Like black pearls.

Mike Vance was his name and we were in school together.
He probably wouldn't remember me if you ran into him today,
but I remember him well...Well enough that I even mentioned him at dinner recently with friends.

Mike was kind of a big buy, not big like fat, but big as in manly and muscle-y.
He looked like he was 35 and we all looked like we were 12. Which is how old we were, for the most part. Afterall, we were in 7th grade.

He reminded me of Tarzan back then, with his exotic, long feathered black hair that he swung from his eyes when people talked to him.
He walked cocksure and swaggery through the little locker-lined halls.
He shone like a star, like a celebrity and I had never seen anything like him.
He was a man. Not a man like our teachers and fathers.
He was different. dangerous and rebellious.
Yes, the real deal at 13 years old, and quite something at our rural milk toast middle school.

All the boys I knew back then were still carrying Hot Wheels in their book bags and crying to their Mamas when things got heavy. Their side parted hair, khakis and white sneakers were pre-schoolish at best.
I had never been even slightly amused, let alone hypnotized by these childhood playmates of mine.

Mike was a whole different story.
He wore white undershirts and jeans to school. His shoes were dirty.
He didn't carry a book bag and he had a pretty girlfriend with long strawberry blonde hair and a comb in her back jeans pocket.
I saw her one time outside after school.
Her name was Regina, I think, and she was a freshman in high school. She kissed him on the lips as she greeted him that afternoon. That was risky business back then.
It happened right in front of the teachers that were loading the busses. Nothing happened, they just rolled their eyes if I remember correctly. I think the teachers gave him quite a bit of space.
Maybe out of respect, maybe out of fear.
Maybe because he actually was 35.

One day, Mike came to school with a whole necklace of perfectly placed hickeys from Regina. She was surely marking her territory from afar, making sure all of us little knock kneed Holly Hobbie lovers would steer clear of her man.
Wanted to make sure no one slipped him a "check the box" note in math class.

That wasn't going to be a problem, though.
While there was no denying that he was attractive and mysterious, I believe he scared the hell out of us girls. We were way too inexperienced to have been his girlfriend. I had given myself a hickey on the inside of my upper arm at a slumber party once, but couldn't fathom having the skill to procure a hickey necklace with such precision as he was accustomed to. Much less I could never get out of Mom's sight long enough to do so. Our relationship could never work.

I still remember that infamous necklace like it was yesterday.
It simply blew my young mind.

In fact, even today, every time I see a hickey on our check out girl at the local gas station I think of Mike and Regina.
I picture the necklace and marvel at the boldness of it and the apparent lack of adult supervision involved.
Lined up perfectly, big to little.
Front to back, similar to a gigantic string of black pearls in size gradation, and just as dark.
They were purplish-black on his tanned skin.
I'm quite certain she had to have actually consumed a small part of his blood in completing her suckled masterpiece.

Looking back, this was probably the first time sex entered my mind from within myself.
Not from a dirty picture drawn in someone's spiral notebook or a dirty joke with a punch line I didn't understand.
This was something in my gut.
Thinking about sucking on his big beefy neck made me feel weird.
It wasn't something I would be trying in the near future, but it did get my mind off of Barbie's for pretty much the rest of my life.
However, my personal studies in the science of hickeys would have to be postponed.
Yes, I would have to wait until the pimply pencil-necked geeks that at hung with were also, beefy enough to work with.
Come to find out it would take years.

So, I just put this idea on my shelf of things-to-do-one-day and there it has remained.
Rather neglected, actually.
Funny, now that I am an adult and there is absolutely no threat of grounding
for giving or receiving hickeys, it sadly seems to have lost it's sex appeal.

So it would happen, at dinner the other night, when I brought out my "learn to make a hickey necklace"
from the shelf and dusted it off to show everyone, it just didn't seem like such a great idea anymore.
Seemed kinda impractical, actually.
How very sad and what a dirty trick Mother Nature has play on me once again.
It seems quite common to realize, when one is finally able to do the sorts of things one used to dream of, without getting in trouble, the magic is gone.
**poof** Just like that.

This is the end of that story.

However, a side note of interest for you.
You see, I have decided I'm not giving up so easily.
I refuse to throw away an idea that intrigues me so, still to this day.
It's gross and wonderful and I am thinking it might be really interesting to put together a whole art show of hickey art.
You know, photographs of people with hickeys today, and stories of hickeys from days gone by.
I will call it "This Show Sucks".
In fact, I have just registered:
thispagesucks.blogspot.com

Stay tuned!