BOYFRIEND

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Nothing on earth could have prepared me for the night I was with that cute, sexy, dark and handsome boyfriend of mine. Not all the talks among friends over the years, no books I’d ever read, no songs that had ever been sung. Making love is a remarkable, painful, excruciating and precious moment. It should only be experienced between two people.

It was the start of a brand new year, Monday January 3, 1977. After a two-week winter vacation, it was also time to head back to school. I woke up anxious looking forward to getting out of the house. I didn’t have a lot of friends at the time and had spent most of the winter break at home. I ventured out twice, once to the mall to pick out the one allotted outfit for the holiday, and to the Church’s annual New Year’s Eve program. Though my mother got up and slaved over the stove to fix breakfast each morning, I usually bypassed it. I admired myself in the mirror after I put on my new outfit. I combed my hair and put on a matching dark blue scarf. I don’t know why I was so attached to those scarves; I had a head full of hair that could have been combed into any number of beautiful hairstyles. I grabbed my bag, put on my brand new coat and walked out the door.

I attended Harry Ells High and journeyed to school alone as I had for the last few months, admiring my new clothes along the way. It’s not everyday when you’re as poor as we were that you got a new anything. I particularly liked how I fitted into my navy blue pants with the matching blue and white-checkered shirt with cute little pockets attached. I don’t remember my shoes being new but they may have at least been decent at the time. Though the walk was only thirty minutes, it seemed longer when you walked alone and had only yourself to talk to. I sat down right as the last bell rung.

My first class was chorus. It was pretty noisy as everyone told of gifts they’d received. They were catching up on each other’s lives acting as if they had been away from one another for a lifetime. Everyone seemed especially proud to show off new clothes, I knew I sure was. It was the only one my single mother of eight could afford and meant that I would have to return to old rags the next day. We waited for the teacher to decide which songs to sing. After singing a few we realized just how long we had been away, we needed tuning up.

After attending two classes it was brunch time. Everyone enjoyed the sunshine and few moments of free time between classes. I met with my friend Annette after devouring some of those delicious cinnamon rolls from the snack bar. The line was always packed right up until the bell rung as kids ruined their teeth eating the sugar-filled dessert. We were happy to see each other as we both tried talking at the same time. While walking down the hallway we saw and started talking to her friend Lee Ann. Out of that conversation a spontaneous thought was manifested into ditching school the rest of the day with Ryan, who was Annette’s boyfriend, Rudy who was Lee Ann’s boyfriend and Trump who was Annette’s cousin. I don’t know why any of us had even bothered coming to school. Leaving early meant I wouldn’t get a chance to finish showing off my new clothes, maybe I’d wear them the next day.

Everybody thought they looked good including me with my very low self-esteem. I didn’t normally hang around all of them, it was usually only Annette and me whom I met a year earlier at Downer Jr. High school. As we walked down MacDonald Avenue they talked about the movies, Carrie and Carwash. I hadn’t seen either and so I listened to the gory details of one and the happiness about washing cars of the other. It took at least forty minutes to walk down the long avenue. We laughed and joked about everything as we tarried along. The boys were anxious; two of them were already dating the other girls. That would leave me and Trump as total misfits to the happy couple syndrome. I felt out of place wishing I had stayed behind.

When we arrived at St. John Apartments we went straight to an empty dwelling. It looked as though the previous tenants had recently moved and left behind quite a few of their belongings. They all lived at the complex with their parents. As soon as we entered, Annette and Lee Ann’s boyfriends started carrying mattresses from one room to the other in the unkempt place. They were very strong. We sat in the living room chatting as they rearranged to their satisfaction. I think my hormones were the only ones that weren’t raging. When they had it situated, Ryan grabbed Annette and Rudy grabbed Lee Ann. They went in separate rooms and locked the doors behind them.

I was still virtuous but knew exactly what they were about to do. I had let loose a couple of times with a real cute dark and handsome guy who lived around the corner from where I stayed the past summer. It was one of those hot lazy days with nothing to do. After our encounters he acted like he was no longer interested and so I returned to being a virgin.

Trump and I were left in each other’s company. He tried everything in his power to convince me that we needed to engage in what the others were doing. I was not the least bit interested in his short self. I had met him a year earlier when we attended Jr. High and was not attracted to him in any way. Even if I were didn’t mean I would get naked with him just because we ditched school and happened to be with couples who were already established in a relationship. I sat on the couch and basically ignored him as he tried still to convince me that we needed to go in the other available room. I waited on Annette to come back and join us. I would have stayed at school if it weren’t for her.

When Ryan and Annette came back in the living quarters, Ryan looked at Trump and said, “Man, you still haven’t got any?” He must have somehow managed to hear him pleading while getting it on with Annette. He demonstrated through body language what to do in order to get some as everyone, including Trump and myself laughed. Ryan had a sense of humor and was cute as a button. We sat around talking as Lee Ann and her boyfriend finished and rejoined us. After much discussion about nothing, they were ready to go at it some more and went back to their spots, leaving Trump and myself alone again. After a few more moments of Trump’s begging and my steadfast refusal, I fastened up my jacket and left. I wasn’t going to wait around any longer for those love birds.

I went shopping at Woolworth’s for a diary I admired. I had no idea what I was going to write in it but I guess I’d figure it out at some point as I walked home.

I grabbed a snack and went upstairs to read Nigger by Dick Gregory. It was a very interesting autobiography, which captured my attention for a few hours. He was strong-minded even as a young boy as he tried different things to climb out of his poverty stricken surroundings. It was hard putting it down but after a couple of hours my eyes were tired and I prepared for bed. I undressed and sank deep underneath the covers tired from the long day.

I had a wonderful summer but my friend Trina and I had a fight and were no longer speaking. It wasn’t a real big hope to die fight. We basically had a misunderstanding, passed a few licks and abandoned our friendship, which at that point was only about a year old. We decided to go our own ways, though we lived right across the street from each other. I wasn’t hanging out with anyone after I got home from school or had really become friends with anyone else in the neighborhood. We lived on Eleventh Street but had mostly hung out on Twelfth Street when we were friends. She and her sister Judy were the two I had gotten to know everyone on Twelfth Street through. Since I wasn’t talking to Trina, there went the friendship with Judy. Basically I had become a literal introvert.

My best friend Lorraine whom used to live in their house moved to the other side of town. She was my best friend and was attending her first year of high school at Kennedy High. We had known each other since the third grade and I really missed her residing across the street. We kept in touch by phone but the neighborhood just wasn’t the same without her. We stayed glued on the phone for hours talking about the latest gossip, not even she knew how lonely I was at that time.

At around 8:30 or 9:00 o’clock my little brother or one of my little sisters knocked on my door and said Marcus was downstairs wanting to see me. I didn’t know what he could possibly have wanted. He was the real cute dark and handsome boy from around the corner whom I let loose with the previous summer. I put my clothes back on and went out of the door leading from the stairs. We had two front doors on the porch; one going into the living room and the other leading straight upstairs. I opened the living room door to summon him from where he was waiting. We looked at each other as he exited with his fine behind. He was the cutest fifteen-year-old boy in the whole wide world. I met him about a year and a half earlier. He had a smile that could literally make you melt at the very sight of his shiny white teeth. It was cold outside and I asked what he wanted as he stood there looking so gorgeous. He said he wanted to show me something and asked me to walk to the overpass with him. It was a very weak line looking back, but I fell for it. Without thinking I walked off the porch still proudly wearing the new coat I received for Christmas. He was dressed nice too. His little brother Raymond had accompanied him but we left him behind as we walked down the street. He put his arm around my waist sending butterflies to my stomach. He didn’t say much as we walked the two-block journey, both of us knock-kneed from birth. When we climbed the hill to the overpass, he grabbed and pulled me towards him, placed my arms around his neck and kissed me. Totally taken by surprise, I kissed back. It was a fun little encounter but I still didn’t know what he wanted. I guess I should have after he kissed me with such passion. Getting involved with those Reem boys could mean only one thing according to some of the other girls in the neighborhood. After a few moments of kissing and hugging he asked if I wanted to go see his clubhouse. Ah ha! That’s what he wanted, to finish up the fling we started the past summer. I said, “I don’t care.” We walked back down the dirt hill, careful not to fall as he led the way.

As soon as we walked around the corner he looked intently in the direction of his house, which was located across the street from the clubhouse. He then carefully looked up and down the block to make sure no one was looking. When he was certain no one was, his family in particular, we zipped to the clubhouse, hurried inside and locked the door behind.

Someone had put a little magic into fixing up the clubhouse as Marcus referred to it. There was a long pull drawstring that turned the light on and off, two mattresses sitting one on top of the other complete with sheet, blanket and a pillowcase on the pillow. There was also a chair against the wall and what appeared to have once been a worktable still sitting in the corner with a few scattered tools atop. We embraced again. He was anxious and ready to test out his private domain.

I imagine he had some kind of arrangement with Juan and Francisco whose home the clubhouse was at. They were two of the cutest Mexicans in an otherwise dominantly black neighborhood. Their parents were still happily married to each other unlike most parents in the area who were divorced.

Marcus along with his big and little brother were among the cutest boys in the neighborhood. Trina and Judy’s cousin Brenda lived on the same street as Marcus and I once heard her say that them Reem boys might have been the cutest on the block but to stay away from them because they were very n a s t y. She had known them a number of years and said all they ever wanted was coochy and nothing else. They grew up together and she knew what she was talking about.

One morning about a year and a half earlier, I was in my room when I heard a lot of noise in the backyard. When I opened the curtains to investigate the commotion, I quickly closed them when me and Marcus’ eyes met. He was staring and wouldn’t stop. He sat on his bike looking in my room’s direction even after I closed the curtains. He had a very strong will with those eyes of his, they were very flirtatious. I drew a carefully crafted peak to look again and to my surprise he was still staring with a big grin pasted across his face. I closed the peak and tried looking without touching the curtains and he was still watching. There was a gang of boys playing basketball. He was just sitting on his bike gazing in the direction of my room. He must have been thinking from that moment on how he was going to get some sex from me. I didn’t know him at the time. I met his Brother Raymond seeing that we attended the same Jr. High school. I must have missed Marcus when I was in the seventh and he was in the eighth at the same school I was then attending with Raymond. I don’t remember seeing him among all of those kids. The way Raymond introduced himself was by grabbing a girl’s breast and pinching them. I had to pop that boy on the hand before I even knew his name. At the time I was getting acquainted with all of the kids on Twelfth Street. I had lived on and off in the neighborhood for a number of years between my parent’s ongoing separation saga but had never ventured around the corner where Marcus lived. There were enough kids on our block to keep company with. My friend Lorraine who used to live directly across the street had moved leaving me to grow up all-alone. I had siblings but they were too young, old or we just didn’t get along. Lorraine was more like the sister I could share anything with. I was just getting to know Judy and her sister Trina though I had noticed them for a year when their grandmother used to come blow the horn for them each Sunday morning to take them to church. I had met just about everyone on Twelfth Street through Trina and Judy whose relative’s house they lived in on Twelfth Street before they moved across the street where they were now residing in Lorraine’s old house.

A few weeks after the backyard incident, Judy, I and a few other girls from our neighborhood were walking home from school on the wrong side of the overpass where a car could easily have hit us. When Judy noticed Marcus walking alone, she ran back to the side we were supposed to have been on and finished walking home with him. I didn’t think anything of him. When I asked who he was, someone said he was Raymond’s older brother. After he smiled I remembered he was the one staring at my room window in my back yard. His smile gave him away; there was no doubt about it. Weeks later he and a guy named Jose, (another cute Mexican in our neighborhood) rode their bikes to Eleventh Street stopping in front of Judy’s house. He got off of his and pushed it towards me and Judy and shouted, “Let’s go bike riding!” They rode on one bike while Judy and I rode the other. We followed them straight to the underpass. As soon as we were midway, Marcus jumped off and said, “Let’s switch.” He guided Judy to Jose’s bike and quickly jumped on the back of his that I was riding. He started peddling in the direction of Woods elementary and then made a quick U-turn and headed straight toward the abandoned Uniment Apartments. He wanted some privacy. When we got to the play area he motioned us off dropping the bike on the ground. He leaned back against the fence pulling me towards him. He placed my arms around his neck and started kissing me. I was still virtuous at the time and felt uncomfortable as I slid my arms down. He grabbed and placed them back around his neck and kissed me again, hugging me tight. It was a new experience for me and though I was uncomfortable, I was completely mesmerized being in the arms of the most attractive fellow in the whole wide world. When Judy saw what Marcus was up to (she knew his reputation, everyone said the Reem boys were nasty) she got off the bike with Jose and walked home. She walked the short-cut route of the Uniments, saw us kissing and said, “OO WEE!” She then ran and told Trina who once shared puppy love with him. When I first saw Trina after she heard about us kissing she hollered, “The cutest boy on Twelfth Street and the ugliest girl on Eleventh Street were hooked up!” She then laughed out loud. I may not have been as cute as some of the other girls but I wasn’t most ugly either. After all, the cutest boy in the hood was looking. She seemed just a bit jealous. Needless to say he cooled it. Marcus went to go think about whether he wanted to proceed.

A spell after that me, Trina, Judy and Lisa were over Lisa’s house. Lisa was a neighbor from around the corner. Marcus and Smitty (Lisa’s brother) were the only boys there. Someone suggested we play the getting on top game, which consisted of quick humping with the boy on top. I don’t know who made up that dumb game but had a feeling it was Marcus. Since there were only two boys, the four girls alternated going to the room in five-minute increments. The boys just sat back anxiously waiting for us to come in so they could choose who they’d hump. Though Smitty tried choosing me, Marcus and I kept gravitating towards each other. Lisa’s brother was not attractive like Marcus and I refused to let him get anywhere near me. He kept saying, “Tell Tangie to act right!” each time I rejected him. I only allowed Marcus to get on as we panted in their back room with our clothes on. He humped as fast as he could before the other girls came in. Trina noticed Marcus on top of me without me putting up any kind of fuss and made note of it. He was a very attractive young man with his chocolate brown skin, nice haircut and perfect white teeth. He was the kind of guy you could only dream (which I’d done plenty of since he kissed me months earlier) about being involved with, plus by that time he’d already stole my heart. Trina went and told everyone, “She just let Marcus lay on her without even trying to push him off.” That boy wanted to go all the way to see what it was like with the clothes off, which is why he came back I’m sure.

We sat down on the very low mattress and kissed again. His hormones were racing like those folks I was with earlier in the day. Without wasting anymore time he reached over and turned off the light pulling me closer to him. I don’t know why I was so passive being that I was so adamant of having earlier told Trump no. Maybe the two experiences we’d already shared helped lead the way. He drew back the cover and in his gentlemen behavior told me to get under first. He took off our clothes, put them on the chair, pulled up the cover and placed himself on top of me. Without warning he started jibbering me with his jabber. The pain was excruciating as he stabbed at my flesh. He said he was trying to put it in though he didn’t say what he was trying to put it in to. It hurt and truthfully I wanted to know what in the world he was trying to put it in to as I kept pulling back from the painful attempt. There had never been anything down there to my knowledge to enter. Up until that point my only need for my tee wee was to release when I had to go to the bathroom. I had not experienced pain when we were together the first two times.

During encounters the summer before, we undressed from the waist down and humped until we got tired. We had mounds of energy. It was a hot summer day and he apparently had been thinking about me as he singled me out of all the other girls he could have chosen from. We had already shared a couple of kisses. Neither one of us knew what we were doing, at least I didn’t. He acted like he was some kind of pro as he led the way then as he was presently doing. After we got tired of humping we kept smooching while we remained behind closed doors waiting for the sun to go down hoping no one would find us. We had originally been bike riding with a larger group when he whispered, “Let’s go this way,” as we drifted far behind the other riders. After we tired we pulled our pants back up. There was no trying to put it in. There was no pain. He lied then pretending to have something that he wanted to show me as he conned me to come inside. Those, “Let’s go this way” and “I got something to show you,” lines led to our first two sexual encounters.

I was totally baffled and didn’t understand why he was making such a fuss about putting it in. He was hurting me and all I wanted him to do was get up. He seemed to be enjoying humping up and down and started saying, “I love you” as he kept trying to get between my flesh. It wasn’t as fun as it was the previous summer and was nowhere near as painful. I didn’t know what anyone got out of sex but whatever it was I surely wasn’t.

I had never been with a guy for him to tell me, I love you. When he told me as he kept humping I identified his love with the sex we were having and that is how I came to accept his love for me, sexually.

I remember when I was a little girl spending long hot summers at my grandmother’s house in Fresno, California. My uncle C.C. used to play a song that sung, “Let me tell you bout the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees.” He used to play it many times over again. I thought it was a song about nature. No one in the world could have told me that song in relation to a girl’s first time could have meant experiencing so much pain. I wondered if the birds and the bee’s first time were as painful.

Like most parents back in those days, my mother hadn’t sat me down to talk about sex. The closest I’d come were some movies at school discussing a girl’s menstruation. I remember me and my sixth grade friends were so curious one time about how a tampon would look after it was absorbed, we tried to make one girl put one on while we were on a fieldtrip on the last day of school. She fought like a tiger and refused to be the guinea pig for our experimentation. I guess my mother just hoped we wouldn’t bring one of those crumb snatchers into her home as a result of sexual activity.

After a few more determined attempts of repeatedly trying to get in between my flesh, he jumped back and allowed some liquid (I found out later it was called sperm) to drip on the wooden floor. I was relieved when he stopped pouncing me. He seemed relieved of having released. He wiped himself and lay back down beside me in a seemingly rested state of mind. He didn’t say much or tell me why liquid spilled out of his body. He just closed his eyes and held me tight.

He hadn’t put emphasis in putting it in our first two times. He definitely had not released anything from his organ. We relaxed a spell afterwards, shared a few more hugs and kisses before he said we better get home so we could make school the next day. We dressed and he walked me back home where we kissed passionately before he said good-bye and promised to return.

I didn’t know what I was going to say to my mother. To my surprise she was still woke and opened the door. I was absolutely shocked that I didn’t get the third degree. Wow, that was easy I thought and ran upstairs thinking about that handsome devil I had just been with. I took a bath and went in my room to record the experience in my new diary. After scribbling an entire page of girl thoughts about the handsome Marcus I fell fast asleep.

My parents divorced a couple of years earlier. They actually started the process when I was in the fourth or fifth grade. They took about four years to stop backing in and out of their relationship before they finally called it quits. There was no way in hell I would have walked through that door and remained alive had he still been in the home. I guess after all of the drama my two older sisters had already put my mother through she didn’t have any more energy when it came to her kids and the opposite sex. She had five more under me to go. “What the heck, Negroes going to do what they are going to do anyhow,” she must have concluded.

The next morning I walked to school alone as usual thinking about that handsome hunk every step of the twenty plus blocks. Over and over again he kept saying he loved me while he kept trying to put it in. I concluded he loved me because of all that humping he seemed to enjoy. Any guy who tells you he love you before, during or after sex love you sexually. I determined early on in our relationship that he did indeed love me---from the waist down. My mother’s friend described it as waist down love. I still walked to school alone but the walks didn’t seem as long anymore, I had something rather someone to think about on the trip to school.

When I arrived at school I shared with Annette that I too now had a boyfriend who was just as cute as her boyfriend Ryan. I explained every detail of how handsome he was, how he came over the night before and his neat little clubhouse that we visited after spending time under the ramp. I told how he asked me if I would like to see it and how excited he was while we were inside. I was so happy to tell her of my occurrences of being with Marcus. We got a kick out of sharing our experiences of being with our boyfriends. I had never had a boyfriend before. I remember in the sixth grade a cute Hawaiian guy asked one of his friends to ask me if I would be his girlfriend. I blurted no but later changed my mind. At that time he was no longer interested. I spent the rest of the year infatuated with him. Here I was three years later in the 9th grade with the cutest fellow in the entire world as my boyfriend and the very thought had me looking at life anew.

Marcus knocked on the door a couple of days later. We embraced as if we had been away from each other a lifetime. Only two days had gone by. He was a warm pleasant sight. He leaned back against our porch rail and pulled me towards him kissing me passionately. I tightly wrapped my arms around his neck and we leaned into each other as our bodies started talking. I felt it moving through our clothes. It is a wonder the rail didn’t break as we leaned hard against it and into each other. The leaning was not going to cut it with him after his occurrence of dripping which he seemed anxious to experience again. I don’t know if I was the first girl he dripped with or not but he sure wanted to go again. After a few minutes he said, “Let’s go to the clubhouse,” not even asking if I wanted to go that time. He guided me down the steps and we walked down the street hugging. Suddenly and without warning he stood in front of me and picked me up. As I lifted off the ground I draped across his shoulder. He carried me for about half a block. I laughed and told him to put me down. He was strong. He smiled as he carefully placed me back on the sidewalk and said, “I’ll race you to the clubhouse!” We ran as much of the way as possible until we got tired and started walking again. After he opened the combination lock to the clubhouse he stood back allowing me to enter first. He locked the door from the inside where his neatly made bed without wheels awaited us. He pulled back the covers motioning me to get in and undressed us as he had two nights before.

I was not looking forward to him trying to fit himself into me again. I still didn’t understand why he wanted to. Everything beforehand was beautiful. He was quite romantic with the little he had to work with. Why couldn’t he have just carried me all the way around the corner on his shoulder and found some more fun things for us to do? I could have gone for that. I would have been fine bypassing the painful entrance.

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