by Jodi Sh. Doff

The author circa 1972, five months prior to the events of the story.

A girl’s first time should be memorable.

I gave my virginity away one bright July afternoon in 1972, and I remember my white and black polka dot bikini, the sun looking for all it was worth more like an enormous hot pearl than a distant star, sands like tea-stained lace laid out to dry, and ocean breezes. Flat on my back, in the dunes behind the backstop of the softball field wedged between parking field two and parking field three, I could see part of the red brick building that housed the public bathrooms, the top five or six feet of the chain link backstop, and an endless expanse of white-blue sky. It was the kind of view one would have were one buried neck deep in sand.

I remember thinking, afterwards, that a towel wouldn’t have been a bad idea, what with the salted breezes getting the warm sand in places sand really oughtn’t be. And honestly, sunglasses would’ve been smart, with all this laying on one’s back staring directly into the blinding white sun. And maybe sun block for my parts that’d never actually seen the sun before. Or even a bit of Coppertone®, since—if one is to give any credence at all to their logo—it was made specifically for young girls who’re having their bottoms yanked off in public, albeit by playful dogs, not a teenaged boy from Corona, Queens whose face I will forget.

About the author:

Jodi Sh. Doff is a New York based writer and photographer. Her work has appeared in thefix.com, xoJane, Penthouse, Cosmopolitan, Bust Magazine, and The Olive Tree Review, and anthologized in Bearing Life;Best American Erotica; The Bust Guide To A New Girl Order; and Hos, Hookers, Callgirls & Rentboys. She received her MFA from Lesley University where she advises a graduate seminar in the art of memoir, and is a mentor with the PEN America Prison Writing Program.