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I raised my eyebrows. “You’d really want to read it?”

“Yes, definitely. It sounds really interesting. I think it’s very cool you write.”

I blushed. “Thanks. I’ll send it to you. Anyway, what kind of stuff are you writing?”

“Mine is more of a political satire. It’s about the futility of our existence and the fragility of our man-made political systems.”

“So, pretty much the same sort of thing as me then?” I quipped.

He laughed again. “Yeah, not quite. I’m trying to illustrate how all the political parties are essentially as distorted as each other, and it doesn’t matter if you vote Labour or Conservative—they all want the same things.”

I blinked slowly at him, trying to absorb what he had just said. “So, you’re basically saying all politicians are idiots and nothing is going to change.”

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” he said. “But obviously there are a lot of layers and I’m trying to show how one politician is the same as any other.”

“Yeah, that sounds pretty, um, sensible,” I said, feeling totally out of my depth and praying he would stop discussing politics any second.

“To be honest, I’m a Socialist. A working-class Socialist,” he continued, staring straight into my eyes, as I returned his gaze wordlessly. What the hell was I meant to say to that?

“You’re . . . working class? But you do graphic design. And didn’t you say you have an art degree?” I asked him.

“Yeah, but my parents were northern miners. It’s my background and my roots,” he explained, moving his arms around passionately.

I was confused. “Okay, but surely that doesn’t make you working class too? Like, you’ve had a decent education and now you have a profession that isn’t really working class.” He looked at me as though I was an idiot. I needed to prove I had a brain or he would get bored of me. I sat up in my seat and tried to force myself to be clever. “I feel like these class distinctions are just really outdated, you know?” I said.

“No, I really don’t agree,” he said vehemently. “I think the class system prevails as a sub-layer in society. In the United Kingdom, and pretty much all Western countries, it’s the underlying foundation of civilization.”

Oh God, the conversation was getting heavy and I was out of my depth. In a last-ditch attempt to save it, I joked, “Wow. Okay, I’m going to need a dictionary to start translating what you’re saying now.”

It was clearly the right thing to say because he laughed. “God, yeah, I’ve got a habit of doing that. Sorry. So, yeah, I really think class systems are still an integral part of our society but I wish they weren’t, which is why I’m a Socialist.”

Oh no, he was still going. And it didn’t even make sense any more. With my face scrunched up in confusion, I asked, “But . . . you just said you think political beliefs are all the same. So why do you have one?”

There was a twenty-second silence, and then he grinned at me again, staring straight at me with his sparkling green eyes. “I talk a lot of crap, don’t I?”

Thank God he knew. I giggled in relief and shrugged my shoulders. “I think we all do, but you really have a gift for it,” I teased.

“And you have a gift for getting to the core of things without batting an eyelid,” he said. “I’ve dated so many girls, and most of them are such intellectuals that we go round in circles for ages, but you . . . well, you’re kind of different.”

Oh my God, had he just implied that we were dating? Wait, did he just say he didn’t think I was intellectual? “Um, thanks?” I said uncertainly.

He laughed. “No, it’s a good thing. I’d love to chat politics with you more often. You obviously have quite good insights and aren’t the type of girl who is going to spend an entire coffee date discussing
X Factor
for three hours.”

Shit, he really didn’t know me. “Of course not. Who actually watches that trash?” I giggled nervously.

“God, I know. My ex-girlfriend used to live with a bunch of girls who were obsessed with it. She and I ended up spending all our money at the Ritzy, watching decent films to try to undo the damage it caused.”

“What’s the Ritzy?” I asked, my voice suddenly small and quiet from the mention of his ex-girlfriend.

“Oh, it’s a cinema in Brixton, near where I live. It’s cool—we should go some time,” he said, smiling.

I smiled back. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

He cleared his throat. “Anyway, what were you doing in the area today?”

“Oh, right,” I said with a little laugh. “I just had some errands to do, like buying things I need. Pretty much doing anything I can do to escape the boredom of Surrey and avoid revising for my finals.”

“I see. Well, I’m glad you were around. Sorry I didn’t text you—I’ve had a crazy week and was going to wait for the weekend to see if you wanted to do something when I had more time.”

I felt a warm glow rise inside me and chastised myself for going crazy about the five-day thing. I couldn’t think of a suitable response so I just smiled at him and hoped he would carry on. Luckily, he did. “So, do you want to do something this Friday?”

I was just about to agree when I remembered that Emma was coming home from her trip then and we had arranged to meet up. Typical that the only social plan I had for the entire Easter holidays was on the one day when a boy had asked me out.

“I’m sorry,” I said, my eyes looking down at the floor, “I can’t. But any other day is fine with me.” Damn, that sounded desperate. “I mean, most days. When is good for you?”

“Oh, no worries. What about Saturday night?” he asked.

“Yeah, okay, Saturday works. I mean, you’re tearing me away from the new episode of
Gossip Girl
but I can probably cope.”

His eyes narrowed in curiosity. “You watch that trash?”

Bugger. “Um, yes,” I admitted. “It’s important to be a well-rounded person, right? Especially if I want to be a journalist. I can’t just watch
Newsnight
; I have to keep in touch with popular culture as well. As much as it pains me to watch beautiful people wearing stunning clothes and having fun, with addictive drama going on in their enviable lives.”

He laughed. “It seems like I’m not the only one who talks a lot of crap. I’m getting the feeling that you love this show and it’s not the only American drama you’re addicted to.”

Shit, how did he know? I hoped he didn’t realize I had never watched an episode of
Newsnight
either. “Okay, I love crap TV,” I confessed.

“I watch
The Simpsons
and
South Park
. Does that count as crap TV too?” he asked.

“Totally,” I said, smiling. Maybe we had more in common than I thought.

He looked at his watch and sighed. “Shit, as much as I’d like to sit here and discuss satirical cartoons with you, I’ve got to get back to work. It’s been fun, though,” he said.

“Oh yeah, I’d better go do my, um, errands,” I replied. We got our coats and walked out together, my heart beating with anticipation and nerves as I prepared my right hand for a fist bump, praying he would do something normal like hug me.

We stood outside in the cold, looking at each other in awkward silence. “It’s been really nice, Ellie,” he eventually said.

Then, next thing I knew, his pale face leaned in towards me. I could see every freckle and every pore and suddenly his pink lips were on mine. I stood, frozen in shock, as his lips planted themselves onto mine. As he kissed me, I started to come back to life and slowly kissed him back, trying to not think about the fact that we both tasted of stale coffee. I made my lips move against his, and when he tried to put his tongue in, I ignored it so blatantly that it eventually withdrew.

After a few minutes, we stopped kissing and pulled away. I looked at his green eyes, smiling directly at me from their crinkly corners, and I felt something in me melt. He was really attractive up close and he actually liked me.

“I’ll text you,” he said, and I jumped as his words pulled me back to reality. “And I’ll see you on Saturday.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” I said, and smiled at him as he hugged me and walked away, putting his hand in the air as a kind of wave.

I turned around and walked back to the tube, a huge smile glued onto my face. He had kissed me! And I had my first proper date lined up. A grin broke out on my face and I couldn’t wipe it off for the entire one-and-a-half-hour train journey home. I couldn’t believe we both loved writing—and, okay, so I didn’t really understand his, but it sounded incredibly intellectual. And he loved cartoons. At this rate, he might actually become my boyfriend one day.

I did a tiny jump when I ran up my driveway. My mum almost fainted with shock when I hugged her as I walked into our house.
Fuck you, Nikki Pitsillides, with your druggie unemployed boyfriend. I have a date with a graphic designer who thinks I’m clever and funny.

I’d found my devirginizer.

I ran into Emma’s arms, hugging her happily. “Oh my God, I have so much to tell you!” I squealed at her.

“Me too, babe!” she said, hugging me back just as hard. “Spanish guys are beautiful, and oh my God, are they talented.”

I laughed and we sat down on a velvet banquette in a new French café that had just opened in Soho. “Tell me everything,” she said. “You saw that guy, didn’t you?”

“Maybe.” I grinned. “We went for an impromptu coffee, and at the end, he kissed me! And he asked me out—you currently have the privilege of liaising with a woman who has a real date tomorrow night.”

“AAAAAAH!” she screeched, making everyone in the quiet café turn to stare at us. “I’m so happy for you. This is so exciting. What’s he like, where are you going and how was the snog?”

“It was amazing,” I gushed. Then I paused. “Except . . . he kind of has a tendency to be a bit pretentious at times. I don’t really get all the political stuff he talks about.”

Emma nodded wisely and clasped her hands together like a sage. “Let me impart some of my wisdom. What you have here is a classic case of Unrealistic Expectations That Disney Gave Me.”

“What are you on about, Em?”

“Look,” she said, spreading her hands out. “You watched Disney films while growing up, right?”

“Obviously. I used to wish I was Jasmine from
Aladdin
.”

“Exactly, like most girls. We all wished we were Disney princesses and we believed our Prince Charming was going to swoop in on his magic carpet or whatever. But, unfortunately, Walt Disney has made an entire generation of independent women turn to jelly the second they meet a decent guy because they pray to God he is going to be their Aladdin. And he never is, because no men are going to live up to their cartoon representations.”

I leaned back against a satin cushion and pondered this. “Okay, I see your point,” I said cautiously. “Men aren’t going to be as amazing as we want them to be, because we’re probably nothing like the princesses either. But surely we will still meet incredible guys one day?”

“Yes, I fucking hope so,” she said. “But
how
incredible? We just don’t know. And I, for one, am not going to spend my twenties, aka my hottest years, waiting for a guy who may or may not exist. Instead I’m going to have as much fun as possible and date the most decent guys I can find. You’ve just got to remember that guys will have their faults, but so long as they seem nice-ish and you’re attracted to them, the rest doesn’t matter. You’re only twenty-one, babe; that’s so young. I’m basically a granny compared to you. But those two gap years were worth every second,” she added wistfully. “Anyway, at the end of the day, just enjoy it while you can and if this guy is nice, go for it. Nice is rare these days.”

At the end of her pep talk, she collapsed onto the sofa. “Oof, that tired me out,” she said. “What do you think of Auntie Emma’s wisdom?”

I sighed and leaned my head against the cushioned wall. “I don’t know. I guess you’re right. He is definitely very clever, and he’s really funny. I love when he smiles. It’s just that I don’t know how much we really have in common when he talks about the intellectual stuff.”

“Men love talking bollocks. They all do it. Just carry on with him, and each time he goes down that road, cut him off or change the topic and he’ll eventually figure out you don’t want to hear it.”

I felt better. Emma was right. My expectations were too high and Jack was lovely and that was all that mattered. “Okay. Advice accepted. I’m going to enjoy the fact that I finally have a proper date. Anyway, tell me all about Marbella!”

She grinned and turned to face me. “Which one do you want to know about first?”

I let Emma’s stories transport me from my ordinary life to a glamorous one in the sunshine where hot thirtysomethings asked twenty-three-year-old girls out and took them for drinks. On a one-week holiday—with her parents and older brother—Emma had managed to go on two dates with two different men and sleep with both of them. I had no idea how she had managed this and absorbed everything she said to me with admiration and wonder. All she had done was smile at these guys on the beach and they had come up to her, flirted and asked her out.

The girl had a gift. She regaled me with tales of Antonio, the Spaniard, and Carl, from Yorkshire, and I let myself live through her. She was only a couple of years older than me but her life sounded so fun and exciting, like something straight off TV or out of a Carrie Bradshaw column.

“Anyway,” she said, when I had finally heard every detail about Antonio’s talented tongue, “I’m done boring you to death with my Spain goss. Tell me about your date plans with Jack.”

“Well, it’s tomorrow and we’re going for dinner but he hasn’t told me where we’re going yet.”

“Oooh, dinner. He must be planning to get lucky if he’s bothering to take you out for dinner,” she said. “Are you going to go back to his place if he asks? Are you gonna shave in case?”

“No, and I don’t think I can. I’ve, um, had some bad experiences,” I said, averting my eyes from hers. “Let’s just say I’m not very skilled with a razor blade when it comes to my vagina.”

She started giggling and when I looked up at her questioningly, she replied, “Babe, I meant your legs.”

“Ah,” I said sheepishly. “I think I can probably handle shaving those. But honestly, Emma, removing hair down there is a fucking nightmare for me. Shaving isn’t my forte, those hair removal creams don’t work and I’m out of options here.”

“Well, I go to a salon and get waxed every month. It’s kind of expensive, so that might put you off, but other than that it’s the perfect option because you just lie on a bed, raise your legs and they take care of all the dirty work.”

“How expensive?”

“My salon does a Brazilian for thirty quid, which is expensive, I know, but they use this really good sugar wax and it lasts for weeks,” she assured me.

“Thirty quid?! I could buy about four dresses with that,” I said, my mouth wide open. Then her words sank in and I raised my eyes to meet hers in confusion. “Hang on, you get a Brazilian? Why do you do that over a Hollywood?”

She shrugged. “Personal preference, I guess. I just think having it all off makes it look too bald and I feel so prepubescent. It’s kind of creepy, isn’t it? Like, suddenly we’re young girls having sex with older men. It makes me feel illegal and not in a good way.”

The color drained out of my face and as I sat there thinking about what she said, I wanted to give up once and for all with pubes. Why were they so sodding complicated? Emma picked up on my confusion and touched my arm. “Don’t worry, babe, loads of girls have Hollywoods. It’s normal.”

“But do they?” I blurted out. “I have no fucking clue what other girls do. This is my problem. I can’t handle pubes anymore. Magazines go on about Brazilians and Hollywoods, but no one actually tells you what everyone else is doing down there. You can see boob jobs, and haircuts and whatever, but you can’t see vaginas and it means that I have no idea what lies beneath for half the population. WHY DOES NO ONE EVER TALK ABOUT THEIR PUBIC HAIRSTYLES?”

My voice had reached an anguished crescendo and the entire café turned to stare at us, but I hardly noticed.

Emma sat back and a thoughtful expression came to her face. “God, you’re so right. I hadn’t really thought about it too much—I just get Brazilians because you can’t leave it natural, and a Hollywood seems a bit weird to me, so I figured this was in the middle. Besides, loads of porn stars have it, guys like it and it’s easy for wearing bikinis and stuff. But, fuck, why don’t magazines talk about it? I would
love
to know what the rest of the world is doing down there.”

I nodded fervently. “Exactly. Magazines are just hypocritical. They’re meant to tackle female issues but none of them write about how awkward it is to shave your vagina. They don’t even rate hair removal products for how well they work on the bikini zone. They just focus on the safe zones like legs and underarms. It drives me crazy.”

Emma’s eyes lit up in excitement. “Oh my God. We need to publicize this to the world. We need to be the new teenage agony aunts to help all those thirteen-year-olds figure out how to de-hair their vaginas.”

Her enthusiasm was infectious and I started to think our idea could definitely work. “Yeah, you’re right. Some kind of blog about vaginas and sex and awkward things that answers all the questions the government health sites won’t even consider asking.”

“Oh . . . I forgot about all those other sites,” she said. “Don’t they basically do the same things? That would be so annoying if our idea already exists.”

“Trust me, Emma. This is totally my area of expertise. I have Googled everything there is to Google and there are
no
websites that answer even half of the questions I have. Well, had. Mainly had, obviously. Besides, it would be so good to have it all in one authoritative source to keep coming back to, instead of just trying out a different website each time.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “Okay, well, let’s do it,” she said. “So, we’re thinking a blog. Um . . . a vagina agony blog that’s totally based on our own experiences. A vlog? Or, um . . .”

“Oh my God,” I blurted out. “Like . . . a vlog for virgins. Everyone writes sex blogs, but no one ever writes about being a virgin.”

“Virgin?” she asked in confusion.

My face went blank and pale. “Um, like, we could pretend we’re virgins?”

She looked at me.

How the fuck was that the best lie I could come up with?

I could feel my face heating up with humiliation. Neither of us spoke and I bit my bottom lip. Oh God. I was going to have to admit I’d lied to her—that not only was I a virgin, but I was a virgin who had
lied
about it. I’d fucked up our friendship. She opened her mouth to speak and I interrupted. I had to tell her. She deserved to know the truth.

“I lied to you, Em,” I said, looking down at my cappuccino and feeling very sick. I closed my eyes. “I’m a virgin.”

Emma was mute. I tentatively opened one eye into a kind of squint. She was sitting there, staring at me. I couldn’t read her expression. Oh God. My body was tense when she finally spoke.

“But why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, her voice softer than I had ever heard it. “Did you think I’d . . . judge you?”

“No!” I replied, horrified. “Of course not. It was totally just a thing in my head and no reflection on you at all. I’m just a weird, embarrassing freak and didn’t want to tell you because I was scared you’d feel uncomfortable around me . . . and I didn’t want you to think you couldn’t talk about sex around me,” I admitted. I then added in a small voice, hoping I didn’t sound like a pervert, “And I liked hearing your stories.”

I felt my cheeks burning and I knew my face was about to start clashing with the purple velvet sofas but I couldn’t stop talking. “I was just so embarrassed, Emma,” I said, trying to swallow the sick feeling inside of me.

She looked straight into my eyes and I shifted uncomfortably. She hated me, I could tell. I’d officially ruined our friendship.

“You bloody idiot,” she cried, and crushed me in a huge hug. I couldn’t physically breathe or move but I felt light with relief. I shut my eyes and breathed in the smell of Miss Dior Chérie. I felt so much better.

Emma broke away, gazing fondly at me. Her eyes looked cloudy. “Ellie, you’re so weird sometimes. Of course I don’t care that you’re a virgin. Why would I?”

I looked down at my hands and picked at my chipped nail polish. “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Just, you don’t know anyone over the age of fifteen who is still a virgin.”

“Yeah, because I went to the sluttiest school ever,” she said. “There are loads of older virgins out there. If a person wants to wait, that’s their decision and I respect it. Of course I would.”

“No but . . .” I sighed. “I don’t
want
to be a virgin. I’m not like those moral people who want to wait for The One. Obviously I would love for it to be a boyfriend, but realistically, it hasn’t happened yet so why would it happen now? At this point, I would take any offers. Well, most,” I added.

She stared at me in confusion. “Wait,” she said. “I don’t get it. Are you waiting for a particular reason? Did it never almost happen with someone drunk or something?”

I sighed. It hadn’t and I didn’t really know why. This was it—the big question that I never really knew the answer to. Lara thought it was because I was scared. I thought it was because I was scarred post–Bite Job, but really, it seemed like it was just bad luck and a severe shortage of opportunities.

“I guess . . . I guess because I went to an all-girls school? I was kind of a late bloomer, and then there weren’t many opportunities,” I explained.

“But what about uni? Freshers’ Week?” she asked.

“I snogged random guys but none of them ever asked me to go back with them,” I confessed.

“Maybe they could sense you weren’t slutty?” she suggested.

I looked up. This was a new theory. “Wait, that’s a thing?” I asked curiously.

“Yeah, definitely! I mean, a guy can tell if you’re the kind of girl who’s going to go home with him or not. They could probably sense . . . well, not your virginity, per se, but that you weren’t really easy. It’s a good thing, Ellie,” she said encouragingly.