"I was 15 and thought a 50s party was incredibly juvenile." "I figured I'd compromise, so I borrowed dad's black frames." "Then I combed my hair back and went as Buddy Holly." "I went to the party and it was great." "One of my friends was there." "He was much cooler than me." "He'd done it." "That's all he talked about in eighth grade." "He talked about it like an out of this world experience, indescribable." "It was also implied that I couldn't understand because I hadn't done it." "I started dancing with a friend who I'd known since I was five." "We slow danced, like old friends." "But the slow dance quickly turned erotic." "We were pressed up against each other." "She said: "Let's go in here."" "Right away when we got in there she asked if I had a condom." ""No, I don't, but I think Fredrik has one."" "Things suddenly got difficult." "I had to give her a damn good reason to stay." "She might choose someone else." "I hurried out to look for Fredrik." "I found him in the laundry room." "He was very reluctant." ""Well, maybe..."" ""Hey, calm down."" "It was so difficult." "It was like a dream where you're trying to run and it feels like you've got water up to your chest." "It happened so slowly." "Finally I had it in my hands so I rushed upstairs." "And she was still there, with the same expectant look on her face." "People outside started realizing we'd locked ourselves in the bathroom." "They started shouting words of encouragement." "I didn't let that stop me." "We were old friends so I had to share this experience with her." "I said:" ""I'm inside," "Of course you are," she said. "I'm doing it," I said." ""Yes, you are," she said." ""This is incredible."" "It was a childish glee at finally being initiated into the club." "We actually went through with it." "We had sex." "Then we left the bathroom." "It was like climbing down Mount Olympus." "And my friend was looking extremely angry and was staring at nothing." "He was so pissed off." "Knees up and staring straight ahead while everyone else was cheering." "His status was now null and void." "He looked so incredibly pissed off." "That moment was probably greater than the event itself." "I was 14 years old and we'd been together for quite a while - 1 1/2 years." "We'd gone further and further, both knowing what it was leading to." "There were incremental steps taken." "One for each Saturday, because that's when we met in his room." "We had the same procedure." "We'd go into his room and close the door." "He took out his guitar and played for a while." "I'd sit there quietly and look at his posters." "There were small steps that felt huge because it was our first time." "It started with a kiss." "The kissing went on for a while, several Saturdays." "Then we moved on to caresses over the clothes." "That went on for three Saturdays." "When that stage was properly explored we moved on." "A few Saturdays later we started taking off our shirts." "I know the topless stage went on for quite awhile." "Then he spent a few Saturdays kissing my breasts." "When that stage was over it was time to start undressing completely." "We did that for a few Saturdays." "Each stage was a huge step forward." "There was only one way to go and the steps were very systematic." "And then D-Day finally arrived, and we both somehow knew it." "We'd done everything." "Same ritual." "He got his guitar, I sat on the sofa." "He played a bit and we chatted." "After a while he put down his guitar and sat on the sofa, but faraway." "He took out about ten different kinds of condoms and held them out." "He told me to choose, and it was really hard." "I had to choose the color of my lost virginity, so I chose black." "Considering the year and a half build- up the expectations were really high." "And then he said, like a good cliche: "Are you ready?"" "I certainly was, after all that time." "I lay there and memorized every movement, every impression." "And then nothing more happened, it just stopped." "He collapsed on top of me and it was all over." "I thought: "Was that it?" "Was that what we've been building towards?"" "I got dressed and went home." "The next day we met up again." "We broke up." "We'd completed our mission." "We'd done our part." "Everyone says your first time will be bad." "I didn't expect it to be good, but I didn't expect it to be this bad." "I thought I'd be in love and we'd take our time and then it'd just happen." "It was a boring night." "Same old story: the bench was set on fire, punk rockers peed in the fountain." "We got tired of it and left." "We drank and walked, drank and walked." "I was only wearing a trench coat and it was either spring or fall and cold." "We were talking to people on bikes and suddenly I was in the arms of an older man." "I think he gave me a bunch of names and I picked the name Tobias." "He was wearing an ugly vest." "It was brown." "I looked over and saw my friends making out with another guy." "I think we called him Death because he had skulls tattooed on his neck." "I think his real name was Manne." "But I can't quite remember." "Somehow we ended up in an apartment." "We drank some more." "Then my friends went into another room with the guy." "We drank some more, talked some more, made out some more." "He started asking me to do stuff and I laughed: "No."" ""I couldn't do that."" "No, I didn't say that, I wanted to seem experienced." "I made something up." "As far as I can remember it ended with me giving him a blowjob." "It was disgusting so I spit into a beer bottle, and then he hit me." "I went into the next room and said:" ""Can we please leave?"" "They said no, so I went back and started drinking again." "After that everything is dark until I wake up without a stitch of clothes on my body." "I was lying on my stomach and everything hurt." "I don't know what happened." "I don't even know if I lost my virginity." "When I wake up and look outside I realize it's daytime." "I try to find as many of my clothes as I can and go into the next room." "I yelled: "We're getting the hell out of here!" They realized it was serious." "We go to the main room and the older guy is crying and looking at a picture." "I don't know, but I imagine it was his ex-girlfriend." "We were putting our shoes on when he threw the picture at us so it broke." "We grabbed our coats and put them on as we ran down the stairs." "And since then I haven't worn a trench coat." "You can decide for yourself to make many things that happen into worthwhile memories." "It's up to you." "We met at school." "She told me in depth about the layout of her boarding room." "I found all this incredibly boring." "But my ears perked up when she said:" ""It'd be great to see what your room looks like."" ""I'm sure that could be arranged," I said." "We went up." "I had a great room because I had a separate entrance." "We took off our coats, and, while we were at it, the rest of our clothes too." "My bed was fairly narrow." "In order for two people to fit you couldn't even lie next to each other." "In this instance that was to our advantage." "In the 20s, the entire issue was rife with guilt." "You didn't quite know what it was all about." "We did not learn anything about it in school." "In those days we practically thought that a girl could get pregnant through letter writing." "They talked about how you could get stuck." "They said that if you took someone's virginity she could keep bleeding until she had to go to the hospital and get stitches." "That sounded scary." "But the entire experience was so powerful, which meant that that all my fears were driven away." "We treated each other very lovingly, quite simply put." "We kept thinking about how to make everything okay." "And everything was." "We stayed up late that spring night, until that morning, in fact." "The air was like champagne." "The foliage was so incredibly beautiful." "And the sky was so clear." "We just stood there with our arms around each other." "We didn't say a word." "As we walked along the street I saw the brown and gray buildings but they suddenly shone like palaces." "The streetcars flew past us in their wondrous colors." "They were shining." "I can't remember the color, but it was vibrant." "For the first time ever I felt that I was complete." "I think I thought that I'd never forget that moment for as long as I lived."