? get to the line about being found, about never being the same, and burst into tears.
And it will make said boyfriend do this:
? turn the music up so loud you can feel the vibrations through your body
? jump up beside you and dance with you
? even though he can’t hear the music
? even though you both look like idiots
? put his arms around you when you start to cry out of the blue
? kiss your hair
? write I love you on to your skin
? say it out loud
? say it with his hands
? say it with his eyes.
‘I love you,’ I say into his ear.
The song comes to an end and then starts up again, jaunty. Rhys takes my hand and spins me, then pulls me in close. He lifts my chin with his fingers and kisses me, soft at first and then firm, opening my mouth with his, touching his tongue to mine.
We tangle around each other, his arms around me, hands at my hips and back and chest and neck. We kiss, kiss, kiss.
He pulls me down on to the bed and my heart is going, hummingbird-like, in my chest. There is no need to talk; our bodies are having a conversation of their own. Is this what it’s like for everyone? Do all couples know each other’s movements like this?
Rhys pulls away from me slightly to look into my eyes. His face is suddenly shy. He takes my hand, currently at his chest, squeezes it into a fist and moves it gently in an up and down motion. Yes? he is asking me. Yes?
I nod – yes – slowly first, then faster. Wait. I put my hand up suddenly and he retreats immediately. I touch his wrist – it’s OK – and then say out loud, ‘I am not losing my virginity to Hall and Oates.’
Rhys smiles and raises his hands, palm up, rolling his eyes sweetly as he does. I scramble for the laptop and turn off Hall and Oates. I’m about to turn back to him with the music off, but then something occurs to me. We might not be able to share a musical memory, but that doesn’t stop me making one for myself. I can soundtrack this, just for me, if I want to. A secret for myself.
With this thought in my mind, I glance back at Rhys. I realize I don’t know the BSL for ‘condom’, so I fingerspell the word instead.
For a second he just looks at me, then starts to laugh. Very romantic.
I’m suddenly worried. Do you have one?
He grins. Yes.
I flap my hands at him. Go on, then.
Rhys takes my hands, grips them together in a four-handed fist, then kisses my knuckles. When he lets them go, he touches his fingers to my cheek, his eyes locked on mine. There is an entire conversation in these gestures and in his eyes. When he turns to scramble in his bag for a condom, my fluttering heart has calmed. This is me and Rhys. Rhys and me.
There isn’t time for a soul-searching hunt through Spotify to find the perfect losing-virginity-but-for-my-ears-only song, so I go for the first song I think of. Passenger. ‘Heart’s On Fire’. Because it is, and also because the lyrics about eyes and touch are so perfect for Rhys and me.
Everything about this moment is perfect. When he asks me if I’m ready, his eyes both nervous and excited, I mean it when I nod yes.
His touch is hesitant now, and I feel his nerves as we slide under the covers together, face to face. I kiss him to ground us both and he wraps his arms round me, pulling me close. Between kisses we shed our clothing, top to bottom, slowly at first and then faster. In no time at all we’re both down to our underwear and he is starting to ease down my knickers and oh my God has there ever been a more perfect moment in the history of moments and I’m going to have sex and it’s not going to be crap like everyone says the first time is and holy crap we’re naked and he’s getting on top of me and –
And then it all gets awkward very fast. Half leaning on me, Rhys pushes his hand down between us both and there’s some kind of sweaty fumble, then a judder. He half thrusts, half pokes his penis at my leg. I hear him grunt, then there’s another attempt at adjusting himself. I let out an involuntary ‘ow!’ when he puts his elbow on my hair, and am grateful he can’t hear me.
After another few awkward seconds I reach down, take hold of his penis and guide him. He breathes into my ear, drops a kiss on my neck, then raises himself on his arm so he can kiss me as he pushes his way in. The moment itself is not exactly painful but not exactly pleasurable either, and I’m glad he’s not looking at my face, because I can feel I’m screwing it up involuntarily. The whole thing is so much . . . realer than I was expecting, so much more physical. Maybe I’d always imagined sex as more like a dance or something, instead of this sweaty tangling of bodies and body parts that it actually is, and the reality is a sloppy, slightly anticlimactic surprise. I guess it takes time to –