A Short Love

Winter 1982

Sophomore Year

A Short Love

"Every life holds one great love. One name to hold onto at the end.

One face to take into the dark."

-Luisa Armstrong

I had spent all of my time up until now trying not to have sex. I had tremendous guilt over the things I had done, which in retrospect, were rather innocent after all. My grandmother used to say to me "You would never do anything like that to hurt me." As if my actions weren't my own, as if what I did would actually hurt her more than it would impact me. I realize now how manipulative those words were. And I know now that at those particular junctures in our lives, our every choice of action writes itself on our heart and soul. Others may be impacted but we are the ones that come away profoundly altered, forever changed.

This is a story about my one true love, the love of my life, which was so very brief, but which has written itself on my heart for always.

I graduated early from high school. To get away from an abusive father, to get away from an impoverished existence, to go to college and make a different way for myself. To have a different kind of a life, a better life. When I first set foot on campus, I was already a year ahead of my peers, and a year younger.

Once you step foot on a college campus, most particularly when you live away from home, you become part of a magical world full of wonderful people full of new ideas and new world views. You are in a sort of suspended animation - an existence that is almost fairy tale - a resting place between childhood and adulthood where you are free to invent the person you want to be and to become that person. I no longer had the pressure of living in a less than ideal home situation, yet I was free of the cares of adulthood. This was largely due to the fact that my grandparents were putting me through, which eliminated money as an issue. I was so blessed, and I knew I was blessed.

I wouldn't have done anything to jeopardize my college education. I studied hard and I got good grades. Not all A's but mostly A's and B's. I partied hard too. I wasn't until I had turned 18 and was off at college that first quarter that I tried alcohol. I became fast friends with my roommate, Dani, and we went to all the dances at all the dorms. We'd have had beers mixed with Tab before the dances, when we were getting ready. We would spend hours on our hair and make-up on Friday nights after dinner in the dining hall. Then we'd start trying to down those beers but they were awful. Schlitz beers. Which our friend Thom bought for us. He was 21 and studying to be a cop. I think now about the irony. But we were so safe, cocooned in our dorm community, where no one drove anywhere, and all you had to do was walk from one dorm to another.

We never got really really drunk, or I rarely did anyhow. I was always a little on the protective side, making sure my friends didn't get too drunk and go home with any boys. Most of us were still virgins, and we all wanted our first time to be special. We wanted to be in love.

Going to a dance always resulted in coupling up with someone and making out on the dance floor. Sometimes we'd sneak away into another common room on the dorm's first floor and make out some more. Some of the common rooms had couches, so we'd find ourselves horizontal. We were seldom alone, and you really couldn't get into much trouble.

We'd have pacts with our girlfriends that we wouldn't bring anyone back to the dorm room because that was just so not classy. And it would put our roommate in an uncomfortable position. We'd also have pacts we wouldn't go home with any boys unless we had them thoroughly checked out by our group of girlfriends, and even then we would never ever ever ever have sex. Just a lot of making out. Sometimes there would be a little more, but not much more.

Luckily, I was protected and blessed by my legion of guardian angels, because even though I occasionally found myself in a compromising position, none of the boys I was with ever took things further than I allowed. At 2 am or thereabouts, the boy would walk me back to my dorm. There would be several minutes of kissing goodbye, then once he had seen me safely enter the dorm, he would turn and walk away.

Seldom did any of these liaisons turn into anything more than a one-night make-out event. I'd see these boys on campus, walking to and from classes, to and from the library. We'd say a shy "hi" to one another or pretend not to see one another. And that was all OK, because none of these boys were special. I hadn't met anyone special yet. I had no idea what was in store. No idea my world would be turned upside down in such a short period of time.

In December of sophomore year, I was at an off-campus party. It was a little more dangerous territory because it was a longer walk back to the dorm, in the real world, where there were real streets with cars. You had to have your escape route planned out, you had to be there with a friend or your roommate. You couldn't just go to one of those parties alone. And the people that lived off campus were usually older, juniors and seniors, many whom had delayed going to college who were even older than that. Many over 21, which seemed so far away at 18.

I started talking to a man. I say man because he wasn't my usual fare. He was 21 and he was tall, a little overweight, with a mustache. I wasn't used to boys with facial hair. He seemed so much older and so much out of my league. He was so handsome. I was madly attracted to him. But so far, I was playing it cool, but I needed to test to see if he was interested in me. So when he got up to get a beer I moved to another part of the living room, intuitively knowing that if he came back into the room and sought me out, he was truly interested. He did.

I don't remember what happened that night, but I don't even think there were kisses. I gave him my phone number. I walked back to the dorm with Dani, and we tucked in for the night. Me with my dreams of what might become of Dale and me.

Dale called. Dale called! We made plans to go for a drive in the hills near campus. There was snow. The hills were beautiful. He had a wonderful little sports car that was his pride and joy. I didn't know anything about cars, despite the fact my father was a mechanic, but I started to learn with Dale. I hung on his every word. Of course, I had no interest in cars, but whatever he said was magical so I listened and took it all in like my life depended on it.

I think Dale was just as surprised as I was that I liked him as much as I did. He thought I was something special. He treated me like I had never been treated before. I remember that day in the hills, I remember running my hand up under his t-shirt while we were driving. His Sinister Cinema t-shirt, his favorite t-shirt. I remember running my hand over his chest, resting on his nipples and rubbing my finger back and forth over them until they rose under my touch. I remember the surprised look on his face. I remember our total joy. We were so thrilled to have found one another. It was such a fluke, that we could find each other and feel this way. It was such an unexpected surprise.

I broke pact with my roommate and spent the night with Dale. But we didn't have sex. I wasn't ready for sex. I was still a virgin. But ours was a most sensual experience. It was almost as though not having sex made our experience even more exciting. There was no build up to sex, for all Dale knew, what I gave him of myself might be all he ever had of me. And somehow that was enough, for a time. It was almost too much. We fell deeply in love.

We did everything together. Even though he lived off campus, he ate lunch with me. We'd have pizza at night. We'd study together at the library and at his house he shared with two roommates. I started to struggle with wanting to go further with Dale, wanting to give him all of myself. But I still held back. Was I really ready to share something so special with him? With anyone? I was in a quandary.

I went to the campus clinic and had an exam. I talked to the nurse. She was very patient and kind. She explained that it was my decision, that it should be something that should not be taken lightly, but that I was at an age where it was my decision to make. It didn't feel like I was of that age. It didn't feel like I was capable of making such an adult decision. I still felt like a child, pretending to walk around in a woman's body.

I was so frightened of pregnancy. I knew that it would ruin my plans for college and for a career. I knew that if I did get pregnant, I would have an abortion, even as profoundly against abortion as I was. But I knew that if that happened, it would be my only choice. I would never jeopardize college, which I saw as my opportunity to have a better life than that from which I had come. To have a career and make the money I needed to make to be able to rise above poverty, and to have the things I needed to have a comfortable life. I didn't want to be rich; I just didn't want to be poor anymore.

Over the Christmas holiday, I was with my friend Lydia in Seattle, at the U of W. We were on campus; she was getting her grades. We pulled up and parked between two tall buildings, between which I could see the snowy Cascade mountain range. It was so beautiful. I was overcome by the grandeur and the beauty. My senses were fully heightened. I had never been happier in my life.

Dale had written me a letter. He told me he loved me. I had just read the letter to Lydia. It sat in my lap. I gazed down at it with unfocused eyes. I felt as if all my dreams had come true. I felt as if the world were a very perfect place, where everyone must have felt the way I felt at that moment. I wanted everyone to know what I now knew, what this feeling was, this glorious, over the top feeling of joy and the glimmering hope of a future where I would feel this way always.

After I got back to school, Dale and I stepped up our relationship. We were a couple. I had pretty much left my roommate to her own defenses. I no longer went to dorm dances. They seemed so old news. I now hung out with my older friends, Dale's friends. A worldlier bunch, a hard drinking bunch. I started to struggle in earnest with my desire to consummate our relationship. I was 18, I was desperately in love, and I wanted to share with him my most precious gift, the gift of all of me.

I had lengthy conversations with my friend B, who was already intimate with her boyfriend. She was also a couple of years older, having worked a couple of years before starting college. I finally asked her right straight out, "Should I just do it B?"

She said, "Yes Coco. Do it!" That day, I went back to the campus clinic and got on the pill. I remember meeting Dale after classes and telling him what I had done. He was happy. It was like we had just found out we were giving birth to this wonderful experience that was our love.

It was super bowl Sunday, 1982. Dale and I went to the local drugstore. The mission: to get birth control. When we got to the drugstore, we sidled up to the birth control isle, right near the pharmacy. The pharmacist came over to help, and Dale stepped discreetly out of earshot. "I need birth control," I said. "I just started on the pill but it hasn't been a month."

He pointed out some contraceptive foam and he said, "This is what my wife and I use." That sentence resonated with me. "My wife and I." They were married, and they were using birth control. I was 18, unmarried, and about to lose my virginity. What was I doing?

We made our way back to Dale's. I felt apprehensive, but largely unburdened and mostly very excited. I was about to become a grown-up woman. I knew it. I knew I was about to cross over a threshold from which I would never return. And it was, mostly, a very good thing.

When we got back, I went into Dale's room and changed into my lace gown. I sat on the bed with the covers up to my chin, hugging my knees and waiting for Dale. Dale came in the room and lay down beside me. He kissed me passionately and gently caressed me.

After a short time, we were both naked. He was on top and I realized I didn't know what to do. "I don't know how to do this," I said. That's when he gently slid into me. I had never experienced anything so exquisite in my life. It was so beautiful; tears ran down my face. Dale worried he was hurting me, but I assured him he wasn't.

In the whole of my life, I will always remember the sweetness of that first time. There was no loss of innocence. It was like a great gift of heretofore unknown pleasure. Perfect pleasure.

"Sometimes you realize, that true love, in its absolute form, has many purposes in life. It's not just about bringing babies into the world, or soulmates, or lifelong companionship. The love we had in our past, unfinished, untested, lost love, seems so easy, so childish, to those of us who choose to settle down. But actually it's the purest, most concentrated stuff."

-Julie, Modern Love