My new wife and I were both virgins when we got engaged at age twenty-two, and had no idea what we were doing. She was the most beautiful woman at college as far as I was concerned. The fact that she'd chased me, and we were now marrying, seemed surreal. At the time we were in a very conservative church and had worked hard at not having sex. By that I mean we only kissed and held hands, and had never seen or touched anything covered by clothing. Though we'd crossed the line for the kind of kissing a pastor might approve of before marriage, we'd never let things get out of hand. But secretly, I was an exceptionally perverted young man barely holding on by a thread.

Our wedding day was a blur. As a typical guy, I wasn't too interested in the wedding itself. Suits, dresses, cake... whatever. We rented a log cabin in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina for our first night together. I went outside to get firewood from a pile, but when I came in a few candles lit the room. I don't remember if we ever got the fire going or not.

Illustration by Thomas Pitilli

I felt like a kid who had just snuck into the amusement park and didn't know what to try first. After we'd slowly undressed each other, I saw she was even more beautiful than I'd known. We started touching and kissing, and that's when the impossible happened. Which is to say... nothing happened. My ticket to ride had apparently been revoked. After years of getting hard just thinking about this woman, I was too nervous to get it up.

So we took our time, we giggled and played. Just being naked together felt amazing. Eventually I got barely stiff enough. But as I attempted entry, she yelled out in pain. This made my anxiety worse. I was shocked and really pissed off about the whole situation, but I couldn't let that ruin everything.

We decided to focus on her and then go back to me, hoping I'd eventually relax enough to join her, and that she'd be able to handle it when I did. Lucky for me, it didn't matter that I didn't know what the hell I was doing: she was a virgin on her wedding night. In fact, she'd been raised in a very strict religious family and had never masturbated! I hadn't thought that was even possible.

It didn't take long for my fingers to work their magic. I was thrilled for her, and it excited the hell out of me. I'd felt like a failure, but I was literally a screaming success. So we soon gave intercourse another try. More yelling out in pain. Over the course of about an hour, we repeated variations of this cycle five times. I eventually got a sloppy half-in orgasm and collapsed in exhaustion. In case you're keeping score, the bride won, six to one. More importantly, she was ecstatic.

Watching her that night ruined porn for me forever. The first six months of our marriage, she was ravenous. Though it's tapered a bit since then, we're still happily ever after.