It's Not What You Think by Chris Evans Page A

I was sure this naughty side of her was only ever revealed to me—I used to think about that a lot, especially when we were at school and she was being the darling of the classroom. Little did they know what could also make Tina tick. They thought they knew but they didn’t—that was our secret. God, I loved her.
    I loved her so much that I went above and beyond the requirements of a normal teenage romance by bestowing upon her the lofty position of becoming the subject of my first ever padded greetings card purchase.
    Padded greetings cards were a mysterious but wonderful phenomenon. They could always be found sat majestically on the top shelves of the greetings cards sections in most newsagents or stationers. Maybe they still can, I don’t know. I have long since stopped looking for them. By the time I left school I was all padded out.
    Ridiculously big—even the small ones—they were made of shimmery silk-like material, usually consisting of a garish floral design, though whatthey were actually padded with I never found out—I suspect it was highly flammable. I wonder how many house fires in the late Seventies and early Eighties were down to the accidental setting alight of a massive padded card during some kind of revelry or other. ‘Here darling, here’s a magnificent padded card, cost me an arm and a leg it did. Happy birthday and make the most of it. It could be your last if Auntie May’s fag ash gets too close to it later on.’
    These great padded cards came in big flat white boxes instead of envelopes and they were expensive, like, really expensive—maybe a fiver or more! But Tina was worth it, every penny. I bought her several of the monstrosities—I wonder if she still has them. I have a feeling she might, along with a smoke alarm, I hope.
    So how does such a perfect, unblemished relationship come to an end? We’d never argued, we’d never stopped wanting to be together, we were the bestest of friendly friends and we still hadn’t done the real rude stuff.
    It’s simple and predictable and the answer is…
    Temptation.
    The Bible may be dodgy in all sorts of other areas but it’s pretty much bang on the money when it comes to explaining the evil that is temptation and the devastation it can cause.
    The destruction of peoples, nations and in this case, as far as I was concerned, the most beautiful love affair the world had ever seen.
    The apple is there—don’t eat the apple. But more importantly don’t even think about eating the apple. Basically, just forget apples exist and preferably as quickly as possible.
    The infection with temptation is perpetuated by the dreaded ‘thought’. One spends far too much time in this life of ours thinking about what we haven’t got as opposed to enjoying what we have got. What’s that about? I’ve been doing it for years, I still do! It’s like a disease.
    Temptation for me came in the form of the netball captain. Her name was Karen. Not the Karen from the junior school that took us to the park but another, more sporty, Karen—out of nowhere came Karen II.
    Here’s what happened.
    Tina and I were happily insulated in our bubble full of love and loveliness and then one breaktime I was left on my own in the playground as Tina had some extra work to catch up on—I was alone, I was vulnerableand as far as temptation was concerned I was the ripest cherry on the tree. The netball captain and her ridiculously short netball skirt were waiting to pounce.
    One of Karen’s ‘friends’ approached me.
    ‘Where’s Tina?’ she said.
    ‘Oh she’s doing some extra work,’ I replied.
    ‘Oh right, so you’re still with her then?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Only…you know Karen fancies you.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Karen, captain of the netball team, she fancies you. None of us get why but she says she thinks you’re cute and if anything ever happened to you and Tina, she would definitely go out with you.’
    And with that she was off.
    Little did I know what had just