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worked its magic, I felt my body relax against Trent’s.
    In a typical female manner, I was far more interested in Trent and hardly watched the movie. For courage, I took another shot of Patron and found myself laughing at the scene in the movie in which the little girl goes downstairs and wets herself.
    “I didn’t realize this was a comedy.” I looked over at Trent, all smiles. Trent looked at me intently and put his hand on my face. I knew what was going to happen and I relished the thought of it. I felt my heart hammer in my chest and waited. Why was I so nervous? I had kissed a dozen guys before this. But this was different, because Trent was different.
    With his fingers wrapped around my hair, he inched towards me. Already I could taste his breath, and I opened my mouth slightly, an invitation to take what he wanted and what I needed. His lips were soft on mine, a sort of slow exploration between our lips and tongue. With my breath coming in and out fast, my heart pounding in my ears, I forgot everything and melted. I very literally felt my body melt into his, making us one.
    I maneuvered my body so that I could lie down on top of him and initiated sex the only way I knew how. It wasn’t romantic or subtle, but it had always worked for me. I thought Trent would make an immediate grab for my ass or boobs, but he surprised me. Instead he continued to play with my hair. Frustrated, I asked Trent if he had any condoms. Blunt, to the point, no sugar coating.
    “Later,” he responded and I withdrew. Later? “I want you, Erin,” he said, combing his fingers through his own hair in obvious frustration, which pleased me a little. At least he was as agitated as I was. “Damnit, I want you. But not like this,” he said, pointing at the almost empty bottle of Patron.
    I understood what he was saying, I really did, but I withdrew even further. He wanted me, but he wanted me sober. I’d never been with a man sober. It felt too intimate, too knowing, too everything. “No.” I shook my head at him because I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
    I got up from the couch to get my stuff, but Trent stopped me and held me in his arms so tightly that I should have felt claustrophobic. But I didn’t. What I did feel was safe. How had Trent become safe? Sneaky bastard.
    “Come to bed with me,” Trent said, still hugging me tightly, and I nodded. He led me to his room and to his bed. “I just want to hold you,” he told me, and I looked at him confused.
    Hold me? As in cuddle? I would have laughed if he didn’t look so serious. So I followed him to bed, slipping under the covers fully clothed. I couldn’t believe I had spent close to a hundred dollars on a bra and underwear that wouldn’t be seen.
    I knew what he was doing. He wanted me to know he wasn’t like the others and I wouldn’t be treated as such. He wanted me to know I could trust him. He wanted me to know he cared about me. And I appreciated it. Because I remembered the first time I had had sex.
    I was fourteen years old; tall and skinny with even less curves than I had now. We were poor and I was hungry, to the point that I had scavenged up enough money to buy a couple of potatoes that I had turned into our dinner for the past two days. But still, my mother had an even stronger appetite for her drugs.
    The man who came into my bed was older, maybe in his forties. My mother had instructed me not to scream or cry or she wouldn’t get the money he had promised. So I didn’t. I asked for some alcohol, which he took as not only assent, but eagerness to be with him. He came back with a bottle of Jim Beam, which I greedily took from him and swallowed as much as I could stomach before pulling it away from my lips, hoping for some disorientation.
    He hadn’t wanted me to close my eyes as he undressed me, so I looked at him without really seeing anything. Outside I could hear my neighbors laughing, and I imagined I was with them, listening to them talk without partaking in