I used to talk a big game when I lived at Rieber Hall at UCLA in 1988-89. I was on a special self-selected quiet floor for serious students.
I was working on this explicit novel.
I met a Chinese girl across the hall. She read my novel. She pointed out this part that was anatomically impossible.
It featured a woman, a car, and a gear stick.
I thanked her for the feedback.
I’d yet to be with an actual woman. I’d yet to do more than make-out with any woman.
I was 22 years old. I was a year into Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). My world had come crashing down. CFS felt like mono, only it didn’t go away. I was only able to finish one class each quarter and was spending about 18 hours a day in bed.
Until now, I thought I could achieve anything with the pure application of my will. Now I knew that was not right. I didn’t believe in God nor in religion nor in tradition. I was lost. I thought that through reason and self-control anything was possible.
The week of Valentine’s Day, I spend my first night with the Chinese girl. I was 22 years old. The next evening, she came over to my room. We got naked for the first time. I started to go **** on her. She said, “Don’t.”
I didn’t know much sexually. I had no experience. I’d seen some **** movies and read a lot of books. I lay on top of her and tried to stick it in. That didn’t work. She was too dry. Desperate, I slathered vaseline on my ****** and tried again. I knew that vaseline could cause tears in the ****** that might lead to pregnancy but I was desperate and out of control. I had to get inside. I had to succeed in something. The rest of my life had fallen apart. I had to cross this boundary. I had to become a man. A man is someone who knows how to **** a woman.
Despite the vaseline, I still failed to gain entrance.
She finally told me to lie down. She clambered on top of me and took me in her hand and guided me in. Sweet! I felt great. We just kind of lay there like that, hugging and talking for 20 minutes until she waved her hands to indicate that I should finish, and I did.
I came out of my room and there were a bunch of guys in the hallway and they high-fived me. They had heard my groans and they understood my victory.
I was now a man.
A few weeks later in our relationship, my girl said she was feeling insecure because I’d been with so many women. That’s when I broke down and told her the truth that she was my one and only.
I loved having a girlfriend and I loved having regular sex but in the back of my head I was worried about my lack of control during my first time. I had endangered us both because I couldn’t control my need to have this pleasure my way.
I didn’t have nearly as much self-control as I thought. I was not nearly as rational as I thought. I couldn’t trust myself as much as I thought. I was pretty messed up. I couldn’t believe in God and I couldn’t believe in me and I couldn’t believe in my girlfriend because she had her own frailties.
There was a guy in the room next to me, James. He’d taken my girlfriend’s virginity a few weeks earlier. He was a stud. He knew how to handle women. My girlfriend wanted to stay friends with him but I hated that.
One night I heard about her drinking and dancing with him.
The next morning, I knocked on her door. She opened it with bleary eyes. She was hung over. I came in, got into *** with her, and maneuvered her into ***. I didn’t worry about warming her up. I just rammed it in. I took my satisfaction and then I left and lay in the sun.
When I came back a few hours later, she was crying. She knew that I had punished her. She knew that I had deliberately hurt her because I was jealous of continuing friendship with James.
And that was the end of things between her and James.
There was an Asian girl next door to me, on the other side from James, and she liked sleeping with other girl’s boyfriends. She sent her roommate into tears by doing this.
One Friday night, while my girlfriend was home in Alhambra, I was sitting in the hall by the Ladies room chatting with my dorm mates. The Asian came up the hall wearing apparently nothing but her bathrobe and carrying a towel. I walked up to her and started flirting. “So are we finally going to take a shower together?” I asked. She said yes. “Great, let’s go,” I said and marched with her right up to the door of the Ladies room. Then I chickened out in front of my friends and moved away.
She went into the Ladies room and then emerged a minute later. Sticking just her head out the door, she said to me, “The coast is clear if you want to come in.”
I couldn’t believe she was so bold. Here was what I wanted most — another body, an exotic locale for sex, an opportunity to learn from someone more experienced than me, someone who wouldn’t be clingy, but I went on automatic as the righteous preacher’s kid, the rationalist philosopher, the secular humanist, and I said no, no. She said OK and disappeared.
I think that was the last time we flirted.
I was always faithful to my girlfriend (in the sense that I never touched anyone else). That was how I saw myself, as a faithful and righteous boyfriend. I was also a scaredy-cat. I knew that word would get around to my girlfriend if I went into the Ladies room for a shower with the Asian and I didn’t want to lose what I had.
I think those were the reasons I turned the Asian down. I admit I’ve often kicked myself for missing out.
