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| Maya Angelou, poet |
My Seduction Chart |
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I was being crushed by two unrelenting forces: the uneasy suspicion that I might not be a normal female and my newly awakening sexual appetite.
I decided to take matters into my own hands (An unfortunate but apt phrase.)
Up the hill from our house, and on the same side of the street, lived two handsome brothers. They were easily the most eligible young men in the neighborhood. If I was going to venture into sex, I saw no reason why I shouldn't make my experiment with the best of the lot.
I planned a chart for seduction with surprise as my opening ploy. One evening as I walked up the hill suffering from youth's vague malaise (there was simply nothing to do), the brother I had chosen came walking directly into my trap.
"Hello, Marguerite." He nearly passed me.
I put the plan into action. "Hey," I plunged, "Would you like to have a sexual intercourse with me?" Things were going according to the chart. His mouth hung open like a garden gate. I had the advantage and so I pressed it.
"Take me somewhere."
His response lacked dignity, but in fairness to him I admit that I had left him little chance to be suave.
He asked, "You mean, you're going to give me some trim?"
I assured him that was exactly what I was about to give him.
We went to a furnished room occupied by one of his friends, who understood the situation immediately and got his coat and left us alone. The seductee quickly turned off the lights. I would have preferred them left on, but didn't want to appear more aggressive than I had been already. If that was possible.
I was excited rather than nervous, and hopeful instead of frightened. I had not considered how physical an act of seduction would be. I had anticipated long soulful tongued kisses and gentle caresses. But there was no romance in the knee which forced my legs, nor in the rub of hairy skin on my chest.
Unredeemed by shared tenderness, the time was spent in laborious gropings, pullings, yankings and jerkings.
Not one word was spoken.
My partner showed that our experience had reached its climax by getting up abruptly, and my main concern was how to get home quickly.
Thanks to Mr. Freeman nine years before [a rape by an uncle when she was eight], I had no pain of entry to endure, and because of the absence of romantic involvement neither of us felt much had happened.
At home I reviewed the failure and tried to evaluate my new position. I had had a man. I had been had. I not only didn't enjoy it, but my normalcy was still in question.
What happened to the moonlight-on-the-prairie feelings? Was there something so wrong with me that I couldn't share a sensation that made poets gush out rhyme after rhyme?
Three weeks later, having thought very little of the strange and strangely empty night, I found myself pregnant. (San Francisco, 1945)
from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (Bantam, © 1969)
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