Hello, hello, hello. For the record, I changed my username. I'm also thenocturnalchandelier. MR isn't mine.


It happened in a blur. A crazy blur and then it was over.


One second I was in the conference room, negotiating plans for my mother's treatment, now revised. Then I was in my car. It wouldn't start. Fang was real, and he was offering to help me.

Then we were at the ice cream place. We laughed and we talked. We clicked. Like, love at first banana split. Too good to be true, too cliché for me to even begin to comprehend. This was the stuff of cheesy romance novels, bad Friday night chick flicks. This isn't the type of thing that happens to me, Max.

Then we were back in his car, which smelled of him. I can't describe what he smelled like very well- musky and dark and glamorous.

It was getting dark out, and then we were back at my apartment.

He came up with me. I don't remember inviting him. I probably did, I just don't remember it. Yeah, I definitely invited him- my short-term memory simply doesn't go back that far anymore, though.

I shrugged off my hoodie. He took off his.

Red wine for him, white wine for me. It was simple, nonchalant, and casual, nothing to it.

Well, for the first few glasses, at least.

One bottle gone. Two. Three.

Simplicity was out the door.

I was drunk. He was on the way there.

A couple glasses later, maybe a bottle or two, and we were rolling on the floor, bodies mashed together like in some kind of screwed up puzzle. We didn't fit like we thought we were supposed to, but who were we to care?

(We were too drunk and too reckless and each too lost in the other to even think about the elusive form of protection, of safety, known as a condom. Foreign to me, the pretty little virgin.)

When I woke up, it was half past noon. I knew that because I could see it on his watch. I was half dressed, and so was Fang. My flat was a mess, empty bottles and spilled alcohol and his boxers on the couch. Oh god. That was when it clicked, when it finally made sense in my mind.

Oh, my god. His boxers. On my couch.

The face of his watch read 12:30.

Holy God.

I had a pounding headache, and I just lost my virginity to a figment of my mother's imagination.

I rolled over, shrugging out of Fang's embrace. A little tighter and he'd have squeezed the life out of me. I didn't think about my lack of pants, or his. I simply kept my eyes above the ground and avoided looking at him at all.

I practically flew down the hall, as soundlessly as I could. Grabbing a pair of sweatpants, I locked myself in the bathroom.

I studied my face. I looked normal. I looked like someone who had a rough night- maybe I stayed up late studying or I had a bad dream. Not a single thing about me at the moment screams Hey, I'm Max, and I literally just lost my virginity to a guy I barely know.

I took that to be a good sign.


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