My First Time

Before I can even begin to tell you about one of my most embarrassing moments, I must first put it into context.

Let me first speak to you about myself.

I was born and raised to strict and uncompromising African parents. Our values, growing up, demanded that we show respect to our elders and that I trust my parents' intuitions above my own. They didn't care that we'd moved from our homeland to settle in a completely different country. "In this house," they would say "we're in Africa."

I was 12 years old when a rule that I wasn't aware existed, was brought up to me during a family reunion. "In this family, we don't do boyfriends and girlfriends. You simply meet someone and marry them." Maybe it's because I was so young at the time, but I truly believed that this was how it was meant to happen. That and quite frankly, as far as I was concerned, my father's word was law. So I didn't even question the validity of that statement as my classmates started to have said boyfriends and girlfriends.

Until I turned 14 years, started to get interested in boys and questions began to surface.

Was it truly possible to meet the person that you knew you would marry within seconds? Though they might not have labeled each other as "boyfriend" and "girlfriend," didn't my parents basically date each other before they realized that they were each other's One? Thinking back, didn't one of my uncles have a girlfriend for a fairly long amount of time when I was still a child, that he didn't even end up marrying? He did however marry someone completely different. So what would be the harm, really, in seeing what all the fuss was about?

That is how I ended up on the phone with a boy for the first time in my life. I'd been so sheltered that I wasn't particularly aware of every slang out there and, most of all, I was a complete newbie when it came to flirting. That boy however, wasn't. I'd always been good at pretending to know more than I did; at trying to play it cool so I didn't look as innocent and naïve as I truly was. Yet for the first time in forever, I was at a complete loss for words. Was this how people flirted? With all that suggestive, dirty talk that made it sound as though boys and girls were worlds apart? Or would that be something I'd get used to, the more I practiced?

I wasn't even sure I liked the boy, but I was giddy with the idea of exploring what else was out there. Of ending this conversation on a note that I would find satisfying. Not so giddy however that I didn't, at one point in time, get the nagging feeling that someone else was listening to my phone call. I could hear breathing through the phone, as if another person was there. Someone who wasn't truly part of the conversation.

Oh, did I not mention this?

It was the home phone I was using.

Thus I could feel myself growing flush by the second. My heart was beating faster and faster as I tried to string together words that probably didn't make me sound as smart as I thought I was. My mind was doing two things at once. Communicating with this dirty-talking boy and thinking about what everyone else in the house was doing in that very moment. I ended the call by tripping over my words before I called one of my best friends. I told her about the disastrous conversation I'd just had with this boy and concluded with, "I think my dad was listening to the call."

Then, a voice.

"Yes, I heard everything."

My father.

Had heard everything.