Instincts
The one secret I’ve never been able to tell anyone is how I lost my virginity thanks to a bunch of terrorists.
My dad was a careerist in the Foreign Service, which means that he spent his life working as a diplomat on behalf of the United States.
My friends used to joke around and call him “Ambassador,” which always made him laugh, but the truth is that, at least in America, ambassadors are purely political positions. The Foreign Service, on the other hand, is a meritocratic bureaucracy where you have to pass tests and otherwise do stuff to qualify, but I digress.
When me and my sister were little, we used to follow him from posting to posting, but eventually my mom got tired of it, so we set up permanent shop in the suburbs just outside of Washington, D.C., which is where I grew up. But during the summer that I lost my virginity, we went to visit him in [redacted] for a kind of extended holiday slash family get-together.
Officially, you’re supposed to refer to countries like [redacted] as a “developing nation,” but everyone I knew referred to them as "third world shitholes."
The sad thing is that they’re pretty much all alike - a tiny group of disgustingly wealthy and corrupt elites who live life in luxury while the rest of their countrymen have to wade through open sewers to get to their tin-shack houses.
Both to avoid getting contaminated with disease as well as to reduce the chance of an uprising, the elites always live in a section of the capital that’s walled off from the rest of the population.
They enjoy quite a good life there with everything from schools to shops. Invariably, the elites also control the international airport, and so the foreigners who come in, especially diplomats like my dad, make the practical choice of staying inside that bubble.
If there’s a coastline, there’s also invariably one or more luxury resorts which are popular with the local elites as well as where the foreigners go.
Honestly, you can condemn people like us for staying there, but it’s just not safe to go anywhere else. And sure, there are armed guards along the perimeter, but when you’re inside, you don’t see any of that - you just enjoy a nice, relaxing time.
On the day the terrorists burst out of the jungle, my dad was in the capital, having some meetings with one of the local ministers I think.
My mom, sister, and I had been at the resort a few days already, soaking up the sun, but my mom and my sister had gone into town to do some shopping, leaving me all alone.
Because a lot of European diplomats and businessmen frequented the resort, there were always a few women sunbathing or frolicking in the waves without their tops on. As a young American guy, it was all very exciting, so I didn’t have any complaints whatsoever when my sister and mom took off that day.
I remember the sun was extremely warm that day, and there was a lovely breeze coming in off the ocean. After enjoying a breakfast of tropical fruits and grilled fish, I changed into my swim trunks and grabbed my towel.
My plan was to maybe try some boogie boarding, but other than that, to just wander around and see how many hot chicks I could spot, with bonus points if they were topless.
It wasn’t too crowded that day, if I remember right, and initially, I didn’t see any women who caught my eye.
I remember there was this one fat guy who had to be European because he was wearing a tiny Speedo-style nutsack and had this big round belly that he wasn’t ashamed of at all. As morning turned into lunch time, I started to see some better prospects, including a couple of young girls standing in the surf, although so far, no bare titties.
Until the terrorists showed up, my biggest concern was what to do about my boners, which were virtually always threatening to poke right through the fabric of my swim trunks.
I basically had a hard-on the entire time I was on the beach, so I ended up tucking it into my waistband and hoping that would disguise it from prying eyes. I’d already jerked off as soon as my mom and sister left, just thinking about what I might see that day, but when you’re a young man being flooded with hormones, nothing can stop you from getting an erection for long.
One minute I was shading my eyes with my hand, scanning for some girls I could wander over to and get a better look at, and the next minute, I heard gunfire and shouting.
At first, I just stood there, unable to really comprehend what was happening. It was only when I saw that fat guy in the Speedos go down, blood dripping out of a massive wound in his head, that I realized that the resort was under attack.
My dad had warned us all that [redacted] was going through some civil unrest, but I hadn’t paid much attention to it. No offense, but third world shitholes like [redacted] are always having some kind of upheaval or another, and I didn’t speak the local language, so none of it meant anything to me.
It was only when the bullets started flying that shit got very real in a hurry.
Most of the foreigners started running toward the resort once the shooting began. I probably would’ve done the same except I saw this young guy standing on the path, dressed in camouflage, holding a rifle and spraying shots everywhere like he was in some kind of action movie. He was only maybe a year or two older than me, and that shocked me somehow more than all the gunfire.
Fearing for my life, I looked around for cover, and that’s when I spotted the equipment shed. It was a rather ramshackle building with weatherbeaten wooden slats that wasn’t really used anymore, but it was better than nothing.
There was a padlock on the outside which was locked, but the hinge had gotten rusty from years of exposure to the salty air, so I was able to yank it off with a couple of frantic tugs.
Once inside, I saw a jumble of discarded items, including some broken boogie boards and other things, but the main thing is I was out of sight.
Shaking like a leaf, I pressed my face up to the slats and watched in horror as the terrorists gunned down this couple in their mid-30s, the wife’s mouth open in surprise as she hit the sand, a bullet having blown off the back half of her skull.
The whole thing was mesmerizing in a grotesque way, the sound of the guns mixed with the people shouting and screaming. I watched as an older terrorist signaled to his guys, and then they began advancing toward the main area of the resort.
The attack probably only lasted a few minutes at most, but it felt like an eternity, and then suddenly, I was all alone, the only sound the crashing of the waves and a few birds squawking off in the distance.
That’s about the time when panic set in. I got down on the ground and cradled my knees in my arms, shaking and moaning as my beleaguered brain started processing everything I had just witnessed.
One minute, I’d been sporting a boner while cruising for good looking babes, and the next, there were dead and dying people strewn across the beach.
What was I going to do? Keep in mind that this all happened in an era long before cell phones, so there was no way for me to call for help.
The terrorists had just overrun the resort, cutting off any avenue of escape. Sure, there was the jungle all around us, but I didn’t know the first thing about how to survive in there, much less how to get to the nearest town.
I was trapped, and the truth was that it was probably only a matter of time before the terrorists discovered me in that shed and killed me.
I was sitting there, my mind racing as I tried to figure out what to do when I heard someone sobbing. At first, I thought it was just the wind, but then I realized it was definitely a person.
I stood up and looked through the wooden slats, trying to find the source of the sound. At first, I didn’t see anything, but then I spotted a teenage girl in a bikini, crying and wailing as she pulled on the arm of an older woman who was lying face down in the sand.
I remained frozen for a long moment, and then my gentleman instincts kicked in.
