Male • 20 years old • Vienna, Austria

I didn't know anything about the female body, or sex, except that I wanted both very badly. Thanks to an Orthodox Jewish upbringing, I didn't even know about menstruation or female orgasms. I was a little bit afraid of having sex, to be honest.

Then came my semester abroad, and Katie. We were both staying at the Wombat Hostel in Wein — the kind of hostel that gives you a free drink coupon when you check in. I had been dutifully seeing the sights and getting to know my fellow travelers, and the hostel's "womBar" seemed like as good a place as any to watch the Rugby World Cup. The bar was giving out free shots to anyone who painted their faces, so St. George's Cross went on my cheeks. The night gets a bit blurry after that.

Several beers later, I saw her. I asked if I could buy her a drink — that's what guys do, right? She had a single sip before we started making out. I knew enough to know that I should get her upstairs, to her room.

And here's where the limitations of hostels, even the mighty Wombat, stepped in. Katie and her friends  were in town for the weekend, and the eight-person room was filled with music, booze, and other people who didn't want to stop their partying just so we could get in on. My lone roommate was a forty-something German woman, in town for a Mozart conference. Needless to say, my pleas didn't get very far with her at two in the morning.

Yet Katie was determined. We decided to go back to the bar, and she started unzipping my pants in the elevator. I started ripping off her blouse, and we would have screwed right there, but in the middle of our groping, the small elevator started to move downward. We hastily buttoned and zipped ourselves as a young, now-scandalized woman stepped on.

You'd think that would kill the mood, but on that day I learned a valuable lesson: when an Austrian woman wants something, she's going to get it. She grabbed my hand and lead me out of the Wombat and into the warm Vienna night. I was convinced that I was going to wake up in a bathtub of ice missing a kidney, yet decided to see where the night would take me. Not far, as it turns out. Just down the block, Katie had spied an alleyway. Luckily, there was an abandoned car; no wheels, no windows, one cushion. We hopped in.

Things suddenly became very beautiful. Sensing my nerves, she climbed on top of me, after deploying a condom that she had picked up in her room. She knew exactly how to move, and I was in sudden ecstasy. In my utter shock, I couldn't think of anything to say except the facts — "I'm fucking you! I'm fucking you!" But it didn't bother Katie — "Yes, you're fucking me. You can tell your friends you fucked me." She smiled and went back to work.

Afterwards, I suddenly got very tired. (Who knew?) We dutifully went back to the Wombat, where we rather abruptly split ways. Ah, Vienna.

Next: "We met in an expat bar in Bangkok."