Bad Sex & Good Scotch: A Reunion Story

Chapter 2 - Then

I had dated only one girl in high school for eight months in my senior year. Karen was sweet and adorable, born to immigrant Chinese parents who would not have approved of their daughter dating a white kid, so she told them we were just friends. I was more than a foot taller than her and when we went to prom, I had to practically double over to slow dance with her.

She was the ideal first girlfriend. Our first kiss was tender, our groping sessions, where clothing was pushed out of the way but never actually removed, were awkward and fun. Our break-up was both unavoidable and poignant. We parted ways with fond memories, still virgins. 

Carrie was also a virgin, which took me by surprise, since she seemed so cosmopolitan. She had once given her previous boyfriend a painful hand job — she had forgotten to remove her rings — but that’s as far as it had gone. 

Carrie made the first move on me, as we lay on the cool grass in front of Cotlar, an architecturally discordant dorm, a semi-circular Ramada Inn among classic northeastern ivy-covered collegiate buildings. We were face to face, propped up on our elbows, looking into each other’s eyes, and there was that moment when it was abundantly clear that she wanted to be kissed. But I hesitated, inexplicably unsure.

So she leaned in, tongue first. I found it a little jarring when it burst through my lips like a warm, wet battering ram. But I French-kissed her back.

Then a bee stung me.

My forearm swelled up, red and hot and the bee died. It had given its life for foreshadowing.