"Your future children want my phone number?" I answered, handing it to him.

Mike* called the next day to ask me out. With him, it was easy. No overanalyzing text messages or fretting over unreturned phone calls. Mike liked me and wasn't afraid to show it. After years of dating men scared of doing anything that might mislead me into thinking we were serious, Mike was a breath of fresh air.

We spent the next three weeks going to shows, exploring Brooklyn and making out furiously. (He nicknamed me Space Camp, because when we made out, it was like the simulated version of sex—all the fun without ever getting there.)

Because Mike put my needs first, I knew I could trust him. This made me feel safe opening up to him in ways I never had to anyone else—especially when it came to sex. At first my religious guilt was unbearable. We'd go to second base, and I'd enjoy it, but the next day I'd freak out and tell him we had to stop dating. This didn't faze him. His response was simply "We don't have to break up. We'll just go as far as you want to."

I started toying with the idea of having sex. But it felt like too big a leap. What would my parents think when I told them? Would I get excommunicated? And I was still getting e-mails every day from people congratulating me on my virginity, not to mention interview requests from reporters wanting to talk about my abstinence. It was too much to handle. I'd climbed up the high dive, but now I was too scared to jump.

Then one morning, in the most uneventful way possible, it happened. Mike had spent the night and needed to get up earlier than usual. I didn't want him to leave, so I started kissing him, trying to get him to stay. Before either of us really knew what was happening, we were having sex.

Wait. That's a lie. I did know what was happening. What I mean to say is that before I let myself think of all the reasons not to, I followed my instincts and we had sex. And how was it? Well, I'd always thought sex would be entirely new—like outer space or the great beyond. It actually felt a lot like all the other stuff we'd already been doing, just more painful. Only one moment felt different: When I looked into Mike's eyes, it scared me. I wasn't sure if I was ready to be that close to someone. Only now I was.

When it was done, I got very quiet. I suddenly felt like I'd crossed this huge threshold when all I'd meant to do was cross the street. "Don't think about it, don't think about it," I repeated to myself.

"Are you OK?" Mike asked.

"Yeah, I just need to take the dog out," I said, before fleeing.

As I hurried down the block, I told myself that nothing about me had really changed. I'd had sex; it wasn't that big a deal. Then I rounded a corner and came to a newsstand where I saw a magazine I'd done an interview for. It featured a girl wearing a metal chastity belt and the cover line The only living virgin in New York. Whoever says God doesn't have a sense of humor is wrong.

And then it really hit me: I wasn't a virgin anymore. That part of my identity was gone, and I had to face the fact that, at 28, I had no idea who I was. Tears welled up in my eyes, and a teenage memory, one I'd almost forgotten, popped into my head: A friend of mine, Ellen, a beautiful Mormon girl, had married another Mormon in the Seattle temple. After their first dance, she walked over to me and gave me a hug, looking happier than I'd ever thought possible. "How do you feel?" I asked her. "It was worth the wait," she said. "It was worth the wait. —Ellen Morehouse," I wrote in my journal that night years ago.