Siempre Hay Una Primera Vez.

Ok… here goes.

First, an explanation: I don’t know you people—what’s more, you don’t know me. Nothing I tell you here means anything to anybody but me, but somehow just typing it here makes me feel better. So I will cry my fucking eyes out and type, and write, until I can cry no more and my fingers can type no more. Because this was going to be a sappy, romantic, tender story of two kids falling in love after waiting and saving themselves for love, and finding each other one day… and living happily ever after.

But there is no ever after. Or there is…there is a hell and one can only crawl out of it by clawing one’s fingers on the searing walls and burning all the way to the bone till one is out. But I am overly dramatic so I can feel better.

Here is the real story, the one no one knows, the one I never told.

Sexual abuse runs in my family. People who were hurt as kids hurt each other and their children, perpetuating hatred, and self-hatred, and more than hatred, self-disgust, which is different and more bloody.

My father took advantage of my mother, and thus began a family. She was 16 and he was 27. She was a desperate girl trying to get out of the house, and out she got. But this isn’t their story.

My father liked to touch my brother’s and my body, us naked, sitting on his lap. He didn’t think much of it, and neither did we. Eventually, we told him to stop, and eventually we forgot all about it. I was about 8 when we stopped him—and don’t even know how it was that we stopped him… only that one day we said “no more” and it was no more. But this is not his story.

But my younger siblings weren’t so lucky. They couldn’t tell him to stop. He went too far, at least with my sister. He hurt her more than anybody I know has hurt anybody else, and I know people who have killed. There were dark years, when she wished she were dead, or she acted like it—but God Himself might have had a plan for her, for she is saved. He gave her a Pearl, for she is dearly paid for, and a savior—a little bit of Heaven that defied death to stay with us—a blessing, a miracle that fit on the palm of my hand when she was born and weighed but a pound and a half if she held her breath. And parent and child have saved each other. They’ve made a single heart out of their broken hearts and it is strong and keeps them going. But this is not their story.

This is my story, and I am guilty.

I see my past like most people see their future: ghostly images, ideas, shadows in the dark—patchy, broken, edgeless, indistinct. That I could swear to see clearly, there are only three days I see like people tell me they see their past. The rest are but dreams that come and go and leave me in peace most of the time. I always wondered why my past was so tenuous, intangible, and then I thought that it was (like my dreams) deniable and forgettable, and perhaps that was the point. Little by little, the dreams come back and knowing I can face them and facing them I understand. I understand I knew. I knew and chose not to know. I saw and closed my eyes. I hid in church and prayed on Sunday and Wednesday and Thursday and Sunday. I read the Bible from cover to cover, and then started again. By fifth grade, I had read it three times, neatly commenting on the margins in a pen of different color every time—to keep me busy. And I studied, science, math, history, whatever, poetry, anything, something, keeping busy… tiring myself so I could sleep deeply enough that I would not wake up in the middle of the night. And I forgot—and I didn’t have to think of it anymore. But I knew. I knew. I know.

He is dead now, and with him died my chance to get rid of this. I’ll take it to my grave, and if the pain is all I have to pay it will be lightly paid. But this ends here. Every kiss I give my children, every hug, a gentle caress, whatever, a little voice inside my head tells me to be careful. I live with them as if a camera were watching and a judge whose power I cannot contradict will judge my every touch upon them.

But this is not their story. If they never know of the sins of my father—or mine—then I will not have lived in vain.

I say this only so the rest will make sense. And now the story of my first time. Read it now and tell me how sweet and sappy and romantic and tender it may sound, knowing what I have always known. I could not simply lie and say that waiting felt right and so I waited. I could not say simply that I was busy and so there was no time. I would be lying if I said anything but this: I touched no human before she touched me because I loathed the feel of human flesh upon my flesh. The smell, the taste, the idea. I craved it, but I could not bear it. She doesn’t know the story, and I will never tell her, but I will always love her for this, and one day, hopefully, my children might know that I still love her, though they won’t know why.

We met in school. She is a year younger than me, but we were in the same grade because I was held a grade because of the language when I moved to the United States. By sophomore grade, we were good friends. By senior year, we were Friends, the six of us, and though we were all to go to Prom together, I danced with her and she with me. Remember “Take My Breath Away”? I do. We danced all night, selfishly leaving our respective dates alone until it was time to go home. We didn’t kiss, but I was in love. She loved me, too, but we didn’t talk about it then.

And then we went to college, too far to visit, except when we went home. One summer, I came home and didn’t go back to school. I was 19 and she was 18, and she came to visit and we went bowling and held hands, and talked until four in the morning. She drove me home and we stayed in the car, talking more. Then it was time for me to go home, and she said “kiss me,” and I said “I can’t” and meant it. She thought I didn’t like her, and unable to explain I just repeated “I can’t” and she saw I meant it. I saw it in her eyes long before I felt it on my lips, but she kissed me. And I kissed her, and we started dating. She was going to school locally, so she’d pick me up on Friday night and I’d spend the weekend with her till Sunday. One weekend blended into the next and the next and before I knew it I was 20 and she was 19, and we were happy just kissing.

We had been dating a year, and everybody thought we were sleeping together, and we got tired of saying we weren’t, so we just didn’t say, but we didn’t. We held hands and hugged and kissed and I forgot how I didn’t like that. We slept together, hugging all night and touching. She taught me what intimacy meant. And then we decided to do it.

This is one of the three days.

It was crisp, and bright, and wonderful. It was a Saturday night. We had gone to dinner and to the movies, and held hands, and kissed. Spandau Ballet was playing in the background, which gave us plenty of time to undress each other (with the lights off, of course).

That night I knew a kind of love I hadn’t known before. It was wonderful. A year later, we were married, she was pregnant (yes, they happened in the wrong order, but we were getting married anyway, so it was ok by us). We stayed together as long as we could, but it turned out we were always better friends than lovers. Eventually, we split up. But we are friends, better now than before. And I am grateful for her love. And I love her now more than ever before, because she’s given me two children. And what if it didn’t work out? You don’t have to stay together to be great together. It is best this way.

Still, I must say that it would have been better to wait. There was nothing wrong with what happened—on the contrary, I don’t know how I could have gotten past the problems I had had it not been for her. I never had to figure it out, so I won’t start guessing now. Still, there was a certain childishness to our intimacy I can only understand now, in retrospect, seeing it from the maturity of knowing what a relationship is. I mean, Spandau Ballet? But seriously, we each had a lot to work through and we hadn’t. We did the best we could and I hope to God things worked for the best—but I can’t help but feel they might have been better if we’d known each other better. Financial security is never guaranteed, nor is stability in life, but it cannot be denied that both improve as one matures, physically and emotionally.

I am eternally grateful for my children, and so I cannot for a moment wish things had been different, lest they not be with me today. Nonetheless, knowing how my life went after, I think it might have been better for my children to have arrived when we had our first apartment, when we were both working steadily, when things were just running more smoothly. I still wish they had come when we were past the holding hands or “getting to know your body” stages. I wish they had come when we were ready for them to come. Of course, many will say that just because we were having sex it didn’t mean we had to have children…and that is true. But we were young, and more often than not it happens. Even if we hadn’t had the children, I do not feel I reached the level of emotional maturity required to care for anybody other than me until I reached 25. Perhaps others reach it sooner—good for them. Let them have sex. Let them have children. It is their decision. If I knew then what I know now, my children would have a better father—in my own humble opinion, and then again, whose opinion matters on this but mine?

Yes, I know this is overly dramatic. No, I don’t care. Yes, thank you for reading it. Yes, your comments are welcome: God knows I’m more than willing to question my opinion when confronted with better ones… just make sure they’re better ones.

Now I’m tired of crying and remembering and it’s late and I have to get some sleep. If this needs editing, I’ll do that later.

I’m just out of energy.