Doing It (3 page)

But you know what? It was worth every hot, wet, little second of it. It was an education in itself, and while he was fairly certain he could get another crack at his A-levels, he wasn’t sure how often this sort of chance came along.

The bus took him right to the outskirts of town until it was running past hedgerows and pasture. He got off and walked up the road a little way, then back the way he’d just gone. If a car went past he speeded up, as if he had somewhere to go. It was April, a wet, clean day. The nettles were out in soft clumps, there were little white flowers in the hedge, the hawthorns were covered in little green sprouts. Someone had told him they called it bread and cheese. He broke one off and nibbled it. What sort of bread, what sort of cheese? It tasted nothing like.

After about ten minutes, a yellow Renault came driving out of town and pulled up next to him.

‘Hi.’

The young woman inside leaned over and opened the door for him. Ben climbed in and they drove off.

She was chatty today. Asking about the day at school and what he’d done at the weekend. Ali was a gossip. She told him a great story about Mr Haide (maths) whose wife was having a nervous breakdown. Apparently she’d started pruning the privet hedge outside their house at two in the morning because she was scared that the wind would whip the long branches against the windows and break them. As always, Ben was amazed. He couldn’t even begin to relate to the home life of teachers. It’s like something you might get on a natural history programme. Food-gathering and mating and what territories they have, that sort of thing. Mr Haide! Poor old sod. Haide was a miserable old wombat. Ben didn’t want to feel sorry for him.

At her place she made coffee and they sat on the sofa drinking it in silence. Then she got up and pulled all the curtains, made him stand in the middle of the floor and undressed him.

She did that one most times. He often thought that one day he’d like to do it to her. She took everything off, one after another, as if she was unwrapping him, until there he was, stark bollock naked in the middle of the room with an erection on the front of him like a concrete pillar. In some ways, it was uncomfortable standing there like that with your teacher stalking round you, but what came next was so indescribably delicious, he could put up with just about anything for it. She took his erection in one warm hand and gave a long, deep kiss. He could have harpooned a walrus with it. He pulled up her blouse and slid his hands round to unhook her bra, and then she crouched down and took it in her mouth.

He was one lucky boy.

Ben’s affair with Ali Young had been sown over three years ago when he was in Year Nine, involved in the school production for that year,
West Side Story.
Ben was helping with the lighting and sound engineering. She was very familiar right from the start, always trying to tease bits and pieces of information about the other students from him in exchange for titbits about the teachers while they were backstage sorting out gels and fixing the lights. Ben was flattered and enthralled, even though he felt a little uncomfortable with some of the information she gave him.

The headmaster had a hernia operation last May, and by all accounts was walking around for weeks beforehand with half his digestive system in his scrotum. Mr Collins (history) had a cat who shat in the house, and he left the turds there for three days before cleaning it up, on the grounds that it was easier to deal with when it was dry. Mr Collins’ wife had died of cancer of the bowel the year before, did Ben think there was a connection? Mr Wells in maths had had an affair with Mrs Stanton in geography. And so on.

‘That’s just between us, Ben, OK?’

How could he disagree? It wasn’t often that you got a truly adult peep into the world of school, especially from an attractive young woman. Ben fancied her something chronic. They all did. She was just out of college, this was her first job and she dressed like the girls he knew dressed when they were out of school. Over the weeks they got very relaxed together. There was a lot of talk and fooling around together. His friends teased him about it. He even had pleasant little fantasies in which the teasings were true.

Then came an incident which changed everything. She was up on a chair backstage fiddling with one of the lamps, when she tripped, fell over and rolled on her back with her legs in the air. Ben went rushing over to help, all excited and embarrassed because he’d seen her knickers. He embarrassed himself further by actually trying to brush her down. It seemed like a good excuse at the time. He knew what he was doing. He couldn’t keep his hands off her.

‘I can do that, thanks, Ben,’ she said. He smiled self-consciously at her, going red at the same time, because he’d overstepped the mark by quite a bit. But she just smiled at him. ‘Did you enjoy that?’ she asked him.

‘Sorry, Miss. I did, Miss, yes.’

‘Then how about this …’ And she did a silly little dance for him, lifting up her skirt and waggling her bum. It only lasted for a second, but Ben almost died. Her knickers were tiny. He was such a kid at the time. She flushed red with embarrassment as she realised what she’d done.

‘… Oh God, I shouldn’t have done that. Let’s pretend I never did that,’ she said, waving her hands in front of her face as if she could chase the previous seconds away.

‘I won’t tell, Miss.’

He kept his word: he never told a soul. Not Dino, not Jonathon, not no one. He was determined to be loyal, but the incident dented their relationship. The long conversations about lighting and sound, as well as the gossip, came to an abrupt halt. Ben understood. She was a teacher and she’d showed him her underwear. It was magic, but it was also an amazingly stupid thing to do. Imagine if she’d done it to Dino or Jonathon – it would have been all over the school in hours. She could have lost her job. She’d put herself in his power, and from then on, the relationship waned. She’d overstepped the mark and now she put a distance between them to get things back on track.

Ben was sad but he admired her enormously for being so spontaneous. She wasn’t like the others – she regarded the students as people, not as a bunch of sausages to process. For years afterwards, the image of her bum waggling at him in those tiny low-line knickers drove him mad with lust. It kept him supplied with fantasies for years.

Ben knew all about fantasies – he kept a stack of them heaped up in a wicker basket in his bedroom – and they all had one thing in common. Whether it was the just-possible ones, like falling on top of her by accident into a costume basket in the wings offstage and her closing the lid, or meeting her in a pub and having a few drinks and then ho-ho; or the middling ones, like her inviting him to peel the knickers off that pert bottom she was sticking out to him, or the wholly unlikely ones, like him blackmailing her, or her deciding to become a nun but wanting to have a really filthy sex orgy with him before she said goodbye to the pleasures of the flesh for ever – the one thing you could say about them all was this: they weren’t gonna happen. They were fantasies. That was the whole point.

Gradually the fantasies faded and new ones replaced them. He had little to do with her. The following year he didn’t take part in the school production and she never asked why. But Ben kept faith. No one knew, no one was going to know; it was as simple as that. There were plenty of occasions when he might have told the story of how she lifted her skirt and wiggled her bum at him, but he never did. He would have loved to tell her that he was doing this for her, to reassure her that he had kept quiet, that he understood why she had withdrawn. He knew she was worried about it still, because he noticed her looking at him from time to time. She wasn’t assessing his performance for a mark at drama, that was for sure. It was a lingering, appraising look. He had no way of knowing that it was nothing to do with anxiety; it was lust. Miss Young was having fantasies of her own.

Another year went by. Even the odd looks stopped. As the new school year began, he had offered his services again for the Christmas show. The bum dance was three years ago, a thing of childhood. He attended the first technical rehearsals, helping set things up backstage. Once again, those odd, lingering looks began and once again, he thought she was worrying about him.

Things changed for ever one afternoon when she had to go to the theatrical suppliers for gels. Ben went with her into town to help.

She made small talk for the first ten minutes or so, then fell silent. Ben reached down inside himself and picked up the courage to speak.

‘I never told anyone, you know,’ he told her.

She twitched in her seat. ‘What? What did you say?’

‘I never told anyone. None of my friends, no one. About that day you fell off the steps. I never told anyone.’

There was a pause while she just carried on driving. Ben ploughed on.

‘I just wanted you to know because I thought you might be worried about it. So you don’t have to be, because I never told anyone. OK?’

They drove on a bit further in silence. Ben was scared. Maybe he should have kept his mouth shut.

‘I appreciate that, Ben. I appreciate you telling me that. I thought you must have told at least a few people.’

‘Well, I didn’t.’

‘No one at all?’

‘No one, not one.’

‘Well, I believe you. Do you know why I believe you?’

‘No,’ said Ben.

‘Because you brought it up. You told me without me asking. If I’d asked you if you’d told anyone, of course you’d have said no. You’d have to. So I know it’s true. Do you see?’

‘Yes, yes, I see,’ said Ben nervously, although he wasn’t really sure at all.

‘You were worried about me worrying,’ she said.

‘I could tell you were worried by the way you were looking at me, that’s why I said,’ said Ben.

She laughed, he had no idea why. ‘You’re a very grown-up boy, you know that? Very grown-up. Very mature.’

‘Thank you,’ said Ben. He knew that. He was more mature than Dino or Jonathon, both of whom were just kids in one way or another. But it was nice to have someone say it for him.

‘More mature than me in some ways,’ she added.

‘I don’t know about that,’ he said.

‘Well, you never showed me your bum, did you?’ she said, and then added, ‘More’s the pity.’ She looked sideways at him and smiled. Ben smiled back and his heart started beating, beating, beating in his chest like some kind of alarm machine.

Miss Young was in a hurry at Straelers, the theatrical suppliers. She rushed through the choice of gels that they’d spent so long talking about earlier, and on the way back she suggested that since they were early, they could stop off at her place to have a cup of coffee.

Ben sat awkwardly on her sofa drinking the coffee she’d hastily made, while she continued to be impressed by his honesty and faithfulness.

‘It’s a question of trust,’ she told him. ‘You kept our little secret.’

Afterwards, Ben spent many, many hours trying to work out how many clues there had been to what was going to happen next. He decided that there were about six hundred thousand at least, but he was still surprised every single time it happened. She started talking about boys and girls, and then Ben and girls. Having discovered that he had no girlfriends, she wanted to know what sort of sexual experiences he’d had. Ben, by now hopelessly out of his depth, told her that surely this was private stuff, wasn’t it? She nodded approvingly. Then she stood up, brushed down her little skirt and smiled at him.

‘Sorry, but I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time. Ever since I showed you my knickers,’ she added. Then she leaned down to him and gave him a dirty big snog. Ben responded with his tongue and she almost fell on top of him, running her hands over his face and up under his sweatshirt. Blinded by a sudden rush of hormones he put his hand on her hip, then let it slide down to the side of her bum. She pulled up her blouse, and Ben slid his hand up and cupped a breast. He thought he was going to faint with lust and had to sit up.

Miss Young – ‘Call me Miss’ – pulled him back onto the cushions and kissed him even more deeply, making little moaning noises deep in her throat as though she was eating something surprisingly delicious. Her hand caressed his thigh and stroked the bulge in his school trousers. Ben heard himself muttering, ‘Jesus,’ three times, one after the other. They carried on kissing. She unzipped him. Mad with lust but terrified by authority, Ben suddenly froze up and couldn’t think what to do next, but that didn’t seem to bother her.

‘I guess I’m going to have to take the lead, aren’t I?’ she said. She reached behind and undid her bra, pulled her jumper up so that only the thin material of her blouse was covering her breasts. He could see the deeper colour of her nipples showing through. She took his hand and placed it on her breast.

‘Go on,’ she told him.

As he did as he was told, Ben found himself thinking that this was how young girls must feel when they are seduced by an older man. He was so bewildered and sexed up he could hardly think. There was no question of him having any choice about what was happening.

When she began to peel his trousers over his feet, he panicked.

‘I’ve never done this before,’ he told her. ‘I don’t think this is a good idea,’ he said. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked. Or was it, ‘Please, Miss?’ He could never remember.

‘Ben,’ she said. ‘I’m your teacher. Do as you’re told.’

Ben did as he was told.

An hour later he found himself deposited back at school, fixing the new gels to the lamps while Ali, who had transformed herself back into Miss Young like some sort of dark fairy, sorted out a group of Year Sevens who needed to learn how to walk in step. He thought to himself, I just lost my virginity during school hours. To a teacher. He felt immensely proud and privileged. I sucked Miss’s tits, he thought. I know what colour pubes she has. He wanted so bad to boast about it to someone, but he knew he never could, not for years and years, maybe even never. But who cared? Even though he’d just come three times in the previous hour he was still more horny than he had ever been before. OK, the whole thing had been awkward and embarrassing as well – but it was easily the nicest half an hour he’d ever had in his life. Fleshy, filthy and holy. It had everything.