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  On the drive home, Natalie thought about Tom and how much fun she’d had with him. Part of her wanted to go back to the party and see whether he was still there, but deep down she knew she’d made the right decision. Her relationship with guys usually didn’t work out because of her condition: they’d use her for a blow job, then get rid of her, or if they stayed, it wouldn’t be long before the relationship petered out, or they cheated, because blowjobs weren’t enough for them. Or they died.

  ***

  It was the spring of her junior year in high school. Natalie had been dating Jeremy, a popular football player, for a year, and things were going so perfectly that they even planned to go to Boston College together. Jeremy had come over that day to study for the SATs, but one thing led to another, as they usually did, and they ended up fooling around in her bedroom. Natalie was on top, grinding her pelvis into Jeremy’s, as they kissed.

  “How are we ever gonna ace our SATs if every time we study, it leads to this?” Natalie said in between kisses.

  “We don’t need to study. I’m a fucking genius. And you, you’re kinda smart too,” joked Jeremy. Natalie playfully hit his chest. He followed that up with a smack to her ass, making her squeal with delight, then flipped her, so that he was now on top. They began dry humping. This was the point where they always got to and then stopped because of Natalie. She wanted to have sex with Jeremy, to have him be her first, but she was afraid; she’d been told the first time always hurt and that there was blood, but it was getting harder and harder to say no every time she and Jeremy hooked up.

  “Let’s do it,” she said.

  “Do what?” Jeremy asked.

  “You know what. Don’t play dumb, Mr. Genius. Let’s do it. Go all the way.”

  Jeremy stopped humping and kissing. He looked Natalie in the eyes with such sincerity and tenderness that it made her look away. “Are you sure?” he asked. “I thought you wanted to wait. I’m cool with waiting. There’s no pressure.”

  “I know you are, and I appreciate that you’re willing to wait for me, but I’m ready now. I want to.” She paused, then asked, “Do you . . . want to?” She kept her face turned away from him in case he rejected her.

  “Yeah, I want to. Of course I want to. I’m a guy. I always want to. I mean, I don’t just want to because I’m a guy, and I like sex.”

  Natalie turned back to face him, smiling. She thought it was sweet how he was falling all over himself to show that she was more than just a hookup to him, even though it was already more than obvious. “I get it, what you’re trying to say, I get it.”

  Jeremy, looking relieved, smiled at her. “So how do you want to do this? Do you want to use condoms?”

  “No, that’s okay. I’m on the pill, and it’s not like either one of us has anything.” She took his hand in hers. “Just go slow at first, okay?” Her voice quivered with fear and anticipation.

  “Okay,” he reassured her. “And you’re sure?”

  Natalie playfully rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’m sure. You know, you keep this up, and I’m gonna start to wonder about you,” she teased.

  “Well, let me put all those fears to rest.” He leaned forward and kissed her, at first on the lips, then on her neck. Natalie moved her hands down to his waist and unbuckled his belt. She unzipped his jeans and pulled down his boxers. She caressed his penis, making it go from soft to hard. She was pleasantly surprised at how smooth it felt; she’d been expecting it to feel rough and coarse. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  She pushed Jeremy back a little so that she could take off her shirt and bra. He ogled her breasts before reaching in to touch; his touch was warm and delicate. He played with her nipples, then kissed and sucked on them. All of this stimulation drove Natalie crazy. She pulled off her pants and panties while Jeremy kept stimulating her.

  Natalie took Jeremy’s face in her hands and kissed him. She then reached down, and stroked his penis. She looked him in the eyes and said, “I love you.”

  “I love you too,” he said, smiling. She guided his penis inside of her as he thrust. Natalie waited for the obligatory pain, but Jeremy was the one who ended up hurt: the smile that had previously occupied his face morphed into a grimace as he let out a bone-chilling scream. He rolled off of her and onto the floor, writhing in agony.

  Natalie was distraught; she had no idea what had happened or what was wrong until her eyes fell on Jeremy’s crotch and saw that his penis had been bitten off. To add to her horror, she realized that his penis was still inside her. Natalie slowly pulled it out and dropped it. The sight of Jeremy’s severed, flaccid, bloody penis lying on the floor made Natalie vomit. She called 911 and told them what had happened, much to her embarrassment. The police held her for questioning, but eventually came around to believing her. They let her go and didn’t charge her, labeling the situation a freak accident, but they might as well have: Once everyone in her school found out, she was ostracized. The girls that used to be her best friends ignored her, the boys that used to chase after her started calling her dick killer, and someone started a rumor that she castrated Jeremy because she’d caught him cheating on her. She tried transferring to a different school, but with Central Falls being such a small town, everyone at her new school already knew what she’d done, and she was ostracized there too, so her mother quit her job (she taught English at Natalie’s former high school) and began homeschooling her. At the end of the school year, she and her family moved to Charlottesville, Virginia. Her uncle Stephen on her father’s side lived there and taught at the University of Virginia, and he was able to get her father a job there as well.

  For her last year of high school, Natalie went back to an actual school to finish her education, and it was like old times: girls were interested in being her friend, and guys were interested in dating her, but Natalie, ashamed of what she’d done and feeling as though she was walking around with a giant scarlet M on her chest for murderer (although technically, the letter should’ve been on her genitalia), retreated into a shell, choosing, but not preferring, to keep to herself. She also started dressing in more dowdy clothing and stopped wearing makeup to make herself less noticeable and attractive to the opposite sex. It was far easier to reject male overtures when she wasn’t receiving any, although it didn’t make it any easier to be alone. Sometimes, she would be so lonely she’d imagine Jeremy was there with her, holding her and telling her he loved her and forgave her. That fantasy was often the only thing capable of soothing her chaotic mind at night so she could sleep. Her parents never noticed any of the changes in her. They were probably too happy to have their lives back to normal to see them. She’d overheard them one night discussing all the cruel things people had said and done to them in Central Falls after she killed Jeremy.

  Natalie continued her self-imposed isolation until she moved to Boston for college. Her roommate, Theresa, had been trying to befriend her and get her to go out for weeks, but Natalie still wasn’t ready to socialize until about a couple of months into the school year, due to being homesick and too lonely to continue on in her current state. So she finally accepted Theresa’s friendship, and one night, they went to the homecoming game (if Jeremy had still been alive, he would’ve been playing in it) and the homecoming dance (they went with a big group of people), and a fraternity party held afterward. After much encouraging from Theresa, Natalie threw caution to the wind and had a few drinks, which turned into a few more drinks. Then this cute junior named Jacob began flirting with her, and after a few more drinks, they went upstairs. Not wanting to repeat what had happened in Central Falls but still wanting a boyfriend, Natalie went down on him, but wouldn’t allow things to progress any further. Natalie felt things had gone swimmingly, but was disappointed when Jacob never called after their tryst, despite telling her he would. Theresa later explained it to her: “When you hookup with a guy at a party, they tend to see you as nothing more than a hookup.”

  It took Natalie a month to get over Jacob using and discarding her.
She tried to forego dating, but it was hard to look around on campus and see so many other girls all coupled up and happy with their boyfriends while she was all by her lonesome, especially because she knew it was all her fault that she was alone, because she couldn’t give guys what they wanted, what they needed. So she got back on the horse with Brad. Brad was a cute guy in one of the classes she had the following semester, and she really liked him, but was afraid of getting hurt again. So she took things slow, not engaging in any sexual behavior for a few weeks, and when she finally did, she kept it blowjobs and handjobs only and wouldn’t let him touch her pussy, only her breasts.

  “Are you uber religious or something?” he asked, after a month of only oral and manual stimulation. Natalie told him no, but that she had a condition that made vaginal intercourse painful, leaving out that it was painful for the guy, not for her. Brad told her that he understood, but he couldn’t date a girl if there wasn’t going to be sex, so he dumped her. Things kept going on like this with other guys: One suggested they try anal, and although Natalie didn’t really want to do this (she thought it was disgusting, and prep work for anal was a real bitch), she gave it a shot anyway to keep him, but he still ended up leaving her because anal wasn’t working for him. She caught another boyfriend cheating on her because oral wasn’t enough for him, and he missed pussy. And that was when Natalie started to get pissed off. Where do these guys get off (no pun intended) complaining about the sex they were getting (and they were getting sex, despite what they claimed, just not vaginal sex) and their lack of satisfaction when she was doing all the work and, because of her condition, wasn’t getting any pleasure at all in return? Though from what she’d heard, she supposed that was the plight of a lot of women: women were expected to love going down on their guys, to enjoy being pounded like raw meat, but ask a guy to go down on you, and he’ll act like you’re Bubba in prison trying to take advantage of him. Women’s first times were often painful; there might even be blood, and there might even be pain and blood on a woman’s hundredth time if the sex was particularly rough, but it didn’t work that way for men. What was more, they even often seemed to get pleasure from women’s pain (she’d experienced this first hand: she’d lost track of how many guys had gotten off on trying to choke and gag her with their dicks). Women had to gussy themselves up with makeup, get plastic surgery, and work hard to stay thin to be considered young and beautiful whereas men could get away with being old, fat, and balding. And you didn’t want to get her started on the raw deal women got stuck with when it came to children: Men just had to do the fun part—cum and done!—while women had to deal with hormone changes, weight gain (and the accompanying stretch marks!), the negative impact on their careers, and then the painful childbirth delivery that either tore up their vaginas or scarred up their stomachs (as if the weight gain and stretch marks weren’t already bad enough). But, thanks to her condition, Natalie wouldn’t even be able to engage in the fun part of conceiving and would have to use a procedure called gamete intrafallopian transfer if she wanted to have kids, followed by a c-section when it came time to give birth (she’d looked into it after her second anniversary with Ben). Though she probably would’ve had trouble conceiving regardless of her condition, given that her mother had fertility problems as well, as did her mother (apparently, it ran in the family), though her mother’s and her grandmother’s fertility troubles were far more conventional.

  Being pissed off by the burden sex put on women didn’t erase her loneliness. And she still wanted a boyfriend—and eventually a husband. So she decided to try a dating website, hoping that it would land her a guy who would be more understanding and accepting. Her profile:

  Name: Natalie Ann Young

  Age: 27

  DOB: 4/30/87

  Favorite color: pink

  Favorite drinks: Chardonnay and Fiji bottled water

  Favorite foods: macarons, macaroni and cheese, dim sum, and carrot cake

  Favorite television shows: Sex and the City, Dawson’s Creek, Friends, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, and Scandal

  Favorite films: Eat, Pray, Love; Thelma & Louise; Mean Girls; Clueless; Miss Congeniality; Legally Blonde; Bring It On; Sixteen Candles; Casablanca; Romeo and Juliet (the Leonardo DiCaprio version); Vicky Cristina Barcelona; The Little Mermaid; Cruel Intentions; and The Notebook

  Favorite books: The Twilight series; Eat, Pray, Love; A Tale of Two Cities; Jane Eyre; and Wuthering Heights

  Favorite song: “Lovefool” by the Cardigans

  Favorite album: 21 by Adele

  Favorite flower: pink orchid

  Hobbies: Ashtanga yoga, wine tasting, shopping, and reading

  Turn ons: tall, dark hair, light eyes, muscles, great smiles, kindness, compassion, and great sense of humor

  Turn offs: smoking, bad teeth, liars, cheaters, overweight, bald/balding, no job, and divorcees with children

  Looking for: someone to love me unconditionally and start a family with

  She thought she did a good job with it, being upfront and direct about what she wanted in a man while showing she had a fun side. But she still ended up with cheaters and assholes, and more than a few guys who looked absolutely nothing like their pictures. That was why she considered it a modern-day miracle when she met Ben. He was the first guy since Jeremy that made her feel as though having a relationship with her was more important than sex.

  They’d met at Harold’s three years ago on New Year’s Eve. Jenna had invited her to a party, but the only thing she wanted to do was enjoy a glass of Chardonnay and some macarons while watching Sex and the City reruns. She was in the self-checkout lane with her items when a couple of guys who’d started celebrating early began making catcalls at her and accosting her. Ben was her white knight in shining armor: he threw the guys out and asked her whether she was okay and whether there was anything she needed, and he told her that her items were on the house. Once she finished checking out, he escorted her to her car to ensure that no other perverts bothered her. A beautiful woman shouldn’t be out all alone on a night like this, he said. And she wasn’t. Ben, apologizing for his forwardness after what had just transpired with the drunken idiots, told her that he got off work in an hour and wanted to know would she be willing to go to a party with him. She told him she wasn’t up for a party, but wouldn’t mind spending time with just him. He came to her place after work, and they got to know each other over a bottle of wine. They hadn’t even slept together that night, just talked until they were so drunk that they fell asleep. Two weeks later, when they were ready to sleep together, Natalie explained her condition (well, her version of it, anyway) to Ben, and he was completely understanding, telling her that he liked sex, but he liked her more (I honestly prefer blowjobs anyway, he said.). She spent the first year of their relationship cautiously happy, enjoying her time with Ben, but always afraid that it was only a matter of time before he left her for greener pastures. But when the second year of their relationship rolled around, and they were still going strong, she began to relax. She even told her parents about him, a first for her. She thought they would get married and start a family. And then Ben lost his job at the grocery store; she allowed him to move in with her, and once his savings ran out, she began paying all the bills. He’d never said anything, but she felt he resented her for paying the bills and for having to be her kept boy. Perhaps that was why her ersatz white knight had ended up cheating. Or maybe he was just an asshole, like all the other guys.

  ***

  Natalie decided to head back to the party to see whether Tom was still there. Hell, it didn’t have to be Tom. Any hot guy would do, really. She was going to be alone for the rest of her life; she didn’t want to be alone tonight.

 

 

 
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