Phil knocked on Dawna's window, lightly. It was about three in the morning, and
he didn't want to wake anyone else, just Dawna. He had been thinking about her
and couldn't sleep and just thought he'd come over and wake her up. He had to park
his car on the other side of the highway from the gated mini-community known as
Emerald Bay, but it wasn't hard to find her house, and not a long walk. It couldn't
be, it was only a block from the gate off of Pacific Coast Highway to the ocean.
Emerald Bay is a little inward swing of the shoreline on the north end of Laguna
Beach, and the name for an exclusive area that includes about twenty very expensive
homes right by the Pacific.
Dawna's window was right on the bay, with the best view in the house. Actually,
she had the master bedroom. Her parents treated her like the little queen that she
was, and she made full use of it.
But she was freaked out by Phil's knock, and ran into her bathroom and turned the
light on. After a while, though, she must have figured out who was at her window,
because she turned the light off, walked through the dark to the side door and called
Phil over. "You dip," she said, "you scared the shit out of me." "Sorry," said Phil, "I
know it's crazy, I just wanted to see you."
At that, Dawna looked over her shoulder back into the house, said "wait a minute,"
and then disappeared back into the dark interior. She returned in about a minute
and a half wearing a robe and carrying one of those brightly striped Mexican
blankets. Then she closed the outer door and led Phil down onto the beach.
They walked south on the beach a little until they were just around the point and
out of sight of her parents' house, and then she spread the blanket out on the sand
and they sat down. They looked out over the ocean, which was lit that night by a
partial moon. There were a few lights from boats out on the ocean, way out. They
talked for a while, lay down for a while, and kissed for a while.
This was a night that Phil never forgot, and not just because of Dawna's kisses. It
was a combination of the kisses, the warmth of Dawna's flannel pajamas against his
skin, and the dream that maybe, someday, more of the same would happen with this
beautiful girl. Because kissing Dawna was like exploring an alien world consisting
only of feelings, such as tender, sensitive and patient love combined with a
mysterious, deep passion that rumbled around, hoping to break out into the night.
But it never did break out. Because Phil had no idea what to do next, or any
intention of doing anything. His entire moral upbringing had no category for
anything more, at least not yet. Dawna lay there like Cleopatra in the night, a
mystery of temptation, mockery, objectivity and intelligence. Phil never knew what
to expect next. But he knew that Dawna knew. And even though he knew that there
was more to this passion thing, he had reached his limit.
To understand what he was up against on the temptation side, you have to have a
better picture of Dawna. Seventeen and worldly-wise, she was not tall, but not tiny
either, shapely, but not busty. She had that blond hair cut that was so popular at the
time, which was straight down to a trim line that floated just below her chin and all
the way around her head on that same level. Somehow she managed a slight
forward curl of the tips of the hair, so two points of the yellow stuff floated and
bobbed around her face in a playful way while a mischievous smile came and went
on her perfect, full lips.
Her hands were small, yet strong. The kind of hands that could do knitting or
crewel work. But more than likely they were occupied in petting some stray cat that
she had adopted and fattened up. But all this stuff about how she looked was
nothing in comparison to how she felt. Not how she felt to touch, how it felt to be
around her.
To understand the feeling, you have to imagine a combination of the "come on" of
Mae West combined with delicacy, grace, intelligence, and mystery. She was
alternately playful, demanding, curious, petulant, controlling, confusing, loving,
contradictory, and affectionate. She was considerate in the extreme, especially if it
was an animal or a child in need of consideration. But she would kill with a look if
you ever said or did anything that even sounded insincere or untrue.
Basically she outclassed Phil in almost every way, including sexual maturity,
knowledge and experience, plus general confidence, social skills and even, as she
was always ready to indicate to him, in intelligence. He thought that the last one
was debatable, but he conceded the others.
Especially the sex stuff. He was a true neophyte. After all, she had actually made
love with somebody, or had sex anyway. He found out later that it was just that one
time with that one guy, but that was still light years ahead of where he was. Phil
didn't know where to start, and whether to start at all.
And Dawna would have been sexy if she had never made love to anyone. It was a
vibe. Plus, she had what Phil's sister Mona called "bedroom eyes," whatever that is.
Just a sensual look. Other women know it when they see it. And Phil knew it,
though he didn't know what to do about it when he got close to it. But it was
certainly fascinating to stand next to, to talk to, and once in your life to lie on a
beach and hold in your arms. That was all he was ready for just now anyway.
Which was good because Dawna's mother rounded the point just then and told
Dawna to go home, and scolded Phil, saying "You better watch this stuff!" Maybe it
was the late hour, but Phil was offended, especially since her comment seemed to
imply that he was somehow being aggressive with Dawna, and he got huffy about it
and said "If you think anything was happening you're just wrong, and it's not fair to
talk to me that way." But that was the wrong thing to say, because it was late and
tempers were short all around and Dawna's mom just herded Dawna back home,
leaving Phil standing on the beach.
Which was okay for a while, since Phil just sat down and watched the ocean for a
while, but then he noticed the lights of a beach patrol jeep coming up his way so he
scooted up off the beach, past Dawna's house, and over Pacific Coast Highway to
where he had parked his yellow volkswagen bug. He started it up , and started to
move but he had a flat tire. With no spare.
Normally he would have gone back to Dawna's and her mom would have let Dawna
drive him home, but no way would that happen tonight. So he parked the car again
and started walking the two or three miles south on Pacific Coast Highway to the
left turn up in to the Laguna Beach hills to his house on Bluebird Canyon Drive.
It was a long walk, and a bit colder than you might like. Southern California is
really a desert with added water. Only in places like Laguna Beach, Malibu and
other beach side areas do you get the typical California weather that Midwesterners
dream about. Just over the hills it's a desert. So it can get cold at night, and pretty
hot during the day. The hills and trees of Laguna plus the ocean modify the
extremes of hot and cold, but it can still get chilly sometimes, and this was one of
those times.
So Phil was looking forward to a long cold walk home when a car streaked by him
going south, and then skidded to a halt, backed up, and then a door opened. "Get in,
Dow!," a voice yelled, and Phil stuck his head inside the car to see a couple of other
seniors from his Laguna Beach High School class, and then jumped in. The two
guys speeding south had been at a bar out on Balboa Island and were heading
home, laughing, but not obviously drunk.
These were some of the rowdier seniors, though, and they hammered at Philip Dow
for being out so late, and got the story out of him of who he was with, and also that
Dawna's mother got mad at him. They laughed, made some remarks about what a
hot babe that Dawna was, and then let him out at the Bluebird Canyon corner so he
could walk the last half mile home.
And the next Monday it was all over the school that Dawna's mom had thrown Phil
out for coming on too strong to Dawna. For a while there it almost seemed like Phil
would be considered normal. But the story didn't last, maybe because no one really
believed it. It just wasn't like Phil.
Phil wasn't known for being aggressive with girls. He was known for being a
perfect gentleman. That was what he tried to be. But at Laguna Beach High School,
the girls didn't know what to do with a perfect gentleman. They knew what to do
with oversexed beer drinking athletes. They knew what to do when out with
members of the S.O.V., which was a not very well protected secret acronym for the
Stamp Out Virginity club. But Phil was harmless, and therefore uninteresting.
But not uninteresting to Dawna. She thought Phil was cute. And he was, plus
athletic and intelligent. But her attachment to Phil was somewhat similar to her
attachment to her stray animals. She had a special affection for things that no one
else seemed to want.
In short, Phil was not really Dawna's boyfriend, but rather more of a pet, or a
project. The real guys in her life showed up every once in a while and she would
disappear somewhere that Phil could not follow. But now and than she would
emerge and spend a few moments with him, teasing, flirting, and dangling hope in
front of him. But that night on the beach was the closest to being one of her real
guys that he got for a long, long time.
Phil was still a somewhat asexual being, despite being a high school senior. He
didn't think he was unusual, but he had to wonder when sister Mona quoted a
statistic at him that 98% of high school boys masturbate. He thought that the
statistic must be wrong. Mainly because he couldn't believe that he was in a two
percent minority.
He was, but no one knew how far he had come in just a few short years. Just four
years before a friend stopped him in the hallway and asked him why he carried a
bible on top of his books all the time. Later it seemed like one of the nicest things
that ever happened to him in Middle School, that someone reached out to him and
cared to ask why he was being so unusual. But at the time he simply gave the
standard young Christian's answer of the bible being a witness of his belief in
Christ as his personal Savior.
But that was in his old school, when his Father taught in Oceanside. Oceanside was
where all of the Marines from the nearby base hung out, and his Father used to
teach Physical Education and coach basketball and tennis at the base High School.
Then his father got the job coaching tennis at Laguna Beach High School, and they
moved north.
It was like moving up into heaven. Oceanside may be California, but it doesn't
compare to Laguna Beach, or "Laguna," as the locals call it. Laguna has palm trees
and flowers and beautiful girls in bikinis and, on occasion, exotic cars that cruise by
with some relaxing Hollywood executive or star. Laguna really feels like California.
While Oceanside is more like a flat Texas town with palm trees thrown in.
And when Phil moved with his family to Laguna, he deemphasized the Christian
thing. Not because his beliefs had changed. Just because he was tired of being
unusual. Tired of being that unusual, anyway.
But he still didn't know what to do with a woman. Other than be kind, considerate,
and open doors. He hoped that some day he would be married to a nice Christian
girl and then, because it was holy and in the context of marriage, somehow they
would make love and it would be okay. But other than that, he didn't see any
prospect of breaking through the enormous wall he had built up to keep himself
isolated from sexual experience.
But he didn't mind standing next to the heat now and then. And Dawna, despite her
limited track record, was definitely the heat.