Radhika Sanghani - Virgin

‘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. ‘OK, 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 unhippy 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. ‘OK, 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 as though 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 realised I had a long way to go.

I WOKE UP with a loud groan as I remembered what had happened at the party. My eyes were still glued together with sleep so I groped around blindly for my mobile and called Lara, my best friend.

She was my first port of call whenever something humiliating happened to me. I turned my horrible luck with men into funny stories for her so we could laugh about them and help me forget how much it hurt deep down. The Bite Job had given us enough ammunition for years.

Lara had given up her V-plates a year earlier than the legal limit, at the age of fifteen. He was called Marc, went to a school near ours in Guildford, and it only happened once. She was never exactly sure if it counted as sex, because even though he had penetrated her, it only lasted a couple of seconds and he didn’t go fully in. Marc never called again.

Now she had moved on and was living my parents’ dream by studying law at Oxford. Although her Facebook relationship status was still single, she had been having an on-off thing with a guy called Jez for three years. They’d met at the start of her gap year and had been having casual sex ever since. I wished I’d taken a gap year.

She picked up the phone on the fifteenth ring. ‘Ellie, thank God you called. I’m having a crisis.’

I pulled the duvet over my head. ‘Me, too. I played Never Have I Ever with the hipster crew and I told them I had anal sex.’

‘Why would you say that—you haven’t even had real sex.’

‘AND YOU THINK I DON’T KNOW THAT?’ I yelled down the phone at her. She responded with silence and I sighed despondently. ‘Anyway, I give up on my life—it’s too depressing. What’s your crisis? I hope it’s worse than mine. I need major distraction.’

‘Trust me, it is. I’m home for Easter and want to see Jez but, as usual, he is being a dick and won’t reply to my messages. So now I’m in central London just waiting for him to reply so I can see him tonight.’

‘Wait—so you’re in London with no plans? Why don’t you come over to mine?’

‘Well, I’m kind of already on my way.’

‘I can’t believe you assumed I’d be home alone with nothing to do.’

‘But that’s exactly what you are doing.’

‘OK, point taken. Anyway, I hope you’re willing to ditch Jez, because I have a proposition for you and it involves going out tonight.’

‘But what if he calls and wants to see me? I don’t know if I can go out out tonight.’

‘Lara, come on. He is ignoring you, which he does every few weeks, so you can’t just be at his beck and call. Embrace your inner feminist, stop being his booty call and come out with me tonight to help me lose my virginity.’

She started laughing. ‘Are you kidding? You want to lose your virginity tonight ? To a stranger?’

‘Yup.’

‘I’m not helping you get deflowered by a one-night stand. You’ve held on long enough so you may as well last a bit longer for The One.’

‘I am so bored of that phrase,’ I retorted. ‘Do you know how many websites have advised me to keep on waiting? WikiHow’s entire virginity page is full of Hare Krishna crap like that.’

‘Did you actually search for virginity advice on Wikipedia?’

‘See how desperate I am?’ I pleaded in my best whiny voice.

‘Promise you’ll never do that voice again and I’ll consider it.’

‘Oh, fine. Have you brought any chocolate with you? I’m going to need calorie support for when I tell you about last night.’

‘I’m on a diet again.’

‘Are you kidding me?! You’re a size eight—you don’t need to diet.’

‘I know, but I feel kind of gross and I was planning to see Jez tonight and I didn’t want to be bloated.’

‘Lara, you’re speaking to someone who had to buy size twelve jeans the other day—and they still left imprints on my legs when I took them off. Do not even think about saying you feel fat. Besides, do you want to end up looking like those anorexic A-listers in magazines? They’re completely airbrushed and no normal humans look like that and—’

She groaned through the rest of the rant I recited to her every time she tried to diet. We had both decided long ago never to become girls who only ate celery and used their diaries for cumulative calorie counting, but occasionally one of us lapsed and found the willpower to start dieting. It was normally Lara.

‘OK, OK, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you in five with chocolate.’

We sat looking doubtfully at the pile of clothes on the bed. I had no idea what to wear. Cosmo ’s ‘What to Wear for Any Occasion’ guides were open on twenty website tabs but none of them had a ‘What to Wear for Finding a One-Night Stand to Lose Your Virginity to’ page.

‘Once we’ve chosen where we’re going, it will be easier to choose an outfit,’ said Lara.

I sighed and fell back onto the pile of discarded dresses on my bed. ‘The thing is, I don’t want to lose it to a skanky student, especially because I might see him again, so we can’t go to a student place….’

‘OK, why don’t we go somewhere a bit nicer?’ she suggested. ‘In Mayfair or something? Lots of people from my uni go out round there.’

Normally the thought of going to those clubs made me come out in a cold sweat. Hordes of Oxbridge graduates in designer clothes would make me stick out like a sore thumb. However, I had already tried the typical student clubs and had no luck whatsoever.