You asked, so here goes: I'm going to tell you about how I lost my virginity. Or how I traded it, I guess—losing something implies that it happened without your knowledge. This was definitely a conscious decision.
I was a pretty boring schoolgirl, I guess. Read a lot, talked with my teachers, had a couple friends. Only dated one guy, and only in senior year, and that didn't last long: he whipped it out on our second date, I slapped him, and that was it.
Not that I didn't like boys, or anything like that. I just never seemed to have the time. Always something more interesting to do: a new release from a favorite author, a friend having one of those low-key, ten-person parties, that sort of thing.
Like I said. Boring. But it suited me just fine.
So high school went by, and I went to the local university branch, and it was really just more of the same. Classes were harder, and that meant more time in the library, and I had no complaints at all about that. I was still living at home, so there was never any reason to hang around on campus when the nightlife picked up. Not a single dance, not one sweaty beer-filled party.
And still no dating. I knew a lot of the students already, and I'd already not dated them in high school; no reason to break that trend. Most of the new ones were assholes, or seemed that way to me. I was there for an education, not to get wasted and bang frat boys in a disgusting dorm bathroom. And I get that a lot of people were trying new things, expanding horizons and whatnot, and that was fine with me—I just wanted no part of it.
Got labeled frigid. It's a good word. Accurate, in my face. Cold shoulders and icy stares were my favorite ways to deflect a pick-up line or shut down a catcall. Funny thing, though: when you set a precedent, people are gonna try harder to get you to break it. Kind of like going to a bar with friends and saying you don't drink. Suddenly you've got plenty of booze in front of you, whether you wanted it or not.
So lots of guys saw me as a challenge. And I kept turning them down.
Which isn't to say that I was totally uninterested. Plenty of nights found me curled up under the covers, fingers digging down into myself, vibrator set to maximum, head full of things I'd never experienced with guys I'd never spoken to. And I was an RA for a semester, in charge of a floor of first-year students, and I had a private bathroom—with a lock on the door, and a detachable showerhead. So I wasn't exactly chaste. Easy to retreat into fantasy when you've got no experience with reality.
All that is buildup to the end of senior year. We had a week between the last exams and when we actually graduated; I'd worked hard for my degrees, and I was looking forward to relaxing as much as anyone. Although I doubt that most of the other folks were planning on reading under a tree for six hours a day, which was basically my greatest ambition.
Didn't quite work out that way. The night I finished my last final, maybe nine-thirty or so, I did my usual post-test stress relief running, except this time I treated myself and ran across campus instead of hitting the treadmills at the gym. Sure, you get the jerks staring at you, but the fresh air's a nice change, especially after spending three hours locked in a room analyzing modern British poetry.
So I was headed back to my dorm to shower when I noticed it. Right down the path from my building is a little greenhouse; ecology and environmental science majors used it for some of their observations and stuff, I guess. Not my field, though, and I always just assumed they were secretly growing weed.
But the weird thing was that there was a light on inside, and it looked like it was coming up from the floor. And when I got close enough to actually see through the glass, I could tell it was from a trapdoor. I hadn't even known the building had a basement, let alone a hidden one.
Well, what would you have done? I had nowhere to be, and it's not every day you learn something new about the place you've been living for four years. The door was unlocked—and that was weird, too, because they're usually pretty good about locking things up at night—and I didn't see anybody around, so I went right in.
Trespassing? Oh, come on. What were they going to do? Revoke my degree and kick me out a week before I graduated just because I poked my head in a service area? The absolute worst thing that'd happen, I figured, would be some plumber grumbling at me, and then maybe somebody from campus safety would send me an email saying something about liability issues.
So no. I wasn't worried at all. Literally a hundred feet from my dorm, plenty of lights, and a chance to see something new, even if it'd probably just be a bunch of junk.
Went down the rickety stairs, which were probably way too small to pass a fire inspection, and ended up in a long, narrow hallway. Lots of pipes in the ceiling, lots of wiring along the walls. A couple shelves with old, rusted-out pieces of metal on them. Nothing too interesting there, although the bare lightbulb gave a pretty cool horror-movie look to it.
But down at the end of the hall there was more light, and I could hear people talking, or chanting, or singing maybe. I remember thinking it was a really weird place to have choir rehearsals.
I tried to be quiet; didn't take much effort, as there was a constant hum from somewhere, plus running shoes aren't all that noticeable when you're walking in them. Got closer and closer to the end of the hall, and eventually I got to where I could sort of see inside.
It was pretty weird. Eight guys, or at least I assumed they were guys based on proportion and such, in robes, standing in a circle around some sort of cloth-covered thing. Seven of them were wearing yellow, and one had on white; all of them had masks, too. They were those weird tragedy masks, the ones you see in theaters and drama departments. Almost certainly cheap plastic, and probably from the dollar store.
Well, sure, I was a little creeped out at first. How many reasons would a bunch of dudes have to be hanging around and chanting? And how many of those reasons aren't super sketchy? Best case scenario was a frat hazing, or maybe one of the old not-really-secret boys-only academic societies picking a new supreme chancellor or whatever. But I had no idea.
It was Latin, I think? At least, it sounded a little like what I heard in church growing up, but I never had much of an interest in classical stuff, so I couldn't tell you what they were saying. But it had a ritualistic feel to it, like they'd done this a lot of times already.
I wasn't going to go run to get security right away, though. So I hung out, hiding behind the doorway as well as I could, waiting for something to happen.
Took maybe a minute before they wrapped up their little synchronized thing, then one of them—I couldn't see from there, but I guessed it was the one with the fancy white robe—started talking. In English, thankfully.
Yeah, it was some sort of little secret society they'd put together. The fifth monthly meeting of the Brotherhood of Purity of Something Something, I don't know. Pretty formal; it actually sounded like they were at a real meeting, and not hiding in a cellar wearing masks. Approval of last month's minutes, call for new business, that sort of thing.
Then he started talking about the end of term. And I wish I'd recorded this, or taken notes, or something, because it was fantastic.
He said that the next couple of months would be difficult because they'd lack the support system they had put together, and that they had to stay strong and not fall to "base instincts"—I think that was the phrase he used there—and they should remember the power they were accumulating. Which, okay, kind of weird, but nothing too outlandish.
And then he—look, I'm just going to call him Moron Prime from now own, if that's okay. Moron Prime said that purity gave them strength, and that by removing themselves from temptation they would become greater and greater, and that they'd never have to face rejection again. And that society may not understand them, but that they had found the secret to immortality.
