Double Virgins

     During that short but sedulous year in Iceland, Mars and I lost our virginity together. We lost it to the same girl on the same night, not in a threesome but separately, me first and Mars second, in what would be our first in a limited number of twinly tag teams.

     The girl's name was Patty, a pretty and precocious 14-year-old ski bunny we met between runs on our second day in the breathtaking Alpine mountains of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria, in southern Germany.

     Our family had gone to the quaint ski town on Christmas vacation in the winter of '72, staying in a nondescript armed forces hotel that had a game room for kids and three nickel slot machines in a small foyer next to the main dining room for adults. But mom and dad let us pull a few handles there, our first, and we marveled at the spinning reels paying out for one, two, or three cherries, melons, oranges, apples, or bar symbols in a row.

     Mars and I had our own twin room on the first floor. It was a plain, no-frills room with an old-fashioned radiator heater under a large, single-pane window overlooking the parking lot and the looming Bavarian Alps beyond.

     I remember that radiator well. One morning after a shower, after walking over to the windows and dropping my towel to the floor, I leaned over the heater to grab a bag of Gummi Bears from the windowsill. That's when the head of my penis touched the heater's scorching surface. My pelvis instantly recoiled, and I yowled in jolting agony. It would be the last time I ever let my dick get near such a hot burning surface again.

     Like us, Patty was American. She was 14 years old, a year older than us, and one year younger than our brother Byron, who was 15. It's hard to remember exactly what she looked like. Her hair was long, straight and brown. She was thin and flat chested but had a foxy face and a bubbly and playful personality, allowing her to flirt and giggle with a self-assured sexuality beyond her years.

     After meeting Patty at the ski resort, we found out she was staying in the same military-run hotel as us and arranged to meet her later that evening in the hotel's game room, where the night before we'd played foosball, or table soccer, with a group of other kids staying there too.

     We were having the time of our lives. Traipsing about the property on our own, with little or no adult supervision, made us feel as though the world and our place in it was as an enchanting crustacean teeming with endless potentialities.

     At first, Patty was just like one of the guys, a strictly platonic affair, hanging out and playing doubles foosball, with each player controlling two of the sticks. We were having a ball. The room also had several old-school arcade games from the 1970s. Foosball, though, was the main attraction, with kids lining up to play the winners of each match.

     After several hours of clamoring around the pint-size football table furiously spinning the metal handles and striking the small wooden balls into the goals with the unabashed whoops and groans of pure teenage delight, we said our goodnights, promising to meet up at the ski lodge the next morning.

     The Garmisch ski resort was a heavenly, picture-perfect site to behold. Flying down its exhilarating slopes was literally like being on top of the world. But my recollections of the place are now obscured by time, as though caught in the blurring flurries of ice and snow ripping through the topmost bowls of Zugspitze, the highest peak at the top of the Garmisch-Parten ski area and the tallest mountain in Germany.

     Perhaps my twin can add some much-needed clarity to my indistinct memories of the experience. All I can really remember is that after skiing from mid-morning to late afternoon on day three, we met up with Patty again post dinner in the game room. But this time, after we'd had our fill of foosball for one evening and returned to our room, Patty came along with us.

     Eventually, Patty ended up sitting with us on one of the twin beds, where at some point the conversation turned sexual in nature, with Patty asking us about our virginity. Talk turned to touching. As novices in the art of flirting and foreplay, she had to almost dare us to make love to her. Not in a threesome, but one twin at a time.

     I went first. Mars left the room, and we got naked on top of the bedspread. I kissed Patty on the mouth, first light pecking and then deep Frenching. I cupped her small breasts, kissing and twirling my tongue around her tiny brown nipples.

     I could be making this up as I go along. But what I do vaguely remember is having the strangest feeling of being turned on and frightened all at once, an esoteric weirdness of titillating desire and enigmatic uneasiness pulsating through me at the same time. I got on top of her and nudged my penis all the way inside. It felt warm and inviting, like a hot meal on a cold day.

     At one point during our brief intercourse, she began writhing and wincing. "Ow, ow, ow, you're on my wall," she groaned.

     She pushed up on my hips and twisted her body, making my erect manhood slide out of her. She promptly reached inside herself and made some sort of gingerly adjustment. "Okay, try again," she cooed.

     I came like a two-minute warning. It was nothing to write home about. No music and wonderful roses, no sweet fragrant meadows. I quickly pulled out, rolled off the bed and put my clothes back on.

     Without so much as giving her a kiss on the cheek or a pat on the ass, I bolted for the door and opened it. That's when Mars, who'd been standing outside in the hall for the entire five minutes, barged past me like a horndog zeroing in on a bitch in heat.