Mirandized

I didn’t want to go to the party, but was forced there against my will. My dorm mate, Arthur, was interested in a guy I knew whowasgoing, and promised to commit vile, unnatural, evil acts upon my person while I slept if I didn’t introduce them. Having awoken in the middle of the night to find myself witness to such acts, I took his threats rather seriously.

So I took him to the party.

I parked my car, a shitty ’89 Civic, and locked the doors before he could leave. “Look,” said I. “If you and this guy hit it off, you have to promise me something.”

“What, you want to watch?”

“No, not quite. Look, if you hit it off, go to his place.”

“What? Why?”

“You’re loud, and I need my sleep.”

“P-shaw, man, I’m ninja-quiet, even in the throes of sweaty man-love.”

“You grunt and groan like cavemen in the throes of sweaty man-love, and I have semi-finals coming up,” I said. “Just do me this favor.”

“Okay, okay. God. But honestly, dude, I think you overestimate my powers of seduction.”

“Do I?”

“Totally. It’ll take me atleasttwo days to get this guy in bed.”

He laughed, and I grinned, and we exited the car and entered the frat house. My every sense was immediately set upon by loud, brain damaging thrasher music, hazy eye-burning cigarette or marijuana smoke, or nose-clogging body odor. I introduced him to the guy, and took my place on the couch, holding a can of something cold and carbonated. I wanted to leave, but had to wait for Arthur’s I’m-okay-so-fuck-off signal, the signal that told me all was well, and that I’d be kept awake tonight by the grunting and groaning of sweaty man-love.

As the party wore on, first one, then more of the partygoers joined me on the couch or sat on the floor, and I soon found myself sucked into the middle of a conversation in which I wasn’t really interested. My waning focus was pulled back to the conversation, however, when the topic of conversation turned to sex.

I didn’t know what had led to new train of thought, but it was making me uncomfortable.

The veryideaof sex made me uncomfortable. I don’t know why. At twenty-one, sex should have become as natural an act as breathing, and one equally as vital to my existence, but my development in that area had been halted at an early age. Again, I don’t know why, but I have some theories..

I remember being comfortable around girls. And unless I’m interested in someone, I still am. But if thereisthat spark of interest, I become a blubbering idiot. I never know what to say. I can never read their signals, or I’m unsure of the ones I do. Doubt eats at me. Is that interest? Couldn’t be. Is she rejecting me? Is sheflirting? Am I?

They might as well be speaking another language.

So in general, I avoided girls I liked. Or might like. Or girls that might like me.

It left me with very few friends of the fairer sex, fewer girlfriends, and fewer still opportunities for sex. (Here, of course, “fewer still” takes on the meaning of “zero”.)

The conversation turned to cherry-popping.

With anything from shy smiles to large, shit-eating grins, the participants went in a circle and volunteered the age they lost their virginity.

My heart sunk. Twenty-one. Still a virgin.

How do I explainthat?

“Fourteen,” said a blonde girl, Jessica. “My boyfriend, Billy. He was nineteen.”

“How romantically illegal,” said Miranda.

I hadn’t notice her join the group. Or I had, and it just wasn’t important enough to register.

See, Miranda Cooper was what they call a wallflower. She tends to stay in the background, observing more often than participating. That she was even here, in a social situation with kind of threw me.

“It was not,” the girl said. “I was in love.”

“How awesome for you.”

“Sixteen,” said Scott, a guy from my dorm. “Girlfriend.”

“Fourteen,” said Alexis, a girl from one of my art classes. “A teacher.”

The group collectively went “What?”

“Well, he washot,” she said by way of an explanation, as she flipped her hair over her shoulder.

“How sweet,” Miranda said.

“Okay, smartass,” said the first girl. “When didyoulose your virginity? Probably after chess club.”

“I’m still a virgin,” said Miranda, unabashed.

“What?” said the girl. “Howcouldyou be?”

Miranda shrugged and sipped her Coke. “Just happened that way.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Jesus,” said Scott. “I was still a virgin at twenty-two, I’d-a hired a hooker, or something.”

“Well, I chose not to,” she said.

“How could you not have had sex by now? I mean, are you gay?”

She threw him a look that suggested he surrender his hobbies of guzzling paint and sniffing glue, because they were clearly detrimental to his already questionable intelligence. “If I was, I’d be havinggaysex, wouldn’t I? Or is there a difference?”

“Well, I . . . I’m just saying.”

“Oh, come on,” said Alexis. “You’re fucking with us, right? Seriously, when did you pop your cherry?”

“Ihaven’t,” Miranda insisted.

“Why the fuck not?”

“Jesus,” Miranda muttered. “Right. What was I thinking? Sign me up for the meaningless fucking of whatever dick is conveniently nearby while Jeopardy plays in the background. Fuck that.”

“First time sucks for most everybody, babe,” Jessica informed her. “It gets better,believeme.”

“We live on the same floor of the same dorm,” Miranda said. “Ibelieveyou.”

“Why not just get it out of the way?” Alexis said. “I mean, the longer you go without it, the more you build it up in your own mind, right? Before long, sex’ll be this huge thing that no man will be good enough for, and when it finallydoeshappen, you’ll inevitably be disappointed. I say do it now, get it out of the way, and when you meet someonespecial, the sex can be special too, rather than the slow, awkward sex that comes with the learning curve.”

Jesus,I thought.They’ve forgotten I’m here. This has totally become an episode of Sex in the City.

I caught Scott’s eye and knew he was having the same thought.

“Or get a fuck buddy,” Jessica said, and immediately, our interest in the conversation returned.

“A what?” Miranda said. By her tone, it was the dumbest thing she’d ever heard spoken by a sentient being.

“No, it’s brilliant,” Alexis said. “You get a fuck buddy, someone in whom you havenoromantic interest, and do all your learning on him. You can ask almost any guy; I’d bet my tuition he wouldn’t mind.”

Rather than respond, Miranda turned to me. “What about you, Chris? When didyoulose your virginity?” she asked, intoning the blonde perfectly, and making it obvious that she didn’t think I had.

“I . . . well, I. . . .” I stuttered, thrown by my sudden inclusion, as I’d made no efforts to be seen as a part of the crowd.

Scott burst into laughter, howling and guffawing and spilling his beer.

“Youaren’t! My god, youare!”

His shrill laughter attracted more than one confused or irritated look, while I slowly burned with embarrassment.

“Jesus, man, am Isurroundedby the pure? Are we being invaded?”

“Cute,” Miranda said.

“Oh, it’sokay,” said Alexis in a tone that suggested damn well otherwise. “It’s not like,weird, or anything. Besides, isn’t that what college is for?”

“Probably,” said Miranda. “All that other academic stuff is just for the weird ones.”

All I could do was chug the rest of my drink, and die a little inside.

#

The air was clearer on the balcony. The doors were open, so it wasn’t much clearer, but enough so that my dizziness subsided a bit.

The nausea was strong as ever.

A soft voice called my name. I turned to find Miranda a few feet behind, looking bashful. She was holding a steaming cup of what smelled like coffee.

“What do you want?” I said rudely, still burning from the round of laughter at my expense, a laughtershe’dcaused.

“I have a proposition for you,” Miranda said.

It was half an hour later or so, and I’d left the couch to grab another drink. Something decidedly more alcoholic than a soda. I’d been downing my beers pretty regularly, trying to drown that slow burn, and I had a good buzz going, steadily heading towards the “alcohol is good, I love everybody” phase I reach when I’m semi-shit-faced, but I wasn’t quite there yet.

“Yeah?”

“Drink this first,” she said, holding out the coffee.

Images of her doping my drink fled through my mind and were quickly dismissed. She didn’t seem the type.

“Why?”

“It’s a part of the bargain,” said she. “Drink it, or the proposition remains unmade.”

I took the cup and downed it. Coffee, as I’d suspected.Blackcoffee.Bitterblack coffee.

“Meet me in the master bedroom upstairs,” she said, and promptly walked away.

“‘Kay.”

I drained my cup, filled it, and drained it again, debating whether or not I should go, before setting it carefully on the table and making my way to the stairs, buzzed enough that my inhibitions were slowly melting away, but not enough to keep from wondering what she had in mind.

It just then occurred to me that Miranda had seen me drinking, recognized I was getting drunk, and gave me the coffee to try and sober me up, a little. That I’d kept drinking after that made me feel a little guilty, but the alcohol, and that I was still seething at having been laughed at, burned the guilt away before I was half way up the stairs.

I found the room with little difficulty, accidentally walking in on three couples having sex (and proving that I had, in fact,notoverestimated Arthur’s seductive prowess), and approached the last room on the left.

I opened the door enough to stick my head in and said “Miranda? You in here?”

I found her sitting on the bed, her hands in her lap, her eyes studiously gazing the carpet’s pattern. They met my own when I closed the door behind me.

She looked more vulnerable than I’d ever seen her.

“What’s up?” I said.

“Come in,” she said. “Close the door behind you.”

I did, and leaned back against the closed door.

“I want . . . I want to have sex with you,” she said, looking away. I saw enough of her cheek to see that it had turned bright red.

My heart jumped in my throat. If not for the steady flow of alcohol I’d imbibed, I likely would have choked on it.

“What?”

Her eyes fell again to the carpet. “You’re a virgin,” she said. “And so . . . so am I. I saw we remedy that. Now. Together.”