me backwards and roll me over until we're both lying across his bed. Royce kicks off his boxers and then we're kissing, naked flesh tangled together, my knickers the only barrier left between us now.

Oh, this feels good. I bury my face in the curve of Royce's shoulder and kiss his neck, squirming slightly as he touches my breasts and then slides a hand under the lace of my knickers, dragging them down my legs.

"Oh, you're wet," he murmurs as his fingers play with me and he uses his knee to push my legs further apart. "That's good, it's gonna be good…worth the wait!"

I clutch his shoulders and muffle my noise in his chest. Fuck. I've touched myself plenty of times, been giving myself orgasms for years, but Royce's big calloused hands feel so different to my own slender fingers. Just the idea of being naked here with him, and thinking about what we're about to do together, is enough to turn me on even more and I catch the almost involuntary movements of my hips as I push against his hand, mutely encouraging him to touch me again.

"Okay, you're ready."

Royce leans across the bed and rummages in his nightstand drawer, coming back with a silver foil condom packet. Kneeling up between my legs he frowns as he puts it on himself and I'm glad he doesn't want me to do it this time. I know how to, in theory, but I'm shivering with a sudden bout of nerves. I realise that my legs are spread wide on either side of a kneeling Royce and he can see everything, and I shift uncomfortably and try to close them.

"No, don't." Royce finishes rolling on the condom and puts his hands on my thighs, keeping my legs open as he looks down, and then up at my face with a grin. "You'll have to get on the pill," he adds matter-of-factly. "I hate these things."

I don't tell him that I am on the pill and have been for years, to control painful periods. But I let him push my legs further apart, and then smile at him a little anxiously as he leans forward and kisses me.

"Cheerleaders are so flexible," he grins, and for a moment he rests his full weight on me, making me sink down into the bed as he looks at me. "Fuck, you're gorgeous Rosalie."

He kisses me again and then there's no more talking. Instead he fumbles with his cock, groping and pushing between my legs until he finds the right angle. My only warning is his grunt of satisfaction as he gets it right, and then he's thrust himself in me to the hilt and I'm biting my lip against the sudden stab of pain.

Ouch. Shit.

I have a moment to get used to it, as Royce lies heavily over me, before he grunts again and starts moving to his own rhythm. At first there's a kind of stinging pain, not unbearable but uncomfortable, but then I shift the angle of my hips slightly and the pain fades into pleasure.

Oh yes…like that.

I can feel my body responding to what he's doing, my pleasure growing and building…but before I get anywhere close to a climax Royce shudders and comes, slumping down on top of me for a moment before he reaches in between us and pulls out, holding the end of the condom. He slides it off with a grimace and tosses it over the side of the bed and then sprawls out on his back beside me with a satisfied sigh.

I blink up at the ceiling, considering. So that's it. After the way my friends have gone on about it over the years, that's it. I don't feel any different. Actually, I feel a bit edgy. All that build up and then nothing…I wonder what Royce would do if I put my hand down between my legs and finished myself off? I roll away from Royce to hide my grin.

"Fuck…you're not on your period are you? I guess I popped your cherry good, huh?"

"What? Don't be disgusting." I scramble up to a sitting position, horrified to see the broad smear of blood across the sheets. Ugh…it hadn't hurt that much, surely that blood wasn't all from me? "Shit!"

Mortified, I flee into Royce's bathroom, firmly closing the door behind me. There is blood smeared across my vulva and on my thighs, but there doesn't seem to be anything coming out now, and only a slight tenderness, hardly anything, as I wipe.

I look at myself in the mirror, combing my fingers through my tangled hair, burning with embarrassment. How gross. I really hadn't expected to bleed- I know that less than half of women bleed their first time, and among my cheerleader and gymnastics friends it was probably less than that, and I had assumed I wouldn't either. My hair back in place I have a drink of water and then, still feeling hot with embarrassment, I slowly open the door and let myself back into Royce's room.

Royce is leaning back against a pile of pillows, and he smiles and beckons me over. "Come back Rosalie."

Self-consciously I slide onto the bed, unable to look away from the bloodstain. In reality it's probably not that huge, but on the pristine white sheets it stands out like a beacon, announcing to the world that I've just given my virginity away to Royce King Junior.

"Hey…it's no big deal." Royce's voice is surprisingly gentle. "It's your first time…It happens. The cleaner will take care of it."

"Ugh!" I yank the quilt up to cover my nudity. "That's gross…and then she'll know!"

"Awww….you've gone all shy!" Royce laughs and grabs at the quilt, trying to pull it away. "No hiding now babe, you're mine and I don't care who knows it. Now let's get rid of that blanket…I want to look at what's mine!"

I shriek and laugh too as I try to wrestle the quilt back and Royce pounces on me. I don't stand a chance though, even If I were to try…Royce has a good seventy pounds on me, and before I know it he's got me pinned and is kissing me again, hard and urgently.

I don't mind. Not when my body's lighting up and everything is starting to tingle and pulse, and he's getting hard again as I wrap my legs around him. I'm half disappointed when he pauses for a minute, and looks at me, his dark eyes intent.

"I didn't hurt you too much? You're okay?"

I nod and squeeze his biceps. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Good." Royce kisses me, his hands roaming, before he once again stops and stares at me. "I love you, you know that? This is…I'm not playing when it comes to you, Rosalie."

"I know," I whisper. "I love you too." And I really think I mean it.

Royce drives me home later. It's dinner time but the house is silent and empty. Instead of going to my room or taking a shower or ordering dinner, I slip quietly into the spare room. My mother's room really, where she spent the last months of her life.

It was my mom and dad's room originally. Dad moved his stuff into the other room when my mom got sick, so that he wouldn't disturb her when she was resting, and afterwards he never moved back in. Once a year my dad's friends stay in here, when they attend a medical conference in town for a couple of days, but apart from that I'm the only one who ever comes in here.

Jasper thinks it's morbid that I come and sit in here as often as I do. I don't know, maybe it is, but it's the way I feel closest to her. My mom wanted to die at home, and so this room became her whole world towards the end, when she was too weak and sick to leave. She didn't want it to feel like a hospital though, so she kept the big antique four poster bed and it was always covered with her beautiful bed linens. Jasper and I would come in here every day and lie on the bed with her and watch tv and tell her about our days, and then Dad would bring something for dinner and we'd all eat together. Sometimes now I lie on the bed and pretend she's lying beside me, with one of her scarves over her head and the hum of the oxygen machine in the background, and I can talk to her the way I did at the end.

My mom's death was horrible. It was painful and messy, and it left a hurt so deep I don't know if I'll ever get over it. But her death taught me that ugly can sometimes be beautiful too.

Today I curl up in the armchair by the window, looking down onto our quiet street. There's a slight soreness between my legs and my hair smells like Royce's cologne, and my mind is full of what I've been doing. I comb my fingers through my hair and brush a hank of it across my face to smell Royce more strongly, and with no one to see me I let the blissful smile spread across my face.

I did it with him, Mom. It was fun and everything, but I don't feel any different. I don't feel different about about Royce and not about myself. I don't think it changed our relationship at all, so I'm glad I wasn't looking for that. I'm crazy about him, but I don't really love him. Not yet, anyway!

I wonder if you'd like him? I wonder, if you were still here, would you make me invite him over for dinner so you could meet him? Would you come to the games and make me point him out to you, and I'd be giggling and way embarrassed in case he saw?

Jasper doesn't really like him. He doesn't say anything much, but I know how he feels about most of the guys I hang around with. I think he just doesn't know Royce that well though, because he can be really different when he's around just me.

I don't think Dad even knows I've got a boyfriend. Certainly doesn't know his name, or anything about him. Sometimes I think that's the worst thing about living without you- we don't have Dad anymore either.

I run my fingers through my hair again, smoothing down a length of it and rubbing it against my cheek with a sigh. I don't want to think about that now. I just wanted to come in to my mother's room and think about Royce and maybe feel like she's still part of this new, grown up version of my life.

I wonder if I would be able to really talk about sex with my mother if she was still here. I don't know. I was eleven when she died and although she'd told me that basic facts, I was just not interested in boys then. I'd had a growth spurt and was about half a foot taller than all the boys in my class (including Jasper, which he hated) and all I cared about was gymnastics, dance and hanging out with my friends. When Mom had sat me down and had the talk with me, my main reaction was repulsion.

Six months later she was dead, and I'd had my first period, discovered cheerleading, boys and masturbation, and felt like an entirely different person. Hormones will do that to you I guess. I missed my mom, and I hated having no one to talk to about the 'girl stuff' that was overtaking my life. I had to buy the succession of bigger bras I needed by myself, I had to deal with my period by myself, and as all the older boys in middle school started noticing me and asking me out, I had to navigate the exciting and scary new world of dating by myself. Dad coped with his grief by working twenty hours a day and barely even looked at me. Jasper and I talked a lot, but he was a boy and my brother, and there are just some places that he didn't want to go.

I worked things out in time, more or less. I learned to buy my own lingerie and clothes without my mother's help. I watched online tutorials when I wanted to learn how to put make up on properly and read websites when I had questions about sex.

The periods took longer to manage, since I'm blessed with a particularly cantankerous reproductive system. I was too embarrassed to ask any of my friends if they bled like I did, and when they complained about cramps I just figured that my knife-in-the-guts monthly pain was normal and I'd just have to live with it. I ate Midol like candy and lost and regained the same five pounds every month when I couldn't eat for two days. One day when I was fourteen dad's friend Dr Cullen found me on my knees in the front hallway, throwing up from pain so severe that I hadn't been able to make it up the stairs to a bathroom in time. He was staying with us that day, and although at the time I was so embarrassed I wanted to die, it turned out to be lucky for me. He referred me to a gynaecologist who put me on the pill, and since then it hasn't been a problem.

As for figuring out boys and dating…I guess I'm still working on it.

I just wanted to tell you about it Mom. Losing my virginity doesn't change me, but it's just one more little step on the way to growing up. And I love that, but growing up sometimes feels like growing away from you, away from being the Rosalie who had a mom, and I miss you. I wish you were here to share this.