I wasn't quite sure what was happening when I focused my mind on the events that were actually taking place. During the first few blocks of the walk back to the apartment, I hadn't really thought about the situation and had just sat back in my mind and not questioned the state that I was in.

The first strange thing about it all was that I was tipsy, going on drunk. I had just been at a bar with a girl I really didn't know very much and a bunch of her friends that I didn't know at all. The place had been smoky and crowded, and for some reason or another I had felt the need to order several tequilia sunrises and drink them down, as well as taste (or rather drink about one-third of) the amaretto sour of another person in our party. I drank on very rare occassion (and very little when I did), but here I was ordering drinks and putting them down, all the while feeling myself losing more and more bits of control. By the time we left the place, I was speaking up quite a bit more than normal and when I first stood up, my legs felt quite wabby underneath me.

And so here we were walking back to her apartment. There was a slight breeze, but it was much hotter than it should have been for the time of the year and I was glad that I had put on that extra deodorant before I left. There were four of us in the group at that point, and everyone seemed to be interjecting little bits of useless conversation into the ever-morphing mix of post-bar chit-chat. After we had gone about 6 blocks, we stopped and said our goodbyes to the two other members of the party, then continued on our way back to her apartment.

It was then that I really started feeling off-guard. I didn't feel like I knew them very well at all, and at that point in the night I hadn't even had the chance to have much of any straight-up conversation with them that wasn't in the presence of others. To make matters worse, it was just the two of us at that point, but yet I found myself in a mental state that just hadn't been very good planning on my part. Without anyone else to carry the conversation, I started up some talk the best I could, hoping that I wouldn't say something stupid in my inexperienced, somewhat-tipsy state. At least I had put on that extra deodorant.

Fortunately, I didn't seem to say anything wrong, and by the time we got to her apartment I was actually feeling pretty decent about things between us. There weren't any major uncomfortable silences and there was even some slight physical contact that led me to believe that she wasn't completely disgusted by me. When we got inside the apartment, her roomate wasn't home and she went right to the refridgerator to get something to drink. The living room of the apartment had a window air conditioner in it, and it felt good to be inside and out of the hot and humid air.

We decided to just chill out a bit for awhile and plopped down onto the futon in the living room. I was gauging everything by this point, trying to make some sense of the situation in my head. She sat down fairly close to me, but we weren't touching. After thumbing through some magazines and continuing our conversation, we turned on the television and started watching a movie that was on one of the stations. After it had only been running about 10 minutes, she got up and turned out the kitchen light, leaving the living room lit with only the soft glow of the television set. Was it a sign? I didn't know. She sat down again beside me and I thought that maybe it was just a bit closer than last time, although we still weren't touching at all.

In one of those classic, cheesy movie arm-stretching sorts of things, I dropped my arm from my lap and laid it beside me on the couch, only a few inches from her. I was nervous as hell, but I was never one to be very forthright, and it was the only thing I could think to do at the time. We sat in nearly the same position for nearly 15 minutes, and just when I thought that all was for naught, she flopped her hand down in a similar motion and rested it right on top of mine. It surprised me, and yet I was glad that she had done it. It was simple and nice and we held hands like that for several more minutes before we both did a sort of mutual shifting on the futon and ended up slouched up against one another.

Suddenly, I got a little worried. I felt like my hand was sweating much more than it should be. I felt gross. I wondered if she thought that my hand was a little too sweaty and would soon pull away. Instead, I think she noticed exactly what was on my mind and asked me if I was nervous. I still felt some small effects of alcohol at that point, but instead of trying to say the right thing, I simply said what came to mind first, which was, "Yeah, maybe a little I guess." It was the most middle-of-the-road answer I could have given, and yet it was how I felt. I'd always been one to get clammy palms and a little nervous, but as soon as she had actually asked me about it, I felt a lot better about everything.

And then, without really much more hesitation at all, we kissed. Even as I was closing my eyes and leaning in, I thought that it would probably just be a small, short number, but we both just sort of slumped together onto the futon into a mess. When we finally stopped kissing a minute or several later, we just sort of smiled at one another. "Swiss Family Robinson" was now on the television and we both had a tough time not laughing at the situation.

Just then, the door to the apartment started opening, and we both scrambled into upright sitting positions, knowing that we still couldn't have hidden what we were doing. The light went on and her roomate reflected the sort of smile that she knew exactly what had been going on. That, and my blushing face probably didn't help matters all that much.

As I sat and composed myself a little more, she hopped up and went into the other room to talk to her roomate. I eventually got up and went in the other room as well and we all chatted for awhile before her roomate informed us that she was going to go out again. She left and we went back into the living room and sat down on the futon again. This time, we were side by side until flipping through the channels landed on a super-cheesy rock video that both of us had to move around and make fun of for awhile.

When it was over, we settled back down again and I could feel the alcohol wearing off and turning into weariness. It was about 2 in the morning and I was wondering whether I should leave or not. I had a decent-sized drive back home and I didn't want to put myself into a position where I might have trouble staying awake while driving. Just as I was going to bring it up, she turned off the television, got up, and started walking to her room. Intrigued, I followed.

It was just down the hallway in the apartment, but those few steps made all the difference in temperature. The little window air-conditioner in the living room just didn't have enough BTU's to kick out enough air to cool the whole place. I ran my hand across my forehead and I hoped that it wasn't as shiny as it felt. She opened the window, though, and a slight breeze made things almost bearable. Still, I was starting to sweat a little bit, and the more that I worried about it, the worse it got. She sat down on her bed and I tried not to think about the temperature.

I plopped down next to her and we talked for a bit, then a kiss again. Before long, we were laying on the bed and I could feel my body starting to sweat even more. Again, I felt really gross and hoped that she wouldn't notice, but when I touched the back of her neck, I could feel the slightest bit of slickness on her skin. At least I wasn't alone.

The frame of the bed probably wasn't exactly contructed to support two people rolling around on it and it made this fact known with several creaks and groans of a steadily increasing volume. We were still just kissing, but if anyone were to come home and hear it, they would have probably thought differently.

To solve the problem, we got up and threw the mattress onto the floor, then continued from there. The breeze came in the window and swept across me and it helped for just a moment, even though I knew that my body was steadily getting sweatier. Just as things were getting particularly heated, things stopped for a moment and she got up and left the room. I wondered where she was going, but soon my question was answered when she came back in the room holding a large glass of raspberry flavored iced tea. We shared a few drinks and took a breather, then started kissing again.

We traded off removing clothes for awhile. I removed my shirt, she removed her shirt. I removed my pants, she removed her pants. We rolled around on the mattress on the floor kissing and our sweaty bodies glided across and over one another. Every half and hour or so, we'd take a break and each drink about half a cup of tea. Somewhere during the night, she made a new pitcher, and it continued on like this for almost 4 hours. I remembered seeing the first light of the sun and suddenly being reminded that time was actually still marching on without my being aware of it.

We were both still lying in our underwear and the sheets on the mattress were slightly damp from all the sweat and rolling around. Nothing other than kissing and caressing and the sliding of wet bodies across one another had taken place, yet I was completely exhausted. Even though I had drank about 3 glasses of raspberry tea, the caffeine was no longer a factor, nor was driving home at this point. We both fell asleep at about the same moment there on the floor and by the time I woke up at about noon, the sun was shining full force again and the sheets were completely dry (although still a completely twisted mess).

At this point, I had to leave. We put on our clothes and went out to the kitchen. I had one final glass of tea before saying my goodbye and leaving. Despite the lack of proper sleep for the evening, I wasn't very tired on my drive back home.

I didn't see her much after that.

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