Part Fifteen
Day 36 – Monday July 28th 2002
We only spent half of our day in Memphis yesterday before moving on into Arkansas after lunch. Little Rock is only 2 hours from Memphis along the I-40, so we stopped off there for the afternoon. We took in the sights of the State Capitol, where Bill Clinton was Governor of Arkansas before he became President and the Children's Museum. We also took a slight detour of about 30 minutes from the city to visit the 'Old Mill', which is a small public garden area with a old-style watermill and a pond/stream with faux wooden bridges. Apparently, the mill was used in one of the beginning scenes of Gone With The Wind; although I've never actually seen the film, so I couldn't tell you for sure.
Anyway, I'm feeling really great today! My period is almost over and Max is just being the perfect boyfriend right now. Well actually, I think he's only being his normal self and it's just that, in my eyes, it seems he can do no wrong today. Like when we were walking around the paths by the Old Mill, he slung his arm over my shoulder and held me close to him the whole time. He kept pressing kisses against my hair and whispering things in my ear that made me blush, but also made me want to jump him right there! When he reached the bridge across the water, he insisted on getting these two old ladies to take a picture of us with our arms around each other and then, when they were gone, he picked me up and carried me piggyback style all the way back to the jeep. On top of all that, he even asked me if I wanted to drive – without me having to ask him first.
I wonder, what's gotten into him today? Even now, while I'm writing this journal entry, he's at the other end of the bed, massaging my feet!
Wait a minute…
I know what's going on. See, yesterday, I made him tell me a secret; something he'd never told anyone before and I promised to tell him a secret of mine too, except I made him wait and said I wouldn't tell him just yet.
So, now he's buttering me up in hopes of finding out one of my dirty little secret. Not that I have any, of course. Honest!
Hmm, I think I'm going to have to call him on it.
I'll be back later…
"Mmm, that feels good," I murmur to Max, as I close the journal and let it slide onto the bedcovers next to me.
"You like that?" he smiles, running his thumbs along the undersides of my feet and I shudder at the sensation. Did I mention that I have sensitive feet – very ticklish, as Max found out a few minutes ago – and now the feel of his hands on them is sending tingles all through my body.
"Uh huh," I reply. "So, what's all this in aid of?"
"All what?" he asks, puzzled.
"The pampering," I nod to his hands, "the piggyback ride at the Old Mill this afternoon, letting me drive the jeep before I even asked?"
He looks down, suddenly very interested in studying my feet and I have to bite my lip in amusement. Of course, I already know exactly what this is all in aid of.
"Um, no – no reason," he finally stutters. "Just wanted to show you how much I love you."
"Yeah?" I cross my arms over my chest.
He looks up at me. "Yeah," he confirms, but I don't know whom he's trying to convince; me or himself?
"Come on, just spit it out, Evans."
"Spit what out?" he asks innocently, his hand stilling on my foot.
I raise an eyebrow at him and he caves.
Honestly, I didn't think it would be this easy, but I can't say I don't like having this power over him.
"Fine, you got me. I wanna know your secret." He pouts and I just can't resist him.
"You do, huh?" I grin, an idea forming in my head. "How much?"
"What?"
"How much?" I repeat.
"Liz, come on. I told you mine – with hardly any persuasion, if you remember!"
"Yeah, you're right," I agree. "How come you didn't fight me on it, anyway?"
He gives me an almost incredulous look, "Liz, I told you because I thought the whole point was to share more of ourselves with each other; and now you're refusing to cooperate! I just don't understand how your brain is working right now."
"You're right, I'm sorry," I concede. "I was going to tell you anyway; I just thought we could have some fun first." I wiggle my eyebrows at him. He chuckles and leans up over me, kissing my lips quickly.
"You are so cute," he grins and I blush. I'm not used to compliments like that – Kyle never really told me that I was beautiful, or even cute for that matter, when we were going out. Sure, people have told me I'm pretty before, but it was usually my grandmother or my mom saying it and they don't really count. I mean, they're my family; they kind of have to think that. But, anyway, I'm kind of getting off track here.
"So, you wanna have some fun, huh?" Max says, interrupting my musings. His grin turns sly. "How's this for fun?"
He doesn't give me a chance to respond, because his lips are glued to mine once again, his tongue begging entrance to my mouth and his hands are beneath me, pulling me down to the bed as he slides my body underneath him. I can do nothing but cling to his shoulders as he continues his ministrations. I can't help the shudder that runs through my body as he settles over me; his torso pressing against my chest, his strong thighs on mine, his arousal evident and pressing against me. I almost blush again at the feel of it, despite the fact that I've already gone down on him before. But my embarrassment disappears as he shifts against me, my legs parting to accommodate his hips. He deepens the kiss and I gasp into his mouth as his erection rubs against my clit.
I slide my arms up from his shoulders and wrap them around his neck; I moan as his hands move down to cup my butt, pulling me closer to him.
"Max…" I sigh, my head spinning; but as quickly as his assault on my senses began, it stops and he pulls away. "What?"
But he just smirks at me and moves to support himself on his lower arms. "Was that fun enough for you?"
My mouth falls open in amazement. "Bastard!" I exclaim, but it doesn't come out quiet as outraged as I'd intended. In fact, it's kind of mischievous. Damn him!
The smirk remains as he lowers his mouth to my ear and whispers, "So, do I get to hear a secret now?"
He's so close to me that I can't help nuzzling his neck before I whisper a reply in his ear. "Only if you promise to finish what we just started at some point in the near future."
He pulls back, looking a little surprised, "Some point in the near future? What, you don't want to continue now?"
"Well, in case you've forgotten, I'm still on my period," I remind him.
"Oh, right. Okay," he nods quickly and shifts to lie beside me on the bed, propping himself up on his elbow. "So…this secret of yours, do I get to hear it now?"
"Well," I start, unsure how to continue. Truth is, I have no idea what secret I'm going to tell him. I haven't really thought that far ahead yet. I rack my brains for something that has happened to me that I've told no one about; which is hard because between Max and Maria, I've hardly got any proper secrets left. And considering the subject of the secret he told me, I don't think I have any that significant.
Although, come to think of it, I probably have some pretty embarrassing ones. I rack my brain for the most embarrassing that has ever happened to me; which is proving hard because my mind seems to have gone blank.
Wait, I've got it; although I can't believe I forgot it happened. And I also can't believe that I'm about to tell Max about it either (Yes, it's that embarrassing it's probably not the kind of thing you bring up in civilised conversation); but here goes.
"Well?" I turn my head to find Max watching me expectantly.
"Okay," I shift onto my side so that I'm facing him, supporting my head on my hand. I lean forward to whisper, "This is really embarrassing…"
"Go on," he encourages, his eyes lighting up in, what I can only imagine, is anticipation of what I'm going to say.
"You remember when we had Sex Ed in Seventh Grade?"
"Yeah…"
"Well, afterwards, I was curious about some things and one day I found this book hidden away in our attic. It had all these diagrams and pictures and a lot of information in it, and so I decided to sneak it into my room and read it when my parents were asleep," I confess and Max raises an eyebrow. "Except, one night, it turned out my parents had stayed up late to watch a TV movie and before they turned in for the night, they decided to check on me."
"And…?" Max is grinning now; I think he suspects what happened next.
"And, well…let's just say, I was doing a little more than just reading the book when they walked in," I say in a rush, before burying my head in Max's chest in embarrassment.
"You were…? Oh my God, Liz!" he exclaims, pushing my away from him so he can look at me. "Please don't tell me you were – "
"No!" I shake my head vehemently. "No, Max. I wasn't doing that. But I wasn't exactly fully clothed either," I admit. "I was just kind of checking things out..."
"Right," he swallows. "Well…so, um what did you do?"
"What could I do? It was the most embarrassing moment of my life! My dad just kind of stood there for a moment at a complete loss for words, before hightailing it out of the room, and my mom just gave me this weird look, before telling me that in the morning, we were going to sit down and have a little talk." I hide my burning face in my hand as I await his reaction.
"And how did that go?" he asks, reaching for my hand and pulling it away from my face.
Oh God, he sounds amused; this is so not funny!
"You know what? I don't think I can face talking about it," I tell him, unable to look him in the eye.
His free arm comes around me and he holds me to him. Placing a soft kiss against my hair, he murmurs, "Don't worry, I'm not gonna make you relive all the gory details." I nod my head against him in thanks. "But I can't believe that happened to you! And here I thought you were a good girl," he teases.
"Hmmph," is all I can manage about now.
"You're so cute when you're embarrassed," he murmurs again.
"Ma-ax…" I whine. Now he's embarrassing me.
His arm loosens around me and his hand comes up to cup the back of my neck.
"I love it," he whispers, before leaning in and planting the sweetest kiss on my lips.
Almost all of my humiliation over my story drains away at the feel of his breath against mine and I can't help scooting even closer to him and kissing him back. After some fairly heavy making out and an enormous amount effort from each of us to stop, we curl up together under the covers and watch a movie until we're too tired to stay awake; which is actually only at about 10.30pm, but we do have to drive across pretty much the whole of Texas in the morning, so I guess it's not too bad, considering.
Day 38 – Wednesday July 30th 2002
Okay, so my knowledge of geography leaves much to be desired. It turns out that the I-40 barely goes through Texas at all! In fact, we spent the majority of the last day driving through Oklahoma, only entering the north of Texas a couple of hundred miles before we reached the New Mexico border. It's funny how you just have this view in your mind of what the world looks like and it turns out that you were completely off base – like I've always had this idea that San Francisco is really far north, like up near Seattle, but it turns out it's barely halfway to Canada!
So, we're back in Albuquerque now. Luckily, I've now gotten over my embarrassment about the secret I told Max and in turn, he hasn't brought it up again. It's cool though; we now know something new about each other that we didn't know before, and it's not like we ever bring up any of the things we already knew, so there's no reason to bring these things up in conversation again. Anyway, we've decided to spend one last night on the road before driving back down to Roswell tomorrow; one last night before we have to go back to living in different houses, with half a town separating us.
Okay, no more time to contemplate the thought of being without Max; I have to go now because he is getting impatient for me to finish writing and I'd rather not spend our last night together, with him in a bad mood…
Our last evening out is great. Max takes me to Applebee's for dinner (although I insist on paying half) and then we take a moonlit stroll through the UNM campus. We walk arm-in-arm around the campus, but as we walk down the steps into the student union, until I decide that simply touching arms is not enough. Under the pretence of pointing something out to Max, I don't return my hand to its previous position, but instead I slip my arm behind him, around his waist and sneak my fingers into his back pocket. Although he seems surprised at my obviously unexpected action, he doesn't say anything, but just turns his head and smiles down at me, wrapping his own arm around my waist and pulling me closer to him.
See, if you hadn't already guessed, I'm feeling…how can I put this delicately? Oh, hell I can't…I'm feeling up for it tonight. My period finally finished this morning and now I'm really in the mood to make this last night special for both of us. I can't help squeezing Max's butt lightly with my fingers as I think about what might happen tonight. I also can't help grinning when he starts slightly as my fingers dig into his flesh.
"Liz!" he cries. "What are you doing? We're in public!"
I lean up to his ear and whisper sultrily (or as least, I hope it's sultry), "Just a little preview for later."
I watch as his eyes widen slightly and then suddenly he blurts out, "A movie!"
"What?" Now I'm confused.
"Look, the student cinema is showing a movie tonight. Why don't we check it out?" He nods towards the UNM movie theatre in the corner of the building. I look at my watch; it's still early. There'll be plenty of time for some fun in our room later, so why not?
"Sure, okay," I agree, still slightly puzzled by his actions.
He practically drags me across the floor and then quickly buys two tickets when we reach the box office window.
The movie is a small, independent film that I have never heard of, but Max seems to want to watch it, so I follow him into the cinema.
Two hours later, we emerge from the UNM student union. I have to admit that the film was pretty good, although I'm eager to get back to the motel already.
Max seems quiet as we walk hand-in-hand back to the jeep. I wonder what's going through his mind right now. Maybe he's just excited about tonight. I can't wait to finally share this experience with him. I didn't tell him this, but earlier when we stopped for gas; I slipped into a convenience store and bought some condoms. Although I'm already on the pill (for medical reasons, of course), you can never be too careful.
We make small talk on the way back, but as we get closer to the motel, I start to get a little nervous; I mean, this is Max. I'm going to be making love with my best friend! Now that I think about it, the whole thing seems kind of surreal. Two months ago, I would never have imagined that this is how our big 'end of high school' trip would culminate.
I can't say I'm not happy about it, though. Ecstatic, actually. I haven't mentioned this to Max yet, because he is a guy and in general, guys seem to be eternally afraid of commitment; but the last few nights, as Max was lying asleep next to me, I've allowed my mind to wander to the possibilities of the future. Sometimes I'll imagine our wedding day, or I'll think of the two of us living together in a family home with two young kids (a boy and a girl) running round happily.
You know, I've never really thought of myself as a broody type of person, but recently I've been imagining what our kids would look like. I'd love for them to have Max's eyes (and those gorgeous eyelashes, of course), but definitely my ears. Not that Max's ears are not totally cute (on him, anyway), but I wouldn't wish them on anyone else. God, does that make me a horrible person? I hope not. Actually, I love Max's ears, but I'll never tell him that; his ears have been the subject of our good-natured teasing since we were kids. I can't suddenly take back ten years of mocking them – it would change the whole dynamic of our relationship!
"So, here we are." Max's voice brings me out of my thoughts and I realise that we are outside the motel and that he has turned the engine off.
"That we are," I agree.
Why is it that I've been waiting for this night for the last couple of weeks, but now that it's finally here, I'm all nervous.
"Well, let's go in then," he says and I nod, getting out of the jeep.
We walk up to the door together and I wait almost impatiently as Max fumbles with the key. Maybe he's nervous too. I'll just wait to get inside; maybe then this suddenly strange atmosphere between us will disappear and we can go back to being playful again.
As we enter the room, I take a deep breath and pluck up all my courage. Pushing my sudden nervousness to the back of my mind, I close the door behind us and walk over to Max, sliding my arms around his waist. I look into his eyes, giving him a soft smile and then I lean up to kiss him.
He seems a little hesitant at first, but after a couple of seconds, I feel his hands move up, one resting on my upper back and the other at the base of my neck, beneath my hair. His fingers start to gently massage my skin and all my reservations fade as I lose myself in the kiss. This is where I've always wanted to be (whether subconsciously or not) and I'm going to make the most of it while I can.
"Lizzie," he whispers between kisses and I can feel my insides melt at his tone. How does he always manage to make me feel special? Even when we were just friends, I always felt like I was the centre of his attention whenever we did stuff together. Maybe that's just how he is.
I can't help moaning into his mouth as our tongues tangle together; and slowly, I walk him back towards the bed. The backs of his knees hit the edge of the bed, and unwilling to stop, remove my hands from around his waist and push him down onto the bed. Straddling his hips, I wind my fingers through his hair as we sit on the edge of the bed, kissing and holding each other close, and I enjoy the feel of being in his arms for a few moments.
We sink down to the mattress and I stretch out over Max, basking in the feel of his warm body against mine. Tenderly, I place soft, feather-like kisses along his jaw and down to his neck. I feel him shiver against me and watch with half-lidded eyes as his head falls back against the bed. His hands move down over the length of my spine and come to rest at the small of my back. His fingers find their way under my top and I can't help letting out a small gasp as they come into contact with my warm skin.
I inch my way down to his collarbone, my hands skimming over the soft material of his t-shirt and then underneath it to caress his bare flesh. Barely a second later, the shirt is on the floor, followed by mine shortly after. I feel a little awkward since this is the first time Max has seen me in just my bra (swimwear doesn't count in my book), but I quickly push those thoughts aside and occupy myself with unbuckling his belt and unzipping his jeans. Max's hands make sweeping movements up and down the length of my back as I pepper his chest with kisses, paying close attention to his now erect nipples; but the moment I get his jeans undone and slip my hand into his boxers, he pushes me away.
"No. Liz, stop," he mutters and moves his hands to my shoulders.
Confused, I stop what I'm doing and extract my hand from his trousers. "What? What's wrong, Max?" I ask, rising up on my elbows so that I can see his face.
He closes his eyes and for a moment, I get worried, but then a whisper of a smile appears on his lips and he replies. "Nothing. Nothing's wrong…exactly."
He opens his eyes and then urges me to sit up. Grabbing our shirts from the floor, he hands mine to me and pulls his own over his head. Confused, I do the same.
"Max?" I wonder.
He looks at me, an apologetic expression on his face. "Look, I'm sorry; I don't want to spoil the evening, but I just don't think we should go any further tonight."
"Why not?" I ask, more intrigued than anything else.
He smiles, reaching a hand out to tuck my hair behind my ear. "Liz, I want this, I really do; but I also want our first time to be special. I know that we love each other, but I just think maybe we should wait," he tells me.
"But, why?" I question softly, not annoyed exactly, but puzzled at his sudden change of mind.
He takes a breath. "Okay," he exhales. "Here's the thing. These past few weeks with you have been wonderful – the best of my life – but that's not real, Liz. Tomorrow, we're gonna have to go back to real life and we're going to have to adjust to that – "
"But, surely that's all the more reason to make tonight special," I counter.
"That's not exactly what I mean, Liz. My point is that I want to be able to make love to you in real life, not in this artificial life we've been living the past few weeks. I want us to go on proper dates, where I pick you up from the Crashdown and get grilled by your father." He makes a face at this and I smile. "I want us to be sure of our relationship in our normal environment, with our friends and family around us. I want to be able to make love to you with the knowledge that what we have isn't just a summer thing and that we can make it work in the future."
As disappointed as I am that Max doesn't want to be intimate with me tonight, I have to admit that he does have a point. He's not telling me that he doesn't want to sleep with me; he's saying that he would feel more comfortable if we integrated what we already have, into our real lives first. I understand, I really do. I may not be a virgin, but he is and I want him to be completely comfortable in taking that next step.
"Max, it's okay, I understand," I reassure him, reaching up to stroke his cheek with the palm of my hand. "If you want to wait, we'll wait. That's fine with me."
His warm fingers cover mine on his cheek. "Thanks, Liz. I appreciate that you are willing to wait for me. It's not that I'm not ready, it's just that I want us to take that step with completely level heads, with other people knowing that we're together and accepting it."
"You don't have to explain yourself to me, Max," I tell him. "I respect your decision, so don't worry about it, okay?"
"Thank you," he repeats and pulls me into a quick hug.
We lie down together, facing each other, not saying anything, but just savouring the last night that we'll be spending together in a while. Eventually, we decide we'd better get ready for bed, but this time, instead of washing up separately, we stand side-by-side at the sink, brushing our teeth and washing our faces. I like it; it gives me a glimpse of what life might be like if we ever get married or live together for real.
We fall asleep in each other's arms, our legs entwined and our upper bodies pressed together. I don't think I'll ever get tired of having Max's strong arms wrapped around me, his fingers caressing my skin.
As my eyes drift shut and I lose my battle with consciousness, I tighten my arms around Max and savour these last few hours alone with him.
TBC…