Sometimes I Trip On How Happy We Could Be Read online

  I don’t remember any specific thing that led me to masturbation. It was probably just basic child curiosity about my body. If I hiked my pants up too high, being silly, and the inner seam hit my “cootie-coo” in a weird way, something tumbled through my belly. When I’d lie in bed and stretch, pressing my thighs together so that they pushed against each side of my crotch, something shimmered behind my ear. By the time I heard “Girl,” I was taking baths by myself and adjusting the faucet so the water would drip-drip-drip at the rhythm I needed. And I’d been reading enough romance novels to build a pretty good vocabulary of euphemisms for all the sexual body parts.

  The first night I heard the song, I was lying on the living room floor, well past my bedtime, reading a book, when Prince’s voice breathed over a slurring keyboard for me to “caress the flower.” I gasped and sat up. I lowered the volume and pressed my ear against the speaker. No one else in the house could hear this. He said, “Be poetic.” My young poet heart stopped. My body turned into a tense, trembling mass of gasps and whimpers, like I’d been overwhelmed by raw power, the electric sea from the song moving through me. Then he said he wanted to be the water in my bath…He wanted to be a wet body lapping against me, surrounding me, being the thing that drip-drip-drips until I’m carried away into that sea of electricity. I needed this song in my life.

  I knew he wasn’t talking specifically to me, but how did he know me? Was this what a fully adult sexual relationship was like, this degree of knowing?

  After that night, I damn near camped out in the living room, waiting to catch the opening notes so I could record it. Sometimes the DJ would talk too far into the song for my liking, or cut it off too early. When I finally got the cleanest recording I could get, I turned everything off and crawled into bed. Until I was fifteen, my brother and I shared a bedroom, so any personal exploration was always in the dead of night when I knew he was deep asleep. I put the tape in my Walkman and slid under my covers. I lay on my back and pulled the pillow over my face. I rewound the tape and pressed PLAY, then pushed the headphones as close to my ears as possible. I had the volume at a good place but didn’t want it to be so loud that my brother, or my mother on a late-night bathroom run, would hear.

  I got under the covers with Prince’s “Girl,” but not in the way you might expect. It wasn’t a deposit in my spank bank. I was studying this song. I was hearing myself in the lyrics. It was already clear that my fascination with sex was considered inappropriate and uncomfortable. No one in my church had ever explicitly told me sex was a sin, at least not that I could recall, but it was clear to me. The condemnation for being a sexual person hung in the air, shimmying over everything like pollen. And here was Prince, expressing that he, too, sometimes felt bad for the desires he couldn’t seem to control. He was only four years younger than my parents, a stranger I knew I’d never meet, but he knew me.

  He knew me.

  With the pillow over my face, the comforter covering the pillow, I’d made my own little sensory deprivation tank. I wanted nothing to distract me from the song thumping in my ears. It’s a sparse track, plinky keyboards and backward vocals sliding in and out of Prince’s imploring voice. When he asked if Girl ever gets lonely sometimes, hot tears betrayed me and slid into the curves of my ears. Middle-child syndrome—fully activated. Stuck in between a significantly older sister and a baby brother with “special needs,” I often felt lost. I couldn’t join my sister and her friends for the grown-up things they did, and my brother couldn’t have the kinds of conversations I would’ve loved to have with him. My mother didn’t really care for the friends I had at school at the time, so I didn’t do a lot of sleepovers. Instead, I turned to books, music, and television. I entertained myself, but it did get lonely, especially at that preadolescent phase when I started to want boys to notice me. Notice me first, not as an afterthought of my friends. I wanted someone I could talk to. And if we could kiss, that would be even better.

  I was around six years old when I first realized who Prince was and those first few years, I was fascinated by this man who looked unlike anyone I had ever seen before. All the future great loves of my life would have some kind of Prince feature: big, pretty eyes; a distinctive mole; a slim, short stature. But as I began to recognize the heat in my blood, I recognized that same heat in his music. I saw myself in this man who seemingly struggled to balance a love for God with his need to be freaky and his need to challenge the way Society with a capital S tells us how we should behave and look as men and women.

  I knew Prince was “nasty,” but it drew me to him even more. Prince built a reputation on his risqué songs—like “Head,” with lyrics about oral sex from a stranger before getting married. It’s easy to think that Prince saw women only as objects made for sexual pleasure, but looking deeper, his songs show women with the same sexual urges as men. Although acts like Salt-N-Pepa and Madonna were arguably more important in showcasing women’s desires through song at the time, Prince’s work resonated more with me.

  His ’80s catalog, in particular, was a revelatory mix of sex, politics, and religion. He sang as a man unafraid of changing how society looked at masculinity, as a man who enjoyed a more sexually experienced woman, and as a man willing to follow a woman’s lead. “Darling Nikki,” from the 1984 Purple Rain soundtrack, details a one-night stand. It has all the markers to offend—a sex fiend of a woman, masturbating in public, who abandons her conquest after using him. In the sultry song, the object of the woman’s affection has no problems with being used and ends the song begging for her to come back.

  “If I Was Your Girlfriend,” from the 1987 album Sign o’ the Times, is a song so important to me that I have a line of its lyrics tattooed around my left ankle. In it, Prince’s alter ego Camille sings from the perspective of a man who wonders if becoming a woman would lead to a closer relationship with his current female lover. Again, Prince disrupts heteronormative ideals of masculinity in his willingness to change genders for a more significant connection, the kind shared between women. Some people may see this as extreme, maybe even creepy, but it remains to me a fairy-tale example of forever love.

  When I started taking Prince’s “Girl” to bed with me, it wasn’t to get my rocks off. It was to hear a song telling me that someone out there loves and lusts after someone like me. He admits his desire for this person is like a sin and that he can come just from the thought of them. Even in my young mind, I knew that was the ultimate power.

  After Prince trails off his sweet talk, there’s a collection of licking sounds and gasps on top of some backmasking, which is really Wendy Melvoin, a key member of the Revolution, repeating the lyrics, but with “Boy” instead. The erotic combination thrilled me, my tween mind registering it as what sex is supposed to sound like, not the excessive moans and yells from my father’s porn tapes.

  By the time I started having sex, I, like most of my peer group, I imagine, would play music in the background. It could help set the mood or cover any sounds in situations with thin walls and nosy roommates. But when I got into my thirties, I realized I no longer wanted to listen to music during sex. It was distracting. I wanted to hear all the slippery sounds and shaky sighs…just like the ending of “Girl.”

  White Boys

  In high school, I had a good guy friend who was white. Bradley seemed to date only Black girls, but no one freaked out about it because he wasn’t pretending to be anything other than what he was. He was the cool white guy in a group of Black friends, but not like Vanilla Ice or the lead singer from Color Me Badd. He didn’t speak with a “blaccent.” He didn’t use slang that wasn’t a part of his culture. He didn’t cut lines into his hair, try to build a high-top fade with hairspray, or invent a background for himself in order to earn points from us Black kids. He wore baseball caps with broken brims and ate microwavable popcorn for dinner. He was just a regular white guy who happened to date Black girls. No big deal.

  Some people assumed we hooked up, but we never did. I can’t remember how we
grew to be friends. It was probably because he was white and kind of quiet. I thought he’d be safe, that my high school boyfriend, Rocco, wouldn’t mind my being friends with a white guy. Okay, okay. Bradley and I shared a weird kiss once, during our senior year, after I had broken up with Rocco, but it was a peck, barely any lip flesh involved, both of us trying to figure out if we could be more than friends. We were cuddled on my couch, and I put my arms around him. I moved my hands under his shirt and felt his stomach and back. I remember how soft and doughy his skin felt, and childish me, I assumed that’s how all white men felt. All is one, and one is all.

  One time, we went through the Taco Bell drive-thru. He was driving. When we got to the window, the guy giving us our order was rude to us for no apparent reason. I asked Bradley about it, if he often received rude looks or slick remarks when he was out with his Black girlfriend. He said it was something he’d had to get used to. It wasn’t something I thought I could deal with. Maybe I wasn’t ready to date outside of my race. We were barely eighteen at the time, and I was ready to dismiss a wide range of dating experiences by looking outside my race simply because I didn’t want to face strangers’ rudeness.

  After high school graduation, Bradley and I both went to New Orleans for college at different universities. There, I met and fell in love with DJ (who really was a DJ). He came with the typical crew of musician friends—talented men waiting to ride into studio heaven with whoever could get the Big Deal first. When he and I split up, I lashed out by briefly dating the white guy in his crew. (There’s always at least one.)

  This white guy was much more like Eminem. He used Black vernacular and had a lot of Black friends, but he didn’t try to lie about his past for “street cred.” Even his rap name was inspired by candy, so he changed it when Eminem seemed to take over hip-hop for a while. My experience with this faux Eminem was not pleasant. I was with him for all the wrong reasons. I knew he’d had a crush on me the entire time I was with DJ, and he was a quick and easy way to hurt my ex.

  Once, when stopping by his grandmother’s house, Faux Eminem asked me to scrunch down in the passenger seat so no one in the neighborhood would see him with a Black person and report back to her. I was disgusted with him and his cowardice. When he went inside, I leaned my head back against the seat, trying to calm down. I was angry with him and myself. This is one of the reasons why I never really thought I’d date a white guy. I didn’t want to hide myself or wonder if I was just a phase or a rebellion. I bounced my knee up and down, a sure sign of anxiety. I halfway wished someone would come up to the car and ask what I was doing, because I wanted to go off. Being with Faux Eminem was mistake enough and now I had to deal with racist bullshit on top of it all. When he came back to the car, I gave him the silent treatment. He apologized and later showed me a poem he’d written about me. The next time he stopped by his grandmother’s, she wasn’t there, and we went inside for a quickie. I made sure to rub my damp crotch all over the arms of her furniture. I hoped that whenever she napped on her sofa, she dreamed of Black women with big butts parading naked through her home.

  When I ended things with Faux Eminem, it was dramatic enough to frighten me a little. He started crying and accused me of lying to him. Faux Eminem was tall, maybe six three, and he loomed over me, demanding I answer his questions. When I fell silent, he broke a VHS tape against the foot of my bed, then slid down the wall into a ball. I watched him, trying to figure out if I would have to call the police. I’d done my best to avoid domestic violence in my personal relationships, and all I could think was, This is it. This will be the man to punch me, because he’s having a tantrum over a breakup. Thankfully, nothing like that happened. After he was gone, I wondered if his little soap opera scene was part of my penance for using him. And the sex hadn’t even been good.

  At one point, I had to act like I didn’t like head, which I absolutely love, because it was becoming increasingly difficult for me to fake it. And I didn’t want to take the time to teach. He started to beg to do it: “C’mon. Let me give you a treat.” Offering it to me like it was a dog bone did nothing to make it more appealing. So once again, I found myself deciding I’d never date another white man. Their skin was like Play-Doh; they were too dramatic; and the sex didn’t make up for any of it.

  * * *

  Time rolled along. After three semi- to quite serious relationships and a few two-month stands, I found myself in grad school again, nursing yet another heartbreak. I was in Los Angeles, overweight, and making less money than I had when I first started working at age sixteen. I felt miserable and unlovable. In LA, I was invisible except to the men who hung out on corners all day and night, and after a while, I welcomed that invisibility. I didn’t want anyone to see me anymore. Maybe if I stayed still, I’d disappear completely, and no one else would ever have to think of another excuse to explain why they’d rejected me—my work, my love, my body.

  Jeremy saw me on a day I didn’t stay still. I was leaving campus, on my way to the bus stop, and he walked up next to me. He carried one of those long skateboards and had dark-brown hair with hazel eyes that changed colors depending on what he wore. They were light brown on the day we met. I don’t normally respond to men trying to pick me up on the street, but I felt safe because he was white. When he approached me, it seemed like he was trying to have an actual conversation. He looked me in the eyes. He maintained a respectable distance that didn’t crowd me. Then he joked about giving me a ride on his skateboard.

  And I know. I keep describing white men as “safe.” It’s not that they’re safer physically than anyone else, but I figured there was no way I could take a white boy’s interest in me seriously. I didn’t think Jeremy was feeling me like that. White people are nosy, I thought—they’ll talk to anyone, just because they can. And even if Jeremy was interested in me, how could anything ever come from it? He had a fit body, and I…did not. Jeremy wanted to get to know me, to be sweet to me, and I wish I had let him, but talking to him, going out with him, magnified all of my insecurities. He had dated Black women before, but based on the way he described them, they were the kind of Black women who would work at Abercrombie & Fitch or American Apparel: slim, fair-skinned, with long, bouncy hair, to hint at the right kind of mixed-race background. I am undeniably Black with a deep-brown complexion. I was fat, with a head full of spirals that would probably never reach past my shoulders. I couldn’t even afford American Apparel, let alone try to fit into their clothes or get a job there. It was no fault of his, but being with Jeremy made me shrink more inside myself.

  Our first date was lovely. We went to a bookstore, then dinner and a movie. Any man who appreciates a good bookstore date is halfway to being a keeper. On our second date, we went to the beach, and I watched him play volleyball with his friends. I’d brought my camera and was taking pictures of them as they milled around.

  “So are you taking pictures for a story? Like for a blog or something?” one of his friends asked. This guy was about six feet tall, with close-cropped dirty-blond sun-streaked hair and the wide shoulders and long arms of a professional swimmer.

  “Dude. Nichole’s here with me. We’re hanging out today,” Jeremy replied, and ran his hand up the back of my neck in a clear sign of intimacy. Swimmer Dude’s eyes widened in shock as he chirped out, “Cool!” And that pretty much sealed it for me. I wasn’t ready. I just couldn’t figure out what Jeremy could possibly see in me, someone clearly so different from the other women he’d dated.

  We had a cold picnic after his volleyball game. He had changed shirts in front of me, and the sight of his flat stomach made my body twitch involuntarily. He looked at my face and knew I was trying not to drool, so he smirked at me. I wanted to touch him, to make sure he’d cleaned all the sand from his chest, but then I’d think about my body. I didn’t want to see myself naked; how could I let anyone else see me? Especially someone used to thin women, especially someone so fit.

  When he took me home, I was quiet, fighting tears. What was m
y problem? Here was a good guy who took me to bookstores and beaches, who wanted to spend time with me, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how awful I was. When he pulled up to my building, I told him.

  “Jeremy, I had a really good time today, but I don’t think I can see you again.” I kept my hand on the door so I could open it quickly.

  “Is this about Swimmer Dude? I’m really sorry about that, and I chewed him out right before we started playing. He’s just a dick.” He turned his body to me and pulled my hands into his.

  “No, it’s not about him. Well, not really. I mean…” I sighed, and he shook our hands lightly, as if reminding me he was still holding on. I forced myself to look in his eyes, even though mine felt prickly, and I blurted it all out.

  “I just don’t think I’m ready to see anyone. I’ve got too many issues, and it doesn’t seem like I’m the type of woman you’d be interested in. I thought I’d be okay with that, but I’m not. And it’s not really you. It’s me. Which sounds crappy, and I’m sorry. But look at us. Look at me!”

  “You’re beautiful!” Jeremy said. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.” He leaned forward and moved his hands to my wrists. He had nice, warm hands. They felt a little grubby after the beach, but he held my wrists loosely so I’d know I could break free any time I wanted.