Page 95 of Five Gold Rings

I think that’s sex. That’s new. He pushes his body up to look me in the eye. Please don’t say peeny again, I beg you.

‘How does that feel in your va-gee-na?’ he asks me.

‘Toby…’

I can’t correct him, can I? It’s vagina, Toby. I can’t tell if he’s being funny or deathly serious. How does he not know this? We’ve got our biology exam in three months. We’ve got a girl called Gina in our French class. But it’s not the time to say anything, is it? Not when he’s in me. He’s in me. In my noo-noo. I’m not a virgin anymore. He moves his hips over me, looking nervous, worried. I don’t want him to feel like that. I grab his cheeks and kiss him on the lips.

‘It feels… cool…’ I reply. ‘I love you, too…’

I pull him into a hug before he can spoil this with more words and try to focus on the feeling of him inside me as he starts to move. We’re actually doing it. I think I like this. But before I can even tell him that much, Toby thrusts a few more times and his body stiffens and shudders, a grunting noise like he’s finished running a race. Whoa. Is that it? He collapses on me and rests his head near my collarbone.

I’m not sure what to say but I look up, right into the big gleaming face of Lewis Hamilton. You saw all of that, didn’t you? Don’t tell anyone, OK?

21st June 2015, ED

Hi, Sarah. Why don’t you come in and take off your coat and make yourself comfortable? Would you like a beverage?A beverage? Who calls it a beverage? I’m not a vending machine. Sarah’s just texted to say she’s on her way and now I’m sweating. It’s not very attractive at all. Why am I sweating so much? Is this normal? Maybe something is wrong with one of my glands. Could this be related to my penis? Can penises sweat?

I take off my shirt and stand by the pedestal fan in my university bedroom to air out my armpits. If I just roll deodorant all over me then I can’t fail in this endeavour. How much deodorant will I need though? That’s a lot of chemicals. Why do these rooms get so hot? I know it’s the summer, but the ventilation is awful. That’s the problem when you’re trying to pack as many university students in a building as possible. Sarah has been in here to study before, but I wonder if I needed to do anything more to make this place look nice. Maybe a houseplant? A poster? Should I play some music? I catch a look at myself in my mirror wearing the underwear that I bought especially for the occasion. It almost looks too new, too box fresh. I should have worn it a few times or ironed the folds out of it. I’d have thought the heat radiating off my body would have got the creases out. I need to put on clothes. I pull out a T-shirt from my cupboard with a giant panda on it, a gift from a Chinese exchange student. I try it on. Pandas are not sexy. I can’t just answer the door in my pants. Maybe just shorts and a T-shirt. Collar or no collar? A collar gives the occasion a sense of formality which is fitting if I’m losing my virginity.

Fuck. I’m losing my virginity.

Sarah’s on my course and for the last few months we’ve been lab partners and have struck up a lovely rapport. We both like biology, we understand the importance of precision and safety goggles. We seem to have similar experiences of university life: we drink in moderation, we eat a shedload of pasta and favour film clubs and societies over nightclubs and recreational drugs. Sarah is not a virgin. She had a boyfriend at college. Did I tell her I was a virgin when we started dating? Of course I bloody didn’t. I’m twenty. It’s weird and she’d have run away from me, so I pretended I had an ex called Monica. This was a half lie. Monica does exist. She was in the same sixth form college as me and stuck her tongue down my throat at our end-of-year dance. It was like being attacked by an eel. We did not take the moment further because she was so drunk that after accosting me, she tried to jump off the bars in the school gym and broke her collarbone. Dating Sarah has been a dreamy haze of shared lunches, kissing and waving at her from across the library but now it’s time to take this relationship to the next level. It’s time to have the sex. Or just sex. We know what’s going to happen. This is why I put fresh sheets on and have chilled some bottles of Becks in my room sink. I’m keeping it classy.

There’s a light knock on my door. Oh dear, I might be ill. I rest my head against the wall. You can do this, Ed Rogers.

‘Hey…’

‘Hello, stranger,’ she says. ‘It’s bloody hot, isn’t it?’ She fans herself. She’s wearing a lilac sundress with trainers and kisses me on the cheek. She smells good. Should I tell her she smells good? She’s not bread.

‘Boiling,’ I reply. ‘Please enter.’ I give a swish of my arm.

Enter? I am lucky she finds this funny. I close the door but as my hand comes off the handle, she backs me against it and kisses me passionately. Oh. This is quick. It looks like we’re not having drinks. It’s fine. We can just go straight into it. The kissing is nice, it’s always been nice, but there’s an urgency now in how hard she presses against me, how close her body is to mine.

‘I’m not wearing any knickers…’ she whispers into my ear.

‘Yay…’ I reply. I might cry. I don’t know what to do. Does she want me to check for the knickers just in case I thought she was lying?

She smiles. I’m glad she still finds me mildly amusing. This is a Sarah I’ve not seen before. As awful as it sounds, she reminds me of my mum’s cat when she’s on heat.

‘I’ve been waiting for this… You’re such a tease…’

Not really, Sarah. I just kept putting it off because I was petrified and have thus spent the last month watching so much porn I almost went cross-eyed trying to give myself some sort of crash course in sex education. I’m not sure it helped.

‘I can’t wait to…’ I whisper. Have you? Fuck you? Make the sex with you?

She takes off my shirt and runs her hands all over my chest. ‘Look at what you’ve been hiding from me.’ She then proceeds to lick me. I don’t know if I like this but I think I should, so I make noises that suggest I do.

Then, in one movement, she pulls down my shorts and underwear and I’m standing there essentially naked, the sense of vulnerability slightly overwhelming as she still has her shoes and dress on. But no knickers. I am naked in front of an attractive woman. This could go one of two ways. I brace myself for laughter or Sarah making a swift exit, but instead she takes my penis in her hand, a little aggressively, truth be told. She doesn’t stimulate it, just grabs and squeezes it. She then looks me up and down and backs on to my bed, sitting down and parting her legs slightly. It’s an extremely sexy move bar the fact I can’t see what I’m working with down there, the view obscured by her dress.

What do I do? I go over, right? This is easy. Get erect, stride over, kiss her, push that dress up, maybe take it off, see if she’s wearing a bra, look at her boobs and then have sex. Easy, Ed.

I grab my penis in my hand and try to summon up an erection. That worked. It should work because it’s been aching to do this for a while, but how do I stride over now? Just walk casually like it’s not there? I kick off my pants and shorts from around my ankles, then walk awkwardly towards her. Possibly like a cowboy.

‘Have you got a condom?’ she asks sweetly.

I chuckle. Do I have condoms? I have a box of thirty-two. I am dependable like that. I open the drawer of my desk and hold one up in the air. I tear at the wrapper and place the condom over my erect penis. I may have practised doing this with a cucumber in preparation. Oh my. It’s going to happen. I am prepared. There is a willing, pretty girl on my bed without any knickers.

‘Could you just move the fan, Ed? It’s a bit strong,’ she tells me.

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