Seems we’re all talking about virginity these days….

I found it hard to relate to the two previous posts on virginity, because I don’t remember losing mine, so it never got to be an issue.  Although the way I lost it became a VERY big issue for a while.

I’m amazed at how little I remember – I was 10 or 11 at the time, not a total child.  I’ve never known how to label what happened.  “Child abuse” as a concept didn’t exist at the time, and although it has since become a big subject in the media, it always seems to be in terms of wicked family members.

My experience wasn’t like that.  I had a little job delivering newspapers to houses before school.  The newsagent just got friendlier and friendlier.  He “promoted” me to helping me mark up the papers with the house numbers for the delivery routes, so I was on my own with him in the shop, and got even friendlier.  

And I was flattered – I assume. I actually have no memory of what I felt, I just know that no physical violence, threats or hothouse family atmospheres were ever involved, and don’t know how else to explain my compliance.

He had a dog.  I desperately wanted a dog.  My parents wouldn’t let me have a dog.  So I started going round to his house after school to play with his dog, or take it for walks. This led on to playing with him, and then to sex.  He must have been very patient and determined.

This went on for more than a year.  Of all that time, I have only four short “videos” in my memory.  Four.  They aren’t particularly shocking, except for the fact that I was 10 or 12 and he was 28 or 29, and weren’t, as far as I’m aware, traumatic.  But I don’t think I need to describe them here.

What WAS traumatic was when my parents found out.   Oh Lord, did the heavens ever fall in.   I hadn’t been forced, therefore I was a fallen woman, a shame to the family, a disgrace, dirty, untouchable.  My father couldn’t bear to look at me, whilst my mother was very vocal in her disgust, which spilled out all over the place.

That also went on for years.   The fall-out was quite spectacular and my feelings for my parents have never recovered.

It wasn’t until I was 24 when someone handed me a book on child abuse that I began to punch my way out of the paper bag of being a fallen woman, a shame to the family, a disgrace, dirty, untouchable.  But by then, of course, I had become so (in the eyes of people who believe in such concepts).  Having lost my virginity and any sense of connection with my parents at 10 or 11, it wasn’t difficult at all to look for acceptance and affection elsewhere using this new-found skill.

Of course, we only have one life, so it’s never possible to set up experiments with a control.  I can’t know what my life would have been without that experience.  I suspect I learnt far too early on to “service” in bed rather than share, but isn’t that many women’s experience anyway?  I can’t imagine trusting my parents, but I might have done if this hadn’t happened, and who knows how that might have changed my life?  Not to mention how my life might have been different if I hadn’t been cast in the role of untrustworthy scarlet woman so early on.  On the other hand, becoming independent and taking risks might have been more difficult if I’d had any kind of meaningful relationship left with them.   For example, the fact that moving abroad would mean I would see very little of my parents has never been a problem for me.   And in my wild sleeping around days (which I might have had anyway), I actually met some truly nice people who are still friends today, 30 years later.  And all of my long-term relationships (I’m on my third) grew out of one-night stands (do people still use that expression?).  Re-reading those last two sentences makes me wonder whether it's perhaps because I was introduced to sex so early on that's it's never been a really big deal to me,  and in fact has often been a way for meeting people and making friends.

In the end, it’s not an experience that dominates my life, but I’m aware it’s there, lurking in the background.  Witness this post.  There’s no conclusion, or even any real point to this post, but reading two posts in succession about virginity, well, this is what has been stirred up for me.

Moral of the Story, Always Walk a Lady to Her Car

It was 1999 and I was 26 years old. I had just broken up with my boyfriend of two years. Well, not so much broken up with as I accepted a job offer two thousand miles away. I'm pretty sure he got the picture. I didn't want to marry him and though I liked him, it wasn't enough to stay. I wasn't about to pass up a chance at a good job and an opportunity to move to California on someone else's dime. Still, ending the relationship smarted in it's own way.

I knew I was moving in a few weeks away, I was ready to jump ship, fly the coop, seize the day, whatever. I sat home one Friday night, packing boxes and sorting through my accumulated shit when a barfly of a girlfriend called begging me to go out with her and her friend. I don't drink much and I don't particularly like drunk people so I opted out as usual. But she begged and guilted me with pleas that she wouldn't be able to hang out with me much longer. I think she just wanted more man bait but I relented and met her out. I stubbornly refused to redo my makeup, put on something nice or even brush my hair. I hated their desperate man-trolling. Fuck it, it's not like I want to meet anyone at this point anyhow.

So I met them out, nursed a gin and tonic and promptly moved to seltzer with lime like always while I watched my friends get happy. I verbally volleyed with the stupid meathead bartender, making my friends laugh. I was so antithetical about boys that night, totally disinterested which is usually when they zero in.

I became aware of a guy watching me. Every time I looked in his general direction, he was staring at me and would smile if I actually looked at him. He was cute, dumb cute like a puppy, a mess of sandy blonde hair, blue eyes, a slightly unkempt Ken Doll. Not at all my type. But he was cute and he wouldn't stop looking at me, smiling my way while he ignored his friend's conversation. Someone ignoring everyone else to pay attention to me seriously feeds into my needs as an only child. My friend Lynn, a professional networker, noticed the looky-lous back and forth and finally went over to him and said, would you like me to introduce you to my friend. So I met him and he met me, and I won't even pretend to remember his name because I think I forgot it about 5 minutes later.

We chit chatted and he was sweet. Not bad sweet but like a handful of gummy bears, colorful, tasty but hardly a meal, not really even a snack just a sugary diversion until you get to the real food. He was clearly enamored and as a girl, a cute boy who thinks you're great is sometimes all it takes to spike a momentary crush, a fleeting affection.

So we talked and talked and finally, I told him that I needed to get going. He asked for my number, said that he would like to take me to dinner. I said I wouldn't mind giving it to him but I was moving to California in a few weeks.

"Well, you still have to eat between now and then don't you," he asked.

"Yes," I replied "but I'll probably be busy seeing the circuit of family and friends before I take off, it's not exactly a good time for me to start dating."

"I understand," he said, "can I at least walk you to your car?"

It was late and while Milwaukee's eastside wasn't exactly dangerous, I had parked pretty far.

"Sure," I said, "why not."

So I got my coat and said goodbye to my friends who were just getting started. Mr. Ken Doll held the door and took my arm as I led him in the direction of my car.

"It's cold," he said and he pulled me closer to him. It wasn't cold but whatever.

"This is me," I said, standing by my car. I knew he would kiss me and predictably he did. Unpredictable was the fact that his kiss would curl my toes, reminding me that until very recently, I had been getting it regularly but now I hadn't been kissed or otherwise in weeks. I was lusty, I was lonely, I was in serious rebound mode.

We kissed leaning up against my car for a long time.

"You know, I really shouldn't be driving, I've had way too much to drink," I said. He squinted his eyes and looked at me quizzically. He knew I hadn't been drinking since my first drink.

"Oh, he said," the light bulb finally going off, "yes, you are way too intoxicated to drive yourself, I think it's better if I take you home."

"Yes, that would be the right thing to do, but my cousin is staying at my place an I wouldn't want to wake her so perhaps you should take me to your place?"

"Yes, that is also a very good idea, we will go there now."

So we did, he pushed his key into the lobby of his building and we kissed and groped from the entry to the elevator to his front door. He pushed the door in and led me to an uncomfortbale loveseat(why do they call them that since they are way too small for any proper making out) where we made out for about five minutes before I said, this couch is stupid, where's your bed? It's there he said and pointed in the other room. I got up and as I walked to his bedroom I took my clothes off, leaving the pieces like a trail of bread crumbs to eventually find my way out. He happily followed suit looking at me with eyes as wide as saucers and the giant grin of a man who just won the pretty horny slutty rebound girl lottery.

He was as happy as a Make-A-Wish kid at a Justin Bieber concert. We made out for hours, my face was scrapped raw from kissing. Our legs tangled, we rubbed every part of ourselves over each other. He went downtown and then I went downtown but they were still appetizers rather than entrees. In my head I reasoned that our conversation in the bar had been date one, our kissing by the car date two and so technically, we were at date three, well within my ever-lowering standards for sex.

"Do you have a condom?" I asked.

"No, do you?"

"No." I replied.

"You dont?" he asked, somewhat surprised.

"Well I was just meeting some girlfriends for a drink, I didn't think there'd be sex involved."

"Well neither did I."

"I know, but were at your house, I have condoms at my house, just not on me."

"I have an idea," he said getting up and pulling his jeans back on.

His idea was to run to the 24 Hour Mart, just a block away from his building and go procure some prophylactics. I offered to go with him so he didn't need to buy rubbers, at three am, by himself. We hastily dressed, scored our protection and hightailed it back to his place. But as is the case when young people want to use our bodies like amusement parks, fate stepped in. He had left his keys in his apartment door, so while he could get back into his own front door with no problem, we had to actually gain entrance to the building first. He rang the buzzer of a neighbor/friendish for nearly ten minutes and got no reply so he started buzzing everyone until some cranky but kind old lady came and let us in.

We rode the elevator keen on riding each other, got back to his bed and picked up where we left off. Problem was, at this point my lady business was a virtual Sahara, she was partied out.

"Do you have any lubricant?" I asked.

"What?"

"You know, lube?"

"No, I don't, wait I have an idea, I'll be right back."

I heard him in what I guessed was the kitchen, moving stuff around looking for something. He jaunted back to the bedroom with a giant bottle of Wesson oil and a boyscout's grin.

Were not suppossed to use oil with condoms, I thought, oh, fuck it, who cares.

So he tried to pour a little on me but I will fill you in that a little vegetable oil goes a long way and soon I was covered in it, slick and shiny from stem to stern. Within a few minutes, we were both coated with it. It felt like sex on a slip 'n slide, all glide and smoothness. We slid our bodies over each other until dawn.

"I have to go," I told him as he tried to pull me back into bed, "my grandparents are coming to get my washer and dryer at eight."

I slipped out of his grip and slipped on my clothes over my still oily body and slipped out his door. The block back to my car was riddled with early morning rollerbladers, dog walkers, latte getters as I shamelessly slogged the walk of shame. I was raccoon-eyed, bow legged, glisteny with a thick matte of fuck hair on the back of my head and a dumb grin. I never talked with him again but imagine his sheets probably smelled like KFC every time he tried to wash and dry them. I suppose some future girlfriend made him throw them out, suspicious of the oily sheets that suggested his past.

It was the best and therefore the only one nightstand I ever had. It was so perfectly light and fun that I didn't want to tempt fate again. And I recall it with smug satisfaction, knowing that someday when I am old and peeing myself I will smile. My great-grand kids will think oh, Grandma must be thinking about how much she loves us and actually I will be smiling for Wesson oil guy.