Last Rites
I was sitting in the passenger seat of Krystal's 1989 Mercedes as we drove through Irvine, surfing my hand up and down through the air currents outside the window. It was a Sunday night and we were driving around for no reason other than that it was nice to be sixteen and traveling in a car without someone's mom in it. We were in the middle of an awkward conversation about our potential future children, which we'd had six or seven times before.
"If we had kids, what do you think they'd look like?" she said.
"I don't know - ugly, for sure. They'd probably get my nose and your hair."
"Plus I'm sure your mom would love it if I got pregnant."
"Yeah, yours too; your dad would have me killed before you had a chance to give the kid a name."
"Yeah, and my---AAAHH!"
I followed her gaze over my shoulder. We were in the middle of a left turn, and a Chevy Silverado was barrelling into the intersection, its grill racing toward my window at face height. The glare from the headlights poured into my window, blinding. I didn't even have time to flinch toward the driver's side in shock. I just stared, dumbly, at the 4400-pound truck that was about to rearrange my internal organs. I could see the guy driving, tensed, fighting the truck's fishtail action as it skidded toward us. In that instant, I had one thought:
"God, please don't let me die without having sex."
Krystal had run a red left-turn light, which must have surprised the poor guy driving the Silverado. He finally came to a complete stop about eight inches from the passenger side of the car - timed nicely, since Krystal had also hit the brakes once she'd realized her mistake, aligning the car so that if the Silverado had failed to stop it would have hit the Mercedes squarely in its center of gravity. Collisions from the "Die Hard" movies weren't as perfect as that one would have been.
We sat there in silence for a second before she continued on through the intersection to the public park where we were going. I shifted around in my seat until she spoke again.
"God, I'm so sick of Jenny. I'm seriously thinking about not hanging out with her anymore."
"Oh yeah, why's that?"
"She was at BJ's in Huntington the other night and ended up fucking the WAITER on the beach outside the restaurant. Can you believe that?"
I could. Jenny was about 5'5" and had an early start on the sort of body girls get after freshman year of college - soft and perfect, after the high school stick-skinniness and before the beer gut really settles in. "Jesus," I said.
"I know," she said. "She's such a slut."
There is no easier insult for one girl to drop on another one than "slut." It's an argument-ender in the grand tradition of "I know you are, but what am I?" It's applicable anywhere, it can't be disproven, and nobody ever stops to say "Wait... what's wrong with that?"
I thought of Jenny that entire night. When you're given a mental picture of an attractive girl having sex, it's hard to separate that from her identity. Every time you see her after that, you'll be thinking of her on her back, sand in her hair, with the lights on Coast Highway just far away enough to avoid a public indecency charge. After I heard that story, I'd actually listen to all of Krystal's stupid stories about Jenny, pretending to sympathize while actually conjuring up that mental image.
When you grow up in church, sex takes on a weird stigma. Let's start from the premise that it's impossible to get a sixteen-year-old boy not to think about sex. It's just his nature. It's not even comparable to trying to teach a dog not to hump the furniture - it's like trying to teach him to juggle torches. Thus, talking to high school kids about sexual purity probably has an effect opposite from the one intended. Every interaction with every girl suddenly has malicious undertones, so that every parents-out-of-town house party and every dark golf course is an opportunity to stamp your ticket to Hell.
Teenage boys are ALWAYS thinking about sex, and nothing will make you think about it more than not having it.
Krystal and I danced along that line for the entire duration of our relationship - we'd end up alone in someone's car fifteen minutes before one of us had to be home, or her parents would call demanding that she come home right as we walked into someone's empty house. Furthermore, her older sister got pregnant at 18, so Krystal was convinced that she'd get knocked up the first time she had sex, no matter what precautions were taken.
It was a great match - her irrational fear of a small child growing inside her mixed with my dogged belief that I'd be letting down my future wife by sleeping with her. Of course, this made perfect sense to me at the time - I mean, why would you want to have sex with more than one person?
Another free lesson for girls who aspire to control a dude completely: send mixed messages. Specifically, insert a couple of insane, emotional demands into a long string of otherwise normal behavior. Nothing is more frustrating than this.*
I was particularly vulnerable to this growing up. My dad loves my mom so much that he'll do anything for her. My mom knows this and never abuses it, so it took me a little while to realize that if I made myself available to solve problems, some girls would come up with an endless string of them. I think the specific instance that made me realize this was when I was seventeen; Krystal called me at 2 AM on a Wednesday morning and asked me to come over because she'd had a bad dream about her mom dying. I had actually walked out to the garage before I realized what I was doing. Of course, that was the beginning of the end, when I finally realized that there were, in fact, other vaginas in the sea.
Needless to say, it never happened between me and Krystal. Had I been turned into hamburger by that truck, I'm sure I would have rocketed up to the pearly gates, where St. Peter would congratulate me on my restraint. "And remember that time Kelly Silva offered you head in front of your house in 8th grade, and you said no because you thought she was dirty and regretted it for two years? Well, it's a good thing you did, my son. Welcome to Heaven." And I would wonder if it was worth it.
*Especially when you have huge tits.
"If we had kids, what do you think they'd look like?" she said.
"I don't know - ugly, for sure. They'd probably get my nose and your hair."
"Plus I'm sure your mom would love it if I got pregnant."
"Yeah, yours too; your dad would have me killed before you had a chance to give the kid a name."
"Yeah, and my---AAAHH!"
I followed her gaze over my shoulder. We were in the middle of a left turn, and a Chevy Silverado was barrelling into the intersection, its grill racing toward my window at face height. The glare from the headlights poured into my window, blinding. I didn't even have time to flinch toward the driver's side in shock. I just stared, dumbly, at the 4400-pound truck that was about to rearrange my internal organs. I could see the guy driving, tensed, fighting the truck's fishtail action as it skidded toward us. In that instant, I had one thought:
"God, please don't let me die without having sex."
Krystal had run a red left-turn light, which must have surprised the poor guy driving the Silverado. He finally came to a complete stop about eight inches from the passenger side of the car - timed nicely, since Krystal had also hit the brakes once she'd realized her mistake, aligning the car so that if the Silverado had failed to stop it would have hit the Mercedes squarely in its center of gravity. Collisions from the "Die Hard" movies weren't as perfect as that one would have been.
We sat there in silence for a second before she continued on through the intersection to the public park where we were going. I shifted around in my seat until she spoke again.
"God, I'm so sick of Jenny. I'm seriously thinking about not hanging out with her anymore."
"Oh yeah, why's that?"
"She was at BJ's in Huntington the other night and ended up fucking the WAITER on the beach outside the restaurant. Can you believe that?"
I could. Jenny was about 5'5" and had an early start on the sort of body girls get after freshman year of college - soft and perfect, after the high school stick-skinniness and before the beer gut really settles in. "Jesus," I said.
"I know," she said. "She's such a slut."
There is no easier insult for one girl to drop on another one than "slut." It's an argument-ender in the grand tradition of "I know you are, but what am I?" It's applicable anywhere, it can't be disproven, and nobody ever stops to say "Wait... what's wrong with that?"
I thought of Jenny that entire night. When you're given a mental picture of an attractive girl having sex, it's hard to separate that from her identity. Every time you see her after that, you'll be thinking of her on her back, sand in her hair, with the lights on Coast Highway just far away enough to avoid a public indecency charge. After I heard that story, I'd actually listen to all of Krystal's stupid stories about Jenny, pretending to sympathize while actually conjuring up that mental image.
When you grow up in church, sex takes on a weird stigma. Let's start from the premise that it's impossible to get a sixteen-year-old boy not to think about sex. It's just his nature. It's not even comparable to trying to teach a dog not to hump the furniture - it's like trying to teach him to juggle torches. Thus, talking to high school kids about sexual purity probably has an effect opposite from the one intended. Every interaction with every girl suddenly has malicious undertones, so that every parents-out-of-town house party and every dark golf course is an opportunity to stamp your ticket to Hell.
Teenage boys are ALWAYS thinking about sex, and nothing will make you think about it more than not having it.
Krystal and I danced along that line for the entire duration of our relationship - we'd end up alone in someone's car fifteen minutes before one of us had to be home, or her parents would call demanding that she come home right as we walked into someone's empty house. Furthermore, her older sister got pregnant at 18, so Krystal was convinced that she'd get knocked up the first time she had sex, no matter what precautions were taken.
It was a great match - her irrational fear of a small child growing inside her mixed with my dogged belief that I'd be letting down my future wife by sleeping with her. Of course, this made perfect sense to me at the time - I mean, why would you want to have sex with more than one person?
Another free lesson for girls who aspire to control a dude completely: send mixed messages. Specifically, insert a couple of insane, emotional demands into a long string of otherwise normal behavior. Nothing is more frustrating than this.*
I was particularly vulnerable to this growing up. My dad loves my mom so much that he'll do anything for her. My mom knows this and never abuses it, so it took me a little while to realize that if I made myself available to solve problems, some girls would come up with an endless string of them. I think the specific instance that made me realize this was when I was seventeen; Krystal called me at 2 AM on a Wednesday morning and asked me to come over because she'd had a bad dream about her mom dying. I had actually walked out to the garage before I realized what I was doing. Of course, that was the beginning of the end, when I finally realized that there were, in fact, other vaginas in the sea.
Needless to say, it never happened between me and Krystal. Had I been turned into hamburger by that truck, I'm sure I would have rocketed up to the pearly gates, where St. Peter would congratulate me on my restraint. "And remember that time Kelly Silva offered you head in front of your house in 8th grade, and you said no because you thought she was dirty and regretted it for two years? Well, it's a good thing you did, my son. Welcome to Heaven." And I would wonder if it was worth it.
*Especially when you have huge tits.
Labels: beach sex, Chevy Silverados
posted by Dan at 10:59 PM
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