Virgin Freshman from the Farm

I grew up on my parents’ Midwestern dairy farm. I have one sister who is six years older than I am, so she was long gone before I came of age. Dairy farming is a tough business, especially with a large herd. My mom and dad managed one hundred and seventy-five milking cows, and it’s an every day responsibility. They had hired hands while we were growing up, but that cuts into the already slim profit margins, so when I was in eighth grade, they made it clear that they expected me to help out. I was a small, skinny kid at that point, and didn’t contribute that much at first. But as I matured, I was able to pull my own weight, and eventually they were able to downsize the hired staff.

The work was hard, but I enjoyed it. The major downside was that I had to be up early to do morning chores before school, and go straight home from school every day to do more work. It was especially trying during the dark winter months. In retrospect, I missed out on a lot of the typical high school experience because of that. I couldn’t do sports or other extracurricular activities. As a result, I was pretty introverted and didn’t have a big circle of friends. I never dated anyone, so I was pretty sexually naïve beyond what I saw on the internet. And being in a rural area, internet speeds were maddeningly slow. Streaming porn was basically a waste of time because of all the service interruptions. Mainly I read “dirty” stories on a variety of sites, and masturbated myself to orgasm. Of course, I knew about the birds and the bees. Living on a farm, animal breeding is just a thing that happens and my parents explained it all. They took a very clinical approach about it though, and didn’t really delve into the human sexuality aspect of things.

The friends I DID have were all serious about school. So was I. I wanted to get into a good college or university and pursue something other than dairy farming. My parents understood, and didn’t press me on it. They were witness to the regular demise of family farms in our county, and were planning to sell the farm at some point and retire anyway. So my routine was basically cows, school, cows, eat, homework, sleep. By the time I turned eighteen and was a senior in high school, my body had developed. I’m six foot two, and back then I was a pretty lean one hundred and eight-five pounds. I was in really good shape because of all the physical farm labor.

The summer before my senior year, my parents came home from dinner with friends on a neighboring farm, and asked to have a talk. The discussions at dinner were apparently centered on the fact that I was not being allowed to have the normal high school experience. It had never really occurred to them, I guess. My sister hadn’t taken to farm work the same way I did, and being the first kid, she had been able to negotiate more time away from daily chores. They profusely apologized and insisted that I take more time this last school year for extracurriculars. I told them it was no big deal, and that I liked the farm, but they stood their ground. They said they’d get some more part-time help for just this year. They pointed out that realistically, they’d be doing that in the next ten months when I went away to school anyway, so they might as well figure it out now.

I protested occasionally the next couple of weeks, but by mid-August, when the school year was on the horizon, I actually started to look forward to some more free time and so the issue was settled. Now the only problem was what was I going to do to? It wasn’t until my eighteenth birthday just before Labor Day that I had any idea what I might try. That weekend, I had a few of my close circle of friends over to swim in the pond on our property and grill out over a campfire. I told them how my parents were letting me loose from farm responsibilities, and asked them what sort of stuff I should pursue. After a lot of good-natured ribbing mixed with serious discussion, I concluded joining the cross-country team was something that interested me. I was as physically fit as anyone I knew, and had always enjoyed running. Several of the guys had been on the team since our freshman year. They had good things to say about the coach and the camaraderie of the group. So it was settled.

The team had already started captain-led practices at that point, so I had to go ask the coach for permission to come on the team as a late joiner. My friends vouched for me and I think the coach could see I was in shape, so he gave me a copy of the practice and meet schedule and the team rules, directed me to get our family doctor to sign an athletics health approval, and told me to be at practice after the first day of the fall semester. I did all that, and went to the mall in town to pick up some good running shoes and practice gear.

I showed up for the first day of practice, feeling a little guilty that I hadn’t gotten straight on the bus after school to get home for chores. Hanging with the other guys on the team though, stretching before we started running, joking around, reliving the first day of school… I realized I hadn’t known what I had been missing. We broke down who had what teachers, the opening weekend NFL games, which girls had “blossomed” over the summer. General guy stuff. I silently thanked my parents for seeing their way to letting me have the opportunity.

Regardless, I couldn’t rid myself of the guilt of not helping on the farm. To try to make amends, that first week I skipped showering and left as soon as practice was over to get home. It was a futile effort, mostly because by the time I got home it was time for dinner, and my mom made me shower before we ate. And I had homework from several AP classes I had to get to after the meal. I wasn’t helping out at all. It eased my mind that the new hired hand got rave reviews from my dad. He was already of the opinion that the guy would be a great long-term employee. So after five days of trying to clear my conscience, I threw in the towel and decided it would be better to just concentrate on school and cross country.

That next Monday, I made the switch. I stuck around with the rest of the team in the locker room after practice. There was a great vibe and I felt great being accepted as a member of a team for the first time since probably youth soccer in sixth grade. I realized I hadn’t even really been in a locker room since middle school gym class when most boys were still waiting for that first wisp of facial hair. Gym was an elective class at our high school, and I avoided it to load up on academic subjects. I mean, it’s not like I wasn’t getting any exercise at home.

After a while, the joking died down and guys started to strip off their practice gear and head to the showers. I did the same and grabbed a shower just inside the shower room door. I faced the wall with my head directly under the shower and let the water just wash over me. Then I turned around and let the water run down my back. I’ll never forget the next couple of minutes as long as I live.

“Oh my god Kyle,” one of the guys exclaimed. “That’s a serious tool!”

I looked around at the rest of the team and saw that every one of them was staring at my crotch. Some of their mouths hung open in what? Disbelief? Awe? Disgust? Envy? Looking back, I’ve never really been able to decide.

I took a quick survey of everyone else’s “equipment”, and immediately understood that, to my surprise and dismay, I was different. My penis was larger than any of those in the shower room. Quite a bit larger. I didn’t know then, but I do now, that my penis is just a little less than ten inches long when erect. The diameter is a bit over two inches. Flaccid, none of my teammates’ organs were even two thirds the size of mine. For whatever reason, ignorance I suppose, I was horrified. It didn’t help that everyone else was looking at me and nervously laughing. Embarrassed, I turned and fled the shower, hurriedly threw on my clothes, and bolted for home.

I never went back to cross country practice. A couple of the guys tried to talk me into it, but I felt too ashamed. Stupid, I know, but like I said, I was naive. I made up an excuse for the coach that my family needed me back for work on the farm, and I told my family I was having trouble keeping up with classes and had to drop cross country. I promised them I was staying at school with study groups, so that they would think I was still getting some social experience. There was some truth to that, but most of the time, I studied by myself. The reality was that any number of times I would look up and catch groups of girls whispering and giggling while looking my way, or the laughter at a table of my friends would dry up as I approached. I knew that word was out about my abnormally large genitalia. Prior to my “unveiling”, I had allowed myself to start to think about getting to know some of the girls in my class better and maybe even dating, but if I wasn’t introverted before, I sure was now. Needless to say, when I left for college at the end of the next summer, I was still a virgin.

I was thrilled to be accepted to the flagship university in our state, and was eager to turn the page on my high school years. My parents helped me pack up my things and drove me the three hours to college. With a firm handshake from my dad, and a tearful hug from my mom, I was suddenly alone in my dorm room. The dorm was coed, with girls’ rooms grouped around a women’s bathroom in kind of a pod, alternating with boys’ rooms arranged the same way. There was a ton of commotion as more kids got dropped off by their parents just like I had. I said some awkward hellos as people went past, and busied myself with unpacking. It wasn’t long before my roommate arrived. I had chosen to be randomly assigned, and Justin was from Chicago. We had emailed and talked a couple of times to kind of split up what to bring, and he seemed like a pretty normal guy.