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motioned for me to sit next to him. He was a big fellow with curly black hair, and he smiled as he put his hand on my shoulder.
    “My, you are a young one, aren’t you?” he said, sardonically sizing up what appeared to be jailbait.
    “I’m a senior,” I said, not sure what he meant. I was beginning to feel very uncomfortable around these boys, who obviously were more sophisticated than I was, and I hadn’t been prepared for a roomful of older males.
    A man with shoulder-length, brown wavy hair was coming down the steps.
    He had a slight build and wore a full mustache. I remember thinking he had a nice smile.
    “I’m Sonny,” he said to me as he extended his hand to welcome me,“but I guess you heard of me as Mr. Economopoulus.” I was glad to stand up and move away from the bear grinning at my side.
    I introduced myself and then sat on another chair, feeling tension inside me caused by indecision on whether to stay or run away.
    However, Sonny looked safe.
    “So…you’re Karen’s sister. You don’t look like her.” It was evident he was trying to make small talk, but he seemed interested.
    “I look like me,” I retorted, knowing immediately it was a stupid thing to say.
    The other boys howled with laughter at my less than brilliant comment, which made me feel a slight desire to crawl into a hole. I was beginning to think it was not such a good idea to be here, but Sonny smiled in a way that made me feel comfortable.
    “Well, let’s go up in my room and we can talk there,” he said casually.
    That drew a round of catcalls.
    “Remember, she’s a minor.”
    “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Or maybe I should say, don’t do anything I would want to do.” I followed Sonny upstairs to the front bedroom. He had music playing and a few albums Lying out on the floor.
    I looked at his collection.
    “Who do you like?” he asked.
    “Dylan, Crosby, Stills and Nash…”
    “Do you like Carole King?”
    “I never heard her.”
    “Well, you’ll have to listen.” I sat down on the floor while he put on an album called Tapestry. He sat behind me on the bed with his knees touching my back while he told me about his musical tastes, his graduation from elite Franklin and Marshall, his work as a teacher, and his desire to go back to graduate school. He was twenty-four years old and from Massachusetts, and I remember feeling special to have a handsome college graduate interested in talking with me. It was my first intimate experience with someone so educated to whom I could relate. Up to this point, I had always felt a chasm between myself and the radical intellectual. But then, I was still relatively new in this counterculture predicted by contemporary visionaries, such as Paul Goodman, Allen Ginsberg, and Charles Reich.
    My own vision included a major societal shift from war to peace, from hate to love, from bondage to liberation. I don’t know if Sonny felt the same way, but I saw him as a fellow freedom fighter. When he offered me a pipe of marijuana, I took a hit. I still wanted to believe that smoking pot was a ritual between the enlightened, and maybe love would secure the connection. I let him take me to bed without any resistance.
    Since I was no longer a virgin, it didn’t hurt anymore. With relatively little experience under my belt, I knew that it should feel good, but I had no idea what an orgasm should be like. Therefore, I never knew if I had one or not.
    “I guess it is getting late for you,” he said, as he rose to change the album.
    “No, I don’t have a curfew,” I replied. “And my homework is finished.”
    “So, you are conscientious about your homework. Tomorrow you can bring it over here if you like.” I spent many evenings at Sonny’s house after that. I told my mother I was at a friend’s house, which was not a lie, he had become my best friend. Associating with Sonny, I was introduced to many of the Franklin and Marshall graduates, mostly rich kids from New York and New