Yannick Horik was the first boy to ever kiss her. He was German, they were five and preschooler romances were a serious thing. But her first “real” kiss didn’t come until high school – that kiss had involved tongue and a guy named Fredrick Basinger. He was a whole year older, and even though it had been a schoolyard dare and the kiss had only lasted a giddy heartbeat, her prepubescent journey had begun.

Up next was Ryan Sojrick. She’d let him slide his hand up under her bra as they’d snogged behind the demountable during lunch break. His fingers shook as they’d crept up her abdomen and found her bare breast. It wasn’t until he’d slid his clammy hand toward her skirt that she’d realised this wasn’t going to work.

Thomas James had followed. She’d let him finger her at Kayla Risottie’s seventeenth. She’d lain there, in a daze of alcohol and pingers, as he’d attempted to pleasure her. It hadn’t really hurt, not in the way that the other girls had eluded to, it was more uncomfortable and, perhaps, a tad boring.

Then came Mr H, her history teacher. She’d called him Simon and he’d called her his little secret. He said her breasts were soft, unlike his wife’s, and that her skin tasted of vanilla frosting. When he was inside her, she felt nothing, even though she’d told him he made her feel complete. Perhaps it was the lavish gifts he bought her, or the adrenaline rush of secrecy, that kept her around for so long.

It all ended with Scott Roach. They were rushed into marriage at eighteen, his child in her womb. Neither of them had a choice, their mothers were both catholic, you see. Scott, like all the other men, did not excite her either. So, when she found him in the arms of another woman before their baby had even begun to walk, she’d heaved a sigh of relief.