My dad’s given me a stern talking to, as a doctor, of course, rather than a parent, telling me that the results I’ve seen so far may not be the ones that I will see in the future.

Whatever.

I trust Liam with this.

I feel a thousand times better than ever, and it’s not just being able to go outside. I guess I didn’t realize just how tired and run down I was all the time, because that had become my normal reality. There wasn’t anything else to compare it to.

But now my body feels light. I have energy, and most of all nothing makes me sick, nothing makes me pass out.

Getting out of my room, out of the house, is just insane. There’s really no way to describe it. Unless you’ve spent a full year locked away in a single room, there’s just no way you’ll ever understand the experience.

I was so excited to get out today that I woke up at the crack of dawn and left the house without even eating breakfast. Even though I’ve been eating an incredibly bland and hypoallergenic diet for a year, food is the last thing on my mind. I just need to get out, to explore, to live life.

My parents were still asleep when I left.

One thing I know for sure: I need to get my own place, or move in with some roommates. I’m too old to be living with my parents, and the thought of staying in my childhood room any longer makes me feel physically sick to my stomach.

The sun is shining. The sky is completely cloudless. The air smells sweet. It’s like I’ve been given a new chance on life, and second chance to get out, to live.

Oh yeah, and I have a date with Liam on Friday. That’s only two days away.

I know it’s early, but I can’t wait any longer, and I grab my phone and call Shelly.

“Huh?” she says, her voice full of sleep. I can just imagine her in bed with her hair all tousled, maybe a guy next to her. Pretty soon, I’ll be the one waking up with a guy next to me in bed… hopefully Liam.

“Want to meet for breakfast?” I say.

“Breakfast? Huh?”

“Yeah, there’s a diner down by your place.”

“A diner? What?”

“Yeah,” I say, laughing at her sleepy antics.

“Who’s that?” says a deep male voice in the background.

I laugh. “I knew it,” I say. “I knew there’d be a guy in your bed.”

“So what?” says Shelly, sounding a little annoyed and a little more awake.

“I’d like to invite the two of you to breakfast,” I say.

“In your room?”

“I’m outside,” I say. “I’m out! I’m cured. I’m a free woman.”

“Is this some kind of joke?”

“No, I’m serious. Come on, meet me at the diner.”

“Want to get breakfast?” says Shelly to her male companion, her voice only slightly muffled as she holds the phone away from her mouth to ask the question.

“Sure,” he says sleepily.

“I’ll be there in half an hour,” I say. “I’m going to take the train down.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” says Shelly. “Mia… out of her room. Who would have thought?”

We say goodbye, and I find myself staring again at the beautiful sky, with the rich blue.

I’m a free woman now. This is as good as I’ve ever felt, and as free.

And by the end of Friday, I’ll hopefully no longer be a virgin.

What do I mean by hopefully?

I mean I’m going to do everything in my womanly power to take Liam by the cock and have my way with him. I’ll do whatever it takes to lose this badge of embarrassment that’s been haunting me for so long.

Some women have good excuses for being virgins. I mean, in some situations, it’s a perfectly valid state to exist in. Some women have personal belief systems, and they don’t tend to mind being virgins so much.

Others have medical excuses. I know, I know. It seems like I would have a medical excuse as well. But in reality I was only in my room for a year. Some women fall into comas as teens and wake up ten years later and, boom, they’re adult virgins just like that. Me? I had my chances. Well, I could have had them.

I’m not going to make the same mistake twice. I’m tired of not being a real adult, and I’m tired of missing out on a whole sphere of reality and experience. It’s downright disturbing how much I’ve missed.

The train ride is just amazing.

I remember taking the train more than a year ago, before I got “locked” in my room and I was just complaining to Shelly the entire time about how boring it was.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The whole world that passes by the windows on the train has that magical sheen that it used to have for me as a kid. It took being in my room for a year to see the world like this. Even the boring paunchy ticket collector fascinates me, the way he walks, the way he grumbles to himself—it all appears beautiful, perfect, fascinating… exactly the way it should be.

The heart of the city where I’m meeting Shelly is even more fascinating, if that’s even possible. I watch with glee as the cars zip by, as the commuters bustle past me with their briefcases and their umbrellas. (Who needs an umbrella on a gorgeous day like today?)

There’s Shelly!

It’s strange to see her on the street after so much time. She looks different, more grown up, and her hair is longer than I remember it being. The last time I saw her in person was when she came to visit me at my parents’ house, and of course she was decked out in the ridiculous plastic wrap.

She looks like she’s going into shock when she first sees me. Her jaw nearly drops to the floor.

I can’t help it. I run towards her, and she runs towards me.

She’s about to give me a hug, but she stops.

“Can I?” she says. “You’re not going to pass out?”

I shake my head, unable to hide the huge smile on my face.

We hug, and it feels good to feel her against me.

…Not in the way it’s going to feel to have Liam pressed against me, his hard cock pushing into me.

“You’re out of your room! I can’t believe it. I thought it was some kind of joke, but I came down anyway.”

“It’s not a joke,” I say. “I’m cured… Where’s your guy friend?”

“Oh, he started following me here, and then he saw some girl he recognized from his class and he started chatting her up.”

“With you right there? What an asshole.”

“Yeah, and they were taking so long, and flirting so obviously that I just walked away without him.”

I laugh. “Serves him right,” I say. “What a pig.”

“You’re telling me. But he was great in bed.”

“Come on,” I say, not sure how to respond. “Let’s get something to eat. It’s been way too long since I had some real food and not that gruel they feed me.”

“You’ve been eating a lot of porridge?”

I laugh.

We enter the diner and sit down at a big booth opposite each other.

The waitress comes over to take our orders.

She’s a rail-thin woman with an interesting face. A year ago, I would have barely looked at her. But because I’ve been cooped up for so long, and everything is so interesting, I find myself just staring at her, studying her face.

“Mia!” says Shelly, snapping me out of it. “She asked you what you’re having.”

“Oh,” I say, vaguely, picking up the menu again. “OK, I’ll have the breakfast platter, the fruit platter, and the full English breakfast… and a cup of coffee, and a tall orange juice.”

The waitress just raises her eyebrow at me but she writes it all down.

Shelly laughs. “Hungry, eh?”

“I just want to try everything.”

“So tell me what the hell happened,” says Shelly, leaning across the table. “I don’t get it. You’re just suddenly all better?”

I tell her everything, including the date I have with Liam.

“Wow,” says Shelly, clearly amazed. “He’s like your knight in shining armor, you know? He just swoops in and a day later cures you! It’s incredible. And now he can take care of your other problem, if you know what I mean.”

I blush. “That’s the plan,” I say. “I can’t even tell you the things I want to do to him.”

“That’s the spirit,” says Shelly, giving me a wink. “You’ve got a lot of time to make up for.”

“That’s for sure.”

“Just be careful,” says Shelly.

“What do you mean?”

She doesn’t respond. The waitress is back, carrying plate after plate of food.

By the end, I’ve got more than five full plates in front of me, with various juices and drinks spread around the plates.

“I hope that’s enough for you,” says the waitress, her voice cracking as she speaks. “Will there be anything else for you?”

“That’s it, thanks.”

“I mean,” says Shelly, taking a sip of her coffee, her eyes widening as I start digging into the food in front of me at a rapid pace. “Your first is… well, I mean it doesn’t always work out, right?”

“Oh,” I say, speaking with my mouth full of… the most delicious flavors I’ve ever tasted in my life. “I know that. Hey, this food is amazing, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know…” says Shelly, eyeing a forkful of her omelet suspiciously. I watch as she delicately pinches out a suspiciously thick hair from the bite.

“It’s great!” I say.

Shelly laughs. “It also could hurt, but you know that, right?”

“Of course,” I say, trying to brush it off like it’s no big deal. In reality, I’m more than a little scared. It’s a weird feeling to be scared and excited about something at the same time.

“I just can’t believe you’re out,” says Shelly. “So are you going to come back to school?”

“I don’t think so,” I say, my mouth full of bacon and fruit at the same time. “I mean, yeah, eventually. But I want to experience the world a little bit, you know?”

“You sure you’re fine?” says Shelly. “You’re sure this isn’t a temporary thing?”

“Liam explained it to me,” I say. “He’s a brain surgeon. He knows what he’s talking about.”

“Yeah, he’s a brain surgeon, but he’s not an immunologist. He doesn’t specialize in allergies.”

“That’s just because he’s smarter,” I say. “What, you want me to have to go back to my room for another year or what?” I’m a little angry that Shelly would suggest this.

“But… look, I just don’t want you to get disappointed if something happens. You know what they say, right? Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.”

“I thought you were my friend and would want the best for me?” I say.

Suddenly, I start coughing.

“Are you OK?” says Shelly, looking worried.

“I’m fine,” I say. “Just went down the wrong pipe. I’m not used to eating proper food.”

“You look a little red, though.”

“I’m fine,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”

The truth is that my face feels like it’s on fire, eerily similar to the feeling I would get before some of my worst allergy attacks.

I put my napkin and fork down and rush towards the bathroom, which fortunately is clearly marked.

Closing the door behind me and locking it, I rush to the mirror to see what I look like.

To my horror, my face is completely red, looking like some sort of rash.

Surprisingly, my first thought isn’t that I’m going to have to go back to my room. It’s that I won’t be able to make my date on Friday. After all, how can I go looking like this? I’ll never get Liam into bed with my face a giant red rash, will I?