A Light in the Dark - Part III
The summer I was fifteen, I fell in love for the first time. The bliss of that experience was short lived and what followed was a dreary emotional desert that left me wondering what was the point of living when we are all just going to die.
THIS IS PART 3 of a SIX-PART STORY
Image: Filipe Almeida
With a grave face, the gardener immediately opened the door. He was as nervous as I was. We stared at one another for a moment; then he drew me in, closing the door behind me. I caught a quick glimpse of a bed, stacks of books, clothing strewn around the room. I wanted to ask for a glass of water, but before I could do that he placed his mouth over mine and began a sweet, suctioney kiss. I felt his tongue push through my lips, the slimy wriggle and twist of it around mine. A few years before, an older boy had tried to kiss me at a country club New Year’s Eve dance I attended with my parents. That boy had stuck his tongue in my mouth in a violent way that made me want to puke; he’d shoved his fingers into my bra and was playing with my breasts when my father appeared on the shaded terrace where we stood, yelled at the boy (I was only thirteen), and led me back into the banquet hall.
The gardener’s kiss was nothing like that. It was slow, tender, romantic: an exploration. He held me close for a moment, searching my mouth with his. Then he led me to the bed. It felt like love, the way he looked into my eyes, caressed my face, began to remove my clothing. In seconds, the Tee was off, the white cotton bra unhooked, the navy blue shorts unzipped and pulled down to my thighs. Heart whirring, I let him do what he wanted to do: fold his hands around my breasts, tickle his fingers down my naked stomach to the forbidden area where I could feel the pressure of them probing my most secret parts. He didn’t enter me, he had too much sense for that; but he removed his penis from his pants and made me run my hands over the length of it, squeezing harder and harder till he came with an explosion of hot gooey liquid that looked like spit or egg whites as it landed on my stomach.
I don’t remember how long I stayed in his cabin after that or what we talked about. Camp would be ending in two or three days.
Probably we exchanged addresses, though he couldn’t have been sure where he’d be because of entering the army in a few weeks. For my part, I wasn’t sure of my next address either: I’d be starting boarding school in the fall and my life was in flux. All I knew was I’d found my true love, the other half of my soul, which was both wonderful and bitter, as I now had to pack my trunk and return home to my parents. It was only the end of July. August yawned ahead of me.
Cover photo: Adonyi Gabor