The Sin of Sexing

There must be hidden cameras. Surely I was living on the film-set of a romantic comedy. Sunny Aix-en-Provence in the south of France. Fountains, an old man painting at his easel, crooked cobbled streets, young people on Vespa’s, the Cannes Film Festival, turquoise Mediterranean water, patches of vineyards blanketing white cliffs that met with the sea, skipping class, cafe terraces, colorful outdoor markets, cheap bouquets, and even cheaper wine, the sound of cicadas, the smell of lavender, restaurant menu prix fixe, long lunches, Cezanne’s pink light bathing the countryside, skiing in the Alps, and a Frenchman who wrote me poems.

I couldn’t resist.

The Australian girls next door gave knowing winks and teased me about putting “dates before mates.” They misunderstood me. I was both proud and apprehensive about my instant street-cred as my ride on the wild side made me the envy of my all-female floor. I was some kind of goddess to score a French boyfriend half-way into my year abroad. The mortals were notching their belts with the usual suspects at international student hang-outs, but the locals were elusive and a tough group to crack. Ironically, the girl who wasn’t a language nerd, nor had she ever dated a guy in her life, accidentally stepped in it and came up smelling like roses. It was a messy situation for a 31-year-old virgin.

I can’t even take credit for finding Cedric on my own. His older brother did a semester at my private Christian school and led the student language lab. As a French major, I was required to attend a language lab with a native speaker, and exchange students were often roped into these roles. Florian and I became good friends. I wondered if he liked me. His behaviors were so different from American guys. He invited me for conversation and customarily offered me something to drink, he noticed and even touched my hair when I got it cut. He walked me to class. He insisted I do my year abroad in Provence where his family lived. And once I arrived, he pawned me off on his little brother, Cedric. Not out of indifference or strategy, but just because Flo was picking up his social life where he left off, and Cedric was handy for babysitting the American.

But what would a 26-year-old want with a 31-year-old who didn’t date, but was ready and waiting for the one? The one God-fearing, God-first model of a Christian man that required elder-supervised courtship and approval. Ced was a proclaimed atheist. He was also raised Catholic. My Protestant upbringing wouldn’t allow me to yolk myself unevenly. Someone like Ced would not suit. So I enjoyed his friendship, his conversation, kindness, intelligence, and willingness to play my tour guide. Wouldn’t you know it, a funny thing happens when two otherwise available people get on like a house on fire and spend all their spare time together. Love was biting me in the ass and it took a minute to recognize it, uninitiated as it was.

We planned a hike up Mont Saint Victoire, Ced’s childhood haunt and Cezanne’s famous hill. I told him I’d bring the picnic, and then proceded to get advice from yet another local about French picnic ingredients. My friend Heather was from the same Christian school in the States like me. She met Natacha, a French girl, at a church group we attended from time to time. We had the inside scoop on many things French. Natacha shrugged in her French way and said “just a normal picnic - charcuterie, cheese, and bread.” It sounded like a regular sandwich to me, so I did that, plus balanced it out with some good ol’ crudites.

After climbing St. Victoire and finding the perfect view to sit down and finally dig in, I displayed the offerings, and a smile came to Ced’s face. Either he thought it was sweet that I brought the picnic, or he was laughing at carrot sticks. He admitted much later that he had never included raw vegetables in a picnic and was still hungry after the meager sandwich. Still, love (growing infatuation) is blind and sexual tension made for a sufferable ride home. I wanted nothing more than to tell him that I was…what? Falling in love with him? I devised a plan in the car and resolved to invite him up to my room for tea. Gouter or tea time in France is an institution and not at all unusual to share between friends. He accepted my offer, and with every flight of stairs to the top floor, my good senses returned. We reached my floor and I made a panic move. As we passed by Heather’s door, I decided it was a good idea that we invite her too. I’d never had a boy alone in my room before, and I didn’t trust either of us. Heather’s presence guaranteed our chastity, along with a fairly awkward visit. Her darting eyes told me she was on to us.

I scoured the Bible. I used the concordance and cross-referenced every term I knew that would condemn my feelings and human impulses. Unwed. Debauchery. Jezebel. Adultery. Fornication. I was far from accountability (early internet days, France was painfully analog. I wrote letters to correspond with family). What was I going to do, deplete my international mobile phone minutes telling the youth pastor how much I liked the French atheist, and would it be ungodly to have sex with him? That was idiotic. It was social suicide. It would incite an embarrassing prayer chain back home. I spent weeks asking Jesus if I could lay with Ced. The more I foraged the Bible and supplicated God in prayer, the more confused and woeful I felt about the thing.

Thanks for nothing, God. It was time to consult my girlfriends. And they’d been waiting for me to take action, already. The sophistication of my romantic relationship skills boiled down to an elementary school note passed in class “I like you, do you like me? Check the box “yes” or “no”. Natacha had work to do. I botched the picnic. I needed specifics from her. She upgraded my school kid note to a French version of Jane Austin prose that I was to memorize. I recited it in front of her and Heather as they laughed and I groaned at my inability to pronounce, remember, and get the phrase out of my mouth without sounding like Back to the Future’s George McFly telling Lorraine that she was his “…density - I mean destiny…”

Telling Ced I liked him: Part Deux. There we were again, like all the times that preceded this moment, sitting in his car in front of my student residence, talking about anything and everything because neither of us was ready to part. This time I had to get it right. I’d ditch the French. How could I tell someone for the first time in my life that I loved them in any other language but my own? Just as I got ready to say it, he encouraged our time-stalling by offering me a piece of gum. I was nearly mad at him. Chances were good that once I declared my feelings, I’d be kissing someone for the first time. Each of us having gum in our mouths was an advanced move that instantly raised the stakes. Could I go through with it? Should I call it off….again!? Fuck, no. I didn’t even swear in my head back then, but if I did, that was the sentiment that overcame me as my soul woke up and I proceeded to put my big girl pants on and spoke to Cedric from a place of self-possessed conviction. I put myself on the line before Ced and before God.

Would it be ok if I kissed you now?

He didn’t assume. He asked. That was hot. The gum? It didn’t matter.

It didn’t seem to matter to God either. If God were even around, I could only assume he was happy for me because that’s how I felt. Happy! Oh my God, I felt so free!!! I didn’t know it was possible to make my own decisions and feel so right about it. Peace. Finally, no more fearing what the next page in the Bible said. Excitement to embark on a completely foreign journey with a completely foreign instrument called my moral compass. Solo journeys into the unknown mean facing fears, but there was no turning back. Not after the rush of exhilaration that each step forward into freedom brought me.

Sex. Awkward, fun, adventurous, bonding, and empowering. I’d become a goddess. Ok, I had to buy a “Sex for Dummies” book. I knew nothing. Nothing. But I wasn’t going to tell the Australian girls that. I’d stopped looking for hidden cameras and thought I might need to look out for lightning bolts to strike the sinner down. Instead, the beautiful sky washed in pink reminded me how incredibly lucky I was to be there. Far away from judgment and other people telling me how to live my life. I’d better not waste the opportunity, but embrace and live it to the fullest. So I did.

If you have sinned, slide forward.

I returned to the States from my year of self-discovery wearing a Scarlett Letter. It was rough. What I was doing was wrong. By the time Ced came to visit, I was an engaged woman in my thirties but still required to abide by the rules of chastity. Finally, we were forced out of my family home because I was breaking the rules. As badly as that hurt, it was the best thing that happened because I started living life on my terms. It was also social suicide. Many of the people I had always counted on were no longer available for me. But I didn’t have a choice. I had to choose freedom and happiness over a small life under oppressing rules and condemnation. I learned how to become strong, independent, think for myself, and build a new life that I enjoyed.