Disclaimer: Rent is Jonathan Larson's.
I am sixteen.
I, Maureen Johnson, am ready to lose my virginity.
I am.
I'm ready.
I've thought about it a lot. I've thought about losing it to myself. I don't just mean masturbation. I'm pretty flexible. I could probably get my fingers up there far enough to break my hymen. That's what I used to think about, my hymen, not which boy would be the first to put his penis in my vagina but which boy would break my hymen. I imagined it as a sort of wet, pinkish, filmy thing that would feel like the inside of my cheek and be about as thick as cellophane. I thought about sticking my fingers up there and trying to feel it, the thick, mucusy membrane of my virginity. My hymen.
Why hymen?
It bothered me, it truly did. There shouldn't be something down there, in a woman's intimate places, with men in it. If men go down there it should be her choice. They don't go there because they want to. It's because SHE wants them to. A woman decides when and which part of a man enters her privatest places. It seems so wrong, and so invasive, that she should be born with men down there!
Of course it turns out it's a Greek word from Hymenaeus, the Greek god of marriage and weddings. Even if it is such a fruity thing, I guess that's okay. A man down there was unacceptable. But a god…
In learning this, I learned something else. I wouldn't necessarily bleed my first time. My hymen wouldn't necessarily break. It wasn't a trapdoor to my womb that did the magical thing only women's bodies can.
Turns out your first time really is about a man sticking his penis in your vagina. So I needed to decide not which boy I would let break me but which boy I would let invade me. I surreptitiously examined each boy in my classes, the back of each head. Martin needed to wash his hair. Bryan never brushed his pudding bowl cut. Gideon couldn't sit still. Matt had an STD. Jacob had a bulbous Adam's apple. None of the boys at school were clean and good enough.
I was doing my homework at the kitchen table when I saw the perfect boy. He was tall and lanky, but attractive. He had great eyes, especially, kind and beautifully green, and lovely, curly blond hair. I stared while he stood by the fridge, sucking down chocolate milk.
"Hey, Roger," I said.
Roger turned. "Hey, Ree." He put the milk back in the refrigerator. I was just opening my mouth to start talking about sex when he shut the door. Another boy was standing there, shorter and broader than Roger with blue eyes, blond hair and bad skin. Roger wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "This is Mark."
"Hey, Mark. Rog, can I talk to you for a minute?"
"Sure."
"Upstairs."
"Uh…" He glanced at Mark. "Sure. Just help yourself," he told Mark.
We went up to my bedroom and I explained my plan. Roger was a sweet boy who cared about me. It didn't have to be anything but an initiation, an experience. He would wear a condom. And Roger's reaction was a mixed look of confusion and disgust. "Maureen… I'm your cousin!"
I rolled my eyes. "Third cousin," I insisted. We were barely related.
Roger shook his head. "No. No way. Maureen, no, ew!"
"Roger, listen. We're here alone like every afternoon. You care about me. You'll be gentle, you won't use me, it's perfect," I reasoned out. Roger was still shaking his head. "You're the perfect person to pop my cherry."
"What about my cherry?" he replied. I didn't tend to think of boys as really having cherries. Roger did. And he didn't want me to be his first time. His first time, he felt, should be something special, something he felt was right, and so should mine. It should be with someone he/I loved, even if we fell out of love…
Blah, blah, blah.
to be continued