The Perils of Love

(Revised 4/14/2024)

Some readers might not find this a comfortable read.

Yes, there's eroticism, but there's also mental anguish, pain, fear, overwhelming joy, and devastating heartbreak.

Though there are some minor-aged characters, all acts of intimacy beyond a first kiss are between characters of adult age.

These are

The Perils of Love.

As you read, consider yourself someone sitting and listening to a monologue. Maybe you're a counselor or a very,

very

trusted friend … or something else.

You've just said, "Tell me how this happened. Bring me up to speed."

Okay. Well … how far back should I go?

I guess the only thing that will help what I'm about to tell you make sense is if I go back to the beginning, but I guess I need to orient things. I'm getting damn close to fifty years old. Yep, the dreaded half-century mark is right around the freaking corner, and it scares the crap out of me.

I don't like getting old. For one thing, I hardly sleep through a night anymore. Not for the reason you're thinking, because my prostate is fine. I've had it checked, thank you. My circadian rhythm has gone totally wonky. I find myself waking up around four in the morning more often than not, even though my alarm isn't set to go off until 5:30. I'm not tired. I'm wide-awake and ready to go. Four or five hours of sleep should make me a zombie, but no.

My beard and mustache are apparently "distinguished," showing more salt than pepper, but I still have a full head of hair, with a hairline which hasn't receded and contains most of the color of my youth. I suppose I should be grateful. I won't bore you with the mundane details of my early life other than to say I'm sure it formed what I'd become as an adult, just like

every

human.

I was moved to the Midwest during the summer before eighth grade. I was the only member of the family who was thrilled to death when my father gave us the news of his transfer.

I remember asking, "When should I start packing?" as my two older sisters bawled about how it was so unfair they had to leave their boyfriends behind.

I lived in glorious new and fresh surroundings through the remainder of my secondary schooling.

I experienced my first romantic relationship when I was the the system operator, the SysOp, of one of those ancient dial-up bulletin board systems, more commonly known at the time as a BBS. Nerds my age know the acronym.

Even though it's been almost thirty years, I still remember her sign-on name. I won't share it, or mention the name of my BBS, because references to both still exist out there in archives which I found in Google searches.

My first love's given name was Melissa, but she preferred her friends address her as Mel. We became acquainted through another BBS I frequented before deciding to create my own. We messaged each other quite a few times after we discovered we both had similar interests. When I launched my own system, she was one of my first members. My user number was 1, of course, and hers was 3.

One of the more frequently visited boards on my system was the chain story room. Mel was one of its best contributors. I was enthralled how she could, regardless of how the chain changed directions, stitch otherwise ordinary words into a tale and keep other members doting on her every post.

I enjoyed chatting with her when she could sneak a call to my Commodore 128 late at night from her Apple IIe.

I programmed a menu option only visible to her which would make my computer sound a continuous though quiet tone for as long as she was online. For all other users, a chat request would produce a single beep I'd hear only if I was in my room at the time.

Online chats had the advantage of being almost completely silent because our parents couldn't hear quiet typing like they might a vocal discussion.

If you never used a modem-based BBS, you need to know "chat" was real-time. Like

real

real-time. It was nothing at all like texting today where you have to wait, staring at those infernal blinking dots, until the other party taps "Send" before you receive an emoji, a few words, or a whole paragraph.

On a BBS, you'd see every single character appear on your screen barely milliseconds after the key was pressed. You'd see the pace, the delays, and the "thought" intervals. You'd see the typos and the backspaces to correct them. You'd see the mid-sentence edits to change the form of a thought. You could even interrupt the other party by repeatedly tapping the ENTER key. The action was a universally understood convention in that subculture as any verbal interruption in a vocal conversation is to the broader culture. You knew the other party was finished with their thought if it ended with a double tap of the ENTER key.

It was old-school, for sure. It was, in many ways, superior to modern texting because, like body language, one could infer subtext in the speed and cadence of the characters as they appeared on the screen.

We were fifteen years old when we first met online. We would chit-chat for ten or fifteen minutes, but as time went on, our chats would sometimes last hours. Mel and I had a lot in common. Traffic on my BBS was pretty slow because the line was frequently busy during peak times because we hogged it.

After more than a year of friendship with her, I still vividly remember the session which shattered my adolescent brain.

I have no recollection at all of the initial chit-chat that evening, or even what led us onto the subject, but I remember the appearance and arrangement of the characters on my color monitor in one particular exchange. I can still recall the slowly formed string of words which, even today, makes me smile when I think about it.

It began with

I don't think so. I

There was a pause like I described before, then deletes of the I, two spaces, and the period, and a longer pause.

I don't think so because

The interval between appearing letters increased significantly. Mel could type rapidly, so I interpreted her slowness as hesitance.

I don't think so because I think I love you.

Several moments passed as I stared at the screen in joyous surprise.

Mel's quick pace returned.

You'd better say something or I'm hanging up!

I can't believe you said that before me :) I think I'm in love with you, too!!

Wow

. My life changed so wonderfully at that point.

I'd fallen in love with her typed words first, then the sound of her feminine tones when we'd "go voice," meaning we'd pick up our telephones' handsets when on modem connections and terminate the digital signals to talk like real, connected human beings. Person-to-person.

Her beautiful voice often struck me dumb. More than a few times, we'd talk until one of us fell asleep on the line. It wasn't a problem for me because I paid for my own dedicated phone line, but there were times she got in trouble when one of her parents found their line dead because the phone in her room was off-hook.

We were both the other's first kiss. I still vividly remember walking with her, hand in hand, next to a pond near her house, and her apparent impatience in waiting for me to initiate. She grabbed my hips and said, "Screw it!" before she placed her lips on mine.

For context, I'll tell you I'd never had my lips on any other human's since I was maybe four years old. My parents and relatives gave us kids cheek kisses, not lip kisses. I remember the first thought which crossed my mind when Mel kissed me was stupid, adolescent, and immature, which, of course, I was.

I remember thinking she didn't taste as good as I expected she would. The thought raced through my mind for several seconds while I tried to decide if I should pull away or even whether I enjoyed it or not.

I know you're thinking, "You were an insensitive jerk!"

Before you pass final judgment, I didn't speak my thought aloud. I want

you

to think back to

your

first kiss and tell me you didn't have some sort of thought about the flavor of the other person's mouth.

Oh, and before this gets carried away, this whole thing isn't about Melissa.

It isn't.

I said I was going to start from the beginning, and that's what I'm doing.

So, yeah. It didn't take long for me to discover how a girl's mouth might taste of echoes of what she'd recently drunk or eaten, and I figured my own would be the same, so it didn't matter. I matured in that hour by miles. I delighted in her when I pushed my adolescent understanding aside and enjoyed the wonder of those moments together.

We dated for about three years. I'd experienced "puppy love" a handful of times before I met her, but she was my first true love. Before you get the wrong idea, not all the events involving my relationship with Melissa were sunshine and roses. I vividly remember, even though I wish I could forget, one drive to her home when I was involved in a traffic accident caused by a wrong-way driver. Some woman on the opposite side of the highway managed to cross the grassy median. I was in the right lane, and a car ahead of me in the left lane was struck head-on by the other vehicle. Both were probably going nearly sixty miles per hour.

An almost-airborne car was propelled into my lane where I collided with its underside. The car behind me struck mine. When the dust settled, I couldn't figure out where I was for a few seconds because all I saw in front of me was a smoking catalytic converter and a still-spinning rear wheel a few feet in front of my face. That car had pivoted onto the hood of mine. I had to crawl into the back seat to find the only functioning door so I could exit my vehicle.

The two drivers of the head-on were killed.

My car was demolished. Once the adrenaline wore off, I was in too much pain to even stand upright because I had two cracked ribs and bruises across my hips and chest from the seat belt. I spent the night in the hospital. Walking with normal strides or taking a deep breath were accompanied by pain for at least a week.

I still have the memory, but it stopped forcing itself into my nightmares after a couple of years.

Anyway, somewhere along the line, Mel and I grew apart from each other.

She lived about an hour away, depending on traffic. Considering I refused to drive a particular highway ever again, it was far enough that we didn't go out on proper dates very often which probably had a lot to do with it. It wasn't like there were disagreements or disappointments between us. Our relationship simply didn't flourish. We both sensed it, and we were both okay with it.

I met a foreign exchange student, quite by coincidence, during my senior year in high school. She was an absolute

doll

.

I'm tall. I'm six-five, and she was so tall I could give her a peck on her forehead without a bit of a stoop or her needing to tiptoe. She was from Germany and spoke English plus three other languages fluently. We met at a party to which I was invited by yet another exchange student who attended my school. I had no clue that particular Spanish girl had any interest in me, and I can't even remember her name. I figured I'd just go have fun at a social event organized by the exchange program sponsors which was held at a huge 100-year old house downtown.

It was where I met the doll. I talked with her more than I talked to my own date.

Yes, I know, and I agree. I

was

a jerk that time.

The doll and I, coincidentally, shared the same birthday. I remember her telling me how she was saddened her eighteenth occurred on American soil because she'd be legal to enjoy an "adult" beverage in her home country. Adult meant liquor, not beer. She was looking forward to returning to Germany a few months later.

Out of the blue, she asked me to accompany her to her prom. I thought it a fine idea. I had a prom date! Actually, I had

two

because I invited her to my prom as well.

Remember, I was a nerd. Going not to one prom but

two

with a gorgeous woman seemed like a pipe dream. I didn't give a crap that her high school was my school's bitter football rival, but my friends apparently did.

One day, one of my buds asked me during lunch, "She's from Germany? Will she be wearing a sleeveless dress? Will it be short?"

"What difference does that make?" I asked.

"A lot of German women don't shave their underarms. Or their legs."

Another friend added, "Yeah, that's true! And a lot of them don't use deodorant, either!"

The table erupted in laughter, which only increased at my silence.

Google didn't exist back then, so their claims couldn't be easily verified or debunked. The thought positively gnawed at me.

What if she raises her hands to my neck to pull me close for a kiss and I see bushy armpits? What if her legs are hairy?

I know, I know. I was immature and ignorant.

It turned out it wasn't true for Alissa. Her underarms were lovely, and her long legs looked even better.

I couldn't afford a limousine, but my father lent me a Cadillac from the dealership he worked at because it simply wouldn't do for me to take a girl to prom in my 1980 Pontiac which had rust starting to show on the body. That particular Pontiac was the replacement for the 1978 Buick which had been totaled the year before in the horrible wreck.

Alissa was a stunner in her blue sequined knee-length dress which matched my tuxedo's blue cummerbund and bow tie because she'd provided me with a color swatch ahead of time.

When I greeted her at her house, I offered her "home mother" the corsage I'd bought for Alissa. My mother had advised it'd be permissible for me to carefully pin it to her dress if it had full shoulders, but if it was strapless, I should ask her mother to do the honors. It was how a proper gentleman treated a young lady, and I watched with pride as her home mother pinned the dark red floral corsage to the bodice of my gorgeous date's dress.

I was proud I was going to have that beautiful girl on my arm while my guy-friends could only drool in jealousy from a distance. I knew all their dates. Though they were also pretty, they hardly compared in beauty to Alissa.

The proms were very entertaining. Alissa was a crazy-good dancer, while I was barely passable. My lack of skill didn't keep me from trying, though. Slow dances weren't problems at all, but she excelled in pop, rock, and even the disco flashbacks. I remember how she'd mime swinging a lasso, tossing the invisible rope around me. She'd pull against it until our bodies met, taking my head, and pull it slowly toward her until our foreheads and noses touched. It wasn't

Dirty Dancing

stuff, but it was impressive and pretty freaking sexy.

The ballroom was uncomfortably warm, so I'd taken off my tuxedo jacket, tie, and the top stud out of my shirt. Alissa had no reservations whatsoever with me holding her close during slow ballads. She rested her head on my shoulder. I could feel her breath on my neck. My shirt's shoulders were smudged with her foundation and the collar had little streaks of her lipstick on it by the end of the night.

She exhibited no objections when I softly and very slowly smoothed any ruffled sequins over her lovely hips and gorgeous little butt with my hands, or when I gave her subtle kisses on her neck or temples, enjoying the scent of her hair and skin which were laced with a very nice fragrance. I was, however, warned a few times by observant chaperons.

Alissa was, to put it mildly, fetching.

After the second prom, she and I went to an all-night diner where we, though very overdressed, enjoyed slices of pie and cups of coffee as we discussed plans, hopes, and dreams for our future selves. I drove her home as dawn began to lighten the sky. Standing with her at her door, I confessed I was having feelings for her.

She said, "Aw, you are so sweet!" before kissing me on my cheek and closing the door between us.

It should have been a clue, but I was an unobservant idiot.

Two weeks later, I went to her home to bring her half of the prom photos I'd bought. When she answered the door, she looked disheveled and seemed shocked and confused by my arrival even though the drop-off was prearranged. She seemed impatient.

I had no clue why she was acting as she was until I heard a skitter from the formal dining room by the entry door. I saw a guy who looked about my age with his shirt off, trying to hide behind a chair, looking at me wide-eyed.

I dropped the packet of prints on the dining room table. Though I shot my gaze right into Alissa's eyes, neither of us spoke a single other word as I walked out of the house, seething.

That was the day I learned what betrayal felt like, and it hung from me like lead weights.

Two weeks later came commencement. Graduation felt like emancipation.

I invited Mel to a get-together my parents threw for a dozen or so of my friends after graduation, and she happily agreed to come.

An hour or so into the event, Mel and I went to the finished basement to fetch a few more cartons of soda. She asked me how the proms went. I told her what happened because I had absolutely no reason to hide such things from her.

"

Was für eine Hure

!" she barked.

Her immediate translation made me feel so good in hearing my internal thoughts voiced by another person. It also felt good to laugh.

Mel spoke German fluently enough to get along whereas I knew nothing but "Bier" and a few curses. She offered comfort and rewarded my laughter by kissing me tenderly. It'd been a long time since I'd tasted her, and I enjoyed it.

Not only were hers my first kisses years earlier, but Mel's were the first breasts I'd ever touched.

She was visiting me at my home the week before we both departed for college. She wore a cute little summery top which, when her arms were at her side, let the tiniest sliver of her tummy show. When she put her arms around my neck during a slow, tender kiss, the hem rose. The bared skin of her lower back begged me to stroke it. I was amazed and thrilled when my touch elicited a pleased reaction from her.

I stroked slowly upward. It wasn't my objective, but I encountered the back of her bra. I traced my fingers just below the elastic. I followed the strap to her sides and her goosebumps followed. I felt the rigid wires under the cups near her underarms with my thumbs. She reached behind her back and released the clasp.

"It's okay," she whispered, "I want you to."

She nudged my hands under the loosened cups where I felt warm, soft mounds of flesh tipped with rock-hard pea-sized nipples. I sculpted her breasts in my palms. I'm sure she felt the resulting erection in my jeans against her tummy as I clumsily fondled her. I never had the chance to lay eyes on them, because the sound of a door slamming and someone yelling somewhere upstairs interrupted our reverie and ended the moment.

She left an hour later. It was the last time I saw Mel for many years.

My relationship with her never had a definitive ending. There wasn't an "It's

over

!" moment or anything like it. It simply evaporated with time and distance. Our love morphed from Philos to Eros and back several times, then settled easily into the former.

We stayed in contact, writing to each other occasionally. I was neither upset nor heartbroken when she kindly and humanely explained in a letter that she had become involved with another guy in college during our freshman year.

The news didn't wound me. I replied that I was happy for her, which I truly was. She married her guy after she finished her degrees. Yes,

plural

. We remain friends on Facebook to this day.

The vacuum did leave me lonely, though. I immersed myself in my studies, so I was busy, but I was lonely.