I Remember

by Patricia Duff

I asked my husband the other day if he remembered the first time he had sex. He thought for a moment, surprised by the question. I had caught him off guard.

"Not the first sexual experience," I said, "but, the first time you actually made love with a person." His look of befuddlement grew deeper; his mouth actually hung open for a second, a thing I’ve never seen him do.

"No," he said, "I don’t remember."

"No?" I had to stop and put myself in his shoes.

"Really?" I said. I couldn’t imagine not being able to remember. It was a very big thing for me.

I absolutely loved my first roll in the hay. I would conjure it up with relish, romanticize it like a lover carrying a torch for an old flame. I garnished it with details and brought it out at parties, adorning myself with it when I was in my arty sophisticate stage, age twenty-three.

"I remember the afternoon sun laying a warm rectangle of light on his bed," I would say, like an armchair novelist. "You should have seen the way that sunlight blazed the blondeness of his hair!"

Eventually, the scene took on a life of its own, growing like some jungle vine of folksiness, turning my experience into one of the most romantic ever: the beloved, trusty dog, Chester, sleeping heavily by the door, guarding us from pesky intruders; candles spilling over with wax; Neil Young’s even strain of tenderness hushing the background.

In my young girl’s mind the first time was an auspicious event, an event of which my girlfriends and I took stock. It would reveal something fundamental about who I was, who I had become. I needed to remember it as romantic, if only because I was passionate and wanted to remain so in my mind, and in the minds of others. So, the farther I grew away from the experience, the more valuable it was to me. I was, after all, a feminist. This was my "herstory." I wanted it to be momentous, so I elaborated and laid claim to one of the world’s most picturesque first sexual experiences.

In reality it was a quick tryst on the third floor bedroom of my boyfriend’s parents’ house. And I’m not at all certain what song was playing. We played backgammon for hours, fitting in make out sessions on his bed atop the scratchy, wool blankets that WASPy New Englanders keep in their huge houses when they are not away skiing. The backgammon led to a touch; the touch led to the thing we knew nothing about. We did it and continued our match. After that, we did it quite often, even when we had no plans for backgammon.

We were "soul mates." That’s what we called it. Our parents would have called it "puppy love." Not us. We were Romeo and Juliet, immersed in our passions. First love takes you by surprise. It compels you to latch onto the object of your affection, endlessly touching them, kissing them, always holding their hand in public so you can show them off, never wanting to let go. I think now of it as the kind of fervor that very religious people must feel.

Every time a sixteen-year-old looks into the face of her lover she sees light, halos, and big, red hearts framing his dreamy face like an iconic and divine piece of art. She can’t help it. He can’t either. Their bodies won’t allow it. So, amidst all this light and inspiring perfection, my lover and I would lock lips, fingers, and hearts, creating a wall of love/lust against the world that would keep us apart from it. Little did we realize people just wanted to talk to us for a few minutes without us clawing at each other for once.

It’s a biological compulsion. The boy, overcome with carnal desires because of what his body is telling him to do, cannot keep his hands off the girl. She, in turn, loves the attention and needs the affirmation of her attractiveness. She has been conditioned to believe this is her ticket, her salvation in a world that’s telling her, "Youth and beauty will get you everywhere." This truth becomes absolute in his hands that are constantly reaching, touching, pulling her to him, reaffirming her sexiness.

This is what it was like for me and my lover. We presupposed we would get married some day. We stayed together for three years, and when he left for college the year before I did, it was a climactic parting with tears puddling the pavement and hands dramatically reaching into the space that came between us as the car pulled away. Thinking back on it now, this must have been weird for our parents. What were they thinking of all that? They must have known we were sleeping together. Why did they allow it to go on? I was only seventeen. I can only imagine that they figured they wouldn’t be able to keep us apart and chose their battles wisely.

Back to the third floor. We were at my house this time, which was just down the street from his. We had been sleeping together for several months by then, so you could say that this was near the first time, but more like the fifty second. My parents had gone away for a few weeks, leaving my brothers and sister and I to our summer jobs and, unbeknownst to them, our parties. It was an old, Georgian style house with lots of high ceilings and wood. The third floor became the local hang out. We retreated to it often with our friends to smoke a clandestine joint, listen to music, and fantasize about the people who had partied there when it was a 1920’s billiard room.

Eventually the others had gone to bed this one particular night. It was raining and he and I lay on the floor listening to water pelt the tin roof.

"Funny how a loud sound can make everything so quiet," I thought. Outside, a street light played voyeur through a great, arched window in the old room. It illuminated our skin. I remember his hand resting on my stomach, luminous in its whiteness. We were as bright as the moon. His unforgettable hair caught the light above me and we lay there listening to the rain instead of speaking. The image is so clear now, I wish I were a painter.

As I grow older I have let the memory of my very first time fall away from me. I no longer romanticize it. It was a quickie in the middle of an afternoon backgammon game. But, every time I hear a clattery rain on some roof, I remember that time.

The sensations of being a teenager had a certain power that was elating and, at times, relentlessly confusing. The complexity of those feelings intrigues me. I try to summon them up, knowing the armor of my adult hormones will keep me safe from their more radical effects. I cherish these memories because they connect me to the seventeen-year-old girl that I was. The history of my body, its emotional and physical experiences, teaches me something about myself now. It reminds me of my passion, how I learned to show love, how to fold my husband into my arms and be with him, to let tenderness in. Remembering that early sex is important. It carries a younger part of me forward to meet me in the present. It has a certain weight in the history of my life.

My husband later asked me, "Do you think the girl remembers me?"

"She probably does," I said. "She probably does."

Patricia Duff is a fiction writer who has recently ventured into the realm of creative non-fiction. Her stimulating writing group reminds her to write more, and send it out.