The Pants On Fire Award: What's the best/biggest/baddest/most successful/most sordid lie you've ever told?
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Hmm. good question. i come from a long line of storytellers and gossip mongers, so Fiction runs in my blood. i know what the biggest lie i ever told was. i know exactly. however, i haven't exactly been completely successful as i could still be found out.

when i was younger (read: pubescent), i told lots of lies about boyfriends, girlfriends, and sex. in fact, i remember standing across the street from my junior high at the then infamous "drop out zone" known to adults as bill's grill. tonya key, a fellow liar, was crossing backwards back over to the school. she yelled to me, "so, how many guys have you slept with?" and i, in my naive attempt at glamour, hollered back, "at least 15!" yep. i was a virgin at the time.

since then i've never quite told the truth about my sexuality. with boyfriends i always said i'd had a set number (3) of lovers. with girlfriends, i feigned even less. i craved the possession and adoration that came with being "fresh" and "clean" (not in the outkast way) and not at all "used up" - which was the way we described sexually active/agressive/wanton girls back then.

i think if i tallied up how many sexual partners i've had, i still wouldn't be able to admit to it. it's that damn stigma. that damn virgin/whore dichotomy which i know is for shit, but i still can't help buying it. i still lay it down on others. but, as for the lies, it is only here that i'm honest about that first sexual encounter at age 12 - a confession i made only after she did. only y'all know about that. even my mother thinks my first experience was at 14 (when i got pregnant). i have no need to bring truth to the myth (perhaps i need a heaping piece of cake).

as for other lies, well, like i said, we're good at them in my family. my sister is compulsive, but you can tell when she slips from fact to fiction cause she gets this faraway look at the details become much more specific. we read straight through her. my younger sister and i are both writers. we have learned to sketch fiction into even the most realistic stories. it's so easy... so natural.

i lie to my love all the time. however, i usually fess up cause it seems so weird having the fiction between us. he knows me better than anyone, too, so he can spot a less-than-honest detail in its smallest, most innocent, form.

so, the best/biggest/baddest/most successful/most sordid lie i've ever told? let me keep the faith and my sanity by reminding you of the possibility that nothing i say is ever 100% truth. i'll leave the rest up to your imagination.