How to Love Claire Mason

You Must Be THIS Pretty to Make Love

When I first learned what sex was, I decided then and there that I would never have it. Not because of any moral reasons. I simply believed a girl like me would never be given the chance or opportunity to make love. I was too young and naive to even begin to understand the concepts of rape, prostitution, or even the male mind in general to even think of the notion of sex without love. It wasn't that my parents had presented the information to me in the usual "When two people love each other very much.." format; they hadn't. My preconceived notions were gathered from none other than the media. The movies. Music on the radio. Magazines. You name it. Sex: How it happens to you and why would be the name of the guide the media was to me.

It's common sense to everyone why a boy (or any straight male) would look at a gorgeous, thin, well-proportioned woman with large breasts and a full round behind and think thoughts along the lines of "I wish I could bang her". But to my eight year old self that was none too keen on the real meanings and differences of lust and love, I truly believed that boys wanted to bang stereotypical "hot" girls exclusively.

I believed that sex was some sort of privilege only perfect people were allowed. Never mind that my own parents had obviously done it and were, though I loved them unconditionally, nowhere near my society-influenced image of perfection. My mind didn't care to venture that far. Still, I thought as far as to exclude myself at the time indefinitely from the exclusive list of people in the world who would be made love to.

I wasn't perfect then; and though I still had that distant hope and belief that when I reached high school my face and body would instantly become fashion magazine worthy, that'd I'd become one of the "hot" girls, I never pictured even my future self in a bed with a man, wearing nothing, completely bare and exposed. I never pictured any faceless, nameless body pressed against mine, never conjured up an image of another person's bare skin touching mine, never imagined the feeling of someone's eyes on my bare body, staring, loving.

Until it happened. Until a red-walled room appeared all around me and a bed came up beneath me and clammy hands separated clothing from skin. Until a boy, not a man, crushed me, bare skin on bare skin, stealing what was mine that I didn't know could ever be taken. And only when it was all over, did I realize it had truly happened.

I wasn't perfect, and, as I know now, neither is he. But it happened anyway. There were no rules, no restrictions. I could be fat, skinny, young, old, ugly, beautiful, cruel, or kind. It wouldn't have mattered. It was just sex to him. To me, in theory, it was more, but in reality, after the fact, I realized it was nothing. Meaningless yet somehow I keep believing it symbolized something deep and unexplainable. Perhaps that was one reason I believed it couldn't happen to me. I didn't believe anyone could put any meaning into the way they felt towards me. But it happened, just like that. And there was nothing ingrained in his mind that could tell him I was the wrong girl, that by choosing me no one could ever be right. Nothing that told him my feeble attempts at stopping him meant something. And most importantly, there was no love that day in the red room. It wasn't hiding beneath the sheets, in the drawers of his desk, behind the faces in the picture frames, or even in the three words he said to me. It simply did not exist.