A/N: Look, I can write one serious story a year tops before I descend into parody and/or self parody. As always, I didn’t MEAN to be long winded, and I’m open to whatever criticism you’d like to offer.

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This was going to be phenomenally, incredibly, unbearably awkward. Oh sure, it sounded great in theory. Just like every other stupid social idea in human history. Theory worked well because theory is clean. When you put real people into the mix… things get messy.

My parents were, if not hippies, then at least hippy-adjacent. They thought with enough love and happiness, we could fix this world. I, on the other hand, am a ruthless pragmatist. I’m also shy, so I prefer to do the whole love thing from a nice safe distance. Or, failing that, I like to do it secretly.

Which is to say, despite having hippy-adjacent parents who’d be more than happy if I was going around having sex all the time, I’m done my junior year of high school, and still a virgin. I’m not bitter about it, I don’t hate women or think they’re bitches for not sleeping with me. I’ve never failed to reach any goal I’ve set my mind to. Losing my virginity just never made it high enough on my priority list to become a goal.

But I do like to keep my parents happy, and my parents thought it was weird that I wasn’t having sex. So when they told me about this hippy sex camp thing, I wearily accepted the offer. I know, I know. I’m a teenage boy. I’m supposed to jump at an offer like this. But seriously, have you ever given any thought to just how awkward it would be? I mean just think for a second about what type of people go to a camp to lose their virginity.

Sorry for the image.

* * *

The bus to camp contained more nervousness than I’ve ever seen in one place. It was so thick I expected it to condense out of the air as some sort of exotic, hitherto unknown liquid. To be on this bus, you needed to have a) parents who were totally cool with you having sex, and b) never had sex. If I had dice, I could have ran a D&D game. If I had a gun, I would have hijacked the bus and brought us to a sci-fi convention. I’d have been roundly thanked.

We were all nerds, geeks, and losers. No one made eye contact.

It was an utterly silent forty-five minutes, punctuated only by coughing. I wonder what the bus driver was thinking. I wonder if he’d have to get drunk to forget about us.

The funny thing was, we’d all agreed to this. We’d all read though quite a few forms, and given our consent, and went through interviews to make sure we weren’t violent psychopaths, and stated our preferred gender and all that jazz.

People think that parents like ours don’t have many expectations of their kids. They’re wrong, they’re just expectations that most people wouldn’t even notice. It makes falling short of those expectations even harder. I mean, do you know how much of a loser you feel like when you don’t do drugs like your parents expect you too?

When you hear the word nerd, you get a certain body type in mind. Or maybe you think of one of two body types. You have thin nerds like me, and then you have the chubby nerds. But here’s the thing: those stereotypes don’t tell the whole picture. They may predominate, but they only account for maybe one standard deviation of population each. That leaves something like 32% of us to look nothing like what you’d expect. One girl, for example had bright blue hair. One of the other boys was built like a young Schwarzenegger.

There were all types of girls on the bus. One in particular struck my eye. She was coltish, all legs and arms, and mostly flat chested. She had glasses and long dirty blond hair. A long nose. Look, I’m not doing a good job selling her here, because despite my comparison, she’s a person, not a horse. The thing about nerds is that we don’t do so well when you describe our components. When we’re attractive, it’s in a gestalt sense. I can list her attributes, but if you couldn’t see her eyes, alive, calculating, and twinkling with irony, you wouldn’t understand my attraction. She caught me looking. We both blushed. See what I mean about awkward?

* * *

We arrive after I’d calculated the probability that I’d be paired with a girl I found attractive (63%), but before I’d been able to calculate the average attractiveness of girls on the bus on a scale of 1-10. This was probably for the best, because if I’d completed that calculation, I’d have moved on to estimating error bars based on the sample size.

Look, how many times do I have to tell you I’m a nerd?

The adults running the camp were a mix of earnest, professionally dressed educator types, and tie-dye hippy types. I felt right at home, although I hoped that their screening was really good. One creep among the adults could do a lot of damage.

We were all ushered into an auditorium, along with several other busloads of similar children. I counted 58 boys, and 52 girls.

What followed was an excruciating presentation on the mechanics and etiquette of sex, protection, and relationships. The adults presenting were uniformly enthusiastic and serious. I wondered what sort of drug cocktails they were using to get that effect. Or were they always like this? Us kids were the only ones who saw the ridiculousness of this whole thing, and we were too busy being awkward and terrified to point it out.

I won’t bore you with the details. We all know that hymens are external (not halfway into the vagina), and rarely need to be broken, that the penis should never hit the cervix, that bleeding is mostly avoidable, and NOT a good thing, and that condoms are a great idea, right?

There was lots of coughing. I hoped that it wasn’t from actual viral infections, as I anticipated there being significant fluid exchange amongst all the participants here pretty soon.

Finally, it came time to draw lots. We made four lines (I felt sorry for the queer kids, the shortness of their lines meant it had to be a lot more awkward for them, especially because they were standing next to potential partners).

Their agony was foreshortened by the simple virtue of them going first. Within two minutes, all ten of them had their assigned partners, and were led off by helpful adults to the private rooms where the actual deed would take place.

I ended up in the middle of the line of straight boys. No one really wanted to be first, but no one was quite ready to run and hide at the back. We were more of an awkward teardrop shaped blob than a line. The girls, across from us, were no better.

They used the worst possible method to assign us. We were each given a ball at random (they had those bingo ball things, which must have come with the auditorium; I wondered how often geriatrics used this place for bingo, and if they knew awkward teens came here to be divested of their awkward virginity). I got 27 (3 cubed, my mind supplied automatically).

Then the agony began. Walk up to a girl, or bump into a girl, or be approached by a girl. Mumble my number, ask what their number was, or mutely show my number to them. It seemed an endless repetitive horror. I did feel sorry for those who found each other early and had to stand around awkwardly waiting for the rest of us. I idly wondered which was worse. I idly wondered if I wouldn’t actually have a partner. I did a whole lot of enforced idle wondering, so I that I didn’t realize the ridiculousness of the whole thing, and descend into uncontrollable manic laughter (or have a panic attack).

And then I bumped into the girl I’d noted earlier.

“I’ve got 27, you?” My quiet mumble had been optimized for brevity.

She showed me her ball. 27.

I didn’t take her panicked look as a slur on me. She looked as panicked as I felt.

“Ummm, so what do we do now?” I was still mumbling.

“Go join them, I guess?” She pointed towards where other (not quite) pairs were standing, awkwardly in front of the supervisors.

Her face was red. My face burned. We walked over. I was getting hard despite my embarrassment, which of course only added to my embarrassment.

Finally, everyone had found his or her partner. Beaming at us, the adults led us down the hallway and into a gym. It was full of two person tents. My look of horror appeared to be universal.

“Every pair to a tent. There are condoms and lube inside! Don’t forget to use them.” They kept beaming at us, and made no move to leave. None of us made to go to the tents.

The impasse lasted five seconds. Ten seconds. Fifteen seconds. Someone sneezed. The adult’s grins looked painted on. I felt a hand grab my wrist.

I looked at my alleged partner. She looked fierce. I noticed her dusting of freckles. She really was beautiful, in an awkward, nerdy way that tugged at my heartstrings.

“We need to be brave. Lead the charge and all that.”

I snorted. “Lead the rout, belike.” But I stepped forward with her, and we headed to a tent. Our departure broke the metaphorical dam, and others began to stream towards the tents.

She stepped inside the first of the tents, and I bent under the lintel to follow her in. We each zipped up half the door. Inside the tent, away from all the others, I was less embarrassed.

I took a second to just look at her. Her hair was fine (in the sense of being made up of thin strands, although it was also fine in the sense that it accentuated her looks). It was pulled back in a sensible ponytail. Her glasses weren’t strong enough to distort her eyes, which were a pale blue. Piercing, alive, intelligent. Her eyes were her best feature. Her nose was still long, and her body was still awkward. But it didn’t matter. She was pretty.

Those penetrating eyes were looking at me in turn. I don’t know what she saw, but she smiled. And suddenly it was easy to smile at her, and we were smiling and looking into each other’s eyes, and only blushing a little.

There was a laminated sheet on the bed. She picked it up, and began reading from it.

“Recommended Procedure.”

I stifled a giggle. She shot a smile at me and sat down on the bed. I sat down about half a foot from her.

“First, introduce yourselves!”

We looked at each other sheepishly. That should have been the obvious thing to do when we met. I realized that she was here for the same reason as me. It made me feel a bit better.

“Hi, um, I’m Paul.” I stuck out my hand awkwardly.

She took it. She had a strong grip.

“Cassandra. Um. Cassie, normally, to my friends, and I guess to guys I’m about to screw. Um nice to meet you.”

I managed to spit out a “likewise”, and our social ritual was complete. It took her a second to let go of my hand though.

“Then, talk a bit about yourselves!”

I won’t bore you with the awkward small talk and petty details. We liked some of the same authors. We liked some of the same movies. We both played Dungeons and Dragons. We both went mainly to shut up our parents, although we admitted (to each other, if not ourselves), that curiosity had at least played a role.

After about ten minutes of small talk, we were both relaxed. She was leaning against me. I had an arm around her (the next step had been to establish some physical contact, and explain our reasons for coming). Her hair tickled my neck.

“Now, tell each other your favourite sexual fantasy!” Cassie had an excellent perky adult impersonation. Still, there’s only so much you can soften a statement like that.

Neither of us spoke for a minute. I think we both had appalled expressions, although lacking a mirror I couldn’t be sure of the state of my own face. Horror was also likely.

“Rock, paper, scissors?” I suggested.

She gave me a look of mock surprise. “That’s not a normal sex fantasy.”

I laughed, more to break some tension than because the joke deserved it.

She smiled, and then held out her fist.

I made sure to state “best two out of three” before we started. She lost.

Cassie cleared her throat once, and then again after a short pause. She shifted against me. I wrapped my other arm around her, and gently squeezed her to me.

“My favourite fantasy is, um.” She breathed deeply.

“I like to imagine that I’m held down, or chained down. And there is this guy. Several guys, it doesn’t matter, I’m blindfolded, I can’t see, and I can’t talk. And they’re touching me, and licking me, and getting me right to the edge of orgasm. And then they stop. And I writhe, and I try to beg them, and try to press against them, and I can’t. They aren’t letting me come. They keep me like that for hours, using all kinds of things, until my need is too much. And they keep going until it’s more than too much. Until I’d do anything if it meant I’d come. And then once I’m even further gone, one of them finally puts his dick in me, and he slowly, oh so slowly brings me to orgasm. And it’s more than I can take, and all I can see is light, and my whole body is on fire from the pleasure, and I pass out.”

She was breathing hard when she finished. I was just plain hard. She looked up at me, hiding her eyes under her lashes. Her face was the reddest I’d seen it.

I licked my lips. “That is incredibly hot.” My voice was huskier than I intended it to be.

She smiled. It was an open, delighted smile. And then she kissed me. It was awkward, we really didn’t know what we were doing, and our noses hit, and our glasses bumped. But it was sweet, even if it only lasted for a second.

“Your turn!” She trilled at me.

She had shared openly and truly. I would do the same. I gulped.

“So, I’m this kid. Younger than I am, maybe fourteen. For whatever reason, I’m in foster care, and I go to this new house. It’s all women there, a mom and her three adopted daughters. And at first everything is normal. But then things start to change. I have a shower, and then youngest daughter; maybe a year older than me joins me. And she soaps me all up, and gets me all bothered and doesn’t seem to notice. And when I frantically masturbate that night, another one joins me and helps me out. And then the oldest one has me eat her out. And finally, the mom calls me to a family meeting, and makes me strip in front of all of them. And right there, I have sex with the one closest to my age, and she enjoys it, and then things continue from there. It’s not really one fantasy; it’s a bunch of related ones. But I always liked the idea of learning. Of finding out what these girls liked and giving it to them.”

She kissed me again after I shared. This turned out to be clever on her part, because the next step was: “become comfortable kissing each other!”

We both weren’t what you’d call experienced when it came to kissing. It took a while for us to learn to keep all of the saliva inside of our mouths. It was messy. We tried to be subtle, but I’m sure it looked like we were trying to devour each other’s faces. I didn’t care because it was fun! It felt nice. It wasn’t the sort of sharp-edged compelling nice that came before an orgasm. It was a warm, slow, soft nice.

Eventually we even figured out how to use our tongues. Her tongue was soft. When it hit mine I expected to fell a shock, or a spark or something. Alas, no alchemy occurred. It felt nice, but it was difficult to decouple the whole “so this is what tongues feel like to tongues” aspect from all of it.

The next step was to get naked. We decided to make out for another twenty minutes before taking that particular dive. Approximately twenty minutes, that is. We weren’t going to time ourselves. Twenty minutes was just a stand in for “until we get more comfortable”.

I really concentrated on the feelings. Her hand pressed tight to the small of my back, the roughness of her slightly chapped lips, her fine hair tangled in my fingers (she’d taken it out of its ponytail, earlier). Our tongues met, and when they did it was like old friends meeting, pleasant and cordial. Sometimes, I explored her teeth. They felt clean and hard. Sometimes I felt her tongue on my teeth, and it was an odd and exciting sensation. I felt both more, and less than I would have expected.

Finally we were satisfied, or perhaps horny enough that we were eager to get on with things. We broke apart, and then kissed quickly again, and then broke for good. She giggled awkwardly. I stood up, and offered her a hand. She took it. Her hand was a bit damp.

“One piece at a time?” I asked her.

She took a step back from me, so that we each had some room.

“One piece at a time,” she agreed.

I took off a sock. Hey! It counts.

She took off a sock. I suppose if I was going to defect, she saw no use in cooperating.

I took off my other sock. I wiggled my toes.

She took off her other sock.

Was the lack of eroticism just because it was socks? I though stripping was supposed to be erotic, not amusing.

I took off my t-shirt. I was self conscious, and it got stuck on my glasses, taking them with it. She giggled as I looked for them (in best Velma style). When I found them, put them back on, and looked at her, her pants were off.

She had plain white panties. They were soaked through in the front. She was looking down at them like they’d betrayed her.

“I didn’t pee myself, honest!”

I laughed. “I think the video did mention something like this could happen.”

She just shook her head ruefully. “Come on you, off with your pants!”

I didn’t know how to take off my pants seductively, so I settled for taking them off normally. I stepped backwards out of them. My boner was pretty clearly visible through my underwear.

“I don’t think you’re the only one who has gotten a bit excited,” I said with a rueful grin. I was embarrassed, but I’d also just had my tongue in her mouth, so I figured it wasn’t unexpected. Besides, things are a bit less embarrassing once you’ve had your tongue in someone’s mouth, with that person at least.

She took off her shirt. She wasn’t wearing a bra, which I already knew because I hadn’t felt one when snuggling with her. I may be inexperienced, but I can make inferences based on observation like a pro.

Her breasts were very small, like I’d noticed earlier. It’s not that they weren’t there or anything. They just didn’t protrude. Her areolae were large, and tan. Her nipples weren’t large, but they were standing up. I supposed they were like my dick, that way.

She kind of tried to cover herself, with her hands, and she flushed red. “I’m sorry! I’m really flat.” There were tears in her eyes. I wondered if she’d been teased for being flat. I’d been teased enough to consider other kids little better than jackals.

I took a step towards her, and drew her to me in a hug. I kissed the top of her hair. “You’re beautiful. That’s why I was looking at you on the bus. You’re beautiful. You’re beautiful because of everything you are. If you change one thing, you wouldn’t be you. It’s okay. Hey, it’s okay.”

She was crying quite a bit, and I was babbling whatever came to mind. This sort of thing wasn’t exactly an area I had expertise in. But I held her, and I stroked her back, and I called her beautiful, and eventually she stopped crying, and eventually she made a joke about how silly we both must have looked, and we laughed and the tension broke.

I was fiercely glad she was with me. What if she’d been with some ass who would have teased her for her lack of breast? The thought of someone hurting her when she was vulnerable made me angry, and I had to remind myself that no one had, that there was no reason to be angry.

“Come on Paul, one last piece!” We were standing again, and now she was prompting me. I gathered my courage (I’ve always loved the expression “gird your loins” for when a man is being convinced to be brave, but it would be singularly incorrect to use it at this point), and pushed down my boxers. My cock sprang free.

I didn’t have the insecurities she had about her breasts when it came to my penis. I had the Internet, knowledge of what a mean was, and a ruler. I was average in this regard. No man wants to be average. But it’s something I can live with.

She looked at it rather intensely. She took a step forward. “Can I er… can I touch it? I’ve never touched one before.” (The movie had been rather explicit about the need to ask permission before you touched someone intimately).

“Um… sure.” How was this still awkward? Was it awkward for everyone? In movies, people just jumped into bed and everything worked. Were we at this camp because we were the defective ones? The ones who things didn’t always work perfectly for?

Her hand touched it gently. I kind of jerked, because the contact was so new. I was the only one who’d ever touched myself there. She pulled her hand back.

“Sorry! Did I hurt you?” She looked worried.

“No, sorry. Umm… I’m just not used to the feeling of someone other than me touching it is all.” I tried to smile at her encouragingly. “You can try again, if you’d like?”

She nodded, and reached forward again, more slowly this time. Her tongue stuck out, as if she was concentrating.

She kind of cupped it with one hand this time, and I forced myself to relax. She looked at me, and I managed a smile. It wasn’t unpleasant or anything. It actually felt kind of good, it was just very new. She brought her other hand to it, and stroked down it once, gently. My breath caught.

She looked up at my face again. “It felt good,” I assured her. She smiled, and then took a step back, letting my penis fall.

“It’s just skin!” She said in wonder.

I smiled at her discovery. I suppose it was just skin. I’d never looked at it that way before.

“You still haven’t finished, you know.”

She looked sheepishly down at her soaking panties.

“Sorry, I kind of got caught up in that. Um, here goes.” With a firm jerk, she pulled them down. After she stepped out of them, she jerked her hands as if to cover herself, but forced them to her side.

The tent wasn’t all that bright, so the area between her legs was hidden in shadow. I was intrigued, but not as brave as her.

I was intensely aware of the fact that we were naked, next to the bed we were supposed to have sex in.

“So umm, what’s next?” We said it at almost the exact same time. We bumped into each other on the way to reach for it. We were all limbs, and all awkwardness.

“Each of you in turn, take your partner’s hand, and show them what you like with it!” Our voices blended together as we read the next step out loud.

I didn’t know what to say. Thank gosh for Cassie’s courage.

“I’ll take your hand first. I already touched you a bit, so it’s fair that you get to touch me.”

She trapped my right hand in between hers. She careful guided it to one of her small breasts, and laid in on it. I felt her nipple in my palm.

With some prompting, and some demonstration, she set me to stroking her breast, teasing the nipple. She showed me how to tease it more and more, and as she did and I did her breathing became ragged. She had me play with the nipple. She had me squeeze it. “Just a bit more, just a bit more,” she breathed, and I saw pleasure and pain combine in her face. She bit her lip.

Her other hand wandered to her soaking pussy. I stopped it with my left hand. “You’re supposed to use mine,” I whispered. Her hips ground against the bed, as a denied her the orgasm she wanted. “Teach me how,” I whispered. You’re imagining a seductive whisper, I’m sure. I’ll leave you with your illusions.

She detached my hand from her breast. She showed me how to stroke above her clitoris, how to pleasure it without overwhelming her. My thumb for this, she explained, while my first two fingers went inside her moist pussy. I saw her pussy clearly now. There were layers on the outside, lips that beckoned my fingers in. All around, faint blond hair, glistening with moisture. There was a hood on top, with the little button of her clit peeking out from below. My thumb pressed down on the hood.

“Stroke the top wall. Like that, yes, just like that.” Her words made less and less sense. Coherence abandoned her. She writhed on my fingers. And then, she pushed my hand away.

“You get to be taught, so I get to be teased!” Her breathing was still fast, her hips still made little circles, but I accepted her hand, and brought it to my dick. I grabbed a squirt of lube, and slowly worked it into her palm. I showed her how to stroke. Not applying too much pressure, not yanking. Just gliding up and down my shaft. I let her set a slow rhythm to start.

I captured her nipple again, and squeezed gently. Just at the threshold before the pressure she had gone wild for. My breathing quickened. Her hand moved up and down more quickly. It felt good in a way distinct from when I did it to myself. My thoughts were less clear.

My other hand was down by her pussy, keeping her hand away from it, and never quiet pleasuring it, but always giving her the impression I was about to. Her hips kept pressing forward, and I kept withdrawing when then did.

When I began to buck involuntarily, she stopped. With an evil grin, she looked at the handout. “Now, place the condom on the male’s partner’s penis!”

She grabbed a condom (they were, as promised, next to the lube), and took it out of its wrapping. She quickly tested it, figured out which way it went, and slowly rolled it down onto my cock. It fit tightly. She went slower than she had to, and I bucked my hips a few times. Once it was on, it finally hit me that we were going to have sex. I hadn’t really realized it before.

Call me an idiot, but it just hadn’t seemed real.

“If you are both ready, place the penis inside the female partner, and continue with a rhythm that is comfortable for both of you!” The pep sounded more forced. I could hear the breathlessness beneath.

“Are you ready?” I asked her.

“I am. But let’s go slowly. No need for any damage. And besides, I don’t want to come too quickly!” She grinned ruefully. I grinned like an idiot.

She lay down on her back. Her hand held mine. I kissed her, for a minute, and then I looked down at the point where our bodies met. Using one hand, I guided myself to her entrance.

I looked into her eyes as I pressed inside of her. It took me fifteen seconds to enter her. Not because she was too tight, and not because I saw any pain in her eyes. But because I wanted to savour every moment of it, and I didn’t want her to come too quickly.

Once I was in, we took a second to get used to the feeling. It was different than masturbating. Less insistent, more all encompassing. I felt her walls squeezing me gently. I felt her hips bucking, I felt her nipples on my chest and her breath on my face. I kissed her as I pulled back out, gently, slowly. Our breathing stopped as I did. The feeling was so novel. So much gentler than what I did alone. So much more urgent.

And then I was pushing back in, and we were grinding our hips against each other, trying to get every last drop of pleasure out, and I was drawing out, and she was pushing up against me, keeping contact for as long as possible. And then control or stopping was impossible, and we were going to come no matter what happened, and we were pushing against each other and then parting and then pushing against each other as fast as we could. I bit on her shoulder, and her fingers pressed into my back, and her other hand gripped my arm so tight it hurt.

And then her pussy was gripping my dick as tightly as her hand was gripping my arm, and I was thrusting one last time, and then I was coming and cumming into the condom, and there was one fleeting moment of pure pleasure crashing over me, and then I was lying on top of her, breathless and languid. I felt like I’d run a marathon. I was contented and drawn-out. I had no ambition left in the world. I had been swept clean and purified by the wave of pleasure.

In a minute, I would wipe my slobber off of Cassie’s shoulder, and I would take my penis out of her, and I would take off the condom, and we would grab the blanket and cuddle and talk of nothing. But for now, we held each other. Two children who’d been caught up in a storm for the first time in our lives, who had survived it but been left dazed, we clung to each other because we were all we had to cling to. When I did this alone, there was that moment of perfect relaxation. I’d never considered what it would be like to share it with someone.

Later still, after we had cleaned up, and cuddled our fill, I felt hot breath as Cassie whispered in my ear. “Again?”

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