You may have some preconceived notions about the first time you have sex, but the reality can be quite different!

"I was 22 the first time I had sex. I had been going out with Irfan for almost a year," says Anjeli.

"He recited a poem for me before class over a breakfast of tea and biscuits. And just like that we became a couple."

"We were both English literature students in Delhi. Irfan lived off campus in a small one room flat and I used to visit him every day. We would go to classes together, watch movies on his old desktop, gossip, make out, and work on assignments before he dropped me back to my hostel."

"I know it probably sounds dramatic, but six months into seeing each other we knew we wanted to be together in a long-termish way."

Aroused

"We had been seeing each other for almost a year when one evening after an unusually steamy make out session I told him I wanted us to make love."

"We had talked about it many times and he wanted us to take things slowly till I was really sure about it. And that afternoon I was finally sure -- not to mention extremely aroused."

Names changed to protect privacy

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But then we realised we didn't have any condoms so he went out to buy some. He got back looking red in the face and obviously embarrassed. He never knew there were so many options to choose from -- ribbed for extra pleasure, magnum, flavoured, glow in the dark.

We burst out laughing. All this time while he was pretending to be very in control and grown up about the whole thing, we had completely forgotten that he was a virgin too.

Before long we stopped laughing and started kissing each other.

We undressed and went on kissing; five minutes later he tried to enter me and my body went rigid. I was tense and in pain, penetration was impossible. He sensed the tension in my body and stopped.

We were rushing things. So he told me to forget about "doing it" and just enjoy making out. We started all over and but again I tensed up when he tried to enter me.

Illustration: Uttam Ghosh

All in all my first time consisted of a series of false starts and lasted over two hours. When he finally entered me I was in pain but after all the trial and error I felt like I had won a marathon.

He was in me for barely two minutes before collapsing on me exhausted. I didn't have an orgasm but I was happy.

We talked about it later. The actual intercourse hadn't been fun for him either. My first time wasn't smooth or natural like in the countless romantic movies I had seen.

But though it was nothing like I had imagined it would be, it was with someone I loved. We're still seeing each other -- let's just say things got better after the first time.