Elizabeth Crane: The History of Great Things

You’re at college for all of three weeks before you meet the guy you decide is the one to give it up for. It’s the fall of 1979, just pre-AIDS. Or, well, not pre-AIDS, pre — people knowing about AIDS. Christ, I hope you don’t have AIDS.

— Mom, I think you would have known if I had AIDS.

— Well, I wouldn’t have wanted to.

— I don’t think I even know what that means.

— Okay, whatever, you don’t have AIDS, it’s fine.

The point is, no one is thinking thing one about condoms at this point. Or you’re not. Getting pregnant and/or contracting herpes are the worst possible outcomes you personally can imagine, but after four or five spritzers you are not thinking about either of these things, much less a fatal disease that hasn’t yet been discovered.

— Spritzers? You think I drank spritzers?

— No?

— Spritzers kind of make me sick just to think about.

— Okay, Scotch neat.

—. .

— So let me get this right, you’re worried about me getting your drink of choice right, but not so much about getting pregnant, herpes, or AIDS.

—. .

Once you’ve had enough tequila shots, you start flirting with Steven, the guy down the hall you’ve got a crush on. These tequila shots also go a long way toward helping you forget that he’s recently been dating one of your roommates, or at least move you in the direction of convincing yourself he’s fair game at this point. He’s cute, much cuter than the boys back home, longish wavy brown hair, twinkly eyes, like a Jewish Warren Beatty, and he’s maybe a little bit funny: he asks you if heaven is missing an angel and you’re about to say to him Seriously? but then he says Just wondering, I mean, if an angel goes missing, would anyone even notice? You giggle, but maybe that’s only because you’ve had the necessary number of additional tequila shots for this to seem like it means something even though it’s really just absurd. Either way. Tonight, your dreams of romance are elsewhere. You’re going to get this out of the way. You’re already too drunk to notice that his jeans are ironed with a crease in the front, because this could otherwise be a problem. (Any time a man’s jeans are overthought is justifiable pause for consideration as far as you’re concerned, which is the opposite of what makes sense to most people, but you will stand by this in perpetuity.) Time has a way of morphing when you drink, so that your seven-and-a-half-minute conversation (covering the half block from What’s your major to Where are you from to Do you know so-and-so ) becomes sufficient even though most of these questions lead to conversational dead ends. ( English to marketing nearly puts the kibosh on the whole operation right there. You have no idea what marketing even is.)

You overlook: That everyone you know sees you leaving the bar together. That you can see them whispering to each other. Not cool . That you hadn’t planned for the steady and rapid loss of your buzz on the six-block walk back. That there’s not much more to say on the way back to the dorm than there was after he’d said marketing . After a long block of silence, you say So, marketing, what is that, exactly? I guess the easiest way to say it is that it’s about how to sell things. It’s not that interesting. So why are you majoring in it? I dunno, what else would I major in? Something that does interest you? I’m not really interested in anything. This is a sentence you’re sure you’ve never heard before. Where does the conversation go from here? Who isn’t interested in something? What could that even mean? What goes on in the head of a person who isn’t interested in something? Nothing? You may not know what matters to you, but at least you know what interests you. You can’t form a sentence. He senses your confusion, probably because in your inebriated state, your face is a screwed-up caricature of a confused face that you might ordinarily try to conceal. Okay, well, I’m interested in sports. . Never have you been so relieved to hear someone say that they’re interested in sports — the one subject among all existing subjects you might be the least interested in — if only because it relieves you of the surreal analysis going on in your head. I guess I’m just not interested in anything that you could major in. You could major in journalism and be a sports writer. Uch, I hate writing. I don’t even like reading. And here again the conversation ends.

At no time does it occur to you to back out. Or, it does, it does occur to you to back out, but for some reason that doesn’t seem like an option. You already said yes, and you hadn’t accounted for variations of mood or circumstance that might lead to a change of plan. So you also overlook that, when you get to his dorm room, he asks his roommate to come back in half an hour. At this point, not having done it yet, you don’t know how long to expect — a half hour? three hours? — but you certainly get it now that in a half hour you’re out of here, which leaves you with a now fully formed watermelon in your stomach of maybe this wasn’t the best idea . Fortunately he’s got a bottle of rum back in his room, which will help wash that right out. Never mind that rum is fully disgusting. Not the point. He motions to his unmade bed; it’s a dorm room, there’s a desk chair, but that’s it. Sit, sit , he says, weirdly casual, like this is an actual home where you’re going to pretend for a minute that you’re not going to do what you’re for sure going to do. He toasts To new friends , that’s not good, even though you’re no more interested in friendship than he is, but whatever, you raise your glass and knock back the rum. He takes off his shirt and pants, even though he hasn’t kissed you yet. It’s not one of the all-time great seductions. You may not know what to do, but you’ve seen a movie or two, which honestly you were planning to use as a rough guide, but you can’t think of any movies where the guy starts by taking all his clothes right off. Are you supposed to take yours off now? Because that’s not going to happen. Your idea of a perfect seduction is Katharine Hepburn in wool trousers with a glass of whiskey in one hand and Spencer Tracy kissing her in front of a fireplace just before he gets up to leave. Steven is now down to just his royal blue bikinis. He got past the dreaded creased jeans somehow, but this has to be a deal-breaker. He doesn’t read, but that you can actually put aside; this, however, cannot be unseen. This has got to be a rule, somewhere, that the late-in-the-game revelation of royal blue bikinis is an exit pass.

This can’t be how this goes. He hasn’t even kissed you yet. You’ve never done this before, and weren’t expecting From Here to Eternity or anything, but maybe some small pretense of romance? You really should go. Right? You can do that. Change your mind. People are allowed to change their minds. How far is the rum? The rum is right there on the floor beside the bed with the cap off. How could anyone leave an open bottle on the floor? That is a booze loss waiting to happen. You grab the bottle and take a swig, put it back down, look around for the cap. He looks at you somewhat expectantly. You look at him expectantly back. He reaches over to help you take off your shirt, moves down to undo your belt, leans you back onto the bed, kisses you exactly once before he’s got his hand all the way into your pants, pushing them down just far enough so he can stick it in. No mention of birth control of any kind has been made by either of you before he moves his dick in the direction of your pants. At no time do your hands move away from your sides. You wouldn’t know where to put them even if you were inclined to put them on some part of him. You have definitely not had enough to drink, but you suspect that if you hadn’t had whatever number of drinks you’ve had, you might be in for a fair amount of physical pain. To be sure, once it’s in, it feels like nothing approaching good, though there’s little in the way of sensation, leaving time to contemplate the pointlessness of this exercise. Your intention was to “get this over with.” Should you call it a success? That’s a stretch. Steven makes some unattractive noises before his body goes limp on top of you, rolls himself off. Jesus, why would anyone want to do this more than once? You look up to see if you can reach the rum, have to stretch a bit, almost knock it over, take one more swig before getting up to go. Okay, I’m gonna go. Better to at least pretend as though he hasn’t already set a timer on this. Okay.