The Boy Who Rejected My Virginity

I don't remember how it started or even the first time we kissed.  All I know is that he is always all-too conveniently off again with one of his two on-again/off-again girlfriends every time I am back in Los Angeles.  I don’t question it.  The only trip we didn’t hook up was when I decided I was more into his friend and ignored his advances.  We somehow found a way to move past it.

In January, I had a Bar-Mitzvah back home and, if for no other reason than attending an all girl school left me with no male friends in LA, I asked him to go with me.  Every woman at the party approached me, excited to meet him, some a little too excited as though shocked by the fact I actually had a date, and either straight to his face or whispering behind his back, peppered me with the questions that plague all single, Jewish girls.

“Are you two dating?”

I told one woman that we weren’t dating; he was just pretty to look at.  She agreed, that it’s always nice to have some eye candy.

“Why aren’t you dating?”

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

“Is he Jewish?”

“Why don’t you have a boyfriend?”

            And the oh-so uncomfortable, but obvious, observation, “He’s so cute!”

           

I am short of breath just thinking about it.  Even my mother was a fan and convinced herself the long-distance factor was the only reason we weren't dating.

He and I went out after the Bar-Mitzvah and ended up back at his apartment.  True to form, he still shared a room with his college roommate.  Not an apartment, a room.  He turned on the “noise-blocking” fan, a move I was familiar with, and then turned over and went to sleep, a move I was not so familiar with.  I spent the rest of the weekend slightly confused (and still fending off my mother's questions) so I was surprised when he showed up at the bar I suggested for my last night in L.A.

I wasn't sitting next to him or being particularly attentive and my friends from high school didn't approve.  They nudged me and made comments and then, what should have piqued my suspicions, began whispering amongst themselves when one of them asked me to go to the bathroom with her.  Once she had me locked away, she revealed their scheme: her boyfriend was going to take the boy (he met 20 minutes earlier) to do a shot and have some “Man Talk.”  I know in high school, I was the biggest loser and that I've never had a boyfriend and that even, perhaps, I haven't totally gotten rid of some socially awkward tendencies, but I do okay for myself.  I don’t need a stranger’s help getting some and certainly not when it comes to this particular boy. 

Extremely embarrassed, mostly offended, and slightly angry, it turned out man-time was the kick in the butt the boy needed to resume aggressively pursuing taking me home.

           

            We stepped outside and there was suddenly this unspoken urgency in the air.  Tonight was the night.  He knew it, I knew it, my friend’s boyfriend knew it.  The ensuing car shuffle was not unlike the scene from Clueless after the Val party.  None of it made all that much geographical sense but everyone had one goal in mind: to get me laid.

My friend dropped us off at the boy’s apartment and only then did we discover that his house keys were with his car keys that were with a friend who took possession of his car during the shuffle.  He was frustrated; I felt uncomfortable, guilty, unflatteringly desperate.  All we could do was wait.  To further set the mood, we took turns peeing behind an air conditioning unit.  It was all just so romantic.

Finally inside, he pulled out the sofa bed and I felt relieved I wasn’t going to be sharing my first time with his roommate, who I admittedly have a tiny crush on.

"I'll get naked if you get naked."

"Okay."

This had never happened before.  Maybe my shirt came off once; maybe he unhooked my bra.  It was all very PG-13 until this point.  

Things were moving along as he put in a request for another activity we'd never done before.  Unable to maintain composure, I giggled, blushed.

"There's just a lot happening right now."

"I know."

We continued making out.

"I could get a condom."

"Okay."

I watched as he sauntered into the kitchen and reached into the first drawer.  Charming.

He put it on and…nothing.  Nothing happened.  He rolled off, leaving me, at the very least, bewildered and embarrassed.  It was silent for a minute, then I jumped in.

“Umm…”

I’m articulate under pressure.  He seemed as confused as I was so I asked him questions to try and work through this.

“Do you have a girlfriend?  Is it because I didn’t do something you needed to get ready?  Is it because I’m a virgin? 

            No.  No.  And, no.

“Please don’t freak out.  It’s not that big of a deal.  And I don’t live here; I won’t be offended if you have someone else.”

With no real answers surfacing and not in the mood to continue our game of 20 questions, I chose instead, to answer the text messages I had been getting every 30 seconds from a friend who had just arrived from San Diego.  The constant beeping alerts were annoying when I thought there was going to be a virginity lost, but when that plan failed, they became a relief. 

I sat up, began putting my clothes back on, and asked that friend to please come get me.  Immediately.

“Don’t do that; don’t put your clothes on.  Don’t go.”

“Yeah…I’m going to.”

“There’s still time.”

“Right.  I’m not so much in the mood anymore, but thanks.”

“Well, there’s always next time.”

Wrong again. 

As if this wasn’t humiliating enough, perhaps next time you can reject me before I’m completely naked and you have a condom on.

The next morning I received a text from him, jokingly admitting he had “f***ed up.”  Well, at least he f***ed something.

The List

I have a lot of “rules” that I follow, not because I have to or because they improve my quality of life, but simply because I’m stubborn.  Senior year of high school, a couple friends got so frustrated by the things I did or wouldn’t do, they made a list.  It started as a half page of things I needed to accomplish by graduation: eat fish, use a tampon, first kiss, lose my virginity, swallow pills.  There was a nice range.  If all tasks were completed on time, I would be rewarded with an expensive gift from each list-maker.  Challenge: Accepted.

I went to class that afternoon and when I got back, the list was being passed around our senior living room, people adding things to where it now filled up the entire front page and was leaking onto the back.  Things like “eating pizza without feeling fat” were now scribbled in the margins.  I went with it, never before realizing quite how many things I did were worthy of making The List.

Growing concerned with how specific (and ridiculous) the list was becoming, I put it into the front of a binder and began working my way through.  Obviously, I did not finish in time to receive my gifts, but by graduation the main things that remained were using a tampon, swallowing pills, and losing the V-Card.

Most people's "firsts" were not incited by a To-Do list, a dare of sorts.  Most people can, however, describe their first kiss in such detail as though it were happening at that very moment.  Usually in elementary school, maybe a game of spin the bottle, definitely some kind of orthodontia.  Being the late bloomer that I am, I never even managed a peck, even during games of Spin the Bottle.  As if the bottle knew nobody wanted to be anywhere near my metal-mouth, it never landed on me.  The one game of Spin the Bottle I can remember, two boys felt so sorry for me that I never got a turn, they kissed me on the cheek at the end of the game.  Because that didn’t make me feel more pathetic than I already did.

            

Spring break, senior year in high school, my parents had a lapse in judgment when they brought two of my girlfriends and me to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.  To this day, my mother has trouble believing she brought three teenaged girls to Mexico for Spring Break.  At the time, much to the successful sheltering my parents did, I never even made the connection.  We were allowed out but had a curfew and were not allowed to leave each other for one second.  In fact, the one night we broke curfew, even though we were at the hotel, we received a stern lecture in the morning; it was somewhere along the lines of being in a foreign country and my mother not wanting us to end up on the news as missing persons in a murder case.  Jewish mothers have that whole guilt-tripping, scaring-the-shit-out-of-you-by-concluding-every-situation-with-rape-and-murder thing down.  (What's even scarier is that now I assume if someone doesn't call when they're supposed to, it's because they're lying in a ditch somewhere dying.  I apologize to my kids in advance.)

       

I was anti-alcohol, so while my friends ordered drink after drink, celebrating the legality of it all, I ordered bottled water after bottled water.  Raging.  Our bartender the first night was a Costa-Rican slice, living the life in Mexico.  I drank water that night as if I had just finished the Saltine Challenge and I'd never quench my thirst again.  He and I flirted all night, though if I could see video footage now, I'm not sure what I was doing would qualify as flirting.  He hung out with us every day and we went to see him every night.  My own ten-day Dirty Dancing Havana Nights fantasy.  I don't remember exactly when it happened or exactly where it happened, all I know is that this 25-year old man was my very first kiss.  Sparks flew and birds sang.  

Tico, as he was nicknamed by his peers, spent the last two days of our time together getting wasted and whining to my friends that he "luhbed me."  It got so uncomfortable the last night, my friends had to take him home in a cab and physically tuck him into bed while I waited at the bar with a group of Chicago-born boys who were on an early spring break.  My parents would have loved this part.  

Sophomore year in college, I lived in a quad in my sorority with three other girls all at different sexual stages.  One was a make out slut freshman year who was settling into a relationship, one was in the process of coming out (though I'd known for ages), and one once said to me, "If I had a choice between giving head and a plate of cheese fries, I'd choose giving head."  And then there was me.  

Of all the things I hadn't done that they had, I was strangely jealous that I'd never had a hickey.  I know it comes with embarrassment and judgment but it's a right of passage.  Plus, if we can turn "walk of shame" into "stride of pride" then a hickey shouldn't be the mark of a slut, it should be the regal symbol of a conqueror.  My roommate (the reformed make out slut) offered to give me my first hickey so I would stop complaining.  I accepted and in front of my roommates and a friend who was visiting, she joined me on Ruton, our futon, and made it happen.  Thankfully, the hickey’s appearance was brief so I wouldn't have to explain its origins.  As if the hickey passed on her powers, I became a make out slut.  I would seek out to conquer those that caught my eye, make out, then lose interest.  A solid make out session was followed by leaving the bar or spooning.  Never anything more.

October of junior year of college, I turned 21.  An oh-so glorious milestone every child dreams of once they realize frat parties are overrated and fake IDs are less than reliable.  I was the first of my friends to turn 21 so they threw me a surprise party.  I had never had a surprise party before, and always wanted one, which made my legal alcohol intake that much sweeter.  An extremely attractive man greeted me at the door, shot in hand, and I was told he would be my personal bartender for the evening.  He had been informed that I couldn't (and still can't) take full shots so he vowed to refill my shot glass after every sip until I took one full shot.  I never did.

          

The result was complete intoxication with no way of keeping track just how much I had to drink.  Somewhere between a picture with my new bartender boyfriend and switching from shots of SoCo to Jungle Juice, a chair was placed in the center of our living room.  As soon as I sat down, my bartender appeared, dancing and removing his clothes.  A clever rouse.  There was spanking and screaming and male thongs.  There was a moment he disappeared into a bedroom where I discovered a friend with her arms around him to which I shouted, "Let go! He's my stripper!"

            

He laid me down on the floor and ate dollar bills out of my clothes with his teeth.  He stood up and flipped me onto his face, holding me up by my ass cheeks.  Did I mention I was wearing a dress and a thong?  Oh, and that I had my period?  All I could think about was the string of the tampon I finally learned to use poking him in the eye.

            

And then, the real surprise.  He pulled me into a bedroom, pushed me into a desk chair, and locked the door.  Apparently, my friends had paid extra for a private show so I could finally see my first penis.  He stripped down to his birthday suit in honor of my birthday.  I sat in my chair, giggling, staring up at his face and the wall, refusing to look at what he was paid to show me.  It started to get weird.  He continued dancing and shaking on my lap and I continued to avoid looking down.

"I'm sorry.  I just don't want you to be uncomfortable.”

"This is my job.  It's ok.”

"I can't.  What am I supposed to do?  Just stare at it?”

"If this is making you uncomfortable, we can stop.  I don't want you to be upset."

We walked out of the room to screams and laughter.

            "I hurt the stripper’s feelings.  I wouldn't look at it."

At least all of my firsts have one thing in common: class.

         

The Flood

For one of my seven part-time jobs since I’ve moved to Chicago, I worked in a rumor mill.  I don’t know if it was because I was new or because I wasn’t there that often, but people loved talking about me.  My favorite: three people, conveniently best friends, said that in the same day, they all separately walked in on me having sex in a back room at work with one of the trainers who was seductively donning a Superman costume.  Overlooking the most obvious issue with their story, not to mention I’ve never so much as made out with the guy in question, don’t you think after the first person walked in, even the second, it would have killed the mood enough not to leave a window of opportunity for yet another Peeping Tom?  And please, Batman is way hotter than Superman.

The staff I made friends with, I got close to; they hated their jobs as much as I did.  There was one guy who I used to talk to a lot at work but never hung out with in real life; he had a serious girlfriend and an opportunity never presented itself.  One night, however, we happened to finish up at the same time so I asked if he wanted to grab a drink.  We drove to a nearby bar, where we sat with our legs interlocked and I proceeded to get sufficiently buzzed.  I knew I couldn’t drive home just yet so he suggested I follow him back to his apartment.  Somehow driving to his place seemed safer than driving home.  Brilliant.

            I walked around his apartment, trying to play it cool while doing a little snooping.  Not sober, but thinking it enlightened (well, not thinking it through at all) to continue the party, I found myself with the spins.  Sitting on the floor staring at the wall, I began describing to the guy all of the bizarre things I was experiencing.  It felt like an eternity, like it would never end.  He surprisingly and patiently listened to my ramblings, laughing.  When he suggested that I write everything down, I replied, “Get me a bag.  I’m going to throw up.” 

            I heard him rummaging in the kitchen for something suitable.

            “I’m not joking.  Don’t take your sweet time.  This is happening.”

            He returned with a trashcan and placed it right next to me.  Sitting in his computer chair, he watched as I tried to convince myself it wouldn’t be weird to throw up in front of him.  Even then, I knew that wasn’t true.  I waited for an opportune moment, then sprinted to the bathroom and slammed the door.  I forgot to lock it, so the guy followed me right in and sat me on the edge of the tub, rubbing my back.  I begged him to stop; I could tell it was going to incite disaster.  Knowing exactly what he was doing, he smirked.  I dove for the toilet bowl, yelled at him to get out, and shut the door again.  Locked it this time.  I hadn’t eaten anything that day so instead of productively throwing up, I began dry heaving.  I turned on the faucet hoping the running water would drown out my humiliation. 

And then, I felt wet.  I touched my pants, looked down, then looked up only to discover the sink had overflowed and flooded his bathroom.  I was sitting in a pool of water.  A small child could have taken a swimming lesson in there.

Water leaked out under the bathroom door and I heard a knock.

            “Is everything okay?”

            “Yeah!”

He knew I was lying.  I berated him for failing to warn me that his sink had drainage issues.  This was clearly all his fault.  (He ended up telling his girlfriend he accidentally left the water running, which I think was more for his benefit than mine.)

Every book and magazine-ruined.  Towels and bath mat-soaked.  Dignity-drowned.  I’m a master at first impressions.