Our school cafeteria had these ugly orange plastic chairs, and matching trays. There were hundreds of them too, ugly as hell, all lined up around tables that wobbled when you leaned on them, and usually spilled your drink when things got a little boisterous, as they often did in a typical Frederick Ranger High School lunch hour. I walked with my orange tray through the cafeteria, looking for someone I knew, someone interesting to sit with.

Charlotte Lawsen looked up from her conversation as I went by and stared at me, slowly turning her head as I progressed past her. She smiled, and I nearly tripped over a kid who had his chair shoved way out into the main aisle. I stopped suddenly, almost spilling my French fries all over the idiot, and then smiled back at Charlotte.

“Watch it, man!” the kid said to me.

“Sorry,” I answered, and when I looked back, Charlotte had turned back to her conversation again. It was the briefest moment of eye contact with the hottest girl in school, and it had made my whole day. I really needed more excitement in my life.

“Anthony! Over here, man!”

It was my buddy Mick. He was sitting with some guys I’d never even seen before. He pointed at a couple of empty chairs at their table. It was as good a place to spend my lunch hour as any. I slid into the row, again tripping over someone’s school bag, and slammed my tray down onto the table.

“Dammit! Move your fuckin’ bag, Steve!”

Steve Henridge, a nerdy-looking guy from the A.V. club, was sitting at the table behind me. He tugged on his bag strap and pulled it under his table. I wasn’t really mad at him. Just embarrassed.

The new kid pulled the chair out for me, and I sat down next to him, across from Mick. I straightened my drink which had almost fallen over, and settled into place to begin eating.

“Anthony, this is Jimmy. He’s new to Ranger. I’m just filling him in on who’s who.”

Jimmy nodded at me and went back to gawking around at the various hotties in every direction.

“Unbelievable,” he said, muttering the word slow and emphatic under his breath. “How do you guys concentrate on a moment of school work with chicks like these?”

“You get used to it, I guess,” Mick replied. “But there are some days when every fine-ass babe in school suddenly decides it’s Torture-the-Boys day, and they all show up wearing short skirts and tight jeans at once. Then it’s agony and ecstasy at the same time.”

He popped a French fry into his mouth and shuddered, as though to emphasize the point.

“Nice.”

“Anthony, am I hallucinating or did I catch Charlotte Lawsen checking you out back there?”

I shrugged.

“Charlotte Lawsen? Who’s Charlotte Lawsen?” Jimmy wanted to know. He leaned toward me a bit and scanned the rows of seats in the direction I’d come from.

“Blonde, stacked like a fuckin’ centerfold-of-the-year, about three tables back and two seats over, other side of the aisle. You can’t miss her.”

Mick apparently knew exactly where she was sitting without looking.

“Oh my fucking god!” Jimmy said. He stared blatantly for about thirty seconds. Charlotte threw her head back and laughed loud at something a girlfriend said to her. Then she pointed at her and held up four fingers.

“Oh my god, four!?” her friend yelled. Then they all leaned in and spoke more quietly. Gossip, I assumed.

“Wow,” Jimmy said.

“That, my friend, is Charlotte Lawsen, the reigning queen of Fredrick Ranger High, the hottest piece of ass in school, and the most popular.”

“She got a boyfriend?” Jimmy wanted to know. We all laughed at him.

“Charlotte doesn’t do the boyfriend thing,” Mick said.

“Why not?” Jimmy asked, still staring at her. She tossed her hair around in a spinning fan of golden silk as she turned to say something exciting to the girl on the other side of her.

“Because having a boyfriend would get in the way of her, um, social life.”

Mick said social life with finger quotes in the air and a smirk on his face.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, let me put it to you like this…” He leaned forward, looked around to see if anyone was listening, and spoke in a lowered voice. Jimmy leaned in to listen.

“Charlotte Lawsen, that absolutely gorgeous thing you see sitting over there, is a complete and total slut.”

“A slut?” Jimmy said, and his mouth gaped in hungry awe.

“A slut. For her, sex is as free and easy as shaking hands. If you’ve got a hard-on, and you don’t look like you just rolled out of a dumpster that morning, she’ll probably do you at some point.”

Jimmy’s eyes lit up like a predator who’d just caught the scent of easy prey. I gave Mick a disapproving look. Charlotte wasn’t that bad. At least not that I knew of.

“Well, he asked,” Mick told me.

“So what's the deal with her?” Jimmy said. “Is she like something you wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole or what?”

“Oh, no. Not even close. As you get to know more people in this school, you'll find that she's actually one of the most popular chicks around. Always has been.”

Jimmy was still watching her. He took a slow sip of his cola, eyeing her with what could only be construed as base animalistic lust. We all were.

“You mean she’s a complete and total ho-bag, but everyone still loves her?”

“Well, not a ho-bag. She’s not diseased or anything. But she does get around a bit,” I answered.

“So she is a ho-bag then,” Jimmy replied.

“Well, she hasn’t done everyone,” Mick said. “But she’s probably slept with more guys than any other chick in school. I was exaggerating a bit, I guess.”

“Like, how many? Ten? Twenty? Thirty?”

“Around twenty maybe,” Mick said. “I’m not even sure.”

“N’ah. It’s more like ten or so,” I added. I was pretty sure Mick was right, but I didn’t like the way Jimmy was ogling her like a walking cum rag.

“And she’s still pretty popular you say?”

Mick dipped a French fry in ketchup and bit it in half.

“Usually people hate sluts, especially other girls, and especially very beautiful sluts like Charlotte. But nobody hates her, not at Ranger High anyway. It’s weird. She is a lot more slutty than other chicks, but she does have some rules when it comes to who she fucks.”

“Such as?” Jimmy asked, intently curious. His eyes turned to Mick just as Charlotte glanced over at me. I looked away, nervous as hell, but couldn’t look away long. I looked back and realized she was actually staring at me. Me? What the hell? She smiled again, paying as little attention to what her friends were babbling on about at her table as I was at ours. Then she wiggled her fingers in a little wave and went back to the little gossip session again.

I almost had a heart attack. I turned back to our own conversation once again, resisting the urge to stare at her with all my strength. Mick was chewing a French fry. Jimmy waited for him to speak.

“Okay,” Mick said, counting on his fingers as though he was the resident expert. “She rarely, if ever, sleeps with the same guy more than once or twice. Once you had her, she moves on. You’re done. Then there’s her No Snake rule: she never sleeps with another woman's man. She’s a slut, but apparently she’s not a backstabber, which is pretty classy in a way. And finally, as we said earlier, she doesn’t do the boyfriend thing; she never commits herself to any one guy. She enjoys and even prides herself on being sexually free. Any time, anywhere, with anyone, within reason, is her motto.”

“Cool,” Jimmy said.

Mick continued.

“But gossip and shit doesn’t bother Charlotte at all. She actually laughs about it. Sometimes she even fills in the blanks for stories people tell about her, making them even dirtier than the version that’s currently going around. You can’t hurt someone’s feelings when they consider being called a raging slut a compliment.”

Jimmy laughed. His laugh was lustful and covetous. It irritated me, like broken glass grinding under a steel door. I stepped up to defend Charlotte once again.

“Besides all that, they say she's a really nice person, once you get to know her.”

“And she sucks a mean dick, too,” Mick said.

“You've done her?” Jimmy asked. His eyes were wide. His mouth hung open. He looked kind of stupid right then, but the topic was blowjobs, and few men can ever be accused of being intellectual about that subject.

“Oh yeah,” Mick replied. “I’ve been on the Charlotte ride, and let me tell you, she was so good it damn near wrecked me. I literally couldn’t think straight for days after that. No exaggeration. That girl knows tricks.”

Jimmy’s chuckle faded into a low murmur: “Damn…”

“And this is the other strange thing that sets her apart from other sluts,” Mick said. “Just about every guy she's ever been with walked away with just as much if not more respect for her than they had before. She's not just being used by them, she's an active partner. She doesn't think of herself as a lowly cum dumpster. She thinks of sex as fun and exciting, and she gets right into it. If there's any hint that the guy's an asshole, he's sent away to go jerk off to mere fantasies of having known her.”

“Sounds like a smart girl,” Jimmy said.

“She's a slut, but she's not a dumb slut. She knows her shit. She's like a sexual encyclopedia or something, a master, an expert. Guys get with her, and it’s not just about getting their rocks off. They actually learn shit. They all walk away babbling like drunks though: she's amazing in the sack, or she's hands down the best fuck I've ever had, or she didn’t just fuck my body, she fucked my mind too.”

Mick was out of fries, so he grabbed one of mine and shoved it in his mouth.

“Have you ever done her?” Jimmy asked me.

“Not yet. Maybe someday.”

“So she's like a fuckin' steaming hot version of Dr. Ruth or something?”

“Yeah. Something like that. Chicks go to her for advice and shit, sexual techniques, ideas about how to seduce a guy, how to have a fling with a guy without being branded a cheap little whore. Stuff like that. She especially enjoys helping girls who were considered sluts in a bad way, to turn their reputations around. Charlotte always has good advice. Most girls who talk to her usually end up liking her as a friend afterwards, in spite of her reputation.”

A girl named Justine slid into the seat beside me and snatched up one of my fries as well.

“Who are we talking about today?” she asked.

“Charlotte Lawsen,” Mick said. “Jimmy here is new to the school and he wants to know all about her.”

“Surprise, surprise,” Justine said. “Every guy wants to know all about her. And they usually find out too, sooner or later.”

Justine didn’t seem too bothered by Charlotte’s reputation. She just laughed it off, proving Mick’s point about her popularity.

“You friends with her?” Jimmy asked her.

“Charlotte Lawsen? She's like, so cool! I asked her one time what I should do about my boyfriend wanting to have a threesome with me and this other girl. She told me that if my boyfriend was a confident guy and truly loves me, then go for it. But if he's insecure at all, adding another girl into the mix will do nothing but damage. A guy like that doesn't really love you. He just wants you and this other chick to stroke his fragile little ego. Man, she was so right too. Darren was such a dickhead all the time, jealous and insecure. Not only did I not do the threesome with him, I wound up dumping him after I talked to Charlotte. She’s awesome. I love her.”

Justine didn’t even know Jimmy, but she was being as blunt as a baseball bat about her possibly having a threesome with her ex-boyfriend. Jimmy’s eyes widened a bit.

“Jimmy, this is Justine Campbell,” I said. “She's somewhat of a slut herself, if you're interested.”

“Fuck off! I am not!” she said, but she knew I was just kidding. She threw a French fry at me and I had to flick it off my shoulder.

Jimmy nudged me with his elbow and nodded towards Justine.

“You two ever… you know, hit it up?”

Justine’s jaw dropped in shock, but she laughed out loud at his blunt remark. She was blushing a bit too. She was a cute girl. Not as hot as Charlotte, but few guys would turn down the chance to get naked with her. She looked at me with an odd twinkle in her eye, perhaps remembering the one little encounter we’d had together a few months before.

“Justine and I are just friends,” I said.

Jimmy began looking at Justine differently all of the sudden. She noticed and began acting a little more flirtatious in return too. It was subtle, but I knew her and I could tell. I guess she figured Jimmy was a good-looking guy, at least worth winning some attention from. Girls are funny that way.

Mick continued his analysis of Charlotte Lawsen, while I quietly studied Justine’s sudden change in behavior toward Jimmy with some amusement.

“Anyway, Jim, that kind of talk about Charlotte is pretty common from the girls around here. The guys have different stories to tell, like Trevor here. Come here, Trev.”

Trevor Miller stepped up to the end of our table. He grabbed one of my fries and shoved it in his mouth as well. Damn! There were only a few left.

“S’up?” he said, glancing down at Justine’s rack.

“Tell Jimmy here about the time you scored with Charlotte Lawsen.”

Trevor was instantly excited at the very mention of her name. He quickly gulped down the mouthful of fries and leaned over our table. He was talking too loudly and making big gestures, drawing way too much attention to himself. I felt embarrassed for Charlotte once again. I’m sure she could hear him. People at the next table over from us were turning around to look.

“Man, Charlotte is a freakin' goddess. I swear. We were fucking one night, and I got all wound up and like, came too soon, you know. It happens. Damn! I felt like such a dickhead. But she turned it around, so that it was somehow a good thing. She was like, ‘guess I’m a little too tight, huh?’ in that sweet, sexy voice of hers. And she giggled. I fucking love that! If only every chick could be that cool. I definitely went out of my way to show her my appreciation after though. She told me she was gonna have to call in sick to school the next day, she was so sore from coming so much. Damn! She's hot!”

Justine rolled her eyes at his blatant bragging, but Jimmy was hanging on his every word. Trevor was done the story though, and he wandered away toward the bathroom, probably to jerk off to memories of the night they were together.

“So she really has done like half the school already!” Jimmy said. He looked around, amazed. There were a hundred guys in every direction you turned.

I answered this one.

“No. It’s not that bad. She has been with a few, but like I said, she has rules. A lot of guys have tried desperately to get with her, and were shot down. She’s not mean about it or anything. She just sort of hugs them and tells them to ask her again some other time. They go away with their egos intact and a shred of hope. And they’ll usually defend her when anyone badmouths her behind her back.”

 “I would,” Justine confessed. “Definitely.”

“Me too,” Mick added.

“Cool,” Jimmy said.

Justine continued.

“Even some of the teachers have propositioned her.”

“Supposedly,” I added. “The rumors about her have spread even to the school staff room, and teachers' bathrooms. But we don't even know if it's all true.”

“I heard Mr. Donaldson made a pass at her,” Justine argued.

“Well that one is true, I think, but don't go telling anyone I said so. She shot him down of course, not wanting things to get too complicated. It was a smart move. She's a smart girl.”

“So what's the deal with her?” Jimmy asked. “Why is she like that? How'd she get that way?”

“Nobody really knows,” Mick said. “It’s a complete mystery. She's somewhat of a celebrity around school, almost a legend. We all know what she's like, but no one knows why she's like that, or how she got that way. She should be a nice, decent, respectable girl. Her family’s rich. She's beautiful, smart, talented. But instead of being a model student, a beacon of virtue, she's like, the hottest fuck in school. She's more interested in who her next lay is gonna be than in what college she'll attend after graduation. Nobody really knows why.”

“Wow,” Jimmy said. He had finished his cola and was now fidgeting with the cup, still unable to take his eyes off of Charlotte. Even Justine was glancing over at her now. She spoke softly, continuing the tale, and we leaned in to listen.

“They say she's been like this her whole life. She was the first in her school to kiss a boy, in grade three I think it was. She was the first to French kiss a boy, in grade five. She was the first to touch a guy's dick in grade seven. She was the first to do oral on a guy a few days after that. Eventually, she was the first to lose her virginity, in grade eight. She was only thirteen. Can you believe it?”

“Thirteen!?” Jimmy said.

“Shh! Keep it down, dude,” I said, nudging him with my elbow.

Janine continued.

“They say she lost it in the equipment room during gym class. I'm not sure if the story is true, but this is the way I heard it from a girl who knows Charlotte really well. Apparently she snuck away with this guy Charley, while nobody was looking. He started kissing her, pressing her up against the door. The next thing you know, he's tugging her sweatpants down and feeling her up down there, and fingering her and shit, and she was getting all hot over it. So then she’s like, sliding his gym shorts down and his dick comes flopping out, right in her face and shit. She said he had like this big huge dick that was as big as a hot dog. That seems pretty big for a thirteen year old guy, but Charlotte’s not known to lie about that shit.

“Anyway, she grabs it and starts stroking it, and he was all ‘Oh, god! Oh, god!’ just about coming right there, and she’s like 'You wanna put it in me?' and he just nods. Then she’s like, 'Kay. Do it. But only for a minute, okay? I just wanna try it once.' He lifted one of her legs up over his arm, and after like five minutes of poking around down there, they finally get it in her. Their legs were all shaking and shit, and he was just about crying he was so excited. Finally he gets it in her, just pop! And it’s like up inside her, and she was like all surprised and shit. She squeezed on his dick really hard, like, with her muscles… down there, and he popped right out again.” Justine giggled. We were all listening with rapt attention.

“Anyway, they got it back in and this time he managed to get a couple of strokes in her, like almost really fucking her, you know, except it kept popping out again, cause she was like, so tight, and it was a weird angle and shit. Finally they like pulled it out and ran over to this pile of gymnastics mats and she laid down and spread her legs wide open, all panting and excited and shit, and he got it back in her and they like, actually fucked for real for a whole minute, right there on the mats with like a hundred kids running around playing basketball right outside the equipment room door. Can you imagine!? But all the sudden she says it started to feel real good and she was like squeezing on him really hard like she might come or something, and she was all wriggling her ass around and that was all he could take. He whipped it out and started shooting his goo all over her. So anyway, that was her first real fuck.”

“Damn…” Mick said.

“Did he bust her cherry or what? Was there blood everywhere!?”

“He said there was no cherry, at least none that he knew of, but he also said she was, what were his words? As tight as a clenched fist. He was the first guy in there anyway. Just in the right place at the right time, I guess. He made a few bold moves and now he's the envy of every kid in town. You can be sure a lot of guys got ideas in their heads after that.”

“What bold moves?” Jimmy asked, looking like he was taking mental notes a mile-a-minute.

“Well, they were alone in there together. They were supposed to be sorting the balls into these bins, volleyballs in one and basketballs in the other, and he was like, ‘hey, quit grabbing my balls’, and she says, ‘but your balls are so nice and bouncy!’ with that giggle of hers. So he grabs her ass, just as a joke, you know. He says she shivered all over and gave him this look like she was just dying to kiss him all of the sudden. So he did. It just went from there. It could have been anyone. One minute their just fooling around, the next he's sliding his dick up inside her, and she's just letting him.”

“Damn…” Jimmy repeated.

Charlotte sat there chatting away with her friends, oblivious to the fact that she was the center of a heated discussion on her apparently lax morals. We were all looking over at her. She was sitting there with her girlfriends, looking completely and totally hot, just talking and laughing and eating her lunch.

After a moment of silence at our table, I continued.

“As I said, though, I don't know if any of these stories are true. These are just stories we heard. They say that was her first real fuck, but was it even really a fuck?”

“A few strokes that lasted less than a minute doesn't count,” Mick said. “No way! You have to do it for at least a couple of minutes before it can be considered fucking. You have to at least get it all the way inside her.”

“He was all the way inside her,” Justine said. “Hot dog, remember? She says he was all the way in, right to the bottom of her, once they were on the mats. That’s why it felt so good all the sudden. That’s why she started, um, fucking him back. He got it all up in her and gave it to her. He got off, pulled out, and came. If you asked Charlotte, she'll tell you he fucked her good, so I guess that settles it. It was a fuck in my books. I would count it, if it was me.”

Justine was a little flushed now. Her cheeks were red, and her eyes were dilated. She was talking out of slow, deep breaths.

“Anyway, he was walking ten-feet tall the next few days, even though a few kids laughed about his hair-trigger performance.”

“That Trevor guy didn’t last too long either,” I added with a chuckle.

“Neither would I, if I ever got a chance,” Jimmy said, “if she’s as tight as you say she is.”

Justine giggled. “She’s probably tighter than they say she is. Charley had that nice big cock though, so I guess anything would be tight for him. Charlotte told us all about it. ‘How could he not come like a jackrabbit the moment he got it in me? He was huge! And I’m so… tiny,’ she said. Anyway, that ended the teasing and he later became one of the most sought-after guys in school. I even thought about trying him out myself at one point, but then I hooked up with Paul.”

“You done Paul yet?” Mick asked, as blunt as a baseball bat once again. Jimmy coughed, and laughed a bit.

“Of course! What do you think? We were dating for like three months!”

“You're not with him anymore?” Jimmy asked.

“Nope,” Justine said, and popped another one of my French fries in her mouth. “It was mostly blowjobs with me and Paul though. That’s all he ever wanted. It got so boring.”

Jimmy was now looking more and more at Justine, and less at Charlotte. Apparently something had gotten started between the two of them. Justine went back to the story.

“Anyway, after that locker room incident of course, there was a problem with some girls treating her like dirt all of the sudden, just because she went all the way with a guy she wasn’t even dating. They started calling her a slut, a tramp, and all sorts of other tasty nicknames along those lines. She has a strange confidence about her though. The name-calling seems to slide right off her without sticking. These chicks eventually gave up after the guys began telling them they were just jealous little bitches. They said these chicks only wished they could be as cool as Charlotte Lawsen. Heck she was more popular than any of them. They would have gotten their asses kicked too, if Charlotte herself hadn't told her friends to just ignore them. 'They'll come around,' she said. And I guess they did because the teasing stopped.”

“She's definitely a cool chick,” Jimmy said.

“The next big story that came out about her,” Mick said, “was when she showed up at school one Monday morning and was telling all her friends she had gone all the way with a guy for like, almost an hour. It was with some guy she'd met at a wedding or something. She got a ride home with this guy she’d been dancing with all night and the next thing she knew, he was all over her in the car. So then she’s like, giving him head and everything and he asks her if she wants to get in the back seat and she’s all ‘Uh-huh!’ So they get back there and she says he fucked her for like forty-five minutes or something. He came like three of four times, she said. She wasn't even sure how old he was, but he was at least seventeen, maybe eighteen. She had just turned fourteen at the time”.

“Whoa,” Jimmy said.

Justine agreed. “She finished the story by saying she must have come like seven times. Wow. She said he was just absolutely incredible. I was there when she told all the girls about it. It was way hot!”

“That story spread around fast,” Mick added, “and that's when she first became a bit of a legend around here. After that, there seemed to be a new story about her just about every week, and sometimes a couple of them.”

“There was the story of her first time getting head from a guy,” Justine said excitedly, “from a guy that went down on her for like twenty minutes.”

“There was the story of her first threesome,” Mick continued, “where her and two guys went at it all fucking night in just about every way. That was a steamy one. They pretty much told everyone in school that story too, with big shit-eating grins.'“

“Well if I ever get a chance to do her,” Jimmy said. “I’ll definitely give it a try.”

“Me too,” Justine said. We all gawked at her and suddenly had images of a hot girl-on-girl scene between the two of them. She raised her eyebrows at us, grabbed my last French fry, and walked off with a cute little wiggle of her bum.

“I wouldn't mind to get a piece of Justine as well,” Jimmy said, watching her go.

“Talk to Anthony about that one,” Mick said.

“He's done her!? You said you two were just friends!”

“I went down on her for about two minutes in a closet. It was a dare. It was really lame. Real kids' stuff, you know.”

“Is she tight?”

She was tight, extremely tight. I couldn't even get two fingers inside her. But I didn't answer him. Kiss and tell is not my style. I didn't even talk about that incident with Justine herself. She was drunk and apparently wound up giving two different guys head that night. Silly girl. Luckily one of them was so drunk he barely remembered it himself, so she escaped quite a bit of gossip.

“You'll have to find out for yourself,” I told Jimmy with a smirk. “I'm sure her ex, Paul, could tell you some stories.”

Charlotte got up from her table and walked over toward us. As she passed by she bent over and kissed Mick on the cheek.

“Hey, sweetie,” she said, and then let out this gorgeous little giggle that made me shudder with lust. Mick reached out and gave her cute little ass a nice firm squeeze.

“Whoa! Hey now, Micky. You shouldn’t get me worked up so close to class time…”

Then she tweaked his ear and was gone. She glanced my way as she walked by though, and raised an eyebrow at me. My heart did a couple of flips and splashed down somewhere in my guts. What the hell was that about!?

I was soon to find out.

“Damn!” Jimmy said. “It's that easy?”

“Well you have to get to know her first,” Mick said. “I have. She is as tight as a clenched fist, let me tell you. Shit, it was nice. And what a fucking champ at cock sucking too. Wish I could talk her into a bathroom stall right now.”

“Why don’t you?” Jimmy said.

“Too close to class time, dude.”

“So!? A hot ass slut like that is worth being late for class over! You nuts, man!? I thought you guys said it was easy.”

“I’d do it in a second,” Mick said. “But she’s not one to cut classes. She’s a smart girl.”

Jimmy was staring off at the table where she had been sitting. He was lost in thought. I was staring off at a blank wall, still wondering about that eyebrow thing.

The buzzer went a few minutes later and we all shuffled like zombies off to our classrooms.

Jimmy and I shared the next class and I had to show him where it was. It was English Composition, and I was sort of the teacher's pet, so I was in no hurry to get there. We walked along slowly until the halls cleared out again, and we continued our talk.

“So how long have you known Charlotte, Andy?”

“Actually, it's Anthony,” I said. “Anthony Mitchell. I've known Charlotte since she started school in junior high. We've never really been friends or anything, but we know of each other. I haven’t hooked up with her yet, through all these years. I wanted to, just to see if the legends were true. I just never got the chance.”

“Not yet, anyway,” Jimmy said with a sly smile. “But you seem popular enough. You must get a lot of tail around here.”

“I'm fairly popular I guess. I've had a few, but I'm not nearly as popular or experienced as Charlotte. I'm good at faking it, though. Most people assume I'm far more experienced than I actually am. Truth is, I'm just cool about it. I don't go nuts when I manage to get into a chick's pants, like other guys do. It makes people think I'm a bit of a sex machine, but I'm not really. I don't mind people thinking so though, especially girls. I hooked up with this girl, Trisha last week. It was really nice, and ever since then people have been looking at me funny. I don’t know. I guess, treat a girl right, and word will get around.”

Perhaps that was why Charlotte had been looking at me the way she had. Trish Seares was a friend of hers.

“Cool,” Jimmy said. “I’ll have to remember that.”

We were at our class and we looked in. There was Charlotte sitting there in the middle row, looking as gorgeous as ever.

“Well, here we are,” I said.

“It was nice talking to you, Anthony.”

“Cool, man. If you need anything, just ask.”

He went in, but I stood staring at Charlotte for a few more minutes. Suddenly Gerri Meskaleck was behind me, a pretty young thing, fairly popular herself. She was a friend of Charlotte’s as well. Charlotte had a few friends in her inner circle. She was friends with everyone, but there were four or five that she shared everything with. Geraldine was one of them.

“Mr. Mitchell,” she said.

“S’up, Gerri?”

“You, apparently.”

“Me?”

“You were all the talk at out table in the cafeteria. It seems a certain Miss Charlotte Lawsen was telling us all how cute she thinks you are.”

“Me?” I sounded more shocked than I wanted to.

“And smart, and funny, and what was it she said? You’ve got deep dreamy eyes.”

“Really? She said that?”

I suddenly had this Oh my god! feeling flipping around in my tummy. I tried not to let it show, but I think Geraldine could tell.

“Now that I’m up close, I can see what she means. Yummy.”

“Um, thanks I guess.”

My brow was furrowed, confused, and I found myself blushing. Had Charlotte Lawsen, the Charlotte Lawsen really said these things about me? My first thought was that this was some kind of joke the girls were playing on me. But then again, Charlotte had been staring at me in the cafeteria, hadn’t she? I hadn’t imagined it, had I? No. She’d even waved. And now here was Gerri Meskaleck, staring at me like I was suddenly the flavor of the week. Something strange was going on.

“That’s private girl talk though, Mr. Mitchell. You didn’t hear it from me.”

Somehow I got the feeling like Geraldine was instructed to let me in on that little secret though. She opened the door and went in. She walked straight over to Charlotte and whispered something to her that made her smile. I stood there a moment more, waiting for my blush to fade, waiting for my head to clear a bit. Then I took a deep breath, opened the door myself, and joined the class.

And this is where my story begins.

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