We were drinking cheap wine on her apartment floor because all her furniture was still in boxes from moving in last week and she asked me how many people I'd slept with and I said zero and took a big sip.

She didn't laugh. That's the first thing I want to say because I'd been terrified of that, the laugh, the oh you're kidding, the wait seriously? She just looked at me and said "why" like she was asking about something normal.

I told her I'd come close twice, once at prom and once at a party freshman year, but both times I got too in my head about it and made up an excuse to leave and she nodded like that made perfect sense. She was sitting cross-legged across from me in leggings and an oversized hoodie, dark curly hair piled up, no makeup, and she had this thing about her where she listened with her whole body, like she leaned toward you.

"Do you want it to be some random hookup," she said, "or do you want it to be with someone who gives a shit about you."

I said I mean obviously the second one and she said "okay" and put her wine glass down and scooted closer to me on the hardwood floor and kissed me. Just like that. No preamble, no are you sure, no big speech. She kissed me and her mouth was warm and tasted like red wine and she put her hand on my jaw and I felt my whole body relax for the first time in maybe a year.

She pulled my shirt over my head and ran her hands down my chest and said "you're shaking" and I said yeah I know. She took her hoodie off and she was wearing nothing underneath, just skin, and her tits were small and perfect with pink nipples and I just stared at her for a second because I'd never seen her naked and she was beautiful in a way that made my chest hurt.

She stood up and took my hand and walked me to her bedroom where the mattress was on the floor with new sheets still creased from the packaging and she pulled my jeans down and I stepped out of them and she looked at my cock through my boxers and said "stop being nervous, I've seen a dick before" and I laughed and the laughing helped more than anything.

She pushed me onto the mattress and pulled my boxers off and wrapped her hand around me and I was average, like objectively just normal-sized, and she didn't react to it like it was big or small she just touched me like she was getting familiar with it, learning the shape, and I could feel pre-cum leaking because everything she did felt like it was happening to me for the first time because it was.

She took her leggings off and climbed on top of me and said "I'm going to go slow and you tell me if you want me to stop" and she reached between us and lined me up and sank down onto me and I made a sound I've never made before, this low guttural thing that came from somewhere deep.

She was warm and tight and wet and she started moving her hips in slow circles and I put my hands on her waist and just felt her. The way her muscles shifted under her skin, the way her breath caught on every downstroke, the way she smelled like lavender and clean sweat.

"You can touch me," she said, and I ran my hands up to her tits and she made a soft sound and moved faster. I lasted maybe four minutes which I know isn't impressive but she told me after that most guys don't last that long their first time and she seemed like she meant it.

I came inside her (she was on birth control, we talked about it before, she pulled a condom out first and I said I'd rather feel you and she said then we don't need it) and the orgasm hit me like a wall and I grabbed her hips and pressed her down and I could feel myself pulsing inside her and she held still and let me feel all of it.

After, she lay next to me on the mattress on the floor in her empty apartment and said "was that okay" and I said that was the best thing that's ever happened to me and she laughed and pulled the sheet over both of us and we stayed there for a while, not talking, just breathing.

She fell asleep first and I lay there looking at the ceiling and I could still feel her warmth next to me and the room smelled like sex and lavender and boxed-up cardboard and I texted my roommate that I wasn't coming home tonight.