Free The V-Word by Amber J. Keyser

my head like a weapon or abandon me when I revealed myself. Back in high school, I could never have imagined this sweet spot—a friend with whom I could safely shed my armor, someone I could learn from, and whom I would want to have stick around and know me for years. Being young and stupid is fun, but being young and honest is even better.

Many women feel their relationship to their own bodies is a stumbling block to good sexual experiences. In the pursuit of some imaginary ideal, you might be pretty hard on yourself: Look at my bulging tummy, teeny breasts, bushy pubes, lumpy thighs, enormous cleavage, scrawny ass. I hate my zitty skin, sweaty armpits, bony knees. My period.
    It’s exhausting to worry so much about how you look and smell and feel.
    But maybe you don’t have to agonize. Maybe none of it matters. Maybe when you’re with someone who really loves you, every single inch of you will be good.
    So good.

9
Power in the Blood
Molly Bloom
    I t happened in that singular summer: those sultry months that separate high school from college. We swam in a pool of sex, or at least the idea of having sex, and the water was fine. DJs hired for our high school dances in this rural Midwestern town were known to introduce slow songs by saying, “Ladies, here’s your chance to polish your man’s belt buckle.”
    Yes, they did say that.
    I was eighteen, and by that time I had brought a few of those large, elaborately decorated cowboy belt buckles to a high shine. Of course, I brought a high shine to my own damn self during those slow dances—and after, in the back seats of cars and in the hayloft and once, sticky with the juice of a stolen watermelon spiked with vodka, in the middle of an abandoned blacktop road.
    I was raised in a conservative Baptist home where there was no discussion about safe sex or any kind of sex for that matter. No sex before marriage was a given. I considered myself a virgin, although I suspected that I possessed that title only on a technicality. I’d done everything up to actual penetration, and until Sam came along I was okay with that. It allowed me to think of myself as a “good girl.”
    Things were different that summer. I’d been dating Sam for nine months. He was a year behind me in school and, while we both cared deeply for each other, we knew that our relationship might very well end when I went to college in the fall. So it took on a fierce intimacy, as if we could somehow forestall the changes to come.
    We always stopped just short of making love, frustrating as it was. We may have been young but we weren’t foolish. We weren’t taking any chances on an unintended pregnancy—not an unusual occurrence in our small town—but getting birth control was a dicey prospect. We knew the owner of the drugstore and he knew our parents. You couldn’t just waltz in and buy a package of condoms.
    One night, we were doing a lot of enthusiastic fooling around behind the barn. We were both highly aroused and one of us said, for probably the millionth time, “I wish we could do it.”
    And then it occurred to me—maybe we could. I was on the second day of my period, and I thought this was probably the one totally safe time of the month to have sex. (I was wrong, of course. It’s rare, but women can in fact become pregnant during menstruation.)
    I was game, but what if Sam was totally turned off by the idea? My body told my brain to stop worrying and go for it.
    â€œUm, I’m having my period now,” I whispered.
    â€œThat’s okay,” he said, his mouth on my nipple. “I don’t mind.”
    â€œI mean, it’s a safe time for us to do it. If it doesn’t gross you out.” I waited for any sign of disgust.
    Sam didn’t hesitate. “Gross me out? Hell no!”
    â€œIt might be kind of messy,” I said. “You’ll get all bloody.”
    He grinned. “I don’t mind.