I was in the middle of transferring high schools. I'd visited the high school I was moving to, and I'd decided that I hated it with a burning fire. It didn't help that I was newly atheistic and that the school was a staunch no-sex-before-marriage type of Christian school. In the penultimate month I spent before transferring, I decided to do something that I knew would piss off the entire school. (Not that I planned to tell them about it.) An underlying reason was that all my friends had lost their virginity prior to turning eighteen. My eighteenth birthday was coming up, and although I claimed not to care, I did.

Up to this point, all my sexual experiences had been occasional. I had never had a boyfriend. Nor did I want one. The closest I'd gotten to sex prior was somewhere between second and third base — the closest I'd felt to being aroused was with a girl in a moment of bisexual experimentation.

One night, I was out with a friend who was saving herself (not for marriage, she claimed, just for someone special) and who was also serially hooking up with random guys. I had downed six shots of tequila and wandered outside the club (I had a fake ID) to chat with some guys. After bumming several cigarettes from them, I, already well on my way to drunkenness, suggested that we go back inside and get into a drinking contest. I was an idiot.

Lost story short, they rotated and I kept matching them. During the drinking, we exchanged basic information. One guy was two years older than me and seemed not to be a total douche, which was all I was looking for. (I did find out later, from the look of his apartment, that he was a trust-fund kid.)

Eventually, I stumbled into the bathroom and made myself throw up a couple of times until I felt sober enough to walk. The alcohol was by no means out of my system, though. Then I found the guy who I had just been drinking with, M, and we went outside to make out on one of the benches. I agreed to go home with him and told the girl I was with, very confidently, that I was taking a taxi home.

We got to his place and although I wanted to get down to business, he seemed nervous and insisted on showing me around first. Then I went down on him for awhile, until he decided it was time for reciprocation and tried to fingerbang me. Despite being wet, I had no desire for foreplay and just wanted to get it over with.

He put on a condom and pushed into me. The pain was excruciating. If I'd been sober, I probably would've braved it out, but being drunk and bold, I struggled out from under him. We tried several positions, but I couldn't get over how painful it was to have him inside me, so I suggested anal sex. That lasted for about a minute until we both gave it up; I pulled off his condom and sucked him off.

After he finished, he seemed strangely insecure (maybe he was a virgin as well?) so I assured him he had been great (apparently I was still a great liar, even while drunk) and that I had already finished earlier. He asked me to stay the night and put his arm around me, so we, two virtual strangers, snuggled naked. I woke up at six a.m. and tried to bolt for it, but he got up and insisted on giving me cab fare and seeing me to the door. He kissed me before I left, and then I walked out of his apartment to flag a taxi.

Then I took a bus to my parents' house in another city. The woman I was staying with had assumed I had gone home the previous evening.

It wasn't bad, but in hindsight, it was kind of a extreme way to lose my virginity. I've never seen the guy since, but we talked on the phone and emailed briefly. I've never gotten the courage to confess he was my first or to ask if I was his.