It started the summer before my freshman year of highschool. I was, as most 14 year old girls are, mind-numbingly awkward. My life revolved around two things: The High School Speech Team, and Jesus. Probably in that order. I spent the last summer before I got my liscence mostly sitting around, talking to my BFF on the phone, and laying around outside. It was a hard life, I must admit.
This was also the summer that I became undoubtedly aware of my virginity.
Before then, the term "virgin" was just sort of something that EVERYONE was. Regardless of whether or not they had children. At least this was the case in my mind. The shameful act of LOSING one's virginity was simply too much for me to comprehend. Would it hurt? Would God smite you right then and there? Would Jesus immediately inform your parents via phone call or email? Would your impending pregnancy be instantaneous? All of these things were gruesome enough ideas to make me never ever want to get within ten yards of the opposite sex.
That is, until I met Ray.
I don't remember much about Ray, except that he was pale and portly, with bad skin. His nose looked perpetually broken, and spoke with an unnerving lisp. How could I resist? He was also the local minister's son, which gave me the moral go-ahead to fall head over jelly shoes in like with him.
It took us a painful two months of awkward dating before we even held hands, mostly due to the fact that we couldn't do much of anything without one of our parents following two or three yards behind us. This sort of became the way I thought things were always going to be. For the rest of my life, no matter what, his parents would be toodling close behind, making sure we weren't touching, talking, looking at each other, or thinking about touching talking or looking at each other. It was a blissful, Jehova-Centered relationship.
A relationship completely void of any thoughts of sex whatsoever. In fact, the word SEX never crossed my thoughts albeit for the occasional synonym for gender. No, sex meant losing my precious virginity. And that was just entirely out of the question. My virginity was MINE, and no evil, satanic non-christian was ever going to take what was so rightly my possession.
This stayed the same until October of 2001.
On October 16, 2001 (according to my Elmo journal), Ray did what no self-respecting fifteen year old boy should ever do. Especially fifteen year old boys that aren't getting laid.
He told me he loved me.
And then hung up the phone.
And that was it. The key that turned the lock on my hardened virginity. The magical word that forced my 14 year old mind to do a complete one eighty.
On the one hand, I had Jesus. My Lord and Savior. The ONLY man worth my love and affection, thankyouverymuch. But on the other hand, there was Ray. My pasty, pizza-faced love machine. My Romeo in Hush Puppies. My suave, bracefaced Mr. Darcy. You get the idea.
So that very night, I made it my personal mission to give my first boyfriend, my first love, my first everything, my precious lady token. Keep in mind that at this stage in the game, we haven't even kissed yet. I had a lot of work to do.
I started by turning to my trusted Elmo journal. Flipping through the pages, I reassured myself that this was the man I was going to spend the rest of my days with. After all, his father, the community Baptist minister, could perform the ceremony. His mother, my dance instructor, could choreograph our oh-so-romantic first dance to "As I Lay Me Down To Sleep", by Sophie B. Hawkins. My father, a bartender, could commission his fellow coworkers to pour O'Douls and nonalcoholic sparkling cider for the very straight-edge attendees (booze is in fact for dweebs, after all.). And last but not least, my mother, a seamstress, could custom make the perfect, stylish yet modest long sleeved crewneck wedding dress. It was perfect. A Godsend, if you will.
But this would of course have to come after the blessed handoff of the V-Card. Time was a precious commodity for me. The way I saw it, at the ripe old age of fourteen, my maternal clock was ticking. After all, if I wanted to be the smiling mother of three by the time I was eighteen, I simply HAD to put the moves on it. Ray would follow in his father's saintly footsteps, and I would stay at home, breezily taking care of the children and singing the praises of our lord the father. All this, with time left over to plan and carry out every single church function you could possibly think of. I mean really, who WOULDN'T want that life?
I was insanely proud of myself. Because really, what other freshman in high school had that much foresight?
And so began my quest the break the ultimate rule. Looking back, it seems so utterly backwards that I was that eager to give up the goods pre-matrimony. But hey, who am I to judge the love-struck mind of a horny teenager? I think part of me was just eager to get it over with. There was such a stigma built up around losing your virginity. Especially since around the same time, a girl I knew named Katy got pregnant. This was an entirely new fascination for me. She wasn't married! She didn't even know who the dad was! If God could forgive HER for what she had done, he could undoubtedly look past my little romp into carnal desire with the man I was going to MARRY, for heaven's sake!
It occurred to me that Ray should probably be in on the whole plan. After all, you can't lose your virginity to yourself, now can you? About a week after he dropped the L bomb, I invited him over to my house for lunch. The afternoon was already off to a sinful start, seeing as I had lied to my mother about what was going on. You see, at that time, I wasn't allowed to have Ray over without parental supervision. So I, *gasp* LIED to her about my intentions. I told her my best friend Amanda was coming over for an impromptu bible study session. Hey, when you're overcome by God's love, you just gotta let it show, right? So with my mother preoccupied safely at work, I unlocked the front door and let Ray in. He looked over his shoulder and gave the cue to his mother in her periwinkle blue minivan. It was alright for her to leave.
