There was tall Carl and short Carl. Tall Carl kept my glass full of gin. Short Carl kept staring at my chest squeezed into a tight top. It was New Year’s Eve and I had arrived back in town that morning. I spent Christmas with my family in Miami. My roommate told me at the end of the semester that she was going to have a big bash.
“You might lose your virginity,” she said. My virginity was a marvel to her. I was twenty-one and untouched and unclaimed. My roommate had been on birth control since she was fifteen. I assumed that meant she was having sex since then. I don’t know. I started taking birth control the year prior and I was still a virgin as the new year neared. High school boys had paid no attention to me. College boys paid no attention to me. I was odd. Strange. Not unattractive. I don’t think so. But not popular or easy to be friends with. Virginity persisted.
Tall Carl didn’t say much. Short Carl talked about basketball. There were twenty people at the party. All graduates of Penn State. Only the two Carl’s paid any attention to me. I got tired being in between the Carl’s and I went upstairs to my bedroom for space. Refuge. Tall Carl opened my door. I must have looked surprised because he looked scared for a moment but then he rushed forward and put his hands all over me. In a few seconds I was lying flat on my back and he had pushed into me. It hurt. Not the kind of hurt that makes you want to cry. It was over quickly. Tall Carl zipped his pants and staggered out. I saw short Carl standing in the doorway with a weird smile.
There was a stinging and blood rich wetness between my legs. I wondered if I had been assaulted. Raped. I never said yes. I never said no. I decided it was bad sex and bad sex isn’t assault.
Bad sex slices up your soul as much as assault. I didn’t know then, with my blanket wrapped around me and curled like a snail in a shell, that I would have lots of bad sex over the years. This is why my soul is a bloody mess.
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