I changed it to the St Mary’s Feminist Club – a name which is slightly more palatable to our priestly overlords – but the school has remained suspicious of the club. Maybe that’s why we’re forced to meet in this arts building basement room with leaky pipes and suspicious black mold all along the ceiling that will probably lead to a big lawsuit in ten years when we all get miner’s lung.

And maybe that’s why we only have six members. There’s me; there’s Mary Kate, who only joined because I told her she could write she was vice-president on her college applications; Robbie Schmidt, a baby-faced sophomore who thought joining a female-centered club would mean he finally got to see a bra strap; Claudia Rosas-Fernandez, a self-absorbed senior whose mother is some hotshot ambassador at the UN in New York; and Sarah and Sophia, giggly sophomore girls I can’t tell apart.

Oh – plus our faculty advisor.

‘And, of course, welcome back to Sister Georgina!’ I added hastily, extending my hand towards the far end of the table where a wizened old nun in a full habit sat under a dripping pipe. Her glasses were so thick it was hard to tell if her eyes were open or closed.

At the time I was founding SADIST, I was working off detention hours as a reading volunteer at the convent by the lake. That’s where I found Sister Georgina – half deaf, semi-narcoleptic, and totally unruffled when I read those really racy passages in the Song of Solomon out loud to her. I knew all school clubs needed a faculty advisor and she was perfect.

‘I have come up with a fantastic project for us this semester,’ I continued. ‘Something new. Something bold. Something artistic and daring.’

The faces around the table were watching me intently – except for Sister Georgina, who may have been asleep. Mary Kate looked suspicious.

‘We are going to put on the first-ever St Mary’s Catholic School production of The Vagina Monologues!’

I pulled my well-worn copy of the play out of my backpack and slapped it down on the table. The battered pink paperback was dog-eared and underlined; I’d bought it when I was twelve years old, in a second-hand bookshop in San Francisco. It still smelled like the crushed joint I’d found between the pages. But that was only part of why I’d fallen in love with the play. It was brave, it was revolutionary, it was feminist and funny and original – a masterpiece.

It was also – still – as controversial as hell. The Vagina Monologues was everything St Mary’s hated. Which is why most of the people in this room had never heard of it. Sarah and Sophia were looking at each other in confusion, and finally one of them spoke up: ‘The WHAT monologues?’

‘The Vagina Monologues,’ I repeated. ‘Here, pass the book around. Everyone look at it.’