SINGING SONGS TO CHERRY BLOSSOMS: Rainy Day Women and Forgotten Hymens

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- She couldn't remember the name of the first guy she'd slept with.

She remembered that it was her junior year in high school, some random Friday night after a party during the summer, while her parents were out of town. She remembered that he worked Uptown, that he was either a sophomore or a junior at the Local U., drove an SUV. He smoked a lot of pot, drank vodka with Mountain Dew, and smelled marvelous.

But she couldn't, for the life of her, remember the guy's name. She was tipsy that night, he was drunk, and the whole blasted sexual experience lasted maybe five minutes, tops.

It just wasn't worth remembering, she said, because she'd moved on and found other lovers, caring guys and even, yes, her fair share of worthless assholes.

From her description of the event itself, well, I don't think I'd want to remember much, either.

* * * *

Her tale went something like this:

Pushing. Pushing. Almost...

Snap. Ow. Temporary reprieve.

Ow. Push. Ow. Push. Ow.

Ow. Push. Push.

Kiss, kiss, kiss, I love you, push. Push, push, ow.

A slip-out, a wrong-hole, a push, a You're not in, and finally - FINALLY - back inside, and yes, the grand finale...

... I'm coming... Oh God!...

Shudder - shudder - weird feeling - Wait, don't -

Pop. Out. Flop.

And, just like that, she was no longer a virgin.

She was, however, surprised at how anticlimactic the whole cherry-popping business turned out to be.

* * * *

She had a knot on the back of her head and bruises on the inside of her thighs for two weeks.

They hung out a few times after that night. He called non-stop, and she was flattered by the attention.

But he wasn't that cute, was as dumb as a post, and had smoked enough weed to qualify as retarded. He stopped smelling so marvelous, too, and started to reek of perpetual desperation.

He turned out to be a complete asshole, expected that he'd get laid every time they were at parties or bonfires together. Eventually, she just learned to avoid him completely.

After a few months, well, he was no more of a first lover than her fingers had been before that.

"Dude, girls figure out how to masturbate way before you guys."

Really?

"Well... we figure out what we like first, 'cause half the time guys in this town have no fucking clue."

Wait.

Really?

* * * *

Since she shared her Loss of Sexual Innocence bullshit with me, I figured I'd share my own I'm a Man Now bullshit.

"Wait. You don't even remember doing it?"

"Nope. Drunk. Blacked out. Remember the abandoned farmhouse and the MD 20/20, though."

"In Birming...ham?"

"Buckingham. Virginia. 1995."

"Okay... that's SO much worse than mine."

She held her coffee in both hands as we huddled beneath a coffee shop awning. Every one or two sips, she'd take a drag off her cigarette, nervously push smoke from her nostrils as she talked.

A heavy downpour hammered down on the storefront overhang, rain shot from the pitch, overpowered the helpless gutters. We were trapped, coffee in hand, in a curbside cave, waiting for a break.

Apparently, the night she'd lost her less-than-precious virginity, it'd been raining, too. Something about the downpour spurred the conversation. And smokers, well, do have the best conversations while we're huddled outside in the middle of thunderstorms.

I'd never met the woman before in my life, never seen her anywhere in Oxford. I didn't even bother to ask her name.

One of the coolest random strangers with whom I've ever shared a temporary shelter, in fact.

And I'm sure, if I could remember anything about it, my first would probably rank as my worst sexual experience. And I'm fairly certain that, well, I'm probably at the bottom of my supposedly sacred First's list now, too.

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