Losing Virginity (11 page)

As
I stood there in shock she sauntered casually back into the room, licking her
fingers and the edge of the spoon.

“You’re
an animal,” I said.

“It’s
satisfying Olivia.”

-----------Chapter
9-----------

Jess
tried to talk me into taking a pre-date shot from the Absolut bottle she kept
stashed in our apartment's refrigerator but I wasn't interested.

The
chats I'd had with Ryder on OKCupid had so far been pretty simple- a little
flirtatious, but not anything to keep me awake at night. I was holding back a
little even though we were just talking via the internet. It usually made
people bolder if anything. Not me. But I had my previous dates to find Mr.
Stick It
In
Me to blame that on. Plus, I didn’t want
to show all my cards right off the bat. I wanted to keep some of my exploits
for actual conversation, not just chatting. I was optimistic that tonight
there'd be a connection between us. And if not, maybe I'd at least get a "missed
connection" on Craigslist out of it from some other dude hanging out at
this bar.

I
only knew of The Snake Pit from the horror stories that spread around campus.
You know the kind of urban legends like Bloody Mary in the mirror or the
mysterious hitchhiker who gets picked up then disappears in the car. Well, the
Snake Pit was a place that had its own particular urban legends circling around
it. They all started the same way so here you go: I knew a guy who said his
friend stopped at the Snake Pit and met this girl. And of course, she is
totally hot, right? So he says he’ll give her a lift to her apartment but
instead they end up hooking up in the alley behind the place. It’s true!
Totally true.

Or,
there is the girl whose sister knew a girl who went to the Snake Pit and met
this guy, who was totally gorgeous, right? They started talking and were really
into each other and when he said he’d give her a lift home they ended up
hooking up in the bathroom. It’s true! Totally true!
 

Now,
who in their right mind would want to have sex in a public bathroom, I have no
idea. And if those were the kind of people who frequented the Snake Pit, I
could be batting out of my league. But when I was put on the spot during our
last chat, it was the first and only place that had come to mind. I didn't go
out to bars. I barely even went to the on-campus coffee shop. For me, being at
a bar is like Taylor Swift giving relationship advice. Both don’t and shouldn’t
happen. There was alcohol though and that hopefully could make me feel sexy,
strong, and be able to take on the world... Plus, no great story started with a
salad.

Walking
in, this wasn’t even close to the kind of place I’d imagined. I had imagined a
wild, cutting edge techno scene with bikini clad cage dancers with fluorescent
pink lipstick and guys with spiky hair and broody looks on their faces.
 
So you can imagine my surprise when I walked
in.

It
was Jock city, basically.

I’d
tried my hardest to avoid The Snake Pit for the first half of my freshman year
due to the threat of possible lavatory hook-ups, but here I was, and so,
allegedly, was my knight in shining armor. I was a big loser if I didn't at
least try to make the most of this, right? Plus, his profile online was more
than a little bit cute. And it wasn’t mostly in shadow. I actually could see
his whole face.

Smoke
filled the air and the music was terrible. The kind I like to call
‘construction worker rock’.
A lot of Journey, Van Halen, and
Boston.
Bob Segar was a popular pick off the jukebox as was Kansas. There
was also no shortage of bros and their hoes all fighting to take control of
three dozen different conversations. Flexing biceps, cheap beers spilled onto
the two raggedy pool tables.

I
tossed my hair back, took a deep breath, and tried to look nonchalant as I
walked in, nearly getting creamed by a polo-wearing meathead being thrown
across the room by some guy I assumed was his frat brother.

"
Woah
, excuse me,
señorita
,"
he laughed, the polo-shirted preppie punk straightening himself, picking up his
spilt beer mug. I rolled my eyes and stalked towards the bar. I only got
actually drunk - like, stumbling around and making a fool of
myself
- maybe once a month, but this night was clearly going to require more than a
glass or two of red wine. Big Stick was going to have to be more than just a
Prince Charming to turn a trip to The Snake Pit around.

"Bourbon,
please," I shouted at the bartender. He was an overly muscled spray-tanned
townie with a pony tail who could have been anywhere between twenty and fifty.
He didn't hear me, not that it was surprising considering the throngs of kids
"cutting loose" that were swarming the bar, screaming along to some
overplayed dance song and spilling more beer than they were drinking. He was
all up in the faces of two girls who were obviously freshmen like me in tiny
hot pink tops that almost matched. They were expertly flipping their hair, the
traditional mating ritual moves of the East Coast Bimbos. They smiled and acted
dumb and this bartender was eating it up, pouring them shots without charging
and staring into their eyes imagining the three-way he was never going to get.

I
struggled to force myself between two girls who were convulsing with drunken
laughter and using the bar top for support and gave it another try in my
loudest and most commanding voice.
Nothing doing.
The
distinguished sorority sisters started screaming down the bar towards a couple
of passable Abercrombie guys who were laughing hysterically and reeling about
with quarters on their eyes and beer on their shirts.

"We
need some more shots!"

"Yeah,
let's do another round and get out of here, you dicks," the other one
slurred. She was addressing the guys, but facing the ceiling. "There's
like thirty fucking parties tonight!"

Just
as I was considering either stabbing both of the girls I was wedged between or
fleeing the whole sordid scene, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"You
look like an Olivia to me."

The
voice was smooth enough, firm enough, loud enough to cut right through all the
commotion at the bar, but there was some kind of gentleness to it as well that
just about made me swoon before I even turned around. It also sounded familiar…

The
strong hand stayed on my shoulder even as I stood still. I bit my lip as I
turned. I’m pretty sure my mouth fell open when I saw his face. Not only was it
the guy who had thrown that troglodyte in my direction when I came in, but it
was Mr. No Name himself. I hadn't even given him a second look before, and...
Well, that was my mistake. I hadn’t noticed what his face looked like because
it was dark… But now that he stood in the light I knew… Mr. No Name was… Big
Stick…

He
had the five o’clock shadow look unlike his bare face in his dating profile
picture. That must have been why I didn’t realize he was the same person before.
And of course he wasn’t conforming to the dress code here: he looked like he
had just got off work on Wall Street or Madison Avenue or something - a really
simple blue dress shirt, a couple buttons undone, tucked into his slacks, a
pair of shoes that perfectly mirrored his belt. I couldn't tell you how his
eyes looked that night, because I wouldn't meet them for long enough to make an
assessment.

I
was trying to play it cool but his smile was contagious and I stumbled for a
couple words. I managed a nervous giggle.

“Elevator
girl?” he said, grinning. “Never thought you were, you.”

Well,
what do we have here…? Captain
Frickin
Obvious! This
was the date I was looking forward to?

“I
can’t do this. You’re you,” I said, beginning to walk away.

I
could be obvious too.

He
grabbed my wrist. “Who am I?”

“A…
A…” I said as my heart raced. “Womanizer…
A…
A…
Big Stick!”

Everyone
at the bar gave me strange looks. Then they started laughing.

“You
know I’m not some male slut. I told you that.”

“I
believed you until now. Your username is BigStick and you bring home girls all
the time… I’m sure your baseball story was just a way to make me think
differently.”

“It’s
seriously about baseball! Come on Elevator Girl… Olivia... Just enjoy the
night. We don’t have to go have sex.”

I
didn’t know what I was doing. Was it the girls?
His username?
My vagina would hate me if I didn’t put forth any effort.
And
my brain…
My sex brain... Why was he so freaking sexy… I shook my head
but still let him gently guide me out of the drunken crowd and over to a table.

”I’m
glad you’re going to stay,” he said.

I
wasn’t sure myself but tried to act like I was too.

"Yeah…
Same here," I said, putting on a smile I hoped was charming. "Um ...
What was going on there with that guy you threw at me?"

Good,
Olivia, very good. You’re being funny AND straightforward.

He
laughed and ran his hands through his hair. How did he keep his hair looking
like that? The guy looked like he had just walked off the set of Gossip Girl,
except ... Better. And did I mention his soothing and sexy voice?

"Yeah,
you'll have to excuse me for that," he said. “Max is an all right guy, but
you get more than a few tall boys in him and he can get a little carried away
and then I need to throw him around a little, you know?”

He
summoned the bartender over to our table with just a casual whistle and wave of
his arm. I hadn’t even managed to get a drink when I was standing right in
front of the guy.

“Sup,
Ryder, what can I get you two?”

The
big ape was suddenly our best friend. I wasn’t so sure I was going to need that
whiskey after all. It might even turn Big Stick off.

“Two
bourbons, two Buds, and some string bean fries,” he said to the bartender
without hesitation.
Hot damn.
I hadn’t even mentioned
my absolute obsession with string bean fries on the OKCupid profile.

“You
know… The only thing better than a cold Bud is a warm bush.”

What
was I doing? I heard the saying from Jess but now I was saying it? I needed to
relax.

He
began to laugh uncontrollably. “Isn’t that the
truth!
”

“Yeah…”
I said, looking down from his eyes.

“So,
tell me a little more about yourself,” he said casually.

“Um
… can I just refer you to my Facebook or something?” I hoped that that came off
as casual self-deprecation.

He
laughed.

“How
about this,” he began, taking a long sip of his beer. “We each tell each other
something we’d never share on some social network profile? I’ll even go first.”

I
snickered. Okay, he was really going to put me on the spot here. At least I had
a minute to think. Jess always told me I think too much.

“Well,”
he said, rolling his eyes back in his head and then bursting out laughing. “I
guess I never really put it on any of my profiles that I’m completely… Like…
Absurdly obsessed with Star Trek.”

I
set my glass down and smiled at him, tipping my head a bit. Okay … so this was
entering into almost serious geek territory. I mean seriously, Star Wars I
could almost understand – or at least I could tolerate it or swallow it as some
remnant of childhood. Star Trek, however… This was something else entirely.

I
had for a long time drawn a clear line in the sand between fan boys and
Trekkies
. It first developed in high school, to be exact. I
remembered watching and loving all three of the Star Wars films when I was a
kid, and even watching the occasional episode of Star Trek, but the two were
“cats of different colors.”

Star
Wars had this childish, sort of swashbuckling spirit to it, and in my eyes,
didn’t seem to try and take itself nearly as seriously as Star Trek did. And
Star Trek fans tended to treat the series and its lore as religion, political
science, and, in frightening cases I’d only read about on the internet, sexual
orientation.

But
here was this guy right in front of me that I’d been so keyed-up to meet and I
was already dreaming of losing my V with, here he was telling me he was a “
Trekkie
.” Luckily, he defused the situation with a quick
remark about how he knows how that sounds and promising that he wasn’t a
fan-fiction writer, and gravely imploring me to never share this information
with anyone outside the “Circle of Trust.” The Circle of Trust apparently was
our table in The Snake Pit.

I
laughed hard, and assured him that I wouldn’t. All better. Except for now it
was my turn. I had nothing at the moment, but Big Stick quickly raised his
whiskey shot and grinned at me.

“For
now, here’s to awkward silences…” he leaned in and whispered
mock-conspiratorially, “And to
Trekkies
!”