CALL me old fashioned, but I'd been saving myself. I'd had opportunities but I'd resisted. I wanted the first time to be special. I wanted it to be with you, Eclipse.

I thought I knew what it would be like, how it would feel, the exquisite pain of it all. But nothing could prepare me for the swirl of emotions I felt in that moment: the anticipation, the exhilaration of thinking ''this is it'', the frustration - delicious in its way - of realising it's not going to happen after all.

We lay together in the dark for two hours, you and I, looking but not touching. I stared into your flickering rectangular eye; you gazed blankly back into my rectangular eyes (I was wearing my specs; my ankle socks too). You were so alive to me, and yet, at the same time so dead.

I could sense that you wanted me to stay with you forever, to join you on your blood-sucking journey, as you sought fresh pockets to drain, fresh recruits to the ranks of the Twihards, those legions of blank-eyed, black-nailed demons roaming the globe and swelling Stephenie Meyer's coffers under cover of night.

But I knew I wasn't your first. How could I be when the three Twilight films have so far made $1.6 billion? I also knew there'd be more to come after me: with two more films in the works, there's more life in this series yet than in all the Cullen clan combined (which, admittedly, isn't saying much).

I knew all of this and yet when you looked at me with those dead unblinking eyes, yes, I said yes, I will, yes.

As soon as it was over I felt you'd initiated me into some sort of secret society, and yet I also felt betrayed. It wasn't the way I thought it would be. Not at all.

I felt I'd been two-timed. Oh yes, you offered professions of undying love from the undead, and lashings of teen romangst as Bella and Edward wrestled with the tension between desire and death (in your universe, it's a very fine line between la petite mort and la grande mort).

And yes, just as you'd promised me, Edward (Robert Pattinson) came across as some sort of James Dean-Heathcliff-Sir Gawain hybrid, all furrowed brow and stormy demeanour and unflinching chastity.

True, I listened breathlessly as Edward explained to Bella (Kristen Stewart) why he didn't want to pop her cherry until after they were married. ''In my day,'' he began (and who can resist a teen heartthrob who starts a speech with the words ''in my day''?), ''I would have courted you with long chaperoned walks and glasses of iced tea on the porch, and perhaps stolen a kiss or two.'' Was I imagining it, or did I really hear the middle-aged women in the audience sigh even as their teenaged daughters tapped ''WTF?'' into their mobile phones?

But all the while I could see your head had been turned. Oh yes, you talked of undying love and the deferral of gratification and pledging one's troth blah blah blah. But I could see you were becoming more and more infatuated with another.

What were you thinking, showing off all those scenes of Edward's love rival, wolf boy Jacob (Taylor Lautner), running around all bare-chested, beefy and tanned? ''Don't you own a shirt?'' asked Edward. My thoughts exactly.

I'll admit that as Jacob (is his native American name Dances With Nipples by any chance?) tried to entice Bella to become one of those women who run with wolves rather than spending an eternity in the lifeless clutch of Deadward, I could almost see the appeal. But, damn it, you're the spawn of a Mormon, Eclipse. You're not supposed to make fun look so, well, fun.

At least you've been honest about all this. I haven't had to go rifling through your jackets looking for subtext. Marriage (to the vampire Edward) equals death, you say, and quite literally so. Sex (with wolfman Jake) equals life. Hmmm. Can I call a friend?

You've cheated me, Eclipse. You're nothing more than a wolf in sheepish clothing.

It's twilight for us.