by Sara Barnard
She obliges, and I lean in and kiss her. Easy as that. Bish, bash, bosh. There’s another moment’s hesitation before she wraps her arms around the back of my neck and returns my kiss. She tastes of champagne mixed with chewing gum, and I’m instantly horny. This must be one of my longest ever plays. A year – a whole year. But she’s just moaned into my mouth, so I reckon the pay-off will be worth it. I pull away, breaking off the kiss, lining up my next move. She looks embarrassed that I’ve broken it off, her mouth still half open. I smile to reassure her, but only a little. Then reach out and tug on the blazer she’s wearing.
‘Who gave you this delightful garment?’ Though I can hazard a guess: Cock Block Number One.
Velvet giggles and blushes. ‘Joe.’
‘How very sweet of him.’ I raise an eyebrow. ‘Should I be jealous?’
I can see her emotional whiplash. The touching, the kissing, the stopping of the kissing, and now acting possessive. She giggles again, and she really does look quite pretty, it has to be said. She’s doesn’t look like the girls I’m used to – all blow-dries and well-cut tailoring. ‘Diamond in the rough’ is what I’ve been calling her to David and such. I have to win this ‘pull a peasant’ competition. David will be unbearable otherwise.
‘No, there’s no need to be jealous.’
She tilts her head up, expecting me to kiss her again, so I don’t. I just pull the blazer off and stand behind her, wrapping my arms around her and resting my chin on top of her head. Her shampoo smells of strawberries – slightly cheap and acrid, but not entirely unpleasant. We stay like that, staring out at the skyline for a while, building dramatic tension. I think of all the work I’ve had to put in to get to this moment. Putting up with the pathetic group WhatsApp filled with stupid videos. Inviting them all up here for the weekend and absorbing their weird jealous hostility that my life is better than theirs.
None of them brought anything tonight, can you believe it? The freeloading fuckers! Then there’s been the rather complicated process of getting Velvet on her own without her knowing that’s what I’m trying to do. This wasn’t helped by Puppy Dog Joe mooning over her all evening. Although that’s been rather amusing. Do you think he’s the one who brought that champagne I see? Watching him twisting himself into knots to impress her, when her eyes have found mine, not his, throughout the night.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
‘Shouldn’t you get that?’ Velvet looks up, my chin slipping off her head.
I smile like she’s more important. ‘I’ll read it later.’
I know what the message is anyway. It will be from David, asking if I’ve done it yet. He’s been badgering me all night, demanding photographic proof.
She simpers with having my full attention and nudges her arse back into my groin faux-innocently. My whole body stirs. I should move this along now. I really should. She’s totally up for it; I’m totally up for it. And yet I find myself looking out at the blinking lights of the city and saying . . .
‘Do you ever think of him? Steven, I mean?’
What am I saying? Where did that come from? And yet I find I’m nervous all of a sudden, waiting for her reply.
‘Yes,’ she answers. ‘Every day. I mean, it would be weird if we didn’t, wouldn’t it? We saw someone die . . .’
‘I think about him too,’ I find myself admitting. Because I do. His face, and the way it looked, seems to be the favourite feature film my brain plays behind my eyelids. And I think a lot about his funeral, and how nobody fucking came, and how truly pathetic that is. My stomach twists, and I feel my body revolt at this feeling of discomfort. I laugh and say, ‘Whoops, sorry – I’m getting all deep and meaningful.’
Velvet turns around and looks right into my eyes. ‘It’s OK,’ she says softly. ‘I don’t mind.’
I’m kissing her. I’m kissing her with everything I have, which, let me tell you, is a lot. I’m pushing my crotch into her, grinding my body into hers and plunging my tongue in her champagne-tasting mouth. Then I’m pulling her inside and leading her down the hallway while she giggles and asks where we’re going. I reply by kicking the door to the master bedroom open and tugging her towards the bed. I can’t wait to touch her. I roughly pull her dress over her head and start kissing her bare shoulders. She lets out a groan, and she may as well have waved a red flag at a bull, because I’m already tugging off my designer jeans with one hand and trying to paw at her knickers with the other. We fall on to each other’s bodies and it’s all going perfectly to plan when—
A cough.
‘What the hell,’ I whisper, my head lurching up.
And there, standing in the bath – looking like she’s about to shit herself with embarrassment – is Sasha. ‘Sorry,’ she stammers. Her eyes go to our naked skin, and she frantically tries to look away.
I burst out laughing, because this really is the cock block to end all cock blocks, and she trips as she flees the room. I laugh again into Velvet’s mouth as the door slams shut behind me. But she doesn’t laugh back.
‘Oh God.’ Velvet lurches up. ‘Do you think we upset her?’
She’s covering her eight-out-of-ten body with her hands, and I suppress a groan of exasperation. Will I ever close this? I’ve been messaged about ten times already this evening, and I can’t go back to London without sealing this. I mean, I could always lie. But I’m horny now; I’d rather not have reason to.
‘She’s fine,’ I say, and I haven’t kept the irritation out of my voice, which is a mistake.
Velvet covers her body further. ‘Oh God, I’m so embarrassed!’
My head’s racing as I try to work out how to save this. What tactic will work? Charming? Caring? Pushy? Disinterested? I have only a split second to pick one . . . I gently put my arm over her shoulder.
‘Hey, don’t be embarrassed. She’s the one lurking like a creep in a bathtub.’
Velvet laughs and lets me keep my arm there.
‘You’re so beautiful when you laugh.’ I pair the compliment with removing my arm, turning away from her, and starting to put my jeans on. I count in my head . . . One . . . Two . . . Three . . .
‘Wait, where are you going?’ she asks, as I stand up.
Bingo . . .
I turn to her, feigning surprise. ‘Back to the party . . . I thought . . .’ I pretend I am embarrassed too. ‘I assumed you’d want to go back?’
I watch her weigh up what to say next. She really is a pretty thing. This isn’t exactly a bad bet to be following through on. Not like that time Giles made me eat an omelette made of his fried vomit. She reaches out and touches my chest, sending more shocks of lust right to my impatient groin. ‘I don’t want to go back.’
I smile at her. ‘Me neither.’
The mood is dampened though, and it’s going to take a while to get her back on course. So I ask her loads of questions about herself and pretend I’m riveted by the answers. Her life sounds fucking ghastly, to be honest. In some rotting seaside town, with only some amoeba called Chelsea to keep her company. She blahs on about liking English at school. I have this weird moment of feeling sorry for her. She’s nice. I can tell by the way she talks about books, and I get this twist of something in my gut. I don’t like it, so I break off whatever the hell she’s saying with a kiss. Velvet responds instantly. And it doesn’t take very long to get her dress back off, to have her on the bed, both of us naked. I murmur into her mouth that she’s beautiful, and maybe I even mean it. She pauses for a second while I’m putting the condom on.
‘What is it?’ I ask. Because, yeah I’m shagging the girl for a bet, but only if she actually wants to. I’m not a monster.
‘It’s nothing. It’s just . . .’
‘It’s your first time?’ I’m still being the Caring Guy, though I’m too horny to make this act last must longer.
She nods and blushes. She really is pretty. ‘I just . . . thought you should know . . . in case . . . I’m not good or something.’
I silence her worries
with a kiss and climb on to her. And I get another twist in my guts, just as I’m about to get there, a feeling that this moment means so much more to her than it ever will to me . . . and then the feeling goes as quickly as it arrives.
VELVET
‘Jesus, Velvet – how many times do I have to tell you? Remember the golden rule: legs or boobs – never both. Oh well, if you can’t be good, be careful . . .’
Those were my mum’s final words of wisdom to me when I left the flat earlier. My carrier bag of corner-shop vodka and own-brand Red Bull ready to drink on the train was clanking loudly, and I was wearing the world’s tiniest dress, setting off on my way to a strange boy’s place – and that was the best my mum could do for life advice.
I know she means well. She does her best. And at the time, it seemed funny.
‘Thanks, Mum,’ I said, grinning as I gave her the middle finger on my way out the door. ‘That’s massively helpful. In fact, we should probably get a family coat of arms and that could be the motto. We could have it translated into Latin.’
It doesn’t seem that funny now. It seems like the reason why I’m the sort of girl who ends up drunk and naked in an unfamiliar bed, feeling a bit sick. The bed seems vast and unfriendly now I’m in it by myself.
It was all good when Hugo was here with me, but the second it was over, he ducked straight into the very en-suite shower – semi-visible through the opaque glass in the corner of the bedroom – making me feel a bit grubby and gross. Only a little while ago, I was so happy to have his attention, to be alone with him. But now that happiness feels a bit . . . precarious.
He’s been in there ages, giving me more and more time to doubt myself. I’m not sure what I’m meant to do. I can’t find my knickers. I don’t want to go back out there on my own. Especially after what happened with Sasha.
I thought with these people, I could be someone different. They don’t know me as the girl who lives in a dodgy hotel, whose mum always has a new boyfriend she swears is ‘different this time’; the girl who everyone knows got fingered by Griffin Collins under the pier. These people seemed to think I was nice. Nice and normal, like Sasha, who’s so sweet, and Kaitlyn with her cute hair streak. Now Sasha’s seen me basically naked, and they’ll all think I’m a total slut.
And I’m not, not really. When I told Hugo it was my first time, I wasn’t lying. Not quite. Mostly I said it because I was worried he’d think I was crap in bed, but I don’t think that time with Griff really counts as actual sex anyway. Under the pier is not the ideal location, and I was drunk, and it just got to the point where I didn’t really know how to say no. I couldn’t figure out how to make the word come out.
Luckily, the logistics didn’t really work – he couldn’t get the condom on, and in the end he only had a semi. He sort of tried to stuff it in, and there was a horrible moment when I thought he was trying to stick it up my bum. Then I panicked and said I thought I could hear someone coming and we’d better stop.
Griff was really pissed off. That’s probably why he told everyone. And now – ironically – they all say I’m a slut and frigid. It’s all behind my back, because I’m Chelsea’s cousin, and nobody messes with her – but I can hear the whispers, and it’s horrible.
I take a deep breath and try to block it out of my head. I was unlucky with Griff, that’s all. One drunken mistake. Hugo’s not like that. Hugo’s a really good person. It’s funny, even though we haven’t spent much time together, I feel like I really know him. I mean, I know his life inside out. I’ve spent the past year stalking him on social media. Hugo going clubbing with his mates, Hugo with shiny-haired girls who look like racehorses, Hugo on holiday in the Caribbean with no top on . . .
He lives in a totally different world from me, obviously. Which is pretty intoxicating – but it also makes it all the more amazing that we’ve got this connection. You know, the odds of the two of us meeting like this . . . it’s got to mean something. I don’t want to sound like a total weirdo and say it’s meant to be – but I kind of can’t shake the feeling that it’s meant to be.
The sound of running water stops. Hopefully this means Hugo will come out soon, everything will be OK, and he can get the others to leave. My mum won’t notice if I come home or not, so I can easily stay the night, just the two of us. Maybe we could spend the rest of the weekend together drinking coffee on the balcony in our dressing gowns, or whatever people with penthouse flats like this do on a Sunday morning. It doesn’t matter that I don’t even like coffee.
Most importantly, we could finally have the chance to really talk. There’s so much to say, and there have been so many obstacles tonight. I know Hugo feels the same – he was looking at me all night like all he wanted was for us to be alone together too. Thank God he’s not like Griffin Collins—
Thankfully, my phone beeps and interrupts my thoughts of that creep. I automatically reach for the light in the semi-dark room and see the message flash up on the screen. It takes me a second before it registers.
This is not my phone. Of course it’s not. Mine has a cracked screen and a shit cover from Claire’s Accessories. This one is newer, shinier, better. Of course it is.
The screen goes dark as I stare at it, but the message is imprinted on my brain. I will never unsee it. I half want to cry and I half want to be sick, but in reality I don’t do either. I drop the phone, switch on the bedside light, and go about finding my clothes as quickly as possible. I wrestle myself into my stupid tiny dress – no wonder everyone thinks I’m such a slut – and finally find my knickers over on the other side of the room.
I’m so desperate to escape before Hugo comes out of the shower, I don’t bother trying to find my bra. Even though now he’ll be able to tell everyone I’m a 32A, and it’s mostly padding.
As soon as I leg it out of the bedroom, I run straight into Sasha. Has she been there the entire time?
‘Sorry, I was j-just . . . Sorry,’ she stammers as I shove my way past her.
Kaitlyn comes out of the kitchen just as I’m by the front door, trying to will myself sober enough to get my sandals on – the multiple little straps are beyond me right now and bending down is not my friend. Taking them off seemed like the polite thing to do when I arrived, what with all the cream carpets in this place, even though Hugo laughed and said I needn’t bother. Now I wish I’d trodden dog shit all over the carpet.
If I were braver, I’d do something like that now. Confront him, throw a drink in his face, pour red wine all over the pristine sofa, smash that huge glass vase of lilies on the dining table. But I’m not brave at all. I’m just going to slink away and wait until I’m safely out of sight before I start crying. And then I’ll never talk to any of these people again, and nobody ever needs to know this happened. That I was stupid enough to think this time it might be different.
‘Velvet, are you OK?’ Kaitlyn asks.
I can’t even look at her face. It’s too kind, confused, and genuinely concerned. I’ll start crying, and Hugo will come out and wonder what’s going on, and I’ll have to tell him what I saw, and that absolutely cannot happen.
‘I’m fine. Just getting some air.’
‘Hey, then why don’t we both go out on the balcony and—’
‘Sorry, I’ve got to go.’
I cut her off mid-sentence and run out of the flat, carrying my shoes in my hands. I feel bad, but I guess it doesn’t matter as I’m not going to see any of these people ever again.
‘I’ll go after her . . .’
Footsteps echo on the stairs behind me. I should probably have taken the lift – but, funnily enough, I’m not that keen on them these days. I run faster and faster, the shiny steps flying underneath my bare feet.
‘Velvet – wait!’
I pause for a split second . . . my head spins, and one foot suddenly gives out underneath me. I’m now literally flying down the last set of stairs towards the lobby. I feel my shoulder wrench as I put out an ineffectual hand to try to break my fall, but it’s no u
se and my face meets the marble floor of the grand entrance hall with a brutal smash. I instantly taste blood in the back of my throat.
‘Oh my God, Velvet!’
The voice sounds very far away. My shoulder and my knee feel like thunder, my hands come away from my face covered in blood from my nose, and I can feel a shard of tooth rattling around in my mouth, like the wrongest thing in the world.
I look up and I see Joe’s face.
‘Velvet?’ is all he seems able to say.
I want to laugh and tell him he looks worse than I do, like he’s just seen a ghost. I want to tell him not to worry about me. But none of that comes out. He looks at me, and I burst into tears. The tears I’ve been trying so hard to hold in for so long. Once I start, I can’t stop. I cry for everything bad that has ever happened, like I have never done before in my life.
I hide my face in my hands so he can’t see me, a mess of tears and snot and blood. I feel him put a hand on my shoulder, very tentatively.
‘Don’t cry. It’s OK. I’m here. Velvet, please don’t cry. I . . . I think you’re lovely.’
He sounds understandably awkward – after all, he is a boy comforting a weeping, bleeding mess of a girl – but it’s weirdly reassuring after Hugo’s smooth lines and champagne. Suddenly I’m glad it’s Joe here.
Eventually I look up – my face in total horror-movie state – and he is looking at me, and I can see that he was being truthful. He really does think I’m lovely.
His face is so nice, I’m genuinely tempted to fall into his arms and tell him everything, and let him hug me. But I can’t. I can’t bear to ruin the illusion, the way he’s looking at me.
I’m not lovely. I’m gross and common and thick and a slag. I am weird and I don’t fit in anywhere.
And Hugo Delaney only shagged me for a bet. His friend David texted him to ask if he’d ‘pulled the peasant’ yet. I was so fucking stupid, I didn’t see it coming. I thought he actually liked me. I thought it meant something – and yes, I know how lame that sounds. I will never make that mistake ever again.
