2. Helen
It isn’t that I think there’s anything inherently wrong with virginity. Objectively, I know that what people do with their own bodies is their own choice, and that society shouldn’t have any say in when or if a person decides to have sex. I also know that age shouldn’t really be a factor—some people might be emotionally ready at seventeen, others might take significantly more time. Circumstances, sexual orientation, health, religious beliefs—all of these things can factor into a person’s choice to remain celibate, and it doesn’t make anyone more or less worthy of romantic love.
I can logically reason about all of these things, but every time I think about a romantic prospect finding out I’m still a virgin, I shrivel with mortification.
Being a former sister is a logical excuse as to why I was still a virgin at twenty-seven, when I made the choice to no longer renew my vows so I could try to live a normal life with a job, marriage, babies, and the like. Obviously, it made sense that someone who pledged to live a celibate life should remain celibate. This part of my story I think would be fairly easy for a romantic prospect to understand.
Four years after leaving the order, however, I’m still as much a virgin as when I first left. I’ve had a small smattering of blind dates and a brief dabbling into online dating (though I closed all accounts before I actually went on a date with anyone, because I am a coward).
But the truth is, I’m not just a virgin in the sense that I’ve never had sexual intercourse with another human being. I’m a virgin in every sense of the word when it comes to romantic encounters. I’ve never been kissed. I’ve never had a man hold my hand. I went on a couple dates before taking my vows, but I’ve never had a boyfriend. And, persuaded at a young age that I would go to hell for doing so, I’ve never even attempted to masturbate. My body as a sexual object is a completely foreign concept to me, and I’m certain that any man who gets close enough to sniff this out will go running for the hills screaming.
So I gradually closed my online dating accounts, stopped accepting blind date offers, and embraced the shapeless sweaters that keep me nice and toasty in the overenergetic library air-conditioning. I started baking Sunday nights. I’ve taken up knitting, badly. And on Tuesdays, I get Pizookies with the girls at Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria.
For those sad, ignorant folk unaware of the beauty of the Pizookie, it is a pizza cookie: a half-baked, chocolatey dessert—crispy on the outside, gooey on the inside, and topped with cold, crisp vanilla bean ice cream.
I may have never had an orgasm before, but I’m pretty sure this is probably as close as it gets.
“Watch it, you’re breaching into my territory,” Matilda snaps as the three of us hover over the dessert in question, spoons engaged in a swift battle to ensure that no one gets shirked their full amount. This is a precarious situation, especially at a high-top table with a slightly wonky chair.
One of the things that I love most about my friends is that they love to eat. I’ve never known how to bond with someone who doesn’t truly enjoy food.
“We didn’t divvy out sections,” I remind her, “and even if we did, this is clearly my third.”
Our bickering might have continued, but we suddenly realize that quiet Antonina is stealthily infringing on our territory with her own spoon. Silence descends once more as we each hurry to eat as much as we can before it’s gone.
Aside from our love of Pizookies, the three of us might not seem to have much in common. I’m the oldest at thirty-one, blonde, blue-eyed, round-faced, and completely swamped in my oversized sweater. What I like about the bulky sweater is that my actual shape underneath is impossible to tell, and I like the general, almost-androgynous roundness that my outfit gives me. (“Like a habit,” Matilda pointed out to me once, and I guess that’s true. Even though not all orders still wear the habit, and in mine it wasn’t required, I always felt safely invisible in mine.)
Matilda, by contrast, is tall and sleek, with formfitting, chic clothes that show off her athletic frame. She is twenty-seven, dark blonde, with a chin-length, no-nonsense haircut, cool blue eyes, and a direct stare that matches everything else about her hard-edged appearance.
Then there is Nina, who is twenty-four and uncommonly, ethereally pretty. She has long wavy brown hair that reaches almost down to her waist, a petite but shapely figure that a Disney princess would envy, and big brown eyes that always look a little dreamy and distracted. I’ve noticed she can go several meals totally forgetting to eat (a completely foreign concept to me). The only time she really seems to come to life is when she is eating dessert.
Yet despite our numerous differences, readily visible to anyone looking from the outside, I’m connected to these women in a way that no one else will ever truly understand, closer to them than I am to my own brother.
It all began a few months after I left my community house, when my then-therapist recommended a support group for former sisters, like myself. As expected, most of the women in the group were significantly older than me, and their individual relationships with the Church and their former lives as nuns were in some ways far more complex than my own. Still, it was nice to be around other people who understood, to some extent, what I was going through, and it was encouraging to learn that most all had gone on to live normal, unextraordinary lives with marriages, kids, and careers.
But it wasn’t until Matilda showed up that I truly felt as though I’d found a kindred spirit. Even though, as she likes to point out, she was a “real” nun, a cloistered sister who lived in a convent, and I was “just” a sister, a person who takes the vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience but still interacts with laypeople in the world. (I say I was a nun as a shorthand, since that’s the term most laypeople recognize, but Matilda is technically right.) And a year after that, sweet Nina arrived. (For the record, she didn’t even make it as far as taking her vows to become a sister, since she left when she was a novitiate. So, I’m more of a “real” nun than her. Not that there’s a competition. Well, not that there’s a competition to anyone but Matilda.)
The three of us are mainly tied by this one thing in our lives, but oh, what a thing it is. Though we’ve drifted away from attending the monthly support group meetings, our friendship provides a far more frequent (and delicious) form of moral support.
“I finished my chapter,” I inform the other women once we all finish our share of the Pizookie and can therefore relax and actually speak to one another, since we are no longer in competition to scrape up the last morsel.
“The sex one?” Matilda asks with her usual bluntness, rubbing at her little food baby, prominent on her otherwise flat tummy.
“Yep. It’s pretty steamy, considering it was based on pure imagination.”
Matilda and Nina are some of the only people in the world who know the full truth about my situation, and as always, it’s a relief to be able to speak candidly. They know where I’m coming from, even if their own situations aren’t exactly the same.
“Believe me, imagination is always better anyway.” Matilda lost her virginity as soon as she could manage it after receiving her dispensation to leave from the Pope, and she continues to keep a “booty call friend” on hand for whenever she “feels the itch.” She has no inclination for dating or romance, claiming she doesn’t want to finally reclaim her autonomy just to lose it again. And Antonina…
Well, actually, I don’t really know Nina’s status for certain. Nina doesn’t talk much about herself, just listens with those kind, sympathetic dark eyes that make it seem like she’s divulged her soul when in fact, she hasn’t contributed anything. Still, I can’t really imagine her setting up a “special friend” like Matilda has, and she’s never mentioned any dates or crushes, so I’m guessing she’s probably in the same boat as I am. Only Nina is twenty-four, not thirty-one, and ethereally beautiful, so it’s only a matter of time before she gets snatched up by somebody.
As if on cue, a compact, mildly attractive man in a suit approaches the table, his gaze fixed on Nina as if he is Galahad approaching the Holy Grail. “I’m sorry to bother you ladies”—he says this as if addressing the entire table, though his eyes never leave Nina—“but I was wondering if any of you would be interested in attending the symphony this weekend. I’d love to bring you all as my guests.”
It isn’t his fault, really; he seems nice enough, but it’s the third time our evening has been interrupted by some guy who can’t stop gawking at Nina, and Matilda has clearly had enough. “We’re all deaf. Go away.” Uttered in her pragmatic, faintly Russian accent, it somehow sounds even more cutting.
The man’s brow furrows. “But?—”
“No one here wants to talk to you. Take the hint.” Matilda shoos him, and befuddled, the man obeys, casting one last longing glance back at Nina.
For her part, Nina stares down at the table, never even so much as looking at him. I squeeze her hand encouragingly, changing the subject to distract from her embarrassment. “I’m going to read my chapter at my writing group on Friday, if either of you want to come.”
I know it might seem weird to invite your friends along to a public reading of your first sex scene, but it will be reassuring to see my two besties in the crowd. Or mortifying. I’ve never done this before, so it’s a real roll of the dice. Seeing Matilda’s already-forming protest, I add, “I’ll bring those muffins you like.”
“The red velvet ones?” At my nod of confirmation, Matilda purses her lips, considering it. “We’ll see.”
Beside me, Nina suddenly stiffens and sits up straighter. “Isn’t that…?”
Matilda and I follow the little jerk of her chin in the direction of a far corner table, so shrouded in shadow that it takes me a moment to recognize the Red Unicorn. I straighten instinctively, then immediately slouch back, afraid he might look up and recognize me. Or not recognize me. It’s hard to decide which outcome would be worse.
Though Matilda and Nina only infrequently visit me at work, both are well familiar with the legend of the Red Unicorn. I’d talked about him so often that it became necessary to procure a picture and prove, contrary to Matilda’s doubts, that he was real; and since I’ve purposefully avoided learning his name and therefore can’t stalk him on social media and find out something unsettling about him—like that he has a supermodel girlfriend, or boyfriend, or that he is an amateur DJ—I had to resort to other means to prove his existence. Namely, I once sneakily took out my phone and pretended to be texting a friend while I actually took a series of pictures of him to show my friends over Pizookies.
It’s not a proud moment of mine, but when a man is that attractive, his face needs to be shared!
“Is he here with somebody?” Matilda voices aloud the very question I’ve been wondering, as I scan for any sign of who his dinner partner might be.
But there is only one set of cutlery on the table, one glass of water, one glass of wine. “He’s eating alone,” I realize out loud, not sure why I should feel this little twist of pleasure. It means nothing. He could still be dating someone. And even if he is completely single, it changes nothing for me. I won’t approach him at the table, or slide him my number at the library. I just like looking from a distance, knowing that he is at least in theory still attainable, even if in practice he is very much out of my league.
“Eating alone and reading,” Matilda adds, and for the first time I notice the book in his hands—an Agatha Christie he checked out earlier that day—and the reading glasses that somehow manage to make him look even hotter.
You are a ridiculous weirdo, I remind myself, even as I make a mental note to give Axel some glasses before I send my chapter off tonight to my writing group.
If this were one of my stories, the Red Unicorn might look up and notice me across the room. A spark of recognition might light his eyes before he crossed the room to me. “The librarian,” he might say, teasing me in that faint, sporadic Southern accent of his. “I’ve been meaning to check you out.” (Or something less cheesy. I’ll have to brainstorm that one some more.)
But the Red Unicorn doesn’t look up from his book, and eventually I manage to drag my eyes away from him and pretend to be interested in the conversation for the rest of the night, until finally I glance back and see that he’s gone.