Chapter 21: Grounded

January 1, 1978

Becky wasn’t allowed to ride with us when her dad dove me home. I was permitted to hug her and she took the opportunity to kiss me, briefly, on the lips. We received disapproving looks from her parents, but no further comment. The ride home was silent. After Mr. van Hoek left my house, I was called into my dad’s office. Fortunately, it was just him. But I knew he’d tell my mom. And I didn’t think I’d get off the hook with her.

“Steve, what were you thinking?” Dad asked.

With him, I could be more forthright.

“Dad, she came into the room, and got in bed with me. We didn’t have sex because neither of us had birth control. She wanted to. I said no. I might have been stupid to not send her away, but I sure didn’t want to get her pregnant. I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I was really tired. I’m sorry. That’s all I can say.”

The other shoe dropped immediately.

“I had a call this morning from Mr. Harrison.”

Mary’s dad. I was well and truly screwed, so to speak.

“It seems that Becky isn’t the only girl you’ve been in a compromising situation with. Care to explain yourself?”

Again, with Dad, I could be more direct.

“I went to her house yesterday. She invited me to come over and mess around. Her parents came home unexpectedly.”

“Did you have sex with her?”

“That’s not really something a guy talks about. That’s between me and her.”

“Steve, drop that pretext! This isn’t about bragging to your friends, which you shouldn’t do, as you say. Mr. Harrison suspects that you did, but he’s not sure. He says his daughter will only say that you were ‘kissing and stuff.’ I’m not going to tell him, or your mom, but I want to make sure you are being responsible. I know what it’s like to be fourteen. It was a long time ago, but I do know.”

“Yes, Dad. I’ve had sex with Mary. One time before yesterday, and yesterday. We used condoms both times. And as I said, when Becky asked me to do it, I didn’t have any condoms and she wasn’t on the Pill, so I refused.”

I knew the next question before he asked.

“So was Mary the first time you had sex.”

“No.”

I hoped he didn’t press for more answers, and thankfully he didn’t.

“OK. I’m not going to ask anymore. Your mom will. You have to decide what to tell her. And she’s certainly going to punish you. From my perspective, Mr. van Hoek’s response is about right, though I don’t know if a boy would live through that experience if it were Stephanie.”

He smiled and I could tell he both meant and didn’t mean it.

“You were responsible about it,” he continued. “You used protection when you had sex. You didn’t have sex when you didn’t have protection. Promise you’ll always follow that.”

That was a promise I knew I could keep.

“I promise, Dad. And thanks.”

He went to talk to Mom. I just waited. I knew I was in for it. I hoped I’d get to go out sometime before I turned 18. About 10 minutes later they came in. I could tell Mom was angry. Really angry.

“Stephen Mark Adams, how could you? You know better than that! I’ve taught you better than that. You’re only fourteen. You have no business having sex. No business being in a girl’s house without her parents there. You should not be in a bed with a girl in any circumstance. But in her parents’ house? After they invited you there? I don’t care if you think you are acting responsibly. You’re too young and those girls are too young. Period. This is not open for debate, either. There will be no repeats of this behavior. Do you hear me, young man?”

I heard her. But I wasn’t going to agree with her.

“Yes, Mom, I hear you.”

I knew more or less what was coming next.

“You are grounded for a month. Except for church, school, work, and tutoring, you are not to leave this house unless you are with your dad or me. You may have Larry over, but that’s it. I’m taking the extension out of your room. You may use the phone in the kitchen to make calls if you ask my permission first. If people call, you may speak to them, but you have a five-minute limit either way. Do you understand me, Stephen?”

I wasn’t stupid enough to argue with her. I could talk to Dad later and see if he could do anything.

“Yes, Mom.”

Then she dropped the hammer. “You will go to confession and talk to Fr. Buschmiller.”

That could not possibly end well.

“Come with me,” she ordered.

Now what? We walked from the office down the hall, turned left down the hall, and went to my room.

She pointed to my chair and said “Sit.”

Oh no! She was going to search my room. Looking for my rubbers, I was sure. If she found the box, I’d have to open it. And the rubbers would be the least of my worries.

She began searching my dresser. Finding nothing, she checked the drawer in the nightstand, then the desk drawers. Finding nothing she went to the closet. If she looked in the back of the filing cabinet I had in there, it was all over. She checked the shelves, looked in my shoe boxes, and then pulled open the filing cabinet. I was dead meat.

But she shut it without taking the box out. How did she miss it? I held my breath.

“OK. Where did you hide them?”

“What?”

“Don’t give me that young man! The condoms!”

She hadn’t found the box, so I felt safer.

“I used all three of them that were in the box with Mary.”

Technically, I had used four with her, but the last one wasn’t ‘used’ the way it should have been. And I had more than one box. Or at least I had. It dawned on me what had happened. I loved my sister. And I was going to owe her big time. Whatever she wanted when she eventually collected. At this point, I envisioned paying for her wedding, complete with a honeymoon in Hawaii.

I don’t think Mom was satisfied, but she gave up the search.

“Stay in your room until dinner.”

She unplugged the phone and wrapped the cord and took it with her. After she left I let out a sigh of relief. I figured Stephanie would be along in due time. I would see everyone at school in the morning, except Anna. I’d have to find a way to call there. Larry could talk to Joyce for me. And I would write a letter to Birgit.

January was going to suck. There were no two ways about it. I wouldn’t be able to see Jennifer outside of school. On the plus side, I could see Melanie once a week. I wondered if I could get away with twice, but we had already told my mom we were going down to once. Oh well.

I tried to read but couldn’t concentrate. I really wanted to talk to Becky but I knew that was at least three weeks away. I’d miss our nightly chats. But I also had to figure out how to deal with her statement that she loved me. I loved Melanie. I was in love with Birgit. Jennifer, if I admitted it, I was in love with as well. Becky, I didn’t know.

My ‘love life’ was a complete mess. It began to dawn on me that having as much sex as possible was likely to create more situations like this. So far, only Mary seemed completely immune to the ‘sex equals love’ equation.

Melanie and I had managed, just, to keep it separate. Those two were a distinct minority. I suspected that Anna was in the same boat with Jennifer, Birgit, and Becky - love and sex were equated in some way. I thought that was true for Michelle as well, but so far she had it under control. I wondered if she could maintain that.

I thought about the character of each of the relationships. Neither Melanie nor Mary had been virgins. That had to make some kind of difference. I remembered how I felt with Jennie. I had been a virgin.

I suddenly remembered something I had read about Ben Franklin. He advised relationships with older women because younger ones were too emotional and became too attached. He also felt that being with an older woman was less sinful than taking a young woman’s virginity. I didn’t care about sinful, but I wondered if Franklin’s advice was based on seeing the same thing I was.

The virgin girls who seemed to be flocking to me seemed to fall in love. I wondered again what Michelle was thinking - she had been a virgin as well. I would have to find out before Spring Break. I had to carefully consider seeing her again if it put me in a position of having another girl who was in love with me.

With Birgit, Becky, and Jennifer, sex had come long after we’d started hanging out. That indicated to me that Anna was the same risk if I did manage to go out with her once I was no longer grounded. The same might be true for Kellie or Joyce as well, but those were problems for the future.

Michelle was in between. Not that we had a long relationship, but we also didn’t go right into having sex. I hoped her decision process revolved only around making sure her first time was good and not about thinking I was ‘the one’, as it were.

But again, that was an issue for the future. In the here and now, I had to decide what to do. I’d see if I could get Melanie to skip the lesson this week - it would be just a review - and have a heart-to-heart talk.

Clearly, I wasn’t getting any reading done. I was just waiting on Stephanie. I noticed the hamper full and realized I hadn’t done my laundry in a week. I sorted it and went through all the pockets because I had a habit of leaving stuff in them.

I got to the bottom of the basket and took out the shirt I had worn on Christmas. I found a folded piece of paper in the pocket. Oh yeah, Vickie’s note. I had completely forgotten about it. It had my name on the outside. I read it, sank back in my chair, and shook my head. Why me? Was I sending off some strange vibe? I read the note again, and a third time. I hadn’t misread it.

‘I want you to teach me about sex.’, it said. And it was signed with a heart.

My cousin. She was cute and all, but she was my cousin. I was sure that a one-month grounding wouldn’t even begin to tell the story of how much trouble I would be in. The only saving grace was that we usually only saw them three times a year - Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving. And it was always at a family gathering.

I wasn’t going to call her, ask her about her note, or anything else. I crumpled the paper and flushed it down the toilet. I couldn’t see any circumstance where she could maneuver me into a situation where it could happen. That gave me some modicum of reassurance.

I loaded up my laundry and walked back to my room shaking my head. Maybe I should leave the country. Get away from all of this. Too bad that wasn’t possible. Or was it? I realized I had missed the opportunity sitting right in front of my face. It was so obvious that I had looked right past it. Exchange Student. To Sweden. Talk about killing several birds with one stone!

I knew it was too late for my Sophomore year. It was already January and the information meeting had been in October, if I remembered correctly. I’d ask the guidance counselor at school the next day. A year in Sweden, close to my Birgit. But I had to convince Mom and Dad. And there was no way I was even going to mention it until the end of Summer. By then they should have cooled down. Assuming I didn’t make any more dumb mistakes.

Eventually, I saw Stephanie standing at the door to my room. She had my locking box.

“Lose something?” she asked.

“How did you get that?”

“I heard Mom and Dad talking. She said something about searching your room. I ran down the hall and grabbed it and took it to my room. I knew you had the pictures in there. But what was mom looking for? She couldn’t know about the pictures.”

“Rubbers.”

“I should have guessed. I came in to grab them and hide them for you. I didn’t see them but I knew the pictures were in here.”

Did I mention I loved my little sister?

“I owe you. I mean seriously.”

“And I intend to collect.”

“What do you want?”

“Nothing right now, but when I ask, you can be sure it’ll be important.”

“Just don’t get caught in bed with a guy. Dad said that the boy might not survive.”

She laughed, “Because of me or because of dad?”

God. Ten years old.

I sighed. “Because of dad. I don’t even want to think about what you meant the other way.”

She smiled and stuck her tongue out at me.

Before I could say anything she said, “Eww! Don’t say it. I know!”

I laughed. She handed me the box and went back to her room.

Dinner was basically a silent affair. Not much talking. And as usual, the food was edible, but that was about it. I decided that since I had nothing else to do in January, I was going to teach myself how to cook. Dad was pretty good, but didn’t cook very often. I’d have to check cookbooks and ingredients and see what I could make. I’d cook for myself only the first time. But maybe I could do Thursday dinners when my parents were out.

I dreaded Monday. I would have to tell everyone about my punishment. I hadn’t quite figured out what to say to Brent, Ralph, Kellie, Susan, Danny, or the other people who hung around. Jennifer, I could tell straight out, same with Larry. Mary already knew part of it and I could probably avoid the rest. I needed a way to talk to Anna, but I figured I could get a five-minute call later in the week. And I’d tell Melanie that evening at tutoring.

I talked to Mary first, trying to keep Becky out of it. She wasn’t buying.

“A month just for being in my house? No way.”

“Well, your dad told my dad he thought we were doing it, but wasn’t sure.”

“And just for that, your mom grounded you for a month? Really?”

Time to come clean.

“Well, no. I guess I would have just been told never to come to your house when your parents aren’t home. The month was for getting caught in bed with a girl by her dad.”

“What?!”

“Yeah, that night.”

She burst out laughing.

“You got caught in one day not just by my parents, but by another girl’s parents, and with her, they found you in bed?”

“Yeah.”

She was laughing so hard I thought she would cry.

“Well, I hope it was AFTER you fucked her, not before or worse, during!”

“We didn’t have sex, Mary.”

“Before, then.”

“No, I turned her down. No birth control.”

“I thought you always had at least one rubber with you.”

“I had no clue she was going to do that. But the fact that I didn’t have a rubber saved me an even worse fate because she could truthfully tell her mom and dad she was still a virgin. That might be the only reason I’m alive and grounded instead of buried in her parents’ garden never to be seen again.”

More laughter.

“You are hilarious, Steve. And I’m going to find a way to get with you and finish what we started on Saturday.”

I was doomed.

“Also, Mom talked to me a long time without Dad. She told me she was pretty sure I was sexually active. She asked me about birth control, I told her I always used condoms.”

I interrupted, “Always?”

“Well, you never cum in me, do you? She told me she wants me to go on the Pill, but I’m not sure. It would be cool to feel you shoot in me but I’m not sure. She’s insisting, but we’re still discussing it. And I don’t mind if you have sex with other girls, obviously, but you can’t complain if I have sex also.”

Snark time, “With other girls?”

“Oh poo! No, silly, with guys! But I’m not saying I will. My past relationships have been one at a time. The first guy lasted like a month; the next guys were one-time things. The last guy was a couple of times before I got scared. I wanted to keep going and so did he, but I was afraid after I read that article in the paper.”

She promised she’d figure something out. I didn’t hold out a lot of hope. We agreed on a course of action. Since the guys all knew my mom was unreasonable, I told the guys that I had been caught at Mary’s house when her parents had been out.

“Did they like catch you in her bed?”

“No, in the basement. It’s not like we were caught, you know, doing it.”

“Did you do it?”

“No way am I answering that question. And you guys shouldn’t ask it. And you shouldn’t answer if you get asked. Think about it. If I were to go around telling guys I had sex with Mary, don’t you think she’ll find out and be mad? Think I would ever get it again? I mean, if it was actually something that we did.”

They shook their heads.

“Then think what you want, but I’m not answering that question. And I’d advise not saying anything about it. Mary is your friend, too, as well as part of the chess team.”

I don’t think they were satisfied. I was sure they thought I had done it. Fine, as long as they didn’t talk about it or cause problems for Mary.

Jennifer and Larry were easier. No grief. No teasing. And I told them the straight-up truth. Jennifer just nodded and Larry said he’d be glad to visit me during my imprisonment. Yeah, he used that term. I laughed.

Jennifer, ever the Smart Aleck, said, “But I bet no conjugal visits.”

And then she had to explain that one to me. I hadn’t heard the term before.

Larry promised he would talk to Joyce.

To the few others, I just said that I had gotten in trouble, that it wasn’t a big deal, my mom was just over-reacting. They sympathized because they knew my mom. Fortunately, none of them asked any questions. At lunch, Kellie pulled me aside and said she was disappointed since she hoped we could get together sometime. I told her I’d like that, but it would have to wait.

When I met up with Melanie after school, I said, “Is your mom home?”

“Yeah, like always. Why?”

“Because if she wasn’t, I probably shouldn’t come over.”

I told her everything, including the aborted strip chess with Becky. I know I had promised Becky, but Melanie was my best advisor and I needed her help. She just listened. I asked if we could just talk today instead of studying and that I would have plenty of time to study since I was grounded. She agreed.

We sat down at the kitchen table and her mom served us hot chocolate. I told her I wanted to talk about love. Her mom excused herself and went upstairs. I was happy she wasn’t going to sit in the other room where she could hear us.

I expressed my misgivings and my confusion about Becky, Jennifer, and Birgit, and of my initial feelings about Jennie, and Jennie’s reaction; of my concerns about Anna. I told her my theory of what was going on. I mentioned Mary and of course my relationship with Melanie herself, and the future that might come with Joyce, Donna, Kellie, and others.

She just let me talk. I needed it. It helped me order my thoughts and get a grip on my own feelings. When it was clear I was finished, Melanie took over.

She told me that she thought what I was saying sounded right. She had thought she was in love with Stan, but after a while, realized she wasn’t. She knew that both Jennifer and Birgit were in love with me. From what I said, she thought it sounded like Becky was there, too.

She couldn’t say anything about Anna, but advised caution since she might also equate sex and love. With regard to Mary, she said that Mary’s situation sounded different. It sounded like she was experimenting and had decided in advance it was just sex. Some people could do that, she said. I clearly had with Mary and Michelle. We agreed that it had been a close thing with us, but that our love for Birgit kept us from getting into that dangerous territory.

I asked about Michelle.

“Oh, she has a thing for you,” Melanie said with a smile, “but I think it’s more lust than love. She’s seeing a guy, but it’s not serious at this point. She talks about you, but it’s not like when Jennifer or Birgit talk about you. I think you’re safe!”

Melanie went on to say that Spring Break depended on whether or not Michelle had gotten serious with her guy. That was small comfort. I had at least three girls in love with me. And I couldn’t commit to any of them - Birgit because of distance, and Jennifer and Becky because of Birgit.

Melanie continued, saying that love didn’t always last, and she was an example of this. I asked about Pete and she said she wasn’t in love with him, but really liked being with him. She might love him eventually, but for now, they were dating and enjoying themselves.