Overdue

It's odd. Last May I couldn't stop writing about my one-night encounter with Ben--I still can't stop writing about it. Karen continues to haunt my dreams and my Microsoft Word documents with moments we will never have. I write all these short essays ruminating on my physical experiences with these people, but when I finally, finally--after months and years of wondering waiting agonizing--lose my virginity and have sex for the first time, I can hardly put together two semi-poetic sentences. What can I say? It was remarkable and unremarkable, anticlimactic and yet everything I had hoped for. Maybe, this one time, I am at a loss for words because there is too much to say--or nowhere near enough.

He was essentially a stranger. A friend of a friend I know next to nothing about. He didn't know anything about me either besides the usual information exchanged in introductions: age, school, and vices. The menage a trois I had engaged in the night before made me bold, and I decided that he was the one I would sleep with. Please know that I didn't choose him and expect flowers or a relationship afterwards. I doubted he would take me to previously unexplored sexual heights either. But before you think that I had slept with him simply because he was there, let me explain. He wore wire-rimmed glasses and tight jeans that showed off his ass, made video game references, and awkwardly danced behind me with his hands on my hips to Cee-Lo's debut album.

In short, he was a nice guy, but not so nice that he felt reluctant to bed a virgin stranger. He was patient and took his time to make me comfortable and ready, but also went along with my kinkier requests that left red trails down my back and my own ass feeling slightly numb the next day. The best part was that he still respected me in the morning and didn't treat me any differently. I had known for a long time that my first wouldn't be with a boyfriend or close friend--that would have brought a level of emotional intimacy I was determined to avoid associating with my first brush with sex. I just didn't imagine that an opportunity as perfect as that one would present itself so neatly. When we parted ways, it didn't bother me that I will probably never see him again.

The sex itself was fine. He filled me with a dull fullness that ached pleasantly and managed to last for an adequate period of time before spending himself into a Trojan. As usual, I did not get my happy ending despite his many attempts to do so, and I finished the job after he had fallen asleep. I suppose now that I've had complete sexual relations with a man, I should know once and for all which way I swing, but I've come no closer to discovering the answer than I was before. As a general rule, the first horizontal tango only gets better from here which means I will have to experiment further to gather more conclusive results. However, I will say this: in the threesome, when I let my hand slip past Shauna's belly and touched her there, it was unbearably soft, and I wish my fingers had lingered there longer.