Secondary Sins
Fiona Helmsley
The second person I ever had sex with was my best friend Marie’s boyfriend, Nate. Since junior high, we had been a tight threesome, in all ways, except for sex. I had been privy to all the little details of their relationship — that Nate ate Marie out in a movie theater, that Marie popped the zits on Nate’s back. Nate, who invented his own slang words for everything, had even invented words for their sex acts. Touchesit, he would say, and take Marie’s hand, and put it between his legs. Fuckesit, he would say, and depending upon the looks on their faces, I might leave the room.
Nate was good looking, but not very smart. If a word like “bimbo” was used more often for men, it might have been used for Nate. He had a flamboyantly gay uncle who had made it his responsibility that Nate be stylish from a very early age. His hair was dark brown, but every month, his uncle took him to a salon called Joe Steel to have his bangs bleached blond. During a period where most of my friends had no style at all, or one that was very confused, Nate looked like a skateboarder slash artist, and wore round wire framed glasses, with Keith Haring ACT-UP t-shirts and Army shorts. I’d known him since grammar school, where he would put my chair up on top of my desk when I wasn’t looking, and blame it on poltergeists. He got into a lot of trouble, both in and outside of school, and had once been hit by a limo while on his skateboard. He was taken to the ER draped across the lap of the passenger inside: Tip O’Neill.
Marie had moved to town in 6th grade, and made an immediate impression. She was small and pretty, in a windblown beachy-wave California kind of way — Long Beach, California, being where she had moved to town from. On the first day of 6th grade, there had been a big commotion in the hallway over a bad smell. When the teachers came out to investigate, Marie, who no one knew yet, spoke up loudest: “Someone let out a floating air biscuit!” There were politics to being a new kid, similar to the old Greek maxim: new kids should be seen and not heard. Marie never abided by them. By the end of her first week at school, she was one of the most popular girls in our grade. But it didn’t last long.
Marie and I didn’t connect until 7th grade. Before me, Marie’s best friend was Julia. Julia’s boyfriend was Chris, an 8th grader. Over a school vacation, Julia had gone to Florida, and while she was gone, Chris had come on to Marie, telling her that his relationship with Julia was over. For some reason, Marie believed him, and interpreting this to mean Chris was in the free and clear, agreed to go out with him. The end of Julia and Chris’ relationship turned out to be news to Julia, and soon payphones all over town screamed out in red lip gloss graffiti, Marie L. is a fucking slut! Marie L.is a fucking tuna! Marie broke up with Chris as soon as she found out the truth, but the damage was done. Within a year of moving to town, she was popular girl non-grata. It was during this time that she got together with Nate. Not only was Nate her boyfriend, he was her only friend. The two of them seemed to exist in their own private world.
All the scandal surrounding Marie made her intriguing to me. She’d ascended to such impressive social heights, only to plummet. I heard Julia’s threats of violence against her. She was going to kick Marie’s ass. She was going to kick her ass through adolescence. So what if Chris had lied to Marie, it took two to tango. I heard these two phrases repeated again and again in relation to what Marie had done. Julia was obviously very impressed with them.
The assault that would speed Marie’s adult development was slated to occur the night of the Torchlight parade, a downtown civic holiday celebration. Marie was attacked that night — just not by Julia, but by Julia’s new best friend, Leanna. Leanna had had a brief encounter with Nate before he had gotten together with Marie. Nate had gone on to describe Leanna’s vagina to anyone who was interested as being like “Jell-O and sandpaper.” Nate had also come up with the nickname that people used for Leanna behind her back: “Green Teeth.” Leanna’s teeth had a dingy tinge to them.
Marie’s reaction to the parade assault made her even more intriguing to me. Yes, Green Teeth had technically kicked her ass. She’d thrown Marie into the bushes along the parade route, and ripped her pants. But what difference had it made? If it had been done to humiliate Marie, she didn’t act humiliated. She hadn’t tried to hide that night, or run away. The next week at school, she even wore her ripped pants. Marie could not be humbled. I wondered what it would be like to be her friend.
Every day at lunch in junior high, we had two choices about where to eat: the cafeteria, which was across campus, or the Estuary Council. The Estuary Council was closer, but sometimes you had to share your lunch table with old people. Nate and Marie always ate at the Estuary Council. I remember knowing as I put my tray down next to them at lunch one day that battle lines were being drawn. I knew that by some of my friends I would be seen as a traitor. I knew that by junior high standards I was making a bold move, but I wanted to be bold.
The quickest way to cement a close friendship is to assume the other person’s problems, so Marie’s problems became my own. We immediately went about planning how we could get revenge on Green Teeth. I had insight into Leanna that Marie didn’t, as Leanna and I had once been good friends. I knew how humiliated she had been by Nate’s description of her vagina, and while I was at my grandmother’s house, came across something I thought we could use to even the score. It was a free sample of the vaginal cream, Vagisil. I wasn’t sure exactly what Vagisil was used for, but knew it to be a shame-inducing feminine product, the kind of thing you hid in your shopping basket if you were to buy it at the drugstore. The next day at school, Marie and I slipped the Vagisil in Green Teeth’s locker.
Green Teeth struck back when I wasn’t around. She confronted Marie while she was alone in the hallway, and punched her hard in the stomach. Marie was in so much pain afterward, she had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance. From her hospital bed, she found out that the pain she felt wasn’t any damage done by Green Teeth, but due to cysts on her ovaries. Despite the doctor’s explanation otherwise, we assumed the cysts had formed because she’d started having sex with Nate so young, and because she was so tiny.
It was while Marie was out of sexual commission with the cysts that the rumors first started that Nate had cheated. Even if Marie had taken those early rumors seriously, ending the relationship would have been hard. Nate and Marie’s lives had become totally intertwined, enmeshed. Nate would go on vacations with Marie’s family, and spend whole weekends at her house, sleeping in her room. And Nate would deny, deny, deny, swearing on seemingly sacred things, like his mom, and the Bible. Eventually, there were so many rumors that Marie had to take them seriously, and by the summer going into our freshman year of high school, Nate and Marie fell into a pattern of breaking up, making up, breaking up, making up.
I entered high school with two goals: to try LSD and to “try” sex. That was the way I thought about sex before I had it — abstractly, as something to experience. In retrospect, I think there were times when I was young where my curiosity acted as a corrupting agent. It led me to view meaning as an obstacle, something that got in the way. Or maybe I was just afraid. Maybe I had already figured out that to invest something with meaning was to it give it the power to hurt you.
Freshman year, Marie and Nate were still my only friends having sex. Although Nate enjoyed talking about the intricacies of their sex life in front of me, it wasn’t something I could vicariously experience through them. I had started going out with a boy who was also a virgin, but he was shy. Sex was a big deal to him. Though I cared about him very much, I found it hard to wait, and even harder to broach the subject of my curiosity with him. Among my new high school friends was a loud, obnoxious boy, the drummer in a local cover band, and a notorious horndog with a conquest list a mile long. One night I snuck out of my house to meet him, knowing what would happen. He was the first person I had sex with. The loud, obnoxious boy and notorious horndog was also my boyfriend’s best friend.
I immediately told Nate and Marie. They were happy for me. They claimed to understand what I had been after: the experience. They knew that I’d gone to my boyfriend’s best friend for one reason, because he’d been a sure thing. Though they liked my boyfriend, I knew that they could be trusted to keep it a secret.
They had their own problems. By this point, Marie and Nate were breaking up and making up constantly. One night, Marie couldn’t find Nate anywhere, and we heard that he had spent the night at another girl’s house, a few towns away. We found out where the girl lived, and the next morning, stormed her house, where we found Nate at the kitchen table, just waking up. Marie pushed his head into the bowl of cereal in front of him as the girl’s grandmother scrambled to call the cops. A few days later, my boyfriend found out what I had done. It was no fun to no longer be a virgin and not be able to tell anyone about it. Unable to keep my mouth closed, I had told other people besides Nate and Marie. My boyfriend refused to hear my ridiculous explanation. He wrote me a scathing letter calling me a whore and a prude, and left it in my mailbox. He wrote that I’d put out for anyone — as long as they weren’t him.
Feeling beaten down by the men in our lives, Marie and I decided to run away. My friend Carrie’s grandmother had just died, and she’d given me boxes of her grandmother’s unsold Avon jewelry. We decided we would hitchhike to California, join up with Grateful Dead tour and sell the jewelry at shows — only we never made it out of town. After finding our goodbye notes, our parents tracked us to a friend’s house. Nate used Marie’s parents’ concern for her to weasel his way back into her life.
Maybe Nate was smarter than I’m giving him credit for. Without him in her life, Marie really had no one else but me. Though her social standing had improved since junior high, in the minds of many of our classmates, especially the female ones, she’d been defined by the Julia/Chris debacle. She was a “boyfriend stealer,” someone who couldn’t be trusted. It didn’t matter that in the years since, she’d been in a committed relationship while her boyfriend cheated. And Marie didn’t try to change anyone’s opinion. She had me, and she had Nate. In spite of his behavior, she must have thought that was enough.
Marie’s parents were very permissive. Besides spending the night at their house, in Marie’s room, and joining them on their family vacations, Marie’s parents let Nate drive their car once he got his license. They also let Nate and I hang out at their house when they weren’t home — and when Marie wasn’t there, either. This was the case, one day, when Marie was sick. Her mom took her to her doctor’s appointment, and Nate and I stayed behind at the house, awaiting their return.
There was a crumbled sleeping bag on the floor of Marie’s room. As Nate explained to me, once we were alone, he’d spent the night, playing Florence Nightingale to the ill Marie. He had selflessly slept on the floor to avoid getting sick himself.
He straightened out the sleeping bag, then laid down on top of it.
“It’s so cozy!” he said, nuzzling into it exaggeratedly. “I couldn’t sleep last night with Marie’s coughing. Lie down. Let’s take a nap.” He reached up to grab my arms. We’d been friends for so long, and had innocently played around before. He pulled me on to the floor next to him, then started flopping around on top of the sleeping bag, like he couldn’t get comfortable.
“I can’t sleep,” he said, looking down in a way that directed my eyes to the bulge in his Army shorts. “Fuckesit?”
“Nate!” I said. By this time, I’d known that he had been cheating on Marie for years, but it was still shocking to hear him finally admit to it, and to admit to it by asking me to cheat with him.
“Come on,” he said. “Fuckesit. You know if you and Marie weren’t good friends, you and I would have a long time ago.”
I hadn’t known this. Nate had been Marie’s boyfriend for the whole duration of our friendship, and I had come to think of him as an extension of her. Before Marie, I’d recognized Nate as being attractive, probably the best looking boy in our grade, but had interpreted that to mean he was too good looking to ever be interested in me. Though the veracity of his statement was in question — you and I would have a long time ago — it still felt flattering. Nate wants to fuck me. I guess it didn’t take much.
“Yes,” he said, unbuttoning his shorts. “You must help me. Fuckesit.”
He pulled down his shorts, revealing his plaid boxers. I could see his erection poking through the opening. He gave me a coy look, both mischievous and playful, a slightly different version of a look that I’d seen him give Marie so many times. He believed in his charm one hundred percent. His look said, I want to do a bad thing. I believe I can get away with it. Do it with me. I didn’t disagree with it. He got on top of me.
It was the second time I’d had sex. As Nate fucked me, I thought to myself, I guess I’m a shitbag, too. I moved my mouth towards his to kiss him, not out of any need, or strong desire, but because I thought that was what you did when you had sex. He hesitated for a moment, then kissed me in a way that felt mechanical. In spite of this, physically, sex with my best friend’s boyfriend was better than sex with my boyfriend’s best friend. Nate was good at it. I figured because of his years of experience with Marie.
After Marie came home from the doctor, and Nate left in her father’s car to pick up her prescriptions, she gave me a slightly different version of the night before. She said that Nate wouldn’t stop pawing at her. She’d told him again and again how sick she’d felt, and finally, dejectedly, and with a little pout on his face, he had gotten the sleeping bag out of the closet and moved to the floor.
I wondered to myself — does he need sex so badly that if Marie’s sick for a night, he has to look for it somewhere else? Hadn’t his cheating started back in junior high, after Marie had been laid up with the cysts? Only this time, I couldn’t tell Marie my new theory, because I was complicit in it. It was a dumb theory anyway, one that explained nothing, because Nate didn’t just cheat on Marie when she was sick — he cheated on her all the time, whenever he could. When Nate brought me home in her father’s car later that night, he made a detour to a cul de sac at the end of street. We fucked again on the hood of the car. I could see Marie’s house from where we parked. The light was on in her bedroom.
Sex with Nate, though physically satisfying, had heavy and immediate emotional repercussions. The secret became like a fourth person in our relationship. As Marie and Nate continued to argue over his cheating, I could do nothing but sit there like a stump. I now knew for certain the lengths Nate would go to lie. A purse was found in his new car, containing the ID of a girl we went to school with. I was sure the girl had left it there on purpose, hoping that Marie would find it. Without asking me, Nate claimed I had found the bag and given it to him to return. The secret pacified me as Marie’s loyal ally. I didn’t know what to say anymore, now that I was a part of the lie.
Finally, our sophomore year, Marie started to see someone else. She was finally ready to try to strike out on her own, without Nate. This was big: for the longest time I couldn’t even get her to admit that she found other men attractive, not even celebrities. There had been a time when Nate wouldn’t admit to finding other women attractive, either. They talked about, and agreed, that they would each be allowed one celebrity crush. Marie chose Richard Grieco. Nate chose Mariah Carey. But those first love courtesies, back in 7th grade, seemed so long ago.
Nate must have felt deeply threatened. Later, I asked him why he had done it, but he couldn’t give me an answer. He once again tried to fall back on being cute, by making a face. Why had I done it? Youth? Low self-esteem? I always believed my conscience would act as a barrier, a final fortification, until it didn’t.
Though Marie had started seeing someone else, a boy from another town, Nate, of course, was still in her life. She had to see him in school where they shared classes. They were no longer together, but still intertwined. He’d wait for her outside her classroom, in the hallway, if only to start a fight, or to claim he had left something important at her house. He’d sometimes stalk past her with some girl on his arm. He must have felt that these deliberate acts were no longer eliciting much of a response.
Marie and I were in French class when Nate appeared outside the door. In happier times, Marie might have asked the teacher to get a drink from the water fountain so she could give him a kiss. This time she ignored him. He turned his attention to me, and gestured that I should come out.
“Should I see what he wants?” I asked Marie.
She rolled her eyes. “I guess.”
I asked the teacher to use the bathroom and joined Nate in the hallway.
“This has to stop,” I said. Though I should have meant he and I, I meant his harassment of Marie.
“I know,” he said with a dopey grin. Nate was in a good mood. He seemed bouncy.
We walked over to the stairwell, which was empty, except for us.
He still had that dumb look on his face as he grabbed my hand. “Touchesit?” he said.
“Stop,” I said. “What do you want?”
In his hand he had a folded piece of paper.
“Give this to Marie,” he said.
“Come on, Nate. You need to leave her alone. You both need to move on.”
“I know,” he said. “I am. Just give this to her.”
“What is it?” I asked, starting to open it.
“No,” he said, folding it back up. “Just give it to her. It’ll be funny. I’m going to stand in the hallway and watch.”
“It better not be anything hurtful,” I said, knowing better.
I went back to the classroom and when the teacher wasn’t looking, passed the note to Marie.
“He wants me to give this to you,” I said.
Once again, she rolled her eyes. For a few seconds, my attention went to the teacher, reorienting myself to what he was doing in the front of the room.
When I turned back towards Marie, she was getting up. I never saw her face. I looked towards the door, and saw Nate, where he was standing. Marie rushed past him, then out of view.
I looked back at her desk, and saw the note lying there, unfolded.
It said
ASK YOUR BEST FRIEND WHAT SHE DID WITH ME
I looked up towards the door and my eyes met Nate’s for a second. He was still making that dumb face. Then he was gone, too.
Fiona Helmsley is a writer of creative non-fiction and poetry. Her writing can found online at sites like PANK and The Rumpus, and in anthologies like Ladyland and The Best Sex Writing of the Year. Her book of essays and stories, My Body Would be the Kindest of Strangers was just released by Paragraph Line Books.
