Losing My Religion

This good Catholic girl lost her virginity to one of God’s chosen people. It was the ides of March just before my graduation from high school. I had met my boyfriend the previous summer at a Princeton University summer program. He was fiercely brilliant, a gifted poet, with trenchant political views. I found him intoxicating. I’d never met anyone like him in my cookie cutter, culturally devoid town.

We’d talk on the phone till daybreak, we’d send each other letters, we’d visit back & forth. I remember bouncing around the house after hearing from him. I thought I was in love. And being the good Catholic girl that I used to be, I wanted to wait to have sex until I was at least 18 and in love. (Our family was more modern than most – my mom actually told me she didn’t expect me to wait until marriage, and that sex was fun, with the right person). So, one night, after Shabbat dinner with his family, we went down to his bedroom and had a glass of wine. He told me that having sex on the Shabbat was a mitzvah. We undressed. We were about to lose our virginity to each other. Completely nervous, I wanted this moment to be suffused with meaning after waiting so long. He slid on top of me.

After a few moments of his squirming, I said, “Are you in yet?”

His reply, “Yes”

“Oh.”

I couldn’t feel a thing. I just looked up at the ceiling and waited for him to stop sweating and pulsing above me. I was so confused, I remember thinking – this is what I have been waiting for?


The next week, he called me at home.

“I slept with my best friend last night” he said. “I think I might be gay. I always kind of wondered, but I wanted to sleep with you just to see if it was true.”

My 18 year romantic buildup was his litmus test.




I wasn't so good after that.

*scorpio*