by downward » Sun Oct 05, 2008 10:37 am
Here is a first sexual experience story. Full disclosure: I wrote this a long time ago for some silly campus humor magazine I contributed to years ago, hence the style of prose.
What you do in darkness shall be shown in light and words you whisper will be shouted across housetops. I think what I mean is that there is no hiding from your own morality. It'll get you in the end. What we're talking about here is the very first time my lips brushed those of the fairer sex, and to cut the tension down now - no, it's not nearly as serious as the first couple of sentences made it out to be. I didn't, like, wrap barbed wire around her throat and punch her into submission before licking her tongue, which happened to be hanging out of her slack, unconcious mouth. I was in fifth grade, for Christ's sake, that's seventh grade type shit. What did happen was I was sitting on a bench during recess, taking a break from recess type shit. I think the trend that year was a combination of soccer and "kill the man with the ball", which is a game in which you fight to have the ball, but then when you do have it everyone tries to break your limbs. It's also referred to by the charming title "Smear the Queer", which is quite telling when you consider that the object of the game isn't really to "Smear the Queer", it's to "Become the Queer", otherwise the ball would just sit on the ground the whole time. Right? I mean, you have to choose to be the Queer who is going to be smeared. This type of psychology doesn't register with 5th graders though, homophobia is encouraged even when being the Queer is a cherished passtime. But I digress.
I wasn't being the Queer this particular recess, because I was sitting on a bench not fighting to have my limbs broken. A kid from what I think was the grade above mine approached me in a teasing type way and told me that his sister liked me. That she had a crush on me. There might have been a pop culture reference but I can't be sure. In my head he compares the two of us to Uncle Jesse and Becky, which is sort of unfavorable because Fuck Uncle Jesse, and Becky was way hotter that This Girl (especially because this girl was only in 5th grade). I am put in the uncomfortable position of knowing this, as This Girl approaches very afraid by what her brother has just told me, very much regretting what she has apparently just told her brother. Motherfuckers, those older brothers are. As she storms closer, he retreats laughing heartily at the uncomfortable situation he has just caused. And right on, I would have done the same if I had a little sister. The following conversation is almost entirely made up because there's no possible way that anyone remembers full conversations they had when they were ten.
"What did he just tell you?"
"He told me that you had all sorts of crushes on me."
"It's not true! He's just trying to embarrass me!"
"Yes it is. Don't let him."
"Let's just forget it."
"We should kiss."
"Let's forget it."
"Just to see what it's like."
"Let's forget it."
"I'm going to tell everyone we did anyway."
That last line is the only part that isn't made up. It is word for word true. What you do in darkness shall be shown in light and words you whisper shall be shouted across housetops. I am a monster. I thought it wouldn't make a difference. That she had a crush on me anyway, and that this is something that should be gotten out of the way immediately, before everyone else did it first and I was one of those people lingering in the back, like people who join the NYC marathon even though they can't possibly finish, still walking hours after the first Kenyon has cross the yellow tape. So we did because I applied an unfair amount of social pressure, and it was soft and dry and there was no saliva exchanged. And like saliva, there was a lack of words after, and I sauntered off to try to be The Queer, and This Girl walked away to do whatever girls did at recess when they weren't being raped by miscreants. At the time I imagined that she walked away to gush about my sexual prowess to her friends, and in no time at all I would be the toast of the town and girls would be lining up to feel my soft dry salivaless lips. Later on (I'm not entirely sure how much later on) my moral barometer kicked in, and my imagination placed her in the corner of the school yard, huddled up hugging her self and clawing at her own hair while tears streamed down her face.
The reality probably falls somewhere between the two. Now when I look back I imagine she walked away and said to herself "No big whoop." then promptly forgot about it. We never talked about it, I know that for sure. Later on that school year I found myself at a school church outing, standing on some sort of bleacher apparatus, with This Girl standing directly in front of me, beneath me. I began to feel ill and made some noises and This Girl turned around to perhaps see what was wrong. And I vomited right in her fucking face. We never talked about that either. At the end of the school year I left St. ______'s for the far greener pastures of public education. A couple years later she invited me to her 8th grade birthday party. I think that was the last I saw of her.
I have been three girls first kisses (as far as I know, and I often question what I know). Only one has been mine. I often think that I would gladly leave this one behind and let one of the other girls take her place. I actually know which one of the three I would pick, since I ended up having a class with the other one at Community College and when I casually mentioned our brief fifth grade romance she denied it ever happened. Maybe because she couldn't deal with the power of my love. Often times I like to think that it's because she couldn't deal with the power of my love. So third girl, it's you. Even though I have now committed this story to print, and can no longer deny it, I'm rewriting history. You're the one Third Girl. This Girl and That Girl have been excommunicated from the catacombs of my psyche. Welcome to the party, Third Girl. Leave your keys at the door.