How did you lose your virginity?


I was fifteen when it happened; the summer I left my birthplace for Roma. I do not recall how far along I was on my journey or in what town, but as I was walking along the road on one particular bright and warm day, I spied a lone farmer laboring in his field. I smiled upon seeing him as he so reminded me of a kind neighbor of mine back home whose wife was barren and sickly, therefore causing him to also have to tend to his work alone. However, he did not return my smile as my neighbor would have, instead stopping dead in his work to stare at me, mouth agape, like one suddenly struck.

“From where have you come?” he asked, trembling slightly.

I did not understand why this question required such a strange air of astonishment about it, but I did not wish to seem rude and answered him directly.

“No,” he grinned, shaking his head “that cannot be right. I have been to Mantua and they do not have blue-eyed boys with skin made of pearl and hair of gold. I won’t even bother asking your name. You would simply lie again and besides I already know it. Oh, yes, surely you are Ganymede himself!”

I was so perplexed by his words that I did not even cry out as he seized me firmly by the shoulders and toppled me to the ground. Confused by this strange game, I tried to look in his face for some hint as to what he was doing, but he quickly turned me over and bent my body into a pose that suited him. Suddenly I felt a hot jolt of pain in my belly that caused my whole body to jerk. My blood froze in my veins. Something animal was inside me, tearing me, stabbing me again and again and again. It continued eating me alive until it finally had its fill. Then silence. The weight was lifted from me and my tunic gently tugged back down before I heard footsteps quickly recede back into the fields.

I pushed myself upright and continued on my way, feeling nothing but a slow dripping of tears on my cheeks and blood down my thighs.

I have never told anyone of this, not even Menalcas.

385 words