It's hard to believe that in this age of the Internet, sexual freedom, and cable TV that there are still people who grow up with little knowledge of sex. However, there are and I, Ruth, was Exhibit A.
I grew up in a cloistered village in a Western State. My family was extremely conservative and religious, as were most of the people there. We weren't actually members of a cult, but with the benefit of hindsight I believe that we were not too far off. I rarely left my home town and never went more than 100 miles away until after I got married.
The local minister had way too much power over peoples' lives, and intruded too much. For example, my high school biology teacher, Miss Rose, was dismissed mid-year as a result of complaints instigated by Reverend Brown for having the audacity to teach human anatomy (what the good Reverend called "Sexual Education that will lead our teens down the path of lust and depravity").
I'm a plain but well-endowed young woman. My medium darkness brown hair is not shiny and curly like one sees in shampoo ads, and since I normally wore it in a bun it didn't garner much attention. My eyes are nothing special either, also a boring medium brown. While I have nice almost blemish free skin, my face is very ordinary, my nose in particular nothing to brag about. While my lips are full, my ears are too small for my head and my eyebrows too heavy.
Since I always wore loose fitting and non-revealing clothing no one ever got to see the rest of my body, except for other girls in the locker room the two years I was required to take gym classes in high school and shower afterward. I did notice that my breasts were larger and more turgid than virtually every other girl's, and when I stand with my feet together there are nicely proportioned gaps between my calves and thighs. Despite my full head of hair and bushy eyebrows the hair around my vagina is naturally sparse, and I noticed that what Miss Rose, before she was fired, taught us were the labia majora were much fuller on me than the other girls. My breasts and labia were even more pronounced than the really large girls at my school, even though I am only about 5'5", 120 pounds.
I didn't really have a "love life" in high school -- almost none of the girls in our village really did. Interactions with boys were chaperoned by what best could be described as "human vultures," and even though there were strictly speaking no "arranged" marriages, parents and the good Reverend were really pushy and you had to be a really brave soul to cross them completely.
Though I wasn't actually "set up" with Luke (it seemed like everyone in our town had biblical first names), it was close to it. Luke was someone who was three years older than I was and four years ahead in school since he had skipped a grade. Luke had attended a nearby Christian college, but studied a very unusual curriculum for those in our village, software development. Luke was smart, though outwardly as plain and unexciting as I was, but when I lived in our village excitement wasn't a major factor in ending up with a mate.
Our parents and Reverend Brown thought Luke and I were a good match for each other, pushed us together, and when Luke at 22 asked me to marry him the day he got back from graduating college, which was a few days before I graduated high school at 19, I said "yes." For the first time he actually touched my breasts when we kissed after he proposed, and I laughed to myself at how he was taken aback by the presence of much more meat there than he apparently expected.
Despite the fact that I was a "good girl," always willing to please my parents and the town elders, I likely would have been willing to chance becoming a pariah by declining Luke's offer except for one thing. I knew he was "getting out of Dodge" because he loved software (he droned on incessantly about it on "dates") and there were no software jobs in our village. I wanted out and he was my ticket. It wasn't that I didn't like him -- I did -- but I didn't think what I felt for him was "love," at least measured against the few romance-related stories and books that were part of the state-mandated curriculum in high school.
We married within a month after getting engaged. I know that is unheard of in urban areas but when your reception is a simple pot luck supper without alcohol in the church basement and the flowers are from your garden, you don't need planning time. Our three day "honeymoon" was in a motel in a resort area two towns over, after which we returned to live in his parents' house for two weeks before we moved to a real city, where Luke had a great job in software design.
We got to the motel on our "honeymoon" at about 10:00 p.m. We kissed, we both removed our tops (including my bra), wide-eyed Luke somewhat fondled my breasts for a few minutes, and then we awkwardly removed some more clothing, though we both kept our underpants on. We sat on the bed kissing some more, I finally lay down on my back and while barely touching my labia Luke moved my panties to one side. He then stuck his penis -- poking through the opening in his boxers -- into my vagina. I guess it was good that he pushed in forcefully when he did since it quickly ruptured my hymen and the pain was only momentary.
By the way again if it weren't for Miss Rose I wouldn't have known what a "hymen" was. None of my mother, older married sister, older married cousins, aunts, or neighbors, ever said anything about it. Can you imagine what my reaction would have been on my wedding night if it hadn't been for Miss Rose?
After Luke realized he had "popped the cherry" he lay still for a short while, then he bounced up and down a few times. I felt some fluid spurting against my vaginal walls as he groaned, and then it was over.
It was not even remotely as pleasing as I had read about in the few romance-related stories I had been exposed to but maybe, I thought, the books had exaggerated. I certainly had never discussed it with any woman who was experienced in sex, so I didn't know any better.
Luke and I talked for about an hour as we lay in bed, mostly practical stuff about our upcoming move, then he kissed me goodnight. I went to sleep with a hollow feeling, but with the realization that he was as inexperienced as I was, and maybe this "sex thing" would get better in the future.
Rather than boring you with what was truly an even less than lackluster first year of marriage I'll cut to the chase. By our first anniversary we had been in bed together totally naked a grand total of three times, I had never actually seen (though obviously I felt) Luke's penis when it was hard, we never had sex more than once a day, we usually had sex only once a week, and when we had sex it rarely was much better than the first time. We socialized only with other "good Christian" couples.
What made it bearable was that Luke was doing extremely well in his job and had already received two promotions and the money that went along with it, and I was working in a law office as a "pool secretary," and got to know a large number of people of different races, creeds, religious outlooks, and sexual attitudes than I had ever experienced. I was fascinated by the widely varying looks and perspectives.
Jezebel -- yes that really was the name her atheist swinging parents had given her -- was a mixed race (probably Asian and Caucasian) co-worker a couple of years older than I was who took a keen interest in me, never having been exposed to someone with my level of naivety before. Despite our disparate backgrounds we became good friends. We would have lunch together at least a couple of times a week during which she would regale me with tales of her sexual conquests and experiences. I learned all sorts of new phrases like "eat out," "blowjob," "doggy fuck," and many others that Jezebel probably knew as soon as she exited the womb. She loved my wide-eyed looks when she told her tales, and I noticed my panties were usually wet when we returned from lunch.
Emboldened by Jezebel I started to probe Luke with sex related questions and statements, much more refined versions of things I had learned from Jezebel and other co-workers. Luke was always nervous when I did that, and often turned red, but he never got angry. In fact in the entire time I knew him I had never seen him angry. He was a mild mannered as a guy could be -- dull, but mild mannered. Also while he was very book smart he had little common sense and quickly became dependent on me for most practical decisions, including handling our family's finances.
A funny thing happened during our first year of marriage, though. While I still wasn't sure I "loved" Luke since I still wasn't sure what that was, I had grown more and more fond of him, and emotionally attached. That motivated me even more to find a solution to what Jezebel made me realize was a real "sex problem."
A few days after our first anniversary I had decided that our sexual boat had to be rocked. I didn't want to go through life like my mother and the other women in our village had. I wanted real, passionate, sex -- at least as much as I could hope to get from Luke.
After getting her pledge of strict confidence, and with much embarrassment, I explained my problem to Jezebel. She was completely nonchalant about it, greatly reducing my level of stress, and quickly had a solution.
"Listen Ruthie baby, unless you get fucked by someone who knows what he's doing, and Luke spends some time with an experienced woman, you're damned to your present boring sex life."
"What do you mean?"
"You have to tell Luke that you're going away for a few days with another guy and he's going away that same time with another woman because you both are inexperienced and need to improve your sex lives dramatically otherwise neither of you will ever be fulfilled. Tell him that if he loves you he'll agree to it."
"What?"
"You heard me, it's the only way."
"But, uh, well, ah, I don't think..."
"Listen Ruthie-baby, I've given you the only solution I know of. If you don't ask him you'll never know if he'll go along, and if you don't do something your sex live will always be in the crapper! Get some guts, girl!"
I know I turned every shade of red and purple imaginable as I sat stunned at the picnic bench we were lunching at. When I somewhat recovered Jezebel changed the subject, I threw away the rest of my lunch since I had no appetite, and we went back to work.
The next week I thought about what Jezebel had said virtually every waking second that I wasn't preoccupied with something else that I absolutely had to do. She also goaded me at least twice a day. Finally at the end of a week of this I had more questions, at the same picnic table.
"Listen J," (which is what I always called her -- I just couldn't get "Jezebel" out), "let's talk hypothetically. Say I did want to go along with your plan. Where would I find a guy, and where would Luke find a girl, that would go along with it? And how would we know we wouldn't get some disease, or something?"
"Hey Ruthie, that's what I'm here for. I can arrange it, no problem. I just need to meet your husband, and I need to see you naked."
"What?"
"What the hell's with 'what?' You don't want me to meet your husband?"
"No it's not that; why, uh, well, uh, do you need to see me naked?"
"Cause there are different types of guys -- ass men, tit men, leg men, cunt men, I need the right guy."
It took me another week of thinking to agree to J's conditions. Luke and I had dinner with J and one of her many male friends and one of her girlfriends one Friday night. She obviously had warned them not to be too vulgar since they caught themselves several times, and were very pleasant and chatty. The next day I went over to J's apartment and disrobed for her -- one of the most embarrassing experiences of my life. I was very pleasantly surprised by her reaction.
"Girl, you've got a 600 HP engine under your hood. You've got class A tits and an ass and pussy lips to die for. Now don't get squirrely, but I've got to touch you for one thing."
With that she knelt down and spread my labia apart. At first I flinched and stepped back. After she disgustedly said "I'm not gonna hurt ya, and I'm not a lesbian, but I have to see, so don't get all embarrassed and jumpy on me."
I closed my eyes. I felt her stretch my labia well apart and touch what Miss Rose had identified as a "clitoris," which sent a shiver up my spine. Then I heard her whistle.
"Honey, with your equipment you can have any guy I know. You just tell me what you want him to look like."
I couldn't believe that the words were coming out of my mouth but I quickly responded "Well few of the guys I knew growing up were blond, so if he were tall and blond and trim I'd like that. A handsome face doesn't matter."
