Teach Me Dirty(28)

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 f*cking 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.