My First Time

by Jeff Cates

It was the first time Mercedes and I slept together. Since we’d met in French class, I thought she’d enjoy an artsy French film playing at a local gallery. We’d both been up late the previous night studying for our last day of finals before graduation. As a joke, she wore a raspberry beret. I was just about scared to death that her father would get the reference, but apparently, he’d never heard the song.

Three months earlier, I’d asked Mercedes out for the first time. We’d sat across from each other eating snack bar lunches under an ancient elm for two weeks before I worked up the nerve to ask her out. I told her we could listen to an indie singer at a local cafe and have a bite to eat afterward. She said, “Yes,” and I don’t remember anything we said after that.

I drove to her house and rang the doorbell at seven. Mercedes met me at the door and introduced me to her parents. I shook hands with both of them and told her mom and dad it was a pleasure to meet them. I knew her dad was a big car dealer in town, but when I first looked up at him, I wondered if he’d ever been a linebacker in the NFL.

Before we could leave, Mr. Calloway said, “Mercedes, your mom wants to talk to you in the kitchen while I show Royce the Game Room.”

I followed him, wondering what kind of games he had. Chess, checkers, maybe a Monopoly set, I guessed.

I nearly bumped into a huge grizzly bear that stood on its hind legs. It was two feet taller than Mr. Calloway. Then I noticed all those heads on the wall: a mountain lion, an elk, and probably a dozen other animals.

Mr. Calloway turned around and said, “Before you leave, I want you to know that I love my daughter very much, and I shot every one of these animals myself.”

I must have looked like I was stuffed for a few seconds as I imagined my head mounted on the wall next to the bighorn sheep. I fought the impulse to run screaming from the house. “I won’t forget that, Mr. Calloway.”

“You see that caribou over there?”

“Next to the pronghorn antelope,” I answered.

He looked a little surprised that I knew the name before he added, “I dropped it from over four hundred yards away.”

“That’s impressive.”

He clapped a meaty hand on my back and shouted, “Mercedes, Royce is ready to go now.”

When we walked out the door, I kept my hands clapped against my sides.

Once we were inside the car and I started the engine, Prince’s Raspberry Beret boomed over the speakers. I practically sprained my wrist turning it off. “Sorry,” I said, “I’d forgotten the CD was in there.”

“I’m shocked, Royce,” she said in a firm voice. “I didn’t even know they still made CD players.” Then she laughed.

Some of the tension flowed out of my shoulders.

“Go ahead and turn it back on,” she said. “I like the song.”

She shocked me when she sang along with the lyrics, but there was no way I’d admit that to her.

Just before we reached the cafe, Mercedes asked, “So, what did Dad tell you?”

I thought for a moment before I answered, “Let’s just say he wants me to respect you.”

“Suppose I don’t want to be respected,” she quipped.

“Dang, Mercedes, you’re going to get me shot for sure!”

***

Both of us jerked awake when the French National Anthem blared through the speakers, its fluttering flag appearing on the screen. I tried to fish my cell out of my pocket, but my arm was still around Mercedes. It was asleep and not obeying my commands. “What time is it,” I shouted.

Mercedes rummaged through her purse like a bear searching a garbage can for a bologna sandwich. When she pulled it out, she shouted, “It’s after three!”

As I leaned forward, I saw about four missed calls and twenty text messages from her mom— and two or three from her dad!

Mercedes looked up at me with wide eyes. She must have read the look of terror on my face. “Sorry, Royce. I turned off my cell so it wouldn’t ring in here.”

“So did I,” I sputtered. My rapidly beating heart was restoring some of the blood to the arm that had been wedged between Mercedes and the back of her chair. I fumbled to dig my cell out of my hip pocket. When I finally turned it on, it looked about the same as Mercedes’s did, including messages from her mom and dad.

Mercedes was reading the same thing I was. I looked up and said, “I told your parents the movie ended at ten. We must have slept through three showings. Your dad’s going to shoot me for sure!”

Mercedes said, “I can call him and tell him we’ve been sleeping together for the last six hours.”

My hand shot out and covered her screen. “If you tell him that, he’ll slowly empty a whole magazine into me!”

“You’re right, Dad probably will shoot you. He’s probably driving around town right now, trying to figure out what show we went to.” Her eyes looked mischievous. “There is one thing we can do.”

“So, honey, Daddy and Mommy drove straight to Las Vegas. We were married by a preacher dressed like Elvis at a drive-through wedding chapel the next morning.”

“Did Grandpa Carl try to shoot Daddy?”

“No, Porsche, not after he had a few days to get used to the idea. He became a real softie after you were born,” Mercedes answered.

Royce tousled her hair and said, “OK, honey, that’s the end of the story of how Mommy and Daddy got married. Now, it’s time for bed. You’d better get to sleep, or we may have to pop in the DVD of that French movie to play for you.”