The Sunset Strip Diaries by Amy Asbury

continue to party with the other two girls (Jamie screwed another of the girls that night as well), I had them pull over so I could throw up on the side of the freeway. I was spinning and miserable. They dumped me off at my house at two or three in the morning and sped off. I don’t remember which of my parents yelled at me, but I was miserable and humiliated and I knew I was in over my head.
     
    Once I was in my room, I started crying and peeled off my zebra-striped underwear. I looked down in them and saw blood, which sobered me up enough to realize that I had lost my virginity to someone I had just met. Someone who talked down to me… someone who had intercourse with me while he thought I was passed out.  I glanced down closer at the blood in my underwear and saw something shining- it was my cross earring. I am not kidding, this really happened. My heart stopped. I was staring at this cross and thinking … Oh shit. Is this another sign? Is the ground going to break open and suck me down into the fiery pits of hell? I was certain God was going to plum fuck me up for being so awful and for going against all of His wishes. I was sure of it. I pulled the earring out of my underwear, put it on my dressing table, and passed out.
     
    The next day I was told I was grounded. My parents no longer trusted me and I was embarrassed and ashamed. I was torn between feeling bold and brazen that I had had such a crazy night and feeling guilty and regretful. I went from crying in my pillow to getting a rush thinking about being in the car with long-haired guys and drinking and being a grown up. All and all, I don’t think I understood how special and chaste virginity was. I do remember feeling that it was very final- I couldn’t turn back and be a kid again. It bothered me, but I brushed it off. My first reaction was to get out my Barbie dolls and play with them. I think I washed all of their hair. I also made sure to hang out with Karen and try to be my old self by playing around, crank calling, spying on neighbors, all the things we did as preteens.
     
    Jamie never called me again. He completely avoided me at school. I thought, Wow. Okay. So this is how it works? I had this…this…certain body part. And...guys wanted to get at it. They wanted to have sex. And that was it. I ruled out that it was some pleasurable thing. It certainly was not that. It was…it was…I didn’t know what it was to me. I suddenly had questions. I didn’t know who to talk to, who to confide in. I was irked that I couldn’t find out more information on sex. As much as it was flaunted all over the place on MTV, the actual details of it seemed so guarded, so hushed. I just didn’t understand the whole thing. In my mind, it was definitely not something regarded as emotional, loving or in any way special- why did parents, schools, and churches try to tell you it was?
     
    Two weeks later I met another long-haired boy at school named Matt. I don’t remember if I liked him or he liked me or how it happened, but I think he just came up and asked me out. He asked me if I wanted to go to a party on Halloween weekend. It was exactly two weeks after my first date. My parents didn’t stick to their “you’re grounded” rule, because they let me go with him.
     
    This boy was a senior. He was not a Hollywood guy, but what the hell. He had long, brown hair and blue eyes and looked like he could have been a bad rocker kid but he was actually somewhat of a nerd. He drove his vintage Mustang up to my house and came to the door as my mother wanted. It was all shot to hell though, when my father told him, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” in a joking manner, with a wink-wink ‘between the guys’ tone. He more or less gave his blessing for the boy to screw me. I was so confused. Is this okay with him? My father ?
     
    I wore an all-white dress and really high white stilettos, trying to look like Tawny Kitaen in the Whitesnake “Is This Love?” video.