The Fourth of July

The Fourth of July

By Thomas Blaine
(thomasblaine@yahoo.com)

I lost my virginity during the summer of 1965, when I was fifteen years old, to a girl who was renting a room from my uncle. It was during the annual Fourth of July family reunion, held that year in the old park south of my hometown of Greensville. April hadn't met many people since she moved into town so my uncle invited her to the family reunion. In my family, there was no one near my age, and April and I were the only two people at the picnic in high school. I had one cousin who was a senior in college and three cousins plus my brother still in elementary school. I would be a sophomore that September, and April would be a senior.

I spent all morning playing baseball with the cousins and uncles and, by the time lunch rolled around, I ached from head to toe with exhaustion. When my father and his brothers and cousins were kids, before television and even radio came around, baseball was the only thing they could do to have fun. Now they play for the entire day whenever they have the chance because it reminds them of being young. But baseball seemed repetitive to me so, when the hamburgers and hotdogs were barbecued, I was first in line to eat.

I sat down on the grass beneath a large oak tree to one side of the baseball field, paper plate and can of soda in hand, and ate my lunch in the shade. After a few minutes, April walked over with her food in one hand and a blanket draped over her shoulder. She wore a red and brown floral print dress that hung down to her ankles and had buttons down the front. April's long, auburn hair cascaded over her shoulders and fell halfway down her back.

"Do you mind if I join you, Jim?" she asked pleasantly.

"Not at all," I said. I took the blanket from her arm and spread it out on the ground so she wouldn't get her dress dirty.

"I thought you'd be playing baseball with everyone else," she asked in a sweet, almost melodic voice.

I shook my head and said, "No, it got boring after a few hours. Besides, I was hungry."

April's red lips parted into a beautiful smile that exhibited her white teeth. I took her hand and gently helped her onto the blanket next to me. We sat in the shade of that old oak tree, ate our lunches, and talked. April was seventeen and a cheerleader at her high school. She planned on going to college (which neither of her parents did) to study communications, but she didn't know which college she wanted to go to though. April enjoyed riding horses and swimming, and she broke up with her boyfriend Mike, a football player, two months ago because she caught him cheating on her with another cheerleader.

I was fifteen and took pictures for my high school's yearbook. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to go to college or enlist in the Army. At the time, the US wasn't heavily involved in Viet Nam and there was still widespread support for the military. My dad joined the Navy in World War II to fight the Japanese and he thought every young man should spend a few years in uniform. If I did go to college, I would probably be a civil engineering major.

"Where do you go riding?" I asked April, talking about horses.

"At my grandfather's," she said. "He has a ranch where I keep my horse, Becca."

"Do you get to ride a lot?"

"I try to go almost every day during the summer," April said. "And on the weekends during the school year."

"Even during the winter?"

"Oh, especially during the winter," she said. "I love following the trails into the hills above the ranch and look down on the snow-covered plains. Do you ever go riding?"

"I've tried it once or twice, but I was never good at staying in the saddle."

"If you're ever up in Idaho, you should come on out, we'll go riding together. I'll be sure you stay in the saddle," April said, smiling again.

We continued talking for hours after our lunches were gone and the empty plates sat on the grass behind us, attracting the ants. It was a hot afternoon; even in the tree's shade, and I felt the sweat beading up beneath my shirt.

"Do you wanna get out of here?" I asked. "It'll be cooler down by the river."

"Sure," April said.

I got to my feet, helped April to hers, gathered our stuff together, and we set off along the overgrown trail leading to the river, dropping our garbage off on the way. The little dirt trail was well trodden in places, but we had to push branches aside along most of it. It lead to a popular swimming hole; but the park was so crowded with people for the family reunion - all of whom were up by the ball field - that the locals decided to stay away.

The trail wasn't steep and it had only a few rocks so April, in her dress and sandals, could easily follow it. After a few minutes of winding through the trees and shrubs we came upon the swimming hole. It was separated from the river by a crescent of large boulders that had been placed there by the locals, who had also built a sand beach along the rocky shore. April and I were the only two down there, even the opposite bank - a popular fishing area - was deserted.

"Let's go out and sit on those rocks," April suggested.

I pulled off my shoes and socks and rolled up the legs of my jeans, and April removed her shoes and hiked up her dress slightly. Walking on our tiptoes, we stepped from rock to rock along the crescent that protected the swimming hole from the rest of the river until we reached the outermost rocks. We sat down and let our feet dangle in the cool water.

"It's nice out here," April said.

I nodded in agreement. "I've only been here once before; that was a couple years ago."

Glacial runoff flowing down from the mountains fed the river so the water was nice and cold. It felt good swirling around our feet on that hot afternoon.

"So, have you got a girlfriend?" April asked, completely out of the blue.

I shook my head and said, "Nope. I had a serious relationship last year, but that ended in May."

"What happened?" April asked.

I shrugged. "We just didn't like each other like that anymore. You know how it is."

April nodded with a smile on her lips that said, "Yea, I've been there. How serious was it?"

"We'd been going out since the beginning of the year," I said. "But we had been seeing each other off and on for a while before that."

"But you were going steady for most of the year, right?"

I nodded. "Yep. Neither of us really wanted to be with anyone else."

"Was it physical?"

I shrugged, and probably blushed.

"Sort of," I said. "We didn't go all the way, but we didn't just hold hands."

I stumbled over the words because I'd never talked about sex with anyone except Jamie, the girl I was talking about.

"You don't have to be nervous around me," April said, noticing my discomfort. "I won't tell anyone. You're secret's safe."

I smiled, slightly relieved. It wasn't that I was afraid she'd tell anyone, I just didn't want her to think I was some inexperienced kid - even though I was only two years younger than her. She probably had more experience with sex than I did, but she was also an attractive girl. I never considered myself much of a looker.

"So," she said, leaning over and bumping my shoulder with hers. "How far did you get?"

"We got to third base once," I said. "But most of the time we didn't get past second."

"I see," she said with a sarcastic academic nod. "And is that as far as you've ever been?"

This time I know I blushed because I could see my face turn red in the reflection on the water.

"There's nothing wrong with that?" April said trying to put me at ease. "Lots of people don't do it until they're married."

I know she didn't mean it, but it almost sounded like she was patronizing me.

"What about you?" I said, jumping all over the chance to put the focus on her instead of me.

"Me?" she asked rhetorically. "I'm not like lots of people."

"So you . . . you've . . .." I stammered.

"You can go ahead and say it," April stated. "I've had sex, and I'm not ashamed of it."

I'd never heard a girl speak about sex so bluntly until that moment. Growing up in a small town in conservative America forced gender roles on everyone. Only guys talked about sex with other guys. Perhaps girls did the same when they were alone, but they didn't when they were in public. April shattered that gender role in Greensville.

"Do your parents know?" I asked.

"Oh, Lord, no," April stated as if it were an obvious fact I should have known. "If my dad knew I wasn't a virgin he wouldn't let me out of the house until I was thirty."

"When did it happen?"

"The first time?"

"How many times have you done it?" I asked, slightly shocked.

April smiled and said, "Four. But the first time was in tenth grade."

I paused to think about that one, I was just about to start the tenth grade.

"Did you love him?" I asked.

She shook her head. "I thought I did, but I really didn't."

I nodded not sure what to say in response to that. I decided to ask another question.

"What was it like?"

She smiled. "Incredible," she said with a smirk and a nod. "Like nothing I've ever felt before. It was the most pleasure I've ever felt and it was as if my whole body was alive with energy." She was lost in thought and had started breathing heavily. I found myself staring at her small, perky breasts as her dress rose and fell with her breathing.

April seemed to be in a trance for a few moments as she remembered what it felt like to make love. A second later, she blinked her eyes a few times and looked around, as if returning from a daydream and being unsure of where exactly she was.

"It really is wonderful," she said, looking me in the eyes. "And if you ever have to chance to do it with someone who really cares for you, someone who isn't just using you for sex, you won't regret it."

She scooted closer to me and placed her hand on my arm in the way a friend does when trying to make a point to another.

"There is nothing two people can do that is more beautiful than making love," she said, still staring into my eyes. "Two separate, individual people join their bodies together and, if only for a few moments, become in essence one body, one mind, and one soul. I can't imagine anything more intimate than making love and at no time are two people closer than when they become one."

There was a fire in April's eye as she spoke, and redness in her cheeks and lips. Even her neck and shoulders turned slightly flushed before my eyes. I couldn't help but smile. After another few seconds, April emerged from her dream-like state again and leaned back.

"It's hot out here," she said. "Do you want to go for a swim?"

"I don't have my swimsuit," I said.

"Neither do I," she said with a devious grin. "But that doesn't matter, they're all up there playing baseball."

"But what if someone comes down here?" I asked, thinking as practically as always.

April looked around, up and down the river, and said, "Let's go upstream some more then. Just in case someone decides to come down here."

She stood up and stepped over me as she hopped from rock to rock back towards the shore. "Come on, it'll be fun."

It was the most wild and crazy thing I had ever done up until that moment, but I jumped to my feet and followed April along that path. She was waiting for me on the shore and, when I got near, took off along the path so fast that I had to run to keep up with her.

"How far up do you plan on running?" I called after her when we had been running for almost a minute.

"This is far enough," she said, stopping in a clearing on the bank where a small bay with rocky shores provided a nice secluded swimming hole, although it was too far from the main park to be convenient to anyone just out for a swim.

"This is crazy," I said, shaking my head.

"Don't be silly," April said, dropping her shoes on the ground and stepping behind a bush to remove her dress. At least she still has some modesty, I thought. I walked behind another bush and removed my clothes, draping them over a rock to keep them off the ground.

"Come on, slow poke," April shouted while splashing in the water. "The water's fine."

Like a peeping tom, I peered through the bush in hopes of catching a glimpse of this naked girl. But I was too late and April was already in the water up to her neck.

"Turn around," I said.

"Oh don't be a baby, you have nothing I haven't seen before," came the reply from the water.

"Just turn around, or I'm putting my clothes on and going back."

"Fine, you big baby," April said sarcastically. She turned around and faced the opposite bank.

I stepped out from behind the bush with my hands clasped over my privates, just in case she had some way of seeing me.

"It's freezing!" I said.

"Of course it's freezing," April replied. "It's probably coming from the glaciers in those mountains. Can I turn around yet?"

"Not yet," I said. I was only in the water up to my knees. I don't know how she was able to jump in all the way so fast. Slowly I moved out until the water was at my crotch. I let out a gasp as it surrounded my waist.

"Now?"

"Almost," I said. I wanted to get in a little more so the water was halfway up my chest. I didn't want her to catch a glimpse of anything. I was still very modest at the time, but that would change.

"I'm not going to sneak a peek if you don't want me to," April said as if she could read my mind. "Besides, I know all about shrinkage."

I know I blushed again with this comment. It was a well-known locker-room fact that cold air or water resulted in a certain degree of shrinkage of the male privates, like they were retreating into the warmth of the body. My hands were still clasped over my privates, but that was more for keeping it warm than protecting my modesty.

I took a few more steps out and said, "Okay, now you can turn around."

April spun around. Her long hair was fanned out on the water around her neck and she must have been as far out as she could be with her feet still firmly on the riverbed.

"See, it's not so bad," April said, flailing her arms out around her and breast stroking around in a circle; swimming to nowhere in particular.

"Yes it is," I called to her.

As she swam, her body came closer to the surface and I saw the round, tight, and pale skin of her backside. Even though I only could see her back and rear end, it was the first time I had ever seen a naked girl in real life. Being able to move my eyes up and down her body, from the auburn hair spread out around her head down to her dainty feet, and not once see a stitch of clothing covering the flesh was a surreal experience. That first glance of a naked woman is something I still treasure today.

"Don't just stand there," April shouted. "Start swimming."

Slowly I stepped forward until the cold water was up to my neck.

"Chicken!" she shouted.

"Oh, that's it," I called in false anger. "Nobody calls me a chicken."

I dove forward and at once the cold water covered my head. My first few strokes were entirely underwater as I swam after April. She couldn't call me chicken and get away with it. When I surfaced again, my arms swung like paddles through the air as I swam after her as fast as I could.

"Don't try to out swim me," I threatened. "I've got three years of private swimming lessons under my belt."

"Well, I have four," April called. "And that doesn't matter because you don't have a belt on right now. And neither do I. Just try to catch me."

If, when I woke up that morning, someone were to say to me that I would be chasing a naked girl through ice-cold water that afternoon, I would have though he was joking. But without a second thought I swam as hard as I could after April, who always seemed to be one step ahead of me.

"So what happens if I catch you?" I asked. It was a leading question and I asked it more to see how she answered it than to see what the actual answer is.

She stopped swimming and treaded water a few feet in front of me.

"You'll see," she said with a smile.

That didn't give me what I was looking for, but I lunged forward and tried to grab her arms. Suddenly, April dove under and I followed her, doing a complete summersault underwater before I came back to the surface and realized she had escaped.

I spun around in circles to locate her, but didn't see a thing.

"April?" I called, hoping for an answer. But my call was answered by the babble of the river.

Suddenly, in a splash of water twenty feet to my left, April surfaced in a hurry.

"Missed me, missed me," she called the instant she surfaced - the same instant I took off towards her.

"I'll catch you this time," I called after her.

This time, I closed the distance between us rapidly, although I would shortly learn that she had planned it. Suddenly, just as I was about to grab her ankle, her legs shot straight up into the air and plunged beneath the ripples. I dove after her again and, like before, was unsuccessful. I surfaced again and looked around.

A split second before she appeared again, I felt something brush past my right leg. Suddenly she surfaced less than a foot in front of me, kissed me on the lips, and disappeared beneath the surface.

She kissed me! I thought. April, the naked girl in the water, kissed me! Now I never would have believed it if my day had been described to me that morning. What was I doing? How did I let myself get talked into this?

So many questions and uncertainties flashed through my mind in the split second after the kiss. But one thing was for certain: shrinkage was no longer my problem; I now needed to prevent her from noticing the increase in size.

"You aren't going to get away with that," I called when she resurfaced a few yards away from me.

"I'll get away with whatever I want," April responded. "You'll never catch me."

Inspiration struck me; I looked up and pointed at the shore. "Hey, we're being watched!"

April whirled around to see who was spying on us and I seized the opportunity to lunge forward. She was trapped in the shallows and had to get past me to reach deeper water. She didn't dare go any shallower than where she was because her shoulders were above water, any more and she would be indecent.

"You jerk!" she shouted when she realized my rouse. She dove forward onto her belly and started swimming parallel to the shore, but I had enough of a head start on her to catch up.

I finally managed to take hold of her ankle, but she flailed her leg to regain her freedom and turned sharply to her right and swam towards shore. Now I've got her, I thought. I neared her again and lunged forward to take hold of both her ankles with my hands.

Suddenly, she wasn't swimming anymore but running, her feet firmly on the rocky riverbed and the water just below her waist.

"Missed me!" she called again.

The thrill of the chase overcame me and it didn't register in my mind that a completely naked girl was in full view of me only a few feet away. Had I wanted to, I could have seen her bare breasts and, if I had been quick enough, that private area between her legs. As it was, I was afforded a splendid view of her backside as she ran from me, laughing all the while.

By this point the water was slightly above my knees and not once did I think about covering my privates. I'm pretty sure that it had returned to normal size by this point. There was no sexual excitement to enlarge it and my heart was pulsing so fast from chasing her that I knew it wouldn't shrink again.

We were running back the way we came, parallel to the shore. April jumped to the right and ran back out towards the deeper water. With her arms flailing, she fell forward into the water. The lack of grace in her reentry could only mean that she tripped, which would inevitably slow her down. I shallow dived and thrust forward by pushing off the rocks beneath my feet.

A split second later I had her by her arms and spun her around so she faced me, making it more difficult for her to get away. She struggled briefly, but realized it was a futile attempt at escape because my grip was too strong.

"Got you!" I exclaimed triumphantly.

Both of us were breathing heavily.

"You sure do," April said. A smirk lightened her face and she said, "but only because I let you."

"Yea, right," I said doubtfully. "But the question remains, now that I have you, what am I going to do with you."

"You could always kiss me," she said in playful banter.

"Oh I could, could I?" I replied in the same tone. "And then what?"

"Why don't you kiss me and find out?"

I pulled April close to me, parted my lips slightly, and kissed her. It was a long, slow, and deep kiss; the kind that is so passionate that I found himself pulling the her tighter against me. The cold water of the river was a distant sensation for the few, brief moments our lips were joined together. More present in my mind was the warmth of April's body pressed against mine. She wrapped her right leg around my left and pulled her hips tight to mine.

"That wasn't a bad race," I said as the kiss ended.

"Not at all," April replied. "I liked the ending too."

I smiled and said, "So what do we do know?"

April's answer was not in words but in what she did next. Her hand quickly slid down my abdomen and her fingers wrapped around my manhood.

"Oh!" I gasped, startled.

With her hand grasping it, she moved it up and down the shaft, stimulating the sensitive area at the tip.

"I see," I said.

Instinctively, my hands slid from her arms and onto her breasts. Her nipples became hard as my fingers brushed past them and April smiled.

"Now I really liked the ending," she said in a voice full of pleasure.

As her hands stroked my manhood, mine slid down towards her body. The fingertips brushed over her clitoris as they passed over it and the middle finger of my right hand pushed through the lips of her labia and into the warmth of her body.

"You shaved it," I commented, feeling the smooth skin of her womanhood against my hand.

"That way I can feel it better," April answered. A flush had come over her cheeks and her eyes were no more that thin slits.

I pushed my fingers deeper into her body and she stroked my manhood faster, the movements of her arms created small splashes in the water near us.

"Do you like this?" April asked.

"I do," I said half in a whisper. "I do indeed."

April wrapped her other leg around me and, placing her free hand on my shoulder lifted herself higher. She stopped stroking my manhood and angled it out away from my body and towards her, nestling the tip between her labia and displacing my fingers. Guided by some instinct in the back of my head, my hands slid onto her buttocks and slowly lowered her. As her body descended along mind, the warmth of her womanhood engulfed me. Her body sealed around mine and we joined together

I would like to point out at this juncture that, in 1965, the risk of contracting a sexually transmitted disease was quite low compared to today and AIDS hadn't yet entered the public's vocabulary. The only risky aspect to having unprotected sex is the danger of impregnating the girl. I was fifteen at the time and still immature in many things. I certainly wasn't ready for the consequences of getting April pregnant; my entire future would have collapsed and I'd never be able to make anything out of my life. This was an incredible risk for a few moments of pleasure and one would be foolish to take the same risk today.

But all of these warnings and possible consequences were buried in the back of my mind - or never entered my mind at all - and April tightened her legs around my waist and started rocking her hips back and forth as I thrust mine up and down. I had no experience to draw on, I just knew that the deeper I penetrated her, the better it felt. By thrusting, I was able to push in deeper and deeper.

Had the water been calm, it would have risen halfway up my chest, but her body pulsing back and forth, waves of cold water surged across my chest and occasionally splashed over my shoulders. The graceful curves of her firm breasts were entirely out of the water. The nipples stood erect as the breasts swung away from her body from the rocking of her hips.

I found myself staring at her swaying breasts, just a few inches from my face. Her hard nipples were like eyes that held my gaze and stared back into me. April, holding onto my shoulders, leaned her head back, arching her spine, and stared up at the sky with eyes closed. Her auburn hair, now dark brown from being wet, hung down from her head like curtains towards the water.

I felt the pleasures inside me intensify and I finally understood what April meant by two bodies uniting into one. So far as our physical bodies were concerned, we were linked together and, a few moments later, our bodily fluids would freely flow between us. That moment would come soon enough; it built deep inside me like a volcano waiting to explode in a fierce eruption.

Our bodies generated tremendous heat as we made love, and I was thankful every time a wave of cool water washed over me. But the water never reached high enough to wash away the beads of sweat on my forehead. April's entire face was flush, so were her neck, shoulders, and chest. I could almost feel the waves of heat radiating off her body.

We pumped faster and I felt the eruption growing even closer inside of me. It was truly an incredible sensation I experienced then. I fought back the inevitable as long as I could - I wanted to make the pleasure last.

"Oh, my God!" April whispered. She was obviously experiencing the same thing I was.

I fought it back as long as I could, but soon there was nothing I could do to stop it. The orgasm was so intense that I felt as if my entire body drained into hers. I wonder what it must have felt like for April to have the streams of hot, thick ejaculate pulse into her body. Did it feel as if an emptiness inside her body was being filled? Did it feel like anything she could perceive?

The waves of pleasure swept over me with the waves of water stirred by the motion of our bodies. From the top of my head to the bottom of my feet, I felt the pleasure and excitement in every muscle and in every corner of my body. It was spectacular and breathtaking and I never wanted it to end.

I closed my eyes and let myself be swept away on the waves of pleasure surging from my manhood. Every nerve ending, every skin cell on my body felt a thousand times more sensitive to the stimulation outside my body, but the sensory overload deadened my awareness of the world around us. At that moment the expanses of the universe were no greater than the single body created by the union between April and me.

Nothing else mattered because there was nothing else.

Our bodies kept rocking and pulsing and thrusting purely out of reflex as the intoxicating orgasm released our movements from conscious control. But this was a short-lived situation and we soon returned to awareness of the rest of the world, including the fatigue and exhaustion of our own muscles. Our movements slowed and eventually stopped. The waters around or bodies calmed.

Now the afterglow set in as the sensations of the outside world surged back to life and I became aware of four sounds: the gurgling of the river, the rustle of the forest, April's heavy breathing, and my pounding heartbeat. Slowly, April raised her head and opened her eyes. Our gazes joined and I stared deeply into her blue eyes, the pupils of which were almost fully dilated but quickly returned to normal.

I stood there in the swimming hole, chest deep in cold water, and with April's body wrapped around mine. I held her tight and stared into her eyes. I felt her hot breath against my face and the pounding of her heart beneath her breasts. The flushness of her cheeks accentuated her beauty and I understood what she meant earlier about the closeness that making love develops. I placed my hand against her cheek and brushed her hair back.

"That was incredible," I whispered, breaking the long silence.

April smiled. "I can't believe we did this," she said with slight amazement in her voice.

"Do you regret it?" I asked her.

"Of course not," she said with a warm smile. "Do you?"

"Not one bit."

We kissed again and wrapped our arms around each other. I never wanted to let go; I never wanted to let that moment come to an end. I felt closer to April than I did to anyone else. I knew that there could never be any sort of romantic relationship between us because she would eventually leave town and return home, but I knew that April and I would be friends forever.

We held each other tight and stayed locked in each other's arms as long as possible. Finally, the time came when our embrace had to end. We returned to the shore hand in hand and walked in full view of each other, unashamed of our nakedness. Such petty modesty would be rather ridiculous after making love. We dressed and walked back to the park, never dropping each other's hands until we cam within sight of everyone at the baseball field.

"You went for a little swim, eh?" a woman asked as we neared the picnic tables. I'm not sure if she was an aunt or cousin of my parents or what. "It's such a hot day that must have been nice."

"It was," April said. "There's a swimming hole just down the hill. It was very nice."

Of course, the woman couldn't catch the double meaning behind April's words. But I knew what they meant nonetheless.

We resumed the activities of that morning. I played baseball with the men and April sat and talked with the women off to the side, neither of us hinting that anything had happened.

The picnic continued until well after sunset. Around ten thirty that night, one of my uncles set up the fireworks. One by one, the expanding bursts of color lit up the sky. It was such a wonderful display, that everyone's full attention focused on it. April and I couldn't spoil such a moment as this. We held hands so no one could notice and stole kisses from each other during the explosions.

This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to living persons or actual events is entirely coincidental. This story may not be redistributed without permission from the author.