Page 24 of To Hell With It
That was a lie. It was busy but not heaving. If it had been heaving – well, I wouldn’t have gone in for a start – but there wouldn’t have been so many eyes on me. What was it with small villages? Why did everyone have to know everyone’s business? It wouldn’t be like that in London, for example. Not that I would know. I’d never actually been to London.
When I went to England with my parents, it was to a place called Bath to see Aunty Bridie. Aunty Bridie wasn’t actually my aunty, she was my mum’s cousin, but that’s just what we called her. She had black hair like me, but it was as straight as a poker. Aunty Bridie had moved to Bath when she was a girl because her mother (my mum’s actual aunty) had got a job as a teacher in one of those posh secondary schools where the girls wore long pleated tartan skirts that they couldn’t roll up even if they wanted to.
I used to roll my skirt up in secondary school all the time. It would bunch up at my waist and I’d tie my jumper around it so that no one knew, and then roll it back down again before I got home.
I liked the buildings in Bath. They were all creamy and old, with huge windows and cobbled streets but it took us ages to get anywhere because I had to walk on the cobbles not the lines between them. We stayed for a week, in a bed and breakfast, and I hadn’t left Ireland since.
My parents were never ones for holidays. They preferred to stay at home. Some might say they were content with what they had; others might say they hadn’t seen the world. But they were happy. And I was too. And that was all that mattered at the end of the day.
My mum had texted to say there was live music before the quiz, which was a godsend because it meant I could fill the afternoon. Everyone looked at us when we walked in, including Carmel, who was sat next to Poor Richie, their clipboards at the ready. Even Ian had given me a wink at the bar like I’d just passed some kind of invisible milestone.
I must admit, I felt smug with Jack on my arm. He wasn’t literally on my arm but he did place his hand behind my back when he bought me a drink. God that felt good. To feel like I was in a couple.
I had expected Una to drop the condoms off at my house rather than the pub. So when she arrived shortly after us with a grin on her face that was impossible to ignore, my heart literally stopped. She sauntered over and pushed them into my hand. She thought she was being discreet, but it was about as discreet as an elephant walking into the bar. In that moment, I literally hated her.
When Jack took the change from the drinks and placed it loose in his back pocket, I’d watched on in horror as he’d passed me my drink. I could see Una in the corner of my eye. She knew I’d hate it, and she knew I’d not be able to wipe my glass with Jack there.
It wasn’t Jack’s hand that I minded. It was the money, the coins, the contamination. It was the thought of someone else’s dirty, sweaty, sneezed-on hands or nose-picking fingers touching them.
It wasn’t an irrational thought as far as I was concerned. I’d seen programmes where they showed how germs could be transferred from hands to objects. It wasn’t that I was worried about getting ill. I had never really worried about that. It was deeper than that and impossible to explain. It was the thought of someone else’s bodily secretions on me. I had tried to explain it to Una many times and she had tried to understand it. But how could you explain something that doesn’t make sense in words? To Una’s annoyance, I made my excuses to use the loo and directed Jack, with my drink, to one of the tables closest to the door (I liked to know my exits). When I came back my hands were covered in sanitiser so that when I picked up my drink it cleaned the glass.
Una was sat down at our table with her vodka-lime-and-soda, and I’d shot her daggers. When Niall walked in and joined us, I knew the night was over. Because how was I going to seduce Jack with my best friend and Niall next to me?
* * *
It turned out I didn’t need to seduce Jack. He seduced me. He’d kept his hand on my thigh the entire time – it started on my knee, he’d put it there subtly when Ian had begun to read out the quiz questions and we’d got one right. It stayed there for a while, and I hadn’t dared look down just in case he’d thought I didn’t want it there and moved it. But it didn’t matter because he moved it anyway – further up my leg.
I had felt the inside of my thighs tingle in a way I had never experienced, and my leg hairs pricked up through my leggings. I’d spent the entire time praying he hadn’t felt them because in my excitement I’d forgotten to shave them. Actually, the truth was I hadn’t shaved them for over a month, I didn’t see the point to be honest, no one ever saw them.
Una had seen his hand there too, and I’d tried not to notice the delight that danced in her eyes through fear of her ruining it all for me and saying something completely embarrassing, like I hadn’t slept with a guy for nearly two years.
Niall must have seen it too because he’d shifted in his chair uncomfortably, and in the end he was the only one answering the questions because we’d moved on to shots and Una was doing her best moon dance while telling Jack all about our life in Drangan and how she’d been trying to get me to leave ever since she’d arrived.
Then she took out her Polaroid camera and snapped a photo of Jack just as he leant in to kiss my cheek.
* * *
When we got back, I didn’t shut the gate, I’d planned on doing it later, when Jack was asleep, and I didn’t have to worry about being seen. I left him in the kitchen pouring us a whisky and I’d run upstairs so quickly I actually forgot to count. (Another sign that him being here was good for me.)
I shut the bathroom door, grabbed my shaver, pulled down my leggings and splashed some water on my hands before I ran it over my legs in a desperate attempt to make them smoother.
I scanned my bedroom as I walked past, the bed was made, the sheets were clean, there was nothing that might embarrass me on show. Then I made my way back down, with nothing else but Jack’s penis on my mind.
Jack was in the kitchen, stood where my grandmother used to peel the wild mushrooms she’d picked. She didn’t cook with them. She ate them raw. My eyes dropped to the condoms I’d shoved in my bag. They’d fallen out onto the counter and I could see Una’s name in bold print.
‘Do you make a habit of carrying your friend’s condom’s around?’ he asked with a smirk.
‘They’re not Una’s,’ I said quickly. ‘They’re mine. I mean … they were mine, but I gave them to her.’
‘Bit strange to put her name on a pack of your condoms,’ he said.
‘She is strange. Very strange.’ I grabbed them and pushed them back into my bag.
I could feel my heart thud in my ears and my cheeks heat up, but before I could change the subject, Jack took my hand and pulled me into him so that I was so close I couldn’t tell whose breath was whose. And just when I thought he was going to finally kiss me again, he yanked down my leggings so that my bare bottom was exposed under the cup of his hands (I didn’t have pants on, did I mention I hated wearing them? Something about the feel of another layer against my skin irritated me).
We stayed there like that for just a moment – long enough for me to feel the throb of his cock through his jeans against my naked skin. And then, keeping his eyes on mine, he slowly sunk down, and all I could do was swallow hard and bite my lips as I waited for his to reach mine.
* * *
