I did think about it.

I agreed to go out on a date with Pete.

He was funny and gentlemanly.

But I made it clear that nothing sexual was ever going to happen between us. So, we simply dated. At the end of each date, we would have the odd snog and cuddles, but that was all.

I still wasn't ready to go all the way with anyone. I was simply having a little fun with being the new and improved Mary Rose.

While I was having some carefree fun, it was about this time that I decided to do something about my spots. While everything else was going right, my skin was still wrong. So bravely, I went to the doctors, who said they could put me on Dianette for a couple of years, to significantly help my skin.

It did.

God, it truly did.

The results were amazing!

Amazing and liberating!

The joy of having no acne on my back and chest, was a wonderful thing to have felt. The freedom it gave to me, was just as wonderful.

I could wear what I liked.

My body, wasn't being covered up.

At seventeen, I finally had the skin that I longed to have.

And yet, I didn't want a man to see the gloriousness of my skin. It was mine, for my eyes only. I was happy to kiss and to cuddle, but emotionally I still wasn't ready for sex.

Pete and I, would eventually come to a very abrupt end, though. He was friends with a lad who I used to go to school with, and one night, he invited both myself and this lad to his house before we were all to go out. I had no clue of what I was leading myself into. No clue whatsoever. I was just happy that Pete was finally inviting me to his home, for he had not ever invited me before. All of our dates, had been at restaurants, pubs, at my mum's or in the car.

"Come in! Come in!" Pete had greeted both myself and Tom at the front door of his semi-detached house. As he showed us into his living room, there was a smiling woman in there, as well. "This is Tom and this is Mary Rose." He quickly introduced us. "This is my wife."

The room instantly became smaller and smaller. The word wife just froze me to the spot. I know I had looked at Tom, silently begging for him to just please explain to me what the hell was going on. His eyes looked sorry, more than sorry. All I could do, was smile at Pete's wife and play along with the game that he was so cruelly playing.

From what I could gather, he had told his wife that myself and Tom were a couple, and that he was simply joining us both to a club in town.

The inner humiliation I felt, grew by the second.

My inner anger, that grew by the nanosecond.

When we got to the club, I still hadn't said one word to Pete. I was too disgusted with him to even want to breathe in the same air as him. "I'm sorry. I just didn't know how to tell you. At least let me buy you a drink?"

I refused Pete's offer a drink. No bloody drink was going to make his betrayal alright.

He had betrayed me.

Betrayed his wife.

When he sat back down with a full pint in his hand, I watched as he placed it down on the table in front of him, while he was chatting away with Tom.

I just saw red.

My anger, it had finally broke free.

Calmly, I had picked up his full pint of lager, then slowly proceeded to pour it all over his head. I watched it with great satisfaction, as it soaked his skin and his nice and clean black shirt—all of it was now drenched with my unsaid anger and humiliation.

Pete didn't even move. Not even while Tom watched with an open mouth, did he respond to my calm retaliation. He just took it. It was the very least he could do.

Then without saying a word, I put the empty pint glass back down on the table, then walked away from Pete and his lies.

The self-loathing Mary Rose, she might have put up with his deceit and his games, but the new Mary Rose, she wasn't going to put up with any of it.

I was learning to want only the things and the people who made me happy. Pete, was a liar and a cheat. That wouldn't make me happy. So, it was very easy to walk away from him.

After that night, he bombarded me with telephone calls and flowers, but my heart was a heart who wouldn't suffer fools easily, and Pete, he was a prize fool. What he did, was a really shitty thing to do.

That was to be the end of one brief relationship, which would eventually pave the way for another. But this brief relationship would be very different. This one, it would take my virginity.