She relaxed her legs and gently tugged at her skirt until his hand rested on her bare flesh. Then she tightened them around the hand again, writhing slightly, trying wordlessly to urge him higher. “I want you, George,” she repeated. “I want you.” Her breath was coming quickly now through parted lips. Her face was flushed. “I want you.”
Abruptly, George straightened up and pulled his hand loose. “I want you too, Llona,” he said, “but not like this. It’s not right. You’re a good girl and you shouldn’t be acting like this. I’d feel like a heel if I took advantage of you.”
Llona shot bolt upright and looked at him angrily. “Why, George Rutherford, you big hypocrite! All these years you’ve been cornering me in parked cars, necking me and making me pet with you and now you suddenly go moral on me? Just what have you been trying to get me to do all that time, anyway? You’ve been trying to get me to go all the way, that’s what. And when I finally can’t stand up against your fatal charm any more, you pull this. I don’t get it. Have you just been playing games with me? Don’t you want me? Is that it?”
“No. No, of course not.”
“What is it, then?”
“Well, like you said the other night. We shouldn’t take chances. Suppose you got pregnant or something?”
“With a drug store on every corner? That’s what you said. Remember? What’s the matter did you forget your Boy Scout motto tonight?”
“No. I’m ready— I mean, I've got ’em right in my wallet-— That is—” George’s face was brick red, and he backed away from her in confusion.
“Well, what’s stopping you then? You’re supposed to be such a big lover boy and everything —”
“That’s just it,” George muttered.
“What’s just it?”
“I’m not.”
“Not what.”
“Not a lover boy—that’s what.”
“I don’t get it. Then how come you’ve been trying so hard?”
“Well gee, Llona,” George said with a burst of frankness, “how else can a feller get to be a big lover boy—or any kind of a lover boy for that matter-—-unless he tries and tried hard?”
“Oh!” She looked at George wonderingly, and then slowly a smile began spreading over her face. “George, let me see if I understand what you’re saying. You mean you’ve never made love to a girl—any girl?”
“That's right.” George's voice was very low and he stared steadfastly at the tops of his shoes.
“George!” Llona’s voice broke with laughter. “You’re a virgin!”
“That’s right.” It was a whisper.
“Oh, George!” Llona collapsed on the couch and let the laughter bubble forth.
George clenched his teeth and watched her for a while. Then he couldn’t stand it any longer. “It’s not that funny,” he told her, but she kept right on laughing. “All right, laugh then,” he shouted. “But I don’t have to stand here and watch you. I’m going!” He started for the door.
“George, wait!” Llona brought her giggles under control and rose from the sofa.
“Wait for what?” His voice was bitter.
“Oh, George, I’m sorry. I really shouldn’t have laughed. It was mean of me, and I am really and truly sorry. Please, George, don’t go. That’s a good boy,” she said as she let her lead him back to the sofa and they sat down. “Now, believe me, I wasn’t just laughing at you. I was laughing at me, too. I was laughing at both of us.”
“At both of us? Why?”
“Now George, don’t be mad. Just stop and think about it a minute and you’ll see that it really is funny. I mean, you’ve been trying to make me for years. And for years I’ve been fighting you off because I wanted to keep my virginity. Then I decide I want you and when the chips are down you chicken out because you’re a virgin. Don’t you see the humor of it?”
George grinned slowly. “I guess you’re right,” he said. “It really is funny.” Then the grin vanished. “The trouble is that now I guess you don’t want me at all—I mean knowing all this time I’ve just been fumbling my way and all-—-I guess you’ll want a guy who knows what he’s doing.”
Llona felt a wave of sympathy for him wash over her. “Oh, George, no,” she said. “I don’t feel that way at all.”
But his eyes were again riveted to the tops of his shoes and he wouldn’t look at her.
“I mean it, George.” To prove it, Llona slid across his lap and raised her face to be kissed.
There was a passionate desperation in the way he kissed her. It was a fiery kiss, searching and demanding at the same time. Llona felt it from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. It left her shaking, but George didn’t give her any time to analyze her feelings.
This time she didn’t have to guide him. His hands were firm and sure as he pushed down the top of her dress and freed her bosom from her bra. His lips scorched her flesh as he covered her breasts-—both breasts-—-with kisses. George wasn’t following any preconceived plan now; he was just doing what came naturally.
His hand was sure as it slid up the length of her bare leg, as he swept her skirt out of the way with a flick of his wrist. Nor was there any hesitation as it traveled up to her waist to clench the top of her panties and slide them from her body. As in a trance, Llona raised her buttocks to allow him to slide the garment free smoothly. Then he pulled himself up for a moment, his hands working furiously at his belt and the buttons on his trousers. He fairly tore the garments off, then knelt on the couch, straddling Llona. He ran his hands down her breasts and over her body and looked at her for a long moment.
She arched her boy in impatience. “Now, George, now!” she said. “Oh, hurry!”
Fiercely, George plunged to do her bidding, but-— .
“What the hell do you think --!” Rufus Mayper stood in the doorway, outrage etched in every-line of his face, shock bulging every muscle in his taut body.
Llona jerked her head up, reaching automatically to pull down her skirt with the same gesture. It was an unfortunate movement. The top of her head caught George right on the nose. He tumbled from the couch, blood streaming from the wound.
“Dad!”
“Sir, I can explain.” George was frantically trying to fumble a handkerchief from his pocket to staunch the flow of blood.
“Explain, hell!” Rufus lacked only a shotgun to make his enraged fatherhood complete.
George, the shock of seeing Rufus just beginning to abate a little, stopped groping for a handkerchief and began to hurriedly pull his pants on instead. Llona was standing now, smoothing out her clothing, patting down her hair, trying frantically to think of something to say or do. George, buckling his belt now, was also trying to think. But his mind wasn’t working too coherently, as his desperate words proved.
“I, uh, was—was trying to show Llona a new kind of-— of artificial respiration the—the lifeguard at the pool was — was showing us t’other day.” He looked at Rufus hopefully.
“Artificial respiration!” It was the snarl of a lion teased beyond endurance. “An’ I s’pose you hadda take your clothes off to show it to her?”
“Well, yes--” George began. “You see—”
“Oh, stop it. George.” Llona said wearilv. “Mv father’s .ot a fool. Pa, you saw exactly what you thought you saw- I’m sorry, but there it is. Now what?”
“Now what?” Rufus bellowed. “Now what do you think? You an’ this Romeo’s gonna get hitched, that! what!”
“Suppose George doesn’t want to marry me, Dad?"
Rufus gave her a long look, then turned and strode over to George. He grasped the collar of his shirt in both hands and hefted him from the floor. “Oh, he wants to marry you, all right,” he said over George’s shoulder to Llona. “Don’t you, Romeo?” He shook him like a terrier shakes a rat. “Answer me. Don’t you?”
“W-well, yes,” George said. “As a matter of fact, I do. But not ’cause I’m afraid of you, Mr. Mayper,” he added hastly. “I want to marry Llona ’cause I really love her.”