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Terry McMillan presents a vivid history of one woman's loves that is totally unvarnished.

This article originally appeared in the July 1988 issue of Esquire. You can find every Esquire story ever published at Esquire Classic.

Off and on in my life I’ve mistaken a good lay for love. Who hasn’t? Even though they’re all history now, I’ve never considered any of these guys to be “losers.” Either they just had a long, long way to go and I couldn’t wait, or the direction they wanted to travel wasn’t on my map. My instincts always told me that each one would be different—an improvement over the last one. Besides, I’ve always liked men who were good with their hands.

When I was sixteen and the chain broke on my bike and I fell off and skinned my knee, Duke picked me up and took out a link so that the chain was tight. He had bulging muscles and a thick neck. He was also sixteen. The root-beer-colored grease covered his hands so that his skin shone like india ink. His fingernails were yellow.

The next day, he walked me home from school the long way, through Windfall Woods. We brushed bushes away from our faces as we strayed from the path. It was so hot and moist the mosquitoes landed on our bare arms ten deep. I rubbed my hands up and down my arms to busy them away. Then Duke stopped as if he were waiting for a light to change. My heart pounded like someone was beating drums. He walked up to me, opened his fingers like two fans, and slid them around the small of my back. Then he kissed me. It was the softest, sweetest, juiciest kiss I’d ever had in my life. It was the first kiss I’d ever had in my life.

We walked this way home until the leaves turned red and yellow and then fell off the trees. Snow crunched beneath our feet and icicles hung from hard branches. Everybody could see us then, though we weren’t trying to hide. No one understood what I saw in him, especially Marguerite. “The boy is ugly, any way you look at him,” she said. He was just too dark. Marguerite was high yellow, which she thought made her pretty in and of itself. My daddy was the color of black oak, and the only thing he ever said related to Duke was, “Don’t take it no further than a kiss.” That was it.

Then we moved to Toledo because Daddy got transferred. He worked for the railroad. Duke and I promised to write each other, but three months after we moved, one of my cousins called and told me Duke was dead. He’d been hit by an ambulance that was going through a red light as he was crossing the street. For months I couldn’t believe it. I slept with the orange elephant he’d won for me at the state fair so I could feel close to him. When I went back to Dayton for Christmas, I walked by his house and waited for him to come out. Another family lived there now, and this white woman with pink sponge rollers in her hair kept peeking through the curtains suspiciously.

I had to teach myself to forget him.

I sat in the third row of the church choir with the other altos. It was Communion at Metropolitan Baptist. Reverend Jones announced to the congregation that today we had “guests.” He pointed to two rows of black giants, some of whose legs were so long they stuck out in the aisles.

“These boys,” he said, “are all basketball players at the University of Toledo. They are here not only to get an education and partake in sports, but because they don’t want to stray too far from the Lord.” Bernadine, the girl sitting next to me, said, “That’s bullshit. Their coach made ’em come so they could set a good example for the college. You shoulda seen the examples we’ve been getting for the past six or seven years. Make you not wanna miss a single Sunday, girl.” I looked over at Jesus and had to let the air out of my lungs. I said, “Praise the Lord,” under my breath. I had spotted which one I wanted.

His name—as I later found out—was James Pierce, but his nickname was Champagne because he supposedly bubbled up and down the court. After church, Bernadine walked up to all eight of them and introduced herself. She batted her eyes and imitated some movie star’s sexy grin. She talked me into coming with her, although I tried to act nonchalant. James was the talker of the group and he didn’t seem to take his eyes off me. He talked with his hands, making swaying motions in the air, and I noticed a miniature diamond ring on his pinky. He was too young to be wearing a diamond ring, wasn’t he? He couldn’t be older than nineteen. I hardly said a word, except, “Yes, I’m a junior in high school.” When he pulled his collar up to protect his ears from the stinging wind, I got a whiff of his cologne.

“This is my best friend, Zora Banks,” Bernadine said, lying. The only time I ever saw her was in church. She already had a reputation, and Daddy wouldn’t let me hang out with her. But she was an alto, so we sat together in choir. They invited us both to their first game. I watched James run back and forth down that wooden floor, jump into the air, and score just about every trip. Sweat ran down his copper face, but he never once looked into the bleachers at me or anybody else who screamed out his name. They won the first five games because of him, and after the games, I never hung around the lockerroom door like Bernadine and most of the girls. I did my disappearing act.

I hadn’t seen James face-to-face since church that Sunday, and it was at a Valentine’s party that I smelled that British Sterling and heard his voice before I actually saw him. I turned toward the punch bowl and dipped out a cup. I wasn’t at all thirsty, but I wanted to see him. Wanted him to see me. When I noticed he was talking to another player, I walked right past him.

“Excuse me. Zora, isn’t it?”

I almost tripped over the cuffs of my bell bottoms, but I pretended not to have remembered him. He flashed all thirty-twos at me. and his teeth were so white I knew he didn’t smoke cigarettes. I did, which was why I think I didn’t have a weight problem yet. Of course, I was too much of a lady to light up in front of any guy; my girlfriends and I always smoked in the bathroom. James didn’t take his eyes off me for a long time and looked into mine so hard I thought he was trying to hypnotize me.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’ve got beautiful eyes?”

Of course now I realize that he must’ve watched a lot of TV, but then I just blushed and said, “No, but thank you,” because there was nothing special about my eyes.

“I’m not kidding. As a matter of fact, you’re about the prettiest young lady I’ve met since I’ve been in Toledo.” My chest was hurting because I was losing my breath.

“Would you like to dance?” he asked. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles were singing “Choosey Beggar,” and when James put his arms around me, I felt that grown man’s lump in his trousers and inhaled that cologne on his neck, and I swear, I thought I was going to faint. We danced three slow records in a row.

For the next few weeks, after each of his 9:00 phone calls, I played Aretha Franklin’s “Ain’t No Way” on my record player until Marguerite threatened to break it. It was a sad song and made me cry. That’s how I knew I was in love. If I remember correctly, this is precisely when I started writing songs. Not like the ones I was learning in music class, either. Every single line had a cloud or a heart or some kind of flower in it. Not to mention the excessive use of the word love.

It took James a year to get me to slide out of my stretch pants. And it was on my real mama’s birthday. He told me the first time I went up to his dorm after that party and I refused to give it up that he would wait for me. He was ecstatic about my being a virgin. Said he didn’t realize there were any left. Not in high school. And not in 1968. When I finally made up my mind to do it, I refused to take off my orange turtleneck. Having no slacks on was embarrassing enough as it was. Besides, it was wintertime, my first time, and cold as I-don’t-know-what in his little room. James smothered me with his long warm body and whispered “I won’t hurt you” into my ear. I believed him until it started hurting.

“It’s so good,” he kept crying out, as if he was in pain or something. I mimicked him. I was glad when it was finally over. If this was supposed to be the thrill of my life, I missed something.

There have been a few others, but they’re not worth mentioning. I guess this group of men has had the most impact on me because I often think about them.

“I want to marry you,” he said later. I could picture myself married to a pro basketball star—which he was sure to be—but we agreed to get our degrees first. For months, we rolled on top of each other, rubbing cheeks—rubbing everything. And at seventeen years old, all I could think about was that I had a real man in my arms. I closed my eyes, saw myself sitting in the bleachers next to all the other stars’ wives. We had bought one of those big homes with a three-car garage, and it was hidden behind tall electric gates. We had security. And two kids. A boy and a girl. The girl looked like me, the boy looked like him. We made love every night because it had finally gotten to the point where I liked it. We couldn’t have been happier. My dream always ended the same way. With James snoring and waking me up. I’d put my clothes on, and on the drive home I considered the fact that if I got pregnant, at least I’d be out of high school by the time it was born.

James got accepted at a Big Ten university, which meant he would be moving to Indiana. I had won a music scholarship to Ohio State, which was in Columbus. We were happy for each other. So happy that I waited all summer for a letter, a phone call, something. But nothing. Even at eighteen, I had some pride. I didn’t call or write him when he didn’t answer my first letter.

By the end of the summer, I had met a twenty-six-year-old, six-foot-three-inch reincarnation of Duke. His name was David. He was a boxer and drove diesel trucks. He also had a Harley-Davidson and wore thick black boots. His legs were bowed and he walked like Clint Eastwood. I met him the lake. I was tired of being depressed over James, so when David offered me a ride on his motorcycle, I went. It was the first time experienced real adventure and understood what freedom felt like. He taught me how to swim and gave me my first joint. It made me sluggish and I felt thickheaded. Kept looking over my shoulder because thought somebody was following me. didn’t like this feeling.

I liked David, though. Because the first time that he got on top of me and moved, something weird happened to me. I liked it. A lot. I felt squishy. Lost all control over my body and I got these chills and tingles and couldn’t do a thing about them. So this was an orgasm, huh? I rapidly became addicted to David’s body. I used him, really. When he asked me to marry him, I was shocked. I wasn’t in love with “him,” I was in love with “it.” I even had to think about what his last name was, to tell the truth. He pulled out this big diamond ring, and I didn’t know how to tell him that I didn’t like diamonds, and that I didn’t want to marry him, but I told him anyway. “I thought you loved me,” he said. “I thought so, too,” I said. “But I’ve got so many plans, David. I’m moving to New York City after I get out of college. I want to be a singer. I want to live a bold and daring life, not a safe little cozy one in Toledo. And I want to be good at something besides marriage.” He said he would make it exciting, but I told him I’d rather not try.

When I finally made it to New York, I took a short sabbatical from men. But not all that short. I guess it lasted about three months. Maybe four. That’s when I met Percy from Louisiana. Percy was a plumber. And he was a smart plumber, handsome, but wanted a wife too badly. It was hard to leave Percy because he was the first man who went down on me and made me come that way. I couldn’t believe it when it happened. All the others had always chewed and gnawed so much that it got to the point that when one offered, I refused the invitation. Percy changed all that. He was generous in so many ways, but he wanted me to quit my job teaching, give up my singing aspirations altogether, and move to some little off-the-wall town in Louisiana that I’d never even heard of so we could make babies and run a farm. And he was serious. It was hard giving up Percy.

Then there was Dillon. Can’t ever forget Dillon. He was a deejay and a premature ejaculator. He’d give me ten or fifteen minutes of pure joy, but that was about it. Just enough for me to want more, to keep praying that the minutes would one day stretch into at least a half hour. It never worked out. The other problem with Dillon was that he was too good-looking, prettier than me, and he knew it. He was also a whore and a party animal. In the beginning, we hung out so much that sometimes I’d wear the same clothes two days in a row. Then Dillon started with that cocaine. Spoiled everything. I learned later that he’d been doing it all the time, which had a lot to do with him being a minuteman. I got tired of the whole scene, and by the time Dillon gave me VD, I told him it was over. He promised me he would stop messing around and give up coke. He said he wanted to marry me. But he’d already cracked my heart in two, and I was tired of broken promises.

It took James a year to get me to slide out of my stretch pants. And it was on my real mama’s birthday.

There have been a few others, but they’re not worth mentioning. I guess this group of men has had the most impact on me because I often think about them. But not all that often. Mostly when I drag my bicycle downstairs and skin my leg, or when I see Magic Johnson doing sneaker commercials or watch Sugar Ray knock some guy out. When I hear a motorcycle. When the toilet overflows. Or when I’m at a disco and the guy in the glass cage spinning records has the sniffles. Lately, men in suits are attracting my attention. I’m a little leery of hand men now. Then again, I could luck out and meet one with a working brain, a decent heart, and hands that are good at something else besides touching me.

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