Amy

At fifteen I had a girlfriend in high school named Amy. She wore pigtails, was fair; an actress and wore men's pajamas and shoes, with no socks, to school. Amy dyed her hair beet red, smoked Camel Lights like a chimney and revealed stories of how she was in the movie 'Coyote Ugly'.  I never cared if her stories were true or untrue until later. She was a pretty good actress since I believed she loved me.

I forced myself to be in love with Amy because having a girlfriend was how I sought to legitimize myself.  I'm not sure she was intellectual and the fact that we were an interracial couple didn't matter to her. She was a Taurus like my Mom and I was definitely attracted to her style and her irreverence. My best friend, Lisa, took Amy under her wing and Lisa's acceptance confirmed that Amy was cool. I learned a lot about 'cool' from the both of them. I'd only began to learn about women.

After what seemed like months but was likely just weeks of dating, the time came for me and my girlfriend to do it. Everyone thought it was improbable since I was clearly a homo but then everyone thought Amy was a dyke so we made sense in a way. What did we know about dating or gender roles or sex? We were desperate teens. At least I was.

We fucked in the shower because I had seen that in a movie and I thought that that was cool. Amy was vocal and I was inexperienced so her moans made it seem like we were in porn. At fourteen every girl has a great body and I was happy to be naked, soapy and wet with her. I don't remember if we used a condom but I guess we must have since there was no shortage of awkward fumbling.

The sex was over pretty quickly and I do recall wondering if we had made love or just screwed and would I know the difference someday. Many years later she would reveal that I was one of her first...what did that mean? I really liked going down on Amy but our sex was pretty vanilla. We were better as friends and were still the cool kids at school. I graduated from  high school while she went elsewhere so we didn't see one another much so we drifted apart.

Amy's father came over to my house one day looking for her some time before we broke up. I'd never met him and and didn't know how he knew where I  lived but he seemed really worried so we set off to find her in his pick up truck. We checked Cafe Med and Au Coquelet in Berkeley which was where Amy and I went to loiter, drink coffee and smoke when we cut class but she wasn't there. My sort of girlfriend's Dad didn't say much in the car but I was listening.

We drove around town until nightfall and finally ended up at my old buddy Jeff' house in Piedmont. I started wondering how often Amy went missing and if she ran away a lot. Jeff's Mom was in the kitchen and said Jeff wasn't feeling well but I could go up and see him in his bedroom in the attic which I did. Amy's Dad sat and chitchatted with her while I wondered how stoned Jeff  was. Jeff was in bed with the covers up to his head and his usual sheepish look on his face. No fifteen year old boy is in bed at 7pm.

"Hey dude. Have you seen Amy? Her Dad's here. He's worried about her".
Jeff didn't look sick but he did look baked.
" No, dude. I' m sick".
"Hmm. Okay".

I lingered for a second and glared at Jeff in his huge poster bed thinking it strange that a 6' 3" teenager with the flu was completely covered and in bed. I never thought of Jeff as intellectual either and I was right.

Years later at a Bruno's in the Mission I ran into Amy. Seeing her again in pigtails drinking Cosmos, as a mother of two boys and divorced it struck me how long I'd held onto the benign memory of her purity and her deceit. She still looked sexy but it was as though we'd just met and were role playing.

That day so many years ago I was told by Jeff that she had been giving him a blow job under the bed covers when I walked in looking for her. In order for her lie to remain intact she remained motionless and tried not to chuckle when I told my " friend" how worried I was about her. Amy and me weren't exclusive but the code between bros and my affection for them both disappeared that night.