The One - No one said it would be easy (3 page)

Number Two continued

And so, eventually, Number Two slipped his hand under my panties that were soaking wet, as ever when we were making out. I held my breath and I think he did too – it was his first physical exploration of this kind, too. I think he was mightily impressed with what he found. At the time, of course, I was still sporting a full but beautiful and small natural bush of hair. All that orgy of shaving and leaving just a tiny strip didn’t start until years later. But still I was unable to fully surrender to his lustful explorations. I was still incredibly worried about what would happen next, when he would pull his hand back out and maybe would want to smell it. And either it was my imagination because I was so completely paralyzed with fear, or it was really real, but when he pulled his hand out of my panties – in my panic, I kept trying to distract him – his hand really did go up to his face and I assumed that he sniffed at it, and furthermore I assumed that he actually wrinkled his nose. I was devastated. Now it was out. That was it. The worst had happened; he was going to leave me. Strangely enough I had been entire unconcerned about these things with my Number One. He even licked me and enjoyed it very much. So why was I making such a fuss about it with Number Two? Maybe it was the fact that he went to my school and I was scared to death that he’d tell everyone what a discovery he had made. I didn’t have to worry about any of that with Number One, I could just abandon myself and to hell with it, without any concerns. When Number Two suddenly announced that he had to go now, that was the end of everything. I thought I would never ever be able to face him again. He took his leave really quickly and I was left behind, feeling totally lousy.  

And all that unnecessary upheaval about a little bit of natural feminine odor – how silly was that, how devoid of any self-esteem! Twelve years on, and I am still highly sensitive about this issue. Even though I constantly recite the following: for heaven’s sake, it’s not my fault that Mummy Nature has seen fit to furnish “down there” with all this weird smelling flora and fauna. So it smells of pussy. And, just to clarify this once and for all, women do not smell of fish! It only smells fishy after you, my dear fellows, have souped into us women. It’s your soup that smells of old fish! And obviously it then spreads throughout the relevant lady-parts and stays there for a while, unless you blast it all out straight away with a high-pressure cleaner.

But I guess my Number Two really was in a hurry and I just imagined all those idiotic scenarios because of my odor paranoia. As evidenced by the fact that he did not dump me the next day and no posters were displayed around the schoolyard proclaiming the olfactory nature of my genital area. Phew – a sigh of relief! That meant our mutual voyage of discovery could continue.

By now, we had been together for quite some time, even our parents knew about us. And so it was time to take THE step. For both of us, it was the first time. Neither of us had, yet. And wanted to, so badly! He had the run of his house and I wanted to spend the night there, with him. My parents were not at all enthusiastic and didn’t really give me permission. They didn’t exactly say no, but they didn’t OK it, either. They wanted to leave it up to me. Clever move, to make it look like freedom of choice, when really it wasn’t. They plainly and simply expected me to stay home. They were certain that I would not dare. Well, sadly, wrong! I just pushed the worry about tomorrow morning’s thunderstorms aside and obstinately made my way to Number Two’s house. Next morning, as I toddled off towards home, I was scared shitless: all hell would break loose with my parents. After all, this was the first time ever that I had asserted myself against my parents’ wishes. But the need to do my own thing and not to be dictated to was stronger. This is the start of a whole new era! And for most teens, rebellion is doubtlessly connected to their first sexual adventure. Excitedly, I rang the doorbell at my Number Two’s house. He really was home alone.

I had prepared myself for the event and was wearing my most beautiful underwear. I was even wearing my first mini-bra, with a pink flowery pattern. I felt unbelievably sexy. I was wearing a thong, because I’d just discovered that one’s butt, when wearing pants, looks a whole lot better with a thong. No more double-butt-cheeked wobbly backside but round and full and pert, thanks to the G-string! From thereon in, pocket money was invested stringfully. I never really found those things particularly erotic myself, I just used to wear them for said reasons of aesthetic backside-views, but most gentlemen were not particularly put off by such tiny panties, rather the opposite.

Aside from all that, I was speculating madly about what it would be like to sleep with and next to a boy. Most of my panic centered on waking up together in the morning. You just don’t look like a Hollywood superstar when you climb, crumpled, out of bed in the morning. My panic focused on two major areas. Firstly, it’s no secret that you don’t smell sweet and minty-fresh first thing, before brushing your teeth. But I was forearmed! To this day I don’t know why I didn’t just consider getting up and brushing my teeth. I guess I was embarrassed and thought I was the only human to suffer this affliction. I secretly stashed about three kilos of peppermints in a hidden corner under his bed, which I had carried around with me in my trouser pockets and spirited away into said corner when he wasn’t looking. And all night long I sucked peppermints as though my life depended on it.  

My second area of panic concerned my worse-for-wear look the next morning. At the time, I used to wear masses of make-up, because my spots bothered me that much I’d rather walk about wearing a thick mask than display the spotty pot-holed mess that was my face. Naturally, there wouldn’t be a lot of make-up left after a night of making out and thrashing about. I was truly panicked that he would see my spot-infested pimply face. I was really ashamed of it. Which meant that not only was I sucking peppermints like a maniac all night, I also waited for the perfect moment early in the morning to dive into the bathroom. I was so upheavaled and confused anyway, there was no chance of actually sleeping. I never get any sleep during the first few nights with a new guy next to me. At dawn, I prettified myself again and shored up the layer of putty on my face. I knew of course that spots liked nothing better. But I didn’t care. Like so often, reason and vanity speak two entirely different languages. Just as long as he can’t see what’s underneath! And so, perfectly styled, I sneaked back into his bed and lay there, barely moving, so that I would not destroy the newly created look. I spent the beginning of the new day lying next to him, not moving, sucking peppermints – just to be ready for that one moment. When he woke up, I beamed at him, fresh and pepperminty of breath, face heavily covered in make-up. Okay. I’m a few years older by now, but not particular wiser. It’s not quite so extreme anymore. But during the first few nights with a new guy, I still go for a little rouge and powder around dawn, so that I can beam at him brightly and prettily in the early morning after. But at least I no longer spend the night sucking peppermints!

As for contraception, I had started to make provisions some time before. I’d been on the pill for half a year by then. So we started making out on the settee. All that excitement made me worry like crazy that I wouldn’t become properly aroused and moist. And my other giant worry was whether my nipples would become erect. That’s another one of those stories. It’s completely overrated, all this stuff about women’s nipples going hard and all that fiddling about with them. My nipples go hard when I climb into a bath of too-hot water, or when I’m cold. That’s it. When someone fiddles with them, it’s mostly coincidental if they go hard. It has absolutely nothing to do with being aroused. And so I used to pray to my nipples during sex and beg them to go hard, so that whatever guy was working on them would be happy. Daft or what?! Yes – instead of saying to him, all relaxed, hey babe, don’t knock yourself out, there’s nothing happening and it does nothing for me, I drove myself mad and kept putting all that pressure on myself. We women are completely daft. Instead of thinking of ourselves, we only think of making things as nice as possible for the guy. Even if he is a loser, we still tell him how he is the hottest lover-boy on the planet, instead of brutally confronting him with the truth. Some of my friends were relieved to admit that they were just the same with regard to nipples and the technicalities of nipple erection. They feel zero-point-zero during the belaboring of their nipples by male hand and tongue. And they, too, say that only temperature change makes their nipples go hard. And that it has nada-niente-nix-rien-and-nothing-whatsoever to do with sexual arousal. So – I am frigid of nipple. But I still moaned mightily while they were being worked over by Number Two...

Some while later we moved from the parental living room to his room and bed, where we continued in happy anticipation. In addition to contraception by pill, I insisted that we use a condom. I could still hear my mum’s words of warning. Understandably, she was not keen on having a pregnant teenage daughter. Better safe than sorry! We proceeded to get undressed and explore each other’s bodies. We were both terribly excited but tried to be as cool as possible and not let on. We hardly spoke at all. And so I was pleased when he eventually dug out some condoms from a little box, like it was the most natural thing. Together, we expertly pulled the thing over his thing. He was extremely well endowed and had a giant thing. Long and thick. Surrounded by lots of black hair. Back then I didn’t have all that much to compare it with. I watched it all with curiosity and could hardly believe that it would start now. Hey, we’re doing it, flashed through my mind. He took up position above me, between my legs.

And then – disaster! It didn’t work. I was wet and slippery, he was hard as iron, but it didn’t work. We just couldn’t get it in. What a disaster! I immediately noticed his distress. We continued to pretend to be very cool, but we were deflated. He was devastated. I had no idea what was going on. I hadn’t cramped up, I wasn’t frightened. And yet there seemed to be an invincible barrier inside of me. We didn’t talk about it. But, valiant Knights of Sex that we were, we would not give up and had another go a little later. And again it didn’t work. It just would not go into me. As though I was filled with concrete.

And then I committed the worst blunder of all time and inadvertently created the ultimate sexual worst-case scenario for my Number Two, inhibiting and disabling him for many months with regard to a resumption of our sexual interaction. This is what happened: my mum, worried as she was about me falling pregnant during my teenage years, had hammered into me that one had to be painstakingly cautious when applying a condom and ensure that the penis was really totally hard and erect. Otherwise it might slip off and the ensuing calamity – pregnancy or some dread disease – would be inescapable. And so I thought, maybe there’s something not right with the condom, and, naively, posed the following question, word for word, to my frustrated Number Two: “Is that all?” IS THAT ALL?! I meant to inquire whether his giant cock was truly hard enough and whether we’d done everything right with the condom. I just wanted to make sure that it wasn’t because we’d missed anything. But for him, that sentence hit home like a three-phase nuclear missile, obliterating his sexual desire for all time. He thought I was passing comment on the general state of his cock, expressing my apparent disappointment with its size and ineptitude. But I didn’t, not at all! The words “Is that all?” echoed in his ears for a long time and nibbled, piranha-like, at his otherwise perfectly well-balanced ego, as he confessed some years later, somewhat inebriated, at our graduation party. We laughed our heads off about it then. But at the time, in his bed, in his bedroom, his world collapsed. He’d had such high expectations of our first time; he’d finally wanted to be able to have something to boast about in front of his mates. And now this! First it won’t go in, and then this verbal kick in the teeth from me. Since neither of us was able to talk about stuff like sex and problems back then, we just hushed it up. We still cuddled up together but we didn’t really get going again. What a wash-out.
The next day, you could have cut the atmosphere in my parents’ house with a knife. But I survived, and was proud to announce to my mum that I got my own way for the first time and that it was a good thing, and that I no longer was an obedient, good little girl. I didn’t say a word about the night’s disaster.

Number Two and I never talked about it. We petted and snogged but I realized that he was shit-scared of trying again. He was scared to fail again. He could do without that humiliation. Even though he hadn’t failed at all and it was all entirely due to my inner wall of concrete. But we never talked about it. We were each on our own with our disappointment and our self-doubts. I had no idea he felt responsible and assumed that he blamed me. He thought that I thought that he was to blame. Rule: Unless you talk about it, you can’t be helped. We tried one more time, and again it didn’t work. There was simply no way in. This ensured that, for some months, all further sexual activity was put on ice. And still we did not talk about it. I was starting to get seriously worried by then – I was almost seventeen, about time to break the spell of virginity!

Down-to-earth as I was, I took my problem to the gynecologist. I told him all about my frustrating sexual experiences. He had a good look and said, yes well, some women have an extremely tear-proof and strong hymen. Mine was one of those. He suggested I should take matters into my own hands and widen the hymen myself. I could do it with my hands or fingers, or utilize some innocuous thing like a zucchini, as they had the approximate size and consistency of a standard penis. WHAT?! My gynecologist hadn’t really suggested I should deflower myself with the aid of a zucchini, had he?! Well actually, yes he had. Some other gynecologist once advised me to look after my intimate flora and fauna by squirting yogurt up the appropriate orifice. Oh brilliant, I thought crossly. Maybe add some nice strawberries? Well, I admit, I read this again later as professional advice in some women’s magazines. But please, what is this nonsense? Are all gynecologists beset by wild sexual fantasies about food? Did they really expect me to cover myself in yogurt and go at it with a zucchini, and all for medical reasons?! I was completely confused. On the one hand, I was prepared to try anything to finally solve this problem and rid Number Two of his deep frustration. On the other hand – who wants her first time to be with a zucchini? That was just too weird.