How I Didn't Lose My Virginity

(Todd enters and sits at a stool center stage. To be read quickly and nervously with good humor.)

Todd: Some of you may know, I’m writing my memoirs. (pause) I want to ask a question, are there any virgins in the audience? (pause) Yeah, it’s a hard thing to admit, isn’t it? I know what you mean, I was a virgin for an unnaturally long time. That’s sort of what I wanted to talk to you about tonight. I was thinking about my virginity and the loss thereof a couple of days ago, and I was remembering back when I was in high school and how I really wanted to learn my virginity and I was riding home with my Dad from town to my Mom’s house and my Dad is really quiet. Usually he’s talking about all the people on Billy Wolf road that he knows or has worked for and he turns to me and he says, "Todd, I want to talk to you about something."

I’m thinking, "Oh, God, what did he find out about?"

But no, he says something completely unexpected, he says (deep serious voice) "Todd , sometimes a young man will experience nocturnal emissions."

"What?"

And he starts telling me that birds and the bees rap, and I’m like, "It’s OK, Dad, I learned about it in health class."

And he’s like, "You did?"

And he is greatly relieved. So, I get home to my Mom’s house and I tell her what I think she is going to think is a humorous anecdote about my father. My mother becomes very grave and serious as well and she says, "Todd, your father and his family are Missouri Synod Lutherans and they honestly believe that you should not enter into a procreative act without the idea of creating a child, and therefore, Todd, they will want you to be married before you lose your virginity. As your mother, I asking you to promise me one thing, I am asking you, Todd, promise me that whoever the girl is, that you will love her first. Because to me, Todd, loving the girl is far more important than being married to her."

So, I’m thinking, OK, I can promise that, because there was this girl that I was going with, Sara Kathryn Clark, and I really did love her and I really did want to lose my virginity with her. Not a problem.

It did not happen.

But because I had made this promise to my mother it set up this weird psychological thing in my head that anyone I was sexually attracted to I had to somehow convolute a scenario in which I loved that person.

This really fucked me up.

Now, when I got to college, I tried to date, but thanks to this virginity thing it wasn’t working out too well. But then when I was 23, I met this girl who was quite a bit younger than me...and I was a little bit worried about it so, I called my mother and I said, "Mom, it’s Todd. I wondered what the youngest girl is that you’d approve of me going out with."

And she didn’t blink, she said, "I don’t know. 14?"

I said, "What?!?"

She said, "Well, I don’t know, 13 what do you want?"

I said, "Jesus Christ!"

She said, "Well, Todd, there is a 7 year age difference between your father and me."

And I said, "Yeah, but you were in high school right?"

And she said, "Well, your father was."

And I said, "What?!?"

My Dad was 19 when they started dating, and my Mom was a 12 year old. I thought Jerry Lee Lewis had balls.

So, anyway, with Mom’s approval I tried to get it together with this girl, and...it didn’t work out either.

And another year goes by and I met this woman named Punk Rock Cheryl.

Now, Punk Rock Cheryl was amazing. She had the fuchsia mohawk and Black Flag tattoo and she talked about really exotic things like "Golden Showers" and such like.

And she really wanted to have sex with me. And I’m wrestling with this because I don’t love her, I don’t love her, but I want her, I want her.

So, I call my mother again, like a good , red blooded American boy. And I say, "Mom, there’s this girl, and I’d like to have sex with her--"

She says, "Todd, get laid."

I said, "What?!?" She says, "Todd, get laid. If you aren’t laid by your 25th birthday I’m hiring a prostitute to get the job done!"

I said, "Mom, you were the one who made me promise you that I would love the girl first, I do not love this woman."

She said, "Todd, you were 16 and I was your mother, what the hell was I supposed to say?"

So, I change my clothes, I clean my room, I make my bed and I swear an oath that I will not sleep in that bed again until I do not do so alone.

Then I set off to find Punk Rock Cheryl. And I find her at this party, and I say to her, "Cheryl, I have a bottle of cheap wine and expensive shampoo, let’s go share them."

And she says, "What are you saying?"

I say, "I’m ready to it, I’m finally ready to do it, my Mom says it’s OK."

She says, "What?!? I’ve been trying to get you in bed for three months and now you it’s OK because your Mom says so.? Well, FUCK YOU!"

I said, "That’s the idea."

She says, "NO!"

So, I go home and I sit there in the near dark of this perfectly clean room, looking at this perfectly made bed and I’m thinking...what about Dad? He’s really the one who set all this in motion. What would he say?

And then I hear his voice as clearly as if he had been standing in the room. He looks at me and says, "Todd, you made your bed, now don’t lie in it."

(lights out)