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As Victoria Betteridge takes a final drag of her cigarette, she stretches in bed and rolls over to examine the man lying next to her. He's not really her type, but she doesn't care - the sex was worth it.
The sheets are twisted around him from their energetic session the night before and their clothes lie strewn over the carpet. Victoria climbs out of bed and prods him with her finger. It's time for him to leave. When he offers to take her number, she shrugs and tells him there's no need. Last night was no-strings sex. She doesn't want to see him again.
He's just another one-night stand to join the hundreds of others. Victoria, a 28-year-old Oxford graduate, confesses she's slept with 900 men in nine years... Yes, really.
"People presume I've been promiscuous from day one, but that couldn't be further from the truth," says Victoria defiantly.
In fact, the PA from Hertfordshire had a very sheltered upbringing. Her parents are devout Catholics. An only child, she was sent to a private girls' boarding school.
She grew up with lots of rules - one of them being that boys were banned.
"While all my friends were going to the cinema with boys or flirting at discos, I was playing Scrabble with my parents, riding my horse or going to church," she says.
"My father made it very clear when I turned 13 that boys were not to be a part of my life. He was worried my schoolwork would suffer. He'd sent me to a £7,000 a term all-girls school and wanted to make sure I spent my time studying rather than giggling over guys."
But Victoria says this just made her a figure of fun.
"The girls in my year all knew I'd never had a boyfriend or even kissed a guy, so they used to tease me all the time, calling me a lesbian or frigid. The fact I was a tomboy who loved sport and didn't bother with make-up or girlie clothes didn't help," she says.
"The bullying made me disappear into my shell and I became shy and timid."
When Victoria turned 18, she headed to Oxford University to study English. To say she came out of her shell would be something of an understatement.
"I went into halls and I felt such a sense of freedom," she says. "It was strange being surrounded by men all the time!"
Victoria was determined to break away from being the shy girl. So on her first night at university, she downed several shots of tequila with her fellow students before heading off to the Freshers' Ball.
Within hours, she'd had her first ever kiss with Tom, who lived in her halls. A week later, they were dating.
"I didn't feel like the geeky girl at school any more, and without my father watching me all the time, I knew I could finally do whatever I liked," she recalls.
Tom agreed to wait until Victoria was ready to have sex. Six months later, she lost her virginity to him, in her cramped single bed in halls.
"I know most girls say their first time isn't great, but I couldn't get over how incredible it felt!" she admits. "I'd never had anyone touch my bare flesh before - it was amazing. I just wanted to do it over and over again."
So often, in fact, that Tom just couldn't keep up with her.
"If we didn't have sex at least three times a day, I felt moody and irritable," Victoria recalls. "But Tom didn't want to spend all day in bed. He wanted to meet his mates or study for his course. In the end, we broke up by mutual agreement - I think Tom wanted a relationship that was more than just sex."
It didn't take Victoria long to get over her heartbreak. Just a week after splitting up with Tom, she met a guy - whose name she can't remember - in a local bar and took him back to her room for a night of passion.
"I didn't care who he was or what he did," she says. "All I was thinking about was having sex and feeling good."
It was the start of a pattern that would repeat itself over the years.
"I'd go to student bars and clubs, dance provocatively in front of a man I fancied, then ask him to buy me a drink - it was that easy," Victoria shrugs.
"Most of the blokes thought I was a 'cool bird' and liked the fact I took control and only wanted sex. I regularly slept with at least two guys a week - sometimes more. But I didn't feel slutty. I was making up for lost time! Men do it all the time, so why shouldn't women?" she adds defiantly.
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