Page 7 of The Lessons

Can I say one thing? Chemo’s a bitch.

At the time, the doctors gave her six months. She ended up hanging on for three years, slowly leaving me, one diseased cell at a time.

After she passed, I was flung back into the real world, a twenty-nine-year-old virgin with no job, no prospects, no family: nothing. Of course, having lived a life full of everything but normality since I was little, that was what I craved the most. Years ago, I'd been a little afraid to say it aloud, but now it was clear: I wanted the American Dream, the cute little house with the white picket fence, the 2.6 kids, and the golden retriever.

I already had a name picked out. Stevie, after Stevie Wonder.

However, before I could get Stevie the Wonder Dog, I knew there were a few things I’d need to do. A college degree. A job. A husband.

Details, details.

The degree?well, at least that was taken care of. Despite not having attended college herself, my mom had been amazingly supportive throughout my four years at Columbia. I ended up graduating at the top of my class, eager to take on the world. I even scored a full-time job right after graduation. All of that was going well until her cancer came back, and I left my job to be with her.

But let me be clear: I donotregret it. Not for a second.

As far as the husband thing, well, that part had been tough. By now, I’d been out of the dating pool for so long I felt like a dinosaur, and a virgin dinosaur at that. I wasn’t even sure if my va-jay-jay still connected to the…other stuff. I mean, you don’t use it, you lose it, right? Okay, so thatprobablywasn’t true, but honestly, the virginity box should have been checked off my list eight years ago. That had been the primary task of Josh, the aforementioned Serious Boyfriend #1. Okay, maybe I hadn't announced this to him, but neither had I thought I needed to lay things out for him in detail. I mean, wasn’t that what guys were supposed to do? Stick it in any chance they got?

As you may recall, Serious Boyfriend #1 ended up being the one gay rugby player at Columbia.

I never told Josh that he’d fucked up my plan. He was too good a friend, and besides, it’s not like he was trying to condemn me to life as a spinster. Instead, I just trudged ahead. In my mid-twenties, I’d managed to go on a few dates with some nice guys, but I never could work up the nerve to do the deed.

A few times I got close, but then…I don’t know; I just shut down. There was so much pressure to be porn-star perfect, and I was starting from absolute zero.It eventually became easiernotto date, so I stayed out of the game and shelved The Plan.

Josh knew nothing about The Plan although, despite everything, he remained my best friend. Neither did I tell him I was still a virgin; that’s just not the type of relationship we had. I didn’t let many people get close. Female friendship was also something I guess I’d avoided. Maybe it was so I wouldn’t have to pull stories fromCosmoto swap over brunch. By keeping everyone at arm’s length, I made this shame mine and mine alone.

Whoopee.

So why the new city and, more importantly, why San Francisco? Well, the short answer was sex. And the longer answer was that through my research, I’d found San Francisco to be home to a certainbusiness serviceI wanted to use. A very particular type of business service that you couldn’t find just anywhere.

I’m talking about a sex surrogate.

Yes, it’s a thing. You may have even heard of them. Sex surrogates are used in conjunction with therapists to help people get over a variety of, um, sexual issues. By now, you are probably asking:But Natalie, surely New York is full of helpful licensed sex surrogates just waiting to take your money. Why move all the way to San Francisco?And you’d be right. New Yorkisfull of them. In fact, that’s how I got the idea. A friend of a neighbor was using one.

And I knew about it.

I fucking knew about it!

Disgusting, right? Not the act, of course, but the factthat I knew so much about someone with whom I was barely acquainted.New York can be incestuous like that—everyone is always up in each other’s business. So I made up my mind: I’d use a surrogate to help me catch up on my to-do list, but I’d do it somewhere anonymous. Somewhere I hadnosocial networks,noconnections.

And that location, by virtue of its distance, was the lovely city of San Francisco.

So I applied for jobs, and within two months, I’d secured a new gig. The job paid well?really well, actually?and I felt grateful someone was willing to take a chance on me. For the first time in my life, not having any family was a good thing—no one was there to question the decision. The only other person my choice affected was Josh, and while he was bummed that I was moving at first, he quickly realized this now gave him an excuse to visit San Francisco whenever he got horny.

Plan Bwas officially in motion.

And so here I was. Outside the door of The San Francisco Center for Sexuality. It’d been a long eight years since I'd passed my ‘due date,’ and I couldn’t believe I was finally about to take care of this problem. Butterflies in my stomach? Nope, I had giant vultures and eagles knocking around in there.

Yep. I was nervous.

Duh. I had a number of very good reasons to be nervous. Ihadforked over an ungodly amount of my mom’s life insurance payout, sight unseen. This sex business didn’t come cheap. I guess I could have spent less and gotten a high-class prostitute, but that just freaked me out—who knew what kind of diseases could be involved? Maybe it was simply nervous excitement. Or maybe I was worried that years of sexual atrophy had left me unable to be helped.Un-sexable.Is that a word? Or, God, what if the surrogate found me wholly unattractive and ran for the hills—but they weren’t allowed to do that, right?

Right?

God, my mind was running a mile a minute, screaming every excuse it had to prevent me from going into that building. Maybe I should have listened to it.

But I didn’t.

Instead, I threw open the door and held my head up high, hoping to fake the confidence that I so desperately needed. I walked through the vast, granite lobby of the downtown office building and skipped the elevator, choosing instead to hoof it up to the fifth floor. On the way up, I practiced my breathing exercises and reiterated The Story I was going to tell the therapist.

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