Virginity is Curable, Inquire Within

By MichaelD38

IMPORTANT LEGAL INFORMATION

This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons is unintentional and strictly coincidental. This work contains explicit descriptions of sexual activity, and anyone offended by such things should read no further. If reception of this work is illegal due to your age or other repressive local regulations, liability for downloading it is your problem, not mine. This work is intended solely for the quiet and private enjoyment of adults, and any other use is a violation of the copyright.

This work is Copyright 1999 by MichaelD38@aol.com and is protected by United States and other international copyright law. Reposting and archiving is permitted, except where a fee of any sort is required or earned for access, provided this disclaimer and note remain attached to the story. All other rights, specifically rights of commercial use, are reserved. Commercial use here is defined to include posting on membership web sites, banner-funded web sites, and those protected by fee-based age validation methods (such as Adultcheck and Adultsights). However, exception is specifically made for web sites (such as DejaNews) that provide archiving and access to all Usenet posts in a particular group without editing or selection for content. No modifications may be made to this story without express permission from the author. Any questions regarding use of this work can be directed to the address above. Failure to contact the author prior to use is presumptive evidence of bad faith and may expose you to significant criminal and civil liability.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

No codes and no notes today, save one: this is a weird story, so try not to take it at face value.

Intelligent comments and criticisms will receive appropriate responses. Flames and juvenile slobbering go straight to the recycling bin.

VIRGINITY IS CURABLE, INQUIRE WITHIN

"In an insane world, the sane man must indeed appear insane."

--Mr. Spock

The voice on the other end of the phone was one I had heard many times before. Only the names ever seemed to change.

"Doctor, I just don't know what to do with her. I'm at my wit's end."

"First of all, try to keep some perspective. You're not the first mother to have problems like this with a teenage daughter. Don't give up hope. It's just a question of finding the right motivation for her."

"So you'd be willing to help us?"

"Yes. I have room in my schedule. How does Thursday afternoons at four sound? Is that too early?"

"No, that would be great. She gets out of school at three- thirty. I can pick her up, and we can come straight there."

"Great."

"Thank you so much, Doctor. You don't know what this means. I just hope you can help her."

"I'll do my best."

When she hung up, I reviewed the notes I had taken. Julia Drake, age sixteen. Fairly typical problems for her age: running with the wrong element, dating the wrong boys, no respect for her parents. And sex, of course. That was always the biggie. Apparently the phone call had been prompted by her mother's discovery of a pile of books and magazines in her closet, some pretty explicit stuff from the sound of it. Nothing I hadn't dealt with before, though. I would find a way to get to her, like I had with nearly every kid I'd treated before.

I worked out of a plush office in Brentwood, treating the children of the West L.A. gentry. I'd come a long way from counseling kids at the county children's home, where I'd worked after getting my M.D. ten years ago. Rewarding stuff, to be sure, but no way to pay the rent. Little by little I'd built a private practice until I was able to step out on my own. Childhood sexual disorder might be a pretty narrow specialty, even in psychiatry, but in this town I had no shortage of patients.

Julia and her mother showed up Thursday afternoon. She was a cute kid, or would be were it not for the way she was dressed. Straight blonde hair, absolutely no makeup, wearing just a simple white sweater and a knee-length skirt. No wonder her mother was worried.

Julia kept her eyes on the floor, not saying anything or meeting my gaze. Her mother sat next to her on the couch, crossing her fishnet-stockinged legs.

"Why don't we get started with the basics?" I said.

"Well," her mother said, "you can see just by looking at her what I have to put up with. The clothes I thought I could take. I thought it was just a phase. But look what I found in her closet."

She handed me a small pile of magazines with a spiral notebook on top. The magazines were stuff I had seen before, even though the stores weren't supposed to sell them to minors. This month's copy of "Celibate Woman" and a couple issues of "Virtue." "My Life Without Sex" was one of the teasers on the cover. I set them aside and flipped through the notebook, apparently the place Julia had been setting down her heated fantasies:

"'I don't want to kiss you,' he said to me, 'I want you to stay pure until our wedding night, and even then we should only have *** when we want children.'" My God, she hadn't even been willing to write the word "sex." This was maybe worse than I had thought.

I set them down and leaned back in my chair, sighing.

"All right. Mrs. Drake, it might be more helpful if I could talk to Julia alone."

She fidgeted a second, pulling up the hem of her leather mini- skirt an inch or two. Unlike her daughter, who appeared to be wearing tights--tights, for God's sake, who sold stuff like that to children?-- the tops of Mrs. Drake's stockings were decently on display.

"Well, if you think so. I'll just wait outside."

"Thank you."

She left us alone, and I looked at Julia for a moment or two. I shifted in my chair, pulling the seams of my leather chaps out of the furrows they had dug into my buttocks.

"I'm guessing you don't want to be here."

She shrugged.

"We can talk about whatever it is you want to talk about."

Another shrug.

"You and your mom are not getting along? You feel like she's pressuring you to be someone you aren't?"

She nodded.

I picked up the copy of "Virtue" I'd examined earlier.

"This stuff must seem pretty exciting."

She shrugged.

"I know for girls your age, the concept of virginity is thrilling because it's so rebellious. It's a way to break away from your parents, to establish your own identity. It seems fun and cool while you're doing it, but in the long run, it can be very damaging."

She still didn't say anything.

"You're not very popular at school, are you? You and your friends are probably the outcast clique or something like that?"

"Yeah. I guess."

"Do you enjoy that? Do you enjoy the looks you must get from the other kids, the way people talk about you?"

A shrug.

"Do you like being called a virgin? Does it make you feel good to hear people say that?"

Nothing.

I reached for her notebook and opened it up.

"All right. Let's look at some of this."

I started reading from a story she'd written toward the end.

"'He reached for my breast--" she had written it b***** "--but I slapped his hand away. 'I'm a virgin, and I'm going to stay that way,' I said. 'I'm sorry, Julia,' he said. 'You're right. Sex--" again it was written *** "--is wrong.'"

I looked up at her.

"Why do you think sex is wrong, Julia?"

"Because I'm not married. Because it's only for making babies."

"Do you think that's a healthy attitude? You don't find that unnatural?"

"I don't care if it's natural or not."

"Do you think it's wrong to feel pleasure?"

She shrugged.

"Are you happy?"

She looked up.

"What do you mean?"

"It's a simple question. Do you enjoy being the person you are? Are you happy being the Julia Drake I see sitting in front of me?"

She shrugged again, looking down, but I could see tears starting to form at the corners of her eyes.

"Because Julia, I don't get the impression that you are."

I didn't get much further with her that afternoon, but it was a start.

II.

The next day, I called one of Julia's counselors at her school, a woman named Angela Tarantino. Once we got the professional niceties out of the way, she confirmed what I had suspected.

"Julia has been quite a trial. I can't tell you how many times she's been to my office for behaving inappropriately. I mean, dress, attitude, language, you name it. A few months ago, one of the younger teachers, who didn't know her well enough, approached her about a date, and she told him off in terms I'm not going to repeat. She and her friends like to hang around the student quad and harass the other students. At least once a week, one of them gets in trouble for interrupting other students who are having sex. And I won't even tell you about the scene she caused in health class when they began working on masturbation."

"How long would you say she's been like this?"

"Since I've had to deal with her. The notes in her file seem to indicate that the trouble started in seventh grade. Since then, she's just been one of the bad kids. It's frustrating, because I know she's capable of behaving properly when she wants to."

I paused for a second to slow my secretary down. She was fellating me as I talked to Angela, and I thought it would be bad form to have an orgasm while I was on the phone.

"You don't have any insights as to why?"

"My guess, and this is just a guess, is that the absence of her father has something to do with it. Without any male role models, she's never figured out how to deal with sex properly."

I tried approaching the issue when Julia returned next week, but got nowhere. She came to see me every Thursday, and though bit by bit I managed to chisel some gaps in the wall she had built around herself, we did not make much progress. She still dressed shamelessly--thick, high-necked sweaters, long-sleeved blouses, long skirts (never pants), not a hint of cleavage anywhere--and insisted, despite all my arguments, that there was nothing wrong with virginity.

"If virginity were a healthy, uplifting state, don't you think you would get some happiness and fulfillment from it?"

She shrugged.

"Okay. Let's try another tack. You weren't always into celibacy, right? Your mother tells me it began a few years ago, when she started talking about your becoming sexually active. Would you say that's accurate?"

She nodded.

"What did your mother say? Do you remember? How did she bring the subject up?"

She took a deep breath.

"I think it was after church one day. We talked about sex in Sunday school, and I mentioned it to Mom. She said something like, 'Are you going to be doing it in class?' and for some reason, we started fighting. I guess I just realized I was sick of her telling me what to do all the time. And about that time, I started being friends with some other girls who were into virginity. It just seemed so much more fun than what went on in Sunday school."

"It's fun being an outcast? It's fun having the other kids look down on you and call you nasty names?"

"I don't care what the other kids think."

"Are you sure? There isn't some tiny part of Julia Drake who wants to be popular and accepted?"

She sighed.

"I don't know. I think about it, and I just can't get past the idea that sex is wrong."

"And you think it's wrong because it's only for procreation between a husband and wife."

"Right."

"Okay. So tell me, if true monogamy is what's morally right, why is it so rare in human history? Are Julia Drake and her friends right and the whole rest of the human race wrong? Why does nearly every human culture value sexual expression in one form or another?"

"Because it's part of the oppression of women. Virginity and celibacy are the only way women can reclaim themselves."

"And that's why so many women are happy being sexually active?"

"They're in denial."

"Denial. Really. Have you given any thought to the idea that you might be in denial? That all this is about some fear of your sexuality?"

"I'm not afraid of my sexuality. I'm in control of it."

When Julia left, Bridget came into my office. She was a busty redhead of about twenty-five. Although she dressed a little conservatively for my taste--she favored spandex tank dresses at work-- she was also an extremely competent secretary.

"How is Julia coming along?"

"Tough. It's going to take a while."

"Do you think you'll need my help with her?"

"Eventually, maybe. I'll let you know."

"She's cute. I tried to flirt with her a little, but she wouldn't even talk to me."

"She's a confirmed virgin right now. Give it time."

"Okay. Anyway, Jill Weld cancelled. Car trouble or something. So you're off for the next hour. I thought we could fuck or something."

"What are you in the mood for? I'm a little punchy."

"Straight sex is fine."

I nodded, and she pulled her dress over her head. I watched her firm breasts bouncing as she pulled the fold-down bed out of the wall. I stood and slipped off my chaps and leather vest.

She met me at the edge of the bed, taking me into her mouth. I held her head in my hands, working my fingers through her long red hair. She bobbed over me for a few minutes before lying back on the bed.

I started to kneel down between her legs, but she stopped me, pulling me on top of her.

"I'm horny enough as it is. Just fuck me."

I bent to kiss her as she guided my penis into her. I lifted off her once I was bottomed out and began thrusting rapidly into her, knowing the sorts of things she liked. Her breasts shook and quivered with each thrust, and she was soon bracing herself on the headboard to push back at me. She wrapped her legs around my waist and a few minutes later, I felt her shuddering into orgasm under me. I kept it up until she came a second time, then stopped.

I rolled off of her, and she bent to take me in her mouth. Bobbing rapidly while she played with my balls, she quickly had me on the brink. Just as I reached climax, she forced the last few inches into her mouth and took my sperm down her throat.

"Whew," she said when we were done. "I needed that."

"How are the wedding plans going?"

"Great. We got the caterer we wanted. Paul has been a big help. I always kind of expected to have to do everything with my mom, but he's been really involved."

"Good. That's generally a good sign."

"I know. By the way, he wanted to know if you wanted to come over tomorrow night."

"I've got another commitment. How is Saturday?"

"I'll ask him, but it should be okay. He also wanted to be sure you brought that vibrating cock ring you've got. You still have it, right?"

"Of course."

III.

I continued seeing Julia for about two months with little change. Then, one day, she arrived for our session looking as if she had been crying. It took me a few minutes to find out why.

"I was at my friend Marcia's house the other night. We were just sitting around talking about what we wanted our weddings to be like, and I just mentioned something about the wedding night, how we would finally see what the big deal was--all I meant was that we'd know, right?--not that I'd enjoy it! But they got all upset and started making fun of me, and I suddenly realized that I didn't like any of this. It isn't any fun anymore. All we ever talk about is virginity and how awful . . . " She paused for a second, beginning to cry. ". . . sex is."

"And you realized that you're not happy with who you've become."

She wiped at her eyes, sniffling.

"No."

"It's what therapists sometimes refer to as 'hitting bottom.' When you realize how far down you've fallen."

"I hate myself," she sobbed. "I hate my life. I just want to be happy."

I handed her a tissue, and she at wiped her eyes.

"I don't think you've ever really enjoyed any of this, have you? You just thought it would be cool to hang out with other virgins and set yourself off from the rest of the world."

She nodded, continuing to sob.

"Julia, I want to try something. Just an experiment. You've lived for so long inside this rigid box. All I've been trying to do is get you to see what's it like outside of it. Would you like to try?"

She sniffed.

"What is it?"

"Stand up."

She did.

"Take off your clothes."

Her face went hard for a second, but then she relaxed, taking a breath. Hands shaking, she reached down and pulled up the bottom of her sweater, having to pause for a second before she pulled it up over her breasts. She wore a thick, broad white bra under the sweater, completely covering herself.

I took the sweater from her as she unzipped her skirt and let it fall down. She was still wearing those hideous white tights, and under them a shamelessly huge pair of panties.

"Wait a moment. How do you feel?"

"Okay. Weird. I don't know."

"This is perfectly normal. You're still wearing more than most people do."

She took another deep breath and unsnapped her bra. Her breasts were full and pretty, little pink nipples that began to erect in the cool air of my office. I took the bra from her, and she slipped off her tights, then her panties.

"Doing all right?"

"I feel so normal. Boring. This isn't me."

"I think it is, but you haven't let the real Julia Drake out in a long time. You didn't dress like this when you were a child, did you?"

"No. My mom dressed me in these stupid little stocking-and- garter belt things, with a spandex minidress over them."

"When did that stop?"

"A few years ago. I just felt like such a kid dressed that way."

"All right. Sit down on the couch."

She did.

"Your mother has mentioned repeatedly how much trouble she's had trying to get you to masturbate."

Julia scoffed, looking up at the ceiling.

"Oh, God, not this again. Do you know how many vibrators and dildos she's given me? She keeps offering to demonstrate them, and she's always trying to get me to go to the Young Adult Circle Jerks at our church. It just makes me sick. It's so lame."

"When was the last time you masturbated?"

She shook her head.

"Years. I guess maybe when I was twelve. But that was when I started getting into celibacy, so not since then."

"I want you to give it a try. No one has to know. But just try it."

"Do I have to?"

"Just humor me."

She sighed, laying her head back on the couch. She half- heartedly moved her hand between her legs and began moving her fingers through her blonde sex.

"I can hardly remember what to do," she said a minute later.

"It's like riding a bike. Just do your best."

"Do I have to . . . finish?"

"I'd like you to try."

I watched as she worked, fingers gliding back and forth through her folds. After few minutes, she began to get the rhythm of it, and her body began reacting. Her nipples swelled and stood out away from her breasts, and a flush spread over her skin. I could soon smell her arousal in the air.

"God. If my friends could see me," she said. "They'd laugh themselves silly."

"Does it feel good? Don't think about whether it's uncool or square or whatever the terms are these days. Just tell me whether you're enjoying it, not whether it's embarrassing."

"I guess . . . I guess it feels good."

"Keep going. Try to finish if you can."

She continued, fingers moving faster, until a few minutes later, when she finally grunted and arched her back, shuddering slightly as it came to an end.

I let her catch her breath for a moment.

"Now tell me. Was that so bad?"

"I felt so stupid."

"I know. But did you enjoy it?"

"I guess so."

"It's not a crime to admit it."

"Okay. I enjoyed it."

"All right. I want to try something else. This is going to take a little more effort on your part."

"What?"

"For the next week, I want you to try dressing like a normal person. No more opaque tights, no more big bras, no more full length skirts. I'm sure your mother has bought you some regular clothes you can wear."

"Oh, God."

"I know your friends will laugh at you. But I think you've begun to see that they may be friends you don't need."

"I don't know."

"Just try this for a week. Just to see how the rest of the world lives. I think you'll find that it's not so awful."

She stared at the floor for a few moments.

"Okay."

"When you come back next week, we can talk about it."

IV.

Saturday afternoon, I had to go to a convention downtown, where I was presenting a paper with a colleague of mine. The title of the work was a rather dry "The Correlation Between Asexuality and Neurotic Virginity in Adolescent Caucasian Girls," but we drew a full crowd. After making our presentation, we sat down for the question and answer period.

"Doctor, how prevalent would you say neurotic virginity occurs in teenage girls?"

"Our study showed an occurrence rate of 3.4 per thousand. I emphasize, as I did earlier, that we're talking about true neurotic virginity, not simply adolescent rebellion."

"Could you expand upon the distinctions?"

"Neurotic virginity, strictly speaking, is when a patient has some psychological need to refrain from sexual activity. They may want to engage in it, and quite often they don't enjoy their abstinence. They simply are not able to help themselves. Neurotic virginity tends to be characterized by repeated refusals to engage in sexual activity, even when the refusals are inflicting clear damage to the patient's life. Another common indicium is that the subject will insist, despite all argument to the contrary, that virginity is a normal and emotionally healthy condition. Intensive therapy will usually expose this as a rationalization, but getting the subject to recognize that can be difficult."

"Did you find any correlation between neurotic virginity and drug abuse?"

I glanced at my partner, who answered.

"We weren't precisely examining that relationship, but in my experience, there tends to be a correlation. Certain narcotics are known to have a negative influence on the sex drive. But as I said, we weren't measuring that."

"While there may be a correlation," I said, "I think we need to be careful about assigning a cause-and-effect. Someone may refrain from sex because of a serious drug addiction without having a neurosis that contributes to their celibacy."

"Right," my partner said. "They often go hand in hand, and I have had patients who used drugs to suppress their sex drives, but the problems tend to be distinct."

Julia's mother called me Monday morning.

"Oh, my God. Dr. Ramsey, I think I have my daughter back."

I laughed.

"What happened?"

"She was actually wearing normal clothes this morning. She came out of her room wearing just a green spandex miniskirt and a crop top. She was actually wearing makeup, and I don't think she was even wearing underwear, at least not a bra. I almost fainted when I saw her. What did you do?"

"It's an experiment we talked about. She's going to try it for a week, then we'll see."

"You don't know how much we've fought over her clothes. I would buy her this stuff, and she would never touch it."

"We've got a lot of work still to do, but we're making progress."

"Thank you. I mean that. You don't know what this means to me."

Julia showed up on Thursday, and at first, I almost didn't recognize her. She had on some decent backseam stockings and a black leather microskirt. Her blouse was long-sleeved but quite sheer. She had apparently given up on her fixation with underwear, as her mother mentioned, because her breasts were nicely on display. Her eyes were obscured by thick black eye shadow, and her blonde hair was styled dramatically around her face.

"Well," I said. "I thought I had an appointment with Julia Drake today."

She smiled shyly, but didn't say anything.

"Have a seat."

She did.

"So did you survive this week?"

"I guess so. My old friends have basically dumped me. You can't believe how they laughed at me when I showed up at school like this. I wanted to run home and change, but I remembered how you wanted me to try. I though I'd just give it a day and see."

"And it wasn't as bad as you thought."

"No. I realize that now. I don't feel so alone and weird anymore. I've actually made friends with this girl in my math class. So maybe it won't be so bad."

Then a broad smile spread over her face.

"And I masturbated last night. Twice."

"Good. Very good. Do you want to try it again this week?"

"Sure."

"Why don't we start. Just get out of your clothes."

She stood up and began undressing, far less reluctant about it than last week. I dug around in my desk for a vibrator and handed it to her. She giggled.

"I haven't used one of these in so long."

"It's nothing complicated."

She turned it on and began playing with it. She worked in and around herself, rubbing it back and forth over her clitoris.

"Just try to relax. You're still very tense when you do this."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't think about whether it's cool or not. Just focus on what it feels like. Your body knows what to do if you'll just let it."

"Okay."

Some of the tension flowed out of her, and she began using her free hand to play with her breasts. In a few minutes, she reached orgasm, shaking and twitching on my couch.

"How was that?" she asked afterward.

"Better. But you still need to work on your attitude about it. I want you to try masturbating every night from now on. You can ask your mother for help, if it's not too embarrassing. I know she's just waiting for you to ask."

"Okay. I'll try."

"Good. We'll get together next week and talk about it more."

The next morning, I had to testify in a divorce case regarding another one of my patients, Tiffany Ambrose. I showed up at the office of her mother's lawyer for my deposition just before nine. We began promptly, and after the foundational stuff was out of the way, the father's lawyer got to the meat of the case.

"Doctor, when did you begin treating Tiffany?"

I checked my file.

"June 16, 1998."

"How was her case initially presented to you?"

"Her mother was concerned that she had been sexually abused by her father."

Tiffany was not present, but her parents were, and they glared at each other across the table.

"What did her mother tell you?"

"Mrs. Ambrose called me, my notes say June 12th, and said that Tiffany had been acting strangely. She suspected something unhealthy was going on between Tiffany and her father."

"She didn't give any details?"

"Not initially."

"Now Doctor, you first saw Tiffany on June 16th, you said?"

"Yes."

"Did she accuse her father of sexually abusing her?"

"Not that first day. It was several weeks before I was able to get any sort of details out of her."

"Did she ever accuse her father of sexual abuse?"

"Yes."

"What was the substance of her accusation?"

I checked my notes again just to be sure I was getting this correctly.

"She said, and I remember this vividly now, that she had approached her father about masturbation. She said she wanted him to masturbate for her, and he refused."

Tiffany's father almost jumped out of his chair.

"That's a lie!"

His attorney restrained him, and Tiffany's mother's lawyer turned to the court reporter.

"Move to have that remark stricken from the record."

Mr. Ambrose's lawyer spent a moment or two whispering with his client before resuming the questioning.

"Was that all she said?"

"Tiffany said she asked him about it repeatedly, and each time he grew angry with her and refused to help her."

"'Repeatedly' meaning how many times?"

"I didn't ask her to clarify it."

"Did Tiffany seem upset about this?"

"Very upset. She was crying during this entire session. She didn't understand why he wouldn't help her. She said it made her feel dirty and that her father didn't love her."

Mr. Ambrose looked at me with murder in his eyes but said nothing.

"Do you consider that sort of behavior abusive?"

"Absolutely. A healthy interest in sex is normal in children, especially in a thirteen-year-old girl like Tiffany. To be rejected and chastised for such an innocent exploration can be very damaging. I still don't think she's recovered from this incident, and she may carry scars for years. She has difficulty masturbating even now, months later."

We took a break about ninety minutes into the deposition. I got a cup of coffee and sat down to talk to the court reporter, who was a thirtyish woman with a nice figure and shoulder length blond hair. She wore a tight leather corset and latex hot pants.

"That must be a tough job, helping all those kids," she said.

"It is, but it's very rewarding."

"Are most of them like that, problems with their sexuality?"

"It's what I specialize in."

She smiled at me.

"You must be very experienced."

"Well, I have to be."

"I've never done it with a sex therapist."

"Would you like to? I don't think we'll start again for about ten minutes."

"Sure."

She stood up, and I helped her out of her corset and pants. Mrs. Ambrose's attorney, who was still in the room, cleared her notes out of the way but continued working. The reporter dropped to her knees, pulled my penis out of my zippered codpiece, and began fellating me. I let her bring me to erection and then stopped her. She rose and lay back on the table.

I bent to kiss and suckle her breasts for about a minute, all the while expertly masturbating her with my free hand. When I slid down between her thighs and began licking her, I noticed that Mrs. Ambrose's attorney had stopped reading her notes and started watching us. I glanced under the table, seeing her hand between her stocking-clad legs.

I brought the reporter to a quick series of orgasms, then mounted her. She had, by then, noticed the attorney getting herself off and motioned for her to join us, which she did. As I rode between the reporter's thighs, the attorney rode the reporter's tongue. In a few minutes, we all reached climax at once. The others had by then begun to return to the conference room, so we dressed quickly and resumed our places.

Just before we started up again, the attorney, who had been sitting next to me, leaned over and squeezed my thigh.

"Thanks."

"No problem."

"My husband has been sick the last few days, so I've been somewhat deprived."

"Sorry to hear that."

"Are you free for lunch? I know a good spot nearby. The food is good and the beds are really nice."

"Sure. Good idea."

The deposition resumed, concluding just after one. I had lunch with Mrs. Ambrose's attorney and returned to my office.

VI.

Tricia Drake called me Monday morning, almost in tears.

"Last night Julia and I masturbated together for the first time in years. You don't know what it was like. She's a completely different person from she started with you. I can't believe how much progress she's made."

"I'm glad. I knew there was a decent young woman inside her somewhere."

"I don't know how to thank you."

"This is enough. I think she'll be ready to leave the nest soon."

Julia showed up on Thursday wearing nothing but a fishnet catsuit and stiletto heels. I noticed as she sat down that she had trimmed her pubic hair severely, down to a little blonde shadow on her sex.

"How are you feeling?"

"Good. Really good. My mom and I actually get along now. We can actually have a conversation without arguing."

"How is the masturbation going?"

"Really great. My mom and I do it together a few times a week. I guess I forgot how much fun it could be. I probably masturbate three or four times a day now. I've made some more friends at school, and we usually get off together between classes."

"I'm glad. I'm really impressed with the progress you've made. Do you think you're ready for the next step?"

She gulped.

"Sex? I think so. I'm just not sure what to do."

"While experimentation is normally healthy, in your case, I think we need to be more careful about it. You're starting a lot older than most kids."

"I know."

"So rather than let you dive right in with some of your friends at school, I think it would be better if we started here first."

"With you?"

"Right."

"Okay."

"Why don't you get undressed?"

She stood up and slipped out of her catsuit and heels as I pulled the fold-up bed down out of the wall. Julia sat on the end as I undressed.

"What are we going to do?"

"We'll start with some petting and maybe some oral sex if you're comfortable with it. That's enough for this week. Next week we can try actual intercourse if you feel ready."

"I feel ready for it now."

I laughed softly.

"Don't get ahead of yourself. We have plenty of time."

"Okay."

She scooted back on the bed, lying down on the pillow.

"I still feel a little weird about this. At one point, I was thinking of never having sex at all. I thought for sure I'd never do it before getting married."

I lay down beside her, reaching out to run my fingers through her hair.

"Just relax. Don't think about that."

"Okay."

"Think about this like masturbation. You're pleasuring yourself, just with a partner. Does that make sense?"

"A little."

I began by just caressing her, looking into her blue eyes. She was nervous at first, but began to relax and tried to mimic my actions. When we kissed, she rolled on her back and held me, kissing me back inexpertly. I played with her breasts for a long time, tweaking and teasing the nipples before sliding down to kiss them.

"How do you feel?"

"Still weird. But I'm trying. It does feel good."

"Concentrate on the good."

I sucked on her nipples for a long time, moving back and forth until I had them both standing up in damp arousal. Finally, I slid a hand slowly down her waist until I reached her neatly trimmed sex. But as soon as I touched her, she tensed up.

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay. It might help if you tried fantasizing that this is your wedding night. Just think of me as your husband."

"I can do that?"

"Yes. Fantasies are healthy; there's nothing wrong with it. You just have to learn that certain things are acceptable as fantasies but not as actual behavior."

"Oh. I never thought of that."

"Give it a try."

I let her calm down for a few moments, then went back to work. When I touched her again, she grew tense for a second or two but then relaxed. I pleasured her gently, opening her up with my fingers until I found her clitoris. Her breathing sped up, but she said nothing. I began to masturbate her slowly, and as her arousal grew, her tension subsided. Her hands were gripping my shoulder spasmodically, and little whimpers began to escape her nose. In a few minutes, a long shudder ran through her body as she climaxed.

"There," I said afterward. "Not so bad?"

"No. It was nice."

I leaned back against the pillow.

"Why don't you try with me?"

Although I had to guide her closely, she was much more relaxed this time. She examined my penis for a few moments and began to stroke it as I demonstrated for her.

"I think I'm getting it," she said.

"Do you want to try doing it orally?"

"Okay."

She bent to take me in her mouth, gagging almost immediately. Her face went red with embarrassment.

"I'm sorry."

"Again, try to relax. Don't think about the social issues. Just concentrate on what you're doing. People do this every day. Your friends from school probably have oral sex with their boyfriends in between class."

"They do."

"Just think of that, then."

She gave it another try, and this time was able to hold it in. Once she grew more comfortable with it, I tried to give her few basic instructions. She was soon moving up and down confidently, working her tongue against the underside of my penis and massaging me with her lips.

It was too soon to have her deal with ejaculation, so I stopped her after a few more minutes.

"That was great. Really good for your first time."

"Did it feel good?"

"Definitely. Now lie back on the bed, and we'll go on to the next part."

She was comfortable enough with this now that she had no trouble allowing me to begin cunnilingus on her. I brought her to a quick series of orgasms, then let her rest.

"What do you think?" I asked her afterward. "Being normal can be fun."

"Yeah. It was really good. I still think about staying a virgin sometimes, but I see now that it was wrong. I'm ready to do it."

"Okay. Next week, we will."

"Great. Thanks."

I kissed her good bye, and she left.

VII.

When I got home Friday night, my wife was in the bedroom with a couple of the neighbor's kids, so I mixed myself a drink and turned on the news. The impeachment trial was still in full swing, so the first fifteen minutes were shots of Henry Hyde and Clinton's lawyers sparring with each other.

" . . . what are we to tell children of this country?" Hyde droned on, "Are we to let them believe there is nothing wrong with lying to the American public? Nothing wrong with the President of the United States falsely swearing under oath that he had had a sexual relationship with an intern under his supervision? Nothing wrong with refusing the honest advances of a vulnerable young woman nearly thirty years his junior? What does it say about us as a nation when such behavior is accepted as the norm?"

Sarah appeared about fifteen minutes later, naked and still wearing her slave collar. She kissed me on the cheek.

"How was work?"

"About usual."

I handed her a napkin.

"I think you've got some sperm in your hair there."

"Oh. Thanks."

She took it, wiping at her long auburn locks.

"Jimmy and Elyse came over about five, so I haven't had a chance to start dinner. What are you in the mood for? We still have those leftover enchiladas from last night."

"That's fine. I don't care."

She donned an apron and stuck the casserole dish in the microwave as I turned back to the television.

"Can we watch something else?" she asked a moment later.

"Yeah."

I changed channels until I got to a rerun of "Friends" on Channel 5. Monica and Phoebe were engaged in some complicated three-way with Chandler, but I was too tired to pay much attention to it.

"I'm so sick of that impeachment nonsense," Sarah continued. "I mean, I wouldn't be happy if you had done something like that, lied to me about not having sex with Bridget, for example, but I can't understand how that should become some sort of constitutional crisis."

"It should be over soon."

"God I hope so."

The phone rang. Sarah got it and handed it to me a moment later.

"Hello?"

"Dr. Ramsey, it's Angela Tarantino. I'm calling about Julia Drake."

"What can I do for you?"'

"I don't want to stick my nose into your treatment, but I was taken aback by a conversation I had with her this morning. She mentioned that you were going to have sex with her next week during therapy."

"Yes. We may."

"Well, my concern is that Julia has been under your care now for almost three months now. You're only just now about to have sex with her?"

"Julia is a special case. You know how heavily into the virginity scene she was. It's taken quite some time to get her to where she is."

"I know that, and believe me I can see the progress you've made with her. She's much happier than she was before. I'm just concerned that as long as she's still a virgin, she runs the risk of a relapse."

On the TV, Chandler ejaculated across the kitchen table. Monica frantically broke away from her clinch with Phoebe and leapt for a bottle of Windex to clean up the mess, and the audience erupted in laughter.

"I think a relapse is unlikely, but I appreciate your concern."

"All right. Doctor, you do understand that under the revisions to the regulations last year, you are required to have sex with her eventually?"

"Yes. But you know as well as I do that the time limit is six months. It won't take that long."

"Okay. I know I may be butting in here, but it's Julia I'm thinking of."

"I understand that. It's all right."

Sarah finished heating the enchiladas, and we sat down to eat.

"Who was that on the phone earlier?"

"The school counselor of one of my patients. Julia Drake."

"The virgin?"

"Right."

"She's sixteen?"

"Almost seventeen. A junior in high school."

"Wow. How is she doing?"

"Better. I think we may finally have sex next week."

She shook her head.

"At least she's in therapy for it."

Sarah went upstairs after dinner while I did the dishes. She reappeared about ten minutes later wearing a plaid skirt, knee socks, and a white blouse knotted at the waist. She grinned at me as she watched my reaction.

"Doctor, I've been very bad. All the boys at school want to have sex with me, but I'd rather save myself for my husband."

I set the scrub brush down and walked up to her.

"Bad girls have to be punished."

"What are you going to do, Doctor?"

"I'm going to show you what you're missing."

I picked her up in my arms and carried her upstairs. She had cleaned up the bedroom after finishing whatever she had been doing with my neighbor's son and daughter, so I laid her down on top of the bedspread.

"Get on your hands and knees and face the wall, girl."

She did, and I reached under her skirt. She wore broad white panties like Julia had once favored.

"Oh, this is shameless. Let's get these off at once."

I jerked them down and pulled them off as she lifted up her legs. Then I flipped up her skirt and began spanking her. She cried out as I did so, though I could tell from my vantage point that she was getting very turned on. I held off as long as I could, and then freed my erection. I positioned myself behind her, grabbing at the waistband of her skirt.

"Please, Doctor, no," Sarah said as my erection slipped into her, "I want to save myself."

"Too late for that, I'm afraid!"

I bottomed out, and at this point Sarah dropped the act, butting herself back at me as I thrust into her. Only a few minutes of this were enough to get her off, and I joined her in climax a moment later, finally pushing her down on the bed and lying on top of her to catch my breath.

"What brought that on?"

Sarah giggled.

"I just think of all these naughty girls you get to work with every day. I thought I'd see what the big deal was."

The phone rang again, and I reached over to answer it.

"Hello?"

"Dr. Ramsey, it's Tricia Drake." Her voice was ragged and hoarse. "I hope it's okay calling you this late."

"It's all right. What's wrong?"

"It's Julia," she gasped. "She's locked herself in the bathroom, and she won't come out. She's in hysterics. She says she's changed her mind, that she never wants to have sex, with you or anyone."

"Calm down. Just tell me what happened."

"I don't know. We were just going to masturbate together like we've been doing, and all of a sudden, she went berserk. She said, 'I can't do this anymore! It's wrong!' then ran into the bathroom. She locked the door and wouldn't let me in. I finally just called you. I don't know what to do."

"Do you want me to talk to her?"

"Would you?"

"See if she will."

I heard her moving the phone, then talking in the background:

"Honey, it's Dr. Ramsey. Do you want to talk to him?"

"No!" Julia said. "Just leave me alone!"

Tricia came back on the line.

"She won't come out."

"All right. I'm on my way over. Just don't panic."

VIII.

The Drakes lived in a condominium in Santa Monica, within sight of the beach. Julia's mother met me at the door, still naked, apparently having been too upset to think about getting dressed.

"She's upstairs in the hall bathroom."

I followed her upstairs and sat down against the bathroom door.

"Julia? It's Doctor Ramsey."

"Go away."

"I'm just here to talk to you. Nothing has to happen if you don't want it to."

"Fine. Then let me be a virgin if I want to be."

"What happened to everything we talked about? You seemed to be doing so well."

"I just want to be myself. What's so wrong with virginity? Why do I have to have sex if I don't want to?"

"I've just been trying to understand why you feel this way. Everyone has different sex drives, but a morbid fear of sex isn't healthy. Do you really think you're going to be happy being a virgin?"

"I could be happy if people would leave me alone."

"Is that what you want? To be alone? All by yourself?"

She didn't answer, and I could hear quiet sobbing through the door.

"Julia, why don't you open the door? This will be easier if we can see each other. Nothing is going to happen to you. I just want to talk."

A few seconds later, I heard the lock click. I waved Tricia Drake away, not wanting to complicate things, then reached up and opened the door.

Julia was wedged back between the bidet and the wall. She had several towels wrapped around herself to cover her nudity. She didn't look at me. I crawled across the floor and sat opposite her.

"Honey, people are just trying to help you. Do you think this is healthy, being locked in the bathroom crying?"

"I just want to be myself," she sobbed.

"I'm trying to help you do it. I'm trying to help the real Julia Drake spread her wings and fly."

She put her face in her hands and cried.

"I don't know who I am anymore."

I reached out and pulled her to me, hugging her. She leaned against me and continued crying for a good five minutes. Eventually I helped her to her feet and led her to her room.

"Why don't you try to rest? I'm going to give you a tranquilizer that will help you sleep."

She sniffed.

"Okay."

I got a glass of water from her bathroom and gave it to her with 200mg of Valium. She gulped it down. I helped her into bed, and she curled up with her pillow.

Tricia Drake met me in the hallway.

"How is she?"

"I think she'll be all right in the morning. Give me a call if there are any more problems."

"I don't understand where this is coming from. She seemed to be doing so well."

"I know. But it happens."

"I don't see why this has to be so hard. Can't you just take care of it somehow? Just to get this over with?"

I shook my head.

"Non-consensual defloration is sometimes indicated in extreme cases, but we're a long way from that now. But if this continues, you may want to think about residential treatment."

Her face paled.

"You mean an institution?"

I patted her on the shoulder.

"It's not as bad as it sounds. I'm not saying Julia is mentally ill. I'm not talking about long-term. I just think she might benefit from a couple of weeks of more intensive treatment than I've been able to give her."

She fought the tears for a few seconds.

"I just want her to be better."

"So do I. Just think about it. She may be good as new tomorrow morning. We just have to wait and see."

"Okay."

I hugged her.

"Good night. Let me know what happens."

I walked out into the night, thinking of Julia and all the other troubled girls out there. I opened the door of my Mercedes, glancing for a moment at the license place, a brief moment of irreverent levity in an otherwise serious practice. "VRGN SGN" was what it said.

It's a tough job, I guess, but someone has to do it.

THE END