Ann Fraye's post-Thanksgiving arrival at Brearleigh, my Manhattan girls' school, caused a sensation. For one thing, she was a rowdy among the demure — she played basketball as a contact sport, pulled practical jokes in chemistry lab, and laughed raucously at double entendres and smutty remarks.

And for another, she was unabashedly, openly, talkatively, interested in sex. Unlike repressed me.

"I'd have gotten laid by now if mom hadn't sent me to that all-girl's camp last summer," she complained at lunch the third day after she arrived. "I was giving my boyfriend handjobs and I let him finger me. I figured we'd do it when I got back from camp, but by then he was dating someone else. I didn't have a replacement before dad decided I should come to New York."

Soon we were studying together after school, either at her apartment or mine. We discovered common interests in politics (liberal), music (folk), and art (pop and abstract). We puzzled about the world our parents inhabited — activist politics, civil rights, dinner parties, the newest books and movies — but mostly she carried on about sex.

"Janey Bernstein is really going out with that dope from Dalton? What's she see in him?" I asked one day, puzzled why Janey was mooning around and sighing a lot.

"Probably a big cock," Ann leered, and I blushed. She was so direct it made me uncomfortable.

"I can't stand this sex talk all the time," I grumped at Ann one day. "Why don't you DO something about it?"

"C'mon, Laura. I've been here less than a month. It's Christmas. I've got two families to visit, shopping to do. But after New Year's..." and her voice trailed off.

In late January, as the Democratic primary campaign for mayor was heating up, we decided to get involved. Our parents were social with the Congressman who was running, and Ann and I liked him as well. So, with our parents' encouragement, we signed up as volunteers.

Among the dozens of other volunteers there were maybe 20 our age. Ann developed a crush on Josh, and soon they were taking any assignment they could to work together.

Maggie, Ann's step-mother, allowed Ann to set her own after-school schedule, so she could be at headquarters every day if she kept her grades up. My parents were more reluctant, but they agreed I could go to headquarters during the week only because I was with Ann. But I had to toe the line about my grades or I'd have to come right home.

We did our homework quickly after classes and handed it in on time. Our mid-year report cards were excellent, so we got expanded permission — not only weekdays but also weekends at headquarters.

Early in March, Ann confided that she had the chance to spend next Saturday alone with Josh at his parents' apartment. "They'll be gone from Friday night till Sunday brunch. Will you cover for me?"

I was afraid. Of course I wanted to help my friend, but I worried that I'd mess up and we'd get caught. Ann had it all figured out.

"Saturday morning we'll say we're going to a museum instead of the campaign. I'll go to Josh's place and you'll go to some museum. We'll meet at that coffee shop across from the Public Library at 3:30 and you'll tell me what 'we' did so I can have my story straight. Okay?"

"Are you and Josh going to, uh, do it?" I asked, tremulously.

"Yes! I've jerked him off twice this week in one of the unused offices! This is our chance to be completely alone. He's even gotten rubbers!"

I'd never spent a whole day alone in the city. Ann and I had had a couple of encounters with strange men, so I knew to look like I knew what I was doing. I was at the Metropolitan Museum by eleven, wandered around several of the halls, ate lunch, wandered around some more, and was in a small booth at the coffee shop by 3:15.

At 3:30 Ann flew in. "You're never gonna believe this!" she whispered. "It was great! It was everything I hoped for! And we went shopping at Bloomingdale's!"

My jaw must have dropped because Ann giggled and reached over to push it closed.

"After I hung up my coat and got out of my boots, he led me to his bedroom. At headquarters we'd always worried that someone would interrupt us, but now we could do whatever we wanted.

"We lay down on his bed and kissed and kissed. After a while I reached over for his cock. 'Please Ann' he said, and I unzipped his pants and pulled it out.

"It was huge! I'd only felt it, never seen it. But it was bigger than my old boyfriend's. I'd never had the time to just, you know, examine one before, right up close. I started right in, stroking him."

"'Slowly, nice, oh yes, that's it, ' he said. It was so warm and so smooth. 'Faster, faster, FASTER! Oh Ann, you're gonna make me cum.' I was pumping as fast as I could and then he groaned like he always did just before he came. 'Oh god yes, don't stop, feels so good, faster, faster, OHHHHH!' and he came!

"I'd never seen a guy cum. I'd made my old boyfriend and Josh both cum, a lot, but always inside their pants. I'd never watched it happen. It shot up in the air two feet, like a white rope, then plopped down on my hand and all over him. He must have spurted five times before he made me stop." She paused, savoring the memory.

"He was completely wiped out! He just lay there and puffed. The look on his face! It was like he was in pain, real pain, when he was coming, but afterward he had this beautiful smile.

"We went to his bathroom and he cleaned us up. He took his pants and briefs off, since they had cum on them. I nearly stopped breathing! His balls were huge!

"We went back to his room and we got each other naked. We kissed, and kissed, and touched each other all over. It was heaven!

"He put his finger in my pussy and got me really excited. I grabbed his cock and started pumping again, but he made me stop. He reached under his bed and pulled out a box of rubbers.

"'Put one on me, ' he said, and showed me which side was up. I rolled it all the way down. The wrapper said 'lubricated' and it sure was.

"He had me lay back and he got into position. He started to push in. The pain was pretty strong, and he stopped when I asked him to. I was really tense and he pulled out and we kissed a lot and he worked his finger in and out of my pussy. I relaxed and we tried again, but it was the same, even if he got in a little further. He put two fingers inside me this time and it felt really nice.

"The third time he was pushing in pretty steadily when the pain really hit me and I started to cry. He stopped, then all of a sudden he pushed harder into me. It HURT!

"I hit him! On his face! He HURT me! I was crying and he just sat there with this 'what'd I do?' expression."

"'I TOLD you, "take it slow, let me get used to it." We agreed! You promised! That really hurt! That's why I slugged you.'"

"'You're okay now, right? That's the worst part, you'll be fine, ' he said, and he was kissing me.

"And it was! It took a while for the pain to go away, but when I felt better he got back on top of me and started to move. It was glorious! We moved against each other and I felt wonderful! We danced! I nearly had an orgasm and he came while I was thrashing around.

"We took each other's virginities! We rolled onto our sides, staying hooked up. 'That was sooo nice, ' I said, just stroking his face. 'God I wish we'd done it sooner.'"

"He was so sweet! He put his lips right up to my ear and whispered, 'Ann, did you cum? I wanted to make you cum, but I wasn't sure.'"

"'Oh god yes, your cock got me to cum. And I got you to cum too, right?' And we laughed.

"'God, yeah, I did. You're so warm around my cock. I never knew it'd feel this good.'"

"We lay there for the longest time. He got soft and I rolled the rubber off him. His cock was slick and I got some of his cum on my hand. I made a big deal of licking it off. It was salty and thick, but I liked it, especially since I knew he was watching. I wrapped the rubber in a Kleenex and put it on his nightstand."

I was surprised at the effect this had on me. I was excited. I'd never gone out on a date, never been kissed by anyone other than my family, and had only lightly played with myself.

"What was that about Bloomingdale's?" I reminded her.

"Well, when we got up, we saw that there was a lot of blood on the sheets. Josh got scared. 'My mom will kill me when she sees this! We have to clean it up!'

"But the blood had started to dry. We wouldn't be able to get it all out.

"'What're we going to do?' he was really scared.

"Don't you have more sheets?

"'Sure, but she'll see one set is missing. Oh man, am I in trouble!' That's when I thought of Bloomingdale's."

"Huh?"

"Maggie had taken me there when I first came to New York. She let me pick out my sheets, pillows, curtains, carpet, everything. We'd spent a whole day there.

"'Get dressed, Josh, ' I told him, 'we're going shopping. We'll buy a new set of sheets. Find the label. Hurry, let's go!'"

"We took a taxi to Bloomingdale's. It took a while, but we got lucky and found the same sheets. We were back at his apartment by one-thirty. We decided we wanted to fuck once more on the old sheets before we changed them, so we did.

"It was a lot easier this time. I rolled the rubber onto him while he was stood in front of me. He pushed me back but then had me get on top of him. I wound up sliding up and down on his cock. It was a little twingy but not much, and I bounced around on him. God it was great! You have no idea! I came twice! After my second orgasm, he started humping up against me and he came! I collapsed onto him and felt like I was gonna die!"

I must have looked exhausted myself, because Ann reached over and patted my hands. "It's fun, Laura, you've gotta do it. We'll talk about it some more, later."

I briefed her on "our" day at the Met and we went home. On Monday she told me Maggie had bought the story.

Ann began her campaign. "Do you play with yourself at night?" she asked, nonchalantly, at lunch. Her tone was matter-of-fact conversational, but she didn't care who heard.

"ANN! That's private! You can't ask me that," I hissed at her.

"Don't they do sex ed here?" she deadpanned.

"Yes, last year, in freshman health," I admitted.

"Well, then they must have brought up masturbation, right? And they must have told you everybody does it, right?"

"Well, yes, but they didn't go around the room and get everybody to say so," I defended.

"Because if they had —" she said, and let it drop.

Over the next week she pushed me harder and harder about my experience. She also got much more explicit about what she and Josh had done and kept on saying how much fun it was.

"I came three times last night," she said in the hall the next day after first period. "How about you?"

It was getting to me. By the end of the week I was cumming in bed at night and in the shower in the morning. Ann told me how she controlled the onset of her orgasm and even how to do it during my period.

And she kept rhapsodizing about what she and Josh were doing every chance they got. They were taking real risks at headquarters.

Once they were caught when Josh made too much noise as she jerked him off. Muffie, the volunteer coordinator, who assigned us to various jobs, told them to behave or they'd have to leave. Another time, on an errand downtown, they took so much time that Peter, the scheduler, called Josh's teacher and told him Josh was close to being kicked off of the campaign. So they had to cool it.

I was jealous. Ann was having all this fun and I wasn't. The clincher came when she analyzed why I wasn't dating.

"You're just repressed, you haven't let yourself go. I've seen you in gym — you yell, you cheer, you get red in the face. What you need is a guy to bring you out of your shell." She was right. I gave in.

But there was this problem: I didn't know any guys. Being an only child of only children, I had no brothers or sisters or cousins to introduce me to their friends. I'd been at Brearleigh since kindergarten. I didn't go to the mixers with the boys' schools because I didn't like to dance.

What to do?

Ann discarded the male teachers at school as too old and too risky. "I think the weatherman on channel 4 is really cute," I ventured, but that seemed hopeless. Ann suggested a couple of the volunteers at the campaign, most of whom were from Josh's school, but we decided the gossip mill would be hurtful to us both. Besides, they were likely to be virgins themselves, and Ann said I needed an experienced guy.

We had pretty much exhausted the known universe when I realized that the answer was right under our noses.

Peter, the scheduler, was a nice, fun guy. Ann and I had done work for him, filing and copying. I'd stood in line at the photocopier with him a couple of times and we'd kidded around. He had black hair and a beard and was always tossing around off-beat quotations from classic literature and classic movies. Physically he was average and didn't smoke (one of my requirements). And there were no stories about his having a girlfriend.

"Yeah! He's nice. He's older, he'll know what he's doing," Ann said, and she set about devising a plan.

"The next time you're together, you tease him a little. Throw out a couple of movie quotes of your own, do your best to bump into him. Put your hand on his ass and squeeze, that'll get his attention!" She leered but made her point. I tried most of her suggestions or twice but I didn't think he noticed.

Ann made me keep trying. About a week later, on a Wednesday afternoon I got a laugh out of him and the next day he sought me out to top some remark I'd made.

The next day, when I arrived at headquarters, he wasn't there. They said he was really run down and the campaign manager had told him to stay home through the weekend, so he'd be rested for the big push of the campaign.

"It's perfect! We find out where he lives and you go visit the sick. Take him some chicken soup, that's what's good for being sick, right?" We checked the staff list and found out he lived only four blocks south of Brearleigh.

"Okay, tomorrow morning you cut school after home room. You go to his place with the chicken soup. Maybe he'll seduce you." I was dubious but didn't see any other way, so I agreed to try.

"Who's there?"

"Hi Peter. It's Laura. From the campaign. I, uh, heard you were sick, so I brought you some chicken soup."

He opened the door to a studio apartment, one room with a separate bathroom and kitchen. There wasn't much furniture, just a day bed couch with a bunch of pillows, a glass-top coffee table, and a chair. In the tiny kitchen there was a table and two chairs.