This is not really a coming of age story—for I didn’t and I wasn’t of age…but, it is what it is. For Guy, on this, the most hallowed of “you pick the topic” week.

I have this friend I’ll call Wanna-Wanda. We knew each other our entire lives, though she spent many of those years living a few hours away. She wanted to go to college in the town where I lived, so her grandma agreed to let her live with her while she went to school. We were pretty inseparable for much of my only semester of my senior year in high school.

Wanna-Wanda was a bit precocious. She vowed to me, that summer before she turned 18, that she would lose her virginity before college started in the fall. She actually wrote it out on a piece of spiral-bound paper: “Lose virginity by August 18^th.” You gotta’ love a goal-setter. My own experiences to date had been making out with the odd guy or having orgasms with girls, oh, and that one really talented boy who should have played piano—but no one told me I could count them as actual sex, because there was no penis involved.

So, the date was quickly approaching and she did indeed lose her virginity. I have no idea if it sucked or anything, because there was no freakin’ way I’d ask such a thing. So, on that piece of paper, she wrote his name and folded the paper up and hid it in her sock drawer so her grandma wouldn’t find it. As the summer moved deep into the changing colors of fall, the list grew. First five names, then ten names, and hey, I knew some of those guys—what the fuck? She slept with my friend Randy? She slept with that married guy who sang at the bar we used to sneak into? My freakin’ ugly Army recruiter? Each time we’d get together, she’d pull out the list, which by the time the semester was coming to a close had over 30 names and now sported a very detailed rating system. One day, we were sitting on a mattress in her grandma’s basement, going over her list. She described the strengths and shortcomings of most of the fellows. I had begun to look at her not as a SLUT, but as a scientist advancing the study of teenage sex.

The name at number 28 intrigued me…he owned the bar we used to sneak into. He was in his early 40s. He was good looking and charming. His rating was a 5 out of 5 and included little remarks punctuated with smiley faces and hearts over the “I’s.” Hmm, I thought…I probably should get this thing out of the way, and perhaps he would be a good candidate. I mean, I would want him to know what he was doing as I hadn’t a freakin’ clue. Wanna-Wanda thought this a most excellent idea.

So, we set about to get me laid. Really, it wasn’t that difficult. I think it’s why he owned the bar in the first place—to get a little underage stuff. I suppose that many people would have appreciated his incredible staying power, but all I could think of was, “I wonder what’s on TV tonight… lalalalalalalala …hmmm, the ceiling needs painting…I wonder if my mom is making fried chicken this weekend…” I was then too stupid to even fake it so it would all end. I think I would have killed at that point to have been with a teenage boy who was sure to conclude the entire process in three minutes or less. It was anti-climatic in so, so many ways. Even worse, he really dug me and wanted to keep seeing me. Thanks to the Army, I was saved. That, Wanna-Wanda, that was a freakin’ 5?

Wanda-Wanda and I met up about three years later when I was home on leave. I went out to her new place where she lived with her fiancée. While he was at work, she pulled out this ancient piece of spiral bound paper, folded so many times, it barely held together, even with the tape—with all its names, and she said, “This has been our little secret…so I thought you should be here when I did this before I got married.” I looked at the list and my eyes grew wide. Impressive body of work, that. She reached down and grabbed the lighter and we watched a brief lifetime spent on her grand science experiment go up in a puff of smoke.

There was never virgin got till virginity was first lost. ~ William Shakespeare

This entry was posted on Friday, August 24th, 2007 at 6:21 am and is filed under Memory Lane, Observationationalism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.