We’re looking for stories about the first time you had sex. Email with 500-1000 words. (Don’t worry, we won’t print your name — but please do make sure to include your gender, where you were, and how old you were.) Submissions may be edited.
Having spent almost three years living and studying in England, it was nice to be back with my old friends, at my home country. I was 23 years old, at a very hip music festival in the outskirts of the city.
Palm trees were surrounding the green areas and the babbling river. People with painted faces, all dancing to the hipster electronic music, were all around us. I’d gone there with four girlfriends. It was just them (and me, a boy).
I was basically fresh out of the closet. You’d think a guy, who at the age of 20 packs his bags and goes off to London, probably came out the minute he landed and had the most awesome and exciting sex life. Well, it wasn’t quite like that at all. It had taken me all of my BA years, a couple of anxiety attacks, and a trip back to my hometown to properly come out to my family and friends.
Even four months out of the closet, I’d only gone to second base with a guy. No sex life, no boyfriend, still boring old me.
It was about 12 hours after the festival had started. The sun was down, everyone was already drunk or on some sort of mood elevator pressing onto strangers, all dancing to the same beat. I saw him standing right in front of me. I was attracted to him almost instantly. Shirtless (like most people were, that night), wearing only a pair of swimming trunks and a backpack hanging on to his skinny boyish body.
Having spent all day watching beautiful and sculpted bodies go by, swimming, tanning, drinking, and being tired of having almost no action in forever, I felt ready to make something happen.
I’d been almost taking advantage of the close proximity I had with him, and after hearing some parts here and there of a conversation he was having with a friend of his, I decided to venture to the wild guess that he was in fact gay, and make my move.
My first line was asking him if he went to the same university my friends went to. (Lame, right?) Well, stunningly, he did!
“Do you go there too?” He asked me, already pretty interested.
“No, I already graduated, I studied…”
“You’re very cute!”
Apparently that was enough. It was amazing, a guy that was two years younger than me had that much more experience and skill. He practically did all the work for me from that moment on.
We proceeded to kiss, amidst the crazy crowd. Then we went for a drink and continued making out. At one point, I realized we were probably being that uncomfortable couple. The one you pass by at a club or a party and you wish they would take their saliva exchange a bit less public. (I’ve always been prudish with my sexuality, imagine me then.)
My girlfriends and I had brought this huge, amazing tent to spend the night in. I wasn’t planning to have sex with him, but I didn’t want the amazing making out session to end so abruptly. There we were, right next to the tent in a much more isolated part of the field when we realized, our secret hiding place was not-so-secret after all.
“Can’t we just use your tent?” he asked me, panting.
After checking to make sure none of my girlfriends were sleeping inside, I stood at the threshold, knowing that If I invited him in, there was no turning back. No one to interrupt us, no time to say “I have to go home.” Hell, we didn’t even need to be quiet.
OK, here we go then I thought to myself, and invited him in.
It was longer than I imagined. We fooled around for quite a long time, and when it was time to get down to business I gathered all the courage I had and told him I’d never done it before. Trying to hide a confused and surprised face he said:
“Don’t worry, then. We’ll take it slow”.
I didn’t want to take it slow, though. All jazzed up and full of adrenaline I decided to — for once — live the moment and take it as it came.
He was pretty sweet, always asking me if I was OK, if I was feeling alright, if I wanted to stop. After about an hour and a half, I did tell him we had to wrap things up pretty quickly. I knew my friends were tired and wanted to sleep.
He never came. (I did. Twice.) He blamed some “stuff” he had taken during the night along with his vodka. I felt pretty bad, but you can’t blame me for lack of help. I had tried.
He bought me a coconut water afterwards, and after drinking it and pretending to like it, we danced a little bit before he told me he was going to look for his friends. We didn’t see each other again.
A few weeks later, back in the city, I went to the opening of a night club with my friends. And just when I least expected it, there he was, across the bar, with a guy that I would later find out was his boyfriend.
It wasn’t the romantic, heart felt experience I had been hoping for. But at least I know I surprised myself that night, and that after years of holding back my sex life, I’ll always be the guy who lost it with a handsome stranger inside a camping tent, with a great soundtrack in the background, the intoxicating smell of trees and grass filling the air.
