We were too young to rent this particular movie, but we looked old for our age, and we knew that if we just didn't giggle or make spectacles of ourselves, we'd be fine.

It helped that we had Kerri's mother's movie-rental card, which would allow us to rent anything in the store. We had wandered around the store, browsing the stacks of movies for rent. We didn't have anything in particular we wanted to see, but it was Saturday, and we wanted to watch something.For some reason, approximately 90% of all movie titles start with the letters R, S, or T, and that's where we spent hmost of our browsing time. We'd hold up movies to each other, soliciting opinions, but they'd all be struck down for one reason or another.

We spotted it then, hidden in plain view; a simple, black box. Kerri looked at me quizzically and said words that were such incredible understatements that I'm surprised the world didn't cave in on us right then and there:

"Isn't this supposed to be a cult classic or something?"

I nodded. "I don't have the foggiest clue what it's about, though. Might as well give it a try, I guess. Surely it can't be that bad."

With that decided, I forked out the cash and she the movie-rental card, and we took the movie back to her house. We didn't know whether or not her parents would approve of the movie, so we didn't say a word about it, and waited until after they had gone to bed to pop the movie into the VCR. We had stayed up late, talking about the supremely-important things that teenage females talk about, and stopped in shock when we realized it was one a.m. and we hadn't even started the movie yet.

It was, to be perfectly honest, awful. We were sleepy, and we were fidgeting and yawning. Kerri looked at me and said, "We'll give it ten minutes. If it doesn't get any better, then let's just turn it off and get some sleep. I'm tired."

Ten minutes passed. If it was possible, the movie got worse. We couldn't decide what was worse: the dialogue or the acting. It got so bad that I finally gave in to my raging case of the munchies—and went to the kitchen to fix myself a snack without pausing the movie.

Less than thirty seconds later, Kerri came running into the kitchen, babbling. "Come back in here. You've GOT to see this. Oh. My. God."

I raised my eyebrow. "It got better?"

She nodded, laughing so hard she could barely breathe. "It just got a LOT better. You have to see this for yourself."

I brought my snack (chips and Coke, as I recall) back to the living room and settled into the couch. Kerri had rewound the tape to where it had been when I got up. She clutched the remote in both hands and giggled. "Just watch."

…and suddenly, the words came out of my mouth in one of my patented blinding flashes of obviousness: "He's wearing a bustier and fishnets?!?"

Words that would have come out of the mouth of any sheltered fifteen-year-old girl upon watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show for the first time, with no prior knowledge of what the movie was about.

We stayed up and watched the entire movie. Then we watched it again the next day, and it was even funnier. Then we returned it, and never told a soul that we'd seen it—for who would understand?

For a couple of years, it was my guilty little secret. I didn't even know anyone else who had seen the movie. Most people, wen asked about it, agreed that they'd heard of it, but their lack of knowing smiles told me that they had never seen the movie nor had any idea of what it was actually about.

Jeff told me tonight that he'd consider attending the RHPS screening at dragon*con next year if I'll give him some coaching about what to expect. In a way, that almost seems like a shame; I understand why he wants the coaching, but it seems a shame that he won't experience it with the same goggle-eyed fascination and mock horror that Kerri and I had when we watched it together for the first time.

Virgins, indeed.