Virgin(9)

I realized I had to sort out my bush immediately because if I ever met another guy—or, more likely, got run over and had to wear an operating gown in hospital—I would be a laughingstock the minute they took my pants down.

I began my task right away. I ran a bath, and with grim determination climbed into it, brandishing my pink Venus razor. Shaving cream was too expensive to bother with, so I took a deep breath and reached for the shower gel. It was empty. Typical.

There was a bottle of shampoo and conditioner on the side. Conditioner was basically the same as shower gel, right? I figured it would be fine and slathered it all over my pubes. Then, without really knowing what I was doing, I started to shave the triangle area. My never-cut pubic hairs immediately got tangled in the razor and it started yanking them painfully. I persevered for twenty minutes before I realized I should have trimmed them to start with. I grabbed some nail scissors and started.

I finished snipping away with the scissors and went back to the razor. This time it was much easier, and the hairs disappeared. It got trickier around the more delicate areas, where I tried to pull the skin taut for a cleaner shave. When I got to the lips, I was navigating in total confusion. I was so terrified of cutting something important that I just left all the hairs on the side of the clitoris. I rubbed around with my hand to check if there were any other obvious patches I’d missed, but I couldn’t find any.

Until I headed down south and realized with horror there was a line of hair going up to my anus. I had no idea if you were meant to get rid of this bit too, but I figured I may as well finish what I’d started. I held my bum cheeks wide open and leaned forward in the water, wishing I hadn’t put so much bubble bath in. I held my breath, carefully shaving upwards. It was hard to keep the razor close to the skin but I managed to get most of it off. I swapped sides and then breathed out in relief. I felt like I’d just had a grueling Pilates class.

I was about to climb out of the bath into the comfort of my dressing gown when I remembered Lara saying the lips were the one area where boys didn’t want hairs in case they went down on you. There weren’t exactly any boys queuing up to go down on me—but then, I reasoned, they wouldn’t if it got around that I had a hairy vagina. With a resigned sigh, I pulled the lips apart as far as I could and found the hairs growing only a few millimeters away from the clitoris.

Picking up my razor again, I slowly started steering it around the delicate parts, wishing I had invested in a special bikini razor.

Then I screamed. I had cut it. I had actually cut my clitoris.

I grabbed the showerhead and turned the cold water on max. It numbed my vagina, and gradually my cries turned into self-pitying whimpers. I had another peek at it and it looked okay. It was only a tiny nick. I thanked God that I hadn’t accidentally lopped the whole thing off. I got out of the bath and dried myself gently before limping off to bed.

By the next day, I’d forgotten about the cutting incident. It seemed to have miraculously healed and I spent the entire morning feeling deliciously smooth. I even spent a full twenty minutes admiring my naked body in front of the mirror. The mass of hair that had used to terrify me and make me feel anything but sexy was gone. Post-shave I felt like a New Woman.

A few hours later, everything changed. I sat on the loo to pee and screamed in agony. The urine was trickling against my cut and it was more painful than anything I had ever experienced. I couldn’t pee without crying. I was fucked.

The only option was to dehydrate myself and not pee. I wandered around school for the next couple of days in a state of misery. Dante’s seventh circle of hell had nothing on my life post-shave. I was thirsty and faint and had to stop wearing mascara because I cried so much every time I peed.

On top of that, the hairs had already started to grow back as stubble. It was itchy as hell and I couldn’t stop scratching. I had to hide in corners in public to scratch my vagina, and I winced whenever the outer lips rubbed together. In the mirror, it looked as hideous as it felt. The stubble made my poor lady bits look like a middle-aged man’s beard.

It took four days for the cut to heal and I spent every evening writing I hate my life all over my diary in five different felt-tips. Eventually, I worked up the courage to tell Lara exactly what had happened and she laughed so much she cried.

When I mentioned it again four years later, she was still laughing.

“Oh my God, I totally forgot that,” she sniggered.

“It wasn’t funny,” I snapped. “It was agony and I’m never letting a razor go anywhere near my vag again.” I paused. “So what do I do instead?”