We make our way out of the city and into New Jersey. Apparently, the college experience I missed out on and Lacy was acquainted with is aptly portrayed in classics such as Animal House and Old School. Walking up to the dilapidated Victorian frat house, I feel my energy drop.
"I can't do this," I say, stopping in my tracks. College co-eds are allowing fraternity brothers to spray them with whipped cream while they dance on the lawn in bikinis. "I'm depressed and exhausted just watching them."
Lacy pulls a caffeinated beverage from her bag and opens it for me to drink. "I get it. This kind of debauchery is behind you for so many reasons. I realize that you can't get behind women objectifying themselves for male attention, nor men objectifying women because these young ladies allow them to in the first place."
"Great," I tell her, handing her back the untouched beverage. "Then let's go."
"But that doesn't mean we are leaving," she says, stepping in front of me and placing the beverage to my lips. "Drink it."
"I'm not letting them spray me with milk product," I protest.
"Neither am I," Lacy adds, scoffing as she tips the drink toward my mouth. I take a big gulp. I hate these drinks. They taste like chemicals mixed with the sole of a dirty shoe. But I'm here and I'm apparently not leaving anytime soon, so I drink it down.
After a satisfying burp, I adjust my boobs, which are roaming freely inside my push-up bra, and reapply my lip-gloss. "What is the objective?"
"Your objective is to have fun and flirt while staying sober."
"I can do that."
"Yes, but the difference between high school and college is you are more mature, but the guys are not. You have to be on guard and make sure you locate the guys who aren't in a fraternity just to get laid and drink. You have to find the one who is here to further himself, the one who joined a frat to network. When you find him, he's the guy you can go to second base or home base with. It's up to you. And that's the point."
"High school and college are vastly different."
"For you they are," Lacy says, applying her own new layer of gloss. "For the rest of us, it's high school on steroids."
I watch Lacy casually move into the crowd, which is covered in whipped cream and beer. I guess I'm on my own. She is letting me off the leash so I'm ready for tomorrow's date with Bodhi. I have tonight to prove to myself that I'm not a bumbling idiot when a man shows interest in me. I can be confident and sexy without vomiting or physically hurting anyone. I hope.
Winding my way through the couples making out and the stacked kegs, I look for my guy. I scan the crowd and find an array of choices, but none are right for what I'm here to achieve. I catch a glimpse of Lacy riding on a football player's shoulders, and I have a sudden pang of recognition. I know how that feels. I did that just this afternoon. Wow, her plan is working. I already feel more seasoned. My confidence skyrockets with every step I take. With every couple I watch, exchanging drunken conversation and tongue slobber, I relax a little bit more. Been there, done that, and that, and that.
And then I see my guy. He is standing on the front steps, grooving to what looks to be his own beat. In one hand he holds a bottle of amaretto and in the other hand he holds two cordial glasses. He wears a pair of thick-rimmed glasses and a school logo t-shirt that looks about two sizes too big. His Nike shorts hang low and long, and he is wearing shower shoes. This guy isn't looking to bang a bunch of drunken college chicks and pass out in his own vomit. This guy is looking for someone to have a conversation with over a few glasses of almond-flavored liqueur, and he's about to find her.
Zach and I head into his shared room. The smell of Tropical Breeze Glade plug-ins fills the small space, barely covering up the smell of testosterone, sweat, and spilled bong water. But he has made an effort to create a space that isn't completely repulsive, so I take a seat on his springy twin bed and sip the amaretto he offers to me.
"I like to just throw it back," Zach says, tossing the amaretto into the back of his throat and quickly pouring himself a new glass.
He gestures that he'd like to pour me another. "Ready?"
"No thanks, I better ease off," I tell him, covering my glass just in case.
"Suit yourself, sweetheart," he shrugs and takes a long pull off the bottle. "You like Jay-Z?" he asks me, turning up the music.
"Not particularly," I answer.
"Oh yeah, who's your fave jam?"
My fave jam, I think. If I answer honestly and say Sarah McLachlan he will know I'm twenty-nine, so I need to think fast.
"Rhianna," I blurt out, nodding my head casually. "Sometimes Maroon 5. It's a toss up."
"Wouldn't that be a great duet?"
"It sure would," I agree. No, it wouldn't. Rhianna would be forced to sing the bass line, taking any last bit of masculinity completely away from Adam Levine.
Zach must really be trying to get me to drop my panties, because in five seconds he loads a mix of Rhianna and Maroon 5 slow jams onto his laptop and hits shuffle. She Will Be Loved slides out of the speakers and my conversationalist, cordial-drinking intellect grabs my breast and jumps on top of me, while reaching for my crotch with his free hand.
"Whoa," I say, pushing him off of me. "I was thinking some getting to know each other and then maybe some kissing."
He sits up, turns on his lava lamp, and turns down Adam Levine.
"OK, what do you want to talk about?" he asks, seeming bored with me already.
"I don't know maybe . . . what's your major?"
"Food science," he shrugs, seeming unsure.
"Interesting, like a nutritionist?"
"No, I'm like a chemist. I basically use chemicalsâcertain compoundsâto create food."
"That you eat?" I ask, thinking of all the horrible consequences of what he is implying.
"Food. Yes, you eat it." He leans toward me and brushes my hair away from my face. "Can we talk about something else?" he asks me.
"Sure."
He is breathing in my ear now. "You are so beautiful."
"I am? Thanks."
"Probably the most beautiful girl ever," he goes on. He places his hand on my face and kisses me softly.
See, this is nice. This is what I thought he'd be like. I lean into him and we begin to really go at it. It's passionate and playful. His face is in my neck and hair, and my hands are on his arms and buttocks. I can feel him getting excited. His breathing is fast and heavy as he climbs on top of me and shoves his face between my small breasts. He reaches down and is about to slide his hand into my underwear when he suddenly yells at the top of his lungs, "Aghhhhhh!"
He collapses all of his weight on me. That's when I feel it on my leg. This guy, Zach, actually ejaculated on me. Not in me; on me. I push him off of me and grab a shirt from his filthy, stinky floor.
"You have got to be kidding me," I blurt out, disgusted with this entire scenario. I'm suddenly filling with rage. Some guy just came all over my leg, which means I put myself in a circumstance for that to happen. When did I turn into that chick?
"Damn it," he groans, rolling over and pulling up his shorts.
"Damn it is right!" I yell at him. "This is by far the worst night of my life. Why did I think this was a good idea? My sister, that's why. And now look at me. I'm in a dorm room with a guy who's just barely over twenty-one and I have . . . " I reach into my hair. "Corn chips in my hair!" I throw the chips at him."Why do you have corn chips in your bed?"
"I'm nineteen."
"What?" I ask, hoping he's joking. "You're nineteen? I just had a nineteen-year-old kid jiz on my leg?"
Zach jumps up from the bed and begins banging his head on the wall, muttering to himself.
"When am I ever going to have actual sex? I mean, how fast do I have to be?" he whines.
"Wait a minute. Stop that," I command him. "Are you saying that you're still a virgin?"
Zach turns to me, his eyes dim and filled with shame. "Yes, I'm still a virgin. OK?"
"Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean still. You're only nineteen."
He falls backward onto his bed and watches the lava lamp blob move up and down, "That's what you all say: that it's going to happen, yadda, yadda, yadda. But I've tried repeatedly to have sex and I can't because I always bust a nut before I even get in the hole."
"You mean in the vagina," I say, clarifying what this "hole" is he speaks of.
"Gross," he mutters, turning away from me.
"Vagina?"
"Stop it!" he barks at me. "And yes, technically, I'm still a virgin because I haven't put it in there!" He points at my crotch.
"You mean in my vagina?"
"Are you trying to make me throw up?"
"No, I'm trying to help you."
Zach rolls back over and looks me in the eye. He takes me in fully and sits up.
"You are trying to help me, aren't you?"
"I guess so. I don't know, it depends on what that means to you."
Zach pats the bed next to him, inviting me to sit down. I wave the invitation away.
"Fine," he says. "Listen, we're both here and you're older, thus obviously more experienced. I would consider it an honor if you would give me another try. I think I got out what I needed to get out and I think I can see this through, all the way through, with the help of you, my mentor. I want to put it in you, in your . . . vagina . . . hole. If you are willing to take my virginity, I'm giving it to you to take. Maybe that's not what a first time is supposed to be, but it will be my first time and frankly, I just want to get it over with."
I did not see this coming. I am suddenly in a position to not only take someone's virginity, but also to give my virginity to him, without having to divulge that is what I am doing. This could be the answer to my prayers! He is a virgin, thus any awkward moves I make, I can blame on him. He won't know the difference, and I will be secretly doing what he wants to do: getting it over with already.
And then I remember he's nineteen and I remember I'm twenty-nine. God, it would be so easy, but it would also be the memory of my first time. Do I really want to look back on my first time as that time I had sex with a virgin nineteen-year-old who was drunk on amaretto?
I sit next to him and place my hand on his leg. He must be thinking that I am willing to fulfill his wish, because I see the tent rise up in his loose fitting gym shorts. I quickly take my hand away and stand back up.
"Listen Zach, I'd be honored, but honestly that's just way too much responsibility for me."
"That's what they all say!"
No kidding, I think.
"Please, just do me this one favor. Before it's too late!"
He's on his knees in front me now, begging like a child who wants to go to Disneyland.
"Too late? You're nineteen!"
"See? Even you think something is wrong with me! If this doesn't happen soon, I'm afraid I'll be thirty, maybe forty, and still be having this conversation, but with a much older and much less attractive woman."
"You really think I'm attractive?"
Zach looks at me like a dog hearing a high-pitched whistle. "Yes. For an older woman, you are a total bae."
"Bae," I repeat back to him, wondering what happened to the second "b".
His look of disbelief turns to sadness and fear, and suddenly I see this sweet kid in this stupid fraternity dorm room and I feel for him.
"You're going to be fine," I tell him, this time sitting on the bed, but with a few inches of distance from him. "Trust me. You've got plenty of time. Just wait until you meet the right girl. Then it will all come together."
He hangs his head, "So, you're not going to have sex with me?"
"Nope. No way, no how."
I get up and head for the door.
"Hey, Kate," he says, "thanks. I appreciate you talking to me and not just leaving. And I'm sorry I came all over your leg. That can't feel good."
"Apology accepted."
"Maybe you're right. I know it's not common practice for a dude, but I think maybe this premature ejaculation thing could just save me from making a lot of mistakes. I want my first time to be special, and with someone my own age."
"You and me both, Zach. You and me both."
I felt like I should pat him on the head and make him a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup. It was good talk, I thought. The kind of talk I'd have with my own kid someday, if I ever actually have sex. Not that I want kids. Lordy, I've got to get the hell out of here.
Zach insists on walking me out. We head down the hallway through couples groping each other and holding each others hair while they vomit. Down the stairs, I find Lacy doing a keg stand with two steroid bodies holding her upside-down.
I lean into her ear. "Get down. We're leaving."
She takes the keg spout from her mouth and swallows a gulp of beer. "Why? Did you do it?"
"No."
"Why not?"
I swear she says I don't have to have sex with anyone and yet she always asks me if I did. The crowd is getting antsy and they begin chanting "Drink! Drink! Drink!" in unison.
I lean closer to her now, making sure Zach doesn't hear me. "Because, he's a virgin."
"I know you're a virgin, but did you have sex with him?" she yells.
The chanting stops and everyone in the room is staring at me, including Zach. There is only one thing I can do to save face; I push Lacy over and make my way out of that house, solo.
The last thing I hear before descending the front steps is Lacy hitting the floor, realizing out loud what I'd actually said to her. "Oh, HE'S a virgin!"
I turn and look back to see if she's coming, but I find Zach instead, hurrying down the front steps, beer cans being thrown at the back of his head. "Thanks, Kate. Thanks a lot!"
He gets on his bike and rides down the street. He can be mad at me all he wants but, to be clear, the damage could have been much worse. He did prematurely ejaculate on my leg. Plus, now his fraternity brothers will see him as their school project. They will make it their personal mission to change his status, thus giving Zach ample opportunity to bust his nut on many a girl his own age before he actually finds the right one to lose his virginity to.
Lacy catches up with me and we ride in silence the entire cab ride back to Manhattan. As we cross the George Washington Bridge, I fantasize about Bodhi and me holding hands and kissing after our dinner. Medically speaking, I am aware that all of this "almost" sex has gotten my hormones completely out of whack, or in my case finally aligned, and for the first time I'm secretly excited to see what tomorrow may bring. Translation: I'm very horny.
The cab turns up my street and I can see my apartment. I'm so tired that I already can feel my crisp and cool percale sheets on my body. I'm going to strip naked and climb into my bed as soon as I get in the door.
I nudge Lacy. "Get up. We're home."
Lacy takes in a big breath and stretches. As I pay the driver and climb out, Lacy gives me a funny look.
"What?" I ask her.
"Did you notice that cab totally smelled like sperm?"
"No," I say, defensively. I shove her up the stairs in front of me and quickly lean down, taking in a good sniff of my leg.
OK, change of plans: first shower, then bed.