i wrote this story as part of national novel writing month 2007. i posted it in a personal blog, and got thousands of hits. i can see the search terms that point to this page, and i’ve found that the people who end up reading this story are lost just like i was when i was a teenager – anxiously awkwardly horny but with no clue of what to do about it. i later got kind of uncomfortable with such a personal story being on the internet, but i wanted to keep it up because i still want it to be there for uncomfortable kids like the former me. so i changed the names, and now i’m posting it in a blog that is less attached to my identity.
note: pt. 7 and 8 are lost somewhere, and only show up if you click on them from the dropdown menu on the side, in case of confusion.
[part one]
Thursday, April 2, 2009
how i lost my virginity, pt. 1
[introduction.]
i figured that if i wanted to take up a whole lot of words with one story, i could always tell this one. this is a story that i have wanted to tell for the longest time, but for some reason or another, i hadn't. first, it was because i simply hadn't lost it yet. then, it was because i was keeping it a secret from everyone i knew as revenge for how they treated me. and then after that, it was because i just didn't have a reason to. further down the line, i'm sure i will forget most of the details, so it's probably a good idea for me to get them all down here.
i lost my virginity when i was 18. it wasn't because i "wasn't ready" or because i was "saving myself" or something stupid like that. i actually don't really know why. all i knew was that for the first 18 years of my life, no boy would touch me with a 10 foot pole.
i've often been told (both by friends and by boys) that it was because i was so "intimidating." yeah. ok. if that's what you say. but there's so much more to it then that. after a certain point, probably sometime just after i turned 18, that "do not touch" sign on my forehead disappeared, and i was bombarded with so many offers that i didn't know what to do. and it sucked. but now i'm getting ahead of myself.
i guess i'll start back when i was 16, when erica, my absolute best friend, threw her first "high school party" at her dad's house while he was away. this was around the same time that i was absolutely obsessed with a little blonde english girl named zoe. both her and this guy chris, among many others, came to this party, and we all proceeded to get absolutely shitfaced.
later on in the night, chris wanted me, and i was ok with that, but i wanted zoe much more. she had distracted me the entire night. despite my wishes to spend the night with her, i ended up sharing the bunk room with chris. we drunkenly made out for quite a while, and god he was the worst kisser ever. he was the kind of kisser that covered the entire lower half of your face with his mouth and lapped at it. i remember at one point he had said that i was a bad kisser. yeah. sure.
but anyway, he had managed to get me down to nothing but my underwear, which were a worn out pair of dark purple hanes (this was the moment that i first thought that the whole idea of having cute underwear was a good one). he really wanted me. he kept telling me,"hey, gimme your hand," but i knew much better. i knew exactly what he would try to do with it. he even tried to "show me what it would be like" by pantomiming the gyrations of intercourse, and i nearly had to shove my fist in my mouth to keep from laughing. he was so awkward. i mean, sex in itself is an awkward activity, but if you're involved in it, you just don't care that much. when you're just watching some 17 year old try so hard (yet fail) to turn you on, it's pretty damn funny.
as we started to sober up, being that we were in that room together for hours, i started to really realize that i didn't like this guy at all. yeah, he was kinda cute, kinda, but not really.
i was so grateful as the sun started to come up because it was my way out. i got out of there as quickly as i could, and he had to leave soon thereafter before his parents realized that he was gone.
at school on monday, he tried to do stupid stuff like hold my hand and pretend that we were "going out," but when i said that would have none of it, he just called me a bitch and huffed off. poor baby.
looking back on it, i really wasn't ready to start fucking around then. if it had been with someone i really cared about, i think i could have handled it. for instance, if it were zoe, i know i would have had the time of my life. but...it wasn't. and that was the closest to sex that i would get for another two years.
[part two]
i figured that if i wanted to take up a whole lot of words with one story, i could always tell this one. this is a story that i have wanted to tell for the longest time, but for some reason or another, i hadn't. first, it was because i simply hadn't lost it yet. then, it was because i was keeping it a secret from everyone i knew as revenge for how they treated me. and then after that, it was because i just didn't have a reason to. further down the line, i'm sure i will forget most of the details, so it's probably a good idea for me to get them all down here.
i lost my virginity when i was 18. it wasn't because i "wasn't ready" or because i was "saving myself" or something stupid like that. i actually don't really know why. all i knew was that for the first 18 years of my life, no boy would touch me with a 10 foot pole.
i've often been told (both by friends and by boys) that it was because i was so "intimidating." yeah. ok. if that's what you say. but there's so much more to it then that. after a certain point, probably sometime just after i turned 18, that "do not touch" sign on my forehead disappeared, and i was bombarded with so many offers that i didn't know what to do. and it sucked. but now i'm getting ahead of myself.
i guess i'll start back when i was 16, when erica, my absolute best friend, threw her first "high school party" at her dad's house while he was away. this was around the same time that i was absolutely obsessed with a little blonde english girl named zoe. both her and this guy chris, among many others, came to this party, and we all proceeded to get absolutely shitfaced.
later on in the night, chris wanted me, and i was ok with that, but i wanted zoe much more. she had distracted me the entire night. despite my wishes to spend the night with her, i ended up sharing the bunk room with chris. we drunkenly made out for quite a while, and god he was the worst kisser ever. he was the kind of kisser that covered the entire lower half of your face with his mouth and lapped at it. i remember at one point he had said that i was a bad kisser. yeah. sure.
but anyway, he had managed to get me down to nothing but my underwear, which were a worn out pair of dark purple hanes (this was the moment that i first thought that the whole idea of having cute underwear was a good one). he really wanted me. he kept telling me,"hey, gimme your hand," but i knew much better. i knew exactly what he would try to do with it. he even tried to "show me what it would be like" by pantomiming the gyrations of intercourse, and i nearly had to shove my fist in my mouth to keep from laughing. he was so awkward. i mean, sex in itself is an awkward activity, but if you're involved in it, you just don't care that much. when you're just watching some 17 year old try so hard (yet fail) to turn you on, it's pretty damn funny.
as we started to sober up, being that we were in that room together for hours, i started to really realize that i didn't like this guy at all. yeah, he was kinda cute, kinda, but not really.
i was so grateful as the sun started to come up because it was my way out. i got out of there as quickly as i could, and he had to leave soon thereafter before his parents realized that he was gone.
at school on monday, he tried to do stupid stuff like hold my hand and pretend that we were "going out," but when i said that would have none of it, he just called me a bitch and huffed off. poor baby.
looking back on it, i really wasn't ready to start fucking around then. if it had been with someone i really cared about, i think i could have handled it. for instance, if it were zoe, i know i would have had the time of my life. but...it wasn't. and that was the closest to sex that i would get for another two years.
[part two]
how i lost my virginity, pt. 2
[part one]
i started to really feel the pressure during senior year, when it had finally occurred to me that when my classmates were talking about "hooking up with so-and-so," they weren't joking. the majority of people i knew who were my age were sexually active. i first recognized this during one of the many wild conversations that ensued in my second period art class with mallory and erica. it was in the spring, when mallory had told us that this boy elliot, one of the hot shot sk8terbois on campus, had come over to her house. he had given her a ride home from work or something, and he came upstairs, and they ended up fucking. and that was that. i was shocked, because i had never heard sex talked about so casually by someone i actually knew. i thought it would be more ceremonial than that. that was also the first time i really felt jealous of a friend for getting sexual contact.
the last straw was when erica lost her virginity. i never thought that i would end up being last out of our entire group. erica and i were the last two, and she beat me to it. i didn't understand. she was hardly comfortable in her own skin, so how could she possibly get laid before me? all throughout high school, she had strived to get the most impossible guys: brett, the hottest freshman on the water polo team; elliot, the aforementioned sk8terboi that all the sk8tergrrls swooned over; aaron, a 24-year-old trumpet player for the orange county ska band suburban legends (she later moved on to derek, the drummer). after all of that, she was the first one to get herself a boyfriend and get herself laid. she didn't like him much, and she later admitted that she used him just to lose her virginity. she broke up with him two weeks later.
when she told me about it, i just wanted to kill her out of jealousy, but i put on a nice face, and smiled and nodded to disguise my anger. after that, i knew that i was on a mission.
[part three]
i started to really feel the pressure during senior year, when it had finally occurred to me that when my classmates were talking about "hooking up with so-and-so," they weren't joking. the majority of people i knew who were my age were sexually active. i first recognized this during one of the many wild conversations that ensued in my second period art class with mallory and erica. it was in the spring, when mallory had told us that this boy elliot, one of the hot shot sk8terbois on campus, had come over to her house. he had given her a ride home from work or something, and he came upstairs, and they ended up fucking. and that was that. i was shocked, because i had never heard sex talked about so casually by someone i actually knew. i thought it would be more ceremonial than that. that was also the first time i really felt jealous of a friend for getting sexual contact.
the last straw was when erica lost her virginity. i never thought that i would end up being last out of our entire group. erica and i were the last two, and she beat me to it. i didn't understand. she was hardly comfortable in her own skin, so how could she possibly get laid before me? all throughout high school, she had strived to get the most impossible guys: brett, the hottest freshman on the water polo team; elliot, the aforementioned sk8terboi that all the sk8tergrrls swooned over; aaron, a 24-year-old trumpet player for the orange county ska band suburban legends (she later moved on to derek, the drummer). after all of that, she was the first one to get herself a boyfriend and get herself laid. she didn't like him much, and she later admitted that she used him just to lose her virginity. she broke up with him two weeks later.
when she told me about it, i just wanted to kill her out of jealousy, but i put on a nice face, and smiled and nodded to disguise my anger. after that, i knew that i was on a mission.
[part three]
how i lost my virginity, pt. 3
[part two]
the summer after i had finished high school was strange, because all of a sudden everyone wanted me. i went from absolutely zero to four: rob, aaron, gregg, and chelsea. this all happened in the two months before i was set to move to southern california with erica. she was going to go to cal state fullerton, and i was going to take a year off. this felt like a limitation. it felt like there was constantly a timer ticking away at the summer. i felt like i couldn't start anything that i wouldn't be able to end in two months. this made things difficult.
rob and chelsea happened at the exact same time. i met them the exact same weekend at the end of june 2005. one thursday, the farmer's market had gotten rained out, and so me and erica went to the crib, one of the few 18+ clubs in the city, for the first time because it was party monster night (it was lame, we were the only people who dressed up). before embarking on our adventure, we had dinner at san rafael joe's with robin and her cute friend chelsea. she was a bit dykey for my taste, but she was still adorable.
so we all danced the night away, and by the end, chelsea and i were grinding and making out and it was awesome. and hott. very hott.
and then, three days later, we met rob. me and erica were at a physchobilly show at the phoenix theater, and we met this awesome dude named rob. we ended up hanging out the entire night together, and going to denny's in corte madera at like 2 in the morning. we invited robin along too. the night was entertaining over all.
now, this is when things got complicated. this is when i really started to notice that i was being treated very differently by all of my friends, simply because i was a virgin. for some reason, being a virgin means that you know absolutely NOTHING about sex, or your own body, or masturbation, or anything of the sort. in fact, you get offended if such things are mentioned. now of course, all of this is absolute bullshit. but i was still treated like an 11-year-old nonetheless.
i got the higher-than-thou attitude from everyone, including erica, even though she had only been sexually active for a grand total of a couple of weeks. all of a sudden, she was a sex expert. i remember one time, we were having a conversation about having sex outdoors, specifically sex in the parking lot of muir beach at 2 in the morning. now, i get cold easily. i knew i would not enjoy it. i could imagine that i would get that same briny feeling on my skin and in my lungs that i got whenever i ran the mile in P.E. in the rain. i could imagine it being very unenjoyable. but of course, since erica had had sex once, she knows my body better than i do. "trust me," she said with a smug air, "you'll be fine." she said it with that "mother knows best" tone, and i just looked at her in disgust.
i also got the same attitude from my friend robin, who had lost her virginity at the age of 16 to a boy she met on the internet. she had met him on vampirefreaks.com, and he went by the name natas (which is satan backwards). i had been dealing with the "robin knows best" attitude since then.
as time progressed, i started to notice the difference more and more. the subject matter of conversations would often change once i walked into the room. or the topic of sex would altogether be avoided whenever i was present. so i made a decision. even though i had never been self conscious about my virginity, i was going to keep it under wraps. this wasn't even because i was embarrassed about the virginity itself; i just wanted to be treated like a normal educated person, just like my friends were. after all, it is kind of hard to get laid when everyone you know treats you like a child.
so for a while it worked. and i did notice a difference in the way that i was treated by the people who didn't know versus the people who did. and it was great for that while.
while all of this was happening, i was still trying to get closer to chelsea, because i took quite a liking to her. however, as rob's profound love for me grew, it became increasingly difficult and awkward to hang out with everyone at once. i really wanted to hang out with chelsea, but i felt like i couldn't let anyone know about it. first off, rob would be heartbroken. second, this was still during the time that robin's mouth was bigger than lake ontario. if you told her something about your sex life that may have been amusing or interesting, but still didn't want the whole world knowing about it, it would be the butt of her next joke regardless. and she'd repeat it. over and over again.
in the midst of all of this, the second chance i had to lose my virginity came and went. it was with chelsea, one of the times that we hung out together in her huge house on the outskirts of san rafael. we watched "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" (which is still one of my favorite movies to date), and messed around in her room for a while. we would have gone "all the way," but her mom had just called her to tell her that she'd be home in less than 20 minutes. it was quite enjoyable while it lasted. it was the first time i had gone that far with another female, and i still held my verdict that girls are much better kissers. that was an enjoyable day. it was the first time that i'd been too overcome with desire to properly focus on the event at hand. for instance, we stole kisses when her mom wasn't looking while playing pool. it was the worst game of pool i'd ever played, but i didn't care much. unfortunately, this would be the last chance i really got to see her. after that, everything just got too confusing.
i'd never had to deal with this before. i'd never had to juggle friends who are in love with me with friends i want to spend the entire day with alone. and so i just did nothing. i let it guide me because i didn't know what else to do. and i hated that i had to just let her hanging because i just didn't know what else to do. i couldn't even put it into words to tell anyone.
[part four]
the summer after i had finished high school was strange, because all of a sudden everyone wanted me. i went from absolutely zero to four: rob, aaron, gregg, and chelsea. this all happened in the two months before i was set to move to southern california with erica. she was going to go to cal state fullerton, and i was going to take a year off. this felt like a limitation. it felt like there was constantly a timer ticking away at the summer. i felt like i couldn't start anything that i wouldn't be able to end in two months. this made things difficult.
rob and chelsea happened at the exact same time. i met them the exact same weekend at the end of june 2005. one thursday, the farmer's market had gotten rained out, and so me and erica went to the crib, one of the few 18+ clubs in the city, for the first time because it was party monster night (it was lame, we were the only people who dressed up). before embarking on our adventure, we had dinner at san rafael joe's with robin and her cute friend chelsea. she was a bit dykey for my taste, but she was still adorable.
so we all danced the night away, and by the end, chelsea and i were grinding and making out and it was awesome. and hott. very hott.
and then, three days later, we met rob. me and erica were at a physchobilly show at the phoenix theater, and we met this awesome dude named rob. we ended up hanging out the entire night together, and going to denny's in corte madera at like 2 in the morning. we invited robin along too. the night was entertaining over all.
now, this is when things got complicated. this is when i really started to notice that i was being treated very differently by all of my friends, simply because i was a virgin. for some reason, being a virgin means that you know absolutely NOTHING about sex, or your own body, or masturbation, or anything of the sort. in fact, you get offended if such things are mentioned. now of course, all of this is absolute bullshit. but i was still treated like an 11-year-old nonetheless.
i got the higher-than-thou attitude from everyone, including erica, even though she had only been sexually active for a grand total of a couple of weeks. all of a sudden, she was a sex expert. i remember one time, we were having a conversation about having sex outdoors, specifically sex in the parking lot of muir beach at 2 in the morning. now, i get cold easily. i knew i would not enjoy it. i could imagine that i would get that same briny feeling on my skin and in my lungs that i got whenever i ran the mile in P.E. in the rain. i could imagine it being very unenjoyable. but of course, since erica had had sex once, she knows my body better than i do. "trust me," she said with a smug air, "you'll be fine." she said it with that "mother knows best" tone, and i just looked at her in disgust.
i also got the same attitude from my friend robin, who had lost her virginity at the age of 16 to a boy she met on the internet. she had met him on vampirefreaks.com, and he went by the name natas (which is satan backwards). i had been dealing with the "robin knows best" attitude since then.
as time progressed, i started to notice the difference more and more. the subject matter of conversations would often change once i walked into the room. or the topic of sex would altogether be avoided whenever i was present. so i made a decision. even though i had never been self conscious about my virginity, i was going to keep it under wraps. this wasn't even because i was embarrassed about the virginity itself; i just wanted to be treated like a normal educated person, just like my friends were. after all, it is kind of hard to get laid when everyone you know treats you like a child.
so for a while it worked. and i did notice a difference in the way that i was treated by the people who didn't know versus the people who did. and it was great for that while.
while all of this was happening, i was still trying to get closer to chelsea, because i took quite a liking to her. however, as rob's profound love for me grew, it became increasingly difficult and awkward to hang out with everyone at once. i really wanted to hang out with chelsea, but i felt like i couldn't let anyone know about it. first off, rob would be heartbroken. second, this was still during the time that robin's mouth was bigger than lake ontario. if you told her something about your sex life that may have been amusing or interesting, but still didn't want the whole world knowing about it, it would be the butt of her next joke regardless. and she'd repeat it. over and over again.
in the midst of all of this, the second chance i had to lose my virginity came and went. it was with chelsea, one of the times that we hung out together in her huge house on the outskirts of san rafael. we watched "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" (which is still one of my favorite movies to date), and messed around in her room for a while. we would have gone "all the way," but her mom had just called her to tell her that she'd be home in less than 20 minutes. it was quite enjoyable while it lasted. it was the first time i had gone that far with another female, and i still held my verdict that girls are much better kissers. that was an enjoyable day. it was the first time that i'd been too overcome with desire to properly focus on the event at hand. for instance, we stole kisses when her mom wasn't looking while playing pool. it was the worst game of pool i'd ever played, but i didn't care much. unfortunately, this would be the last chance i really got to see her. after that, everything just got too confusing.
i'd never had to deal with this before. i'd never had to juggle friends who are in love with me with friends i want to spend the entire day with alone. and so i just did nothing. i let it guide me because i didn't know what else to do. and i hated that i had to just let her hanging because i just didn't know what else to do. i couldn't even put it into words to tell anyone.
[part four]
how i lost my virginity, pt. 4
[part three]
that 4th of july was the worst night of my entire life. we had all gone to rob's for a barbecue. remember the whole thing about how i wanted to keep my virginity under wraps? well, it was working like a charm until that night. robin had well warmed up her abilities to humiliate her friends by announcing to the entire room tha me, her, and erica had all bought matching pink vibrators on erica's birthday. she said this to people that we had barely known for 2 weeks, some of which we were trying to woo. she hadn't thought twice of the statement she just made, nor of the dirty looks that me and erica shot her after she said it. she wasn't very good at taking hints.
so later on that night, the party guests had decided that it would be a good "get to know you" idea to play the game "i never." now, besides the fact that i always lost (won?) because i was terribly inexperienced compared to my comrades, i always thought that this was a stupid game, so i decided that this would be a good time to get a refreshing beverage from the kitchen. as i got myself a corona out of the fridge and began to cut myself a lime wedge, i listened in on the conversation in the living room. as i had expected, the subject matter had turned to sexual experiences, and at that time, i was content just to listen from a safe distance in the kitchen. not because i was embarrassed, per se; i just knew that any loaded questions that might be aimed in my direction would only end up in a bigger mess because i'd then have to lie to get out of it smoothly. and keeping your lies straight is never easy. and besides, i didn't want them to feel obligated to filter their conversation because the virgin was in the room.
after i'd been gone for a few minutes, rob noticed my absence and asked where i'd gone.
and before i could pipe in with my reply, robin beat me to it.
"oh, she's just uncomfortable because we're talking about sex."
and at that point, the room went silent. i was in such shock that i didn't know what to say. did she just say that? did she really? i was in such disbelief. i didn't know whether to march in there and slap her, or try to laugh it off. so i just stood there in the kitchen, speechless.
i don't remember the reaction of the other people in the room. i was too consumed by my sudden desire to kill robin to pay attention.
every time i think of this moment, i get mad at her all over again, just like i am right now as i'm writing this. i knew that from then on, i would never trust her with a secret ever again.
and to this day, i still haven't.
i spent the rest of the night trying to figure out what to say to her. i was so angry i could scream. all of the words wanted to come out at the same time, and it was the most difficult thing ever to try to organize them into coherent sentences.
eventually, i ended up bringing her upstairs and telling her off in that scolding whisper that parents use with ill-behaved children in public places. i felt like slapping her, but i didn't. looking back on it, i should have.
that, to this day, was the single most embarrassing moment of my entire life. thanks, robin. you're really a true friend.
[part five]
that 4th of july was the worst night of my entire life. we had all gone to rob's for a barbecue. remember the whole thing about how i wanted to keep my virginity under wraps? well, it was working like a charm until that night. robin had well warmed up her abilities to humiliate her friends by announcing to the entire room tha me, her, and erica had all bought matching pink vibrators on erica's birthday. she said this to people that we had barely known for 2 weeks, some of which we were trying to woo. she hadn't thought twice of the statement she just made, nor of the dirty looks that me and erica shot her after she said it. she wasn't very good at taking hints.
so later on that night, the party guests had decided that it would be a good "get to know you" idea to play the game "i never." now, besides the fact that i always lost (won?) because i was terribly inexperienced compared to my comrades, i always thought that this was a stupid game, so i decided that this would be a good time to get a refreshing beverage from the kitchen. as i got myself a corona out of the fridge and began to cut myself a lime wedge, i listened in on the conversation in the living room. as i had expected, the subject matter had turned to sexual experiences, and at that time, i was content just to listen from a safe distance in the kitchen. not because i was embarrassed, per se; i just knew that any loaded questions that might be aimed in my direction would only end up in a bigger mess because i'd then have to lie to get out of it smoothly. and keeping your lies straight is never easy. and besides, i didn't want them to feel obligated to filter their conversation because the virgin was in the room.
after i'd been gone for a few minutes, rob noticed my absence and asked where i'd gone.
and before i could pipe in with my reply, robin beat me to it.
"oh, she's just uncomfortable because we're talking about sex."
and at that point, the room went silent. i was in such shock that i didn't know what to say. did she just say that? did she really? i was in such disbelief. i didn't know whether to march in there and slap her, or try to laugh it off. so i just stood there in the kitchen, speechless.
i don't remember the reaction of the other people in the room. i was too consumed by my sudden desire to kill robin to pay attention.
every time i think of this moment, i get mad at her all over again, just like i am right now as i'm writing this. i knew that from then on, i would never trust her with a secret ever again.
and to this day, i still haven't.
i spent the rest of the night trying to figure out what to say to her. i was so angry i could scream. all of the words wanted to come out at the same time, and it was the most difficult thing ever to try to organize them into coherent sentences.
eventually, i ended up bringing her upstairs and telling her off in that scolding whisper that parents use with ill-behaved children in public places. i felt like slapping her, but i didn't. looking back on it, i should have.
that, to this day, was the single most embarrassing moment of my entire life. thanks, robin. you're really a true friend.
[part five]
how i lost my virginity, pt. 5
[part four]
after that, things between rob and i got way too complicated.
shortly after we met rob, erica went out of town for a couple of days for college orientation, so when the weekend rolled around and we tried to orchestrate a party, it turned out to just be me and rob. everyone else had something else to do. we ended up going to central san rafael and just hanging out on fourth street. once he bought me a piece of carrot cake at aroma, it started to turn into more of a date then just us hanging out. when we'd sit down, he'd put an arm around me. it was odd. my friend angela (whom i had a huge crush on at the time) came up to us and asked how we were doing, etc. as she walked away she said, "have fun on your date!" so i guess that officially labeled it.
when we got back to my house, he kissed me goodnight. i didn't know if i liked it or not. i was just a kiss. then he left.
at this point, i was so confused about my sexuality. i couldn't figure out if i didn't like him because i was gay, or just because i didn't like him. i really wanted to want him. i wanted to feel normal, and lose my virginity to someone who loves me and be in a nice heterosexual relationship and be normal just like everybody else. i wanted to want this. but i didn't want this. i kept trying to tell myself that this is what i wanted, but it just wouldn't work.
it seemed as if he got more and more infatuated with me every day, but i just didn't feel that way about him. i thought he was cute, and i would have done him, but i didn't want to break his heart by doing that to him. i really didn't want him to know about my virginity, because i thought that would make everything worse. everyone thinks that all girls want their first time to be sentimental and beautiful and romantic and all that bullshit, but that's exactly what i didn't want. i just wanted it. purely for the sex. i did NOT want a relationship with anyone. i didn't want to be lovey-dovey or cuddly with anybody. well, aside from chelsea, but that didn't work out that well. i didn't want rob to know that i was a virgin because i thought that if he knew, he would assume that i liked him so little that i would rather lose my virginity to a near stranger than him. the truth is that i did like him. i just didn't like him enough. he and i had entirely different ideas of what relationships we wanted. i knew that if we tried to mesh them, it would only end in heartbreak. the relationship that i wanted was totally casual, and i knew that he wouldn't be able to give that to me.
i didn't know how to tell him this, so the next few months were filled with awkwardness.
[part six]
after that, things between rob and i got way too complicated.
shortly after we met rob, erica went out of town for a couple of days for college orientation, so when the weekend rolled around and we tried to orchestrate a party, it turned out to just be me and rob. everyone else had something else to do. we ended up going to central san rafael and just hanging out on fourth street. once he bought me a piece of carrot cake at aroma, it started to turn into more of a date then just us hanging out. when we'd sit down, he'd put an arm around me. it was odd. my friend angela (whom i had a huge crush on at the time) came up to us and asked how we were doing, etc. as she walked away she said, "have fun on your date!" so i guess that officially labeled it.
when we got back to my house, he kissed me goodnight. i didn't know if i liked it or not. i was just a kiss. then he left.
at this point, i was so confused about my sexuality. i couldn't figure out if i didn't like him because i was gay, or just because i didn't like him. i really wanted to want him. i wanted to feel normal, and lose my virginity to someone who loves me and be in a nice heterosexual relationship and be normal just like everybody else. i wanted to want this. but i didn't want this. i kept trying to tell myself that this is what i wanted, but it just wouldn't work.
it seemed as if he got more and more infatuated with me every day, but i just didn't feel that way about him. i thought he was cute, and i would have done him, but i didn't want to break his heart by doing that to him. i really didn't want him to know about my virginity, because i thought that would make everything worse. everyone thinks that all girls want their first time to be sentimental and beautiful and romantic and all that bullshit, but that's exactly what i didn't want. i just wanted it. purely for the sex. i did NOT want a relationship with anyone. i didn't want to be lovey-dovey or cuddly with anybody. well, aside from chelsea, but that didn't work out that well. i didn't want rob to know that i was a virgin because i thought that if he knew, he would assume that i liked him so little that i would rather lose my virginity to a near stranger than him. the truth is that i did like him. i just didn't like him enough. he and i had entirely different ideas of what relationships we wanted. i knew that if we tried to mesh them, it would only end in heartbreak. the relationship that i wanted was totally casual, and i knew that he wouldn't be able to give that to me.
i didn't know how to tell him this, so the next few months were filled with awkwardness.
[part six]
how i lost my virginity, pt. 6
[part five]
over that summer, erica threw many parties at her dad's house while he was away on business. since they had a pool, we often ended up skinny dipping and having orgies in the shower. i usually refrained from the shower orgy portion of the party, except for this one time.
this, in my opinion, was the best party that we've ever had at erica's. everyone showed up, and everyone was completely wasted in the pool. when the party moved to the shower, i actually joined. the only reason i did this was because at the last party two weeks beforehand, i deeply regretted not joining in. it was a sad-drunk night. i sat in the dining room alone for the entire night blaming myself for being so virginal that no one touched me, and hating the fact that i got treated so differently because of this one stupid fact. so i figured that a way to maybe make my friends see me differently was to join in for once.
there were probably seven of us in that shower. rob had paired himself up with me in the corner, and i just felt so awkward. it was funny for a bit when ross gave him a hickey, and rob had no idea that it was a guy. once those giggles had subsided, my concentration shifted to rob's ever-growing boner nudging my crotch. i kept trying to move so it would be in a less uncomfortable place without being too obvious, but it wasn't working out so well. i really didn't want this. i wanted out. the laugh was over. i used washing my hair as a ruse to get away from him and prevent this from going any farther. then i got out. i just felt so dirty. and i felt bad for disappointing him. and i felt bad for chickening out.
then i proceeded to get so drunk i can't really remember the rest of that night.
after this party, the weird chemistry between rob and i started taking a toll. on one occasion, he and erica locked themselves in the computer room while they broke down into tears with each other. erica was singing the blues because she felt like no one wanted her, and rob was just so sad because he liked me so much, but the feelings weren't reciprocated. another time, after i had thrown a party in my garage and we all got absolutely shitfaced, rob followed me upstairs after everyone had left. he drunkenly tried to play therapist, and get me to tell him what was wrong. i hated that question. "what's wrong?" and i hated that he was the one to ask it incessantly, most of all, because i didn't know. and i didn't know how to tell him that i didn't know. whenever i just said, "i don't know," he wouldn't believe me and continue to pry. i just wanted him to leave me alone. i just needed time to figure myself out, but no one would give me that.
as the summer continued, rob got to be a really good friend of mine. we did a lot. he took me to my first warped tour, he played a show with my band, we went to waterworld, we stole a wheelchair...we did everything together. i thought of him as one of my best friends, but i just didn't like him the way that he liked me.
[part seven]
over that summer, erica threw many parties at her dad's house while he was away on business. since they had a pool, we often ended up skinny dipping and having orgies in the shower. i usually refrained from the shower orgy portion of the party, except for this one time.
this, in my opinion, was the best party that we've ever had at erica's. everyone showed up, and everyone was completely wasted in the pool. when the party moved to the shower, i actually joined. the only reason i did this was because at the last party two weeks beforehand, i deeply regretted not joining in. it was a sad-drunk night. i sat in the dining room alone for the entire night blaming myself for being so virginal that no one touched me, and hating the fact that i got treated so differently because of this one stupid fact. so i figured that a way to maybe make my friends see me differently was to join in for once.
there were probably seven of us in that shower. rob had paired himself up with me in the corner, and i just felt so awkward. it was funny for a bit when ross gave him a hickey, and rob had no idea that it was a guy. once those giggles had subsided, my concentration shifted to rob's ever-growing boner nudging my crotch. i kept trying to move so it would be in a less uncomfortable place without being too obvious, but it wasn't working out so well. i really didn't want this. i wanted out. the laugh was over. i used washing my hair as a ruse to get away from him and prevent this from going any farther. then i got out. i just felt so dirty. and i felt bad for disappointing him. and i felt bad for chickening out.
then i proceeded to get so drunk i can't really remember the rest of that night.
after this party, the weird chemistry between rob and i started taking a toll. on one occasion, he and erica locked themselves in the computer room while they broke down into tears with each other. erica was singing the blues because she felt like no one wanted her, and rob was just so sad because he liked me so much, but the feelings weren't reciprocated. another time, after i had thrown a party in my garage and we all got absolutely shitfaced, rob followed me upstairs after everyone had left. he drunkenly tried to play therapist, and get me to tell him what was wrong. i hated that question. "what's wrong?" and i hated that he was the one to ask it incessantly, most of all, because i didn't know. and i didn't know how to tell him that i didn't know. whenever i just said, "i don't know," he wouldn't believe me and continue to pry. i just wanted him to leave me alone. i just needed time to figure myself out, but no one would give me that.
as the summer continued, rob got to be a really good friend of mine. we did a lot. he took me to my first warped tour, he played a show with my band, we went to waterworld, we stole a wheelchair...we did everything together. i thought of him as one of my best friends, but i just didn't like him the way that he liked me.
[part seven]
how i lost my virginity, pt. 7
[part six]
in the midst of all of this, i was still trying to come up with a plan to ditch my virginity. when it had been revealed to me that our friend gregg, a boy we met at 924 gilman, was lusting after me, my new plan began to form. apparently he thought i was hot, and always had. i kind of had a thing for him because of his resemblance to gerard way from my chemical romance. he had the same messy black hair, and similar face structure. we started to converse over myspace about it, and we determined that at the next party that erica threw, we would get down to business.
for some reason, erica thought that it would be a good idea to tell the big mouth about this plan, so the next time i saw robin, she gave me an earful on how i shouldn't do it. she wouldn't say why, she just said that it was a bad idea. this is coming from the girl who lost her virginity to an e-pal named satan backwards. she's the quintessential hypocrite. i'm pretty sure that her true motive was that she had a little crush on gregg, and didn't want to lose him to the virgin. i thought that was just so selfish and hypocritical of her.
unfortunately, gregg wasn't able to come to any more of erica's parties that summer. too bad, he could have saved me some anguish.
the fourth of my admirers, aaron, didn't actively pursue me. in fact, i didn't even learn that he fancied me until after we had moved to southern california. over this summer, erica had practically fallen in love with him, and he was very well aware of that. he probably kept his mouth shut about it because a) he already had plenty to deal with and b) he didn't want to hurt her. it's a god thing i didn't know either, because i really didn't need any more complications.
[part eight]
in the midst of all of this, i was still trying to come up with a plan to ditch my virginity. when it had been revealed to me that our friend gregg, a boy we met at 924 gilman, was lusting after me, my new plan began to form. apparently he thought i was hot, and always had. i kind of had a thing for him because of his resemblance to gerard way from my chemical romance. he had the same messy black hair, and similar face structure. we started to converse over myspace about it, and we determined that at the next party that erica threw, we would get down to business.
for some reason, erica thought that it would be a good idea to tell the big mouth about this plan, so the next time i saw robin, she gave me an earful on how i shouldn't do it. she wouldn't say why, she just said that it was a bad idea. this is coming from the girl who lost her virginity to an e-pal named satan backwards. she's the quintessential hypocrite. i'm pretty sure that her true motive was that she had a little crush on gregg, and didn't want to lose him to the virgin. i thought that was just so selfish and hypocritical of her.
unfortunately, gregg wasn't able to come to any more of erica's parties that summer. too bad, he could have saved me some anguish.
the fourth of my admirers, aaron, didn't actively pursue me. in fact, i didn't even learn that he fancied me until after we had moved to southern california. over this summer, erica had practically fallen in love with him, and he was very well aware of that. he probably kept his mouth shut about it because a) he already had plenty to deal with and b) he didn't want to hurt her. it's a god thing i didn't know either, because i really didn't need any more complications.
[part eight]
how i lost my virginity, pt. 8
[part seven]
the clock continued to tick, and i was set to move to fullerton on august 6. a couple days before that, we all went to berkeley to get me a tattoo. rob drove us in his punk rock mini-van, and he and robin watched as i made all kinds of contorted faces. robin had designed my tattoo; it was a black cat with green eyes arching its back. she had drawn it on me several months ago and i we took a picture of it. i took the picture in to the tattoo place, and had it put on me forever. everyone chipped in. i love that tattoo. it's probably my favorite one. it's like a piece of all my friends on me forever.
after that adventure, we had one last hurrah at rob's house. he took me upstairs to clean up my tattoo, and while we were in the bathroom together, we had the awkward conversation that had been looming over us for weeks. he said that he knew that things won't ever work out between us, and that he wished that he didn't like me so much. he said that if he could turn it off with a switch, everything would be so much easier. i wish that i could turn it on. i didn't know what to say. i couldn't form the words. he thought that i hated him. i wanted to tell him everything about how what he wanted and what i wanted weren't even close to each other, and how awesome i think he is, and how sexually confused i am, and how i'm dealing with the whole virginity thing, and all the bullshit i've had to go through with my friends, but i couldn't figure out how to put it into words. so i didn't say anything. and i broke his heart. and it sucked. whenever i tried to say something consoling, he wouldn't believe me. he thought i was just saying that so he'd feel less shitty.
honestly, he just caught me at the wrong point in time. i'll always have a special place in my heart for him. he gave me one of the best summers of my life. i guess it just wasn't meant to be.
[part nine]
the clock continued to tick, and i was set to move to fullerton on august 6. a couple days before that, we all went to berkeley to get me a tattoo. rob drove us in his punk rock mini-van, and he and robin watched as i made all kinds of contorted faces. robin had designed my tattoo; it was a black cat with green eyes arching its back. she had drawn it on me several months ago and i we took a picture of it. i took the picture in to the tattoo place, and had it put on me forever. everyone chipped in. i love that tattoo. it's probably my favorite one. it's like a piece of all my friends on me forever.
after that adventure, we had one last hurrah at rob's house. he took me upstairs to clean up my tattoo, and while we were in the bathroom together, we had the awkward conversation that had been looming over us for weeks. he said that he knew that things won't ever work out between us, and that he wished that he didn't like me so much. he said that if he could turn it off with a switch, everything would be so much easier. i wish that i could turn it on. i didn't know what to say. i couldn't form the words. he thought that i hated him. i wanted to tell him everything about how what he wanted and what i wanted weren't even close to each other, and how awesome i think he is, and how sexually confused i am, and how i'm dealing with the whole virginity thing, and all the bullshit i've had to go through with my friends, but i couldn't figure out how to put it into words. so i didn't say anything. and i broke his heart. and it sucked. whenever i tried to say something consoling, he wouldn't believe me. he thought i was just saying that so he'd feel less shitty.
honestly, he just caught me at the wrong point in time. i'll always have a special place in my heart for him. he gave me one of the best summers of my life. i guess it just wasn't meant to be.
[part nine]
how i lost my virginity, pt. 9
[part eight]
after we had moved, i felt very relieved. i felt as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. no more lying. no more pretending. no more big mouth ruining everything. i could start anew. i had successfully kept the cat in the bag. or so i thought, until i found out that erica had blabbed to rob that i was, indeed, a virgin. i had her call him and tell him that i wasn't as damage control. i really didn't want him to know. i really didn't want him to feel like he wasn't "special" enough. he was too special, and that's why it didn't happen. i thought that erica was the only person i could trust, and when i found that out, i officially had no one.
this was the beginning of the deterioration of our friendship. spending every second together was starting to be a bit much. even when she left the house for school, i wasn't rid of her. her mess flowed into every room, crept into every corner, the edges of it would lap at the doorway to my bedroom. the coffee table that i had painted myself was covered in garbage. it was The Prodigious Mess. it was such a mess that i gave it a name. for the first few weeks, after she'd leave for school, i'd set about cleaning the entire house. i'd vacuum, do the dishes, scrape off messes that she had cooked onto our cheap ikea pans, and then the second she'd walk in the door, it was as if a tornado hit. instantly, hours of cleaning had been undone. every single day. whenever i'd ask her to do the smallest chore, like throw away a disposable tv dinner dish, or take out the trash, or move her plethora of shoes from the entry way so i didn't have to risk my life to get to my couch, she would either ignore me completely or snap at me. she didn't understand that since i pay to live here too, i get a say in what our apartment looks like. and if i don't want our apartment to look like a 5-year-old's room, then she is obligated to at least compromise. but every time i brought this up, she'd call me selfish and say that i'm not complying wither her wishes.
it also didn't help that we were practically bound at the hip. we shared the exact same social life, and had the exact same group of friends. at least she got to go out to school every day. i just sat around and did nothing. i gave up on cleaning every day after i got an ulcer from stressing over The Prodigious Mess. since she couldn't even take that as a hint, i gave up. so i just sat around. i couldn't even apply for jobs without her, because the one time i handed in an application to Tilly's without her, she pouted for the rest of the day because i left her behind. i felt like i wasn't even allowed out of the house alone.
one night, a band from the area, the valley arena, was playing a show at chain reaction in anaheim. i was originally going to go with erica, because she insisted on me bringing her along, but she came down with a cold hours before we were set to leave. so i went without her. the band played a good set. i'd only seen them at warped tour that summer. i got their demo at some random show at gilman. it was one of those weird industrial shows, and so i didn't think i'd like the band much. but once i gave the demo a listen, i loved it. so here i was at their show.
near the end of the show, this group of interesting people came up to me and asked, "why are you here all alone?" and i replied with some stupid answer, and then conversation began. there were four of them. heidi, who turned out to be 37 but looked like she was 23, lisa, johnny, who was rather cute, and adam, the latter two being in a band together. i hung out with them for the rest of the night. johnny, adam, and i ended up going to denny's, which was right next door. i had seasoned fries. they were good. we exchanged phone numbers, then i went home.
the next morning, erica headed off to school, and once again, i had nothing to do. but then i got a text message from johnny, the cute one. turns out that he and adam's band broke up last night, or this morning, or sometime within the last 15 hours. so he didn't have anything to do today. what was i doing? well, i was doing nothing, so he came over. unfortunately, it took him forever to get there because of traffic, so by the time he got to our house, erica had come home. so she came along.
we decided to just drive around downtown fullerton in his cute car. he had a black volkswagen golf, and i thought it was adorable (so i ended up getting one once my old car died, but that's later). we went to this vegan shabu shabu restaurant. we'd never been to one before. it was really good. while johnny was in the bathroom, erica leaned over to me and said, "wow kelsey, you didn't tell me that your friend was so cute!" i didn't say anything. i wanted to say, "why would i? it's not relevant to you since i got dibs," or something like that, but that would only offend her. once he got back, i felt kind of insulted when she started hitting on him constantly. how disrespectful. this is the first time that i have i guy that i'm actually interested in who returns the favor, and she's going to try to ruin this for me. whenever she'd have crushes on anyone, no matter how unattainable they were, we weren't allowed to even look. so how is it okay for her to flirt with my crush right in front of me? i thought that was rather rude.
so once we got home, we decided that since halloween was well on its way (it was in less than a week), we were going to watch the Nightmare Before Christmas. we put it in, and of course i knew all the words. as we all sat on the couch merrily watching the movie, johnny started putting his arm around me and touching my hands and such. around the middle of the film, erica got up to go to the bathroom, and we stole a kiss. we stopped just as she re-entered the room. as the movie ended and the credits started rolling, i really didn't want to get up, because what would i do next? i really wanted to just start furiously making out with johnny, but erica was right there. did she know? is this really as awkward as it seems, or is it just me? what should i do? so we just sat there. when the credits ended, erica announced that she was going to bed. i was relieved, because i didn't have to think of anything clever.
once she left, johnny and i started making out again, and after a few minutes we turned off the dvd player and headed to my bedroom. i don't remember thinking anything like, "omg this is it!" or asking myself, "is this really happening?" as i thought i would have. we just went into my room, closed the door, and continued.
i tackled him and ended up on top of him, and we stared removing each others' clothes. i didn't want to be in charge of things, considering that i'd never done this before, so i tried to hand things over to him, but he wouldn't take the lead. so we stopped.
"what's wrong?" he asked. "nothing," i said. i was going to try to play it cool and leave the whole virginity thing out of the equation, until he blurted out, "i've never done this before..."
i tried so hard not to laugh. this was too perfect. after all that. what a coincidence. after all this bullshit, after all the people i've tried to pursue, the one i finally get into my bed turns out to be a virgin too.
"are you serious?" i said incredulously. at that point, he thought i was laughing at him. i told him that i wasn't, and that i was, indeed, a virgin as well. at first he didn't believe me, but then we laughed about it for a few minutes. we talked about why we were still virgins, me at 18 and him at 20. for me, it just never happened, more or less. for him, he always just ended up chickening out. that was when he tried to get out of it.
"yunno, we don't have to, i mean..." and i cut him off by pinning him down and saying, "oh no, you're not chickening out this time." i'd been waiting for that moment for years, and his cowardice was not going to keep me from my prize.
when we finally got all of our clothes off, it was time to sort out the protection, which i had kept dutifully in my bedside dresser. he messed up a couple of times, but that was okay. i had a million condoms, since i had no use for them until then.
it wasn't embarrassing, or painful, or unpleasurable as all of my friends had described it. it didn't hurt at all, in fact, it felt good. it felt like i thought it should have.
we had three rounds, all of them lasting about 15 seconds. but it was okay. next time would be better.
afterwards, we did the whole "cuddling" thing that you're supposed to do while recovering from the throes of passion. since it was getting pretty late, i walked him to the door and he left with a goodnight kiss.
after he was gone, i was left to my thoughts. my friends' first experiences were often awkward, or regretted later, or painful, or just plain bad. i lucked out. my first time turned out to be better than any of theirs. all of the stupid conflict from the last several months was now resolved. not only was i now even with my friends, but i had also one-upped them. that was a secret i kept from them for years, as my own sort of quiet revenge.
it wasn't until a couple of days later, after halloween had come and gone, that i had realized that all of this was preordained. i got my first condom when i was 12 years old, as part of a goody bag from the KROQ weenie roast. i didn't tell my mom about it because i wanted to keep it (even at such a young age, i was always a bit of a perv). the expiration date printed on the back said "10/2005." i had promised myself that i would lose my virginity before the expiration of this condom. even though i had thrown it away a couple years back (because even if it wasn't set to expire for a while, i still wouldn't trust a condom that was several years old), i had managed to keep that promise to myself. i had achieved my goal in the nick of time, the 27th of october, 2005.
[part ten]
after we had moved, i felt very relieved. i felt as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. no more lying. no more pretending. no more big mouth ruining everything. i could start anew. i had successfully kept the cat in the bag. or so i thought, until i found out that erica had blabbed to rob that i was, indeed, a virgin. i had her call him and tell him that i wasn't as damage control. i really didn't want him to know. i really didn't want him to feel like he wasn't "special" enough. he was too special, and that's why it didn't happen. i thought that erica was the only person i could trust, and when i found that out, i officially had no one.
this was the beginning of the deterioration of our friendship. spending every second together was starting to be a bit much. even when she left the house for school, i wasn't rid of her. her mess flowed into every room, crept into every corner, the edges of it would lap at the doorway to my bedroom. the coffee table that i had painted myself was covered in garbage. it was The Prodigious Mess. it was such a mess that i gave it a name. for the first few weeks, after she'd leave for school, i'd set about cleaning the entire house. i'd vacuum, do the dishes, scrape off messes that she had cooked onto our cheap ikea pans, and then the second she'd walk in the door, it was as if a tornado hit. instantly, hours of cleaning had been undone. every single day. whenever i'd ask her to do the smallest chore, like throw away a disposable tv dinner dish, or take out the trash, or move her plethora of shoes from the entry way so i didn't have to risk my life to get to my couch, she would either ignore me completely or snap at me. she didn't understand that since i pay to live here too, i get a say in what our apartment looks like. and if i don't want our apartment to look like a 5-year-old's room, then she is obligated to at least compromise. but every time i brought this up, she'd call me selfish and say that i'm not complying wither her wishes.
it also didn't help that we were practically bound at the hip. we shared the exact same social life, and had the exact same group of friends. at least she got to go out to school every day. i just sat around and did nothing. i gave up on cleaning every day after i got an ulcer from stressing over The Prodigious Mess. since she couldn't even take that as a hint, i gave up. so i just sat around. i couldn't even apply for jobs without her, because the one time i handed in an application to Tilly's without her, she pouted for the rest of the day because i left her behind. i felt like i wasn't even allowed out of the house alone.
one night, a band from the area, the valley arena, was playing a show at chain reaction in anaheim. i was originally going to go with erica, because she insisted on me bringing her along, but she came down with a cold hours before we were set to leave. so i went without her. the band played a good set. i'd only seen them at warped tour that summer. i got their demo at some random show at gilman. it was one of those weird industrial shows, and so i didn't think i'd like the band much. but once i gave the demo a listen, i loved it. so here i was at their show.
near the end of the show, this group of interesting people came up to me and asked, "why are you here all alone?" and i replied with some stupid answer, and then conversation began. there were four of them. heidi, who turned out to be 37 but looked like she was 23, lisa, johnny, who was rather cute, and adam, the latter two being in a band together. i hung out with them for the rest of the night. johnny, adam, and i ended up going to denny's, which was right next door. i had seasoned fries. they were good. we exchanged phone numbers, then i went home.
the next morning, erica headed off to school, and once again, i had nothing to do. but then i got a text message from johnny, the cute one. turns out that he and adam's band broke up last night, or this morning, or sometime within the last 15 hours. so he didn't have anything to do today. what was i doing? well, i was doing nothing, so he came over. unfortunately, it took him forever to get there because of traffic, so by the time he got to our house, erica had come home. so she came along.
we decided to just drive around downtown fullerton in his cute car. he had a black volkswagen golf, and i thought it was adorable (so i ended up getting one once my old car died, but that's later). we went to this vegan shabu shabu restaurant. we'd never been to one before. it was really good. while johnny was in the bathroom, erica leaned over to me and said, "wow kelsey, you didn't tell me that your friend was so cute!" i didn't say anything. i wanted to say, "why would i? it's not relevant to you since i got dibs," or something like that, but that would only offend her. once he got back, i felt kind of insulted when she started hitting on him constantly. how disrespectful. this is the first time that i have i guy that i'm actually interested in who returns the favor, and she's going to try to ruin this for me. whenever she'd have crushes on anyone, no matter how unattainable they were, we weren't allowed to even look. so how is it okay for her to flirt with my crush right in front of me? i thought that was rather rude.
so once we got home, we decided that since halloween was well on its way (it was in less than a week), we were going to watch the Nightmare Before Christmas. we put it in, and of course i knew all the words. as we all sat on the couch merrily watching the movie, johnny started putting his arm around me and touching my hands and such. around the middle of the film, erica got up to go to the bathroom, and we stole a kiss. we stopped just as she re-entered the room. as the movie ended and the credits started rolling, i really didn't want to get up, because what would i do next? i really wanted to just start furiously making out with johnny, but erica was right there. did she know? is this really as awkward as it seems, or is it just me? what should i do? so we just sat there. when the credits ended, erica announced that she was going to bed. i was relieved, because i didn't have to think of anything clever.
once she left, johnny and i started making out again, and after a few minutes we turned off the dvd player and headed to my bedroom. i don't remember thinking anything like, "omg this is it!" or asking myself, "is this really happening?" as i thought i would have. we just went into my room, closed the door, and continued.
i tackled him and ended up on top of him, and we stared removing each others' clothes. i didn't want to be in charge of things, considering that i'd never done this before, so i tried to hand things over to him, but he wouldn't take the lead. so we stopped.
"what's wrong?" he asked. "nothing," i said. i was going to try to play it cool and leave the whole virginity thing out of the equation, until he blurted out, "i've never done this before..."
i tried so hard not to laugh. this was too perfect. after all that. what a coincidence. after all this bullshit, after all the people i've tried to pursue, the one i finally get into my bed turns out to be a virgin too.
"are you serious?" i said incredulously. at that point, he thought i was laughing at him. i told him that i wasn't, and that i was, indeed, a virgin as well. at first he didn't believe me, but then we laughed about it for a few minutes. we talked about why we were still virgins, me at 18 and him at 20. for me, it just never happened, more or less. for him, he always just ended up chickening out. that was when he tried to get out of it.
"yunno, we don't have to, i mean..." and i cut him off by pinning him down and saying, "oh no, you're not chickening out this time." i'd been waiting for that moment for years, and his cowardice was not going to keep me from my prize.
when we finally got all of our clothes off, it was time to sort out the protection, which i had kept dutifully in my bedside dresser. he messed up a couple of times, but that was okay. i had a million condoms, since i had no use for them until then.
it wasn't embarrassing, or painful, or unpleasurable as all of my friends had described it. it didn't hurt at all, in fact, it felt good. it felt like i thought it should have.
we had three rounds, all of them lasting about 15 seconds. but it was okay. next time would be better.
afterwards, we did the whole "cuddling" thing that you're supposed to do while recovering from the throes of passion. since it was getting pretty late, i walked him to the door and he left with a goodnight kiss.
after he was gone, i was left to my thoughts. my friends' first experiences were often awkward, or regretted later, or painful, or just plain bad. i lucked out. my first time turned out to be better than any of theirs. all of the stupid conflict from the last several months was now resolved. not only was i now even with my friends, but i had also one-upped them. that was a secret i kept from them for years, as my own sort of quiet revenge.
it wasn't until a couple of days later, after halloween had come and gone, that i had realized that all of this was preordained. i got my first condom when i was 12 years old, as part of a goody bag from the KROQ weenie roast. i didn't tell my mom about it because i wanted to keep it (even at such a young age, i was always a bit of a perv). the expiration date printed on the back said "10/2005." i had promised myself that i would lose my virginity before the expiration of this condom. even though i had thrown it away a couple years back (because even if it wasn't set to expire for a while, i still wouldn't trust a condom that was several years old), i had managed to keep that promise to myself. i had achieved my goal in the nick of time, the 27th of october, 2005.
[part ten]
how i lost my virginity, pt. 10
[part nine]
the next day, i awoke after erica had already left for school. as i was sitting around the house doing nothing, as usual, i got another text from johnny asking if i wanted to go apartment hunting with him. he would be starting art school in the winter in pasadena, and he needed a place to live. so i said sure, and he came to pick me up. as we were leaving, we passed erica driving into the parking lot. "where are you going?" she asked. "just to hang out," i said. she nodded, and continued to drive towards our garage.
we drove up to sherman oaks to visit heidi, one of the people from the valley arena show. it turns out that she is married to a guy named teran, more specifically, teran noah smith, the guy who played the youngest kid on home improvement. he had grown up since i had last saw him on television. he was 21 now, and he had gotten even cuter (i used to have a crush on him when i was about 10).
they lived in the coolest house. it wasn't especially big, but every inch of it was decorated with sculptures or murals or some other form of art. they had a stripper pole in the dining room, and teran taught me a few tricks. their dining room furniture was made of compressed cardboard, and they had a mountain of pillows in the corner of their living room. they had a projector that shone its images onto a tryptic that took up the entire wall. their back deck was like the dance floor in saturday night fever, with colored lights underneath each panel of fogged glass. they also had a pool, but i think they were in the process of renovating that. in their kitchen, they had a microwave that used the power of light to cook food. it was like and easy bake oven x100000. instead of normal refrigerators, they had the ones that you'd find in a 7-11 with sliding glass doors. they also had a slurpee machine that could make two flavors at once. in the front yard, they had a giant trampoline with a giant geometric metal cage around it. it was unlike any dwelling i had ever seen before.
heidi made us vegan sandwiches (being that she, teran, and johnny were all vegans). it was surprisingly tasty. normally, my experiences with vegan food had been rather bland, but heidi and teran have their own food company called "play food," and they specialize in making tasty vegan substitutes. after eating, me, johnny, heidi, and her chihuahua victory piled into johnny's car. the first place that we found was in a shady neighborhood, and before we could get out of the car, johnny got robbed of a whopping $3 by some kid with his hand in his shirt pretending that he had a gun. we took that as a bad omen.
the next place that we looked at was located inside a castle. it was huge. as we passed through the rot iron gates of the entrance, the yellow glow from the inside lit up the fountain in the garden out front. when we walked in, we were greeted by the doorman, who was wearing a slightly old fashioned, yet classy uniform. it was the kind with the little tasseled shoulder thingies. he also had a matching hat. looking around, i realized that all of the employees were in uniform. the floor was covered in fancy red rugs, and there was a fire blazing in the adjacent room. we walked towards the elevator, which was the old kind with the gate that has to be closed manually. there was an elevator attendant to do that and press the buttons, who was also in uniform.
the room we wanted was on the sixth floor. it looked like a hotel, and it kind of creeped me out when i remembered the image of the twins from The Shining standing at the end of the hallway.
the apartment itself was rather small. it was owned by this guy named General, who was a locally famous artist. his artwork was laying around everywhere. there were unfinished pieces everywhere, covering every surface. i had to clear off a seat so i could sit down.
the place was really old fashioned; it had a mini fridge from the 50s, and the tiles and bathtub were from the 1920s. and it had a view of the garden below.
general wanted to take us to a speakeasy, so he made a few phone calls. we couldn't go because they had changed the password, as speakeasies do. so we just left.
heidi, johnny, and i had gotten pretty hungry by the end of the day, so we went to a vegan fast food restaurant and ordered it to go. we ate it at heidi and teran's and proceeded to get very stoned. teran was a huge pothead, and had a couple gallon-sized ziplock bags of it. he also had a vaporizer, which he explained the science of to us as if it were the most fascinating thing ever. he hooked the projector up to his computer and moved the giant mural over so that the images could be projected onto the white wall. we watched that for a while, then johnny drove me home.
[part eleven]
the next day, i awoke after erica had already left for school. as i was sitting around the house doing nothing, as usual, i got another text from johnny asking if i wanted to go apartment hunting with him. he would be starting art school in the winter in pasadena, and he needed a place to live. so i said sure, and he came to pick me up. as we were leaving, we passed erica driving into the parking lot. "where are you going?" she asked. "just to hang out," i said. she nodded, and continued to drive towards our garage.
we drove up to sherman oaks to visit heidi, one of the people from the valley arena show. it turns out that she is married to a guy named teran, more specifically, teran noah smith, the guy who played the youngest kid on home improvement. he had grown up since i had last saw him on television. he was 21 now, and he had gotten even cuter (i used to have a crush on him when i was about 10).
they lived in the coolest house. it wasn't especially big, but every inch of it was decorated with sculptures or murals or some other form of art. they had a stripper pole in the dining room, and teran taught me a few tricks. their dining room furniture was made of compressed cardboard, and they had a mountain of pillows in the corner of their living room. they had a projector that shone its images onto a tryptic that took up the entire wall. their back deck was like the dance floor in saturday night fever, with colored lights underneath each panel of fogged glass. they also had a pool, but i think they were in the process of renovating that. in their kitchen, they had a microwave that used the power of light to cook food. it was like and easy bake oven x100000. instead of normal refrigerators, they had the ones that you'd find in a 7-11 with sliding glass doors. they also had a slurpee machine that could make two flavors at once. in the front yard, they had a giant trampoline with a giant geometric metal cage around it. it was unlike any dwelling i had ever seen before.
heidi made us vegan sandwiches (being that she, teran, and johnny were all vegans). it was surprisingly tasty. normally, my experiences with vegan food had been rather bland, but heidi and teran have their own food company called "play food," and they specialize in making tasty vegan substitutes. after eating, me, johnny, heidi, and her chihuahua victory piled into johnny's car. the first place that we found was in a shady neighborhood, and before we could get out of the car, johnny got robbed of a whopping $3 by some kid with his hand in his shirt pretending that he had a gun. we took that as a bad omen.
the next place that we looked at was located inside a castle. it was huge. as we passed through the rot iron gates of the entrance, the yellow glow from the inside lit up the fountain in the garden out front. when we walked in, we were greeted by the doorman, who was wearing a slightly old fashioned, yet classy uniform. it was the kind with the little tasseled shoulder thingies. he also had a matching hat. looking around, i realized that all of the employees were in uniform. the floor was covered in fancy red rugs, and there was a fire blazing in the adjacent room. we walked towards the elevator, which was the old kind with the gate that has to be closed manually. there was an elevator attendant to do that and press the buttons, who was also in uniform.
the room we wanted was on the sixth floor. it looked like a hotel, and it kind of creeped me out when i remembered the image of the twins from The Shining standing at the end of the hallway.
the apartment itself was rather small. it was owned by this guy named General, who was a locally famous artist. his artwork was laying around everywhere. there were unfinished pieces everywhere, covering every surface. i had to clear off a seat so i could sit down.
the place was really old fashioned; it had a mini fridge from the 50s, and the tiles and bathtub were from the 1920s. and it had a view of the garden below.
general wanted to take us to a speakeasy, so he made a few phone calls. we couldn't go because they had changed the password, as speakeasies do. so we just left.
heidi, johnny, and i had gotten pretty hungry by the end of the day, so we went to a vegan fast food restaurant and ordered it to go. we ate it at heidi and teran's and proceeded to get very stoned. teran was a huge pothead, and had a couple gallon-sized ziplock bags of it. he also had a vaporizer, which he explained the science of to us as if it were the most fascinating thing ever. he hooked the projector up to his computer and moved the giant mural over so that the images could be projected onto the white wall. we watched that for a while, then johnny drove me home.
[part eleven]
how i lost my virginity, pt. 11
[part ten]
by the time i got home, it wasn't terribly late, because he still had to drive back to huntington beach. when i walked in the door, i was greeted by erica sitting on the couch in the midst of her filth, crying in front of her computer with a glass of red wine sitting next to her. i was speechless. before i could ask her what was wrong, she leapt down my throat.
"well, you've been gone a long time," she said in a very irritated tone. "where have you been? oh wait, don't tell me...you were with johnny weren't you?"
too afraid to speak, i only nodded timidly in affirmation as i closed the door and started to head towards my room.
"yeah, i thought so," she continued in her irritated motherly tone. "nice of you to wait for me." as i got down the hallway, she yelled after me in disgust, "bet you had some fun last night, huh?"
i got to my room and shut the door. at first i felt bad, but after her last comment, i was irate. so that's what this is all about? after aiding in making my life hell over the summer, and after not letting me so much as go grocery shopping without her for three months, she was now going to guilt trip me over this?? i thought back to how jealous i was when she boasted about losing her virginity, and how much i wanted to kill her, but as a friend, i kept my mouth shut and tried to be happy for her. god forbid she'd return the favor.
this was the first time that i had friends of my own or gone out without her in three months. i thought that she'd at least be able to survive 12 hours without me, but apparently not. what does she expect me to do? just stay at home all day like some domesticated housewife, cleaning up her ubiquitous messes and waiting on her when she's sick? if i wanted a child at age 18, i would have had one, thank you very much.
i moved out of my mom's house to grow up. to live my own life. i craved independence. i wanted to be me, not what my friends thought i should be. their image of me had tied me down for so long, and when i moved away, i mistakenly thought i was free. orange county sounded like a good idea because i wanted to hang out with pretty people, and go to parties that had hired photographers, and do mountains of cocaine, and live like a rock star for a few months. i had gone down there to have fun. i had thought that we were on the same page, but i guess we weren't.
i was so disappointed in her. i had so much fun that day, but i didn't tell her. she wasn't deserving of the details.
[part twelve]
by the time i got home, it wasn't terribly late, because he still had to drive back to huntington beach. when i walked in the door, i was greeted by erica sitting on the couch in the midst of her filth, crying in front of her computer with a glass of red wine sitting next to her. i was speechless. before i could ask her what was wrong, she leapt down my throat.
"well, you've been gone a long time," she said in a very irritated tone. "where have you been? oh wait, don't tell me...you were with johnny weren't you?"
too afraid to speak, i only nodded timidly in affirmation as i closed the door and started to head towards my room.
"yeah, i thought so," she continued in her irritated motherly tone. "nice of you to wait for me." as i got down the hallway, she yelled after me in disgust, "bet you had some fun last night, huh?"
i got to my room and shut the door. at first i felt bad, but after her last comment, i was irate. so that's what this is all about? after aiding in making my life hell over the summer, and after not letting me so much as go grocery shopping without her for three months, she was now going to guilt trip me over this?? i thought back to how jealous i was when she boasted about losing her virginity, and how much i wanted to kill her, but as a friend, i kept my mouth shut and tried to be happy for her. god forbid she'd return the favor.
this was the first time that i had friends of my own or gone out without her in three months. i thought that she'd at least be able to survive 12 hours without me, but apparently not. what does she expect me to do? just stay at home all day like some domesticated housewife, cleaning up her ubiquitous messes and waiting on her when she's sick? if i wanted a child at age 18, i would have had one, thank you very much.
i moved out of my mom's house to grow up. to live my own life. i craved independence. i wanted to be me, not what my friends thought i should be. their image of me had tied me down for so long, and when i moved away, i mistakenly thought i was free. orange county sounded like a good idea because i wanted to hang out with pretty people, and go to parties that had hired photographers, and do mountains of cocaine, and live like a rock star for a few months. i had gone down there to have fun. i had thought that we were on the same page, but i guess we weren't.
i was so disappointed in her. i had so much fun that day, but i didn't tell her. she wasn't deserving of the details.
[part twelve]
how i lost my virginity, pt. 12
[part eleven]
the next day, once i heard erica leave for school, i knew it was safe to exit my bedroom. i hung around the house a bit, and even tried to clean up a bit of The Mess. when it came time to expect her to come home, i put on some clothes, got my journal, and went to the park across the street. i really didn't want to deal with her at all. the last thing i needed was a guilt trip over something that i had absolutely no reason to feel guilty for. at that point, i didn't feel bad at all for leaving her. she had lost all of my sympathy the night before. i didn't care if i was being rude for not telling her where i was going, or not inviting her along, or even feeling sorry for her. i was done.
this was only the second time that i had been to craig park, even though it was directly across the street. the first time was just after i had recovered from an ulcer the previous month. it was just after the first storm of the season, and the air was cold and crisp and wintery for the first time since i had moved there. this morning was a foggy morning, and it reminded me of foggy san francisco days.
craig park was huge. it was the only part of orange county that i had seen that had actually started to show the autumn change. there was a huge lake, and a paved path that went all around the perimeter of the park. i sat down on a bench near the lake, lit up a cigarette, and started to write. about everything. about johnny, and about how displeased i was with erica's reaction. it was a very long entry. part of it was happy and excited, and part of it was frustrated and angry, and it captured the last few days perfectly.
while i was ruminating in the park, i got yet another text from johnny, saying that there was a halloween party in tustin, and asked if i wanted to go. i said sure.
after that, i stayed out of the house for as long as possible, and even ran a few errands and applied for a job. i didn't venture home until it was getting dark and it was time to change into my costume for the party.
fortunately, erica was in a much better mood than when i last saw her. once i walked in the door, she started babbling about something, as if the previous night had never happened. i had no idea what she was talking about, something about suburban legends and how she was going out to a show and she was going to be mia from pulp fiction and okay bye. she was a whirlwind of words and actions that i couldn't follow, and i only realized that she had left when the room became silent.
i then went to work compiling my costume as a devil. that year, i had been too busy looking for jobs and stressing out over The Mess and my ulcer to really think up a good costume, so i just went with something easy. i already had the horns and pitchfork from when i was last a devil in my junior year of high school. this year, i sexed it up a bit with an absurdly short skirt and little corset-like top. i did my make up with reds and oranges, and i was ready to go.
johnny gave me directions, and got lost on my way there. apparently it was in a warehouse storage unit, so i didn't know that i was there when i actually was. i noticed a glowing entryway with a small crowd huddled around it on my third pass, so i parked.
the party was pretty cool. it was another one of those warehouse-turned-home dwellings, and they had thoroughly decorated it. the guests were all orange county scene kids with the same androgynous haircut, either dyed jet black or bleached platinum blonde. once i found johnny, the party started for me. he knew everyone, and everyone wanted to talk to me because i was "johnny's new girl." i felt very popular. we then proceeded to get trashed.
the party went on into the wee hours of the night, and by the end, johnny and i were all over each other. we then migrated to my car and had a second go. fucking in a car turned out to be a lot more comfortable than i thought it would be. in the movies, couples copulating in cars are always shown fumbling in the backseat with the woman on the bottom. that seems like the most difficult thing to do, and would require so much unnecessary work. things worked just dandy in the front with me on top.
after that, we chilled in the car for a bit. he went back to the party, and i waited in my car to sober up. then i made my way home.
it was odd having a sexual relationship with someone. i can't really describe it. all of a sudden, there was this whole new aspect to my life. there was this other thing that i could do with this person that was quite an entertaining (and healthy) past time.
our relationship continued until until about december, just before i was scheduled to move back to northern california. our relationship began to get awkward as i noticed things about him. he was very timid, and would never mention sex blatantly. he would always disguise it in some code, and that really bothered me. he was obviously uncomfortable with a sexual relationship, but still wanted one. every time we hung out, he wanted sex, which wasn't a bad thing. it was just that he didn't know how to ask for it. he'd either just leap on top of me with no warning, or try to ask while avoiding the words "sex," "fuck," or even "do it," or any other logical euphemism. it just came off as childish, and that was a big turnoff. of course, it's easy to indicate to someone that you want to fuck them through actions without actually saying it, but he had no concept of foreplay. that was also a problem.
eventually, it just got so uncomfortable that i just couldn't do it anymore. the last time i saw him was about two weeks before i had to move on december 20. i went to his new apartment in glendale, and it was the same old thing. i just wanted to chill out and maybe watch some tv, and he wanted sex, but didn't know how to ask for it. he did his thing where he just leapt on top of me, and when i wasn't particularly responsive, he asked, "why are you being weird?" he didn't say, "do you not want to?" or "are you not in the mood?" or something actually relative to what he was trying to do. he did his classic thing where he avoided all relative terminology. "being weird" sounded like such a third grade term that i was totally turned off, and shortly after that, i left. he walked me downstairs to my car, and i drove away. i don't think i even gave him a goodbye kiss.
[part thirteen]
the next day, once i heard erica leave for school, i knew it was safe to exit my bedroom. i hung around the house a bit, and even tried to clean up a bit of The Mess. when it came time to expect her to come home, i put on some clothes, got my journal, and went to the park across the street. i really didn't want to deal with her at all. the last thing i needed was a guilt trip over something that i had absolutely no reason to feel guilty for. at that point, i didn't feel bad at all for leaving her. she had lost all of my sympathy the night before. i didn't care if i was being rude for not telling her where i was going, or not inviting her along, or even feeling sorry for her. i was done.
this was only the second time that i had been to craig park, even though it was directly across the street. the first time was just after i had recovered from an ulcer the previous month. it was just after the first storm of the season, and the air was cold and crisp and wintery for the first time since i had moved there. this morning was a foggy morning, and it reminded me of foggy san francisco days.
craig park was huge. it was the only part of orange county that i had seen that had actually started to show the autumn change. there was a huge lake, and a paved path that went all around the perimeter of the park. i sat down on a bench near the lake, lit up a cigarette, and started to write. about everything. about johnny, and about how displeased i was with erica's reaction. it was a very long entry. part of it was happy and excited, and part of it was frustrated and angry, and it captured the last few days perfectly.
while i was ruminating in the park, i got yet another text from johnny, saying that there was a halloween party in tustin, and asked if i wanted to go. i said sure.
after that, i stayed out of the house for as long as possible, and even ran a few errands and applied for a job. i didn't venture home until it was getting dark and it was time to change into my costume for the party.
fortunately, erica was in a much better mood than when i last saw her. once i walked in the door, she started babbling about something, as if the previous night had never happened. i had no idea what she was talking about, something about suburban legends and how she was going out to a show and she was going to be mia from pulp fiction and okay bye. she was a whirlwind of words and actions that i couldn't follow, and i only realized that she had left when the room became silent.
i then went to work compiling my costume as a devil. that year, i had been too busy looking for jobs and stressing out over The Mess and my ulcer to really think up a good costume, so i just went with something easy. i already had the horns and pitchfork from when i was last a devil in my junior year of high school. this year, i sexed it up a bit with an absurdly short skirt and little corset-like top. i did my make up with reds and oranges, and i was ready to go.
johnny gave me directions, and got lost on my way there. apparently it was in a warehouse storage unit, so i didn't know that i was there when i actually was. i noticed a glowing entryway with a small crowd huddled around it on my third pass, so i parked.
the party was pretty cool. it was another one of those warehouse-turned-home dwellings, and they had thoroughly decorated it. the guests were all orange county scene kids with the same androgynous haircut, either dyed jet black or bleached platinum blonde. once i found johnny, the party started for me. he knew everyone, and everyone wanted to talk to me because i was "johnny's new girl." i felt very popular. we then proceeded to get trashed.
the party went on into the wee hours of the night, and by the end, johnny and i were all over each other. we then migrated to my car and had a second go. fucking in a car turned out to be a lot more comfortable than i thought it would be. in the movies, couples copulating in cars are always shown fumbling in the backseat with the woman on the bottom. that seems like the most difficult thing to do, and would require so much unnecessary work. things worked just dandy in the front with me on top.
after that, we chilled in the car for a bit. he went back to the party, and i waited in my car to sober up. then i made my way home.
it was odd having a sexual relationship with someone. i can't really describe it. all of a sudden, there was this whole new aspect to my life. there was this other thing that i could do with this person that was quite an entertaining (and healthy) past time.
our relationship continued until until about december, just before i was scheduled to move back to northern california. our relationship began to get awkward as i noticed things about him. he was very timid, and would never mention sex blatantly. he would always disguise it in some code, and that really bothered me. he was obviously uncomfortable with a sexual relationship, but still wanted one. every time we hung out, he wanted sex, which wasn't a bad thing. it was just that he didn't know how to ask for it. he'd either just leap on top of me with no warning, or try to ask while avoiding the words "sex," "fuck," or even "do it," or any other logical euphemism. it just came off as childish, and that was a big turnoff. of course, it's easy to indicate to someone that you want to fuck them through actions without actually saying it, but he had no concept of foreplay. that was also a problem.
eventually, it just got so uncomfortable that i just couldn't do it anymore. the last time i saw him was about two weeks before i had to move on december 20. i went to his new apartment in glendale, and it was the same old thing. i just wanted to chill out and maybe watch some tv, and he wanted sex, but didn't know how to ask for it. he did his thing where he just leapt on top of me, and when i wasn't particularly responsive, he asked, "why are you being weird?" he didn't say, "do you not want to?" or "are you not in the mood?" or something actually relative to what he was trying to do. he did his classic thing where he avoided all relative terminology. "being weird" sounded like such a third grade term that i was totally turned off, and shortly after that, i left. he walked me downstairs to my car, and i drove away. i don't think i even gave him a goodbye kiss.
[part thirteen]
how i lost my virginity, pt. 13
so that's the story.
i managed to keep the time, place, and identification of the party involved a secret for over a year. i told erica that i did lose my virginity about a month after, but i didn't tell her when or with whom. we were in santa ana at this little bohemian cafe (i think it was actually called the Bohemian Cafe). we sat outside and had some cigarettes and lattes, and she asked the question while we were on the topic. "well, did you?"
i told her that i wouldn't tell her. i did, however, tell her why i wouldn't tell her. i said that as of yet, she did not deserve to know, and that until she had regained my trust, i wouldn't tell her. she didn't say anything, she just looked away in disbelief. i could tell that she thought it was stupid, but i thought that the whole "everything is my business" mentality was just as stupid, if not more. i told her that this my revenge, and that i knew that it was kind of childish, but i felt like it was the only way to get my friends to recognize boundaries. and i think it worked. with her, at least. robin is another story. erica is the only person on this earth that can trust who is not related to me, and i think that this whole escapade helped solidify that.
i eventually did tell her when she came up to visit about a year later. i think it was the time that we hotboxed my car with her friends alex and brandon. we had moved my car to a dark corner of my mom's neighborhood, and smoked up a storm for hours. we were so stoned that we could hardly keep our eyes open, and we were laughing about everything. then she asked, "so really, who was it???" when i told her, she exclaimed, "i knew it!" i then went on to tell her how pissed i was at her and her reaction, when she sat at home all day and got drunk because i went somewhere without her. i really don't think she had realized how rude she was being. it seemed like as i was recalling her actions to her, she didn't remember half of them. she didn't seem to have any perception of how hypocritical she was being at the time, and now that she looked back, she had realized how truly rude she was. she tried to explain herself, but failed, and just knowing how unaware of it she was made me feel better. it no longer seemed like she was deliberately guilting me about it; it now seemed like more of an honest reaction than deviousness. in that moment i forgave her, and it was done.
i managed to keep the time, place, and identification of the party involved a secret for over a year. i told erica that i did lose my virginity about a month after, but i didn't tell her when or with whom. we were in santa ana at this little bohemian cafe (i think it was actually called the Bohemian Cafe). we sat outside and had some cigarettes and lattes, and she asked the question while we were on the topic. "well, did you?"
i told her that i wouldn't tell her. i did, however, tell her why i wouldn't tell her. i said that as of yet, she did not deserve to know, and that until she had regained my trust, i wouldn't tell her. she didn't say anything, she just looked away in disbelief. i could tell that she thought it was stupid, but i thought that the whole "everything is my business" mentality was just as stupid, if not more. i told her that this my revenge, and that i knew that it was kind of childish, but i felt like it was the only way to get my friends to recognize boundaries. and i think it worked. with her, at least. robin is another story. erica is the only person on this earth that can trust who is not related to me, and i think that this whole escapade helped solidify that.
i eventually did tell her when she came up to visit about a year later. i think it was the time that we hotboxed my car with her friends alex and brandon. we had moved my car to a dark corner of my mom's neighborhood, and smoked up a storm for hours. we were so stoned that we could hardly keep our eyes open, and we were laughing about everything. then she asked, "so really, who was it???" when i told her, she exclaimed, "i knew it!" i then went on to tell her how pissed i was at her and her reaction, when she sat at home all day and got drunk because i went somewhere without her. i really don't think she had realized how rude she was being. it seemed like as i was recalling her actions to her, she didn't remember half of them. she didn't seem to have any perception of how hypocritical she was being at the time, and now that she looked back, she had realized how truly rude she was. she tried to explain herself, but failed, and just knowing how unaware of it she was made me feel better. it no longer seemed like she was deliberately guilting me about it; it now seemed like more of an honest reaction than deviousness. in that moment i forgave her, and it was done.
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