Impossibly long legs, flowing red hair, dark glasses, in a tantalizingly short white dress that clung to the contours of her body. She’d walked over, introduced herself, bummed a cigarette, then sat and flirted with them all, asking their names. Each had done their best to chat her up, before she’d left, striding away and blowing a kiss, then giving a coy wave of her hand.

At him, he was certain.

‘You’re in there, Marcus!’ one of his friends had said. ‘She liked you – dunno why she’d like a spotty fatso like you.’

‘She was probably blind – that’s why she wore those glasses!’ said another.

Ignoring the comments and jeers, Marcus stood up and hurried after her. She gave him an inviting sideways glance and stopped. And right there, in full sight of his now incredulous – and incredibly jealous – friends, had snogged him, long and hard.

They’d met three times over the next few days, very briefly, just a short conversation then a deep French kiss each time. Nothing else as she always had to rush off. Marcus was becoming crazy for her.

‘When can I see you again?’ he’d blurted on the third meeting, barely able to believe his luck.

‘Same time, same place, tomorrow?’ she’d replied. ‘Without your mates?’

Marcus had barely slept all night, thinking about her. At 3 p.m. the following afternoon, half an hour before she was due, having ducked out of a cross-country run, he’d positioned himself behind the bushes. She’d arrived on the dot and he signalled her over, standing up to meet her.

This time they’d kissed instantly, before they’d spoken a word. To his astonishment she’d slid her hand down inside the front of his shorts and gripped his penis.

Smiling into his eyes, and working her hand up and down, she’d said, ‘Wow, you’re big, do you think it would fit me?’

He was gasping, unable to speak, and seconds later he came.

‘Nice?’ she asked, still gripping him.

‘Oh my God!’

She looked into his eyes again. ‘Let’s do it properly. Next Saturday, same time?’

‘Next Saturday.’ He couldn’t wait to tell all his friends. But equally he didn’t want them spying on him. ‘Next Saturday, yes, definitely!’

‘Bring some rubbers.’

‘Rubbers?’

‘Protection.’

It had taken him most of the rest of the week, during which again he’d barely slept, to pluck up the courage to go along to the local town, which was little more than a large village, enter the chemist and ask for a packet of Durex. He’d been served, his face burning, by a girl only a few years older than himself, while he looked furtively around in case there were any teachers from his school in there.