Virginity

Not so much a ‘wham bam thank you mam’ but more of a ‘oops’, and there it was, gone.

It was 1967; I was fifteen with two weeks to go before my sixteenth birthday. For me it was a year of firsts, first motorbike, well, second-hand Honda 50cc hand-me-down from dad, first addiction to nicotine, first time at technical college, and within but a couple of weeks to go before the English age of consent I lost my virginity. Oh yeah and it was the year that the BBC ousted the innovative pirate radios and gave us all Radio 1, bummer.

Needless to say sex was a brand new experience, and with all my nervousness and unfamiliarity with carnal matters I couldn’t honestly say it was all ‘wow’, and ‘too much man’ just, well, a bit messy. The sticking zip-fastener on my jeans just added to my general embarrassment, so instead of being Don Juan I came across more as Don Quixote, but without my Sancho Panza.

It was the second day we had actually met.

She and I had been corresponding for a while. She was at a catholic boarding school - in the south of England, and I had just started technical college, studying of all things rudimentary science, but it wasn’t to last. Her sister-in-law-to-be, Mary, was studying with me and arranged for me to write to her as a sort of pen-pal thing. Mary obviously knew that she was looking and knew that I was without any form of partner albeit it female or male, and probably would do.

The writing continued – that is physical writing because back then there was no internet, therefore no e-mail, no hand phones and therefore no SMS either. It went back and forth to boarding school in Hastings, then it was November and she was home. There was a firework party organised, and a bunch of us - all wrapped cosy in warm clothing to keep out the November chill, bundled into a Land Rover and sped off to the party. There, we consumed hot fire-roasted jacket potatoes and warmed beer, only the warmed beer was a mistake for me as it re-visited me later that night, and was not as nice coming out as it was going in. The night, however, had not been entirely without success. She and I had a chance to eye each other up over those singed hot potatoes, and she must have either liked what she saw, or was so desperate just coming out of boarding school that anyone would do.

The next day I decided to walk to see her. I wasn’t too enamoured with the motorcycle, it had a tendency to faint at corners leaving me with road rash on my hands and jeans, and being a little particular about small matters like blood and gravel on my person - I felt safer to go on foot. I walked the twelve miles to see her, singing merrily to myself – a habit I have never gotten out of despite much derision and encouragement to quit.

The preliminary talks over, and an introduction to my new bestest ever friend – a Bang and Olufsen Beogram, simply the most divine musical experience I had in my nearly sixteen years, she took me out for a walk. Ok, I was a little innocent and expected a walk to be a walk, maybe a little hand holding and, perhaps, the first kiss. We walked and talked. Went down this small road to the back of the village, and there she stopped and kissed me. Was that my first kiss? Probably not! But within the context of what followed, it was significant.

Holding my hand like it was life-jacket and she drowning, she pulled at me to follow her through a gap in a far from enticing hedge, and further - into a small barn. The barn, I have to say, was replete with the necessary amount of scattered hay. It may have been straw, but I really wasn’t taking note at the time. At the end of the barn was a small room, a sort of barn annex. We went in and she closed the wooden door. It was at this point that my small male brain began to think. I was nervous, untutored and was probably in the hands of a much more experienced person, even though, technically, I was two months older than her.

We kissed. We landed on the soft dried grass item and kissed some more. Hands, quite possibly mine, groped and grasped for something female to play with and eventually, beneath pink pullovers, pink blouses, and quite possibly pink bras too – I couldn’t see the colour, female flesh was found. It was then that I discovered females like to play with male flesh as much as males like to play with the female variety; it came as a surprise, and amidst the fumbling and stumbling so did I.

Interesting, and quite probably – embarrassing, are the two adjectives I might care to use for that experience. I couldn’t honestly say it was passionate, nor a product of lust, certainly not on my behalf, but as experiences went it was ok, apart from the zipper let down. Later, in the twenty-four months of our relationship, she was to teach me many more things I hadn’t a clue about before I had met her and, I suppose, she was the one who introduced, seduced, me into the whole free love aspect of the swinging sixties.
Coming out of the barn, adjusting clothing, we walked some more, this time to the kiddies’ playground and relived our childhood by playing on the swings and talking. She told me she had boyfriends before, and wanted me to know that she was straight with me, so she told me.

She told me that she had been to see her doctor, who confirmed, in secrecy, that she was pregnant. Fifteen years old and already pregnant with another chap’s baby, good grief. Surprisingly enough, and maybe it was the aftermath of having a quite pleasing bodily release; I felt sorry for her and pledged to keep her secret, and to keep seeing her too. This I did. Eventually she told her parents, who did the math and realised it couldn’t be mine, and we settled into that relationship - me learning from her all the time. On reflection I’m not too sure if it was the sex I was there for, or just to be close to that Bang and Oulfsen Beogram – it could have been either and both were good.