I got to know BJ bussing tables. We got to talking and she had a sense of humor. And then she went away for a year to Germany because she was a German major. And then she came back and 
we got to talking some more, and then necking, and dry humping and whatnot. And that might have just gone on forever because I was afraid of getting her pregnant and just couldn’t bring myself to ask if she was on the pill. I was also afraid of venereal diseases, but after I got to know her a bit I figured she wouldn’t give me one of those or at least tell me if she had one.
But we studied together and one night she went off to the john and left her diary, I guess you would call it, sitting there. And I didn’t have to reach out or move it or anything to read that she had recorded that she had been taking the pill for over a month. And after that things preceded apace, and I was able to unburden myself of the terrible stigma of my virginity albeit, if I am to believe other guys, rather late but still somewhat in the ballpark for what might be called “normal.”
I was terribly concerned about being “normal” since I was pretty sure I wasn’t. But the idea that I might want to fuck a woman just to get rid of my virginity troubled me. That seemed like using a person to satisfy your needs, and I didn’t want any woman I knew to think I had used her just to get rid of my virginity. That felt awful. I didn’t get drunk and go to parties, so I didn’t have an opportunity for casual sex and besides I was incapable of casual sex. I mean a guy who worries that a woman might feel used if he has sex with her to get rid of his virginity is too screwed up for casual sex.
But I was pretty horny and that overcame any compunctions I had about using a woman to get rid of my virginity. Besides I liked BJ. She was smart and liked to laugh and anybody who is a German major has got to have a bit of a tormented side too. Just my cup of tea, the tormented side I mean. I liked too that, when she had gone to Germany, she really had insisted on going to Germany, and not some place where everybody spoke English. Instead she stayed with a German family that hardly knew English and nearly had a nervous breakdown for her troubles.
Afterwards I felt pretty good for a while. In fact, a professor said, Nick, what’s going on, you seem in a better mood. I didn’t know any professor had noticed my mood and I figured I must have been in a pretty vile one if people could actually see the change. I wasn’t going to tell her I had just got laid.
That lasted for a little bit. But then things got complicated again. Because having sex with a woman that you know brings about an increased degree of intimacy whether you want it or not. Getting laid and losing my virginity I saw was a pyrrhic victory. I hadn’t really changed any. Things were as fucked up as ever but more complicated. Before I got laid, I knew at least where I was headed, but afterwards I had no idea where we were going.
