Once, we agreed to meet. I rode my bike to his house and hid behind a bush across the street. I watched him step outside onto his porch in an oversized Nike T-shirt and athletic shorts, scratch his head, then place his hand above his eyes like a visor and peer into the distance, presumably searching for me. He looked different than he did in the pictures he’d sent me: older, balder, fatter. The drastic difference between his actual appearance and his virtual persona would’ve been less of a shock had AOL and the entire online world not been such a novelty. I would’ve expected the contrast. I planted a foot on each side of my bike and remained in place, waiting for him to step back inside. The moment he did, I furiously pedaled home.

By the time I was in high school, I decided I liked older men. They felt safe to me, and oddly familiar. And they seemed to appreciate me so much more than the guys in my class, including my age-appropriate boyfriend at the time. It was as if they’d spent forty days in the desert or had just returned home from war and were ready to project all that pent-up desire onto me. I encountered quite a few of them in person; I spent my high school summers answering phones at a tech company. Periodically, coworkers would approach me at the café below the office. The first time I drew back in shock. “I’m fourteen!”

“Shit,” the poor fellow answered, “I’m sorry!” Feeling guilt for shaming him, as along with curiosity, I scribbled my number on my lunch receipt and dropped it on his tray on my way out.

I came to worship them, these older men. I craved the wisdom and guidance they willingly offered and that my father withheld. I adored how sexy they made me feel, likely because of the discrepancy between our levels of attractiveness. They, in turn, approved of my young body, one that was still tight due to its relative newness rather than its purity. “I treat my body like a temple,” said my childhood friend Eman, whose parents were Syrian and friends with mine. Eman was a few years older than me and esteemed herself worthy of doling out wisdom. She was always lecturing me about how important it was to wait until marriage, or at least until I was in love. I rolled my eyes, though not without slight envy. There was judgment beneath her assertion, one that cast my dalliances as acts of self-desecration and sacrilege rather than attempts at validation. Get over yourself, I wanted to respond. Besides, wasn’t she just bitter she couldn’t land a guy of her own?

Chapter 6

6