Virgin (2 page)

Life as an adult virgin is more complicated than you might think. Obviously it is normal, there are thousands of us, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. Choosing when to have sex is a completely individual decision, and everyone is different. Some people choose to wait till marriage, and some just want to wait for the right person. Others are religious, and others are just too busy being successful in every other area of their lives to worry about something as minor as intercourse.

At least, that’s what the Internet said when I Googled it the second I got home from the doctor’s office.

I knew Dr. E. Bowers hadn’t even believed I was a virgin to begin with, because clearly no average-looking third-year university student who had seven-plus drinks a week could still be a virgin. Except me.

I buried my head in the duck-feather pillow I’d spent a week’s food budget on. I pulled my duvet over myself to try to block out the six letters blinking over and over in my head: V I R G I N V I R G I N V I R G I N.

I hated the word. I hated it just as much as I hated the fact that I was one. It wasn’t fair—why did I have to be the only non-deformed, non-religious girl stuck with an untouched inner lotus at the age of twenty-one?

I sighed loudly and let my mind go over the familiar responses to the “Why am I still a v*****?” question that visited me as regularly as my period.

1. It was my parents’ fault.
They were education-obsessed immigrants who had moved from Greece to Surrey and sent me to an all-girls school. Their plan was for me never to meet any boys so I wouldn’t be distracted from their one and only goal for me: Oxford University. Result? I didn’t get into Oxford and I didn’t meet any boys either.

2. I was a very unfortunate-looking teenager.
By the time I figured out how to make myself look passable and wear a bra that gave me enough support to show off my 36D assets, it was too late. All the boys from the school next door already had girlfriends, and to them I would always be the slightly unattractive and quiet girl with big boobs hidden behind massive jumpers, and long dark curly hair that was more horizontal than vertical. It didn’t help that all the other girls had figured out how to pluck their eyebrows and flirt while I was locked up in my bathroom with a bottle of bleach, battling my moustache. By the time I got to uni, I realized I had missed out on learning how to talk to boys. After a few minutes of my blunt humor and self-deprecation, they usually moved on to talk to real girls. Girls with minimal body hair, button noses and socially appropriate senses of humor.

3. My dysfunctional family.
I was an only child, which meant most people assumed I had spent a spoiled, lavish upbringing pleading with my parents never to have another child so I could have all their attention. The reality was that I spent my whole childhood avoiding my mum and dad whenever they were in the same room, which meant most of my formative years were spent on the swing in the back of the garden with my imaginary older brother, or reading books under my duvet. Consequently, I moved up to the top reading set at school, developed an overactive imagination and became obsessed with my friends’ functional families. I couldn’t figure out how all this linked to the “why am I still a virgin?” question, but it must have had some kind of psychological impact on me. My latest theory was that it gave me a pathological fear of men.

4. I was a late bloomer
. I spent every lunchtime listening to my friends talk about their first kisses and boyfriends but their lives always seemed so far removed from mine. Over the years, they moved on to second base, third base, and when they were all finally losing their virginity, I was still the only girl who had never kissed anyone. I sat on the socially acceptable side of the senior class common room. I hung out with the cool people and eventually managed to wear the right clothes, but somehow I didn’t kiss a single boy until the ripe old age of seventeen. I didn’t stop there, either—I begged him to have sex with me. He said no.

5. The Bite Job.
It happened just before the First Kiss refused to deflower me and it is the reason why I have a fear of penises (penii?), second base, third base, rejection, teeth and pubic hair. It is my worst memory.

We were at Lara’s eighteenth birthday and I was wearing a dress so low-cut you could see my bra. It was just like any other party, except this time an actual boy came over to speak to me. James Martell. He was no Mark Tucker (senior year’s own Brad Pitt from the boys’ school), and his nose was, surprisingly, bigger than mine—but he was funny and had floppy blond hair. He took me upstairs to Lara’s older brother’s bedroom and drunkenly pushed me onto the bed.

We snogged. I mirrored what he was doing with his tongue and wondered why none of my girlfriends had ever mentioned how much saliva was involved. Then his hands started creeping into my pants. Any self-respecting girl who was having her first kiss would have yanked them back out, but not sexually starved Ellie. I let his fingers venture down into my VJ and let him poke away. I carried on shoving my tongue down his throat at full velocity and after a few minutes of discomfort in my sacred zone, he stopped. We went back downstairs holding hands and swapped email addresses.

We ended up chatting on the computer every night for two weeks, until one Saturday evening when he invited me over. I was so nervous I ended up sitting on the loo excreting my nerves for an hour beforehand. After a second shower, I got the bus to his place.

We sat in awkward silence for half an hour before he swooped in and started kissing me. We snogged on the sofa for a while before he put his hand down into my pants again. This time I was more prepared and didn’t wince in pain when he started waggling his fingers around. The next thing I knew, he was pulling my dress over my head and I was naked except for my pink polka dot underwear.

He pulled his clothes off, undid my bra and slid my knickers off. He stared in shock. After a few seconds of total silence when I wanted to curl up in a ball and die, he threw his head back and howled with laughter.

I froze. Why was he laughing at my vagina? I stood, paralyzed with humiliation, and waited for him to speak.

His laughter died down. “Wow, I knew you had some hair down there but I didn’t realize you had a full-on
bush
. You’re the first girl I’ve ever met with an unshaved vagina.”

I hadn’t shaved. Why hadn’t I shaved? Why hadn’t I
known
I was supposed to shave?

He didn’t seem to care very much because he carried on kissing me. Then he pulled his boxers off and I saw his naked penis staring at me. It was the first one I had ever seen and I kept trying to sneak a peek at it while we snogged. I felt it gently prodding my thighs and as we writhed on the sofa, I realized it was rubbing around my VJ.

I reached out and touched it. It felt alien and alive. I was about to move my hand away when he moaned in pleasure and I realized I was going to have to give him a hand job. I tried to remember what the girls at school had said, and with fear settling in my throat, I slowly began to move my hand up and down.

It looked like an extra limb and had the texture of an old cucumber. I had no idea how tightly to hold it or at what speed I should be moving my hand up and down. What if he thought it was awful? What if he didn’t come? What if he laughed at me again? I panicked. Without thinking, I took my hand off his penis, broke away from the kiss and crawled down the sofa. I took it into my hands and slipped it into my mouth.

I felt my face getting hot as thoughts raced through my head. I tried to make my mouth fit around him and began moving my head backwards and forwards. The minute I started I knew it was a mistake. I had thought it would be easier than the hand job but I could not have been more wrong. I had absolutely no clue what I should be doing. I opened my mouth wider and pushed forward, when suddenly I heard a loud yelp.

I stopped what I was doing and dropped his penis in shock. I looked up and saw him try to pull his face into a smile.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, though I didn’t want to know.

“It’s just, um, you bit me.”

I felt bile rise in my throat and wanted to throw up and cry in the corner. Feeling my skin prickling with humiliation, I laughed shrilly and said, “Oh, sorry.”

I wanted to leave but there was no escape. If I ran away, everyone at school would know. I took a deep breath and went back down to his penis. I tried to carry on like before but this time I wrapped my lips around my teeth. It was so uncomfortable it had to be wrong. I tried to go down deeper and then gagged. I swallowed the urge to throw up and carried on. How was I going to finish?

I pulled away from his penis. “James, let’s have sex.”

He laughed awkwardly. “Um, are you serious? I thought you were a virgin.”

I flushed fuchsia. “So? I’m seventeen. I’m ready.”

He looked at the floor. “Ellie, we’ve only kissed a few times. I can’t take your virginity.”

“But . . . I want you to. Please?”

He squirmed. “I can’t. Not like this. Your first time shouldn’t be like this.”

Standing, I pulled on my pink-dotted knickers and did my bra clasp with numb fingers. I ignored his protestations and left.

I never saw James Martell again. I avoided the parties that I knew he would attend, and I blocked him on instant messenger. He didn’t try to call me and I never did anything more than kiss someone ever again.

Once I got home from the doctor’s office, I lay down on my bed and felt a familiar wave of disgust flood over me. Only this time it wasn’t just because of The Bite Job. It was mixed up with Dr. E. Bowers.

I always knew it was weird that I was a twenty-one-year-old virgin, but it hadn’t
really
hit me until I saw those green capital letters screaming at me from my medical records. I wasn’t even eligible for a chlamydia test. Dr. E. Bowers had either given it to me to make up a quota or because she thought I was a religious nut job who didn’t want to go the whole way but secretly gave head to every guy around. If only.

I sat up straight in my bed. This was it. I was in my final year of university and I would never be surrounded by so many horny men again. This was my last opportunity to lose my virginity and I had to grab it now. I had to ditch my V-plates by the time I graduated in the summer—which meant I had four months to finally understand what an orgasm was and to learn how to give blow jobs.

I took a sharp intake of breath and visualized my future.

In June, I would go back to Dr. E. Bowers, get a chlamydia test and make her swap VIRGIN on my records for SEXUALLY ACTIVE. The next time I came into contact with a condom, it would not be falling off a shelf in the doctor’s office; it would be on an actual penis. And this time, it wouldn’t just rub around my vagina à la James Martell; it would be going straight in there.

“Okay, okay, so has everyone got some kind of alcohol? There’s some more vodka over here if you need any.”

Kara, a pretty brunette who used to wear Topshop in her hometown but had swapped it for vintage clothes and brogues when she came to London, poured generous amounts of vodka into all our glasses.

Somehow I had been invited to an end-of-term party at Luke’s house, just before we all broke up for Easter—Luke being the leader of the “cool” group in my English Literature course. I didn’t own any vintage clothes whatsoever so I never really felt like part of the group and didn’t fully understand why they invited me to their parties. Maybe some of them thought my general uniform of jeans and woolly jumpers was a deliberate anti-fashion statement. Obviously they were unaware that dresses and fur coats made me look like a sad transvestite trying too hard, and high-waisted things just accentuated the birthing hips I may never have a chance to use.

“Can we just start already?” shrieked Hannah, who was wearing the vintage white nightdress she wore day in and day out, a strand of fake flowers around her head. “I’ll go first. Does everyone remember the rules?”

Without giving anyone a chance to respond, she lurched on. “So obviously it is called Never Have I Ever, so when the person says something like, ‘Never have I ever shagged someone who was married,’ then if you have done that, you drink. If you haven’t done that, you don’t. Even if you are the person who said it, you still have to drink if you have done it.”

“Hannah, we get it. Just start,” moaned Charlie. “And can you please start with something better than shagging someone who’s married? That’s so boring.”

Hannah put on a deliberate pout. “Well, why don’t you start, Charlie?”

He grinned, rubbing his hands together. Charlie was the joker of the group, and he liked nothing more than being given the spotlight so he could make everyone groan and laugh over his filthy sense of humor. This was his prime opportunity. I gulped as I tried to mentally prepare myself for what was coming. If I managed to make my face look calm and unbothered, no one would know that I would be lying through my teeth.

“All right, so, never have I ever fucked someone in a public place.” Without waiting for anyone else to start drinking, Charlie raised his glass and downed it. Everyone rolled their eyes until he shot them the cheeky grin that had probably made so many girls want to shag him in public in the first place.

I hesitated over whether to drink. I needed to choose wisely. I couldn’t just develop a new personality for this game; I needed to think which sexual things I would have done if I had lost my virginity years ago like everyone else. A brief layer of sweat formed on my top lip. It was too late to drink now so I put my glass down and looked around to see who had drunk.

Eight people had raised their glasses, and six of us hadn’t. I breathed out in relief. I was one of six, which made me normal, kind of, and there was always safety in numbers. With the edge of my sleeve, I wiped the beads of sweat off my top lip.

Hannah—who had drunk—started waving her arms around and said, “Okay, my turn! So, never have I ever cheated on anyone.”

Some of the boys sighed in boredom, but even Charlie refrained from criticizing this, probably because he was just as curious as everyone else to see who drank. I started to wonder if I could drink for this one. Obviously I hadn’t actually ever had a boyfriend to cheat on, but back when I was messaging James Martell during those two weeks pre–Bite Job, I once got drunk and accidentally snogged someone else at a party. I think it lasted two point five seconds, and I have no idea who it was, but it was definitely cheating.

Feeling confident and sexually active, I drank some of my vodka and Coke. Three other people drank with me, and ten did not. Oh God, I was in the minority. This was dangerous, because someone could ask me about my story, and what exactly would I—

“Ellie! I can’t believe you’ve cheated on someone! That seems so unlike you! So tell us, who were you dating, and who did you shag?” On cue, Hannah interrupted my thoughts and brought me crashing back to the reality of Luke’s living room with its vinyl records stuck to the walls.

Shag? Surely cheating could include snogging, right? Why did EVERYTHING have to be about sex?

“Oh God, um, it was ages ago. I was seventeen, and I was dating this guy called James Mar—” I paused, suddenly remembering that Joe, one of the guys in the room, had gone to the same school as James. Hopefully he would have no idea who I was talking about, especially because I was trying to pass off this casual fling (could I even call it a fling?) as a bona fide relationship.

“So, yeah, I was dating James, and I hooked up with someone else. When I was drunk, at a party. Not very exciting.” I laughed awkwardly.

Hannah looked at me with raised eyebrows and did a feminine snort as she turned away, literally flouncing her hair. I’d thought only shampoo models did that.

Marie, a Belgian ex-model with a block fringe, asked, “So, it is my turn now?” All the boys looked up at the sound of her accent and grinned their assent. “Okay, so I have had anal sex.”

I choked on the pretzel I was eating and coughed. No one noticed because all the boys were grinning and admiring Marie’s looks while Hannah shrieked about her getting the rules wrong and ruining the game. I grabbed my glass and drank quickly, feeling better as the bits of pretzel were flushed down my throat.

I looked up to see who had actually drunk for this, wondering if Charlie would. I saw Hannah staring at me with her beady eyes as she shrieked, “Oh my God—Ellie just drank as well! So that’s five of the boys, Marie, Emma, and Ellie. Wow, Ellie, you’re such a dark horse.”

All of them were staring at me. I saw Charlie’s appreciative expression and something like lust spreading across his face. I felt the blood drain out of my cheeks and tried to force my face into something resembling a smile. I shrugged as I fake-smiled too brightly and reached back into the bowl of pretzels.

“So, who did you do it with?” asked Hannah persistently. I could have killed her.

Luckily, Emma—the only girl there whose clothes looked way more Topshop than charity shop—came to my rescue. “Uh, I thought we were playing Never Have I Ever, not Twenty Questions,” she said.

Hannah shrugged and Emma carried on. “But if we are allowed to ask questions, then why don’t you tell us your cheating story? You already made Ellie tell hers.”

Hannah looked confused. “Um, I didn’t drink for the cheating one.”

Emma’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, my bad. I got confused with the question. For a second, I thought it was about being the person who slept with someone who was already in a relationship . . . like you did with Tom. Oh shit, I’ve said too much,” she finished as Hannah’s face went purple.

Kara turned around in shock. “TOM, AS IN, MY EX-BOYFRIEND TOM?” she screeched.

Emma shot me a wink and I let out a yelp of laughter, which no one noticed because they were too engrossed in watching Kara scream at Hannah. I grabbed my coat and bag and slipped towards the door, using this as the perfect escape opportunity. I was about to leave when Emma snuck out from behind me.

“So, how much fun was that?” She grinned.

“You saved me,” I replied gratefully.

“From that skank? I know, I can’t stand her.”

I stared at her with my mouth wide open. “No way, are you serious? I thought everyone loved her. She’s so pretty and confident and has the Shoreditch style down to a T.”

Emma rolled her bright blue eyes. “Okay, so she’s pretty, but it seems like she only owns one dress, and her personality is so grating it hurts to be around her for more than an hour.”

I started laughing, surprised. Who would have thought anyone else could see past Hannah’s fake flower headband into her un-hippie heart? “Oh my God, I couldn’t be happier you just said that,” I cried. “I thought I was the only one who hated her.”

Emma grinned through her thickly coated red lips. “Trust me, you’re not alone in this, babe. Anyway, we should go for cocktails and share our anal sex stories.”

I made a strangled, yelping sound and Emma looked at me questioningly. Oh God, to lie or not to lie?

I compromised with a half-lie. “Um. That part wasn’t actually true. I’ve never had anal sex. I just drank because I was choking on a pretzel and then it was too late to say no.”

She threw her head back and let out a throaty cackle. “Okay, wait, so why didn’t you just tell Hannah you accidentally drank and didn’t mean to admit you took it up the bum?”

I flushed at her very visual words. “I guess I wished I was the kind of girl who, uh, took it up . . . there,” I admitted. For a second, it had been kind of exciting to have Charlie look at me like I was shaggable.

“Babe, anyone can be that girl. I’m sure the guys are queuing up to do you up . . . there.” She grinned.

I looked at her doubtfully. “They’re not.”

She dismissed me with a wave of her hand. “You must be going to the wrong places. Next weekend, you’re coming out with me. Text me,” she said, blowing me a kiss as she turned back to the party, sashaying on her five-inch-heeled boots.

She left a trail of Miss Dior Chérie in her wake and I couldn’t help imagining what it would be like to be Emma. Maybe if I started wearing perfume instead of the strawberry body spray I bulk-bought two years ago,
I
could have casual sex stories and stand up to Hannah Fielding.

I looked down at the soggy pretzel I was still holding and realized I had a long way to go.