T O D A Y

Drama Queen candidates:
The strangest declarations of love

Contestant No. 1
Contestant No. 2
Contestant No. 3

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TABLE TALK

Is Tinky Winky a subversive pawn of the militant gay agenda? Discuss the true nature of the Teletubbies in the Mothers are of Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

A sardine's story
By Sallie Tisdale
A picture book that follows the life of a fish, all the way to her death and packaging in a can -- has some grown-ups squirming. Maybe kids need to help them face reality
(02/11/99)

The city of lost children
By Katherine Ellison
Is a Brazilian judge stealing babies for American families?
(02/10/99)

The feminist queen of the Middle East
By Geraldine Brooks
Queen Noor deserves much of the credit for Jordan's transformation from police state to cradle of political freedom
(02/09/99)

What is Victoria's secret?
By Coleen Hubbard
How do you explain to your little girl that we live in a world where breasts get graded, and some of us flunk?
(02/08/99)

ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

Passion bottled up
By Carol Ormandy

The first time I had sex was not a romantic moment -- unforgettable, maybe -- but not exactly hearts and flowers. My deflowering took place in a gardener's shed built onto the back of our garage, with some old clay pots and dirt on the floor. My dad built this shed as a workshop but never used it, so over the years it changed from my clubhouse to musing corner to poetry writing alcove, then pot smoking den and finally a trysting room.

My kind-of boyfriend, Mark, had a birthday coming up. Since I had no gift, I decided to create my own Hallmark moment. I dropped a card off at his place that said something flowery and sweet like, "Going down for you on your birthday. Call me later."

Later that evening I got to thinking about the used rubber (we didn't say condoms in 1967) he'd flung out the shed window. I got out of bed, tried to miss the creaky stair on my way down, found a flashlight in the utility room and went outside to rubber hunt. The yard lights suddenly came on and I heard my mom's voice calling out to me from our family room window. She wanted to know what I was doing out there half-dressed with a flashlight? I told her that I'd lost an earring. She told me that it would be there in the morning and to get my fanny inside and back to bed. I thought of my father possibly cutting through the backyard to take a shortcut to work through the alley. I told her OK, but kept hunting and found it.

Now I just had to dispose of it. Thank goodness that he'd tied the end, since I had to hold it inconspicuously in my hand in case my mom was still up. She knew that I was up to something; I was always up to something. I made it in the back door and upstairs to my room. I carefully put the used rubber in my closet under a heap of shoes, notebooks, boyfriends' old T-shirts and paperbacks.

When I awoke the next morning, I thought, "So this is what it's like to be a woman," then went to get the rubber from my closet so that I could get rid of the evidence. However, by now, I'd become attached to it. I mean, how many people have such a souvenir of their first time? I had an actual used rubber. I found a bottle of Allerest, emptied the pills into the toilet, put the rubber into the small bottle and screwed the top on as tightly as possible. I put the bottle into an old sock, placed it back in the pile on the closet floor and shut the door. Mom never found it. No one did. I thought of it from time to time.

Two years later, almost to the date of that first time, my mom woke me up. I could tell that she'd been crying. She had a look that I'd never seen before, but I knew what it meant. "Is it Dad? What happened?" She took a deep breath and told me that Mark had died the night before. My first lover had died of a drug overdose.

Later that night, drunk on Boone's Farm, I hunted through a few years' accumulation of the pile in my closet and found it -- the rubber in the bottle. In my teenage angst and drunkenness I thought this so profound. The jar had preserved the used rubber pretty well. It seemed alive and he was dead. I called up the only friend I could tell, and he picked me up in his Volkswagen Bug. We drank wine and drove for hours, talking, crying and looking for the perfect place to dispose of Mark's remains: a river in a park in Ann Arbor. It was almost daybreak when I had my unique memorial service for Mark, opening the jar and flinging his used rubber into the rocks and rapids of the river.
SALON | Feb. 12, 1999

Contestant No. 1 | Contestant No. 2 | Contestant No. 3 | Vote now!