I stood in the doorway of the shabby ground floor apartment, aghast – firstly at the stack of clear packages in the bathroom which contained an illegal white powder – then at the naked Mediterranean man reclining on the bed, beckoning me to join him.

It was the very early 1990s, I had only just turned 18 and had led a relatively sheltered life up until now. But here I was, on my first holiday abroad to a Spanish island (I am being deliberately vague on location to protect the ‘innocent’) with three friends, whom I now suspect only invited me along for amusement value and to make up numbers, rather than a genuine desire for my oddball company (I was rather an eccentric teenager). What should have been a fun-filled riot of a trip had taken an unexpected turn and I had ended up in the apartment of a coke-dealing/snorting Spanish barman who thought he could shag me in his break.

I suppose being 18, extremely naïve, drunk in his bar every night and flirting outrageously didn’t help my cause. I had even had what is nowadays referred to as a ‘wardrobe malfunction’ one night, in which the strap of my dress had snapped and left one of my boobs hanging out. I had been so drunk on cheap beer that I didn’t notice until the end of the night when my ‘mates’, and some guys they befriended, finally pointed it out after sniggering at me all evening.

On another occasion I was in such a state that I was either vomiting in the street or sitting flopped over with my head between my knees for the whole night. When we returned to our apartment my ever-so-kind-and-caring chums thought it was a good plan to spray me fully dressed with a cold shower.

Back to the barman: He convinced me that he really liked me and I swallowed every cliché and false compliment. Then one night he suggested I hung about until closing time when he would take me to his apartment.

He had whipped his clothes off while I used his loo/coke store. I was a virgin and he was only the second fully naked man I had ever seen (my first was my granddad when I was staying at their house as a toddler and decided to go for a wander in the early hours. I bumped into him coming out of the bathroom. I don’t know who was more shocked – me or him – but to this day the image has never left my memory). I had seen penises, supplying a few blowjobs, as I wasn’t in a rush to lose my virginity and thought this would appease them for a bit. But I hadn’t really seen the full picture and how it all fitted together. What I couldn’t take my eyes off was the piercing he had at the top end of his penis – what many refer to as a ‘Prince Albert’. The little gold ring seemed to wink at me as he pulled his substantial willy about in an attempt to lure me in. He even said it ‘made sex better’.

While the effect of the large glistening bell end had the appeal of a bowl of chocolate whispering the words ‘eat me’ a feeling of discomfort had already started to grow in me, like an aggressive weed. Despite my dizzy beer head, everything suddenly felt wrong and this was not how I wanted to lose my virginity – to a creepy, serial shagging drug addict barman – all his exotic appeal and handsome looks had suddenly faded. Even his ability to toss and spin bottles with the skill of Tom Cruise in ‘Cocktail’ now seemed like some crude circus act. The more supportive of my three ‘friends’ had also agreed to wait outside for me, so I grabbed my bag, dashed out and we flagged down a taxi.

*If you read my first ever post you will recall my assertion that what appears here is part truth, part embellishment, so while some of this is true, some is not – just don’t expect me to specify which is which…