Firefighter's Virgin

“Um, no thanks?”

Missy narrowed her eyes at me, making it clear that she expected an answer from me. “How many guys have you kissed in the nearly four years we’ve been in college?”

I sighed. “Missy…”

“Answer the question.”

“Um…”

She cleared her throat pointedly.

“All right fine,” I conceded. “None.”

“And, how many guys have you dated since we started college?”

“None,” I replied reluctantly.

“And, how many guys have you slept with since we started college?”

“None.”

Missy kept silent for a moment, almost as though to drive home her unmade point. “So, what exactly do you think you’ve gained from the college experience, Nat?”

I rolled my eyes. “Um…a degree.”

Missy waved away my answer. “Fuck that,” she said. “College is more than just about credits and assignments and study groups. It’s about the experience. It’s about living life and experimenting with different things. It’s about getting drunk and partying hard and fucking a bunch of random guys who you don’t have to see or speak to the next day. It’s not like you can do that shit when you’re forty. So why are you depriving yourself?”

“I feel like we have this conversation every year,” I said, desperately trying to wriggle my way free of the topic.

“And every year, you avoid it,” Missy said. “But this year is different.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s our last semester,” she said forcefully. “We’re never going to be young and hot and carefree after this. In less than six months, we’ll graduate, join the workforce, and assimilate into adulthood. And then it’ll be too late.”

I smiled. “I’m going to miss these dramatic little soapbox speeches of yours.”

“You’re trying to change the subject,” she said.

“I am,” I agreed firmly. “And, you’re making it really difficult.”

“You’re going to be twenty-one next month, you realize.”

“I remember,” I said.

“What are you planning?”

I had wanted to go to the movies and then dinner with her and a few other girls, but I knew this plan would thoroughly disappoint Missy.

“Um… I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“Well, I have,” she said immediately.

“Oh no…”

“Very funny,” she said, glaring at me. “Trust me; you’re going to love what I have in store for you.”

“See, all that does is make me really, really nervous,” I admitted.