Growing Up, or Something Resembling It

The late-night air of a Seattle summer filled my lungs in between drags of a cigarette, as airplanes flew overhead and the night sky was burdened by city lights. We sat on the swings of an empty schoolyard gently lulling to and fro, staring at each other through quick glances in between quiet conversation. We sat like this for hours, learning the complexities of each other through intimate conversations and telling stories about our childhood, talking about all of the things that make meeting new people when you're twenty years old exciting.

I liked the way his dark hair fell over his eyes and how his top lip turned up on just one side when he smiled at me. He had tanned skin that smelled like cedar and sweat, and the whitest and straightest teeth I had ever seen.

He definitely had braces as a kid

I liked that he had interesting things to say and that he was older than me (but not by too much) and I liked that I really couldn't tell if he was into me or not. That was the thing about him I think liked the most actually, but I just hadn't realized it yet. I liked that he wasn't falling all over himself for me in the uncool way that a lot of other boys did, and instead, hardly gave me any insight into his feelings about me at all. It made me feel like I also had to be cool, cool enough to make him want me. Which is why I smoked cigarettes with him and took long swigs out of a brown paper bag holding a beer (even though I hated beer), flipped my hair to one side, and looked down at my feet pretending not to care about most things, because not caring and being unbothered was cool when you are twenty. Being twenty meant being on the precipice between rebellious teenager and a newly christened twenty-one year old adult trying to figure out responsibility and consequence. What a deliciously terrible age.

I hadn't kissed very many boys yet when I was twenty, but I wanted to kiss this one. I guess he felt the same, because he locked eyes with me in a way that could only be described as hunger. It was the same eyes a dog gives a plate of food when they are begging for a bite. "You have something right...here" he said with the voice of a boy who had recently morphed into a man, as he extended his thumb out to gently move away a piece of wind-whipped hair stuck to my overly done lipgloss covered pout. As he did, he took this opportunity of proximity to me to bend his head forward and delicately slide his hand behind the back of my hair, bringing me in for the kiss we both so desperately wanted. I wasn't really sure how I was supposed to kiss him though.

Am I supposed to give a light peck and pull back? Open my mouth and let him do the work? Or just go crazy on him and let my hormones take over?

He made the decision for us and went for option 4, which was holding me tight, arms wrapped around me, with his hands tangled up into my hair, and a lengthy wet lip lock for an unknown amount of time, before he finally released his grip and I was able to come up for air.

Rewind the story to five hours prior to this and we had just met, sharing polite conversation in between sips of Coors Light in a bottle, with a group of friends on a backyard deck. The smell of jasmine was thick in the air from the bushes climbing up the trellis of somebodies parent's house, only occasionally overpowered by a gust of marijuana or ciggarette smoke. I was pretending not to notice how he smiled when he looked my way, or how it made my skin flush so hot I could feel the red in my cheeks and how my heart pounded in my chest when he did it. I couldn't tell if he was just being nice to me because I was obviously shy, or if it was because he was thinking about the way his hands would feel on my hips, what my lips tasted like, or how my hair would look after he fucked me. I developed a decent amount of liquid courage over the course of the night, and held his gaze longer and longer until he had no choice but to talk to me. We started our conversation in the kitchen of our hosts house, mostly forgetting that anyone else existed. As we walked out the door with intent to say our goodbyes as the party ended, we awkwardly headed towards our cars in step with each other, which were conveniently parked next to one another. "Do you want to keep hanging out?" he said as he unlocked and quickly relocked his car door after I nodded my head yes.

Before I knew it, I was sitting on a swingset down the road making out with a man I had just met, but who I had talked to for so long I felt like I had known for a lifetime, and was letting him put his hands under my shirt as I straddled him. I was holding onto the iron chains that suspended us in the air, all while trying to focus on my balance so I didn't fall and embarass myself and a thought came barrelling into my brain while his lips gently kissed the side of my neck.

My mother would be so ashamed.

I attempted to push the unwelcome ghosts of mysogynists past away and instead lean into the ecstasy of the moment I was currently in. His lips roamed downward as he pulled my shirt down cupping my breasts with with his hands and licking and kissing me in a place I had yet to know would be so wonderful. Instead of fully enjoying this new experience, I persevated on past memories of my mother chastizing my friends for their behavior around boys or sheepishly implying when a woman was "acting like a whore".

He finally removed his mouth long enough to ask me if I wanted to go back to his house. I said yes. I had never done anything like this, especially not after I had spent an evening silently lusting for it, but I wasn't planning to stop yet, even if my mom would be ashamed.

The 2-mile drive from our mutual friends party to his house felt like an eternity, because we both knew what the expectation would be when we got there. I sat in the passenger seat quiet, like I was being driven somewhere by a stranger, because well, I practically was.

What if he tries to kill me and I end up on Dateline? My family would be devastated.

He attempted to cut through the heat in the air around us by making small talk, but my nervous system was already on overdrive by then. I felt the conflict of my inner child screaming, we don't do this! and the woman who was trying to emerge telling her to shut the fuck up.

We pulled up to the driveway of his little white house on a street I cannot remember all these years later, as an emo song about a pretty face gently bellowed from the radio in his car. I sat in silence for too long, trying to catch my breathe and work up the courage to remove myself from either the seat or the situation, which one I wasn't sure. Before I had a chance though, he was around the passenger side opening the car door for me and holding out his hand. His tall figure moved gracefully through the dark, like someone who had done this a hundred times. I wasn't exactly a virgin, but I had never done it quite like this, and it felt painfully obvious. If it was, he pretended not to notice.

"My dad is sleeping in his room, but he doesn't care if I have friends over late." These words would make me immediately return to my senses at my now wiser age, but at twenty it was just a new challenge in my brain.

Keep your voice low so we don't wake up his dad. I wonder where his mom is?

We crept quietly into a small kitchen that had a single light on above the stove, it illuminated his profile and my heart started beating fast again. He took my hand and led me lithely down a short hallway to a staircase, and pulled me up towards a white door. Inside was a stereotypical "boy" bedroom; a full size mattress sat on a frame (no headboard) with a dark blue bed-in-a-bag type of bedset with a questionable last known wash time. There were a few posters on the wall, one of our mutual favorite band and one of a rap group popular in the 90's. A small desk sat across from the bed with a flat screen TV propped up on it and a dvd player attached, with various movies and netflix rentals scattered about around it. For a twenty-one year old man, it wasn't the worst room I had encountered, not that I had encountered many outside of the ones my own brothers lived in.

He's an only child, isn't he?

I sat on the side of his bed while he went into the bathroom attached to his bedroom, with my hands in my lap, using every ounce of self-control I could muster to not nervously pick at my nails. He came back into the room and asked if I wanted to watch a movie with him, mostly as a formality. We picked one out and I slipped my shoes off and sat with my back against the wall, trying not to show how unsure and inexperienced I was with all of this. Soon enough, we were kissing again, but this time my brain couldn't quiet the voices of uncertainty that were screaming.

What am I doing? Is my self-esteem really this low? Oh wow, okay that feels really good. Oh, I've never had anyone touch me like that before.... Wait, are his eyes brown? Am I really about to have sex with someone and I can't even say with certainty what color his eyes are?

He slipped my shirt off and kissed down my neck onto the top of my breasts as he held onto my waist. As his hand slipped lower towards my inner thigh, my body tensed and his hand stopped. He pulled away and looked at me, his deep brown eyes full of confusion. He studied my face for a millisecond and his brow furrowed with concern as his voice softened to a level I hadn't heard yet, "we don't have to do this if you don't want to."

My entire body relaxed all at once. I had no idea I was wanting so badly to hear those words and to have his permission to stop. I needed to hear from him that ending the night at this point wasn't me being a "stupid tease" as one boy had put it once upon a time. I needed to hear him say that I wasn't going to be a disappointment to him if I changed my mind, and that I still have value to him as a person, even if he didn't get to fuck me tonight.

The relief I felt also brought tears because I was (and still am) the kind of person who cries when faced with any kind of strong emotion, and as much as I tried to suppress them, I could feel the heat creep over my face as they welled up and rolled down my cheeks. He pulled my head into his chest and pleaded with me to please not be upset, that he didn't want to make me uncomfortable.

He thinks I am upset with HIM

"No, God no, I am just crying because I'm relieved and because I feel stupid."

I want to let you explore every inch of my body and nibble my neck and push yourself inside of me, just not like this.

"I want to do this, I really do. Just not before I even know your middle name, or how you like your coffee, or if you prefer cats or dogs. I just want to do this and feel like I'm not having sex with a stranger. I thought I did, but I don't."

He smiled at me and then began laughing, loudly.

He thinks I'm insane.

"Michael, my middle name is Michael. I like dogs better but I have a cat named Reno, and I will show you how I like my coffee when I take you out for some in the morning." With that, he picked my shirt up off the floor and commanded me to put my arms up over my head. I did what I was told and he lightly draped it back over my head, over my chest, and down my stomach. Then he took his fingers, swept my tears away, and pulled my face in for a gentle kiss. "I can drive you home if you want, or you can sleep here with me since it's almost 4 am. I will be good, I promise." I chose to stay and curled my body up onto his broad chest.

You can relax now, brain. I told him no and he didn't kick me out. See? He might actually like my personality too. I will stay here with the man/boy whose middle name is Michael and who is a little less of a stranger now and sleep next to him and hope he still thinks I am as endearing in the morning.

My eyes reopened in the glow of a summer morning, and I looked over at the man sleeping next me as I wiped the sleep from them. His features were softened in this lighting and I could see where his abs melted into his pelvis and the bulge of his sweatpants. He was fast asleep and even in whatever "morning after clarity" I was having, he was still one of the most handsome men I had ever seen up to this point in my young life. I could hear noises of breakfast coming from the kitchen downstairs and the full realization of where I was hit me like a ton of bricks. To my horror, his dad was awake, and if I didn't leave now, I was going to have meet someone's father looking like I just had my brains fucked out by their son whom I had just met the night before. That would certainly leave an impression, but maybe not the one I wanted.

His family will hate you if THIS is how they meet you for the first time and you will never have a real relationship with him.

I quickly and silently gathered my things, tip-toed down the stairs, and made a dash for the front door as soon as I could tell his father had gone elsewhere and wouldn't see me. I didn't like sneaking out without saying goodbye, that felt almost as bad as the potential one-night stand I nearly had, but I also didn't want to meet his entire family under the assumptions that would most certainly be made either. I had to run away before my shame completely overwhelmed me.

It took me a whole month after that night to learn that he liked his coffee black; I never did meet his dad though.