Doing It

by Melvin Burgess

  ‘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 dow
n 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.

  3

  the secret history

  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?

  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.