A Watershed

A Watershed

The phone rang,and Jerry looked up from his laptop. New Years wasn't until tomorrow, and 11 PM seemed an inordinately late hour for a social call. “Hello?” he answered.

“Jerry, I need SOMEONE to talk to: I'm not a virgin anymore.” It was his cousin Julie.

Her first words left him reeling. They had discussed it before, but this was a very abrupt continuation. “You 'n Chad?” he responded, a little tentatively.

“Oh, Jerry.” she wailed. “You're never gonna believe me. I'm such a whore!”

From this he quickly derived that it was indeed NOT Chad, and that Chad likely didn't know. He contradicted her from longstanding friendship and good opinion. “No way are you a whore,” he said. “You're probably the most moral person I know!”

“Now take a deep breath, and tell me what happened,” he continued.

The discussion, while broached without introduction was not without precedent. During the spring semester at college, it was Julie in whom he had confided about his room-mate's girlfriend. More specifically, the preposterous indiscretion of said girlfriend, and his part in it, but nonetheless, it was Julie whom he had made his confidant. The precedent had occurred when Julie had seized upon that introduction, to explain to him that she, too, had been indiscreet.

Over forty-five minutes of conversation, she had poured out her heart to him, about her unintended behavior with Jamar. They had agreed that it did not amount to a liaison, but Julie had been much conflicted as to how this impacted the status of her virginity. They had concluded that, although she might not have her hymen anymore, that she had never fucked anyone, and therefore she was no less a virgin than when she had used an insertion tampon. She and Chad considered themselves “serious,” and she took her virginity seriously by association.

Julie was in tears, and her story unfolded in fits and starts. She and Chad had roomed separately in Atalanta, Georgia: She at Emory, and he at Georgia Tech. They had stayed in touch with regularity because they were in the same city. Meanwhile, she had not written to her friend Jamar.

To be sure, Jamar might not have noticed this; her “friendship” with him was somewhat one-sided. She considered him a friend because she had taken the trouble to obtain his address when yearbooks were issued, intending to send him a letter or two.

She was not racist in her thinking, but she had never exerted herself to include her black friends socially; she had simply avoided making waves in a passive status quo. However, toward the close of her senior year in high school, she had begun to change this, and she had asked for his address because she wanted to treat Jamar at least as well as any other friend.

This explanation took time, and Jerry understood this mostly as an explanation as to why she had Jamar's address. OK, he thought, so she hadn't written him.

Julie plodded onward. “Chad was staying with us in Birmingham, over Christmas break,” her explanation continued, “and I got home from Emory before he arrived from Tech. Mom and Dad stayed busy, and so I went to see Jamar at his house, on Tuesday afternoon. I've never known his phone number, and I sneaked out of the house because I didn't want Mom to know. It was just past lunchtime when I knocked on the door. Jamar wasn't home, but his older brother Detmer was there, and he told me that Jamar would be home after three. He was watching TV, so I sat down on the couch with him to wait.”

Jerry reflected on this. He decided it was probably easier to wait for two hours with Detmer than it was to run home, and then invent a new excuse to sneak out again, two hours later.

“Jerry, you've gotta understand. I was dressed in a skirt and everything, and I wasn't trying to come on to him. But he had been drinking, and he offered me a Wine Cooler. What was I going to do? Say I was a teetotaler, and then sit there, while he judged me?”

Jerry gave this a moment's thought. “I'm pretty sure he would have thought YOU were judging HIM.” he offered.

“Well I didn't know,” Julie proceeded. Her tears had dried and her sniffles were abating. “So anyways, I'm sitting there drinking this thing, and I start to realize that he's not just buzzed. He's really uninhibited. Pretty soon, he's asking about what my boyfriend's like in the sack, and all that kind of thing. I didn't want to be rude, but I didn't want to be all, 'I'm a virgin,' or make something up, either, so I just asked him what his girlfriend was like.”

Jerry decided from this explanation that the story likely ended with her fucking Detmer, but that had not been her plan at all. Hmm, he wondered. What about Jamar? What had she been thinking there? His silence had led her to pause. “Go on,” he encouraged.

“Well, without going into all the details, I got up to use the restroom, and when I got back, he grabbed me and kissed me before I could sit down.” Tears started in her eyes again. Jerry had no idea how humiliating the final explanation was going to be. “What's he going to think of me?” she silently wondered.

“So you 'n Detmer?” he offered, to help her over her embarrassment. He wanted her to know that he didn't judge her (since judgment was an important part of this conversation,) and he wanted her to feel that this was not the end of the world. “Was it good?” he eventually asked. He wanted to lighten the the tone of the discussion, and he supposed that this comment might imply the argument, that merely enjoying sex didn't make you a slut.

“Not really,” she responded somewhat predictably, “but not for the reasons that you think. He was EXPERIENCED, and I hadn't ever... so I was, like, trying to be still, and not tense up, just like when you're getting a shot.” She hesitated in her telling, but Jerry didn't interrupt. “For one thing, he was huge, and for another, it was too hard. Like trying to get ice out of an ice tray that's too stiff. It hurt like it was bruising me inside.” This was an important point because it laid the groundwork for what was to come. “Anyway, he kept doing it, and not finishing, and I had to choose whether to let him bruise me to death, or kind of, you know, help him with my muscles.”

Jerry's Spring Semester experience referenced this, and he shared partly to reciprocate, and partly to explain. “I think I know what you mean,” he offered. “When Rachelle gave it up, it was like her pussy was an elephant's trunk ….not on the inside, but in how she used it. You know? I mean an elephant can lift a whole tree, or squeeze something with tremendous pressure, but then it can turn right around and crack a peanut. It can be THAT delicate! ...and it felt like honey that's been in the back of the fridge till it crystallizes.”

Julie pondered this temporarily. In the back of her mind, she inferred that this was a skill-level against which she might be called upon to compete, in her lifetime, and it sounded daunting. But her foremost reaction was that Jerry was assuming too much. “You KNOW I never did it before, Jerry!” she said angrily. “All I'm saying is, that when I squeezed him I knew it was gonna bruise even more! I just did it so he would hurry up 'n cum. I wanted to get it over with!”

Jerry could tell that this had taken courage, and it also implied some desperation. He was sorry she had been used so inconsiderately, rather than introduced more gingerly to the exertion. “So you eventually got him off?” he asked. “Why didn't you go straight to the police and report him for rape?”

She felt that this comment conveyed a more accurate comprehension of the situation, and was mollified. God, she thought, how will I ever explain the rest? “Jerry: I was there alone, without telling anyone. Even if some lawyer didn't just say I was 'asking for it,' and I WON and HE went to PRISON, I was still gonna be the slut who fucked a...” She wouldn't actually say the “n” word. “Besides, he was Jamar's brother, 'n why would I want to hurt Jamar? Or what about if Jamar just started spreading it around what we did on the away game trip? Then where would I be, Jerry?”

Upon consideration, Jerry could agree that her options weren't all that attractive. “So what happened when Jamar got home?” he asked, for lack of any better idea.

This reminded her of another factor, as she proceeded. “Oh yeah, Jerry, 'n he was a cop himself. That BASTARD!” The trick angered her all over again. “Jamar didn't get off at three at all. Detmer had to go to WORK at three. He just invited me in to get me drunk and fuck me. I didn't say before, but he told me his girlfriend was freezing him out. Probably for being an asshole,” she added as an afterthought. “Anyways, before he kicked me out, he told me that Jamar wouldn't be home until around ten, and by the way, he wouldn't be home himself... some shit about after hours work somewhere, as a rent-a-cop.”

“The BASTARD,” Jerry agreed, not without passion of his own. He was more aware than she might have been, that charging a police officer was, of all rape cases, one of the hardest to convict. He gave her a moment to fume, and then broached her other problem. “So what did you tell Chad?”

This was harder for her than Jerry yet knew, but she took up her tale again with dogged resignation. In for a penny, in for a pound. “He arrived a little horny.” she began.

She proceeded to unfold that they had shared dinner and a movie, after which Chad had “busted a move.” He had made his advance in a back room, while her parents were distracted with the ten o'clock news. As Julie expanded her explanation, Jerry supposed that Chad had gone “all the way.” This would adequately account for her self-loathing description “I'm such a whore.”

However, Julie was only partly finished expounding her degradation. She arrived at a turning point, clarifying with, “I tried to let him, but instead I told him that it hurt, and I was a virgin, and then I finished him off with a blow job.” She still shuddered at how her story must end.

This was eminently reasonable as a culmination, and Jerry took a couple of minutes to underscore his reassurances. “You're not a whore at all,” he finished. “There's no reason is doesn't have to end there, and Chad never has to know.”

“Yeah Jerry? You're such an idiot! That is SO not what I was talking about.” Julie was not one to question her own logic.

Jerry did a mental double-take at this unjustified slur, but soon correctly concluded that Julie was not one to question her own logic. There was no point in explaining it to her.

“That's not the whole end of the story,” she was saying. “I had already taken a long hot shower before Chad got here, but I went and did it again, just to have time to think.”

Hardly damning, Jerry reflected.

“Now Jerry, I'm REALLY TRUSTING you!” she emphasized. “Promise me you'll never tell another living SOUL what I'm about to say?”

Jerry didn't make light of it. “I do so solemnly swear and affirm,” he said, expecting that he appealed to hyperbole.

“OK.” She took another deep breath, and plunged on to the conclusion. “So, it's late, 'n I'm lying there, trying to sleep, but I just can't doze off. I did the usual thing, but I couldn't, you know... get off. Remember when Rachelle made a man of you? Didn't it make it, like, impossible to be satisfied with yourself anymore?”

Jerry thought about it and agreed. He wasn't one to discuss masturbation, but then neither was Julie. “Yeah, I guess.” he supplied noncommittally.

“Well, I just couldn't get there, and I couldn't sleep. So I'm lying there, thinking about it all, and just DYING to talk to someone who could understand. You know what I mean?” She paused, awaiting his reply.

Jerry wasn't one to crave social intercourse, but then she wasn't even a guy, much less a total social outcast, like himself. He didn't feel the same way, and never expected to, but he believed that she was describing her own feelings truthfully enough. “Yes,” he responded judiciously. Was this where she informed him that she had tried to call, but he had not been “there” for her? Had he been busy, and missed her “mayday?”

The truth was somewhat different, as she proceeded to enumerate. “So around 1:30, I'm like, miserable and there's NO ONE to call at that time of night, when I start thinking: 'You know, maybe Jamar would understand. I mean he's HIS brother, right?'”

“You didn't go BACK to HIS house did you?” Jerry gasped.

She swallowed her pride. “Oh Jerry! That's EXACTLY what I did!” She paused to give him time to adjust. She felt like she could do chin-ups on a sewer-grate.

For his part, Jerry didn't immediately ask the obvious question. Instead of asking about what she and Jamar had done, he merely gave her the floor. “What ended up happening?” he asked. Now was not the time for impeccable grammar.

She began to feel release. Confession IS good for the soul, and as she unburdened herself, she exorcised demons of doubt and shame. She trusted Jerry not to publish her ignominy in the social register, and it was good to get it off her chest.

She moved her phone to the other ear. “Well, I had to wake him up, and then we just sat on the couch together, and I explained what his brother did to me. Before you even ask, I didn't even MENTION Chad. I'm honest, Jerry, not masochistic. Jamar explained that his brother knew that he was ...promiscuous, and just assumed anybody there to see Jamar was there for a booty call.”

Jerry vocalized no evaluation of this. She was truly baring her soul, he thought. She never used words like “promiscuous.” “Go on?” he said. He had a premonition there was going to be one last serving of this humble pie. As it happened, it would be a big one.

“So he hugged me, just to make me feel better. 'N it was kind of a long hug, but it's not like we were just saying 'hello' or anything. “'N then I noticed...” she shrank from admitting it, and paused before bravely pressing onward. “I noticed he was getting hard.”

Jerry was dismayed. “Julie... surely you didn't...”

Her voice was pleading. “Jerry. You've GOT to understand. He was so gentle, and he understood what I was going through.”

Jerry was a little more exacting. “Why didn't you just go to Chad and fuck him belatedly?” he asked.

She hadn't pondered it (she was not much given to introspection,) so she referenced the truth. “Chad wasn't ...experienced!” she moaned. “I mean, I was new and he was new. How would that have worked out?” “And that wasn't the only factor: I already had Detmer's sperm in me. Suppose I got pregnant? How would I decide whether or not to have an abortion?”

“First order logic!” Jerry wanted to say, but he restrained his tongue. “But if Jamar got you pregnant, it was a no-brainer?” he substituted. He felt sure that voicing this question was harsh enough. He could have said nothing, but the way Julie avoided self evaluation, that would probably cause more problems than it solved.

Julie actually groaned out loud. She decided to go the whole hog. “Well it was WAY better of an experience.” she retorted. She instinctively knew that Jerry was impressionable under these conditions, and she sought such revenge as she could get. “It was like getting a back-rub, right on the places that were bruised from before. Oh, I was guilty 'n all, but it was more like sitting in a watermelon patch, eating the heart out of a juicy melon in the moonlight.” A further refinement presented itself: “...and taking BIG bites!” she finished.

Jerry could not know it, but she had just been issued a permanent residence visa for his dreams to rival Rachelle's. She would come and go for the rest of his life. For the moment, they enjoyed a conspiratorial closeness. A fragment of song fluttered through his brain. “Preserve your memories... they're all that's left you.”

“So what time did you get home?” he finally asked, as a segue back to normalcy.

Her hesitation was telling. “Well... I decided to pick up donuts on the way home, so no one would wonder where I'd been,” she replied, elegantly avoiding a direct answer.

He shook his head. “Julie, you know I love you right?” he began.

She assured him that she knew.

“Don't tell Chad. Just act like whatever he did at the house broke your seal, and take it from there. I didn't exactly fight off Rachelle with a stick, so I'm not some kind of paragon, but I've gotta say: you're way less of a cock tease than I thought.” No point actually using the word “easy” to her face.

Ordinarily she would have taken offense at the very words, but Jamar might have used the same expression. She certainly wouldn't have been mad at him for saying it. “You won't tell anybody will you?” she asked, to banish lingering fears.

“My lips are sealed.” Jerry assured her. “Feel better now?”

“Much,” she intoned. “Take care of yourself, OK?”

“OK,” he responded. “Kiss Chad at midnight on New Years Eve!”

She knew the custom. “OK... Bye!”

Jerry regarded his laptop distractedly. It took him 10 mins just to decide he couldn't get any more work done tonight. Not one woman, but two – both liberated, both ostensibly faithful. Was this what they meant when they said women were emotional, not logical?