Free Sex in the Title by Zack Love Page A

loves had names starting with that letter and – in true schoolyard love fashion – Carlos wanted to be able to write “C+C” everywhere, once he did meet his dream woman.
     
    It was no wonder that, at the age of twenty-two, despite the hundreds of otherwise attractive and high-quality women who had made passes at him over the previous six years, Lucky Chucky was still a virgin who didn’t feel nearly as lucky as Heeb made him out to be.
    One time, just before spring break, Heeb and Lucky Chucky crashed a Harvard alumni party in Boston, where Carlos was accosted by a woman who satisfied 4.75 of the five “coherent Carlos criteria” (she was a smoker, and so failed a quarter of the fifth criterion). She even met one of the three crazy Carlos criteria (she had a European passport). Carlos was devastated at having met someone who came so close but would not get his cigar. And Heeb was appalled at Chucky’s intransigent commitment to the irrational.
    As they rode the subway (“the T” as Bostonians call it) back to their dorm, Heeb began to mourn the loss of what was undoubtedly the last great hope for Chucky: “But how could you?” he began, in offended astonishment. “How could you? I mean, she was…She was perfect…Absolutely perfect, Lucky Chucky – ”
    “Would you stop calling me Lucky Chucky? Call me late bloomer; or lame bloomer. Call me destined to virginity. Call me choosy Chucky. But don’t call me Lucky Chucky…I don’t feel very lucky right now.”
    “I can’t believe the crap you’re trying to feed both of us. I mean, you’re a freak of nature – a statistical anomaly. No matter what you do or say, you’ve got hot women throwing themselves at you every other minute. The fact that you’re too insanely picky to take any of them suggests that your name ought to be ‘Dummy Chucky’ but there’s no way that you’re not going down in history as the luckiest man alive.”
    “I told you that I don’t look at women like you do. I can’t just bone someone who’s not good enough to marry.”
    “How about just boning someone who’s good enough to divorce?”
    “Huh?”
    “This is where you’ve still got major Catholic issues, Chucky.”
    “It’s not about that. I know plenty of Catholics who enjoy premarital sex…Don’t you realize that each time you sleep with someone, you’re potentially making your body more impure? More exposed to bacteria, diseases, viruses? The common cold? The dust and dirt off the street? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I do have my fantasies.”
    “Yeah, they all take place in an incubator.”
    “I just don’t think it’s worth it. The thought of getting down and dirty with all of those fluids – that sweat and odor…”
    “Wait a second. How did you spend your junior year in Brazil, studying how to protect the Amazon if you’re so worried about dirt?”
    “That’s different. That’s natural dirt.”
    “So is sex.”
    “No. Sex is different. Sex is a sinfully dirty act…And it’s probably very crude and imperfect in reality.”
    “What do you mean?”
    The T stopped and some passengers filed out while some new people boarded. Sammy and Carlos made some room for them.
    “I just doubt that the reality of sex can compete with my fantasy of it,” Carlos continued.
    “At the rate you’re going, it never will.”
    “I’m just not ready to give myself up, Sammy. I mean, there’s something perfect about virginity, and I haven’t found someone who deserves to take that perfection away from me…”
    “You’re loco, Carlos. Insane. Totally crazy…Most guys think they’re imperfect for still being virgins past the age of seventeen.”
    “Well, they may have a point…But the way I see it, you get only one body in this life, and I’m not going to risk exposing it to impurities for just anyone. She has to be worth it, and I’m just not ready to settle.”
    “You mean you’re just not ready to come up with a set of requirements that anyone