Tami held the dark green dress up to Kimberley. "Jack will flip," she told her.

Kimberley pushed it back against Tami. "No, it'll look better on you. You're the perfect height. Eric will flip."

They both giggled and returned the dress to the rack. Neither bought it in the end. Tami chose a black dress, and Kimberley got a red one.

[*]

"Red makes boys think of sex," Kimberley said as she unlocked the trunk of her Volkswagen and they threw their bags inside.

"Everything makes boys think of sex," Tami insisted.

"Not Jack." Kimberley unlocked the driver's side and then leaned over to unlock Tami's door.

Tami slid inside. "Jack is thinking about it, I guarantee you, whether or not he's doing it."

Kimberley started the engine. "I'm hoping that dress will finally make him shed his scruples on prom night."

Tami buckled in. "You and I have the opposite problem."

"Still holding Eric at bay?"

"He's very respectful of my decision not to have sex. It's just…"

Kimberley reversed the car and pulled out of her parking space. "He's a great offensive player?"

"He's very talented," Tami said with a smile.

"He's inching his way toward the end zone?"

Tami laughed. "Maybe."

"How far have y'all gone?" Kimberley asked as she switched to drive and headed away from the mall.

"Not very. We did skinny dip on Sunday, though."

"Seriously?" Kimberley glanced at her with a gleeful look in her eyes. "Where?"

"A secret spot I'm not telling anyone about."

"But you didn't do it?"

Tami shook her head.

"So…How big was it?"

"Kim!" Tami shouted.

Kimberley laughed.

"We didn't actually see each other naked," Tami said. "I mean, I saw his backside when he got out, but that's it." Tami dug in her purse for her sunglasses, but had trouble finding them. "He has a very nice ass. Better than it looks in those football pants even."

"So…what have you done so far?" Kimberley asked. "Hand jobs?"

"Wow, you're nosy."

Kimberly sighed. "I have to live vicariously."

Tami chuckled. "Not yet. Just, you know…stuff above the waist mostly. That's it so far. I told you I'm not in a rush. I have to be sure."

"What's there to be sure of?" Kimberley asked. "He's crazy in love with you."

"I don't know. I just...that's the last part of me I'm holding back. I already told him I love him. That's all I've got left. I feel like it keeps me safe."

"Well, it's prom, Tami. And he's been so sweet to you. You're going to give him a little something more, aren't you?"

"Probably. But not all of it."

"You've got to at least give him the best blow job of his life."

Tami's moth dropped open. "I can't believe you just said that!"

Kimberley appeared confused by Tami's reaction, but then realization dawned on her face. "God, I'm so sorry, Tami." Frantically, she looked back and forth from Tami to the road. "I wasn't even thinking about Anita. I swear to God. I'm so sorry. I was just, I wasn't - "

Tami shook her head. She laughed. "You know what, it's funny. I am finally over that enough to find that just a little bit funny." She pulled her sunglasses out of her purse and put them on. "Anita will always have me beat on quantity," Tami said. "But I think I could show her a thing or two about quality."

"Don't show her," Kimberley said. "Show Eric."

[*]

On prom night Eric danced beautifully - so beautifully that halfway through their second slow dance, Tami accused him of secretly taking lessons.

"When I was in Dallas for winter break," he admitted, "I might have asked Kathleen to show me a thing or two. And maybe I've been practicing since then, just in case I ever got the privilege to dance with you."

Tami pressed her cheek to his. "You've got some good lines, you know."

Later, they talked and joked with Jack and Kimberley while sitting and drinking punch at one of the tables. It was an evening of laughter and love and friendship, of warm affection and of beginning to say goodbye to their high school days. It was the perfect night, as far as Tami was concerned, at least until Anita and Sue Beth got into a cat fight over Mo, and Sue Beth stained Anita's white dress with an entire glass full of punch.

No, Tami thought, even that was perfect.

[*]

After the dance, on the way home, Eric threw his pick-up into four wheel drive and rolled over rocks and sticks to their secret clearing in the woods.

"What are we doing?" Tami asked.

"I thought you might like to park and look at the stars for a while."

"Uh-huh," she said with a smile.

He smiled back. "Really, they're gorgeous here. Not as gorgeous as you, but…"

Eric suggested unrolling a sleeping bag in the bed of his pick-up so they could lie on their backs and stargaze. Predictably, they weren't looking at the stars for long before he rolled on his side and kissed her cheek. She, too, rolled toward him and pressed her lips to his.

They lay side by side for some time, kissing and caressing one another. Gradually, she unbuttoned his shirt and loosened his tie, but she left it draped around his neck, dangling between his pectoral muscles, which she explored with her hands as her tongue explored his mouth.

Meanwhile, he slowly untied the bow at the top of her black dress. He folded down the fabric to further reveal her cleavage and then dipped his hand into her bra. His touch toyed her nipples into hardness. She moaned against his lips as the heat mounted within her.

Eventually, he slid his hand out of the top of her dress and ran it down over the black fabric to the hem, which he pushed up to her thighs. He caressed her legs for a while before easing a finger cautiously underneath the edge of her silky, black panties. She gasped against his lips when she felt the heat of his finger touching her so intimately. He froze in place. He was waiting, she knew, to see if she would tell him to stop, but instead she murmured please.

He slipped another finger beneath the lacy edge, captured her mouth again with his, and kissed her hungrily while he touched her. She moved into his touch while she whimpered against his lips, and it wasn't long before she was shuddering against him.

He slid his fingers out of her panties and rested a hand on her knee. With his other hand, he stroked her hair as she recovered her breath. When her breathing had leveled, he asked, "Would you please do that for me, too, Tami? Touch me?"

His gentle request, in its contrast, reminded her of Mo's uncouth, "Can I at least get a hand job? My balls are turning blue here." Shelley was wrong to laugh at her all those months ago. There could be such a thing as a romantic hand job. But that's not what Tami had in mind.

She sat up and looked down at him. In the light from the moon and stars, she could see his erection straining against the zipper of his black suit pants. "Hand me your suit coat," she told him.

He looked puzzled, but he sat up and handed it to her. "Is that a no?" he asked as she took the coat from him.

"It's a different yes." Tami slid off the tail gate of the truck. She spread the suit coat on the ground.

"Why are you throwing that on the ground?" he said. "That's my church suit."

"I don't want to get dirty when I kneel down," she told him. "Now come here."

Eric grinned. He slid off the tailgate, put it up, and leaned back against it. "I think maybe you do want to get dirty," he said as Tami slid to her knees before him. His eyes were twinkling with excitement, as bright, almost, as the stars. He closed them fast when Tami reached for his belt buckle.

[*]

"I probably shouldn't tell my father how often you used the Lord's name in vain back there, huh?" Tami teased as Eric drove the truck back up to the road. Her head was on his shoulder.

"Please don't talk about your father right now."

She kissed his shoulder and giggled. "Did you like that?"

"Yeah," he said, nodding and smiling. "Yeah, I kind of liked that. A little bit."

"A little bit, huh?" she asked.

"I don't know. You're going to have to do it again sometime soon. So I can be sure."

When they were parked along the curb right outside the parsonage, she said, "I had a really good time tonight."

"So did I." He leaned in and kissed her. "And not just because of that. I love you, Tami. I love seeing you happy. I loved seeing you smile out there on that dance floor."

"I love you, too," she told him. She kissed him again. The porch light flicked on, and Eric drew back.

[*]

Eric sat beside her in the front pew at church on Sunday, his arm around her shoulder. She leaned comfortably against him. From the pulpit, the Reverend was preaching on Corinthians. "Your body is a temple," he was saying, and Eric whispered in Tami's ear, "I want to worship at your temple."

Tami lowered her head, bit down on her bottom lip, and fought, with every fiber of her being, the urge to laugh in church.