Illustration by Thomas Pitilli

Female • 17 years old • Back of a car

My best guy friend, who had served as my first boyfriend years earlier, had recently come out to me as bisexual. His boyfriend was edging his way into our group of friends, which pushed us all a bit more to the wild side. The boyfriend was older and taught us to sneak out of our houses and steal alcohol from our parents. One wintry weekend, we made a daring plan to camp by the lake in our cars. We snuck out late, after listening at our parents' doors to make sure they had fallen asleep enough to miss the noise of our cars leaving.

Arriving at the beach, it became clear that the weather was not conducive to hanging out. It was pitch black and below zero. My friend Monica and her boyfriend, who had recently lost their virginities together, immediately holed themselves up in his car, and I knew they would be practicing their newly discovered hobby to help them generate heat.

That left me, my guy friend, and his boyfriend standing outside my SUV. We put down the back seats to make room, turned on some music and the heater, and chatted for a while. Soon though, we had to turn off the music and heater, because we knew that neither my gas tank or my battery would last through the cold night. So, we had to come up with a way to keep warm.

Both boys knew that I was a virgin. The boyfriend coyly suggested that they could help me out in that department. When I didn't laugh the suggestion off, my friend looked at me more seriously, and asked if I would honestly be okay with it. Partly because I still harbored hopes that he would fall back in love with me, and partly because I was sick of feeling more immature than all my friends because I was the only remaining virgin, I just shrugged and said "Sure."

I took a few shots of the whiskey the boyfriend had swiped for the weekend to fortify myself (even though I hated whiskey). Then it began. I didn't really do anything. It was all done to me. In retrospect, I didn't give up my virginity; it just disappeared one night. We started with me making out with each of them in turn. Then, because I felt more comfortable with my close friend, he went down on me while I kissed his boyfriend. They switched places a while later. Then, the process was repeated, but with each of them penetrating me this time. The experience was not pleasurable for me, but it wasn't particularly unpleasurable either, so I continually assured them that it was great when they asked.

Finally, I told them I needed to pee. I dashed outside naked and ran across the ice to some bushes. As I passed Monica's car, I heard nothing; she and her boyfriend had gone to sleep. This reassured me that the boys in my car would probably be tired too, so I waited outside in the cold, hoping to hear my car fall silent soon. Eventually I was so cold that I was sure my nipples could cut diamonds, so I ran back to my car and hopped in, but insisted that I was tired and it was time for bed.

The next morning, early enough that we were sure our parents wouldn't have woken up yet, my friend caught a ride home with Monica and her boyfriend. As far as I could tell, taking my virginity hadn't made him madly infatuated with me again. I was left with the task of driving his boyfriend home. We stopped for waffles at a twenty-four-hour diner. In the middle of our easy chit-chat, he suddenly looked at me and said, "Seriously, are you okay? Do you want to talk about what happened or anything?" His sincerity was touching, but I brushed his questions off, all the while thinking to myself, "There's nothing we can do now if I'm not okay."