Music has always been a part of my life. Sometimes I hear songs on the radio or something, and they take me to another place, the place I was when I was doing other things and those songs were playing. It used to be that I always had music playing, either because I liked music, or because I wanted to use it to mask the sounds coming from the bedroom. Whether it be parents or roommates or whatever, maybe I just didn't want to advertise what was going on.
I was listening to some Depeche Mode today, and later some selections from The Cure. I remember the girl who got me into music like that. I don't talk about her much, but she's one of the "Top 3" in the Nameless One's book of love. She's a footnote now, but once upon a time she was a volume all her own.
Let's call her Sarah. I like that name. Her name fit her, and had she been named "Sarah", I feel that name would have fit her, too. I met her while I was in college, about 4 months before I got kicked out.
I've spent so many years not thinking of her that it's a little surprising that I remember so much about her. As I've grown older, my memories have betrayed me. I've forgotten so much that seemed so important at the time. I guess because I loved her, the memory remained when many others didn't.
I think today's post will be as much about young love and relationships, as it will sex. Maybe moreso. Sarah was my first true love since D-1987. After almost 2 years of moping around and acting without regard for the feelings of others, I'd finally found someone I thought I could love.
I saw her in the dining hall in my friend's dormitory. We made eye contact, and her gaze lingered a moment longer than normal. I was in my heavy metal/punk-wanna-be phase, so my appearance was...eye catching. I don't remember exactly how we met, probably a friend of a friend type thing, but I remember having dinner with her in the dorms. She teased me about how my hair looked. She smiled a lot. She had a boyfriend.
Does every story of my life begin with the words, "She had a boyfriend", or "She was married", followed promptly by the word "BUT"? She had a boyfriend, BUT, he didn't appreciate her or treat her well. He was frat trash, and she had hooked up with him in hopes of furthering her social agenda. She soon realized that being popular was not as satisfying as being herself. After she met me, she realized that I was someone she could be herself with, and we started talking more.
I'd see her at dinner, or we'd chat on the phone. I was sitting in my room one Friday evening when she called me up and asked me to road trip to a neighboring state with her and some friends. She said she'd make it worth my while.
Up to that point, we hadn't even kissed. We spent the entire trip drinking and kissing, with some occasional groping thrown in for good measure. She was about half drunk by the time we got back to campus around midnight. She snuck me into her dorm room, much to her roommate's chagrin, and that was the first night I went down on her. I didn't get anything in return. I didn't care.
Sarah was beautiful. She had long, dark brown hair, brown eyes, a nearly perfect body capped off by a stellar pair of breasts. Her pussy was neatly trimmed, soaking wet, and delicious. That's about all I remember of it, that and the fact that her roommate complained about the noise. At some point during the night, unable to get out of her dorm room (it wasn't coed, and I wasn't supposed to be there), I vaguely remember having to pee in a beer bottle.
After that first night together, she was mine. Once again, no one had made her feel what I did. Her fratboy boyfriend was none too happy to hear the news, but I looked different back then. He talked a lot of shit about what he and his brothers would do to me, but in the end they did nothing. Part of me wished that they would. Despite the passage of 2 years, I still carried around a lot of anger, most of it probably attributable to what happened in the summer of '87.
I remember a LOT about being with her. She introduced me to new music. She started taking birth control pills for me, so I wouldn't have to wear a condom when we fucked. And, we fucked a lot. I mean a LOT. It wasn't uncommon for us to have sex 3 times in a day. I was 19 years old at the time, I could easily do that. No matter what time of day or where we were, when I reached for it, that pussy was wet and ready. The year I spent with her is one of the finer ones in my memory.
It wasn't difficult to be her boyfriend. The time passed quickly. I couldn't imagine NOT being with her forever. It was that kind of relationship. We'd visit each other's families on the weekends and breaks. My parents were fairly naive about the time we spent alone in my bedroom. My mother once asked that I not shut the door all the way when we were in there, as if this restriction would somehow prevent us from coupling.
My mother could never have understood nor comprehended the power of lust that was in us. I would have fucked Sarah with the door open, for all I cared, so long as I could be with her. Hell, I probably would have fucked her on the dining room table on a Sunday afternoon, with the whole familiy gathered around. Even after I got kicked out of college (a long, boring story), Sarah and I continued seeing each other and she would visit me every weekend, or I her.
She went to church with me and my family one Sunday, in a beautiful long skirt and conservative blouse, and during the service she leaned over to tell me she wasn't wearing any panties. As discreetly as I could, I shifted and maneuvered until I was in a position to verify this boast.
There's something deliciously sinful about feeling up a girl's pussy in the middle of a crowded church. Will I go to hell for it? I think not. God made woman, and He did damn fine work. I was merely appreciating the artistry.
I remember getting her back to the house, and fucking her on the floor of my bedroom before lunch, without even bothering to remove our clothes. I remember fingering her under the table at lunch, and feeling my own come seeping out of her as my family sat around us. It was a thrill like no other, the things we did.
I have no doubt that I loved her. It wasn't puppy love, or misplaced lust. It was the real thing, as real as anything I've felt before or since.
She made me a mix tape. She's the only girl in my life that ever did that. It had a variety of songs, each one its own little tale to tell about how she felt about me. I remember AC/DC's "You shook me all night long" was on it. I don't remember any of the others. Do people still do that? Do people still make mix tapes, or is it a lost art of those of us who survived the 1980's?
We never talked about marriage, or what would happen later in our lives. We lived in the perfect moments of now. We never argued. We never really disagreed. We liked the same TV shows, the same movies, the same music (although she liked some stuff I couldn't get into). She was, in fact, a glimpse into the life I live now with my wife. I had all of that at the ripe old age of 19.
The perfect girl, with a bright future in a lucrative career field. The perfect sex. The perfect companion and friend.
So what went wrong?
Though only an hour separated us after I was kicked out of school, the distance was an issue. She had male friends that I didn't trust, despite her reassurances. Of course I began to suspect one in particular. She was lonely, other guys were available, it made sense to me. It's what I used to do, for crying out loud. I was the expert on being "the other guy". I knew the modus operandi.
Any suspicions I had were not sufficient to end the relationship. I still loved her. I loved her right up until the day I broke up with her, and beyond. Yes, I broke up with her. I was the one who ended what seemed so perfect. Throughout my entire life, I have only been dumped by 1 girl, and that would be my ex wife when she left me. I almost don't count that one, since we had an affair years later in which she ran back into my arms saying how wrong she had been.
I broke off every relationship I ever had, no matter how long it lasted. Breaking up with Sarah was the pinnacle of my achievement, though. It was the hardest thing I'd ever done, but it had to be done.
Something happened in my life that changed me. It changed me to the point where I could no longer stay with Sarah, or anyone else, and for the following 2 years after this event, I forced myself to be alone. It's not entirely important or relevant right now as to what it was that happened, just know that it did.
Sarah was crushed. She asked if we could continue sleeping together until she found someone else. I declined.
I broke up with Sarah early in the day, and by that night I was fucking C-1989 for all I was worth. I felt terrible about what I'd done, about how I had broken up with her for reasons she'd never understand no matter how much I tried to explain them. I remember her crying and begging me to make her understand, to stay and talk to her, as if spending more time with her would make me change my mind.
It was sometime later that I discovered that my "perfect" girl had been anything but, when I wasn't around. I developed the symptoms of an extremely common STD, and after receiving treatment, I assumed it was C-1989 that had transmitted the disease to me. It was no big deal to me, slightly embarrassing, but otherwise just the price you pay for living the lifestyle I did.
I eventually learned that the "good friend" that Sarah had assured me was innocent and possessing of nothing but good intentions, had in fact been fucking her pretty regularly for the last 2 or 3 months that she and I were together, and that he had contracted this ailment from a girl he met at a party. He was a disgusting guy that would fuck anything with legs, and had I known that she had been with him while we were still dating, I would have immediately stopped having unprotected sex with her.
I had never mentioned to C that I had this thing going on in my nether regions, because I assumed she would already know, since I had previously assumed I'd gotten it from her. When I called her to explain (and apologize), she was good natured about it, and had already taken care of it, and understood, and there were no hard feelings. It still pissed me off, but I never let Sarah know that I knew, until years later we happened to cross paths and she made a comment about "Eric" (who was living with her at the time, or should I say living OFF her), and I said "Yeah, ya know, I never got a chance to thank you guys for giving me genital warts back in '89. You guys rock!", or something to that effect.
She was horrified to know that I knew her dirty little secret (she had started calling me, trying to get something going again between us), and it was the last time I heard from her. I sometimes imagine them still together (though I doubt they are), her a successful marketing executive, and him the assistant night manager at a 24 hour gas station convenience store.
I went through a lot of emotions when I found out about them. I felt stupid for beating myself up over how bad I made her feel, about how much she cried when I broke up with her. Maybe she really did love me, but by fucking another guy behind my back, she had a funny way of showing it.
In the end, it was Eric I felt sorry for. He was "the other guy", and even after I was out of the picture and they were together, he was still playing 2nd fiddle to me. That wasn't the last time that happened to me. My ex-wife had a "friend" who I suspected of wanting more, despite her insistence otherwise. Years after we had divorced, and during our fling together, she admitted their affair. He had quickly grown tired of being compared to me in various ways, and coming up short. Even her then-husband knew that if she were ever to cheat on him, it would be with me, and this was months before I had even talked to her or knew she was married and all that jazz. In his mind, he was competing with me, and I wasn't even around to know it.
I make an impression, without intending to do so.
Sarah was what she was, as much of the past seems to be. I don't have feelings one way or the other about it today, but I remember how it felt at the time, and I'm glad things happened the way they did. All of these experiences, these petty moments of betrayal, and these deep introspective discoveries I had along the way, they all contributed to who I am today. I have no problem admitting that I'm a hell of a guy, and I can do it without sounding too arrogant or self-centered.
The lesson to be learned is that the past events in our lives undoubtedly left their marks on us, but it's up to each individual to determine how that mark affects the future. I was immature in 1987, when a foolish teenage girl did a stupid thing that broke my heart, and I wasn't emotionally equipped to deal with it. As a result, the event shaped me in ways I couldn't understand or control.
Each time something has happened in my life, something major or noteworthy, I've been able to take a step back and evaluate it and see it for what it is, and sometimes I'm able to control how it affects me. Sometimes not. When my first wife left, I cried like a little girl lost in a grocery store. I was hurt and angry at everyone and everything, and even though I had been through a lot in life, it still hurt me pretty badly, which in itself upset me even more, because I thought I was beyond all that.
It didn't kill me, though, and things have happened since then that, had I not been baptised in the fire, I would have never been able to deal with effectively.
The Sarah memories that stand out in my mind are strange. I went to visit her in her hometown once, and it was a miserable trip because I was about half sick the whole time I was there. The first night there, after her parents had gone to bed, we started fooling around, and she went down on me for the first time. We ended up in a hot 69, and I remember her muffled cries of orgasmic bliss mixed against the background noise of a Saturday Night Live episode. I remember her waking me up the next morning by crawling into bed naked with me and riding my cock until I filled her pussy up, mere moments before her mother called up that breakfast was ready.
I remember eating her pussy while she was on the phone with her mother, and watching her try to maintain the conversation through an orgasm. I remember having sex with her in the front seat of my mother's car, and being paranoid that my mother would get in the car the next day and smell the scent of "fuck" in the car, and know what we'd done.
I'd be lying if I said I never thought about "what if" with her. What if we'd gotten back together. What if I'd gone back to school like I planned, instead of deciding not to return, or what if I'd made more of an effort to be with her. I know things weren't working for us, but what if we'd tried harder?
She was at school, with school-like worries, and I was in the work world with real life worries. The gap between us grew large and fast. It wasn't just that she was cheating, it was the underlying reasons for the cheating in the first place. If I hadn't broken up with her, sooner or later she would have broken up with me.
I learned that any sort of distance can kill a relationship. I learned that being suspicious doesn't mean you're just being paranoid. I learned I was capable of loving someone enough to let them go. If we'd stayed together, it would have ended so badly, so ugly. It broke clean, because I was able to make it happen that way.
I can look back now and be calm and understanding, but at the time I was probably not so level-headed. I was calm and quiet when I broke up with her, I do remember that. I never raised my voice or anything crazy like that. I went to her dormitory and waited for her in the lobby. She smiled and tried to kiss me, but I turned away and told her we needed to talk. I explained how things were different between us, and how I needed to not see her anymore.
She was crying, and I remember someone stopping to see if she was ok. She called me a cold bastard a few times, and that's what I was back then. Or, rather, it was what I could be. I've been called cold before (and since). Calculating. It's the curse of the logical mind.
When I walked out the doors and into the sunlight, it felt like a whole new day. I felt free. A burden had been lifted from my shoulders. It was one of the greatest feelings ever. Better than sex. I mean, you have this pressure, this tension, in your life. This source of anxiety and suspicion. And as soon as you make the decision, the problem goes away. I felt like I could run a thousand miles an hour and take flight in the parking lot. I hadn't even realized how bad it made me feel to be dating her, until I had broken the ties between us.
People always talk about breaking up with someone, and it's always about how hard it was, how bad they felt, or something like that. Few people ever talk about the rush of raw freedom you can feel when you cut someone off. I hated doing that to her, but I loved doing it at the same time.
I think the reason I could hook up with another girl on the same day was because of that exhiliration I experienced. I just wanted something to wash Sarah out of my mind, and C-1989 provided that something.
The STD Sarah gave me, it's still with me. Genital warts are one of those things you never really get rid of. Occasionally, they will return to varying degrees. I've noticed that stress makes them appear more often, and more severely. It's never as bad as the first time I had them, at least.
If you've never had them, count yourself lucky. They were painful, and I put off going to a doctor as long as I could. My doc took one look and referred me to a specialist, who froze them off. I didn't enjoy that. Part of the treatment was also a topical ointment that, as luck would have it, caused a skin reaction on my nuts. If I shave bare, you can still see the scar tissue on my scrotum, from where the reaction ate the skin away. What fun!
I have spread this condition on to others. My ex-wife and my current wife were both aware of it when we hooked up. It's a lifelong commitment, I guess. As STD's go, it's the one to have, if you have to have one at all. It's not constant, it doesn't become active very often (I've gone over a year before without any sign of it), and even when it appears, it's mild and brief.
I don't hate Sarah for what she did, and even at the time I don't think I really hated her. There was so much going on in my mind, I just didn't have the strength to carry that emotion.
Still, sometimes I wonder where she is...I don't look back with regret though. I'm not sorry she's no longer part of my life. I'm not sorry that sometimes I forget everything about her, except her smile. We forget things because it would be too burdensome to remember everything. If anything, I'm just a little curious as to how her life panned out. Did she accomplish her career goals? Did her mother find her a nice catholic boy to marry? Things like that.
There's nothing wrong with being curious.
