That week I started my part-time job behind the counter of an Italian bakery. I had to put on my uniform at home. It consisted of a light-green dress, a round hat of the same color, and a white apron. Since I had to be on my feet so much, I wore sneakers...
That evening I got a phone call from Gina. She wanted to go to Mass with me the following day. She hadn’t been there in nearly three years, so I was surprised. “Why do you want to do that?” “I’m not sure, I just wanted to check up on my old parish.” That...
During the next week, school was winding down for all of us. Gina had checked the train schedules and, although it was going to be a long trip, we decided to go to Jones Beach the following Saturday. Then Gina said, “You know, I’m tired of these pigtails....
The following Thursday, Gina called me and asked me to go for a walk with her after school. I’d never spent time with her alone before, but it seemed like a simple request so I agreed to it. We met a couple of blocks from my house and she led the way. I w...
The next Sunday morning, I went through the usual routine of going to Mass and then having lunch with my family. I wished I could call Gina for some encouragement to calm my nerves a bit, but I knew neither of us would have the privacy to talk about what...
The Sexual Revolution? I guess it had been around for a while by the early 1970s, but it didn’t seem to offer much to a working-class, rather ordinary-looking girl like me. By the time I was sixteen and approaching the end of my sophomore year, my sexuali...
That September, I noticed Clarissa sitting in a student center lounge, smooching with some guy. I noted that he was considerably taller and more 'buff' than I was. She saw me looking at her. In fact, I wanted to be noticed by her. When she turned my way,...
In the week following that problematic Circle Line tour, my attempt to play hard-to-get failed. Margery had easily seduced me – more than once – on the following Thursday. I knew I was folding under the pressure of her charms. As a seventeen-year-old guy,...
In June 1975 I briefly – for a single afternoon – was with a woman I still think of as “the hippie girl.” And no, it was not a conventional one-day stand. She didn’t refer to herself by that term. I doubt there had ever been a large number of young people...
In the spring of 1981, when I was nineteen, a woman named Miriam Roston moved into my building. At least I initially assumed that she was a woman. In New York, people generally were non-judgmental and left other people alone. But this was in the East Bron...
I’ve noticed elsewhere that younger readers may no longer know what the term “zipless fuck” (a single, mostly emotionless coupling between two strangers) means. It was coined by Erica Jong in her 1973 novel Fear of Flying. She presented the idea in a sati...
Vivian Hannity was still in a Catholic high school in the three stories within the series "Vivian and Cathy.” Certain incidents from that time more than four years earlier are mentioned here. The narrator, Paul D’Amato, was in his first years at City Coll...
I was having a hard time with the scene in that basement. Here was this nice high school girl in her strange state of undress, and I knew she was going to talk about some provocative topics. I had a sudden attack of prudishness. She seemed to understand w...
A few days later Margery had a new version of the schoolgirl/knee-socks look for me to examine. We met after school on her block, and she looked better than ever. She had changed her appearance notably from the rather sloppy look she had when I first met...
The next week, the last one in September, was a time for Margery and me to have introductions to various friends and family. The one I want to talk about here is when Margery met my two best friends from high school, Mark Zimmerman and Dan Behrens. I had...
