I have had a lot of sex.

There, I said it.  I’ve banged my way around the country and left cities behind so I could walk into a grocery store without the heated “OH DEAR GOD! I vaguely remember telling him I’d call…”

I’ve had wild sex and group sex.  I’ve slept with best friends and complete strangers.  I’ve done the nervous STD check when it’s gotten to the point of oh man, I just don’t know.  I’ve let myself be used and used other people.

There is one moment that I want to talk about, because it is a time that I used to let shape who I was in the sack.  It affected my self esteem and ate away at me from the inside out.  It fed the little voice in my head that told me I was unworthy of real love. (Also, I’m going to write it as a story as a way of distancing myself a little bit from it so I can tell it.)

**

“You really want to sleep with a bald chick right now, don’t you?” She asked, elbow on the bar while a man tinkled away on a baby grand piano.  The bar was made of white marble.  The walls, smooth and cold against her shoulder blades, tilted upward to a graceful arch thirty feet above.  A chandelier glittered at the top- the crown of this aging princess.  There was a baby grand piano on a raised dias that was home to a little man with limber fingers and a soft velvety voice.  He was background music to the rich as they smiled and chatted pleasantly.

She was a wildflower in the center of this manicured garden of the drunk.  They whiled away their time in legal battles, high powered money pushing, and politics.  They were glossy like magazine pages and drove cars that purred.  Her car clattered.  It clanked and was held together with duct tape, a coke can, and sheer force of will.  She’d scrounged her shoes from next to a dumpster- black and white two tone doc martins with a magical message written inside.  Her jeans were ripped and didn’t fit like they cost more than ten dollars, which made them more honest than she was.  She grinned like she would eat them, suck the marrow from their bones and floss her teeth with their hundred dollar blowout hairstyles.  In her head she imagined them as pampered declawed house cats, while she ranged long boned and mangy.

He smiled, looked abashed, and waved for her drink to be refilled.  He was short, round, and wrapped in a designer suit.  He had dark greying hair and a credit card made of metal.  It clinked against the bar as he rolled his cigar between pale clammy fingers.  She liked that he wanted her, but was completely uninterested in him.  He ran the entire IT department for a big name company that owned most of Cincinnati.  She liked that he ordered her absinthe, bohemian and green.  It tasted like licorice and burned sweetly across her tongue.  The bartender, a sweet little blonde thing from kentucky, had brought it back with her from Prague after a fully financed whirlwind trip was tendered to her as a tip.  The girl- too young- played with the fire that melted the sugar cube and ran her fingers over her scalp.

“I do.” He replied as she took another drink.

“Good.  Maybe you’ll learn something.” She knocked back her drink.

She came to puking in a bathroom.  The seat was cold and hard against her forearm.  Everything was blurry. His voice sounded from outside the door.  She grumbled something about being cool while her stomach forced her body into painful convulsions.

Black.

She came to again with his tongue between her legs and tears smearing her makeup.  He grunted like a pig and humped against her leg. She whimpered and couldn’t remember saying no.

Black.

She woke up and he was sprawled across the bed.  Plush and round and naked.  He snored and she bit back a yell.  Pants.  Must find pants.  A scramble through an apartment she didn’t remember, just a vague impression of size, expensive swedish furniture and a huge glowing window.  She snatched up her shirt, threw on her jeans, snagged her shoes and fled.  Still drunk in the street, barefoot and clutching her shoes and purse she tried to get her bearings.  Big buildings, harsh daylight, grainy texture like an old movie.  Car, parking lot, and a stuttering run.

She didn’t realize she’d left her glasses until she’d gotten home.  She never saw them or him again.

The next night she switched bars, found a tall tattooed gum chewing freak and took him home.  She told herself it was better this way.  She told herself the only way to get over something was more of the dog that bit you.  She’d thought she was a sleek wild cat in the midst of tame housecats.  She’d never realized she was swimming with sharks and cats hate water.

**

I have too many stories like that one.  The ones where I never said yes, but I never said no either.  I have too many stories where I just throw something special away because I was sure I didn’t deserve it.

There were too many times I kissed someone because I felt sorry for them.  Too many times that I slept with someone because I thought it was what they wanted.  I never thought about me.  I never thought my opinion or my worth mattered.  There were exceptions, brilliant beautiful times that scared me, but mostly it was just sex.  That’s what I told myself.  Just sex.

Except now it’s not.  It’s not ever going to be just sex ever again.  I’m worth more than that.  I deserve to be cherished and loved.  I won’t let myself be used.

I haven’t slept with Jacob again.  I am not going to sleep with him again until I’m sure it’s just me in there.  I’m not going to let myself be used just because I feel like it is something he needs.

Love is a gift and sex should be the celebration, not the wrapping to tear and throw away.  And damnit.  I want those glasses back.