It’s just a personal, silly thing, but I always mark with silent acknowledgement the date of 25 June in the calendar. It’s a date of personal remembrance for me alone, because it’s the date on which I lost my virginity.

I am aware there has been much written on this subject, indeed, books have been published on the collective memories and often embarrassing recollections of the first time. There are novels and films centred on it, and of course, for many people the memories are not that pleasant.

I was perhaps fortunate that my first time coincided with someone I loved, or at least assumed I loved, as I had no prior experience of the concept and was very emotionally immature at the time. It was her first time too, and she was slightly younger than me. I assume she loved me too, in fact I am certain that we shared that kind of naïve, desperate first love where the whole world seems oblivious outside of you and her. Kind of embarrassing in retrospect, but also sweet. A wonderful experience to go through.

I can still remember standing at the edge of my parents’ front garden waiting for her. I had cut school for this pre-arranged event. She was also cutting but would be along later, having let her parents assume she was on her way there. She lived several blocks away from me. She was a couple of years younger. I was just over the age of consent, she was just under it.

The seduction was a drawn out affair, carefully constructed and administered as best as possible by a clueless teenager taking his queues from television and movies, and who had inculcated a certain old fashioned romanticism.

I recall I had to coax her along to quell her nerves. Alcohol was never part of the equation, nor any other substances. Just pure love and rampant desire.

For some reason I decided to consummate the relationship in my parent’s bedroom in their double bed. I guess just for the fact that it was a double bed and we had plenty of room to thrash around. Big mistake as it turned out.

The event itself was surprisingly long lasting and exceptionally clumsy. I for certain had no idea whatsoever what I was doing, no conception of what a clitoris was or any idea of where to locate it. I can’t recall if there was anything much in the way of foreplay, apart from a lot of kissing and mutual undressing.

The event was certainly unrushed and took place strictly in the missionary position. Sexual adventurism would come along much later, in conjunction with oral sex, role playing, locational opportunism, and all those other high-brow sexual escapades that linger long in the memory over many a cold night in later life.

So there we were, rutting and thrashing away and trying to reach some orgasmic goal – orgasmic for me of course, her pleasure never really came into the equation, nor did she ask for any.

When it was finally done, that first clumsy coupling over, we parted and rose for the shower to discover that my parents’ double bed was now coated in what seemed like a tsunami of blood. It was everywhere, so much of it that it looked like I had stabbed her multiple times. A wave that had swept through our lives and washed away our innocence forever.

In a blind panic sheets were stripped and tossed into the washing machine. The stained mattress flipped in desperation and the bed re-made, something else she had to show me how to do.

We didn’t get away with it of course, my mum and dad worked it out pretty quickly. Mum gave us both a stern lecture, and dad secretly high fived me when mum wasn’t looking and told me all about contraception. It was okay, I already got that bit right. They were good enough not to share the news with the girl’s parents, which was decent of them.

That was all so long ago now, but still remembered with a smile. Our relationship lasted several months, though I know now that I treated that girl disgracefully in my awful impetuous, macho youth. I don’t blame her for leaving me eventually.

Occasionally I wonder where she is now and how her life turned out. Did she have children and marry? Quite probably. I know she lives in another country and has done since before her twenties. I have occasionally searched the name on various social media, but I would never contact her now. She would be in her late forties and that was another time and we were two different people then.

It’s about this time that Leonard Cohen’s ‘Chelsea Hotel’ kicks in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx11oNHPDrA