She met her first lover at age 14 in a summer school algebra class. Everyone has a first lover, forever tattooed by original sin.

He was older, a senior. Funny, sardonic, he laughed a lot and his eyes crinkled when he smiled. Not tall, not skinny, not fat. Curly brown hair. Huge dimples that flipped her heart over. Animated, political, talkative. Extremely well-read, he knew a lot about the world and he couldn’t wait to teach her. She was certainly ready, a blank slate, a veritable sponge. Please, she thought, please write on me, slather me with the goo of new ideas and thoughts; wipe me off, wring me out, and start again.

He brought her books, first The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris. In the middle of her weekly church confirmation classes, he was telling her the Adam and Eve story was all made-up bunk. She didn’t know what to believe! Next it was Flowers for Algernon, setting more moral and ethical examinations awhirl. It was all confusing, exhilarating, and just a bit frightening.

She began spending time at his house.His mother hated her! Isn’t that always the way. Going off to his college classes, leaving her alone in his bedroom, he would suggest books she might read from his shelves to pass the day. Like The Pearl, only not the Steinbeck one. This one was pornographic, something she had never been introduced to and didn’t recognize as such until much later. Several tippy, sliding piles of magazines, mostly Playboy and Hustler, lined his bedroom floor. He suggested she should look through them. Why would I want to look at naked women – she asked. He said – just read the articles, they’re very good. One day he showed her a Playboy centerfold and said- this girl looks like you! She had no idea what to say. So he took the the magazine downstairs, to ask his mother’s opinion! His mother replied that she couldn’t really tell. Well, thank God.

The consummation of all this romance, in the traditional teenage manner, where else but in the back seat of a car? Slant wise rain, echoing thunder followed by demonic lightning, enough to keep everyone else at the drive-in inside their cars long enough for the deed to be done. It wasn’t fireworks …but close enough. The steamy windows took forever to clear, eventually he used his socks to wipe a space so he could drive her home.

Sex soon dominated the relationship. Then the arguments began. A delicate wrist twisted so hard it meant seeing a doctor. Explaining to her mother how it happened, expecting matriarchal outrage on her behalf, she got barely a shrug in answer. That’s the way romance goes, then, she thought. OK. When he pushed her, hard, into the lake, because she answered a question with a no when he was looking for a yes…she understood. Should’ve known better. She was being sort of a brat, she had to agree with him. Better watch that mouth! How many times had her father said that?

He took her to see the movie Therese and Isabelle, a nearly banned lesbian tale with graphic sex scenes. Her friends were appalled, but she laughed off their concerns – Oh, really, you’re all such prudes! Get with the times, why don’t you?

When Twiggy tripped onto the fashion scene, her love(r) took the scissors to her long blonde hair himself, cropping it into a boyish pixie. They collapsed in giggles as he tried to help her apply the necessary thick black eyeliner. It seemed to her that he was a pure genius, always knowing what was best for her. The new look evolved. Short-short skirts, boots, sexy vests. He bought them with his own money… and snap, snap, snap, took lots of pictures of her in them, pictures which ended up pinned to his bedroom walls.

Of course, it had to break, and it did. Two years later, in a hail of jealous accusations, ring throwing and torn tee shirts.

And so it began.

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