If you’ve ever been to Chicago, and are at all the museum–going type, you’ve probably been to the Museum of Science and Industry. It’s worth seeing, with the Omnimax 360 degree theatre, the over–priced coal mine ride, and the tons of cool techno gizmos. If you’re anything like me, you can’t resist the glass globe with the sparks that reach out to caress your hand, or the computer quizzes. But the best thing about it in 1989 was that it was still free. Only a ten–minute walk from my dorm, it was irresistible during those rare weeks of Indian summer, when it was warm and humid enough that you desperately wanted to be naked, or at least outside by the lake.
And it was a good place to go kill an afternoon with a new boyfriend.
Dean was scum. Or at least he had a totally scummy side, but I didn’t find that out till many months later. In early October I was a freshman in college and terribly in love. In love with a poor Physics sophomore, who couldn’t afford dinner and roses but could kiss better than anyone I’d kissed before. That wasn’t saying much then, but he could kiss better than almost anyone I’ve kissed since, and that is saying something. A funny–looking guy over a foot taller than me, with long, greasy hair and wretched taste in t–shirts. I think he was wearing the shirt with fake bird droppings that day, and cut–off jeans and new sneakers his mom had sent. And sparks were flying. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. Luckily for us, we didn’t have to try very hard.
It was evening, and we had been duly kicked out of the museum at 4:00. Now if you’re only a casual visitor to Chicago, you’ve probably heard about the Museum of Science and Industry, but you’ve probably never seen the small pond nearby where you can go paddle boating (so they say — I’ve never seen it myself), or the Japanese garden around the back. I’m not sure why they call it a Japanese garden, which I always though was a rather spare arrangement of sand and stones in a box not much bigger than a dining table. This place was lush. It had winding paths and strange trees — large trees, not bonsai. Mostly, it had little secluded nooks, and statues. I don’t remember anything about the statues now... whether they were Greek, or Indian, or even Japanese. But the statues are important. Remember them.
So we had been kicked out of the museum, and had found our way to the garden. We’d only been going out a month. We were both virgins at the time, not surprising for the type of students who found their way to the University of Chicago, and I at least didn’t plan to rush things any. I may have been in love, but I had also been a good Catholic girl for far too many years, and some of that had to rub off. I’ve heard that the Catholic girls are the wildest once they finally get going. Worked for me, anyway. So back then I wasn’t having intercourse, but boy, were we doing everything but.
Kissing and fondling was where it started, and it generally ended with us mostly undressed. Once we’d fallen asleep naked in my tiny dorm room in the middle of the afternoon, and when my roommates came home and fiddled with the door, Dean rolled over me, so they only saw his slightly hairy butt before hurriedly backing out into the hallway and hollering at us to please get dressed. He had a gallant streak in him — one of the things I loved about him, although looking back, I certainly exaggerated the size of it. Typical with old lovers, I suppose. They somehow seem kinder, more romantic, more attractive, and have bigger penises... until you decide to call them up, just to see how they’re doing, and are reminded of just how boring they actually were, and just why you were glad they broke it off. Before you had to.
But at that point, I had no vast experience of ex–lovers to compare him to, and Dean seemed like heaven itself. His hands sliding under my white t–shirt, to reach in back with already–practiced fingers and unhook the over–small bra, somehow slipping it off me and dropping it in the grass. His mouth on mine as we fell to the ground and rolled around, trying to be quiet, although there was no sound but us and the cars on Lake Shore Drive. His tongue was long, and the memory of it can still occasionally bring a flush of heat to my skin. We humped, fully clothed, in the itchy grass, my hands with their bitten nails digging into the back of his t–shirt, his hands in my still–short hair, pulling it back so he could leave dark, hot hickies on my neck while his chest pressed my breasts back into my ribs, and my ribs into the ground. My legs were wrapped around one of his, the rising musky scent seeped through my thin skirt and combined with sweat and and the smell of Tide that permeated his clothing, until it was hard to breathe from that and his weight. And I must have whimpered, because it was suddenly too much, and he was standing up and hauling me with him, no doubt planning to go back to the dorms where we could strip and finish this properly.
Only I wasn’t willing to wait that long, and I pulled him to me, grabbing the back of his head and pulling him down to my level so we could keep kissing, because at that moment, I wanted nothing more than to kiss him until he or I burst. He groaned softly then, and pushed me back against one of the large stone statues, its solid cool bulk a shock after all that heat. Then suddenly, his hands were under my skirt, pulling off the white cotton underwear I still wore back then. I lifted each leg so he could remove it, at that point not caring that we were in a public garden, and that at any moment the City of Chicago police might come and take us away for indecent exposure, or disturbing the peace.
Dean paused a minute, then slipped his hands under my ass and lifted me up, startling me, then put me down to rest on a ledge of the statue. It had hands, you see, cold smooth hands that jutted out in front, just at the level of his head. It was a huge statue, and perched on that pair of hands, I was taller than I’d been since I was a small child perched on a friendly adult’s shoulders. He’d pushed the short black skirt I’d borrowed from a roommate’s friend out of the way as he set me down, and I worried briefly about the hordes of outdoor germs on the cold stone. I didn’t worry long, though, because at this level it only took a second for him to push the front of my skirt out of the way as well, and all he had to do was lean forward and start licking as if his life depended on it. Or mine. I almost screamed right then, arching under his touch. My arms were behind me, so my hands could help maintain my precarious balance, and my legs were wrapped around his head as he licked and sucked and slid fingers in and out of me, until I was shaking and quietly begging...
And he started doing something, I still don’t know what, and I was suddenly coming so hard, so fast, that I lost all balance and slid right off the statue, falling into him and crashing to the ground. And it was then that we heard voices coming towards us. He grabbed my underwear and bra and stuffed it in a pocket, and pulled me to my feet, both of us still dizzy. And we ran.
I don’t think we ever made it back to the dorm that fast again, or were ever quite so glad that his roommate wasn’t home. We locked the door and tore off clothes and fell on each other with fingers and slick skin and eager tongue... and I’m still amazed that it took a whole three months before we got around to having intercourse.
Amazing the power of inhibitions. And the power and excitement that comes of ignoring them.