The Budding Roses

Just do it

Thursday 14th October

Harry's hand inched nervously at the periphery of my left breast. Oh how I longed to grab it, to direct it to the summit, but my frustrated confidence faltered, my own mind paralysed, just like Harry's cowardly hand.

'My mum and dad are going away next week,' he whispered.

'That's nice for them; where are they going?'

'Dad said no smoking, drinking, and no sex on the carpet.' He might laugh, but I was choking; he had just said the "S" word. Out loud. Instead of keeping it hidden within the appropriate compartment of his head.

So it seems that custom dictates that we, Harry and I, are reaching the point in our relationship when we really ought to be doing it, like totally all the time, and all over the place, like in shop changing rooms and the toilets at McDonald's, so fervent are we to smother ourselves in each other's juices. In fact society demands it of us if we are to be considered "normal". Again another pre-printed label for me to adhere to my jacket pocket:

· I'm Simone

· I'm 17

· I have a boyfriend

· And I love him. Oh by golly do I love him!

· And I want to have sex with him – the normal kind (not the kinky sort that involves wearing PVC stilettos, because as I understand it, that this would require my label to be altered to:

o Married (for over 20 years) and / or at least 45 years of age

Damn this protocol for making it a rule that things have to progress beyond kissing. What's so wrong with kissing, especially when it's so lovely and wonderful and we're having so much fun doing it? Why ruin things by bringing genitalia and all its ugliness in to the equation? We steam up car windows for God's sake, that's plenty an indicator of the passion in our relationship, and I fail to see how letting Harry place his penis inside my vagina can increase this?

Okay I know that only a few weeks ago I was practically running around town with my knickers around my ankles, but that was safe in the knowledge that we couldn't actually do it, what with being in a public place and all, but now with a real opportunity presenting itself, I find my mind recoiling, my heart withdrawing and my vagina retreating, forever closing its iron sturdy gates.

Friday 15th October

When I stop to consider what's bothering me about doing it, well it's ridiculous really. Do other people have such worries or do they just get on and do it? Whilst twerps like me spend so long thinking about it, that whaddya know, thirty years have passed and your once eligible suitor has long ago moved on, taking with him your one opportunity of actually doing it, having instead given it to a more straightforward soul who just laid back and thought of England, like their Mother always told them to do. And now that you've at last come round to the realisation that you might actually be ready, your last viable ovum just degenerated, leaving in its wake a graveyard of a vagina, screaming out that most dreaded word..."spinster". Shush, don't say it again!

Stop with this Simone, you're only seventeen, but still, I just can't imagine that the average member of the general population really does such a thing. I mean who wants to have sex with most of the people out there anyway?

The worst part is the one thing I can't stop thinking about; the willy, the penis, whatever you want to call it, I find myself contemplating it all the time, except not in an erotic way, like all the boys seem convinced I should be.

'I bet you love a big one!' A random retard had yelled. Um, not really, in fact I don't actually love any sized one, thank you very much.

It's just terrifying not knowing what it will look like, or how big it will be, but all I know is that on the rare occasions that I have erroneously glimpsed one, it's been an ugly specimen, and certainly not the sort of object that I wish to enjoy a close encounter with. Now this might seem a bit mean, especially since I'm so fond of everything else associated with Harry, but it's just I'm not sure I can bear to even look at it, never mind touch something so unattractive. If there is a God then why didn't he have the good grace to make the penis more aesthetically pleasing than an undercooked sandworm on a mission to attack? Whatever must have happened to make him loathe women so much, as to want inflict these monsters upon us? And if by some miracle I do manage to swallow my own sick for long enough to touch it, what I'm then really scared about, is how it's ever going to fit? I mean I've tried putting my finger up there, as a sort of practice, and honestly there really wasn't much room for manoeuvre, so I'm totally perplexed as to how something so big is meant to get up there, and for such a duration?

Tuesday 19th October

It occurred in such a terrible way, this dreadful outcome certainly not what I'd intended when I'd said to Harry,

'Maybe it would be better if we don't see each other anymore?'

'Fine,' he'd replied, before slamming the phone down. What did he mean, "fine"? Well it seems that he meant that he was in full agreement, that it was a fantastic idea, because when he goes out on Monday night he was planning on snogging the face off some skanky tramp anyway. Oh snap, I'm being ironic, can't you tell? Of course he wasn't supposed to say fine, he was supposed to beg me, "No Simone, I can't bear it if we split up, and I promise I'll stop pressurising you to jump on my bone if that helps?"

Alas Harry has kissed another girl, and a scummy one at that. I mean she was wearing baggy trousers and had pink streaks in her hair and everything. But the worst part is I had to watch the whole awful episode unfold, like watching a car crash, except it was me who provided all the blood and crumpled metal.

Oh how I sobbed, oh how I wailed, until turning my back on the carnage, my devastation, humiliation, it all came spewing out like a massive projectile puke, and I thumped the wall, mistakenly injuring my left hand in the process, ouch. Exhausted, I slumped down, a rotten carcass splattered across the table, but raising my head, through the blur of double vision, I could see Natasha; she was marching over to Harry. Oh great, she was about to shake his hand and pat him on the back, tell him well done for getting rid of a loser like me at last.

'You chump; look what you've done,' she pointed towards me, her confused loyalty only further fuelling my weeps. Natasha was standing up for me, defending my honour. She does still love me after all, and now through the devastation of what Harry has done, a glimmer of sunshine has filled my heart.

I clung to Natasha's now motherly hand as we exited Brambles, but unfortunately we had somehow picked up Perfect Fliss on our way. Of all the people to see me now, at this snot drenched nadir, it certainly wasn't her, and all of her smiling trendiness that I wanted.

'She's hot,' a group of boys muttered, as Fliss swished past them. Why weren't they including me in their statement? I looked down at my own tear stained outfit and it was obvious why; because all of my former dewiness has drained from my skin leaving it a piece of dirty used sandpaper, the shine has gone from my hair leaving it brittle bark, and I've been served up a puffy faced, mascara smeared, bunny boiling snot bag; not exactly what most boys want to see on their menu. I'm a mess and there is nothing remotely attractive about me anymore.