How would you decide what clubs to join during Freshers Week? I had some basic criteria: physically strenuous ok, team sports not ok, thinking ok, nerdy not ok; but, most of all, it had to be whatever those two girls over there were signing people up for!

They were thin and beautiful, shockingly beautiful, with large breasts. It was the size and jutting-outness of their breasts, exaggerated by the flatness and tone of their tummies and athletic legs, that really grabbed my attention.

They were wearing neon-green singlets with large arm holes flashing tantalizing glimpses of skin, tummy, ribs and sports bras. They had their long straight hair back in pony tails. They had identical dimensions but were in every respect opposites: One was brown haired, posh-spice looking, full body tan, surely waxed-smooth pussy, probably rode horses in fox hunts and daddy was a stockbroker with a porsche; hell, her name probably was Porsche. The other had jet black hair, a dark olive skin, jet black eyes, fine petite face but big maroon lips and wide smile and very white teeth, probably came from India. Probably an Indian princess ... or belly dancer. Fantasies started to form unbidden.

I felt a jostling behind me. It seems I had stopped, transfixed, right in the entrance and I was blocking the steady stream of freshers coming in behind me. My dorm mate Mike, who I’d come with, came back to grab me and drag me further into the hall and out the way.

He was smiling at me kindly. “See anything you like?” he asked in an innocent tone but with his eyes twinkling. “Come on, lets go straight over and see what they’re selling?” he said to cover my vacant silence.

It was kinda awkward to make a bee line for the girls while trying to play it cool. Theirs was a busy table - clearly I wasn’t the only hormonal teen in the hall! The girls had name badges on and were called Sharon (posh spice) and Sarah (Indian princess). They talked with strong London accents. Shows how way off first impressions can be. I was kinda worried it’d turn out to be aerobics or something like that, but luckily it turned out to be the Orienteering Club. Ok, that’ll do me nicely. Mike and I signed up.

As soon as we’d signed up the girls went to greet, grab and extract signatures from other recruits and we felt as hoodwinked as everyone else who’d already signed up so we moved on to look at the other stalls.

I ended up signing up for kick boxing too. Of course I was tempted by the dungeons and dragons club and even the chess club but I was forcing myself to be social and be a new me and get away from being the nerd I’d suffered as all through high school and college.

We’d pretty much toured the whole hall now and were making for the exit when a quiet little girl came up to us and said hi. The smile dissolved from her face and she looked uncertain when met with my blank uncomprehending stare back. Damn I have to learn to always greet everyone politely while I’m trying to work out if I know them. I never am good with faces. Or conversation. Or being social really. Luckily Mike pushed past me and said hi back. The girl turned to face only him and asked how we doing and what clubs we’d joined. Mike spoke for both of us; he was even apologising for me. The girl was kinda familiar actually. My brain clicked into gear and I tried to join in but the conversation was already fading and the girl moving on.

“Who was that?” I asked Mike as soon as she was out of ear shot. “She’s in flat 5B and we went over to introduce ourselves to them last night, remember?” Mike reminded me, shaking his head. We’d only been at uni for three days but already my flat mates were getting used to my social awkwardness.

That next day, Wednesday, was actually the first Orienteering meeting. Mike and I went along, joking about which of us would get which girl. I was definitely completely crushing on Sarah, although truth be told Sharon would have been just as acceptable for what I had in mind.

Of course there were about a hundred horny boys at that first meeting! And a few girls too. Seems the Orienteering Club had hit upon the right way to go about recruiting members. Sharon and Sarah were there with a handful of other second and final years. The Orienteering Club was normally quite small so the sudden influx of freshers was a bit overwhelming.

We started with a jog. Sarah and Sharon, in their bright neon singlets, led us around the campus. Already by the 100 yard mark people were starting to peel off. After a few minutes we were just a straggle behind the two girls. The selection process was part seeing who had jogged before and partly seeing who was most desperate to keep up with and impress those two girls, and I was winning on both counts. I put on a spurt to overtake Sharon and fall into step beside Sarah.

“Hi” she said, beaming, “my name’s Sarah”. She was cruising effortlessly, not even breaking a sweat. Her breasts weren’t even jiggling; her bra must be made of steel. “Hi, I’m Olly, eh, Oliver” I managed to get out through clenched teeth as my nostrils flared trying to suck in enough oxygen to keep me alive just a few steps more.

And then suddenly it got worse. Sarah picked up pace and of course I had to push myself to keep up, and then she turned off towards the chapel which was up hill. And then when we got to the chapel she started to run up and down the steep steps up to the front door! This was killing me. I paused, bent double, at the top, and surveyed behind me. There were only a handful of recruits left. “Come on, you were impressing me!” Sarah laughed playfully as she got to the top of the steps again before she hurried back down them for like the tenth time. Somehow this gibe got straight to my subconscious and forced my legs to move with my brain disengaged and I started back down the steps.

And then the torture was over. We gathered at the bottom of the steps. Mike wasn’t among us. I don’t know how far back he’d dropped out. Sharon and Sarah stood there and started talking about the Orienteering Club. They weren’t even panting! The new recruits all looked ready to die.

A small quiet girls voice teased me “you’re staring”. I turned to see that girl from 5B beside me. She had joined the Orienteering Club too. Actually, of those who’d managed to actually finish the jog, about half were girls. “Hi, I’m Olly, eh, Oliver” I managed to blurt out. Someone in front turned and ssshed me. “I know Olly,” she replied quietly, “I’m Chloe but you knew that already too”. Involuntarily I went back to staring at Sarah who was standing on the bottom step with her hands on her hips surveying us with a strange mix of glee and disappointment. I was imagining Sarah naked, sweating, her chest heaving,...

And the meeting was suddenly over. I hadn’t listened to a word. Luckily Chloe walked back with me to our dorms - I’m in 4B so that’s the stairwell beside Chloe’s, second floor - and she filled me in on the training nights schema.

Sadly Sarah and Sharon were second years and therefore didn’t live in halls of residence on campus. Only freshers got to do that. But there was a student union and my whole flat would go there together almost every evening, often joining another nearby flat. The flats were mixed, six to eight boys and girls, with everyone getting their own room with a sink but sharing a kitchen, shower room and separate toilet. Lots of English unis have much the same system. And of course there were lots of girls, but with the image of sporty Sarah always in my mind I almost didn’t even notice any of them.

It took exactly one week for Orienteering training to come around again. This time just the twelve of us who had finished the jog on the first day came. Graham, who was a post-grad who led the Orienteering Club, pointed out gleefully that everyone who’d put their names down to join in freshers week still had to pay their dues, so this could mean we had the funds to go to some meets much further away than normal years. The twelve of us were buzzing with the possibilities.

Of course we almost immediately stopped talking and started jogging. The campus was fairly flat so again we finished with a burst up and down the chapel steps. I hadn’t run since the previous Wednesday - in fact my legs had ached for days and I’d only just recovered really - so it was almost as punishing as the last time. And again I jogged next to Sarah, and again she smiled that beaming searchlight smile at me as fell into step beside her.

“So you’ve got a thing for Sarah have you?” asked Chloe conversationally as we left the training session. I was a bit miffed, I mean, what business is that of hers? But Chloe ignored my glare and explained “Its ok, I’ve got my own puppy dog” and she nodded towards a boy who was going off towards another block of dorms. The boy must have felt our eyes on him, or perhaps he just kept glancing towards Chloe, because he saw us watching and waved a little wave at Chloe. She said a quiet “yuck” under her breath and I felt better. Chloe and I were bonding in adversity to unwanted attention, although of course in my case I was perhaps the one giving that unwanted attention, but of course we didn’t know if Sarah wanted my attention or not yet? ... Chloe quickly disabused me of that “a word to the wise, girls don’t get turned on by freshers who are too shy to make a move, just saying”. She was a girl, she’d know, but did she know just how shy and socially awkward I was? Jogging beside Sarah was as close to her as I was likely to be able to get.

The next Wednesday wasn’t actually so hard any more. I was getting back into jogging and, whilst I hadn’t done any practice runs, the kick boxing exercise was definitely helping get me fit again.

After the run and the chapel steps we went off in pairs to practice map reading. A boy latched onto me straight away, thus saving that awkward last-to-be-picked-for-school-sports-team feeling. I was pretty proficient at map reading already, having all the scout badges and everything, so I ended up explaining it to him. But he quickly changed the subject by asking “so you know her?” and pointing discretely at Chloe. Aha, that’s who this boy was? Was this Chloe’s puppy? And he’d teamed up with me to find out about her? I answered defensively, trying not to give much away, saying she was just living in a nearby flat. He was pretty direct “so you’re not her boyfriend then? Does she have a boyfriend?”. I deflected again, saying she probably had a boyfriend, hoping this would put the idiot off. At least I learned his name, Roy, and at least I had something to tell Chloe when the meeting split up and we headed back to dorms. She just made a finger-down-throat-to-puke gesture and we giggled all the way home. When we got to the stairwells she turned and said factually “I don’t have a boyfriend for your information”. I grinned and asked if I should pass that on to Roy, and Chloe shrieked and launched herself to poke me but I managed to race up the stairs to safety as though my legs hadn’t just jogged twenty times up and down the chapel steps.

Knowing Chloe a bit was good actually. Flats 4B and 5B kind of joined up and often went together to the student union. We even sometimes made dinners for both flats together, or discussed how we could knock a hole through between the two flats so save going down and up stairwells. Things were pretty good. I’m actually quite chatty and even a bit funny once I know everyone.

We were at the student union with 5B when I glanced up and saw Sarah and Sharon. They had a few older boys around them and I sat quietly, watching, feeling inadequate. And then Sharon looked across and saw us and dragged Sarah quickly over, leaving their circling swarm of boys behind. They squeezed onto the bench between Chloe and I. Our flat mates were quiet, puzzled, impressed. Or, in Mike’s case, disbelieving. Chloe made the introductions. Sharon apologized to everyone, explaining that we were saving them from a fate worse than death, but she managed to say it in a tone that suggested they were doing us a favour deigning to sit with us. As the conversation bubbled up again, Sharon steering it with expert precision of an effortless socializer, Sarah turned to me and said “hi, you always seem to end up beside me Olly” and she giggled flirtingly.

I remembered Chloe’s advice about being brave. I tried to be brave. I tried to say something witty. But I couldn’t. My mouth was dry. “Its ok,” Sarah smiled, her hand squeezing my knee and making me flinch, “you’re cute with your tongue tied”.

Slowly I managed to get back into the conversation and regain the comfortable chattiness I now had with my flatmates after weeks of practice and familiarity. And Sarah was careful to keep including me, which was nice and encouraging. Maybe I hadn’t messed up massively after all?

Now our Wednesday evenings practices involved zig-zagging across the campus and an adjoining park trying to visit waypoints marked on photocopied maps. It wasn’t very challenging and it took discipline to actually read the maps and use compasses and everything else when you were so familiar with the terrain. But I took it seriously. And Sarah always smiled her big bright smile when I fell into step beside her.

Excitement was mounting. We were going on our first real orienteering meet! We were taking a student union minibus on Saturday morning, going about 50 miles away to compete with the Orienteering Club from another uni. We’d then camp the night and make our way back Sunday. Apparently this happened every year and everyone informally called it “fuck camp”!

I’d only been at uni for a month now but already I was feeling braver and more mature. I spent a lot of nights just mulling what I was going to do. I only really had eyes for Sarah. I didn’t even think about Sharon sexually. To my thinking, Sarah was the perfect body and, to cap it all, she wasn’t discouraging me. She and Sharon were a bit flirty with all boys, but at least Sarah was seeming to notice that I liked her and smiling her million dollar smile each time I raced to catch her up.

It occurred to me that I knew nothing about her; I had no idea what Sarah studied, where she lived, where she came from. I wasn’t completely sure what year she was in, although I assumed she was a second-year. She talked with a strong London accent, as common as dirt, but I think I picked up that her mum was Maltese, and that would explain her perfect milky brown skin and jet black eyes and hair. Even though we jogged together, we never really talked. I couldn’t talk with her, that was the problem.

I was last on the minibus off to fuck camp and it looked full but then Sarah lifted her bag off the seat beside her showing she’d saved me a place. My tummy was butterflies. I sat down beside her. Sharon was up front next to Graham who was driving. Sharon was flirting outrageously with him. Everyone was in high spirits except for Chloe who was looking pissed off, sitting stifled against the window trying to inch as far as possible away from Roy, who had sat beside her. She was giving me the evil eye like it was somehow my fault. But I quickly forgot about it as Sarah started dragging me into the conversation. The conversation was basically all about the fucking aspect of fuck camp, and describing previous years scandals. Sharon seemed to unashamedly be at the centre of most of those scandals.

Time flies when you’re having fun and we were soon there. The first order of business was to set up the camp which consisted of lots of rather basic small tents borrowed from the uni’s Officer Training Corps. We all got a tent each. Being the boy scout, inevitably I ended up setting up lots of tents. Each time it would start as me trying to instruct them, and ending up with me sodding that for a game of soldiers and just putting it up myself.

Then, after lunch, we did the orienteering. It was my first ever time and I wasn’t very sure what exactly we were supposed to be doing. There were only 12 from my uni and perhaps 15 from the other so we all left at 5 minute intervals meaning it was pretty much impossible to catch up or overtake the person in front, or even to really understand anything about their route. So no chance of jogging beside Sarah then. I just put my head down and did my best. I quickly learned that its often quicker to go around rather than through rough patches. Basically, all that effort back on campus was pretty poor prep for the contest.

I finished exhausted. I thought I’d done well when I finished so close to the person who left ahead of me, but actually it was just that he was particularly slow which masked that I was quite slow. At least I didn’t come last. And of course Graham won and both Sharon and Sarah did really well. Experience really counts; none of the first-years did particularly well although Chloe was the best fresher.

We were camping in a field on the edge of a proper camp site so we could use the toilet block. Finding myself suddenly alone and not sure where everyone else was I decided to go over and shower. I got my wash kit from my tent and headed over. As I got real close I could see a jet black pony tail just poking out around the corner of the block. I slowed right down and heard voices. One was a boy’s voice I didn’t recognise- presumably from the other uni. The other was undoubtedly Sarah. They were kissing, loud wet sloppy kisses, and between kisses they were talking quietly. The boy was asking who I was! “Just a fresher” said Sarah, “don’t worry about him, he’ll keep for another day”. My tummy twisted and I felt sick. I couldn’t confront them. I slinked back to my tent and hid for a while. Of course I thought about rushing back and kick boxing the boy, but taking my anger and frustration out on him wasn’t going to really cure the sickening loneliness and lostness of how Sarah had dismissed me.

After a very long wait I went back to the toilet block to shower, walking first around the block with a wide berth to check that Sarah and the boy had gone.

And then, early evening, the party started. There was a big bonfire and lots of grilling sausages on sticks beer and stuff. There was a portable speaker blaring out a disco playlist and many were dancing around the flames. I sat withdrawn, gutted. Chloe also sat a bit out of it. Roy went to sit next to her but she got up and went right up to the flames and danced. I watched her swaying to the beat; some people are natural dancers and Chloe was one of those people. Roy didn’t join her- he was probably as bad at dancing as I was.

It was dark and a lot of beer had been drunk but the night was still young. I was mostly watching the dancers and, when my eyes adjusted after the brightness of the flames, looking at the stars. Then Sharon grabbed Graham and led him through the crowd taking care to force everyone aside so everyone watched them heading off towards the tents. This kind of kicked everyone into a higher gear. But Sarah quickly stopped dancing and said she had a headache and was going to bed and told everyone to have fun party without her. I had been scanning the crowd trying to work out which boy she had been kissing, and Sarah definitely stared meaningfully at one of the candidates as she left. He smiled and, soon after, slipped away. I have never felt such a failure.

With Sarah and Sharon gone the party kind of felt a bit duller and soon the beer ran out and people started to stumble off to bed. I was one of the few who went off to brush their teeth in the toilet block.

The fire still glowing made the tents slightly transparent if you stood on the far side and studied them. Graham and Sharon were in Sharon’s tent and everyone knew that. Sarah definitely also had company, as did a couple of other tents. Other tents were empty. I went to my tent and settled down feeling empty and sad. As I lay there I could her tent zips and whispers all around me.

Suddenly my tent zip started to inch upwards. I watched with alarm, not sure what was happening. And then a deep male voice, probably a boy from the other uni, asked if any single ladies needed company! I told him to fuck off in no uncertain terms and he did in a hurry. I guess its funny in hindsight. I guess this fits the protocol at fuck camp.

A while later my tent zip started to inch upwards again so I told them to fuck off again. “Sorry Olly” said a quiet girly voice. Wait a sec, was that Chloe? “Chloe?” I asked, disbelievingly. Chloe poked her head in. There was enough ambient light to see she was really distressed. “Olly, I’ve got a really massive favour to ask” she whispered urgently. There was a pause while she summoned the courage. “Can I stay in your tent tonight? Just I don’t feel safe in my own tent. Boys keep asking me things and I’m really scared Roy might not take no for an answer”. She tried to swallow a sob. Of course I let her.

She seemed really relieved. She was back quickly with her sleeping bag and roll mat and moved in beside me. Space was tight. There weren’t many clouds so with the moonlight and firelight we could see fairly well. She settled in.

“Sorry about Sarah” Chloe said. I was a bit taken aback. What did she know? How did she know? “What about Sarah?” I retorted, trying to sound nonchalant but fooling nobody.