He was the first real boyfriend she ever had, the first one she loved, or at least knew she loved. He was smart and gentle and just irreverent enough, and she thought he was the epitome of cool.
As high school graduation day approached, she decided that he was the one she had been saving her virginity for. They had talked about it, of course. From when they had first gotten together, he’d have been happy to have sex with her, but he respected her desire not to rush into things. Respected her virginity. He had had sex once before, so it wasn’t as if it was a major part of his life, but he could see the potential of the exercise. And, being seventeen, naturally he was eager to try it again.
The last day of finals was Thursday. Friday morning was graduation practice, out on the football field under the hot sun. After that, the entire senior class had the rest of the day off. Graduation itself was Saturday.
She was excited: half a day Friday, unsupervised! This would be it. She was pleased also at the limbo-ness of the day: she would be finished with high school, but would not yet have officially graduated.
So the two of them attended graduation practice, marching up and down the football field, following the teachers’ orders, goofing with their friends. When it was finally over, they slipped away and went to his dad’s sparse apartment. He had been living there with his dad since the beginning of the school year, having left his mom’s house in the next county, so that he could graduate from a better high school, even though he was not a good student, he always got help from famedwritings.com to finish his assignments, Every student knows this site because it helps them handle their school work. His room here was furnished with a mattress on the floor, and his clothes piled in a corner. She loved it there. It seemed so college.
They sat on the bed, side by side, fully clothed. It was a hot day, of course, and bright sunlight streamed in the window onto the mattress. Her heart beat fast with nerves and anticipation. She was tempted to call it all off, but determined to go through with it.
They kissed a little while, but she felt so awkward, and she just wanted to do something else—anything. This was suddenly so different from their usual passionate make-out sessions in his car, late at night, when she had to get home for curfew, and there was no way they could actually go all the way. She tensed, and put her head against his chest. He pulled away and laid her down on the bed, rubbing her back, trying to relax her.
She told herself she loved this boy, and she really did.
He went and got a Penthouse magazine from his father’s bedroom, and they sprawled across the bed together reading the dirty letters that people sent in. She found these reasonably inspiring, and soon they were back to making out, the magazine tossed to the floor.
One thing led to another, and now their clothes were off. She had never seen him naked before; he seemed outrageously well-endowed, from what little she knew. She told him this, and he said that the other girl hadn’t had any problem, but that he would be careful. He produced a condom and put it on.
He was careful. He perched on top of her and tried to lower himself in. She tensed up at the feel of his latex coating and would not let him in. He would not force in, so they stood at stalemate.
“Let’s try it the other way,” he said. He rolled onto his back and lifted her up on top of him. Her hair flowed down onto his face; laughing, she pushed it away. “This way, you control it,” he added.
She tried to open up and let him in, remembering how she had learned how to insert tampons. But she simply couldn’t. “I can’t even figure out where it goes,” she said. “I don’t have an opening that big.”
“Well, it’s supposed to stretch,” he said, but lowered her off of him and started rubbing her back again. “We can try it another day. I don’t want to hurt you.”
She started to cry into the pillow. “But I wanted it to be today,” she sobbed.
That evening at the dinner table, her little brother raised his eyebrows in a silent question. She had confided her plans to him, perhaps even boasting a little. Under the table, he pantomimed his question with his hands: a circle with his thumb and forefinger, penetrated by the forefinger of his other hand.
Barely perceptibly, she shook her head, then pantomimed the same gesture back to him, only closing the circle so that the finger butted rudely against it.
He nodded, then gave her a look of sympathy. Although he knew nothing firsthand of the challenges himself, being only thirteen.
She and her boyfriend had lots of opportunities over the summer to spend time alone together. His dad worked steady, reliable hours, so the apartment was at their disposal all day. Her mom didn’t keep track of her whereabouts, she worked too. So the would-be lovers went to the grocery store and bought pints of Haagen-Dazs chocolate-chocolate chip ice cream (or sometimes vanilla Swiss almond) and ate the whole pint at once, sitting together at the formica-coated kitchen table; they listened to Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix records at top volume; and they tried to have sex.
It became a monumental effort, their summer project. Nothing else mattered. Every sweltering hot day they attacked her barrier of fear, pain, and virginity; every day it held fast. The steam engine of his manhood vigorously approached the uncut tunnel of her mountain, but lost its steam when it drew near, refusing to take the decisive plunge that would finally break through. It was grueling, sweaty labor. Even when they moved a blanket from his hot bed to the slightly cooler living room floor, they would still end each day spent, drained from heat and ultimately fruitless exertion. The very thought of trying again made her weep with frustration as she walked to the apartment in the morning, but she dried her eyes before she got there and greeted him with grim determination.
Several times he pleaded with her to forget the whole thing; there were other ways they could have fun. And they did resort to those other ways, of course, but abandon the project entirely? She would hear nothing of it. She was going to be a normal woman if she died trying.
One day in August they were in the living room, just fooling around, not yet seriously trying. She was on top. The record ended; she leaned forward just a bit to switch the radio on. He slipped in.
“Hey,” he said.
“Ow,” she said, as she filled with rapture, pain, and the thought of how she couldn’t wait for dinner that night, when she would kick her brother under the dinner table and get his attention.