Free A Deep Dark Secret by Kimberla Lawson Roby

outside at night, though, and what do you mean it will be the least of your worries?”
    Nikki smiled slyly.
    “What?”
    “There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you for three days now.”
    “And?”
    “Remember on Monday when I told you I couldn’t volunteer at the nursing home because I had to meet with my math teacher? And that my mom couldn’t pick us up right after school that day anyway to take us because she had an appointment?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Well, that wasn’t really the truth.”
    They normally didn’t lie to each other, so Jillian wondered what this was all about. “Then where were you?”
    “I went home with Marcus, and we had sex for the first time.”
    Jillian was stunned. “Oh my God. Where were his parents?”
    “They were upstairs for a while, but then they left. Marcus’s room is on the lower level, so after we came in and spoke to them, we never saw them again.”
    “They left you there all by yourselves?”
    “Yep. His parents are so, so neat, and Marcus said they never trip out like a lot of parents do.”
    “So, how did you get home?”
    “My mom.”
    “What?!”
    “Marcus called his older cousin who’s in the twelfth grade, and he dropped me back off at school and then I called my mom to pick me up.”
    “Wow. Weren’t you afraid of getting caught?”
    “No, and my mom never suspected a thing.”
    “So, what was it like? And were you nervous?”
    “Yes. Very nervous, and at first, it hurt really bad. But then it got better once he got it all the way in and we kept doing it. I was sore, though, pretty much every day except today.”
    “Unreal. So, did you like it? I mean, would you do it again?”
    “Definitely, girl. And actually that’s why I’m so looking forward to the dance tomorrow, because Marcus and I are planning to sneak out of it.”
    “To go where?”
    “Somewhere behind the school and up in these bushes he was telling me about.”
    “In some bushes? As cold as it is?”
    “Girl, I already told you, I’m not worried about what the weather is going to be like, and I guarantee you Marcus isn’t either. We just want to be together.”
    “I guess.”
    “Plus Marcus is going to stash a big blanket and a couple of pillows inside this garbage bag, so we’ll be fine.”
    “Man. I can’t believe you’re not a virgin anymore. I can’t believe you actually did it with him.”
    “When we finished, it was hard for me to believe, too, but now I’m glad I did because now Marcus knows that I’m for real and that he’s not dealing with some scared little girl.”
    Jillian kept quiet because she knew she fell right into that same “scared little girl” category and had no intention of having sex any time soon.
    “There’s also something else I didn’t tell you.”
    “What?”
    “Right after Marcus and I started going together, he taughtme how to give him oral sex. And, girl, he now says that no other girl has ever done it nearly as well as I can.”
    Jillian couldn’t help thinking about her father and all the times he’d made her do the same thing, but she quickly pushed all of that from her mind.
    “I didn’t like it in the beginning,” Nikki continued. “But then when I saw how much Marcus enjoyed having it done to him, it made me like it a whole lot more.”
    Jillian wasn’t sure what she should say, so she turned one of the pages in the magazine she was still holding.
    “And you know, Jill, you need to think about doing the same thing. Because even if you don’t want to have real sex with Kyle, at least you could do the oral thing for him.”
    “Kyle hasn’t even mentioned sex to me.”
    “But you know he’s eventually going to, because all boys have to have it. It’s just the way things are, and if you want to keep him interested, you’re going to have to find a way to satisfy him.”
    Jillian shook her head and flipped another page.
    “Okay, girl. You’d better listen to me before some other girl gives Kyle exactly what