Virgin

‘Yeah, you can just get them with this,’ she said, as she triumphantly waved a tube of hair removal cream and a bag of M&M’s. As I reached for the chocolate she threw the cream at me.

‘I figured we’d need extra chocolate for this. We can eat them while we’re waiting for the cream to de-hair you.’

I rolled my eyes but dutifully pulled my dress up. Lara groaned, ‘Ellie, I seriously wish you wouldn’t just whip all your clothes off without some kind of warning.’

‘What? I went to an all-girls school.’

‘We went to the same school.’

‘Exactly, so you should be fine with it. How much of this stuff do I put on?’

She examined the packet. ‘Right, you need to make sure all the hairs are covered, so I’d just put loads on if I were you. And then we leave it for ten minutes but you’ll probably need fifteen because it says leave it on for two minutes longer for tough hairs.’

‘Twelve minutes, then.’

‘You’re standing in front of me with your vagina out. Trust me, you need fifteen.’

I slathered the white cream, which stank worryingly of chemicals, over my pubes. Then I sat on the loo with my legs spread wide open so the cream wouldn’t wear off against my thighs. Lara was lying in the empty bath, passing me M&M’s.

‘I don’t understand how a cream can be as effective as a wax wrenching the hairs out. How can this stuff do the same thing?’ I asked.

‘Judging by the strong smell coming from between your legs, there are enough chemicals in there to burn them off.’

‘Ohmigod, do you think that if I leave it on for too long it will burn me?’

‘Nah, probably not. Shall I check the instructions, though?’

I tried to reach for them to chuck over to her but I couldn’t without getting off the loo. Instead I held my hand out for more M&M’s.

‘What does the timer say?’

Lara glanced at her iPhone and announced, ‘You officially have forty-five seconds and then you’re free to wash it off.’

I jumped up in excitement and gestured for her to get out of the bath.

Gingerly, I switched the shower on and did a silent prayer. I moved the shower head down and waited for the hairs to wash away.

Two minutes later, I was still waiting. Panicking, I started to rub them, and a few came off in my hand. The rest stayed, so I rubbed harder. A few more came away, but after five minutes of frantic rubbing, I was left with a vagina scattered with small patches of pubes. It looked like a sad, bald potato sprouting hairs.

CHAPTER FIVE

WE SPENT TWO HOURS and a bottle of wine consoling me. But by the time we tottered out of my room, we were both snorting with laughter.

‘It looks like one of those Mr Potato Head toys,’ sniggered Lara. ‘With a receding hairline.’

‘Here’s hoping some lucky man in Mahiki is into the sparse-pubes look.’

‘Yeah, you never know, it could be some kind of fetish.’ She giggled.

‘Poor vagina,’ I said, as we hobbled to the bus stop on our high heels. It was cold so we wore coats but left our legs bare for sex appeal. I wished I hadn’t relied on alcohol to keep me warm.

‘If we were rich, we could get a cab,’ said Lara as we finally sat on the 390 towards Green Park.

‘But you can’t down vodka-lems in a cab,’ I reminded her.

‘You aren’t allowed to drink alcohol on public transport either, Ellie.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Yes, you idiot.’ She rolled her eyes at me as I handed her the plastic water bottle we had filled up with vodka and a tiny bit of lemonade. She glugged then gagged and I obediently repeated the procedure. We carried on like this until we got to the club and wobbled inside, where we showed them our university cards and were only charged a fiver each.

‘Oh my God, have you ever seen so many designer clothes? I feel like I’ve just walked into an Abercrombie catalogue.’ Lara looked around in disgust at the mass of blond people surrounding us.

‘I know. If I cared enough this would definitely give me an eating disorder. How am I going to find my devirginiser when I’m surrounded by this inbred gene pool?’

‘Alcohol?’

The club was packed with Oxbridge graduates tanned from weekend trips to St Tropez. We headed over to the bar and within seconds, a couple of men were buying us drinks. They were old, slightly balding, and were tucking a bit more than their shirts into their trousers, but as they were happy to splurge their cash on us, we ignored the natural layers bulging out of their waistbands. They bought us whatever we wanted, but drew the line at twenty-quid piña coladas that came in real pineapples. Lara and I spent the next few hours rolling our eyes and getting drunker, while the men carried on chatting and skirting around the topic of their families.

‘So, Ellie,’ asked the fatter of the two, pulling me out of my daydreams, ‘do you want to dance?’

I widened my eyes at Lara and before I had time to mouth ‘help’ at her, she grabbed my arm and dragged me away. ‘Just off to the loo.’ She smiled sweetly at the disappointed men.

‘Oh my fucking God, I can’t handle them any more,’ I groaned as I collapsed onto an armchair in the bathroom.

‘Tell me about it,’ she cried. ‘I swear I can see the hair on their bellies through their shirts. And have you seen Mike’s sweat patches? I actually thought his shirt was grey until I saw the collars.’

I stared at her blankly. ‘Which one’s Mike?’

‘Are you kidding me? The one who just asked you to dance, Ellie.’

‘Oh, the fat one,’ I said. ‘What’s the receding hairline one called?’

‘Andy,’ she said, as she layered more mascara onto her lashes. ‘Have you been listening at all?’

‘Um, I know they work in real estate, or finance, and probably have two depressed wives at home,’ I replied.

‘Ugh, this is so miserable,’ she moaned. ‘Let’s just get one more drink out of them, and then go dance. If I have to hear one more thing about Andy’s BMW Z4 Roadster I’m going to drown myself in my vodka-lem.’

‘Yeah, I don’t care about video games at all,’ I agreed.

There was a moment’s silence as Lara turned to face me. ‘You know he was talking about his car, right?’

‘Oh fuck. I thought it was some kind of PS4,’ I admitted.

She snorted with laughter and pulled my arm, shaking her head. ‘This night is ridiculous. Fuck it, one more drink and then we’re off to find some actual fitties. Deal?’

I nodded reluctantly and let her lead me back to the balding forty-year-olds.

‘Girls, you’re back,’ cried the fatter one. ‘We bought another round, and some tequila shots.’

Lara and I glanced at each other and shrugged. ‘To us,’ she announced before we downed our glasses. I grabbed the lemon and started sucking it dry when I felt someone staring at me. He was wearing chinos, a blue denim shirt, and had the most symmetrical face I had ever seen. I choked on the lemon skin. I had found the perfect person to deflower me.

I fluffed up my hair, wiped away any smudged mascara from beneath my eyes and gave him my best smile. He smiled back, and I clutched the edge of the table to support myself. I turned to Lara to share my excitement with her, and then slowly, my smile dropped off my face as I realised she was smiling at him, too, and—oh, look, he was smiling back at her, not me.

My stomach sank in disappointment and rejection, and I turned back to the balding men and my vodka-lem. By the time I had downed the entire thing, Lara and the amazing guy were sipping out of piña colada pineapples and leaning against each other. I caught her eye and she mouthed sorry at me, even though she still had a huge grin on her face.

Andy or Mike nudged me and made a seedy joke about our foursome becoming a threesome. I realised I had to get out of there. I turned away from them, mumbling something about needing to go to the loo, and slipped outside.

I leant against a cold brick wall, too miserable and drunk to feel the cold. This whole idea had been stupid. Deep down, I’d known that from the start. But I had secretly hoped I would find a cute guy who would take me home, buy me breakfast in the morning and fall in love with me. Obviously, though, it was pretty, blonde, clever Lara who had found the ideal guy—and she didn’t even need one.

Everyone around me was laughing and chatting happily as they smoked their way to lung cancer. I felt so alone. That was the worst thing about my unwanted virginity—it made me feel so lonely. Lara hadn’t been a virgin for years and I was the only one out of our school friends who still hadn’t had sex. When we met up for people’s twenty-first birthdays, everyone shared stories about their boyfriends or regrettable one-night stands. It was standard uni experience stuff but I could never join in. They all gave me pitying looks—Aw, still a virgin, Ellie?—and I used self-deprecating jokes to hide how much I cared. Secretly I wanted to be just like them.

‘You all right there?’

I turned around in surprise. There was a boy standing there, grinning at me. As my alcoholic daze cleared up a bit and my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw him properly. He was wearing a grey hoody and he had a flippy, emo fringe with a lip piercing. He was the only person at the club who didn’t look as though he’d walked off a yacht, and even the barmen were better dressed than him. He was also the only person who had come over to talk to me willingly.

‘Just a bit cold,’ I said, trying to force my face into an attractive pout.

‘Do you want a cigarette?’ he asked.

‘Sure,’ I said and took the one he offered me.

I lit the third cigarette I had ever smoked in my twenty-one years, breathed in sharply and coughed. A lot. He looked over at me with raised eyebrows, so I rasped, ‘Sore throat.’

‘Yeah, must be the cold.’ He grinned. ‘Happens to me all the time.’

I took another drag, swallowed the cough rising up my throat and nonchalantly flicked the ash from the tip of the cigarette onto the ground.

He looked amused.

‘So, have you … been here before?’ I asked.

‘Are you asking me if I come here often? Original chat-up line,’ he said with a smirk.

‘You’re the one who came up to me,’ I reminded him.

‘Fair point. No, I have never been here before, if you can’t tell by my general appearance. What about you?’

‘Me neither,’ I said, wondering what it would be like to kiss someone with a lip piercing. Would it get in the way?

‘So, do you want to go back inside?’ he asked.

I shrugged and threw the cigarette onto the ground, following him back down the stairs. We got to the bar and I waited for him to ask me if I wanted a drink. He said nothing so I bought myself a ten-quid vodka and lemonade, trying not to wince as I handed over my debit card. He bought himself a beer, and we leant against a fish tank in the middle of the club.

‘So, are you here alone?’ he asked.

‘I’m with a friend. You?’

‘Yeah, same, but he’s pulled so I’m alone.’

‘Cool, that’s, uh … good for him.’ I nodded, wondering how much of this static conversation I was going to have to put up with. He paused and looked into my eyes.

After a couple of seconds of intense staring, he leant in and kissed me gently on the lips. It wasn’t bad, until he stirred his tongue into action and started sliding it in. I felt the familiar rise of panic at not knowing what to do and tried to keep calm.

Even since my first kisses with James Martell, I’d never really figured out how to do it. When I was young and practised kissing on my hands, I knew deep down that when it happened for real, I would magically know what to do, just like a Hollywood heroine.

But the magic had never happened. Lip Piercing started rubbing his tongue against mine. I felt the metal of his piercing rub against my gums. I was tempted to run my tongue over it but instead I resorted to my fail-safe move of copying what he was doing. As always, it didn’t really work and my slightly oversized nose bumped against his. We switched sides and I braced myself for the tongue again.

I tried to remember the advice from a YouTube video I once watched. I started to massage his tongue with mine. Was I meant to go over and around it in a circular way, or go to the side of it? Was I meant to withdraw my tongue back into my mouth afterwards?

Closing my eyes, I hoped for the best. After a few minutes, he seemed to figure out that kissing with tongues was not my speciality and went back to lip kissing. I breathed a sigh of relief that we were done with tongues.

‘Ellie!’ Lara crept up behind me. She was grinning wildly and her long, silky hair was all mussed up. Her voice was girly and unnatural as she squealed, ‘This is Angus. He’s at Oxford as well, and get this—we have so many mutual friends!’

Obviously Angus went to Oxford. I gave him my best fake smile and turned to Lara, asking, ‘Why have you suddenly become a posh dick?’ with my eyes.

She ignored my look. ‘So, who’s this? Aren’t you going to introduce us?’

I pulled Lip Piercing towards me. ‘This is, erm …’ I looked at him and he looked blankly back at me. After a few seconds of social embarrassment, I glared at him. ‘Well, aren’t you going to say what your name is?’

He looked taken aback and stuttered, ‘Uh, yeah, it’s Chris.’

Lara air-kissed him before turning back to Angus. They went over to the bar and I was left with Chris. I looked down and saw he was wearing Converse. Angus had been wearing beautiful suede loafers. I sighed, but Chris grinned and pulled me towards him. We started kissing again and I wrapped my arms around him, trying to let myself enjoy it. He may have been the only misfit in the club, but at least he was a misfit who fancied me.

We were interrupted by bright, glaring lights. Chris broke away from me. ‘Oh shit, the club’s closing. I’d better find my friend and head off,’ he said.

‘Oh God, yeah. Me, too. I need to find Lara.’

‘OK then, see you,’ he said and walked off.

My mouth dropped open in shock. I wasn’t expecting him to suggest a spring wedding, but he hadn’t even bothered to ask for my number or to kiss me goodbye. His brief positive impact on my self-esteem slid away and I felt ten times uglier than I had at the beginning of the night. It had been more fun getting ready at home with Lara than it was to take part in this meat market.

Suddenly, I couldn’t believe I’d been considering giving my virginity to a guy I met in a club, who had a lip piercing, no less. And he didn’t even want me. I felt a tear stinging my left eye and stubbornly brushed it away. I wasn’t going to cry over some unattractive emo.

Then another tear came. I sat on a leather sofa in a dark corner of the club. I knew I would be able to laugh about this tomorrow with Lara, but right now it wasn’t funny. It just validated all the insecurities I’d tried to banish along with my moustache in Year Ten. Why had I expected more?

This was what happened on every night out I had pulled, since starting uni. The guy just left, or took my number, promising to arrange drinks, which he never did. I shouldn’t be surprised—I was used to it. I closed my eyes and stayed there alone until the urge to cry lessened and I got up to find Lara.

She was outside snogging Angus. I stood there, waiting for her to kiss him goodnight. The bouncer looked me up and down and winked. ‘You going home alone, darling? You don’t have to, you know.’

Of course, the only person who wanted to take me home was the old, overweight bouncer. He started leering down my dress, so I pulled my coat over my shoulders and turned away. My drunkenness faded into acute sobriety as I walked towards the bus stop. Lara and Angus followed, hand in manicured hand.

CHAPTER SIX

THE MORNING AFTER, I woke up to find myself splayed out across my double bed. I yawned widely and stretched my arms across the mass of pillows under me. Then I sat up straight. I was in the middle of my bed, which I was meant to be sharing with Lara. Where the hell was she?

I grabbed my silver metal glasses from my bedside table, which I wore strictly only in the privacy of my bedroom, and I hobbled towards the window to pull open the thick curtains.

‘OWWWWW, GET OFF ME!’

I screamed in alarm at the unfamiliar male voice coming from my floor, and jumped over him to the window. I yanked open the curtains and blinked as light flooded the room. My eyes gradually adjusted and the fuzzy male lump on my floor turned into Lara curled up on the floor with Angus-from-last-night. His face was bright red where I had stood on it and he was rubbing his eyes angrily. Lara was lying next to him on her front, naked apart from a black bra. They had my throw draped over them, but it was only half covering Angus’ Male Zone.

I stared in silence at them as my brain took in the scene. Slowly, I asked, ‘Why are you both on my bedroom floor?’

Lara groaned and rolled over onto her back. She pulled the throw over her body, leaving Angus totally exposed, and I tried not to stare at his trimmed blond pubes creeping up his six-pack in a snail trail. She yawned loudly and said, ‘I can’t believe how uncomfortable your floor is. You could have given us your bed.’

It all came back to me. Last night at the bus stop, Lara had begged me to let Angus come back to mine, because he was in London visiting a friend so they couldn’t go back to his. I had been so depressed and drunk that I had agreed, on the condition that they couldn’t have my bed. Clearly they had accepted my offer.

I stared at them wordlessly, then looked down at myself to check that I wasn’t also half-naked. I was wearing an oversized T-shirt and last night’s black knickers. Wordlessly, I climbed over them, went into the bathroom and closed the door.

My head was throbbing and I had just found my best friend lying naked on my tiny bedroom floor with a guy I had fancied. I was hung over, jealous and irrationally angry.

I needed to shower away my feelings and last night’s sweat before I went back out as a normal, happy-for-my-best-friend human being. I pulled my T-shirt over my head, slid my knickers off and climbed into the bathtub.

As my second foot touched the bottom of the tub, I slipped backwards, falling onto my back with a thud. I screamed in pain and swore as loudly as I could.

Rubbing my sore back, I sat up and inspected my hand. It had some white stuff on it and I realised it was probably the hair removal cream from yesterday that I had spent hours washing off.

Then a horrendous thought came to my mind. There were other things that looked white and gloopy. Sexual things that had nothing to do with my hair removal cream. OH MY MOTHERFUCKING GOD. Had Lara and Angus come in here to have sex in my bathtub while I slept alone next door?

I looked closer at the white stuff but I’d never seen real semen before, not even in all its dried up glory, so I was clueless. I scanned the rest of the bathroom for other evidence. Lara’s lacy Calvin Kleins were scrunched up on the bath mat. My worst fears were confirmed.

I screamed as loudly as I could until my screams turned into hysterical sobs. I wiped my hands on the sides of the bath. I could hear Lara banging on the bathroom door and calling out to me, but I ignored her and turned the shower on.

I stood there for what seemed like forever, letting the hot water wash away my hangover and humiliation. Lara hadn’t really done anything wrong, bar the whole sex in my bath thing, but this entire experience just made me feel so … rejected. She and I had gone out together to have fun and meet cute guys, but I was the one who genuinely wanted to take a guy back home. Except, obviously, it was Lara with her perfect nose, long blond hair and Oxford education who was taking the men home—even though she was still technically seeing Jez. I knew I was being the bitchy girl who couldn’t handle having a prettier, more successful best friend, but that thought just made me cry more.

Forty-five minutes later, I walked out of the bathroom, now cocooned in my dressing gown. Lara was sitting, fully clothed, on my bed. She was alone. As I walked in, she looked guiltily up at me. She sat in silence, waiting for me to say something.

I gave in. ‘So, has Angus gone?’

‘Yeah. Ellie, I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have brought him back here—that was really weird of me.’

‘Don’t be silly. It’s fine.’

‘No, it’s not fine. We—Oh God, I have to admit something to you.’

‘Go on, then.’

She shuffled on the bed, fidgeting with her hair, which still looked shiny and glossy, and then took a deep breath. ‘We had sex together. In your bathroom.’

I waited a few minutes to let her suffer, and then calmly said, ‘I know. I found the evidence.’

Her face wrinkled in confusion and then crumpled in shock. Her hand flew in front of her mouth and she groaned. ‘Fuck, is that why you screamed? Shit, Ellie, I’m so sorry! This is so embarrassing. I feel so bad. It’s just, I was so drunk and we really wanted to have sex but we didn’t have anywhere to go….’

I sighed. ‘It’s fine, honestly. If I were you, I probably would have done the same—except I would have washed the bathtub afterwards.’

She lowered her face in shame again. ‘I know. I’m a bad person. I’m sorry. I owe you.’

I sat down on the bed next to her and knew I had already forgiven her. ‘Anyway, let’s just forget it. How was it with Angus?’

She brightened up and smiled happily. ‘He was really nice. We swapped numbers and made plans to go for coffee next week. He’s doing his Master’s so he’s a couple of years older than us, but he seems like a really decent guy.’

‘Better than Jez?’

She snorted, ‘Babe, even your emo from last night is better than Jez. What was with that, anyway?’

‘Uh, well … after you heartlessly abandoned me, I had to fend for myself, and I guess drunk Ellie couldn’t find anyone better to hang out with. So, that happened.’

‘I guess the mission failed, then?’

I nodded, scrunching up my face. ‘I think it was for the best. I can’t really lose my virginity like that. I don’t think I’d mind losing it to a total stranger, but last night was kind of seedy….’

‘You’re right. And you know what? I’m proud of you for not giving in. I’m sure you could have easily gone home with the emo guy, but you didn’t, so well done for resisting,’ she said.

‘I guess,’ I replied uncomfortably, deciding I didn’t need to admit to her that Chris hadn’t actually offered me his services. Or a drink.

‘No, seriously, Ellie. I’m glad you didn’t lose your virginity to some stranger. I know you feel like it makes you different because everyone we know has had sex, but being different really isn’t a bad thing, you know.’ She paused, and then added, ‘Besides, it’s better to be a virgin than to have sex in your best friend’s bathtub, like I just did.’

I felt my skin prickle and I crossed my arms. It was all right for Lara to say being different was a good thing, but she had never had to make up lies during Never Have I Ever or sit in silence while our school friends giggled over awkward sex stories. She got to have awkward sex with Jez—and Angus, too, apparently.

‘How is being different a good thing?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know.’ She sighed. ‘I guess…. I wish I hadn’t thrown my virginity away on a total dick, and you haven’t, so that makes you different. You have morals. It’s a good thing.’

‘I didn’t have a choice, remember? The dick I tried to give my virginity to said no.’

She rolled her eyes, ‘Ellie, that was, like, four years ago. You need to get over the James Martell thing.’

I winced.

The James Martell ‘thing’?

‘Um, Lara, you know how horrible that was for me. The Bite Job was awful—you can’t deny that. And then he totally rejected me. I couldn’t just “get over it”.’

‘He was a decent guy, Ellie,’ she said, her tone irritable. ‘If you hadn’t been so terrified of seeing him again, you probably would have ended up going out, and eventually losing your virginity to him in a really nice way. Instead, you just totally flipped out about it all.’