Three

Late summer, 1981. I was seventeen.

In my junior year, I had it bad for Allan, who was an unlikely prospect for conventional romance. I also developed a crush on Joyce, who seemed just as unattainable.

Joyce was a senior who lived in the dorm and had a boyfriend back home. They planned to get married after high school and go to college together.

She was outgoing and silly, as I was, and we had a lot of classes together. It was inevitable that we would bond. She was also terribly cute, with short jet black hair, freckles and blue eyes.

Joyce made a lot of friends in her senior year. Among these was Bill, a very nice writer who, even as a junior, affected tweeds and corduroy. I liked him too. Alas, he had eyes for Joyce, and his affections were returned.

It pained me to be in this unenviable position as Joyce’s best boy pal. The guy whom you love, but he is just too sweet to date.

Bill got the worse end of the stick though. He and Joyce really liked one another, but she was true to her boy back home.

Joyce was terribly sad when school ended. She did not want to return to her hometown and her boyfriend. The idea of marriage seemed anathema. She hated to leave us all behind.

A group of us headed south to the Gulf shore. A friend had family there, and we were all going to camp out in a house they were building.

It was a perpetually unfinished house, like the one on Green Acres. There was furniture in some rooms, and unfinished walls in others. There was only cold water.

Joyce told me that she was going to break up with her boyfriend. She also said she had lost her virginity to Bill a week before.

Peabo, Joyce and I were up late, after everyone else had gone to sleep. We listened to “Frampton Comes Alive!” the only album we could locate. Peabo read aloud selections from a cheesy romance novel he found.

He then proposed that Joyce and I enact these scenes. Silly idea, and it made us nervous to embrace, kiss and so on. But it excited us too.

Peabo found a selection in which a woman undressed. That was too much, I thought. But sure enough, he removed Joyce’s pants. And her panties.

She had the most luxurious straight black pubic hair imaginable.

We sat around, nervously laughing and talking. And then Peabo left us alone. He closed the door behind him.

“Jefferson . . . ,” Joyce said. She kissed me.

I went down on her.

She pulled me up. She undressed me. She took my cock and put it in her.

The sun was rising in the window over her head. We kissed and made love, finally pouring out all those pent up desires for one another.

I came inside her.

We emerged from the bedroom, smiling, glowing. Peabo proposed that we go in search of breakfast. We walked to a grocery store. I held Joyce’s hand.

I was high on love, on life.

A few weeks later Joyce called.

She was pregnant.

She had convinced herself that the baby was Bill’s, not mine. She had to get an abortion, but she could not bring herself to do that if it was our baby.

Only her best friend and I knew. She had scheduled the procedure. We had a few days to raise $150.

I went to friends and told them: I need you to give me money and not ask questions. They complied. We raised the money.

Her best friend and I took Joyce for the appointment. We ate gazpacho while we waited. And then we stayed with her all afternoon, before she had to head back to her hometown.

Joyce was in New York a couple of months ago, with her husband, a really sweet guy. I had them over to meet my kids and drink wine. We ordered Chinese.

After the kids were in bed, Joyce flirted with me and discussed the possibility of an affair—oh dear, maybe we shouldn’t talk about that in front of my husband! What would her children think if she cheated on daddy?

She’s yours if you can handle her, he offered. I can’t keep up.

Of course, we aren’t going to have an affair. That’s just Joyce being Joyce.