Half public, half fuck-up
I used to play in a lot of bands and orchestras when I was younger. I've played at the Barbican and the Royal Albert Hall. We also went on tour occasionally. You know "this one time, at band camp"? It's not that far off, as fluffles can attest to.

This year, it was Germany we were going to. And it was my 16th birthday while we were out there. I was looking forward to using the Continent's delightful tolerance of highly underage drinking to get completely leathered, and if possible, score with a girl. I had my preferences but really almost any girl would do.

But of course, this being a trip for a large group of young persons, we didn't have individual rooms. Instead I had three other guys with me in a room consisting of two double beds. Some shag-fest this was going to be.

I can't remember exactly, but we were there for four nights, I think. First night we all stayed in our room. Second night there was a party in another room. I got talking to one of the girls who played clarinet - let's call her Laura (which is not her name).

We got on fairly well and laughed and blah blah blah basically we ended up staying in the same room, lying next to each other and in a pathetically teenage fashion she laid her head in the crook of my elbow. Not even the usual shoulder/armpit, but the elbow, as my arm lay by my side.

Okay, I thought, this might go somewhere.

And the next day was my birthday! Everyone was at the pub in the evening and I got a number of drinks bought for me, as well as cigarettes given to me, the teenage non-smoker who wanted to look cool.

Anyway, back at the hostel we ended up with about fifteen people in our room, laughing, drinking, smoking and eventually going to sleep.

Laura was with us again, but this time she was in the bed with me, and had moved up to the now-familiar armpit/shoulder crook. I should point out that there were at least two other people in the bed with us, possibly three, another four or five on the other bed the other side of the room, and perhaps another four or five on the floor.

As such, conversation in the room included the exclamations that "It's bloody hot in here, isn't it?" "Open the window someone" and "No shagging, it's too hot in here already".

To which Laura whispered in my ear "Oh well cypherspace..." rendering me rock hard in an instant.

As soon as the lights went out she moved to find my lips, and started kissing me... quite passionately, shall we say. The rest of the room was fairly silent save the odd quip, for example "There's some heavy breathing going on over there..."

Events confined themselves to the top half of each other's bodies, but nevertheless, it was the furthest I'd been with a girl and a pretty good birthday present. And we were quite discreet. I don't think anyone knew we'd gone any further than kissing.

The next day, the last night, we arranged to meet in my room during the evening. There was another party in another room, which I attended but then disappeared halfway through. I met Laura and we went to my room, which was now empty. There was a spare key in case of emergencies in the corridor so I took that as well as my own key, locked the door from the inside and put the key in the lock. Now, we were to be undisturbed.

Things soon got a lot more busy than they had the previous night. Laura said she didn't want to have sex, which I was okay with (I didn't have a condom anyway), but I got through a lot of firsts that night. However, halfway through we were interrupted by a knock at the door - to which we immediately ceased all activities and went deathly silent. Which wasn't suspicious at all.

"Hello?" called my roommate Simon.
"Er....hello!"
"...cyph?"
"Yep, what's up?"
"..is Laura in there?"

"Are you here?" I asked her in a whisper. She shook her head.

"No!" I called out, thinking nothing of the suspicious, several-second delay between question and answer.

"...so why is the door locked?"
"Er...."
"Are you having a wank?"

Fuck. Trapped.

"No! I'll, er, be out in a second."
"...okay...."

We got dressed hurriedly. I opened the door and peeked out of the room. Simon was nowhere to be seen. We walked down the corridor and hustled Laura into her room. I carried on to find Simon at the top of the stairs along with my other roommates.

"So... Laura wasn't with you then?"
"No!"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes! Why are you so sure she was with me?!"

"Well... you've got your shirt on inside-out."

I looked down.

I looked up.

"Fuck."
(cypherspace is not a toaster, Fri 24 Apr 2009, 12:01, Reply)