Chapter 22

Our sex life as we had known it ended the day after the cops caught us. The deputy sheriff called Gary's dad, and told him at least part of what had happened out in the woods, though we never found out exactly what was said. Gary got an angry call from his father that afternoon, demanding that he meet him over at his uncle's house at 6 p.m. When Gary got there, his Dad went ballistic, told Gary that he was grounded for a year, took his driver's license away from him, forbade him to see or even call me, and generally yelled a lot. According to Gary, after his Dad blew off the steam, they had a man-to-man talk. Gary confessed to his dad that we were really in love, that I was a virgin and we had agreed to keep it that way, and even hinted that we might get married when we were older. He admitted that we had been kissing bare-chested when the cops caught us, but denied that we went beyond that. After some earthy discussion, Gary admitted that I had given him a hand job a few times when his sexual tension got too great, but he convinced his Dad that we weren't fucking, and that there was no risk that we would. We were just two kids in love.

(That was all true, but Gary did misrepresent the sexual situation quite a bit... OK, he left out enormous parts of the truth, but it worked. Afterwards, I had greater respect for Gary's powers of argument and persuasion: it was clear why he was on the debate team.)

Gary said he professed his true love for me, begged his Dad to let us keep seeing each other, and whatever he said apparently did make his father relent a little bit. Gary's dad had been young once, and his parents had dated in high school and married soon after, and probably had done similar things, so his dad was a little sympathetic, but not too much. (He was thinking about the effect of teen pregnancy and a shotgun wedding on Gary's future and mine.) They both agreed not to tell his mother, or my parents, about the sexual aspects of incident. That would let us keep dating, but that was about the only good thing. They agreed to tell his mother that Gary had been caught speeding by the cops, which would justify the punishment, but would keep his mother and my parents in the dark about our sexual activities. I guess I should have been grateful to Gary's father for that, but even though Gary's actual punishment was reduced to loss of driving privileges until Christmas, it was a disaster of major proportions for our relationship.

We lived on opposite sides of town. There was no bus service to Gary's neighborhood. None of my close friends could drive yet, and only a few of Gary's friends had access to a car. All summer we had been used to driving off together when and where ever we wanted in the privacy of his family's car, and most of our sexual experiences had been in the back seat of his car. With no car, we had no way to even get to see each other, much less a place to cuddle up naked. Since we went to different high schools, things would only get worse when school started. I was seriously depressed.

I realized how bad it was going to be when Gary called me that night to tell me the details about what had happened. There were two telephones in my house: one in the kitchen and one in my parent's bedroom. This was before the era of cordless phones, so you had to talk where the phone was hooked to the wall. There was no privacy, which was probably what my parents intended. Anyway, when Gary called to tell me he had lost his driving privileges, my mother and I were washing and drying the dishes after dinner. About all I could do was listen to his sad tale of woe, and prompt him to tell me more about the critical parts, but I couldn't really talk to him because my mother was standing right next to me. She could tell something bad had happened, and was hovering the way mothers do. Anyway, that phone call sort of symbolized our loss of privacy. I went to my room angry and frustrated, and didn't sleep much that night. I couldn't get off, either.