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Sent: 28 September 2000, 22:37:31
Subject: Thank you
Your mind was beautiful today, your body pure bliss. I belong to you.
Ancient Person of thy heart
*
You can probably see where this is going now. It wasn’t quite as clear-cut and sordid as it might appear. Naive as I may have seemed thus far, I realised there were certain lines that required more consideration than others before crossing.
While the kissing gradually led to ‘sorting books’ in a horizontal position in the top room, I was quite insistent that whatever his hands and mouth did to please me, his belt-buckle was not going to budge. And though we sent emails most evenings telling the other of our desire, dreaming of total abandonment from the safety of separate bedrooms and discussing the orgasmic meeting of my ‘baby kitten’ and his ‘throbbing doppelgänger’, I was certain of one thing: I didn’t want him to be my first.
I was aware mine was an unorthodox adolescence. I realised I could grow to regret it, despite my enlightened knowledge that this was the real world. So, for the sake of damage limitation, I wanted to lose my virginity to someone else. Matthew and I discussed the situation via email only, never referring to it between declarations of love in person.
From: Matthew Wright <theoutsider@worldopen.co.uk>
To: Natalie Lucas <sexy_chocolate69@sweetmail.com>
Sent: 4 October 2000, 09:20:12
Subject: Two roads in a wood
I see you worrying about what the world will think and whether you will be able to take things back, whether you’ll regret our friendship in later life or discover you chose the wrong yellow-brick path. I see you struggling to find the answers and I wish I could take your pain away, because this time for me is beautiful and relaxed. As you grow, you will understand the world has its reason and things will happen as they please. Our decisions always seem more significant before we have made them.
So, if in your deliberations you ever worry about me, please don’t. I am a happy voyeur of your beautiful mind and the conclusions I know it will eventually reach. I cannot, of course, give you advice, but perhaps if you have your A* mathematician’s hat on today, you will appreciate the words of Mr Einstein: ‘Pure logical thinking cannot yield us any knowledge of the empirical world; all knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it. Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty of reality.’1 (#litres_trial_promo)
Follow your heart, my love. I will await.
Your very parfait gentle knight
MW
Every night I’d retreat to my room and attack my diary. Matthew told me the decision was in my hands, but our mutual stumbling block was my virginity. He said he couldn’t ‘take the lid off’ that side of me because the first time would inevitably be disappointing and he didn’t want to ruin what we had. I agreed. Everyone said it hurt and I was sure I’d end up hating him. But how could I take the lid off with someone else knowing I was in love with Matthew?
What I needed was a boy my own age who wouldn’t mind being used and whom I trusted enough not to tell the rest of the sixth form about my proposition.
Richard was my target. We had been girlfriend and boyfriend for a short while in Year 10 and had remained flirty friends since. Our ‘relationship’ had ended when Richard had told me, quite seriously, that he had important and dangerous things he had to concentrate on to fulfil his destiny and he couldn’t be distracted by the usual trappings of teenage life. The gossip tree soon filtered to me that Richard had confided in his best friend Andy that he had been approached by an old homeless man while on holiday in Greece who had told him he was the Second Messiah and dark powers were approaching that only he could battle. Ever since, Richard had been bidding for Samurai swords on eBay.
To sum it up, in Richard’s favour:
Single
Too focused to want a girlfriend
Too self-absorbed to bother caring about my motives for such a deed
And, against him:
Possibly slightly unhinged.
I told Matthew I had decided on a person. I suggested the thing to Richard via MSN Messenger. And Richard agreed. The how and where were a little more complicated, so, though it was only October, we decided on New Year’s Eve, knowing somebody would have a party. It was settled. I would pop my cherry as I was meant to: drunk and in someone’s parents’ bed with an acne-ridden boy I found only mildly attractive, and thus I would be free to explore the world of Uncles with one less worry.
Then came the green candle.
On 4th November, I received the lyrics to a Leonard Cohen song via email. The first line was blown up in bigger font and some words made bold:
I lit a thin green candle to make you jealous of me.
Attached was an extract from Matthew’s diary:
November 2000
So, old man, what are you going to do?
About what? And who are you calling old? I thought we were only as young as we feel.
Fool. I suppose you’re telling me she’s the elixir of life?
Natalie? Yes, she might be.
So, what will you do?
I can’t hurry her. Her beauty and charm is in her innocence – she needs to find her own way.
But what about you? What about your needs?
My needs are less important than hers.
Less important, perhaps, but no less pressing. Every man has needs; it’s foolish to deny them.
Yes, yes, we’ve been down this path before. I know I must do something.
So?
Well, Suzie keeps pestering me.
The PhD student who snaps at you if you bring her flowers and doesn’t care if you don’t call? Sounds perfect.
Yes, and she tells me she’s spent the past six months in the gym.
But..
But every time I see her she tells me she wants my child.
Yikes.
Indeed. She says I won’t have to be involved, but I’m not so sure.
You think she’s tricking you?
Not deliberately, but women are irrational, they change their minds, especially when children are involved. I’ve had enough of that for a lifetime.
So, what’s the alternative?
Becky’s eager.
The one with the nice bum?
Yes, you perv, the one with the nice bum. But she’s not much older than Natalie. Eighteen, and nowhere near as mature.
Could be fun, though.
Yes, perhaps.
But..
But my heart’s not in it, I suppose. Even though I know I need something and Natalie’s talking about experimenting with some boy from school..
Wait! You’re talking about living like a monk while she goes around with spotty teenagers? You’re even more of a fool than I thought.
Perhaps. A fool for love?
Pah. It doesn’t seem fair at all.
No, but she’s a child, I can’t expect her to understand. I can’t make demands on her.
And what’s this email about? Are you lighting a green candle?
No, maybe, no. No, I just want her to know how I feel. Perhaps I won’t even send it.
And if you do?
Nothing. Then she’ll know I’ve chosen what I have with her over anything I could have with the others.
How very noble.
Don’t be so sarcastic. I mean it. I love her. It’s real. For the first time in my measly, ancient life, it’s real.
A bubble began to rise in my stomach as I read. Suzie and Becky. Who were they? Why should I care? Matthew said he was not lighting a green candle, but still sent me the lyrics to the song. What could that mean? The basement room where I was reading was lit only by the light of the screen and I imagined myself engulfed by a turquoise flame. I pounded up the stairs to my bedroom and scrabbled beneath my mattress for my diary.
After an hour sprawled on my bed with a biro in my hand and tears in my lashes, I paced back down to the computer, praying my brother hadn’t gone to play his stupid Age of Empires game and read the email I’d left open on the screen. Happily I passed the living-room door and saw James cross-legged in front of the PlayStation instead.
Back at the keyboard, I hesitated. As much as my fingers tingled to reply ‘No, don’t! I’m here and, yes, I’ll be an Uncle,’ my throat longed to scream that this was unfair, that I was being handled and manipulated and an Uncle wouldn’t do such a thing.
My fingers won.
From: Natalie Lucas <sexy_chocolate69@sweetmail.com>
To: Matthew Wright <theoutsider@worldopen.co.uk>
Sent: 4 November 2000, 22:42:03
Subject: RE: One of Us Cannot Be Wrong
The flame is burning moss. I have an in-service training day a week on Wednesday – can we find a Bunbury?
Later, in my room, I doodled in my notebook:
Am I condemned to be
Number sixty-four?
Will you tell your next girl
This one was a bore?
That innocent little kitten
You deflowered so well;
My young naive mind,
To the devil did I sell?
Will you tell of the chase?
The thrill of the game
That finally won me …
To discover I’m too tame?
Not like Suzie,
She was fun.
Not like Becky,
With the ‘nice bum’.
Is it worth it?
Will I disappoint?
Will you regret the effort?
Will I score a point?
