For weeks I had been oscillating between deciding to de-escalate things with Lorraine to feeling the need to take the arrogant bitch down a peg. I decided to talk to my Mom about what was happening as a way of getting off the merry-go-round, regardless of my image in anyone else's eyes.
My first-time sex experience, and the impression it made on me, was another merry-go-round I couldn't handle alone anymore. On the one hand, it was a pathetic disappointment. Tommy was a dud in bed, especially for someone supposedly experienced at it. I was the supposed rookie at it, and I had orchestrated the entire encounter. Tommy was also significantly less alluring with his clothes off than with his clothes on. On the other hand, I kept reliving the orgasm I had experienced, acting out every detail of how Lorraine and Tommy "did it"; then taunting her in writing that we had done it behind her back.
Doing it behind her back. Damn, that was so fucking sexy. My school bathroom fistfight with Maureen had been behind the school's back. I was seeing a counseller about my parents' divorce. I made a note to myself to bring up with her at our next session what it meant that I got so much pleasure, excitement, whatever, from doing things on the down low.
At our Catholic High School, we were studying a section from the Gospels where the child Jesus sneaks away from Joseph and Mary to spend time in the Temple in Jerusalem. I listened to the nun's discussion of the episode with undivided attention. How would should resolve the dilemma of the situation? On the one hand, she couldn't condone disobeying one's parents--that directly violated one of the Ten Commandments. On the other hand, she couldn't criticize Jesus. He was the Word made Flesh, God from God, Light from Light.
My own first-boyfriend soap opera was another unresolvable dilemma. I loved the cheating, the sneaking, the planning, the seduction of another woman's man, the consummation, the fucking.
But, then I loved the confession, the turning myself in, the letter to Lorraine, and reaping her wrath once she found out.
I loved both. I needed both.
Me talking to my Mom about the hornets' nest I had stirred was inviting her wrath, or maybe her disappointment in me.
> Mom, two things. We need to talk.
First, I'm not a virgin anymore.
> Ok. This was your choice, right?
> Yes. Completely my choice. And my idea. I initiated, ...., to a fault actually. That's the other thing we need to talk about.
> Ok. First, tho. Do I know the boy?
> You know .... of .... him. He's from tennis. Tommy.
> Ooooooo, he's cuuuute. You have a crush on him?
> I did.
> Oh. But not now? He wasn't ..... a gentleman?
> He's small.
> Lisa!!!!! [Genuinely scolding me. I enjoy it--I don't know why. Come to think of it, this has come up in my counselling. She told me it's because my parents weren't strict enough with me as a child.] You didn't tell him that, did you?!?!?!?
> No. We were too busy talking about something else.
> Oh no. What. STD's? [1985 was the peak of the AIDS panic.] Birth control?
> No. His bitch girlfriend.
> You slept with a boy who has a girlfriend?
Do I know HER?
> You do now. It was the blonde who came here. Looking for me.
> Oh. You were right Lisa.
> About what?
> We DO need to talk.
To be continued......