Recounting the Relationship

A friend of mine once told me that if I want to be a writer, I should write every day. By "friend," I could be referring to a fellow writer I met online like Max or Shepard, both of whom I have not heard from in quite some time. Or I could mean somebody I have met in person and have gotten to know better.

One such case is my friend Ben. He once told me that I should keep writing in case of the possibility that I should ever forget how to write. This reminds me of how my mother would nag me about practicing the piano. However, both Ben and my mother are right. Last night, at the piano, it was as if the piece of my heart that loved to play had left me. I could still play scales and sightread music, but there was something that was simply not there.

In college, at least I had the excuse of class, homework, my job in the cafeteria, and an active social life with a few extracurriculars as excuses for not practicing. But back home, I have no such excuse. In fact, it seems as if I chose a zombie-like lifestyle. Mostly I sleep, watch television and mindlessly surf the internet. I suppose that this is one of my ways of escaping reality. The other method I use to combat the monotonous strain of college life, outside of using even more monotony at home, is a bit less healthy. That is, if living a sedentary life is healthy in the first place.

Contrary to popular belief, not all college students go out and get plastered every night. I'm not really one for drinking among large groups of people with music blaring obnoxiously in the background. Instead, I indulge myself in the high risk world of online dating. In high school, I lightly dabbled in this field due to boredom and mostly, the fact that guys at my school didn't seem very attracted to me.

However, my experimentations were not without their own amount of heartbreak. One guy, Brian, told me on the night I was going to take him to a dance, that he was still in love with a girl he had met in Colorado. He was my first kiss.

I ended up going much further with his friend Mario. One night, on the summer equinox, he and I fooled around in the backseat of my car. That was my first attempt at giving hand and blow jobs. I went home around 2:00 a.m. to find that my father had called the police, as well as a friend of mine who I had spent the earlier part of the evening with. Instead of completely blowing my alibi, I ended up making up another one about going off with another group of friends and hanging out at Steak 'n' Shake.

By the summer of junior year, I had become extremely skilled at creating nearly watertight alibis. Either that, or my parents were far too naive or so far in denial that they could not acknowledge the truth.

One such outing lasted the entire day. First, I turned in a job application and then drove to the mall to meet Steve. He was 19 and about to leave for basic training. I was naive enough to believe that he loved me. In all truth, he was probably looking for one last fling before leaving. However, we didn't have sex, mainly because of the fact he was way too big to attempt having sex with a virgin. While Steve and I were otherwise fooling around in a hotel room, my parents were under the belief that I was doing volunteer work with a friend from school.

Despite never hearing from Steve again outside of a letter with no return address and an awkward attempt of reaching me over Instant Messenger (after which, I blocked him), I was not entirely heartbroken from it. I actually moved on with barely the blink of an eye.

Unfortunately, the guy who came after that hurt me in a way that I didn't believe possible from him. Things had been so wonderful up until the point he had cut off all communications with me.

His name was Dan. He was in four out of my seven classes senior year. This, along with a mutual obsession with anime, was all we had in common. He was on varsity soccer with his twin brother Mike (they did everything, with the exception of me, together). I was on scholastic bowl. He was on the swim team. I wrote for the newspaper and was appointed as co-editor with my friend Liz that year. He played tennis. I played oboe (and French horn my sophomore year) in concert band along with flute and trumpet for marching and pep band. It was like something out of a pathetically contrived pop song.

It started when I chose the swim team assignment for newspaper. I took a few pictures, quoted the coach and some players and left. Even now, I can't look out the car window on Ash street without thinking of all the times I drove through the snow to get a story, or just to see Dan swim meet.

Then I started talking to Dan in our Psychology class since we were learning nothing there anyway. One day, I baked brownies for him and his brother. Dan baked me brownies in return, but I politely declined. My friends teased me often saying "You should have taken the brownies."

The friendship between Dan and me took an awkward turn when we got each other gifts before Christmas break. Even now, I can't hear "Rest in Pieces" by Saliva without sighing heavily. I still haven't eaten a Hershey's kiss since then.

Then, on Valentine's day, things completely changed. He gave me a bouquet of flowers in front of our English class. I still keep the small pink petals dried, in a heart-shaped box I got for Christmas. Every now and then, I open the lid, feel the rough dryness of the petals and inhale their fragrance.

Our first date was seeing the movie "Chicago." Since I was used to going fast on the first date, we ended up making out in my car. An attempt at giving him a hand job failed miserably when another car drove by in the parking lot. Our second date was seeing our high school production of "Kiss Me Kate" where he gave me a yellow rose. Needless to say, I kept the petals in the same box with the pink rose petals. We made out in the parking lot while leaning against my car. Then some people walked out and almost caught us.

It felt so strange asking him "am I going too fast?" since I knew that as a guy, he wouldn't care. It was more as if I was asking myself if I was just forcing things along instead of letting it all fall in place as it should have.

All of this happened in March. In December and January, he and I joked around as we walked out to the parking lot. I once tackled him and we fell into the snow laughing. His brother looked out the window wondering where we went. In March, the early part, I recall an awkward moment when I asked Dan to kiss me, and right at the beginning, I pulled back saying that I had forgotten how to kiss. Keep in mind, the encounter with Steve was only months before that. Kissing is not like piano, you can't just forget without practicing, right?

April rolled around, and with it, my birthday. I had insisted that he should not get me anything. Then, my week had gone horribly for reasons so petty that I fail to remember them now. So, I did what most girls do, and vented my frustration out on him. My own insecurities and doubts pushed him away from me, and I stopped talking to him...for a day.

The following afternoon, I found his present in my car. He must have known that I never locked my car (since the lock mechanism was messed up). There were two calendars with Cats on various Greek islands with a post it telling me that hopefully, this would make me smile...and it did since it proved that he did know me well since I often expressed my love for the Greek islands as well as my affection towards cats despite being allergic to them.

Then thing seemed as if my relapse into depression had never happened. Still, with how busy he was with tennis practice, and how tied up in everything I was, we had little time to see each other. Usually, he and I would sneak off to a secluded place after school and make out. However, we once got caught in the old gym by the girls' softball team.

Then there was NHS night, a perfect opportunity to introduce our parents. Too bad we didn't use it. I remember his mother asking if I was just there for newspaper when I had gone just to see her son at a swim meet. Sometimes I wonder if Dan ever told his mother about us, or if she just figured it out.

NHS often made me feel uneasy, as if somehow, my volunteer work was made worthless due to the fact I probably wouldn't have done it if NHS wasn't a nice thing to put down on a college application. Still, being a two-year member was a small consolation since Dan had only been inducted senior year due to some technicality.

It wasn't so much that I felt that I had to compete with Dan, but just catch up with him. He had straight-As, varsity letters. Basically, he was the perfect trophy boyfriend. Still, I wasn't exactly a slacker either. Newspaper, band, Latin club, Visions and Voices (school literary magazine) kept me busy. I ended up winning awards in journalism, literature, Latin, and biological sciences at the senior recognition ceremony. So, in some ways, not only was I the token Asian kid, but a trophy girlfriend as well.

In May came senior prom. I was a little uneasy since the state tennis finals were that same weekend. Fortunately, Dan returned early so we could make it to the dance. We ended up not going out to dinner due to the fact he was still unsure of when he could make it back, so he couldn't make reservations.

To avoid looking like every other girl by having the same dress, I had my aunt make me a dark blue fairy-tale princess style dress with bell-shaped sleeves and skirt. Dan fit the part of Prince Charming, sweeping me off of my feet despite his inability to dance. When we danced while surrounded by a circle of my friends from band, I finally felt like I belonged, not just with him, but my friends as well. This thought offers me little comfort now since I have lost touch with many of those people. Nonetheless, prom might finally worked its magic for the girl who once sat out in the corner on slow songs since she had no date.

At after prom, there was the usual fun, games, and junk food. Dan won a door prize of two free movie tickets. We raced around the inflatable maze. I got beat up by a friend of mine in bouncy boxing. It was like being a kid again.

Sadly, Dan actually had a curfew that night. Still, I'll never forget how eerily the wind blew through the trees, or how Dan loaned me his jacket and put his arm around me as we left after prom.

Before taking me home, Dan stopped in a secluded area of the park by the tennis courts. This was to be one of many of "our places." We made out for awhile, and then I finally finished the hand job I started on our first date. I wonder if his parents yelled at him for breaking curfew.

Not too long after prom came graduation. I say this now, but I'm sure that back then, it felt as if time were grinding to a halt the month before graduation.

After an uneventful day celebrating with the family and listening to monotonous speeches on stage, I accepted my diploma and walked down the stage steps of the convention center. The guy taking professional photos probably didn't notice me flicking off one of the assistant principals as the picture was being taken.

That night, Dan and I went to a swim party thrown by my friend Liz. Thus began the transgressions performed in her guest room and on top of her pool table. It felt nice to finally be free of high school pettiness and stupidity. That weekend, Dan and I went separately to several parties. I got a chance to hang out with the friends I never saw again after leaving for college. I occasionally got emails in the first few weeks, but after that, it was as if we had never known each other at all.

This marked the beginning of the summer. This was to be my last summer as a child, but by then, I had already done some adult-like things. Yet there was still a certain amount of innocence and naivete in me that still hasn't left me as a college student.

That summer with Dan was pure magic. We would hang out by the pool or at the library. Once, we snuck into our former rival high school and made out in the hallways for old times' sake.

One memory strikes me the most. Dan was housesitting one weekend. After hanging out at the pool, we fooled around in the bedroom of the house he was sitting. It felt so deliciously bad to do something so naughty. There, I gave him his first blow job. He screamed so loud that I was afraid his neighbors would hear us.

I realized then that he was not the same wide-eyed, innocent guy I used to bake cookies for in high school. Then again, it's easy to mistake inexperience for innocence. I soon learned of his taste for bizarre erotica, particularly involving anthropomorphic characters and mummification or entombment.

Still, if fantasy can become reality, then why the hell not? He even called me his "silver fox" at one point in time.

However, I could never afford the expensive materials to completely bind him...but I had other methods of satiating both of our hungers.

On the Fourth of July, we watched fireworks while "chaperoned" by his brother, who soon left when he saw our intentions. After the fireworks, Dan and I snuck off to a quiet place beneath a willow tree and spread a blanket. We made out, caressing each others' skin beneath our shirts, which were sticking to us in the summer heat. Then, I took out from my purse the gold NHS tassels we got at graduation. I forced him to kneel as I bound his hands behind his hands behind his back and ordered him to close his eyes. I teased him with kisses in the dark, on his lips, on his neck. Then I lifted his shirt, teasing his nipples with my teeth and tongue working my way down where I sucked his cock and stroked it with my hands.

Then it was my turn. He tied my hands and lay me down, kissing his way down as he had observed me doing. He took off my pants and my underwear, spread my legs and started kissing my thighs. I felt his hot, wet tongue probe me. He withdrew for a moment, and I arched my back to meet him. Dan took his rough hand and forced it inside me, over and over again. His mouth resumed sucking and licking while his forceful hand penetrated me. I felt so wonderful that I thought my heart would burst and I would die from sheer ecstacy.

When I could finally take no more, he climbed on top of me and kissed me. I could taste myself mingled with the heat of his sweat in the July humidity. We often made the heat even worse that way.

By the end of the summer, we both had jobs. Dan was a lifeguard. I was a temp for an agency. The weeks leading up to our departure were filled with dread, at least for me. We would occasionally talk on the phone or online, but he was always too busy to see me.

Then, out of nowhere, I never heard from him again.

While I was working, a guy I worked with told me that I deserved better. Either he meant it, or he was trying to get me to go out with him. A lady I worked with told me that if Dan would defy his mother for me (as her husband defied his mother for her), he would be worthy. Maybe I was imagining things, but as I looked back on the relationship, the more it seemed like Dan was more controlled by his mother than by his own decisions.

When I picked him up to go to a pool party once, his mother kept sending him upstairs for things like jeans, a sweatshirt, and mosquito spray. Perhaps she was just being a protective mother, but to me, it felt as if she was marking her territory, saying "this is my son and you can't take him away." I refuse to play the race card since it seems so ridiculous that she would object to Dan seeing me because I am Asian. I prefer the "first girlfriend" reaction. Either way, mothers never like their son's first girlfriend no matter who she is.

Or maybe this had nothing to do with her. Maybe Dan simply tired of my mood swings and insecurities. Or maybe he didn't want to deal with a long-distance relationship despite his brother telling us that Bloomington is only half an hour from Champaign. I understand that since I am faced with temptation every day on campus. Still, there's no use dwelling on the past, and now that I have fully recounted the relationship, perhaps I can finally move on with my life and be happy with someone else.