By now we were standing face-to-face, as our hands found and held each other. Our eyes bored deep. It was like nothing I had ever felt.
“You’ll always remember your first kiss,” I said softly as I lightly stroked her cheek with the back of my hand.
“I know. Just like you have. And that’s why I want it to be with someone who cares for me, like you.”
Kissing her forehead, as a sign of my care, our friendship, and that she was special to me before lightly brushing my lips across Ellen’s soft lips. She let out a low and prolonged “mmmm”, our embrace, tightening into a warmth shared by each of us for the first time. As our hands roamed over each other’s backs, Ellen pressed her young body into me as our lips sealed the unspoken connection between each of us. It would be a connection that we would each carry with us for the rest of our lives, no matter what path our lives would follow.
Pulling back, our faces inches apart. Ellen’s eyes were soft and serene. And then there was the gentle smile.
“Thank you. It was more than I ever dreamed. You’re going to make some girl very lucky.”
And that was that. We both realized that it was a one-time thing. It was difficult to act ‘normal’ around the rest of the family from that point on, but somehow we pulled it off. Still, every time we looked at each other, there was a shared look.
……………………………………
She had more dates, but nothing like the previous one. But, Ellen would just talk about whatever they did the previous night. It was always casual. She did confess that she had let him kiss her… Then added, that he could still use more practice.
On one of our family picnics, Ellen had the current guy-friend there and I was with Gloria. We hung around together the whole afternoon. It was fun.
Later, on our familiar country road, and coming up for air after a particularly steamy half an hour of bare skin to bare skin dueling tongues, nibbling, licking, and stroking those supper sensitive spots, I just thought out loud, “What would you think if the four is us went out to a movie or something?”
Gloria looked at me and just said, “I think that would be pretty uncomfortable for the guy.”
“Why? What do you mean?”
“You don’t know? She has a crush on you. I saw it the first time you introduced us. And for some reason, it’s stronger.”
‘Oh shit,’ I thought. If Gloria saw it, what about the rest of the family? That would be the last thing that we would need.
……………………………………..
1968 and the end of the summer. Gloria and I knew that each of us was heading off to begin new lives at college, meet new people, and experience new things away from our little secluded town. Gloria was going to go to the University of South Dakota to study nursing and I was headed to the University of Wisconsin in Madison to study Mechanical Engineering… basically in opposite directions.
It wasn’t a real ‘break up’ it was more like two close friends parting. It was like, ‘It’s been fun. Wish you the best. Maybe, we could still get together next summer’.
We never did get together. It was mainly because she decided to go to school year-round. And our Holiday schedules never really matched up.
That fall, I headed off to school in the southern part of the state, three hours away.
Going from growing up in a very small conservative town where everybody knew everyone and then suddenly being immersed in a sea of unknown faces was almost overwhelming. Watching my parents turn and drive away that first day, and then sitting in the cafeteria that evening… alone, I asked myself, ‘Are you sure of this?’. I don’t think I slept at all that night.
The next day my roommate showed up. I guess that I was lucky, he also came from a small dairy town located on the eastern part of the state. We quickly became good friends as well as the rest of the guys on the floor.
I quickly settled into the daily routine of classes, homework… lots of homework. In high school, I was mostly able to get my daily assignments done during the day. College was a different beast all together where each of my classes required at least 3 hours of intense study time. Some met daily and some three times a week. My evenings were spent at the library for four to five hours.
Some kids adapted and would be back the next year, some didn’t and the guys were off to Vietnam. This was before the draft lottery the following year and was a tremendous motivator. As long as you maintained your grades you kept your ‘student deferment’.
Then there were the world and national events that kept colleges in a constant state of turmoil. Vietnam with the almost weekly protests and demonstrations that were led by a mixture of on-campus students and outside agitators. Their intensity and passion for the issues were something I had never seen. How did these students find time to study?
Race issues and the tension that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King over the summer carried through the fall. You could feel the uneasiness. Having grown up where I did, race was never something I had been exposed to or thought about, as everyone was Caucasian. But here, I was exposed to something new and at times intimidating, at least in my young and naïve mind.
Ellen and I wrote back and forth about three times a week. It was always a high point in my day, to see a letter in my mailbox. She asked if what she saw on TV was happening at my school. It wasn’t to the degree that was on the nightly news but, it was still intense. She always wrote about any dates she had been on, including some details about their activities. Still not interested in ‘doing the dead’, much to the frustration of a few of her dates.
But, there were fun things. There was always something to do. Nobody on the floor was 21 or had a fake ID, so alcohol was out of the question. Still, you could always find a card game going on somewhere on the floor. The lower floor of the cafeteria and a game room with about 8 pool tables and 6 ping-pong tables. The bad thing was that on the weekends there was a waiting list.
The dorm had a ‘recreation’ budget. No, they couldn’t use it for beer. The first year the dorm coordinated with one of the woman’s dorms on a cookout at a local park. Not being a social butterfly, it was a nice way to get to know a few women. Nothing developed beyond just a casual ‘Hi’ in passing in the cafeteria… Oh well.
Being three hours away and without a car that first year, meant that my parents would have to drive down to pick me up. That was why the only times I got home during the school year were: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and spring break.
Each of those times, the families would get together and I noticed that Ellen never seemed to have a boyfriend when I was home. From our letters, I knew that she had a few dates during her senior year and went to a few school dances: Homecoming and various school dances, each time with a different guy. I asked her about it and all she said was that ‘they didn’t interest her’. I just let it slide.
Being away at school, I missed her 18th birthday party, but, was lucky that my school let out for summer break just in time to attend her high school graduation.
Seeing her for the first time since the holidays I think my heart stopped. Those half-apple-sized mounds that I had seen the year before, were gone. The halves had grown into full-size apples… a pair of nice full “B” cups. Her waist was still nice and narrow, and the shorts hugged her cute butt. Her strawberry-blonde hair had grown out and nicely framed her face, matching her thin and delicate eyebrows.
She wore a cotton pullover paisley blue top, with a gentle “V” neckline and a pair of white shorts that came mid-thigh. Her legs were nice and smooth, the color of cream.
It was a full family party at her house. I was greeted with a full-body hug. She felt nice. The first real hug since the ‘kiss’.
There were games and food, enough to feed an army. Ellen was always by my side, or nearby. Sitting around with our burgers, everyone was asking how my school year went. If I had met any girls. I hadn’t. I was a lowly freshman. College girls were drawn to those lucky upper-classmen.
Ellen had been accepted at the University of Eau Claire, which was about an hour away and probably two hours away from where I was going. She hadn’t decided on a major yet but was leaning toward Education, maybe elementary education.
From my letters, Ellen had a fair idea of college life. But being together for the Holiday, gave us more time to leisurely talk about what to expect.
She asked what college was like. How much different was it from high school? Roommate issues. Homework. The turmoil and demonstrations. And of course, parties and other social activities. Being the late 60s, the dorms were still segregated between men and women. So, there weren’t any opportunities for ‘extracurricular’ activities, unless you were really… really careful and discrete.
We spent a lot of that summer together. We even went out together at times for just casual stuff, usually movies and a pizza afterward. None of the families had a problem with it, so I guess we were doing a pretty good job of hiding the feelings we had for each other. But, I do remember one conversation that I had with my dad one afternoon when we were just hanging out and away from everybody else.
“You and Ellen seem pretty close.”
“Yeah. We enjoy each other’s company. I guess we always have. She wants to know all about college life and stuff. You know, the same things that I wondered about, but didn’t have anybody to ask. She’s mainly concerned about the roommate thing. Moving in and living with a complete stranger. Hoping that they will get along. What the freshman classes are like. Homework. Trying to study in a dorm. Things like that. And, we just enjoy doing casual things together. Just hanging out. I mean, I haven’t kept in touch with any of my high school friends, so it gives me someone to do things with.”
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