Cherry.

If you're sitting there wondering if I'm really going to discuss what you're afraid I'm going to, based on the title, the answer is yes, yes I am. Sometimes in life, you stumble back upon people from your past who bring with them memories you've tried to forget/drink away/kill with lots of drugs/talk out with your therapist. Within the last month, I've been remembering my first real boyfriend in high school, J. Ah, young love.

I was a sophomore and J. was a junior when we dated. He was on the football team, drove a Chevy S-10 and could take me to prom, so based on these qualifications alone, I decided not only was he boyfriend material, but he was also the dream boat that I wanted to lose my virginity to. I came to this conclusion, however, while watching Carson Daly announce the newest Backstreet Boys video on TRL and sat in smug satisfaction at the sheer uniqueness of my belly-button piercing, so, you know, good judgment was really all in context.

I lost my virginity to J. in the cab of a Chevy S-10 while Creed was playing on the CD player, under the stars, parked in the middle of nowhere on a Tuesday night in August after a CYO Dance at St. Mike's (because church dances make me hot and bothered, apparently). I had a seat belt thing in my back the entire time and kept hoping we'd finish up in time for me to get home before curfew. It was what it was, and about what you expect for the situation. I gave him my class ring, he gave me his, and while listening to "With Arms Wide Open," we swore we'd spend our lives together.

A few days later we were at the county fair when those damn teen hormones kicked in again. J. had met me at the fair with one of his friends, with whom he had ridden over. He asked the friend if he could borrow the keys to his car, as he wanted to go get his sweatshirt for me, which was in the friend's car. What ensued was us going at it in broad daylight in the backseat of a 1990-nothing Chevy Cavalier at the county fair. I was smitten with this Romeo.

The kink in this hose is that apparently my hymen didn't break on the first go-round. It did, however, on the second. So there was now an unavoidable amount of blood on the backseat of his friend's car.

Like some sort of virginal squid, I'd left the backseat looking like a homicide scene. Which I was unaware of until the entire school knew about it, because said friend told everyone. EV-ER-EEEEE-ONE. So not only did the entire school in my conservative Christian town know I'd had *GASP* sex (SIN!), but they also knew (or believed) I'd lost it in this guy's Cavalier at the county fair and had bled all over everything in sight. It's funny and makes good writing material now (if you have no shame, which I don't), but at the time, it was devastating.

Sometimes, when I think it'd be nice to go back to my roots, I sit, and remind myself that my "roots" are basically two dueling banjos shy of Deliverance.

Though I'd say the fact I could have sex in a Chevy Cavalier, while not a testament to my classiness, does speak volumes for my flexibility.

But had it not been for those initial acts of teenage promiscuity, I wouldn't have embarked on the series of chain events of self-loathing and poor decisions that would eventually lead up to my 22nd birthday, where, drunk out of my mind, I became pregnant with the shamelessly adorable embryo that would become the shamelessly adorable Punky. So I wouldn't change a thing. It's like a slutty version of the Butterfly Effect.