Several hours passed and so help me, I don't remember the details of what we said. I know it began with silly chatter that turned into a sharing of common interests neither of us knew we had, almost assuredly important stuff like preferring crushed ice rather than cubes in a glass of Coca-Cola. Then the bar was lowered and sex entered the discussion. It got explicit and we were semi-daring each other to meet. By the time we hung up in the wee hours of Sunday morning, we decided that I would pick her up later that afternoon and...well...act on our dares. I was living at home and my parents were going to visit my sister in northern New Jersey that day so I had several hours of the house to myself. Perfect!

Sharon and myself got very little sleep, excited by the knowledge that we'd both be experiencing someone new. True to my word I picked her up in the early afternoon (oh yeah, like I'd forget that appointment). She told her mother that we were going Christmas shopping for Barry and she had no reason to doubt us. It was brutally cold that day. Everything was snow covered and I can still see Sharon walking into my house bundled to the point of ridiculousness. She looked like she was prepping for the Iditarod trials or something.

So try and imagine this fantastical event in our lives! Two teens staring at one another who'd never held hands before, let alone swap spit and other unmentionables. It was surreal. Sharon standing inside my parent's house was already a 'what's wrong with this picture?' moment. But to come there for the sole purpose of getting laid?! By ME?!

The rest of the afternoon was one clumsy move after another. Oh, it wasn't clumsy then. After all, we were experienced adults who screwed all the time. This little liaison was just another day in our jet setting lives. Or so we tried to lead the other to believe. We were pathetically inept. I have one vivid memory of that afternoon (the remainder is a composite image of bedroom gaffs), and that was her fear of getting pregnant. She brought along a strip of condoms and insisted that I wear two. TWO. And me being the accommodating glamour boy, agreed. Gentlemen, have you ever put TWO condoms on and then tried to perform? Two dry condoms. They weren't lubricated. My poor crank felt as though Haystacks Calhoun was using it to torque-test his death grip. I couldn't feel a friggin' thing. Except pain.

If there was one thing we feared more than a baby-maybe, it was being caught by my parents. I guess we spent two hours or so in my bedroom writhing around and pretending like we were enjoying every pinch, toe in the eye and knee to the groin. It was so not worth it in that regard. We ended this inaugural screwfest in ample time to get her back home and normalize the bedroom. It was, however, exhilarating to be so secretive and so naughty! We wanted to do it again. To be boldly honest, I don't remember when or where the next time (or times?) were. I've no recollection of what transpired after I brought her home to the point when Barry learned of our affair. I do know we carried on for a little while, a couple or three weeks at most. Barry recently reminded me that the roof caved in prior to Christmas because he and his family returned the gifts they'd bought for her!

So Barry eventually became suspicious of Sharon. She must have been hinting or behaving excessively strange. You know, beyond her usual. One early evening he called me and was frantic. The poor guy was losing it, suspecting his girlfriend was seeing someone else. He didn't know what to do or how to find out who it was or anything. Just babbling about how bad things were going. And somewhere in the conversation I blurted out that I was the person he was searching for ... I mean, I just blurted it without one ounce of compassion for the suffering boob. Did you ever hear a person let out something that was an amalgam of a growl, a death rattle, a scream and a tortured yell? Honest to Krispy Kremes, I have NEVER heard such a horrifying sound like that before or since. If I had recorded it and played it back for people, they would have believed me if I said it was the screams of a captured sasquatch. Ugh, it was just so frightfully unique that I can still hear it to this day.

So Barry hung up. For several hours he continued to call and make threats and then cry and make more threats and on and on. I called Sharon in between the calls and he was calling her and busy signals galore and, oh man, we all just unraveled. I actually wished that alien abductions were real and that my docket number was next. It was so awful.

And the worst part of it all? Sharon was stuck with me and me with her. Two geniuses who couldn't keep their jeans on.

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