MOVING IN STEREO

ICE CREAM

"Your love is better than ice cream,

Better than anything else that I've tried.

Your love is better than ice cream.

Everyone her knows how to cry."

"Ice Cream"

Sarah McLaughlin

Sometimes love is a real pain in the ass, especially when you are young. Everything is idealized because you have nothing to base your emotions on but movies, books, and magazines. God knows your parents were no road map. When you are a teenager, everything is such a rush because you are trying hard to cope with the encroachment of adulthood. You want to be like the rest and have those experiences, whether real or fictionalized accounts whispered in the hallways.

When I think back to the few relationships I have had, the most frustrating ones were the early ones. A lack of communication due to immaturity caused pain on both sides. We just grow up so fast these days, but our minds are still not ready for it all. Hell, some of us are not ready until maybe the second half of our life. After having said that, I can think of only two that made me feel small, used, and utterly stupid.

I was sixteen and completely infatuated with a girl I believed hung the moon. She was older, two years so than I. She was tall with long auburn hair and sweet pale blue eyes lined in black to make them stand out. She just exuded sex, at least what I knew of it then, in how she walked. And oh, she was well aware of how to turn on and off her alluring charms. When she hugged me, the scent of exotic powder or something clung to my clothes. Lynette was her name, and she was completely aware of my feelings. She was not cruel; it was just that her intentions were different from mine, and in the end, she helped the puppet turn into a boy by gracefully tugging his heartstrings.

Her attraction to me was probably based on the need to feed her ego. For a short while, she got too close and I fancy that she fell in love. I certainly did. It happened during a long hot summer at the end of the school year. I would be an upperclassman the coming year, Lynette would be going on to college. We went out for a few weeks that summer, the usual kid stuff of movies, parties, concerts, and the like.

One July evening, while driving me home, she bluntly told me that she was thinking about doing something with me she had only done with one other person. I knew exactly what she was talking about. That teenage boy's dream came true, but I was petrified and pretended to be unaware. This beautiful girl wanted to have sex with me. I had talked too good of a game. I had said too much. I had acted like a fucking big shot, and now I would have to back it all up, and this time without clothing.

When you are holding the one you love in your arms, there is no better feeling in the world. You tangibly feel love, need, and safety. Entwined, you have somewhat reached a state of enlightenment. Not so fast, before you reach this final stage, however, you must travel the path of eightfold, through much uncertainty, through much terror. Lynette was expecting things, great things, and from me and my average-sized run-of-the-mill self. To talk with her and be in love with her was no longer enough. I was going to have to do things to her.

Shortly after that, one stifling evening, I was home alone, the parents away on vacation. She drove into the open garage and closed the door before letting herself right into the kitchen where I sat playing a handheld video game. She placed a small green duffel bag at my feet, moved behind me, and ran her fingers through my hair. I was paralyzed by fear and ecstasy.