Love Hurts

by Malorie Blackman

  ‘What happened?’ I asked. ‘Did the old man whoop you?’

  Adam shook his head and nodded at the same time. ‘Well, yes. But it’s not that. I got stung by a bee on my palm while we were playing. Your dad grabbed my hand and sucked the venom out.’

  I nodded. This was a trick he’d learned from Gran, and unlike with rattlesnakes, it actually worked on bee stings. You got the stinger and the venom out, so you were left with only a little itch.

  Adam broke into an embarrassed smile. He leaned in and whispered into my ear: ‘I think I’m a little wigged out that I’ve been more intimate with your dad than I have with you.’

  I laughed at that. But it was sort of true. In the few weeks we’d been together, we hadn’t done much more than kiss. It wasn’t that I was a prude. I was a virgin, but I certainly wasn’t devoted to staying that way. And Adam certainly wasn’t a virgin. It was more that our kissing had suffered from the same painful politeness as our conversations.

  ‘Maybe we should remedy that,’ I murmured.

  Adam raised his eyebrows as if asking me a question. I blushed in response. All through dinner, we grinned at each other as we listened to Teddy, who was chattering about the dinosaur bones he’d apparently dug up in the back garden that afternoon. Dad had made his famous salt roast, which was my favorite dish, but I had no appetite. I pushed the food around my plate, hoping no one would notice. All the while, this little buzz was building inside me. I thought of the tuning fork I used to adjust my cello. Hitting it sets off vibrations in the note of A – vibrations that keep growing, and growing, until the harmonic pitch fills up the room. That’s what Adam’s grin was doing to me during dinner.

  After the meal, Adam took a quick peek at Teddy’s fossil finds, and then we went upstairs to my room and closed the door. Kim is not allowed to be alone in her house with boys – not that the opportunity ever came up. My parents had never mentioned any rules on this issue, but I had a feeling that they knew what was happening with Adam and me, and even though Dad liked to play it all Father Knows Best, in reality, he and Mom were suckers when it came to love.

  Adam lay down on my bed, stretching his arms above his head. His whole face was grinning – eyes, nose, mouth. ‘Play me,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I want you to play me like a cello.’

  I started to protest that this made no sense, but then I realized it made perfect sense. I went to my closet and grabbed one of my spare bows. ‘Take off your shirt,’ I said, my voice quavering.

  Adam did. As thin as he was, he was surprisingly built. I could’ve spent twenty minutes staring at the contours and valleys of his chest. But he wanted me closer. I wanted me closer.

  I sat down next to him on the bed, perpendicular to his hips, so his long body was stretched out in front of me. The bow trembled as I placed it on the bed. I reached with my left hand and caressed Adam’s head as if it were the scroll of my cello. He smiled again and closed his eyes. I relaxed a little. I fiddled with his ears as though they were the string pegs and then I playfully tickled him as he laughed softly. I placed two fingers on his Adam’s apple. Then, taking a deep breath for courage, I plunged into his chest. I ran my hands up and down the length of his torso, focusing on the sinews in his muscles, assigning each one a string – A, G, C, D. I traced them down, one at a time, with the tip of my fingers. Adam got quiet then, as if he were concentrating on something.

  I reached for the bow and brushed it across his hips, where I imagined the bridge of the cello would be. I played lightly at first and then with more force and speed as the song now playing in my head increased in intensity. Adam lay perfectly still, little groans escaping from his lips. I looked at the bow, looked at my hands, looked at Adam’s face, and felt this surge of love, lust, and an unfamiliar feeling of power. I had never known that I could make someone feel this way.

  When I finished, he stood up and kissed me long and deep. ‘My turn,’ he said. He pulled me to my feet and started by slipping the sweater over my head and edging down my jeans. Then he sat down on the bed and laid me across his lap. At first Adam did nothing except hold me. I closed my eyes and tried to feel his eyes on my body, seeing me as no one else ever had.

  Then he began to play.

  He strummed chords across the top of my chest, which tickled and made me laugh. He gently brushed his hands, moving farther down. I stopped giggling. The tuning fork intensified – its vibrations growing every time Adam touched me somewhere new.

  After a while he switched to more of a Spanish-style, finger-picking type of playing. He used the top of my body as the fret board, caressing my hair, my face, my neck. He plucked at my chest and my belly, but I could feel him in places his hands were nowhere near. As he played on, the energy magnified; the tuning fork going crazy now, firing off vibrations all over, until my entire body was humming, until I was left breathless. And when I felt like I could not take it one more minute, the swirl of sensations hit a dizzying crescendo, sending every nerve ending in my body on high alert.

  I opened my eyes, savoring the warm calm that was sweeping over me. I started to laugh. Adam did, too. We kissed for a while longer until it was time for him to go home.

  As I walked him out to his car, I wanted to tell him that I loved him. But it seemed like such a cliché after what we’d just done. So I waited and told him the next day. ‘That’s a relief. I thought you might just be using me for sex,’ he joked, smiling.

  After that, we still had our problems, but being overly polite with each other wasn’t one of them.

  TUMBLING

  BY

  SUSIE DAY

  I am a late person. Notoriously late. Lategirl, with the effortless power of lateness.

  I get to Speedy’s at 10.33 a.m.: twenty-seven minutes early.

  She’s not even here to appreciate the gesture. Obviously.

  Speedy’s is the café on Baker Street, the café with the glossy black front door to 221b beside it, the flat’s two windows directly above, where Sherlock Holmes lives with his hair and his cameraphone and that cushion with the flag on, solving hard clues in a sexy brainy way.

  Not really.

  Actual Benedict Cumberbatch has the good sense to live somewhere less fangirlable, probably.

  The cushion and the cameraphone are in a studio in Wales.

  Speedy’s is on North Gower Street, and sells omelette and chips under walls coated with fanart and Setlock photos. Sherlock would find that a bit rum. (There’s a fic in that; someone will have already written the fic of that; never mind. My mind on a loop.)

  I hold the camera for a series of tourists, posing in front of the red canopy. A Japanese girl clutches a deerstalker, guiltily. We have the Season Three Talk (short version). We hug before she leaves. It hurts. My hands shake holding her camera. I need to sit down.

  Twenty-three minutes.

  Twenty-three minutes and vaticancameltoes will be here.

  My girl. My friend. My Sherlock.

  ‘I’m not allowing it,’ my mum says at breakfast this morning. ‘My babygirl, meeting a stranger.’

  ‘She’s not a stranger.’

  ‘She could be a pervert. A rapist. She could be anyone.’

  ‘She’s not anyone.’

  She is vaticancameltoes.

  She’s Tumblr-famous.

  17, consulting fanartist, Inverness says her bio in 8pt Helvetica, beside the endlessly mobile face of Sherlock Holmes whipping his blue scarf from his neck in a ridiculously flouncy yet charming way.

  (I’m eye_brows. I keep my bio blank to retain the alluring mysteriousness that variations on ‘homeschooled 16-year-old made entirely of hair and ailments’ do not.)

  ‘She’s coming all the way from Scotland. We’re meeting in a public place. Mum.’

  Mum sighs. ‘I don’t even know what you’d do with a girlfriend.’

  Yasmin’s face goes taut, appalled. ‘Please don’t be asking what I think you’re asking.’

  (Yasmin is
my sister: nineteen, college girl, quite heterosexual enough for the both of us, thank you very much.)

  I squirm. ‘Erm. They probably do a pamphlet at the GP’s?’

  Mum makes a face, then tries unsuccessfully to take it back in case I’m going to be all psychologically damaged by rejection.

  ‘No! Only . . . you can’t go out much, babygirl. And you like your quiet time, your quiet things. Being on the computer, your books, your television. You tell us off if we talk when your programme is on.’

  (I do. There is no talking during Sherlock. Especially when Mum is all ‘Which one is he?’ and ‘I do like a man in a coat, your father had a coat like that,’ and ‘Is this Doctor Who?’ It’s like living with Mrs Hudson.)

  ‘Girlfriends watch television. Girlfriends have computers,’ I tell her, drawing on my wealth of experience of girlfriends and their ways.

  Mum pats my hand sadly. ‘What you want is a cat.’

  ‘Or you could just be alone for ever with a wide selection of imaginary friends,’ says Yasmin. ‘No one’ll mind.’

  Yasmin leaves for college.

  Mum leaves for work.

  ‘I don’t have imaginary friends,’ I announce to the empty flat, logging into Tumblr.

  I’ve just got one, my brain echoes back.

  Like a normal human person who is utterly capable of having a girlfriend.

  Right?

  eye_brows – i don’t think i ship them

  i just want them to go shopping for curtains

  eat eggs for breakfast

  and play cluedo forever

  vaticancameltoes – that is the legal definition of shipping

  On 15 January 2012, around 10.24 p.m., Sherlock Holmes fell from the roof of St Bart’s Hospital and died.

  It’s OK. He’s done it before. Repeatedly, since 1893. It never sticks.

  He falls.

  He falls again.

  He is a professional tumbler, cheekbones gracefully slicing the air. Angel pose on the edge of the roof, coat billowing. Dignified back view. Then the fall. He dies very prettily: artistic bloodstains and bright blue eyes.

  (I’ve watched it a lot. For science.)

  It’s OK. He always comes back.

  For his Watson, says VC.

  (There is a school of viewers – and readers, dating back beyond even 1893 – who interpret the relation-‘ship’ between Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson as more than crime-solving professionalism: courtship, romance, erotica. Friends with bennies. Repressed Victorians with unresolved sexual tension. A homoromantic asexual and his bisexual flatmate. A couple. Whatever.

  VC is a dedicated Johnlock shipper.)

  For his Watson, says VC, whenever it comes up, which is often, which is all the time because 15 January 2012 is exactly 365 days ago and we still don’t know how he did it, or what happens now, and there is nothing new to talk about.

  Only the agony of waiting.

  But we know he isn’t dead.

  And John Watson doesn’t. John Watson only believes it. Which seems harsh, or would if he was real. Which he isn’t. But I seem to have cried a lot about him anyway. I’d like to write him a letter (there’s a fic in that; someone will have already written the fic of that; never mind) to let him know that knowing doesn’t help. Dear John, I’ve written to the BBC Scheduling Department but there’s no airdate for Season Three yet. Sorry you don’t get to find out what happens to fictional you for probably like ages.

  So now we’re stuck, waiting. Fangirls in aspic. We’re all John Watson now.

  Except for her.

  Never her.

  She’s the one worth waiting for.

  In Speedy’s café, just like the real thing.

  I go inside, buy a bottle of water, fumble the change, fingers stiff and face red. I sit by the window, facing out. Twenty-one minutes.

  vaticancameltoes – I think I ship us.

  eye_brows – Is that allowed?

  vaticancameltoes – Do we care?

  She’s not a stranger.

  I don’t know what she looks like but she’s who makes me feel better at 3 a.m. when I can’t sleep.

  She lives 444 miles away (Inverness to London: 444 miles as the crow flies; 596 by road; 444 is prettier, though) but she is the person who laughs at my jokes, the person I tell them for.

  She lives in my laptop, like I do.

  She lives in my Tumblr, and Tumblr is the happy place.

  vaticancameltoes – Your turn: worst date or first date?

  eye_brows – ahahahaaha

  I’ve been on a date precisely once. His name was Eddie, and I was fifteen and never been kissed, and at the end I was still fifteen and never been kissed because Eddie wanted to take me to Pizza Express (so fancy) to tell me all about how very agonizingly gay he was and how school was bringing him down and his family were bringing him down and how he didn’t know how to deal and could I help while eating dough balls. My brain went

  – well this didn’t escalate at all

  – why did i think this was a date

  – why is he telling me does he think i am a dude there are breasticles under this shirt bro behold my brastrap

  – this is flattering though, i have ally face, i am officially team nice

  – also thank god i don’t have to kiss him

  – oh wait

  – OH WAIT

  And that is the one date that I have been on.

  vaticancameltoes – Oh man, I’m so sorry

  Please tell me he paid

  eye_brows – He did pay!

  Free chicken and a life revelation.

  At some point maybe my love life could be less about the gay menfolk tho.

  Seventeen minutes.

  I think this is a date.

  444 miles, plane tickets and a night in a hostel, a fabricated university open day to bunk off school. That’s some Mycroft shit right there.

  Though I am totally going to apply to a buttload of London unis anyway, she said.

  For their impressive nightlife and high academic status?

  For her Watson?

  I have been on one date, and it wasn’t a date. I don’t know how you tell.

  VC made an art once, where they’re both cats in a box. It’s called

  John and Sherlock: Schrödinger’s boyfriends.

  dead/not dead

  falling/not falling

  kissing/not kissing

  together/together

  How does anyone know?

  Sixteen minutes.

  I rattle out today’s med #3 and swallow, ignoring the pass-agg mumble from a coughing old man in one of those Russian-looking fur hats, on the next table. Then I lay my head flat on the plastic table, because I’m exhausted and I hurt and it’s not a good look.

  Fifteen.

  My phone hums.

  Hello London! now pls pls tell me what you look like cos I really don’t wanna say smoochie helloes to some random

  We don’t do selfies. We are not those girls. But the smoochie helloes, I like.

  i have ketchup on my lapel and my fingernails suggest i am a typist

  what am i some kind of detective?

  Ok, i don’t look like my icon

  You are not a painting of an angry lady with hibiscus growing out of her head? I AM CANCELLING THE APOCALYPSE

  The angry hibiscus lady is Frida Kahlo: Mexican painter. Also famous for her eyebrows, which stride across her forehead in an unapologetic straight line and meet in the middle to fuck. I am a hairy lady. (It’s a Persian thing – thanks, Dad! – although hello, ladies have hair growing out of their faces, art dudes, why is the world’s most famous painting the one where she doesn’t even HAVE eyebrows?) Also also, Frida mostly painted self-portraits because she got in a terrible hideous accident that left her effectively paralysed with chronic pain, but she was a badass so she propped a mirror up by her bed and just painted the thing she could see. Also also also she had a pet monkey, which I think we can all agree is not the very m
ost amazing thing about her but.

  Frida Kahlo is my sparkly unicorn Beyoncé.

  Magical. Unique. Mine.

  And VC doesn’t know who she is.

  Is this what having your first fight is like?

  Are we not even going to get to have our first fight, because we are plainly incompatible?

  I mean, if we met across a crowded Starbucks (autumnal Sunday afternoon, I’m writing on my laptop wearing adorable knitwear, she carries her signature hot chocolate to the next table and we catch eyes as she does the can-I-use-the-plug-point-under-your-leg mime and I nod and shimmy my violet betighted calf aside, we type side by side, my fingers slow as instead of wording my brain retraces her face, her smile, her teeth, and I steal glances of her elbow and her macbook until I hear a gasp and we both simultaneously realize we are on tumblr, reblogging the same gifset: welcome to my imagination, I can only apologize) it wouldn’t matter. Romantic prospects are allowed to not love all the same things if they meet adorably in Starbucks, with knitwear and miming. These are the things they will discover together, adorably. ‘There is an amazing Kahlo exhibition at the National,’ I would say and she would say, ‘Would you take me?’ and boom, first date. Adorable.

  But us: we haven’t got to elbows and teeth. All we have is shared Liking Of Things. That’s our glue.

  I’ve just sort of assumed our Venn diagram would be busy in the overlap. Then we’d hold hands, and gradually as we talked the two circles would slide closer and closer to fit exactly on top of one another, like a lid on a tin. Perfect match. Love.

  But our interconnections are basically Sherlock and a declared fondness for girlkissing.

  I know she likes Galaxy Quest because she quoted Galaxy Quest one time, but then, who hasn’t? What if deep down she likes ponies and death metal and people with non-broken endocrine systems? What if she only dates girls who can eat dairy products while mountaineering?

  And even if 444 miles and my exciting medical history are not a dealbreaker –

  Can anyone have a relationship based on six episodes of one TV show?

  eye_brows – i have a theory