"Shit! You got laid again last night? Was it Jenny again?" I was walking from home room to our English class with my buddy, Bob. It was the second semester of our senior year of high school. Graduation was a month away. We were seventeen and feeling like the proverbial cocks of the walk.

"Nah," Bob said casually. "It was another chick." I believed it because I'd seen the way the girls acted when he was around. I believed it but I never understood it. Bob wasn't what I'd call handsome. He was tall and skinny and he had a pretty big nose with a big bump in the middle of it. But I had noticed that Bob made them laugh, even if it was at himself.

One of the things that had drawn us together as friends was that we were both mostly disinterested in sports. Hell, we didn't even like P.E. class. Bob glanced at me and grinned. "Hey, Denny, if I had your looks I'd be getting even more pussy than I do. You just have to be confident."

Well, I thought, that was my biggest problem. I couldn't see what a girl would see in me. I didn't think I was handsome; but I wasn't ugly either. To me, when I stood in front of the mirror I looked... normal. I saw myself as just kind of average. Add to that the fact that I was painfully shy, and it will be clear why I was still a virgin at seventeen.

The day ended and with it the school week. Friday afternoon was a good time to go to the local burger place to hang out and check out the girls. I had a car. Back in those days owning a car was supposed to be a ticket into the fast lane. Even a beater like my old '49 Chevy fastback -- as long as it ran and I had gas money -- should have been getting me laid. But all I did was look and wish. Oh, yeah: and jerk off.

At the time Bob was going with a girl from his French class. He was not in the car with me when I pulled into the drive of the Burger Palace. As usual I was alone. I drove slowly along the cars lined up at the curb. The place had indoor tables and curb service. The carhops didn't wear roller skates by that time, the way they had fifteen years earlier, but this was before the days of the 'drive thru'.

I could see that the inside tables were full as were a lot of the cars. I turned left into the alley and drove behind the building and past the dumpster. As I turned around to the third side of the place, I saw the situation was identical to the first, with cars lining the curb. As I came up to where the building's door on that side was I had to slam on my brakes. A girl had jumped out right in front of me! She was lucky I had fast reflexes or I'd have hit her. As it was I screeched to a stop and she pounded a tattoo on my hood before scampering around to my rolled down window.

It was Terry. She was in my Geometry class. Her place in the high school hierarchy was sort of a female version of my own. I wasn't a jock or a hood. She wasn't a cheerleader or a slut. We suffered our days at school pretty much serving our time as -- what in the 80's -- would come to be called nerds. The difference between Terry and me was that I heard that Terry went out on dates -- a lot of them. She wasn't saddled by the crippling shyness I was. Besides, it was always the guy who asked the girl out back then. It was easy for even a modestly attractive girl to sit back and wait for some guy to ask her for a date. After that, her only decision was whether she wanted to put out or not.

When she reached my window she kind of staggered against the side of the car. She brought her head down to look inside the car. I could tell from her eyes and her breath that she'd been drinking. "Are you okay?" she asked in a loud voice.

"Yes, Terry, I'm fine. How about you? You need to watch where you're going out here, you know?" Without another word, she skipped around the front of the car and climbed into the passenger side.

"Ahh, fuck 'em if they can't take a joke, ya know?" She flopped back against the seat and closed her eyes. I thought it would be best to get her away before the local cop cruised through and found her staggering around drunk. I left the Palace and we drove a while. I kept glancing at her but I couldn't tell if she was conscious or not.

"What's up with you?" I asked her. "You're pretty, you get decent grades. Why do you court trouble this way?"

"Denny, boy, you have no idea," she gasped as she was hurriedly rolling the window down. I was afraid at first she was about to paint the side of the car with puke. When she leaned out the window and started shouting at the people we passed, I stepped on the gas and left the area fast.

"What the fuck... ? Where are we going?" I guess she finally realized we were moving. At least she'd stopped yelling.

"Away from there, at least," I told her. I just drove with no real idea of where to go. Terry leaned back and closed her eyes again. I glanced her way as we drove. She had medium sized tits. Her reddish blonde hair was messed up. She was wearing jeans and a jersey with a big number 40 on it. She turned her head my way and opened her eyes.

"I'm fucked up," she said.

"No shit. How much have you had to drink?"

"Just three beers," she answered. Three? She acted the way I did after six or so. I was glad, though. It meant she would probably get straight sooner than later. I pulled in at a gas station to get her a cup of coffee. "Stay in the car," I told her. There was no response.

When I slammed my door as I got back in, she sat up. I gave her the coffee and she took it. She already seemed better. We drove some more.

"So talk to me," I said. "How come you were drinking tonight?"

"Carl Noyes gave me a ride home from school. He asked me out for later. He had a six pack when he showed up. We went to the lake and drank it. When I didn't want to let him fuck me, we went to the Palace. When I went to the can he ditched me." I was a little surprised she used 'the F word'. Most of the girls I knew back then -- the 'nice' girls -- didn't talk that way, at least in mixed company.

"Yeah, well, I could have told you Noyes was a prick. I'm surprised you went out with him. He's fucked over more than one of your friends, you know."

"Aw, you know, first I needed a ride. Then when he asked, I figured it was just one date. Kinda like payback, you know? It wasn't like he asked me to go steady or anything."

"Well, one night stands are Carl's specialty. That was how he knocked up Patty Simpson."

"Patty's a slut." She peered across at me. "You don't think I'm a slut, do you, Denny?"

I had to laugh. The rumor was that Terry was a cock tease -- probably a virgin. She acted like she knew what sex was all about, but nobody I knew claimed to have gotten into her panties. "Not at all," was all I told her.

"Good, because I'm not, you know." She was silent a while. Then she said in a quiet voice, "I may not be a virgin but I don't put out for just any guy."

Now, this was getting surreal, I thought. Terry and I weren't what you'd call close. We knew each other, but mostly just from school. We'd never been alone together until that night. It occurred to me that -- for whatever reason -- she must trust me a lot.

"Terry, I was under the impression that you didn't put out at all." I looked over at her. She was staring right back. There was no real expression on her face. I watched the road and then kept glancing at her as I continued. "I mean... well, most of the guys I know think you're a tease since you never put out." When I finished, she had a lopsided smile on her lips, but it looked kind of sad, too.

"That's good, I guess," she mumbled.

We had been driving out the High Crest Road. As the car bumped across the tracks, where they cross the road just outside the city limits, there was silence inside the car. I passed the turnoff for the lake and finally pulled over at the closed down roadhouse parking lot. The tires crunched in the gravel as I slowed to a stop.

She sipped her -- probably cold -- coffee and looked out the window. "Denny, you've always seemed like a good guy to me. Yet you never had a girlfriend that I know of. You're good looking and you get good grades, just like you said I do." She rolled the window down and poured the last of the coffee out the window. She seemed more sober by then.

"I'm gonna ask you something personal, Denny. You don't have to answer if you don't want to. That, in itself, would be an answer, though. You can lie to me and I'll never know the difference," she gave a little laugh. "Unless I tested your answer," she added with a grin. I was getting nervous. I didn't care much what she wanted to ask me; what I wanted to know was why she was asking.

"So, shoot. I'll answer your question."

"Okay, Denny, are you gay?" I'd expected her to ask me something about her. The question hit me out of the blue. I laughed and shook my head.

"Gay? Me? Of course I'm not gay!" But then I replayed what she had said about her perception of me. I understood then. "No, listen, Terry, I am not into guys." Then I remembered what she'd said about testing my answer. "But... well, if you'd like to 'test' me, I'll be happy to submit to it."

I watched her and she realized that she had, in effect, offered herself to me -- at least in some way. It was her turn to be flustered. "Why don't you go out with any girls, then?"

"I have been out a few times. But, well... it's just that..." I was choking up the way I always did when a cute girl had me on a spot - or even talked to me at all. I looked out my side window trying to work up the courage to admit I'm so damned shy. It was stupid, I know, but I just was too shy to admit I was too shy. I wanted to be thought of as 'cool', or at least normal. I couldn't help it when the tears began to well up in my eyes.

Terry put her hand on my arm. I turned back to her and she saw my eyes shining in the dim light. "Oh, Denny, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to pry. If it's some problem you can't talk about... oh, never mind. It's none of my business anyway." I sat there trembling with shame as she gently wiped my tears. I've never been so embarrassed in my life.

I pulled my handkerchief out and honked into it. I thought she would scoot as far away as she could -- if she didn't bolt from the car. Neither of us understood what the other was thinking. I knew I couldn't just let her think... whatever weird thing she might be thinking. I looked at her and then back out my side window. "I'm just too fucking shy, okay? There, now you know." She had pissed me off; but mostly I was pissed off at myself.

I don't know what reaction I had expected, but it wasn't laughter. I glared across at her. She covered her mouth with a hand, as if that would hide her amusement at my cowardice. Because that was the way I saw it: I was too chicken to risk rejection to ask a girl out. Terry wound down and realized she'd hurt me. She stopped laughing and scooted close to me. Suddenly she was kissing me. After a few seconds I kissed her back. We made out for a long time before she came up for air.