My First Time

"My heart rate was sky-high as I exited the elevator and saw him waiting in the lobby."

Female, Jerusalem, 16

In high school, I fully subscribed to the "foreign hookups must be epic" camp. After enough movies (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, anyone?) and stories (the 10th grade girl who lost her virginity in Italy, lucky bitch), I was convinced. In my mind, for a romantic hookup to take place, it would have to be somewhere as foreign and as mysterious as sex itself.

As luck would have it, during the fall of my senior year my family decided to take a two week vacation to the motherland: Israel. We arrived in Tel Aviv, unpacked into our hotel, and hit the beach. The sun was beginning to set, and the ocean was the perfect relief from the blistering desert heat. As I swam and splashed in the waves, I noticed a strikingly attractive young lad and made my move. Being the suave and irresistibly attractive person that I am, I scored his number. Actually, I tried talking to him in Hebrew and he looked at me blankly. It turns out he was from San Diego. Anyway, it worked. That night, I snuck out of the hotel room and met him down on the beach, where we discussed life, compared our goals and dreams, and made out a little under the stars. It was nice.

The family plan was to do a tour of the entire country, so we left Tel Aviv shortly thereafter and I didn't have a chance to see him again before we left. I was desperately sad that my foreign love affair had been cut short, and being the inexperienced and wishful high school girl that I was, I tried my hardest to make it happen. For most of the trip, though, we were in different parts of the country, so the possibility of seeing him was zilch.

Our last stop was Jerusalem, and we arrived there just in time for High Holy Days and Yom Kippur, the most sacred and important holiday of the year. Our hotel was several blocks away from the Old City, an ancient microcosm within Jerusalem. Walking through it was a step back in time, and I truly felt like I was in another world. My plan to meet up with hunky lover-boy was also looking promising: he too was in Jerusalem for Yom Kippur, and he was willing to take a taxi over to my hotel. When he arrived at midnight, I snuck out to meet him once more. My heart rate was sky-high as I exited the elevator and saw him waiting in the lobby.

We ended up in an expansive, beautifully manicured park directly adjacent to the Old City. Stone pathways meandered by fountains and vine-covered walls, down into a grassy basin spotted with trees. Soon after laying out the blanket, we were on top of it making out. Things were getting steamy, and soon turned towards heavy petting. I was in awe of the fact that we were in a public park screened by only a blanket.

And then it happened: without asking or forewarning, he pulled a switcheroo on me. Meaning the "heavy petting" wasn't just petting anymore. It took me a second to realize what was going on, but we had somehow segued into actual sex. At that point, I could only there in shock, not knowing what to do, just absorbing the situation. "This is it, this is sex, this is a huge deal, oh my God, oh my God," kept running through my mind. "Are you okay?" he asked, reacting to the fact that, suddenly, I was just lying there limp and unmoving. "Are you wearing a condom?" I asked.

"I guess not."

"Well maybe this isn't a good idea"

"Yeah, I guess you're right." And then it was over; I had officially just had sex for the first time.

While it makes quite a story, it was anticlimactic and unfulfilling, and I don't recommend losing it to an insensitive jerk.