I always had a very close knit group of friends. There were five of us. We'll call ourselves Mike, Tim, Jay, Bill, and Mitch. We all came from somewhat different backgrounds, Bill and myself were there only ones of our immediate and extended friend group whose parents hadn't either died or divorced. We all grew up together and we were all close enough that we were all very close one another's family. Really, it was a pretty great childhood.

Our senior year, Bill's parents divorced. His mom and dad were moving in different directions as people, the usual stuff but it wasn't a divorce with very much animosity if any at all. Bill's mom though, we'll call her Dana, was a complete and total smoke-show. Very pretty, even in a slightly unconventional way - short and slender, big brown eyes. Through whatever freak accident of the genetic lottery, she had kept a lovely figure. When you're a teenaged boy, the hormones create a veritable psycho-circus in your brain and we were as hormonal as it got, let me tell you. There was never any inappropriate behavior, really. I don't think, even through our screwed up chemical-brains that the thought had ever really crossed any of our minds.

Myself? I was a late bloomer. Summer of my junior year I started working physical jobs and lost a bit of weight, put on some muscle and took up a karate class at the gym for fun. I kept it up through senior year and hadn't at all noticed how differently girls treated me, even though I was still a weird little dork. Funny how young people never notice these things right away.

I turned 18 the summer before going to college. A week later, Bill's parents sold off their house and liquidated everything. Dana moved into a small house in town and us boys were recruited as movers. The last day, Bill and I were helping her move the last of her stuff in off of the trailer. It was largely her bedroom dressers and old furniture, heavy stuff, but nothing we had to really worry about. Bill had work that evening and his brother was going to spend the night at their old place to make sure nobody broke in and took the rest of their stuff.

Dana and I were alone. Still, the thought never crossed my mind. After we finished moving stuff, we sat and relaxed for a minute in the living room. She asked me about my college plans, i recited the pre-prepped plan I knew I was never going to stick to, but I had to say something. "Optometry school eventually." That was the plan.

She humored me, talked about her friend she'd gone to school with who had an optometry clinic in the western part of the state. Then, she got up and went to her room and I sat there trying to finish my soda. She asked if I would help her move a dresser, i obliged. After we cornered it, she stepped back, looked around to survey the layout of the room and nodded with approval. I looked at her. She looked at me, smiled, said she had worked up a sweat and took off her bra first from under her shirt and then her blouse. She proceeded to undress entirely right there in front of me.

First time? Yeah. First time. She just kind of stood there. One thing led to another...wound up taking a shower with her. She toweled me off and shoved me down onto the bed, which unfortunately did not have any sheets on it just yet but I don't think she was too concerned about making the bed at that point.

They say you're never good on your first turn but I don't know about that at all because she had no problem extracting what she wanted from my willing corpse. The sun went down and the fireflies were putting on a show. The natural world was a veritable playground, that night. We'd started some time at around seven or eight in the evening and I did not leave until well after midnight. She kissed me on the nose and then...well...and after that she said she had a lot of fun, but that it was a one time thing.

I drove home in a half daze, sticky and aching. I took another shower after I got home, tried to play a video game, couldn't focus. Sleep did not come easy, but when I got there, I stayed there until about 1 the next day. My dad asked me why I got home so late, I told him that Bill and I lost track of the time after moving the last of Dana's stuff.

The worst part was the guilt that came after - guilt because I felt like I had done something wrong, somehow betrayed my friend. That was the bro-code, right? You don't boff each other's mothers or girlfriends, that was the rule. In the moment, however, tracing the sun dappled form of breasts and the long lines of light lazing through the curtains on her shoulders, that I didn't much care about honor codes.