She lived in a row house on Miller Road. It was modest, rather small. Her mother was a school teacher who did not make a lot of money and she had no father. I stood on the other side of the street waiting for her to appear. It was bitterly cold and the strong wind made it worse. I had been there for about three hours, stomping my feet and walking back and forth. Sara did not show up that day, and I went home very unhappy, desolate. I had wanted to tell her that I loved her. Sara and I had met in kindergarten, and since then we had been best buddies. We became almost like brother and sister, a relationship in which we would argue and soon make up, taking each other for granted. loving each other without being in love. But, at twelve, I fell in love with Sara, and I wanted to tell her, that cold day, about how I felt. She was still eleven, a little girl and a real tomboy. I never minded the other guys razing me about playing with a girl. She could play ball better than all of them, and climb trees faster and higher than anyone I had ever known. I didn't think of her as a girl. She was my buddy. Then the hormones began their work on my developing body. I started having wet dreams and I soon discovered masturbation, the habit grasping me most firmly. Before long I was doing it two and three times a day. Early on I began to visualize Sara's face at my moment of climax, and I soon thought of her as a girl whom I wanted to kiss. We had never touched each other, except in play, but I then wanted to touch her cheek gently and to kiss her lips. Sara was a little girl, a head shorter than I and very slender, almost skinny. Her face, I suppose, was a bit mousey, but I loved her smile. She had large, brown eyes, and her lips were very expressive and delightful, when she was exasperated and sought to make a verbal point. Her lips then shaped themselves around each sound, and her entire face became engaged in her speach. She was a pixie who wanted to be a boy, but who was resigned to being a little girl For some weeks before that day on which I had waited for her in the cold I had come to see her as a girl, my girl, but one whom I was too shy to touch gently, with purpose. I had loved her all my life, and yet I had fallen in love with her. She wondered about my new behavior, which she found strange and unsettling. When I once took her hand in mine, she shook it off and looked at me as if I were wierd. I just wanted to hold her hand. I wanted to hold her and kiss her, but she did not understand. So I waited for her across from her house in the cold to tell her that I loved her, but she never appeared.. The next day in class, when I asked her where she had been , she said that she had visited her aunt with her mother and had stayed for dinner. We found ourselves alone for a moment, and I took hold of her hand. She scowled at me and jerked away, leaving me to go to band practice, where she played the trombone. At recess we joined the other kids in a game of Red Rover Come Over and we had marvelous fun. I looked at her from behind and watched her run, her little legs flying. I then realized that I wanted to touch and feel those legs, and I sprouted a stiffie at the thought. She would not let me touch her, and she became irritable at my attempts, so I stopped trying, wanting to keep her as my friend. Sara thought of me as being just a pal, perhaps her best friend, but certainly not as a boyfriend. She was not yet twelve years old, a little girl without breasts, when she took up with a fourteen year old boy and made a fool of herself over him. She followed him around like a puppy. Then I developed the awful feeling that that boy would get to her before me, that he would be the one to be her first lover. He was a large boy for his age, a football player, who was still pretty. It happened as I had feared. He took her and then threw her away. She came to my house one day looking haggared. Her eyes were swollen and red; she had been crying. She told me that he wanted to have the Guiness record of fucking virgins, that she was number thirteen, that he kept score with a pencil, marking his scores on his bedroom wall. Sara let me hold her as she sobbed against my shoulder. I wanted to go to the guy with a baseball bat and pound on him. He had not acknowledged the preciousness of the girl. I held her and tried to lick away the tears that streamed down her face, but there were too many. She was a distraught little girl, no longer the tough kid I had known. After awhile she regained her composure and pushed me away, not wanting me to touch her with such familiarity. I so wanted to kiss her, to hold her, to protect her, but she would have none of it. A month later she took up with a thirteen year old boy, not six months older than I. I was furious and we had a row. We stopped speaking to each other, until, three weeks later, she came again to my house in tears. Once more she had been dumped, even though she had taken the boy's virginity and had taught him how to do "it". I held her gently and tried to calm her. She leaned against me in my arms. She was so slight. I wanted to tell her that she could have me, that I would never abandon her, that I would love her forever. The words were almost out of my mouth, but I could not do it. I was too shy. Still, after her second disastrous affair, and not yet twelve years old, she grew closer to me. She let me hold her hand and to put my arm around her. Sometimes we snuggled. One day she let me kiss her. I had never kissed before, and so she taught me how, tongue and all. The touch of her lips to mine sent me into ecstasy. We kissed for a long time, and when we were finished, for the moment, I looked into her face, touching her cheek with my fingers, and I told her that I loved her. I anticipated rejection from her, but she beamed at me gloriously, her face lighting up, and she said that she loved me, that she had always loved me. We kissed some more for a long while, as I rubbed my hand up and down her back. I thought about sex, of course, but I was too shy to suggest it. I didn't even grope her over those next several days, when we snuggled and kissed at every opportunity. I suppose that I was intimitaded by the knowledge that she was already sexually experienced and that I was hopelessly inept.. That Saturday I went to her house, where we listened to Let's Pretend on the radio at 11 AM, and hooted at the stupid Cream of Wheat jingle. Her mother liked me and was accustomed to seeing me about her house on weekends. She smiled down at me, as Sara and I lay on the floor in front of the radio. She then said that she had to go shopping and that we must promise to be good, which we did obediently. We knelt together on the couch, looking out the window, until Sara's mother finally got on to the bus. Then we fell down on the couch and kissed, tickled and giggled. I was so much in love with that little girl, and I believed that she loved me in return. She lay in my arms and I looked deeply into her childish face with its large brown eyes. I petted her head, as I would have done a kitten, and I told her again that I loved her. Sara kissed my face with little pecks and said that she loved me too. We held each other, lying on the couch. Sara dozed off, and then so did I. I awoke to the feel of her tongue licking my cheek. I grasped her and kissed her passionately, using my tounge the way she had instructed me. I was so protective of her. The day before some guys in the school yard, some of them older, seventh and eighth graders, taunted me, calling Sara a whore. The word, inevitably, had gotten around. I lashed out at them in a fury. I threw myself at the one who was saying the worst things about Sara, an eighth grader, and I knocked him to the ground. He got up and started beating on me pretty hard, until one of the teachers came up and stopped the fight. I was not really hurt, physically. That Saturday, as Sara and I lay together on the couch, I asked her why she had let those two guys have their way with her. She was suddenly very defensive and a bit irked at my question. Then she looked into my face and said, in a low voice, almost a whisper, which I strained to hear, that she had wanted to learn about sex, and that when the foot ball player hit on her, she offered him no resistance. Sara continued, and told me more about her first affair than I really wanted to know. I just wanted it all put behind us. She said that she had found the boy, Johnny Alberts, to be especially cute, and she was flattered that he would pay any attention to her. He took her to his basement, when his parents and brother were away. She let him undress her and touch her all over. Then he got undressed, and Sara told me that Johnny Alberts had a large penis with a lot of hair around it. He got on top of her and put himself in side of her, hurting her awfully. She had bled, she later learned, staining the old couch in the basement. She had not enjoyed it at all that first time, nor did she feel pleasure when they "did it" for the next several days. Then it began to feel better, although Johnny was always too rough, and she had never felt the "big" pleasure with him. She had wanted to stay with him and be his girlfriend, to be his steady, but she saw that he was growing tired of her. He stopped seeing her and took up with another girl, a seventh grader who had large breasts. As for the other boy in her life, Timmy McDermott, Sara said that she was the one who started it. She thought that he was so pretty, and that she was so lonely. I interrupted then, and protested that I was there for her, that she didn't have to feel lonely. Sara ran her hand through my hair and said that she did not think of me like that. Her words really hurt me. Then she described Timmy, his penis, smaller than Johnny's, and with not much hair. She went on about how lovely and soft his legs were. I angrily told her to shut up and got up from the couch. I was seething. She should have waited for me. She should have given herself to me. I told her so in a loud voice full of anger. She looked up at me, her teeth on her lower lip, realizing that I had spoken the truth. I then left her house and went home, feeling very bitter. I did not know anything about sex, except the most obvious things. I jerked off regularly and thought about girls. But Sara was years ahead of me, although she was not yet twelve.. I wanted us to be just kids again, but I also wanted to make love to her. I resented her experience with those two other boys. I was very confused and angry. On Monday, in class, sixth grade English, Sara walked past my desk and brushed her hand across my shoulder, after which I could not concentrate on my work. I was so in love with her. After school she waited for me outside on the sidewalk. When I approached her she smiled at me brightly, making unnecessary any apology for my angry outburst on Saturday. We walked home, hand in hand, like a settled in couple, with me carrying her books. We didn't speak much. We stopped at the park and found a quiet place that was out of view. It was chilly, but not very cold. Our parkas pushed together as I kissed her fervently. She stammered in her hurry to tell me that she loved me and that she wanted no one else but me. I pushed her hood back and petted her head, playing with her pony tail. I palmed her cheek and looked into her little face. I felt warm in my love for her. We made up. For the next two months we were a blissful couple. Sara turned twelve and I was three months away from my birthday and teenage. We kissed and snuggled for those two months, and we didn't talk about sex, although we both knew that when we were ready, we would do it together. I defended Sara's honor once again in the playground, thrashing a stupid class mate. The other kids then stopped their taunting, perhaps fearful of my wrath. I was growing large. Sara and I had waited patiently for the right time for us to consumate our love, to be more than just best buddies. It was awkward for me, because I loved her like a sister. It was a Saturday, and Sara's mother was gone from the house until late afternoon. Weeks before I had secured some condoms, not wanting to inpregnate my lover until we were married, and wondering why she had not been knocked up by the two other boys.. She opened the door to me. She was bare foot and clad in shorts and a t shirt, at which I could discern her nipples poking forth. Her bare legs were shapely, but very slender. Her face was radiant, beaming to me a welcoming smile. She was becoming more pretty every day.. We knew what we were about to do, I for the first time, she for the first time in love. When the front door closed behind us, we embraced and I breathed deeply her aroma of Ivory soap and baby shampoo. We went directly to her bedroom, chatting idly, but knowing the momentousness that lay before us. My limbs felt weak, although my penis was rigid.. Then we were there, beside her bed, together, alone. She looked up at me demurely as I held her head with my hands, intensely in love with her. Not being the first meant that I would not hurt her, which was a shallow consolation. We lay together on the bed and snuggled. I ran my hand under her t shirt and felt the flesh of her back, so warm and soft. When she lay on her back, I kneaded her soft tummy and moved my hand up her body. She had titties, small, but unmistakable. Her nipples were hard. She lifted her body and raised her arms as I took off her upper garment. Her eyes were closed, her mouth at peace. I wondered at the lovliness of her flesh as I felt her incipient breasts with my fingers. I leaned down and suckled a nipple, and then the other. Sara squirmed and fondled my head. I raised my head and looked at her. Her shoulders were so narrow, so fragile. I kissed her lips and she kissed back without opening her eyes. I sat up and looked at her slender legs, so soft looking, so beautiful. I stroked them. Her calves looked so young and innocent. Her thighs, fuller and more sensuous, appeared to be more experienced. I touched her wonderous flesh, marveling in the certain knowledge that it was all for me. I pulled at her shorts and Sara raised her butt to assist me. And then her panties. She lay before me in her nakedness as something newly discovered. Her vaginal lips, appearing to be a bit swollen, were topped with a few whisps of pubic hair. A curious boy, I poked at her. Sara opened her eyes, took hold of my finger, positioned it, and told me to rub her there gently. I did as she said. Her response was immediate. She squirmed and moaned louder and louder. I feared that I was hurting her and took my hand away. Sara opened her eyes and pulled my hand back to her, holding my finger and rubbing it against her. Then she shuddered and squeeled. I supposed, correctly, that she had come. It was marvelous. I then got off the bed and stood on the floor. I began to undress. I looked at Sara looking at me. When I took off my shorts and my rigid penis came into view, Sara smiled approvingly She then looked at me and pulled on me, wanting me to come atop of her. I was eager and did so, forgetting to put on the condom. I came between her slender legs and she positioned my penis, pushing forward, inviting me to press to her.. I did so and I penetrated her. I had a small cock then, but that first feel of of her, her warm tightness, remains a treasured memory. When I came inside of her, yelping aloud at every spurt, I felt a monstrous pleasure that I have never matched since. I had come too soon. Sara was near her climax. She pushed on me insistently, taking whatever pleasure she could from my weakening member. It was sufficient. She cried aloud and her little body thrust against mine with a shudder. Later she scolded me for not having put on a condom, and for weeks we worried that she might be pregnant. But then she had her period, the third of her lifetime. We remained lovers, and, in time, we married..