Editors Note: This one is from the archives of JohnShore.com

Well, school is upon us. Not upon me, but upon many.

Speaking of school being upon people, I lost my virginity to one of my high school teachers.

Ah, my old erstwhile high school teacher. She was twenty-four. I was seventeen. She had a job. For funds I returned soda bottles and scrounged through my dad’s suits.

She lived with a very pretty female roommate her age who also wanted to have sex with me. (The unsubtle ways in which the two of them communicated that they wanted the three of us to sleep together left one of my eyes permanently crossed for about a week.) I lived at home with my parents, who wished I would just once clean my room.

One Thursday night this teacher called me at home. “I’m out of cigarettes,” she said. “Could you do me the biggest favor, and come bring me a pack? My roommate’s out of town, and my car’s not working. And I’m just dying for a cigarette.”

After hanging up the phone I told my step-mother where I was going. “You’re gonna have sex,” she replied.

“What? What makes you think that?”

“No woman calls a guy at night and tells him to bring over some cigarettes unless she wants to have sex with him. Pffft. Cigarettes. She’s not even trying to be original.”

“Do you really think that’s why she called?”

“There’s no question about it.”

I really, really disliked my stepmother. But, as it turned out, she wasn’t quite as stupid as I thought she was. She knew some stuff.

And sure enough: by the time the sun rose the following morning, so did I.

When I arrived I found the porch of my teacher’s house in near total darkness. Upon opening her door she was brightly back-lit; all I could see was the silhouette of her body in this … I don’t even know what they’re called. Like a bathrobe, but made of, like, see-through silk? I’m the worst at lingerie names; I have no idea what any of that stuff is called. A gown, I guess? But not like a hospital gown. Like a sex gown.

Right there on her porch is when my right leg started shaking.

My teacher invited me in; we sat; we talked; we had wine—and the whole time I could no sooner stop my leg from shaking than I could stop an earthquake from happening. I kind of managed to get my voice to stop quarvering around like a musical saw, but my stupid right leg was vibrating like it was trying to wrest itself from my body, hop away, and start its own life somewhere else.

“So where’s your girlfriend tonight?” said my ridiculously gorgeous teacher. She was sitting on her white sofa. I had positioned myself on the floor in front of her, part of my secret plan to stop her from wondering why her sofa was shaking. It was tricky coming up with an acceptable sitting position. If I sat right on my leg, I was afraid my whole body would start vibrating like a blender grinding ice. But if I left the leg sticking right out where she could see it, she was sure to scream and call an ambulance.

So I opted for the full press. I had that thing folded up underneath me like a bomb I was trying to keep from exploding.

Anyway, yada, yada, yada, we moved into her bedroom, and the next morning I was late to my first class of the day.

I was a sexually active teenager, but up until that night had always stopped short of full consummation, because I wanted to make anyone pregnant like I wanted my legs chopped off. But this woman clearly knew what she was doing, and so I wasn’t afraid of her becoming pregnant. And she also wasn’t a girlfriend of mine, which, relative to this particular matter, I felt a plus. So, for me personally, it was just the perfect way to lose what was left of my virginity. She was great. About five months after our little affair began, she moved out of state to take a better job. During the time I knew her intimately I thought of her as a friend, and have considered her so ever since.

Just out: John’s UNFAIR: Why the “Christian” View of Gays Doesn’t Work. (Softcover edition; Kindle edition;NookBook edition). You’re invited to “like” John’s Facebook page, and also his group Unfundamentalist Christians, the motto of which is “Above all, love.”