With apologies to the great Charles Dickens, I've borrow some of his words and thoughts for this story.

It was my seventeenth birthday and it was suppose to be the best of times, but the evening was young and my expectations were high. My name is Raymond Chandler, but everyone just calls me Ray. I am just entering my senior year at Paso Robles High School in mid-state California and tonight I was out on a date with Missy Adams. Missy and I had been an item for over three months and everyone thought we were the perfect couple. I had been trying to get under Missy's sweater or her skirt for that matter, for the past two months but so far the closest I had come was to caress her breasts through that preverbal sweater and she had never let my hand wander under her skirt. Each and every time I tried to move my hand up her legs once it got as far as her knee it got slapped and I was issues a stern warning about 'going to far, to fast', but I just knew that tonight would be my lucky night, after all it was my seventeenth birthday and I deserved it.

Missy and I had eaten my birthday dinner at my folk's house then we drove down Highway 46 West to a lover's lane spot and kissed while we watched the ocean pound the rocks off the coastline. Missy seemed more open to going farther tonight than she ever had so I pulled her across the seat and into my arms. My mouth found hers and my tongue slipped inside her mouth and our passions were ignited. The more we kissed the more our hands roamed each other bodies. After what seemed an appropriate time I let my left hand drop from Missy's shoulder to her right breast and I began to kneed and caress it, trying my best to find her nipple and pinch it.

"Oh God Ray, that really feels wonderful."

I continued my ministrations on her breast and at the same time I let my mouth wander down to her neck where I began to nibble and bite. I could hear her breathing quicken and she was beginning to squirm on the seat so I stuck my tongue out and licked up her neck and to her ear where I let it tease her ear lobe. "You taste so wonderful honey. I love you."

"I love you too Ray."

I felt her hand as it dropped into my lap and began to caress my cock through my jeans. I already had a hard on, partly from the expectations of the evening and partly due to the kissing and petting we had been doing. Sometimes, as they say, timing is everything! I moved my hand from her breast and down to her leg and I started kneading and caressing her knee and this time she didn't stop me. My mouth moved back up to her lips and as our tongues entwined my hand started up her leg towards the Promised Land, then, just like that, it was over. Her hand caught mine as it moved up her thigh and she grabbed my wrist with a vice like grip and she stopped kissing me. She sat back on the seat, never letting my wrist go.

"Jesus Christ Ray, haven't we discussed this enough. I don't play around and you know that. The first time a guy touches my pussy will be on my wedding night, now behave yourself or I'm going home."

"Fuck Mindy, I wasn't trying to screw you I just wanted to feel you while we made out, that's all."

"Oh sure Ray, first it's just a little foreplay, then next thing I know your hand is in my panties, then in me. No, I don't play those games and you should know that by now!"

Now I was pissed! For Christ's sakes it was my seventeenth birthday and the least she could do was let me touch her precious pussy and breasts. Well if she wasn't going to do that, then fuck her. I sat up behind the steering wheel and started the car.

"Where are we going Ray?"

"I'm taking you home Missy. Obviously you aren't interested in being out with me so I'll drop you off at your house."

"Fine! If that's the way your going to be I would rather be home than with you anyway."

I turned the car around and headed for her house. She lived about eight miles East of Paso Robles just off the 46. I was cruising down the highway at about 55, the speed limit, when she looked over at me.

"You know Ray; you're being an asshole and a baby."

"What the fuck is that suppose to mean?"

"You didn't get your way and you're going to pout. Shit I thought you were more mature than that."

The more she spoke the madder I got. The speedometer crept up on 60, then 65 as I pulled onto the 101, and headed north to take the next exit which would take us on the continuation of the 46 East. By the time I had passed the last stop light I was doing 70 and curing under my breath.

"Slow down Ray, you know the highway patrol is all over this stretch of road."

"I don't give a shit Missy, let them try and catch me." I kept going and just after I started down 'dead man's hill' I saw the CHP cruiser. Fortunately it had another car pulled over to the side of the road and I was spared a birthday ticket. I let the speed drop back to the regulation 55 and when I saw the sigh for the California Department of Firefighters station I put on my left turn signal and turn and went down the one lane road until I came to the gate in front of Missy's house. I parked the car and turned out the lights. It was just after eleven and all the lights, save the porch light, were off in her house. I knew that I needed to make amends with her so I turned and said, "Look honey, I'm sorry about all of this tonight but I was sure that you would let me touch you tonight, after all it is my birthday."

"I know Ray, I know. And I'm sorry too, it's just that I don't want to do the things you want to do."

I pulled her towards me and hugged her then bent my head down and kissed her sweet lips. She responded back kissing me and once again her hand fell down to my jeans and she rubbed her fingers up and down on my cloth covered cock. I was as hard as a rock and thought that maybe she would at least give me a hand job for a birthday present. I reached down and unzipped my jeans and fished inside and pulled out my cock. Her fingers touched my naked skin and froze.

"What the hell are you doing Ray? What exactly do you think I am going to do with that... that... thing?"

"Well you were rubbing me so I thought that maybe you..."

"What Ray, would give you a blow job? Maybe..."

"No Missy, just a hand job, that's all."

"Well you're wrong; I have no intentions of touching that thing and making you squirt all over my skirt. Good night Ray. Oh yea, Happy Birthday."

"Fuck you Missy; you're nothing but a prick tease anyway!"

She opened the car and stepped out onto the pavement, then she looked back down at me with an expression that could only be described as one of contempt, then she slammed the car door, strolled up to her house and went inside without so much as a backwards glance. I sat there stunned — and mad as hell. Who did she think she was anyway, Ms. America? I started the car and drove back down the road to the 46. When I came up to the road I slowed down, didn't see any cars, so I kept going through the stop sign and onto the highway. I goosed the gas pedal and soon I was hitting 60 on my way home. What a fucking nightmare of a birthday I thought.

I wasn't more than a mile down the 46 when I saw the blue and red strobe lights of a police car shining in my rear view mirror. Fuck, just what I need on my birthday another disaster. I pulled off to the side of the road and into a rest area then turned off the ignition and waited for the officer to get out of his car. In my side mirror I saw him open his door and start up to my car. I rolled down my window and waited, when he got up to my window I said, without looking, "What the fuck officer, I wasn't doing anything wrong."

"Don't you talk to me that way young man!"

When I heard her voice my head spun around and I saw that it was a lady cop standing outside my door. "Oh, I'm sorry ma'am."

"That's better; now give me your license and registration please."

I pulled out my wallet and took out my driver's license then reached into the glove box and grabbed the registration and handed them both to her.

"You wait right here young man while I run your plates. Do not get out of the car under any circumstances, do you understand me?"

"Yes ma'am."

Gail Barr took the boy's license and registration and walked back to her black and white cruiser and got in and pulled the dash mounted computer over so she could type in his driver's license and plates. She looked down at his license and saw the name, Raymond Chandler and his address and realized that she knew his mother.

Gail and Mrs. Chandler had met at the PTA last spring when Gail had been registering her son and daughter for school. Gail's transfer from the Sacrament highway patrol office to Paso Robles had been a traumatic one for her kids because they didn't want to leave their friends and move to a new school. Her daughter was the same age as Raymond and her son was just a year younger. Raymond's mother had seemed like such a nice woman and Gail idly wondered why Raymond was so angry. She even thought that she had seen a tear in his eye when he cursed at her. What was that about? Then she noticed that today was the boys seventeenth birthday. Maybe she could let the boy off with just a stern warning about the dangers of speeding and not ruin his birthday with a ticket. The computer came back with no 'wants or warrants' on the boy or the car so Gail exited her cruiser and walked back up to the driver's window.

"Look son, you were speeding and that's a dangerous habit, especially on a road like this one."