By: Elizabeth McKenna

Queen Victoria gave her daughter good advice on her wedding night: “lie back and think of England.” My mom and I didn’t talk about sex; she was a rigid Catholic with 12 kids, which meant our relationship was completely devoid of any family planning or imparted sexual wisdom. This is why I scrunched my eyes closed and thought about 99 cent Chinese food and Bisquick as Jamie Hooker squirmed and wiggled on top of me for the first time when I was fifteen. In hindsight, it would’ve definitely been far more productive to think about tea, biscuits and polite children.

Jamie, the guy to whom I lost my v-card, was a 3 second man with watermelon balls, webbed toes and uneven eyes. He was shaped like a potato. His voice rang like gravel in my ears. A whisper of pot and Funyons always crept like vapor out of his mouth. His pockmarked skin was gently brushed with a deep olive stain. His minute tongue lovingly held a silver barbell. The truly wonderful thing about such a unique specimen was that God had given him to me. Little old buck-toothed me, with transparent skin and big cheeks. I couldn’t believe my luck.

We were an on again off again item. Our relationship was full of spectacular angst and drunken fights based on the simple fact that he couldn’t handle being around girls without having sex with them. Whenever we drank, crouched behind large, gray construction blocks or in small clearings in a park, he would suddenly disappear with Desiree, Melanie, or some other bland punk girl with purple hair, a dirty neck and a penchant for obscenity.

Once, as I sat with Elizabeth Reis on the blocks, making my way through most of a 40 ouncer of Old English, which went straight to my head because I was bone thin, I saw Jamie stroll over with Melanie. They both looked disheveled. I saw a hickey poking from the collar of her blue gingham shirt that clung tightly to her sexy curves.

They parted, acting as if they just happened to walk over at the same time, and I went in for the kill.

“What the fuck?” I yelled, swerving a bit with my 40 and spilling part of it on the dirt. My chest swelled and my cheeks got hot. “What were you doing with her?”

“Chill out, dude,” he said, spitting rocks with his vocal cords. “We were just talking about my mom. Her mom died, too. We were just talking about that.”

“Fuck you,” I said and walked away, stumbling over cracked bottles and empty McDonald’s wrappers. The garbage dug into the thin soles of my one stars covered in melted crayon. I wondered why I didn’t have a tragic enough story to keep my boyfriend interested. I complained to Reis.

“Lame,” she said as she drew in a long, deep inhale of pot from a soda can pipe. She exhaled the smoke into long curly cues.

The next day, sober and more docile, I saw Jamie at our gathering spot, the Old Town Trolley station. He was draped across one of the wooden chairs under the awning. I watched him smoke and chuckle with our friend, Mike. His skin had taken on a deeper olive hue in the brightness of day. I wondered if he was jaundiced. It didn't matter to me one bit if he was. I just needed to have him wrap me in his arms and kiss me on the cheek. If I could get that, I was set.

He smiled as he saw me approach.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Did you have sex with Melanie?” My indignation from the night before had melted away.

“Of course not,” he said. “Why would I do that? She’s totally nasty.”

This wasn’t true. She was flawless. Her red hair, cut short and spiked, played well with her porcelain skin and made her blue eyes almost seem to boggle angelically out of her head. Her boobs were massive. She had a cute smile. On the other hand, I couldn’t fathom why he would lie to my face. I chose to believe him. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by calling him a liar.

“If you ever lie to me, I’ll kill you,” I said before we started making out in front of Mike. Both of our breaths, stale with cigarettes and last night's beer, mingled perfectly in the hot afternoon sun. Our dehydrated, hung-over tongues rubbed together like sandpaper.

He had been emancipated at 16, so he had his own apartment conveniently close to the all ages music venue and a couple of rotting punk rockers who lived only to buy us liquor. His place was all white with gray carpet, a couple of skate posters on the wall, a few frozen burritos and a jar of salsa in the fridge, a bouquet of beer bottles on every available surface, a futon and a TV. We spent entire afternoons with ten other skate punks playing California Games and Paperboy on his Game Boy. I usually sat quietly in the corner and watched as all the guys laughed loudly and said whatever thoughts came into their head. I would’ve given anything for the freedom to not agonize over every word that came out of my mouth always wondering how retarded it was going to sound once it hit the air.

“Dude,” Jamie would say in his crunchy voice, as he pushed Mike off the couch. “Get off my nuts. I’m not gonna make out with you.”

“He he…” Mike would respond, peaking out from the slit eyes of a truly stoned teenager. “I wouldn’t have such a hard time avoiding your balls if they weren’t the size of watermelons.”

I smiled, knowing full well that Mike had seen first hand the monstrosity that were Jamie’s testis.

For weeks in that apartment, starting with the beginning of summer, he became consumed with the issue of sex. He continuously brought up how lame it was that I was still a virgin. He reminded me numerous times a day that he would lose interest if I didn’t give it up. He argued that his balls would fall off if he didn’t get off. He commented that I would forever be labeled a prude if I didn’t spread my legs. All of these things terrified me, even his balls falling off because I couldn’t imagine the giant thud they would make as they cascaded to the floor.

“I just want to get it over with.” I reasoned one hot day, after a five-hour session of watching skate videos. “It’s not like I am going to want to have my virginity forever. Besides, it’s getting too boring not to have sex.”

As we made out, squished between Miguel and Max, I asked Jaime if he had a condom.

His face lit up.

“Really,” he asked. He looked around the room at his friends, quick to act before I changed my mind. “Everyone out. Right now. Leave.”

All the skate punks present knew what was going to happen and they grumbled as they shoved their forties into their backpacks. They left and there was no turning back.

He locked the door behind them and sheepishly walked up to the futon. He grabbed my face and stuck his slimy tongue in my mouth. He pushed me authoritatively onto my back. I knew I was supposed to be wild for this kind of stuff, so I mustered up the courage to push on the back of his head and open up my legs to expose the cotton panties under my plaid skirt. He pushed the crotch of his jeans on my pubic bone with such enthusiasm that I got rug burn on my inner thighs. The futon bars gave me a backache. My neck was soar from tilting my head up as I pretended to hungrily beg for more sloppy kisses. Despite my physical discomfort, I let out a moan. He put his hands down my pants and touched me like Edward Scissorhands for a moment. He pulled his hand out, sat up and started unbuttoning his shirt. I lay limply and watched. He nodded his head at my chest.

“You gotta take ‘em off too.”

I was afraid he would say that. I pulled off my shirt, skirt and panties. I kept on my bra. The wind from the fan hit my skin and I made note of the fact that I really hated being naked. He reached under his bed and fumbled around for a minute. Amid the cigarette butts and beer cans sat a black condom. He found it, ripped it open with his teeth and slid it over his pint-sized penis. Against the black sheets, his little package seemed to disappear all together. I was grateful that I was able to not see it, but was equally terrified by its absence. The condom felt slippery against my leg as he grunted and wiggled his way around, trying to find the entrance. I sure as hell didn’t know where my vagina was, so I was of very little help.

“I want you to do all the work,” I purred in a way that I hoped he would find sensual. I didn’t want him to know that I wasn’t well acquainted with my vagina. Right when I was about to say, “never mind,” I had an overwhelming urge to pee.
Should I get up to go to the bathroom? I wondered as he pushed and pulled himself towards and away from me. I looked to the ceiling and watched the glittery cracks in it. Then I realized something; I didn’t have to go pee. We were having sex. “Is this really all there is? This has to be a joke.”

That’s when thoughts of lo-mein and pancakes popped in my head. I closed my eyes and wondered which one I preferred over the other. I thought about how silly I was being since they really have nothing in common. Seven pumps later, before I even knew it, I was no longer a virgin and still undecided on this issue. Jamie immediately bounced off of me and pulled on his pants. Before I could slide my fishnets over my legs, he was out the door. He made it down to meet his friends before they had exited the apartment complex. I followed a moment later, wondering if maybe everyone would want to go to Denny’s for pancakes. When I walked out, all present hooted and hollered.

“Three second, man!” yelled Kristin as she looked at me with equal measures sympathy and conspirator understanding.

“What the fuck, dude? Haven’t you heard of foreplay?”

Jaime grinned, turned to me and said, “See you later.”

“That’s it? Where is the sweet cuddling? Or, at least, the pancakes?!” I gasped in my brain. My first boyfriend had given me a burrito and coke to show his gratitude when I gave him head. I quickly realized that there were going to be no more freebies now that I had given up my trump card.