Japanese Garden

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 paddleboating (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.