How I Lost My Virginity (Sorry, Mom)

I almost lost my virginity to a guy named Tim. He had popped the cherry of my friend Lisa in the back of his Toyota in a cemetery one night, and she advocated that I do the same (her dubious judgement extending also to the fact that Tim was dating her best friend at the time). This was the spring of my junior year and Getting It Over With was taking priority over A Meaningful Experience. I knew Tim from my honors and music classes; he was smart and funny because he liked to provoke people, but not cute. But what the heck, good enough, right? Lisa clued Tim in that I might be interested. He was game. We spent a little time on the telephone mostly making small talk, and alluding to specifics, I don't remember. It was during one of these conversations that my dad came home having been diagnosed with cancer. The plan fizzled.

So I held out.

By spring of my senior year, I was dating Jeff. He was Italian, but the puppy-dog type. He wore a varsity letter jacket for music but was not being ironic. We were in the same band geek/theater geek/Depeche Mode/neo-goth straight-edge crowd so dating was not unexpected.

He was not a virgin having lost it to his long-term girlfriend Heather. Well, the longer story is that Tim fucked Lisa. Heather fucked Mike. Lisa fucked Mike. Heather fucked Jeff.

Anyway. After about a month of going out, Jeff and I were making out when he said 'I can't wait to be inside you.' That was hot. That turned me on. We talked about sex and agreed to, you know, do it.

The plan was simple. We had a day off from school so I would go over to his dad's house, which would be empty because the adults were working. He would steal one of his dad's condoms and away we'd go.

Holy shit I'm actually remembering that it was a Wednesday.

As an alibi, we set up our algebra books and binders on the dining room table. We went up to his bedroom and lay down on the bed. I don't remember being nervous about being naked or his tongue somewhere new; I doubt that real foreplay, the good stuff, the hot sweaty pulsing juice, was on our minds. My body shivered from the cold and I couldn't get warmed up through that hot flush going from my scalp down through the gut into my legs when my old date Matt and I dry-humped in the back of his van. Probably my teeth chattered. Jeff put his hands and mouth on me and I let him. Even with my legs spread and my arms around his neck, my body never thawed. He ducked away to score the rubber, and left me alone to wait, shivering. Finally he returned, empty-handed. Somehow the condoms had disappeared.

We decided to go get some and yes, it was an ordeal. There were stops at at least two drugstores, him running in, me behind the wheel, engine idling, conspicuous in my vintage car that everyone knew. Finally, we blasted back to his house.

Up the stairs, into his room, out of our clothes. Time was drawing short and frustration was high depressing the moment from the Meaningful Experience down to Getting It Done. He lay on top of me, talking to me, asking if I was ok under his weight, ok with going on. Yes, yes I gasped. There was conscientious but not tender or skilled attention. The goal was the simple one of destination: get him in. He slowly worked inward with some care, but finished with a searing, popping thrust. Done.

But not really because of course then we had to keep going. I held on and let him fuck me, assuring me that I was yes fine and ok and good. He must have come but I don't remember his face or the mystery of its tightening and release. I didn't orgasm, and in fact it would be two years and six partners in the waiting. Somehow I managed to let me enter me again within the hour and thought 'This is what we do. I do this now. I am a girl like this,' not knowing what was possible but wanting to get my feet on the road to finding out.

We had sex a few more times before breaking up after prom, but that is another sordid tale involving, tequila and of course, another Toyota.