New month, new journal, new Amber. That’s the way I looked at it. After what had happened towards the end of November, I felt like a different person.

It wasn’t just losing my virginity. That made a big impact, sure--but it was also a gift, courtesy of Mike and Lily. It opened my eyes to the enormousness of sex, but that just confirmed a lot of what I had suspected. It made me feel very good, but I’d expected that, too. It gave me some insight into what kind of people my sister and future brother-in-law truly were--but that, too, I think I had known all along.

It may have been the next day that really made me feel like a brand new person. Mike had presented me with a gift--but Darren hadn’t. I had seduced him. It was all me. That gave me a jolt of confidence. With what had happened throughout the fall with Jenna and all them, I needed the confidence.

And then there was Joe. What he wrote in his journal...well, I don’t know if I could ever repay that. It was wonderful. It made me go all fuzzy inside.

OK, thinking about that made me realize, I guess I was affected by losing my virginity to Mike. I was affected because it was just one small indicator of his generosity--and, let’s not forget, Lily’s. They truly loved me. Joe made me remember that, because he was a true friend.

Sometimes I get caught up in my own misery. I have to remember sometimes that people, good people, love me. And that made me feel even better.

So, when I went back to school on Monday, the first of December, it was with a whole new attitude. I felt good. I was determined to make the most of things.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the stir I caused.

I wore clothes--not to mention a coat--to school, because it was cold. I went to my locker and stripped down as usual. There were a lot of other people there stripping, no surprise what with the cold. So, I nodded and smiled to people I knew and got my clothes off. Then, naked, I started piling my clothes into my locker.

That’s when the pointing and staring and gasps started. I had almost forgotten--the shave!

"Oh my God, you shaved your cunny?" Jordan gasped. "That’s radical!"

"Yeah. I tried it out and found out I really liked it."

"Where did you get the idea for that?" she asked.

"I’ll tell you later," I grinned.

It really did cause quite a fuss. The guys thought it was great. The girls--some of them couldn’t understand why, but the rest seemed intrigued. I got lots of comments, though, throughout the whole day.

At lunch, I sat with Jordan, Tiffany, Joe, and Moose. As we sat down, we were joined by someone else--Justin. He sat down next to me and said, "Please don’t leave."

I had seen what he had said about me in Joe’s journal, so I was more receptive. "OK."

"I owe you an apology. I judged you based on what other people said and that was wrong."

"Apology accepted," I said with a smile. He grinned, and held out his hand. I shook it.

After soccer practice that day, Rosa came up to me. "So, what do I have to do?"

"Excuse me?"

"What do I have to do to prove to you that I’m really sorry and that I want to be friends again?" she said, looking horrible. "This is eating me up inside."

I decided then that I was going to let her off the hook, but not before playing again. "What do you have to do?" I said with a grin. "Well, you could lick my pussy."

She immediately dropped to her knees--but she was grinning too. "Right here in the middle of the soccer field?" she said.

"Yeah, that might be a bad idea, huh?" I laughed.

She stood up, and I wrapped her in a hug. "Apology accepted."

"Thank you," she said.

"Then again, I should’ve let you. I mean, I had sex on this soccer field a couple days ago."

"What? With who?"

"Darren Walker."

"Wow," she said. "Darren Walker took your virgnity?"

"No, actually, he was my second. I actually lost my virginity the day before. To Mike."

"Mike who?" she asked.

"Mike. You know, Mike? My sister’s boyfriend?" Rosa’s eyes bugged right out of her head! "Lily told him to, by the way. This wasn’t behind her back."

"Wow! How was it?"

"Fantastic," I said. "And I was so pent up the next day that, after you guys left practice, I seduced Darren right on the soccer field."

"You scamp," she laughed. "So, feeling better?"

"Lots better," I admitted.

---------

I felt even better the next day. It was our last soccer game of the season.

And we finally won a game.

It was against Davis-Lycoming, the team I thought we had a chance to beat back in October. The game that led to the big blowout between Jenna and I. Yeah, that team.

This time the game was at their place. Jenna was firmly esconced right where she belonged, on the bench. We won 2-0. I even scored a goal, on a corner kick. Torie kicked it out of the corner, right to me, and I slammed it home.

It was such a relief to finally win a game. Though I wasn’t going to soon forget a soccer season where my team finished 1-17. I hoped I never had to go through that ever again!

Next year, we’d be better. We’d have a season under our belts, we’d all be a year older, and we’d have Tiffany.

-----------

School was getting better. I wasn’t the school pariah anymore. However, I still didn’t seem to be attracting all that much in the way of male attention.

I probably could’ve gotten Darren Walker to hit the pods with me. However, at that moment I was looking for a little variety. Having finally gotten laid twice in two days at the end of November, I wasn’t going crazy or anything anymore. I figured if I really got hard up, I could hitch up with Darren again. But first I was looking for some variety.

I didn’t really find anything at school. Like I said, I wasn’t attracting a lot of that kind of attention.

On a Saturday in December, a couple of weeks before Christmas, I decided to head to the local mall. Dad dropped me off and we set a time for him to pick me up. I had to do some Christmas shopping, but I also had to do some shopping for myself. I needed shoes. I needed a new pair of sneakers, plus I needed a decent pair of dress shoes, for the soccer team banquet and some Christmas family stuff. Dad liked to dress up and go out for dinner on Christmas Eve.

There was a good shoe store in the mall so, after doing some of my Christmas shopping, that’s where I headed. This was, as I said, a good shoe store. It was one of the ones where you sit down and an employee brings the shoes out and helps you try them on. No self-service Walmart shoe department, in other words.

I picked out a few I wanted to try on, and sat down. One of the employees quickly came over to me--and, boy, was he a hunk! Oooh, I figured this might be extra fun!

"Can I help you?" he said.

"You sure can. I’d like to try these," I said, and pointed out the ones I’d picked out.

"Sure thing. You know your size?" I told him, and he went to get the shoes.

He came back, and pulled out a set of dress shoes. "Let’s see how these fit," he said, and bent over to put them on me.

Now, I was clothed. Going nude at the mall wasn’t strickly forbidden, but it wasn’t done much. Plus, it was cold out. So, no, I wasn’t nude, I had clothes on. Of course, my set of clothes included a skirt.

And I wasn’t wearing underwear.

When he bent over to put the shoes on me, I made sure my legs were apart, just slightly. Just enough for him to get a little glimpse. Which he definitely did--I saw him glance up, and then he swallowed heavily. Bingo!

He put the shoes on me--these were the dress shoes--glancing up between my legs the whole while. After he got them on, I got up to walk around and try them out. "These are perfect, I’ll take them," I told him.

"Great," he said. "You want to try the sneakers now?"

"Yeah, let’s start with that pair, Sean," I said, grinning as I read his name from his name tag.

"OK," he said with a wry grin.

"I’m Amber, by the way," I told him.

"Nice to meet you, Amber." He kneeled in front of me again, and started putting on one of the two pairs of sneakers I had suggested. I could see his eyes glancing up between my legs again. "So, Amber," he finally said, "do you always go out without panties on?"

"I usually go out without much on," I told him, "considering I go to WRA."

"Ah, Naked High," he said with a grin. "So you’re overdressed today."

"Pretty much," I laughed.

"Wait a minute," he said. "I thought they only had freshmen there this year," he said. I nodded. "How old are you?"

"Fourteen."

He almost swallowed his tongue at that! "Uh, wow, you look older."

"Hey, it’s legal, right? How old are you?" I asked him.

"Nineteen," he said. "How do those sneakers feel?" I got up and walked around the shoe store in them a bit.

"They feel fine, but let me try the other pair," I said. I sat back down and he took the first pair off, and put on the other one. Of course, he looked up again. "You shave?" he said.

"Yeah. Just started. It’s very fun," I purred.

"Uh-huh," he grinned. By then he had the other pair of sneakers on and I walked around in them. I had the money, so I decided to take both, plus the dress shoes. As he was gathering the boxes up to ring me up, I glanced at my watch. "Six O’clock, I need to get supper."

"Are you staying here for supper?"

"Yes, my Dad’s picking me up at 9:30. I still have Christmas shopping to do."

"Really? I get off at eight," he told me.

"Hmm, really?" I said with a little grin. He rang me up and I paid for the shoes. "Nice to meet you, Sean. Maybe we’ll see more of each other," I hinted.

"I would like that," he said.

I went and ate, then did my shopping. At eight o’clock, I made my way back to the shoe store. What the hell, right?

He was quite happy to see me. Hey, he knew what I wanted. And I knew what he wanted. After a bit of small talk, that was apparent. The question was, where? Even in the more sexualized atmosphere nowadays, fucking in the middle of the mall is a wee bit gauche.

Luckily, Sean had a solution for that. He led me through this maze in the walls of the mall, behind his store. He opened a door and let me in. "Storage room," he said. "And neither of those guys working has the key."

"Oooh, you’re a smart man," I said.

He grinned, and then started kissing me. I kissed him back enthusiastically.

"Are you sure you’re only fourteen?" he said.

"We grow up fast now, where have you been?" I giggled, then kissed him again. He ran his hands up and down my body as he kissed me, then he maneuvered me over to a side of the cluttered room.

There was a desk there. The desk even had a nice, clean blanket spread over the top of it. I was guessing that we weren’t the first people to use this storage room for a little fun!

Sean kissed me, with me up against the desk. Then he abruptly picked me up by the hips and hoisted me onto the desk. I giggled at that. Before the giggle even died, Sean was on his knees hiking my skirt up to my hips and diving right in. I squealed! You got to love a guy that doesn’t waste any time before he goes for the pussy lashing!

He backed off for a second and said, "I had to resist doing this while I was putting your shoes on your feet." Then he dove right back in. And, boy, he was good at it! I had gotten lucky so far with lovers that knew how to do oral. If I ever had a guy that I had to ‘train’ at oral, I think I’d be flummoxed!

No such worries with Sean, he was wonderful. As an added bonus, his tongue was long. I mean, he got it right up inside me. That felt nice and good, getting a good couple inches of tongue up my pussy. He worked me up nicely with that for a while, then went for the clit.

OK, he was definitely good at this! His tongue massaged my clit like Itzhak Perlman bowing his Stradivarius. Hell, I think I was making noises like Itzhak Perlman’s Stradivarius. Well, less in tune!

Oh, it was marvelous. It was like his tongue was all over my pussy. I came in a hurry.

As soon as I had cum, he stood up in front of me. I saw him undoing his pants. "You are protected?" he asked.

"Of course," I gasped, still coming down from the cum. He pushed my skirt back out of the way and slid into me. It was pretty easy considering how wet I was!

He started slow. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders as he stood in front of me, slowly slipping in and out of me. After a bit, he sped up. I was completely ready for it. I went again just as soon as he picked up the pace. Shortly thereafter, he exploded into me.

He kind of slumped on the floor afterwards, catching his breath. I got myself together, and pulled some kleenex out of my purse to clean up my pussy some. Then I hopped of the desk, leaned over and kissed him. "Thanks. That was fantastic."

"Thank you," he replied. I started heading out of the storeroom. "Amber!" he called. "How can I get in touch with you?"

"Don’t worry, I know where to find you," I said with a laugh. Then I was gone.

I have never felt that naughtly in my life!

----------

It was only afterwards, in the next few days and weeks, that I began to have second thoughts. Not that I regretted it, really--but I had some doubts.

Part of that was watching the unfolding drama of Connor and Tan. Or, as Jordan called them, The Sickenly Sweet Goo-Goo Lovebirds.

Tan and I had patched things up after Rosa and Justin and I did. Tan apologized, Connor was never really the problem, so that was that. I guess I was just in a forgiving mood.

Anyhow, they started eating with us, so we saw the lovebird thing on full display. Now, we gave them shit. Good natured-shit, mind you, and that’s the way they took it. It wasn’t malicious. But they were really into one another and we teased them about it.

But, inside, I was just a wee bit jealous.

Here they were, eyes only for each other--and I’d been with three different guys in a couple of weeks.

Jordan, of course, thought that I had it right; that Tan was getting into a Big Relationship at 14 when she should be having some fun. Part of me understood that. I did say I wanted variety. But part of me was jealous.

The problem was Sean. Look, Mike was special. And Darren and I were friends--we still were, we’d chatted on the phone a couple of times since we had sex, and I had let him escort me to the soccer banquet. We didn’t do anything--we couldn’t, I was having The Monthly--but we were friends. So, you know, going to bed with a friend was OK.

It was Sean. I slept with a guy I had just met. I wasn’t sure if I liked myself doing stuff like that.

Then again, I didn’t regret it. If I went back in time faced with that situation again, I’d probably do the same thing.

I guess you could say I was confused.

I liked sex, I knew that. No question about it. But I found myself wanting more.

I wanted a boyfriend.

-----------

Christmastime was approaching. I liked Christmas anyhow, though I missed Boston. It’s supposed to snow at Christmas, dammit! But I liked Christmas in any case.

This year, as last, there was an added bonus--Lily coming home for Christmas break. And not just Lily, Mike. And not just Lily and Mike, but all of their friends.

Lily had always been the perfect Big Sister. She never made me feel unwelcome around her and her friends. She never treated me like an annoying pest, though I’m sure I was one quite a bit. She always welcomed my company. So, her friends were my friends. I liked all of them.

Amanda and Jared were home from Princeton, and they spent a night at our house, chatting and talking, telling us all about Princeton and even asking me all about Naked High. A couple of days after that, I saw Frankie and Cassie over Frankie’s house. Besides being Lily’s friends, they were also Rosa and Tan’s siblings, so I’d always seen them. The rest of them trickled in from their colleges in the week before Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, Mom and Dad opened the house to them all. All of Lily’s friends were invited, as were Tan and Rosa. Tan brought Connor. Since Maggie was coming as well to hang out, I made sure Joe was invited as well. Jordan had something to do, but Tiffany came, as did Moose.

I hung out with my friends, and with Lily’s. After a while, though, I noticed someone missing, and it was someone very special to me.

He slipped in a few hours into the party. He went and said hello to his friends for a bit. When he got to the couch, coke in hand, that’s when I went over to him.

"Ed Bauer, where the hell have you been?"

"If it isn’t my pint-sized naked girlfriend!" he yelped. He got off the couch and gave me a huge hug.

You have to understand--if Mike was my first crush, Eddie was 1A. That time I got nude with Mike and Lily at the school carnival when I was eleven, we ran into Eddie as we got inside the carnival, and Eddie decided his mission for the rest of the day was to make sure I had a good time. He was wonderful. I’d been half in love with him since. Yeah, he was too old for me, I knew that, whatever--but he still had a place in my heart, and always will. He’d treated me like gold since the day I met him.

We chatted for a while, he asked all about Naked High. I even told him about some of my sexual exploits. He seemed, however, to not be willing to tell me much about his life. I’d asked how things were going, and he’s say, "fine," and change the subject.

Ed was a comedian, that was his personality, and, on the surface, he was his usual jovial self. However, I saw something underneath. I didn’t find out what was going on, though, until I asked what I thought was an innocuous question.

"So, where the hell is Natalie?" Nat had been his girlfriend for almost as long as Mike and Lily had been together.

I obviously asked the wrong question, because Ed got a very sour look on his face. "Vail," he said.

"Colorado, you mean?"

"Yes. She’s on a ski trip."

"Why aren’t you?"

"I wasn’t invited," he said bitterly. "In fact, it was made clear that my presence was not welcome."

"Isn’t she your girlfriend?" I asked.

"At the moment. We’re going to have a little discussion on that when we get back to school. I think it’s pretty much over."

"Jeez, Ed, I always thought you two were perfect for one another!"

"Someone should tell Natalie that."

"What happened?"

"Ah, you don’t want to hear this."

"Ed. You have always been there for me, even though I was Lily’s bratty kid sister. You can tell me anything."

He smiled, and then sighed. "You know how smart Natalie is."

"Yeah."

"Well, when we got to Chapel Hill last year, she started to find her niche. She was smart and an art major, so she quickly attracted a group of intellectual-types to hang out with. At first I thought this was great.

"However, it’s become apparent over the past year and a half that they all do not like me. Look, I know I’m not in Natalie’s league when it comes to brains. But these people have her convinced I’m a complete dumb jock who only got into the hallowed halls of UNC because of my baseball scholarship.

"This really started last spring, when baseball season started. Some of these people are really anti-sports. They thought that a smart artistic girl like Natalie going out with a baseball player is just horrible.

I kind of weather it while we were home this past summer. But when we got back to school, they really started in on her.

This cabin they’re staying in at Vail, well, it’s owned by the family of this guy, Phil. He’s probably my biggest detractor. And I think he has designs on Nat. I mean, half of the guys in that crowd do, you know how beautiful she is. She swears nothing’s going on. Actually, I believe her--but I wonder if that’s going to change while she’s in Colorado.

"Anyhow, she told me a few weeks ago that Phil had invited a bunch of them to go to Vail for Christmas. I understand why she wouldn’t necessarily want to come back here--her mother keeps falling off the wagon."

"Yeah, I’d heard that," I told him.

"So, when she told me she wanted to go to Vail for break, I said something like meeting her out there after I spent some time here with my folks. That’s when she told me I wasn’t invited, that Phil didn’t want me there."

"What did you do?" I asked him.

"Well, I told her that I didn’t think that was very fair. That we were going out and we should spend some of break together. She just doesn’t care. And then some of them came to pick her up while I was still in her room, and I had to put up with them gloating at me, especially that weasel Phil."

"Have you talked to her since she’s been out there?"

"She called last night. She’s been gone a week, mind you. She finally called. She was all lovey-dovey. But when she said that she had to sneak calling me because Phil told her not to, I snapped a little bit. This wasn’t a money thing--she called me from her cell phone so she was paying for it, it wasn’t like she was using the phone at Phil’s cabin. So, I told her that if she thought that Phil had the right to tell her to not call her boyfriend, then we had a problem."

"What did she say to that?"

"Excuses," Ed spat. "I just wanted to wait until I got away from them, blah blah blah. Keep in mind I’ve left four messages on her cell before she called. So, I told her to come home."

"And she refused."

"Yep. So I told her that her actions were not conducive to us maintaining our relationship."

"What did she say to that?"

"Got all weepy. She loves me, yadda yadda yadda. But, Amber, she really does treat me like shit. This Vail trip is just the tip of the iceberg. Her friends sit there and insult me and she just smiles. Then tells me I shouldn’t let them ‘get under my skin.’"

"Shit. You deserve better than that," I told him.

"You always cheer me up," he said with a laugh. "But I know it. When we get back to school, there’s gonna be a confrontation."

"You have my number if you need to vent."

"I know, kiddo. It’s appreciated."

-------------

OK, so maybe I didn’t want a boyfriend quite so badly. That talk with Ed wasn’t too encouraging. One of the most solid relationships I’d ever seen and it was breaking apart. I always thought those two would be discussing wedding plans, not breakups.

It was rather depressing, and made me even more confused.

Christmas was good. It was nice to have Lily home. And the one fear I had about Mike--that, after sleeping together, things between us would be somewhat awkward--didn’t come true at all. He was the same ol’ Mike.

Tan threw a New Year’s Eve party, and I was invited to this one. It was a great time.

New Years’ Day, I spent with Joe, swapping the journals. He had a rather interesting month himself, and was if anything more confused than I. We had a nice long talk about it.

Then I got ready for the new year and the return to Naked High.