The First Time
08.24.11
Good Thursday morning to you, darlings!
Let us have some coffee, shall we?
As a writer of things erotic, I love exploring “first times,” the butterflies, the thrill and terror of the possibility of acceptance or rejection, the breathless moments that stand still in memory, throwing yourself out to the universe, gods be damned, people be damned… willing to risk everything to become the person you were meant to be.
No, I’m not talking about losing virginity. I’m talking about finding yourself.
Sometimes they are coming out stories, and sometimes they are, indeed, first sexual experience stories. Or those beautiful essays (a thousand poems, no less) penned to a first love, bittersweet in their longing, doomed to fade with the passage of time.
Do you remember your first real kiss? The one with tongue?
Do you remember telling your best friend that you’re gay? Maybe you were thirteen, and hardly knew yourself what it meant, and after stammering awkwardly through words that almost killed you to say, she laughed because she already knew, and the world was brighter because you were no longer alone with your secret.
It was the first time you stood up to your mother and you knew you were right.
It was the first time you confronted your abuser, wresting his power away when you said, “You can’t hurt me anymore.”
It was finally walking away from a poisonous relationship, and it hurt, oh god, how it hurt, but there was a part of you dying anyway, and every step further away earned you strength, until, eventually, you knew you were not only going to be okay, but you were going to be even better than you were before the experience.
It wasn’t the first time you had confusing feelings about another person, but it was the first time the light bulb went on and you had that “ah-ha!” moment - and admitted, at least to yourself, that you are bi-sexual. Or homosexual. Or transsexual, or a Star Wars fanatic, or just plain different from other people.
It was the first time you risked a friendship and told someone else, someone important to you.
Maybe it was the first time you let your co-workers know that their homophobic jokes and obvious bigotry weren’t okay and certainly weren’t funny.
It was your opportunity to feel your heart beating hard because something inside you couldn’t stand the façade for one more second, and you had to stand up for what you believe in or explode.
It was the first time your first vampire novel came out in paperback.
A big happy “paperback day” to DeVante’s Children.
I’d love to hear your “first times” - darlings, comments begged for welcome!