WP Query for 1 post at a time

How can I use WP Query to display one post at a time. So for example:

<div class="first">
POST 1 content
</div>

<div class"second half-width">
POST 2 content
</div>

<div class-third half-width">
POST 3 content
</div>

(notice the different classes for each div)

I’m trying to achieve a masonry-ish format for custom post types. From what I understand the WP_Query() function will take a posts-per-page argument, but anything greater than 1 will cause it to loop.

What I want to do is create my query, use the_content() for the first post, then later on down my HTML code use the_content() for the second and third post etc. Is there any way to do the_content() for the first post and then make the query move to the second post without looping?