At the onset of young adult life, we each seem to have a lapse in judgment and make some questionable decisions. We drink too much alcohol, wake up next to the wrong person, get swayed by peer pressure, ignore parental advice and often do the exact opposite. We might be having fun, living life the way we want to, but deep down we know it can’t last forever. Lexie was no different from any other eighteen year old. The year after graduating from school, she decided to travel the world, making some interesting choices that led to the onset of her sexual awakening.
Standing 5’8″ with shoulder-length, scraggly blonde hair and an athletic mesomorphic build, Lexie was not stereotypically pretty. Her grey eyes could not be described as piercing, nor her demeanor ladylike, but there was a certain je ne sais quoi about her. She was open and honest, spoke her mind and was fiercely stubborn. Lexie was curious and eager to learn, open to new experiences and always wondering what lay ahead. It was one of the factors that led to her decision to travel the world alone at eighteen.
Lexie was a virgin before she decided to go travelling. She was a good girl, always doing what she was told, and very loyal to her friends. She lived life by the rules set by parents and teachers, preferring to obey than rebel – it was easier to get along than have to fight for your stance. Every decision she had made since she entered adolescence had been a battle with her Dad, and she was tired of fighting for what she believed in.
When she was 16, she decided that she would take a year out after finishing school to travel. Lexie wanted to see the world, to experience new cultures, to find out who she was as a person and to gain her independence. She had grown up in an environment where academia was encouraged and social relationships discouraged. Despite her bookish tendencies, she was anything but naïve and Lexie’s mind liked to process and embellish the relationships and their accompanying dramas she saw unfold around her.
She struggled through the last 2 years of school, ignorant of the advances of male attention due to her focus on her studies. Lexie worked hard, finishing school with a place at university, and enough money to go on her trip that winter. However, she also finished school without ever having a boyfriend, and with a very low perception of her self-worth due to the ever-present battles with her father and perceived lack of male attention. She had experienced plenty of life through her friends’ relationships but was ready to experience it herself.
As her winter departure date neared, Lexie began packing her bags for what she knew would be the adventure of her lifetime. There were so many choices for clothing, and she felt excited at the prospect of living the next year in bikinis and flip-flops. Her entire life was going to fit into one 50L backpack and a carry-on bag! She was going to meet a whole host of new people, with their own exciting stories to tell. There was no apprehension, only excitement at the realm of possibilities awaiting her in Singapore, Australia and beyond.
Lexie did not question her decision to go until she had said goodbye to her parents at the airport. Walking around Heathrow, worst-case scenarios kept materializing in her mind. They ranged from pirates, hostages and terrorists to natural disasters and not making any friends. The one that was most dominant in her mind was being taken advantage of sexually. She knew logically that the chances of that happening were very low in the countries she was visiting, provided she took precautions, but she also didn’t want to lose her virginity unwillingly. She tried to ignore the thought and look forward to beginning her 8 months of independence by distracting herself with a beautiful pair of sparkling shoes. Airport shopping really did make her feel better.
After an eleven-hour flight, Lexie stepped foot in Singapore – the first stop on her trip. She stepped out of the airport into a sweltering heat and humidity – it felt like she was walking into a steam room. She looked for the prearranged air-conditioned bus that would take her to that night’s accommodation but couldn’t see it anywhere. She had also managed to separate herself from the standard crowd of tourists, realizing that she must have taken a wrong turn. Starting to panic, Lexie checked her travel notes to see if there was any extra information to help her. Looking for a sign to get back to the main thoroughfare, she realized she was on the service level of the car park, which explained the sleazy looks she was receiving from some of the male workers. Rectifying her mistake, she went up a level to the tourist car park and Lexie was relieved to see the bus directly opposite the exit, waiting for her.
Arriving outside the hostel she would be staying at that evening, Lexie paid the driver and stepped out of the air-conditioned bus. She could immediately feel her navy singlet sticking to her back as she made the short hop into the reception area. The hostel antalya escort looked slightly run down, with shabby-chic décor and a large open-plan common area on the entry level. The walls were covered with pictures depicting the rapid development of the surrounding area. A kitchen was visible to one side of the reception desk, while a storage room could be seen on the other. Towards the back of the room a plethora of seating options were available, ranging from black leather sofas to bean-bags to an oversized mattress covered in floor cushions.
There was a group of twenty-something men hanging around the kitchen area as Lexie entered the hostel. They were having breakfast, but looked up with interest at the new arrival. The air-conditioning was on full blast, and Lexie was happy to be wearing a padded bra to hide her erect nipples from the unsuspecting onlookers. She approached the reception desk, and promptly found out she could not have access to her dorm room until later that day. Lexie accepted this begrudgingly, as she was tired and sticky from her flight and wanted to freshen up. However, she stored her backpack in the luggage store and sat down with her book to pass the time.
Within a minute of sitting down, a very tanned man with hazelnut eyes and toned arms approached Lexie. He was 6 foot tall, and his fake Oakley sunglasses were perched atop his mop of jet-black hair. “Hi, I’m Scott. I noticed you have just arrived, and was wondering if you wanted to join my two Canadian friends and me? We’re going to explore Singapore” he explained to her in an accent she couldn’t quite place. It sounded like a confluence of English, American, and Australian with a hint of some Irish mixed in there too.
Lexie looked up at Scott, slightly stunned at his appearance. He was how she imagined the boys she would meet travelling, and she was surprised that she would meet someone this quickly who interested her in this way. She couldn’t turn down the opportunity to spend time with this handsome stranger, and it was a great way to see the city too.
“Give me two minutes to find some money and my camera – I’ll meet you by reception?” she replied. “Oh and I’m Lexie” she hastened to add, feeling slightly flustered. She had surprised herself. She hadn’t a clue who this tanned stranger was, or who his two friends were, and here she was agreeing to spend the day with them. “I guess it’s all part of the adventure of travelling” Lexie thought to herself as she rummaged through her bag in the luggage store to find her camera and purse.
A few minutes later and Lexie stumbled out of the storage room, straightening out her sunglasses on top of her tousled airplane-mussed hair. She hurried over to the reception desk where she spied Scott standing with an amorous couple. He was tall, at least 6’4″, and looked like he belonged in the mountains surrounded by snow rather than in the humidity of an Asian summer. His partner looked equally uncomfortable in the heat (Lexie was sure her dreadlocks were not helping with temperature moderation) but they offered a friendly smile as Scott made introductions – the tall guy was called Kenton, his partner Jo. They knew Scott from a volunteer project they had completed together in Cambodia, and had decided to travel to Singapore before returning back to Canada.
Niceties done with, they stepped out of the hostel’s air-conditioning and struggled to breathe the thick, muggy air. Armed with a free map, the group found their way to the Little India MRT station. Expecting the MRT to be a less modern version of the London Underground, Lexie was taken aback to see advanced touch-and-go tickets and an easy-to-understand routing. Singapore’s reputation of cleanliness was not exaggerated and she was pleasantly surprised with the modern design and sleek layout of the station and trains. Having figured out the ticket machine, the group of 4 squeezed onto a train to the downtown area called Marina Bay.
Marina Bay was a very affluent area of Singapore (although the entire city does not give an impoverished impression), with big expensive hotels, flashy boats in the marina and Oceanside boardwalks. The walk from the MRT station to the marina was draining, due to ever-oppressive humidity. The group decided they needed a cold drink and some air-conditioning before continuing their tour. They forked out on a local delicacy – durian flavored special chendol.
Durian is a fruit indigenous to Southeast Asia, and well known for its controversial smell. Some think it has a saccharine aroma, while others describe it akin to raw sewage. The odor is so persistent that it is banned on public transport in the city. Lexie took a sip of the specialty drink; initially thinking it was not too bad, took another and spat it back into the cup! The milky looking drink contained green worm-shaped jelly slime, with yellow durian pulp and a creamy substance that gave the overall impression of soured, clumpy milk.
“What on earth possessed me to try this?” Lexie wondered lara escort aloud. Scott was equally disgusted with the local delicacy so the pair went on a search for a safer option to try to remove the taste. They stumbled across a small store that sold Coca-Cola, for which they were entirely grateful. The durian flavor was remarkably stubborn and Scott was teasing Lexie about her inability to keep foul tasting things in her mouth. She didn’t know how to respond, knowing he was not-so-subtly hinting to her supposed oral performance. All she could do was stutter over a rebuttal and blush. Scott was ignorant to her lack of experience, something she was happy to not educate him on.
After rectifying the rotting taste in their mouths, Scott, and Lexie returned to the Canadians. Together they decided to move on from the opulence of Marina Bay and headed to Orchard Road. They got a respite from the humidity on one of the cool MRT trains before becoming drenched again as soon as they left the station. Lexie looked around, she could see Prada and Bvlgari and Louis Vuitton and Versace and Dolce & Gabbana. It appeared they were not going to escape wealth in Singapore – it was an affluent country. Orchard Road was a shopper’s paradise, but neither Lexie nor Jo had any interest in perusing stores they could not afford. Instead they walked down the road before deciding their next stop should be the infamous Raffles Hotel.
On their walk to the Hotel, they passed a variety of sex shops and condom sellers. Lexie was under the impression that this area of the world was reserved in its approach to the adult industry, but just off Orchard Road was the retail equivalent of the red-light district. Lexie took it all in, more amazed that such a variety of sex toys existed. She was not stupid, she knew the porn industry was thriving but she had never seen anything this sexual this out-in-the-open and was fascinated by it. Had she not been with a group, she would have gone into the stores, spending hours looking at every item for sale. As it was, the other three walked past as though nothing was out of the ordinary. Lexie felt like a child, as her inexperience in the sexual world was apparently uncommon for the backpacking community. She was determined not to let anyone know, and thought she would rectify the situation before long.
Brushing off her fascinated, brief arousal to the sex shops, Lexie soon reintegrated herself with the group’s conversation. They were discussing the hotel they were walking to see. Raffles Hotel is a colonial hotel, built in 1887 and has remained central to Singaporean history throughout the ages. It is maybe most famous for being home to the infamous Singapore Sling – a tradition to order one of the cocktails in the Long Bar.
Rounding a corner, Lexie and her new friends were confronted with a proud, stately white building standing its ground next to the modern sky scrapers of Singapore. The group traipsed into the Long Bar, feeling out of place in their flip flops and denim shorts, where other clientele looked like they had stepped out of a gentleman’s club in London. The luxurious hotel set luxurious prices and ordering a “Sling” almost broke Lexie’s budget, costing almost four times as much as any other drink she had bought so far. However the Long Bar also has a tradition of serving free monkey nuts, the shells of which you are allowed to throw onto the floor – a rarity in a country so obsessed with cleanliness. Lexie felt naughty eating the nuts and littering, half expecting the Singaporean police stood behind her, ready to fine her for littering.
The two boys in their group had no such reservations, but their stomachs were dictating that monkey nuts weren’t sufficient nutrition for lunch. A decision was made to grab lunch in Chinatown, an area ubiquitously known around the world for being able to find some sort of food. Again the MRT journey was faultless, and the group arrived in the Chinatown district rapidly.
Chinatown was set up the same as anywhere else, with an Asian twist. It was a huge market that spilt over to the rambling storefronts surrounding the collapsing marquees. However, it was rather tacky, the stalls selling everything from cheap key rings to pickled snakes. Lexie took in her surroundings, the vibrant colors and the foreign smells attacking her senses. The cacophony of sounds, smells and general hustle and bustle was overwhelming her as the jetlag was starting to kick in. She decided that eating here was a bad move for her – she’d have something back at the hostel. Conveniently, Scott had to head back to the hostel soon too, as he had a flight to catch home. Lexie’s adventure was starting just as Scott’s was ending. She felt slightly morose about this, losing her first travelling friend before she’d had a chance to get to know him properly. Her journey back to Little India, where the hostel was based, was spent reflecting on her day and she was unusually quiet.
To return to the hostel from the MRT station, the side escort pair had to walk through a food market. Despite similar smells and a multitude of stalls selling exotic fruits, vegetables and Asian “fast food”, Lexie felt much more at home here. There was less bustling and shoving, and the patrons were sitting to enjoy their purchases, taking pleasure in the action of eating. Lexie suggested to Scott that they grab some food here instead, and he willingly agreed. They found a hole-in-the-wall stand that was selling a plate of curry, rice and poppadums for pittance. She didn’t think she’d ever tasted Indian food this good! The meat was off the bone, with a succulent flavor that had a spicy aftertaste. The sauce was rich and creamy with subtle undertones of local spices, the rice was rice but the poppadums were so fresh and crisp she vowed there and then to never have them from a takeaway shop in England ever again.
After sampling the local food, they headed back to the hostel, as Scott had to finish packing in order to make his flight in time. Lexie was morose, she was not ready to say goodbye to the kind stranger who had thrust her headfirst into experiencing the life of exploration she had just entered. Looking at Scott, she felt something that wasn’t quite attraction. He held a promise of adventure, surprises and sensual excitation that drew her to him in a way she had not previously experienced. He enticed her, fascinated her and bemused her all at once.
While Lexie was lost in her reverie, she was unaware that she had followed Scott into his dorm room and was stood staring at his chiseled face. Instead of turning away and finishing his packing, Scott was equally transfixed by Lexie. This girl was just starting out on her journey, and he was envious of all the adventures and stories ahead of her. It helped that she was smoking hot, with no iota of arrogance about her. He stepped closer, noticing her plump lips open slightly with her sharp inhalation.
Lexie felt her breath catch in her chest. Surely this exotic guy was not making a move on her? She didn’t know what to do, but she noticed her body moving closer to his involuntarily. She could feel the heat radiating off him, she noticed the intense lust in his eyes. “Is this it? Is this where I lose my virginity?” she thought, not totally resistant to the idea. Scott leaned down and pressed his lips against hers, his stubble adding extra sensation to an already charged situation.
Scott was getting impatient with her lack of response to the kiss, speeding things up by grabbing her voluptuous hips with his strong hands and pulling her in close, pressing his growing erection up against her denim shorts. Lexie leant into it, emboldened by his obvious desire. She tentatively reached out with her tongue, finding his and giving herself over to her hormones. Her knees were weakening and she leant against the bunk-bed behind her for stability. Scott was moving his hands over her body, one massaging her ass, the other bunching up her singlet at her back keeping her squirming body close to his.
Lexie moved her hands up to his neck, playing with the tangled hair at the nape of his neck. She had never felt this way from a kiss, and the longer their tongues were entwined, the more she was contemplating lying back on the bunk behind her and letting him have his way with her. The amorous couple were moving against each other rhythmically, so lost in the kiss they were oblivious to the dorm room door opening and a group of guests entering.
“Excuse us!” broke the pair apart abruptly, Lexie blushing and straightening her top while Scott was unabashed by the interruption. She scarpered out the room, running down to the common area where she waited patiently until Scott appeared with his bags. A group, including the two Canadians from earlier, had gathered by the entrance to say their farewells. After all had said their goodbyes, Lexie ran over to say hers. Scott hugged her briefly and gave her an awkward kiss on the cheek. “Do it for the story” he whispered into her ear as parting words of wisdom. With that, he walked out the hostel, not looking back once.
With Scott gone, Lexie felt at a loss. He had been the only real person she had met, as she hadn’t got on overly well with the Canadians. Not feeling like talking to too many people, she went up to her dorm room (which she finally had access to), organized her bags and settled down on the top bunk with her book. There were 8 bunk beds in the room, room for 16 people. Lexie hadn’t ever shared a room with more than three other people, all of whom she had known, so knew that her first night here was going to be a test. She squashed the nervous butterflies in her stomach and opened her book, hoping to distract herself with fiction.
Hostel dorm rooms are notoriously invasive to privacy, with people entering and leaving at all hours of the day. A German man introducing himself interrupted Lexie from her reading. Despite feeling slightly homesick and jetlagged, she knew she should make an effort and made banal conversation with him. The man said he was going downstairs for a smoke and asked if she’d like to join him. Although she didn’t smoke, Lexie thought she might meet some more people and agreed to accompany the German.