Do You Remember the First Time?

practically wiping the tears from her eyes. Then she looked at me and gave me the most malicious grin.
    ‘Oh, John, is Flora alright? Would you like us to look after her for you?’
    Clelland just grunted, passed through the door and deposited me on the third step of the stairs.
    ‘Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he asked gruffly.
    ‘Having crazy teenage fun,’ I replied, aware that my face was so red it must be scorching the walls.
    ‘You’re supposedly a grown woman, for fuck’s sake. What was that: pole dancing?’
    ‘Table dancing?’ I said in a small voice.
    He stared at me. ‘You’re losing it.’
    I sank down to the stair and wrapped my arms around my knees. ‘No I’m not,’ I said. I realised how woozy I was feeling. Then I realised I’d been dancing like a slut on Clelland’s parents’ table.
    ‘Yikes, I’m sorry,’ I said suddenly.
    ‘Your tolerance is way down,’ he said. ‘Quick, drink some …’
    But Stanzi had already rushed up with a full pint glass of water. She was practically gibbering.
    ‘Flora, you have to listen, you have to …’
    ‘Could you give us a second?’ said Clelland, not unkindly.
    ‘Noooo! It cannot wait or I explode.’
    ‘Well, if you’re going to explode …’
    I looked up. ‘What is it?’ I said. I seemed to be sobering up rapidly into a very bad mood.
    ‘Fallon started a rumour! She said you were wanting to lose your virginity tonight! She told all the boys this was your first and last party and you would definitely, definitely have sex! Kendall told me.’
    I sat bolt upright. ‘Oh my God. That bitch!’
    Clelland looked at me. Oh no. Bloody hormones again. I felt suddenly incredibly ashamed – almost like I might start crying.
    ‘So that’s why everyone was being so nice … all those boys I don’t really know. I thought maybe underneath they were just shy, and … oh GOD, I’m such a fucking idiot.’ My voice was a bit wobbly.
    Clelland looked amused. ‘You mean … please don’t tell me you were showing off so the boys would like you?’
    ‘It’s not funny,’ I said. ‘It was a horribly cruel thing to do. It can scar people for life.’
    I gulped down more water.
    ‘Maybe I just wanted it to be different than the first time round. And it was. It was worse!’
    He was still suddenly. ‘What was so wrong about the first time round?’
    ‘I threw it away on you, remember.’ I’d meant to sound flippant but it came out as though I was bitter.
    Clelland blinked slowly.
    Suddenly all I wanted – all I wanted – was to be back in my own little flat, with a bubble bath, a magazine and the phone off the hook.
    ‘I want to go home,’ I said suddenly.
    Stanzi nodded.
    ‘You want me to walk you?’ said Clelland.
    ‘OK,’ I nodded my head. ‘Thank you.’
    ‘OK.’
    Our coats and bags had disappeared. I had a shrewd idea of where they might be – stashed away by any number of those so friendly and charming boys who might plan to help me go look for them later, in a dark recess of a dark bedroom.
    As I mounted the stairs I heard Madeleine saying to Clelland, ‘Really, they’re awful at that age, aren’t they?’ I made a face above her head.
    ‘They’re just kids,’ said Clelland, in an amused tone.
    ‘Well, I certainly didn’t behave like that when I was a kid.’
    I bet you didn’t, I thought.
    ‘I bet you didn’t,’ Clelland said. ‘Another drink?’
    ‘No thanks, darling.’
    I don’t like you, I thought. I hoped that would trigger Clelland to say the same thing again, but it didn’t.
    My bag wasn’t in the first two rooms I looked in, although there were plenty of other suspects entwined in gruelling balls of spit and the occasional expostulated, ‘No, not there.’ In one room, the school hippy kid was lighting a joint, surrounded by wide-eyed acolytes desperately pretending they were really cool about this but actually looking like five-year-olds waiting in line to see Santa Claus. I was wandering up the corridor, feeling like some horrible tart – the elastic in my top had almost totally gone now, and I was holding it up with both hands – when I came across Justin, barring a doorway and looking completely miserable. His face lightened when he saw me.
    ‘Oh, Flora, can you help?’
    ‘What, give blow jobs to the whole football team? No, Justin, that was Fallon’s little lie.’
    He looked confused for a second. ‘What are you talking about? Is this one of these bitchy girl