Chapter Text
From looking at Nick Nelson, you’d never suspect he was a virgin.
Sure – he’d no partner or children to brandish as PoF (Proof Of Fucking), and maybe being a mature student teacher suggested he’d missed a few major milestones along the way.
But he was about to turn forty for fuck’s sake. Like, who is possibly still a virgin at forty years old?!
Certainly not the captain of the Purley Rainbows Old Boys rugby club. Definitely not the bloke door stopped by every divorcee mother in their unnecessarily tight-fitting Sweaty Betty gear at the school gates once they’d clocked his naked ring finger. And absolutely not the guy who confidently bought and received both drinks and sexual propositions at queer bars on the weekends.
Nick exuded fuckboy energy, even if it had transitioned more into fuckman energy at the grand old age of 39. He took care of his appearance and, having spent his life talking to people from all walks of life, was naturally charismatic, warm and equipped with a cheeky sense of humour – which everyone knows is a certified pants-dropper.
However, at the peak of Nick’s fuckability – the notoriously horny age of 18 – he’d had A Calling.
Mid-jog, one blustery April day, clear as any thought had ever been, the decision to join the priesthood had appeared fully resolved in Nick’s mind. It was his destiny to be ordained as a priest. It wasn’t God’s plan for him to follow his rugby mates to uni or to get into one of the prestigious apprenticeships his Dad wanged on about. No. Nick would train to become a man of the cloth.
And so, he did. For twenty years, Nick devoted his heart, soul and disgruntled penis to serving the Catholic Church. Mostly, he embraced his vocation, with love and servitude to his community fulfilling his hierarchy of needs. But, just as the flame of religious duty had blazed clearly in his mind’s eye at the age of 18, one day in August, over a year ago, the same ignition flickered out and extinguished. Nick had achieved all he wanted to do in religious life and knew he needed to start living as a civilian again.
He’d wanted to take off the dog collar and just be one of the lads. He’d wanted to experience elusive romantic love. He’d wanted to have sex. Twenty years of listening to salacious and outrageous tales through the wall of a confessional booth, chubbed up under a vestment and trying to focus on the required responses of the rite, had him absolutely feral to actually DO IT. He was desperate to take his turn to live like all those horny little rascals who flocked in on Sunday for forgiveness just so they could do it all again next week.
Father Nick was done.
Over the last year he’d been thriving in a new life, sharing a bijou flat with his long-term friend, Sahar, fulfilling his dream to train as a primary school teacher, and embracing his bisexual identity as a regular face on the buoyant London gay scene and in his queer rugby club.
But, despite almost overwhelming desire and a three decade long case of blue balls, Nick had not actually had sex. His fuckman energy was all a façade, designed to test the hypothesis of whether he could pull – if he drummed up the courage to seal the deal with one of the many people he flirted with. But enough was enough. His birthday was in a few days, and he simply refused to be a forty-year-old virgin.
Clearing his throat, Nick grasped his pint tightly for purchase and grounded his jiggling feet. Eight eyes turned to lock onto him from around the tightly squeezed pub table.
“I’ve something to say.”
Christian smirked, “Alright mate, no need to request the talking stick. Wossup?”
Nick focused his attention on lovely Tara instead of Christian, the smirky little prick. Her head was tilted to one side curiously but her smile was warm and encouraging.
“I’m a virgin.”
A splash of cider hit Nick’s good shirt as Sai spat out a fresh mouthful in surprise. Incredulous screeches chorused from Sai, Christian, Tara and Sahar as they tried to process his humiliating announcement.
Having expected this reaction, Nick repeated the news. “I’m a virgin. Never had sex. Of any kind. With anyone. Except myself, of course. Which I have at least twice daily, regular as toothbrushing. But another human? No. Sexless.”
Tara lifted her jaw from its placement close to the sticky table-top and asked, “But how? Like never?”
“Nope. Like, never. I was a late bloomer, then, y’know, priests are famously celibate, and since then, I’ve haven’t had the bollocks to go further than kissing with anyone.”
Christian looked like someone had broken the news to him about Santa. “Fuck, mate. I never knew.”
Shaking his head in disbelief, Sai stammered, “But all the lads at the rugby club fancy you. None of them? Not even Callum? Everyone fucks Callum?”
Nick laughed, feeling better and bolder now his long-held secret was out. “No, not even Callum. Although, yes please! I’ve been trying to get over the hurdle to just pull people since I came out of priesthood and have been too chickenshit, but I’ll be forty next Friday and it’s put a rocket up me to rip the plaster off finally!”
Grinning, Sahar lifted her pint in a toast. “Hear hear! It’s a fucking crime for that dick to be unused, babe! I’ve seen enough of it ‘round the flat to know you’re packing. So what’s the plan?”
Taking in a big breath, Nick told the little voice of shame that lives in everyone’s head to ‘fuck the fuck off’, and finished his announcement defiantly. “I’ve been a virgin for forty years. I’ve listened to everybody talking about having sex with everybody else for decades and I’m ready for it to be my time. I’m still youngish, single and virile. So, I’ve decided this year, I don’t just want to lose my virginity. I want to enter my slutty era with a bang. Pun intended. I want to have sex with forty different people – I’m talking no strings attached, no guilt allowed, shagging. Will you guys help me?”
The table was silent for one second. Like the delay between the explosion and the blast on a bomb. Everyone looked agog but said nothing...
Until the screaming. The table erupted into pandemonium, cheering, banging of the table, clapping, laughing and whooping. Tara laughed so hard tears streamed down her face. Christian’s proud smile was akin to when he’d first introduced them to his daughter.
Sai recovered first, barely. “Well, fuck me purple and call me Richard! I wasn’t expecting that, Nelson! To think I almost cried off pints tonight, and might have missed this!” He thumped Nick on the back and added, “Pleased for you, mate. Let’s get you fucking laid, then, eh?”
“Helping you become a slut would be the greatest honour of my life,” Sahar added with false sincerity. “What, if any, are the ground rules for this noble quest?”
Beaming from ear to ear that he’d finally put his ambition out into the universe and had the backing of his friends with it, Nick expanded, “Right, so anyone I fancy enough to hook-up with is fair game. I’ll use dating apps primarily and will state clearly on my bio I’m in it for sex. ‘Course if opportunities pop up in real life, and I can follow through, they’ll count to the tally.”
“I’ve done nothing sexual before so all sexual activity counts as a score as I gain experience, and I’d obviously love to get to shag attractive people of all genders, if we make a match! I’ll build up to full penetration and hopefully by the time I’ve a forty-deep body-count, I’ll be dynamite in the sack! I think God owes me that much after all the work I put in for them.”
Sahar grinned wolfishly. “What about friends? I would be more than willing to provide some practical coaching and, like Sai says, I bet the rugby club lads will lose their tiny minds if they catch wind you’re down to fuck everyone all of a sudden!”
Nick laughed, flattered and flustered. He was literally getting volunteers. This was already shaping up beyond his wildest dreams. Shaking a vision of Sahar’s bountiful baps bouncing in his face as she rode him like a Grand National hopeful out of his head, Nick managed to reply, “So long as you don’t find it weird, that’d be amazing. I may need some patient partners to get the first notches on my bedpost, so willing friends with benefits would be fucking great!”
The group spent the rest of the night setting up various app accounts for Nick, and howling with laughter, thirst and occasional horror, as they swiped through the hook-up options in close proximity.
Operation ‘Nick Nelson: 40-Year-Old Virgin Slut’ had officially started.