I had to canvas my uni friends today to establish what was in my Fresher’s pack. I can remember the good bits (two condoms: one ribbed, one extra strong, a sachet of lube, teabags) but the rest is hazy. Depending on who you ask, there may or may not also have been: a map, a packet of microwaveable pasta in Dolmio sauce, a pen, and a NatWest rubber in the shape of a pig.

I have no idea what happened to the contents of mine, but I do know what happened to Mark’s.

Ah, Mark.

I went to a friend’s birthday drinks the other night. A mutual friend and I ended up talking about which of us he’d met first: me or her.

‘You,’ he said. ‘You thought I was smiling at you but actually I was laughing because I knew you’d fucked Mark.’

That perhaps implies that the sex was legendary. It was, I guess, but for all the wrong reasons.

Mark was Northern, blond, short and cocky as fuck. He was the reason Pulp’s ‘Common People’ became ‘my song,’ and, the night I fucked him, he was drunk. And stoned. And unable to stay hard.

He was the second guy I’d ever slept with. We went back to his room, where he put on some music, dutifully rolled on his free condom and slid inside me.

He managed perhaps two thrusts before he lost his erection. We kissed a bit, I stroked his cock, we tried again.

The second attempt was a bit better, with the emphasis on a bit. A bit better, that is, until his Irish friend started hammering on the door and shouting ‘Fuck me, oh Mark, oh fuck me, harder, harder, please, harder.’ Uni walls are thin, and sound travels: my friends were on the other side of the wall.

Was it the worst sex I’ve ever had? Sure.

And yet, weirdly, the memory of it still makes me smile.