“There’s judgment on the other side, too,” Grace says. She clears her throat and looks around the room. She takes a deep breath. “For virgins. For girls who choose to stay virgins. The way we talk about sex sometimes, it’s like we assume everyone’s having it. But we’re not. I’m not.”
“Me neither,” Krista and Trista say in tandem.
“Me neither,” Elise grumbles. “But not willingly.”
“I’m not either,” says someone else. “All the high school boys I know are losers. I’m waiting until I get to college to find someone worthy.”
“I’m still a virgin,” says another girl. “But I am sooo ready not to be. It’s my boyfriend who says he’s not ready.”
“I can’t believe we’re actually talking about this,” says another.
“I’m curious,” Grace says, her voice a little louder. “Who here is still a virgin?” Slowly, hands pop up, one by one, until about half the girls have their hand in the air. “See,” Grace says. “We’re not some weird minority.”
Erin did not raise her hand. She is looking down, into her lap, wringing her hands. Rosina tries to make eye contact, but Erin is trapped inside herself, trying to stay safe.
She didn’t raise her hand.
Rosina feels the floor crumble and fall away, and her heart goes with it. Erin has a secret Rosina never even considered.
“Erin,” Rosina whispers. “What’s going on?” But Erin does not respond.
“Our church tells us to save ourselves until marriage,” Trista says. “But you know what’s weird? It’s really just the girls who are considered damaged if they have sex, not the guys.”
“We’re supposed to be so scared of sex,” Krista says. She looks around the room, takes a deep breath. “And I am. I’m terrified.”
Erin’s eyes are down and she is rocking slightly, her back softly padding the wall behind her. Rosina knows she would have left by now if she wanted to leave. There must be a reason Erin is staying, something safe here despite all these scary words, something contagious in the bravery it takes to say them.
“That’s how my old church was for sure,” Grace says. “Girls wore purity rings and everything. But I’m not like that. My mom’s definitely not like that. She’s not telling me I’m going to hell if I have sex before marriage. It’s just my choice, you know?”
“Amen,” someone says.
“All the purity-ring girls are just letting other people make decision for their bodies,” Trista says. “They’re letting the church make decisions for their bodies. Their dads buy them the ring and give it to them like he’s, like, her boyfriend. Or like Jesus is her boyfriend. It is so gross.”
“There’s some truth in that, for sure,” Grace says. “But maybe try to look at it from their side for a minute. Most of them really think they’re doing the right thing, and for some of the same reasons we’re doing what we’re doing. They believe choosing virginity is a way to respect themselves and their bodies. It makes them feel strong, just like we’re trying to feel strong, because they’re not giving in to peer pressure, not doing something just because everyone else is. And I don’t know, I don’t think there’s one correct faith for everyone in the world, and I don’t judge anyone in here for their choices.” Grace looks around the room, sitting tall, meeting people’s eyes. Her voice is strong as she says, “But, personally, yeah, I kind of agree with them. My old church was backward in a lot of ways, but some of the things stuck with me. Like how sex should be sacred, between two people who are committed and love each other. How our bodies are temples. When I have sex, I want it to be with the person I want to spend my life with. I don’t want to share that with anyone else.”
Barely anyone notices Amber Sullivan get up and slip out of the room. Some girls are so good at being invisible.
“But why not?” Sam says. “No offense, but who decided sex was this precious, holy thing that has to be so deep and special all the time? Why can’t it just be fun? I mean, if you take away all the religion and repressive sexist bullshit, sex is this super fun thing that bodies are, like, made to do. What would happen if we just ignored all the people who make it seem like something evil and did what feels good and didn’t feel bad about it?”
“Yeah!” someone says.
“People would have sex all the time,” Krista says with wide eyes. “With everyone. And then everyone would get pregnant and have gonorrhea!”
“Jesus Christ,” Rosina says, hanging her head in her hands.
“Honey, that’s why you get yourself on the pill or an IUD pronto,” Sam says. “And use a condom every single time. No matter what.”
Krista looks horrified at this prospect.
“I totally respect your point,” Grace says carefully. “But for me personally, I think there’s more involved in the decision than just my body. Like my head, and my heart and soul.”
Sam lets out a big sigh. “I like thinking our bodies are less like temples and more like amusement parks,” she says. “Less sacred, more fun.”
“I don’t think it has to be either/or,” Melissa says.
“It can be both,” someone says.
“So you’re going to wait until marriage?” someone asks Grace.
“I don’t know,” Grace says. “Maybe not. Maybe I’ll fall in love and it’ll feel like forever and I’ll want to do it then. And maybe that’s not the guy I’ll end up marrying. All I know is I’m not in a hurry. Life is complicated enough already.”
“I wish I’d waited,” says an unfamiliar voice—Allison Norman. “But I thought that’s what I had to do if I wanted to be popular. I was so afraid of saying no.” Her eyes fill with tears. “Fourteen is so young.” Connie puts her arm around her friend.
“So what’s the right age?” someone says.
“There’s no one answer,” Sam Robeson says. “We have to decide for ourselves. And adults can’t handle that. They won’t trust us to make decisions for our own bodies.”
“But do you blame them?” Grace says. “They must be terrified. Look what can happen—we can get pregnant, we can get diseases, we can make decisions that screw up our lives forever. We can get hurt in all kinds of ways guys can’t. It’s not fair, but it’s the truth. Parents’ instincts are to protect us, and that’s what they think they’re doing.”
“Maybe your parents,” someone says.
Erin raises her head for a moment and looks at Grace. She blinks, as if surprised to find herself suddenly here, in this room with all these people, not alone inside the small space of her body.
“Hey, I have a question,” says a voice in the back. All heads turn toward the pale girl with black and white hair: Serina Barlow, rehab girl. “Do any of you actually like sex?” The tone in her voice makes it clear that she thinks the answer should be no.
“Yes!” Sam says enthusiastically, immediately, without thinking.
A few nervous giggles. A few pink, blushing faces.
“Me too,” says another girl. “Is that, like, okay?”
“Me three,” says another. “But I feel like I’m supposed to hide it. Like I’m a slut if I like it too much.”
“But you’re also a prude if you don’t,” Margot says. “There’s no way to win.”
“I kind of like sex,” says another girl, confusion written across her face. “I don’t know. I mean—sorry if this is TMI—but I can get so horny sometimes when we’re making out, and I totally want to do it. But then it happens so fast, and I’m just like, ‘Is that it?’ ”
“Yes, totally!” says another girl.
“Oh my God, yaaaaas,” says another.
“It’s so frustrating,” says the first girl.
“Well, do you say that?” says Sam.
“Say what?”
“Say ‘Is that it?’ To your guy?”
The girls laugh, then all suddenly stop when they realize she’s serious.
“How do you expect him to know you want more if you don’t tell him?” Sam says.
??
?But he’s, like, done,” the first girl says.
“So what? Make him wait his turn until you’re done. Or, he can come, then you tell him what you want, and he can do a little mouth and hand action for you, then he can go again. Everybody wins! It’s not like it takes these guys very long to recharge. They’re ready to go again in like three minutes.”
“Oh my God,” someone giggles.
“I like sex, and I’m not ashamed of it,” Sam says with a flip of her scarf. “No one should be.”
“You’re kind of my hero right now,” Trista says.
“I’m still kind of freaked out by this whole conversation,” says Krista.
“Wait,” Allison Norman says. “How do you do that? How do you tell him?”
“You just tell him what you want,” Sam says. “Or if you don’t feel like talking, then you show him.”
“You make it sound so easy,” Allison says. “But I don’t think I could do that. And even if I could, I don’t even know what I’d say.”
“So what do you do?” Sam asks Allison. “During sex?”
“I guess I just sort of lie there,” Allison says, then emits a small, sad laugh. “To be honest, I was pretty relieved when we decided to go on a sex strike.”
“Me too,” another girl says.
A few heads nod around the circle. Sam looks from face to face, her own face twisting into recognition of something new, something horrible she had not before considered—that sex could be about something very different than pleasure, that it could be a burden, a job, something to be endured.
“Sometimes I offer to give a blow job when I really don’t want to have sex with a guy,” another girl says. “So he won’t be mad at me.”
“No,” Sam whispers.
“You’re lucky, Sam,” Serina Barlow says. “I’m happy for you. Really, I mean it. And I think most girls probably have a chance of figuring this sex thing out, how to make it something good, like it is for you.” She pauses. “But some people are probably never going to be okay. You think Lucy Moynihan’s ever going to have a great sex life? Not likely.”
“You don’t know that,” Sam says.
Serina shakes her head. “What happens to you when you’re young, it, like, brands you for the rest of your life. Nothing as bad as that ever happened to me, not really. But I lost my virginity when I was barely thirteen. The guy was seventeen, and I was high. I wasn’t thinking clearly. It wasn’t rape, but it wasn’t good. And it feels like that programmed me, like that’s the way sex is always going to feel, no matter who it’s with. It’s like I’m cursed.”
“But it was rape,” Margot says. “If he was seventeen, it counts as statutory rape. And if you were so high you didn’t know what was going on, you couldn’t consent.”
“Whatever you want to call it,” Serina says, “it’s done. It happened. There’s nothing I can do about it now.”
“Maybe you can go to therapy or something?” Elise offers.
“Girl, I’ve been in therapy.” Serina laughs bitterly. “But I’m damaged goods. Part of me is broken and it’s never going to get put back together.”
“But what if—”
“It’s like my instincts have been rewired,” Serina says. “Even if I like a guy, if I genuinely like him and think he’s cute, as soon as he shows any interest in me, I fucking hate him. It’s like a physical thing, like disgust, like I’m physically sick with how angry I am, like I want to kill him. Just because he looked at me a certain way. Just because he might want me.”
“Rosina,” Melissa whispers. “I think something’s wrong with Erin.”
Rosina looks beside her and sees Erin’s eyes are wide and darting. Her rocking is more frantic. Her breaths are shallow and fast.
Where are Erin’s walls? Where are her defenses? Serina’s words are cutting into her, slicing her open, and she can feel everything.
“Erin,” Rosina whispers. “Are you okay?”
Erin shakes her head.
“And I think,” Serina continues, “maybe if my parents had talked to me about sex, maybe if someone had told me it was something I got to choose to do, something I was supposed to want, maybe it would have turned out different, you know? Because I didn’t even really know that ‘no’ was an option. I thought if a guy wanted me, that meant the decision had already been made.”
“Breathe,” Rosina whispers to Erin. “Count backward from one hundred.”
“I’m sorry, guys.” Serina sighs. “I didn’t mean to bring everyone down. I’ve been in rehab for the past three months where I was in group therapy for like ten hours a day and all anyone does is talk about their feelings. All. The. Fucking. Time.”
Rosina whispers, “One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven . . .”
“How can we all be so screwed up already?” Margot says with a strained voice, emotion betraying her usual flawless confidence.
“I just know that if I ever have a daughter, I’m going to teach her that sex is supposed to make her feel good,” Serina says. “It should be obvious, right? But it’s so not.”
“Breathe,” Rosina whispers to Erin. “Eighty-eight, eighty-seven, eighty-six, eighty-five . . .”
“I think I know how you feel,” says another girl. “At least a little bit. Even though I’m really lucky. My first time was actually really romantic, and my boyfriend is awesome and totally supportive of what we’re doing. I’ve never been abused or raped. I get along with both my parents. My mom’s a strong woman. My dad isn’t an asshole. But just being a girl, I get nervous sometimes, like I don’t know what could happen.”
“Look around the room,” Rosina whispers to Erin. “Look at the corners. Feel the floor under you.”
“We can’t keep living like this,” someone says.
“We’re not,” Grace says, and her clear voice reverberates around the room. “What we’re doing here, right now. Just being here with each other and talking about what we’re talking about. We’re changing everything.”
“I need to go,” Erin says.
“You’re okay,” Rosina says. “The meeting will be over soon. Can you wait till then?”
“No,” Erin says, on the verge of tears. “I need to get out of here.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“No,” Erin says, standing up.
“Are you sure?”
“Rosina, leave me alone!” Erin shouts, and she stumbles over the mass of people sitting on the floor, out of the room, and out the front door. The room is silent for a moment in her wake.
“Well,” Lisa Sutter says, standing up. “I guess the meeting’s over.”
“Oh,” Margot says as people start moving. “Unless anyone else has anything they’d like to say—”
“I need ice cream,” someone says.
“I need beer,” says someone else.
“I guess the meeting is adjourned?” says Margot, but no one is listening.
The house empties, so many things still unsaid.
The rain has stopped. The night brightens in increments as a couple of dozen cars turn on their headlights. Rosina finds Erin standing next to Grace’s mom’s car in the muddy makeshift parking lot on the side of the hill not visible from the road.
“I just want Grace to give me a ride home,” Erin says before Rosina has a chance to open her mouth.
“She’s on her way,” Rosina says. “But can we talk about what happened?”
“There were too many people in too small a space,” Erin says. “I made a mistake not sitting by the door. I feel much better now that I’m outside.”
“Okay, but—”
“It’s better than in there with all those people and their perfume and scented deodorants.”
“You didn’t raise your hand when Grace asked about being a virgin,” Rosina says. “And you got really upset about what Serina was saying. And—” Rosina has to stop talking. There is something in her throat, something not made out of words. Her eyes are stinging. She is fighting the u
rge to do something Erin would never forgive her for—throw her arms around her and hold on tight and never let go.
“I’m done talking,” Erin says.
“But—”
“Rosina, I said no.”
“Okay, but—”
“And I don’t want to talk about this later. I don’t want to talk about this at school. I don’t want to talk about it ever.”
“Okay.” Rosina sighs.
“Why would Grace lock her car?” Erin says, pounding on the door with her fist.
“I don’t know.”
“I want to go home,” Erin says.
“I know,” Rosina says, even though she has little clue what that feels like.
US.
Grace tunes out during most of Mom’s sermon about the renunciation of worldly goods. That doesn’t seem too relevant to her life right now since she doesn’t own much of anything.
She notices Jesse looking at her a couple of times during the service, but quickly looks away before having to admit to herself how nice his smile is. As soon as the service is over, she runs home without stopping at the bathroom even though she has to pee like crazy. That’s how desperate she is to avoid talking to Jesse Camp.
As she sits on her bed, ready to lose herself in the current book she’s reading, it suddenly hits her that, outside of what was required in classes or church activities, Grace has hardly ever talked to boys. Something in her softens. Maybe, deep down, she’s not so much angry at Jesse as she is scared—he’s a boy and she has no idea how to talk to him. What makes it worse is she suspects she probably wants to.
But what would that mean, if Grace let herself talk to Jesse? Would that mean she likes him? Would that make them friends? Would that mean she wants to be more than friends?
Grace cringes. She looks around her room, as if embarrassed that someone might have heard her thought, shamed that she even briefly considered something as ridiculous as that. She knows this line of thinking is off-limits to someone like her. She knows fat girls don’t get boyfriends in high school, especially semipopular ones like Jesse. No one has to tell her that her body makes her irrelevant to that entire conversation.