There was one other underage freshman girl besides me at Cool House, and we got tight right away. She was from New York City—the Bronx. One of the first things she told me was that she had slept with 200 guys already—at 16 including the security guard at her high school. I thought I had done everything & knew everything—after all, I fought my way out of the juvy psych ward with a plastic chair, got into Berkeley after 4 months of ninth grade, and had a love affair with a man twice my age—but actually, I was pretty sheltered in comparison to her. My initial shocked reply was “Wait, 200 guys…? You had a security guard at your high school?!” 

My power mode of self-defense was verbal aggression; sucking all the air out of the room; having read more Derrida than thou. She used sex. This was a life-altering concept for me, that there was any power in sex for women, let alone 16-year-old girls. She told me “Everyone wants to fuck you. You’re a hot 16-year-old girl with big tits.” I didn't believe it. She said, make a list of guys you like in Cool House. Then go up to them and say “wanna fuck?” This was a magic come-on line. Not one of them said no.

She had two boa constrictors she named Scylla and Charybdis. We took showers with them to help them molt, and then paraded around cool house naked with them slung around our hips and shoulders. We snuggled folded into each other at Cool House council meetings. Everyone thought we were lovers. (We weren’t.) I did viscerally and intuitively start to get her point that there was power in sex, but also to live it out with her. We decided that we were going to reverse Levi-Strauss’ assertion that “all culture is the exchange of women between men.” All culture would be the exchange of men between me and her. We made lists of guys we wanted to have sex with, and publicly posted the names downstairs.

Then I met Rude Guy. He was sarcastic. And rude! And very tall. I decided to put him on my list. When I announced he was on my list, a mutual male friend said, "I wouldn’t do that if I were you. He'll be the one guy who won’t go along, just to spite you."

And I said, "Oh yeah, I will bet you FIVE BUCKS that he is a notch in my lipstick case by Thanksgiving." (it was October).

Five bucks was almost as paltry a sum then as it is now. The paltriness of the sum was a measure of my confidence, and an intended affectionate insult to the *entire cohort* of men in their 20s, a population that gets erections out of nowhere; just walking down the street. They’re so turned on all the time they usually don’t even know what did the trick.

Mutual Male Friend immediately told Rude Guy “Jailbait just bet me FIVE BUCKS that you'll be a notch in her lipstick case by Thanksgiving.” This was soon the hottest topic of gossip in Cool House: the seduction showdown between me and Rude Guy.

Rude Guy tortured me. I would go over to his house in ridiculously slutty outfits, and he would only open his door a crack, and give me a poetry quiz. Then he would let me in, but still not fuck me! He gave me endless reading lists, and then would quiz me on those books the next time I came over...and still not fuck me.

I asked around—what does Rude Guy like? Is he into tall Nordic blondes or something? No, Rude Guy likes little brunettes with big tits. I was his type, and he was STILL holding out on me. People also said he liked Madonna. I put together Madonna outfits. I danced to her songs. I got rubber bracelets and even went deep into the Castro and procured a rhinestone studded “boy toy” belt. Rude Guy was unmoved, implacably stubborn. Thanksgiving came and went. Christmas. New Years...

I didn’t give up. I adopted the Casanova attitude that sooner or later, he would have a weak moment, and *I* would be there to take advantage of it. I hung around him all the time; every chance I got. Since I spent so much time with him, and reading all his favorite books, and reading his writing, I noticed what I would have missed if he was a quick notch in my lipstick case: he was definitely the smartest person I had ever met. I swooned.

On Valentines Day, he came for me. He showed up in the parking lot of Cool House, holding a boom box over his head until I noticed. But he wasn’t blasting a sweet romantic song like John Cusack. He was blasting “Girls” by the Beastie Boys. He came upstairs, ripped my dress in half from the bottom edge up, and we trashed the room.

He went back to Boston shortly after that, and I was so strung out on him that the Cool House literary mag “Tabloid Edition” had the headline “Jailbait: is there life after Rude Guy?”

No. There isn’t. He died last year and I still jerk off to the sight of him rolling up on his skateboard, at the mic reading his poems, chomping red vines at the movies—