R

WOMEN 19
I met R when i was eighteen and she fourteen, in a summer production of THE WIZARD OF OZ. She was bright, and fit in easily with the older crowd. Years later, she said that what drew her to me was how i didn't talk down to her. She developed a passive crush i was vaguely aware of. I didn't see her again until two summers later (she had skipped a summer show to get a nose job, which i gave her a bit of hell for in years to come). Her crush blossomed. At sixteen, she was playing a romantic adult lead in BABES IN ARMS, because her talent justified it. Hell, it was the first time i myself had a lead in this troupe (not opposite her, mercifully). She declared her affections. I tried the stoic route, which she denounced as bullshit. I tried to get her to take the stoic route, which she accepted, sort of. On closing night, the cast sleepover was at my house, with my folks out of town. When it was bedtime, she asked to spend the night with me. I said no. She said she didn't expect anything, but that she wanted just this one night to hold each other, as recompense for my never giving her a straight answer about how i felt. I relented. We came together, our bodies entwining in a slow, caressing rhythm that lasted all night. She wrote a poignant short story about it all, in which i came off as a bit of an evasive jerk. When she began college we resumed our friendship, getting together once a year or so and sharing a bed, remembering the magic of that one night. A more overt sexuality crept into our embraces, and when she wanted clarification, i went from being an evasive jerk to an indecisive one. When she was twenty-two, she told me something she had been fearing to say, afraid it might ruin any chance we had to be together. She told me she'd had an affair with our friend, Charlie (who had been the Wizard in our first play together, and Flemo-Man in our last). I loved her honesty, but she was pretty much right, her being with him changed things. A few years later, she got engaged. I didn't tell her, but a little piece of me mourned.