Like A Virgin

My first encounter with sex was a complete accident.

I was hunched in the bathroom of our Paris apartment, when I noticed, hidden behind the toilet, a worn black diary labelled: PRIVATE PROPERTY OF JACQUES. That was Papa’s name…

Opening it, I read:

“The breasts are lovelier by far – to my hungry mouth – than the wild strawberries of the woods – and their milk I suck …”

I felt a shiver of delight. Terrified, I dropped the diary.

At the age of 12, I had a perfect soul. I behaved better, studied longer, and prayed harder than all of my dull classmates. God had a special place in His heart for me.  

But now, everything had changed. For the first time in my life, I was a criminal.  

If Mama ever found out what I’d read, getting expelled was the least of my troubles. She would surely throw me out, to join the begging orphans at the station, dirty and shivering. Mama tutted when couples kissed in the Metro. What would she think of this shameless groping?

Hunched on the splintered wooden seat, I was torn. I knew I’d committed the blackest of sins and yet… I’d enjoyed it.

How could something so shameful feel so delicious? It made no sense.

The next Saturday, when I went to confession, every fibre of my body was on fire.  

I told Mama I loved confession for the fun of pouring out my sins to a priest, sworn to secrecy.

That was a lie.

The real reason I loved it was because of the young Priest Martin.

I detected a conspiratorial flash in his brown eyes, that whispered, ‘I’m on your side.’ Like a little jewel, I stored each wink, each time he called me 'Liza' instead of the stuffy Elizabeth, like only we understood each other.

All of a sudden, I had begun to wonder if he had ever felt pleasures like mine. Father Martin hadn’t been a priest forever. Had those smiling lips sucked the milk of a breast themselves?

When I was in confession, kneeling before that intricate wooden window, I had a sudden urge.  

I had to ask Father Martin about what I’d read.

All week, the same forbidden thought had rattled around my head. What if Mama was wrong? What if the secret pleasure I’d felt wasn’t a sin, but a good thing? Father Martin would have the answer.

But just as suddenly, I lost my confidence. Tongue-tied, I sprinted out of the little chapel, tears streaming down my face.

If only my quest to learn about sex had stopped there! Life would have been so much simpler. But it did not. My second investigation would be much, much more catastrophic. In fact, my curiosity would send my whole world crumbling down.  

Now, I was furious to know how babies were made.

I knew babies grew in women’s bellies, but how did this growth begin? What happened between a married couple that everyone was hiding from me?

The secret lurked in every ‘forbidden’ page my parents glued in my novels, every whispered conversation, every unexplained snigger.

When my sixteen-year-old cousin, Marie, came visiting, I finally confronted her.

Heart racing, I whispered, “Where do babies come from?”

“Don’t you know? A couple, on their wedding night…” She paused, and I almost slapped her with impatience. “Maybe I shouldn’t tell you. You’re still so pure.”

Though I usually loved hearing this, I suddenly wanted to shriek that I wasn’t pure!

“Alright then… the couple lie in bed, and they kiss… and squeeze each other... I heard it’s called sex.”

I was dumbfounded.

So, this thing Mama considered so shameful – this sex - produced children? But Mama said that children were God's greatest gift!

It made no sense. I was hungry to know more.

Yet, the next week, our apartment transformed into a prison. I was safe nowhere. If my criminal conversation with Marie – the kind that got my friend Elise expelled – reached Mama’s ears, I was done for.

The rich red furnishings I adored were now choking. My parents’ constant presence around me made me sick to my stomach. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t even confide in my diary, I couldn’t even weep at night for fear of being overheard and investigated. 

Despite this, my curiosity burned even brighter. That was why, the next Saturday, I threw caution to the wind. I decided to ask Father Martin.

Kneeling in that holy chamber, I had another burst of wild confidence. Father Martin could answer all my questions! He was a soul I could trust – I’d known it ever since I’d seen that flash in his eyes. It was either speak up now, or live in darkness forever.  

“Father… I have a question.”

“What is it, dear?”

“Father… what is sex?”

I gripped my taffeta frock in my fingers. My pulse thumped in my ears.  

Any moment, the truth would come out, in all its glory. Any moment now.  

After what felt like an eternity, Father Martin replied.

But something was off.

His voice wasn’t calm and friendly, it was stern.

“You have been a very naughty little girl. I shall have to inform your parents!”

What was I hearing? Father Martin was meant to be on my side, but he had told me off, like one of my whiskered schoolteachers!

In that one second, Father Martin seemed to throw off his dazzling black robes to reveal Mama’s frilly old frock.

Again, I fled that awful little chapel with tears rolling down my cheeks.

In that moment, I had a stirring realisation.

I couldn’t trust anyone, not even my beloved Father Martin. The hunger to know more about this sex, the knowledge that this couldn’t be a sin, blazed inside me.

If I had to uncover every last secret on my own, then so be it. I was on a path of discovery, and not Mama, nor Father Martin, nor anybody else could stop me. I had never felt so alone… and yet so alive.

I never went to confession again.