Greg Thompson is a typical young man growing up within a conflict between his raising and the culture around him. Greg's been raised to think that sex before marriage is unacceptable, and yet his hormones and the people all around him seem to be telling him otherwise.
He thinks that he is a 'nice guy' and that should be all of the qualifications he needs to find the 'one,' but he soon finds out it is not enough. ...And perhaps he's not that 'nice' of a guy.
Follow Greg on this odyssey from the boy he is to the man he wants to be.
Greg Thompson is a typical young man growing up within a conflict between his raising and the culture around him. Greg's been raised to think that sex before marriage is unacceptable, and yet his hormones and the people all around him seem to be telling him otherwise.
He thinks that he is a 'nice guy' and that should be all of the qualifications he needs to find the 'one,' but he soon finds out it is not enough. ...And perhaps he's not that 'nice' of a guy.
Follow Greg on this odyssey from the boy he is to the man he wants to be.
From the back, and three rows to the right, Greg Thompson could see the pink of Brittanyâs cheekbone poking out from behind the white of her jaw. She kept her blonde hair up in a ponytail most days and today was no different. If Mrs. Lockwood walked to the right of the room, Brittanyâs face would follow and Greg would be able to see half of it.
For the first six weeks of seventh grade, Greg spent as little time as he had to paying attention to algebra, just enough to keep a passing grade. The rest of his time was spent looking at Brittany and thinking about how beautiful she was.
He imagined them going off to high school, and getting married right after college. He thought about what holding her hand must feel like, soft in his own. He had danced with her once the prior year, at the end of the year dance. He still thought about his hands lightly damp from nerves on her waist, and the gentle weight of her wrists on his shoulders. He thought he would never forget the smell of her, which was subtle like fresh washed laundry, but more feminine.
She was into No Doubt and when they had âdress downâ days at school, she would always wear something related to Gwen Stefaniâalthough never something Gwen would actually wear, because the school wouldnât have allowed it. He loved those days, seeing her looking happy and free, and after he noticed the pattern, he went to Sam Goody and bought Tragic Kingdom. He would listen to it in his room, with his headphones on and his eyes closed, and think about her.
Greg would try to get into her group whenever a class had broken off into groups and he would talk to her anytime there seemed to be a natural opening.
On the rare occasion that she would look back, from her place in the second row, Greg would dart his eyes from her, up to Mrs. Lockwood, and scribble in his notebooks as if he were taking notes. Once they made eye contact before he managed to look away. He didnât dare look back at her for three days.
âHey Brittany,â he said, walking up to her locker, from the opposite side of the small metal door.
âHey Greg,â she said with a soft smile and a sigh. âHow are you doing?â
âIâm good. Thank you⌠Um, I was wondering if you wanted to go see a movie on Friday?â He wasnât allowed to go on dates yet. His father had told him he could when he started high school, but he also knew that he could go to the movies with a friend and play it off like it wasnât a date.
âUm... My parents and I are going to visit my uncle in New Hampshire for the weekend. So... I donât think I can.â She spoke softly enough for him to hear but tried not to draw attention to them.
âOh OK. That makes sense. Um... Maybe next Friday then?â He asked with his heart pounding his chest, and his hands sweatier than at the end of year dance the previous school year.
âWell, I donât think um... Iâm just kind of focusing on school right now and when Iâm out of school itâs all about soccer. Um... So probably not.â Her eyes darted around and she could see her friends watching from the other side of the hall.
âOh, OK. Well, thank you. And I hope you have a good visit with your uncle.â He walked away quickly and looked down at the floor as he went, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone.
When he got to his locker, he rolled the lock combination without saying or even looking at Jim at the next locker over.
âWhatâs that matter, dude?â Jim asked him. Jim was new to the school this year and he was nice. Greg had purposely kept his distance because Jim and Greg had similar problems with some of the cool kids. He didnât want to exacerbate his own bullying.
âUm... I just asked out someone and she said no. She said she was busy. I always have bad timing.â He still didnât look over at Jim, but shuffled his books that he needed between his backpack and his locker.
âWas she busy or didnât want to go on a date?â
Greg looked at him, getting pissed off. âShe was busy.â
âWell, who was it?â Jim always seemed casual to Greg, like the building could be on fire and his heart rate wouldnât go up. Except when it was his day to get bullied. Then he would cry. Greg didnât blame him.
âBrittany Miller.â Greg spoke softly, he didnât want anyone to hear him and start talking about it.
âDude, Brittany Millerâs not busy. I see her at the mall most weekends. Sheâs a slut though; you donât want to date her.â
Greg slammed his locker shut and put his bag on the floor.
âWhy do you think sheâs a slut?â
âWell, I saw her on a date last month with Peter and then this past weekend she was on a date with Harry. And Peter definitely fingered her.â
âNo... Sheâs a nice girl. She wouldnât let someone do that to her.â Greg thought about the girl that he had seen himself spending his life with and the thought that she would let someone put their fingers inside of her seemed completely impossible.
He stormed away from Jim.
He finished up his last couple of classes of the day before getting on the bus to go home.
Jim was on the same bus route and when Jim tried to sit next to him, he moved up a few rows to sit with a lone fifth-grader.
As he was trying to fall asleep that night, he thought about the idea that Brittany could have been fingered and he cried. She had always been so kind. Heâd known her since fifth grade; theyâd been friends then. His crush had started the following year, and he had been falling in love with her since.
He had a hard time falling asleep, and needed to get his mind on something else. He thought about Kristy. Kristy Jones. He had heard her telling Melissa Stuart about giving her boyfriend in high school a blowjob. Kristy seemed like a nice enough girl and he considered her a friend, but she was hot and definitely a slut.
He had thought blowjobs were an elaborate hoax, something that people talked about but didnât really exist. He stopped believing that when he heard Kristy talking about it. Before her, heâd only heard boys talking about getting them. He couldnât imagine that anyone would want to suck on a penis, so he just assumed that it was something guys wanted that never happened.
The day that he heard Kristy talking about giving a blowjob, he prayed that Mrs. Lockwood wouldnât call him to the board to solve any problems. He had a boner and no idea how to hide it in the dark blue uniform pants he was wearing. But as long as he sat, the desk hid his hardened dick from sight.
When Greg wanted to fall asleep, he thought about that blowjob and masturbated. He thought about meeting her at the park between their houses. He knew there was a hidden spot where high schoolers went to have sex. Kristy would be wearing her school uniform. They would make out while he fingered her. He imagined what his fingers would smell like afterwards as she gave him a blowjob. He didnât know what a vagina would smell like. He thought it probably smelled like candy or fruit.
He pumped his hand as quietly as he could in the dark, hoping the bed wouldn't squeak and wake his parents. When he got close, he reached down to the floor and got one of the socks that he had worn that day. He put the tip into the foot hole so he wouldnât make a mess in his bed. He folded up the sock to keep the wetness from spreading outward. He then tucked it under his mattress in the corner of the room and fell asleep.
***
Greg sat on the grass of the park near his house. He looked around, recognized that he was in the part where teenagers came for sex, and gulped down nerves.
Brittany was sitting next to him. She had a black plastic choker and a tight t-shirt that didnât cover her stomach on. Her small boobs were perky underneath it. Heâd never really noticed them in her school uniform or in her dress-down-day outfits. Below her midriff she wore a tight black skirt over fishnet stockings that tucked into black boots.
He reached to hold her hand and she moved hers away. She looked directly into his eyes, leaned in and kissed him. He felt her tongue push into his mouth.
âI donât want to hold your hand,â she whispered after breaking the kiss.
âOh ok...â He mumbled.
She kissed him again, took his hand and started to lead it under her skirt.
THUD THUD THUD.
âGregory, itâs time to wake up. Iâm getting in the shower.â His father stood outside his room, as he did every morning.
His father took showers in five minutes. Heâd blow dry and spray his hair, and be done in another 2. After he dressed and made himself a cup of coffee, heâd be ready to go. Greg had twenty minutes at most.
Gregory, still half asleep struggling to recall what had been happening in his dream, reached down and felt that he had a boner again.
âGregory, are you awake?â
âUm... Yeah, dad. Sorry. Iâm up.â His voice cracked a little, and he hoped that it sounded alert enough that his father wouldnât try to come in.
He heard his father walk back down the hall to the shower.
He was sweating. He slid from under the sheets and flicked the light on. His pajama pants were tented. He knew the only two options were to masturbate or ignore it until it went away naturally. He didnât really have time for either.
He got his school clothes together, and got into the bathroom he shared with his sister, and locked the door. As he brushed his teeth, he kept looking down at his pointing pants with fear that he would get caught with it.
By the time he had showered and toweled off, he was able to hide it under the towel and get changed. His heart was still pounding.
After a half hour, he was dressed and ready to go to school. His father waited for him, having finished making himself his coffee.
âGood morning,â his father said with a smile, âyou ready?â
He nodded and walked out to the driveway with his father, who drove him to the end of the street to the bus stop. He didnât dare make eye contact with his father.
For a couple of weeks, Greg avoided Brittany. He would look at her in algebra, but he didnât day dream about her the same way. He looked at her to see if she was really the pure girl he had been falling in love with, or the slut that Jim had told him aboutâthe slut that he had dreamt about.
Day to day he would waffle between positions. There were days when he looked at her, and all he saw was a kind, fun, sweet girl, who had soft skin, and a beautiful smile. On those days he felt a hollowness in his chest and he wanted her to hold his hand and dance with him at school dances, and write him notes to fill it.
Then there were the days where he thought that Jimâs vile description had to be correct. He knew sheâd had boyfriends; sheâd never been private about that. All heâd ever seen them do was hug between classes. It seemed unrealistic to him that she would date the boys that she dated and not let them finger her. He wondered if sheâd ever given one of them a blowjob. How could he ever hope to kiss her if sheâd done that?
It took until Christmas for him to let go of the thoughts of her being a slut. She was nice to him still when they interacted, and he hadnât talked to Jim to hear more of the slander from him. She was too sweet for any of it to have been true.
On the final day of school before Christmas break came, students in class gave gifts to their friends. He brought her a dozen red roses and wrote her a rhyming poem. There was an extended homeroom period for gift exchanging. He went to his locker and got the dozen roses and the poem that heâd sealed in an envelope. He walked back into his class and up to her. She was sitting with a couple of her friends and a few of the popular boys.
âUm... Hi Brittany, Merry Christmas,â he said as he stepped up a couple of feet from her and held the flowers out at full arm's length. His stomach was tight and churning at the same time as he looked into her eyes and felt the eyes of the kids around him.
She took the flowers and smiled, blushing.
âThank you, Greg. These are pretty. Merry Christmas.â She looked at the envelope, and then back up at him. âIâll read this later, OK?â
He nodded and smiled as he fought the urge to vomit on her. He walked back to his seat and kept his eyes from meeting anyone elseâs until the bell rang. He hadnât bought presents for anyone else and no one had bought any for him.
That afternoon, an hour after heâd got home from school, the phone rang. His sister called out for him and he went downstairs to get it.
âHello?â His voice was shaky, unsure who would have called him.
âHi Greg.â He immediately recognized Brittanyâs soft voice. Sometimes he thought she sounded like a mouse but he loved that about her as well.
âOh, hi Brittany. How are you?â He hadnât left his number with the poem. His mother had sent out invitations for his birthday party earlier in the year and sheâd put their number on that.
âIâm good. I really liked the flowers you got me and the poem you wrote was really nice.â His ears burned from blushing as she said that. âBut I think you and I should just be friends. Youâre really nice and sweet, but I just donât think that I like you like that.â
There was a long moment of silence. Greg wasnât sure that she was done talking and he knew if he tried to respond right away that his voice was going to crack. So he waited, and after a moment she continued.
âI hope you have a good Christmas and Iâll see you in a couple weeks at school. OK?â
âYeah, I hope you have a good Christmas too. See you.â
He waited for a moment and heard her hang up and the dial tone return, and he hung up, ran up to his room and cried on the bed.
When they returned from Christmas break, there seemed to be a mutual understanding that they would avoid each other as much as possible. When they couldnât avoid each other, they were nice to each other.
The hollowness in his chest grew that first week. Whenever he saw her, it would threaten to consume him and heâd have to fight the urge to cry.
He didnât bother going to the end of the year dance, because he didnât want to bother her by asking her to dance with him. Then school ended. He didnât know until September that sheâd switched schools. She hadnât moved, so he figured he might see her at the mall or the movies sometime, but he didnât.
The next time heâd see her would be across a club in their early twenties. She would look the same, but like a woman, and she wouldnât even recognize him with a goatee. He would leave her alone, but, at least when he saw her that time, he would think it was the last. There would be no shock when she disappeared from his life again.
The Dinner Party by Michael Christopher Cole gives the reader a platform to stumble and walk with Gregory âGregâ Thompson through the growing pains of moving from being a boy to becoming a man. Sex is quite central to that. All his life, heâs had his parents and religious leaders telling him what to think of porn, masturbation, and sex with multiple partners. Up to a certain point, heâs heard and understood them. Then the raging hormones come in like a flood and the standard might not hold. It seems everyone around him is giving in and he begins to question if he has the self-restraint to resist temptation. Thus begins the real path to self-discovery.
Because the story starts in middle school, it shows Greg from his days when he could not imagine kissing someone who has once given a blowjob to the stage of his life when he is the one with his face between someoneâs thighs. In all of this, one of the things I enjoyed was Coleâs nuance in delivering a textured story. Beyond pacing the telling of Gregâs tale, there was also a great demonstration of societal attitudes toward girls versus guys when it comes to sex. He captured the fist-bumping and back pats that guys get versus the slut-shaming and ridicule girls face with the subtlety they require. Even the notion of being a ânice guyâ and the expectations placed on women when guys see themselves as one.
I could keep singing praises for this book as I did not only get to witness Greg grow up sexually but mainly mentally. But it had its flaws. The first was minor writing errors that did not hamper my comprehension or enjoyment. The other issue was that, from time to time, there was some over-explaining of relationships or incidents that were already established, giving the impression that a degree of final polishing touches was needed for a smoother read. If you enjoy coming-of-age books that make you take a closer look at the ways we shape our lives and frame our experiences, this might be your kind of book.