LEAVE THE VIRGINS ALONE 

I met Tricia while performing school-sponsored volunteer work in May. She was some sensational mix of black, white and West Indian. Her teeth were perfect pearls complementing a flawless face. Not since almost seeing Daryl Hannah naked in Splash as a child can I remember falling so hard so fast. Despite the palpable chemistry between us, I fixated on our differences. I became certain that there could be no future between us. At 20, Tricia was five years my junior. She liked the outdoors and dancing; I’m a bookworm who dances like C3PO having a seizure. Tricia was urbane, she came from a well-to-do family; I drive a ‘88 Hundai and have been broke since the day I left home for college. I let my insecurities become a self-fulfilling prophecy and I let her get away. After letting Tricia slip through my fingers I resigned myself to a love life of sucking down pints of Haagen-Dazs while watching rented chick flicks. I swore that if I were ever given a second chance to court Tricia I would do my best impression of Don Juan. 

While trekking across campus one morning late July, I saw a figure that looked like an hourglass silhouette against the backdrop of the sun. Being partial to women of color I surreptisiously ogled the sexy sister. My gaze meandered up her sculpted legs, past her voluptuous backside, and along her slender neck before my eyes met with Tricia’s hypnotic brown orbs. Eight weeks had passed since our first and last meeting. I was certain she wouldn’t recognize me, and even if she did, whatever sensitive remark I had inadvertently uttered to endear myself to her would have exhausted its romantic foothold. Not only did she recognize me; she acted like a fifteen year-old who just spotted one of the Backstreet Boys at the mall. I walked her to her on-campus residence where we talked for hours and exchanged numbers. 

Not even a day passed before she called to make plans. After paying a check I couldn’t afford at a restaurant I couldn’t pronounce, I found myself in Tricia’s room. Under normal circumstances, the mere thought of “making the first move” would cause my composure to leave my body like last night’s two-for-one well Tequila shots. However, that night my confidence was bolstered by the two cocktails I had during dinner, and when Chicago’s “I Don’t want to Live Without Your Love” played on the radio I simply did what came naturally. I confessed that I found her breathtaking, and that I had thought of little else but her since the moment we met. She confessed that the attraction was mutual. I asked for permission to kiss her and she granted it. “What took you so long to ask?” she inquired, practically heralding a night of passion. Garments were hastily removed and thrown to the floor until all that stood between us was my tentpoled BVDs. I was anticipating my first night of unadulterated lovemaking in nearly a year until Tricia surprised me with a bizarre and untimely question. She asked me how many sexual partners I had been with previously. I divulged the unimpressive sum and reciprocated the question. None,” she casually responded, “I’m a virgin.” Panic and elation struck simultaneously. When the gorgeous, nude girl you are lying in bed with tells you that she is a virgin, one of two diametrically opposed statements can follow, “but I want you to be my first,” or “and I intend to stay that way until marriage.” She chose the latter, not the former.The heavy petting continued for hours. When I had grown tired of waiting for the signal to run her bases, I decided to steal third. I encouraged her to fellate me by gently applying pressure to the top of her head. She promptly informed me that she had never performed oral and never would. I then offered to orally pleasure her, an offer she declined because of her moral and religious code. There I was lying damn near naked with the most exotic nymph to ever acknowledge my existence and I was not permitted to engage in any kind of sexual contact beyond an eighth-grade level. 

Oddly enough, grinding her clitoris against my pubic bone to achieve orgasm did not violate her ambiguous moral or religious convictions. She continued this selfish indulgence until the throbbing in my gridlocked testicles became a full-blown scrotal migraine. Alas she offered me the obligatory hand job, a pathetic consolation for the coitus I would never receive from her. Like a starving man offered a morsel of rotten fruit, I accepted out of desperation. She began executing dry, mechanical strokes, skillfully avoiding the sensitive regions of my penis. Determined to derive some pleasure from the experience, I made the grave mistake of asking her to stroke me a little harder. She started pumping my shaft like a hyper fratboy trying to drain a pint of beer from an empty keg. The sensations fluctuated between pain and more pain until I could take no more and begged her to unhand my manhood. Exasperated by her sadistic cock teasing, I asked Tricia how she drew her absurd schema about what constituted morally and evangelically acceptable pre-marital sexual behaviors. She was visibly upset by the question. She became defensive and insisted that certain forms of sexual contact where not in conflict with her virtues or those of the Church. She argued that certainly masturbation was not “as big a deal” as oral sex, and that oral did not carry the same Christian karmic repercussions as intercourse. I assured her that achieving orgasm from manual manipulation was no different than achieving orgasm from oral or penile stimulation, all were examples of using her genitals for pleasure rather than procreation. I also pointed out that the desire to procreate is instinctual to every organism on the planet for the purpose of genetic propagation; it is not something evil nor something to be ashamed of. Like a model Christian she would have no part in logic or scientific debate. Instead, she grew sullen and silent, turned her back to me and stared out the window. I made a “husband’s apology,” an insincere atonement for whatever offensive statement I had made, but she did not respond. I had taken as much bullshit as I was going to take from a girl who was not wearing my ring. I dressed myself and made for the door. Once inside my car, the lingering aroma of her perfume added another sensory dimension to my blue balls. I made the ten-minute drive home in five. I planned to drink a beer, pleasure myself and collapse into a blissful slumber, where at least I could dream about what sex with a Nubian princess would feel like. After drowning my sorrows, I fished out the 1980’s porno that I have kept under my mattress for a century. I uncapped my Sam’s Club sized Vaseline container and placed it beside me at arm’s length. I sprawled out on my bed inches from the television and removed my underwear. Not even a “Faces of Death” movie marathon could have prepared me for the carnage I was about to witness. My penis was swollen and bruised from the brutal beating Tricia’s hands had administered. The smooth skin just beneath the helmet looked like a ring of pork fat. On its underbelly, my member had suffered an Indian burn that left a ruby-red racing stripe. I began hyperventilating and fought the urge to faint. I ran naked down the hall to the bathroom. I hurdled into the shower and turned the cold water on full-blast. I let the icy precipitation rain down on my dismembered member in the hopes of reducing the swelling and returning it to some semblance of its original shape. After slipping into my pajamas, I climbed into bed and passed out. By morning most of the swelling had abated.

I am partially to blame, I should have immediately executed an “about face” when I entered Tricia’s room and noticed that the Bible was the only book adorning her bookshelf. Common sense should have told me that there was no foundation for a relationship between an open-minded, college educated young man and a blind sectarian, especially one who allows the church to dictate her morality. Experience should have told me that Tricia’s easy-going, demure nature was not the product of meeting the perfect girl, but of meeting a girl whose development was mildly retarded. But if Tricia had boundaries that could not be crossed and scoring was out of the question, she should have made that clear from the coin toss like a mature adult. And my desire for a rich and rewarding sex life does not mean that I am not interested in a committed, monogamous relationship; but regardless of whether I am making love to my soul mate or simply engaging in casual sex, I want an uninhibited lover who indulges her every desire while satisfying every one of mine. Sex is simply a non-negotiable contractual term when I enter any quasi-marriage. I will break my back to please a woman, but there has to be a paycheck at the end of the workday. Why else would I submit myself to the time commitment, emotional blitzkriegs, and financial burden of a relationship without the primary reward? Nobody would play the lottery if they only got to look at the money when they won!