Hours later Steve the frat boy appears at the door to my motel room. He is disheveled, greasy, hung over.
And looks exactly like Charlie Sheen!
"Why did you leave?" he asks tentatively, as if my answer might hurt him.
"I was cold," I say, trying to read his face.
Does he think I'm pretty? Suddenly I am hyper-aware of my appearance. The morning sun is unforgiving. It will show every cellulite dent, every scab, every hairy mole. I'm barefoot, too. If he looks down he will notice how my two smallest toes resemble embryonic mice.
"You should have said something," he says, keeping his eyes on my face. "I would have given you my sweatshirt."
That afternoon, Steve and I stay in my motel room. The order of everything is backward. He knows what I feel like inside, wet and smooth like the back of a throat, yet he doesn't know my last name, that I'm a Pisces, that my first goldfish was named Stacey. I want to fill in the missing pieces. I tell him things he should already know:
· My father weighs four-hundred pounds and picks his nose at the kitchen table. If my mom says, "Oh, Bill, use a tissue!" he booms, "Well, then go get me one!"
· My mother has a high-pitched voice. She scurries nervously around our house, tying my father's shoes and slopping his plate with seconds. I call her Edith Bunker.
· My brother has pale skin and lives only for the Dallas Cowboys; he is a vanilla-colored ape.
· My sister complains incessantly about her thighs; she says they look like baby camel humps and that one day, she's going to take my dad's electric carving knife and slice them clean off. We joke that our father will eat them.
This is how it is.
Steve laughs and tells me I look like Tatum O'Neal. He says he's had a thing for her ever since Paper Moon.
"Why did you leave?" he asks tentatively, as if my answer might hurt him.
This makes me feel good because I think Tatum O'Neal is pretty. I ask him if he told his friends about us, about me being a virgin. He says no, and I believe him. Then he asks if I want to do it again — this time in a bed.
For a moment I feel in control. I have something he wants. That part of me that wants to fall in love thinks that by saying yes he will recognize that I am generous. It will make him want to give me something back, something I desperately want.
The second time is as physically unfulfilling as the first, but less uncomfortable. There are no broken seashells or dismembered crab claws poking my butt, no sand fleas traversing in my pubic hair. We are on top of the slippery polyester bedspread with only our shirts on. He kisses me briefly on the mouth and then moves to my neck, where he stays, nuzzling me. He does not once touch my breasts or ask if I like what he is doing. I just lie there and make moaning sounds because that is what I think I'm supposed to do.
Before he climaxes he pulls his penis out of me, lifts my Knott's Berry Farm t-shirt, and ejaculates on my stomach. My white, doughy stomach. My whole life I've kept it hidden beneath oversized shirts and black one-piece bathing suits that squeeze my guts like a corset. Now it is the bull's eye of a comeshot. I suck in my belly and quickly pull my shirt back down.
The turquoise drapes in the room are closed, but I can still make out his features. His eyes are shut and he looks exhausted, as if the minute and a half he just spent thrusting in and out of me took everything out of him. As he sleeps, I stare up at the ceiling. I want to get up and leave. Instead I just wait.
Two weeks later Steve the frat boy drives from Connecticut to visit me in Ohio. I am convinced that he is only coming for sex, but my friends say, "He wouldn't drive eight hours just for sex! Women do live in Connecticut, after all!"
One week after high-school graduation I move to Connecticut to be with him. It is improbable, unbelievable, but we have fallen in love. He still tends to wear his frat sweatshirt, but my first-lover-turned-first-love is a good man. He is kind. He respects his mother. He always tells me how he feels, he looks me in the eye, he squeezes my hand three times when we're out in public to tell me that he loves me.
He surprises me. And I surprise myself. n°
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Jen Matlack was raised in beautiful Youngstown, Ohio, and is currently writing a memoir. Her work regularly appears in Glamour, Redbook, and Penthouse. She lives in Connecticut where she gardens and swims--weather permitting.
