my first time

Hmm.  My first time.  What do I remember about that?

It was in college.  It was a beautiful campus.  Lots of trees.  It was sometime in the spring--I was up in the north and I remember it as a rainy night in sophomore year, slimy and moist, but not very cold.  I was in a band, and sometimes I would make up little songs and sing them under a tree, sitting on grass, and that's how I met her during freshman year.  My voice was not very pretty but I was a good guitarist.  My father insisted on me learning it, having grown up in the bluegrass region.  Guitar and fixing cars, those were the two loves of his life, and even though he tried to teach me how to fix cars and I can deal with minor issues, I never really loved doing it much.  I met her during freshman orientation, and she loved sitting next to me to listen.  I was going through a religious phase, getting gung-ho about my daily prayers, participating in the campus Christian organizations and we just talked and talked.  She was an atheist and didn't really care much about Jesus, but I was drawn into discussions with her about god and faith, and sometimes sex.

She had a boyfriend then, and even though she had a great ass, the rest of her wasn't terribly attractive.  I was pretty bogged down by freshman year, planning on becoming an engineer and suffering through the prerequisites.  She was never girlfriend material in my mind, but gradually we talked more and more, often about my troubled dating life and my yearning for true love.  I was tall and muscular, and was on the crew team--I guess a lot of girls told me that I was attractive--but I always felt really awkward with women, and as hard as it might be to believe, I never even kissed a girl during all of freshman year.

I thought about getting a hooker, and being a virgin at 19 was an unbearable shame.  Thinking back, the incongruence between my sexual desire and the strict, Byzantine religious teachings was pretty jarring in my subconscious.  I lied all the time to people about the girls that I supposedly slept with, even though I felt pretty insecure about sex in general, and especially my lack of any experience.  I was joined a fraternity the second half of freshman year, and spinning that tale was the only way for me to fit in.

Nevertheless, with all the booze and burgeoning internet porn, I didn't really care if she liked me or not.  That night I invited her over to watch Star Wars, because I hadn't seen it yet and it was such a classic.  I remember the smell of her perfume, some kind of summer flower, very clear and somehow befitting the gaudy orchestral score.  My room was on the small side, and an enormous TV was stuffed squarely into the middle.  I remember seeing her watching that movie and wanting to lick her from top to bottom.  I don't really know which part of me was driving my desire but I made a move, and kissed her, and all of the sudden I was really hard and we were groping each other.  I remember grabbing her small, barely post-pubescent breasts, and was in awe of such small things giving me so much pleasure.  I took off her panties.

"We need a condom.  I'm having my period."

Luckily I bought a few condoms months ago.  Sometimes I use condoms to jerk off when I want to fall asleep immediately and don't want to clean up.  But that night when I tried to put it on it went soft.

I remember still my heart pounding.  I remember her whispering softly to me, "it's ok."

I wasn't ready to give up.  I tried and tried, with my hands, with her hands, and it finally got to the point of penetration, and I gave it a shove.  I remember her moan as a soft, sustained decrescendo, "aah..aah.aaaaah~~"  And a few seconds later, it came out, without my consent, without an inkling of pleasure, my heart pounding still.  I pulled it out, dumped the condom, and surveyed the damage.  Fear and guilt was overwhelming.  Would she get pregnant?  Did she have an STD?  Why did she do this?  Would we have to be married at this point?  But I wouldn't date her.  I couldn't.  Was I the biggest jerk in the world?

"I'm trying to figure out if I should like you more or less," she said.  "Less, of course," I retorted lugubriously.  I couldn't date her.  She was too ugly for me.  

After she left, I sent her a long E-mail explaining to her why I couldn't see her again.  She called bullshit on me, as expected.  She was not dumb.  I late found out that it was her first time too.  I remember dumping the bed sheet because of a few bloody spots.  That summer she left for a study abroad program.  I haven't spoken to her since.  I've heard that she became a lesbian and now lived in Hong Kong, but I don't know.