“You’re going to have to work a lot to pay for this,” said my dad, preparing to co-sign the loan with me. “If you miss a payment they’re going to come looking for me, and I’m going to tell them to load it up on their trailer and take it away. If that happens, don’t come crying to me.”
His words did not bother me; they seemed gruff and dad-like, and appropriate. I took the keys, beaming, and I even gave him a hug.
So I had a car, which is of vital importance in high school, and I had a crush on a new boy who had just moved to our school. I felt that I was primed for victory. I had always had the most luck with new kids because they didn’t know they were supposed to hate me. This boy’s name was Alex Wescott and he pursued me. From the first day of geometry class, he couldn’t stop staring at me. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. And he was cute! Medium height with a muscular build and droopy brown eyes like a Bassett hound, but in an adorable, sexy way. It was obvious enough to aggravate the popular girls, who just that summer had all gone through name-puberty, maturing from Jenni, Kari, Jessi, and Keeli to Jennifer, Caroline, Jessica, and Keely.
Alex was from Chicago and he was so smooth. “Is this seat taken?” were the first words he ever spoke to me.
“We have assigned seats,” I plainly told him, because I was not so smooth. “It’s reserved for Paul Dunkel. I guess he’s running late.”
“Oh,” said Alex, nodding. He sat down in Paul’s seat and looked me up and down. I did not realize he had mistaken my obliviousness for cool detachment. Intrigued, he raised an eyebrow at me and said, “So are we going out tonight or what?”
The popular kids heard him say this. I felt myself growing hot, my nerdiness spreading from my neck up to my hairline in an itchy, scarlet wave. I waited for someone around us to set the record straight, let this guy know he was barking up the wrong tree, but they watched us in silence.
I had never done anything with a boy! Alex Wescott, with his worn leather jacket and stubble (stubble!) looked like he ate out prostitutes for breakfast. In that frantic moment I got the clear, sure conviction that I must have sex with someone uncool for practice before accepting his offer. The question was, who? Of course, it had to happen soon, before someone else stole away Alex’s attention.
“I already have plans tonight,” I told him.
“Oh. Okay, that’s cool,” he said. Then he added disinterestedly, “What are you doing?”
“Nothing special. Just going into the Cities for a concert with some friends who are in college.”
“What concert?”
“Hmm. Some band they’re friends with. I think they’re called the Middleweights. I’m just going along for the free drinks.” I don’t know where that came from but Alex believed me, I could tell. Feeling bold I said, “Why don’t we go out Friday night instead?”
“Sure,” he said.
I shrugged nonchalantly and went back to reading a diagram in my geometry book, my pulse loudly thumping in my windpipe. From the corner of my eye I saw Alex turn away from me to pick at his fraying hem, and I tried to steady my breathing. This gave me four days to get rid of my virginity.
The logical victim, the only candidate I could think of, in fact, was Dougie the Lawn Boy. Twenty-four and still living at his parents’ house, cutting people’s lawns in the summer and spending the off-season high in the basement. I figured his reputation as a helpful guy around the neighborhood who kept to himself made him a solid choice, so I gave him a call.
“Hi, Dougie,” I said. “This is your neighbor calling and I need a little favor.”
“Who is this?”
“Remember Valencia?”
“Sure!”
“This is her sister.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sixteen now. I was wondering if I could come over.”
“Okay.”
I went over there and he answered the door in boxers and a t-shirt. He had a body like a fifty year old man: skinny, skinny everything, with a huge gut.
“Do you have protection?” I asked him.
He did. We kissed for a while because I needed the practice at that too, and then we tried to have sex. I hadn’t seen any real-life penises before that day, so how was I to know that he was hung like an elephant? We tried and tried but it wouldn’t fit.
“Are you bigger than normal guys?”
“Uh, yeah, I think so. Quite a bit bigger, I’ve been told.”
“Good, cause this feels awful!”