Nina Matalam Alvarez
I was eighteen years old when I lost my virginity to a beautiful stranger on a beach. In the long summer of 2014, I had s*x for the first time with a woman who was a few years older than I was.
It was a beach party in Amihan, Dahican; a surfer’s paradise in Mati. I’d seen her earlier in the day, when the sun was high and the sand smelled of salt and oil. She rose from the sea like Botticelli’s Venus, only she held a surfboard, and her hair fell to her shoulders. Her skin looked as if she made love to the Sun, the way she stood in stark contrast against the white sand and sky blue waters.
Everybody’s drinks were being mixed; I could not keep track of what went past my lips at the point in the evening when I gathered up the strength to talk to her. I saw her sitting o
