There are moments in our lives we will never forget. Any sexually active adult can usually recall when they lost their virginity, with whom, and how they felt at the time. Losing their virginity, for some, was a defining moment in their lives and had huge repercussions for them.
Then again, others have no significance attached to the event at all. It was simply a...thing that happened with "whatshisname," or "KimorSherrysomebody..." Yes, for many losing their virginity did nothing to shape or impact them throughout their lives.
This series of micro-fictions entitled Cherry Pop, I explore the stream-of-consciousness thoughts of a variety of people, both real and imagined, at the very moment they transform from "virgin" to "non-virgin." Each story is no longer than 300 words.
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Cherry Pop gives the reader an intimate peek into the minds of characters spanning across a vast spectrum of time, geography, socio-economics, political, religious, cultural, and let's not forget gender and sexuality.
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This is not a collection of erotica, although erotic themes are present in many of the pieces. No, this collection is about the array of human emotions and experiences during one of the most primal, yet fraught and controversial acts, in which two human beings engage. Hilarious, awkward, disturbing, romantic, bleak, heartwarming, cynical, and at times, brutal and difficult to fathom, Cherry Pop will leave you feeling as though you've just read about the sexual act...for the very first time.
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virginia
it is a state and it was a queen but all i think about is virginity when he says my name. i don't let him call me ginny because that sounds like a name you'd give your twat, so i make him say it all, vir-gin-ia—will he marry me? i don't know. my best friend has done it, and i need to be on the same page, need to look her square in the eyes when she talks about it. he's fiddled with me between my legs long enough that things seem slick and ready for the thing i can't look at poised above me in his parent's basement while they are at dinner, then for good measure he licks his palm and strokes it and spreads my legs with his descending body as he lays himself between. i feel him pushing in and i resist, but i don't mean to, and then there's a sharp pop, then i think of virginia, the place my parents took me when i was seven to visit grandma and how grandma kept pointing out my name, the state, my name, the state…my opening feels like an operatic mouth, stretching to fit a key too high and i can't hear the actual skin tear but i feel it in my open mouth, virginia, he says and he's moving in and out while i think of a virgin queen on her throne, men bowing between her knees, wetting their palms and worshiping her from the floor beneath her
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philip
he knows the roll around his stomach isn't more than an average guy, but the term comes back to him anyway—mushmallow, they called him, hey philip, can you even see your dick, you mushmallow? the taunts went on but now he is kissing this girl—this woman, tricia, and he knows she can see it and he can see it because he's no longer twelve and he's grown, a grown man, and he can't tell her that he is twenty-nine and still a virgin because she clearly is not, so he lets her touch him and he feels it quivering between his legs, knowing it would be inside her soon. he can't see anything except perfection when he looks at her, but he knows, if he looks through the lens of society, he could find all sorts of things, like her belly, which rests on the bed a little, her ample thighs with bumps, her smallish breasts, but to him she's beautiful, perfection and he wonders if she looks down at him and sees the the former mushmallow as he lies there, touching her breasts. she takes a condom out of the drawer, has him lie on his back and she rolls it on him, and he can hardly bear the pressure of her hands along with the visual of her, so he thinks of the mean kids and then she gets on top of him. he is so relieved because it's all about performance, but he doesn't know what that word means, really. she groans and he feels warmth envelope him, seemingly all of him, and she begins to pleasure herself on him and he doesn't need to think about the mean kids anymore because now he is a man and she is perfection
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moira
my husband kendrew has green eyes and a harp mouth. my husband has strong arms when he shears sheep or holds me to him and our hands were fastened at midday and i can still smell the flowers but i have no nosegay now as the lord has ripped all flowers from me and stares at me with wet eyes and tells me to spread my legs for him. the lord of glasgow yanks me up by an arm and tells me to undo my dress and apron, green for the fertile soil and my fertile womb and the place my husband will be, my kendrew as soon as this night and nightmare has ended my kendrew's manhood will expel all traces of this lord's sickly mess and when i am bare he slaps my behind and lays me down but i will not kiss him, because my kisses are only for kendrew but the rest of my body is this lord's for the night and he breaks through my virginal flower and i cry out but only two tears escape, my lips are kendrew's and my lord cannot take that away, although he's the lord of glasgow he cannot have my lips nor can he have my heart, and i want to vomit up the afternoon wedding feast on his woolen blanket because he smells like dung, and for all of the trappings of the wealthy and the powerful he will never smell like kendrew and i feel his seed spill in me and i pray it is as rotten and barren as his breath
