There's really nobody to blame but me.

Be a man, be a player, show confidence, leave a trail of gaping vaginas in your wake. That's the ideal. Look good, exude virility, be confident, notch your bedpost, and stack up those female trophies on your proverbial mantle. It's all over the television. Success is congratulated, failure is scorned. Looks. Social status. Sex sex sex.

One could blame external factors. But that's weak shit. Am I right? Nobody to blame. But...

When I was in third grade I had my first schoolboy crush. A girl named Lisa Drabicki. I told my best friend, Michael Suchy. (Names have not been changed to protect the innocent.) He waited until the entire class was sitting in a circle in gym class, silent, before giving in to temptation and blurting out my secret at the top of his lungs. My face went red. I looked at Lisa, who appeared shocked, and then I looked down at the floor. I didn't look anyone in the face for weeks. For some reason, I was ashamed.

I remember a day in junior high when a friend dared me to ask a girl, any girl, to be my girlfriend. I was in seventh grade and still years away from puberty. But I loved a good dare. I asked Leslie Foss, the blonde who sat next to me in geography. I was shocked when she said yes. What next, I wondered? We hung out at her house one day. Her dad insisted her bedroom door stay open, and that no kissing take place. "Never!" I exclaimed. And I meant it! I broke up with her a week later in an elegant manner. I separated our desks, which had been pushed together, and refused to speak a word to her. She called me an asshole.

I graduated to high school. I told my parents about girl I liked at Thanksgiving dinner freshman year. They teased me. "Ooohhh! Little Stevie's got a crush! How cute! You gonna kiss her? You gonna make out?" To me, this felt like the inquisition. I learned that any admission of attraction to the opposite sex was something to inspire shame and derision, and therefore required secrecy. I never again spoke to either of them about girls. Ever. Before he died, my dad confided to one of my sisters that he was afraid I may have been molested sometime during my childhood and was somehow damaged. I forgive him for that.

(these white russians are giving me the hiccups already on my third pint? fuck, must keep writing this, before I lose my courage)

I almost lost my virginity when I was sixteen. I was drunk, feeling great, speaking my mind about whatever I liked at a small party, and I looked and felt like a guy in charge of the universe. Everything was perfect. Before I knew it, I was sucking face with a girl named Megan Smith. "Stay," she said. All my friends were walking out the front door to leave. I was in. But I freaked. I jumped up and left and sprinted out before the car got away.

Why?

Insecurity. When I was little kid, two or three maybe, I climbed the medicine cabinet and ate everything in it. My folks had to take me to the hospital to have my guts pumped and to have them empty my bladder by slicing through my scrotum. Or something like that. My mom tried to tell me once, but I didn't want to hear it. For all I know it was just a good old-fashioned undescended testicle. I should probably ask Mom sometime. Yeah right.

With Megan, All I knew is that my nuts hung unevenly and my scrote was all scarred up. I felt like a freak. That, and I was afraid my penis was too small, and that I was too whiskeyed up to get hard. Basically, I was just a horribly insecure chickenshit, and I fled. Megan always made fun of me for leaving after that, although very subtly. I certainly offended her, though I didn't mean to.

By the time I was twenty-three I was the only virgin I knew. I'd finally moved out from my folks and lived with a roommate, Pat Randall. I was somewhat desperate but completely unequipped to do anything about it. I went to a Halloween party in Schaumburg and saw a girl I recognized from elementary school, Melanie Shwartz. She looked fantastic and could hold up her end of a conversation. I really liked her. I asked her out and got her number.

We went for breakfast one morning and I asked her back to my place to watch a movie. We sat on the couch. I put my arm around her, but it ended up stuck between her back and and the couch, numb, as she sat there uncomfortably, miserable, arm jammed into her spine. I sat beside her, awkward, miserable, silent, and utterly incapable of anything suave. For two hours. It was awful. No, I was awful. The epitome of dork. Bad. Very bad. When the credits rolled, she fled. Fast. She never spoke to me again, justifiably.

A few weeks later, still a virgin, consumed with my own pathetic energy, I finally lost my virginity on a technicality. My little sister's best friend, Lisa, was having her 21st birthday party at Exit, a punk bar on North Avenue in Chicago. I went. Lisa obviously had a crush on me for a while. Was in love with me, I think. She said so. I lied, telling her I always wanted her too, even though I didn't mean it at all. We made out on the third floor, in the darkest corner of a dark bar, until I finally asked her home with me. She ditched her own party, and neither of us told my sister where we were going.

We groped one another the whole drunken ride home, giggling and making eyes. When we got there I dumped my carcass on the bed and waited while she disrobed in the bathroom. She shyly came into the bedroom and joined me. We were both disgustingly shitfaced. I was half-hard, she was barely wet, but we took out turns giving one another head with no joy. We mutually decided to try to fuck. I proceeded to pop in and thrust away. I kept slipping out. Doggedly determined I kept at it for ten minutes until I heard her snoring. I backed away. She was splayed out spread eagle, asleep, leaving me no room on my own bed. Any dignity I had was far, far gone. I left my room and slept on the couch, satisfied that I was not a virgin and didn't have to put so much pressure on myself any longer.

When I was twenty-seven the doubt bubbled back to the surface. I was lonely, but I was so ill-equipped to tackle anything remotely close to intimacy. But then, amazingly, someone began to pursue me. Somebody wanted me, liked me, accepted me. It felt really good. We spent some time together. Thick as thieves. Went to a bachelor party, where I got shitfaced and ended up owing a stripper money I didn't have. She got mad and tried to have me bounced, but I got it covered by someone else, luckily. Me and my partner went back home and made out a bit, but it was weird for me, so I called a stop.

The next time I saw him, he sucked my dick. I stopped him halfway through. Sure, I was drunk and whisky-dicked, but I knew it wasn't my thing. I told him to stop, told him sorry. I connected with him mentally, but physically, it just wasn't right for me. So that answered that. I wasn't gay after all. We still get on okay. He was worried the fag shit might sour me on him, but no, we're cool.

Finally, last week, a girl I've known for over a decade came by at midnight to smoke a bowl and have a cocktail, and brought one of her friends along. (I'll call my longtime friend Ella and her friend Ally, because I'm definitely protecting the innocent now) We're shitfaced, etc., and after a few I'm dazed and out of it when, suddenly, I look up, and they're making out on my couch! YES! I stare. They pause for a moment, and Ella says, "Ignore him, he's not paying any attention." To which I reply, "How could I not?" They look up, slightly surprised by my reply, and beckon me to them.

There I stood, inexperienced, terrified, asking myself: Am I a man at all? This is what we're all supposed to want, right? A threesome? Step up or castrate myself, simple as that. So I step up.

I ripped off Ella's pants and ate her pussy like a starving man. Not much skill, but shit tons of enthusiasm, and I could tell she enjoyed it. Ally felt left out, so she removed my pants and went to work on my junk.

But.

But.

Whiskey.

I had to tell a woman to let go of my dick. A week later, and still it haunts me.

Why? Because it wouldn't. Fucking. Work. Wouldn't stand to attention. There she was, kneeling, looking up at me, ready to put her mouth to work, with an expression on her face that said... that spoke... of such deep disappointment. A disappointment that defines the entirety of my sex life.

I did the only thing I could. I went back to eating pussy. Until I couldn't breathe. At which point Ella said "Fuck me! Fuck me fuck me fuck me!"

I said "No." Because I couldn't. Fucking whiskey.

So here I am, the day after Christmas, sitting alone, totally tossed on white russians. I haven't written anything worth a shit since my dad's eulogy. I figured this one was a long time coming, no pun intended. Or fuck you, pun absolutely intended. I guess I'm just happy to be typing, my one true love.

I hope you had a laugh or two. Maybe feel better about your life. I feel better. A weight has been lifted. Confession is good for the soul.




Now playing: The Band - When I Paint My Masterpiece 7:06 PM - Bottle Rocket Fire Alarm