Passion forbidden

As John and Paul had sung so very many years ago, she was just seventeen…..

Kim was a natural beauty. She was tall at almost 5′ 9″ and she weighed 120 pounds. She was shapely and sexy with totally black hair that had a natural bit of curl and very dark brown eyes. Her skin was flawless and she appeared permanently tanned. Her father was of Iranian descent (Persian, as Kim liked to say): he was dark skinned and swarthy (in a handsome way) and her mother was a true American beauty (blonde with blue eyes and quite pretty), but Kim had inherited all her features from her dad. But even with all her natural beauty she was a bit shy about herself. She NEVER wore anything revealing. No tank tops, no halters, no shorts and no short skirts. In fact, I never even saw the girl’s legs until the night we were first intimate (they are quite beautiful and shapely BTW). The simple fact is that she was gorgeous. But I must digress.

Kim was a high school Freshman and I a Senior when we met in the summer of 1974. She was almost fifteen and I would be seventeen later that fall. (If my age sounds a bit young for a Senior, it is because I started first grade at the age of five. The result of having a teacher for a Grandmother. She started teaching eight grades a day in 1919 in a one room school house in a rural village in southeast Ohio. Neither my sister or I ever left her house without lessons. I could read (thanks to my work with the McGuffy Readers my grandmother had) and write (print AND cursive), do addition and subtraction and even some multiplication and division before starting Kindergarten (at age four) and so I was allowed to start first grade early even though my birthday was too late in the year. Geeky as it may sound today, in high school I was the hot shot field commander of our school marching band. (Back in those days that was considered to be an honor…almost as cool as being quarterback! ((Damn…being in the band isn’t ‘cool’ anymore? Guess you have to have physical talent, not artistic)).

Kim caught my eye the first day of band camp the summer before my Senior year. (No, I’m not going to go on and on ad nauseum about band camp the way they do in that one movie…you know the one I mean). Kim was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She was assigned to my squad (I made sure of that) and she was smart and talented. She was second chair trumpet and was always the first to memorize her marching routines and the first to memorize her music (In college, our band director had been in the ‘Best Damn Band in the Land’ and required all his students to know their parts from memory or they did not march (we had a large pool of alternates). True sports fans will know the school of which I speak).

I made it my mission that late Summer to get to know the lovely girl that had caught my eye. I made a point to instruct her personally at every opportunity and she always smiled at me when I was close. We found time to talk and get to know each other and eventually I got up the nerve to let her know how I felt about her. She seemed to be pleased and told me that she had developed feelings for me as well and was as happy as I was about our blooming new relationship. By the week before Homecoming, I had actually asked her out. We attended a Midget League football game (no smart assed remarks, Kind Readers. This was what they called the Junior High League in our area), and we had hit it off quite well. We even kissed for the first time that night as I took her home. I was in Heaven. I invited Kim to Homecoming and she accepted. This was to be the beginning of a three year whirlwind romance that I will never forget.

OK. I was your typically horny teenaged guy. I had my stash of jerk material (Playboy, Penthouse…you know the stuff) hidden in my room and I made good use of it. Any guy that says he didn’t do it at that age is either lying, gay or dead). For some reason, I just never thought of Kim that way. Sure it excited me when we held each other or kissed good night, but I never thought even once of making a sexual advance on her. I guess I just loved her too much. I was thinking that if our love progressed that way, it would happen in its own time. What I remember now after all these years is a feeling of pride…proud that such a wonderful, beautiful girl would want to be with ME. In short, I respected her. I still do to this day.

Kim and I dated throughout my final year of school (her freshman year). We attended the Senior Prom and I was so amazed at how lovely she looked that night. Her dress was ankle length and was crafted of a very light, airy material patterned with tiny peach roses that hugged her curvy body and accentuated it like I’d never seen before. I bought her a nice bouquet of peach roses to carry that matched the ones on her dress and she seemed so thrilled. So was I. Even though I had my own car (a powerful Mercury Cougar XR-7), I talked my dad into trading cars for the day and letting us use his Lincoln Continental for the dance (I wanted us to arrive in STYLE). We enjoyed the dance and the after-party (even though Kim fell asleep and I actually had to tickle her to wake her up so that I could take her home on time). It was still a beautiful night, but a short time later, the problems started.

Just a few days later, I graduated from high school. We had a small party at my family’s home and Kim and her parents attended. Everyone seemed to have a great time, even her folks, but the next afternoon, Kim called me in tears. She said her parents had forbidden her from seeing me ever again. I was so distraught that I nearly burst into tears myself.

I was instantly pissed off and couldn’t speak for a moment. “Why?”, I asked when I was finally able to talk.

Kim replied, “They said they want me to be with someone my own age”.

“I’m not THAT much older than you, Kim”, I replied. “There must be something else…”.

Kim told me in a whisper, “Mom said that she doesn’t trust you. She thinks you just want me for sex”.

“Where in the hell does she get that idea?”, I asked. “What does your dad say?”.

“He’s not talking to me at all”, she responded. “I don’t know what’s going on here”.

I was stunned. “Have you told them that we have never done anything other than kiss good-night?”

“Of course I have”, Kim replied through her tears. “They don’t believe me”.

“This is ridiculous”, I said. “Any fool could see that I love you and have nothing but respect for you AND your family. Why would they do this to us?”

“I love you, too and I hate this. But what am I supposed to do”. Kims voice was cracked as she sobbed into the phone.

At that moment, Kim’s mom must have heard us talking and she stormed into the room. She obviously ripped the phone from Kim’s hand. I heard Kim cry out at the intrusion and at once her mother screamed into the phone in no uncertain terms that I was not to see or contact her daughter ever again. She even threatened police involvment saying that they would get evidence of statuatory rape (looking back now and knowing what I know after taking pre-law in college, there was no way that Kim’s mom could have proven statuatory rape in our state. Even if we HAD had sex (which we hadn’t), Kim and I were BOTH underage throughout the time that we dated in high school (I would not turn eighteen for months after this initial fiasco). Sex between a male and female at that age was not considered statuatory rape, but misdemeanor sexual misconduct. BOTH juveniles were elligible for fines (rarely happened). One partner had to be over eighteen for the act to qualify as statuatory rape. I’m not certain if that is the case now, but it was then. I tried to tell Kim’s mom that I would never do that to Kim. She shouted me down over the phone. I thought about telling her that they could search all they wanted and they would NEVER find any evidence of sexual contact between Kim and myself, but I just shut up. Here was a woman, a mother, a person that had always been kind to me, that I had admired, but was now being a total bitch. I couldn’t figure it out so I tried to ask what I had done to make her act this way…why did she think so baddly of me? No answer. I reminded her loudly (in response to her tone of voice) that I had always had Kim home on time, had always been a gentleman with Kim and had always been respectful of her and Kim’s dad. But she responded by slamming her phone down and leaving me heartbroken and more than a little confused.

After a year of being apart, the desire that Kim and I shared for each other got the better of us both and we secretly made plans.

Early Summer 1976. A time for outdoor activities and fun in the sun. It had been almost a year since Kim and I had seen each other or even talked on the phone. Through mutual friends, we had been able to get a few messages to each other and we planned our first clandestine meeting.

Our home town had a big Fourth of July Festival each year. It was attended by tens of thousands and Kim and I decided that we could get lost in the crowd if only for a moment. My little garage rock band was to be the featured entertainment on the last night of the Festival, and we managed to get together after my show.

Kim was crying as I took her into my arms for the first time in nearly a year. We held each other close, kissed passionately and had to part almost as quickly for her parents were at the festival, but had no intention of watching me perform. (In fact, they had forbidden Kim to go either, but a clever fib from her best friend to her folks got her there).

The longing I felt in my heart for her only got stronger that night after not seeing her for so long. But it would be another seven months before either of us discovered the TRUE reason why her parents were trying to seperate us. As it turned out, it would be yet another three months after THAT before we saw one another again.

As I said earlier, Kim’s dad is from the middle east and even though HE had married a girl of his own choice, he had unilaterally decided that HE alone would decide who his only daughter would marry. He convinced his wife that they would choose the guy they found competent to marry their daughter…and it sure wasn’t going to be me. (I have never received a reason for their actions). That Islamic bullshit troubles me to this day.

(Let me interject at this point that I know that Islam is, at its heart, a peaceful, if a bit misunderstood religion (I, myself, also practice a peaceful yet misunderstood religion….Wicca) . I personally feel, however, that Islam is backward in its treatment of women and I don’t agree with that. I know that I am not alone in this belief, but it is a different culture. When faced with that part of the religion, I must say I am dismayed. If any further reference to Islam in this tale seems offensive to those of that faith please remember that some of your radicals seem to have a fascination with the killing of Americans (and I KNOW that they are the minority, so don’t jump me on this one). Just a few numbers for those radicals….. 9.11. Enough said on the topic. Now back to the story.)

Somehow, Kim’s parents found out that we had seen each other that night at the Fourth of July Festival and started keeping a closer watch on her. She and I had little contact for over half a year and we missed each other deeply.