A Woman's Survival Guide to Difficult Men: My First

Chapter 15: My First

“It didn’t work,” I told my friend John. We were sitting in his dorm room at Dartmouth, at the end of our freshman year.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Well, Eric was pretty drunk and so was I. We tried to have sex but, like, it wouldn’t go in,” I explained.

“I’m not sure I follow,” he said.

John towered over me, good natured and fun loving. A lanky Big Bird with a shock of blond hair. We clicked as friends instantly our first week of freshman year. There’d never been any sexual overtones between us.

“Here, I’ll show you,” I said. “Take off your clothes.”

John and I went through the motions. We’d never had sex with each other, but curiosity overrode reason. John was an engineering student, so maybe he could figure out the structural flaws in Operation Lose My Virginity.

His penis hit an unforgiving barrier.

John hovered over me with a puzzled expression.

I shrugged like “see?”

“You hungry?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Let’s get something to eat.”

We laughed and put our clothes back on, heading off arm-in-arm to the campus cafeteria. And when freshman year came to a close, my virginity remained somewhat intact.

Sophomore winter, I traveled to Spain for the study abroad program. Our group landed in Granada in early January. We each took up residence with local families around the city. Our classes took place at the local Translator and Interpreter School where Spanish kids learned other languages and how to become tour guides and professional interpreters. We were encouraged to buddy up with local Spaniards eager to learn English, so we paired up with students from the school.

“Hola! Soy Rafa,” said a nineteen-year-old student with a compact, athletic body and affable grin. “Short for Rafael. Would you like to be my English partner?”

“Sure,” I replied.

Rafa officially studied French and Russian, but he was interested in adding a bit of English to the mix. He had an affinity for languages, picking up words and phrases quickly. We became fast friends and spoke mostly in Spanish. Soon I accompanied him and his merry band of Spaniard friends on various adventures. One day we skipped over to a dance performance followed by lunch at a nearby outdoor café. A quintessential Spanish scene, the table set with calamari and plenty of wine, laughter and camaraderie. On the bus ride home, Rafa’s friend May looked at me askance, her expression a mixture of curiosity and bemusement.

“You like him, don’t you? You’re eating him with your eyes.”

“Te lo estás comiendo con tus ojos” sounds more poetic and colloquial in Spanish.

Unconsciously, I’d been staring at his kind, handsome face, noticing his easy laugh and joie de vivre. An avid history buff (his father was a history professor at the University of Granada), Rafa sprinkled historical context everywhere we went. He was intelligent, fun, happy and, by all accounts, irresistible. A force pulled me toward him. Not sexual at first. I just really liked him. Then one night we kissed. It felt natural, both expected and unexpected at the same time. Soon, we were making out in hallways, awkwardly grasping at undergarments. He lived at home with his parents. I lived with a Spanish woman who was double dipping the system by housing both me and a Wesleyan student. She generally turned a blind eye to our comings and goings.

I sneaked Rafa into my bedroom one night after she’d gone to bed. Pulling the mattress from my bed and onto the floor so it wouldn’t squeak, we lit a candle for ambiance. We kissed softly, removing articles of clothing until we faced each other naked and loving. Then we looked down at the condom neither of us knew how to use. We fumbled around a bit, laughing awkwardly. He finally guided himself into me, and I held my breath wondering if it would work this time.

It did.

We got the first time out of the way. It only got better after that. Until I realized we’d skipped the condom a couple of times and my period was late. I found myself in a Catholic country with no access to birth control or pregnancy termination. What the hell would I do if I got pregnant?

I’d rented a room in an apartment with three other students so Rafa and I had someplace private to go. A love nest. It cost $54 a month, shared with two Spanish girls and one Australian. Rafa and I decorated my room with photos of us. I confided in the Australian girl, Jane, that I was sweating my delayed period. Finally, it arrived a week late, and I exhaled in relief.

“Here,” she said, digging out several round plastic casings from her bag under the bed. My mother works for a health clinic in Sydney. I have extra.”

“The pill? Can I just take these?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said, “just wait until after your next period then take them religiously after that.”

Wary of taking prescription medication without a doctor’s supervision – in a foreign country – I hesitated. But desperate never to have that level of panic again, I said a prayer and popped a pill into my mouth when the time came.

By this point, Rafa and I were having regular, tender, loving sex. We fell in love. Sex with him was so intense on an emotional level, I’d burst into tears.

“Que pasa, mi amor? What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I…I…” I blubbered trying to make sense of these emotions I’d never felt before, “I just love you so much.” Tears rolled down my cheeks. Love expanded inside my chest and head until it felt like a balloon with too much helium grew inside me and might explode. I’d never felt this way about anyone before. I held his body from behind later, pushing my nose into his neck and breathed his scent in deeply. He felt right, like we were one.

“I am teaching you ‘la lengua espanola,’ ” he joked. We laughed at the double entendre, lengua meaning both “language” and “tongue.”

The only fights we ever had were about time. He habitually over-scheduled himself and arrived late to our rendezvous. When I was mad – or tired or drunk – Spanish flew from my lips in a rush of fluency. Abandoning my Dartmouth friends to spend all my time with Rafa and his gang, soon I found myself thinking, and even dreaming, in Spanish. As my ten-week term came to a close, I decided to stay in Granada. I called my parents to deliver the news.

“I’m staying another term in Spain. I’ll be back in time for Sophomore Summer (a required on-campus term),” I told my mother.

“I don’t know, Pam…”

“Mom, I’m not asking. I’m letting you know. I’m staying.”

“Let me get your father.”

Dad got on the other line and I told him my plan.

Silence. I held my breath awaiting his response.

“I had a feeling you were going to stay longer,” he said, shocking both me and my mother. Mr. Two-percent proved prescient.

Mom piped in from a phone in the kitchen.

“Well. OK, I guess. As long as you graduate on time. You better graduate on time.” I wasn’t sure if this concern was about appearances or finances.

“I’ll figure it out,” I said. I registered for two classes at the University of Granada and somehow coordinated the transfer of those courses to Dartmouth.

My classmates returned to Hanover, while I moved out of my Spanish family’s house and into my love nest with Rafa. His friends became my friends. We spoke only in Spanish. I was fluent by the time I returned home to Miami. Rafa came to visit a few weeks after my tearful return and drove with me up the coast, back to Dartmouth for the summer session. He made paella for my friends and taught them to dance Sevillanas, a sort of Flamenco. You could take the boy out of Spain but you could not take Spain out of the boy. I loved this about him.

When it came time for him to return home, I descended into a deep depression. I remained on campus for my junior fall. None of my friends were there and I had nowhere to live. At Dartmouth we had what’s called the D-Plan. The school is open year-round and students submit their plan for when they will and won’t be on campus by the end of freshman year. Most of us planned to be off campus junior fall, pursuing internships, jobs and travel excursions. I wasn’t supposed to be there either, but since I’d extended my stay in Spain the previous spring, I had to be if I wanted to graduate on time. My housing priority was at the bottom of the pool. I wound up renting a room in a coed fraternity house to which I did not belong. They resented us interlopers, whom they accepted out of financial necessity. The house was dingy and unwelcoming. I remained alone on campus without my friends, suffering reverse culture shock since returning from Spain. It only got worse after Rafa went back home.

“I don’t know if I can stay here,” I told the dean. “Everything seems pointless and silly now. I miss Spain.”

“Maybe you want to take the term off to adjust back to American life,” he suggested.

As I wandered the campus weighing my options, I thought of the Confucius quote, “No matter where you go, there you are.” Leaving wasn’t the answer.

I took up three jobs to earn money to return to Spain over the holiday break, teaching Spanish as a drill instructor, working at a local grocery market called Stinson’s as well as Collis Cafe, a hippie eatery on campus. Along with my studies, this kept me busy enough to forget my misery for a while and slowly assimilate back to college life.

One night, I returned late from my job at Stinson’s Market in town. It was 11:30 p.m. on Halloween night. Students roamed the campus in various costumes. In my depression, I’d abstained from the festivities and accepted the night shift. Returning to my dismal room in the coed fraternity house, I stared at a mysterious message on my door. “Hey, came by to see you. Richard.”

Richard? Did I know a Richard? I racked my brain and came up with nothing. I shrugged and got ready for bed. At midnight, a knock on the door. When I opened it, a guy with a long red wig smiled back at me.

“Hey!” he said.

“Hi. Do we know each other?”

“Yeah, you’re in my Spanish class. I’m Richard.”

“Oh.”

“I wanted to know if you’d like to go to my fraternity formal with me.”

I cocked my head in surprise.

“Sure. OK.”

“Great!” he smiled.

And off he went into the great, All Hallows Night.

A tiny ray of light seeped into the cloudy sky of my mind.

Rich and I dated for the remainder of the term, as I continued to make plans for my trip back to Spain. To see my boyfriend.

“I’m sorry, what?” Rich exclaimed.

“I’m going to Spain over break to see Rafa,” I heard the ridiculous words as they left my mouth. I had not yet made the mental leap that Rafa and I were finished, that I’d moved on.

Rich broke up with me that night. I didn’t blame him. Then we talked about it. About us. It initiated a more intimate conversation than we’d ever had and by the end of it, I realized, “I like this guy.”

My trip to Spain was already set, though. I was going. I needed completion.

Several sleepless, all-nighters later, I finished my midterms. Bleary-eyed and exhausted, I boarded my flight to Madrid and slept the entire seven-hour flight.

The plane hit the jet-way. I sat up groggily.

“Wow, that was impressive,” said a voice from the row behind me. I turned to face a mid-twenties, friendly man behind me.

“You didn’t even wake up for meals,” he said.

“Yeah. I was pretty tired.”

I disembarked in a haze, got my bags and headed toward my next gate for the connection to Granada. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the young man struggling to communicate with a gate agent. I walked over and played translator for him.

“Thanks a lot,” he said gratefully, sticking out his hand. “I’m Larry.”

“I’m Pam.”

“I have a layover until my next flight. Can I buy you a sandwich or something? It’s the least I can do.”

“Sure.” My next flight didn’t leave for a couple hours, and I was starving.

Larry had a clean-cut appearance, apple pie looks. I noticed from his carry-on bag that he was in the Navy.

“Are you on vacation?” I asked after we found a nearby cafe and placed our orders.

“Actually, I’m on my way to pick up a sailor’s effects to bring to his family. He died on a training mission.”

“Oh.” I wasn’t expecting that.

Larry had been charged with delivering the sad news, as well as his colleague’s belongings, to the family.

“Do you think we could be pen pals?” he asked before we parted ways. “It gets lonely out at sea.”

“Sure,” I replied and gave him my address.

We exchanged letters and pictures for months after that. Until the day he said he wanted to come visit me at my college. Then I pulled the cowardly move practiced for centuries and only recently considered endemic. I ghosted him.

I boarded my flight from Madrid to Granada. My haze of exhaustion slowly slipped away in favor of – excitement? Nervousness? Both? I walked off the plane and there he was: the love of my life. Rafa stood there, smiling sweetly and gave me a warm embrace. That’s when I realized. It’s over.

We spent the week talking and crying, trying to figure out how to keep our love alive.

“I’ll move to the U.S.,” he pleaded.

It didn’t seem like a viable option to me. Rafa had the soul of a Spaniard. It’s what I loved about him. America would snuff that out in him. As for me, I needed to finish college and pursue my career in entertainment. It didn’t seem feasible to move to Spain. My soul had mourned Rafa all these months, and now my heart had closure. Our relationship, my time in Spain – it all became a sweet memory.

Rafa was the only man I’ve been with that I didn’t want to change. He was perfect in my eyes. But he belonged in Spain. And as much as Spain will always be my heart country, I belonged in America. We separated due to geographical incompatibility, but had we stayed together and moved in, the honeymoon period would have ended at some point. We broke up before shit got real. Sometimes love means letting go before the magic fades… and letting new men into your life.

** This is a work of fiction loosely based on true events, written in the style of a memoir.