“Why don’t you take your clothes off, Mike?”
“You first.”
“How about both of us at the same time.”
And as if that made it emotionally even, they both stripped at the same time. Stacy unhooked her top and stepped out of her bikini bottom. She went to sit down on the red couch in the changing room.
She watched Damone hopping on one leg, pulling first out of his pants, then his Jockey underwear. Then he caught the underwear on his erection, and it slapped back into his abdomen. He sat down next to Stacy, expressionless.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” said Damone.
She reached over and grabbed his erection. She began pulling on it. The feeling of a penis was still new to her. She wanted to ask him about it. Why did it hurt if you just touched it one place, and not at all at another . . . but later she would ask him that. For now, she just yanked on it. Damone didn’t seem to mind.
“I want you to know,” said Stacy, “that it’s your final decision if we should continue or not.”
“Let’s continue,” said Damone.
As Mike Damone lost his virginity, his first thought was of his brother, Art. Art had said, “You gotta overpower a girl. Make her feel helpless.”
Damone began pumping so hard, so fast—his eyes were shut tight—that he didn’t notice he was banging the sofa, and Stacy’s head, against the wall.
“Hey Mike,” she whispered.
“What? Are you all right?”
“I think we’re making a lot of noise.”
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” He continued, slower.
What a considerate guy, Stacy thought. He was kind of loud and always joking around other people, but when you got him alone . . . he was so nice.
Then Damone stopped. He had a strange look on his face.
“What’s wrong?”
“I think I came,” said Damone. “Didn’t you feel it?”
He had taken a minute and a half.
They were unusual feelings, these thoughts pooling in Mike Damone’s head as he lay on the red couch with Stacy. He was a little embarrassed, a little guilty . . . mostly he just wanted to be alone. He wanted to get the hell out of there.
“I’ve got to go home,” said Damone. “I’ve really got to go.”
Stacy called Linda as soon as he left.
“Where did it happen?” Linda answered her phone.
“On the couch. In the changing room.”
“Bizarre.”
“I left it up to him, Linda. I could have made the final decision, but I left it up to him. I said, ‘It’s you, you make the final decision.’ And he said, ‘Why not?’ ”
“Did you talk afterwards?”
“A little. He said he was relieved.”
“So are you guys boyfriend and girlfriend now?”
“I don’t know,” said Stacy in a singsong.
“How do you feel?”
“Guilty.” She laughed.
“Did he call you yet?”
“Lin-da. He just left.”
“You know, Stacy, that when someone asks him on his deathbed who he lost his virginity to, he’ll have to say you. He’ll remember you forever!”
A Late-Night Phone Conversation
“Linda,” asked Stacy, “how long does Doug take?”
“Doug takes forever.”
“You told me once it was twenty to thirty minutes.”
“I didn’t say twenty to thirty. I thought I said ten to twenty.”
“You were arguing with me ’cause I told you that The Vet took twelve. You were arguing with me . . .”
“I didn’t say twenty to thirty.”
“You said at least twenty.”
“Maybe I did,” said Linda. “How long did Mike take?”
“A while.”
“How long?”
“A long, long time.”
“Not bad,” said Linda. “Not bad for a high schoolboy.”
A Surprise in the Shower
The A.S.B. Ball was coming up. Second only to the senior prom in overall stature, the ball was the one dress-up dance that sophomores could also attend.
Stacy had hoped Mike Damone would ask her to the A.S.B. Ball, and, for a few days, he was sure he would.
Then, just one week before the ball, Damone had been taking his regular morning shower. He was singing along to a radio, washing himself, thinking about school, thinking about nothing, when he noticed—jeez—a small red pimple at the base of his penis. At first he thought nothing of it.
Then, slowly washing over him like the soap running down his back, came the memory of a million Health and Safety films. A red pimple. A sore near the genital area. Syphilis. Blindness. Infection. Death.
He had to call a doctor when he got to school. But he knew only one, old Dr. Morehead, the family’s pediatrician. He had to call. And worse yet, Cindy Carr was sick today. Gregg Adams was on the pay phone every two periods. Finally Damone got the jump on the third bell in English II and beat feet down to the phone. Clear. He dialed the medical office.
“Dr. Morehead’s line.”
Well, Damone thought, what if it wasn’t syphilis at all. Where would that put him? Where would he be the next time he came in with his parents for a physical? He could just hear it.
“Yessssss,” old Dr. Morehead would say, “we were all very happy around here when your boy Mikey didn’t have venereal disease.”
Damone slowly replaced the phone on the receiver. Who else? Gregg Adams snapped it up behind him.
Damone decided to go visit Les Sexton, assistant P.E. coach. In the past Damone had made his share of Les Sexton jokes. The Sextons were one of those families who had a name, a great house, and about a million kids. You couldn’t go anywhere in Ridgemont without running into a Sexton. They all had those classic master-race looks. Les was a real jock. He knew he was cool. But how cool was it, Damone always questioned, if you graduated Ridgemont High . . . and then came back. That was the feeling Mike Damone had about Les Sexton. Until now.
Les Sexton’s office was in the boys’ locker room. It was more like a cubicle, separated from the steamy shower area by a glass compartment. The glass was thick, the kind with wire mesh running through it.
Damone always figured it looked like a cage. Sitting inside this bulletproof enclosure, Les Sexton did his paperwork at his desk. To Damone, Sexton in his office was like a human in a zoo for aliens.
“Jock Working at a Desk,” Damone figured the sign should read.
Mike tapped on the glass. Sexton looked up.
“Damone,” he said. Everyone was a last name to Sexton. “Howyoudoin’.” It was less a question than a single-word statement that meant—speak.
“Can I talk to you?”
“What’s up?” Sexton immediately took a few books off the extra chair in his office. Already he sensed it was a Guy Problem.
“Well,” said Damone. Gee, he thought, it wasn’t that easy. It wasn’t like you could just sit down in a guy’s office and say, I think I have V.D.
“I mean, really talk to you, Mr. Sexton?”
“Sure, guy.”
“Well . . . I was taking a shower the other day, and I noticed that . . .”
“Yeah?”
“Well. I noticed that I was starting to get athlete’s foot. And remember when we used to have those dispensers in here? I just think you could install maybe one of them again.” He looked at Sexton, who was waiting for more. “You know?”