Front seat

by Rachael Wesley

Britney Spears shot to fame in the late 90s, an embodiment of every teenage boy’s desires, dancing in the middle of a high school hallway lined with lockers. An underage vixen, disguised as a schoolgirl in braids and knee socks. I was a junior when that video premiered, sweet sixteen with a morning regimen fit for a celebrity. Monday through Friday, I would rise at 6 a.m. to shower, then blow dry and spin my dyed red hair in Velcro rollers, giving my fine bob some volume. I would apply a full face of makeup—liquid foundation and lip liner included—and get dressed in outfits fastidiously planned the week before. This included an iridescent purple blouse paired with black pants, khakis matched with a turquoise rib lined turtleneck, a plaid jumper dress, and jeans on Friday. Dress down day.

It was my attempt to emulate Britney. I wanted to be her, or at least be like her.

And while my wardrobe didn’t reflect the high fashion of a pop icon, it conformed to the clothing of my Northeast Pennsylvania hometown’s own stars. People like my cousin, Anna. She had won a modeling contest just weeks after beginning classes, received an overstuffed bouquet of roses from an admirer (delivered to her house no less), and went to prom with one of the hottest seniors. Or my friend Becky. She and I hung out on weekends, but only if her boyfriend had other plans. Our conversations between classes came with frequent interruptions from Ryan or Joe or Tom. Becky would turn her attention to them, giggling at their stupid jokes never told for my approval, touching their chests and shoulders in appreciation.

I had my share of coming-of-age experiences. Remarkably shitty formative encounters. Freshman year, I was tormented weekly by an older student I shared a study hall with. She’d choose the seat closest to mine and whisper how she wanted to punch me for being “so ugly.” Sophomore year, a boy in my homeroom commented on the size of my backside each morning. “I’ve never seen such a big ass.” That same year, I was shunned by someone I considered a friend. He claimed I was “too annoying.” He’d saunter over to the cafeteria table and refuse to look my way as he jested and laughed with my friends.

I expanded my circle heading into junior year. Having a more diverse and flourishing social life permitted my self-esteem to a tumultuous dance of two steps forward, two steps back. Take the party I was at the Saturday three weeks before my seventeenth birthday. We rarely hung out with people old enough to legally buy booze, but my best friend was a buddy of the host who had recently crossed that finish line to twenty-one. My fleeting jubilation, the exclusiveness of Sue and I being the only high schoolers in attendance, disappeared within moments of arriving, usurped by that too familiar feeling of inferiority.

I don’t know anyone here.

I wallflowered at the party’s perimeter, sucking down my beer, awaiting to be transported to the alternate world that booze provided, where what I said or did didn’t matter. When drunk, nothing seemed real. A dude approached me while my anchor in the present was just starting to loosen.

“You’re Rachael, right?”

Leaning against a hallway wall stained yellow with nicotine and in dire need of a scrubbing, I studied the guy’s shaved head and big teeth. Had he been wearing a soccer uniform, I would have recognized him sooner. Luke Harris. He dated one of my lunch table peers the year before, a much admired girl who snickered the loudest at my shunner’s stories. I nodded at his question, and he pressed me with another.

“Didn’t you go out with Angelo Belfi?”

Oooof. Angelo Belfi. Another example of that chaotic and confusing dance with my self esteem.

Three years older, I knew of him before we dated. A short, Italian American who rolled with a tougher crowd. He expressed interest, and I agreed to dinner. It didn’t take much for him to charm me. He liked me and he was kind of cute. I ended up falling hard.

“Yeah, over the winter. He broke up with me for a girl with really big boobs.” Luke didn’t need to know these finer details, but I was ready to divulge anything to anyone after that first Keystone Light. My very first boyfriend, whom I had sobbed over for hours— fully clothed and in a dry bathtub—had been cheating on me.

He haunted me following our abrupt split. I kept seeing his car, a slimy black Hyundai Tiburon with its giant spoiler rising from the back like a shark fin, the vehicle I rode steady shotgun in for three months, in the usual places. Cruising along the Pittston Bypass or parked in front of the busiest convenient store in our town, sometimes with that big titted slut who stole my place in the passenger seat. I needed to get over him, but I didn’t know how to mend my broken heart.

“I wouldn’t take that personally. I graduated with him and he’s nothing but a loser.” Luke pulled out a pack of Camels and offered me one. I smoked menthols but didn’t pass up the token.

“You should have warned me.” I drained my second Keystone Light. Those twelve ounces replaced my typical awkward chuckles with a quick, dry wit.

“Let me grab you another beer and make up for that,” Luke said. I let him take my empty can and he disappeared into the crowd.

Knowing we’d be the youngest in attendance, I’d taken extra care and time getting ready. Without having an outfit at the ready, I changed several times. In the end, a yellow boatneck top won. There were several clues that my efforts may have prevailed. I wasn’t attracted to Luke at all, but this harmless flirting—that’s what we were doing, right? —was of little consequence.

He returned to my side with a Busch pounder. Gross. If I was Britney or Anna or Becky, I could have demanded a different beverage, but little ‘ol me thanked him and popped it open.

Three beers were just enough to make everything hilarious. I usually tapped out once I reached that point, but I persevered through a fourth and contributed to my woozy dream state with some weed smoked between me, Luke, Sue, and our host in his backyard. When we finished, rather than follow the other two back inside, Luke grabbed my hand and diverted us to the side of the house. “Wanna go for a ride?”

I gave an immediate “yes.”

Still holding onto my hand, dangling limp and malleable like a doll, Luke led me to his car. It was the complete antithesis of my ex’s, an avuncular boat of a vehicle that I suspected was either purchased second hand, or passed down from a grandparent. No one our age would purposefully buy such an innocuous-looking car.

He drove us to a vacant parking lot in the middle of a nearby wooded community, an area popular for all sorts of naughty teen activities. I frequented Suscon to party, but never to park. Angelo had fucked the virginity out of me in the cushioned comfort of his bed.

The Buick made an ideal place for a maiden car hook up; its giant bucket seats accommodating to our entangled bodies and flailing limbs. I hadn’t kissed anyone, hadn’t had hands and fingers clasp around my back and draw me firm against a chest, since Angelo. With my eyes closed, Luke could have been anyone. My ex. Leonardo DiCaprio. Gavin Rossdale. Anyone! And I was into it! But then, in the middle of making out, my body reclined, the spins got the best of me. I pushed Luke off me and heaved the door open.

“Oh no. Are you okay?” Luke asked over my retching.

This was not the end of our rendezvous. My stomach clearing did nothing to balance my thinking, but the vertigo did stop. Luke pounced once I righted myself, winding his tongue inside my just-vomit-filled mouth. My shirt and bra came off, my khaki shorts and his jeans were pulled down.

In the front seat of that old man car, I went down on this almost-stranger. He finished in my mouth, that warm thickness of male ejaculate filling my mouth for the first time ever. I registered the fellatio as if on a two second time delay, acknowledging each part of the blow job a step too late, which resulted in my swallowing too.

Luke didn’t reciprocate the oral sex.

He drove me back to Sue’s. We parted with a “see you around.” Sue’s front door was unlocked, and I crept upstairs to her bedroom, past her sleeping and oblivious parents. The sounds I made coming in, of tucking myself in the blankets she’d arranged on the floor, roused her. She was not pleased with me, and not for waking her up. I’d taken off with Luke without letting her know.

“Well, what happened?” She demanded once I let her know of my whereabouts.

“Nothing.”

“Then why is your shirt on backwards and inside out.”

The next morning, I felt like Britney. Even with my hangover. 1999. What a fucked up time to be a young woman. The year of American Pie, the premiere of The Sopranos, and a Woodstock revival teeming with toxic masculinity. In a bespoken trifecta fit for my shallow teen desires, hooking up with Luke enabled my self-worth to swell, regardless of how unattractive I found him or how out-of-my-mind drunk I had been. What mattered was that an older guy had wanted to hook up with me, an older guy who knew my ex, and whose popular ex I knew. In my eyes, our front seat liaison had earned me a higher ranking in the teenage pecking order, an intangible structure I was desperate to rise in.

In the coming days, I continued to walk with my chest open and shoulders upright, dancing through our school halls like a pop star. I thought about Angelo less and less, until my lingering feelings for him faded completely. Luke and I never saw one another around.

It’s been twenty-five years. In that time, in a bastardized reverse proportion, the world has witnessed Britney Spears’ life curling in a downward spiral. While mine, privy to the loved ones I’ve chosen to surround myself with, has floated up and up and up, landing me into a confident and content middle age. I don’t base my wardrobe on what the cool kids are wearing. I quit smoking cigarettes over a decade ago. If you don’t like me, fuck it; the feeling is most likely mutual. And something I once reaped confidence from would cause significant trauma today.

Our American culture has evolved in some ways as well. What I, my peers, and the zeitgeist once considered a consensual hookup is anything but by modern standards. Maybe, subconsciously, I am affected by what happened in the front seat of that car. I’m not sure if it’s because semen is disgusting, or if it’s because of that blow job, but I haven’t allowed a man to cum in my mouth again.

Image by Tara Winstead for Pexels

Recovery