first-1
5:14 p.m.<>2001-04-22

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i lost my virginity at the age of 17. at various points in my life, i've claimed to have lost it at 16, at 15, at 14 and even at 13. the lies i told about it depended entirely on who i wanted to impress at the time. in a similar manner, i've told people at different times that i've slept with as few as 3 women and as many as 12 in my life. again, it all depends who i was lying to, and why.

by 'losing my virginity' i'm referring to intercourse, of course, of course. in a post-lewinsky world, it's important to be very specific about the nitty-gritty details of sexual acts. we are, after all, living in an age when we have the president of the united states staring at us through a television screen and telling us what the definition of 'is' is, in the context of his having violated the help with a cigar. so in this situation i'm talking about sexual intercourse. genital-genital contact. penetration. the beast with two backs. you get the picture.

her name was jean. i met her while i was working at domino's in the summer after my senior year of high school. she was two years older than me, already a spohomore in college. an older woman. jean wasn't what you would call gorgeous, but then neither was i, so there was little imbalance in that department.

in those days, i found it difficult to talk to women, especially women i was attracted to. the arts of flirting and pickup lines were ones that my friends excelled at, or seemed to, and i envied them their ease in striking up conversations at parties with girls they had never met. so as much as i wanted to ask jean out that summer, i could never muster up the confidence to do so without sounding like a complete idiot. instead, as was the case with so many women i liked back in those days, i became friends with her. the furtive glances i stole at her while she was not looking made me feel ashamed, like i was somehow taking advantage of her. that nagging sensation of guilt, however, didn't stop me from admiring the way her rear filled out the unflattering blue cotton pants we were all required to wear, or from trying to look down her company polo shirt when she bent over to open a container of flour.

because of my shyness, it fell to jean to make the first move. when she did, it caught me completely by surprise. i was so caught up in longing for her from afar that it never occured to me that she might she might actually be attracted to me in return. we had been working together for several weeks when she invited me to her house to watch a movie with some friends of hers. i stammered an enthusiastic if incoherent response in the affirmative, and she told me to come by friday at 8.

when she opened the door that friday evening, we both laughed. it was the first time that either of us had seen the other outside of our ugly domino's uniforms, and we were both pleasantly surprised. as jean fancied herself something of a 'hippie', she was wearing a purple wraparound indian-print skirt and a tie-dyed t-shirt. she had just come out of the shower, so her shoulder length blonde hung down loose and damp. she complemented me on the black cotton vest i wore over my white t-shirt. in an unplanned display of honesty, i informed her that i had worn it just to impress her. i was relieved when she laughed, as if i had made some sort of ironic joke.

as she poured a soda for me in the kitchen, she explained that her parents had left that morning to visit her maternal grandmother in west virginia, so we had the house all to ourselves. her friends ed and kim hadn't arrived yet, so jean and i sat in the living room and made small talk as the daylight receded outside.

she looked so pretty, sitting there on the sofa with her legs tucked under her and her torso angled toward me, that i found my heart pounding with increasing intensity. i willed myself to keep looking into her eyes as we spoke, rather than her chest. this had become difficult for me ever since i noticed that she had not bothered to put on a bra when she had come out of the shower, and her full breasts hung heavy and unbound in her t-shirt. in some faroff, objective corner of my brain, i wondered whether jean went braless frequently, in deference to some hippie aesthetic standard. i wondered whether she left her legs unshaved, too. i tried to glance quickly down to find out, but she had tucked the hemline of her skirt demurely about her knees and calves.

so obsessed was i with controlling the hormones bathing my system that at first i didn't even notice when jean started to hit on me. i turned my attention back to what she was saying just in time to hear her lament the fact that she had been without a boyfriend for six months and it was driving her crazy. she said this with an air of studied nonchalance that made my face flush.

in a quavering voice, i asked her what she meant by 'crazy'. she smiled and looked embarrassed, told me to forget it. sensing that i was on the verge of a momentous occasion in my life, i pressed her. with her blue eyes darting everywhere but in my direction, she murmured that it had been six months since she had had sex, and that she 'kind of missed it'.

i don't know what i replied when she said that, i really don't. it might have been something as lame as, 'i think i can help you with that'. certainly it was something ridiculous, laughable. whatever i said, though, it was all that jean needed, because the next thing i knew her face was inches away from mine and we were holding hands. i noticed that her palm was as sweaty as my own, and took some dim comfort in that simple physical fact before our lips met.

my heart all of a sudden leapt into my throat. i didn't care that jean's breath smelled faintly of garlic. i didn't care that she inserted her tongue a little too vigorously inside my mouth. i wasn't even thinking in words at that point, only in images. soft soft soft wet soft warm garlic soft wet slippery tongue warm soft spit soft wet soft soft. my hand rose instinctively to her left breast, which stroked through the material of her t-shirt. when she moaned softly, when i felt the hard nub at the tip of her breast, i nearly lost all control.

at just that moment, the doorbell rang. it was ed and kim, bringing over the video.

continued....

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