Doing It (2 page)

Jon leaned across to Ben.

‘The rustling of nipples stiffening against the poly-cotton pads of a thousand Wonderbras. The gentle hiss of a roomful of drenching gussets,’ he said.

‘Shut up,’ said Ben.

‘Sorry.’

The Youth Club wasn’t the sort of the place where the boys usually hung out. Dino had persuaded his friends to come along because Jackie was there. Jackie came to fence. She’d been there the whole time, getting togged up, and now she came into view in the big hall at the other end of the room. Dino knew her at once, even covered as she was with protective clothing and the wire mask. She began making passes with the rapier, her hand poised in the air behind her head. He was hoping for a snog later on. No chance. Jackie was right: Dino was a prat. He was even too big a prat to understand he had no chance, despite any number of very clear messages about it.

Dino was unfazed. Jackie obviously didn’t understand something. He had right on his side – his good looks, a sudden smile that could charm the knickers off a supermodel and a disarming openness that took you by surprise over and over again. And the voice. Dino had a voice like a lecherous teddy bear. It was magic.

And he was It. That’s what really counted.

‘Tonight’s the night,’ he said.

‘No chance,’ said Ben. ‘I told you. She thinks you’re a prat.’

‘And you
are
a prat too,’ observed Jonathon.

Dino laughed, then sighed. ‘I’m scared,’ he confessed, and swigged his Coke. The girl who had bought it for him, who had been waiting by his side uncomfortably being ignored for five minutes, walked off in a huff. Dino watched her go, his mind on other things.

‘Perhaps you ought to give it a miss,’ suggested Jonathon.

Dino scowled. ‘You’re supposed to be helping here, not letting me down,’ he said. ‘Thanks, friend.’

Jon was immediately mortified. ‘I didn’t mean it like that …’

Dino rolled his eyes and snorted, but he let it drop. Jon and Ben exchanged a wry glance. Dino walked through life like a blind man on the edge of a cliff, but angels guided his steps and he never fell or tripped. It was just a matter of time. Surely, that time was now.

One reason why Jackie despised Dino so very much was because she was It, too. She’d been It since she was little, just like Dino. Unlike Dino, she’d put such childishness behind her. She knew that she thought far too much of herself, and didn’t like herself for it, but she couldn’t avoid the conclusions that she was far more mature than most of her fellow students – certainly far more than any of the boys, who were mere children. That didn’t stop them from wanting her, of course. They knew she would, they knew she had, they knew she
did
– but not with the likes of them. To get anywhere with Jackie, you had to be so grown up you were almost old. Her boyfriend, Simon, was eight years older than she was. He occasionally picked her up after school in his car. He had his own flat where she often stayed over, with her parents’ consent. They trusted him. By his side, Dino was a foolish boy-child. There was no reason on earth for her to swap.

She only snogged him that night out of curiosity. The club held its monthly disco that evening. People let their hair down a bit, had a few slow dances, got into a clinch or two, a bit of a grope. Jackie had been going out with Simon for two years, she was very faithful but she was starting to feel that she was missing out on this kind of thing. Perhaps that was why, when Dino came up and asked her to dance, instead of rolling her eyes and telling him ‘NO!’ again, she shrugged and let him hold her close and waltz around the room with her. She allowed him to manoeuvre his thigh between hers, felt him swell against her stomach and felt – tickled. Tickled enough to allow him to kiss her as the track was ending. Just out of curiosity.

The kiss went further than she intended. She ground herself against him. Her legs went. When he pulled back, she still hadn’t finished and hung around his neck, eyes half closed, dazed. She felt like a leech prematurely pulled away from its host. Dino looked into her eyes and exclaimed, ‘God!’ passionately, before he pressed her to him again and murmured over her head, ‘That makes me so happy!’

Jackie started to think, What a crap line! But even as she did she knew it wasn’t a line. It was
true.
He meant it. She’d made him happy. She tried to stand up and her legs twitched. Her pelvic floor clenched involuntarily. She panted three times. Dino was a popsicle; she could lick him all up. He pulled back to look at her again as if he couldn’t believe what she was doing to him. His face was shining. It was as if he had just handed her the glowing ball of his happiness, and could she let it drop?

He rested one hand against the side of her face in a way that made her feel both slightly threatened and vulnerable. ‘Come out with me. For a walk or something. Tomorrow afternoon?’ he begged. ‘Please?’

‘Oh. OK.’

‘Thanks.’ Dino squeezed her tight again and his heart beat against her like a bird. He didn’t hang around. Some instinct made him leave her and go home before she changed her mind. Suddenly abandoned, Jackie staggered back to her little group of friends.

‘Enjoy?’ someone asked.

‘Don’t get it myself,’ she replied coolly, but her heart had already begun the incredible, traitorous journey down to you-know-where. And once her heart had lodged in you-know-what, she was doomed. There is no fate more humiliating than falling in love with a lust object as arrogant and as charming as Dino the Lozenge.

‘See?’ said Dino, as they walked home.

‘But how?’ wondered Jonathon. He was amazed. He had been positively scared of the damage to Dino’s fragile but massive ego when Jackie inevitably spurned him. Instead, here he was, beaming like a lighthouse, still licking the taste of her off his lips.

‘She let me feel her tits as well,’ he confided.

‘Really? What are they like?’ asked Jonathon.

‘She has nice tits,’ Dino replied.

‘How does he do it?’ demanded Jonathon. ‘Do you think she forgot who he was? Do you think she suffered a temporary hallucination and thought he was Brad Pitt?’

‘I think she wants his body,’ said Ben.

‘Wow.’ Jonathon could only wonder at the luck of having a girl want you for your body, let alone someone like Jackie.

‘Well, he has the personality of a doof, what else can it be?’ asked Ben.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Dino. He felt like a lion. If he’d been on his own, he would have roared.

By the time she got home, Jackie still hadn’t realised what was happening to her, but she was concerned enough to ring up her best friend Sue.

‘You snogged Dino?’ repeated Sue incredulously. ‘You have a date with
Dino
?’

‘It’s not a date,’ insisted Jackie.

‘You snog a boy and then arrange to meet him and it’s not a date?’

‘Don’t be such an old hen, nothing’s going to happen.’

‘So why go?’

‘So why not?’

Sue began to feel anxious on her friend’s behalf. ‘You don’t like him, remember? What’s the point of going out with a boy you don’t like?’

‘Just because. Why not?’

‘Stop saying why not! WHY?’

‘What’s up with you?’ asked Jackie, and Sue replied,

‘I. Smell. Trouble.’

Jackie just laughed. She felt mildly giddy. Look at Sue going all mumsy just because she let herself do something crazy for once! Sue giving
her
advice. It was always her who advised Sue. Sue had the lousiest taste in boys in the world – hopeless. She just couldn’t help herself.

‘I’m curious,’ insisted Jackie, and to her annoyance, Sue laughed at her.

‘Listen to me, dolly,’ said Sue. ‘Blokes like Dino, they’re like some sort of horrible addiction. You always think you can handle it, that you’re the one who can try them out just to see what they’re like. Then you’re hooked, and your whole life becomes ridiculous.’

‘
You’re
being ridiculous,’ snapped Jackie. She refused the advice on principle, and went to the park to spite her friend as much as anything.

They walked along. He tried to hold her hand and she didn’t let him, but he didn’t seem put out. In fact, he was smiling his head off – at her, at the grass, at the dogs, at the people, at himself.

‘You look happy,’ she said.

Dino glanced around as if they were being spied on, then leaned across and whispered huskily close to her ear. ‘You’re beautiful, I expect people tell you that all the time. You could be in one of those magazines. I just think … I just feel … I don’t know what to say! It’s you. You make me so
happy
!’

It was part ridiculous – like a girl in one of those magazines! – and part nonsense, and part pathetic; but it was all gorgeous. The words sent a shiver all the way up and down her insides. Dino adored her. He couldn’t believe his luck. Where was his caution? Here he was, handing her his heart on a plate, just like that, before her very eyes, even though she had spent the past ten years telling him to get lost. He meant every word he said. He was as open as the sky.

Then he sort of tugged her off into the shrubbery for another snog and she let him.

Afterwards, Jackie thought, In the
shrubbery
? She had a boyfriend, he had a flat they could go to. What for? But at the time she didn’t even think about it. Maybe she didn’t even want to do it, but suddenly there she was leaning up against a tree with Dino’s hand down her knickers, just like she’d been planning on it all week long. It was just the most intoxicating thing she’d ever done. She was hanging round his neck moaning, ‘Dino … oh. Oh. Oh. Dino!’ in a little surprised voice. Saying his name like that turned her on even more. They were at it for ages. In the end he had to stop because his wrist was getting cramp. They were very tight jeans. They staggered out into the day, blinking at the light, and she was in such a dazed, hormone-sodden state that she agreed to a date at the cinema mid-week.

Jackie couldn’t work out if she spent the next few days in a dream or a nightmare. Dino was still a prat, only now, she realised, he was a mind-meltingly delicious prat. She kept picking up the phone to cancel the date and then putting it down without ringing. She was thinking, I could just go along for the ride … and then she’d think – What ride? She couldn’t get him out of her mind. Like Sue said …

‘Good-looking, horny and arrogant. Irresistible, huh?’

‘It’s awful. Am I in love?’

‘This is lust, babe. Enjoy!’

‘But you can’t fancy someone you don’t even like!’ insisted Jackie.

Sue shrugged. ‘I think they’re supposed to happen at the same time but I’m not sure it always works like that,’ she said.

‘What am I going to do?’ begged Jackie, feeling suddenly tearful.

‘What about Simon? You’re supposed to be in love with
him
.’

‘I
am
in love with him,’ she told her.

‘Then forget Dino.’

‘I don’t need you to give me advice,’ she snapped.

‘You’ve got it bad,’ said Sue.

‘No I haven’t. I’ll just do the date and then tell him I don’t want to see him again.’

‘Why not tell him now? Why didn’t you do it yesterday before it was too late?’

‘It isn’t too late, that’s silly.’

‘How often do you think about him?’

‘All the time,’ she confessed. ‘The things we did in the park. And he’s such a wanker. It’s just gross.’

Sue laughed. ‘He sounds just like my sort of boy. Tell you what, leave Dino to me. I’ve had loads of them. He’ll make me unhappy and I’ll shag his brains out. When you see what’s left you won’t want it.’

It was true, Sue ate Dinos for breakfast, even though they gave her severe indigestion. But there was no way.

‘Don’t you dare!’ snapped Jackie, and they both wet themselves laughing, although it wasn’t in the least bit funny.

So she went to the film and it was the most fantastic experience of her life. They never watched a second of it. When she undressed that night, she had little bits of sticky popcorn all over her, which must have worked their way under her clothes while he kept feeling her all over. She felt like a drawer that had been thoroughly rummaged through. Dino was over the moon, he couldn’t leave her alone. When he kissed her, she could feel his heart not beating in his chest but literally fluttering. After the film they walked the streets and he talked. He confessed all his secrets to her and she felt as if she was being showered with jewels. He made her feel as if she was the only person in the world that mattered to him, that he was giving her everything he had. He made her walk with him for hours, because he couldn’t bear this to stop and he was so anxious that in the morning the magic would be gone and never come back. She got home at half one the next morning, to be roared at by her dad for being so late without ringing. Only as she stood in the shower rinsing away the popcorn, did she realise that in five hours she had barely said a word to him about herself, and he hadn’t even asked.

‘Oh, shit,’ she murmured, but she didn’t care. It was too late. Her heart had burrowed its way down and made a cosy little nest for itself just below her womb, where it snuggled in and pulsed and glowed and purred happily. It wasn’t coming out of there for love nor money. She was going to have to tear it to little pieces and chuck them away one by one to shift it. She’d fallen in lust.

As he caught the bus away from school that Tuesday afternoon, Ben felt like a man with a chest full of treasure. Hot wet jewels. Palpitating doubloons. Warm golden breath and silver shivers going up and down, up and down. Riches beyond all measure.

That didn’t stop him feeling anxious as he rode on the top deck and watched the houses and gardens flick past. Treasure can be lost or stolen. What if it isn’t yours? What if it’s so seductive and dangerous that you shouldn’t be playing with it in the first place? What if it was cursed?

It was just great; if you didn’t have it you were worried about getting it and if you did have it you were worried about losing it. Whatever, it was perfectly certain that if he was ever caught running his fingers, his face, his tongue or anything else through the contents of this particular box, all hell would blow up around him. It was bound to happen. He felt as if he was muttering a dark enchantment under his breath, which one day was suddenly going to work and release every demon God could dream up, scorching up out of hell towards him. And where would his soul – or his education – be after that?