by Freya North
‘Hey?’
That’s not Jackson.
‘Wait up!’
Chip!
Polly ground to a halt, still facing her direction of travel, then slowly turned around. Winter sunshine flooded down from the skylights and clung to Chip in a cloak of gossamer brilliance. Polly was rendered immobile and utterly silent by his steady, penetrating gaze. It was a moment of celluloid resonance, if ever there was one; no doubt a camera would have zoomed in for a stunning close-up of Chip’s bone structure, before panning round to the startled delight in Polly’s eyes. Indeed she even peeled her ears, fully expecting rousing background music, but all was silent save muffled teachers’ voices and the low din coming from her class.
But this was neither film nor fiction. It was the here and now, or, rather, the there and then. Slowly Chip came towards Polly. Her left cheek was burning from a direct hit of sunlight that also rendered her partly blind. She held her breath, just waiting for someone to appear from a classroom. And yet she felt no fear of being caught, but dreaded instead that this electrifying moment and its possible consequences might be ruined. Chip came closer, he neither spoke, nor was he smiling; he was utterly focused and deadly serious, his eyes locked on to hers. His body now blocked the sun. She could see him clearly. His penetrative gaze made her head swim and caused a throbbing between her legs that she was sure was visible, it was so pronounced. And yet she remained oblivious to the fact that it was actually her eyes that were drawing him towards her like a magnet. The sound of the lessons surrounding them had reduced down to a distant hum. As Chip neared, Polly began to back up until the wall supported her. Her hair whisked against her jaw. She tossed her head like a filly and watched Chip’s lips part, glistening, as if he was about to speak. He said nothing, he kept advancing. Polly’s lips parted in anticipation of being kissed.
Come on.
Here? In the corridor? With staff and pupils but yards away and liable to appear at any moment?
Chip was but inches away. Closer than that. So close. Suddenly, Polly had no conception that she was in a corridor of a school in Vermont with a classload of children yards away in a room with the door wide open. She ceased to be Polly Fenton with a flat in Belsize Park and a cat called Buster. Max was an abbreviation, right? Not a name.
Suddenly, it really didn’t matter who she, or who he was. It was enough that such a glorious specimen of virility was visibly attracted to her and coming to get her. Right now. Polly could have been anywhere and, at that precise moment, with the proximity of the anticipated, desired kiss so tantalizingly close, she wouldn’t have cared who came across her.
It was hard to tell who initiated it, but suddenly Polly found her arms about Chip’s neck, his tongue leaping about inside her mouth. He had one hand enmeshed in her hair while the other latched on to her breast, grasping on tight as if to open the door to a world of physical bliss. She was pushed against the wall, hard. Her books had slithered down her torso and were now caught precariously between their two bodies; sheaves of paper had already flown free to lie in a scatter around them.
Though their faces had seemed to hover and hesitate excruciatingly close, ultimately their lips had hardly touched before they were tonguing each other with abandon, greedily exploring the inside of each other’s mouths and gobbling up the new taste. Their eyes were wide open and feasted on the sight of each other. Polly could hardly breathe but in order to kiss on, she had to; so she panted lightly when she could and held her breath at other times, which itself served to increase the light-headed sensation. Chip was making deep, desirous noises in his throat which sounded dangerously loud to Polly, yet the very volume, the sound of him, turned her on all the more.
Chip swapped hands deftly, cupping her head and her sex; her books secured, for the time being at least, under his elbow. Simultaneously, he pulled her hair and rubbed swiftly against the mound of her sex. She moaned involuntarily and he bit her lip to silence her. She pulled her head away, in shock and pain, but on seeing his broad, dimpled, dazzling smile she melted again and enjoyed the fact that both sets of her lips now throbbed. Poking her tongue out to one side of her mouth, furling her eyelashes, cocking her head and regarding him lasciviously, Polly travelled her hand from his neck down his body, observing that it was at the point just above his navel when he closed his eyes and swayed a little. She left her hand still for a moment and then took it away.
‘I have a class to teach,’ she announced in a voice that was too husky to be hers, surely. ‘I have a class to teach,’ she repeated, clearing her throat but finding that the tone remained. Chip licked his lips and then held his hands up in mock surrender. As he did so, her books tumbled free and fell to the floor with a noisy clatter.
‘Everything OK?’ asked Jackson Thomas, suddenly in the doorway of his class room and seemingly more interested in the proximity of Chip to Polly than in her fallen books.
‘Hey Miss Fenton, you need help?’ called AJ from the other end of the corridor.
‘I’m fine,’ Polly told everyone with a separate nod, Chip included.
‘She’s fine,’ Chip repeated to the audience, ‘I think she was dazzled so she dropped her books.’
Dazzled indeed! Polly exerted an inordinate amount of self control not to laugh or show even an ounce of reaction.
‘I’ll be there in a mo’, AJ, thanks.’
‘OK,’ said Jackson unconvinced, having noted the bulge in Chip’s trousers and praying that Polly had nothing to do with it, nor even knew of its existence, ‘OK.’ He swayed against his door frame for a moment, said ‘OK’ a third time and then returned to his class, drawing the door ajar and then closing it cautiously some moments later.
The corridor was quiet again. Polly did not look at Chip.
‘I have a class to teach,’ she said, biting away at the blush of exhilaration which she knew criss-crossed her face while it coursed rapidly through her veins.
‘I have an announcement to make,’ Chip explained, ‘I’ve done Mr Thomas’s class and your guys, Miss Fenton, are next. All set?’
In her class room, Polly did not know where to look. She was suddenly sure that if she regarded Chip for too long, their connection would be clearly legible.
There again, won’t it look suspicious if I don’t regard him at all?
Consequently, and conscientiously, she looked to each of her pupils in turn, interspersing a non-committal glance at Chip after every other student. He was there to announce the ski teams and his news was accompanied by the appropriate cheers or groans.
‘Heidi?’ Polly asked, responding to the girl’s politely up-stretched arm.
‘You ski, Miss Fenton? Do you have mountains in England?’
‘No and yes,’ Polly informed, thinking that they really ought to be turning their attention to Dickens.
‘We’ll have your teacher up on skis, hey guys?’ Chip encouraged, ‘slaloming with the best of you!’
A raucous chorus of approval erupted, and much laughter too.
‘Quiet!’ Polly cried in consternation, the noise level anomalously close to that of a BGS class, ‘Mr Jonson, if that is all, Estelle has something to say to Pip.’
Chip bowed his head and thanked her, apologizing to the class (with a wink that went unnoticed by Polly) for taking up too much of their lesson. In the doorway, just before he left, he simulated a parallel turn, smiled broadly at all asunder, letting it linger daringly on Polly. He shut the door behind him. Polly went over to it and pushed the weight of her body against it.
‘Pip pip pip,’ she uttered absent-mindedly, not knowing where to look or what to teach. ‘Tell you what, chaps, how about you all pen a few paragraphs describing the sensation of skiing. If you don’t ski, imagine what it might be like. If you hate skiing, tell me why – but curb any gruesome details, I don’t want to be put off – there’s a challenge, remember!’
Polly was on a high all day. She walked with a swagger that matched her mood and reminded her, with the friction of e
very stride, that her knickers were triumphantly damp. She ruffled Lorna’s hair as she passed by in the dining hall and gave both Bens a high five, much to their amusement. She invited all her dorm daughters up for tea and biscuits and a further analysis of her musical tastes, though most of them brought their own offerings of Nirvana and asked for cookies and Coke instead.
It was at precisely nine minutes to eleven that night, when Polly was finally alone for the first time that day, that she was overcome with horror and a churning nausea. She paced from room to room, a hand at her mouth, soon both hands at her head, then hugging herself, soon hitting herself. Finally, she curled up in a corner of the bathroom and focused on her knees because all around her the tiles presented her with her own distorted reflection.
Distorted indeed.
At last, Polly, what a relief. Finally you feel guilt and remorse. You’re pining for Max and cursing yourself for all that idiocy, this foray into infidelity. Yes?
No.
No?
Yes, fear and loathing have struck her deep. But, what is it that ails the very core of Polly’s being? Guilt? Shame? Regret? Surely a combination of all three? No, that would be far too simple – and far too easy to purge and cure. Far too neat and tidy – we still have half a book remaining.
No. Our dishonest, floundering heroine feels wretched because of an outright lack of guilt, of shame and of regret. It is the very fact that she feels not one ounce of any of the aforementioned which terrifies her so, because new limits have been thereby set.
I thought one kiss would do. I thought it would be sufficient to rid my system of that troublesome notion.
And it wasn’t?
It was a superb kiss.
And it wasn’t enough?
It might have been if untold suffering and remorse succeeded the pleasure of the moment.
But it didn’t?
Nope. I feel feisty and horny and hungry for more.
How much more?
Who knows?
I can’t believe you’re smiling, Polly. Thought you felt lousy?
I did. I know I should. But I simply don’t.
NINETEEN
Polly felt ridiculous in salopettes. They belonged to Lorna who had assured her that it didn’t matter that she was four inches taller and at least a stone heavier than Polly.
‘Heck, they’ll do their job.’
‘They’re very, well, pink,’ was all Polly could muster in gratitude.
She tried them on very late, when she could be sure that no one would intrude. She hoped unrealistically that they’d suit her but on closer inspection of the cut and colour she doubted whether they would, had they even been made to measure. The suit consisted of a pair of dungarees in a restrictive, dense, rubbery material which flared out extravagantly beneath the knees. Polly knew this was to accommodate bulky ski boots but, standing there in horror in front of her mirror, she decided the boots would have to be enormous if they were to streamline the effect in the slightest. The upper part of the dungarees was a sickly baby-pink, the flared parts a fan of panelled sections in progressively virulent shades of the colour. The jacket was predominantly cerise, with stripes on the sleeves in a shade close to candy floss, a triangular panel down the back the colour of early 1980s lipstick and a strip either side of the zip at the front which could only be described as well-chewed bubblegum.
‘God,’ Polly wailed at the site of herself, ‘I look absolutely hideous.’ Her cheeks burned in humiliation, clashing loudly with the jacket. ‘And my hair! But there’s no way I’m even trying on the matching hat. Anyway, it’s not just the colour scheme,’ she whined, ‘look how big it all is. I look like the Michelin Man slowly deflating.’
Polly performed a forlorn twirl and gasped at the exaggerated proportions of her usually trim bottom.
‘Couldn’t I just wear my jeans?’
She fiddled with the straps and zips in search of a better fit.
‘Better – but still awful.’
She slumped down on to the sofa and regarded her baggy pink knees.
‘Maybe I just won’t go.’
When she awoke, the clarity and dazzle of the morning made light of the gloom with which she had met sleep.
After all, I’ll be with Chip – and I haven’t seen him for days, almost a week, what with the rewrites for the revue, Zoe’s continuing problems in love and Forrest’s inability to comprehend The Importance of Being Earnest.
Because she still dreaded her appearance in Lorna’s ski suit, Polly decided to dress impeccably until school finished and the mountain beckoned. She put on a delicate floral skirt, which floated just above the knee and was totally unsuitable for the time of year, teaming it with a soft chenille polo neck and a pair of thick black woollen tights. And the padded snow boots it had been recently necessary to purchase. However, she also took a pair of suede pumps under her arm and changed into these as soon as she was safely inside the main hall. The unexpected sight of Chip coming out of Powers Mateland’s office met her.
There’s fate for you.
‘Yo!’
‘Good morning, Mr Jonson.’
‘All set for the slopes?’
‘As ready as ever I’ll be, I suppose, but you have to promise not to laugh at me. Or at my costume. Especially at my costume.’
‘How about I promise I’ll try.’
‘Nope. Not good enough.’
‘All right. I promise.’
Chip held his hand to his heart to seal his oath and Polly touched his fingers lightly. He encircled hers quickly, fleetingly, tightly.
‘Thank you,’ she said and left for her class.
Chip didn’t laugh. He was well used to the vagaries of ski fashion and found his full attention commanded by Polly’s expression of stern concentration and burgeoning terror. The just-detectable jelly quiver of the ski suit told him she must be positively quaking underneath it all.
‘You OK?’ he asked gently. ‘Feel good about this?’
‘No,’ Polly muttered, convinced that two hours’ tuition had not been anywhere near enough, ‘and no.’
‘You’ll be fine,’ Chip nudged her amiably as the two Bens whizzed by at breakneck speed.
‘Just remember what we’ve been learning, about keeping your tips together,’ Chip said.
‘My what?’ Polly exclaimed.
‘Your tips,’ said Chip, ‘with a “p”. All set?’
Polly gave a non-committal nod, her eyes focused on the end of the nursery slope just a few yards away. A small group of students had gathered there in support (and curiosity) and Polly took heart from their muffled encouragement and mittened waves.
‘All set,’ she said, unconvincingly, to Chip. ‘Are you absolutely sure I’m ready?’
‘Gotta start somewhere,’ Chip said kindly. ‘Away you go – race you to the bottom. Hey, joke, man – it was a joke.’
‘Count of three, please,’ Polly quaked, trying to estimate the gradient of the lower reaches of the nursery slope.
‘One.’
God I feel sick.
‘Two.’
Would I make much more of a fool of myself if I just bottled out?
‘Three.’
Oh my God! Oh wow! I’m skiing! Do you know, I’m actually doing it. Wheeee! Fantastic! I love it. Oh no, I’m down already.
Chip told Polly that her first snowplough was ‘commendable’; Polly herself thought it perfectly executed. Her audience, who had formed themselves hastily into a corps of well-padded cheerleaders, were chanting her name and dancing about in delight.
‘I did it!’ was all she could say, tears streaming down her face and a smile so wide it threatened to leap right off her face. Chip was right behind her.
‘Lightning!’ he praised.
‘I did it!’ she hugged him liberally, totally in keeping with the triumph of the situation and no one batted an eye. Apart from Forrest, who thought he’d have a hug too.
‘You want to try a little way up?’
‘I did it!’
‘Go on, Miss Fenton, go up to that marker.’
‘Can I do it?’
‘Sure you can.’
‘Yee hah! Let’s go!’
What she gained in speed for her second snowplough, she lost in style; arriving at the bottom of the slope without brakes but with an exultant grin and slap bang into AJ’s arms.
‘Whoah, there, Miss F.’
‘Again!’ Polly cried, looking beseechingly from drag-lift to Chip while overlooking apology or thanks to AJ. Chip, however, was strict and responsible, which delighted Polly who only pretended that she really minded repeating the baby snowplough over and over. Finally, Chip allowed her to take a break. In fact, he had to force her as she’d have been utterly content keeping her tips together all day. The students were given a free half-hour before the last training spurt and disappeared in a cloud of excitable yelps and bright colours.
‘You star!’ Chip proclaimed, leading her towards the club hut. Her cheeks were crisply flushed, her eyes were darting a watery dance, her nose was endearingly red. She was breathing quickly, giving little dragon-like puffs in the cold, thin air of midwinter. Wisps of her hair peeped out from her fleece hat; one was caught at the corner of her mouth, on the lip balm she’d been applying liberally. Must look after my lips.
‘A star,’ Polly sparkled. ‘Aren’t I just?’ He propped their skis and poles against the hut and held out his hand, having first scrutinized the slope for spies and eagle eyes. The sun was now hazed over but its warmth filtered through and fixed the bloom on Polly’s cheeks.
‘Come,’ said Chip, ‘you have a Bravery Award awaiting you.’
‘Goody,’ Polly sang, clumping and trudging alongside him. Chip took her some yards away to a thatch of maples, their boughs laden with swathes of white velvet.
‘I know we’re a little early,’ Chip said theatrically to a tree, ‘but it’s one special day and if you could oblige we’d be real happy.’ He placed his ear against the tree and his facial gesticulations suggested he was listening hard to the tree’s reply. ‘I think we’re in luck,’ he said to Polly, who giggled and brought her gloved hands together in muffled applause though she had no idea what a talking tree had to do with a Bravery Award. Chip caressed the bark and slipped his hand down the trunk a little until it rested on a small, metal protuberance. He gave a little tap, a little twist, and Polly saw a thin, delicate liquid seep out and trickle to the snow. She ventured closer and looked down. Chip crouched, took his glove off and picked a small, pale amber-coloured nugget from the snow.