A Woman's Survival Guide to Difficult Men: Put Me in the Game, Coach!
Chapter 12: Put Me in the Game, Coach!
Every girl remembers her first blowjob.
Word to the wicked: He may not remember you.
While revisiting past episodes of sexual glory and defeat to exhume the holy grail of Self Actualization, I find myself wondering: Whatever happened to Bill Jones? A preliminary Google search turns up nothing. Is he still alive? His name is so generic. There are a million of him online. Finally, after gathering clues from various sources, I find him on LinkedIn. He’s a high school math teacher and football coach now.
“Remember me?” I write via LinkedIn messenger.
He replies a couple days later.
“Hey, how are things? Looks like you’re doing great work wise. Long way from Ft. Lauderdale,” he responds.
Mmm, I think he means Miami? Who the hell was in Fort Lauderdale?
It dawns on me for the first time that it was my sexual awakening, not his. What if he doesn’t remember me?
It was October of 1986 in Miami, and I left the tape vault at the TV station where I interned, juggling a pile of tapes precariously balanced in my arms.
“Whatcha workin’ on?” asked the tall, handsome thirty-two-year-old man wearing a tie, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow. I noticed a sparkle in his eye, his easy, cocksure demeanor. He’d been watching me walk back and forth through his office all weekend to retrieve old news footage.
“I’m making a rock-u-mentary,” I explained, “setting footage of the Beirut hostages to Bob Dylan’s ‘Knockin on Heaven’s Door.’”
I set the pile down on a desk. I needed a break from the dark edit bay where I’d been scrolling footage for hours.
“Cool,” he said. “I’m Bill.”
“I know,” I said. Bill Jones was the weekend sportscaster, a local celebrity. “I’m Pam.”
“How long have you worked here?” he asked.
“About two years. I’m an intern,” I replied.
“Oh, you’re here so much, I thought you were on staff.”
I’d been interning on a magazine-style show about South Florida for over a year. Now in my senior year of high school, I’d found a way to get school credit for working at the station. I arrived every afternoon after lunch.
“Where do you go to school?”
I hesitated, wanting to be taken seriously but not wanting to lie.
“Miami Palmetto Senior High.” Long silence.
He and his producer exchanged glances.
“No way,” said Bill. “I thought you were going to say University of Miami.”
“Let’s see your license,” the producer prompted. “Show him.”
I pull out my driver’s license.
“Holy shit,” says Bill. “You’re 17.”
“Yep,” I replied. I wasn’t hiding it.
We sat on top of dated, wooden desks shooting the shit. His producer sensed a vibe building between us.
“Dude, you’re in trouble,” he said. Bill smiled.
I stood up, feeling stirred by the attention but too inexperienced to know what to do with it.
“Well, I’m heading back to my cave now. Nice talking with you guys.”
I returned to the edit bay to scan hundreds more hours of hostage videos. The rockumentary was a personal project I’d begun in my free time so I would have a completed piece of my own by graduation. One day, I noticed my little pet project listed on the show’s storyboard, slotted to air. Now I had a deadline. I spent my weekends at the station working on it.
Later that night Bill stopped by.
“How’s it going?” he asked. He stood in the doorway, our eyes lingering as we made small talk. We inched closer to each other. Tall and slender, with soft brown eyes, he had a full head of dark, curly hair and a moustache. A grown, professional man showing me a different kind of attention than I was used to. It felt exciting. What was happening? My first time skiing the slopes of unspoken mutual attraction, I found myself frozen in time, titillated and curious. Sensing on a gut level what was coming, I could not have placed words to it. This never happened to me at high school, where my crushes remained unrequited.
“We shouldn’t,” he said.
“No,” I answered. “We shouldn’t.”
Then we kissed. A long kiss before he reluctantly pulled away. “I have to be on the air in ten minutes. I’ll see you later.”
“See ya,” I replied.
Dizzy, I fell back in my chair and swiveled around, looking up at the ceiling. Wow.
It’s right before Christmas 2018 in Los Angeles, when I log back onto LinkedIn:
Me: “Fort Lauderdale?? Try Miami. You don’t remember me, do you? ;)”
Bill: “I did remember. You lived in Ft Lauderdale. How could I forget?”
Me: “Hahaha! That must have been the other girl. I lived in Miami. You never came to my house, for obvious reasons. I always came to yours. What else do you remember? I’ll start dropping details to jog your memory, if you like. I’m having fun though ;-)”
Bill: I remember a tall hot looking girl who was fun to be with. But I’m pretty sure you faked any excitement.
Whoa! What??
I don’t know how or when we exchanged numbers, but the next memory I have is December of 1986 in Miami, lying naked with him in bed at his house. I still had a grasp on my virginity. He didn’t push me to lose it.
My best friend Joni asked a much older, male friend, on my behalf, how to give a proper blowjob. We listened with rapt attention as he gave detailed, blow-by-blow instructions: “Hold his penis with one hand, as you slowly lick up and down, all the way around the shaft. Then twirl your tongue around the head. Slowly suck the tip, then lower your lips further and further down until his whole member is in your mouth. Hold his balls with your other hand. Keep one hand going up and down his cock as you slide it in and out of your mouth.”
I tested this out on Bill. Repeatedly. Like learning to play the flute, it takes practice, where to put your fingers and lips. Eventually producing the most beautiful crescendo and climax.
One night, I decided it was time to go further. “This is the night.” I told Joni. “I’m going to lose my virginity.”
My parents thought I was sleeping at Joni’s house. Instead, I rounded her driveway so I wasn’t completely lying and headed to his townhouse on Kendall Drive.
“I’m ready,” I told him. We kissed and went through the usual motions. Bill could feel my apprehension. He pulled away and looked at me with kind, gentle eyes.
“You’re not ready. You’ll let me know when you are.”
I slipped over to Bill’s house every chance I got, driving the black Merkur (a German Ford only on the U.S. market for a couple years) that I got on my sixteenth birthday. I paid for half of it myself with bat mitzvah money. I felt cool and independent. By day I was a high school student, by afternoon and night I was a faux-dult. I didn’t date boys my own age in high school. Mostly because they never asked.
Instead, I spent my time with Joni or a college girl named April – also an intern – and Tim, a news reporter at the station.
“Pam, wait as long as you can before having to navigate the politics of sex,” they said to me one night as we walked to dinner talking about Bill. Tim and April should know. They were sleeping together.
I loved making out with Bill. “Faking any excitement” though??
It’s just after New Year’s, and I write to him again on LinkedIn.
Me: Oh goodness, where did you just go. I was only 17 and pretty inexperienced (you were 32). You were the first man I was ever naked with. First blowjob (I think I got pretty good at it!). I didn’t know yet how to have an orgasm, but I know I very much enjoyed being with you. I intended to lose my virginity to you, but you stopped us. I’ve always thought that was pretty cool. We met at the station in Miami and were involved most of my senior year. Ring a bell now?
As I’m writing this, I’m realizing how weird this must be for you now that you work at a high school. No judgment. I’d been working at Channel 9 for two years and seemed mature beyond my years. You did know how old I was though because your producer had me show you my drivers license when we first met.
Anyway, I have fond memories of our time together. Interesting to hear your perspective! :-)
No response. Oh no, I hope he doesn’t think this is a #metoo moment. It’s totally not!
Finally, my computer pings:
Bill: I just thought you were so hot but didn’t want to go too far when you weren’t ready. You leaving for college was hard to take but I knew inside it was the right thing for you. Thinking back brings great memories about us being together.
Back in February of 1987 in Miami, Bill and I couldn’t go on dates like a normal couple because Bill was a recognizable local figure – and because I was only 17. Our bubble of naked flesh, kisses and cuddles was too delicious to care. I loved my time with him. He was sweet and funny. One night he told me about his college job as a guide on the Jungle Cruise at Disneyworld. He remembered the entire spiel:
“Folks, keep your eyes on your children. ‘Cause if you don’t, our crocodiles will … We’ll continue on to the Nile River, it just goes on for niles and niles ... around the corner here, I want to point out the sandstone. I only point it out because most people take it for granite ...”
I found it utterly charming especially as he recited the whole thing naked in bed while I pet his warm, hairy chest. Then I went down on him, remembering my own script. “Slowly lick up and down, all the way around the shaft …”
Our arrangement lasted the remainder of my senior year, and we never did have intercourse. He didn’t force the issue. Sometimes I wonder if that was his nod to caution. Although we never referred to my jailbait status, it loomed in the distance. Colleagues at the station, who caught onto our relationship, started calling him Lester the Molester and asked if we were going to prom together (we were not). It didn’t register with me as inappropriate at the time. I related better to grown men than to high school boys. It was a consensual relationship. He never pushed me to do more than I was comfortable with. I was lucky in that regard. At 17, I controlled a grown 32-year-old man with my selection of Guess jeans. The ones that tapered at the ankle with zippers at the side brought him to his knees. Didn’t matter that I paired it with a pink-collared long-sleeve shirt and shoulder pads from Ann Taylor and brown leather lace-up boots straight out of Little House on the Prairie. When I wanted his attention, I put on those Guess jeans. My first experience of sexual power, and I wielded it like a proud and confident peacock.
In my bedroom at home, I had my own telephone. Because a chatty teenager could tie up the house line indefinitely, my parents installed a second line for me. We spoke every night, after the 11:30 p.m. news.
“Nice tie tonight,” I’d comment on his attire or a joke he made on air. Whenever I could get away, I met Bill at his house.
Now it’s near the end of January 2019 in Los Angeles and I log back onto Linkedin.
Me: I woke up thinking about your first message. What would make you say “But I’m pretty sure you faked any excitement”? I was only seventeen – nervous and totally inexperienced. Nonetheless, what would make you say that? I just find it interesting.
Bill: I just remember you were really hot and I was really into you but could tell, you were just not excited about it. Perhaps it was you being cautious or too reserved. I always looked forward to seeing you and being with you. That’s probably my biggest memory of living in my townhouse.
I can’t help noticing how many times he uses the word “hot.” His only memory of me. I feel the tiniest fraction of the cold, hard reality that slapped my friend Monica Lewinsky. As special, intellectual, consensual or respectful as our relationships may have seemed at the time, ultimately we were fresh, young tail eagerly wagging for a powerful man. We were kids with raging hormones and freshly flowering ideas of sexual power. If there is a right and a wrong in the situation, the onus is on the much older, presumably mature man. Fortunately, I didn’t have a wife to deal with – or the Starr Report. Monica got a raw deal for making a mistake we have all made at that age, some of us multiple times over. Choosing an inappropriate sexual partner.
In the ’80s teasing and sidelong glances took the place of alarm or Human Resource-type emergency responses. No one cared. In 2018, this relationship would be considered scandalous, and looking back now, I guess it is a little creepy. Here’s the thing, though: It didn’t feel wrong. I still think of him fondly.
The other thing that hits me like a ton of bricks: Wait, I’m hot?
I’ve always thought I was passably attractive, but not hot. When I look back at pictures of myself in younger years, though, I think, “Hey, I was beautiful. Why didn’t I know this? Why didn’t I feel hot?” That would have changed everything. Like not accepting bullshit or subpar sexual partners. Maybe setting my sights a bit higher.
I remember a friend in college, Nora, who was not particularly attractive. Tall and big-boned, horsey lips, not particularly pretty. But she always dressed impeccably, like she was attending a board meeting while the rest of us wore sweats to class. She held herself with confidence and sensuality. Men swooned in response. She believed she was hot, so they did too.
Now, as I hurtle toward 50, I tell myself, “OK, I know you don’t feel hot, but trust me – you are. When you look back at pictures ten, twenty years from now, you’ll see it’s true. So be hot now!”
Looking back, I wonder how many times I’ve undervalued myself with men. Did my relationship with Bill at 17 set me up to feel so lucky to be in a man’s crosshairs, so that I handed all my power to him? When in truth even his celebrity status couldn’t undo his own lack of self-worth.
**This is a work of fiction, loosely based on true events. Names and details have been changed.