Funny how you remember certain bits of sex many years later. Today, I’m remembering one from nineteen years ago. Nineteen years ago today, as it happens.
His name was Rick and he was 25. He was in a fraternity at UNCG and was, of course, wearing a T-shirt from said organization when we met, in a men’s room at Four Seasons Mall in Greensboro. I was 17, and that was one of my few options at the time, the others being the men’s rooms in Belk’s, Penney’s, and Ivey’s. I imagine he had other options but chose not to use any of them.
It was not nasty pig sex (although it was quite entertaining) and it wasn’t even the first time I’d picked someone up in a restroom. But it was sort of a first for me: the first time I picked up someone, went to his house, actually had sex in an actual bed, and then had an actual conversation afterward.
I was so excited. I even took his picture. I imagine this really gave him the creeps; a lovesick 17-year-old taking snapshots after we’d just committed numerous felonies, most of which would be unfairly blamed on him. This may have figured into why he didn’t show up for our next “date” the following Sunday afternoon. I was rather unhappy for the next week.
I saw him again once about a year later, when I too was a student at UNCG. He nodded. That was it. By that time, I had other things on my mind and it didn’t bother me so much. He’d be 44 now, and I’m sure I wouldn’t be much interested in a replay. But I still think about that run-in and how exciting it was at the time.
Y’know, this whole “reflective about sex and romance thing” is most likely going someplace, but it ain’t going there tonight. It’s time for dinner…