Devon Hartford - Reckless

“I love you too, agápi mou.” He kissed me again, passionately. Our lips slipped across each other’s mouths as mutual desire kindled between us.

“I want you, Christos,” I said, feeling suddenly bold, “Now.”

He pulled back. “Are you sure?” he asked, his face serious. “Have you thought this through?”

“No.”

“Then maybe we should wait. Until the time is right.”

I sighed and considered for a moment. “That’s what I did with lame Damian. I waited and waited, and everything turned out terrible.”

“I’m not Lamian,” Christos smirked.

“Did you say Lame-ian?”

“I did,” he grinned. “Samantha, I can wait as long as you want. I’m not going to rush you or throw a tantrum because you’re not ready.”

I collapsed into him. “I’m soooo ready.”

Christos slowly stood up, leaving me on the carpet.

“Where are you going?” My heart clamped up.

“To put the ice cream away. So it doesn’t melt.” He picked up all three pints and carried them into the kitchen.

Silly me.

When he returned, he said, “Are you ready to host your pageant?”

“Yes,” I smiled.

“What does that mean, anyway?”

“Don’t you know? It’s my V-Pageant Celebration tonight,” I smiled coyly.

He chuckled. “Is that the same as turning in your V-card?”

I grimaced. “No. This is way more upscale.”

He squatted down next to me and pulled me into his arms. I instinctively wrapped mine around his neck as he stood up and carried me to my bedroom. My heart raced. My toes tingled. This was it. It was really going to happen.

With the man I loved.

“Shouldn’t we brush our teeth first, or something?” I asked nervously.

“If you want.”

We stood in front of my bathroom mirror, brushing our teeth together. We’d done it before, but it still felt like we were two little kids having a sleep-over, getting ready for bed together.

He grinned. “What?”

“Nothing,” I said shyly.

When we finished brushing, he stood by the bathroom door, gesturing back into my bedroom. “After you.”

“Oh my god, I’m so nervous.”

“Relax. It’s going to be fine.”

Somehow, I knew it was. Because I was with Christos. Then panic seized me. I slapped my forehead. “Wait!”

“What?”

“I don’t have any condoms! Do you have any condoms? I’m not on the pill.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it. “I don’t.”

“Don’t you carry a condom in your wallet like most guys?”

“I used them.”

“Them? As in, plural?”

He raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders. He was about to say something.

“Stop! I don’t want to know.” I sighed. “So what do we do now?”

“We go buy some.”

“We?” I said nervously. The idea of walking into a store and buying condoms seemed like something you were supposed to do while wearing a trench coat, a wide-brimmed hat, and dark glasses to hide your face. “Can’t we order some online? Rush delivery?”

“What, from 24HourCondoms.com?”

“They deliver, don’t they?”

He smirked, “I don’t think they even exist.”

My shoulders slumped in disappointment.

“Don’t worry, Samantha. Everyone has sex. No one’s going to judge you for buying condoms. Last time I checked, safe sex is cool.”

“Yeah, but the cashier will be looking at me thinking about how I’m going to be having sex with you later. Maybe we could ask the cashier to join us? Maybe film it?” I joked nervously.

“Isn’t there some slogan like, ‘If you’re afraid to buy condoms, you shouldn’t be having sex’?”

“I think it’s, ‘If you need condoms, ask your boyfriend to buy them while you wait in the car.’”

“Mmmm…no.” He smiled compassionately. “Let’s go.”

“All right,” I sighed. “But I’m wearing a ski mask.”

“They’ll think you’re going to rob the place if you do that.”

“That’s a great idea!” I beamed. “They’ll never know who we are! And we can steal them! Do you have a gun? We’ll need it for the stick up.”

He shook his head. “Uh, no.”

“You don’t have a gun? Okay. Maybe Walmart is still open?”

“No.”

“Are they closed?” I asked, worried. “It’s not that late.”

Christos rolled his eyes. “No, we’re not buying a gun. Let’s go.”

“We’re just going to shoplift them? Five-finger the condoms, one for each finger?”

“No, Samantha. We’re going to pay for them. Like adults.”

“Fiiiiiine,” I groaned. I grabbed my purse and we went out the door together.

SAMANTHA

I drove us in my VW to the grocery store. Holding hands, Christos and I walked down an aisle until we stopped at the condom display.

“Which ones should we get?” I asked bashfully.

He scanned the packages hooked to the display. “I’m looking for my favorites.”

“You have a favorite?” I grimaced

“Yeah, why?”

“That’s so weird!”

“Do you have a favorite tampon?” he said cockily.

“Yeah?”

“Exactly,” he grinned.

“That’s different!”

“Really?” he said thoughtfully. “How?”

“Because I go through a dozen tampons a month!”

“I go through more than that.”

Confused, I said, “you don’t wear tampons!”

“Nope.” he smiled that stupid cocky smile again.

“Oh,” I grimaced, “…are you talking about rubbers?”

“Yep.”

“That you use when you’re—!!”

“Yep.”

“Christos!”

“Samantha!” he mocked.

“How much sex do you have?! Wait! Don’t answer that!” I jammed my fingers in my ears.

He pulled my fingers out of my ears. “Since I decided I wanted to be more than your mentor? None.”

Phew. That definitely made me feel better. But there was still the issue of quantity to consider.

“Let me get this straight.” I started ticking off on my fingers the number of times he…you know…per month. I gave up. I didn’t have enough fingers. “You have sex, what, every day?”

“Usually. Until I knew you were the woman I’d been waiting for my entire life.”

Swoon. Wait, he was getting me off track. “So, since you started dating me, you’ve gone from doing the deed daily to never? For months? Isn’t that like, physically impossible for men? To go so long without, you know?”

He hung his head pathetically. “It’s been a rough two months.”

“Oh, Christos,” I placed my palm on his cheek consolingly, “you must be like a parched man in the desert begging for a glass of water.”

His cocky grin spiraled into a dimple. “More like a guy with two hand grenades between his legs with their pins pulled out, or two swollen balloons filled with—”

“I get the idea!” I said, jamming my palm against his chest. “If the pressure isn’t released soon, your boilers are gonna explode or your volcano is going to erupt,” I mocked.

He grinned. “It isn’t that bad. I do have a hand,” he said calmly.

“You are such a perv!”

He chuckled some more.

Despite my semi-disgust at this topic of conversation, I couldn’t stop myself from imagining his now-defunct harem of harlots parading around the site of where his manly edifice jutted up mightily from God’s green earth. I pictured a large circle of cavorting concubines with flowers in their hair and wearing short Grecian dresses while they held hands and danced around King Christos’ fleshy obelisk, preparing to sacrifice their virginity to the God of Love. All while a sweltering sun illuminated the ritual from the sky above.

Yeah, I was ready to change this subject.

Heedless of the fact we were in the middle of a grocery store, I said, “So, we came here to grab condoms so we could have sex. But now I’m feeling like I’m at the back of the unemployment line, waiting to pick up my check, and I’m the girl who gets to the counter last thing before closing, after five hundred other women who’ve already received payment from you have come and gone. Is that supposed to be romantic?”

“No payment ever changed hands, I swear,” he smirked confidently. “But I do accept tips.”

“It’s not funny, Christos,” I sulked.

He sighed. “Samantha, if you want to wait, that’s okay with me. But my history is never going to go away.”

I simmered.

“I’m sorry, Samantha. But that’s the facts. It’s who I am. Had you come into my life sooner, things would’ve been different. What can I say? I dropped all the women in my life the second I decided I was so deeply in love with you that I couldn’t live without you.”

I liked that last bit about him not being able to live without me, but I didn’t want to tell him that the phrase “dropping all the women in his life” made me imagine him coming home from the grocery store cradling paper grocery bags in his arms, the bags overflowing with dozens of miniature naked women, each with a label that read:

Step 1: Add water to create a full-sized floozy. 

Step 2: Insert tab A into slot B.

Step 3: Repeat step 2 until desired result is achieved.

Step 4: Have fun!

I took a deep breath and let it out. I knew Christos was right. I had to accept him as-is. He was used goods. Or pre-owned, as the luxury car dealerships liked to say.

Hold on. What was I thinking? Christos wasn’t an object. He was a person. And people were messy things. I was a recovering hot mess myself. I leaned into him. “You’re right, Christos. I’m sorry. I’m being totally lame.”

“It’s okay. I understand, agápi mou. But I want you to know that the last thing I thought about when I realized I was crazy in love with you was how we were going to work out the sex thing. I just thought about the fact that I desperately loved you and needed you in my life, no matter what. I figured everything else would work itself out if we loved each other. You love me, don’t you?”