Free Bulls Island by Dorothea Benton Frank

redlace bra. I was, um, feeling eager. And like we say in law school: there did not seem to be any objection from the second party of the second party.
    What a wonderful fabulous girl she was, crawling all over me like one of Santa’s elves in red lace, and all that glorious hair! Okay, I’ll admit, it was base and disgusting animal lust, but so what’s the matter with animal lust?
    The first round of sex was hot, sweaty, and fast. There was lots of moaning and that sort of thing. Then Valerie said, “What about me?” She wanted more? This was better than a pony under the tree, I thought, thinking Christmas had indeed arrived early. The second round ended after a lot of rolling around and repositioning and by that point my heart was pumping so hard I thought I might die. I quickly calculated that I was too young for a heart attack, so I gave her all the gusto I had on the Big Bang theory and every trick I had ever learned from watching videos in undergraduate school. She loved it. We rested then, when all of a sudden the overhead lights switched on. There stood her aunt and uncle, returned earlier than expected, obviously, from my parents’ party, instantly sobered, slack-jawed, and audibly gasping. Her uncle’s hand was on the switch, which he quickly turned off, cleared his throat, and said, “Pull yourselves together!” With that, he closed the door and they left. Valerie and I were in some mighty deep feces and I knew it.
    Here was the situation. We were old enough for consensual sex, but in the Lowcountry’s polite circles, when one had consensual sex, it generally occurred in a frat house, a dorm, or someone’s apartment. Not in the bushes, on the beach, or in the backseat of a car unless absolutely necessary. If someone were to discover you in flagrante delicto, it would normally be someone of your peer group, there would be a lot of snickering, and that would be the end of it.
    Not so in the adult world. You didn’t do it with some guy you just met a couple of hours ago, and at your aunt’s house in the guestroom bed. Further, it was considered rude and crass to get caught naked and sweaty.
    I could feel the onslaught of a shit storm in the air. I knew Valerie’s aunt was going to pitch a fit, tell Valerie’s mother, her mother was going to call her a slut, and it was going to get ugly. Very ugly. If only for the sake of the mores of the day, it was best for me to declare my affection for Valerie. So I did. I had never met anyone as happy to show off her lingerie as Valerie Pritchard of Athens, Georgia. For that reason, and the fact that she was gorgeous and in possession of a reasonably good brain, my best friend and I ran a mattress marathon with Valerie until Valentine’s Day, when I gave her a diamond. If I couldn’t marry Betts, at least I could have a good-looking nymphomaniac of whom my family approved.
    My mother was as close to being thrilled as she could be. Perhaps because my engagement to Valerie meant that the McGee-family episode was finally behind us, or because, in appearance, Valerie was close to being a carbon copy of my mother, minus thirty years. But whatever the reason, old Louisa was so delighted to have a girl to mold she gave me my great-grandmother’s diamond to give to her.
    When I brought Valerie home wearing the ring, my dad looked at me askance and we both acknowledged in that one silent moment that Valerie wasn’t who I really wanted, that I was settling for less. Later on he took me aside for a whiskey and a father-and-son talk, during which he said, “Things don’t always go according to plan. A fallback position is a good idea.” There was no enthusiasm in his voice, just resignation with a trace of pity.
    I said, “Look, Dad, she’s a sweet girl.”
    “J.D., if she makes you happy, I’ll learn to love her.” He looked down into his glass and up to me. Valerie was Mother’s choice, not mine. Dad knew it. And he knew I was going along with it because something