young love

Young Love







I remember laying in bed in a room full of seminarians all aged twelve to fourteen. We were supposed to be asleep, but this was a time for us to make sense of the puzzling contradictions that were occurring between our bodies and our souls. For although we wanted to be priests, we were, after all, only teenagers going through an agonizing puberty.

Since none of us had ever had sex, you can imagine the wild theories about sex and pregnancy that were espoused during those mysterious secret sessions. I personally held the belief that it was the duration of the kiss that caused pregnancy. It was not until I was a junior in high school that I learned about the thing and the thingy.

I left the seminary because there were too many homosexuals. I would have been safer in prison. That summer, I fell in love. And now, realizing that I had been an abused child, I know that this love was an obsessive love. Even her name turned me on: Lin-Lin-Lin-Lin-Linda Linda. I was constantly aroused whenever she was near. I gave up boxer shorts and went to briefs, but I was still always adjusting myself. I became a relationship. I was no longer a person. I had no existence apart from her.

I went with Linda for six years and we never consummated our relationship. It was a fiery affair. We broke up a thousand times, and I begged her to come back a thousand times. And she did, nine hundred and ninety nine times.

She would never let me touch her in public. I guess she wanted everyone to think we were just friends. She never wore my ring, and she only called me on the phone once in her life. And yet, everyone knew what was going on. But I can now see that this was her way of keeping her freedom. Because as long as she didn't publicly accept me, it didn't matter what we did alone.

I'm not really sure how we started dating. I think it was at her high school dances. I could never fast dance, so I would stand and watch her dance with other guys. Then during slow dances, I would smash her into me. And it was during those dances that we both became aware of the intense physical attraction we had toward each other.

At night we would stand in front of her back door, our bodies glued together and we would kiss passionately as our tongues darted like lizards catching flies. We still hadn't really touched each other; at least, not what you would call heavy petting. But there were times I could not contain my passion and so I usually wore dark pants.

Later in our relationship, we would go for drives and park in vacant lots and dark alleys. She had a habit of running her hand up and down the back of my neck. It drove me wild, and no one has done that since. By then, my hands had finally begun their endless journey into the valley of desire. Now, when one does not have intercourse, but yet has mad passionate sex, there must be intense attraction, and there must be vaginal stimulation and orgasm. And that's exactly what happened for six years. And all that time, the only thing she ever touched was the back of my neck.

As I mentioned, we broke up many times. She wanted to date other guys; and she did. I didn't want to date anyone else, and I vehemently protested her "infidelity." Inside, my heart was burned and hurt. I wanted her, but I could never possess her. I wouldn't share her. And so I watched and waited until she broke up with each new rival. She kept coming back, but back to the same set up. She was like a vampire sucking on my passion by night and flying away before I could lay claim to her in the light.

I became more and more obsessed and even today, I wonder that if my passion could have been consummated, would it have been consumed and extinguished? Would it have been lust and not love after all?

We grew older during those sexual adventures and my demands became more forceful. I knew and she knew we were heading for a sexual showdown. While we played our games and learned our pleasures, the time was coming. The tide was rising toward the ultimate sexual crescendo.

At the time I was a junior at IUP. She was a freshman. I was positive that she would apply to IUP, but she didn't. That would have been a commitment to me, and so she went to Penn State instead. That was our sixth year together. I knew she would have to make a decision soon. I couldn't take it much longer being away from her and not knowing whom she was dating or what she was doing on those dates.

Then as I was thinking the worst, she called me for the first and last time. She wanted to see me. It was snowing when I left. As I drove, I realized that she must have gone through an intense soul searching. I think she knew we couldn't go on like that. It's funny. She knew she was hurting me, but she couldn't commit herself to me; yet she couldn't let me go. I was her security. I was the one she could turn to when she felt ugly or stupid. I was the one that made her feel pretty and intelligent. She didn't need to impress me like her other suitors. She could be herself with me. And I, I was the puppy that greets his master when he comes home at night, even though he beats the crap out of that dog.

The further east I drove, the snow came down harder. By the time I reached the highway to Penn State, all I could see was the tail lights of the car in front of me. I followed the tail lights for thirty minutes and I'm sure everyone in front of and behind me was doing the same thing. Finally, when the snow abated enough to see the road, I thought I was going to die because twenty cars were now on the wrong side of U.S. 322.

I rented a motel room just outside the campus. I picked her up at her dorm and we drove to the motel. Inside our room, we held each other and she rubbed her hand up and down the back of my neck.

Later as we lay on the bed making out in a daring way, we came unbearably close to intercourse. But just before it got to that point, she passed out. Now I should add that Linda was very religious, and I'm sure that when she came face to face with the ultimate sin against chastity, her system simply short-circuited, and that was it.

On the same line, although I was only somewhat residually religious, it was more of a fear of pregnancy and the ultimate condemnation she would hit me with, which kept my thing from thinging her. So I felt proud of myself that I didn't do it while she was unconscious. I carried her through the streets and campus of Penn State, trying to avoid eye contact with all the eye contact I was attracting. But I had a feeling even then that it was over between us. It was over because she had taken us as far as we could go, and there was no going back to a less threatening relationship.

So I wasn't surprised to find out she had become engaged to someone she had been dating even before our Penn State adventure. Twenty years later, I met her at her father's funeral. We went outside and she sat in my car and rubbed her hand up and down the back of my neck. She told me that John never turned her on the way that I did, and that she never had a real orgasm with him.

I just smiled. I wasn't going to offer any suggestions. Let her suffer. Lin-Lin-Lin-Lin-Linda-Linda!