My sister had Prince’s Purple Rain album. I stole it, right around puberty. If I had it to do over, I wouldn’t choose any other soundtrack to my coming of age.
“Let’s Go Crazy” congregates with an organ that fades into a bopping drum beat. Then we get that masterful two-stroke electric guitar, followed by bright pops of synth. An anthem against going gently into that good night. He calls for us to “please, come” over and over at the end, before he strums the guitar to an elongated fever pitch, scrambling the way I flicked my clit in marathon masturbation sessions, when I’d see how many times I could cum and lost count.
“Take Me With You” talked about being turned on and getting out of there together. Appolonia Kotero threw her voice up above his, just a bit higher, riding it. “The Beautiful Ones” was so beautiful it almost hurt to listen, starting with that sparse knocking rhythm he got from using an LM-1 drum computer. It’s a snare, but with the tip held on the head, slapped against the rim, tuned an octave or so down to the just-right sound. Prince’s voice ranges up and down from falsetto pleading to a guttural, screamo declaration of desire. But what really got me, by far, was the talking at the front of “Computer Blue.” “Wendy,” “Yes, Lisa?” “Is the water warm enough?” “Yes, Lisa.” “Shall we begin?” “Yes, Lisa.” I didn’t know what they were getting into, but I wanted in, too. That teasing, sparseness under them before the synth gets fingered, up-down, up-down, and the guitar climbs and shreds. For the finale song on side A, “Darling Nikki,” I’d flirt with the door jamb, eventually dancing with it, as if each side were a different man, both of whom were enthralled by me. I’d kiss my hand laid against it, teasing, then arch backward, run my tongue down the wood on the other side, upside down, and kiss the brass of the lock. I’d walk away when he says, “Come back, Nikki, come back,” and crouch on my knees on the floor, arch all the way backwards, swinging frenzied. Knees spread, legs still under me, I’d lay back between them, sweaty and satiated in the way I never was from my early experiments with sex.
There’s this echo after the main event, like riding a cum until it’s good and gone. Some kind of weirdo afterglow, where he seems to be catching his breath. Other voices join his, voices backmasked. Reversed, they are saying, “The Lord is coming soon. Coming, coming soon.” I didn’t know that at the time, but the irreverence came through clear. And in a house where I was screamed at for saying the word “masturbate,” I needed Prince’s affirmation of Nikki’s shameless sexuality.
I’d take my mother’s green-handled vanity mirror into my room, its slender handle rising elegantly into a diamond-esque shape, like a corseted woman, waist up. I would turn on the Prince album, and get naked. I’d squat over the mirror, spreading, peering, leering. I was especially fascinated by my clit. How erect and huge it got. I’d get turned on immediately and have to touch myself. I can’t remember my first girl kiss, since it happened so early. I wish I could forget my first boy kiss, with his gaping fish mouth and inarticulate tongue. But my pussy mouth kissing itself in that mirror, I’ll always remember fondly. I gave myself a sloppy wet one, alright, meeting in the middle: sticky cum strings pulling away from themselves between my quadrupled cunt lips, the real and the reflected. Later, I learned what a sheela-na-gig was, but I didn’t put it together that I’d been engaged in the same posture back then, advertising my fecundity, maybe because I was only advertising it to myself.
We had family photos on the walls of my childhood home, but I don’t remember ever being happy like we looked in them. They were from when the stepfather and the mother first married. A couple done maybe at JC Penney’s. All images can lie. It's just a matter of distance from the lens and who's holding it. The same men who sneer at selfies will watch underage Daddy porn.
When I was crouched over that mirror, getting high on Prince and self-possession, as close to myself as I could get, I was engaged in an act more radical than I could have understood at the time. But my body grew wet with what it understood. If we fuck ourselves to know ourselves, we should all fuck ourselves more.
Stina French is a professor/performer who writes erotic mystery, magic-realist memoir, and poetry. Her work has appeared in Manifest Station and Heavy Feather Review, among others. She wears welts from the Bible Belt and hosts "listen to your skin,” an erotic reading series. Find her on IG at sister_rainbow_scream. Find her monthly event at https://www.facebook.com/ListenToYourSkinEroticReadingSeries.