At 17

1988


I’ve been dating an older woman named Karen for several weeks. She’s twenty-two, five years older than I am. A real live, adult, sexual woman. I’m still a virgin, and she’s far from a virgin. Karen has had sex with a few of the guys at Pizza Tent, which I must try not to think about, lest I go crazy. She dated one of the assistant managers for a short time, a jerk named Bill who told me last week that Karen’s pussy wasn’t that good. "Dude, the pussy is average at best, nothing special," he said, with a cocky shrug. I told Bill that I wouldn’t know the difference between good pussy and bad pussy. I’d be happy with any pussy, as long as my penis found its way inside. Bill laughed and said, "You’ve got a lot to learn, kid." It hurts to know that my boss has fucked my girlfriend, because I haven’t even fucked my girlfriend. I haven’t had sex with anything except my left hand, a bottle of shampoo, a photo of Molly Ringwald, and a grapefruit.

Karen is short and skinny, with small tits and badly-dyed blonde hair. Her face isn’t anything special, kind of horsey, in fact, but she has a nice smile, all of her teeth are intact, and her personal hygiene is commendable. She always smells well-scrubbed. Also, she’s mentioned that she really wants to fuck me, which certainly bumped her up a few notches. She’s a sweet girl who won my heart one Saturday night by bringing me a milkshake while I was pissed off and sweaty, doing dishes by myself at work well after midnight. The store was a disaster of dirty dishes, sticky floors, and overflowing trash cans. She handed me a chocolate milkshake and said, "I thought you could use this." I wiped sweat from my eyes and said, "More than you know." I was filthy and smelled like onions and grease, but she didn’t mind. She came on to me. Flirted. Let me know she was available. Wooed me with great pickup lines such as: "I’m on the pill," and "My parents are really old and their hearing is bad, so it’s like they’re not even home at all, even when they are. I could moan for hours and they wouldn’t hear a thing. I could moan for you, Ervin, if you wanted me to."

Karen is not my dream girl or anything, but she is open to the idea of touching my penis, so I’ve decided to be her boyfriend. It’s more than just the possibility of sex, though. I like the attention. For the first time in my life, a girl has fallen madly in love with me. I don’t love Karen. Not yet. Maybe I will, maybe not. But she loves me. Karen has said that she’d do anything for me. It’s just nice to be wanted by someone. I’ve told her that I love her, and I will continue to do so, because she likes to hear it, because she’d feel stupid if I didn’t return the sentiment, because I want her to sleep with me, because I don’t even know what love is.

Tonight, I’m with Karen in her living room. We’re groping each other beneath a blanket. Her parents are in bed, sound asleep, their television blaring. Karen is wearing short shorts and a pink half-shirt, no bra. My fingers are under her shirt, twisting her somewhat hairy nipples (I never knew that girl nipples could be hairy). She moans, bites my shoulder, pulls my hair. She sucks on my tongue as if it’s her favorite flavor of lollipop.

I’m ready to burst.

I think This is it. I’m finally going to get some action.

"Ervin," she says, "promise me you won’t do drugs anymore. I can’t be with a guy who does cocaine. I just can’t. So promise me."

"I promise," I say, with sincerity. "That part of my life is over." I haven’t done any drugs since my nightmare Junior Prom, and I don’t even miss it. The urge is gone. I don’t want to be that guy. I want to be this guy. The guy who has a girlfriend. The guy who’s about to get laid, thank you very much.

She pulls her shorts down and shoves her tongue deep inside my mouth. "Let’s fuck, Ervin," Karen says. "I want us to sleep together."

"Yeah, let’s do that," I say. "I think sex would be, um, awesome. It would, you know, strengthen our love and stuff."

"Are you ready for it?" she asks.

"Oh, yeah!"

I am suddenly very scared. Scared of the pussy. I tremble. My hands won’t stay still. My stomach offers pain and odd noises. My hard cock shows signs of weakness. The pussy is in front of me, calling out to me, and I am afraid of it.

"Fuck me," she says, pulling me to her. "Feel how wet I am."

I slide several fingers inside her, with ease. "That’s pretty wet," I say.

"Fuck me right now."

And I would totally fuck her if my penis was the least bit hard. But it’s not. It’s gone soft, like a deflated balloon, and I want to cry.

She goes down on me, trying to bring me back to life, without success.

"I’m sorry, Karen."

I feel betrayed by the lower half of my body.

Karen says, "It’s okay. We can just lay here. I know you’re nervous. Let’s just cuddle. I love you no matter what."

She holds me close. Her shorts are still down and her bare sex mocks me. There it is, close enough to touch. Its sweet aroma wafting through the room. Its wetness on my fingers. The pussy is teasing me. I close my damp eyes.

We fall asleep together, both of us wearing shirts and pants pushed down to our ankles. I dream about the sex I couldn’t have, dream that I’m strong and hard and fuck like a champion. I awake a few hours later with a gigantic (average-size but incredibly firm!) boner. I wake Karen, shake her, shout, "Get up! It’s urgent!" I am fully ready and Karen feels it and says, "Put it in. Now! Before it gets soft again," which doesn’t instill me with great confidence. She’s on the pill and that’s good enough for me, diseases be damned, because I’m seventeen and indestructible. I slide inside her and give her a sweet, hot, romantic, passionate, clumsy minute. I am no longer a virgin. I’ve done it. I’m seventeen and I’ve had sex.

What a relief.

She grabs a T-shirt and wipes between her legs. "I usually hate the mess of sex, but I don’t mind your mess. Your mess makes me smile."

"That’s sweet of you to say, gross but sweet."

Karen holds me close, pets me, kisses my forehead. "I’m glad we got your first time out of the way. I’m sure you’ll do better next time. We can practice all you want."

I say, "I don’t know what you’re talking about. I thought I was awesome." We both laugh. She tells me she loves me, and I lie and tell her I love her, too.

I hear my brother’s voice in my head. Karen is not Dave’s type. She’s much too tiny for a man of distinct taste like Dave. "I’m like ‘em big," he would often say. Dave may be gone for now, but he is never forgotten. I imagine that when he returns from his time in the carnival, he will be even more wise, if that is possible. And he will probably be missing a few more teeth. I envy my brother. Traveling across this great country, not a care in the world, spreading his demon seed to all the carny groupies across this great nation, rolling tight cigarettes and watching the rickety rides spin. I wish I could tell him that I just got laid. He’d appreciate that. Dave would congratulate me and then ask to smell my fingers.