It’s unfortunate to say, but there are consequences to
having sex. In a perfect world we would
be able to go around having sex with whomever, whenever, however and never
worry about the results of those actions.
I understand that there are plenty of people who do just that, but they
are fooling themselves if they don’t think, at the very least, they are leaving
a mess in their wake. Whether physical
or emotional, every sex act leaves a mark and some of them are disastrous. At 16 or 17, the most obvious consequence is
pregnancy. It’s one of those things that
could change the course of your life in the blink of an eye. I’m sure everyone has an “accident” story. This is mine.
Sara and I
would probably have been described by most as goody two shoes. As much as we might have felt rebellious in
our own ways, we were both pretty conservative kids. We both did well in school, never got in
trouble with our parents, didn’t drink or do drugs, never had any run ins with the
law. We both had bright promising futures
ahead of us. Her reputation in
particular was so squeaky clean that most of her peers couldn’t even believe
that she was having sex. But we were
having sex, plenty of it, any chance we could.
Having sex
while still living with your parents isn’t an easy task. I think that’s part of the rush of teenage
sex; finding someplace where you can get it done before someone walks in on
you. Her house was quickly removed as a
possibility. There just wasn’t anywhere
to be alone and one of her parents always seemed to be around. She did have a basement bedroom that we tried
to take advantage of for a little while.
On nights that we spent at her house, I would leave at her curfew, park
around the block, walk back to her house, crawl under her parent’s bedroom
window so I could get to the back of the house unnoticed, and get into her room
through the backdoor. This whole thing
scared me to death. I could just imagine
her neighbors seeing some strange person sneaking around the house at night,
crawling under windows, and calling the cops.
That would end the sex real quick, probably permanently when I wasn’t
allowed to see her again.
That whole
routine came to an end one night when I thought my worst fears had come to
pass. I was on my way back to my car when
a car that was sitting parked down the street suddenly started up and began
moving towards me. I couldn’t see any
details of the car or who was inside because the headlights were shining at me,
so I quickened my step a little in an attempt to get to my car before I either
got beat up or arrested. I was fumbling
with my keys in the door lock when I heard a familiar voice calling my
name. Gary and another member of the
group, we’ll call him Paul, were out cruising when they saw my car parked
randomly near Sara’s neighborhood, put two and two together, and decided to
wait for me to leave so they could scare the crap out of me. They did and I never pulled that stunt again.
We tried
car sex a couple of times, but that just isn’t something you want to do every
week. So we were left with my
house. Before they passed away, my
grandparents had to move in with us and because of that my parents turned our
garage into a spare room, a room where they could stay and do their own thing
without being bothered. It was off the
kitchen on the other side of the house from anything else. This became the room we spent all our time
in. For whatever reason, maybe because
we were so clean cut and never caused any problems, my parents never bothered
us. We would close the heavy door that
led to the rest of the house and go town with my family in the living room
watching TV or upstairs busy in their rooms.
It was still a lingering fear that anyone could walk in on us at any
point, but the need for sex always trumped it.
There were a couple close calls when someone walked in while things were
still building, but no one was ever any the wiser or actually saw us performing
some act.
One night
we had been going at it for awhile, I had moved on to my second condom, when
something right at the point of release didn’t feel right. It felt like I had broken through something
and the only thing to break through down there was the condom. I immediately went into a panic, but wasn’t
totally sure if what I thought had happened had actually happened, and not
wanting to needlessly send her into a panic, tried to play it cool. When I pulled out I had shrunk enough that I
wasn’t sticking out the top of the condom, so I had some hope that everything
was good and I was just imagining things, but to be sure I pulled the condom
off and headed to the bathroom. I put
the open end of the condom under the faucet and turned it on. Sure enough a steady stream of water started
pouring out the other end.
What
followed was one of the worst months of my life. She had just had her period a week prior to
the “accident” so we had a full month to wait and see if our lives had been
irreparably changed. This was a time
when pregnancy tests weren’t as accurate, especially so early on, as they are
now. Plus we were 16 and 17, we were a
little naive and didn’t want to do anything that would let our parents in on
what was going on if it wasn’t necessary, so we had no other choice but to wait
the month out. I was so terrified, I
couldn’t even think of having sex again.
We would get together and start to fall into our routine and I would
suddenly pull back, as if us fooling around would change anything at that
point. I couldn’t help but think that I
had ruined her life, destroyed her bright future. I had seen For Keeps. I knew how these
things played out. But we lucked out and
she had a period 30 days later and everything went back to normal.
There have
been plenty of times over the last 20 years that I’ve wondered how things would
have played out if she had gotten pregnant.
We had a brief talk during that
horrible month but neither one of us really wanted dig into things, as if
talking about it was going to jinx us.
At 17 I had a lot of naive, close minded opinions that I wasn’t scared
to jump up on a soap box and spout, and one of them was that abortion shouldn’t
be allowed. When we talked, I did my
best to change the tune, to let her know that ultimately I would support
whatever she wanted to do. I realize now
that at that age the decision wasn’t totally in our hands anyway. If her mom said she was getting an abortion,
she was going to get an abortion. But
how different would things have turned out if not? Obviously, I would have a kid old enough to
have graduated from college, which is weird to think, but I’m talking about the
other stuff. Would I have gone to
college? I certainly wouldn’t have gone
to Pepperdine, which means I would never have met my closest friends or
experienced the things that have made me the better, open minded person I am
today. Would she have gone to
college? She certainly wouldn’t have
gone to the school she attended. Would
we still be together? Or would we have
grown to hate and resent each other because our lives had been forced so far
off the course we had planed? Would I be
as miserable as I am now just for different reasons?
Being the
comic book nerd that I am, I can’t help but think that there might be alternate
universes out there; a new universe for every major decision that we’ve made in
life or with a different outcome for every major event. Somewhere out there in parallel time is a
world where I had the guts to ask Lisa out and a world where Sara actually got
pregnant. Part of me would love to check
into these worlds and see what’s happened, how that guy’s life is different,
but at the same time I’d be scared that things worked out better for him and
what effect would that have on me. What
if the me that was able to start up a conversation with the cute girl at the
hockey game went on to be a world famous business man making billions of
dollars and living life to the fullest?
What if the me that didn’t ask out Sara because Ernie didn’t want me to
went on to write the great American novel?
Wouldn’t that only make me more depressed with my current station? The fact is, things happen for a reason and
we make the choices me make in life because of who we are. To want something different or wonder about a
different outcome is only human but at the same time extraordinarily
futile. The fact that there were no
repercussions from the “accident” I had with Sara was a blessing and a wake up
call. We aren’t guaranteed anything in
life and everything can be taken away at the drop of a hat and ultimately we
have very little control over it. It’s a
lesson that may have been lost on a 17 year-old, but at 35 feels all too real.
No comments:
Post a Comment