Chocolate Cake, Extra Moist

July 2002
Evanston, IL
Northwestern University
Hinman Residence Hall

It had been a rocky year for me and my girlfriend. She had gone off to Vassar for her first year of college and I was a junior in high school. Every week our status changed: We couldn’t bear to be away from each other. Then, she met a nice boy and girl with whom she began a three-way relationship, through which she found the strength necessary to be away from me. Then, the nice boy and girl kicked her out of the three way relationship and she couldn’t bear to be away from me.

My inexperienced heart had been successfully pulverized, painstakingly restored, and pulverized again. I was deeply in love with this girl and consequently was deeply hurt by her actions. During her first summer home from school, I went to a theatre camp at Northwestern University. For five weeks, I would learn all aspects the art and craft of acting, stagecraft and dramaturgy alongside a national cross-section of 160 thespian peers. There, I was prepared to mend my heart by any means necessary. I made extensive mental calculations about how to amass a revenge harem filled with swooning, nubile theater girls. Though my theory was sound, its execution would prove problematic.

My roommate at the program, Jason, had a girlfriend. He would have long talks with her every night. It made me miss Marci*, my girlfriend. Or my ex-girlfriend. Or my “on a break” girlfriend. For my own happiness, I tried to set some ground rules. She couldn’t call me. I could only call her. So I called her, almost every night.

I liked a lot of the girls in the program. There was Rachel who was small and funny. There was Ruby who was buxom and tough. But there was one, the illustrious “Tro” whose image will forever be embossed on my heart. A formidable four feet, eleven inches, Ms. Tro gushed feminine sensuality. Equally adept at acting, singing, dancing, and gymnastics (a quadruple threat!), she spoke with equal gusto about tap dancing, football, and her sexual history. She was the kind of girl that could scare a boy shitless.

Marci decided it would be a good idea to come and visit me. “I brought you a cake!” she said and handed me this whopping chocolate cake. “I took a regular box of cake mix and added my own special touches, like spices and chocolate chips.”
“Cool, thanks.” I carried the cake into the dorm. She followed.
“Wow, Ben. Where’d you get that cake?” asked a lady passerby.
“I baked it for him,” Marci said. We spent the rest of the day sitting on the Northwestern quad, moping. She left and I returned to my room, feeling emptier than before.
“Who was that?” people asked.
“My girlfriend,” I said.
“Oh…you have a girlfriend.” And so, for all camp intents and purposes, I was a taken man.

I spent the rest of the day handing out slices of cake to people. “My girlfriend made it,” I said.
“Mm, it’s great.”
“There are spices in it,” I explained with pride. Tro passed a gaggle of cake-eaters in the commons.
“Ooh, cake,” she cooed.
“You want some?” I asked, cutting a slice.
“Yeah!” she mouthed through wet teeth. “Bring it by my room later.”
“Okay!” I watched her dance away in clinging spandex and imagined what her room looked like.

The song of the summer was Nelly’s “Hot in Herre,” a sultry tale about a romantic rendezvous at the club. At camp dances, DJed by Lindsay, the bald, devil bearded instructor of theater of the absurd, we would dance ourselves into a slippery frenzy to this song. And it was during this song, that Tro removed my shirt from my hot, sweaty torso and proceeded to lead me around the dance floor by my nipples. I was astonished and pleased, but was certain I didn’t stand a chance with her. After all, she was probably just a tease. And I was a nerd who was lucky enough to earn the love of Marci and there was only enough room in my heart for one.

“Close the door,” Tro said as I handed her a paper towel with a thick slice of cake. I obeyed. What was gonna happen? We’re we gonna do it? Was I going to exact the sweetest kind of revenge on the lover who had broken my heart? “Wanna see me do my Fosse dance routine?” Yikes. The answer was yes. She switched on a CD and a woman’s full and bawdy voice crooned “Steam Heat” as Tro expertly rolled and popped her body, adding her own silky voice, marred only by punctuated points of exertion. I was mesmerized. I would pop out of my reverie momentarily to realize where I was. I was alone, in the room of a girl, who had publicly stripped my and played with my nipples, and who was giving me a private dance show. If logic and the rules of the universe were currently at play, we would soon both be on the floor naked, nails deep in each other’s flesh, sweat leaking from our bodies, and emitting blood curdling shrieks of pleasure. But the only thing at play that day was the frightened fidelity of first true love. I left that room without touching or being touched. When I returned to my room, there was Marci’s semi-demolished, spiced chocolate cake waiting for me, just as I had left it.