‘I am,’ I replied quietly. No one was laughing any more. Certainly not me.
‘You’re fifteen and you’re still a virgin?’ Saif said. I suddenly remembered I’d lied about my age. There was absolutely no chance Rahim and Saif believed me – they’d seen me coming out of my primary school, after all – but I felt I had to keep up the pretence so I didn’t look like an idiot. To most people, fifteen still seems too young to have sex, and rightly so, but Nadine certainly wasn’t a virgin and neither were any of her other friends. On our estate, with little else to do to occupy their time, most girls had sex for the first time long before their sixteenth birthdays.
‘Yeah, so what?’ I said, hoping they’d change the subject. I could feel my cheeks flushing with embarrassment. I thought about Nadine and her huge, womanly breasts and how different our bodies looked. I didn’t even own a bra. How could anyone possibly believe we were the same age?
‘Yeah, right,’ Rahim said. ‘No chance.’
‘Tell her about the test,’ Saif chipped in.
‘Oh, yeah,’ Rahim replied. ‘The test.’
I gripped my cider bottle tightly as my insides tensed violently. ‘Test?’ I echoed. I was suddenly conscious of how squeaky and high-pitched my voice was, of how much I sounded like a child. Rahim grabbed my legs and pushed them together. I squirmed as he touched me.
‘Relax, Sarah,’ he told me. ‘Why are you so uptight?’
‘I’m fine,’ I lied. Rahim didn’t let go of my legs, each of his hands pressing against my thighs.
‘What do you think?’ he asked Saif.
‘There’s a gap,’ Saif said, grinning. ‘Definitely.’
I had no idea what they were talking about and Rahim was starting to hurt me. I wanted to ask him to let go, but I couldn’t find my voice.
‘That’s what I thought,’ Rahim said. He turned to me. ‘We know you’re not a virgin. You’re lying.’
‘What?’ I replied, the panic clear in my voice. I had no idea how they could tell whether or not I’d had sex just by looking at my legs, but I didn’t know enough to question them. Rahim’s hands had now wandered around my legs, resting on the insides of my thighs, close to the crotch of my tracksuit bottoms. He kept them there for a moment before prising my legs open.
‘Okay, close your legs again,’ he told me. I did as he said. I didn’t know what else to do – I was too young to know what was going on. He rested his hands near my crotch once more.
‘I told you to relax,’ he said. I sensed a hint of aggression in his voice and it scared me. ‘Now, you see this little gap between your thighs?’ I nodded meekly, not wanting to make him angry. ‘That means you’re not a virgin.’
‘If you close your legs and your thighs are touching, you’re a virgin,’ Saif said. ‘If they’re not, you’ve had sex before.’
As an adult, I can see how completely ridiculous this ‘test’ was, but back then I was so naive that I began to doubt myself. I was sure I was a virgin, but what if I wasn’t? If I’d never had sex before, why didn’t my thighs touch like they should? A hundred different questions were swirling around in my brain. I was confused, full of self-doubt and beginning to believe these men who were much older and more experienced than me. Maybe I’d had sex when I’d been drunk and I’d blacked out and forgotten. Had I lost my virginity without realising?
‘We can always tell,’ Rahim added. ‘So there’s no point in lying to us. How many men have you had sex with?’
‘I bet it’s loads,’ Saif said. I felt a lump forming in my throat and I had to swallow hard.
‘Where’s Nadine?’ I asked desperately.
‘Where do you think she is?’ Rahim laughed. ‘She’s round the corner giving Amir a blow job.’
Even though Nadine was so outspoken about her sex life, I was still shocked. I didn’t think she’d be brave enough to give someone a blow job in my school playground, where anyone could catch them – especially as Amir was so much older than she was. I thought they’d maybe be kissing, nothing more than that. I prayed she’d come back soon. I really didn’t like standing in my school playground in the daylight with a group of much older men who were talking about stuff that made me feel nervous. For the first time since I’d started hanging around with Nadine, I really wanted to go home.
‘Bet you know all about blow jobs too,’ Saif said. ‘I bet you give blow jobs all the time.’
‘Would you like to give me a blow job?’ Rahim asked.
I felt blood rushing to my head. I didn’t know the first thing about blow jobs. To me, Rahim was creepy and disgusting. I didn’t want to touch him, let alone do that with him.
‘No,’ I replied. ‘I don’t want to.’
‘Oh, come on, Sarah,’ he said. ‘I really like you. I think you’re lovely, I really do. I’ve wanted to talk to you for ages.’ He slid his hand along my thigh again. ‘You’re special.’
‘No,’ I said again. ‘What if we get caught?’
‘We won’t,’ Rahim replied. ‘No one comes round here at night – it’s just us.’
‘They might,’ I said.
‘They won’t. No one will ever know,’ he said. ‘It can be our little secret.’
Those words reverberated round my head. Our little secret. At that moment, Nadine and Amir came back round the corner and I felt dizzy with relief.
Walking home, I confided in Nadine about Rahim.
‘He asked me to give him a blow job,’ I said, thinking she’d be shocked.
‘Well, did you?’ she asked.
‘No, of course not.’
‘Why not? He’s well fit.’
‘Because it’s disgusting.’
Nadine looked at me like I was mad. ‘It’s not disgusting. Everybody does it. You should just get it over with.’
A few nights later, I met Nadine at the pub after school. As usual, she’d helped herself to some money from her mum’s purse. We stopped at the shop and got another of the local down-and-outs to pick us up two bottles of Mad Dog before we headed for the school playground.
‘Amir and Rahim are going to chill with us again,’ she said casually. I could feel my face falling. I wanted it to go back to how it was before, just Nadine and me, having a laugh and getting drunk together. But now that I’d met Amir and his friends, I sensed things were different.
‘Oh, right,’ I replied, trying to sound enthusiastic. ‘Cool.’
‘Rahim really fancies you,’ Nadine said. ‘He thinks you’re really pretty.’
I blushed and said nothing. In fact, I hardly opened my mouth for the rest of the walk to the school. I didn’t like Rahim but, as much as it pains me to say it, I was still a tiny bit flattered by the compliment. No one had ever called me pretty before, and it was kind of nice to hear.
But as soon as I saw Rahim in the playground I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. His eyes fixed on me straight away and I felt awkward. Dressed in my tracksuit and trainers, without a scrap of make-up, I didn’t feel glamorous, or pretty like he’d said I was. I felt like a little girl. I was a little girl. How could he, a man who had to be almost thirty, possibly fancy me?
‘Hey, Sarah,’ he said.
‘Hi,’ I mumbled in response. This time, Nadine and Amir didn’t disappear straight away. The four of us sat together