Two Sides of Terri (6 page)

“Well, you were living at home too,” I offered sympathetically.

“No, I know. But just such a cliché, right?”

“I guess.”

“Well, naturally they had a sofa set up so people, girls I guess, could watch the band. Lost my virginity right on that nasty sofa in Alex Tremanian’s garage.”

“So, what was this like a one-time thing?”

“Oh, no, far from it. Jesus, where were my parents? I swear, when Annabelle is sixteen, I’m going to have her on a leash.”

I laughed. “Good idea.”

Annabelle was obviously taking after her mom in the looks department, same blue eyes and blond hair.

“Anyway, after school, every day, I’d go over to Alex’s, or he’d pick me up at school sometimes and drive me home. And then we’d fool around. Then I’d do a little homework while he messed around with his guitar. Then more sex.”

“Every day?”

“You know, more or less. Unless I had some other activity. But yeah, pretty much. He was nineteen, I was sixteen. It’s not like it was anything real accomplished.”

“God I’d have killed for that kind of set up.”

She laughed. “Yup, I hope he kicks himself everyday thinking about how he blew it.”

“Oh?”

She laughed again. “Oh, well, you know, I was so fucking full of myself, right? I was the bee’s fucking knees. I had myself an older guy. A musician. Take that all you stupid sophomore girls and your dumb-ass jock boyfriends. And I was bragging about how mature he was, what a great lover he was...”

“Was he?”

“God no. I mean, believe me, we were young and limber, so we tried all sorts of things, but let’s just say he was getting a lot more out of it than I was. But you know, at sixteen, you don’t really know what to expect.

“Anyway, I’d bragged so much to my friend,” she said that with a sneer, “Chrissy, that bitch, she decided to try it out.”

“With Alex?”

She nodded.

“How’d you...”

“I walked in on them, of course. That was fun. Crying. Screaming. The two of us yelling at each other.”

“Oof.”

“Oh, it gets better. See, I wasn’t about to lose him to her, so you know, I kept having sex with him. More often even. Until I caught him with another friend. And even then I kept going over to his place for a while until I finally wised up. But of course, the minute I dumped him, so did Chrissy and Claire, so he went from banging three sixteen year olds to none.”

“I’m sure he still did fine.”

“I don’t think so. The window on getting naive teenage girls is small. Nineteen and in a band is cool. Twenty-two and still living in mom’s basement, not so much.”

I nodded. The story piqued my interest, but I didn’t find it as titillating as what she’d told me about Chucky. Maybe it was because she was younger, and it felt skeevy to be turned on. Maybe it was just because it wasn’t really that surprising. It’s about the story I expected. Slightly older guy, cool for many of the wrong reasons. And yet, it did foreshadow things with Chucky. The casual attitude toward sex, and the use of sex as some sort of validation from an older man.

“Okay, your turn again,” she prompted.

Ugh, I thought. This was a bad one. My one night stand.

“Okay. Well, in college now. Spring of freshman year. I went to a frat party, met this older girl, a sophomore, maybe a junior. Curly hair. We were drunk. Started making out at the party. We went back to her dorm and had quick, awkward sex in one of the common rooms. Never saw her again. I don’t even know her name.”

Terri scrunched up her face. “That’s it?”

“That’s my number two. You?”

She sighed. “You sure we want to do this?”

I could see her point. My first two sex partners had amounted to two sex acts. Her first had comprised hundreds. “Sure. We’re just getting everything out on the table.”

“It’s just that I’m beginning to feel like my table might be a little more crowded than yours.”

I felt that twinge again. Jealousy and excitement. Until a few weeks ago, I was carrying around this notion that I was more experienced than Terri, that she was sheltered enough that I needed to worry about how she’d react to skimpily-attired women at a nightclub. I was now coming to realize that she had more ability to shock me than I to shock her.

“It’s okay,” I replied gently, even though my insides were twisting at the thought of more revelations.

She took a deep breath. “Okay, I was still in high school. Senior year now. Another older guy. I guess I felt I was too good for high school boys or something. Anyway, I met Danny at Thanksgiving. My mom had invited one of her recently divorced co-workers to our house, and she brought along her son who was back from college for the holiday. He was really cute, but also smart, and we hit it off.”

“You didn’t? At Thanksgiving?”

She laughed. “No. We just, you know, flirted like crazy. But I thought about it. I hadn’t had sex in a year. But I was still a good girl, I guess. Anyway, this was before texting, right? But I think I had an AOL account, or maybe Hotmail? So we emailed back and forth. And when he came back for Christmas break we hooked up.”

“What, like once?”

She shook her head. “Naw. We were pretty much inseparable. He was much more, um, attentive than Alex. But you know, it was just a temporary thing. I mean, he was going back to school, and even though we talked about me coming up to visit, there was no real way to make that happen. My parents were pretty hands off—”

“I’ll say.”

She shrugged. “But even still, they wouldn’t have been cool with their high school daughter traveling across the state just to get laid.”

“So that was it?”

“Oh no. I mean, I was in love, or at least I thought I was. God, I was so jealous. I kept making him promise he wasn’t seeing other girls at school. He came home again for President’s Day or something. And then I got so pissed off when he decided to go to Florida with some buddies for spring break instead of coming to see me again. That should have been a real big hint, right?”

I nodded. Experienced college man or not, no guy would have passed up an opportunity to hook up with Terri unless he had other irons in the fire, so to speak.

“So what happened?”

“I gave him an ultimatum...and then he dumped me.”

“I’m sorry,” I said absurdly.

She grinned. “You’re too sweet for your own good some times.”

I blushed. She was right. What had I said that?

“Okay, your turn again.”

“Melanie. My first real girlfriend. So I had a long dry spell after frat party girl. All of sophomore year, actually, and the summer after. But I used one of my electives to take an English class. Part of it was clearing my arts requirement, but I definitely picked British Romantic Poetry in part because I thought it might be a good way to meet chicks.”

Terri laughed. “And it worked?”

“Yup. A five-one female-male ratio paid off. I feel gay to admit it, but I actually enjoyed it. Great prof.”

“Yeah?”

“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever,” I said.

“Shelley?”

“Keats,” I corrected.

“You’ve never recited poetry for me.”

“And you’ve never dropped your panties in my lap.”

“Touché.” She paused. “So, what, you guys sat around and quoted couplets at each other?”

“Well, at least until I got her naked.”

Terri rolled her eyes. “You guys are so mercenary.”

It was my turn to shrug my shoulders.

“So what happened?”

“We dated. Whatever that means in college. I guess I took her out occasionally. Mostly we just hung out. She stayed over at my place a couple of times a week. I was living with some buddies off-campus. We were together most of junior year, then senior year. Went to the senior week gala together. That’s the picture you saw at my mom’s.”

“So what made her so special besides your shared love of poetry and her pies?”

“We were good together. No drama. I dunno. It’s hard to explain.”

“What happened?”

I paused. I’d thought of this before, of course. Before I met Terri, Melanie was my one real relationship. But it was hard to put into words. “I dunno. We got too old too young. I know that doesn’t make any real sense. But that was it. She went to grad school out East. I wasn’t ready to commit, to move just to be with her, and she wanted to focus on school. At first, we just called it a break. You know, like we’d get back together. But I dunno, neither of us really did anything to make that happen. I made plans at one point to come out to see her, but something came up. Maybe I had a job interview? Anyway, we cancelled and never rescheduled. Then, you know, we both started getting interested in other people. Or at least interested in getting interested.”

“Sounds like it just faded away.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Thinking of it made me a little melancholy, though I wasn’t sure why. Perhaps, more than anything, it was realizing how little it had affected me at the time, how little I was in touch with my emotions—and hers—back then.

“You okay?”

I smiled. “Yeah, it’s sometimes weird thinking about the past, though, isn’t it? Feels like being a spectator on your own life, and you don’t even really understand the protagonist.”

She tilted her head and regarded me thoughtfully. “You surprise me sometimes, Bill.”

“How?”

“I dunno. I just...I just get the sense that you keep a lot inside.”

I shrugged. Don’t we all? “Maybe. Okay, your turn. What are you up to? Number three?”

“I’ll do three and four at the same time...”

I raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t mean it like that,” she said with a laugh. “Just, you know, similar situations. Two different guys. Maybe six months apart. Danny and then Buck. Met Danny in class. Buck was, I guess, a friend of a friend. Hung out for a while together, then ended up hooking up. In both cases, it was similar. A period of flirtation, group activities, then some solo time. Lots of sex for a week or so, and then both just sorta of trailed off.”

“Why?”

“Danny was a real quiet guy. Smart but a little boring. After a little while, it sort of felt like I’d heard all his stories, ya know? And to tell the truth, the sex was blah.”

“How so?”

“Well, his cock was just too small.”

I nearly choked on my spit. “Really?”

She nodded, but couldn’t keep a straight face. Cracking up, she came clean. “No, good grief. We just didn’t work well together. No chemistry.”

“And Buck?”

“He was a senior. He didn’t want to commit to anything. And even though I didn’t either, I dunno, he made me feel like I was an afterthought. Sometimes things just don’t work out, right?”

I nodded. “Okay. I guess I’m up to four as well. This was another short fling. Met a girl at a house party after I moved back down here. One thing led to another. We ended up at her place. She had roommates, but even still I spent the weekend, mostly in bed, except to grab food.”

“Name?”

I laughed. “This one I remember. Sheila. She looked a lot like you in a lot of ways, petite, blond...except not as pretty.”

Terri laughed. “Ah, you’re sweet. Or is that just code for
she had smaller boobs
?”

“She didn’t hold a candle to you in any way.”

“So what happened?”

“Nothing. I mean, it was fun and all, but no real connection beyond the sex, and even the sex was, as you said about Danny, blah.”

“Okay five,” she paused and blushed a little. “I, um, was the other woman with a married man. I was interning in the front office of a managed care facility. He was my boss. Handsome, older guy. Gary Tehern. He was so interested in me.”

“I bet.”

“No,” she shook her head. “That’s not what I mean. That’s the thing. Unlike most guys—even you,” she added pointedly, “he wasn’t like that. I never caught him checking out my boobs or my ass. No cheesy come-ons, no double entendres. He was just interested in
me
. He was encouraging, helpful, praised me when I did a good job, constructive when I screwed up. He just...seemed to want me to succeed. It’s hard to explain why that was so important to me. But it was.”

She must have seen the doubt in my eyes.

“I know what you’re thinking. And you’re probably right. It was all a big act. We did end up in bed together. Maybe that’s what he intended all along. But, I know this is hard for guys to understand, or even, and I hate to say this, plainer girls to understand, but with my looks...” she paused, a little embarrassed. “I’m not saying I’m that hot, but I just have a look that guys always go for.”

I nodded.

“Well, it is hard to explain how rare that is and how much I appreciated the fact that he was so proper, so professional toward me. He treated me like a protégé, not a kid, and most importantly, not just a hot chick. And of course, I fell for him as a result. I knew I shouldn’t. I knew I’d ruin everything, but I couldn’t help myself. And he, well, he didn’t have a chance.”

She blushed again.

“Oh God, that sounds so awful, like I’m irresistible.”

“Well...”

“I’m not, you know. There’s plenty of guys who have turned me down.”

“Yeah?”

She blushed.

“You don’t need to apologize, honey. I find you irresistible. And, well, truth is, there are not a lot of middle-aged married men who could or would be able to resist a pretty college coed.”

“Are you saying you’d cheat on me if a 22 year old blonde hit on you?”

“No, course not. I mean, first of all, 22 year old blondes don’t hit on me, and anyway, I have a hot, blond piece of ass at home already.”

“You’re such a charmer.”

“I try.”

“Well, Gary and I were working late. I don’t even know why I was there. I mean, I was just an intern. But, I guess I was looking for any excuse to spend time with him. He was showing me something on the computer, and I was leaning over his shoulder. And I kissed him. Pure impulse, although I’d been thinking about for a long time.”

She paused.

“And then what happened?”

“We had sex right there on the desk.”

“Are you kidding?”

She shook her head. “This time I’m not.”

“Sounds like he was pretty into it.”

“Well, yeah, I guess. Although, you know, at first he was all like,
we can’t do this, this is a bad idea
, and stuff like that. And then after we were done, it was the same thing. Lots of apologizing and regrets. None of which stopped us from doing it again right after.”