DIARY OF A GHOST
by Jeffrey Kingman
[excerpt]
… Sometimes I look at old pictures of myself from high school and that’s depressing too because I’ll compare how I looked then with how I look now. I guess I’m asking for it when I do that. When I pass by teenaged girls on the street I notice how radiant their skin is and I remember how mine used to look like that. I had quite a figure too, the kind of voluptuous hourglass figure that makes the boys drool. But when you get up into your 20s and start putting on the weight, it’s amazing how quickly that kind of figure just turns into a bunch of shapeless blubber. I still have some pictures of me and Spencer from senior year–he was the only real boyfriend I had in high school, and I convinced myself I was in love with him. But a lot happened before Spencer showed up. Earlier on I had a string of casual sex with various boys. That whole thing started sophomore year. I was only fifteen and I actually became a total slut. It was quite an experience, though not something I’m exactly proud of. It was my older brother, Tim, who was responsible for my becoming a slut that year. Well, to be fair it’s not all his fault. But he definitely touched it off.
Here’s what happened. The summer after my freshman year was one of those freezing cold summers that we have in San Francisco, foggy and windy. So I was wearing a lot of warm clothes–oversized sweatshirts, baggy pants. And within a few months my body went from kind of average to like totally blossoming. But nobody could tell because of all the clothes. Then one day I was in the shower and I thought I was alone in the house, but I didn’t realize my brother had come home. I walked out of the bathroom totally naked and was about to walk down the hall to my bedroom–and there was Tim at the other end staring at me with his mouth open and his eyes all bugged out like he just couldn’t believe that I had secretly developed this amazingly hot body. Well, I ran back into the bathroom and slammed the door, huffing and puffing in a panic. After that I was very careful to wear only the most shapeless, unrevealing clothes imaginable.
Soon I noticed boys at school staring at me kind of squint-eyed like they were trying to figure out a puzzle. Then some of them started to hit on me. And these were some of the “cool” guys that my brother hung out with. What would they want with me all of a sudden–the weirdo who just kept to herself all the time and everybody ignored? After a while it became pretty obvious that my brother had bragged to his buddies about his sister’s hot curves. What a swell older brother. Hey guys! You should check out my sister. She’s all of a sudden totally built! So it’s like, wow, thanks Tim, for encouraging all your pals to try to have sex with me.
Of course, at first I was very wary and freaked out by this kind of attention. I didn’t know what the hell was going on and I didn’t really respond much–not right away that is. But some of these guys were cute and I was developing the usual schoolgirl crushes on certain Hollywood stars like Johnny Depp and Christian Slater. So one time a junior named Dalton asked if he could treat me to a movie, and I thought, well at least he was kind of nice about it. And he had this awesome thick black hair and full red lips that made you want to touch them. As it turned out he was a real smooth operator. He picked me up in a Ford Bronco and we went to the Empire Theater and saw The Doors with Val Kilmer. It was a really lame movie with a lot of phony dialog. As the credits rolled, he asked what I thought of it, and from the way he looked at me it seemed he wasn’t sure of his own opinion. I told him I thought it was totally bogus, and then he quickly nodded as if he one hundred percent agreed.
“Want to go to Fort Funston?” he asked as we got in his Bronco.
“Fort Funston?” I said. “What’ll we do there?”
He tilted his head and smiled. “Park?”
When I didn’t respond right away he smiled wider and raised his eyebrows as a way of tempting me. I smirked and gave him a hard stare and I made him hold his comical pose longer than he wanted to. Finally, just as his face started to drop, I said, “OK, let’s go to Fort Funston.”
On the way there, he kept looking over at me as if he was totally pleased with himself. He drove way to the back of the parking lot and jumped a curb so he could park in back of a little shed. As soon as he turned the engine off he got out, and I watched him through the windows as he went around back and lifted the rear door. He rustled around back there for a moment and then he came up and opened my door and held out his hand. Yep, this was one suave dude. By then I’d made up my mind to just roll with whatever was going to happen, so I took his hand and let him help me out of the truck like something out of an old black and white movie. In the back of the Bronco he’d fluffed up a bunch of cushy blankets and pillows, which did look inviting though a bit cramped. There was a little awkwardness as we climbed in and got our arms and legs situated. Then, as soon as he pulled the rear door closed, he had me on my back and was kissing and squeezing me. The most I did was run my fingers through his wavy black hair, which I’d wanted to do all along. Soon he got up off me and started calmly taking off his clothes. He didn’t look at me then. It was like he was getting ready to take a shower or something, which made me feel less bashful about taking my own clothes off. The rest is a blur in my memory. I have a feeling what I did was just lay there while he did his thing. I do remember that he’d put a condom in a certain place back there so he’d have it ready at just the right moment. This wasn’t some hormone-crazed, out-of-control-horny kind of teenaged boy. This was more what you’d call a pre-meditated crime…