The Country of Blue

            Sexual innocence is defined by most as a blameless state of grace, though personally I’m inclined to believe that innocence is less a state of grace than a word we give to the unknown we haven’t yet explored.  Either way, the height of my own romantic notions concerning sex arrived at the age of sixteen....

            ....Yes, I’m sixteen and a sophomore at a private school in the Chicago suburbs. I’m not a great athlete, and I’m not as rich as the other kids, or rather their fathers, but I possess these not quite duplicable good looks and a swagger suggesting far too much self-confidence.  They will come in handy today, because today my life changes. It’s nearly five o’clock on a March afternoon and tennis practice is over and I’m clean and spiffy following my shower. I’m walking toward my third-hand Camaro, saying goodbye to a couple of buddies and then to a girl who has a crush on me, and as I begin to climb into the car I notice out of the corner of my eye my best friend Tommy’s brother, William, a.k.a. Stick.  Tommy and I were as close as brothers during that particular stretch of high school, and I’d stayed over at his house and he at mine and we’d accomplished a couple of mutual masturbations but nothing more because, as he reminded me, that was fag stuff.  So we were able to maintain our friendship because we never actually did fag stuff but merely skirted around it with a weak touch as we yanked off in unison. 

            But Stick was different.  Whenever Tommy and I camped out Stick would pop into the tent and hang around for no apparent reason ....well, no apparent reason to Tommy who at that time detested his arrogant older brother, Stick being a senior and much too good for mere sophomores.  At school and elsewhere in public Stick didn’t want to be seen with Tommy, but whenever I slid by their house he always made time to talk. Tommy thought Stick was simply being difficult, making another older brother power play.  But I knew better, and Stick knew that I knew better.  Stick nosed in because like a dog he was sniffing me out.  He had this odd habit of sitting close and breathing deeply through his nose, exhaling and then following up with, say, four or five sniffettes.  He was smelling me, though Tommy thought Stick was making fun of him because more than once he’d been told by his dad to use deodorant (Tommy being one of those guys who refused to shower at school), and to tell the truth he did have about him during much of that sophomore year a deep stink, a funk that embraces many adolescent males before smelling good for others takes precedence over primal male rebellion in the form of stink.  Another right of passage, stink - like a furtive cigarette or an underage beer. 

            But I’d long been in the cleanliness stage, along with Stick.  So I’m about to enter my car and in my peripheral vision I see Stick sitting alone in his father’s car two over.  But, you see, Stick is never alone.  He’s a linebacker jock type, taller and meatier than I, and always seems to have a football buddy or two with him.  But now he’s alone, and although I know, instinctively, that he’s cruising me, I say, “Tommy’s long gone, Stick-o.”

            “I’m not here for Tommy.”

            Figuring that’s about as direct as he’s going to get, and hoping not to let the moment pass, I mull over the situation for a few seconds and then walk over to his car.  “So why are you here then?” I ask, leaning against the driver’s door with a mock-casualness that surprises even me.  I lean with my left hip against the door, arms up as I stretch, and I’m facing him at an angle which allows a full view should he be inclined to inspect me.  I maneuver into my comfort zone, and the breeze blows from behind me and into the car, carrying with it the densely aromatic after-scent of soap.  And Stick sniffs it out and breathes deeply, eye-balling me all the while.

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