Girl, (Nearly) 16: Absolute Torture

by Sue Limb

  ‘Right,’ said Jess. ‘I’m going to the loos to change into my bikini.’

  ‘I’ll stay here,’ said Fred. ‘I’ve got my swimmers on under my jeans.’ And he clambered clumsily out of them to reveal a very long pair of quite stylish grey shorts. ‘I’m not taking my T-shirt off yet. I hate my nipples and when you see them it will be all over between us.’

  ‘You should learn to love them, Fred,’ said Jess. ‘Give them names. Treat them as pets. It worked for me.’

  Fred grinned, laid out the beach towels side by side and lowered himself gently into a relaxing horizontal position.

  ‘Hurry up!’ he said. ‘And you might as well get us a couple of ice creams while you’re there. Anything with chocolate and peanuts will do for me.’

  Jess set off for the rather distant loos. St Ives had four beaches, and Dad had said this one was best for swimming. It backed on to a steep hillside covered with trees. It was about as scenic as anywhere could be without actual coconut palms, and added to Jess’s mood of crazy joy.

  Even the loos seemed touched with divinity. The faint smell of disinfectant would be forever etched in her memory as the most delightful whiff. She might even buy some and squirt it on her pulse points for all future hot dates.

  She crammed herself into her bikini. It was a mistake, of course: yellow with blue polka dots. But at least it covered most of her bum. Would Fred find it ludicrously oldfashioned that she hadn’t got a gold lamé Brazilian thong? Too bad. Her buttocks must never be revealed to the general public.

  Jess had established once, with the aid of two big mirrors, that her bottom looked like two bald men whispering to each other. This misfortune could only be disguised with a tattoo of the map of the world, with the Americas on one buttock and Africa on the other. Until Jess had saved up enough for the tattoo, the thong would have to wait.

  She stuffed her clothes into her shoulder bag, slipped into her flip-flops and ventured out of the loo, feeling very embarrassed. There was a big queue of women and they glared at her for keeping them waiting.

  ‘Sorry,’ she murmured, and rushed outside. The sunlight felt good on her bare flesh, but she knew she only had a few minutes before she would begin to burn. She had to get back to Fred and force him to rub on the Factor 30. But first she must get the ice creams.

  The ice-cream seller didn’t have anything with peanuts and chocolate, so Jess bought two enormous cones with a towering, fluffy pyramid of whipped ice cream leaning dangerously out of each. Then she squinted into the bright glare of the beach to find Fred again.

  He wasn’t there. He wasn’t there! Jess’s heart leapt in alarm. Her eyes raked the beach. He wasn’t where she’d left him. There was a couple talking where she thought he would be.

  Wait, don’t panic, thought Jess, licking both ice-cream cones urgently as they were already wilting under the hot sun. Maybe he’s just gone for a swim.

  She scanned the people in the sea. They were just bobbing heads, but none of them looked like Fred. Oh my goodness! He’d drowned! Just minutes ago she’d felt it was the happiest day of her life, and now, suddenly, she had plunged right back into absolute torture.

  Jess advanced down towards the beach, still holding the two ice-cream cones, and still licking them now and then, even though she was already planning what to wear for Fred’s funeral. She would go back to their beach towels. Maybe somebody had seen him. There was a couple nearby, the guy sitting on his towel, the girl standing up, talking. She would ask them.

  Wait! Jess looked at the couple again. The guy wasn’t just anybody – it was Fred! Fred! Fred sitting on the beach talking to a girl! A slim blonde girl, of course, tanned and – unless Jess’s eyes deceived her – wearing a gold lamé Brazilian thong. She was flashing her gorgeous pert little body at him, the tart! Her golden thighs were right in front of Fred’s hypnotised face!

  What on earth was he playing at? She would kill him for this! She would kill the girl as well – even more sadistically! In the time it took her to slip into a bikini, Fred had slipped into a whole new relationship! Jess marched furiously down towards them. Fred had taken his T-shirt off. So the blonde in the thong had been allowed to see his nipples before her! What an insult! This was so completely the worst day of her life!

  Chapter 40

  For a moment Jess wondered if the girl might somehow be Flora – crazy, she knew Flora was at Riverdene, but your mind plays strange tricks when you are plummeting from Cloud Nine down towards the blackest pits of hell.

  As she got nearer to them, Fred looked round guiltily, caught her eye and pulled a weird, embarrassed sort of face.

  ‘Hi, Jess!’ he called.

  The beautiful blonde looked across at her and smiled. It was one of those catty, insincere smiles that hide a wicked desire to truss you up, fling you off a cliff and run off to Acapulco with your helpless boyfriend.

  ‘Well, I must dash!’ said the girl, and suddenly slapped both her buttocks playfully as if to draw attention to their splendour. ‘Shall I go for a swim or not? What do you think?’ She turned round and looked at the sea – to show Fred her bum, obviously.

  ‘Oh, go for it,’ said Fred, rather urgently.

  ‘OK! Here goes! My mum was breast-stroke champion of Swindon, so I suppose I should make an effort!’

  And she ran off, her cute little bottom wobbling tauntingly all the way to the waves.

  ‘I hope she drowns!’ said Jess. ‘For goodness’ sake! I can’t leave you unattended for a split second! All I did was go and get a freakin’ ice cream and when I come back you’re chatting up some flashy tart in a thong!’

  ‘I was not chatting her up!’ said Fred, scrambling to his feet. ‘She just came over and hit on me! I can’t help it if other women find me irresistible!’ He was grinning, the pig! He thought it was some big joke!

  A wave of red-hot fire surged through Jess’s veins. She couldn’t help it. Her whole body shook with jealous rage. In an instant, perfect happiness had been replaced by sheer hell. Fred had been chatted up while her back was turned – and he thought it was a laugh!

  Giving in to a moment of sheer weird madness, Jess plunged both ice-cream cones on to Fred’s chest – one on each nipple. For a few seconds they sort of stuck to him, looking like a rock star’s pointy bra, and then they fell off, streaking melted ice cream down his shorts and his legs. The cones fell into the sand, and became tragic and ruined.

  ‘You idiot!’ said Fred, looking deeply embarrassed. ‘I was looking forward to that!’

  ‘Well, if you want it, you can lick it off your nipples!’ hissed Jess. ‘Or maybe your glamorous new friend can lick it off for you!’

  Suddenly Jess became aware that some of the families nearby were sniggering.

  Oh, what a nightmare! she thought. I look a complete idiot! For an instant she was frozen in total horror. She felt a dozen pairs of eyes on her. She was suddenly the biggest idiot on the beach. There was no way out of this mega-humiliation.

  No, wait! There was a way out. Jess reached desperately, blindly, for her old friend, her guardian angel: comedy.

  ‘It’s just not good enough, Quentin!’ she bawled, her voice gradually becoming more and more ridiculously upper-class. ‘I can’t trust you anywhere! There was that croupier in Las Vegas – what was she called? Rosie. Such a ludicrous nose – and not a natural blonde. Then there was that milkmaid in Switzerland. What a fat cow! And the milkmaid was a tad overweight, too.’

  There was a ripple of laughter from families nearby. Fred’s face – Fred’s darling face – cleared, and the horrible look of embarrassment gave way to his usual witty grin.

  ‘I only asked if I could squeeze her udders!’ he protested. There was more laughter from their audience. What a crude lot this bunch were. Trust Fred to appeal to their baser instincts.

  ‘It’s no use! I’ve had it up to here with you and your floozies!’ said Jess. ‘When we get back home you’re going back in your box!’

  ‘No! No! Not the
box!’ pleaded Fred.

  ‘Yes! Six months in the box, and then you’ll only be allowed out to go to church! With a paper bag over your head!’

  ‘OK, OK! Mind you, that lady vicar is a good-looking gal. I think a dog-collar does something for a woman.’

  ‘Quentin, you’re an animal!’ roared Jess. ‘Jeeves, my horsewhip! You’ve gone too far, and you’re going to get a hiding!’

  Fred gave a terrified yell and ran off towards the sea. Jess followed, brandishing an imaginary whip. And behind them, just for a moment, she thought she could hear people applauding.

  But she didn’t look round. She just plunged into the sea and chased Fred, who was swimming off with madly flailing arms. Jess easily caught up with him, grabbed him and ducked his head underwater. Fred dived down, escaped her and bobbed up again nearby. Jess attacked him again, laughing, but he grabbed both her arms and wouldn’t let go. He was surprisingly strong for a thin bloke who lay on the sofa for most of his leisure hours.

  ‘I thought that went rather well,’ said Fred, treading water. ‘But maybe we should save up the ice-cream hurling for the end. In fact, next time I think you should hit me in the face with a whole custard pie.’

  ‘Fred, your approach to comedy is so crude!’ said Jess. ‘That gag about udders, too. I prefer sophisticated one-liners.’

  ‘Yeah, but they loved it,’ said Fred. ‘A seaside audience is always a bit coarse. And so am I!’

  He grabbed her leg underwater. Jess kicked him away, laughing. She was so relieved. Everything was OK again.

  Though she could still see the blonde girl over Fred’s shoulder. She had swum off beyond the breakwater and was talking, possibly about breast stroke, to a hairy-chested man lying on a surfboard with a chain round his neck.

  How totally stupid I was to lose it like that, thought Jess. Her jealousy had nearly ruined everything.

  ‘I love it when you’re jealous!’ said Fred mischievously.

  ‘I wasn’t really jealous!’ said Jess.

  ‘Yes you were – your face went red.’

  ‘That was just good acting.’

  ‘How disappointing!’ said Fred. ‘I was insanely jealous myself. You and that hunky ice-cream man getting all lovey-dovey over the whipped-cream cones.’

  ‘Fred! He was a hundred years old and bald with no teeth!’

  Fred grabbed her feet and started to tickle. Jess plunged and screamed with laughter.

  ‘Not fair! Not fair!’ she gasped, swallowing water and coughing. ‘Stop! Stop!’

  ‘I won’t stop until you apologise for getting cross!’ said Fred. ‘And wasting the ice creams.’

  ‘Well, what hope is there for me, with blonde bombshells like her taking a fancy to you? And that girl at the caterer’s – Rosie,’ said Jess.

  ‘Blondes are not my type,’ said Fred. ‘I prefer a horrid little dark podgy girl! Especially when she’s angry! And by the way, Rosie was a complete invention.’

  ‘So you even go out of your way to make me jealous!’ said Jess, splashing water in his face.

  ‘I can’t help it!’ spluttered Fred. ‘You’re magnificent when you’re angry! Hey! This is our first row. Isn’t it great? I can’t wait till the next one.’ And he put his arms round her and kissed her with magnificent panache, while cleverly avoiding drowning.

  ‘I’m sorry I was jealous,’ said Jess after the kiss. ‘But I quite like this making-up bit.’ Jess had to accept it: there would always be gorgeous blonde girls hovering when her back was turned. Girls with tanned faces and hair bleached by the sun. Granny had been right about the beach being a dangerous place.

  She just had to hope and pray that Fred persisted in his weird, perverted preference for her rather grotesque pallid self. And oh no! She had to slosh on the Factor 30 as soon as they got out of the sea. Red was so not her favourite colour. Especially for noses and shoulders.

  They swam out a bit further and let themselves be lifted up by the ocean swell.

  ‘Help!’ said Jess. ‘I’m totally out of my depth!’

  ‘It’s perfectly safe,’ said Fred, ‘just lie on your back and imagine you’re a dolphin!’

  Fred grabbed her legs and whirled her round and round in the water. Jess lay back and felt the sky wheel above her, and the sea whirl all around her, until it all became a blur, just a single, glorious blue.

  Hi, guys!

  You’re so brilliant reading this and it’s really cheered me up, as Fred is being a bit of a toad at the moment — not that he’s covered with warts and is shooting poison out of his neck (but give him time). Sometimes I feel that you’re my only friend, especially when Flora’s at orchestra practice. So please, please, do me a ginormous favour and visit my fabulous, dazzling, low-calorie, high-energy website —www.JessJordan.co.uk!!!!

  I’m going to be blogging away (I wrote glogging by accident at first and I kind of like it, so I might be glogging too) and I can promise you loads of laughs, polls, quizzes, interactive stuff, downloadable goodies, plus sensational secrets that Fred, Flora, Ben, Mackenzie and Jodie have begged me to never reveal! Don’t tell them I sent you — and promise you’ll be there!

  Love,

  Jess!

  Jess Jordan’s Top Tips for Travelling with Parents

  1) Get a T-shirt printed that says: They’re not my parents. They’re my butler and PA.

  2) If your parents try to take you into a museum, scream, ‘Help! I’m being abducted!’

  3) On the beach, before your dad has a chance to start playing volleyball, bury him up to his neck in sand.

  4) Make sure your mum has a huge supply of gossip mags to keep her quiet. Always plaster yourself in Factor 30 sunscreen before she starts nagging you about it.

  5) Once plastered with sunscreen, roll in the sand and then you can enter the fancy-dress competition as a giant Scotch egg.

  For more top tips from Jess, visit www.JessJordan.co.uk

  Loved this story about Jess?

  You’ll adore

  Pants on Fire!

  Chapter 1

  Fred and Jess were sitting under their tree in the park. They’d worked a bit on their latest script, based on the Queen delivering her Christmas message as a rap artist. They’d shared a chocolate ice cream the size of a small piano. A cute dog had visited them and refrained from pooing. Everything was just about as perfect as it could be, except that they had to go back to school tomorrow.

  ‘Did your dad send you a Commandment today?’ asked Fred.

  Jess located it on her mobile and handed it over. Fred read it and laughed.

  ‘It’s ironical really,’ he said. ‘Your dad is just about the least commanding guy I’ve ever met.’

  ‘True,’ said Jess. ‘If you were looking for somebody to play God in a bad mood, Dad would be the last person you’d choose.’

  ‘You’d probably choose Irritable Powell,’ said Fred thoughtfully. Mr Powell, universally known as Irritable, would be their new Head of Year when they got back to school tomorrow. A treat in store.

  ‘I hope I never irritate him,’ said Jess. ‘His shouting fits can cause structural damage.’

  ‘I wish we were back in St Ives with your dad,’ said Fred. ‘That was such an amazing trip. I was astounded that he accepted me as your … gentleman companion. And frankly, rather disappointed. I was expecting him to horsewhip me or throw me into the sea.’

  ‘Yeah, it was a brilliant holiday,’ sighed Jess. ‘I sort of hoped that Dad would be OK about us. But even my mum seemed to tolerate the idea. It was immensely cunning of you to compare her to Jane Austen, you ruthless charmer!’

  ‘We learnt that in our first week at gigolo school,’ said Fred. ‘It’s an appealing career choice, I’m sure you’ll agree.’

  ‘Just make sure the next old lady you fascinate is a tad richer than my mum,’ said Jess. ‘It was so embarrassing when Dad and Phil had to pay for the birthday curry!’

  Jess’s birthday the previous week had been celebrated in an Indian restau
rant among towering piles of popadoms and seven different vegetable dishes. Her mum, however, had behaved badly by losing her purse and having a panic attack. The purse had turned up later that night, back home under a pile of dirty laundry.

  ‘Thank goodness Phil had one of those flashy gold credit cards!’ said Jess in rapture. ‘In fact, he’s completely divine. What could be better than a camp stepfather with a boutique and a boat? I can’t wait to get back to school tomorrow and boast about my dad being gay.’

  Jess sent her dad a text message saying, PICNIC IN THE PARK WITH FRED. WISH YOU WERE HERE. SCHOOL TOMORROW. YOU’LL BE FAMOUS BY LUNCHTIME. OR SHOULD I SAY INFAMOUS?

  ‘I don’t know how to say this,’ said Fred suddenly. There was an odd, sad note to his voice. Jess’s heart missed a beat. He looked up at her, his head resting on his hand.

  ‘What? What?’ said Jess. ‘You’re not ill or something, are you? You’re not going to die? I have nothing to wear that would be suitable for your funeral.’ Inside, she was suddenly really worried.

  ‘You’re going to hate me for this,’ said Fred.

  ‘I already hate you more than anyone else on earth,’ said Jess. ‘So go for it! Spill the beans.’

  ‘The thing is,’ Fred rolled over on to his back and stared up through the branches of the tree to the sky, ‘I have real problems about going back to school.’

  ‘Don’t we all?’ said Jess, though really she was looking forward to it. It would be so cool. Her dad was gay, which would enormously increase her prestige. And, even more wonderful, everyone would know she and Fred were together. She was going to be so immensely proud, she might just have to sell their story to the newspapers.

  ‘No, I mean …’ Fred hesitated, and rolled over on to his chest. ‘I don’t mean just the routine back-to-school nausea and boredom stuff. I mean, I have problems, with … you know, our so-called relationship.’

  An invisible spear hurtled down through the air and pinned Jess’s heart to the earth.