When Bella was five and imagined her first time, she was mostly confused. Her mom had told her the basics (Part A inserts into Slot B), but she'd seen Roy Schultz from down the street run through the sprinkler without pants on, and she knew that Part A was kind of... bouncy. How was that supposed to work? Maybe she was supposed to brace it with a popsicle stick, like a sprained thumb? She'd even asked Roy what he thought, but he wasn't sure either. (Since fair's fair she'd taken off her skirt so that Roy could see Slot B. He declared himself unimpressed, and they played Hungry Hungry Hippos for the rest of the afternoon.)

When Bella was twelve and imagined her first time, she decided it was irrelevant because there would never be a first time. Boys sucked.

When Bella was seventeen and imagined her first time, she knew exactly what it would be like, because she knew who it would be with and how he liked to treat her. There would be rose petals surrounding a soft white bed. Claire de Lune would play in the background. They would be lit by candlelight (which didn't make his skin sparkle, though it did leave the tiniest flickering shimmer), he would undress her, and he would know what to do to her and he would tell her what to do to him and she wouldn't have to worry about a thing. It would be cold -- she knew it would be cold -- but that would be okay, because soon she'd be cold too, and then she really wouldn't have to worry about a thing. They would do this forever, until the moon fell out of the heavens.

When Bella was eighteen, she didn't have to imagine anymore. Her first time was wet and chilly, late at night on a beach she'd never even heard of until fifteen months ago. He tasted like whiskey and she suspected she tasted like weak beer. (The beer had made her bold, had released her self-consciousness enough for her to twirl with her arms out in the moonlight until she got dizzy and fell onto the surf. The whiskey had made him panic that she'd broken her leg. This was hours ago. Now the bonfire had burned out and the others had gone home; all that was left of the beer and whiskey was the taste.) Their first kiss -- coming shortly after his long fingers had patiently untangled the sandy mop that was her wet hair -- had been followed by first caresses, leaning back against the driftwood tree. His hand had (after a quick glance at her face for approval) slid under her shirt, his hot hand palming her breast until she arched into his touch. (He'd looked unbearably smug at that.)

Their first real touches -- real because those touches brought with them the sudden certainty that this was real, they were going to do this, here on La Push at three AM on a Sunday without even a towel between them and the wet sand -- had wiped the smugness from his face and replaced it with gritted teeth and closed eyes. He was hard and heavy against her questing hand (which seemed to know by instinct what to do), and she certainly wasn't wondering how Part A inserted into Slot B. (For a fleeting moment she had wished Roy was there, then remembered that that would be awful on an inconceivable number of levels.) His hands had gently tugged at her blue jeans until they were laying in a salty heap on the sand, and then he was lifting her against the driftwood, his hands under her thighs, his tongue licking a path down her stomach. She had realized what he meant to do and tensed up, but murmured nonsense words mixed with honey and soft and beautiful had relaxed her legs until she parted her knees and let him taste. (She quickly forgot she'd ever been nervous. Any flaws in his technique were remedied by the heat of that 108 degree mouth; she'd cluched at his hair and made noises she hadn't known she was capable of making.)

Their first time happened with wood splinters poking into her stomach as she held onto a branch, her knees scraped up by the beach, with him pushing into her from behind because they couldn't think of another position that would work in these circumstances, his lips pressing kisses to the side of her face, whispering her name and words of love. When she'd gotten home as the sun was rising, she'd had to wash the sand out of her underwear in the bathroom sink, praying the whole while that her father wouldn't wake up before she was done.

In other words, it was better than anything Bella had ever imagined (с)