Notable Summer Romances So Far
by Alexandra Molotkow
Donald D. Summerville Olympic Pool, ’94–’97
Early impressions of balls
Friend’s bedroom, 1997
The adult neighbor who held up signs as we danced to the Spice Girls in bathing suits with socks stuffed in for tits. Turn up the heat? Burn up the meat? What’s he doing now, dry heaving? Just like in Me and You and Everyone We Know except we were 11.
The Kids in the Hall, 1998
The bridge from childhood to puberty was: Bruce McCulloch and Tracy Wright fucking each other senseless, Mark McKinney’s ass, Tammy’s “Ain’t Gonna Spread for No Roses,” and watching Dave Foley’s “Guy with the Good Attitude Toward Menstruation” on my first period, sitting on a jumbo maxi pad and breathing weird because my dad was in the room. My friend and I made T-shirts for their first reunion tour and waited by the backstage door to meet them. The woman next to us said she heard they’d let us in if we fucked the bouncer.
First �����, 2003
Just friends at first. Tense moment during the dancing butthole scene in Pink Flamingos. Our friends at the time called this “Summer of the Ether,” because they were doing a bunch of ether. All I can tell you about ether is it makes your face smell like rotting vegetables. In July I had a party, and when he arrived he told me he was leaving at the end of August for school. He wanted to make anarchist DOS games. By the end of the party he was vomiting into his hands, so I cleaned him up and put him to bed and the next night he fucked me.
I’ve spent many years complaining and caricaturing my slightly sadistic militant vegan first boyfriend but I’m old enough to understand that it doesn’t matter because he fucked me good. We did all the things with all the parts and he rode a Yamaha Vino, which is an amazing toy for teens. My mom liked him because he was “political” and my dad liked him because he “seemed like a harmless little pud.”
The year after that I sat in math class failing, because once you know you can feel that why do anything else? In October he came for a visit and I felt so sad I got a sinus infection, and when he left I cried until my tear ducts got infected and my tears came out green.
First love, 2006
We chain-smoked all summer in his attic apartment, which felt like the inside of a mouth. I have never been so happy as the time I got the morning off from work and to see him on a Tuesday. Living through bliss time is frustrating. It’s like a bonus level, you have to catch all the coins before time’s up, plus, as Haley says, you’re only built to hold so much. Plus the UTIs, or yeast infections, or both.
Older person, different city, 2011
It’s amazing how when you’re young with an underformed theory of mind, you think no one can see your motives or needs or pent-up feelings, when that’s all anyone sees, if they look at you. To anyone you are a dog in a suit. As my cab left for the airport he said something like “I’ll talk to ya” and made a text-message gesture and I started to tear up. I was going to listen to Carole King but the cab driver started talking about Vincent Li’s release from prison, and how insanity was not an appropriate defense for decapitating someone on a bus, and he’d been insane three times himself and would never decapitate anyone.
Another thing you don’t understand in your earlier 20s is that sometimes the less powerful half of a situation has the most fun. They are mostly trying to buffer their conscience and leave you to your moments.