It's Up To You

Chapter 7

Virginity is a relative term. What determines virginity and "purity" differs from culture to culture. Within every culture, what determines virginity differs from person to person.

In 1950s America, the idea of virginity was important, especially to any young girl. We hadn't yet had the sexual revolution and the social advances for sex of the past were forgotten and thrown out.

The country was in total Puritan mode, and your race and class determined how your life would play out. I was in a strange position, I was a black girl in a white family living in a white neighborhood. I found it hard to figure out exactly where I fit in all of that. Somehow I always understood that the rules that applied to the bubbly white girls who skipped around in their Sunday dresses with their white gloves on didn't apply to me.

And so, I made sure that I was the best example of a young girl that I could possibly be. I did everything I could to be a positive image of not only what a black woman could be, but what a woman of class and stature could achieve.

I kept up my image of being pure and a virgin, since I hadn't had a ring on my finger or a man to openly call my own. It felt impossible for me at times to find a man since I was expected to go steady with someone of color.

That's hard when you're the only person of color within a fifty mile radius.

But in high school, when I was only sixteen, I found the boy who would call on me. To this day, to the rest of the world, he doesn't have a name. He was never properly introduced to the Nelsons or anyone else. He only found his way onto our lawn to throw pebbles at my window at night and serenade me.

I'll never forget the night when he finally got me away from that house. For a few hours, I was shed of my good girl qualities and allowed to experience something that was almost criminal. I gave to him that priceless thing that society urged me to save until marriage.

There, in the backseat of his broke down car on the wrong side of town, he did it. Whether you want to say he popped my cherry or he spiritually stained me, he was the one to make me into a woman.

I'm not disclosing his name, because at this point, his name doesn't matter. He moved away with his family and left without looking back. I moved on from that night and that short love affair and reverted back to my old, traditional habits.

The first time I'd sleep with another man besides John Doe would be in one of the bedrooms of Paul Anka's house. If anyone told me I'd get the chance to be with Elvis Presley, I'd probably laugh in their face. My childish dreams of him came true all at once.

And yet, before Elvis could ever come, Ricky Nelson found his way to interrupt that proud moment. I couldn't get it out of my mind what Ricky did. I had no one to confide in, not even Martha, because I knew she'd only go out and tell the world. The only people who knew about that night is the crowd that witnessed it, but to them I was an unrecognizable face, and my default companion, Ricky Nelson.

I thought I'd never see Elvis again, that was until the phone rang on that Friday afternoon.

"It's for you." Harriet said as she stood by the kitchen wall phone.

I stood up from the kitchen table and stepped toward her. "Did they say who it was?"

"No, they just said it was urgent" Harriet answered, then pressed the receiver to her ear once again. "May I ask again who this is?"

She shrugged as she extended the phone to me, they still didn't give an answer. Walking up to her, I took the phone and pressed it to my ear.

"Hello?" I asked with a quiet voice.