My First Time: Spending the Night with Todd

Decorah, Iowa, June 1976

Although Dan and I would not be escaping to Arabia after all, my interest in the Middle East remained strong when I started at Rocky High in the fall of 1975, so I was delighted to meet a real Arab!  A sophomore violinist named Todd.

He was actually half Arab – his mother’s parents were from Lebanon – and Christian, not Muslim.  He didn’t know any Arabic except salaam (“hello”) and tayta (“grandma”). But still, he had roots in the "good place" where same-sex loves were free and open!  And he was beautiful, small and compact in a green turtleneck with flawless olive skin and dark shining eyes.

This model is much older, but he has Todd's face and physique.

 Unfortunately, Todd had been engaged since the fifth grade to a girl named Faith, and now they were attached whenever possible by hand or hip or mouth. You couldn’t address a question to one without both answering.

Maybe I was just rebounding from Dan, but I couldn't take my eyes off Todd. Even the air around him and his tan desk etched with graffiti seemed vivid and alive.  One lunch hour I lost twelve consecutive games of chess, unable to strategize or think of defense because Todd was sitting next to me. I wanted. . .I wasn’t sure what, but the desire burned hot and raw and panting. I churned the covers off my bed at night, restless, unable to sleep.

If you asked God to do anything in Jesus' name, He was honor-bound to do it.  My friend Rita used God's Infallible Promise to "get" Donny Osmond as a husband.  So one cool Sunday in November 1975, after the evening service, I walked out into the alley behind the church, looked up at the stars,  and asked God in Jesus' name to give me Todd.

 It took months, but eventually God kept His Infallible Promise and delivered Todd.  Or at least we were both selected, alone out of the entire orchestra, to go to the prestigious Dorian Music Festival. An entire week with Todd all to myself!

Luther College

The festival was held at the end of June 1976, after our family vacation in the northwoods and a few weeks before our Nazarene church camp,  at Luther College, on the bluffs of the Mississippi. Though Todd was only cautiously cordial at Rocky High, at the Festival he clung to me as a familiar face. On Thursday  we skipped afternoon rehearsal to explore the town.  We visited a rock cavern and then bought blueberry muffins at a bakery festooned with red and green streamers.

We even went to a movie, my first since I started becoming a "Johnny Nazarene."  I put my arm against the center arm rest, as Dan used to do.  I moved closer and closer to the hard curve of Todd’s body until I could feel the fibers of cotton in his shirt and smell Dial soap and, very faintly, his own scent of vineyards and bleached stone, but I dared not move that tantalizing quarter inch that defined the difference between a casual and a willful touch.


On Saturday night, after the Grand Concert, it was hot in our room, so Todd took off his undershirt, and I noticed a thin gold chain around his neck. When Todd climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to his chest, it stood out against his brown skin, gleaming like a fiery ring. On the front, against his collarbone, lay a small plate with what looked like a portrait of a man.

“Is that a surfing symbol?” I asked, stupidly.

“No,” Todd said in a dim lazy voice. “It’s a scapular. . .like a medal.”

“Oh. . .what did you win?”

Boy with scapular

“No, it’s a religious symbol.” He carefully pulled the plate up from his chest. “See, the Sacred Heart on one side, Mary Mother of God on the other.”

With a shudder I realized that Todd was talking about being a Catholic. “I thought you were a Christian!”

“I am,” Todd said defensively. “Maronite Catholic.  But I go to St. Pius."

Nazarene preachers told us to never go near a Catholic church, or we would be dragged inside to an unspeakable fate, and never talk to a Catholic, or we would be brainwashed into worshipping idols and drinking blood.

I chided himself for my irrational fear.  I had been friends with Frank, a Catholic boy, for two years!  Catholics weren't monsters and demons. Sometimes they were perfectly nice.

And what else had I heard about Catholics: "They have no morals, they're up for anything. If you want a good time, call a Catholic."

I stared at the scapular, and at Todd’s neck, golden in the brash light of our dorm lamp, with two moles close together on the left side like a vampire bite.

Finally I said, “I’ve never. . .seen a scapular before.  Can I touch it?”

“Sure.” But instead of taking it off, Todd motioned for me to come closer.

St. Pius Church, Rock Island

I got up, wearing only cotton briefs, and sat on Todd’s  bed.  Todd’s body was hot, and soft yet firm. I touched the scapular. Then slowly I moved my hand down and stroked Todd's chest.  He moaned and closed his eyes.

After some other things happened, Todd refused to kiss or cuddle, so I returned to my own bed.

When I awoke, Todd was already gone.  I dressed quickly and wandered around the campus for a long time, looking for him, but I didn't see him again.  After breakfast Dad arrived to drive me home.

Back at school, Todd returned to being cautiously polite, nodding hello as we passed in the hallway but refusing all attempts to talk. Sometimes I saw him across the cafeteria, laughing with his Crowd, cozying up to Faith. Sometimes the sunlight glinted off his scapular, which he was now wearing on the outside of his shirt.

It seemed that some boys liked boys only at night.  You could see them, and touch them, but in the morning they would become cool and aloof, brushing past you as they searched for girls.

40 years later and 500 miles away, I hooked up with his nephew.

See also: Dating My Boyfriend's Girlfriend; My Hookup with Todd's Nephew;  I Learn About Oral Sex.

Dating my Boyfriend's Girlfriend

Rock Island, Fall 1976

In the fall of 1976, shortly after Todd and I spent the night together at music camp, I tried to win him by dating his girlfriend, Faith.

She was establishing her autonomy joining every club she could find that Todd didn’t belong to -- Writers’, Swedish, Circle K, Archery, Golf – and in October she got around to the fundamentalist Christian club, Campus Life. I didn't have my driver's license yet, so I asked her for a ride home, thinking vaguely that she might be meeting Todd, and ask me to tag along.

On the first Monday night, we chatted for a few minutes as she dropped me off.

On the second Monday night, we parked for a long time, while she complained about Todd.  Seven years of engagement, and he treated her like a buddy! No parking on the levee to watch the Mississippi flow past! No “getting some” on her doorstep!

“You kiss!” I exclaimed. “I’ve seen you kiss, in the cafeteria.”

“That’s only for show, so Todd can brag to all his friends,” Faith said, witch eyes flashing. “When we’re alone, he’s a drip, all cold and stiff like a dead fish.”

“Maybe he’s waiting for your wedding night?"
"He doesn't even like to hold hands!  Even his sister says he’s a Swish!”

I winced at the forbidden word. “You’re from East Moline! Why would a Swish want to marry you? They can’t stand being around women.”

“For a screen. They marry women so no one gets wise.” She paused. “Maybe I should just dump Todd.”

I was starting to get nervous.  Girls usually dumped their boyfriends only when they found someone they liked better, and that would be. . .me!   I quickly said goodnight and left.

But then I thought, this might be useful.  If I dated Faith -- briefly -- Todd would be jealous, and fall into my arms.

Ok, I was fifteen years old, and not thinking clearly.

On the third Monday, we sat in the darkened car for almost an hour, talking about Faith’s frustration,  Todd’s lack of interest in her, or apparently in any girl, on and on, with no jokes, no wit, nothing to relieve the boredom. Finally I leaned forward, pushed briefly against her cold, hard lips and then jumped from the car and crushed across the dead leaves to my door.

On Tuesday I expected Faith to make a "just friends" speech, but she chatted as if nothing had happened.  So I asked her to a concert on Saturday.  She agreed.

My parents spent the rest of the week variously jumping for joy and weeping that I was "growing up."  My friends congratulated me as if I had won a major competition.  No one cared that she was Todd's girlfriend -- it was expected, even obligatory, to wrest the Girl of Your Dreams from the place-holder she was dating.

But the date never happened.  On Thursday night she called. "I didn't plan on it, but I can't go to the concert.  I met a guy, and. . .I didn't plan on it. . .but I Fell in Love With Him."

“Huh?” I said, as articulately as possible, given the situation. This was an unexpected development, and quite unwelcome. For one thing,  I was looking forward to the concert.

“I met the One! Isn’t it wonderful?”
“Um. . .when did all this happen?”
“Yesterday.” It seems that on Wednesday evening, Faith went a Photography Club Halloween party, where she danced with, drank blood punch with, kissed, and Fell in Love with a jock named Kent. I knew him from my athletic trainer job: tall and firm-muscled, with a pleasantly open face. . .and the biggest penis I had ever seen.  We had to order a special extra-extra large cup for him.

Faith apologized for not calling to break the date last night, but after Falling in Love she had to call to dump Todd, and he cried so hard that she felt guilty and needed comforting in Kent’s muscular arms. (Right, comforting! I thought savagely.) Then  – two or three hours later -- it was too late to call.

One more thing: could you surrender the tickets, for use with her True Love?

I couldn’t think of a response sufficiently acidic, so I yelled “Waste your time doing some-thing else!” and slammed down the telephone. I stayed home moping on Saturday night, staring at my unused tickets, feeling jealous and outraged and sad.

Why was I so miserable?  I didn't really want to date Faith.  But now we wouldn't be talking about Todd every Monday night, so in a weird way he was no longer part of my life.

See also: My First Sexual Experience