I remember 1986. The biggest event was not returning to college, but meeting the first girl I was ever in a serious relationship with. The year before I had been in two relationships that ended on the goofy side because I was too intense and they were sixteen and seventeen respectively and, well, I was too intense.
In 1986 I was twenty years old and still very much a virgin. Lisa was this brunette from New Jersey who lived in the apartment complex I lived in with my father at the time. I lusted after her for weeks, since the balcony of our apartment overlooked the parking lot (making pretty girls the only real view we had, unless you want to count the dumpster behind the KFC).
I actually wrote myself into my relationship with Lisa. In the midst of writing other things I wrote fantasies about meeting her and having sex with her. I seriously thought she would never take me seriously. She was older than I was, beautiful and had this smoldering bad girl sensuality that almost had me drooling whenever her beat-up 1975 Datsun B-210 pulled into the parking lot.
Outside of going to classes during the day, I was home pretty much all the time, and lived either on the balcony or behing my typewriter working on my latest and less than greatest. My desk was at the window so I always monitored the parking lot. Lisa was never with a guy. She was either alone or with this drop dead gorgeous blonde that drove a cream colored Toyota with California plates.
My introduction came as a letter with a rose on her windshield, supposedly from my Datsun 210 to hers, which at the time was a stroke of genius but now seems like something out of a bad romantic comedy. She thought it was the most creative introduction of all times and we went to dinner. I spent the night at her place that night, found out the blonde was her roommate Karen, and never even kissed Lisa. We just talked and listened to music all night. We had similar interests, beliefs, taste in music... the list went on. I left at six in the morning. I never made physical contact with her that night. I felt like I was in a dream. This woman I lusted after was into all the same things I was into, she was in the doctoral program at Clark University, and she really really seemed to like me.
Two days later, on a Sunday, after not being able to work up the nerve to call her, I paced around the apartment complex cursing myself for my feeble lack of courage. She liked me. She wanted to see me again. I was scared to death of calling her. It had taken me hours to dial all seven digits after she left her phone number on my windshield in response to the rose from my car to hers. Now I was even more petrified.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Lisa and her roommate Karen were sunbathing on the grass behind their apartment. I got out of there quickly, my friends, I got out of there very quickly. Then my brain concocted a plan. I would walk to the back parking lot of the apartment complex, which involved crossing the lawn behind Lisa and Karen's apartment (unless I wanted to take the really long way around), claiming to be checking on my brother's car that had broken down the previous night. The story had an alarming number of holes in it, such as where was my brother and why isn't the car there now and why don't you have ANY information on these and other topics, but I was in overwhelming lust and so overcome with disbelief that this was happening that I could not think straight.
As I walked past them, Lisa sat up to say hello. Then she asked if I wanted to come over for a drink. I agreed and followed her, this woman I was in total lust for, in a string bikini with her body covered in tanning oil. I was twenty years old and very much a virgin. I was liable to hurt myself at any moment.
We had sex for six straight hours that night. I didn't tell her I was a virgin until three months later. We were together for three and a half years, the longest ongoing relationship of my life.
In the end she completely fucked me over, setting my life into a total fiscal crisis and taking an emotional toll on me that set in motion the events leading to my suicide years later.
The second woman I ever slept with was Karen.
I was staying with them after my father moved in with his girlfriend. I was working two full time jobs at the time and I only had Saturday nights and Sunday off. I was usually exhausted to the extreme on Saturday nights and would lie on the couch watching television until I decided to go to sleep. Lisa was working overnight at the group home was employed by. She was actually screwing some other guy, but that only became relevant later on. I ended up being alone with Karen that Saturday night.
She was cleaning, sort of impulsively because although Lisa had dropped out of the doctoral program, Karen was still in it. She was wearing a t-shirt and these light blue shorts that were so short... well, they were so short I had trouble averting my eyes even when she was looking directly into mine. I asked her if I could help her clean, and she insisted I just relax and do my Saturday night thing and let her know if she's annoying me. I kept asking and eventually insisted she let me do something to help with the cleaning and she told me I could take out the trash.
And so I did, taking out the trash involving walking across the parking lot of their condo complex (this was still the 1980s at this point) and throwing it into the dumpster. I did this most valiantly, and when I reached the dumpster I found it surrounded by cardboard boxes. The boxes were filled with magazines and some of them were spilling out onto the ground. They were hardcore porno magazines, mostly Hustler but with some raunchier titles mixed in. There were at least six boxes of these magazines and I was dumbfounded at this.
And then it started to rain. My life, at times, feels like a movie, played out in slow motion with scenes that sound like they were written but ridiculous to consider having really happened. Because it started to rain, I started to run back to the condo. I had gone out through the sliding glass door, and this being summertime only the screen was closed, but I had left it open intending to just leave, toss the trash and return. Karen closed the screen door after I left and when I came running back in the rain, I ran face first into the screen door.
I was stunned for a moment, and in that moment Karen ran over to the door. She slid open the screen and grabbed onto me. She asked if I was okay and her efforts caused everything to spin more thoroughly. When she brought me back into the condo I stumbled and fell on the floor. I was on my back, looking up, when she straddled me, looked down at me and asked me if I was okay again.
I said that I thought I was okay, then asked if my nose was bleeding since it hurt quite a bit. She said it wasn't, then leaned down and kissed me on the bridge of my nose. Then she asked if that made it feel better. I said I did and she kissed the bridge of my nose again. After that everything became a blur of insane passion I could not control, and would not dream of controlling.
That was the only time I ever "cheated" on a woman.
After I found out Lisa was screwing a lot of other men, including my best friend, and that she had gone to meet one of her lovers the night I had sex with Karen, and she came completely clean about it all I told her about the night with Karen.
She exploded into a rage.
Sometimes, on nights like tonight, I remember how completely devasted I was when I found out Lisa was screwing around on me religiously. I remember how months later I found out she had ripped me off and sunk me five thousand dollars in the hole with no legal recourse against her. I remember these things and then I remember her rage when I told her about the night with Karen. And then I remember the night with Karen. And then I realize there is nothing in my life that has ever happened that I regret.
And most of the time I smile. And that smile is genuine. Everything has happened exactly the way it was supposed to happen. I received gifts along the way. The first night with Lisa was a gift that answered my lust in profoundly degenerate ways. The end game was a result of me not appreciating that gift anywhere as much as I needed to. All these things are gifts, even the pain is a gift. We need to appreciate it more.
This has been your weekly sermon from the Heretical Convergent Church Ministry.