At age 20, I was still a virgin. During my high school days when my girlfriends were bragging about their sexual exploits I would just listen. What could I say? Saying that I'm saving myself for marriage would've sounded stupid to them. Besides that, I didn't even go out very much.
Anyway, an afternoon in June just two weeks after my birthday saw me in my favorite pizza shop on Main Street with a guy named Ron whom I was seeing for the first time. At first neither of us seemed to know what to say but we soon figured it out.
I learned right up front that Ron and my girlfriend Lynne are first cousins. Though 25, he and Lynne hung out sometimes. Her brother Jack had been Ron's best friend.
A blond girl probably not older than me brought our Margherita pizza cut into 8 slices on an elevated tray.
I asked my date, "have you ever been on the cruise past the Kennedy compound."
"No I haven't," he replied.
"I've done that. I also spent a couple of days on Marthas Vinyard last summer and a couple of days on Nantucket."
"I've never been to either of those places. I used to live on Long Island. Nowadays I live near here and work at Raytheon."
"That's a long ride."
"I work from home. There are not enough cubicals for all the engineers."
"How much of Long Island did you see?"
"The mansions on Gold Coast. I grew up in Sayville on the south shore."
"Have you ever been to The Hamptons?"
"I spent a couple of days in a cottage on East Hampton."
He talked about growing up in Sayville, being a jock and attending Cape Cod League baseball games. What do I care about baseball? We were each eating our fourth slice when I said, "tell me about girls you've dated."
"What's there to tell?"
"Any long-lived relationships, short-lived relationships?"
"I dated this girl named Jane in high school. She wasn't doing as much as she claimed."
"Really," I said.
"Yah really."
"How long did you date her?"
"Four months during senior year," he replied.
"The girls I hung out with back then were always bragging."
"Take that with a grain of salt."
Nobody likes to admit to being a virgin, especially at that age. I suspected that my girlfriends knew I wasn't getting any.
Was she not letting you get her out of her panties or did you not try?
Having finished our pizza and beer we walked to the docks and sat on a bench. There we chatted until after sunset while observing people.
Saturday morning found me and Lynne walking through the neighborhood engaging in girl talk. I did say that I wanted to see her cousin again.
The temperature has soared into the nineties so we're dressed for the weather.