I ought to feel ashamed, thought Debbie, but she knew what she was actually feeling: giddy. Happy. Free. Giddy. These were not good feelings, not feelings with which she was comfortable. She could hear the still, small voice telling her Bad girl, bad girl; but moment by moment, the voice got smaller and stiller. And giddy got louder. The blood crashing into unfamiliar parts of her body was loudest of all.

This was not the first time she'd kissed a boy, but it was the first time that counted. The first time she was kissing a boy on a date, and a boy she liked. A boy who liked her! That was the real miracle here: Kevin Nickels liked her! When Jane had told her, she refused to believe her. She had called Jane a liar all weekend but on Monday morning, when Kevin had come by her locker to say "Hi," as casual as if he'd dropping by her locker every morning for months, she was so overcome with embarrassment she could do little more than stutter a few words. But he had said "See you later" as if they'd had a coherent conversation, and then he'd sat down by her at lunch. Talked to her like they were old friends, friendly and nice and nothing like the brat who'd pointed at her chest in 9th grade and called out, so that every kid in the school could hear him, "Pebbly Debbly". Jerkface Kevin was somehow replaced by nice-guy Kevin, and right before he left school that afternoon, he'd asked for her phone number. Had called her. That night. Talked to her for over an hour, told her things she would never have guessed about him, had told her how great she made him feel. How easy she was to talk to. Had said "See you tomorrow" as if nothing were more special, more important to him than seeing her tomorrow. And not once giving the slightest indication that today was the first time he'd ever treated this way: like a real human being.

Tomorrow was even more delirious than Monday had been, and the week was a blur that ended with him asking her out at lunch on Friday, and he actually showed up, took her to a party at the huge house of one of the cheerleaders, her folks out of town or something. They had held hands, he had taken her hand as they approached the front door, had simply reached over and taken her fingers in his, gently and with a nonchalance that made her blush with happiness. They'd walked through the party, talking to people who were his friends and certainly not hers, but with Kevin holding her hand so sweetly, they knew she was now cool. She knew she wasn't cool, but being with Kevin, who was way beyond cool, made her cool by association. Being treated decently by these people was almost too strange to bear; she was handed a drink, something sweet with an undertaste that was harsh and bitter, and she sipped it with scarcely a nod to her conscience. She hated the tiny whisper Bad girl, bad girl, so she sipped and stood close to Kevin and let the roar of alien emotion drown out every voice.

She walked next to him, giving no thought to where he was leading her, what anyone else might be saying. No one seemed to be speaking to her anyway; she was with Kevin, everyone could see that, but no one felt that meant that had to talk to her, and that was perfectly fine with her. What could she have said? She wasn't cool, had no idea how to act cool or not saying anything embarrassing. Everyone was happy to just ignore her, she was Kevin's girl and no concern of theirs, and that seemed to work out great for everyone. She sipped the drink she knew she shouldn't even be holding, and she let him pull her along through the party, more rooms than she could imagine any house needing, each loud and full of people who were Kevin's dearest friends and willing to ignore her, leave her in peace to walk with Kevin.

They walked through the house, and then he had led her to someone's bedroom and they were sitting on the bed and kissing passionately, and she knew she should feel ashamed but feeling giddy was much more wonderful. The mad whirling of her head and heart was almost too much to bear. But it was the most amazing thing she'd ever experienced.

But then he has pushing her back onto the bed, pushing her down and rolling over on his side, holding her down with the weight of his body as he kissed her harder, his tongue pushing deep into her mouth, and she wanted to be alarmed but something desperate and lonely and suddenly happy was causing her to kiss him back with an energy that was more frightening than his body against hers. When his hand slid from her back to her breast, she pressed herself up into his grip. Massive feelings took hold of her: emotions and physical surges, short-circuiting her ability to think. She wanted to know what to do next. She was on the brink of something incomprehensible, and neither her body nor her mind knew what to do.

Then his hand slid down her belly, pulled up the material of her skirt so his hand could touch her leg, and slowly began caressing the inside of her thigh. As if with the flicking of a switch, she suddenly saw and knew one thing with clarity: This is wrong. Where a moment before all her mind had held was the white-heat energy of her first taste of sex, now her mind was screaming warnings. She had been unable to do anything but kiss when he kissed her, respond eagerly to his hand on her breast; but this was too much. Too wrong. Too big. She knew, as his hand clawed greedily up her leg, what he wanted to do and that it was just wrong. The worst wrong, the most terrible wrong and the most terrible sin.

She pulled her mouth away from his, twisting herself, trying to roll away; she heard herself whispering as if another person, far away, were speaking words only half-believed: "No no, stop, please." But his response was to kiss her neck, her cheek, her ear; his hand slid all the way to her crotch. He was rubbing her vulva, his fingers pushing through the cloth of her panties, and she knew he was trying to excite her, get her to give in.

"Kevin! No, stop, please."

He slipped himself close to her; she could feel something on her leg. With shock that repulsed her, she realized: it was his erection. He was rubbing himself against her as his hand pushed at her.

"Kevin, no...."

And when she began to cry, just tears, no sobs, her body suddenly weak and still under him, whispering "No, Kevin, no" he did stop. He sat up and looked at her, and through her tears, in the dark, she couldn't tell if the look on his face was anger, disgust or triumph.

"You really don't?" he asked. "Are you sure?"

She rolled away from him before sitting up, too ashamed and frightened to look at him. She said nothing, sniffling around her tears.

She felt him stand up; "Ok, then. Bye." And with that, he was gone, out of the room and he left the door open and when she looked up there were people standing in the hallway outside the room. They were looking into the room and grinning, smirking, laughing. A new dull buzz was filling her head now, a noise that hinted at something worse than failure, worse than sin. She took a tissue from the box by the bed, blew her nose, trying to pretend the people in the hallway were not there, that she was not what she knew herself to be: the butt of a horrible joke. Kevin's joke.

She wouldn't let herself listen to the voices as she walked down the hallway towards the stairs, just focused on the buzzing noise and her own inner voice, growing louder and more shrill, condemnations she had earned; she just wanted to get the hell out of this house and home, run away and never see these horrible people again. But she knew it wouldn't be that easy; she knew there would be more, and that it would probably be even worse.

It was. As she came down the stairs, a banner was hung over the front door: "Virgin 1, Kevin 0." Another sign, hastily scribbled and hung right on the door, proclaimed: "2nd base ≠ scoring". In plain view of the stairs, standing casually but strategically so there was no way she would not see him, drinking and grinning proudly. He looked straight at her, smirking as cruelly as if she'd done something horrible to deserve this kind of shame. But you did. She looked away from him, and she made herself slow down, tried to enforce the semblance of a self-respect she did not feel. Bad girl, dirty girl. She was glad she hadn't worn a coat, just fixed her eyes on the doorknob, focused her ears on her own voice — dirty, bad, dirty — and kept walking, out the door and down the walk and the six full miles back to her house. Her toes were blistered and her left heel was bleeding, but she was numb. She stumbled into the house, dark and quiet, her parents long asleep. She went to the bathroom, ripped off her clothes viciously, climbed into the shower and stood under the water until all the hot was gone and she was shivering too much with cold to stand any longer. As she toweled herself off, she retched and vomited, very little coming up but her body racked with spasms of disgust. She collapsed onto the cold tiles, sobbing, curling herself into a tight ball of despair and rage. She sobbed until she slept, and when her mother woke her in the morning, pounding on the bathroom door, the first thought that came to mind was if Kevin would have been just as horrid if she'd given in and let him fuck her.