The Dawn of Darkness (Part 2)

As remarkably unremarkable that she was, I was just plain unremarkable. The middle son of three sons from a middle class family in Central California. My older brother was handsome and athletic, my younger brother was sensitive and artistic. I couldn't claim to be the smartest, as all of us had been the valedictorian of our respective high school classes. They shined for their extracurricular activities. I simply existed. I was never more than completely competent. While some might have wished to be just that, it left me growing up with a sense of overwhelming mediocrity.

I'd had two girlfriends in high school, the first lasting the duration of my freshman year, the second lasting the remaining three. The first moved away to another state, but not before quietly and unceremoniously taking my virginity. She was mousy and slight, not pretty and yet not ugly. She invited me over when her parents were at the going away party her father's work was throwing for him. She laid me down on her bed, swiped my cock lightly with her tongue 3 times, then fumbled briefly while putting a condom on me. She stood and removed her jeans and panties, laid down on her back, closed her eyes and motioned for me to mount her. A few thrusts and I was done. I remembered having better orgasms while masturbating. I tried to stifle a yawn as I stood and walked to the bathroom to flush the evidence.

By late summer before my senior year, after dating my second girlfriend for a year and a half, I got my second crack at making something better of my sexual resume. She'd been regularly administering blowjobs for the last year, and had gotten almost proficient at them. I, in turn, had gotten almost as proficient in speaking up for myself and relating what it was that she could do to make it better. Still, I lived in fear of insulting her technique and losing what little access I had to sex. The summer before we were seniors, I'd worked part time at a golf course and by the end of the summer was entrusted with a master key. I took her to one of the private bungalows designed for the star members to have a place to serve lunch to business associates, although most of them used it for long lunches with their mistresses.

My second girlfriend was a passable definition of pretty, mainly due to a big set of grey eyes and a lush bow of a mouth. It was midnight when I unlocked the bungalow door and led her inside. I'd squirreled away a bottle of white wine, and we drank the bottle quickly, as if in fear of being discovered with it. I slowly peeled off her clothes. She giggled and began to remove mine in turn. We rolled about on the floor for what seemed like the required amount of time, kissing and fondling each other. She was more take charge than the last girlfriend, and flipped me on my back to mount me. I closed my eyes and felt her body rocking. She had been at work for hardly a minute when I heard a strange hitch in her throat. I opened my eyes long enough to witness her grasping at her stomach and then vomiting on my chest. The wine apparently had disagreed with her. She started to cry, jumped up and ran off, locking herself in the tiny bathroom and refusing to emerge for more than 3 hours.

For my final year in high school, we continued to date, though she refused to touch me in any sexual manner, and would burst into tears if I tried bringing up the incident or explaining that I'd gotten over it. There were those that told me that this would have proven that my life had its remarkable moments, but I would beg to differ. If I'd been stronger, if I'd been more sensitive or more of an asshole, I would've been able to get her to either break up with me or start sucking my dick again. I couldn't manage to do anything other than just accept things as they were. We did the "going off to college" break-up, and parted ways amicably and unremarkably.

College was filled with courses that were void of challenge and were barely able to hold my interest. The girls attending college were interested more in school than in dating, and on the rare occasion that one would cross my path, she wanted a quick fuck, something meant to scratch an itch and nothing more. The more bored I became with the idea of sex, the more obsessed I became with trying to figure out why it was so boring to me. When there came along a professor who wanted to teach a "Porn in the Cinema" class, I was the first to sign up.

The course was not meant to arouse, but to be studied as another genre of cinema. The titles that we watched ranged from the standard Silicone Valley types, to 70's schlock to foreign pieces meant to be watched as art more than serve as a wank reel. The class was filled with snickering jocks and angry feminists. I sat in the middle of the back row and propped my head on my fist, trying not to fall asleep most of the time. Until the day that the teacher brought in the Italian film.

I knew not more than a handful of words in Italian, although it didn't matter. The movie showed a man and a women and a relationship that quite plainly acted out as your standard dominant and submissive type. In standard American fare, the dominant was always the female and not the male, perhaps to offset any negative backlash that might have occurred from women much like the female students in the class. But in the Italian film, the male was in charge. He pointed to the ground and spoke. The woman lowered herself to the floor and crawled on her belly to him. He spoke again and she kissed the tops of his feet. He spoke again and she sat back on her feet and barked like a dog. The jocks in the class were growing restless and mumbling about when the good stuff would start. The feminists were huffing and puffing, crossing arms over chests and mumbling that this was an outrage.

I was harder than I'd ever been in my unremarkable life.

This was spring semester of my junior year. It would be seven months before I would be able to apply any of this knowledge into my sex life. Seven months of beginning to speak what I was afraid to say and then stopping myself before I was deemed a freak and dismounted by the itch to scratch girls. Seven months before I was able to make something remarkable out of my life.

Seven months before I would meet her.