No longer my thesis...

We sang “Like A Virgin” as we walked to brunch that morning.  T was my Material Girl.  We loved singing Madonna songs together.  We were about to have sex for the first time.  At brunch, I ate a Cesar salad and when we got home T baked me a cake while I sat in the bathroom painting my toenails, still singing “Like a Virgin.”  T sprinkled discount yellow rose petals that he had bought on sale at the grocery store on the floor of my apartment and presented me with a wine glass full of apple juice.

We didn’t have sex that day.  He couldn’t get it in.  I saw this as a personal failure.  I was a problem solver, a perfectionist, and a hopeless romantic—and I had a burgeoning addictive personality.  Sex became a hopeless problem I was addicted to solving. We finally succeeded in having sex a month later after my Death and Dying class, which was taught by a professor who smoked up during break and rejoined the class with leaves he thought we might enjoy touching.  It was bad.

The day after our first time, I sat on my hands in the backseat of T’s Aunt’s SUV, sore and raw and burning and cringing as we made the trip to Detroit to meet his entire extended family for the first time.  His aunt had horrible grammar.  I was sure it was the most painful day of my life thus far.