I’ve always liked girls. First kiss: first grade, under a blanket at the neighbor-girl’s house.
And then, nothing, for more than ten years.
And then, nothing, for more than ten years.
Nothing too physical, anyway. In my own way I was a grade school Casanova, known for catching even the fastest girls in games of jungle-gym “tag,” blushing, withdrawing my paw hastily, and, if I may say so, tenderly. In middle school I took several lovers who I called “girlfriends” and once, bowing to public entreaty, took one of their hands gingerly, lovingly into my own. But there I must concede she withdrew before I climaxed.
But then, in the race to ascend into the spheres of ethereal pleasures, sexual gratification, I fell back. I recall my friends kissing girls under blankets in basements as I sat sidelong alone on the weight-machine. To this day my biceps and pectorals have never failed me.
As time passed I grew yet more reticent and embittered and became convinced there was something fundamentally wrong with me. By my fifteenth birthday I had all but steeled myself for the big wait, to preserve my features and maintain my physique while my male peers fell victim to animal attacks and drunk driving…then my time would come. And I had nearly forced girls from my mind entirely, considering instead a life of religious asceticism, when, with the impetuous conviction of a certifiable psychopath and fourteen beers in my belly, I put my arm around a girl at a party.
With that seemingly benign gesture the floodgates burst open and all hell broke loose; within two weeks I kissed her cheek. Her name was Johanna and she was younger than me, more sexually experienced and quite beautiful. All the lust and romanticism that I’d so long subdued bubbled to the surface as I masturbated two-fold. Finally! Finally, a decade’s neurotic self-doubts had been lifted, and I skipped gleefully through the streets singing “I’ve seen love go by my door, it’s never been this close before” and scattering flower petals all around me.
The coming months were pervaded with the tastes and smells of cheap vodka, spring grass, dying campfires and Johanna’s intoxicating sweetness. I grew increasingly taken with her or, more accurately perhaps, with the situation, with what I was permitted to do her. Having drunk enough liquor to kill a man half my size, three-foot-one, I would take her hand and steer her shoulder away from a huddled group of our friends, a few steps and then down into the grass or sand or mud underfoot. There I learned to work my lips, conscientiously dancing my fingers up and down and across her lithe, well-proportioned figure, pulling a pesky black hair from my tongue. As each week went by and my hands inched further up her shirt and further down her jeans, I began to contemplate a day when I would experience firsthand that which I’d only read about, heard whispered by hooded figures on midnight street corners. I’m talking of course about a subject rarely touched on in conversation, film, and literature. I’m talking, of course, about sex.
One day in the middle of the week I asked Johanna out on a date for that Friday night and subsequently set about making meticulous preparations. I asked a friend if I could borrow his car for the evening, and he agreed in exchange for a chunk of the little money I had. I tried to give him a fiber optic peacock as well, but he would not accept it. In hindsight I’m thankful as the bird truly sets any room off.
With the car taken care of I turned my attention to finances. I did not have a job at the time and was operating with very little capital, but I wanted to have the money required to be a big spender, for one night, enough to buy Johanna’s dinner. Friday night, in my mind, was rapidly blossoming into a romantic adventure of cinematic scale: two beautiful young people dressed in sexy eveningwear dining in a burgundy-lit Italian restaurant, sipping wine and making keen eyes across the table, before being whisked off, whisked off, to an uproarious party on Jay Gatsby’s lawn. So to finance this occasion I returned cans and bottles and sold my Super Nintendo to a kid down the block.
When the big day came I began my ablutions two hours early. I took a long shower, paying close attention to areas normally overlooked. I washed behind my ears as I’d never done before, only heard of in admonition, and lovingly lathered my crotch with Garnier Fructis. Stepping out of the tub I ruffled the towel across my head vigorously, aiming to achieve a certain boyish, I’m clean but I just ran through a field look. I shaved my face with three-and-a-half well-placed strokes, creating a blank canvas on which for Johanna to brush her deep red lips. Then I began with the clothes.
I held a pair of my typical blue boxer briefs and looked at them wearily, before throwing caution to the wind and opting for a looser, sexier short. Then I tiptoed to the basement, to the dryer, where I met with disaster: my all-important tan khakis were badly grass-stained. For a minute I was flustered and considered calling it a night, hiding in my bed and not answering to Johanna’s calls or text-messages. This course of action might have a positive long-term effect, I thought; she might be paradoxically attracted to my unexpected neglect. But I regained my composure and, with a stroke of ingenuity, rubbed white toothpaste into the khakis to bleach the distasteful green blemish. Alas this didn’t work; it just looked like I’d smeared toothpaste on my grass-stained pants. Eventually I decided that the spot wasn’t that noticeable, and in any case might add a devil-may-care element to my otherwise dapper look. Somewhat disenchanted I applied my Speed Stick, stuck two successive clean arms into long blue shirt sleeves, knotted a red-and-blue-patterned tie and then, the pièce de résistance, a gray and red-spotted tweed blazer. As I stood before the mirror, I spoke. “You’ve done it: you are the embodiment of sex.”
In my eagerness I found myself driving past Johanna’s house early, intent on mastering the delicate workings of the automatic Toyota Corolla machine. Feeling out the controls, harnessing the smooth power of 1999 craftsmanship beneath my ass, I turned into the Flowerama lot to purchase a colorful, inexpensive bouquet. Then sitting there with the flowers propped up in the passenger seat, singing “I’ve been shooting in the dark too long, when something’s not right, it’s wrong,” I watched the clock.
I arrived outside Johanna’s at exactly 6:30 and sent the perfunctory “I’m here” text-message. When she emerged from the house ten minutes later I was disappointed. She was dressed nicely in a white dress and she looked beautiful, but it was not what I had hoped for. I had hoped she would be wearing a deep-emerald dress, gold and blood-red jewelry, two more inches of height and much fuller breasts. Suddenly I was very aware of my tweed jacket which, I now realized, was somewhat outside the modern aesthetic.
“Hi,” I began, bearing flowers, “I got these for you.”
“Oh, thank you!” she said smiling. “Let me take them inside and put them in water.”
I had pools of sweat under each armpit. I sat impatiently looking side to side and rubbing the grass-stain with my thumb until my pants began to fray. Five minutes later she was back; I pulled the car forward immediately.
“I just got done Skyping Megan,” she said.
“Oh, is she having a good time in Florida?”
“Yeah, she said she’s having fun.”
“Well, that’s good.” I was really on point; with each word I seemed to breathe the very essence of sex. “Where do you want to eat?”
“Um, I don’t know.”
“Wherever you want, anyplace, it’s your call.” I smiled at her obviously.
“How about Olive Garden?”
“Yeah, definitely.” It was a far cry from what I’d had in mind, some pricy little joint in Chicago or New York; I was prepared to make the trip.
But instead I drove three miles north to the Olive Garden, where with good fortune we were seated right away. I removed the ugly, stifling jacket and hung it over the back of my chair, a move I regretted when I saw the big, damp blotches reaching down my sides. Nevertheless I ordered a hot coffee, hoping it would jog my brain into action producing charming witticisms and romantic remarks.
“I had the weirdest dream last night,” she said, sticking with water. “Do you wanna hear it?”
“Yes.”
“Well I was like, watching The Parent Trap, but I was part of it, you know, part of the story—I was there.”
“Yeah?” I asked, face brimming with interest.
“Yeah. But it was different than The Parent Trap because the dad died at the beginning but then…at some point he was a big snake. Isn’t that weird?”
“Yeah, that’s really weird. The Parent Trap wouldn’t be much of a movie if the dad died like that.”
“Yeah,” she said, “I didn’t even think about that.”
“I guess the weirdest dream I’ve ever had, that I remember well, anyway, I was like, swimming in the air”—I pantomimed my best breast-stroke—“above my sister’s bed, and the Brady Bunch were jumping on her bed trying to grab me.” I paused. “And damn, if I didn’t want to avoid those Bradys.”
She didn’t laugh. “Yeah,” she said, like she knew exactly what I meant. I sipped my coffee.
I ordered an expensive seafood medley, she ordered mac ‘n’ cheese from the kids’ menu, and we discussed with similar ardor our classes, our friends, and our respective plans for the weekend. I tried to coax her into a crème brûlée or a tiramisu, but she said she was full; she tried to pay for her meal but I insisted I cover it. When we left the restaurant it was just getting dark outside.
Still hoping to realize some of my thought-dreams, I drove determinedly toward an old country road running parallel to the train tracks on the outskirts of town. It was along this road that my friends and I had spent many nights accelerating to unprecedented speeds of over 90 miles per hour, or daring each other to enter deserted, ramshackle old barns; to me the place reeked of manure and romantic mystery. I pulled off of this road into a small gravel lot to face the train hurtling past.
“I love this place” I said, “My friends and I used to come here all the time. Some of them touched the moving train, but I was too scared”—Johanna looked straight ahead—“It’s so scary.” With that I lurched toward her, reaching across her body, and we began to make out.
I was making out nicely, I had my left hand clasped over her bare right breast and she had fingers creeping steadily toward my crotch, when a beat up two-door pulled up alongside us. “Fuck,” I said as she clamored to readjust her bra. I backed the car up and drove away aimlessly.
“I’m really tired,” she said stabbing my ears and wringing my brain.
“Do you want me to take you home?”
“No, no. I just got up so early because the birds were so loud. I like to listen to them sometimes.”
That was a different kind of pain, heart wrenching. Bright white fireworks burst behind my eyes; a chorus of angels from my earlobes sang “I could stay with you forever, and never realize the time.” Without thinking I leaned over and kissed her, eyes splayed at an excruciating angle, one on her nose and one on the road. “Do you want to go back to my house?”
I was wearing nothing but my looser, sexier shorts, and I had her panties off, fingering her. I was toiling away with my right hand, kissing passionately her face and thrusting lightly against her side. She reached down my shorts and took my dick in her hand, not by the shaft in her palm but just the glans, in a strong, three-fingered claw, as if trying to decapitate by manhood. I shied away quickly but pulled off my shorts, rolled on top of her, between her thighs.
She reached down to give me a hand, but then started with an expression of apprehension. It registered and I sprung from the bed, excited, ready, and returned with a condom from my dresser drawer. I sat stark naked on the edge of the bed trying to roll on the condom, but it wasn’t going anywhere. I became aware of the oncoming need to urinate—damn that black coffee! As I struggled my dick was quickly deflating, being forced painfully into my groin, and bending, thickening up, as if it were malleable putty that could stretch here and flatten there. And I had to piss. Was the condom too small? Did I really need one of those Magnum SuperCocks? I’d always assumed those were more or less a marketing gimmick, the same size but meant for imbecilic jerks. Panicked, embarrassed and flaccid, I rose and stepped toward the door. “Sorry, I…” I addressed Johanna through the darkness, raising an index finger to indicate “one,” just one minute.
I walked quickly to the bathroom, dropping the condom in the wastebasket. I fleetingly wondered if in my haste I’d tried rolling it on the wrong way. I considered the toilet. I could not piss in the bathroom and risk Johanna hearing the stream; the thought was too embarrassing to take. So I quietly descended two floors to the cruddy basement half-bath.
I stood cold and flaccid in the musty cement basement, pissing endlessly, while two floors up Johanna lay naked, sexy and confused, wondering, as Marvin Gaye asked us, “What’s going on?” I started to laugh. The night was cinematic, as I’d hoped, but I was in the wrong kind of movie.
I then walked slowly up the basement stairs and into the kitchen, playing with myself to regain the erection, laughing quietly. I stood pumping away, fearing someone outside might see me a through a window, when my dog Kingsley waltzed in wagging his whole ass and expecting me to play with him.
“Go to bed!” I whispered, and then conceded some of the affection, scratching his ear with one hand while keeping the other on my dick. Now I was firm. “C’mon, King, let’s go to bed.”
He followed me upstairs where I shut my bedroom door in his face. Dejected, he sauntered toward my father’s snores.
I collapsed onto the bed and began kissing her face, keeping my midsection well-clear in resignation. But she reached out and took hold.
I bowed my head. “Sorry,” I offered meekly.
“It’s okay; just pull out in plenty of time.”
We proceeded to position and reposition in an ill-fated love-scuffle, working and reworking but to no avail. My penis was engorged with blood, but my soul had been bled of its spirit.
“It’s just because you’re big,” she said sympathetically. I was less than pleased, presuming she was trying to twist my obvious ineptitude into some kind of positive. I looked at her sternly.
“Last weekend would have been good,” she said. “Last weekend would have been so good…”
…So I beat off ceaselessly, borne back lustfully into last weekend.
"ill-fated love-scuffle" is good. write more stuff, kid. it's been a goddamn year.
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