The first day I met Shawn I was sitting on an Extra Long twin bed. And I had on some sort of denim jacket. The window outside out my building was facing two trees leading up to this empty hill on the outskirts of the Bronx.
And I remember hearing the knock as I sat hands deep in a box of picture albums. It was so soft I almost didn’t hear it at first, until I had that undeniable sensation that someone was standing at my doorway. And I stood up, tiptoed barefoot around the moving boxes until I reached the large metal front door and opened it up.
He stood there like a great big piece of steak. Arms large enough to not touch the sides of his body, dangling them around as though they were painful to hold up. I wondered how those arms could even reach his penis to take a piss or if he just had to shoot and hope it aimed right.
Steak stared right at me, “You’re coming to the meeting, right Kim?”
So not only did this piece of steak know what my name was, he also knew about some alleged meeting that I was not going to be in attendance for.
Me, “I’m sorry?”
Him, “Kim, I am Shawn, your resident assistant. We have a meeting in ten minutes. You will be coming, right?”
I thought for a minute. No actually I am going to be heading to Time Square with two unknown other freshman to try and find fake ID’s in the village shops that also sell bong…yes?
But I just stared at his big arms and tanned face.
Me, “Yeah. I was planning on going.”
Steak, “Good, I will see you there.”
I attended the resident meeting that evening.
I also attended everyone after for the next eight months.
It was about four months into flirting that I first became to realize that Shawn was crazy. . And I should have noticed it a lot sooner, as he started to do odd things, like call me up at work and tell me he was in the hospital and was going to have a leg amputated due to a car accident. (He has two legs to this day) but that is a whole other Shawn story.
I walked into his bedroom one night with another residence, Molly, who although earring from the backwoods of Connecticut, was Irish enough to have been a drunk sailor with four beers and two clover condoms in her pocket. And we walked lazily into his room one night when we spotted pictures of this woman skewed across the front of his desk.
Molly, “Who is that Shawn? Your girlfriend?”
I tried not to get too close to the pictures. Having already decided in my head that I would lose my virginity to Shawn I figured it was it was bad luck of some sort to get too close too close to any woman that he had had more then a friendly encounter with. Molly kept moving in closer to view this alleged “girlfriend” as I drew farther away, just barely skimming the photos with the tips of my fingers, I wanted to get close enough to the pictures to run my fingers along them and rip them into shreds.
Unfortunately the woman from the photos was too beautiful to pass up as I drew closer to the last one on the desk which appeared to be directly out of a catalogue I had seen before.
“Is this from a catalogue?” I asked. Not trying to sound interested and especially not impressed, more like factual information, such as “Does she have five fingers?”
But instead he answered with the most horrible answer of all that prevent me from eating ay kind of substantial meal for about three straight weeks in the cafeteria, “Yes…she is a model.”
I remember feeling the vomit right then and there. Some MODEL was dating my future virginity card owner. How could that be? Did she not know who I WAS?
Molly seemingly now ever more impressed stumbled over to the final photo like the typical drunken sailor and squinted her eyes to look closer. I tried to push her out of the way a bit, trying to block the beauty of this beauty.
Molly, “Wow Shawn, she is gorgeous.”
Me, “Ok, Ok, let’s get going, we have things to do…I have to get a new bathmat, I mean really, we don’t have time for this.”
I remember grabbing Molly and getting her the hell out of that room of torture. It was worse then that hacked movie where the Swedish girls drug two boys and then send them to a place to be chopped up to death by a man named Oscar in leather doctor’s coat.
For one whole month I could barely look at him during the residence meetings. Dating a MODEL, mother fucker, while I sat around trying to become vainly interested in protein shakes and Kashi. And suddenly, everywhere I walked, MODELS! Models were everywhere, I couldn’t fucking throw a meth bag in the park without it knocking one over.
And one month later to be precise I sat on the bed of my friend Elaine, a New Jersey girl with long hair, blue eyes and face beautiful enough to seriously intimidate me into doing whatever she said. If she had told me to Intern at the 99 cent store, I probably would have. I sat looking through her Vogues, when I flipped open some magazine cover and there she was! Model! Model just sat there on the inside of her cover, so seemingly confident she might as well have been looking directly at me, giving me the bird.
Me, “There she is! Model! She is single handily destroying my life and delaying my virginity!”
Elaine, “What on earth are you talking about woman?”
Me, “Here!” I threw the magazine at her. “Shawn’s girlfriend!’.
Elaine pulled the magazine up to her face before eliciting a look of sheer confusion.
Elaine, “Kim...this is a model.”
Me, “No Elaine this is THE Model.”
Elaine, “Kim, do you know who this is?”
Me, “The Model who is single handily ruing my sexual desire and delaying the loss of my virginity and essentially livelihood on this earth?”
Elaine, “Um, no, Kim this is Gisele Bundchen.”
Me, “I am sorry? No no, this is Model, Shawn’s girlfriend. Shawn is dating this girl, he has pictures of her in his room everywhere.”
Elaine, “Are they cutouts from a magazine?”
Now as the wheels turn I know what you are probably thinking, which is, why did I not think of this before, but can I just say one thing here? I spent the first 18 years of my life living in NH going to a theater called the IOKA where one movie a week played.
Elaine, “Kim, this is Gisele, she is the TOP SUPERMODEL IN THE WORLD…and she is dating Leonardo DiCaprio…not Shawn the resident assistant.”
Fuck me.
Now if this is the moment wherein you think I just a “good laugh” or a chuckle ‘or I put on my fucking happy pants and went and did a dance in the hallway, you would be wrong. I was so mad, I ran to her computer and googled this alleged ‘Gisele’. I then sat for about two hours printing out pictures of her, trying to get a photo with her name underneath, some cover where it was clearly printed that she was indeed, the top supermodel of the world, and not as I had believed the Resident Assistant’s girlfriend. I grabbed these photos off the printer and threw open Elaine’s doorway, heading right for Shawn’s room.
I could hear Elaine trying to follow behind me. And when I got to his room I did one of those door bangs that says something along the lines of “I am in a hurry” and “Please open the door because I have a bomb.”
The door swung open , but instead of Shawn, his drunk roommate Randy answered instead. Randy was about 5 ft 3 and hyped on so much creatine and steroids he made Barry Bonds look like Tiny McGee. He stood in white underwear and Elvis sunglass.
Randy, “May I help you mam?”
Me, “Yes where is Shawn right now?”
Randy, “Shawn is indisposed at the moment.”
I turn to walk away, when he appeared. Half cocked and in some sort of white tank top that I believe, as Jesus as my witness, was made for women.
Shawn, “What’s going on with you tonight Miss Kimberly?” He hovered underneath the hallway’s florescent light.
Me, “Oh I will tell you what is going on with Miss Kimberly you mother fucker!”
And already I could feel myself throwing my virginity card right down the proverbial trash barrel.
I threw one of the pictures up in the air, right into the over processed oxygen and it floated to the ground in front of his feet. He leaned over to pick it up off the ground, and a group of girls began to emerge from the room.
His face reddened and this huge smile appeared.
Shawn, “What is this…pictures of my girlfriend you found?”
Me, “No. Shawn. Not pictures of Model, Because as we can see here from these photos…” I begin to start waving more of the printed pictures around, “This in fact is not your girlfriend at all…this is in fact Gisele Bundchen, the top SUPERMODEL OF THE WORLD. “
I can tell Elaine is now peering out from behind the corner of the hallway. Witnessing the massacre that is about to begin.
He smiled this big open grin.
Shawn, “Well…I just can’t believe you actually believed me..”
I stared into his face, my own burning hot with embarrassment and anger.
Me, “I AM FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE!...I BELIEVE WHAT EVERYONE TELLS ME!”
I swing around to the other corner of the couch.
Shawn, “Kim…come here…hand me the photos…”
Me, “No, I will not hand you the photos you asshole..” I begin to throw them around like a crazy person. Have you ever seen the woman who yells at cats in the 79th street Duane Reade? Well I was starting to look a bit like her.
I would fold the pictures half over to give them just enough angle to point directly and shoot at his face.
He started to follow me around the side of the hallway couch. “Come here, and give those photos to me Kim, it was just a little joke Kim and it went too far…and you were just gullible enough to believe it, that’s all. “
Me, “FOR THE LAST TIME, I AM FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE YOU ASSHOLE!” I begin throwing more pieces of paper at him, as he tried to circle the couch and I keep heading away from him in a clockwise direction.,
Shawn, “YOU ARE THE ASSHOLE FOR BELIEVING IT!”
By now I am staring to notice in between circling the couch and aiming the photos right for his eyes, that a number of people have started to poke their heads out of their rooms and a small crowd is forming.
Me, “I ATE KASHI FOR YOU!”
The couch circling has now turned into a small jog.
Me, ‘I SPENT THE PAST MONTH TRYING TO LOOK LIKE THE GIRL ON THE COVER, TRYING TO LOOK LIKE THE GIRL YOU ‘DATE’ “
Shawn, “IF YOU WERE SOMEONE ELSE I MIGHT ACTUALLY DATE YOU.”
Ok, this is what we call, game over.
This is when the running and couch circling and paper throwing, all halted. And I stopped, stared at the crowd of people, now staring at me. About 20 people standing in the hallway. Just staring. Photos of Gisele now littered all across the floor. And it is completely silent.
And I drop the papers. Just like that. Drop them on the floor. And walk away. The papers fall everywhere, 20 or 30 of them sliding along the tiled ground.
I start this long tedious walk back to my own room. With everyone just standing there, watching me walk back.
I head halfway down the hall, open my bedroom door. Walk inside and slam it shut.
My roommate was sitting on the edge of her bed, watching me as I walked in.
Roommate, “What the hell is going on out there?”
Me, “Umm, I am not losing my virginity now.”
She nodded her head and went back to her report.
