modernsex

Stock counts and birthday parties make for additional lateness.  Alas, I am much in demand these days.  I wanted to mention that I wasn’t serious when I said Natasha hung out with hippy scum.   I was being ironic.  Sarcastic.  Funny?  I dunno, she’s the clever one.  Basically I was picking on her.  Everything she’s said about Seattle has been wonderful and I’m looking foward to visiting one day.

Through Natasha I was introduced to the people who would be one of my core groups of friends throughout high-school.  The first of which was Joshua Sherman.  Josh is one of the most interesting and mentally unhinged people I’ve ever met.  Very tall.  Lanky.  Glasses.  Tight curly hair.  The first memory of him I have is him dangling a pair of handcuffs in front of me.  Initiation.

I was cuffed and lead around to be introduced to everyone.  My face was burning, my heart pounding, my panties wet.  Everyone was instantly accepting.  Friendly.  They had just met me and were already interested in knowing more about me.  Josh took me under his wing.  At this point he was second in command of what was known as ‘the cage’.  A section of our school was actually a cage, and became the hang-out of choice for freaks, geeks, goths, and weirdoes.  I witnessed a community of people who accepted the differences and fended off the jeers of our more bland peers.  Here were people like me!  I had people to share my interest in the paranormal.  Who knew wearing black didn’t mean I wanted to kill myself.  It was nice being accepted for being myself.  It was something I couldn’t do before.  On my last day in middleschool my English teacher took me aside and told me to quit pretending.  That I’d be a lot happier if I was myself.  I didn’t even realize I’d had a problem before then.  But it was all true.  I’d spent so much of my life moving from place to place that I learned it was quicker and easier to conform to the people around me than to spend time waiting for people to get to know me.  If I wanted friends I had to act fast.  I felt I had to live up to them.  I’ve since been back and thanked her for her advice.

It felt good being me.  Learning who I was.  And it was fun getting to know Josh.  He loved tormenting me by playing on my weaknesses.  Talking low into my ears.  Breathing in my hair.  Eventually he progressed to nibbling on my neck.  The noises I made, the bumps on my arms, the shivers and gasps, all must have been encouragement.  It became biting.  A hybrid of intimate kissing and savage gnawing.  I would be left with huge bruises, sometimes actual cuts.  I would also be left with knees like jelly and a stomach of butterflies.  I wanted so badly for the group rumours to become true.  I wanted us to date.  Unfortunately there was a thorn in my side.  Rose.  She was an adorable tiny girl that happened to be his girlfriend.  They were both alright with the flirting and mild snuggles that went on with other people.  Josh pushed away the suspicions many held about her and other guys as nothing more than the same misunderstandings about us.  I felt he was being used.  The first time we kissed was at his birthday party.  It was mostly accidental, only one other person even saw it happen.  For a very long time it was one of the most passionate kisses I had ever experienced.  It started slow.  A peck.  A sweet, harmless birthday kiss.  I think the spark took us by surprise.  We kissed again, a little bit more meaningful.  Then another, longer, real kiss, with the tiniest parting of lips. We worked backwards from there back to the original.  We looked into each others eyes for a moment. Then Josh got up and went to join another part of the party while I caught my breath.

Rose and Josh eventually split, but by then I already had a serious boyfriend of my own.  We got a few more kisses through the years.  There was a day or two back when I was still trying to stay a good girl (read: virgin) that we were both single and he made some very straightforward advances.  It was tempting, but I was able to hold on.  Then years after I had lost my grip there was one more chance for us.  I still don’t know why I didn’t go for it.  By the time we graduated high-school everyone pretty much assumed we’d been covertly dating the whole time.  I was his second in command.  I told him secrets I was too embarrassed to tell anyone else.  He confided in me about his deteriorating mental stability.   Through our lives he’s continually dropped off the radar for years at a time, only resurfacing in a spooky way after I’ve had a dream about him.  Or in this case, written a post.  See, I wrote the first half of this yesterday.  I’ve not heard from Josh in two or three years.  I had a brief email exchange back then basically just letting me know he still lived.  Today I get online and find he suddenly has a facebook and has added me.  Just like that.  It’s too wild to make up.

While we never got undressed, he went a long way to making me interested in actually experiencing the things I’d been so interested in all my life.  I really desired him, and he made me feel desired.  I worry about him.  His life has been a crazy blend of crap, and I like to know he’s still hanging in there.  He helped me begin to find myself.  I don’t like thinking of him being lost.

Who helped you?  When did you start figuring out who you were going to become?

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