A Seahorse in the Thames Read Online Free

I both got what we wanted out of our relationship. We both wanted to be paired with someone for our senior year in high school. We both wanted to have someone to go on dates with on Friday nights, someone to hold hands with in the hallways, someone to be seen with, someone to make us feel like we were both worthy of being dated, someone to go to prom with, someone with whom to experiment the art of kissing. Someone to show us how to begin to understand the emotional and mental differences between men and women.
    I also wanted to be like Priscilla, who had a dozen high school guys chasing after her. Despite being identical twins, Priscilla was the one that the boys at our high school were attracted to, not me. It didn’t matter that we looked alike, sounded alike and shared each other’s clothes. She was the one who turned heads. I think she liked that, though. And I wouldn’t have wanted that kind of attention. Priscilla liked the thrill of having multiple young men longing for her company and I was happy just to experience the thrill of capturing one boy’s complete attention. It was one of the many ways we were different from each other. And probably still are.
    I don’t know where Priscilla drew the line with her dating relationships. We drifted apart along with the rest of the family after Rebecca’s accident. As for me, I know Greg wanted more from me than I was willing to give him. But I couldn’t bring myself to let him have every inch of my body and soul, even though his physical touch was electrifying. I had enough sporadic exposure from our family’s infrequent attendance at church to know that fooling around in bed before you were married cheapened the relationship as well as the very act of love-making. I knew my parents wouldn’t approve. But it wasn’t just because I felt it ethically wrong that I refused Greg’s advances. I was scared to have to sex with him. Scared of being naked with him. Scared that it would hurt. Scared that he would find me repulsive. Scared that I would find him repulsive. Scared I would never be able to fully love another man. Scared I would get pregnant. Scared that I wouldn’t find anything pleasurable or good in giving my body away to a man-boy I knew I wouldn’t marry.
    I let Greg kiss me, passionately I guess you could say, and he on more than one occasion wove his way through my resistance by touching me in ways that threatened to lead us to the very thing I wanted to avoid. So I broke up with him the week after we graduated. I think he was relieved. Like I said, we had both gotten what we wanted. High school was over. We were both headed to different colleges where no one knew us, and where no one would particularly notice if either one of us had a date or not on Friday nights. And I figured at college he could probably find someone who would give him what he wanted.
    I wish I could say I was as smart about my next relationship. I got through my freshman year at San Jose State without any romantic entanglements. I was too thrilled to be on my own—out of my mother’s lonely house where there was no dad and no telephone. And since Priscilla had opted to go to Berkeley, there was no one to compare me to. I was just me .
    But I met Rick Fortrell my sophomore year. And I fell for him as quick and as hard as Stephen fell off my roof. And I ended up with injuries just like Stephen did, albeit emotional ones. Rick was handsome, intelligent, motivated and a smooth-talker. Greg had no idea how to talk me out of my fears about being intimate with a man. But Rick had already mastered this form of communication, though I did not know this at first. I ended up giving myself, every part of myself—including my soul it seemed—to Rick because I thought he was going to ask me to marry him. He didn’t. In fact, after six months of living in as complete a relationship as I have ever known, Rick became bored.
    When he decided we were through, I was already imagining what my wedding