Thanks for the Memories
True story. A friend once told me how she’d been doing something on her husband’s laptop, while her own was in the shop, closed a document then went to reopen it - and found herself staring instead at a list he’d made of “all the girls who’ve swallowed his cum.” As she put it.
It wasn’t a long list, apparently, just four or five names, but the strange thing is, I’m not certain what she was angriest about. The fact that he’d made the list in the first place (which I explained away by reminding her that guys just like making lists of things... it’s why their CD collections are usually so well organized) or the fact that she wasn’t on it.
Yeah, that would have pissed me off as well. But, if you don’t mind, a delicate question. “Do you deserve to be?”
Begrudging answer. “I guess not.”
Well, get yourself home and do something about it. There’s a first time for everything.
First times have always fascinated me. Whether they involve something I’ve planned in fantasies beforehand, or something that occurs completely spontaneously, first times are something we should never forget.
They’re not always spectacular in themselves. While most guys will recall the moment they lost their virginity as magnificent, fantastic, sensational, etcetera, most women are more likely to remember it as fast and fumbling, maybe painful and certainly awkward. Less a rite of passage and more an inconvenience to be gotten out of the way, so at last you can start having fun. All the flowery prose that we’ve absorbed beforehand, about becoming a woman and blossoming forth really tends to lose its bloom when you’re lying sore on bloody sheets and he’s asking for the umpteenth time if you’re okay, and was it as great for you as it was for him?
On my own list of first times that I like to fondly remember, that particular encounter rarely comes to mind. There are others, though, that I’ve noted over time - some that I pull from my own past, some which were “nominated’ by friends with whom I’ve talked, or readers with whom I’ve IM'd - that are worth remembering. Which should be celebrated. Ones where, no matter how many times you’ve done them since, and how much better you’ve done them as well, the first time will always be special.
It’s not a gratuitous pastime either, all this remembering business. My boyfriend and I like talking about first times, although we confine our reminiscences to the first time with one another. Not through any fear that past lovers might ignite a bout of insecurity, but because... for me, anyway, a lot of my past lovers appear as nothing more than cyphers now. Not all of them, but many. I remember who they were, I remember what we did, but I don't remember how I felt and I certainly don't remember the thrill.
The thrill. I like him to remind me about the first time we kissed. I mean properly kissed, not that sweet little peck that we exchanged at the end of our first evening out, but the first time we truly locked ourselves together and never wanted to let go. What was he feeling, what was he thinking? I remember how his entire body seemed focused on his mouth, even as I felt the muscles and movements that told me every nerve end in his body had come to hungry life. Tell me about that.
He likes to hear about the first time I went down on him. How I felt, what I was thinking. How my heart pounded. Did I like what I saw, did I like what I tasted (I did wonder once how he'd react if I said no to both, but that would be mean and this isn't the time or place for that). It's a kind of foreplay, this looking back, or sometimes a kind of afterglow. It relaxes us and reminds us to keep the old passions alive.
What about even older passions, though? Privately, they can be fun to recall as well, because although there’s lots of first times that you experience with your current partner... namely, the first time you did something with him... there are others where the only first time that really counts is the very first time itself.
The first time you made love without a condom, felt him inside you, felt his orgasm inside you. Nothing has prepared you for the reality of those sensations, the sheer joy of naked flesh within flesh, the hot heavy shock of his ejaculation... oh, and when you stand up, the cool gentle trickle of his cum coming out again and running down your thigh. A sensation that you rarely read about in erotic stories, but which packs its own flood of forbidden pleasures and treasures. Especially, if you have to hurry back to work afterwards, and don’t have the time to clean up properly.
The first time you received a pearl necklace. ZZ Top had a song about that, and I remember school dances where the boys used to think it so amusing to ask the DJ to play it, dedicated to one of us girls. Regardless of the fact that most of us didn’t have a clue what it was on about. We weren’t about to let anyone show us, either. That came later, with its own raft of excitements and visual kicks, but listening back to the song now (I just found it on Youtube, and it is called “Pearl Necklace”), it does make me wonder about certain male attitudes towards female sexuality.
The ZZ guy’s lady has asked for a pearl necklace. To which he responds, “She gets a charge out of bein' so weird, digs gettin' downright strange.” Well, if asking your man to cum on your tits, chest or throat is “downright strange,” maybe we should keep the next one very quiet.
A Pleasure Shared Is A Pleasure Doubled
The first time he tied, or handcuffed you down, then brought out the toys. Done badly, it is just annoying. Done correctly, with a smart guy who follows your body’s lead, it can be the most exquisite torture on earth - and all the more so because you don’t have a clue what he will do next, or how your body will respond. It’s something that no amount of imaginative solo play can forewarn you about, and if there’s tickling or tongues involved as well, then you might as well trade your whole body in for putty.
The first time you watched one another masturbate. I’ve never subscribed to the belief that watching your partner bring him/herself off is a reliable way of learning what they really like. You see the movements, but you don’t see the pressure, you gauge the speed, but you can’t judge their timing. So don’t even try to learn. Just revel in the imagery, and encourage them to play as well. Introduce toys, talk about fantasies. Then store the thoughts away, because you will want to come back to them later.
The first time you watched a porno together and found its intentions matched yours to the letter. I’ll admit, a lot of modern XXX movies leave me kinda cold, veering off in directions that I’d never want to try (spit in my ass and I’ll fart in your face). But occasionally you’ll find one that... well, to put it simply, you could have directed it yourself.
A great movie, when we talk about “mainstream” productions, is one that touches a part of your soul that you don’t normally expect to be affected by a DVD. It might make you cry, it might make you yearn, it might make you fall in love. Strangely, or maybe not, I didn’t like the movie that illustrates this article. I just don’t think it got it. But V For Vendetta gets me ever time - that final scene when the people gather, and the Parliament building goes up in fireworks. The sense that no matter what the government decrees, the will of the people is ultimately stronger.
Love Actually. It’s sappy and silly and parts are just creepy. But its overall message and the heartstrings it tugs... they’re priceless. And so is The Opening of Misty Beethoven... a seventies porno whose plot (yes it has one) I won’t spoil, but which balances exquisite beauty with naked eroticism. Although I probably still won’t be taking that one along to the local movie society’s open night.
The first time... Ah, but now it’s your turn. Either in the comments below, or in your own mind. What experience did you sample for the first time, some time long ago (or maybe even just recently), and once it was over, and throughout it as well, realize that this was a moment you will never recreate, no matter how many times you repeat it? A moment when your entire being shook to something that it had never felt before, and responded with such ecstasy that you could float on the memory for the rest of your life. Or at least until another thrill comes along?
Your first threesome, your first whipping. Your first submission, your first stab at anal. It could be anything, so long as it means everything. Because that is why first times are so important to us, why we should treasure their memories and keep them alive. Life in general, and sex in general too, can often fade into a succession of ... I don’t want to say “mundane encounters,” because they’re usually fun while they’re happening. But once you’ve (for instance) blown your boyfriend in the car a few times, the memories do all tend to blur a little, and very few will stand out as especially special.
Apart from the first time. When half of you is frightened, in case someone comes along and sees, and half of you is wondering how this will even work; part of you is petrified that the car will crash and you’ll be rushed to the ER with your boyfriend’s dick still gnashed between your teeth (enjoy explaining that away to the doctor); and part of you... well, you get the picture. But there’s a part of you that is excitedly thinking “oh my God, I’m going to do it,” and you wouldn’t lose that sensation for the world.
That’s what the first time is about. Stepping into the unknown, stepping out of your doubts, experiencing something you have never tried before. And loving it.
I saw my friend again a month or so later... the friend with the husband who made the list, remember? And of course I had to ask her if she’d followed my advice. She had, she said, and the first time “felt weird, but then I really got into it.”
The first time?” I asked and she gave a dirty laugh. “Now I’ve seen how much he likes it, and I enjoy it too...” then she told me something else. She went to check that the list had been updated, and she found it in the trashcan instead. Those past experiences were cyphers now, no longer relevant to his fantasies, because he had the real thing in his bed. And I bet if she ever asked him about their first time, every detail would be preserved in his head, and all the girls before would be fading from memory already.
All, I would guess, apart from the first time.
You always remember the first time.