The Not Gate (Tom and Alice #1)

by Tammy Bench

  ‘I think I should go. We can talk when we’re both calmer,’ she smiled at him sweetly, brushed her fingers over his hand and tried to stand. Tom put a small amount of pressure on her hip, forcing her back down.

  ‘If we talk when we’re calm things would have changed between us. You won’t trust me and I’ll hate myself for screwing up, it’ll feel weird like we don’t really know each other, but we know each other, baby.’

  He pulled her body beneath his own with one hand and lowered his chest slightly so she couldn’t wriggle out of his grasp. She pushed at him but not hard enough to make him worried that she was totally opposed to his restraining her.

  ‘What we need to do is fuck and forget this shit… please.’

  ‘No,’ Alice’s breathing quickened giving her away.

  Tom repressed the urge to smile he wasn’t that arrogant. He forced one of his legs between hers and she struggled weakly, he moved the other and spread her knees with his own.

  ‘No, Tom,’ she moaned as he kissed her neck. But her hand was in his hair moments later. He did feel slightly ashamed that he was using sex as a weapon against her right now, but he seriously didn’t want her to leave hurt and angry and thinking he didn’t love her with everything that he was.

  ‘Do you want me to stop?’ he asked seriously now.

  ‘No,’ her eyes filled up again, she felt weak and he could see it.

  ‘If I was man enough to cry in front of you, I would be, right now. I love you so damn much, please don’t scare me like that again.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she whispered.

  ‘I’m sorry… and I’m sorry for the bullyboy tactics.’

  ‘I wouldn’t expect anything else from a street fighter like you,’ she smiled.

  ‘Can I do it?’ Tom motioned with his head to the area between their bodies that was not yet joined physically.

  Alice nodded, and with that small motion Tom wanted to run around punching the air like an idiot.

  He entered her slowly and froze…

  Shit, no condom.

  ‘It’s okay Tom. I started taking the pill a month ago,’ Alice looked away embarrassed.

  ‘Really?’ he pulled her face back to his, ‘why didn’t you tell me?’ Tom moved inside her again. It felt so good.

  ‘Surprise?’ she muttered.

  ‘Thank you,’ he kissed her hard on the mouth.

  This was going to be a really long night and she wasn’t the only one that might have to pull a sickie tomorrow.

  NO MAN IS AN ISLAND

  Saturday 2nd March

  Tom quickly tied his trainers and threw on his burgundy Umbro sweat top, ran his hands through his hair and looked around for his CD Walkman.

  Where the hell is it?

  He poked his head round the kitchen door and found Neil with his head in the fridge.

  ‘What’re you eating?’ he raised his hands in despair.

  Neil chewed sheepishly, ‘Twix,’ he grinned.

  ‘You’re the one always complaining about having no abs, how is that going to help?’

  ‘Sorry He-Man just the thought of going running with you makes me turn to chocolate for comfort,’ he laughed back sarcastically.

  ‘Dork,’ Tom opened the kitchen junk drawer and continued looking.

  ‘The Twix was in your fridge anyway,’ Neil laughed.

  Tom ignored him, ‘have you seen my Walkman?’

  ‘No. Did you lend it to Matt for his flight?’ he asked.

  ‘I’d never get it back! I’ll check the bedroom again. Will you check the car for me? The keys are on the sideboard,’ he said running up the stairs.

  ‘Yep. Do you really need it that much anyway?’ Neil called.

  ‘Can’t put any serious miles away without music, dude,’ Tom shouted down the stairs.

  Neil grabbed the car keys, ‘oh joy, oh rapture,’ he muttered to himself.

  A few minutes later with no luck in the bedroom, Tom found Neil in the living room with his back to him looking at something in his hand.

  ‘Was it in the car?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I didn’t find it,’ his voice sounded strangely low and concerned.

  ‘What?’

  He turned slowly to face Tom. His features were oddly hard and as Neil was nearly always smiling, Tom felt a sudden shiver of apprehension dance over his shoulders.

  ‘No Walkman. Just these.’

  Neil held his hand out and in it he was holding a small piece of paper about four inches long and two inches wide.

  ‘I don’t get it, what’s up?’ Tom questioned.

  ‘Look at it,’ Neil demanded. Tom took the slip of paper from his friend’s hand and turned it over.

  Alice’s enchantingly beautiful, innocent face smiled back at him. Her small head perched lightly on his broad shoulder. And him half-smiling too. Looking so mature, old and different.

  Shit.

  Then the next picture. All you could see was the sides of their heads, his large hands pushed into her hair, holding her forcefully as they kissed. Alice’s eyes were closed and she looked like a blonde angel. He, he looked like a thirty something, male teacher kissing his student in the most inappropriate way imaginable.

  His hand was shaking. He’d not even seen the photos before now. She must have torn them into two pieces and left them in his car for him to find.

  ‘Don’t say, it’s not what it looks like,’ Neil’s voice cut into his thoughts.

  Tom looked up, ‘I wasn’t going to.’

  ‘Who is she, Tom? You didn’t mention you were seeing someone. It looks serious,’ Neil questioned never taking his eyes from Tom’s face.

  ‘Just a girl, you don’t know her,’ Tom shrugged looking down at the pictures again. He was never going to be able to pull this off.

  ‘You’re fucking right, mate she is just a girl!’ his friend’s words hit hard and he inwardly flinched.

  ‘Please Neil, let me explain.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Seventeen,’ he mumbled stuffing the photos into the pocket of his shorts.

  Neil coughed, spluttered even, ‘seventeen?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well I suppose that’s something, she looks younger. Seventeen… when were you going to tell me?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s tricky, her parents don’t know, no one does,’ Tom wanted the ground to open up.

  ‘How did you meet her? The gym? She’s stunning by the way. I can see the attraction. But seventeen, that’s a bit weird even if she is hot, Tom.’

  Tom felt the familiar pang of jealousy as soon as Neil said the words. Normally he would joke around talking about woman, who they found attractive and so on, but he couldn’t do that with Alice, she was his.

  ‘Yes, she’s stunning,’ he levelled his eyes with Neil’s now.

  Neil flung himself on the sofa in a dramatic fashion and patted the seat next to him like an old woman, ‘you gonna talk to me then?’

  ‘This is really hard for me, okay. You need to listen before you just accept this like it’s cool with you. This isn’t cool,’ Tom sat on the leather chair opposite him, ‘there is no easy way to say this.’

  ‘Go on,’ Neil prompted.

  ‘I didn’t meet Alice at the gym,’ he paused, ‘I meet her at school. I teach her English.’

  Neil’s hand flew to cover his mouth. He began shaking his head back and forth and moments later let out a low long whistle, ‘that is messed up, man.’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘But we’ve talked about hot school girls before. You were always so passionate about your career and how teachers just don’t ever look at students that way. You’re the last person I thought would do this,’ Neil was staring at him now and demanding answers that Tom didn’t have.

  ‘I thought I was too, but
when I started at the school and first saw her something just hit me. I couldn’t control it, and she was suddenly everywhere I looked, in my head twenty-four seven. It was like I didn’t exist anymore outside of how she made me feel,’ Tom wiped his face with the arm of his sweat top.

  ‘Like The Godfather thunderbolt?’ Neil asked.

  ‘Yes, just like that. I don’t know what to do? Everything is so screwed up. I want to be with her so badly, but if anyone else found out it would be curtains to teaching and now I get a look at these photos. Which I haven’t seen before by the way, and it just looks… wrong. When we’re together I just see her, I forget that I’m older. In my head I’m still eighteen.’

  Neil blew out a slow breath, ‘you know it’s wrong though don’t you? I don’t mean ‘abuser’ wrong, because I don’t think for a moment that’s what you are. So you don’t need to kick my arse! Just wrong on the teaching side. This isn’t you, you’re a great teacher, don’t mess it up because of some attempt to rekindle your teenage years. It could be just a blip.’

  ‘It’s not a blip, Neil. But I do get what you’re saying about teaching. You know that I’m leaving the school anyway, it would make it easier to continue seeing her then,’ Tom’s hands had finally stopped shaking. Thank god Neil was such a good guy and he was actually talking to him about it.

  ‘I don’t think it’s that clear cut do you?’

  ‘No. I thought it was until… this,’ he pulled out the pictures again and stared at himself.

  ‘It’s pretty stark,’ Neil smiled supportively.

  ‘I can’t finish it with her,’ Tom felt tears threaten to fall and wiped his face again.

  ‘Do you want a whiskey?’ Neil pushed himself off the sofa and fixed two drinks in the kitchen, walked back in with the bottle and handed one to Tom. Who drank it quickly.

  They sat in silence for nearly ten minutes then Neil looked up, ‘You’re fucking her? If that picture is anything to go by, you must be.’

  Tom nodded slowly.

  ‘Shit man, you’re a crazy Irish bastard. She’s not some nymphet, Lolita type is she? Just taking you for a ride for kicks,’ he mused.

  ‘She… she was a virgin,’ Tom hung his head in shame as he said the words.

  ‘Crazy. You need to decide what to do. Not just for you, but you have to think for her too. What is best for a seventeen-year-old girl? I’m pretty sure it’s not getting banged by her teacher, despite what she may think she wants.’

  ‘That’s what I pretty much said to her at the start, and then we kissed and after that… well,’ Tom fixed himself another whiskey and downed that one too.

  ‘You were no longer thinking then,’ Neil said.

  ‘No. I guess not. I love her you know, the first person I have loved properly, Neil. How can I give that up?’

  ‘Do you?’ he questioned awkwardly.

  ‘Yes. I do.’

  God, he loved her so much. All he wanted was her here now, so they could run off together and in a perfect world, have kids and grow old together. But this was reality and Neil was right. How was any of this good for Alice? Did she really know what she wanted?

  As soul destroying and awful giving her up would be, she could move on and eventually forget him. Find someone her own age, be free to love and be loved without all the fucking secrets… for him though he doubted it would ever be that easy.

  ‘Then I’m in no position to tell you what to do. But as your best friend, who loves you, I just don’t want to see you throw your whole life away on something that has really low odds on becoming happily ever after, you know?’ Neil walked over now and held out his arms.

  ‘I know. Thank you for being so… you, I guess,’ Tom smiled at Neil and hugged him tightly.

  ‘You’re welcome big guy. I just didn’t ever think I’d be having this conversation with you, one of the others, maybe.’

  ‘What am I going to?’ Tom begged for an answer now.

  ‘At the very least you need to put some distance between you. Where have you had offers from now, that school you’re not keen on in Banbury, anywhere else?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, a head of department in Chipping Norton, quite a small school though…’

  ‘Go on?’

  ‘This is what I wasn’t going to tell you yet. The school I applied to at the same time as Claude Bennett, the private one back home in Wicklow has been in touch. You remember I went for the interview but they gave it to someone else? The person they took on hasn’t worked out and they want me to call them. Looks like I was second on their list. I wasn’t going to even mention it and had dismissed it with Alice being here and you, everything really,’ Tom opened the drawer in the sideboard and handed him the letter he had received days ago.

  ‘Wow, head of department, brilliant salary, prestigious school. That’s what you wanted, didn’t you?’ Neil said scanning the letter.

  Tom nodded.

  ‘I’m not one for fate or anything but if you wanted to have some time away to think things through this would be the ideal opportunity and a fantastic career progression. As much as I would miss you, you need this. It’s only an hour or so on the plane,’ he handed the letter back and smiled sympathetically.

  ‘What about Alice? How could I do that to her and to myself? Fuck!’ he cursed loudly and felt like hitting something, ‘How the hell did I get myself into this?’

  ‘Do you really want me to answer that? I think your head was somewhere else.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that. It isn’t like that,’ he replied angrily, ‘what would she do if I ended it? How could I go on without her?’ Tom sank back onto the sofa.

  ‘You’ve got it bad, Tom,’ Neil stated.

  ‘Worse than that,’ Tom shook his head and roughly elbowed the soft cushion behind him.

  ‘Ever heard the expression… pulling the plaster off quickly?’ Neil whispered under his breath.

  ‘Yes…’ Tom paused, ‘but it fucking stings.’

  OPEN YOUR EYES

  Sunday 3rd March

  Tom Chambers: respected teacher, loving son, true friend, all-round good guy… absolute screw up.

  The last time he had sat up to the early hours drinking whiskey was before he had even kissed Alice. Now here he was curled up in the small brown chair in the corner of his lounge, tumbler in his hand, bottle by his side, praying like crazy that he could figure out what to do. The room was dark and cold now. The central heating had clicked off and the television had changed from normal late night shitty programmes to teletext hours ago.

  The small strip of photos perched on top of his coffee table.

  He rarely took his eyes off them. He kept picking them up and putting them down like it was some kind of nervous twitch. Alice’s face stared at him, smiling. She wouldn’t be smiling if she knew the thoughts that were swamping him this night.

  Neil was right, how did she really know what was best for her?

  She’s seventeen for Christ’s sake.

  How could he have ever thought that what he had started had some kind of immunity from decency just because he loved her so much?

  His friend was wrong about him thinking with his dick though. The problem was he was thinking with his heart. But when you’re a teacher attempting to conduct a sexual relationship with a student, you should be thinking with your head.

  ‘I’ve ruined a young woman’s life…’ he whispered, ‘but she is all I have ever wanted.’

  Tom lifted the glass to his mouth but it was empty.

  ‘Alice… I love you,’ as if saying it out loud she would somehow hear it and forgive him for the actions he was contemplating.

  Tom grabbed the bottle from the floor and filled his glass again. He raised it up in front of him, ‘here’s to finding the one… then breaking both your fucking hearts.’

  So drunk…

  Could he go to Irelan
d? Never see her again.

  No.

  What about a break? Just until Alice finishes school, that might work?

  God, he felt like he was drowning in a sea of panic and hurt. His career, his relationship and reputation were all on the line, but the only thing he really cared about was how this would affect Alice.

  Tom picked up the pictures again. How had he not seen this? How had he forgotten his age? What he fucking looked like?

  He skimmed his thumb over her lips, she was so beautiful, so young and innocent.

  The last photo, the one where they were kissing passionately and his hands were in her hair. It looked wrong now, he looked crazed and determined, like a man exerting absolute power over a very young woman. If he was being honest it made him feel uncomfortable. Yet at the time though he had felt on top of the world, he had been happy and relaxed. The moments they spent together were the best of his life, so how could that be wrong?

  Why shouldn’t he just pack a bag, grab his girl and go hide under a rock somewhere for the next twenty years?

  Be realistic.

  He was going to go to Ireland, he knew he was.

  No way…

  He wasn’t going to leave Alice without his protection and his love. He had seen what had nearly happened when he had left her before.

  She doesn’t need it. You’re forcing it on her. How does she really know what she wants, without having any experience of life?

  ‘Fuck off!’ Tom shouted at his own head, the intrusive thoughts were really pissing him off now.

  We love each other and that’s it.

  You’re not just Tom Chambers anymore. You’re a thirty-year-old teacher, sleeping with your student, making her believe there’s a tomorrow for you both. Think of one of the other male teachers, Mr Griffiths maybe, fucking one of Alice’s friends…

  ‘Sick,’ he whispered.

  Lust, it’s only lust.