I liked him. At the time I thought it was love, when I'm sure all of you so-called adults would debunk that. But I'm glad you're saying it wasn't love, it was never love. It was lust that ended with pleasure fused with pain and horror and bitter heartache. Smiling at each other, hands slightly touching the surface of the other's skin, mine more delicate now than what it has ever been. My body a tomb that has been raided.

He told me I looked pretty with my hair pulled back. My cheeks warmed and my heart beat just a little faster. I told him his suit looked especially nice that day, I asked where it bought it. He shrugged. "I didn't fork out much. It was one hundred dollars when it was usually sold for about two hundred and fifty-five."

"You got it on sale?" I ask. "I guess I did." he replies. My cheeks get warmer and warmer until I feel a strange sensation in my lower areas. I blush. I turn to stone and walk away, sprint, really. My mother told me it was sinful of me to enertain vile and dirty thoughts. She told me it was sinful and slapping God in the face whenever I examined my own body as I was going through puberty. I had the blinds shut and the door closed, but I wasn't allowed to shut my door, so she entered. I was fully nude. And I was thirteen years old at the time.

In my lower parts was a patch of fuzzy, dark hair. Not smooth or straight like the hair on my head, but thick and matted and curly. My chest that had been flat not too long ago was growing and changing in ways that horrified and excited me. I ran my hands over my tender, developing breasts---feeling the particular softness of my baby pink nipples. Caressing myself. I'm so sof, I had thought. In school that week, we were learning about sex, this topic fascinated me and made me cringe and giddy at the same time. Ever since I heard what it was, I'd been eager to try. But, of course, I'd never say that aloud.

Out of sheer curiosity, I ran my fingers down myself and prodded inside. I felt something and applied pressure. Lots of it. My eyes fluttered and about the time I was about to go deeper, press a little harder, Mother walked in and her mouth dropped open. "What in God's name is this, child!?" she said. "Nothing, I was just---!"

"You were just being dirty! Get your clothes on and go wash yourself, you go straight to bed after you repent of your sins and read chapters out of the Bible." I wanted to cry. But I obeyed. My father died when I was still in Mother's womb. She said that I was a mistake, that God punished her by having me and took Father away from her. I always felt cold and isolated after she said that. She raised me in a Catholic church, but since we moved, we haven't been active in church and Mother's grown angrier each day. She works two jobs and comes home and tells me I need to get off my rear and be useful. I guess she automatically assumed I thought about intercourse and pleasure and "wicked" things half the time, and naturally detested me.

When I was older, I found out they had me out of wedlock and rushed to be married. In little spat with her, I brought it up. "So I can't entertain the idea of having a boyfriend and yet you can spread your legs for yours?" That got me a good smack. Since then, I regularly attend a small church. Mother doesn't go, Mother would much rather focus and be at peace when I'm gone there, so she can have her alone time with God. But the boy was very handsome. He had hazel eyes and light brown hair. Taller and older than me, I was just sixteen. One day, the boy was at least eighteen or nineteen, asked me to go for a walk with him.

I lied and told Mother I was helping a friend organize her binders and papers for a school exam. After the walk, the fuzzy feeling in my stomach spreading like a wildfire in between my legs and stretching out to the tips of my being, we went behind the church. I guess he felt excited about me, too. Why else would he touch his lips to mine? That was my first kiss, and the more he found I wanted the kissing, the more I wanted him touching my waist and legs, the more stricter he did it. I thought about Mother, but I didn't really care. Not then, at least. He kisses my neck passionately, then he swipes my lips gently with his tongue. I wrapped my legs around his waist. We laid down in the grass behind the church, thick bushes and a small tree covering us, and I felt as though I were going too far for comfort.

I giggle and try to push him away. He smiles and kept coming back for more. Feeling threatened by how he wanted to be straddling me, how his fingers kept trying to pull up my white dress, I urge and plead him to stop. "Why?" he asks. "I'm not comfortable. It's not that I don't like you or anything, I'm just not emotionally ready for this."

"Are you . . . physically ready?" he asks, his eyebrows raising up. I try to laugh, but an unsettling feeling of being physically restrained surpresses it. "Yes, but that doesn't matter." He chuckles. "You'll enjoy it. You'll warm up to it, I assure you." he goes for his belt buckle and proceeds to remove his suit jacket. "No, I don't want this. Stop!" He stares down at me with an unsatisfied look, distaste showing all too well. "No, you're going to be ready." His eyes glisten with a darkness I've never known. "Please," I whipser. "Of course,"

For an ignorant moment, I believe he will respect me. He doesn't. Instead he lifted up my dress and pulled down my pale panties. "Stop it---!" He slid his fingers between my legs. I freeze, unable to find my voice to scream. Unzipping his pants, rolling up his sleeves, my legs are forcefully separated and within seconds he'd entered me. It hurt me. Throughout the beginning, he thrusted and grunted. Then I felt the tingly sensation radiating all through me. My pulse quickened and the feeling of pleasure rippled through my lower area. I lean my head back and slightly, just slightly, let out a satisfied moan. The feeling was good and left me wanting to push him in deeper, in hopes of a more intense sensation. Instead, the deeper he went, the more it hurt and stretched.

I feet so wrong. I feel like trash. He covers my mouth and begins thrusting so hard, I scream. This goes on for seconds. He got up and adjusted himself. He leans down and one last time kisses me. "Now, don't go getting pregnant on me!" he said it like it was funny. A joke between friends.

I lie there numb and sore. My legs and arms throbing. Tears quietly streamed down my face. I shut my eyes and pray to God I would not have to give birth to his child . . . our child.