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By Root 311 0

plan of seduction. ‘Let’s follow them,’ Sam suggested. And follow them we did, for about twenty minutes, round and round the village. When they stopped, we stopped. When they continued to walk, so did we. We wanted to be cads but were acting more like private investigators. The problem was that we didn’t really have a plan beyond ‘Let’s follow them.’ The two girls then turned and started walking towards us. It seemed like the ‘Let’s follow them’ strategy had worked after all. Sam and I frantically styled our hair as the girls approached. They were surprisingly attractive.

‘Bingo,’ I whispered to Sam.

The girls halted in front of us and with thick Liverpudlian accents screeched the unforgettable, ‘Why the fuck do you think you’re following us, you little turds?’

Sam and I had no answer and apologized. ‘We’re awfully sorry,’ we muttered and went home. That was as close as we came to pulling.

Within months, however, I was to experience my first kiss. Doesn’t that sound romantic? ‘My first kiss.’ Well, it wasn’t. Sam invited me to a Summer Ball frequented by upper-class-toff teens. It was held at the Hammersmith Palais in London. If you’ve ever flicked through the pages of Tatler magazine and seen the party photos towards the back, you’ll know the sort of people who were there. ‘Horsey’ doesn’t come close to describing them. Something happens to your mouth when you speak too posh; it becomes slightly misshapen as if in a constant state of preparation to say something along the lines of, ‘Er hillar, jolly good.’

All the Hooray-Henry boys were dressed in black tie, probably in suits passed down through generations of gentry. All the girls were in figure-hugging little black dresses and had names like Arabella shortened to ‘Bells’ or Pippa shortened to ‘Pips’. The object of the ball was to use your odd-shaped posh mouth to ‘snog’ as many other odd-shaped posh mouths as you could. My mum hired me a suit from Moss Bros and a clip-on bow tie, and I went with Sam and four other cologned young men.

We were dropped off by our parents. ‘Have a good time. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,’ they hollered, as we disappeared inside clutching our phenomenally expensive tickets. I was nervous and self-conscious. Was tonight the night I would meet the girl of my dreams?

I will never forget the sight that met me when I adjusted my eyes to the Hammersmith Palais lighting. Literally hundreds of under-age upper-class kids with their faces stuck together, ‘getting off’ with each other. Wow. Maybe it had something to do with them rebelling against their suppressed stiff-upper-lipped lifestyle. Maybe they were just making the most of it until they were carted back to their single-sexed boarding schools. Whatever the explanation my immediate thought was, ‘Surely I’m going to pull tonight.’

I turned to express my optimism to Sam only to find him with his tongue already down someone’s throat. My other friends also ploughed straight in, mouths open and latching on to whoever was nearest. There are very few things in life as embarrassing as standing next to a kissing couple, so I wandered on to the dance floor and danced, for some time, on my own. Just as I was mid-twist to Chubby Checker’s ‘The Twist’, I saw Sam and another friend, Alex. ‘Hey,’ I shouted over the music, ‘how’s it going?’

‘Forty-six,’ said Alex.

‘Fifty-two,’ said Sam.

‘What? What are you talking about? Fifty-two what?’ I genuinely enquired.

‘Girls!’ they said in unison, now both twisting too.

‘You’ve snogged forty-six and fifty-two girls tonight?’ I asked, amazed.

‘Yeah,’ said Sam.

‘Forty-seven!’ said Alex coming up for air from his latest conquest on the dance floor.

‘How many have you snogged, Michael?’ asked Sam.

‘None,’ I admitted. ‘How do you do it? What do you say? Do you say anything? Shall I just start licking someone’s face? Help me.’

Sam explained that all he was doing was approaching girls and asking whether they wanted to go and sit down. This was code for ‘snog’. They would then take a seat together and he would rack up another digit on his tally.

‘Go for