Chapter 1 In Which There Are Sheldon's Diagrams

Oh my God was all she could think as his lips descended on her neck. It wasn't even a good "oh my God." It was one of those times when she was mortified and had no idea what to do. Wasn't she supposed to know what to do? Emily had told her what to do in these situations but Casey had never really listened because she didn't want to think about her best friend doing stuff like this with Sheldon Schlepper. She tried to relax as his hands slid to her t-shirt and toyed with the ends.

"Come on Casey. Relax." Max groaned as Casey stiffened like a board. Something just didn't feel right about this whole thing. This whole making out thing was one of those parts of life that unfortunately she couldn't study. As Max's hands wandered up her shirt again and he sucked a little too hard on her neck, she was suddenly stuck with fear. Maybe an illogical fear, but again she got that feeling of wrongness and it sort of made her want to throw up. She normally didn't get like this unless she had a big presentation for school that she had to get ready for and it was life or death. Like A or A minus life or death. Casey hated those times and she certainly wasn't enjoying this. Must get out! Must get out! Was all she could think as she suddenly sat up and almost hit Max in the nose.

"What the fuck, Casey? You almost broke my damn nose!" He groaned as he rubbed a hand over his face in frustration. He was noticeably excited and really wished that he was dating someone normal and well, easier. But easy was never something remotely associated with Casey, ever.

"I have to go Max. Maybe we can both take a rain check?" She was stammering, she was sure of it. And for some reason there was a hitch in her voice when she spoke. She knew she was blowing it and making herself seem like a complete prude for bailing on their make out session but she couldn't handle this. "I just remembered that my mom and George needed me home by 10 to get Marti to bed. For some reason she won't go to bed without me telling her a story nowadays." Did she really just say nowadays? She really was digging herself into a hole of loser-dome.

"Casey, it's 8:30 and I live 5 minutes away from you." Ooops. She should have thought of that before. "Why don't you tell me what's wrong and why you don't want me to kiss you and touch you tonight? I thought maybe we would finally take things a bit farther tonight. You know, farther than a few pecks on the lips." He snorted then added, "Maybe we could even kiss for longer than 5 seconds."

She bristled at his sarcastic remarks. They had SO kissed for longer than 5 seconds. I mean, there were the ones that lasted about 10 seconds… right?

"Max, really you're being ridiculous and for some reason, pressuring me. I want to go home and we'll talk tomorrow okay?" When he did nothing but stare at her like she had sprouted 2 additional heads, she snapped her fingers in his face. Max did nothing but shake his head incredulously and move off of the bed to pick up his keys and her discarded coat.

"Let's go." He said in a quiet voice. And with that, they were off.



Three hours later and Casey was staring up at her ceiling while Emily chatted, well more like scolded her, on the phone. She knew what she had done was bad and really immature, but Emily didn't understand her. Instead she kept screeching "Casey" over and over again and then proceeding to tell her how she wouldn't be surprised if Max up and dumped her first thing tomorrow morning. At the rate Emily was going, she was starting to understand what Derek must feel like every time she yelled at him. Speaking of Derek, where was he? It was after 11pm and he still wasn't home yet. He was probably still out with his hoes doing god knows what. Correction, they were doing god knows what to him.

"Casey! Are you even listening to me?" Casey was startled as Emily screeched even louder into the phone. She definitely wasn't listening; she was too busy thinking about how slutty and inconsequential all of the girls Derek dated were.

"You know what? I'm coming over and we are talking about this face to face. We are going to settle this irrational fear you have of making out once and for all!" With that, she hung up and Casey was left with nothing but a dial tone. Sighing, Casey hung up the phone and prepared to take out the blow up mattress for Emily to sleep on. She only had a few more moments of silence before Emily was sure to continue to make her feel worse about the whole situation late into the night. When she heard a resounding thump downstairs, she thought "wrong" and crept out into the hallway to check who it was. It would only be two people anyway; either Derek creeping in from his date or Emily using the spare key under the potted plant outside.

She really hoped it wasn't Emily knocking over the plant that she had heard. Last time that happened, people dragged soil into the house for weeks and Casey's OCD had been on overdrive trying to clean it up all of the time.

"Who is it?" she asked peering down the stairs into the foyer. When no one answered she descended a few steps. After another moment and still no answer, she went down the last few and moved towards a table to turn on a light.

"When did it get so dark and creepy down here?" She mumbled to herself trying to feel around for the light. As her hand bumped into the lamp and almost knocked it over, she felt a gust of soft air blow on her face. Frozen, she waited a moment before continuing her quest for the light switch. "Finally" she thought as she felt the bump that served as the switch. Those thoughts quickly vanished altogether when she felt a larger, warmer hand cover hers and squeeze.

In his lifetime, Derek had heard a fair amount of screaming and yelling but until that moment, he had never heard that kind of shriek come from Casey. She was, after all, the one who usually screamed and yelled at him but what had just come out of her mouth and into his ears sounded almost animalistic and legitimately terrified. It almost made him feel bad for delighting so much in scaring her. Key word almost. As she stood still in fright, he reached guided her hand over the switch to turn on the light. The light spilled over them both in brightness and made them squint a little as they peered at each other. One wore a sheepish smile while the other stood gaping with her mouth wide open.



"What's up princess?" Internally, he grinned while he watched her slowly come back to life and open and close her mouth a few times. She was most likely thinking of the best scathing remark for this situation but after a few more moments of silence, he was ready to shake her. He didn't think he had scared her that badly.

"Well as much as I'm enjoying this princess, I really must be going. I smell like several different girls right now and I have to get up early for practice in the morning." Her face contorted at his statement in disgust and she was suddenly zapped back to normal. He felt her hand flex beneath his and he realized that they were still connected. He let go and took a step back.

"You would." Was the only response he got as she shoved past him in disgust and annoyance.

"1,2,3…" he counted in his head waiting for what was sure to come. He watched as Casey pivoted and turned back to him sticking her finger in his chest in what she thought was an intimidating manner. "Bingo" he thought as she jabbed him repeatedly while scolding him.

"Did you really think that that was funny? You are so ridiculous sometimes that I wonder how people are even interested in you. Do you do this to everyone? Or am I the only one who has the privilege of being tortured by you on a daily basis just because you are bored and you like to see me absolutely terrified that someone would come in and violate me or worse, KILL me."

He snorted at that. Leave it to her to jump to conclusions and think that he spends all of his time plotting against her. It would also figure that she would think someone was targeting her and plotting to kill her. He merely seized opportunities as they came to him. And those opportunities came often when it came to bugging Casey. She really made it easy on him.

"Whatever. You are so full of it Casey that I wonder how Emily deals with your drama. I'm going to bed." With that he shoved past her and trudged up the stairs and shut his door seconds later.

"Auuugggh." Was all she could manage before she heard Emily shuffling around the front door.

"Casey, why are you simultaneously pale and red at the same time? You kind of look like…oh jeez. Derek came home didn't he?" Emily rambled as she dragged an enormous bag in through the front door.

"Emily, I love you, but shut up." Casey fumed as she snatched Emily's bag away from her and stomped up the stairs mumbling unintelligible curse words.

"So I brought some diagrams as well as movies that will hopefully get you in the mood to errr 'get a move on' with Max."

Casey could only stare and feel even more embarrassed as Emily proceeded to actually unfold diagrams that depicted people kissing and doing… other things that she didn't even want to think about. The drawings also looked suspiciously like Sheldon's handwriting and that weirded her out even more. Why 

did Emily have these and more importantly, who gave them to her. It made sense that Sheldon would, but it was still really weird.

"I thought maybe we could start with movies so you could have visuals and then we will follow up with the diagrams to really cement this knowledge in you. I think that we need to approach this like it is a science because that will make it seem like school to you. You are good at school so if making out is like a school subject, you will no doubt do well in it." Emily prattled on while organizing and sorting all of their "study" materials. Did Emily really think that she was that lame? Apparently she did if she felt it was best for Casey to think of making out as a school subject. What would happen if in the middle of math class she accidentally thought about this instead? Or worse, pulled out one of Sheldon's diagrams instead of her homework.

"Em, I really don't think that this is necessary. I just got freaked out tonight, that's all. I'll be fine next time Max decides that he is in the mood." There, that should get her to lay off, right?

"Casey, there in your statement is your problem. You said next time Max is in the mood. You still won't like making out because you don't think that you'll be in the mood ever. Your statement proved that." At Casey's blank look she continued. "We need you to realize that making out is awesome and you'll enjoy it if you let yourself and have proper coaching. That's why we are going to stay up late, paint our nails, eat chocolate and watch people go at it!" When Casey didn't look even remotely excited, Emily sighed and added a "please?"

Several hours later, and after countless movies of what Casey considered soft core porn, Emily was sound asleep in Casey's bed and Casey was really tired of thinking so hard about making out. Wasn't making out supposed to just be natural? She was 17 for god's sake. She should be able to do this without all of this awkward, but well intended "help" from Emily (and Sheldon). But as she tried to think more positively about making out with Max, she found that she still couldn't get even remotely excited. Something about them making out earlier that evening just felt weird. There was no other way to describe it. Maybe she just wasn't cut out to make out with anyone, ever. Maybe all of those times she had joked with Emily about becoming a spinster or worse, asexual, really were true.

Suddenly Casey started to feel really bad for herself. And she hated when she felt this way. It reminded her of all of the times she had been called Klutzilla and Grubby by people at school. Usually only Derek made her feel this shitty and lately she had been working really hard to avoid feeling this way. She had been succeeding until this stupid make out incident tonight.

"Tomorrow he won't know what hit him" she thought as she snuggled down into the air mattress by her bed. With the sound of Emily's soft snores, she quickly fell asleep.