Virginity

I cannot believe that he will ever truly leave me, my father. It isn’t in me to abandon that notion, that instinct, that feeling. The feeling that he’s somewhere, somewhere waiting. I know it’s silly. I don’t pretend to think that I’m not being childish. But I can’t help it. I think I’ll probably always be afraid. I think I’ll probably always be afraid of him. But, I guess, you knew that already, didn’t you?

 

The night that my father lost his mind was also the night that I lost my virginity. Not that the two had much to do with one another. I had snuck out to be with my boyfriend, as teenagers tend to do. I met him in the alley that night, the one a few doors down from my house. It was very bright out, I remember because I was afraid someone was going to see us. “Don’t worry,” he said, “It’s cool.”

He just wanted to get laid. His name was Brad, Brad Towne. Weird last name, I know. We went down by the park; there was a field there then. I doubt it still exists, most of that is industrial now. There was this large open field. We had a blanket and some beers. I was sixteen. We started to kiss. It was summer. The night was chilled but still warm. It was electric.

He started getting closer, started to undo his buttoned shirt. He took it off and then began to fumble with my shirt. It was just some low cut V-neck. It stopped short of my belly button. I took it off for him. He got excited. I could tell- the kisses got more intense then. He was a little sloppy with his kisses; I could tell he was nervous. I was too, but I didn’t want him to know.

Then he went for my pants. He started to unbutton them; he exposed my panties a little. Then I asked him, “Do you have…?” And he said, “Yah… yah, hold on.” Then he stopped for a moment and pulled out his wallet. We were both breathing hard, not really ready for the event. I was scared, scared of a million things. I thought about being seen or heard, I thought about the condom breaking, I thought about getting pregnant or sick. But then he put it on and said breathlessly, “Okay.”

It didn’t feel right. His hands on my back and his face against mine. We didn’t kiss during it; we just kind of looked at each other. It didn’t last very long. I was glad. It had hurt. Not as bad as I thought it would, but it hurt. Afterwards we both put our clothes back on and didn’t say anything. Then after a moment he said, “It’s getting late.” And I said, “Yah, I should be getting…” And he said, “Me too.”

He watched as I climbed the familiar tree to my window and then left. After I knew that he had gone, I pulled out my diary and wrote a few lines:

            Tonight I had sex. I’m not sure why, but I did it. I think I’m the first one I know. I wonder what that means. Well, I’m tired. Goodnight.

            Then I clicked off my bedside lamp and went to sleep.

 

            A loud crash from downstairs woke me up. I had only been sleeping for half of an hour but it felt like I had been out for ages. I wondered for a moment if I had dreamed the sound, but then I heard someone scream. A woman. My mother, I was pretty sure.

            I ran down the stairs and saw my father standing there, in the living room adjacent to the stairs, standing over my mother. He was holding something. She was making some kind of noise, kind of like a cooing. Then he swung down hard on her with what he was holding. I didn’t know what it was at the time, but I knew the general affect of being hit with it. There was a weird noise and then silence, no more cooing. I found out later that it was an iron.

            I ran back upstairs and called the police. I didn’t really want my father to be arrested, but I didn’t have much of a choice. The police came in no time and took my father away. They found him next to my mother humming softly. No particular song, just a random concoction of notes the doctors’ figure.

            I was in my room crying. I didn’t know what had just happened. I actually thought my mom was going to be okay, at the time at least. I didn’t really think she’d die on me. She was all I had; I didn’t know my dad that well. He had spent a lot of time at the office.

            All they ever really found out was that he had suffered a “Nervous breakdown.” What he had done was not common and was for all intensive purposes unexplainable. To this day they study him, poke him, prod him, looking for an answer to him. But that’s the thing. They won’t find it. You can’t find something that’s not there.

 

            I didn’t write in my diary after that. I threw it away or put it in a box or something like that. I remember what I wrote that night though. The night I los

t everything. The kids at school the next week thought I was so strange. Brad didn’t even talk to me, although, I’m not entirely sure that’s at the fault of my crazy dad. It wasn’t long before people found out what had happened that night. And it wasn’t long before the rumors filled in the gaps:

            “Well, I heard that her father was so in love with her, you know, sexually, that when he found out she slept with another guy, he went berserk!”

            “I heard that her father freaked out because she’s just such a whore, you know she had sex with Brad Towne that same night, didn’t you? Oh yah, everybody knows about it…”

            It went on like that until I stopped talking entirely and just accepted my position as the resident freak. Funny, I had thought the night with Brad was going to make me popular. I guess irony has a sense of humor.

 

            I think it’s funny how people describe the experience as, “losing their virginity.” They didn’t lose it, it’s not like they misplaced it or something. Virginity is given, aside from a few specific cases of force. No, I think the word “loss” comes into play there because it’s something to be mourned. We lose our virginity in the sense that we lose our dog. We miss the feeling we had when it was around and we sometimes regret the circumstance in which it left. I lost my virginity, and mourn it often.

            And I lost mom and I lost dad too. And I lost one more thing, besides the friends and popularity. I lost that feeling of comfort, and I lost that knowledge of home. In a series of moments I saw it all. And you know what? I didn’t like what I saw.

            It’s been a couple years, and I’m on my way north, I need to get out of the city so my father will never find me. I got a statement at my last foster home saying that they were thinking about releasing him soon, that he’s shown “improvement.” Bullshit. I got out of there as soon as I could.

            And at the bus stop I found you, I guess I’m luckier than I thought. So that’s it, my story I guess- if you want to call it that. I never thought I’d be writing in a diary again, not after that night. But when the world hands you apples, you may as well mash ‘em up into sauce.

 

            I wonder what Brad would say if he knew how often I thought about him. I wonder what dad would say if he knew I had snuck out that night. Maybe he did know. Maybe that’s the answer to the unanswerable question. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I didn’t lose anything at all. Maybe I gave it away.