I Was A Teenage Guitar Slut

A thread which Miss C(orporate Slut) started. Now if only Miss J starts a 'I was Teenage Lead Vocalist Slut', we would have covered the band (because keyboardists don't count).

First came the Dark Ages, when Slinky was about thirteen and transferred from the school with the graph-paper uniforms to an infamous convent, where she knew no one, and had a truly tragic bowl hair cut. This was the time when Slinky was still wearing clothes her mother bought her and thought that bicycle tights and/or denim bermudas and big polo tees with black Reeboks were stylin'. (My Zaras want to crawl away in shame when I say that) This was when Slinky had not yet been accepted into the Catholic fold (and not yet subsequently cast out of it) and so the parentals thought it was essential that Slinky go to church. (yes, and that was when the heavens split asunder and lighting struck the earth. But no one noticed)

And that was where The Bad Boy entered Slinky's life and his presence intruded abruptly onto Slinky's formerly boy-free consciousness. He wasn't very tall. And he wasn't very good-looking. But he was, to my thirteen-year old eyes, the hottest thing on God's green earth. And I think it was the guitar. Maybe it was a fetish which came about being a child of the 80's, lapping up the leather pants and big hair and guitar masturbation which the rock gods did so well. For me it was always about the guitars, and the men who played them. (Unlike Miss C, however, I never got my band boys. Maybe I should have gone for the drummers? Nah.)

And so began a peculiarly bittersweet time when every Sunday became a wildly emotional rollercoaster of fear, hope and anticipation. Suddenly I couldn't think straight when he was nearby, and I became acutely, painfully conscious of the way I walked, the way I smiled, the things I said. There were days when everything became significant. Was the tone in which he said 'hi' friendlier than normal? Was the way he said 'hi' to the other girl friendlier? He dropped back from the front of the group to talk to me. Did that mean he liked me? It drove me crazy. Thinking about him made me grin like the village idiot. Not seeing him when I expected him to be made me feel like I'd swallowed stones. I broke my curfews for him, just to hang around the edge of the periphery of the group and find joy in the fact that he was there, talking, joking, laughing, even if it wasn't with me. I was tongue-tied and shy, but felt like I would have told him anything. I was a bit of a drooling idiot for the boy, and all this over someone who I was lucky if I spoke more five words at a time to.

And the guitar? Oh, he played the guitar. And he sang. He played the cheesiest, corniest song a guy can play during the height of the early 90's – Extreme's "More Than Words". I think the sight of him sitting there, playing the guitar with that intense look of utter absorption in what he was doing, his hair swinging in his face, and the night air cool on my skin remains one of my enduring teenage memories.

He smoked, drank, ganged, and doped. I think he'd be lucky if he's still alive.

But The Bad Boy was, I think, just a dress rehearsal. And the real deal, the Slinky version of the Interstellar Drummer, only came years later, out of the blue.

In the Golden Age when Slinky was fifteen, Slinky had The Zephyr (the biggest fucking dog in the World, according to the Sumijelly), Slinky had an even better metabolism then she does now, and Slinky was blissfully unattached and part of the Back Row with the rest of the cool chicks who were in her class. (Slinky was also absolutely pathetic at Physics and Chemistry, a fact which would later cause her much chagrin but was, at the time, merely a minor inconvenience). In that Golden Age, Slinky played a lot of baseball in the field with her friends, Slinky rode buses and sang Bon Jovi in public with said friends (who apparently had, like Slinky, absolutely no sense of shame about belting out 'Livin' On Prayer' at the top of their lungs), and hung out in MacDonald's a lot. Luckily, Slinky had also banished the terrible tights and the bowl haircut forever.

And then came Christmas Eve, where Slinky incurred the wrath of the parentals because she wanted to hang out with The Bad Boy (whom she still carried a torch for and whom she still couldn't speak more than five words to at a time) and so broke her curfew quite spectacularly and returned home at the unearthly hour of 4 am on Christmas morning and caught hell because there was a function en familie Slinky was supposed to attend on Christmas. Bummer. Bad bad Slinky. Slinky got grounded for four months for that little stunt.

Slinky sulked the rest of the day. A very inauspicious start to what was to be the most spectacular guitar boy fetish ever.

Instant karmic chemistry though neither of us knew it at the time. Instant connection, though we wouldn't find out until years later (one of us anyway). There was a click. It was a Shakespeare tragedy, a Baz Luhrman love story and a Farelly Brother farce all rolled into one. Or maybe I overstate the case. I don't know. But it was big. And it was epic. It spanned almost a decade.

But we met, we wrote, and a little drifts of correspondence accumulated in dunes in my room. Elsewhere, around, my fifteen-year-old, sixteen year old life went on around me. Phone calls now and then. I remember buying a phone card, nervous, excited, terrified at my own daring And then I call, and he was there, on the other end of the line. And we talked. The first of only a handful of conversations. But they were all important. I yearned for him, but when you're sixteen, a different country seems too hard and too far away. So I contented myself with the knowledge that with this second guitarist crush, at least I could bring myself to speak to the object of my affections.

There were phone calls. There were confidences exchanged. There were so many letters. There were even meetings. On one very memorable occasion, I sat in his living room and he taught me how to play Eva. Guess the song.

Then a letter, one day. In an uncharacteristically ornate envelope. Real small. I came home, snatched it up, ran up to my room, ripped it open, and then just sat there for a while.

And then I did one of the stupidest things I've ever done in my life. Despite the fact that Slinky was a crazy little love fool for this second guitar boy. Despite the fact that Slinky's heart forgot how to beat whenever she heard his voice on the phone. Despite the fact that when the letters arrived in their spiky little script, Slinky was transported, and would read them again and again. Maybe it was because I thought that what I felt couldn't possibly be real. Can you tell, from seeing a person less than five times over the space of a year, that what you feel for them is more than just a passing crush, that such a thing is possible? With the benefit of hindsight (which is always 20.20) I think I was wrong now. But back then, I didn't know better. Thus laying the foundation for future grief and much misunderstanding.

I don't know how he felt. I am guessing 'not good' would be an understatement. But we kept writing. And we kept talking. I even met him with my new boyfriend in tow once. Again, a really, gawdawfully stupid thing which I had not the sense not to do. I can't even imagine how much I've managed to hurt him.

Then one day, a call. He was supposed to come down. But then he called, and told me he couldn't. Because he'd met someone. And I was happy for him. But after I hung up, suddenly, inexplicably, I began to cry.

I guess it was real after all.

We drifted after that. He left to go to a country even further away, for a long time. What I didn't know is that I was still there, with him.

I thought it was done, and I thought it was no more. But then one day he appears again, out of the blue. Ironically, it's thanks to the FBF that he does. After something like four years of radio silence, he was back. And that's when things started going crazy again, almost a decade after I first met him. Revelations, accusations, histrionics. I won't go into the details. It wasn't pretty. It was a lot of wrenching heartache. For everyone. And I miss one of the best friends I ever had.

Like the Interstellar Drummer, the What-If Boy is quasi-famous now, and I'm glad, because this was what he's always wanted

He taught me to dream of what you think cannot be, and to seize the moment, and live it. Because you only get one shot at this life. He taught me to just say it, to just open up to what's in your heart. He taught me there is no such thing as a better time. There is only now.