Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Nineteen
13 November 2024
Dear Diary,
I honestly never thought this day would come, but it’s happened. I lost my virginity. I mean, honestly, I was on the brink of being a thirty-year-old virgin. It feels embarrassing even writing it down, it’s something that I should have been writing about a decade ago, gossiping about with school friends. Instead, I have nobody to tell and just feel relieved that it’s finally happened, that the societal stigma of still being a virgin is wiped away, finally.
But anyway, it happened with Noah. He was round here recently. I told him about that time with the hairy guy and Mother– he always listens when I open up about my childhood, which is one of my favourite things about him– and he was really understanding. I still find that memory very difficult to talk about; my body reacts viscerally, even if my emotions are switched off to it. I still get tense and jumpy just thinking about it for too long, remembering how scared I was. Even thinking of Jack Daniel’s makes me want to vomit. The spicy, honeyed musk. I hadn’t spoken to anyone about it before, I still held a lot of shame over it, still felt as though perhaps some of it was
my fault somehow. I know it sounds ridiculous, that I was only fifteen and the responsibility was on Mother to protect me, but those feelings of everything being my fault are embedded so deeply within my being that it’s my instinctual reaction whenever I am upset about something.
Noah was really kind and helped me navigate the entire memory. I spoke and cried and he held me. It made me feel so close to him. ‘I’m sorry you had to go through that, Claire,’ he murmured. And it was such a contrast to how Mother had been that I was caught in confusion, unsure if I even believed him. But after I’d relieved myself of that secret, I felt a weight lift off me. I stopped feeling like it was my fault, and I felt ready to become intimate. To trust that a man could want me. And so today it happened.
Noah did not push me, this was all my decision. I instigated it and I told him I was ready– because I was.
And it was perfect. In hindsight, I’m glad I waited this long. I don’t think I could have found a better guy. He was very gentle and understanding and kept checking in to make sure that I was okay the whole time. It was a bit uncomfortable at the start, as I knew it would be, but we found a rhythm eventually and it started to feel much better.
Initially I’d been self-conscious. I know he must have so much more experience than me, have seen so many bodies, and I began to worry about how mine compared to the others. But his eyes had hooded over and his hands had roamed gently and I could tell in that moment that he was definitely not thinking about anybody other than me. I’d felt empowered, and attractive, and wanted.
I’m quite relieved, to be honest– the longer I stayed a virgin, the bigger a deal it felt. I didn’t think I’d ever meet a man who would understand my fears around intimacy and be so patient with me. Before now, I couldn’t even be in a bed with a man without being reminded of that revolting, fleshy body I’d woken to find beside me. I feel like a new woman, as clichéd as it sounds, and I do believe that it’s less to do with the sex and all to do with the closure I got from speaking about that particular trauma. I have Noah to thank for both.
Claire