I was eighteen. I was invincible, or at least thought I was. I had my first taste of sex shortly before my eighteenth birthday, and since then had gone a little off the rails. I could not seem to get enough. I would leave my parents house with a wave some evenings, and not make it back for two or three weeks. Eventually the parents gave up trying to control me, and just let me get on with it.
I would spend most evenings at a hilltop picnic area, where many of the local youth would gather to compare cars, drink, get high, get rowdy, and just generally hang out. I would find myself a likely candidate for the evening, and either sleep in their car, or go home with them. I showered in their houses, borrowed clothes to wear, anything I could do to prolong my absence from home.
Everyone seemed to know everyone else there. There were friends, friends of friends, people who had been around the neighbourhood my whole life, and the occasional newcomer who would quickly fit in with the crowd. I even had regular 'go-to guys', if no other prospect presented itself during an evening there were a few guys I knew I could just jump into the car of, and would be looked after.
The guy I had lost my virginity to also frequented the same place. He was always good to me, always looking out for me, and warning other guys what would happen to them if they didn't take care of me. The friend he spent most time with had grown up on the same estate as I had, and had always been at odds with my older brother over something or another. My brother and this guy, G, had grown up together, and were considered the toughest lads around, nobody ever really knowing who was the toughest of them both. He too looked out for me, in a strange kind of way. I think partly because I was a girl from his locality, so it felt territorial, partly because of who my brother was, and they had this bizarre mutual respect thing going on, and partly because he had introduced me to the guy who had taken my virginity and together they both policed my acquaintances a little.
If an evening came along where I failed to find somewhere else to sleep, or felt it was time I showed my face at home so my parents didn't think I was dead, G would often take me home, drop me off outside and make sure I walked inside safely. We would flirt a little, nothing outrageous, perhaps a little play fighting here and there. He had been there when I had first visited a local nightclub with a friend, when I was fifteen. He made this really elaborate, over the top, request to dance with me, and waltzed me round the dancefloor, completely out of time with any music playing, pulling the most ridiculous moves, then hovered around all night, warding off anyone trying to talk to me with mean glares. I got a lecture from him for being in the town's most notorious nightclub at my age.
There was an accepted race circuit throughout the town, starting in the car park on the hill, driving down one side of the island, along the seafront, and back up the other side to return to the hill. When people got bored, they would often challenge each other to race laps. Half the fun of these was trying to evade the police, who were always on the look out. Each lap took around forty minutes to complete, if there was a decent driver with a decent car.
