"slave"

I had sex for the first time last night, three days after I turned eighteen.
I started hanging out with much older people than myself when I was fourteen. Being blatantly honest, positive sexual attention wasn't hard to come by, so I got used to saying "no" relatively early. I'm glad about this; somewhat proud that I was okay with myself enough to deny boys (only being heterosexually inclined at the time), that had many more years than me and thus had much longer than I to perfect techniques of emotional and sexual manipulation (I'm not trying to demonise, merely being realistic).
After a number of negative sexual experiences (for example, relentless pursuance or waking up with a boy's hands inside me) saying "no" became more than a conjunction of youthful nervousness and feeling intimidated. These experiences, though terrible already, perhaps had additional weight because I didn't have any positive sexual experiences to balance them with at the time.
"No" mutated into an assumption, a state of mind that began to affect me physically as well. I'm a very sexual person; I watch a lot of porn, I masturbate often and am sexually attracted to 80% of Melbourne's population.
Unfortunately, my sexual defensiveness subconsciously came to eclipse how attracted to or how in love I thought I was with a partner - whenever I entered into an encounter with a person; female or male, there would be a point, up until which I would have been incredibly turned on and 100% consenting, when my desire would completely shut off, like a light bulb blown, never to shine again. This usually happened as soon as any chance of a situation progressing to some kind of naked tomfoolery or penetration became apparent. Alongside the instantaneous disappearance of sexual drive came a slight sexual repulsion for whomever I had previously wanted to be with.
I was afraid of concretely pinning this process on psychological trauma because it was an idea that most definitely had the power to justify and exacerbate the prevalence of a, however understandable, reaction to sex that just acted as a total head fuck to whomever I was involved with.
Consequently, I have a number of people, some that are still close friends (others that disappeared as soon as I told them I wouldn't have sex with them) who have tried to have be with me since fourteen or fifteen, and yet, it was a perfect stranger that I chose to take home.
Feeling the happiest I have in three years; namely due to recovering from an intense illness and the reinvigoration of my appreciation of my health, my family and my friends, I was out at a street festival, seeing a friend's band play at a pub. A friend of a friend introduced me to an boy with a beautiful face. I danced hard with my pals to the alt-pop tunes of a band I have seen play many, many times, but never enjoyed as much as I did that night. My new acquaintance and I shared ciders, had nice chats and danced to the DJs who played later that night. I introduced him to my friends, whom he seemed to charm with ease.
Around 11pm, I offered for him to stay the night at my house, responding to his unassuming confidence and nice smiles. It seemed so silly, how comfortable I was around this perfect stranger. We left around 1 or 2am. At home in Richmond, we drank more, sat on my balcony and listened to Bill Callahan. He turned out to be much older than me; nine years my senior. I was surprised, but only because age isn't something I think about often. I preemptively explained that I probably wouldn't have sex with him and made sure that if I said "no", that would be ok. Subsequently, through speaking openly, about my nervousness and insecurities, things progressed rapidly, but I felt good. We got naked to Why?'s 'Alopecia'.
Though a confusing mix of pleasure and pain, I felt sexy and happy. We slept naked.
In the morning, I cooked us omelettes whilst he bought take-away coffees from around the corner.
I felt terribly embarrassed only after applying an insensitive nickname - whenever I ask people to do things for me (i.e. fetch coffee, make beds, drop off a library book etc;), I call them "slave" - joking about myself and how demanding I can be. I did this to him twice before feeling ill because I realised what I had done. He has very dark skin, being first-generation American with parents from the Caribbean. I apologised profusely, explaining that it had no cultural references at all. He said he had wondered what I was getting at. Oh dear, oh dear!
We hung around in the courtyard until 11am when one of my lady-friends arrived to ship me to the beach for the day. He had to go to work later in the day, so we parted ways with a kiss. Maybe I will see him again sometime, as we swapped digits, but either way, I can't imagine a first-time scenario that could have been any better.