Lock-in

AWW ~ 12/08/10
non-subject: decision point
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I dated Marshall for a little over one year. I was the ripe age of 13 when we fell in love. Marshall was the same age. Handsome, with an effeminate side. I liked that. A drummer. A lyricist. A musician.

His eyes were a deep Caribbean blue. His hair, wavy brown. His physique, handsome. He didn't have a hairy chest, at least not yet.

Even though he had an effeminate side, Marshall played on the junior high sports teams - football, basketball, baseball. The school mascot was the Cyclones.

I was a cheerleader. I liked showing off my legs in my short cheerleader mini-skirt, even in winter. But in winter it was a wool mini-skirt instead of a polyester blend.

I gave my virginity to Marshall. Though I still can't recall the first time. I guess someday if I need to remember I will. Maybe it will come through in one of my bizarre sleep dreams. I have dreams that are like movies. Colorful and filled with activity. Lately my dreams have involved crowds of people, like packed carnivals.

Marshall and I were together every spare minute. Two lovers so young. We were going to marry one day. I would be his wife.

My parent's couch in the den, Marshall's bed, the neighborhood woods, the little cabin in The Pines. Those were our regular fucking places. But it wasn't just fucking; we made love.

We wrote steamy love letters. I would write descriptly about the size of Marshall's penis and what his erection felt like to my young lips and hands. I'd draw pictures on the sides of the lined notebook paper.

I wonder how many of those letters he showed to his older brothers.

Kelly Klein was a year older than I. She was my best friend, other than Marshall. Kelly and I lived only four houses away from each other. But I didn't share about my sex life with Kelly. My adolescent sex life was private, only shared with Marshall. I didn't talk about it with anyone else. No one.

Kelly & I used to hang out at each other's homes. We listened to 45 vinyls on the record player - Smokey Robinson, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Chicago. We rode bikes together. We didn't ride horses together. By the time Kelly and I became friends, I had faded away from horses. I had traded riding horses for riding Marshall. The hours every day I'd spent with horses, I now spent with Marshall.

Maybe Kelly was getting jealous.

I loved watching Marshall on the basketball court. I'd think about sex. I loved watching him play drums, watching his hands and his facial expressions. I'd think about sex. He liked sex. I was good at it. I longed to please.

But it wasn't just sex. Some maybe would call it puppy love, but it wasn't. It was the real thing, adult stuff. At 13 and 14, I was a woman...or so I thought.

Holy Trinity Lutheran Church would sometimes have lock-ins for the youth. Marshall went to one. My friend Kelly went to the same lock-in.

I don't recall now if it was Kelly who told me or someone else. Maybe it was one of Marshall's brothers? Perhaps it was E.B.? He always seemed to have a soft spot for me. Whoever it was, told me that Marshall and Kelly had made out in the dark, downstairs foyer in the church in the wee morning hours of the lock-in. My mind imagined his hand fondling her breasts.

When I got that news, I also got the news that the lock-in wasn't their first time. There had been multiple make-outs.

How could Marshall do that to me? How could he betray me like that? How could he continue to make love with me, telling me how much I meant to him, and at the same time be cheating on me with my best friend?

With gaited fury, I entered the community rec center, a local hang out for teens. I made my way into the large warehouse-sized game room on the ground level. In one section was pool, in another ping pong, in another foosball, in another pinball. On one entire side of the large room, thick windows reached from ceiling to floor; two sets of heavy glass doors were strategically placed within the windowed wall. Through the glass, one could see across the pavement and bit of grass to the building that housed the changing rooms for the swimming pool - the large fenced-in swimming pool located right behind the changing rooms.

I found Marshall at some pool tables. The jukebox sat to the left.

Marshall was standing, the thick glassed wall at his back, with pool stick in hand watching the striped and solid balls roll across the green felted table. He looked over and saw the passion in my visage, tears streaming down my face.

I ripped off the sterling silver necklace with the round, sterling silver St. Christopher piece engraved on the back with Marshall's signature, a token of his love. St. Christopher, to protect me. With all my might I hurled it at Marshall, tears still pouring down my cheeks, my voice shouting words of pain that ripped my young heart.

I don't recall what words I hollered at him in front of everyone milling around the large game room. There must have been thirty people or so.

I marched out the large glass doors and then the 2-1/2 miles home. My heart broken and tears flooding.

I don't know where the St. Christopher landed.

Kelly landed in Marshall's arms for the next couple years.

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