Virgin (13 page)

“’Bye,” he said with a smile, and walked out my door.

I sank back onto my bed and smiled cautiously. This was kind of fun. For the first time ever, I’d had a guy back to my place and we had, I don’t know—“fooled around,” as Americans say.

Now we had plans for next weekend, and he had kissed me goodbye while I lay in bed. It was almost like having a proper boyfriend. The next step now would be going back to his place. Then I might even get to do a walk of shame.

“Elena!” screeched my mum as I crept into the house, hoping no one would see me. “Where have you been? You left yesterday morning and you’ve been gone twenty-four hours, without any contact. I’ve been sick with worry.”

“Mum, I told you I was going out and it would be late so I would stay in Camden,” I replied wearily, dumping my oversized leather tote on the floor.

“You said
maybe.
I expected a message to let me know, but you couldn’t even text me? I just don’t know what to do with you. You treat our home like a hotel, and you just walk in and out when you please, like some kind of a lodger. You make me feel like your servant.”

“Jailer, more like,” I muttered under my breath.

“Huh? And now you’re whispering insults? What is wrong with you?” she wailed. “How can I have raised a girl like you?”

I assumed her questions were rhetorical, so I kicked off my trainers and started climbing up the stairs to my room.

“ELENA. Get back down here!” she shouted from the bottom of the stairs.

“Mum, I don’t know what the problem is. For the past week you’ve been moaning at me to get my act together and leave the house, but once I finally do, you’re furious that I’m socializing too much. Can you just choose what you want me to do and make your mind up, please?” I responded rationally from halfway up the staircase.

“Why can’t you do anything in moderation? Your aunts never have these problems with your cousins. I just don’t know what to do with you anymore.”

“You don’t have to do anything
with
me,” I said in exasperation. “Besides, of course I’m not like my cousins. They live in Greece! We were raised totally differently. You’re the one who decided to move here.”

“Because your father and I wanted a better life for you. But then you go and act like this and throw away all the opportunities we’ve given you.”

I turned and rudely carried on up the stairs. I slammed the door of my room and collapsed onto the bed. I irrationally hated her. It didn’t help that both of us had essentially been living alone for the past three years and were not used to sharing the same space. I knew I shouldn’t have walked away like that, but there was something about being back home that turned me into a moody teenager every time I walked through the door.

We had got on better when I was younger. When she and Dad weren’t fighting, she’d try to make my life as normal as everyone else’s and take me on playdates with the other mums and kids. I’d assumed our relationship would get even better the second she and Dad divorced, but it hadn’t happened. The stepdad and older stepbrother I’d always dreamed of never materialized.

Instead, my mum just became stressed, overprotective and anxious. It was still better than life with my dad, though. He’d been a shit dad and an even worse husband. His angry moods were frequent and violent. He seemed better now and had a new girlfriend who he lived with, but I didn’t really want to have anything to do with him.

I put on my staple Fuck You, World playlist and let the angry pop-rock take me back to my teen years. Thank God they were behind me. Now I was well on my way to being a normal person and a real adult—well, aside from when I was in my mother’s company. I got my phone out and reread the text that Jack had sent me that morning after leaving my flat.

Last night was great. Let’s do it again sometime. Jack x

He had even put a kiss at the end, even though he hadn’t on any of his earlier messages. I smiled as I read it and clutched my phone to my chest. I knew the message by heart, as I had reread it the entire journey home. I still hadn’t replied, though, because it didn’t really seem like a text-back text and there were no questions. Also, I didn’t want to look needy. For all he knew, I could be on another date right now and was way too busy to answer.

My chest vibrated. I looked down and saw I had an email. It was from the student magazine. Oh my God.
Breathe slowly, Ellie. It’s your first attempt and there will be other opportunities,
I told myself calmly.

Dear Ellie,

Thanks so much for your entry. We laughed out loud while we were reading it, and it was interesting and clever as well as funny. We’d love for you to be our new columnist if you’re still keen.

We can arrange a proper meeting for when term begins but in the meantime we’ll use your “anarchy” entry for our next edition. Look out for it!

Really looking forward to hearing from you.

Sarah,
Pi
Editor

P.S. What do you think of “Ellie on . . . [Anarchy etc]” as the general column name? Please can you send me a picture you’d like us to use as well.

OH MY GOD! They actually
liked
my entry and wanted me to write for them. I lay back on my bed and laughed out loud. I wasn’t a shit writer. I was actually
good
at the one thing I enjoyed. It was a total relief and I couldn’t wait to tell Emma. I still had no idea if I was good enough to do it as a full-time career after uni but this was definitely a positive start. Now I just had to find a decent picture of myself . . .

Later that evening I lay in bed and my mind wandered to my lower regions. The red dots had totally disappeared, and even though the Hitler moustache was still kind of awkward, it looked very porn star. I had stood naked in front of my mirror that morning, examining it. Post-shower the sticky leftover wax had finally gone and now my vag looked like it had just walked out of a double-page spread of a
Playboy
magazine. It was a shame Jack hadn’t seen it, but at least now I would be fully prepared for this weekend and I’d have a Hitler
sans
dried wax or chicken pox.

I cringed at the thought of Jack going down on me and finding bits of wax down there, or even some stray hairs that Yasmin missed. No wonder boys wanted girls to have hair removed down there—the thought of licking someone’s lady bits was bad enough without having to rub your tongue against a hairy patch. Thirty-four quid and an hour of pain and humiliation did seem a lot to ask, though. Oh, who was I kidding? I was desperate for Jack to go down there, and if being waxed straight into twentieth-century Germany was what it took to get licked out, then so be it.

Shit, maybe Yasmin
had
left some stray hairs down there.

Alarmed, I sat up straight in my bed. I had to check. I was also curious to get another look at my bald vagina. Yaz had seen it from every angle and if Jack was also going to, then it was only right that I should get in on the action and have a look.

I suddenly remembered reading a Judy Blume book when I was twelve where the main girl looked at her bits with a small pocket mirror. I pulled my trousers and knickers down and inspected myself. It still looked okay, but when I leaned over to try to pull the lips apart and look at it properly, I realized how unflexible I was. I had no idea if I had a pocket mirror but I could probably look at it in the big mirror. I ran over to my full-length mirror and tried to pull my legs apart. I stood wobbling and realized that wasn’t going to work either.

In the end, I faced my back to the mirror, then stood with my legs slightly apart and bent downwards, with my head falling in between my legs. Then I pulled my bum cheeks apart and got a good look at my bum crack. It was darker than I had expected and the hole looked ominous. The skin was a weird shade of pink and it wasn’t very pretty.

By now I was completely intrigued by what the front holes would look like too. But how was I going to see them properly?

Oh my God. I had it. Judy Blume characters were from the seventies or something so all they had were pocket mirrors. I, on the other hand, was in the post-millennium era and fully equipped with smartphones and cameras. I also had a MacBook. Feeling like Armstrong about to land on the moon, I opened my laptop and switched on the Photo Booth application.

I was quivering with anticipation. The little green light next to the camera at the top of my screen flashed on. Perfect. I put my laptop firmly on the end of my bed, and then sat in front of it. Gingerly, I opened my legs out and saw my vagina appear on the screen. I angled the screen downwards so I could see the full thing and stared in fascination. This was way better than a Biology lesson.

I spent ages absorbed by the neat folds of my skin. No wonder men hit climaxes so easily. It probably wasn’t just the pleasure that did it—I reckoned they were all just overwhelmed by the labia minora.

“Elena, are you going to be at home tomorrow mor—OH MY GOD! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

I stared in horror at my mum, who had just walked straight into my room without knocking. My hand was holding open my vagina and there was a zoomed-in image of it on my laptop screen.

“Please get out of my room,” I said in a strangled voice as I threw a blanket over my naked vagina and slammed down my laptop screen. “Please.”

My mum’s face was frozen in shock. “Are you sending pictures of yourself to men, Elena? That is
disgusting
.”

“Oh my God, no! Mum, how can you even ask that? It’s for a uni project . . . about . . . umm, genitalia in literature.”

She crinkled her brow but looked calmer. “It’s . . . homework?”

“Yes.” I nodded enthusiastically. “It’s homework.”

The magic word soothed her and she walked out of my room shaking her head and muttering about schools being too modern for their own good. I collapsed onto my pillow and vowed to buy a lock for my bedroom door.

The Vagina Monologue

Dear Reader,

We have a confession for you: Both of us have had moments of not accepting our nether sisters because, quite frankly, vaginas are fucking weird. However, after years of struggling on the road to vaginal acceptance, we have finally managed to embrace our own smelly and lopsided vaginas.

Here are the vaginal hurdles we have jumped over:

1. The smell. Vaginas do not smell like roses and lavender—even when we used to spritz them with perfume before a night out. They may look like flowers but they do not smell like flowers. They smell like the unique combination of sex, sweat and salmon. And that’s when we don’t have our periods.

2. Discharge. The first time we found this in our underpants we freaked out. EM thought she had wet herself. It is not the most attractive part of female biology, but hey, at least if it gets really smelly or yellow you know you have an infection. Thanks, nature.

3. Wetness. Not to be confused with discharge, lady juice is the body’s natural lubricant. EM used to be embarrassed that her vagina would get too wet the second a boy looked into her eyes. Until she realized no boy is going to complain about your vag being too moist, even if it is dripping onto the carpet.

The same goes for dryness. Every vagina is different. And, hello, what do you think lube was invented for?

4. Shapes. Each inner lotus is a unique composition waiting to be explored. EM used to be self-conscious about her uneven and large flaps—until she realized it was the way Mother Nature intended them to be. And who ever said “neat” was more attractive than lopsided anyway? Much like EK’s acceptance of her oversized nose, EM realized large can be attractive. Small is not perfect. We just need to look at the vagina’s male counterpart to prove that point.

I had started touching myself at the age of seven. Obviously, I didn’t know what masturbation was and had no idea about the end goal of orgasm, but I knew that rubbing my vagina through my pajamas felt nice. It stopped feeling nice the second my mum caught me with my hands down my pants and called me “dirty.”

The word had stayed with me for the next seven years and every time I started to reach down at night, her look of disgust came back to haunt me and I stopped—until I was fourteen and had to build a model volcano with Leah in a geography lesson.

No one really liked Leah because she was loud and pushy and didn’t roll up her skirt or shave her legs. But I was secretly in awe of her for not caring that her skirt reached her knees and her legs looked like furry sticks. When she casually asked me, during that geography lesson, if I’d ever masturbated, I dropped the clay and stared at her mutely. She carried on, unperturbed, and starting telling me all about her first experience and what she had learned from an old book in the library.

I absorbed Leah’s advice as though it was old news. I pretended I already knew that women could have orgasms, and when she asked if I was going to try it for myself, I looked at her as though she was disgusting for even suggesting it. I never spoke to Leah or anyone else about masturbation ever again, but I did run straight home to try it out. It ended up being the best geography homework I’d ever had.

That night I went home, prepared for a little experimentation of my own. I was freshly bathed and I had pink candles lit in my room. I was ready. This was something I had to do privately, just for me. I couldn’t even talk to Lara about this because then she’d know I had first touched myself at seven. She’d think I was a sexual deviant or a freak like that kid from
The Exorcist
. No, this was my private journey of self-discovery.

I put on my
Now 67
CD so that any sounds I might or might not make would be muffled. I took all my clothes off and slid my moisturized body under the covers. I lay on my back and put my fingers on my clitoris just like Leah had advised. I rubbed it gently. It felt nice and I closed my eyes. I started by following Leah’s advice, but after a while it felt so good that I stopped concentrating and just let it happen.

My fingers moved faster and faster until the familiar feeling of guilt abruptly settled on me. I wanted to stop but Leah had told me lots of people had mental barriers that prevented them from reaching orgasm. She told me that my only option was to break through the wall and keep on going towards the other side. I obliged.

I pushed my mum’s disapproving voice aside and forced my mind to imagine a tanned Justin Timberlake on top of me. I bit my lip in excitement and all feelings of guilt faded away. I concentrated entirely on the currents of pleasure zooming through my body. I rubbed faster and faster, my breath quickening. I moved my fingers as fast as they could go while my entire body tensed up and I clenched my toes.

Part of me wanted to stop but I forced myself to keep going. Suddenly my entire body spasmed and a wave of pleasure rushed through me. It was like nothing I had ever felt before. Every cell in my body was buzzing and I felt a sense of serene joy. This was bliss. Euphoria. Ohmigod, I’d just had my first orgasm.

My fingers felt damp, still wedged in between my wet lips. I took them out and as I opened my legs, I felt a thick liquid slide out and drop gently onto my mattress.

I sat up straight, all thoughts of serenity gone as quickly as they had come, and bent over to look at it. It looked a bit like discharge but it was see-through and had made a small stain on my bed.

Was it just the watery stuff that appeared every time I rubbed myself there or had I actually just come? I inspected it a bit closer and decided it was definitely the come Leah said women make. I was one of the 70 percent of women who could come.

I felt my cheeks burn with pride. I had just gone from stage one to ten on my personal journey of self-discovery and I was no longer a child. I was a teenager.

After that, I masturbated once a day for years. I was the female equivalent of those teenage boys who drew penises all over their lunch boxes. It was only as I got older and realized that all my friends were getting their boyfriends to do it for them that I gradually stopped masturbating so often. Every time I did it, it just reminded me of how alone I was.

But maybe now it was time to get back into it. I was so good at it—it seemed like a waste of a talent. Besides, I had a lot of spare time now. I was still writing the vlog, but I didn’t need to do any more columns until uni began again. Lara still wasn’t speaking to me, and even though Jack had suggested weekend plans, he had postponed them because of a “family thing.” I desperately needed something to distract me. Masturbating was ideal, but I needed to take it one step further and the only place to do that was in a Hoxton side street.

Which is why I was standing in Sh!—Europe’s first women-only sex shop, according to Google—staring speechlessly at a display of sex toys taking up eight racks that reached the ceiling.

I had no idea where to begin but I couldn’t wait to start. I browsed the shelves, trying to look as though I was entitled to be there and spent most of my Saturdays checking out sex toys. I stared in horror at the cock rings and other things you needed a partner for, and looked in fascination at the vibrators. They looked terrifying. There were blue glittery ones covered in little lumps and pink gel ones that rotated and had tiny “rabbit” ears that stroked the clitoris while you penetrated yourself. Some were even waterproof.

A shop assistant walked over to me and I took deep breaths, preparing myself for her inevitable questions. “Hiya, are you looking for anything in particular?”

“I’m just browsing for now, thanks,” I said with a tiny forced smile, praying she would go away.

“Okay. Are you looking for something to use with a partner or for masturbation?”

“Um, just masturbation, really,” I said nonchalantly, focusing all my energy on trying not to blush.

“The best ones are the rabbits, which I’m sure you’ve heard about,” she explained, as she gestured towards the plastic monstrosities. “These are the best because they give you dual pleasure. This part goes in so it can hit your G-spot while the ears stimulate the clitoris. These are the bestsellers. I really recommend them—they’re amazing. What do you think?”

“Okay,” I said evenly, trying to think of a subtle way to explain that I did not want to lose my virginity to a pink sparkly piece of plastic called a rabbit. “Do you have anything that just stimulates the clitoris? What about these?” I pointed towards a display of tiny vibrators that looked like they would fit on a key ring.

“Oh, yes. So those are bullets. You can use them on the clitoris, but if you’re going to get those, I would just get a rabbit because they do that and penetrate at the same time. So it’s maximum pleasure. The bullets aren’t bad, though.”

The bullets definitely looked less threatening. I picked up a packet and looked at it curiously. It was metallic silver and it was small and slim and did look like a bullet. “How does it work?” I asked.

“Well, you just press that little button at the top, and it vibrates. They’re all waterproof and come in different colors. I guess it’s a good one to start off with if you don’t want to go straight for a penetrative vibrator,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “They come with batteries too.”

It was £14.99 and the rabbit started off at £35.99—and this one came with free batteries. My mind was made up. I debated between buying a hot pink one or a leopard-print one, but decided the latter gave off creepy bestiality vibes. I selected the hot pink bullet and took it to the counter.

The shop assistant looked at me with disappointment, but I was sure I had made the right choice. I couldn’t handle breaking my hymen myself with that huge lump of plastic—I doubted it would even fit inside me. Anyway, if I fancied fingering myself, I could stick my fingers up there myself or . . . maybe I could even slip this bullet up there too? It vibrated, so it would probably feel good, and it was about a tenth of the size of the rabbit. In fact, it looked a bit like a tampon, so it would definitely fit. Perfect.

I was dying to try it out, but I had stupidly agreed to go out for dinner with my mum and Nikki Pitsillides and her parents. I groaned at the thought and considered canceling, but when I got out my phone to call my mum I already had a text from her telling me there was no way I was getting out of this dinner and I should come home immediately to get ready and make sure I looked nice.

It was two p.m. and dinner wasn’t till seven. Did I really need five hours to make myself look good? Clearly my mum thought so.

“No, you can’t wear that,” my mum said as she sat on the edge of my bed with her arms crossed. “You look like a boy.”

“Mum!” I cried out, exasperated and slightly hurt. “I’m wearing jeans and my favorite top. I wear this outfit all the time.”

“Exactly, and this is why you are still single.” She saw me open my mouth and held up her hand to stop me from speaking. “Elena, I’m not being cruel. I’m just trying to help you. You have such a nice figure. Why don’t you show it off more?” A wistful expression came over her face as she continued. “When I was your age I had the best legs in the whole town. I used to wear skirts every day and they were so short my mum and I argued constantly.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at me suspiciously. “But with you, that’s not a problem because you don’t wear skirts. Why can’t you be more feminine?”

“Oh my God, Mum. Everyone wears jeans,” I snapped back. “It’s normal, okay? Girls don’t have to wear skirts to be feminine. Besides, the androgynous look is
in
. It’s all over the catwalks, so you’re completely wrong.”

“Do you think you have the figure of a catwalk model?” she retorted. “No. Your figure is different, so you have to dress differently.”

I sighed in frustration. “Mum, can you just get out of my room and let me get dressed alone, please? I’m twenty-one years old and I don’t live at home, so I reckon I’m capable of choosing an outfit for a dinner in Guildford on my own, thank you.”

“I want you to look nice, Elena. You’re my daughter and I want to show you off,” she said.

“Firstly, I’m not a pedigree dog. If you wanted something to show off you should have bought a pet and not given birth. Secondly, why is tonight such a big deal? Nikki isn’t going to care what I wear and I doubt her parents will either.”

“Yes, but we’re going out to the new Italian place. So why not make an effort, Elena?” she asked, as she came over to me and started stroking my hair. “You’re so pretty, but you hide it all with these boyish clothes. And you never wear makeup.”

She was being uncharacteristically weird. “I
do
wear makeup,” I said.

“But you don’t wear lipstick or lip gloss like all the other girls. You wear this eyeliner, like some punk rock star, and you never brush your hair and make it all soft and pretty,” she said, still stroking the curly mass that I called hair.

“Yeah, because look at it, Mum! If I brush it, it makes me look like I’m going to an eighties prom. Also, no one above the age of thirteen wears lip gloss.”