I’ve never understood why so many men love the idea of fucking virgin girls. For a girl, losing your virginity is often painful, so the notion that there are guys who want to turn up for that fuck—rather than coming along later, when all the upsetting hymen-admin has been taken care of, and it’s fun all the way—seems baffling. “Yeah—the fuck I fetishize, above all others, is the one with the bleeding and wincing in? That’s my goal!”
I secretly suspect those guys might be murderers.
But the idea of taking a man’s virginity—of being the first person to say “Well, hello, handsome,” to their penis; the first to make them unable to speak, as they come—that seems like a total win/win situation. Why does no one fetishize taking a man’s virginity? I totally am, right now. I feel like some amazing Goddess of Fucking. Maybe this will be my thing? I’ll be a writer, muse—and Five-Star Virginity-Taker!
“Oh sweetheart,” I say, very turned on. “Let me show you. Welcome to fucking, baby.”
So this must be the best fuck ever, for my lovely Zee. I must do all my best sexings, ever. I have been entrusted as his guide to the world of Doing It—I’m like the Dungeon Master, in Dungeons and Dragons. I try to imagine what I would like, if I were a man, and was about to lose my virginity.
“All men love blow jobs,” a character in a Jilly Cooper novel once said. And I had, indeed, observed this to be true.
“You have to treat his cock like it’s the most amazing thing ever.” I read that somewhere, too. I can’t remember where. Maybe The Book of Obvious.
Luckily, I think cocks are amazing. I’ve never understood all the women and girls who kind of wrinkle up their faces, when they talk about them. I think they’re ace. Like, I don’t want to anthropomorphize a man’s throbbing sex part, but they always seem like some kind of fabulous pet. They’re soft to stroke, and they love you to play with them, and they spring up eagerly if it looks like you’re up for a good, long, hard walk in the country. They’re basically spaniels. If they could live separately from men, and I could keep one in a box, on my table, I would. I’d chat to it, when I was lonely, and play with it, and when I got stuck, writing, I’d absently pop it in my mouth and suck on it, instead of eating loads of snacks, or smoking. It would be healthy for me! A pet penis!
“You’re stuck in your oral phase,” Suzanne once told me, when I told her that. “Your mother breastfed you too long.”
“What’s the phase after oral?” I asked.
“Anal,” she replied.
“I think I’ll stay on oral,” I said. “I don’t want to move on. I’m just not into bums.”
I start giving Zee his first-ever blow job. This is a novel thing for me—to be in charge of the sex. To not be fending off someone else’s agenda—but to be doing what I like. Everything feels different. For starters, there’s no rush—there’s no presumption we should be working to the usual sex agenda, wherein a man tries to have sex with me as soon as possible. I could just do this for hours—because I am the Sex Boss! Wow—why isn’t all sex like this? I am good at being the Sex Boss!
I’m just thinking this—“Hey, we could do this all day!”—when Zee says, “I’m sorry!,” in a very tiny voice, and comes.
“Don’t say sorry!” I say. “This is what happens! Didn’t anyone tell you?”
And he starts half laughing, half crying.
“Oh, my word,” he says, putting his hands over his face. “Oh, my word.”
I crawl up the bed, and kiss his forehead. He looks up.
“You’re amazing,” he says. Which is correct. I am amazing!
He’s looking at me like I’m made of stars.
“You are very good at that. You must have had a lot of practice. Oh God! Not that I’m saying you’re like . . .” and he looks flustered.
“I enjoy my work,” I say simply. And then I kiss him on the lips, because I’ve always wanted to kiss someone after they’ve come in my mouth, but I never could before, because I wasn’t the Sex Boss. It feels brilliantly filthy—like I’ve just invented the most lubricious porn ever. And because Zee has never had sex before, and he doesn’t know that blow-job kisses are a thing boys aren’t supposed to like, he likes it.
“But what about you?” he asks, gently, after the kissing has subsided.
“Watch,” I say, and take my tights off, thinking, “What a great day this will be for Zee! He will get to watch a woman make herself come!”
I am very, very turned on. Everything’s so slippery, it’s like ice-skating. “The interesting thing,” I say, looking at him, “is that there is no word for this.”
“For what?” he says, softly, watching.
“This,” I say, stopping for a minute, and showing him my shiny fingers. “In books, they just say, ‘She is wet’—but wet with what? It has no name. That’s the only other word for it. You—men—have spunk, and jizz, and cum, and wad, but we have no nicknames for this. It is unnamed.”
I go back to my work.
“You are so educational,” he says, still watching. “Like Blue Peter.”
“It should have a name,” I say, watching him watching me. “What shall we call it? How about, ‘The Virgin Mary’s Tears’?”
“Very Catholic,” Zee says. “Very guilty.”
I note, with amusement, that the word “guilty” has made him start to get hard again.
“‘Vageline,’” Zee says, pressing up against me. “Like, Vaseline, but down below.”
“The French say ‘cassolette,’” I continue, informatively. “That’s what Napoleon called it. Napoleon Bonerparte.”
“Obviously, I’ve never had sex before,” Zee says, stroking my hair, still watching. “But—are all girls like you?”
“Like what?” I ask. I’m so close to coming.
“Like . . . making jokes, whilst fucking?” he asks. “Kind of like Roger Moore, being James Bond?”
The idea of being a lady James Bond is so excellent that I take a condom from the bedside drawer, and put it on Zee.
“I’m so sorry, but you are about to lose your virginity whilst wearing a Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine promotional condom,” I say, fiddling it into place. “It’s the only one I have.”
“I am starting to see them in a much more favorable light,” Zee says, gasping as I roll on top of him.
I put the tip of his cock right on the edge of my excellence, and say, “You’re still a virgin, still a virgin, still a virgin . . . not a virgin.” On the word “not,” I push myself down, and take him inside me.
“Congratulations,” I say, and then slowly, slowly start to fuck him.
I am so glad I am the one Zee is losing his virginity to! I am making this fuck both of a technically high standard, but also a light-hearted and welcoming experience. I wish someone had made my virginity-loss this friendly. I’m so full of sexual philanthropy and generosity toward my friend! I am being very useful.
Zee starts laughing, gasps, “I’m sorry!” and comes again.
“We need to work on this whole ‘I’m sorry’ thing when you come,” I say, beaming down at him. “There’s nothing to be sorry about. You need to learn some man-noises. Can you do a roaring sound, like a sexy tiger?”
I’ve decided that when shagging Zee, my persona is going to be that of a sexy matron in an all-boys’ boarding school, quietly yet firmly teaching the nice boys about joy, in the sanatorium, late at night. That’s a kind thing to be.
“Rargh!” he says—messy, but happy. “That was . . . I never thought . . . I mean, today is quite a surprise.”
“Do you think you like fucking, then?” I ask.
He kisses me.
“It’s even better than record shops,” he says, with a sigh.
We spend the next hour in bed—eating bread and mugs of soup, and chatting cheerful balls. It feels like we have had a very solid hour of friendliness.
We’re just talking about the Afghan Whigs single when Zee suddenly says: “I don’t know what to call you.”
“What?”
“Like, your real name’s not . . . Dolly, is it? It must feel weird when people call you Dolly.”
I think about this. I suppose it is.
“What do . . . other people call you?”
He means, “What do the people who love you call you?” but he can’t say “love,” because that is a totally inappropriate word here, for us, that will cause fright. I think, instantly, of John: John calls me “Duchess.” But that is inappropriate, too. For here. For him.
“I mean, if I was naked in bed with Boy George, I wouldn’t want to call him ‘Boy George,’” Zee continues. “It’s a work name. I don’t want to be at work. Dolly is your work name.”
He kisses me.
“I’m not at work.”
He kisses again.
“I’m Johanna,” I say. “My family call me ‘Jo.’”
“You have a very, very soft mouth, Johanna,” he says. “Very, very soft.”
He kisses me again—very, very gently, like he’s thinking about it. Like he’s saying the word “kiss,” very slowly, on me.
“Johanna. So soft. Jo.”
And that was how I had, for the first time, some sex that was nice, with someone I liked. Sex that was non-dramatic—and comfortable—like going for a walk in the park, or settling down to watch a rerun of Top Hat with a cup of tea. Three years after I lost my virginity. Seven men down the line. I had still not had a man make me come—every pleasure I had ever had was by my own, by-now expert hand—and I knew, with certainty, that Zee and I had no future. Although I adored him, I had no hunger for him—and you must want to eat your loves, I think. You must want to just grab them and then lie on top of them, shouting, “I’ve got you! I’ve got you! This means I have won the world!” over and over again. And I did not feel that about Zee at all. But that afternoon in bed with him was the first sexual memory I had that didn’t make me laugh, or wince, but just smile. Smiling about sex is very underrated.
Girls should smile, when they think about their sex lives. That is the greatest wish I could have for them.
25
Of course, the problem with being sexually impulsive is that you never really think of the consequences. Like, Zee was my oldest friend, my lodger, and my business partner—if he really meant that thing about shares in his company.
“So what does it mean?” I asked Suzanne, the next day. “What does it mean—now that I’ve fucked him?”
It’s Suzanne’s day off from the studio, and we are in a pub off Holloway Road, called the Black Horse. It’s pissing down with rain outside—but in here, there’s a fire, and a jukebox, and no more than three old men, sitting around, staring at their feet. It is the platonic ideal of a pub.
I’ve been looking forward to having this conversation with Suzanne, as she is my Sex Expertise Bureau and Consulting Service. I have had four whiskies, so I am ready to plunge into this topic with her, for elucidation.
“I can’t believe you’ve fucked the Boss,” Suzanne says again, lighting a cigarette. “I mean, no offense, but I really didn’t think he had a penis. He’s a human cardigan. Or duffel coat. Are you sure you weren’t just humping a toggle? It’s like you’ve just banged Paddington, man.”
Despite her wide-ranging imagination, Suzanne is having difficulty in accepting my truth.
“I mean,” she continues, “he just doesn’t come across as a Bang Monster—you know? Coming into your bedroom at two a.m., going ‘I can’t contain my feelings any longer—I’ve baked you a delicious lasagna’—yes, I can imagine that. But getting a stiffy?”
She dissolves into hysterics.
“He had quite a large penis, actually,” I say, semi-offended. “And he was very nice. I like him a lot. He’s a lovely person, Suzanne.”
“Yes yes yes,” Suzanne says, waving her cigarette around. “Lovely sexy nonthreatening Flump. I get you.”
“The thing is,” I say, leaning across the table, “the thing is—I don’t know what to do now. What does it mean? I mean, I live with him. And he fancies me. And we had some nice sex. I’ve never had nice sex before.”
“Do you want to fuck him again?” Suzanne says.
I think.
“I mean, it’s there,” I say, eventually. “And it was really lovely, you know? And I liked teaching him stuff. It’s the first time I’ve had sex that was, like, my idea. I’m definitely up for giving it another go. But I just don’t know if that’s a good idea or not.”
“Do you or do you not want to bang his brains out?” Suzanne says, briskly. One of the old men in the corner looks up for a minute. Suzanne stares at him. He looks back down again. “Like, when you think about him, does your mouth water, and your vag goes all fizzy, and you want to punch the Moon, and, like, marry him, whether he wants to or not? Do you want to kidnap him, and keep him in your cellar? Do you want to Gimp him, hard?”
It’s a novel definition. It’s not how I feel about Zee. It is, however, definitely how I feel about John Kite.
“Okay, here’s how I feel,” I say, lighting a cigarette. “I’m trying to work out what sex means. Because it’s lots of things, isn’t it? When I started coming down to London, I wanted to be a Lady Sex Adventurer, or a Swashfuckler—I’ve just always felt I could find myself through stoating around, and ending up in bed with a Pick’n’Mix of likely fellows. It’s the only way you can get people alone. It’s the only way you can find out who they really are.”
“I have a problem with that theory—but continue,” Suzanne says, raising one finger on her hand, to indicate this is a topic we would return to, when I have finished speaking.
“But what I realized is that there’s no such thing as ‘sex,’ really,” I continue. “Like, from what I’ve done, and what I’ve observed, it’s a million different things at different times. There are people out there doing it as a business. There are people out there doing it as revenge. There are people out there doing it for power, or because they’re evil, or because they’re hollow inside. Sometimes, it’s burglary. They steal sex from you.”
“Jerry Sharp,” Suzanne says, nodding.
“Jerry Sharp,” I confirm. “And for yourself—sometimes you’re doing it because you feel amazing; sometimes you’re doing it because you feel bad about yourself; sometimes it’s an experiment, or an act of pity, or an act of friendship, or an act of consolation, or a game, or a competition, or a show. Other times, you’re using it as a weapon, or leverage, or just a way to introduce yourself. And so now I don’t really understand it as a process. Is it just like . . . learning French? Something you have to practice regularly, whenever you get the chance, to get good at? Or, is everyone so different that there’s no point in having sex with lots of people, because there is no ‘good in bed,’ because everyone wants something different, and you might as well learn from scratch with ‘The One’?”
Suzanne looks at me.
“What are you really trying to say here?” she said.
“I guess,” I say, admiring the clear brevity of the question, and resolving to ask it myself, a lot, in the future, “I guess I’m saying that no one else seemed to think about sex like I do. I thought it was all a jolly game, we were all entering into, in the spirit of fun, to get better at it. But no men I’ve fucked seem to be trying to get better at it. They didn’t want to learn. They just wanted to bang. They just saw sex as something you . . . win at. Like a sport.”
“So . . . ?” Suzanne prompts.
“So that’s why I’m only banging my friends now,” I laugh.
But it is true. I realize, with a sudden jolt, I don’t want to fuck around anymore. I don’t want to sexually experiment. This experiment is over, with the conclusion that everyone has been very . . . disappointing. I feel like George Harrison did when he went to Haight-Ashbury, at the height of hippydom, thinking he would meet free spirits. Years later, he talked about how he was expecting to find “groovy gypsy people making works of art and paintings and carvings in little workshops. But it was full
of horrible spotty drop-out kids on drugs, and it turned me right off the whole scene.” That is how I feel about all the sex-men of London. I had been trying to have championship-level one-night stands—I have really been bringing my vaginal A-game—and they have just been shuffling onto the pitch, late, in a dirty kit, and half-heartedly knocking the balls around a bit. There has been no professional pride in their shuffling around. They have been lackluster amateurs. I have been trying to impress them but they have not been trying to impress me. My sexual brilliance has been wasted.
I tell Suzanne all this. She laughs.
“So, what’s your end point, then?” she asks. “What do you actually want? What’s your sex dream?”
I think.
“John Kite.”
She yelps.
“I knew it. You fancy John Kite.”
“No,” I say. “I love John Kite.”
I have never said those words out loud! It sounds—amazing. And very stupid.
“For three years,” I add. “And very profoundly.” That makes it sound even stupider. I think of us meeting for the first time, in Dublin, and talking nonstop for twelve hours; racketing around pubs, talking about how we’ll change the world; sitting in front of the TV, screaming conundrums at Countdown; John threatening to punch the guy who was sleazy to me; John jumping in the sea, and then falling asleep with his head on my chest as I wrote a three-thousand-word essay I hoped would re-program his heart, and make him marry me.
“I feel normal with him,” I say, finally.
Suzanne looks at me. I am aware my face is the Face of Love—it feels all hot, possibly on fire, and I’m doing one of those smiles that is so wide it hurts. She shakes her head.
“Dolly, don’t make things complicated. You need to go back and dump the Flump.”
When I got back that night, slightly drunk, I found Zee reading in the front room. He was waiting up for me. There was the slight awkwardness of us not knowing exactly where we stood, after yesterday’s sex. He looked at me with big eyes—eyes that said, “So—what’s going on?”
“I made us a lasagna,” he added, which obviously made me laugh, because of what Suzanne had said, but I couldn’t explain why.