LJ Idol - Week 17 - The Funniest Thing
Sex is a funny thing. It’s incredibly important; without it, none of us would be here, it can make or break a relationship and it just feels so damn good. But then sometimes it's awkward, uncomfortable, totally goofy. To me, the funniest thing about sex is how little the actual intercourse matters sometimes. Often it's the build up, the pleasure delaying, the seduction that leaves a lasting impression.
When I was 15, I started having sex with Ed. He wasn’t my first lover, but he was my first love and in the long run that meant quite a bit more. He was 18, exactly three years older than me. We were both born on February 14th, a work of synchronicity that made me certain we were meant to be together. Not only were we born on the same day, but it was Valentine’s Day - it had to be destiny!
Ed and I shared a love of tie-dyed tee shirts, boating and Jimmy Buffet. He wore glasses, which I have always thought were sexy, and he had a beautiful and generous smile. We had a rocky start at the beginning of my freshman year of high school, one that involved him getting drunk at the homecoming game and punching a hole in the dashboard of his car when I told him I didn't want to see him anymore. After that we didn’t talk for months. Then my family went to Key West for spring break, Margaritaville in the round, and I found myself surrounded by boats, Buffet and tie-dye. Suddenly I was thinking of him again, in an insistent, I need some “alone time” kind of way.
When we got back, I knew I didn’t have long to make Ed mine before he graduated, so I made a plan. It was pretty vague, but it involved the Senior Appreciation Dance and cut-off blue jean shorts. The night of the dance I arrived at the gymnasium early and pestered all of Ed’s friends until he arrived.
“Is he coming?”
“When will he be here?”
“Is he bringing anybody?”
I’m sure they wished the pesky freshman would leave them alone.
When Ed walked into the gym I dashed up to him. With a jump, I wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck and gazed into his blue eyes.
“Hi,” I cooed. “I missed you.”
Ahh, if only my adult flirtations could be so casual, so confident. By the end of the night we were making out under the basketball goal and his friends were asking him how long we’d been together.
Before he asked me to prom, before his graduation, I already knew I was going to be spending time in bed with this guy. My general pelvic region started buzzing the minute he walked in the room. My mom had always encouraged me to be honest with her about sex so I went to her and had one of the scariest conversations of my life. Nervous as hell, I told her I wanted to be sexually active and much to her credit, she listened calmly. We then planned out how to get birth control for me without my dad discovering. I can only pray my daughter will put that much trust in me when she decides to have sex, but that’s another story.
On a Saturday in May, I stood topless in Ed’s bedroom, nearly blinded by the late afternoon sun pouring through the window. As I pulled on my shirt to leave he grabbed my waist. Hair tousled from hours of half-clothed tumbling in his bed, he looked at me like I was an angel, a work of art, Atlantis, some mysterious treasure to be cherished. He whispered “I love you.” I would have made love to him that instant, if my parents hadn’t been expecting me for dinner.
Now, Ed told me that he'd lost his virginity to some girl in Daytona Beach over spring break, but he lied. I didn’t find out the truth until we’d been together over a year and he decided to come clean. He just didn’t want me to think he was a loser for being 18 and a virgin. We decided to save our first time for Ed’s graduation night. After the ceremony and dinner with his parents, he told his mom and stepdad he was going camping with the guys. My mom told my dad I was spending the night at my friend Maggie’s and we hopped in his powder-blue Escort and giddily drove to a hotel…only to find it was full.
Undaunted, we drove to another one, and then another, as each receptionist gave us the same “No room at the inn” speech. Turns out there was some big event at Lanier Raceway, the local track, and people had poured in from out of town, flooding the hotels and campgrounds for miles.
Already midnight, but not one to be deterred, I suggested we drive to Athens. It was a college town, bound to have hotels and at least one empty bed, right? Ed was game, so we stopped for gas and drove out of town. As we sped along the dark country roads to Athens though, I started to lose my confidence. Always one to look for signs, I feared the full hotels meant fate was telling me this was a bad idea. I wasn't having fun anymore.
Now more nervous girl than passionate woman, I laid my hand on Ed’s knee. I didn’t want to ruin his graduation, I didn’t want him to stop liking me, but I was really scared. Biting my lip I turned to face him. He glanced at me quickly with a smile, then looked back, his face glowing with concern in the light from the dashboard.
“Can you… pull over... for a second?” I asked him, haltingly.
“Is everything o.k.?” he responded, worried.
I just sat in silence till the car crunched to a stop in the gravel parking lot of a country store. I undid my seatbelt and slid out of the car. Standing in the dewy darkness, surrounded by nothing but black pasture, a million stars twinkled overhead. I wrapped my arms around myself to fend off a chill that had crept into the air. Ed walked around and leaned against my door, looking at me expectantly.
Focusing on the sky, the darkness behind the store, anywhere but his face, I began, “I don’t know if this is such a good idea anymore. I don’t know if this is what I want. I mean, it’s late and nothing is happening like we planned and we don’t even know where we're going once we get to Athens…Maybe we should go home.” I trailed off, not knowing what he might say.
Would he sneer at me and think I was a baby? Yell and threaten to tell everyone what a cocktease I was? We were in the middle of nowhere- what if he drove off and left me there alone?
Still staring out into the night, I felt his hands on my shoulders.
Ed gently turned me to face him and gathered me into his arms. My face pressed to his chest, I can still remember the smell of him; leather jacket, Camel cigarettes, Right Guard. His chin on my head, he quietly said “We can do whatever you want. I don’t want you to be scared. But...we’re almost in Athens and it’s not like we can go home tonight. We might as well get a hotel and drive back in the morning. I promise it’ll just be a place for us to sleep.”
I trusted him completely. He was so sincere. Maybe because he was a virgin and little scared himself he didn’t feel the need to push like a more experienced man would have. Maybe he was just that much of a gentleman. I squeezed his hand and got back in the car.
We drove through Athens, the town surprisingly quiet for a Saturday night because UGA had already let out for the summer. We found a little motel and Ed stepped into their lobby, moments later returning with a grungy copper-colored key. I'd packed like I was going on a sleepover - tee shirt and boxers to sleep in, a toothbrush and toothpaste and my birth control pills of course, all in a little orange backpack. I grabbed it and hopped out of the car.
Ed held my hand as we climbed the steps to our second-floor room. I kept glancing behind me at the lobby, waiting for the night manager to come barelling out, afraid it was illegal for an 18 year old to be taking a 15 year old to a motel room. When I stepped in the room I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. There was dark, junky paneling on the walls, an ancient tv, and one tiny window with olive curtains that had probably been hanging since 1972. The bed sank to a V in the middle and was covered by an equally drab comforter. Ed looked at me, standing in the doorway, so I gave him a nervous smile of acceptance and stepped in the room.
I bustled around for a few minutes making a great display of getting into my pajamas and brushing my teeth while Ed watched a late night comedy movie, and then it was time to get in bed. I bounced onto the creaky mattress, my jitters making me giggly, and then settled under the covers.
"You just want to go to sleep?" Ed asked, more a statement than a question, as he turned off the television. I nodded, eyes wide and searching his face for disappointment. There was none. "O.K." He smiled gently, then stripped down to his white tee shirt and boxers and climbed in next to me.
The room was very dark, except for the stripes of light from the blinds that bisected the room. As we lay in silence, his body curved around mine, I started to relax. I listened to the hum of the air conditioner and the cars driving by on the street and realized I was exactly where I wanted to be, doing exactly what I wanted to be doing. What a wonderful man I was with, to respect my wishes, to be content to just hold me until morning...and I forgot to kiss him goodnight!
I rolled to face him and lifted my mouth to his, unsure of whether he had fallen asleep or not. His eyes opened and we looked at each other for a moment before losing ourselves in the kiss. I loved the smell of him, the way his late-night stubble scratched at my cheeks and how hard his body felt against mine. I ran my hand along his chest, enjoying the softness of his skin, his smooth stomach. Allowed to warm up in my own time, I felt my fears turn to steam like rain on a radiator.
When his arms wrapped around my back, I rolled on top of him and leaned up, pulling off my shirt before plunging in to kiss him again, my knees gripping him tightly. Now it was just two flimsy pieces of cloth separating a million nerve endings. I kissed my way down his chest and when my chin hit the waistband of Ed's boxers I sat up and grinned, hooking my thumbs inside and working them down over his hips. He rose up on his elbows and cocked his head to one side.
"Are you sure about this?" Ed asked solemnly.
"Absolutely," I whispered, and in moments we were naked, hands everywhere, the delicious weight of him pressing me onto the bed.
The funniest thing about all this is that I don't really remember the sex. I know he was inside me for hours, such is the joy of an 18 year old's sex drive, and I know I came three times, because I was certainly counting, and I was thrilled. I know Ed didn't have an orgasm that night - he admitted later he was too nervous to finish.
Ed and I stayed together for two years before things fell apart - and really, it was my fault. To say we had a lot of sex would be an understatement though - we just fit together really well. It's been 15 years and we still talk occassionally, still raise our eyebrows about the trouble we used to get into. We still share a birthday, and a connection.
Like the wallpaper in a sunny room, many memories of our relationship have faded in my mind, but the details that stay with me, the ones I will never forget, are of the hours that led to me saying yes. The wonderful thing about his seduction was that there was no seducing at all.
When I was 15, I started having sex with Ed. He wasn’t my first lover, but he was my first love and in the long run that meant quite a bit more. He was 18, exactly three years older than me. We were both born on February 14th, a work of synchronicity that made me certain we were meant to be together. Not only were we born on the same day, but it was Valentine’s Day - it had to be destiny!
Ed and I shared a love of tie-dyed tee shirts, boating and Jimmy Buffet. He wore glasses, which I have always thought were sexy, and he had a beautiful and generous smile. We had a rocky start at the beginning of my freshman year of high school, one that involved him getting drunk at the homecoming game and punching a hole in the dashboard of his car when I told him I didn't want to see him anymore. After that we didn’t talk for months. Then my family went to Key West for spring break, Margaritaville in the round, and I found myself surrounded by boats, Buffet and tie-dye. Suddenly I was thinking of him again, in an insistent, I need some “alone time” kind of way.
When we got back, I knew I didn’t have long to make Ed mine before he graduated, so I made a plan. It was pretty vague, but it involved the Senior Appreciation Dance and cut-off blue jean shorts. The night of the dance I arrived at the gymnasium early and pestered all of Ed’s friends until he arrived.
“Is he coming?”
“When will he be here?”
“Is he bringing anybody?”
I’m sure they wished the pesky freshman would leave them alone.
When Ed walked into the gym I dashed up to him. With a jump, I wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck and gazed into his blue eyes.
“Hi,” I cooed. “I missed you.”
Ahh, if only my adult flirtations could be so casual, so confident. By the end of the night we were making out under the basketball goal and his friends were asking him how long we’d been together.
Before he asked me to prom, before his graduation, I already knew I was going to be spending time in bed with this guy. My general pelvic region started buzzing the minute he walked in the room. My mom had always encouraged me to be honest with her about sex so I went to her and had one of the scariest conversations of my life. Nervous as hell, I told her I wanted to be sexually active and much to her credit, she listened calmly. We then planned out how to get birth control for me without my dad discovering. I can only pray my daughter will put that much trust in me when she decides to have sex, but that’s another story.
On a Saturday in May, I stood topless in Ed’s bedroom, nearly blinded by the late afternoon sun pouring through the window. As I pulled on my shirt to leave he grabbed my waist. Hair tousled from hours of half-clothed tumbling in his bed, he looked at me like I was an angel, a work of art, Atlantis, some mysterious treasure to be cherished. He whispered “I love you.” I would have made love to him that instant, if my parents hadn’t been expecting me for dinner.
Now, Ed told me that he'd lost his virginity to some girl in Daytona Beach over spring break, but he lied. I didn’t find out the truth until we’d been together over a year and he decided to come clean. He just didn’t want me to think he was a loser for being 18 and a virgin. We decided to save our first time for Ed’s graduation night. After the ceremony and dinner with his parents, he told his mom and stepdad he was going camping with the guys. My mom told my dad I was spending the night at my friend Maggie’s and we hopped in his powder-blue Escort and giddily drove to a hotel…only to find it was full.
Undaunted, we drove to another one, and then another, as each receptionist gave us the same “No room at the inn” speech. Turns out there was some big event at Lanier Raceway, the local track, and people had poured in from out of town, flooding the hotels and campgrounds for miles.
Already midnight, but not one to be deterred, I suggested we drive to Athens. It was a college town, bound to have hotels and at least one empty bed, right? Ed was game, so we stopped for gas and drove out of town. As we sped along the dark country roads to Athens though, I started to lose my confidence. Always one to look for signs, I feared the full hotels meant fate was telling me this was a bad idea. I wasn't having fun anymore.
Now more nervous girl than passionate woman, I laid my hand on Ed’s knee. I didn’t want to ruin his graduation, I didn’t want him to stop liking me, but I was really scared. Biting my lip I turned to face him. He glanced at me quickly with a smile, then looked back, his face glowing with concern in the light from the dashboard.
“Can you… pull over... for a second?” I asked him, haltingly.
“Is everything o.k.?” he responded, worried.
I just sat in silence till the car crunched to a stop in the gravel parking lot of a country store. I undid my seatbelt and slid out of the car. Standing in the dewy darkness, surrounded by nothing but black pasture, a million stars twinkled overhead. I wrapped my arms around myself to fend off a chill that had crept into the air. Ed walked around and leaned against my door, looking at me expectantly.
Focusing on the sky, the darkness behind the store, anywhere but his face, I began, “I don’t know if this is such a good idea anymore. I don’t know if this is what I want. I mean, it’s late and nothing is happening like we planned and we don’t even know where we're going once we get to Athens…Maybe we should go home.” I trailed off, not knowing what he might say.
Would he sneer at me and think I was a baby? Yell and threaten to tell everyone what a cocktease I was? We were in the middle of nowhere- what if he drove off and left me there alone?
Still staring out into the night, I felt his hands on my shoulders.
Ed gently turned me to face him and gathered me into his arms. My face pressed to his chest, I can still remember the smell of him; leather jacket, Camel cigarettes, Right Guard. His chin on my head, he quietly said “We can do whatever you want. I don’t want you to be scared. But...we’re almost in Athens and it’s not like we can go home tonight. We might as well get a hotel and drive back in the morning. I promise it’ll just be a place for us to sleep.”
I trusted him completely. He was so sincere. Maybe because he was a virgin and little scared himself he didn’t feel the need to push like a more experienced man would have. Maybe he was just that much of a gentleman. I squeezed his hand and got back in the car.
We drove through Athens, the town surprisingly quiet for a Saturday night because UGA had already let out for the summer. We found a little motel and Ed stepped into their lobby, moments later returning with a grungy copper-colored key. I'd packed like I was going on a sleepover - tee shirt and boxers to sleep in, a toothbrush and toothpaste and my birth control pills of course, all in a little orange backpack. I grabbed it and hopped out of the car.
Ed held my hand as we climbed the steps to our second-floor room. I kept glancing behind me at the lobby, waiting for the night manager to come barelling out, afraid it was illegal for an 18 year old to be taking a 15 year old to a motel room. When I stepped in the room I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. There was dark, junky paneling on the walls, an ancient tv, and one tiny window with olive curtains that had probably been hanging since 1972. The bed sank to a V in the middle and was covered by an equally drab comforter. Ed looked at me, standing in the doorway, so I gave him a nervous smile of acceptance and stepped in the room.
I bustled around for a few minutes making a great display of getting into my pajamas and brushing my teeth while Ed watched a late night comedy movie, and then it was time to get in bed. I bounced onto the creaky mattress, my jitters making me giggly, and then settled under the covers.
"You just want to go to sleep?" Ed asked, more a statement than a question, as he turned off the television. I nodded, eyes wide and searching his face for disappointment. There was none. "O.K." He smiled gently, then stripped down to his white tee shirt and boxers and climbed in next to me.
The room was very dark, except for the stripes of light from the blinds that bisected the room. As we lay in silence, his body curved around mine, I started to relax. I listened to the hum of the air conditioner and the cars driving by on the street and realized I was exactly where I wanted to be, doing exactly what I wanted to be doing. What a wonderful man I was with, to respect my wishes, to be content to just hold me until morning...and I forgot to kiss him goodnight!
I rolled to face him and lifted my mouth to his, unsure of whether he had fallen asleep or not. His eyes opened and we looked at each other for a moment before losing ourselves in the kiss. I loved the smell of him, the way his late-night stubble scratched at my cheeks and how hard his body felt against mine. I ran my hand along his chest, enjoying the softness of his skin, his smooth stomach. Allowed to warm up in my own time, I felt my fears turn to steam like rain on a radiator.
When his arms wrapped around my back, I rolled on top of him and leaned up, pulling off my shirt before plunging in to kiss him again, my knees gripping him tightly. Now it was just two flimsy pieces of cloth separating a million nerve endings. I kissed my way down his chest and when my chin hit the waistband of Ed's boxers I sat up and grinned, hooking my thumbs inside and working them down over his hips. He rose up on his elbows and cocked his head to one side.
"Are you sure about this?" Ed asked solemnly.
"Absolutely," I whispered, and in moments we were naked, hands everywhere, the delicious weight of him pressing me onto the bed.
The funniest thing about all this is that I don't really remember the sex. I know he was inside me for hours, such is the joy of an 18 year old's sex drive, and I know I came three times, because I was certainly counting, and I was thrilled. I know Ed didn't have an orgasm that night - he admitted later he was too nervous to finish.
Ed and I stayed together for two years before things fell apart - and really, it was my fault. To say we had a lot of sex would be an understatement though - we just fit together really well. It's been 15 years and we still talk occassionally, still raise our eyebrows about the trouble we used to get into. We still share a birthday, and a connection.
Like the wallpaper in a sunny room, many memories of our relationship have faded in my mind, but the details that stay with me, the ones I will never forget, are of the hours that led to me saying yes. The wonderful thing about his seduction was that there was no seducing at all.