/History Made Flesh
By Chelsea G. Summers
More than the light of recognition, the fleshy shock of realization that time has indeed elapsed, and the unexpected joy of expected meeting, there is the frisson of remembrance of blowjobs past. Others may go to their high school reunions and confront the love that got away, the anguish of athleticism grown old and musty, or the inexorable slow loris ravages of time; I go and see a parade of young fucks and green sucks.
I grew up in Nowhere, Vermont. There was little to do. We were bored. Bored to the tunes of ELO, BTO and Foreigner; bored with bongs and bored with beers; bored in cars and bored in bars. We were bored, or I was, and the form that my boredom took was making out with boys at keggers. To this day, I hear the first few bars of Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” and I’m looking for a plastic cup of PBR and a sixteen year-old boy with a vanilla clean cock to suck. It’s my history; it’s a Pavlovian response; it’s ingrained.
Weekends, I’d hook up with some dude, usually from my high school class, occasionally one a year older or a year younger than me, and we’d suck face. Before I was 16, we’d make out and I’d tie a ribbon on the evening by blowing the lucky young man. After turning 16—and after losing my virginity in the cab of a Ford truck parked on a country road on a winter night, looking up at the gun rack and wondering if the safety was on—I would occasionally fuck the dude. There was no rhyme or reason about my choices to fuck or to suck; they hit like a squall. I’d be intrigued, or I wouldn’t. It made no difference to me. I got the same amount and kind of pleasure out of either act, which was to say not much and mostly about the power of the choice.
Of course, I’d see the guys in the school the days after. We might or might not jut our chins in mutual recognition. We might or might not grant one another a guttural “hey.” We might merely make eye contact, quiet as firefly lights and twice as ephemeral. There was one guy in particular I’d hook up with regularly. Sometimes in math class, he’d start singing “She’s as Cold as Ice” when I walked through the door. It took me decades to realize that maybe he actually liked me. Mostly my kegger paramours and I ignored one another, as indiscretions are wont to do.
But there was a thrilling beauty to these Marlboro-and-Bud-scented trysts. There were the strains of Supertramp, yes, but there were also cicadas. There was the springy fresh touch of young, mostly unscarred, skin. There were the keening mute wants so atavistic as to be unknowable. We wrapped our limbs around one another in the vain, sweaty attempt to understand. There was no understanding; there was only spit and the rough-cat touch of tongues and the strange new flesh you found and the bleachy twang of come. There was the eggshell shellac on my panties that I’d drop.
There was social condemnation too, and it was not without pleasure. There was the invisible red letter slut-shaming “S,” and I wore it with defiance. There was the quiet knowledge that I’d blown some cheerleader’s boyfriend, that his cock had been jammed in delight down my throat as I knelt before him, and that this was something that cheerleader couldn’t or wouldn’t do. I’ve always taken pride in a job well done.
There is you, the you before, the you who lived and loved and got bored...
Weekends, I’d hook up with some dude, usually from my high school class, occasionally one a year older or a year younger than me, and we’d suck face. Before I was 16, we’d make out and I’d tie a ribbon on the evening by blowing the lucky young man. After turning 16—and after losing my virginity in the cab of a Ford truck parked on a country road on a winter night, looking up at the gun rack and wondering if the safety was on—I would occasionally fuck the dude. There was no rhyme or reason about my choices to fuck or to suck; they hit like a squall. I’d be intrigued, or I wouldn’t. It made no difference to me. I got the same amount and kind of pleasure out of either act, which was to say not much and mostly about the power of the choice.
Of course, I’d see the guys in the school the days after. We might or might not jut our chins in mutual recognition. We might or might not grant one another a guttural “hey.” We might merely make eye contact, quiet as firefly lights and twice as ephemeral. There was one guy in particular I’d hook up with regularly. Sometimes in math class, he’d start singing “She’s as Cold as Ice” when I walked through the door. It took me decades to realize that maybe he actually liked me. Mostly my kegger paramours and I ignored one another, as indiscretions are wont to do.
But there was a thrilling beauty to these Marlboro-and-Bud-scented trysts. There were the strains of Supertramp, yes, but there were also cicadas. There was the springy fresh touch of young, mostly unscarred, skin. There were the keening mute wants so atavistic as to be unknowable. We wrapped our limbs around one another in the vain, sweaty attempt to understand. There was no understanding; there was only spit and the rough-cat touch of tongues and the strange new flesh you found and the bleachy twang of come. There was the eggshell shellac on my panties that I’d drop.
There was social condemnation too, and it was not without pleasure. There was the invisible red letter slut-shaming “S,” and I wore it with defiance. There was the quiet knowledge that I’d blown some cheerleader’s boyfriend, that his cock had been jammed in delight down my throat as I knelt before him, and that this was something that cheerleader couldn’t or wouldn’t do. I’ve always taken pride in a job well done.
Ryan McGinley, Dakota (Hair) 2004
It is perhaps a bit odd that I decided to go to my high school reunion this past summer. I had such a very bad reputation. I fucked a lot, and I didn’t give a fuck (a phrase whose idioms are exceeded only by its apparent paradox). I suppose it’s the latter part that bothered my classmates so much. People can forgive a lot, but they can’t forgive shamelessness. Still, thirty years had passed and my curiosity had outstripped my reticence, so I went.
I got greeted and then immediately found myself folded into a conversation where I had blown two of the three guys and licked the clit of one of the two women. It was a bit odd. The conversation was banal, but the looks and the internal quivers of memory were weird.
I stood talking to this one guy, his same-same hair now white, and felt again his profound gratitude of that time when I laid him down in the tall, tall grass and he let me do my stuff. I stood talking to this girl, her Holly Hobbie freckled face broader and rounder, her auburn hair dimmed slightly, her body maternal, and without speaking we shared that one New Year’s Eve when the sheets were ice-cream cold and my mouth was hot on her cunt. I stood talking to this tall, beautiful mountain-man I’d fucked in college; I recalled how his vegetarianism made his breath smell like a cow’s. He eats meat now; I know because I asked. I stood talking to another guy, a guy about whom I’d had long, baroque, perverse fantasies borrowed largely from Anaïs Nin, and I pointed to another dude, a guy who looked vaguely familiar.
He should have looked familiar; it was his Ford truck, and his gun rack, on that January night.
All told, fifty-odd people from my high school class went to the reunion. I made out/blew/or fucked seven of them. Which is a happy percentage. I met wives and thought, “I was there first.” It’s not mature, but I’ve never aspired to maturity. Nor have I aspired to getting old, yet there it is.
The thing about aging is that your past doesn’t get overwritten by the present—or if it does, it’s like a palimpsest. There is you, the you before, the you who lived and loved and got bored and did bong hits and, making out, made a tea of pot and spit in the mouth of Danny Barber for hours on your friend’s couch. You and your former lives live together, a happy or at least cohabitating polyamorous family. From time to time your lives crash up against one another, and you can, for one transcendent summer afternoon, recall all whom you have done, and you can feel the pleasure again. New pleasures, old pleasures, it’s all your history, and you never really graduate until you’re dead.
I got greeted and then immediately found myself folded into a conversation where I had blown two of the three guys and licked the clit of one of the two women. It was a bit odd. The conversation was banal, but the looks and the internal quivers of memory were weird.
I stood talking to this one guy, his same-same hair now white, and felt again his profound gratitude of that time when I laid him down in the tall, tall grass and he let me do my stuff. I stood talking to this girl, her Holly Hobbie freckled face broader and rounder, her auburn hair dimmed slightly, her body maternal, and without speaking we shared that one New Year’s Eve when the sheets were ice-cream cold and my mouth was hot on her cunt. I stood talking to this tall, beautiful mountain-man I’d fucked in college; I recalled how his vegetarianism made his breath smell like a cow’s. He eats meat now; I know because I asked. I stood talking to another guy, a guy about whom I’d had long, baroque, perverse fantasies borrowed largely from Anaïs Nin, and I pointed to another dude, a guy who looked vaguely familiar.
He should have looked familiar; it was his Ford truck, and his gun rack, on that January night.
All told, fifty-odd people from my high school class went to the reunion. I made out/blew/or fucked seven of them. Which is a happy percentage. I met wives and thought, “I was there first.” It’s not mature, but I’ve never aspired to maturity. Nor have I aspired to getting old, yet there it is.
The thing about aging is that your past doesn’t get overwritten by the present—or if it does, it’s like a palimpsest. There is you, the you before, the you who lived and loved and got bored and did bong hits and, making out, made a tea of pot and spit in the mouth of Danny Barber for hours on your friend’s couch. You and your former lives live together, a happy or at least cohabitating polyamorous family. From time to time your lives crash up against one another, and you can, for one transcendent summer afternoon, recall all whom you have done, and you can feel the pleasure again. New pleasures, old pleasures, it’s all your history, and you never really graduate until you’re dead.
- 09/06/2010
