Hot Fun (or Not Fun) In the Summertime

"Nonsense," countered her dreamy alter ego. "This could be the start of a great romantic adventure."

The dreamer won, and then lost. She soon learned she was pregnant. Her boyfriend hadn't used a condom and she hadn't insisted that he do so. Her mom took her to get an abortion. She broke up with the boy, never telling him about the pregnancy. Now a 40-year-old development consultant, she agreed to tell her story hoping that it will be a cautionary tale for younger women.

The concept of losing one's virginity seems a bit out of place in a world where zillions of teenage girls watch MTV's naughty "Laguna Beach." Yet deep in the female psyche, parental lectures and Sunday school lessons reverberate, counseling abstinence. What girl hasn't been warned that no guy is going to buy the cow when he can get the milk for free? (Though sometimes true, this is terribly insulting to guys, but that's another story.) First-time intercourse is painful, girls also are told, and unlike their male partner, they'll get no pleasure out of it. What they may get is a horrible infection or a baby. Those warnings prove accurate for some girls. This may be why many say later they wish they had waited.

But when you're 18 and dressed in next to nothing, sauntering down the road with your girlfriends during beach week and getting honked at by every passing Tom, Dick and Harry, you don't give a flip about cows or babies.

What you do care about, if you're Ashlyn Howell from Richmond, is the guy you've been flirting with since sixth grade who shows up at your house party.

Howell and her Romeo had been best friends. They had never actually gone out but she had a "total crush" on him. The summer after senior year he joined her and her friends for a beach week on North Carolina's Outer Banks.

Howell remembers: "We were having a big party, playing a lot of Bob Marley and Madonna. Everyone was drunk." He gave her his sexy half-smile and she said, "So are you staying here tonight?"

She continues: "At some point, he went into my bedroom. I headed for the bathroom and brushed my teeth with someone else's toothbrush. I looked in the mirror and said, "I'm getting ready to have sex. Okay, cool, whatever."

He was waiting for her in the white wicker bed. "He was someone I trusted," she says. "We'd been friends for years. It was bound to happen at some point."

She had hopes that that night would be the beginning of something. It wasn't. When she woke up mid-morning, the spot next to her was empty. She walked out to the living room and saw her new lover sleeping on the floor with several other guys.

"Wait a minute -- this sucks," she thought.

She made enough noise tossing beer cans in the trash to wake up the floor boys. Her friend got up, dressed, gave her another smile and left. That night, he partied in a house next door and never walked over to see her. She cried, really hard. He left the beach without saying goodbye.