I hadn't seen Amy in over ten years. It was early morning when I heard a knock on my doorstep, and there she stood. She waved sheepishly, pushing a lock of her yellow hair behind one ear, and staring down hard at the door frame. She squirmed, dancing her nerves away.

'Hi,' she half-smiled. I stood there, dumb, in my pyjama bottoms and top.

'Been a while,' she whispered. And we stood like that for a little while longer, waiting for me to quite get my head around who this was. The appearance of her bringing to mind memories I had long since come to terms with, but were raw at the very image of her.

'Amy,' I stuttered.

She was wearing a plain blouse and denim shorts, slip on shoes and a nose ring. We were approaching thirty, her face was too old for a nose ring. She also had, squatting behind her legs, as though surreptitiously trying to hide, a duffel bag that looked more full than empty.

*

The liquor had done it's job. I was in a stranger's flat with a girl as equally drunk as I was. I couldn't work out if she was attractive or if it was just the alcohol convincing me so. She was naked. I could hear the rustling of her clothes as she abandoned them. The dim silhouette of her like a shadow in the dark room. Her naked form pale, white and orange, glowing under the light of a street lamp outside. She crossed the room to me and our mouths met. She tasted of old cigarettes and cheap beer. I could feel her tugging at the waistband of my jeans. I had my hands on her waist, I could feel her bare skin, cool to the touch and inviting. She was fiddling with my shirt, pulling it away, but the wrong way and it wouldn't come off. It couldn't.

* She used to sit in the corner at the front of the class closest to the window. In summer the sun would shine on her, turning her yellow hair gold. In ten minutes she will turn around and she will catch me staring at her. Her brows will furrow first in confusion, then in anger. I will not look away for another few seconds. My heart beating against the shirt of my school uniform, I stared at the carving on my desk, a crude curse word jabbed into the wood by a compass. I scratch my arm awkwardly.

* I'm 15 years old and I'm naked. I'm under the blankets with a girl who is doing her best to ignore my erection, but her discomfort shows in the articles of clothing she has not removed. I want to kiss her, I want to lose my virginity. But I am scared of being too forward, of scaring her off. In minutes she will have removed her clothes, and will look up at me with her dark eyes and blush. She grabs my hand and pushes it gently just below her stomach. I move my hand slowly, and she let's go of it. I brush through a short tangle of wiry pubic hair, to the soft flesh between her legs. She shivers. * I'm in a tattoo parlour, nervously sitting in an empty waiting room listening to the ceaseless buzzing of a needle. From around a corner steps a heavily tattooed man with a greying goatee, a curling moustache and a piercing on his bottom lip. He shows me the design he has drawn up, and I nod approvingly. He invites me into the parlour where he has set up the gun and the ink and the cream. He sits me in a chair and explains to me about the transfer. I place my forearm on the curling arm of the chair for him to apply it. He looks up at me, his eyes white, his brows raised. His professionalism slips for a second and he whispers 'ah fuck, man.'