A/N: This is the next in the line of oneshot smut (Smutshot) experiments. The last was Remus/Augusta Longbottom, if you'd like to check it out. I hope some of you are joining me on this alphabetical journey through smut. Enjoy!

-C

She was Remus's first girlfriend, but none of the other Marauders knew about her. She was a couple of years older, not particularly bright, but she seemed to truly care for him despite the fact that he didn't deserve her affection.

Bertha Jorkins.

She was a Hufflepuff and a sweet girl, although she had a tendency to gossip. Usually she was gossiping about Sirius, which was a lot of why the other Marauders knew nothing about her and Remus as a couple. She wasn't exactly on their good list.

But there was a problem. A very, very big problem. Severus Snape had discovered Remus's secret, no thanks to Sirius, who had let out some information in a moment of rage, thinking it a funny joke to try to kill Severus Snape, and rumors about what might have happened between Snape and the Marauders were running wild. Bertha lived on those sorts of rumors. And it was only a matter of time before someone with half a brain managed to put it all together, and Bertha would get wind of Remus's condition, leave him, and tell the world, not because she was mean-hearted, but because that was what she did. She couldn't help herself.

But it was for that reason that Remus would have to leave her first, to distance himself from her, to make her less interested in his affairs. He wasn't sure yet what he would say to end it…. Some sort of excuse about it not working out, the age difference, the fact that they weren't in the same house and so it was too hard to sustain the relationship. It would hurt her, but eventually she'd find someone else and forget all about it.

That, at least, was what he thought when he met her in an empty classroom on the fourth floor that night, determined to break it off as soon as he got there.

He wasn't sure how it had happened. Perhaps Remus was lonelier than he realized, allowing her to kiss him, to remove her dress, to remove his robes, to….

And quite a while later (he couldn't be sure of the time and his watch was on his bedside table… he had been sure he wouldn't be long) Remus was tangled in the naked form of Bertha Jorkins. What on earth had he done? Now he was going to have to dump a girl he'd just slept with and although he'd enjoyed it immensely, he was almost certain that Sirius said it was nearly always enjoyable the first few times, before one had formed technique and taste, in the more social Marauder's words.

But Remus had never thought of sleeping with someone. At least, not until he'd found someone he truly loved. But did he love Bertha?

No, Remus realized, he didn't love Bertha, and that made the pit in Remus's stomach sink even deeper. There was no staying with her. There was no delicate way to let her down and he didn't love her. He'd done everything all wrong.

Not wanting to see the tears, Remus untangled himself from her sleeping form, jotted a quick note with parchment and quill that he conjured up and explained that he was so sorry, that he had meant to break it off and still intended to do so, that he'd had no intentions of letting it go so far and he regretted that he had. Remus felt like the worst person in the whole world as he signed that note and left it in her hand.

In the morning she would know. It wouldn't be pretty. Remus imagined there would be quite a lot of tears for quite a while. But it was necessary. Perhaps it had been presuming too much, trying to have a girlfriend, being what he was. It was not a mistake he planned to make again.