Boy Trouble The 310

1 "So what do you think?" I held up a frilly lace camisole for inspection. "The blue or the purple?" "Neither." My roommate, Jacinda Crane-Laird, grabbed a skimpy lace bra off the shelf at Smoulder, an upscale lingerie shop on West Hollywood's Melrose Avenue. "You want black. Black bra, black garter belt, black seamed stockings, black stilettos." "Settle down there, Lolita." Coelle Banerjee, gorgeous half-Indian/half-Italian/All-American teen soap star and roommate number two, shook her head at Jacinda. "She's an eighteen-year-old virgin, not a Pussycat Doll." "My point exactly." Jacinda looked around for an appropriately seductive ensemble. "If you ever want to lose that shameful status, you'd better start thinking -- and acting -- like a woman of the world." She snatched up a shiny black leather thong and steered me toward the dressing room. "Try this on. Danny will love it." I dug my heels into the carpet. "I amnotwearing leather underwear." "You are so boring and puritanical. You know what you need?" "A new roommate who's not a total perv?" "No. You need to get laid." I raised my eyebrow at the leather thong. "Not in that, I don't." "Fine. I give up. You want to waste your life in a constant state of quiet desperation, go ahead." She smiled down at the thong, eyes gleaming. "I'll be living it up in leather." "Have fun," I called as she disappeared into the dressing rooms, all bleached blonde hair and boundless moxie. "Don't listen to the Doheny Drive Dominatrix," Coelle advised. "Pick out something you're comfortable in. If you don't feel comfortable, you won't look sexy, no matter how much skin you show." "That's the problem." I sighed. "I can't imagine wearing any of this stuff in front of Danny without feeling totally self-conscious." "First-time brain freeze? It'll pass." "Yeah, I guess." I perked up as I caught sight of a fur-trimmed black negligee, then dismissed it as too Hollywood. No way could a small-town girl from Massachusetts pull that off. "So have you decided when you're going to do it?" Coelle looked serene and wise beyond her years, as usual. She'd grown up as a child actor (thinkBarney,Broadway, and Nickelodeon) before landing a role on a soap opera calledTwilight's Tempest,and was a seasoned professional at the age of seventeen. "I don't know." I flushed as I contemplated the prospect of sex with my brand-new boyfriend, the divinely drool-worthy Danny Bristow. "He invited me to go with him to this winter dance at UCLA, but I've got some bad associations with that. Look what happened when I got carried away at homecoming. And anyway, I don't want my first time to be in a dorm room or in the backseat of Danny's rickety old car. That's so cliche. I want it to be romantic, you know?" "You could always spend the night at a hotel," she suggested, running her fingers over a display of ribbon-trimmed red demibras. "Valentine's Day is coming up. You guys could get a room at Le Parc or Maison 140 or maybe drive out to the ocean -- there are some really cute bed-and-breakfasts in Santa Monica." She paused. "Does he know it'll be your first time?" "Of course not. I may be a socially stunted pariah, but he doesn't need to know that. I told you, I want it to be romantic." "Whatever. Just don't get so romantic you forget the condom. You don't want to end up the STD poster child like Jacinda." "I heard that!" Ms. Moxie huffed out of the dressing room, glaring at Coelle. "And I will have you know that socialites don't get STDs -- they are merely 'indisposed' for a few days." "Relax. Don't get your leather panties in a bunch." Coelle grinned. Jacinda turned to me. "So? Did you make a decision yet or are you still trying to find something that'll make you look like LiKillian, Beth is the author of 'Boy Trouble The 310', published 2006 under ISBN 9781416521686 and ISBN 1416521682.