N was my first love. He was tall and dark and smelled so sweet that I used to stick my nose inside his locker between classes just to inhale his scent. Voted Best Looking in his class (a year above mine) I was certain one of those googly-eyed beautiful girls who smiled at him as we passed in the hall would surely steal him away by the end of the day.
On our first date he took me to see The Exorcist--which scarred me for life, but that’s another story. After that, we usually went for walks in the dunes near Lake Michigan. Sometimes we’d smoke a joint or sip a little peach brandy and make out. The first time he touched my breast I nearly imploded with guilty pleasure. Having been raised on stories of harlots doomed to suffer for eternity, I didn't let him go any further, but I sure as hell wanted to.
After a couple months of building and dousing a fire that nearly burned up our teenage bodies, N finally made his move, setting the stage for the Big Night with a day shopping at the mall where he bought me a new sweater and ice cream. That night when we walked into the dunes, he spread out a blanket and a sleeping bag. I gulped. Although most of my friends had already done “it” I was always the last to tie the next ribbon on our collective kite string as we sailed further away from our childhoods. Last to get her period, last to need a bra, last to lose her virginity.
At least I’m in love with him, I thought, as N slipped off my clothes and then his. We crawled under the sleeping bag and for a moment just held each other as the first intense gasp of all that skin against skin made its acquaintance with the other’s surfaces. It’s still like that for me, even now, after all these years. When I climb into bed with my lover, my skin draws a deep breath before sighing into the sheets.
About the same time as the last gaudy yolk of sun spattered greasy streaks above the far end of the lake, N climbed atop my trembling body and gently nudged my legs apart with his knee. He reached down and aimed himself, then began to push against me. I bit a scream in half as he pushed and pushed and pushed for what seemed like forever, but my body wouldn’t let him in. When he finally rolled off, I began to cry. Surely he would leave me.
He didn’t. Wrapping his arms around my fetal limbs, he whispered “I love you” for the very first time.
We tried to have sex a dozen different times after that, without success. Finally, one night in early September he sneaked into my bedroom, which was in the basement of my parent’s house. Sometime during the early morning hours he managed to penetrate me for the very first time.
“Please don’t move,” I whispered. “It hurts.”
After all that waiting it didn’t matter because he came the instant he was inside me anyway. I was 15 and a half. He was almost 17. It was 1974. From my bedside radio, Carole King sang, “Will You Still love me Tomorrow?” giving voice to the question that had already formed in my mind.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about sex. Not in a randy way--more in a what happened? kind of way. What it was, what it is, what it isn’t. And where it went. It's almost as if time is running in reverse and my body is sealing itself back up again. I haven't lost the ability to enjoy sex, but I've lost the urge. That roaring blaze has become a quiet pilot light. Given enough gas, it will burst into a beautiful blue flame but most of the time it sleeps, in a dream I can't seem to get back to.
*Thanks to Kelly for combining my photograph with Loretta's art to create this lovely body collage.
Memories like that are so sweet. Do you think we just get tired. I still love sex when I have the time -- but that is the problem. Time seems to move so quickly and I never seem to *make* the time. Right now I'm going to calendar more than a quickie!
Posted by: Kris | March 05, 2004 at 11:13 AM
i absolutely love this post! i love the honesty, the humility, and the naiveity expressed of the 15 year old in the post.
thank you.
Posted by: D | March 21, 2004 at 12:01 PM
o man...i absolutely love your stories.i found this site accidentally and the words you use to describe these things make me smile.im only 16 but hearing thess stories makes me feel more comfortable in my own skin.id just like to say thank you.
Posted by: meredith jackson | February 01, 2005 at 01:40 PM
Thanks for taking me back to being 18, to 1974 and a passionate,rainy afternoon on the front seat of his 64 Ford. He answered the question "Will you still love me tomorrow?" with a wedding ring that next summer. That was almost 32 years ago. We still find rainy days sexy.
Posted by: CA | June 27, 2006 at 06:55 PM