So, I was 15, and back home in Lakewood. I was set to go back to Lakes Highschool, but more importantly, I was destined to encounter some more interesting characters. This chapter itself is about numerous people I encountered during this time, specifically females.
My 15-year-old life was complicated: 9-11 had just happened, I had also just gone to juvenile hall, realized first-hand that my father is a stone-cold liar/physical abuser, and fell in love with multiple people, the second of which for that year, was a lovely brilliant hippy girl.
I had flown home, from Ohio, leaving my lovely now ex-girlfriend confused about her formerly imprisoned ex-boyfriend. I actually did call her later on the phone to catch up, I asked if she remembered me and she said “Of course, how could I get the guy who took my virginity.” And she laughed. The problem was, she had moved on in a way that made it seem like I was only meant to be a boyfriend in her past, and not her friend in the future. Like she couldn’t be friends with me and move on at the same time.
Her future involved her becoming a marine, getting in violent fights with her husband and later working for over a decade as a manager at a restaurant. Not what I expected for her. I suppose I thought she would wind up being a professional gymnast or a cop. God she was cool.
Back home I had a friend I dated briefly. She was a Samoan girl who I was friends with for many years. We were at a school ceremony in the gymnasium. She was sitting in front of me, and to that point, I just assumed we were only friends. Suddenly in the middle of the ceremony we were watching, she pushes her whole upper body between my legs and rests her back against my crotch. She got my attention.
Shortly after I asked my friend out, and we dated for four days. Why so quick? Because one day when she was leaving my house, I went to kiss her for the first time, and she kissed me weird. Again, another girl I had to break up with because the kissing was just too strange.
But, let’s get to the girl who really messed my world up… like made me a mix tape that, because I loved her so much, made me bawl like a baby while listening to it in the car. That’s how much I loved the following girl:
I was at my grandma’s house down in the valley. There was a family event going down, it might have been my “Welcome home” party where people shook my hand for beating the shit out of my dad. I say might have because, that would have been brilliant but I’m not sure. I know it was a sunny day, and while playing volleyball, a girl I had never seen before decided to join the game.
I was told this girl was the new neighbor across the creek, who had moved in while I was in Ohio. I finally got to experience “The Girl Next Door”, and she did not disappoint. If you want an image of how she looked, just imagine the actor who plays the leading role from Grey’s Anatomy (Ellen Pompeo). Got a good idea?
This girl was my age, normal height for a girl, long straight brown hair, normal Caucasian complexion, with vibrant eyes and a smile always painted on her face.
When she saw me, there was a connection. It was similar to the connection I felt with someone four years prior with the girl four years older than me. She and I were introduced, and it was pretty obvious, we were a match. We looked like we were designed to get married to each other, settle down, get the white picket fence, full family and so on. It just made sense after I had a couple conversations with her, that this would be it.
The new girl was actually set to go to the National Debate Team finals for her high school due to the fact that she was a literal genius. Naturally, I worshiped girls who were geniuses, which lead to a strange and new relationship dynamic.
I fell for this girl, in part, because whenever she looked at me, she smiled, constantly. It was a smile that said, “I enjoy your face, and I want to be closer to you.” But in a way with substance. She wasn’t just attracted to me, she clearly wanted to know me. I was like a little flower, and she was like the water in sunshine I so desperately needed to feel like I existed, to feel like I had a future and to feel complete.
The second time I saw her was during that year’s Christmas. The party was at my grandma’s house, and I had asked around to see if she was there. She was not, but someone there knew I wanted her there, so they went over to her house and brought her over to see me. As soon as she showed up, we decided to go for a walk into the dark together.
My grandma’s house is not well lit at night. My grandma lives at the end of a long gravel road, so there isn’t much lighting on the “streets” either.
We were essentially two teenagers walking off into the heavily wooded area, by ourselves, in nearly complete darkness. This girl trusted me, and I trusted her. We felt safe with each other, and as we walked, our hands began naturally touching. Our fingers would caress each other and eventually we held hands in perfect unity. We walked until we found a place to essentially hide. We now stood behind a massive fuel tank near my uncle’s house (the one who threatened to kill my dad if he ever saw him again).
Once we realized we were hidden and completely alone, the smart hippy girl and I began heavily making out. Her kissing was perfect. There was no weird lip tightening or social ineptness like the ebony goddess I had kissed or my lovely Samoan ex-girlfriend had.
This new girl and I had fallen in love, not just at first sight, but also over long phone conversations we had many days/nights prior. These calls were not quite as long as the ones I had with the girl who took my virginity, but the substance of them was overwhelming.
This girl had a knack for questioning almost everything I said, and not only that, making me feel stupid for saying whatever I said in the first place. She would use advanced reasoning skills to make me not only turn on my own opinions but join and embrace hers. She would be a BRILLIANT religious leader or politician, unfortunately for her, she later became nothing of the sort.
One day many years later I’d find she had become a pot-addicted, mega-hippy, who worked as a forest ranger till eventually she (assumingly) quit the hash and became a teacher of sorts. What did she go to college for that would wind her up as a park ranger? African American studies. Quite the head-scratcher for a little hippy white girl. But let’s get back to the deep past…
When we were dating, I was hooked. Deep kissing her behind that tank, having already lost my virginity and been to home base with an additional person, I knew how great sex was and wanted to have it with her. I threw my trench coat on the ground, which is something I had done with a girlfriend prior whenever we’d sneak under the trees behind the Mormon church. I began dropping to my knees with this girl, her bending with me, but, I was stopped, not by her… no, what stopped me was a horrible sound that was coming from my mom and my cousin off in the distance.
Yet another mom of mine was preventing me from getting with my, now assumed, girlfriend. “Gregory! Time to go! Where are you!?”
Ugh.
So, I grabbed my coat, put it back on my person and stepped out from behind the fuel tank with my new lover. I shouted back “We’re over here!” and we began walking back, through the darkness, to my Grandma’s gloomy, yet awesome house.
In hindsight we probably should have just kept going and ignored them looking for us. It was a rare opportunity to be together as I had no car. The chances were so hard to find as I was just a boy. We should have just full force gone at each other like a couple animals. Why not? We were in love, we had it all figured out, right? But, in reality, like the good-ole-boy, full of idealism, I did the responsible thing and stopped. I suppose I thought we’d connect another day, experience a true emotional and physical connection of incredible proportions down the line, but I was wrong. I would have that relationship taken away by a man one decade older than me. And eventually, when given the opportunity to try again, it would be too late for me, I would deny her, not wanting to have any relationship with her anymore.
As I walked onto the porch that night, I said something really cheesy about my assumed girlfriend when people asked us where we were. I essentially equated the magic of looking at the stars, to looking at her. I said this right in front of my whole family and it was, painful. I felt like such an idiot for complimenting her like that in front of everyone, but, it didn’t seem to phase her.
I spent time with her whenever I could. I watched thought-provoking movies with her at her mom’s house, made out with her in her bedroom sometimes, spent some nights at my cousin’s house just so I could see her more and even elected to work for her mom so I could have an excuse to have my mom drop me off. I was painting her mom’s garage one time, and she climbed up the ladder I set up just to see me on the roof. She was smiling as usual and I asked her what she was up to. She said “Oh nothing, just checking on my boyfriend.” So I crawled over to her and kissed her on the lips. She smiled and asked me if I wanted a drink, I said “That’s ok.” And continued painting.
At some point she and I did just as much physically as I had done with the girl years prior who was much older than me. I proposed we go all the way, but she didn’t know of a location we could do so. That essentially prevented our relationship from surviving due to the fact that she was getting bored with not consummating our relationship. Like if we didn’t sleep together, the relationship wasn’t serious, and if it wasn’t serious, she would find something serious elsewhere.
I didn’t have a car, so we couldn’t drive anywhere. She didn’t feel compelled to make love in the woods, and she couldn’t do it at her house either due to rules she respected. We were so distant sometimes our communication broke down to letters by the mail. It was kind of sad really, but later I found out why we were on the rocks.
As it turns out, around the time she and I were dating, she was talking with a man who was 10 years older than me (and her). Apparently, she had lost her virginity to a man who was 25 when she was only 15. Why? Because he had the car, the place, everything. I was just a kid who lived with his mom and had no transportation, so, I lost my chance to have a life-long relationship with her, and felt a little, cheated on.
Thing is, I still loved her. We would go on to talk, off and on, about getting back together. But, it wasn’t in the cards. A long time down the line, she wanted to fly out to be with me when I was in LA, but I bailed, and said my last goodbye to her. I would say it’s a shame, but she wound up being someone I didn’t recognize anymore. To this day, it’s just so odd to see how she changed. The drugs she got into, the career path she chose, it was all so, not like her at all. She was supposed to be a powerful politician someday, not a completely distant stoner. Sometimes I would try to talk to her, and it was like she didn’t even hear me. She wasn’t the person who would transform my arguments into counterarguments anymore, instead, she would just get offended by the things I said and react with emotions rather than reason. Did weed do that to her? Is that a thing?
Regardless, I did have a conversation with her at some point about her being with that much older man. She said she didn’t regret being with him and that she taught him a lot of things. I thought to myself “This is so creepy.” But, to each their own. It wasn’t the first time I had heard a former girlfriend of mine talk about them dating adults when we were both minors. The girl I lost my virginity to had dated a man 15 years older than her at one point, which for me being 14 at the time? Horrifying. I thought to myself “How big of a loser does a grown man have to be to date someone who literally just threw their barbies away like a few years ago? What the hell?”
So that relationship fell apart, and the rest of my 15-year-old life was spent roller blading to and from school (only about 3 miles from home) while working on web sites and playing video games in my free time.
My year as a 16-year-old was pretty chill. Part of it would be spent pursuing an Associate’s degree in college. I was in the “Running start” program and at some point had to write a letter begging for the funders to let me stay in the program as I was slacking off. I was a dumb high schooler and didn’t understand the wonderful, free, opportunity I had been given.
Most days, I would skate to the local community college, which was a bit closer than my high school, and skate home 2-3 times a week rather than 5 when I attended High School. This is assuming I was in the quarter where I didn’t have to go to high school simultaneously.
There were still some classes I eventually had to take exclusively at my high school to complete my diploma requirements. Like Home Economics where a handsome-ass black guy squeezed my flexed muscles once and said “Why are they so soft?” Ouch. But he was right, I work out now and my muscles are much harder. Go figure.
When I was in Miamisburg Ohio, I did well in most all my classes because those classes didn’t have friends in them. Being back in Lakewood, I had plenty of people to talk to, which caused me to fail Geometry 2.
One of my advanced English classes was a problem for me due to me hating the teacher I had. One morning, I had skated to school, walked to the library, printed out an assignment, then walked to class. When I got in the class, it began, the teacher sat down, then told us to turn in our assignments. I raised my hand, the teacher called on me and I said “Can I go to the library? I left my assignment on the printer.” The teacher replied “No.” and stated that I would instead fail the assignment for not having it on me when I walked in the class.
Naturally, being a person of principal, “common sense”, and boldly almost always standing up for what I think is right, I lost my cool. About 15 minutes into that class, I stood up, walked out of the room, went to the library, grabbed the paper, walked back to class, set it on her desk, walked to the front of the school building, put on my skates, and went home.
The teacher was shocked and stuttering the whole time I took command of my own life. “Greg… are you uh… ok? Did… I upset you Greg?” Literally ignored her as I left. No repercussions came from me walking out of class, and I got the grade I wanted for that assignment. Sometimes life is fair, sometimes it’s not.
Another incident occurred with my English teacher at the local college. She had asked us all what we thought of an assignment she gave us. This was one of the teachers I was heavily attracted to in my college, but that didn’t influence me sharing my opinions.
This woman had assigned us to read the statements from, what was essentially, a disgusting man. In this reading assignment, the author was talking about having an incestual relationship with his niece and I was generally horrified from start to finish, and by finish, I mean I didn’t finish it at all. I read up to the point of him talking about being attracted to his niece and touching his niece. Once I was disgusted enough, I closed the book and said to myself “I don’t care if I get a bad grade, fuck this shit.”
So, what did I say to my teacher when she asked what I thought of the assignment? I said “I think it’s disgusting for us to read about an incestual man trying to get with his niece. It was a gross piece of work and wasn’t worth reading.”
The professor lost her shit.
In response to me saying what I did about the assignment, she got very demanding of me. She clearly thought the story was brilliant… maybe she had fantasies about her own uncle or something and thought it was great as a result due to how relatable it was to her?
Most art actually sucks, objectively, including, music, movies & comedy. Most people aren’t talented, funny, or otherwise blessed. All they really are is: relatable. People mistake relatability for talent when it’s not. In this case? The man was not a brilliant writer, he was just a disgusting idiot who a lot of other disgusting idiots wanted to celebrate as it complimented their own perverted ass minds. “This guy gets it!” As they fap to the pages. Meanwhile, I’m holding back vomit thinking about my own older family members trying to bang people. Seriously? Why would you want that?
And I know all about how widespread perversion really is. Especially with the majority of woman (and men, but women get lumped out of this stereotype when they are in fact a big part of it). Not too long ago (from modern day) I saw a bunch of test results from people who took “Bondage” or “Sub/Dom” quizzes. Essentially, they test how “Kinky” you are, and everyone scored much less “Vanilla” than I did. Me scoring something like “62% Vanilla” means the type of love scene you see in an average R movie, is what I’m into. What it means to not be vanilla? Many folks are way creepier than I could even imagine.
Some people who took the test said they like “Age Play” which is where your partner pretends they are… disgusting ages… while doing it with you. There’s the “Daddy” kink, which is fine because no age is ever specified and “Daddy” is a broad term, like what prostitutes call their pimp. But if you’re screaming “Say goo goo ga ga” while having sex with someone, I will not hesitate to say that you genuinely terrify me.
Other people said they liked bondage to such an extent that their activities are literally identical to horrific crimes. Yes, apparently some women, go and watch those serial killer movies and instead of reacting in horror, thinking “What a horrible person” they instead think “Man, I wish I could bang that serial killer!” Because that monster is their idea of a “perfect man”. Point is, I checked out when I saw those quiz results thinking “Man, I gotta avoid the hell out of most people. They’re nuts.”
Great example: I once dated a 20’ something year old who literally asked me to pee on her. I was like “Wouldn’t that… mess up the bed?” I had no idea how to process that request. To me, she seemed a little too comfortable, a comfort level I could never imagine being. No one had ever asked me to pee on them in my entire life, this was our first time together and she seemed like it was the equivalent of winning a new car or something. There was dazzle in her eyes when she asked me to pee on her and I was just like "What!? What!? Ahhh!" in my head. The next morning? The same woman said “You’re not a real man” when I asked her to cuddle with me and cried because she wouldn’t. Only to storm out of the hotel, leaving me there crying about how she didn’t care about me. I guess peeing on her would have made me a real man. I have no idea dude.
But back to this teacher? Well, she wasn’t having me shaming her obvious kink, revealed when she assigned us the atrocious literature to review. She chose to assign us that incestual garbage. No one in their right mind would have given us that reading. So right then and there, in response to my objection, she said “Gregory, I have to ask you to leave this classroom right now.”
When I realized this woman didn’t really want my opinion, I smiled at her, frustrated but amused, and said “You asked us our opinion, I gave you my opinion. There is no reason for me to have to leave class because I simply only gave you what you asked for.” And just like that, the hot, but crazy teacher, admitted I was right, and moved on. Which was, actually refreshing. Rarely do people back down from an argument with me, but she did.
Later on, she gave me a decent grade for that class, and we had an odd conversation in private that gave overwhelming “If we were the same age we’d be dating right now” vibes. Why? Because I think she actually liked the fact that I stood up to her, like she was the type of person who enjoyed being put in her place. Probably another kink she had. I also assume she was into me because her whole vibe changed after I took her on in front of the whole class. It’s like she had a dom/sub thing going and got off on being embarrassed or something. No shame in that, but for the incest stuff she assigned us to read? Plenty of shame. She stated that she thought I was brilliant in that same private conversation. Personally, I’ve been no stranger to dating people who are a little off their rocker. Personally? I could have gotten over her being a freak with her literature interests. My general policy is “Just obey they law, be healthy & don’t ever ask me to pee or shit on you.”
Anyway, this chapter was originally over 5,000 words so I had to cut it down. Apparently, it’s a big no-no to make chapters too long, but what can I say, I like talking to you guys (not really the sole reason, but it sounds nice lol). Will get into everything more, next chapter, OH BOY!