CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
Profile continued . . .

ARCHIVES!
Shelby, The Girl Who Was My First Kiss, Pt 2

Saturday, March 08, 2014

this entry brought to you by beware of darkness, "howl"

(this entry got super long, so it was broken up into two. you should probably read it right here if you haven't.


Shelby's hand was running through my hair, my arms were locked around her waist. I leaned forward and our lips met. I was hesitant, but she met my lips like a feral cat let out of a cage, grasping the back of my head, grinding her body into mine. I wasn't sure what I was doing, but she'd kissed boys before, and didn't want to wait around for me to get used to what I was doing. Enough of this kiddie shit, she seemed to be saying.

I loved it. Her breath was hot and I had expected to be unsure of the whole bad breath thing-- I was obsessed as a younger teen in how awful it would be if I went in for a kiss and had bad breath, or just as bad, if she had bad breath, completely ruining the experience, but it was a non issue. Her tongue was warm and initially intrusive but she put in enough lip and sucking and licking that everything just felt perfect. There was nothing awkward about this, nothing tentative. It felt perfect. It took me a minute or two to stop feeling shocked about how well it was going and just do what came natural.

Now sure that everyone was definitely asleep, we grew bolder, and, as if speaking telepathically, we grew more naked. I was fascinated with her breasts and she encouraged me, cradling my head as I kissed them. Our hands were busy between one another's legs. We both whispered as we took turns, "Slower… Not so hard." Between her legs was an intimidating, warm place that had a scent that wasn't bad at all, and although my fingers was busy, I considered kissing it but was terrified.

I was intoxicated with everything we were doing, her heart beating, her mouth agape, her eyes frequently closed. When they were open they were looking up me, wide, glazed. As if on drugs. I remember feeling like this is what it was supposed to be, and wondering if she was genuinely a good kisser. I felt like she was good kisser, but I had nothing to compare it to. In years following I have had a bad kisses. The first bad kiss I ever had, I thought back to Shelby, thinking, no, if that was my first kiss, I would have known it was a bad first kiss. Her tongue just laid there, like a fish, I would have instinctually known this wasn't what it was supposed to be.

Tim and Jenn's mom came in the next morning, telling that she waited until the absolute last minute to wake us up, and we had 45 minutes to eat and get dressed before we had to get going. The girls were to use the shower downstairs, the boys the one upstairs. We ate in shifts so we wouldn't be using all the hot water at once, and when we were done, we climbed into separate cars.

Everything was a rush to get ready, we were in separate cars, and getting into the water park was a hassle, and I didn't have time to say a word to her all day. I was beginning to wonder if she regretted last night, if Jenn kept taking her off to do things because Shelby didn't want to be around me, if she was telling Jenn what she'd done, what an awful kisser I was. What's more is I was positive everyone knew what we'd done last night, and was keeping us apart on purpose. I would catch glances at her on occasion and her mood seemed to worsen as the day went by. Was she worsening because she was increasingly ashamed? Or did she think I was avoiding her? All I wanted was to be next to her, and circumstances were keeping us apart. Finally, at 1 in the afternoon, we were alone. As I said, her emotions were all in her eyes, and now they were glaring at me icily, not just angry, not just hurt, but betrayed.

"So, did last night just not happen?" she asked, accusingly, hand on hip.

"Of course it did," I said, relieved that it was just a misunderstanding, and that we weren't actually having problems. "Oh my gosh I've been trying to be alone with you all day. I was afraid you were embarrassed of me."

Her icy glare melted in an instant, and she walked over to me, in her bikini, and she embraced my head to her chest, telling me she was sorry for thinking I was just any other guy, that of course I wouldn't ditch her.

We talked a lot on the phone that summer. We talked sexy talk a lot-- she was the first girl to ask me to measure my penis. But more than that, we talked about ourselves, getting to know one another as friends.

"Everybody thinks I'm this huge slut," she said to me one night, in hushed tones. "I'm not. I mean, I like to make out, but I've never had sex. But I've never given a blowjob to a boyfriend. I just kiss and make out. I don't even like giving handjobs. You're… Basically the only guy," she said.

She told me that her uncle molested her. She said she was terrified of blowjobs or of having people down there for that reason. She had felt comfortable with me, and enjoyed it, and she said she'd considered giving me a blowjob that night but just couldn't. When I told her that I had considered kissing her between her legs, she said that she probably wouldn't have let me. She said she might want to with me, and that I was the closest to doing that with anyone. I was like no other boy she'd ever met, she said. There was something different about me.

She came to my house, twice. I remember the first time I opened the door and let her in, her whole posture was different. She was shy. Vulnerable. Fragile. Beautiful, frankly. I remember looking at her, standing there in my doorway, this vulnerable person, looking at me with these huge blue eyes and a shy smile, and thought about the first time I saw her, white trash and prickly, trying to pick a fight. Mean spirited and loud, obnoxious, now she was quiet, calm, thoughtful. Ponderous. Curious.

She sat next to me on the couch, leaning into me, holding my hand. We kissed, but there was no busy hands or dry humping. We just held onto one another. She told me she never felt like this about anyone before. Didn't think a boy could be this caring. I told her I was just being myself.

"I know," she said, leaning into my neck.

Soon after the second time she visited she gave me a phone call saying she and her parents were moving. They lived in a trailer park on our side of town, and now they would be living in a trailer park with her grandmother in a town on the border of New Mexico and Texas, a town I had been for, a dust town spotted with trailers and shitty homes, occasional dirt farms with a cow or two.

"That's a redneck town," I told her.

"I know," she said. "I was born there, all my cousins are there. Something went wrong, my parents aren't telling me what, they have to leave right away." Her voice sounded heartbroken, desperate. Achy. She promised we'd see each other again, she just didn't see how.

A few weeks passed, the summer was ending. I hadn't had her number, and wasn't able to talk to her after she moved. She called one day. She'd picked up a southern accent in the time she was away, and she apologized for it. "I know I sound like a dummy, bein' round my cousins does it every time," she said.

But what was worse was that she was loud and obnoxious. "Oh my gawd! I miss you soooooo much! I cain't wait to see you agin! I cain't waaaaaaaait!" she said in this weird, false tone. I know she meant it, but she didn't sound like the vulnerable Shelby who would speak to me in hushed, six inch voices, she was the furthest from the vulnerable, ponderous Shelby. She was the bratty child from the first time I saw her.

As a grown up and having the experience behind me, I can say that often when you reconnect with people, even if you've changed since the last time you met, often you'll find yourself right back in that comfort zone immediately. There's a good chance that if I saw her four or five months down the line, we would have fit together exactly the same way. But I still felt my heart breaking. I'd gotten her to let down her guard when she was around me. She admitted things to me she said she hadn't admitted to anyone else. And it was disheartening to hear her on the other side of the phone, guard back up. Still sweet and cooing and telling me the things she couldn't wait to do to me, but saying it like a foreign person, or like someone running lines with me, in character for a play. I knew I wouldn't see her again, even if she insisted I would.


A few years ago I got back in touch with Jenn Call, and though she's off teaching in China (I'm so proud of her!) we usually chat about once a year, during the holidays. I don't remember how it came up. I think we were discussing losing our virginity, since I'd moved before that happened for either of us.

The subject of our first kiss then was brought up. I was surprised and delighted to know that no, Jenn had no idea that Shelby and I were naked and touching just feet from her. Of course,this didn't mean the others didn't know, but it helped out the theory I was going on that Shelby and I were in our little world.

But when I told her it was Shelby, her reaction was "That slut? Shelby was everybody's first." Apparently sometime after I left, Shelby returned to El Paso, and the two of them had a falling out.

I was surprised at how much the words hurt, and I was surprised at how my best-friend's-little-sister could still offhandedly devastate me. When we were teenagers I would have not let it bother me because it was such a regular occurrence, but now, some 15 years later, I hadn't been prepared for it.

She was being cavalier and wasn't thinking how it would effect me, this was high school, I'm married now, happily so. But I think what annoyed me more than anything was that she didn't know what I did. She didn't know that Shelby's behavior, whatever it was before me, and whatever it was after me, was textbook molested girl behavior. Over the years Shelby would, by far, not be the only girl I became emotionally involved with that was molested as a younger girl-- it's a number that's way too large a number overall, but the percentage of girls I've known is so skewed it's sometimes difficult to understand a girl who is emotionally damaged and hasn't been molested. And her behavior was by far not unique out of even just the girls I personally have known.

Shelby and Jenn had been best friends, back in their day. But she still hadn't really known her like I did, even in such a small amount of time.
------



with love from CRS @ 10:16 AM 

0 Comments:

Post a Comment