Tori – Part Two

Discovering that true intimacy means being mentally naked – just as much as it involves the physical shedding of clothes was one of the great revelations of my life. Perhaps that is why this story resonates and also why, after all the wonderful stories I have been sent, this is an all time favourite.

Some of us spend years searching for someone we can be naked with. Tori has gone in at the top. Ok, soul searching was involved, religion had its say too but she got there in the end. I don’t think I am ruining the story by telling you that it was worth the wait.

The moment….

We joke that sex was my twentieth birthday present. It was actually a month and a day after that we had sex, but it was around my birthday that we set about exploring in earnest.

I'm not sure what changed. I knew from the beginning that if things worked out between G and I, we would have sex at some point. I worried about timing, about starting this before we were sure that I could cope with being in a relationship with him, let alone sex. But I woke up on my birthday, and, without fanfare or angst, it seemed right. Now was as good a time as any. I spent a large part of my twentieth birthday learning to give a hand job. It was only when someone rang me at four in the afternoon that I remembered that it was in fact my birthday.

I had never been touched before. I was - am still - very tense. At first, what should have been pleasure responses registered as pain. All the sensitive nerves in my vulva exploded in sharp stabbing fire. He was so gentle and patient with me, backing off until I was ready to try again. Time, patience, and the pleasure responses balanced out the pain. G encouraged me to touch myself before he attempted to finger me. He lay there and coaxed me and encouraged me and reminded me that there was no way to get it wrong, as long as it felt good.

I relaxed enough that he could slide his finger inside of me. The muscles around the outside were tight and painful, but inside... I had no idea of what to expect and was overwhelmed. I tried to curl up into a ball around these new sensations and cried ‘what is this, what is this?’ Those first few times, even before the pain receded, were the most intense. I had no time to worry about what was going to happen next, I lost myself in the moment. I didn't notice when my hymen broke because - for the first time, that day, there was no pain at all when he touched me.

We stuck with that for a while. As a matter of honour, he maintained that we were going no further before the end of semester, when I would have a chance to catch my breath and make sure everything was ok. Everything was ok. The half-expected reality check never happened. Neither of us came to our senses and recovered from our insanity.

Sex itself took several false starts. The first try, I freaked out at the last moment. G had apparently expected this, but I was confused and taken aback. For a large part, at that point I just wanted to get past the first time, to have it out of the way so that I didn't have to worry about the unknown. But that unknown scared me enough that I just couldn't do it.

I don't know what was different the next time but we started messing around a bit with different positions, on the basis that if we were going to have false starts we might as well have some variety to them. Somewhere, one of them worked.

We had to stop and start again a bit the first time. I remember feeling mostly confused, having to process a bunch of new sensations. The physical intimacy, the discomfort, new and (mostly) good feelings. It hurt - even now, a month or so later, the moment of penetration is still uncomfortable for me, but I didn't care. We had sex again quite soon afterwards, this time with me on top. It was that second time that the whole sex thing clicked for me. G tells me I had my mouth hanging open in a most unladylike manner, as I lost track of everything around me, even him beneath me.

When I came back to earth I freaked out a little, surprised by the intensity that had taken me. G gave me space to myself for a while and I sat on his stairs while he pottered around, and took stock. I think I had to make sure that I hadn't in fact lost anything, that I was still the same person. Which I was, and am. Virginity loss hasn't changed a lot of things. I still don't know what I'm doing half the time; I'm still getting comfortable with myself, and sex - and G. I'm still easily overwhelmed or frightened by it all.

That's ok, though, because this isn't really about first time sex. It's about G, and I, and having a relationship and sex, which is loving and safe and honouring to both of us. Which also happens to be awesome sex. Even when it's Bad Sex, when we're uncoordinated and tired and nothing quite works, it's still awesome - gentle and tender and patient and funny. It doesn't matter how long it takes to work it all out - right now it feels like we have all the time in the world.

I have been so incredibly lucky to find G. People spend half their lives reading chick lit and waiting for something like this to come along. This is the sort of relationship the True Love Waits society tells you is 'worth the wait'. And it is, no arguments. If I thought they were right, that premarital abstinence was the only way to have a relationship like this, I'd sign the card right away. Clearly, their prescribed method of achieving this isn't the only route, though. It doesn't matter if G and I are only together for a year, or three or thirty. What matters is that it is true and honest and loving, right now.

I'd like to say this is all I've ever hoped for, but to be honest this is nothing like what I'd hoped for. I've been a cynical person, with little tolerance for pipe dreams, regardless of whether it's chick lit or the church who are offering them. If I expected anything at all, it was a comfortable friendship which would drift slowly into a relationship and commitment. Somewhere along the line there'd be sex. But G happened along, and all I can say is that if I ever settle for second best, I'll know what I'm missing.

Afterwards

‘I just wonder’, you asked me Kate, ‘if real love is that much of a strong emotion that it forces us - albeit in a very pleasant way, to re-assess everything we thought we knew’...?

‘Real Love’ has caused me to reassess many things. Not the things I thought I knew, but the things I worried about not knowing. How would I know when I found ‘a sexual relationship which enriches you as an individual’? What, exactly, did that consist of? What would it look like?

Maybe, had G. and I not had this silly instant connection, all those questions would still be difficult. But I knew this in the same way that I knew I loved him. I knew it, because I knew it. I can't describe how I know it, but hopefully I have described to others what that knowledge feels like.

To return to ‘losing’ my virginity. They tell you that your virginity is the greatest gift you can give your partner, but I cannot feel that I have given away anything. Oh, G. is damn special, and has every reason to feel so, but there are many things I have given him – love, trust and instruction on the fine art of constructing a paragraph.

When it comes to sex, it is he who has given, and I who have received. G. turned up in my life and gave me a safe space in which to explore. He gave me no pressure, and no boundaries to fear. I had slammed the door shut on an uncontrolled wilderness that I could not understand. G. turned that into a room full of playpen balls and told me I could do what I liked with them.

In twenty years time, my virginity will be only a memory, but G has given me something which will last my lifetime: my body, all wrapped up with a metaphorical bow on it, and a free demonstration, of the ‘look what it can do’ variety. I still have a lot to learn, a lot to explore... but I'm not doing it alone.