Nov 10: In Which I Lose My Virginity (or what was left of it)

Cookie? Please?

One of the cast members of Scrooge produced a Rocky Horror Picture Show event last night at a local bar, so  a couple of friends asked if I wanted to go with them after rehearsal. It was my first time ... I know .... I know what you're thinking. It's almost impossible to imagine Reticula was ever a virgin. It's almost impossible to fathom that I had never seen this movie. Bits and pieces, I had. Once one of my students brought the DVD, and after class we put it up on my big screen, turned off the lights and did the Time Warp dance. But I'd never seen the whole thing. I was indeed a virgin last night.

I do remember when it came out. I was still just a twinkle in my daddy's eye spending the weekend at a cheap motel in Des Moines with a group of 7 or 8 friends, supposedly for state wrestling tournaments. I don't think we even made it to the auditorium. Sunday afternoon half of the group went to Rocky Horror (which would never come to the small, one-screen theater in our town) and the other half went to Young Frankenstein. I was in the latter group. So I missed it the first time around because I chose Young Frankenstein, and by the time it became a cult sensation I was a young Air Force officer's wife and it wasn't the kind of thing we did. Or even really had on our radar.

Last night it was definitely time to pop my cherry.

No Botox yet.

After I received my hand stamp and wrist band at the door and paid my $5.00, two lovely young women in red corsets and black fishnets asked me if I was a virgin. My friends answered for me in the affirmative and shortly I was sporting a bright red lipstick "V" in the middle of my forehead. We were early so we settled in at the bar and assessed the fine muscular chest of the actor who played Riff Raff and and our cast-mate, Darren's, almost perfect resemblance to Tim Curry's Dr. Frank N Furter.

As more people showed up, we added to our group. Theatre people tend to clump. Eventually there were more virgins than non among us. We were warned that we were fair game for the actors, and that they would do ...... something to us. Pop our cherries, at the very least. I felt fairly safe on my bar stool at the very back of the audience though.

Finally the show began. The MC introduced people, we cheered, blah blah blah. And then he started gathering virgins up on the stage. He mostly chose from the front of the crowd though. People he could see. Friends of the cast. Soon he had some of them sitting on a chair and vocalizing orgasms into the microphone. We all cheered wildly as their cherries were popped.

And then I realized my two non-virgin friends were pointing to me and shouting, "Choose her. Choose her." And then the rest of our group joined in ..... and within seconds people all around me--strangers who didn't even know if I'd ever had an orgasm before--were pointing at me and shouting, "Choose her. Choose her. Choose her." And I thought, Oh no. I'm about to become a spectacle again.* I tried to ignore them, but the MC couldn't.

"It looks like somebody has a lot of people wanting her to come up here, so get up here, virgin," he ordered. The crowd cheered. I'm not sure why. I'm old enough to be their mother.

I made my way through them to the stage, which was about waist high, and climbed up on it. The MC told me to stand back in line with the other virgins. Oh good, I thought. I'm just to stand and look virginal.**

But no, of course I wasn't to just stand and look virginal. He sat a young man down in the chair, handed him the mic and ordered him to orgasm. The young man sort of bellowed a couple of times and then yelled out, "Damn." He's young, I thought. Still a child, really. He'll learn not to do that if he wants any particular girl to fuck him more than once.

And then the MC turned around and said, "Your turn."

"Mine?" I stalled.

"Yes, sit down."

I walked downstage to the chair. "You want me to orgasm on this chair?" I asked.

"Yes, I do." He handed me the mic. I took it, wrapped my hand around its familiar shape ... and then mmmmmmm I smelled cookies baking.

I looked out at the crowd of about 75 people, staring up at me, many with red V's greasing their foreheads, laughing and waiting for me to start. I waited and collected myself, let them quiet down. I closed my eyes and laid my head back to the side, ran my hand down my thigh, put the microphone to my lips .... and then I started ..... I did some slow uh huh's  and some mmmm hmmmm's.... how do you write the warming up sounds of an impending orgasm? It just has to be experienced, doesn't it? So I started slow and I built, because what these youngsters didn't seem to know is that an orgasm doesn't just start at the .... at the finish. It has to gain some momentum. The tension has to build. The drama. And while I was building to the climax of my performance, about halfway through it, one of my friends managed to get his phone out and make a video of about the last half of it.

I will confess, this is what I hear every time I get my cookie -- I meant the crowd cheering, not that -- but this is the first time so many other people got to share it too.*** I handed the microphone back, thanked the crowd with my eyes, and exited stage left. Just before I jumped down, Darren gave me a big hug and let me know it was as good for him as it was for me. The lipstick on his lips matched that on my forehead. I think we're soulmates now.

And then I rolled over and went to sleep ....... oh, wait. That's somebody else.

Before I sat down, there was a cherry-popping ceremony in which all the virgins put our hands on the crotch of the person next to us and made some kind of pledge, but I'd already drunk the Kool-aid so I don't remember the exact words. My cherry was popped. It was much more fun the second time.

My friend Sunrise and I spent the rest of the show sitting on the bar. It was crazy and funny and those kids up there--theatre students from a local college--were so talented! Gorgeous boys and girls. The movie played on two screens: one behind the stage and one to stage right. But I didn't hear any of it. The cast performed along with it, and I really couldn't understand them either. People in the audience shouted out lines, both from the movie and in response to the movie. I really only knew when to shout "asshole" and "slut." Which I did when I could hear the cues, although I had a very difficult time calling the scrumptious Susan Sarandon a slut. She's my girl crush from way back. I know if we ever got together, we'd bake lots of cookies.

Oh, and we did leap down off the bar to do the Time Warp, which I already knew a little. I love line dancing! I almost landed in some guy's lap at the end because I didn't realize he was back there sitting on a chair because there were no chairs when we got there. I apologized for dancing with my ass in his face. But he said it was OK. He said it was probably the most excitement he'd get all night. That's what he gets for coming to a thing like that with his daughter.

I still have no idea what Rocky Horror Picture Show is about. As far as I can tell, it's the story of an asshole and a slut who come upon a house full of transvestites on a dark rainy night and end up staying there. One transvestite is the leader and he's very sexy for a man dressed in a corset. For some reason, the asshole and the slut take off some of their clothes partway through the movie. And then a gorgeous blond man is created and he dances around looking all Viking and muscular and yummy. And there's some kind of mad scientist and another man in a wheelchair. Someone has a laser gun at the end and one of the transvestites climbs the Eiffel Tower with the head transvestite on his back and ..... if I tell any more I'll spoil the story and I don't even know it.

The End.

* I don't always enjoy becoming a spectacle. I haven't written about the time a few weeks ago when I ended up riding a child's rocking horse mounted to a larger rocking platform, and wearing a beat-up little red cowboy hat with ball fringe around the edge, and with people clapping and cheering as I "rode." That was one time I did not enjoy unexpectedly becoming a spectacle.

** Do not let the irony of that last bit pass you by

*** Well, no, that's not true. I have actually done this before, but it was in my church when we did a production of The Vagina Monologues. And there was no cheering that time. So this time trumps that time because the cheering made it more authentic.***