My First Valentine

by Lubrican

Chapters : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

Chapter Four

The first thing I did when I got home was go over to Valerie's. Her dad answered the door.

"Good evening, young man," he said, formally. "I understand you are escorting my daughter to the Valentine's dance."

"It's me, Mr. Carter," I said.

"I know who you are."

"I've gone with Val places lots of times."

"Not on an official date," he said.

"Is this an official date?"

He smiled. "It had better be. She's pretty excited about it. Do I need to ask you what your intentions are towards my daughter?"

"Intentions?"

He leaned closer and winked.

"Are you going to see what you can get away with?"

I blinked.

"You mean try something with Valerie?" My voice rose. The very concept was ridiculous. She'd break my arm.

"Exactly," he said, looking serious and folding his arms over his chest.

"Who is it, Dear?" asked Mrs. Carter, and her face appeared over his shoulder. "Oh, it's you, Bobby."

"I was trying to divine his intentions toward my only daughter," said Mr. Carter, still very serious.

"Don't harass the poor boy, Ed." She looked at me. "Come in, Bobby. What's up?"

"I need to find out what color Val's dress is," I said. "The one she's going to wear to the dance," I added, just so there wasn't any confusion.

"I don't think she knows, yet," said Mrs. Carter. "She's been trying on dresses all afternoon."

"How many dresses does she have?" I asked, surprised. I wasn't sure I'd ever seen Valerie Carter in a dress. Then I remembered a wedding we both went to when we were ten or eleven. She wore a dress then. And she'd worn a skirt one time to another dance.

"More than the average tomboy," said Mrs. Carter, smiling. "You staying for supper with us?"

"No, I have to get home. The lady at the flower place said I was ignorant and that if Val's dress is going to be white, I have to call her and tell her."

Both adults laughed, which I thought was pretty rude.

"It won't be white," said Mrs. Carter. "Not this time."

I wondered which time it would be white, but decided not to ask. I knew what I needed to know.

"Thanks," I said.

"Certainly," said Mrs. Carter. "When she decides, I'll call your mother and let her know what color it is."

"The lady said the corsage will be two white orkins, or something like that."

More laughter. It was a rude night.

"Valerie will be pleased," said Mrs. Carter, when she stopped laughing. "Orchids represent grace and beauty."

"They do?"

Mr. Carter grinned and patted me on the shoulder.

"At least I know my daughter's virtue is safe."

"Ed!" said Mrs. Carter, clearly chastising him with that one word.

"Well if he doesn't even know what the flowers he's giving her mean, then he's clearly not sophisticated enough to seduce her."

"Ed Carter!" Now she sounded mad.

"I'll just be going," I said, turning to leave.

As the door was closing I heard Mrs. Carter say, "And what if she's the one doing the seducing?"

I thought about that for about twenty feet or so. Valerie? Seducing me?

Not a chance in the world.

Not that I'd mind, of course. If she did, I might get to see those breasts I was so interested in.

But there was no way.

Especially if she'd already seduced any of those other guys she'd gone out with.

My stomach hurt by the time I got home, but by the time my mother interrogated me about the corsage I'd forgotten all about seduction and what I had finally admitted was jealousy on my part.

After all, she was going to the dance with me, right?

Okay, okay. I was going to the dance with her.

I'd been to lots of dances. I was always a little nervous about it, while it happened. I was always nervous in groups of kids. You never knew when somebody would pull some prank, or try bullying you. Things could go terribly wrong in the blink of an eye, and at no fault of yours.

But this time my mother was putting me in a suit. And there was the whole corsage thing, and the lessons my mother suddenly decided were required on etiquette. Such as going up to the door to escort Valerie to the car, and opening her door for her and all that kind of thing. I was pretty sure she'd beat me to the car and open her own door. She had a tendency to dash everywhere, and it was entirely possible she'd actually be offended if I opened doors for her. I could just hear her saying something like, "What are you doing? I'm not an invalid. I'm perfectly capable of opening my own door. Get away from me!"

Then there was the assumption, on the part of my parents, that I was taking Valerie out to eat before the dance. When Mom started in on how I was supposed to seat her at the table, I held up my hand.

"Who said we're going out to eat?" I asked.

"Judy did," said my mother. "She called to ask me if I knew where you intended to take her."

"Her mother wanted to know where we were going to go eat?" This was getting weird.

"Valerie is allergic to shellfish," explained my mother.

"Shellfish," I said, uncertainly.

"Yes, like clams, or oysters, like they have in fancy restaurants."

"I can't afford to take anybody to a fancy restaurant," I said.

"Sure you can, just this once," said my dad. "We'll help out with that. We want you two to have a good time."

"This is starting to sound like prom," I said.

"We can discuss prom when it happens," said my mother, sounding businesslike.

"Yes," said my dad. "One soiree at a time."

"This isn't a soiree, Dear," said my mother, obviously correcting my father. "It's a semi-formal."

"Whatever," said Dad, and I could tell he was losing interest. I was too, for that matter.

"Since I didn't know we were going out to eat, I'll have to talk to Val and see where she wants to go," I said. "Or if she wants to go."

"I gathered it was her idea," said my mother. She frowned. "And a gentleman of good breeding should take charge and establish where he will take his lady fair."

"The last time I tried to take charge, Val slugged me," I commented.

My dad laughed.

What was it with all the rude people tonight?

The day of the dance finally arrived. They were having it on a Saturday night, which meant my mother had all day to fret and fuss and issue last minute instructions on gentlemanliness and etiquette. In the years since all this happened, I've heard more than one bride-to-be bemoan the fact that her mother was intimately involved in planning the wedding, and that, as a result, the bride was thinking seriously about eloping.

I get that.

But finally I escaped from my house, car keys firmly gripped in my hand. I was being required to drive the whole seventy-five feet to the driveway next door, so I could escort my date to the car without making her traverse any grassy swards.

It turned out that was actually a pretty good thing, because Valerie had on high heels. And they'd have sunk right down into the moist earth of our yards.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Remember those lifetime memories I mentioned at the beginning of this whole thing? Well seeing her come into view that night, as I stood inside their front door, is another one of mine.

Her dress was dark blue. I believe they call it Royal Blue. It fell to just above her knees, which surprised me, because I expected it to go down to the floor. Another thing I hadn't expected was for it to fit her so well. The only formal or semi-formal attire I'd ever seen was at weddings, and in people's prom pictures, and a lot of the women in those look like a big colored puff ball. Valerie's dress fit her like a glove, and I suddenly saw that she had the same hour glass shape that I saw in some of the pictures of naked women in my collection.

She wasn't naked, of course, but my eyes went to her chest anyway. The neck of the dress was what I think they call a scoop. It was rounded and went down and back up, exposing maybe three or four inches of cleavage. It wasn't as much as her halter tops exposed, but somehow it looked just as alluring. She had a cream colored clutch purse in her right hand, and she stepped carefully on high heeled shoes that matched the purse. I could see the tiny wobble in her ankles and the concentration on her face as she walked. There was a shawl draped over her shoulders, and hanging down by her arms. It was ivory too.

She stopped, and looked hesitantly at me.

"Wow," I sighed.

"Do I look okay?" she asked, in a voice that sounded very unsure.

Her father snorted. I didn't look at him. I didn't look at anything except Valerie.

"Better than okay," I said. I know, it wasn't suave, but it was what came into my mind.

"You look good too," she said, her eyes ranging over my suit. I felt stiff and uncomfortable in it, and figured I looked like it.

The weight of the box containing her corsage intruded on my mind and I lifted it.

"I got you a corsage."

"Okay," she said.

It was obvious that she was nervous. That was odd, because Val was never nervous. But it made me feel better, somehow, because I was nervous as hell.

"Well don't just stand there," said Mrs. Carter. "Put it on her."

I opened the box and reached in for the corsage. I'd looked at it before. My mother had oohed and ahhed over it. Even I thought it was pretty. But I hadn't thought about what it would take to attach it to her. I pulled it out and turned it over. There were two huge pins sticking through the stem part of the thing. They were obviously to pin it to her dress.

I looked at Val, at that scooped neckline. There was plenty of room for it on either side. I approached her, pulling the pins out of the stem.

"Which side do you want it on?" I asked.

"Put it on her left side," said her father.

"Why?" asked his daughter.

"So he won't crush it while you're dancing," he said.

"Dancing?" We both said it at the same time.

"I believe it's called the Valentine's Day Dance," said Mrs. Carter, gently.

"I don't know how to dance," I said, weakly.

"You'll figure it out," said Mr. Carter.

"You're going to be late if we stand here talking all night," said Mrs. Carter.

So I approached Val, trying to figure out how to pin that stupid flower onto the left side of her dress. It was obvious that the easiest way would be to slip the fingers of my left hand inside that scooped neckline - just a little - which would let me lift the cloth and press the pin through it without stabbing her. My fingers could then guide the tip of the pin back out of the cloth. I'd have to do that twice, once with a pin high on the stem, and again with a pin low on the stem.

The idea of sliding my fingers inside her neckline didn't bother me at all.

What bothered me was doing it in front of her parents.

I looked at her mother.

"Maybe you should do this?" I suggested.

"You're her date," she said, firmly.

Slowly, I reached. Val just stood there.

"Don't stick me," she whispered.

"I'll try not to," I answered.

I had touched Valerie Carter hundreds of times. We'd wrestled, and pushed each other, and given each other a boost while climbing a tree or whatever. So touching her this time shouldn't have been any different. But it was. I'll never forget the soft, silky feel of her skin on the back of my fingers. I tried not to go too deep, but it was impossible to put the flower on securely without both pins, and that bottom one required that I slide my fingers so deeply that I expected them to run into the edge of a bra. But they didn't. All I felt was soft, warm, slightly spongy flesh as I struggled with the pins.

She stood there patiently, which surprised me. I kept expecting her to say what a moron I was, and take over herself. But she didn't. During the process I realized she was wearing perfume. That was a first too. And it smelled really good.

I glanced up. She was looking at the flower. Or maybe my fingers. When I looked up, she did too. My hand was still inside her dress, but she wasn't blushing or anything. I looked back down and finally got the bottom pin in. I removed my left hand from her dress and gave the corsage an experimental tug with my right.

"I think it will stay on," I said.

"It will be fine," said Mrs. Carter.

"Let's go," said Valerie. She sounded urgent.

"Pictures first!" said Mrs. Carter.

"Mom!" Val objected.

"This is your first date. If you think you're getting out of here without some pictures being taken, you're sorely mistaken, young missy!"

"This isn't my first date," said Valerie, artlessly.

"It's your first semi-formal date," said her mother. "Now, stand over here by the potted plant."

Mrs. Carter lifted a digital camera that she must have had all along, but I hadn't seen because I had only had eyes for Valerie. We stood there, having to be told to smile, while the camera flashed four or five times.

Finally, we were allowed to leave, hearing both adults call out, "Have fun." I didn't offer my arm so much as Val took it. I think it was because she was still a little unsure about walking on those stilts. The heels must have been four inches tall. We had elected to go out to eat after the dance, because Valerie's friends all said that was the thing to do.

We walked slowly to the car, but I didn't mind how slowly we walked.

That was because all that way, my arm was pressed firmly into the side of her left breast.

When we got to the car, I found out why my fingers hadn't run into her bra while I was affixing the orchids to her dress.

As she got into the passenger seat (through the door I had thoughtfully opened for her), she pulled the shawl into her hands and I got my first look at her back.

The material of the dress came over her shoulders and then went down her sides, making a scoop of another kind across her lower back. Her whole back was exposed, and there was no way in the world she could have worn a bra. The errant thought crossed my mind that she had picked this dress just because she'd have an excuse not to wear one.

I only got a quick glance, but during that glance I was deeply affected. I know guys aren't supposed to be all touchy feely and gooey about our emotions, but things were happening to me that were changing the way I thought about Valerie Carter. I'd seen her back before. We'd played on the slip and slide topless. And she'd worn bikinis when we went swimming. But the quick glance I got was not at the back of ten-year-old Valerie on the slip and slide. And I'd never seen it without a strap of some kind crossing it since her first period had made her quit showing me her growing boobs. Somehow, that lack of strap exposed a compendium of smoothly rippling muscles beneath what seemed like an acre of smooth, flawless skin. I had never seen this back before, and it was astonishingly beautiful.

"What's wrong?"

She broke my concentration, and I realized I was just standing there, remembering the vision of her back. I had just begun to reflect on the concept that Valerie Carter's breasts were unfettered in the dress she was wearing, and that I was going to spend the evening with those unfettered breasts.

"Nothing. You're just really beautiful." It just came out.

"Thank you," she said. "Are we going to go, or are you just going to stand there all night admiring me?"

"Go," I said. "Definitely go." Suddenly, I was very interested in dancing, chest to chest with my date. Like her dad had said, we'd figure it out.

By the time I got to my side of the car and slid in, I had most of a boner.

The boner went away by the time we got to school. It stayed away as we negotiated the entrance, and the stares of people we knew, but who looked strange and alien in their outfits. I'm sure we did too. It's quite possible nobody recognized Valerie. Her mother had done her hair up on top of her head, and it had a string of tiny ivory beads woven into it. She had on makeup too. It was the first time in my life I'd ever seen her with lipstick on. It made her lips look lush and soft and, for the first time in my life I wondered what it would be like to kiss them.

She was a veritable smorgasbord of new thoughts. I'd thought about her breasts for years, but now I looked at the lines of her neck, which looked like it had been stretched, somehow, and at the hollow of her throat, and the line of her chin. Her shoulders even looked interesting. And whether it was the nylons she was wearing (another first), or the fact that she was basically walking on her tip toes, her calves looked muscular, but feminine at the same time.

"I hate these shoes already," she said, coincidentally.

"Take them off," I suggested, regretfully.

"Maybe later. Let's get some punch. I'm parched."

We got cups of fruity punch and took them ten feet away from the table. The band was warming up and there was really nothing to do.

"How long did it take you to look like that?" I asked. It was just out of curiosity.

"Hours," she said. "It's a good thing I like you, because if I didn't, I'd have called a halt to the whole process."

"Really?" I felt a foreign, but welcome rush of something nice shoot through me. I already knew she liked me, so why did it feel so good to hear her say it?

"In a heartbeat. I'm never getting married, because if I did I'd have to kill my mother first."

I laughed. She grinned.

"You really do look amazing," I said.

"I feel like a puppet, and somebody I can't see is pulling my strings."

"Well, any time you want to dress up like that, I'll be happy to come look at you."

"Good luck. I'm not ever going to another one of these things."

"Never?"

She looked at me.

"Maybe if you ask me to."

I felt that thrill again.

"Consider yourself asked," I said.

She laughed.

"It doesn't work that way, pal. You wouldn't believe the hours I spent listening to all the rules, and how I was supposed to act and all that."

"Me too!" I said. "I got lectures every day since they found out we were going to do this!

"And you listened," she said, approvingly. "I noticed you opened doors for me. Very impressive."

"I was afraid you'd yell at me for doing it."

"It's actually kind of nice. Makes me feel special."

"You are special," I said. Again, it just popped out.

Her eyelashes, which were impossibly long and black, lowered, until I could only see half her eyes.

"You are going to dance with me tonight," she said, softly.

"Okay," I said, trying not to sound too eager.

"A lot," she amended.

"Okay," I agreed easily.

"I don't want any other boys cutting in, either," she said.

"How come?"

"Because I don't want any boy other than you putting his hand on my back. I know it won't, but it feels like this dress is going to fall off of me any minute."

"How about we wait until we're alone before your dress falls off," I quipped.

Again, I got that half-lidded stare.

"You'd like that ... pervert."

I'm sure it was just the hormones coursing through my veins, but suddenly I felt bold, and powerful and invincible.

"I would," I admitted.

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