“I’m old enough.”
“You’re in your prime.” She brushed his sleeve. “You look great.”
“As do you.”
“Thank you.” And she giggled. She giggled at him. “I’ll expect Helen Palmer’s eyes will be popping out of her head this evening.”
I swear my heart stopped when I heard that.
“I’d rather not talk about Helen,” he said.
“Oh no, I mean, it was only a joke. I know it’s only teenage silliness. She’s just a girl.”
And he didn’t argue. He didn’t argue with her. Didn’t say I wasn’t a silly girl, and didn’t say it was none of her business and didn’t stand up for me.
I knew the vodka had gone to my head but I didn’t care. I stepped from the shadows and into the light from the patio heater, and Miss Monkton’s face was a picture as she saw me there.
“Helen! I didn’t see you there…”
But I didn’t smile, and I didn’t laugh and I didn’t make conversation. I didn’t even look at Mr Roberts, hating the whole world that they were laughing at me, taking the piss out of me, making me out for a stupid joke, that my emotions were nothing but a stupid joke.
I wished I could have told the stupid cow. Told her how he’d touched me and looked at me, and made me feel special. Told her how I wasn’t just a stupid kid.
But I was a stupid kid. A stupid virgin. And if I wasn’t things could be different.
If I wasn’t.
I turned and hurried back inside.
Lizzie caught me up. “Hey! Steady up. What’s going on?”
“They were laughing at me,” I said, swaying around the place. “Laughing at me for being a stupid virgin!”
Lizzie looked confused, even I could see that. “They were?”
I nodded. “They think it’s hilarious.”
“I didn’t hear that bit…”
“Everyone thinks I’m hilarious. I’m just a stupid joke. A laughing stock. A stupid kid. An outsider. A weirdo.”
“You’re not!”
“I AM!”
But I didn’t want to be. I wanted to be the same as everyone else.
I saw Harry in the doorway, laughing with Tina Foxton, and I forced myself to be brave. I made a move for him, lunged into his arms and planted my lips on his, and he grunted in surprise and so did Tina, but then he found his footing, and opened his mouth and poked his tongue at mine, and it was slobbery and disgusting and tasted of cider but I didn’t care.
I kissed him for ages, until I was sure that the whole sixth form would have seen let alone Mr Roberts, and then I took his hand and put my drunken lips to his ear.
“Fuck me,” I whispered. “Fuck me, Harry. I want it.”
“You do?” He looked unsure, taken aback.
“Now,” I said. “I want it now.”
I dragged him by his wrist, and he followed meekly behind, and when Lizzie saw me she fist pumped the air and wolf whistled and did a ‘GO, HELS!’ chant while we made our way into the gardens.
I hitched up my skirt, and propped myself on a picnic bench, and I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything other than not being a stupid baby virgin anymore.
“You’re sure about this?” Harry asked, and I pulled him closer by his belt. And my fingers were fumbling, drunk and needy and I just wanted him in me, wanted it done.
“Fuck me,” I said again. “I’m on the pill.”
Harry looked over his shoulder to make sure nobody was coming, and then he pressed his fingers between my legs, as though he was checking I was really real.
“Fucking hell, Helen Palmer,” he grinned. “I didn’t see this coming.”
He dropped his pants.
***
Mark
The whole place was thrumming, the air rippling with shock and amusement and bitchiness.
Helen Palmer’s fucking Harry Sawbridge! Right now, in the gardens! For fucking real!
Who’d have ever thought it of Helen Palmer?
Sweet little Helen Palmer.
I thought she was a goody-two-shoes little virgin.
I laid a hand on Jenny’s shoulder, indicating she should hang back, and I was off like a bullet, pushing my way through the throng to the gardens.
“Mark? Mark? Where are you go…?”
I held up a hand and carried on, her eyes burning my back until I stepped out of view.
My heart was pounding as I headed for the shadowy rear of the beer garden. The action wasn’t all that hard to locate. A straggle of giggling sixth formers marked the spot, peering into the darkness of a shady alcove.
“Back inside,” I said. “Now.”
Harry Sawbridge was too engrossed to notice me, his mouth slurping on Helen’s neck as his hands grabbed at her, pawed at her without finesse, groping and sloppy and eager. His belt hung loose, trousers around his thighs, greeting me with the pale sight of his naked backside as I crossed the lawn. I took hold of his arm, and the contact was much more violent than I intended, spinning him around but propelling him further, off-balance, where he swayed and dithered and shimmied about the place with his cock out and his trousers falling around his ankles.