The whole ordeal had taken exactly three minutes. I had waited fifteen years for this momentous occasion. I had been saving myself for the right man. My accomplice in crime was my brothers friend, as he was one year older than me, I expected him to be fully experienced in the art of love making.

In a hopeless attempt to salvage what remained of his manhood, he savaged my self-esteem on that ill-fated journey home afterwards.
“For fuck sake!” he spat.
“Haven’t you ever heard of foreplay?"
This remark only served to encourage my own sense of inadequacy, and self blame. Wowed by his use of complicated vocabulary, I searched my mind for a humorous retort.
“Sure, I’ve read all his books,”
It was a lame effort. Already my beau was engaging in the serious business of rolling a joint, large enough to wipe out armies.
The night in question fell two weeks before my sixteenth birthday. It seemed only fitting. After all, it was New Years Eve and Matt (abbreviation for Matthew) had presented me with a pre-birthday gift. A pair of dangly silver earrings sporting multi-coloured feathers, and a bottle of Tramp. The quintessential kit for an upwardly mobile amateur hippie of my description. The evening was off to a good start, despite the fact that Matt had arrived predictably two hours late.

I had borrowed a cheesecloth ankle length dress from my best friend. She had purchased it from an Indian Shop on trendy Grafton Street.
The fact that she was a blubbering 4ft nothing, equally as wide, and looked more like a St. Patrick’s Day float, did not deter her. However, perusing my own slender figure in the mirror, the dress was perfect. It was the ideal seventies sexual aid. Buttoned conveniently right down the front, any would be suitor, would be hard pressed not to manipulate the simple structure to his advantage. A few delicate flickering fingers could have it disrobed in one minute. I knew it took one minute because I did a dummy run twice, and timed it myself. My attire that evening was very important. With a spray of Tramp in all the right places, and my feathered friends jangling from my ears, I felt like a woman. Not at all, the fifteen year old girl that I was inside. I was in love with Matt and tonight was ‘the’ night. There was no doubt about it.
Earlier on in the pub that evening I was feeling queasy. Partly with excitement about what was to come, but more probably because of the six Bacardis and coke I had bravely poured down my throat. Matt & I linked little fingers under the table. I thought it was cute and I felt really happy.

The fact that Matt was mysteriously disappearing in to the toilet every five minutes did not diminish my enthusiasm. “The Sea view”, a dingy pub that boasted hideous 3D maroon coloured wallpaper, had only one saving grace.
It was conveniently situated 100 yards across from the seafront. Glasses clanked noisily, people laughed heartily; bad jokes were standard and vomiting compulsory. Swilling my Bacardi and coke around the glass like an expert wine taster, I watched the curious comings and goings.
Matt had disappeared again.
“What’s wrong with him,” I asked my friend Karen.
“Is he constipated?"
“Yeah, looks like it,” she laughed.
“Hey Mick,” she beckoned to the barman.
“ Do you serve laxatives?"
“Yeah, we serve anyone” came the tarty reply.
Matt returned looking sheepish and glassy eyed. He sat down beside me.
“Where were you?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Ah man, the van was giving me trouble,”

Not bad I thought, I had heard worse. (N.B. For those of you unaccustomed to seventies garb, ‘in’ words included man, cool, freaked, wrecked, spaced). The truth was that Matt and his cronies were making their ritual rounds of the local chemists, gathering prescribed bottles of cough medicine, none of them had a cough to speak of, and the prescriptions were forged. It was a cheap and effective drug at the time. Failing that, they were crossing the road to the seafront were most of our hash supply was dealt. The peeling green painted shelters came alive at night. Couples huddled inside them, making use of their over sized duffel coats to camouflage their adolescent groping. Dutch clogs, red and yellow, scraped the pavement in haste, as five and ten spots were discreetly negotiated. Gangs congregated along the Clontarf Road, and all the way down the causeway. This was New Years Eve. You were supposed to be drunk, at the least stoned, but preferably both.

I had had a crush on Matt, since I was 9 and a half. We had enjoyed a turbulent and ever changing relationship. Of course Matt wasn’t aware of the fact that we had been having this fictitious affair. Most of it had been created in my head.