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club.
    “So, are you here alone?” he asked.
    “I’m with a friend. You?”
    “Yeah, same, but he’s pulled so I’m alone.”
    “Cool, that’s, uh . . . good for him.” I nodded, wondering how much of this static conversation I was going to have to put up with. He paused and looked into my eyes.
    After a couple of seconds of intense staring, he leaned in and kissed me gently on the lips. It wasn’t bad, until he stirred his tongue into action and started sliding it in. I felt the familiar rise of panic at not knowing what to do and tried to keep calm.
    Even since my first kisses with James Martell, I’d never really figured out how to do it. When I was young and practiced kissing on my hands, I knew deep down that when it happened for real, I would magically know what to do, just like a Hollywood heroine.
    But the magic had never happened. Lip Piercing started rubbing his tongue against mine. I felt the metal of his piercing rub against my gums. I was tempted to run my tongue over it but instead I resorted to my fail-safe move of copying what he was doing. As always, it didn’t really work and my slightly oversized nose bumped against his. We switched sides and I braced myself for the tongue again.
    I tried to remember the advice from a YouTube video I had watched once. I started to massage his tongue with mine. Was I meant to go over and around it in a circular way, or go to the side of it? Was I meant to withdraw my tongue back into my mouth afterwards?
    Closing my eyes, I hoped for the best. After a few minutes, he seemed to figure out that kissing with tongues was not my speciality and went back to lip kissing. I breathed a sigh of relief that we were done with tongues.
    “Ellie!” Lara crept up behind me. She was grinning wildly and her long, silky hair was all mussed up. Her voice was girly and unnatural as she squealed, “This is Angus. He’s at Oxford as well, and get this—we have so many mutual friends!”
    Obviously
Angus went to Oxford. I gave him my best fake smile and turned to Lara, asking,
Why have you suddenly become a posh dick?
with my eyes.
    She ignored my look. “So, who’s this? Aren’t you going to introduce us?”
    I pulled Lip Piercing towards me. “This is, erm . . .” I looked at him and he looked blankly back at me. After a few seconds of social embarrassment, I glared at him. “Well, aren’t you going to say what your name is?”
    He looked taken aback and stuttered, “Uh, yeah, it’s Chris.”
    Lara air-kissed him before turning back to Angus. They went over to the bar and I was left with Chris. I looked down and saw he was wearing Converse. Angus had been wearing beautiful suede loafers. I sighed, but Chris grinned and pulled me towards him. We started kissing again and I wrapped my arms around him, trying to let myself enjoy it. He may have been the only misfit in the club, but at least he was a misfit who fancied me.
    We were interrupted by bright, glaring lights. Chris broke away from me. “Oh shit, the club’s closing. I’d better find my friend and head off,” he said.
    “Oh God, yeah. Me too. I need to find Lara.”
    “Okay then, see you,” he said, and walked off.
    My mouth dropped open in shock. I wasn’t expecting him to suggest a spring wedding, but he hadn’t even bothered to ask for my number or to kiss me goodbye. His brief positive impact on my self-esteem slid away and I felt ten times uglier than I had at the beginning of the night. It had been more fun getting ready at home with Lara than it was taking part in this meat market.
    Suddenly, I couldn’t believe I’d been considering giving my virginity to a guy I met in a club, who had a
lip piercing
,
no less. And he didn’t even want me. I felt a tear stinging my left eye and stubbornly brushed it away. I wasn’t going to cry over some unattractive emo.
    Then another tear came. I sat on a leather sofa in a dark corner of the club. I knew I would be able to laugh about this tomorrow