In The Closet

"I can't believe they're stopping us in the middle of the night for this!"

It wasn't the middle of the night. She always was one for over-exaggerating. The sun had gone down about an hour ago and we had to stop for some construction purposes. They were widening the Yellowstone Highway. Traffic was heavy during regular tourist seasons. 

She had her best friend in the passengers seat and her boyfriend next to me in the back. We passed the time by cracking sex jokes and blowing up condoms. I was seventeen at the time and had forced myself to grow up way too fast. She was a year older, but no more experienced than I was.

I guess we both knew what would happen when I came to Pahaska that Summer. It was inevitable.

My Dad, the whole way up to Cody kept saying things like, "You know, you don't want to be working at Mini-Mart the rest of your life." He was never one for talking about things that really mattered, he only hinted around. He was trying to tell me not to knock my girlfriend up that Summer, because if I did, I very well could be working at Mini-Mart the rest of my life. 

She and I had waited two years, until the time was right, and that precise date and time was July 7th, 1997, on a hot afternoon. In an over-sized closet, sweaty and wildly curious, in the boys rooms of the Pahaska Tepee employee cabins.

Pay came every two weeks, and we had just been to town to buy the necessary junk to haul back out the hours drive to Pahaska. Flashing lights from the construction equipment up ahead kept us there maybe twenty minutes. We were all anxious, in more ways than one.

She begged me to come work there with her that Summer. I was shocked when my parents consented. I needed the money, that's how my parents saw it. "He needs a life, too..." they might have said. I wasn't much for getting out during the Summer, let alone during the school year.

But this was totally different. I would be near the girl I loved. Had loved since we fell for each other two years before in English class, my Freshman Year. Over mixed, puppy love poetry, sharing a Pepsi while holding hands across a lunch table.

And here we were for what would be the Summer of my life. A hot, sweaty, sexy Summer. Morning, afternoon and all night sex. My Summer of 17, in 1997, the 7th of July it all started. In that closet.