Twisted Summer

by Lucy V. Morgan

  “You bet. Anyway. Used to fall around Earth Day, and the local conservation group always had events on and things. I made friends with this Welsh girl—her dad ran the group—every year, we’d have a kind of thing going on. Our parents teased us something rotten. I hit thirteen though and I’d never even kissed her, despite knowing her for years. One night we all got together for this newt spotting thing—”

  “Newt spotting?” I snorted. “How romantic.”

  Gabe winced. “Precisely.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Esmé said. “Newts are kind of cute.”

  “The attractiveness of newts aside, we were all hunched up in sleeping bags, waiting for these newts to come out. Our parents were getting squiffy and they’d let us have one beer each. She didn’t even like it—she was just taking tiny sips, pretending. Our parents really ramped up the teasing. They were like, go on, just give her a kiss. Don’t be scared. Be a man, go in for the kill. It seriously got to me. I should have just laughed it off, but I got so wound up about it that I ended up shouting I don’t bloody want to kiss her!” Gabe put his face in his hands, and now Taylor was the only one tittering.

  “I can see how that’d make someone cry,” Esmé said. “It’s bad enough when you’re older, but when you’re thirteen…”

  “Well. Yeah.” Gabe sighed. “She was mortified. I was mortified. I cried too, actually, but not until much later when we got back to the lodge—because I really did want to kiss her, but she’d never have believed it after that. And there was no way I was doing it in front of our parents anyway.”

  I wrapped my arms around my knees. “That’s the most cringeworthy thing I’ve heard in a long time.”

  Gabe gave a bitter little laugh. “Yeah. Fucking Earth Day.”

  Taylor nodded. “Fucking newts.”

  “So was that the only time, Gabe?” Esmé said, her eyes wide and curious. “Or have you repeatedly yelled obscene things at girls you fancied?”

  “What, you mean, did I make any more girls cry? I was a moronic teenage boy. Of course I did.”

  “But not recently,” she teased.

  It was probably just me. Had to be. But in that moment, it felt like the clouds blotted out the sun and the wind turned cold.

  “Recently?” Gabe’s eyes narrowed, and just like last time, it wasn’t because of the bright light. His silver-gray pupils focused on me as they dilated, stretched by an oily gleam of guilt and desire. “Now that would be telling.”

  Chapter Nine

  I don’t experience emotions in the same order as other people. I’m screwed that way, really. If I was a normal person, when Gabe went all possessive on my ass earlier and started making me feel bad for touching my girlfriend, my first reaction would have been anger—full on, hell-hath-no-fury, bitch please rage. He abandoned me. Blanked me. Cut me off. How dare he try to twist all that to his advantage?

  But I didn’t feel that way. It didn’t even occur to me to be angry until we were making dinner; when I kissed Esmé’s shoulder, he cleared his throat so loudly you’d think he was auditioning for a Listerine ad. No, instead I spent the entire afternoon guilty for making him feel bad. All I knew was that if he’d turned up with someone else and put on that little peep show on the beach, I’d be glued together with nothing but snot and tears.

  So while Esmé sliced chicken and peppers and wittered on about the sex appeal of newts (I may have that wrong), my thought process went something like this:

  oh God he looks miserable

  chicken smells good. Smoked paprika?

  No, he really does look miserable

  WELL MAYBE THAT’S HIS OWN FUCKING FAULT

  Can’t stand it, need to touch him, even if he is a prick

  I mean, I’m a prick too when you think abou—

  ooh, is that Esmé’s nipple?

  Who has better nipples, Esmé or Gabe?

  Esmé’s are more ethical, they would never leave me out for the wolves like a frickin’ Chinese baby girl

  Not like HIM

  How dare he look at me like I’m murdering a puppy every time I touch my girlfriend?

  And what the hell is up with all the cider he’s drinking anyway?

  Chicken DOES smell good. Needs garlic though

  Oh God I’ve turned him into an alcoholic

  And I love him I love him I love him

  also I HATE HIM

  ARGH

  “Danni? Are you all right?” Mum peered at me over her glass of wine, from her perch at the kitchen island. “You’ve gone awfully quiet.”

  “I’m fine,” I snapped.

  Esmé frowned at me in the avalanche of pink sunset that crashed through the kitchen window. “You caught the sun, pixie. Let me go get the cocoa butter.”

  Behind her, Gabe, who sat in an easy chair with a conservation magazine, shook his head. No, he mouthed. He didn’t want to see Esmé touch me like that.

  But what the hell did he expect me to do? He was leaving for Canada in a week. I was supposed to throw the towel in with Esmé here and now, was I? What a wonderful holibobs we’d all have then.

  “I said, I’m fine.” I sighed. “I’m off for a shower.”

  Esmé gestured to the wok. “But dinner—”

  “Not hungry. I’ll have some later.”

  This was turning into my weekend with Gabe all over again—my only escape was the bathroom. Worse, I had even more shame and confusion to wash off than I did back then, and no amount of scrubbing and lemony soap would do it. I rinsed the nervous sweat from the back of my neck three times but I could still feel it there, prickling, goading. Make your mind up, it sneered. Like I even had a choice to make—I knew Esmé wasn’t The One, but Gabe would be on a plane this time next week. How was any of that fair?

  I won’t lie. Since my twilight tryst with Gabe, I’d been hot as hell. Aching for something. Esmé’s little performance on the beach didn’t help but even then, it was just that—a performance. If Gabe had touched me like that down on the sand, every moan and stroke would have been real.

  We had no plans tonight. Esmé wanted to watch a film, which was basically her code phrase for sex. I couldn’t take any more of her gentle pseudo fuckery, not when I knew Gabe would be sweating it out in the next room, wishing I came for him instead. I practically counted the minutes until I could sneak out and find him against the rocks.

  So I did what bad girls do with the showerhead. I fell back against the cool tiles, my skin sticking to the porcelain, and I got closer…and closer…closer…and…what the fuck was wrong with me? The orgasm just wouldn’t come. I couldn’t come. Nada. Zilch. Just as I reached the peak, every scrap of pleasure fell away and my flesh turned raw and numb. Marvellous, really. Of all the places the karma bus decided to stop…my girl parts? Sob.

  Esmé banged on the door, all concerned because I’d been ages and all pissed because Taylor had turned up uninvited for dinner. (Bless the kid. He just wanted company of his own age). I pissed her off even more for inviting him to stay, but I didn’t have the heart to kick him out, and besides—he was a good excuse to avoid going to bed with a girl I was still taking horrible advantage of.

  You can probably guess how our little ménage a trois went that evening. Esmé wanted to watch one of her subtitled foreign monstrosities; normally, I vetoed them straight away and she giggled and let me have my way, but tonight she was just plain difficult because of Taylor. He was civil—said he didn’t mind what we watched—and it annoyed her no end. We settled on a terrible, tasteless comedy that made none of us laugh, and Esmé made excuses for bed before the end.

  “Come with me, pixie,” she hissed, shoving her elbow into my ribs.

  “I should see Taylor out.”

  “He’s been looking down my top all night.”

  “Stop exaggerating. He’s still my cousin.” I shrugged. “You go ahead. I’ll be there in ten, promise.”

  With a melodramatic sigh, Esmé huffed down to our bedroom in little sweeps of socked feet. Taylor wa
ited for the door to swing closed and then leaned forward on his elbows.

  “She hates me, doesn’t she?”

  “Um.” I gulped. “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “She makes all these little comments like I’m beneath her, or something. Is…is it a lesbian thing? Am I allowed to say that? Does she have issues with guys?”

  He looked so awkward that I wanted to laugh, but that would have been unfair.

  “I’m not sure what it is, exactly. I mean…yeah, she seems sensitive about men right now.” I paused, pursing my lips. “And she thinks you perv on her all the time.”

  His cheeks flushed, and he slapped them with flat palms. “I do not! Well, not that much. I can’t help it—she wears these little vests with no bra, and her boobs are just there.”

  Couldn’t help it this time. I did laugh, and even though I tried to turn it into a cough, I failed miserably.

  “So ladylike,” said Taylor, trying not to lapse into guffaws himself. “So how can I become an honorary girl this week? Because that’s what I need to do, right?”

  “There’s a special ceremony where we cut off your penis and feed it to crabs.”

  “Hardy ha ha.”

  “Taylor.” I hauled myself up to get another Coke from the fridge (I needed to stay awake for two hours yet before Gabe). “If it was up to me, you’d be cool. But I think Esmé thought it was going to be me and her on this holiday and she’s feeling a bit…”

  “Pouty?”

  “Something like that. You want another drink?”

  “I dunno, aren’t you going to bed in a minute?”

  I glanced up at the clock. If I went in now, Esmé would whinge for a while and then try to go down on me. I wanted neither of those things, and catching up with Taylor was kind of nice. “Nah. I’m going to let her cool off first.”

  “Then yeah. Beer, please.”

  I cracked the lid off a Budweiser, pressed it into his hand, and perched next to him on the beat-up sofa. “So you not doing blokey things with Gabe?”

  He snorted. “Yeah, right. Everyone knows he’s weird, Danni.”

  “Weird like, how?”

  “Like he never comes to family things. I haven’t seen him since I was about ten, and now here he is, all hey, I’m an awesome surfer dude, watch me pose in my wetsuit and flirt with the beach ladies.”

  I froze. “What ladies?”

  “Oh, I dunno. He just looks like the type.”

  Thank God for that. “I suppose.”

  “I mean, he’s okay to talk to and that…until he gets on to all that eco crap, anyway. I’m not into that. I’ve tried, I just…”

  “You have no conscience.” I grinned.

  “I have no conscience. I’m a selfish twat,” he agreed.

  “Soon to be a selfish, smarmy Oxford twat.”

  He tucked his glasses back up his nose. “Oh, like you can talk, Miss Architecture! You’ll probably end up richer than me, especially if you keep seeing girls.”

  I sat back and took a big swig of Coke. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well…” He’d gone all clammy and awkward again. “Not as easy to have kids, is it? And kids are expensive.”

  “Lesbians can still have kids, you dumbass.” What’s that saying about really clever people who have no common sense? Taylor fitted that anecdote perfectly.

  “I know that. Just…either you still have to have sex with a bloke, or have one of those clinic procedure things. And they aren’t cheap either.”

  “I could have sex with a bloke if I wanted,” I retorted, slightly high on the caffeine.

  He raised an eyebrow. “You into that?”

  “Like I can’t be?”

  “I just thought—”

  “You assumed.” I pointed my glass Coke bottle at him. “Everybody assumes, when they see me with Esmé, that I only like girls.”

  “It’s an impulse thing though, isn’t it? Like if you saw me with a girl, you’d assume I was straight.”

  “I wouldn’t assume anything. But then I’m me.”

  Taylor’s upper lip twitched, but he broke into a smile anyway. He was enjoying our catch up, too. I kinda felt guilty for laughing at him with Gabe about the whole Oxford thing. Heck, maybe we were both jealous.

  “So you get on okay with Uncle Gabe,” said Taylor. “Didn’t you go stay with him, or something?”

  “I did. I made the mistake of telling Mum our house was crappy, and the next thing I know, I’m being packed off to his little shed in Devon to learn to appreciate just how good I’ve got it.”

  “So he was your punishment.” Taylor tittered to himself, but he didn’t know how right he was, and my throat went all acidy at the thought.

  “S’pose so. It ended up being cool, though. He’s not that bad. Just likes to keep to himself, a bit. He tried teaching me to surf…” I smiled at the memory. “But I was crap.”

  “I wondered if maybe…you know. He was kind of like a father figure.”

  Father figure? What was one of those, exactly? I might as well have been the product of an immaculate (and slightly moody) conception.

  “Um…I don’t know about that.”

  “Did you find out why he stopped doing family stuff?”

  “He fell out with Mum about something. I don’t know why, exactly. And Gran and Grandad didn’t really approve of him studying plants at uni—I think they never thought he’d amount to much.”

  “He did have those fucking awful dreadlocks,” said Taylor.

  “Ha. Yeah. He did. He just found it hard to compete with our Mums, I think. And he likes being alone anyway.” Or he did until he met me. I thought you liked your own space, I’d told him. You make my space a whole lot prettier, he’d said, and then kissed me with the kind of ferocity saved for starving lovers and snatched goodbyes.

  “Well I guess he showed them, what with this Canada thing. What’s he going out there to do, again?”

  “I don’t know.” And I didn’t want to. If I pretended it wasn’t happening, it was a teensy bit easier to cope with. Just. “So what about you then, hmm? Is there a girlfriend at home?”

  Taylor blushed again, shrugging. He scratched at the label on his beer bottle with blunt nails. “Nah. Not right now.”

  “Oh? ‘Cause you’ve sort of filled out, haven’t you?”

  He squared his shoulders. “You think?”

  “Yep.”

  “Oh. Cheers. I mean, there was this girl a few months ago. We went out and stuff. But it didn’t…”

  “Didn’t work?”

  “No.” He took another gulp of beer and lowered his glassy eyes. “We were both going away to uni, you know. And she was the sister of a friend. Would have been kind of tricky.”

  “I know how that feels,” I mumbled.

  “I bet you do.”

  He meant coming out, liking girls. But that wasn’t what I meant, and I counted the minutes until everything got trickier and stickier for me.

  ***

  I didn’t go in to bed for another hour and just as I expected, Esmé was in an awful mood. She pretended to be asleep at first but then started to make snide little comments as I climbed under the covers. No amount of apology seemed to placate her—in truth, I really wasn’t in the mood—but I needed her asleep for when I crept out to meet Gabe, so I gave her one of my professional lesbian massages. (Get your mind out of the gutter—I mean I rubbed her back). Soft, girly snores filled the room in ten minutes flat.

  I was terrified of letting my head hit the pillow in case I actually fell asleep; it wasn’t like I could set an alarm. So I read Why Architecture Matters until my vision blurred, and though I was early, crept out into the night air just to stay awake.

  Tonight, I wore the sundress he had me in before. A little jacket protected me from the edge of the breeze, and flat boots made less of a crunch against the stone path.

  In my excitement, of course, I’d forgotten there was a chance that he might not be there. And the bastard
wasn’t.

  No figure hunched over our spot of rocks; no profile of a tall, broad man chucking stones into the waves. I was too nervous to call his name out so I hissed it in a raw prayer that was instantly swallowed by the groan of the sea. Wet sand churned beneath my boots. I was a bit early, true, but there was only one way to the beach from the lodge, and I’d have seen him on the road, right? What with his broad steps, he’d have caught me up in no—

  “Danni? That you?”

  I jerked around, trying to locate his voice. Then Gabe emerged on his hands and knees from a cluster of rocks down the beach, and I nearly fell over as I rushed over to throw myself at him.

  “I thought you weren’t here,” I said against his mouth.

  He drew back a moment, and the space between us thumped like a heartbeat, the flutter of his eyelashes a butterfly pulse. Then his arms tightened around me, his brows dipped, and his lips dropped to weave two months of want with mine.

  He was a glass of wine left to go sticky in the sunshine, and the longer I took mouthfuls of him, the quicker I wavered beneath his drunken heat. His fingers grazed along my waistline, up between my shoulder blades and along the dip in the back of my neck; there, they lingered as he bit my top lip.

  “Of course I’m here,” he murmured.

  “You were all pissed and nonchalant, like you probably wouldn’t be.”

  “Left over from my band days.”

  I grinned up at him, still disorientated from kissing someone so much taller and stronger than me. “You going to sing for me, Mr Asher?”

  He let go of me for a moment, making a tiny box shape with his hands. “See this? This is the amount of fucks I give about egopathic bands.”

  “Because you’re all enviro-friendly and mature these days.”

  “Damn straight.”

  “You could be eco and still poseur.” I cocked my head. “Like Bono.”