PINK FLOYD, THE FERRARI & THE CLAP

How did you lose your Virginity? It’s a question I’ve always liked to ask people. Friends, women, men. Everyone. The stories are usually interesting & even if they aren’t, you learn a lot about the person just by watching the manner in which they tell it.

It makes for good whiskey talk & sometimes good pillow talk. 

For some it's beautiful. For others it's a horror show. For me, it was, as the saying goes "Tragedy + Time=Comedy." 

Like all teenage boys, my hormones were raging. The vast majority of the conversations between my friends and I were centered around sex. Getting porn back then was work. Hard work. One friends dad had a VHS of "Debbie Does Dallas". Another guys had "Deep Throat". We'd sometimes pay a homeless cat to buy us dirty magazines from the newsstand at the L train station. Millennials, be grateful for your internet porn. 

A couple of my friends had already had sex with their girlfriends and pressure was on the rest of us. There was no way the rest of us were graduating high school without doing some sex if we could help it. 

I was developmentally a late bloomer. 4'11" my Freshman year of high school and (thankfully) the 6'0" I am today at graduation. Suffice it to say that I was not rushing 1000 yards a game, nor banging the head cheerleader under the stands, (but I’m pretty sure the guy who was mowed my parents lawn in my hometown anyway). Generally speaking, it's best not to peak too early. 

How was I going to make this happen? I had a lot of female friends, but no prospects to speak of.  

One night, I'm out with a group of city friends. Downtowners. The cool kids with the lavish penthouses, brownstones & absentee parents that, depending on heritage were either descendants of slave traders or investment bankers/ commodity brokers. Out of nowhere, a girl we'll call Leslie says... 

Leslie: I hear you're a real sexual dynamo, Scott Nathan

Was she flirting? Was she fucking with me? She wasn't particularly thin, nor particularly attractive and definitely a strange bird,  but no matter. She’s had huge breasts and however remote, my only prospect. Let's see where this one goes. 

Me: (feigning confidence) Yeah... Well...you  know (polishing my fingernails on my chest)

Previous to that night, she was just a friend of friends. I got her number and we chatted on the phone for a week or so.  How we arrived at this booty call, I have no recollection. Probably because of the PTSD that came after it. 

17 years old. Chicago. A bitter cold, subzero snowy night.  The brown & cream striped cloth seats in my brown metallic '83 Toyota Land Cruiser wagon felt like cinder blocks. I used every bit of double clutching and manual gearbox skills to keep from becoming a fatality on the black ice covered roads that night.

 

I arrived at Leslie's fathers luxury high rise on Lake Shore Drive nervous as hell. Thirsty. Lump in throat, heart pounding. Not knowing what to do or say. They only breasts I'd touched up until this point  belonged to my babysitter Debbie in 5th grade as a plea bargain to not tell my parents about her boyfriend coming over to visit. Ever the businessman, it was a totally solid deal & a highpoint of my life at that point. 

The doorman takes my keys and rings up. I arrive to a very dark 4 bedroom apartment. The only light was a dimmed chrome Arco lamp hanging over a sectional sofa. She hands me a lukewarm bottle of Heineken & tells me her father is in Miami for the week. It tasted bitter and skunked. For some reason, I didn't ask her for water.  It seemed uncool. We chatted awkwardly for maybe 30 minutes before she realized I was too much of a pussy to make a move. I was. 

Leslie: Have you ever driven a Ferrari?

Me: Been in one once, but haven't driven one.   

Leslie: Do you want to drive my dads now?

Me: Are you crazy?  It's an ice rink out there and I barely made it here in 4 wheel drive. Let's do it another time. 

Leslie: Fine. I'll drive. Let's go. 

Me: OK. 

So Leslie the 15 year old and I head down to the garage level and get in the car. It was light metallic blue, Ferrari Mondial 8. Mid Engine. Tan waxy leather interior. No Ferrarista's wet dream, but pretty ace for 2 horny teenage kids.  

We made it less than 3 blocks before she gunned the 2nd to 3rd gear change, 180'd this prancing stallion, wadding it up into bits against the North Lake Shore Drive street lamp showering me with passenger side window glass. The glass was in my hair and down my shirt. It rang my bell. No major injuries, but my elbow hurt. 

Me: You idiot. We are fucked!

Leslie: We are NOT fucked. Let's go. 

Me: We ARE fucked. You're 15. Where are we going? 

Leslie: Home to fuck. The car was stolen. That’s the story. That's what happened. 

It seemed so simple. 

Me: OK

We walk back across the tundra, up the elevator and back to the apartment. I can't feel my face, hands or feet. It was probably 20 below zero and 80 below with wind chill factor and we're on Lake Michigan. 

She puts on the most popular record of the era, PInk Floyd's “The Wall" (vinyl of course).  As we're awkwardly getting naked, I'm hearing the opening helicopters and terrifying schoolmaster shouting “YOU! YES YOU!" This was not helping my opening night jitters. At all. 

I'm fumbled about with her nude, scratchy, front opening, sensible bra, until she finally undid it. 

Leslie: You have a condom, yes?

Damn it. I knew I forgot something. Actually it never crossed my mind. Actually, I'd never bought one before. Tunnel vision. Panicking more than ever. 

Shakes her head

Leslie: Just be careful. 

Me: OK. 

I'm scared & visibly shaking, but I'm going to get through this. 

Leslie: Be gentle, ok? I'm a virgin. 

I'm thinking wait... what? You took lead on this one. You asked for the sex. I was too proud & I didn't want to divulge that I too was a virgin and nodded. 

We tried for a bit, and got it in. Barely. Nobody was really having any fun and we decided to call it quits. No orgasms. Not great. Fine. It was over. I wasn't a virgin anymore & I went home.  

A couple of days later, something was terribly wrong downstairs.  While walking down the hall at school, I felt something slippery down there. I hit the closest restroom to survey the situation. What the hell was this? It felt like sperm, but looked like pee. Pretty sure I hadn't invented anything new. I gave it another day. It got worse. 

Options were minimal.

1. If I told my parents, it would be unspeakably horrible and lead to conversations no one wants to have. Ever. 

2. If I told my friends, I would never hear the end of the jokes about the fat girl and the V.D. STD wasn't a term yet.  

I decided to go it alone to the local planned parenthood type place.

After a thorough examination which included getting a thin, painful metal wire with a tuft of cotton shoved into my urethra, I sat & I waited.

The nurse returned. She was a heavy set black woman with a thick southern dialect and a white, ribbed polyester zip up jacket and pants that made a scraaaatchy sound when she walked. 

Nurse: mmm so baby... You've got a case of the Gonococcus. 

Me: Wait? What? 

She's staring at me with a sad face, but says nothing more. 

Me: Is that like gonorrhea?

Nurse: Mmm It IS gonorrhea baby.  

Me: What? No no. That's impossible. Are you sure?

Nurse: Mmm yes baby. 

Me: Wait. But. No No No.  She told me she was a virgin...  Is it possible you mixed my test up with someone else's?

Nurse: (Making a sympathetic face) Mmm. Nooo baby. 

Me: Wait. She lied???

Nurse squints & nods yes with a pained look at my naivete on her face. Now it looks like she might cry.   

My lower lip quivered. My body convulsed. I feel like throwing up and shitting myself at the same time.

I melt down on the spot and start crying uncontrollably. She bear hugs me and lets me cry into the scratchy ribbed white polyester jacket for a good 3 minutes.

Me: Am I going to die? Will I have this forever? 

Nurse: You ain't gon' die baby. The Doctor gonna give you some antibiotics. You'll be right as rain in a week. 

She then picks up a large novelty glass brandy snifter filled with red, green, blue & yellow condoms. and hands me a prescription for Tetracycline

Me: No thank you. Not going near any women ever again. They're dirty liars. 

Nurse: Take a few baby.

I took them out of politeness, but threw them in the trash outside in the parking lot. 

Later that day, I filled the prescription. The pharmacists assistant is a girl in my car pool...

CIndy: Oh no way! I take tetracycline for zits too! But your skin is perfect. 

(She never noticed Planned Parenthood on the label thankfully.)

Had more than a few trust issues after that & never spoke to Leslie again. Not even to tell her she gave me the clap.  Maybe I would’ve texted or emailed, but we didn’t have such things. I was so furious and wasn't developmentally equipped to have that conversation anyway. 

I ran into 10 years later at the Mayor's black tie ball. We were walking toward each other, locked eyes and froze like two bucks in the wild. She was approximately 5'3" 300lbs. At the time, I was happy she looked like shit. 

She ultimately got busted for crashing the Ferrari. The doorman saw us steal the car on the security camera and told her father. An imperfect crime. She was sent away to boarding school the following year. 

And scene...