The Night I Lost More Than My Dinner

Looking back, I was ready to pass the lei that summer. I was seventeen, newly in college, away from mom and dad, and it was SUMMER. . I may as well have put a sign around my neck: “My virginity. Take it. Then I won’t worry about losing it”.

I think my roommate Joan hated my guts because she sensed what I was up to before I did. We were thrown together at the last minute: two summer castaways. She was more of a prude than I was, and frankly that was hard to be. I was a “scared by the fires of hell” Catholic. She used to tell me I dressed like a vamp when I went on my dates. “What the heck is a vamp?” I’d ask. She had no idea how long I had been turning boys away. A good amount of energy had been spent trying to keep boys away from my Punani. I don’t recall hearing the words cock tease…at least not to my face. But I’m certain the guys were thinking that. It got to be a real drag, since I wanted to be nailed as much as they wanted to nail me, but had to pretend otherwise or be labeled easy. Dating since fourteen, I got close to the big hammering, but no impalement. I was programmed to think that if I surrendered the pink cherry I would get pregnant, contract Syphilis, and be cast into the lowest level of Dante’s Inferno for destroying countless lives. This after being rejected by everybody I knew and have the scarlet A branded into my chest until I stoned myself to death by my own guilt.

Usually a girl couldn’t win, back then, no matter what she did. I had a boyfriend, someone I actually did love, and was dying to give him my virginity when he came to visit me that summer, but he wouldn’t take it. I literally begged him to take it, yammering about the drugstore where we could buy contraception and his available motel room. I know this guy wanted me. He was finger banging me all the way through sophomore year. Maybe it was because I was 17 and he had turned 18. I’ll never know why for certain, but I remember a frustrating night making out in an empty stinky handball court because he didn’t want to take me to his room. Later, when he WANTED to screw me, and enticed me to a mirrored ceiling sex palace, I had already met my husband to be. I let him believe I was honoring the teachings of childhood. Amen.

So, when I met Paul the virgin snatcher, I was ready, but didn’t know it yet. Paul is my father’s name. How disgustingly oedipal was that portent of future events? I met him in the college bookstore….not exactly a pick up joint, to my knowledge. He didn’t look a thing like my dark eyed father. I don’t remember his last name, but I remember his blue eyes. Those so called windows to the soul didn’t help me predict future events either. I was a newly acquired college student and pretty damn naive. I had no idea that Paul and his ilk, over 21, might be scouting the campus for freshman meat. To his credit, he took me on a couple of dates. I remember seeing Macbeth with him, although Shakespeare at a technical school was not that interesting at the time to a science major spacing out on first date angst. “You’re passionate” he told me when we kissed. I passed the initial screening. A second date was to the beach, the better to check out the goods. I must have passed the audition. So I was invited to a party to celebrate TGIF at the end of the quarter. It ended up a foursome: me and my friend Mary, and Paul and his roommate Gene. When we got to his apartment, we were encouraged to guzzle everything in sight. I had no idea about the effects of too much alcohol, or alcohol poisoning for that matter. Up to this point, my drinking was relatively moderate.

There was beer, Cold Duck, a sick sort of pink champagne and some disgusting liquor called Matusse like Yeager Meister, but I’ll be damned if I can remember to this day what it tasted like. I didn’t drink too much at first.

There are a lot of things I can’t remember, but I remember my good friend Mary who could drink me under the table even though she weighed much less than I did.. I didn’t see much of her that night. I remember the ugly green curtains on the windows and the same color on the bedspread of the narrow twin bed. I remember my loose peasant blouse and my cotton underwear. I do remember Paul saying “I want you.” It didn’t take much to get me excited. I do remember I thought I loved him. I remember wondering what he thought of my body. And I do remember saying “I’m a virgin”. Paul told me “I will try to be gentle”. I don’t remember much pain or bleeding. Frankly, I’m not sure if he broke my hymen.

I didn’t realize until I had more experience that his penis was relatively small. He may not have thrust himself all the way in my vagina. He pulled out before he came. He didn’t use a condom, and I didn’t think about that until later. Then I thought about it a lot.

After the deflowering we met Mary and Gene in the kitchen and started drinking in earnest. As I got drunker and drunker it became more clear that Paul and Gene were planned a switcheroo. I was expected to fuck Gene. I stumbled to the bedroom and started kissing Gene. He pulled out a condom.

Then the alcohol hit and I started barfing. I think I made it to the bathroom. I wish I had yarked all over the both of them. I was never so sick from drinking in all my life. Paul had to risk a DUI to drive me home and he wasn’t too happy about that. Somehow I heard him say “I don’t want to drive her home”. “Why? said Gene. “Why do you think?” said Paul. I could barely walk and couldn’t stop vomiting. I had a trash can on my lap in the car. I had walked home alone several times in the dark to my dorm from his place previously. I could have been raped during one of those lonely strolls. Stupid me.

I discovered Paul with another girl and broke up with him a week later. She was a good excuse. It wasn’t until later when I slept with the guy who is now my husband that I realized how big a penis can be. That’s when I remember bleeding. That’s when I remember getting sore. That’s the day I lost my virginity after all.

Copyright © 2011 Dianne Klammer

Diane Klammer, is a wife, mother, naturalist and retired Counseling Psychologist, who started writing seriously about five years ago. Her poetry has been published in Tattoo Highway, Pirene’s Fountain, Heavybear, Midwifery Today, Rattle and elsewhere. Her Fiction is in Fast Forward Mix Tape Edition. Diane’s first book, “Shooting The Moon”, was published by Monkey Puzzle Press in October of 2009.

“I still feel like a new writer, constantly editing, changing and trying to write one word at a time. We must learn not to wallow in the nadir of self criticism or in the zenith of conceit concerning our work, but remain on the level horizon where we can be at our best.”

posted by Paragon Dream
Tags: amount, Catholic, cock, cock tease, college, contraception, contract, contract syphilis, countless lives, dad, dante, date, death, Dianne Klammer, drugstore, everybody, fires, guilt, guts, hammering, idea, impalement, inferno, level, losing my virginity, love, matter, mom, mom and dad, motel room, prude, punani, roommate, sign, someone, sophomore year, Syphilis, vamp, way, what the heck
Filed under: Fiction