First Love

This week's Wicked Wednesday prompt is:

Most of us have them… ex lovers. Are you still talking to your ex, or rather not? How about having sex with the ex? Have you ever done that? Why? They are ex lovers for a reason, but sometimes we just cannot stop thinking of them… or want to see them. Why is that? Would you want to get back together with your ex?

I honestly would not want to get back together with any of my exes. All of those relationships ended for a reason. However, all of my real relationships...the ones that count...were intense in their own way and quite passionate. So, if you asked me if I would have sex with them again, I'd say yes to just about every one of them.

Looking back through the long-term sexual relationships I have had, each one has been pivotal in my sexual and emotional growth.

Most importantly, there was my first love - I was 15 when I met him. He sat behind me in 9th grade geometry class. He was a year ahead of me, but he'd failed the class and was taking it over again. He continually tapped me on the shoulder asking for pencils and help on his assignments. Being the naive girl that I was, it took me nearly the entire quarter to figure out that he was actually flirting with me. And when I did figure it out, I was terribly self-conscious and probably made a ridiculous fool of myself blushing and smiling in response to his advances.

He was the pitcher for the high school baseball team. I was basically a nerd. But, he seemed genuinely interested in me, rather than just seeking a piece of easy ass. I don't think I really came off as "that kind of girl," anyway.

We started hanging out after school, and he asked me to come to a few of his games. Before long, we were sickeningly inseparable. We clung to each other and pretty much grossed everyone out with our sappy "I'll die without you" Romeo and Juliet attachment. But we were both (I'm sure) pretty much entranced with each other and believed we would never be able to survive alone again. We made each other mixed tapes from the late night call-in, love-line radio shows, wrote each other novel-length notes during classes, and lost hours of sleep just contemplating our unfathomable connection. It was epic.

We spent a lot time with locked lips, sucking face and feeling each other up in the back seat of my mom's Pontiac, secluded behind the old middle school. In fact, I remember vividly giving him a hand-job there one night. I didn't move fast enough to stop the sudden spurt of his cum, and it splashed across the upholstery. I never did quite get the stain out, and every time I looked at it, I thought of it.

I promised myself that I wasn't going to lose my virginity until I was 16. He respected that, and he never pushed me. And when all the other guys were engaging in locker room lies, he heartily denied that anything had gone that far between us.

I knew I would give it to him. And for a hopeless romantic like myself, giving my virginity to him was like offering him the most precious gift I could give. He waited patiently, and when I told him I was ready, he made all the arrangements.

He lived on the "wrong side of the tracks" in a run-down trailer park my parents hesitated to let me visit. His parents were severe alcoholics and were often not sober (or even conscious) when I was there. That night was no exception. His dad was at the bar, and his mom was passed out on the couch, but it was the only place we could find besides the back of a car. He wanted things to be a little more romantic than that, so we did the best we could with what we had.

He didn't have his own room, so his brother let us use his, since he had a full-sized bed. My boyfriend had thought of everything a teenage boy could think of. He had candles, and condoms, and towels, and Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill, and Air Supply. And we had us....all fumbling hands and lips and soft, teenage skin. Our barely controlled urges, finally unharnessed and invited, became immense and overwhelming.

Because of this, I don't remember much of the actual sex itself. I know it hurt at first. He was a fairly good-sized young stud, and I was a virgin. I bled a little, but he was seriously gentle. He went slow, and even though it didn't feel good physically to me, and even though I didn't orgasm, I knew I wanted to do it again...and again...until it did feel good. Because I knew he was a safe place to explore. He would be patient and wait for me to catch up.

I also don't remember if he came. But, I do remember that he let me lay there in the bed, composing myself while he ran a bath. He carried me, naked, from the bedroom into the bathroom. No one else was home, except for his mom, who was still passed out on the couch. He placed me in the bath, got in with me, and we talked like we normally did, and held each other like we'd never let go.

The peeling linoleum floor and cracked, gold-flecked Formica counter-tops took nothing away from the beauty of that moment.

It still makes me smile...24 years later...I'd call that a pretty okay first time.

I broke up with him a few years later, in the front cab of his pick-up. He had just told me he enlisted in the Army and was hoping I might wait for him to get through basic training and then marry him. I had always thought I would marry him. But, by that time I had committed myself to going to college. and after having grown up in the military and watching the sacrifices my mom had to make for my dad's career, I knew I couldn't submit myself to that. I broke both our hearts that day when I said I couldn't wait for him and that I wouldn't marry a military man. He was dumbstruck. I think, honestly, he'd enlisted more for me than for him, sure that I'd be impressed and sure that I'd want to marry a man just like my father. He was trying so hard to be exactly what we all wanted him to be, and in the end, that was exactly what brought the whole castle down.

He went to basic training and ended up getting a childhood friend pregnant and marrying her. He stayed in contact with me and my family (my dad had sort of "adopted" him), and I remember him calling me to express his disappointment and dread. He wanted me to save him, but it wasn't something I could save him from. I told him I wished it were different, but that maybe this was just the way it was supposed to be. I told him I knew he'd be a great father...and that I'd never stop loving him.

He had another child by that same woman, but the marriage didn't last. We met up once when I was in college, had a few drinks and ended up reminiscing and making out. I guess the fire might lessen over time, but with a love that intense, it never really goes out. We've talked on the phone a few times over the years and have stayed in contact via Facebook. And while I look back on what we had with great fondness, our time has come and gone. Much like a faded photograph, it can never be made quite that perfect again. Besides, memories have a tendency to become what we want them to be...and what we need them to be. I'd rather keep them as they are: young and innocent and sweet.