I learned how to give head through watching online videos.

Videos where the woman tells you to always maintain eye-contact, use two hands, and not be afraid of spitting. Sometimes, the woman would bring out a prop, maybe a cucumber, to show you where to place your hands. Other times, she would show you different ways to move your tongue; how to twirl and how to tease.

I took these in as gospel, we all did.

There were about four of us in my room, huddled around a laptop, clicking from tutorial to tutorial. Pro tips that make him go crazy. Be the best he’s ever experienced. The Grapefruit Technique. How to be great at giving sloppy toppy. Become a Throat Goat. Make him cry and scream out your name. Just to name a few.

We were 16 in boarding school, and there wasn’t anything else to do in our free time except discover what real people did outside the gates of school. We would giggle and talk about what we thought cum would taste like. We all agreed it would taste like battery acid, but we all promised that when it came to it, we would swallow. The tutorials said men love when you swallow.

A couple months later, I put the tutorials to the test. I was the second, out of the four, to do it for the first time.

We met at work – two teenage cashiers on opposite ends of a grocery store. Most of the time, the store was empty. So, I spent most of my shifts trying my best to look at anything but him.

Hormones and heart throbs, we eventually started dating.

I liked him because he rolled his own cigarettes and under-age drank in parks with his friends (I have much better taste now – the men I date don’t have to under-age drink).

The first time I gave him head it lasted about 40 minutes before he told me to stop. He couldn’t cum.

The second time I gave him head he couldn’t get hard. He said this never happens.

The third time we were alone together, he asked if we could have sex. We tried to but he couldn’t get it in. He said it’s cause you’re a virgin…you’re still tight.

The fourth time we tried he convinced me to have sex without a condom because it feels better, and the plastic makes me soft. Something about blood-restriction….

It still didn’t work.

We broke up three months later. He kissed someone else during New Year’s Eve while I was overseas with my family. I never found out who it was.

We met again after six years.

I had just broken up with my boyfriend, so I had a lot of free time to make terrible mistakes. After a few glasses of red wine, I sent him a DM on Instagram. We arranged to meet at a pub.

He rides a motorcycle now and keeps his hair short. He wears baggy pants and vapes.

We played pool and then went back to mine.

He still didn’t like wearing condoms and he still had trouble getting hard. He still said this never happens.

I felt 16 again, watching tutorials on how to please men while men watched porn to please themselves. I felt 16 again, remembering to maintain eye-contact, use two hands, and not be afraid of spitting.

We saw each other for another three months.