Popping the Cherry Read Online Free

said to no one in particular. ‘What happened to saving yourself? Waiting for the right person?’
    ‘Saving yourself? This isn’t the 1950s. All you’re doing is missing out on something fun. No guy expects you to be a virgin on your wedding day these days, so you might as well get it over with.’
    ‘Get it over with? Jeez, Gemma, you make it sound like going for an injection?’
    ‘Let’s just hope it’s more than a little prick when the time comes, then, eh?’ she said, waggling her eyebrows up and down. Her quick-witted innuendo earned a chorus of giggles. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of making me smile but—damn it—the corners of my lips were curving up whether I wanted them to or not.
    ‘Touché,’ I said, giving up the fight. ‘That was a good one, even for you.’
    ‘I am rather proud of it.’
    ‘But isn’t the first time supposed to be special?’ I asked.
    ‘I wish,’ Chloe muttered.
    ‘My first time was over in thirty seconds flat,’ Flick said. ‘He barely got it in there in time. Talk about an anticlimax.’
    ‘I hate to break it to you, but it’s really not all it’s cracked up to be,’ Gemma said, yet I knew for a fact Ben had been her first. Even Piper sighed. ‘It gets better, though,’ Gemma said brightly. ‘It’s a bit like kissing, I guess.’
    ‘Kissing? Yeah, right.’
    ‘No, really,’ she said, sitting more upright to plead her case. ‘Nobody is a great kisser at the first attempt. You might accidentally bump teeth, or the guy might try to suffocate you by covering your nose as well as your mouth. And sometimes he might shove his tongue too far down your throat until you gag and—’
    ‘Ugh, yeah.’ The memory of my first ‘proper’ French kiss still had the power to make me shudder. ‘Been there, done that.’
    ‘It just takes practice, you know, until you get the hang of it.’ It might not be want I wanted to hear but Gemma was making sense even if it went against every romantic notion I’d ever harboured.
    ‘I think I see what you mean,’ I conceded. ‘So you’ve all had … I’m the only …’ I squirmed, too embarrassed to say the words. I’d already gathered Gemma, Flick and Chloe had done … it … but then Piper nodded, too. I spun in my chair to face her, unable to mask my surprise. ‘Even you?’
    ‘Yes, Lena, even me,’ she said, lifting her chin and meeting my stare, her eyes brimming with defiance.
    ‘Jeez.’ I was in the minority again.
    ‘Oh, come on. Is it really such a surprise?’ she asked.
    ‘
Yes!
‘ I wanted to yell. If I’d had to put money on anyone else still being a virgin, it would have been Piper, the oh-so-shy girl who always had her nose stuck in a book. ‘No, I guess not,’ I lied, seeing Piper in a whole new light. ‘I guess that makes me the odd one out, then,’ I said, forcing out a feeble laugh.
    Nobody spoke. It was as if they could sense the battle raging inside my head. Up until that moment, I’d never considered myself to be naïve, nor did I think I was a prude, but now I had to wonder. Operation: Popping the Cherry went against everything I’d been brought up to believe, but my closest friends made it sound as if I’d been fed a load of old-fashioned nonsense.
    We couldn’t all be right, so which of us was wrong?
    A girl laughed at the next table but one from us, disturbing my thoughts. I couldn’t help peeking at her out of the corner of my eye, watching her from beneath my lowered eyelashes. She was sitting with a guy from Upper Sixth, holding hands, and their heads bent together. I didn’t know either of them, except in passing, but any fool could see how happy they were. The guy was hanging onto her every word, and, when he leaned in to plant a tender kiss on her cheek, a pang of jealousy zipped through my veins.
    A sense of longing hit me so hard, my heart physically ached inside my chest. I dragged my gaze away before they made me cry, and my focus immediately zoomed in