Mark
Stupid, reckless, selfish, irresponsible bloody idiot.
I was disgusted with myself, and I wasn’t sure which was worse. Taking advantage of a young girl in my car, or watching her cry because of it.
I took out a cigarette as I cleared the road from hers, and there were only a couple left in the packet. I took a detour to the supermarket, keeping my head down as I grabbed another load from the kiosk. I had a feeling I’d need them.
I was almost back out through the door before I heard footsteps behind me. I flinched as a hand landed on my arm, nerves shot to hell.
“Mark! What a perfect coincidence! I’ve been meaning to catch up with you.” Jenny Monkton’s freckled face smiled up at me, and my guilty conscience made my heart thump. She blew a spiral of red hair from her eyes. “I rarely see you in the staffroom these days, I thought you’d disappeared from the face of the earth.”
Jenny’s drama room was at the opposite end of the complex, far enough away that we rarely crossed paths around school. That was partly it, anyway. The truth is that she’d asked me out for a drink in the year after Anna’s death, and I’d had neither the peace of mind nor the inclination to take her up on it. Things had never quite been the same between us since then.
“I’ve been busy,” I said. “So much marking, so little time.”
“Tell me about it.” She rearranged her shopping bags between her hands. “We had year seven’s drama evening tonight, just needed a few bits on the way home. It went well. Parents loved it. Shame you couldn’t make it, I’m sure the invite went out to everyone… maybe you didn’t get it…”
I looked at her bags. It was more than a few bits. “Are you walking?”
She nodded. “I should probably have considered that before getting carried away with the special offers.”
I held up my keys, capable of being a gentleman at least once this evening. “I’ll give you a lift.”
My stomach churned as she slid into the passenger seat, paranoid she’d smell Helen Palmer and our guilty tryst, but she smiled oblivious.
“I’ve been meaning to catch up with you,” she said again. “About the sixth form winter ball…” “The sixth form ball?”
“Dan Freedman can’t supervise this year, the year nine history trip is on the same day.” I felt her eyes on me. “I was wondering if you’d be able to stand in.”
“At the ball? I’m not sure… I’m quite…”
“It’s only for a few hours,” she interrupted. “I’ll be there, and Janet Kingsley. It won’t just be a load of crazy teenagers.” She laughed. “Don’t look so worried, I’ll look after you.”
“I’m not sure I can make it.” I turned onto her estate, and as I did so I caught sight of her expression. More disappointment. I couldn’t stand the extra guilt. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you, I appreciate it.” She pointed to her house and I pulled into her driveway. “This is me. Thanks for the lift. Let me at least make you a coffee, for the trouble.”
“It was no trouble.” I gestured to the back of the car, hoping she didn’t follow my gesture to the pile of sketchbooks that weren’t actually there. “Marking isn’t going to do itself, unfortunately.”
She smiled sadly. “Another time, then.”
She picked up her shopping from the footwell and I thought I’d escaped without committing to ball duties, but no such luck. “We’re meeting Friday, to finalise the venue details, in the staffroom, it won’t take long. Can you make it?”
“What time?”
“Straight after school. Head up when you can.” She opened the car door and stepped outside before I could argue. “I’ll see you there.”
And my fate was sealed. Chaperoning a bunch of rowdy sixth formers as they partied the evening away. They’d be blind drunk, at least some of them. It happened every year, I’d heard enough of the stories to know. It really wasn’t my scene, I normally steered well clear of school social events.
I wondered if Helen would be there. In my head she seemed as ill-suited to the occasion as I did, but maybe she’d surprise me.
The prospect shouldn’t feel nearly as nice as it did, and the guilt attacked me all over again. I’d started on the new cigarettes before I’d even made it home.
***
Helen
Lizzie had news of her own. She told me so the next morning, and again at break and lunch, insisting it was for after school only, where eavesdropping ears stood no chance of hearing us. She was practically exploding by the time we shut ourselves in my bedroom after teatime.
“Well?” I said.
She pulled a bottle from her bag and unscrewed the lid. “You ready?” “For the drink or for the news?”
“The news, silly!” She pulled me down onto the bed with her, and she was grinning. “We did it, Scottie and me.” I pulled a face. “But you did it ages ago…”
She rolled her eyes. “Not that, Hels. We did more than that.” She took a swig of cheap wine, and I heard it fizz. “Anal. We actually did it. And it was good, Hels, really fucking good. Oh my God, I can’t stop thinking about it. It was hot… like really hot. I mean, it hurt… it hurt like a bastard at first… but then, oh God, Hels, then it felt amazing… so dirty, and hot and… just… you have to try it, one day, I mean. It was intense.”
I smiled, tried to share her excitement. “That’s great… really great…”
And then she knew. “What happened? You cammed him again, didn’t you? What did he say this time?” Her eyes searched mine. “Or did you see him again? Is that why you couldn’t walk home? Oh shit, you did, didn’t you? Did he take you to the river again?”
My cheeks were roasting. “It’s nothing.”
She handed me the bottle, stared at me while I swigged some back. “Helen Palmer, don’t even think about holding out on me… We’re besties. Besties don’t keep secrets.”
And I didn’t want to. I really didn’t want to. But this felt different, bigger, the biggest secret I’d ever had. “Helen! Seriously? I can read you like a book, and you’re majorly holding out. Tell little Lizzie everything.”
I sighed. “You couldn’t tell anyone… I’m serious about this… it’s important.” My tummy turned over itself at the thought. “It would be really bad if you did. I’m not joking.”
“Hey!” she said. “This is me you’re talking to. Of course I wouldn’t tell anyone.” She held up her fingers in some weird gesture. “Bestie’s honour.”
I laughed. “That’s not even a thing, you just made it up.” “So? It is now.”
“Promise,” I said.
She tutted at me. “I, Elizabeth Thomas, do solemnly declare that I shall keep this secret, on pain of death, or a lifetime without ever having anal with Scottie Davis again, so help me Lord, amen.”
I covered my face with my hands. “He kissed me.”
I heard her take a breath, and peered out through a gap in my fingers. Her mouth was open, eyebrows high. “Roberts?!
What? Like for real? Tongues and shit?”
And I smiled. Even though I still felt like a scared bag of nerves, I smiled. “Tongues and shit.”
She took the bottle from my fingers and chugged some back. “You’re going to have to take this from the top. I want to know everything. Everything, Helen Palmer!”
I took it from the top.
Lizzie’s face was a picture, and I got the flutters all over again. It was real. Really real.
“So, what now?” she asked. “You must have seen him since. What did he do? What did he say?” And my smile disappeared. “He was normal.”
“Normal?”
“Yeah, but more normal than normal.” I recalled it in horror, the moment I set eyes on him again, after a night of tossing and turning and crying, and masturbating and chewing my nails and feeling like I was going to explode inside. “I walked into the art room, and he stared at me and I stared at him. And then he looked away.”
“He looked away? And then what?”
“And then he came over, commented on my work, and it was normal. Like so normal it was forced. Like he was trying so hard to be normal that it was weird.”
“And what did you do?”
I shrugged. “What could I do? I had to drop in some English coursework and when I walked back past the art room he was already gone.”
“That stinks.” “Yes, it does.”
“It’s Friday tomorrow, though,” she grinned. “So?”
“So, he can’t get away! You have art last thing, right?”
“Yeah, but… well, what am I supposed to do? If he wants to be normal, then he wants to be normal. I can’t make him like me…”
Lizzie laughed. “Oh, he likes you, Hels, don’t you worry about that. I can’t believe he actually kissed you and groped your titties, I mean I can, but… wow… that’s crazy. He seems so… in control…”
“I don’t think he wants it to happen again.” The idea hurt, the same ache I’d been having since he dropped me back in reality.
“Of course he does.” Her eyes twinkled. “He just might need come coaxing…”
“Coaxing? How the hell can I coax him?” I sighed. “He’s a man, Lizzie, a proper man, who’s so… responsible… and,
right, and…”
“And totally into you.” She launched at me so quickly I squealed, and her hands were all over me, squeezing me through my blouse as she giggled. “He’ll want more of these sweet little tits, Hels, I told you they’d be more than enough for a man like Roberts.” She poked her tongue out, pretending to lick my nipples, and I felt strange and churny inside. “Did it feel good? I bet it did…”
I pushed her off me. “Yes, it felt good.” “What were you wearing?”
I lifted the bra out of the hamper at the bottom of my bed and she pulled an expression of horror. “Oh, man. That’s like the plainest bra in the universe…”
“Yeah, well, he didn’t seem to mind.” My cheeks burned and I wished I was nearly as confident about that as I made out.
She held the bra up to her chest, and the cups were way too small. “It’s fine, it’s just… next time you should be more prepared.”
“What makes you so sure there’s going to be a next time?”
“There’s always a next time, Helen, trust me.” She discarded my bra and got to her feet, turning her attention to my chest of drawers. She rummaged through and I didn’t have the resolve to stop her.
“What are you doing?”
She held out my most flamboyant set of underwear. A lacy purple monstrosity that I never wore. “Is this the sexiest you’ve got?”
I shrugged. “I don’t really do sexy.”
“Well, Helen is about to get sexy,” she laughed. She put her arms through the bra straps and did a twirl, pouting and fluttering her eyelashes and looking so silly I snort-laughed. Maybe it was the wine as much as her. “Lizzie’s guide to seduction, lesson 101… are you ready?”
I fake groaned and took another swig from the bottle. “Does this seduction crap actually work?” “Faultless,” she said. “Just look at me and Scottie. I told you already, it’s from my Romany roots.” “I dunno, Lizzie… what if it makes things worse?”
She scowled and put her hands on her hips. “Do you trust me, or not?” “Of course I do…”
“And you want my help, right?” “Yes…”
“And you’ll do what I say, no matter how silly it seems?”
“Well, I…”
“Helen! Will you do what I say? Yes, or no?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, ok… if you’re sure it’ll help.”
Her smile was bright. Really bright. “Then listen and learn, Hels Bells. I’ll have Roberts wrapped around your little finger before you can say Scottie Davis fucks ass reallll good.”
Oh God, I hoped so. “I’m all ears,” I said.
***