Don’t forget this afternoon’s SecondHand Radio. Read yesterday’s post for more details.

This is a post meant for the Grassroots Blogger Book Marketing Campaign 2008, to generate donations for The Rape Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN). You can visit the GBBMC page for all the information you need about RAINN and the campaign. More links available at the end of the post. Please donate!

When I first agreed to participate in the GBBMC for RAINN, I pictured a month of nothing but sex stories. Hell, I’ve got enough of them, I’m sure. But when I actually sat down to map it out, I realized that just because I probably COULD write 30 sex posts, that didn’t mean I should. It’s not like they’re all exciting stories, or even good ones.

I’ve read a lot of stories this month, many of them from people I don’t even know. And those stories run the gamut from cute to amusing to horrifying to hilarious. If you haven’t already looked at some of the other participants in the project, I think you should. Some amazing stuff out there. And you never know, you might discover someone you’d like to add to your feedreader on a permanent basis. After all, it was during the LAST GBBMC two years ago that I met Kevin, Dave, Sandra, Belinda, Brandon, Dariush, Stacey, and many others that I’m now friends with.

And now, whaddya know? We’re near the end of April and this fantastic campaign and I have yet to talk about the Big Moment, when I lost my cherry. Do guys lose cherries? Do we even have cherries? I don’t know, but I’m going to say yes.

As I mentioned in an earlier RAINN post, I was going to NMSU-A (New Mexico State University - Alamogordo branch) up on “the hill.” I was 17 when I started the summer at college, right after I graduated high school. Micro- and macroeconomics…snore. But it was cool because, hell, I was in college! And I was taking a class with one of my best friends, Tom.

I was also hanging out in the student center quite a bit, when I wasn’t working full-time at the radio station. It was just me and my Dad in Alamo at that point, since Mom and my sister and brother booked ass out of Alamogordo and moved back to New York. Abandoning the ship, so to speak, Dad was supposed to stay with me until the end of my first full-time semester in December. He wound up leaving for New York the day before my 18th birthday in September. Yeah, that sucked.

But it was also kind of cool because I was on my own for the first time. And hanging out quite a lot with a new friend…let’s call her Betty. When August came and it was time for full-time school, I spent a lot more time on campus. I also started playing intramural volleyball, even though I totally sucked at sports and had never played before. I picked it up fairly quickly.

I met Betty on campus and she was very nice to me. Sweet and smartassy (I like that), she was a year older than I was and never seemed too busy to chat with me. I was really skinny and a smartass myself, kind of a class clown and still highly inexperienced in the ways of womenly wiles.

It was around this time that I got my first vehicle. Well, my second vehicle, technically. But I never drove my van (another story for another time), so…anyway, I had a badass Honda Elite scooter. Check it!

Come to think of it, I wish I still had that scooter. With gas prices the way they are now? Yeah, I got around for a month on maybe a few bucks. Good times.

Betty and I would hang out on campus a lot, talking and joking around. She had a boyfriend named Alfred. Total asshole, as I’d come to discover later. After some time, Betty kind of disappeared and I didn’t know what had happened to her.

Months later, I’m riding my bicycle along New York Avenue and who should I whiz by, but Betty standing on the sidewalk. I turned around and went back by to say hello and catch up. Alfred, who she’d been dating for three years, had raped her and gotten her pregnant. And left her. Nice. She seemed rather okay with it, but I know she wasn’t. Either was I.

We exchanged phone numbers and wound up talking for hours on end. At this point I should mention that my best new buddy was a girl named Wendy. She was also a year older than me and, as it turns out, mortal enemies with Betty. This wasn’t a big deal at the moment, but it sure would come into play later.

One night Betty and I were talking on the phone about lots of things (including her being three months pregnant) and she mentioned something about me getting embarrassed. I boasted that “I don’t GET embarrassed” and “I don’t get surprised, either.” Famous last words.

The next day I was working at the radio station. I’m typing away on the TRS-80 computer, writing advertising copy for a radio ad, when I hear the front door open. No big deal, people went in and out all the time…coworkers, soda delivery people to fill up the Coke machine, whatever. And Debbie, the receptionist and bookkeeper says, “Karl, you have a visitor.”

I turn around and it’s Betty with a big bouquet of flowers. For me. Yeah, I had mentioned to her on the phone the night before that I’d never been given flowers. I found myself turning red immediately and she had this big ol’ shit-eaten grin on her face because she’d managed to surprise me AND embarrass me all in one shot.

When I walked her out to her car, I thanked her again. She got in her car, window rolled down, and I reached in through the window to give her a hug. Instead, she planted a kiss right on my mouth!

“See you later,” she said.

“Um, yeah. Okay,” I managed.

And as she sped away, I thought, “What the fuck just happened?”

Part Two tomorrow.

DONATE TO RAINN HERE. When you donate, please make sure you reference “GBBMC2008,” and include my name (Karl Erikson) and blog name (SecondHand Tryptophan).

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