It blistered and chafed me, and more than anything I wanted to throw it in a tin garbage bin and reduce it to smoldering ashes—but not until after everyone had gotten a good eyeful of me wearing it. I still don’t understand why I wanted it gone so badly. Why was I so ready to slough it off on the nearest passerby, like some conspicuous dandruff? Isn’t virginity supposed to be treasured? Shouldn’t I have grasped it tightly and carefully until only the worthiest partner came along? But the idea of sex had been pumped up to colossal size in my head. I fantasized about how incredible my first good fuck would be, how my whole life had been leading up to that one magical (oh, and it would be magical) moment. All I wanted was to get that teensy little uncomfortable bit of virginity over and done with as quickly as possible and get on to the fun part. And can anyone blame me for not having a clue? In my favorite fantasy novels, after that first awful moment, the heroine’s first time is soul-crushingly fulfilling.
