Summary

Sherry McGuinn recounts her personal journey from being a late bloomer to engaging in risky sexual behavior in her youth, culminating in an especially sordid encounter by the side of the road.

Abstract

Sherry McGuinn shares a deeply personal narrative of her sexual awakening and the reckless behavior that followed in her twenties. She describes losing her virginity under the influence of drugs at nineteen, and her subsequent promiscuity with "bad boys." McGuinn vividly recalls a particularly regretful experience of near-public sex with a casual acquaintance, reflecting on the potential dangers and the lack of genuine love in her escapades. Despite her past, she emphasizes personal growth and the eventual understanding of true love, as evidenced by her relationship with her husband, whom she met in a neighborhood bar.

Opinions

McGuinn is grateful that her husband does not avidly read her work, sparing him the details of her past.
She reflects on her youthful sexual encounters with a sense of embarrassment and acknowledges the potential legal and social risks of her actions.
McGuinn considers her behavior during her twenties as reckless and devoid of real emotional connection, despite feelings of infatuation.
She views her first sexual experience as being tainted by drug use, specifically PCP, which contributed to a feeling of dying rather than enjoying the moment.
McGuinn questions whether sharing her past indiscretions serves as a form of absolution for what she now perceives as slutty behavior.
Despite her past, she is proud of her growth and her current understanding of true love, as seen in her relationship with her husband and her successful career as a writer.

Sex by the Side of the Road

As sordid as it sounds.

This is one of those times when I’m happy my husband isn’t an avid reader of my pieces, here, unless I put one in front of his face. SO happy. As the senior editor at a publishing company specializing in the manufacturing industry, he has enough on his plate. Thank Buddha.

I was a late bloomer, sexually. I was nineteen when I lost my virginity to a 30-year-old guy. My “boyfriend” at the time. I met him while hitchhiking with my girlfriend. Yes! People climbed into cars with strangers, back then. Cool! Not smart, but cool as shit.

I may have been a virgin, but, I was sexually aware. I recall, as a kid, the mystifying and curiously stimulating feel of a soft blanket bunched between my 10-year-old thighs. Masturbation followed soon after, but sexual activity was slow in coming. Pun intended.

The night I “lost it,” I remember my boyfriend got me really stoned, first. I thought I was smoking pot, but I now believe he snuck in some “angel dust,” or Phencyclidine (PCP).

PCP is a hallucinatory drug that causes distorted thoughts, perceptions of sounds and all that other whacked stuff. It’s much like LSD, but stronger, to my recollection. Too strong. And dangerous.

To say I was “out of it,” is an understatement. I do remember the soundtrack to my deflowering: Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of The Moon” album. The specific track is seared into my brain: Clare Torry’s “wordless vocals” on the chilling, thrilling “The Great Gig in the Sky,” which opens with one of Floyd’s members saying the following:

And I am not frightened of dying Any time will do, I don’t mind Why should I be frightened of dying? There’s no reason for it, you’ve gotta go sometime

The song is about “life gradually descending into death.” When you hear it, you immediately get it. It’s the musical take on “Do not go gently into that good night.”

There is another school of thought that “Gig” is about a woman in the midst of one hell of an orgasm. Again, give it a listen and form your own conclusion.

For me, as I was losing my virginity, the track was more about death as I actually felt like I was dying. Certainly, the PCP had something to do with that. Forget the orgasm. It sure as hell forgot me. Great testament for “the first time,” hey?

Anyway, after my initial foray into the delights of the flesh, I made up for lost time. In spades.

I was reckless in my twenties. Hell bent on finding something I couldn’t articulate. Numbers elude me, but I screwed my fair share of bad boys. Sex was merely a visceral need. I don’t ever recall “making love.” Oh, I was head over heels for some of those boys, but I had no idea what “real love” was.

Sex. That fluttering in your stomach. The tingling in your groin. THAT, I knew. Smoking grass, with the occasional bump of cocaine, I knew. The neighborhood bar, where we all hooked up — I knew that like the back of my hand.

I met my husband at that particular watering hole. In fact, I wrote a story about it, here: True Love Exists.

But, the night I’m about to recount had nothing to do with my hubby-to-be, and everything to do with one of the random guys who floated in an out of the bar like dandelion floss.

One of these guys — tall, thin, not particularly appealing — made a tidy side-living pushing weed, coke, some pills. He took a liking to me. Hung on me like a barnacle on a rock. I was pretty hot back then and didn’t do much to deflect the attention.

Here comes the recollection that makes me cringe: One night, I ended up in his car. I don’t remember why. Maybe he was giving me a ride home, but, more than likely, we were taking a “let’s get high” cruise. It was late. The wee hours, I believe. That, I remember.

We smoked some pretty righteous weed and snorted a little coke. My heightened state made the pockmarks on his face look that much bigger. Like craters. But, that didn’t stop me from making out with him.

On a side street somewhere, we pulled over and tussled around the front seat. As the windows steamed up, so did the action, and we ended up tumbling out of the car and onto the grass on the side of the road.

To be perfectly honest, I can’t remember if things came to “fruition,” so to speak. I have a feeling they did.

Ewwww. What was I thinking? WAS I thinking? What if a cop had seen us? Or some little kid peering out of his bedroom window?

Oh, babe, please refrain from reading this. Do not pass go. Click through to Amazon Prime, instead. There ya go. That’s the ticket.

We didn’t hook up again, after that night. If, indeed, we did the deed. I don’t really want to know. Does sharing this with you absolve me of what I now think was pretty effin’ slutty behavior?

I didn’t join a nunnery after that experience. Not by a long shot. But, I’d like to think I kept a cooler head, the next time I got the “hots.”

Sherry McGuinn is a longtime Chicago-area writer and award-winning screenwriter. Her work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times and numerous other publications. Sherry’s manager is currently pitching her newest screenplay, a drama with dark, comedic overtones and inspired by a true story.