Virgin (5 page)

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 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 I 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 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’s 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 the 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 my place 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 hungover, 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 realized 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 and had 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 bathmat. 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, barring 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 up guiltily 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.”

“What do you mean?” I asked in a slightly strangled voice, knowing I wouldn’t like the response.

She sighed. “Don’t hate me for saying this, but I think you’re scared.”

“Scared?! How can you say that?” Hurt welled up inside me. “Lara, it’s so easy for you. You never had to worry about any of this, and okay, so Jez is a bit of a dick to you, but you both clearly really like each other and you’ve been seeing him on and off for years. It’s different for me. You have no idea how hard it is to be alone when everyone around you is in a relationship or living single life to the max and sleeping with the whole university.”

“But you’re not alone, are you?” she snapped. “You have your friends, you’re doing well at uni—but you’re just obsessed with finding a guy and losing your virginity. If you forgot about that for one second, you might actually enjoy your final year instead of freaking out the whole time.”

I felt tears start to sting the backs of my eyes. “Do you ever think for a second that I
do
try?” I asked her. “That losing my virginity is important to me because it would help me finally fit in? You fit in without even trying. I don’t even understand
why
I’m a virgin. No one we know has ever had an issue losing their virginity—more often, they regret losing it to the wrong guy. You had an opportunity with Marc but the only one I’ve ever had was with James Martell. Maybe I fucked it up because, yes, post–Bite Job I was scared of seeing him, but I was seventeen. Since then, no other guy has been interested in me so I’ve never had an opportunity to try again. Lara, I try
so
hard to meet men and none of them ever do anything more than kiss me—exactly like last night.
You
just go out to a club and a hot guy comes over and flirts with you. I get stuck with the old men and emos, and then my best friend has sex in my bathroom with a stranger. Do you not understand why I feel alone?”

“Oh my God, why do you keep going on about the bathroom thing?” she asked, her voice becoming shrill and high. “I’m sorry that Angus preferred me to you. Maybe it’s because I’m not so desperate.”

I felt as though she had whacked me across the face. “Desperate? You actually, genuinely think I’m desperate? How can you say that?”

She looked guilty but the apology I expected didn’t come. “Well, I just think you’re a bit . . . I don’t know, obsessed with this whole thing. You wanted to lose your virginity to a guy in a club.”

“So?! It’s
my
choice,” I replied, trying not to cry. “Lara, you can’t judge me when you’ve never been in my position.” I closed my eyes tight and blurted out something I regretted immediately. “Why have you suddenly decided to care about it anyway? You never have before.”

Her mouth dropped open. “I’m sorry, Ellie, but are you suggesting I don’t
care
? I’m here for you whenever you need me. I drop everything every time you have a crisis, which is pretty much every other day.”

My hurt morphed into anger. “So? We’re best friends—that’s what we do. Okay, fine, I have a lot of crises, but they’re not serious. I don’t . . . I don’t mope about them or anything.”

She cried out in disbelief. “Please, Ellie. You are so self-pitying. And you know what? You can be really selfish too.”

“
I
can be selfish? Look who’s talking! We spend hours talking about Jez every couple of days, analyzing his text messages and going on and on about the latest news at Oxford when I don’t even go there, and I don’t care about the people there.”

“Exactly,” she spat. “You don’t care about the people in my life but you expect me to care about whatever guy recently smiled at you on the tube, or the people you hate in your English course. It’s almost like you’re jealous of me.”

We stared at each other, and our words seemed to echo around the room. This was our first fight. I didn’t know how much of it we meant. Was it true? Was I selfish? The silence was unbearable. I finally understood the phrase about cutting the tension in a room with a knife.

She stood up abruptly. “Whatever. I’m leaving.” She grabbed her bag and coat, and walked out of my room, slamming the door behind her.

The minute she left, I burst into tears and all the anger dissolved into hurt and regret. She was right—I did self-pity and mope and I
was
selfish. But wasn’t everyone? And how could she say those things to me? Didn’t she care that she had just hurt me more than any boy ever had?

I curled into a ball on my bed and began to cry very quietly. My wet hair soaked through my dressing gown, but I barely noticed. Lara thought I was desperate.

She still hadn’t called. It was Wednesday and I didn’t know whether to stay in my Camden room or go back home to Guildford. Lara would be there too—or maybe she had gone back to Oxford to be as far away from me as possible. We’d never had a falling-out before.

In the cold light of day, a bit of the anger had come back. The things she had said were so hurtful, and so . . . true. She had blurted them out without caring how I felt, and I’d been just as bad. I couldn’t face her and I couldn’t even begin to start processing the thought of an apology. I had spent all of Tuesday crying, eating my feelings and distracting myself with movies. Now I had an ice cream hangover and couldn’t spend another second in my own company.

The only option was to pack up my stuff and head home in defeat for the Easter holidays, but I couldn’t bear the thought of sitting around in Guildford with nothing to do. The only reason I normally went home was to spend evenings with Lara, watching films and lounging in the park. I couldn’t face going back yet. At least if I stayed in London, I would be surrounded by people. I needed a distraction, to spend time with someone different so I wouldn’t have to think about Lara.

Suddenly I remembered Emma. If she was still around, maybe we could have our promised drinks. Before I could change my mind, I reached for my phone and sent her a text asking if she was free. I hadn’t even had a chance to put my phone down when it buzzed with a reply.

Yes! So glad you texted. I say we get a late pub lunch and start drinking immediately afterwards. Girly cocktails?

Perfect. Where shall we meet?

See you at The Rocket at 3pm?

Done!! x

Feeling proud of myself for taking the initiative and doing something with my day, I showered quickly and decided to walk the thirty minutes to the pub to work off some of yesterday’s calories. I’d forced myself into my favorite black skinny jeans and even though it had taken me half an episode of
Friends
to do them up, they were finally covering my cellulite and inspiring me to walk briskly. I flicked around on my iPod until I found my Fuck You, World playlist. It was a relic of my teen angst days but I needed to re-embrace life. And dancing to the Killers was the easiest way to do it.

Forty-five minutes later I arrived at the pub and collapsed, exhausted, into a booth. I had just ordered tap water when Emma walked in. She gave me a hug, enveloping me in flowery perfume, long feathery earrings and her jaggedly cut blond hair. Thank God I had worn my favorite jeans and black suede boots with gold studs, because otherwise I would have been seriously underdressed. Emma was wearing a chiffon cream shirt over a black bra, paired with jeans, heeled boots and a furry leopard-print coat.

“So, have you ordered yet?” she asked. “I’m craving a full fish, chips and mushy peas with a proper sticky toffee pudding.”

“That sounds so good. Except I ate a whole tub of Ben and Jerry’s last night.”

She looked at me sympathetically. “Ouch. Who is the bastard?”

“I wish it was a guy.” I sighed. “Long story short, she is—or maybe was—my best friend from school who just decided to tell me everything she’s secretly disliked about me for years, out of the blue
, after
having sex with a guy I fancied in my bathtub while I slept obliviously in the next room.”

“Whoa, sounds like you’ve had a rough few days . . . Who was the guy? Was he fit? Because if he was, then surely the bathtub sex is excusable.”

“I guess so, yes. I mean, neither of us knew him. We just saw him in a club, fancied him, and he chose her.”

“And then went back to yours and your friend got it on with him in your bathtub? Classy girl,” she said, shaking her head with an admiring smile. “Babe, you could blame her for this, but I think what’s happened here is you’ve made the classic mistake of having a best friend who gets all the guys. You need to go out there and get a new best friend—preferably an uglier one.”

I snorted with laughter but she grinned at me and carried on.

“Okay, maybe that is a bit drastic. But, you know what? There are so many girls like this out there. Pretty girls who get all the guys without lifting a finger and then rub it in their friends’ faces. Bitches.”

I laughed. “Okay, I feel like we’re not talking about my friend anymore. Do you have direct experience of this, Emma Matthews?”

Emma rolled her eyes. “Do I? At school I was second to Alex, because she was blonder than me and had bigger boobs. That’s all the Portsmouth guys cared about, by the way—some cultural context for you. You’d do really well there,” she added, making me blush as she looked down at the cleavage I’d tried to hide with a high-cut top. “But anyway, then I realized that all those years of rejection and being second choice had taught me loads. Ten years later, I am now oblivious to rejection and I can proposition a man without really caring what he says back.”

I looked at her with unadulterated awe. “So, you ask men out?”

“I’ve been known to do so. And for the few who say no, the dozens who have said yes and given me some of the best nights of my life have made it worthwhile.”

“I’m officially impressed,” I said. “The closest I’ve ever come to asking someone out was when I asked a guy called James to take my virginity when I was seventeen and he said no.”

She burst out laughing. “Oh wow, that kind of rejection is enough to put anyone off. Seventeen, huh? That’s kind of late to lose your virginity. We all lost ours before fifteen, but then half of the girls in my year at school got pregnant before A-Levels. So I guess we aren’t really a fair reflection of the greater world.”

They all lost their virginity before fifteen? Oh God, I was a circus freak. A cable-TV channel was probably going to end up doing a documentary on me. The twenty-one-year-old virgin.

I forced a smile. “Ah, well, I don’t think anyone at my school has ever gotten pregnant before being respectably married to a doctor or lawyer, aside from Molly Hanson in 1984, who ran off with a teacher after he got her pregnant in senior year. Since then, the school hasn’t allowed male teachers under the age of forty unless they’re gay. They’re scared the girls will run off with them.”

“They have a point. I definitely would have run off with Mr. Branson if he’d asked. It’s only because he was so good-looking that I was motivated enough to get an A in physics. So anyway, when did you lose your virginity after the big rejection?” she asked, drawing out the last three words with dramatic pausing.

I flushed red. I didn’t want to lie to Emma because she was so open with me. But I couldn’t tell her I was a virgin . . . especially since she clearly didn’t know anyone who was still a virgin after tenth grade. But how would we ever have a proper friendship if she didn’t know the one defining detail about me?

I quickly blurted out the truth before I lost my courage. “Well, it never actually happened for me,” I admitted. Her face screwed up in confusion as her mind started to process what I said. She was judging me, and oh my God, I was freaking out. I rushed on. “Well, until a few months later when I got drunk and that was that.”

She grinned. “Ah, the classic drunken first time. Happens to us all.”

I plastered a bright smile on my face and hated myself for being too weak to stick to the truth. “Yup! Though I can’t say I’ve had many repeats of it, so I’ll have to live vicariously through you.”

“Ugh, I know. There is a major male drought going on these days. But is there anyone in the English course you fancy? Charlie, maybe?” she asked with a knowing smile.

I wrinkled my face up in disgust. “God, no! I could never keep up with his filthy sense of humor.”

“Yeah, I know, right? It’s like . . . what is he trying to cover up with it? I reckon all those stories are just there to hide the fact that he has got a little secret of his own—a very, very little one.”

“Are you trying to tell me he has a tiny dick? How would you know that?” I asked her in shock.

She laughed and tapped the side of her nose. “I have my sources. Let’s just say I overheard Marie saying something to Fiona.”

“Marie and Charlie? You have got to be kidding me.” I gasped.

“Marie and everyone, more like. The girl is a serious player—and that means something, coming from me.”

We ordered our fish and chips and carried on gossiping well into the sticky toffee puddings and our second mojitos. I felt a bit guilty for lying to the most open person I’d ever met, but I figured the second I slept with someone, the lies would be true, and she would never need to know about the half lie.

“Anyway,” Emma said as she spooned the last bit of caramel sauce off her plate and threw her spoon down in triumph. “We got so distracted that I forgot to be more supportive about your fight with your friend. What actually happened?”

I groaned. “It’s too depressing to relive.”

“Do it.”

I took a deep breath. “Okay, but remember . . . you asked for this.”

“Disclaimer accepted. Spill.”

“So, we went out on Monday night to Mahiki. I was craving a man and she’s already seeing someone, so we went out to try to find me a guy. A couple of disgusting old men bought us drinks and we took full advantage. Then we both saw the perfect guy, but of course blond, attractive Angus preferred blond, attractive Lara, so they hooked up. Meanwhile, I got distracted by an ugly little emo boy and snogged him, even though he was the only person not wearing a designer outfit.”

“Whoa—firstly, what are you trying to say about blondes, Miss Kolstakis? Secondly, I can’t believe you were in Mahiki and you managed to find an emo.” She laughed. “I admire your skills.”

I raised my eyebrows at her. “A skill? I feel like it’s more like a curse.”

“I don’t know . . . I’d much rather be with someone a bit different than another typical Oxfordite.”

I paused and briefly wondered if I would have enjoyed being with Angus. He had been pretty rude when I stood on his face. “I don’t know,” I said. “I give up on men. Especially because I then got very drunk and agreed to let Angus stay with Lara in my tiny en-suite bedroom. And when I woke up I stood on his face, realized that they were both
naked
and then . . . and then I decided to shower it all away and slipped on what I thought was hair-removal cream. But as I was lying flat on my back in the bath, crying out in pain, I realized that I had slipped on Angus’ come.”

Emma spat out her drink and burst out laughing. I grumbled at her to stop enjoying my humiliation so much, but after my attempts failed, I grudgingly joined her and we laughed until we were both close to tears.

“That . . . is just . . .
so
funny,” she said, gasping for breath. “How do these things happen to you? Even the situation where you accidentally told the whole of UCL English Literature class that you loved being bummed even though you never have been.”

“I didn’t exactly tell them I
loved
it . . .”

“Yeah, sorry, the rumors going round are a bit different.”

I froze. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Oh, come on, it’s not that bad. I think even Charlie has a newfound respect for you. The boys all fancy you now.”

“Am I meant to be flattered that they now only fancy me because they think I’m a dirty sex maniac?”

“Excuse me,” said Emma as she plonked her glass back onto the table. “Don’t knock anal sex until you’ve tried it.” She paused, and then lowered her tone. “Except, it can have slightly disastrous consequences.”

I stared at her, picturing her and an unknown man covered in poo. “What?” I asked in alarm.

“That girl Alex I was telling you about? The first time she did it, they were at the guy’s house and his dad walked in. The guy was so terrified he pulled out immediately, just as she clenched in panic, and . . . her rectum dislodged and came out with it. The dad had to drive them to hospital.”

I gulped, mentally vowing never to have anal sex.

“That’s . . . that’s awful,” I whispered, trying to erase the very vivid image from my mind.

She nodded slowly. “If it hadn’t happened to her, I never would have believed it. It sounds like one of those urban myths, but, unfortunately for Alex, it was true. Some might call it karma,” she added with a grin.

I let out a shocked laugh.

“Anyway,” she said, “I’m so glad we’re hanging out. You’re definitely the most normal person I’ve met in our course so far.”

“Same here,” I said, smiling at her warmly and realizing how true it was. “Although that’s really not saying much,” I joked, and she rolled her eyes at me. “Honestly, though, sometimes I feel kind of distant from the rest of them. They’re fun and everything, but I’m never sure how much I have in common with them,” I admitted.

“I know,” she cried out. “Like, why do we always have to drink red wine and pretend we hate pop music? Sometimes I just want to embrace my inner mainstream self. In fact,” she said as she raised her glass in the air, “here’s to not being cool and not giving a fuck.”

We clinked our glasses together, laughing, and she called the waiter to bring us more cocktails. He was young and cute, and I shot him my most flirtatious smile but he didn’t seem to notice. Emma, meanwhile, was beyond subtle smiles and eye contact. She flirted openly with him, and wrote her number on the bill when we paid two hours later. When we left, she winked at him and he grinned back at her.