Counting down to a new thing.

He leans over and kisses her, more to break the painful silence than to fill some need. They are here alone together. Everyone else is gathered at a party, huddled around waiting for fireworks. Now it is just the two of them and suddenly he realises what he is supposed to do. The date gives the moment a special significance and although he chooses not to follow this kind of thing she is waiting for the kiss. Has been all evening.

A kiss won't change anything, this is what he is thinking. With his eyes closed she could be any girl. There are a couple he would rather have here with him. He imagines one of them, her short cropped bob swinging around her pretty face. He kisses as if it is her. With his eyes closed it is just a pair of lips, tasting prettily of lipstick, a cheek that smells of powder, a tongue. She has a little bow mouth which opens and inside it i wet and warm and trembly. His hand moves to the back of her head. He has been told he excels at kissing. We must all have one special skill. The kissing makes up for his lack of confidence when his pants are down. The foreplay saves him from his difficulties with the main event.

So this is what he will do. He will kiss her. His hand finds her knee. He strokes her thigh. If she were one of his other friends he would be excited by now, but he is not. He will put his finger inside her, another one of his skills. He will make her happy when he puts his finger into her because that is what she wants.

He moves his hand up her thigh in slow increments. The kissing is the thing to concentrate on. He moves his tongue into her mouth at just the right time. He hears her sigh. His hand is there at the edge of her pants. He wriggles it and his finger slips under the elastic. She shifts. Her hips are encouraging him onward. He is excited by the way a woman responds to him. It is flattering. He wishes it was some other girl, someone he likes more. He will kiss her and he will finger her and then he will tell her they should just be friends. They should just be friends. It is not that he has been forced into this. She has chased him and he has succumbed. One sweet transgression and he will be done with it. He inches his finger forward, feeling the close trimmed patch of hair, the wetness, again flattering, the heat of her radiating out. He kisses her deep as his finger slips inside because this is what she will like. She does. She sighs. He has her hooked on his hand and it is bitter sweet. So much ground to track back over, the winding down.

He can hear the fireworks starting up there on the hill, music, distant, echoing back on itself. Everybody communing to usher in a new day and here he is, alone with a girl he is perhaps fond of. He pushes into her and his finger is wet with her. He can smell that dank musk behind the perfume. He is wondering how long he should finger her for before making his retreat. She has begun to shift her hips forward onto him. She is tipping her pelvis, exciting herself against his thumb. He feels vaguely unsettled by her rising passion. He slips a second finger into her. He will give her this till the calendar changes. At the stroke of midnight he can stop. He kisses her, pushes forward with two fingers, rubs with the flat of his thumb. He waits, not breathing, listening for the beginning of the countdown to echoe off the hollow of the hills.