When I arrived at the retail store where I would be spending my time working as low-wage chump, I surveyed my surroundings and decided I would attempt to have sex with the majority of the male employees. My vagina and I would finally get some fucking action.

Let us take a gander back to high school and revisit some poor choices. Have you thought of yours yet? Good. Mine are comparable. No one liked me, I’m so alone, let me isolate myself from my peers, cannot wait for university, etc, etc. It is the teenage bullshit we all know and lived and still listen to when the emo mood suits our tastes. Nonetheless, some people in high school were getting laid. I know this because I heard rumours, not because I was one of those people. “Oh, you’ll get a boyfriend when you’re 16!” my mother said to me, but even her words faltered with doubt.

Honestly, after some of the stories I heard, I didn’t want one. A girl in my class was dating a coked-out jerk covered in acne. Apparently, their birth control method was using “the loop hole,” if you get my drift. A former friend of mine got hold of a dick and did not let go until college. As a theatre kid it was my duty – nay – my responsibility that my on-stage husband was off-stage satisfied, but I just wasn’t interested in soft boy hand jobs behind set.

University came, but I did not. I was still single and not getting fucked. My roommate was though. She taught me some things. Shaving your legs/armpits/pubes is important for a casual hook-up. Such maintenance is not necessary for relationships, but it is a general courtesy. Drunk sex is not better sex, but it can be better than some sober sex. Shower sex is slippery and not great in shared dorm bathrooms.

I started my sexual life by smashing my face against as many other faces as I could manage without my Catholic guilt going into overdrive. Alcohol helped mitigate the many skank-ass fraternity house basements I found myself in. Boys, I observed, were legitimately gross. I did not want any more jungle juice from a trash can, thank you. I wanted to stop sweating. Oh, all you have is this bathroom with little bits of hair everywhere, a stained toilet missing a seat, and damp towels? I think I will take my leave, good sirs.

Aside from the blurry faces whose tongues I fondled with mine own, there were a couple of man-boys who were interested in me past my tits. A cute nerd with a Jew fro and ever-present red hoodie knew how to take a girl to a bookstore. I have fond memories of him up to a point. That point was when he attempted to pull down a friend’s pants despite her saying no, repeatedly and then frantically. She told me, a strong woman shaking, when I returned back from a weekend at home. He came by to say hi and make out and I slammed the door in his face. My type of man does not drunkenly assault women. NEXT.

I lost my virginity with the lights on to a man whose name and face I can no longer remember. It was after graduation. I was living alone in New York, trying to be what I thought I wanted to be and starving myself, as one does. (Christian? That could be his name.) I went to a club alone on a Saturday and by Sunday at 3am he had left, leaving me with a broken hymen and a UTI. To be fair, I kicked him out. I wanted to be alone in my new status: deflowered. (No, no: it was definitely Chris. Or something with a C.) It didn’t feel good. That was surprising. I knew it would hurt, but not that much. Also, my blowjob technique needed improvement. Notes for the future.

The encounter had put me off. I needed to refine my technique and practice, but what if my vagina rejected the next dick that came along? Apparently she was picky, like me. Would my hymen repair itself? Would I bleed again? Would I get another UTI?? The thought of depositing vagisil eggs up my cooch and then having them drip out throughout the day AGAIN was enough to keep me chaste for a year.

The dry spell ended with Hans in December. As it turned out, my vagina readily loved and accepted Hans’s penis. It was unexpected, foreign, and very pretty. She approved. Merry Christmas to her. However, by sleeping with Hans on the bottom bunk of a six-person shared dorm in a hostel in London and then grabbing Plan B before I picked up my friend from the train, I had suddenly gone from prude to promiscuous, virginal to vampiric, Catholic to cavorting. My inner she-slut had been activated. Sex was fun.

Thus, I saw my temporary retail situation for what is was when I walked through those mall doors: a quest. A white knight would be nice, but what about just fucking around for a bit? Flirting shamelessly and seeing where it gets me? I needed practice and a clean STD test before I found a King Arthur. This lady of the lake is ready to row her way to pleasure island. Next stop: That Guy.

That Guy was named Jack. He was sweet, cute, competent, and the ultimate white boy. Essentially, a vanilla cake walk. We ended up drunk and in the spare room of a friend one night, tongues everywhere and tequila spilled on my shirt. Clothes off, condom on: so far so good. I wanted him. Open sesame. My vagina did not agree.

In again Jack went, and my insides contracted. I willed my vagina to fix itself. I tried to sooth it in my mind, talking it into submission: ‘I am a fucking flower and now you better fucking bloom so this nice, but boring bee can pollinate me pleasurably.’ It did not work. Every time he moved it was like a sharp pinch until he found his rhythm, and then it was like getting stabbed repeatedly. Luckily, he did not seem to notice the difference in my breathing between pain and pleasure and generally seemed to enjoy himself.

What was I supposed to do? I hoped it would get better every time he slid back in, but it never did. This is the third time I had had sex. Was this normal? No. My own vagina was betraying me on my quest. That. Bitch.

Jack, unaware I thought I was internally bleeding, spooned me and went to sleep. I did not sleep. I edged away from his heat and his unsheathed weapon in the night until I almost fell off the bed. I could not tell when it was morning in the windowless room, and I didn’t know when I could escape. Let me go. Let me and my broken vagina go.

Finally, he let go and I left. I had used a guy for his body, like so many men had used women, and relegated him to mental notch on my imaginary bedpost. But pulling one over on the patriarchy was all the pleasure I received from the experience. I avoided Jack at work despite his attempts at flirting near the lockers and knowing glances across the store. I did not want to go near his sharpened dick again. Just the thought of it poking at me was enough to bring on Kegels in the middle of my shift. It was enough to make a girl want to return to Camelot without the grail.

I rejected failure. This was an epic slutty quest and I only had so much time. I strengthened my resolve and then promptly lost it, turning to the internet for answers about my broken vagina.

Sex, I had been told, was awesome. Not only was it awesome, it was natural, instinctual, a basic human need built into our DNA to ensure the survival of the species. Homo sapien sapiens would be nowhere without the continued and truly enthusiastic fucking of our ancestors. But, to put it plainly, I had always been scared of sex. I did not want to be in such a vulnerable position with another person. I was literally letting them in to see how fucked up I was. It was, “Hello! Yes, the heating is on. Make yourself comfortable. Sorry about the mess. Just push my deep-seated issues off the couch.” Plus, sex happened naked. I did not like to be naked. I like to be as clothed as possible due to a profound, personal hatred of my body. I thought this was normal. In high school every girl was at least slightly anorexic, and New York did not seem any different. And as far as I could tell, I didn’t have Daddy issues, Mommy issues, or anything that leads a person to an abnormal psycho-sexual state. What the hell was wrong with me.

The search engine pinged back results to “painful sex vagina betrayal” in 0.0038 seconds: Vaginismus. Fuck. That was Latin-based and thus sounded bad, but at least I was diagnosable. I read the list of symptoms which boiled down to ‘your vag has lock jaw.’ It seemed I was one of the lucky ones. I could get a tampon up there with relative ease and manual stimulation was still on the table. Some women experienced a vaginal canal that had closed shop entirely, hung a For-Sale sign and boarded itself up with sturdy materials: nothing was getting in there without a crowbar.

But why did this happen? I assumed it was physiological. I was wrong. It was mental. It wasn’t my vagine that was betraying me, it was my brain. Typical.

I should have seen this coming. I was diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder a few years back when the panic attacks at work became a bit too frequent and the quality of my output had dropped to frat boy trash juice. (Finance was not for me.) I knew GAD could induce depressive periods of instability and some reckless behaviour, but I didn’t know it could seal my vagina. I was angry at my brain. All I wanted to do was wield my slutty powers like a sword and I felt like I was finally in a place to do it. I was happier than I had been in a long time. I had good, reliable friends. I was making some money. I even enjoyed my job to a certain extent. I was succeeding. I wanted to go after what I never had before, a healthy sex life, and I was being denied.

I did not want to fail my quest. It was time to try a new, uncharted strategy. It was time to get feelings involved.

As vaginismus is implicitly tied to anxieties, it is different for everyone. There is not a universal cure, but steps towards relaxing individual labium. My anxieties surrounding sex involved being vulnerable with another person. It was easier to be vulnerable with a person you knew and liked and knew liked you back. I would have to find a person like this. Enter Daniel, stage left.

Daniel was younger and a close friend at the store. We had gone through training together and hung out when we weren’t stacking shelves of overpriced products to promote capitalism. I liked him. He liked me. I would fuck him.

After a week of concentrating my efforts, he was in my bed. The power of tits is really amazing. I told him about my “condition”. He was willing to accommodate with his tongue. Daniel was great. I almost experienced my first orgasm with a man! It was so close I faked it. He would have gotten any other girl off who didn’t have sex-related anxieties swirling around in her head. He should know that he made me feel good. Moreover, he was a friend who knew how to do things with his tongue. That should be enough to let him inside the lair, right? I desperately wanted to be a normal person who could have normal, penetrative sex with a man’s average size penis. And so I said “put it in.” It was not to be. Entrance denied. My brain and my vagina were conspiring against my quest.

Adventures with Daniel in my Sherwood Forest had left me disheartened. Was this my life now? Researching vaginal dilators and massaging techniques so I could build the appearance of a girl with a functioning downstairs? I didn’t want to get randomly banged by guys whose dicks had a serrated edge. I wanted to get lovingly banged by a man whose penis tasted like candy floss and felt like a pleasure hammer. Our sex would be a like a really good book that you didn’t want to finish, or something much cooler than what I just said. I think I needed a relationship.

My sexual quest in the world of retail ended when I quit my job to pursue a doctorate. Two bedded men were all I had to show for six months cruising for dick. I suppose I could have tried harder, been more aggressive with my cleavage and accidental hand-brushing, bent over in front of my manager more often, straight up ruined some marriages, and really fought for my right to get it in. But I moved on, just a bit broken.

I thought once I started having sex it would be easy: the hymen was ripped and ready to go. But my sexual experience was, and continues to be, nonlinear. As I move through time and men, I have both good and bad encounters. Sometimes the sex is great and fun and I walk away hungover but satisfied. Other times it there is no key that can unlock my chamber of secrets no matter how much lube I use. I have yet to be in a relationship, and perhaps that is what I need, the same guy with the same penis and a bit of love. Together, not only could we slay the dragon, but also enter the keep, rescue the princess, and finally give her an orgasm.

If my quest taught me anything though, it is that I wield power in my own life. At least I do when my vibrator is charged.