And We Got To Get Ourselves Back to the Garden

“Who am I, what and why?

'Cause all I have left is my memories of yesterday.

Oh, these sour times” - Portishead

“He was weak and worn out with crying and this perhaps made him feel gentle. He put out his hand a little toward Mary, and I am glad to say...she was softened too and met him half-way with her hand” - Francis Hodgson Burnett

I suppose there have been a few incidents that have changed how my life was going pretty significantly. This would be one. The time I lost my virginity. Can I call it that? Lost? Not really. I put it in a cardboard box at the end of the driveway with a shakily drawn sign that said "Please Take" and embellished with a childlike smiley face for encouragement. I would have paid someone to take it away.

I was in a daily program at the hospital for people with depression, anxiety, and whatnot. This was in 1995. I had been extremely suicidal about the fact that no woman wanted me – had never wanted me – and I was despairing of understanding what they all seemed to see that was so bad about me. I thought I was a kind, interesting, and intelligent man (boy, really), who worked hard, and wanted to love deeply. I had tried to get help from the trauma of growing up, but the mental health system is terrible, especially for trauma, especially for the hard stuff from childhood, and I had all but given up on that. I had just battled through three years of extreme social phobia, which developed after the years of crushing rejection from a woman I loved through high school, and was still slowly plugging along with graduated exposure, trying to get to a functional place.

A couple of months earlier, a friend had asked his girlfriend to talk to me, since he knew I had such a problem with women and feeling so completely unloved. She and I sat in the grass on the river bank, and I cried and told her about how much I wanted someone to love, to touch me, to want to marry me, and I had never even been kissed. She hugged me at one point, sort of held me, really. That was one of the first hugs I had ever gotten, and I briefly fell madly in love with her, almost losing both her and my friend from my life. I was later the best man at their wedding, and we were close friends for another dozen years. I still know him a bit, but not her.

Anyhow, the rejection from her sent me further into a tailspin, and led to several suicide attempts, and the discovery of cutting. The first time I cut, I was intending to just cut my arm up so badly I bled to death, but the first cut was extremely deep, and the severity of it, and the vividness of the blood, just immediately relaxed my mind.

I was a wreck, and found myself in that daily group therapy program. Immediately, I was fairly open in group, and told everyone how I was a virgin, no woman wanted me, and I was so lonely etc. There were four women in the group whom I found attractive. L., M., A., and P.. I remained good friends with P. for seventeen years.

I'm pretty sure all of the four women had some childhood sexual abuse they were dealing with, and I know for certain two had. They all had histories of rape. I think I seemed safe to them, and there may even have been an element of reclaiming innocence by “having” me, since I was so (involuntarily) chaste, and was quite frightened and timid. For how experienced they all were, my naivete and guileless openness must have seemed harmless or refreshing. Who knows, maybe I was finally a guy who didn't scare them.

So, I started to see them outside of group. Coffee, movies, that sort of thing. L. only came along a couple of times. Once, we sat around in my apartment, they smoking pot, listening to music, and all of us taking turns squirting massive amounts of Orajel into our mouths and reciting song lyrics and movie quotes to the gales of laughter of the others. It all felt very out of control to me. They all bugged me that I reminded them of Grover from Sesame Street and found it overwhelmingly funny how clearly I enunciated my words. I hadn't been told that before, and it just occurred to me as I write this now, maybe I was keeping such control so I wouldn't betray the terror and panic my body was circling. I was starting to feel like a man, but I realized how out of my depth I was socially. I had no idea how people behaved in these sorts of situations. How could I show them I was interested? How could I show them me and have them interested, when no one had been interested before? It was a bit Girl, Interrupted and I was allowed to tag along.

“...that in the garden there was...nothing which did not understand the wonderfulness of what was happening to them - the immense, tender, terrible, heart-breaking beauty...”

M. invited me to her family supper one night. I knew from group that her father molested her as a girl, and that was obviously a large reason she had problems. It was a very unusual night. Even before supper was served, I thought it all reminded me of Eraserhead. Just this inhuman, dysfunctional, bizarre other-ness to her family. Her Mom was a hyper-enthusiastic and cheerful fifties-style housewife. When I think “enabler” to this day, she comes to mind. Her brother was sullen and angry and wouldn't respond to anything unless absolutely forced to, and then would fly off the handle in his response with vitriol and very personal attacks. He never talked to M. the entire evening. M. was very nervous and moved in a very clunky and graceless fashion. I was excited, though, and didn't hold her family against her. How could I, they were kinder people than my family? I wish they had put on some Angelo Badalamenti music, though, blaring at maximum volume, just to round out the experience, but alas!

The Dad was drunk, or getting there, red-faced and overly-loud. He was behaving like he was trying to impress me, and demanding my attention like a four year old at a party. He touched everybody, and had no boundaries. He massaged the shoulders of everyone present. He stopped the meal at one point to demonstrate his pig impression. He got on all fours and did a passable impression of a pig squealing, as the rest of the family laughed and clapped. I am thankful I caught no echoes of Deliverance in his performance. I think he shook my hand twenty times that night ... a nice, firm handshake, of course. There were several racist jokes.

And the meal. My god. Eraserhead. We actually had Cornish game hens. I'm not kidding. “Can you hear the screaming of the lambs, Clarice?” No, but I can still hear the fucking baby from Eraserhead.

When I went to leave, the Mom filled several bags with canned food from their cupboards for me to take home, and when my arms were full, stuck her fingers in my mouth and pried my jaw open. She examined my teeth approvingly for several seconds, and gave me her official seal of approval (she actually said that) due to the straightness of my teeth. If I had known Roxy Music's “In Every Dream Home, a Heartache” at the time, it would have been in my head. I can't even say that was the weirdest “meet the parents” evening I've ever had.

So, one night I got a call from M., “Would you like to come over? A. and P. are here too and we're drinking. It's a party” I heard my name yelled from one of the others. I bought a six pack of beer. I barely drank then. My hands were shaking quite a bit, so I drank two at home to work up the courage to actually go and be around them and have them see me. I had heard laughing over the phone and was pretty scared. But by God, I was going! They were Girls! And they liked me!

When I got there, music was blasting, and I was awkward and beet red, as they laughed and joked and danced around. I was like a deer in headlights. I suspect my face was a horrific melange of ecstasy, terror, and blank dumbness. All three kept on telling me to drink more, and to party!!!!! but I was pretty scared. I was sipping, and was tipsy enough by the time I had drank two or three more of my beers..

All three were dancing sexily in front of me, asses wiggling, hands reaching inside their panties, that sort of thing. Stroking and groping each other, and kissing each other aggressively. This was shit I had been dreaming of every night for the last decade. I was a whole herd of deer in headlights. I was a madly gleeful prisoner under the interrogation lamp, eager to give it all up. Words were a distant memory, and I was just a swirling hurricane of desire and arousal, terror and self-loathing, hope and the certainty of despair. A. in particular amazed me. I was watching her the most, but the other two kept demanding my attention. I was attracted to them as well, so I wasn't too difficult to direct.

“And it was like that with Colin when he first saw and heard and felt the Springtime inside the four high walls of a hidden garden. That afternoon the whole world seemed to devote itself to being perfect and radiantly beautiful and kind to one boy. Perhaps out of pure heavenly goodness the spring came and crowned everything it possibly could into that one place.”

“Sour Times” by Portishead came on. As I sat rigidly on the couch, frozen, all three began to amp it up even more, pushing their breasts into me, or gyrating their asses inches from my face, straddling me. They all were laughing with pleasure at my nervousness. I thought I was smiling, like a stone, but I suspect “rictus” would have likely been a better word. It took me that long to realize they were actually attracted to me. This had never happened before, so I still wasn't sure.

“Nobody loves me, it's true, not like you do...”

Was this love in front of me. It certainly felt like it in my heart. I wanted to fuck them all, yes, and touch and kiss and explore every inch of their bodies, but my heart was just exploding with warm tenderness, too. Wanting to cuddle them, please them, do everything in my power to make them happy, delight them. I wanted them all utterly. And to learn all that they were. To see them utterly open and be utterly open with them, too.

But I was so scared, too, this wasn't what I wanted. I wanted this to happen without being terrified. I was mentally practising saying “I'm not ready for this yet” if anything happened. It had never happened before, although I wanted it so desperately, so most of me thought I was just deluding myself and they would never want me that way. But the mental rehearsals continued.

God, I wanted any of them, all of them, so badly, but I wasn't ready.

“There is Magic in there - good Magic, you know, Mary. I am sure there is."

"So am I," said Mary.

"Even if it isn't real Magic," Colin said, "we can pretend it is. Something is there – something!"

"It's Magic," said Mary, "but not black. It's as white as snow."

I got up and went to the bathroom. I was planning to announce I was going home when I got out, but who knows if I would have. Maybe not. Considering how it went anyways, I never would have made it home.

The door opened and M. came in and pushed me against the wall. She kissed me and stuck her tongue in my mouth. That was the first time I had been kissed. It was strange and wonderful and terrifying. It was the best thing that had ever happened in the world but I was also so afraid. I was shaking pretty badly. In the years since, there have probably been a couple of dozen women who have commented how I shake during sex, so I have no idea where arousal starts, and nervousness ends.

I tried to open the door a couple of times but she pushed it shut hard with her butt and blocked it. I said “I'm not ready for this.” and she said, “I'm not giving you a choice.” She pushed my hands away from the door a few times and shut off the lights so we were in blackness. There was nothing I could do to stop her, so I went with it, and committed. There was quite a bit of noise from the other two and the music for a bit, but after P. pounded on the door a couple of times, it got quiet.

She was quite aggressive, and we kissed and groped for a while. I still remember stroking my fingers on her bum, and the texture of the jeans, expecting her to freak out: “You've gone too far, mister!” I have no idea how long, but it must have been quite a while. I had the thought go through my head: “I guess this is how this happens” and was no longer trying to stop it. I knew I wasn't ready, but I guess that's how it goes. I couldn't breathe very well.

Finally, she said we were going to her room. She opened the bathroom door and pulled me along by my belt. I felt really submissive and docile, like I was a prize. I still didn't really understand what was happening, but simultaneously exactly knew. A. was standing crying putting on her coat, and not looking at anyone. I could tell she was hurt and angry but didn't understand why. She never talked to anyone there again. Her brother had driven there and was standing in the entrance waiting for her to put on her boots and jacket. I was completely baffled with what was happening. P. said she couldn't go home since it was too late, so she would sleep in M.'s parent's bed. We must have been in the bathroom a long time, but I can't remember it being so long, since A. had gotten upset, then called her brother, who drove halfway across the city to get her.

M. led me up the stairs and into her room. I had such a strange dreamy sensation at that moment. I was in a woman's bedroom for the first time. It was almost a religious experience. In this case, it was a strange religion, though, since the walls were plastered with posters of George Michael, largely without a shirt. The perfume-y smell of her room stunned and awed me. The piled clothes, frilly, pink, feminine! The cute little knick-knacks that I was privileged to be allowed to see, showing me inside a part of her mind. Allowed to be in a place where she was she. I was the crippled kid, brought by the girl into The Secret Garden. Fucked if I remember what age I was when that book worked into my heart as a quite young boy, or the belief there would be a girl who could lead me to a place that would give me space to cure my brokenness. It was finally happening, though.

There was no love there, though. No intimacy. No connection. She undressed us both quickly and efficiently. There was no physical conversation. It was just cold and mechanical. When I tried to touch, she would swat my hands away. It wasn't even very wet. I know now she wasn't aroused at all, and I'm pretty sure she was just doing it to “claim” me, somehow. She moved rapidly and abruptly, and then it was over. She immediately turned the light off, lay down, and pulled the covers over her. I had been so excited to go down on her. There were a million things we failed to do that I wanted to do, damnit!

That wasn't what I expected at all.

"It makes her think of ways to do things - nice things. She is a Magic person. Tell her we are... extremely grateful." He was given to using rather grown-up phrases at times. He enjoyed them. He liked this so much that he improved upon it. "Tell her she has been most bounteous and our gratitude is extreme."

Later, P. knocked on the door, and M. got mad when P. informed her she wet M.'s parent's bed. We were all the same age, twenty-three. This was weird, and I felt guilty for P.. I sort of connected that she had wanted to be the one to take my virginity. And then I understood A. as well.

I sat in bed, naked with the blankets covering me. Vulnerable and naked as these two women argued for a few minutes. M. was kind of gloating, and P., as I learned afterwards when I saw her in other situations, was probably on the verge of slamming her head into the wall. I didn't like the hostility going on around me, but I liked feeling vulnerable in a woman's bed. I liked how physically and emotionally naked I was there.

I thought I would feel completely different inside after it happened. I didn't. I felt different, but the change was not as profound as I thought it would be.

“...and the Magic - or whatever it was - so gave him strength that when the sun did slip over the edge and end the strange lovely afternoon for them there he actually stood on his two feet - laughing.”

“Wow. I guess I have a girlfriend, finally,” I thought, like a dunce.

There wasn't a massive change in me, but I immediately felt like I could find a life I wanted. But I was no more equipped to do so than I had been an hour earlier. Just that I now knew could be wanted, it wasn't impossible. It's kind of like if you spent your life wishing you could juggle, but never had a chance to try. Then you finally do, and you automatically know how, and it's cool, and you're happy about it, and kind of proud, but at the end of the day, it's just juggling. It turns out what you wanted was to juggle in the circus. Okay, cool, good first step, but not actually the dream you really wanted. It was the same thing. That was sex, and I wanted physical and emotional intimacy.

"Now that I am a real boy," Colin had said, "my legs and arms and all my body are so full of Magic that I can't keep them still. They want to be doing things all the time. Do you know that when I waken in the morning, Mary, when it's quite early and the birds are just shouting outside and everything seems just shouting for joy - even the trees and things we can't really hear - I feel as if I must jump out of bed and shout myself. If I did it, just think what would happen!"

M. and I met up a few more times for coffee, but she refused to let me touch her, even though she agreed I was her boyfriend when I asked. It kept me coming back briefly, but to my mind, there should be affection, so I moved on.

P. and I had sex a few times. She was just as aggressive sexually, but their was a warm passion to it, not the coldness of M..

“They both laughed but it was not because the idea was laughable but because they both so liked it.”

After that, I sort of became a whore for a while. Life was good. Women could love me, so I could meet them and have sex and eventually I would meet one whom I could connect with the way I dreamed and wanted. I guess life was pretty good until my relationship with T. fell apart. So, nine years or thereabouts where I felt love was either happening, or possible. Then the nightmare began again. It hasn't really ended. There are periods, usually lone nights after the bar, or a few days anticipating a first date, or a few weeks where it seems to be starting again, but mostly, it is still that waiting, hoping, and uncertainty if I will ever walk in the Garden again.

“When the boy began to walk by himself and even to move more quickly it was an immense relief. But for a long time - or it seemed a long time to the robin - he was a source of some anxiety. He did not act as the other humans did. He seemed very fond of walking but he had a way of sitting or lying down for a while and then getting up in a disconcerting manner to begin again.”