THE LIFE AND TIMES OF REGINALD D. THROWBACK, PART FOUR.

My first kiss. My first kiss, in that seedy apartment, with a woman my father had defiled.
She was 24, 7 years older than me. She right off the bat told me that we could probably never have vaginal intercourse. The doctors said that penetration could cause the wounds to re-open, and that without the labia and clitoris it would be extremely hard for Holly to get aroused enough for sex to not hurt. I, a 17 year-old virgin, found this hard to take in. I didn’t want to make love to her then and there, I just wanted to know that it would eventually be a possibility.
We talked for hours. She was in the Open University, learning how to be a teacher. I told her I was planning on taking my A levels once I’d fully come to terms with my father’s activities. We kissed some more, and I walked home.
I rang her straight after work the next day. She’d had some ideas as to how we could make love. I was worried about it. She was still an ex-prostitute, who had the previous day explained the worst and funniest things that happened to her. She could have any number of diseases, and I assumed that we wouldn’t be doing that which is usually done, because of the injuries. It was a bizarre place to be, with a woman who was now handicapped because of my own father.
We arranged to meet at hers that night. I went to the shop, for condoms, flowers and chocolates. I was terrified on the walk to Holly’s. My first time with a woman was to be with a woman who had been with more men than I could possibly imagine.
As I walked through those smoky halls my pulse was racing. What if I wasn’t good enough for her? What if I couldn’t perform? What if the whole experience was just a job to her, like when she was a prostitute? I wanted this to mean something. I instinctually knew that sex should never be without feelings. I’d heard horror stories about people who just entirely regretted their first few sexual encounters. I really didn’t want to be one of those people.
As I knocked on that door, I started shake. I was more than intimidated by Holly’s sexual experience. I felt like a child. To be more specific, I felt the way I did when my father would prove his superior strength on me at any point I made a noise, throughout my childhood. She opened the door half-naked, blues playing in the background in candlelight. She walked me in by the hand, sat me down in the armchair and handed me a glass of champagne. It was so perfect.
She started to crawl towards me, as my eyelids started to droop. The last thing I remember hearing, before the unconsciousness, was, in that raspy Cockney accent, ‘like father like son you fucking idiot.’
When I woke up, the blues still played, but the candles had all burnt out. Holly was nowhere to be seen. I figured maybe she was sleeping.
I had no clothes on, and my lap was wet. I walked to the bedroom, smiling, wishing to see my love. Through the door, I saw an empty bed and a full-length mirror. In the mirror I saw that the wetness was dark, thick and sticky.
Shit, I thought. Maybe Holly had been too enthusiastic, used her vagina and bled all over me. She might have rushed to hospital, but then I realised something, as I was wiping the blood away from my legs.
I touched a charred stub. A stub where my penis should have been.
I hadn’t had sex. I’d been castrated, then cauterised. And on the door, a Post-It note read ‘FUCK YOU’, and I sat there and cried until I knew I had to start walking home.
I never did get those A levels. The world is based on love, both physical and mental, and half of mine is nowhere to be found. Furthering yourself is only to broaden your spectrum of love, and me, I’m off of that radar for good.