The first time he kissed me was on the third floor of a townhouse my father was renovating. I’d brought him there once after school, after hearing him talk on the phone the other night for what seemed like hours about pocket doors and the architectural significance of them. I’d stolen the master key ring my father always kept inside his briefcase, told my parents I was going to study at the library (not an unheard-of thing on a Friday night, thank you very much), and told him to meet me on Seventy-sixth and Madison.

I’d never done something like this before. But I’d grown up on my dad’s job sites, I knew the codes, I knew exactly how to execute this sneak attack. And when I walked Thomas inside, and he saw the breadth of the renovation my father was taking on, he was in awe.

Looking back now, it was easy to see that not only was he in awe of the townhouse, he was likely also in awe at the ease with which he’d managed to sweep the chubby and slightly lonely daughter of one of New York’s prime real estate developers off her Crocs.

I certainly didn’t feel lonely when he pressed me up against one of those very pocket doors I’d seduced him with, and kissed me until I was seeing stars.

And when his hands slipped around my waist, and I instinctively shrank from his hands on that part of my body, a part that no one ever touched, he tugged me tight against his torso and broke that first kiss. “You’re beautiful, do you know that?”

My heart soared.

“I know most guys mind a little extra padding, but not me.”

My heart soared higher.

His lips kissed a path down my jaw, stopping just below my ear, where he whispered, “Though not too much more, right?”

“Right,” I answered breathlessly.

He kissed me right out of my head, and when he pushed his hand under my shirt and grazed the underside of my breast, I was certain that if he’d asked that night, I would have let him do anything he wanted to me.

But he waited. A gentleman? Sure, let’s go with that.

The rest of that spring I spent with Thomas. If I wasn’t physically with him, I was thinking about him, dreaming about him, mooning over him. He couldn’t always be with me, of course; he had studying to do, projects to work on, and I would never think of interrupting him when he was working on his master’s thesis. But when he had a break, I dropped whatever it was that I was doing to be with him. After all, as he’d pointed out numerous times, I was a senior, and really didn’t need to spend as much time on my studies as he did. Last semester senior year was just a formality, right?

Until my midterm grades came in, and my B’s had fallen to C’s, D’s, and one very upsetting F.

My parents had met Thomas by now, and while they liked him, and liked that their daughter had a boyfriend (I had a boyfriend!), they weren’t crazy about me spending so much time with him. Especially after my grades came out.

A war was waged in our brownstone that day, a war that had been waging between teenagers and their parents since the dawn of time. And I was going to fight to the death to be allowed to continue to see Thomas.

For a girl whose world had been mostly observing the world happen to other people, now I was actually experiencing things, doing things, wanting and being wanted. It was intoxicating, and nothing could have stopped me from what I wanted, what I needed.

And what I needed, more than anything, was Thomas. Never mind the fact that I never once met his friends (it’s not the same as silly high school parties; my friends are all busy either studying or working their two to three jobs because not all of us were lucky enough to be born into wealthy families), never once met his parents (they live in New Jersey and I don’t have a car, and no, you can’t just take a town car everywhere), or even went out to a nice dinner (if we stay in, you can practice your cooking skills. I mean, really, Natalie, how can you not even know how to make toast?).

The first time he put his hands on me, he told me how pretty I was, how soft I was, and how I should never feel bad about my body, that I just wasn’t meant to look like most girls my age.

The first time he put his mouth on me, with his head between my thighs and a serious expression on his face, he told me it was natural for women to love this, and if I didn’t love it, too, that maybe I should think about how lucky I was that someone was willing to do this, considering the obvious. And that even though he personally thought I had a pretty cunt, perhaps I should visit a spa and have some of that au naturel look taken care of.

The first time he let me put my mouth on him, he told me how perfect I looked on my knees, and that he was so very glad that I’d never done this before, because he wouldn’t have any bad habits to break. And for fuck’s sake, he wasn’t an ear of corn, to control my teeth and the urge to not gobble like I hadn’t eaten in a month, which of course would never happen to someone like me.

The first time he was inside of me it didn’t matter if it hurt, because that’s what love was, it was supposed to hurt a little so that you knew it was true and real and worth having, and that don’t worry, it will get better, and if I could figure out how to finally have an orgasm like regular girls, it wouldn’t be something I’d have to think about anymore.

Looking back now, how fucking stupid was I not to see what was going on? But when you were in it, you didn’t know it, and when your life had finally started to happen, it didn’t matter what else you were giving up for that life. It only mattered that you were special—to someone—and that you were very lucky indeed to have that someone. And everything else should just fade away and become background noise.