by Madari Pendas

Have you taken her on daily walks? Preferably at ten in the morning and then once the sun has begun setting. She needs to see the pink, turquoise, and amber swirls braided in the clouds. Magic is a very important belief system for my virginity, for that little girl who fears she’ll become her mother.

On Fridays, let her stay up late watching TV. Toonami plays late in the evening, and she likes to feel grown up. Inuyasha and Yu Yu Hakusho are her favorites. You may only see glazed-over dullness in her eyes, but she’s part of those adventures; learning that life can be configured in so many ways.

This is what you wanted. The price of taking a virginity. Now you must plastic wrap your sofa because she will spill cereal on the cushions and try to take surreptitious sips from your coffee when you’re not looking. Now you have to put stickers on the double glass doors of the balcony; think about which toys are choking hazards and which are far too sexual for a little girl; watch for other men, adjacent glances, and fear the world in a new way.

This is what you wanted.

You may not know this, but my virginity will need a diary. Get her a purple one. So her secrets appear more regal. Please get her one with a lock. Privacy is very important, especially since she lives with you now. She’s going to write in a secret language in case you do try to read her journal. It’s a mix of Spanish, English, and the few Japanese words she’s learned from Sailor Moon. 一番 being her favorite.

This is what you took.

Make sure you let my virginity stare at the moonlight with regularity, preferably full moons. She’ll need to be reminded of the grandeur of this world—if it’s a clear night or a particularly special celestial day, take the lawn chairs and place them on the roof. Bring her sweet popcorn and toasted Pop-Tarts. Her father never did this, even when he was unemployed and had the whole day to get the ladder from the shed. Make her feel like her interests matter.

This is what you wanted when you kissed my neck and pulled the loops on my jeans. You didn’t even take me on a date. Not for ice cream. Or to a cute artisanal coffee shop. My virginity wanted some kind of ceremony: a little dance in a spring shower or the promise of it. Did you not think to make the moment special—that a girl needs that?

I suggest you take other virginities so the apartment fills with the joyous laughter of all those separated girl-children. Mine will protest, want you all to herself, pull on your shirt sleeve, make holes in your jeans with safety pins, but then she’ll bond with the other kids and look for ways to play Truth or Dare every day. She likes seeing if her friends will eat worms. Or a smoothie made of tickseed flowers. Maybe you should play with her and see what she dares you to do.

I feel different without her. I’m grateful I waited til I was eighteen, but that still feels too soon to part with my girl. My disposition is harsher, stoic, and so serious I’ve begun to find myself dull. Most mornings, I wish to keep sleeping, and the thoughts that flutter in as the sun peers through the jalousies are about careers and promotions and marketing decks and KPIs. At least in sleep, I can remember her. Return to her. Recklessly REM with her memory.

May someone take something from you that makes your world smaller.

I sit at a computer. Then I sit in a car. Then I sit on a sofa. I used to chase my dog with my dress, pretending it was a muleta, and he an impish and feverish little bull; we’d wreck my dolls and flower vases, and end the evening in a confetti of shards and colors. Now the dog is another obligation. We walk the block then sit, again.

I hate who I am without my girl.

To the man who took my virginity—you’ve become a custodian of an essential part of myself. It may be too much to ask, or you’ve relegated the girl to some odd corner, a closet or the unclean part of the balcony, but love her. Try. Take her on a walk to see the banyan trees, remind her to look up, so she can see how the sun is falling through the jagged holes in the canopy, illuminating the leaves’ veins, letting that same light fall on her face.

Madari Pendas is a writer and cartoonist. Her work has appeared in Craft, The Columbia Journal, The Masters Review, The Maine Review, and more. She is the author of Crossing the Hyphen (2021) and She Loves me, She Loves me Not (2025). She currently lives and works in Hokkaido, Japan.