Beware of Love in Technicolor

by Kirstie Collins Brote

  “Is she pretty?” I asked, trying not to sound too pathetic.

  “No,” he said bluntly. “But I can see what he likes about her.”

  “Slutty?”

  “Not exactly.” He thought for a moment. He shrugged his shoulders and went back to eating. “She was nice. And smart. I wouldn’t worry too much about her, though.”

  “Why is that?” I asked, a scowl on my face.

  “Well, she’s no match for you. So just chill, ok?”

  On our walk through town, we ran into Prim and her new boyfriend. They invited us to a party off campus. I jumped at the chance for something to do for a few hours.

  “Where’s John?” Prim asked me innocently. She was a lot nicer than her blue Mohawk would have most people believe.

  “He’s entertaining visitors this weekend,” I said. She looked confused.

  “Abby is up again,” Topher explained to her. Prim rolled her eyes, and looked back at me.

  “And you are ok with that, Greer?” she asked.

  “What can I do? I have no control over it,” I told her.

  “Ew. She was just, ew. Even for me. What an idiot,” she babbled. She hooked her arm in mine as we walked. “We’ll have fun tonight. You’ll show him,” she said.

  ***

  The party was a crowded affair in the dirty basement of a small, blue house near the highway. It was my first keg party. The most fortuitous thing was all the boys. All the boys from Holt, second-long.

  Lucky for me, I was dressed for such an occasion. Short leather jacket, short black mini-skirt, and cowboy boots. Most of the girls were wearing bulky knit sweaters and baggy cords. It was hard not to have an edge over them.

  Topher fetched me a beer. He was a popular guy among his floormates, so there was a steady supply of boys to talk to me and tell me how much prettier I was than anyone else there. They were more than willing to keep my hands around a beer at all time.

  I got drunk. There was no getting around it. It happened really fast, but that was ok. It felt good to let go of the wondering.

  The first boy I kissed that night was a cutie named Mike. He lived at the opposite end of John’s floor in Holt. He had a nice smile and fast hands, and he was not afraid to make the first move. We kissed for a couple of minutes. I wanted to push him away when I thought about John, but kissed him harder when I thought about Abby. Suddenly, Mike stopped, noticing Topher’ angry glare from halfway across the room.

  “Who does he think he is? Your father?” he asked, laughing.

  “Don’t worry about him,” I said, feeling my face flush in embarrassment. “He’s just a concerned friend.”

  “You need another beer,” he said, taking my empty cup from my hand. “Don’t go anywhere.”

  I walked to where Topher was standing, and put my arms around him.

  “You are so cute to worry about me,” I slurred, and hugged him. He tried, unsuccessfully, to untangle himself from my grasp.

  “What are you doing, Greer?” he asked.

  “I’m having fun,” I stated. “You’re not going to ruin it, are you?”

  “I told John I’d keep an eye on you.”

  I let him go and glared at him.

  “You’re not my keeper, and neither is he.”

  “Slow down, Greer,” he warned. His summer day smile warmed me over, and I melted.

  “I’m fine,” I stated firmly. “Just having some fun.”

  “Ok, ok,” he said. He was pretty drunk as well. “I’m sorry. You’re right. Have fun, do whatever, and whoever, you choose. Cheers,” he said, raising his red plastic cup to the new beer Mike had placed in my hand.

  The second boy I kissed that night was a shy soccer player named Brad, with blond curls that reminded me of John. He, too, lived on John’s floor, and told me he always wanted to say “hi” to me whenever he saw me on campus.

  “I thought you and John were a couple,” he said in his quiet voice. I had to strain to hear him over the music thumping through the stereo.

  “Nope,” I said, taking another gulp of my drink. When Mike joined us and began adding some of his own beer to my cup, Brad put his hand over it to stop him.

  “She’s had enough for now,” he said to his friend. I decided he was too nice a guy to mess with, and found my way back to Topher and Prim.

  “Greer!” Prim practically yelled in my face. “You are quite the ball of the belle!”

  We both gripped each other’s arms, and burst out laughing.

  “I mean, belle of the ball!” she squealed. We kept laughing. When I looked up, and the room stopped spinning, I noticed I was surrounded by boys.

  “This must be how Scarlett felt at the Hamilton’s barbeque,” I whispered loudly, to nobody in particular. Topher heard me, and caught the reference. He always did.

  “Hey, Topher,” one of the guys called out. “Where the hell is John? I woulda thought he’d be here tonight.”

  Topher looked at me. I nodded, and shrugged my shoulders. I took another swig of my beer, which was getting warm.

  “He’s got company this weekend,” Topher answered.

  “Not that girl from before? That little one, from UMass or something?” Mike asked, laughing. Some of the other guys laughed lasciviously along with him. I looked from one boy to another, not comprehending.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, in my most innocent tone.

  “John had this girl up at the beginning of the year,” Mike began. “It was late, a bunch of us guys were just hanging out in the hall, you know, just shootin’ the shit and stuff after a night of drinking. And we hear this girl screaming, you know? And she just keeps going.” He stopped and took a drink of his beer. There were about nine or ten of us, listening to his story.

  “So, finally it’s quiet. John’s door opens, and this tiny little thing of a girl comes out, wearing nothing but a towel. All us guys gave her a standing ovation. What else could we do? We heard the whole thing!”

  All the guys laughed. Prim and I stood looking at one another, horrified.

  “Did she say anything?” Prim asked.

  “That was the best part!” Mike said, still chuckling at the memory. “Without so much as blushing, she says, ‘Well, you’d scream too, if you just had five orgasms!’”

  More laughter. There was no way in hell she was going to take these boys away from me, too.

  “Well,” I said, taking a swig from my cup for confidence. “She’s either easily impressed, or a really good fake, because I was with him last night and he wasn’t that impressive.”

  My comment received the loudest round of laughter, and I was back to having fun again.

  ***

  The third boy I kissed that night was a tall, skinny kid from Pennsylvania, named Andy. Andy lived diagonally across the hall from John, and certainly knew there was something between his floormate and me. He didn’t seem to care, though, and I was not exercising much restraint at that point in the evening.

  Andy was a nice enough guy, but not a very smart one. I don’t think he made it past first semester at school. Funny thing, though, of all the guys who tried something with me that night, he was the only one who really talked to me first. We actually had a nice conversation, though I do not recall the details now.

  As the party wound down and it was time to head back to campus, I was back with Mike; the boy with the fast hands had found me again as we were walking out into the cold night. We were across the street from the driveway, kissing and laughing and waiting for the others to join us. I remember him telling me how good a kisser I was. I could hear the others laughing and yelling as they stumbled and ran across the road toward us, but I did not turn away from Mike.

  Suddenly, I felt myself being knocked to the frozen ground, and rolled down the embankment into the shallow ditch below. The group of us, including Prim and her boyfriend and Topher, lay sprawled in the frosty grass, looking up at the stars, laughing and coughing while cars zoomed past up above. In their drunken enthusi
asm, they had tackled us much more violently than they had anticipated. I was the first one to get back on my feet. I held my hand out for Mike, and helped him up.

  “C’mon,” I said, still laughing and brushing dirt from my skirt and tights. “Let’s ditch these clowns.”

  He grabbed my hands and we began running up the street laughing as we listened to the rest of the group moan and groan and get themselves up. When we veered off into the woods I must have hesitated slightly, because Mike stopped for a moment and looked at me in the moonlight.

  “It’s a shortcut, back to Area 1. See, there’s a path,” he said, coaxing me. “C’mon,” he said. “It’s cold. The others will catch up.”

  I was drunk. I was cold. Unbeknownst to us, Prim and her boyfriend and some of the others had accepted a ride back to campus when some young stay-at-home type picked them up in her BMW and deposited them in front of Holt. I didn’t like that I could not hear the rowdy group behind us. So when Mike stopped and tried to kiss me again there in the woods, I wasn’t so much in the mood for those games any longer.

  “Oh c’mon,” he said, pushing his weight into me until I was backed up against a tree. “You’re not going to start saying no now.”

  “Um, yeah,” I stammered a bit, still drunk but able to understand what was starting to happen. “I am saying no now. I want to go home. Take me home.” I tried to step sideways away from him, but he blocked me and I was back up against the tree. He was holding my right arm down by my side with his left hand. He leaned into me, using his weight to pin me in one place, and kissed me again, hard this time and not at all enjoyable. His right hand started finding its way up my skirt. With his weight against me, I could not bring a knee up to get him in the groin, so I bit his lip when he tried to kiss me again.

  “You bitch!” he cried out, letting me go as he stepped back from me. I lunged forward and pushed him down, sending him backwards on his ass. He grabbed my arm and pulled me down on top of him and tried to kiss me again.

  “Hey you guys! What’s going on?”

  I scrambled up and ran to Topher, whose sudden appearance there in the woods interrupted what was quickly becoming an ugly scene. I threw my arms around him.

  “I want to go home,” I said. “I want you to take me home.”

  “No problem,” he said, taking my hand. I was trembling, and I knew that he knew that, but he turned his attention to Mike instead, who was still sitting on the cold ground of the woods.

  “Dude,” he said to Mike in a voice and tone I didn’t think him capable of. Gone was the sunny demeanor. “If you ever even look at Greer again, your next time in the woods won’t be so pleasant. That’s a promise.”

  ***

  “You ok?” Topher finally asked me quietly as we stepped out from the woods and back onto the familiar pavement of the road in front of Holt Hall. We had walked the rest of the path in silence, him holding my hand tight, me trying to rationalize in my head the results of my behavior.

  “Yeah,” I said, still reeling from the excitement a bit. I never expected Topher to have to step in and be my hero. “Yeah, fine. I mean, thank you. Thank you for being there.”

  “You’re really drunk,” he said. “Mike was really drunk. Plus, he’s kind of a douchebag, so I thought you might need some help with him.”

  “You could have told me what a douchebag he is beforehand.”

  “I did. You didn’t listen to me.”

  “Sounds about right, huh?”

  He laughed.

  “I’ll listen to you from now on,” I told him.

  “No, you won’t,” he continued.

  “What’s that?” I asked. I had been distracted as we walked up the hill past Holt, counting windows for John’s room to see if his light was on. It was. I sighed.

  “Not important,” Topher said. “C’mon, I’ll walk you up to your door. You need to get yourself to bed. You’ve got one hell of a hangover waiting for you tomorrow morning.”

  ***

  Back in the safety of The Pit, I realized I was still pretty drunk. I stumbled into my room, waking Molly from a sound sleep. It was somewhere near two in the morning.

  “Greer? You ok?” Molly asked groggily.

  “Shhh...” I whispered loudly. “I’m sorry,” I began giggling.

  “What’s going on? Where’ve you been? You smell like a brewery.” She snapped her desk light on, making me cringe like a vampire. I was trying to kick my boots off, but ended up falling on my ass on the black floor.

  “You’ll never guess how many boys I kissed tonight,” I giggled, leaning against the side of my desk. She started giggling with me, and propped herself up in bed.

  “Three!” I called out, holding up four fingers. She laughed even harder.

  I was too lazy to try and stand, so I crawled to my bed, and pulled myself up on top of it. I lay on my back, with my head at the bottom, my feet resting on my pillows.

  “Does this mean you are over John?” she asked hopefully.

  “Believe it or not, it makes me want him even more,” I said, with more sadness in my voice than I was expecting. I wondered if he had his arms around her. If he was kissing her. If he was inside her.

  “I slept with him last night,” I told Molly. “For the first time. My first time.”

  She was quiet for moment. I thought she had fallen back to sleep.

  “Was it worth it?” she asked finally.

  “I’m not sure yet,” I answered.

  ***

  Molly did not remain awake for much longer. She was not exactly a night person. Though you’d think I would have passed out, I remained awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking about my life. The control I had felt so strongly only hours ago was gone in the absence of outside admirers, and I felt empty. I thought about being pushed around in the woods like a rag doll, and what my night might have turned into had Topher not shown up. I wondered if he was going to tell John about it.

  I looked at the clock. 3:15 am. I was in no danger of falling asleep. Wrapping my comforter around myself, I grabbed my journal and a pen, and quietly shuffled out the door, down the hallway, and out to my favorite spot on the steps of Wyndham, facing away from campus.

  As I sat in the cold, my numb fingers gripping the pen tightly, writing furiously about the evening’s escapades, I failed to notice I was no longer alone.

  “Any room up there for another lost soul?” John’s voice asked me in the thin, crisp air.

  I looked up suddenly, and closed my journal. He was standing on the sidewalk in front of me, his hands jammed into the pockets of his leather jacket. Even though it was against my better judgment, I smiled at him.

  “Make yourself comfortable,” I said. He sat down next to me. We sat in silence for a minute or two.

  “What happened?” I finally asked. “Where is she?”

  “Gone,” he said. “She took the last bus back to Boston, at midnight.”

  “I wish I could say I’m sorry to hear that,” I told him. “But I’d be lying.”

  He reached into his pocket and handed me the black panties I had left behind in his room.

  “I believe these are yours,” he said.

  “Oops,” I gave a small laugh.

  “Yeah,” he said knowingly, elbowing me in the ribs. “Oops.”

  “You want to tell me what happened?” I asked. I was dying to know.

  “You happened, my dear Miss Bennett. It seems you make more of an impression on people than you realize.”

  “Stop being cryptic,” I told him. “What are you talking about?”

  “I took Abby to a party at Ben’s room tonight, and at least four different guys wanted to know where you were.”

  “And that pissed her off?”

  “To say the least,” he answered. “The panties were the final straw.”

  “Was that before or after you slept with her?” I wanted to ask. But I thought about my own behavior earlier in the night, and decided to leave well enough alone.

&nbs
p; “I’m so sorry,” he said quietly. “For everything I’ve put you through. I’m so sorry.”

  He rested his head on my shoulder.

  “I’m ready to follow you to the ends of the earth,” he continued. “If you’ll let me.”

  “Well,” I said slowly, wrapping half my blanket around his shoulders. “It’s about goddamned time.”

  Part Two

  Chapter Six

  The Female Orgasm. The Big O. That elusive, reclusive Loch Ness of the labia. Does it prove the existence of God, or just His twisted sense of humor?

  At nineteen, and in the throes of my first love affair, the mind games came natural. The orgasms did not. After a particular sweaty encounter in the middle of the afternoon, John finally said something.

  “Is there something I’m not doing?” he asked, his forehead glistening, his tone urgent. The look on his face was serious, which sent my heart fluttering. I was just getting comfortable having sex, and now he wanted me to talk about it?

  “No?” I said with uncertainty. It was more of a question than an answer.

  “You just don’t seem able to, uh,” he stammered for the right word. “...finish.”

  I searched my mind for something to make sense. I was expected to produce something during all that? I was here, wasn’t I? I was naked and sweaty, and he had obviously enjoyed himself. His ego needed more?

  “I’m sorry,” he said, showering my shoulders and breasts with kisses. He must have seen the mortified look on my face. “I forget that all this is still so new to you. We’ll take our time.”

  “I’m certainly willing to practice,” I said, trying to take the glaring spotlight off my inadequacies. I could not help but think back to the standing ovation his previous lay had been awarded.

  Don’t get me wrong; I was enjoying myself immensely. But thinking back, it wasn’t the sex, per se, that I was enjoying. What I was enjoying was the simple fact that the potential for sex makes men hang around more. He was attentive; he was affectionate. He told me over and over how beautiful and desirable and sexy I was. It seemed like a fair trade.