Vince and Joy

by Lisa Jewell

  Joy whimpered and gasped into his ear as they rubbed against each other, but then she took his hand from her breast and he thought, here we go, we’re slowing it down now, too fast, too fast, back off, but even as he was thinking it she was leading his hand elsewhere, down below her waist, towards the loose waistband of her shorts, slowly past her soft abdomen, and then, like an electric shock, he felt it – Joy’s pubic hair.

  His ears started to buzz with excitement.

  She brought his hand down further until it cupped her entirely, and suddenly he was on the threshold of a whole new world.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he whispered urgently in her ear.

  ‘Mmmmmm.’ He felt her nodding vigorously against his shoulder.

  And as he started to make the acquaintance of this whole new world, to feel gingerly and cautiously around the folds and mounds and floppy bits, to absorb the textures and wonder what he should do next, Joy moved the game along again. She was fiddling with the buttons on his 501s, pulling apart the denim, her hand in his trousers, in his shorts, and now here they were, topless, inside each other’s trousers, in the moonlight, miles from anyone. Vince tried to concentrate on the myriad things he was supposed to be doing, the kissing of the mouth, the caressing of the breast, the feeling of the whole new world, the hand in his own trousers, grasping him like a warm, soft kiss.

  Just as Vince was thinking that things had gone as far as they could possibly go, that this was what they were doing, all they were doing, she was tugging at his jeans, tugging at his shorts, tugging them down his thighs, and it seemed as if she was trying to undress him, undress him completely so that he’d be naked, and he had no idea if it was what she wanted or not, but he didn’t want to be the only one naked, the only one vulnerable, so he moved his attention to removing her shorts, her knickers, and then they were completely bollock-arsed-naked and they were rolling around on the grass together, completely naked.

  And this, Vince couldn’t help feeling, was the exact point at which he needed to start asking questions.

  ‘Urhm,’ he murmured, trying, with some difficulty, to detach his mouth from hers, ‘erhm, hold on, hold on, hold on.’

  ‘What?’ She pulled away from him, her hair streaked across her face, her lips swollen and red in the moonlight.

  ‘Well, what, what are we doing exactly?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said breathlessly.

  ‘I mean, are we…?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said again.

  ‘Because I need to know, because…’

  ‘I’m on the pill,’ she said.

  ‘Right,’ he said.

  ‘For PMT.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m on the pill for my PMT. Not for… I’m still a virgin.’

  ‘Yοu are? But I thought…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. You’re a virgin,’ he said.

  ‘Uh-huh. Are you?’

  ‘Er, yeah. I am.’

  ‘And do you… do you want to?’

  ‘With you?’ he said.

  She nodded.

  ‘God. Yes. Please. Do you?’

  She nodded again. ‘I really do. Really, really do…’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Yes. Are you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Vince gulped. ‘Oh, Jesus.’

  Eight

  They walked back across dry, shorn fields and dark, empty country roads. Joy felt raw and used between her thighs, like she’d been riding a very big horse all day. Her face was taut with dried saliva, and her mouth was sore and felt twice its normal size. Vince had his arm round her shoulders, and she had her arm round his waist.

  Her knees had given way when she’d first tried to stand upright a few minutes ago. Gone like jelly. Collapsed to her knees in hysterical giggles. Vince had pulled her back to her feet, wrapped her in his arms and kissed her again.

  She’d done it. They’d done it. Done everything in fact. They’d both wanted to try everything, everything they’d never done before. They’d done it in every possible position; from behind, her on top of him, even up against a tree. They’d given each other oral sex, too. Joy had never thought for a moment that she’d want to put a man’s penis in her mouth, but the minute Vince suggested it, enthusiastically, as if it was a new flavour of ice cream, nothing could have stopped her. She hadn’t had an orgasm – it was too uncomfortable for that – but doing it, having sex, losing her virginity to this strong, handsome man who made her feel so comfortable and so self-assured, had been the most exciting experience of her life.

  ‘Can we do that again tomorrow?’ she said, squeezing his waist.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Vince, ‘why not? And how about the day after?’

  ‘Definitely. Of course, we’ll have to do it on Tuesday because it’s your birthday.’

  ‘Of course. I have to get my birthday shag. It’s a tradition.’

  She laughed. ‘And then – after this, after Hunstanton – can we do it in Colchester?’

  ‘Uh-huh. And Enfield.’

  ‘Oh, yes – Enfield. I’ve always wanted to do it in Enfield.’

  ‘I think we should just do it for ever. You know, just keep on doing it, indefinitely. Everywhere. Travel the world, just doing it. Nonstop.’

  She nodded and squeezed his waist again. He suddenly stopped and turned her towards him and looked at her really intensely for a moment.

  ‘You know that was the best thing that ever happened to me, don’t you?’

  She smiled. ‘Me, too.’

  ‘And you know that, God, I’ve wondered for so long if it would happen, how it would happen, when it would happen, who it would be with. Years and years of just, you know, imagining, and nothing that went through my mind came close to that. Really. Nothing.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘And, when I said that I thought I was falling in love with you, back there, I wasn’t just saying that because – you know – because of what was happening, because I thought it was what you’d want to hear. I said it because… I am. Completely.’

  Joy smiled. All those years, all the pain, Kieran, Miranda, Toni Moran, the overdose, the hospital, losing her place at Bristol, all those years of existing without being — all of it faded away into meaninglessness. She’d started to leave that girl behind the minute she first set eyes on Vince three days earlier, but standing here, in the Norfolk countryside, her hands in his, hearing him tell her that he loved her, the rawness of her lost virginity still ringing between her legs, she could almost see that girl fading away into a small smudge on the horizon.

  ‘Are you really?’

  ‘Totally. I mean it.’

  And then Joy told him that she loved him, too. And for the first time in her life, she meant it.

  Everything was quiet and still when they got back to the Seavue. The blankets, the paper plates, the screwed-up bits of kitchen roll had all been cleared away. The barbecue still gave off a feeble glow of warmth. All the lights were off in Joy’s caravan. The flickering cathode glow of a black-and-white TV lit the interior of Vince’s.

  They kissed and said good night in whispers, and Joy took off her shoes and held them in her hand while she mounted the steps to her caravan.

  ‘See you tomorrow,’ she whispered, kissing the palm of her hand. ‘Sleep tight.’

  ‘You, too,’ he whispered back. ‘And thank you.’

  She blew her kiss at him, grinned, then disappeared from view.

  There was a strange atmosphere inside his caravan – Vince picked up on it the minute he walked in.

  The TV was on, but neither Chris nor Kirsty was actually watching it. They were sitting facing each other across the dining table, Chris clutching an empty mug, Kirsty stubbing out a cigarette into a full ashtray. Kirsty had a stiff look about her, as if she was trying to hold something back. They’d obviously been deep in serious conversation.

  ‘Everything all right?’ he said, reaching for a glass from a shelf in the kitchen.

  ‘Yea
h. Fine.’

  ‘How come you’re both still up?’

  ‘Night went on a bit late.’ ‘Yeah?’

  Yeah – couldn’t get rid of the bastards.’ Chris laughed without sounding relaxed.

  Vince filled his glass with water from the tap and sat down next to his parents. ‘Why are you two being so weird?’

  ‘Weird?’

  ‘Yeah – cagey. What’s been going on?’

  ‘It’s nothing, love,’ said Kirsty. ‘Just – everyone got a bit pissed tonight. A bit carried away. We had some bad behaviour. That’s all.’

  ‘What sort of bad behaviour?’

  ‘Oh, nothing really. Nothing we couldn’t handle. Anyway, how was your evening?’ she smiled, and squeezed his hand.

  ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Great.’

  ‘Where d’you go?’

  ‘Oh, just down into town.’ He blushed.

  ‘You know you’ve got grass in your hair, don’t you?’ said Chris, grinning at him.

  Vince slapped at his hair and dislodged a clump of dead grass on to the Formica surface of the table. ‘Oh,’ he said, staring at it.

  ‘Oh,’ Chris laughed.

  ‘Yeah, well,’ said Vince, unable to prevent a big shit-eating grin from consuming half of his face.

  Chris slapped him on the back and laughed. ‘So, did you manage to control yourself this time? Keep your load in the bay?’

  ‘Chris!’ He glanced at his mother in embarrassed horror.

  ‘Oh, come on, mate. You know I tell your mum everything.’

  Kirsty smirked. ‘Could have done without knowing that particular nugget, though, I have to say.’

  ‘So – it was cool, was it?’ Chris baited him for more detail.

  ‘Very cool,’ smiled Vince, suddenly wanting them both to know, wanting to share with them the incredible fact of his lost virginity. ‘Very cool indeed.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And am I reading between the lines correctly here, young Vincent?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘You’ve bloody done it, haven’t you? You and that lass? You’ve done it?!’

  Vince grinned, and shrugged. ‘Might have.’

  ‘Oh, you fucking beauty!’ Chris grabbed Vince’s shoulders and gave him a big back-slapping bear hug. ‘You beautiful fucking bastard!’

  ‘Oh, Chris, honestly,’ chided Kirsty affectionately. ‘Anyone would think he’d just conquered Everest the fuss you’re making.’

  ‘There are parallels, my lovely wife. The boy’s nineteen in two days. It was a challenge and he rose to it, God love ‘im!’

  ‘Well, I hate to take the romance out of it, love, but I hope you used, you know, precautions?’

  ‘She’s on the pill,’ he said happily.

  ‘Yes, but it’s not just about contraception these days, is it? What about AIDS?’

  Vince smiled. ‘She’s a virgin,’ he beamed. ‘Was. A virgin. Like me. We were both brand-new’

  ‘Aah,’ said Chris, folding his arms across his chest and beaming proudly. ‘Late bloomers. Isn’t that sweet?’

  And Vince smiled to himself because it was. It was fantastic, in fact. He’d always presumed that if he ever managed to lose his virginity it would be to some faceless woman in fancy lingerie who’d done it with a couple of dozen other men, who knew tricks and would teach him everything she knew. He’d always imagined it would be an exciting if slightly embarrassing rite of passage, an X-rated hurdle to be crossed before he could pursue other goals, such as love and relationships.

  Sex with a virgin, if he’d ever considered it, would, by its very nature, have been a clumsy, unprofessional affair; a pair of monkeys trying to change a tyre, two learner drivers taking a Learjet out for a spin – the blind leading the blind.

  But it hadn’t been like that in the slightest. It was more akin to visiting the Taj Mahal with someone who’d never seen it before; someone who didn’t yabber on about how to avoid the relentless pedlars at the entrance, who didn’t tell you exactly where to sit to get the best view and how much better it had looked when they saw it in the late afternoon, but someone who arrived at the wrong time, got fleeced at the entrance, waited in the wrong queue, then stood next to you in silent awe as you both caught sight of it together for the very first time.

  At some nonspecific time that night, Vince was awoken briefly by the sound of a car engine starting up and the dazzling arc of headlights passing his window.

  When he woke up the following morning, Joy’s caravan was empty, her parents’ car was gone and there was an envelope on the doorstep addressed to him.

  Inside was a slightly soggy note in blue ink made illegible by the unforecast rain that had fallen in a single, fast-moving shower that morning, and it didn’t matter how hard Vince stared at it and what angle he studied it at, he could decipher only four words –

  ‘I feel so ashamed.’

  Al & Emma’s Kitchen, 1.03 a.m.

  ‘What?’ said Emma. ‘That was all it said?’

  ‘Well, that was all I could actually read. The rest of it was just blobs and blurs. I could make out the odd word. The odd “the” or “because”, but nothing to make any sense of.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Claire, ‘that’s awful. What do you think it might have said?’

  Vince shrugged. ‘No idea,’ he smiled, embarrassed. ‘I supposed she’d just had second thoughts, you know. Decided that throwing herself at me in the middle of a field wasn’t something she was particularly proud of. Whatever, she obviously couldn’t face me. So that was that.’

  ‘But that’s so tragic. Your first love and it was all over in less than a week.’

  ‘I know. What can you do?’

  ‘God,’ mused Natalie, ‘I wonder what happened to her?’

  ‘I saw her,’ he said, ‘about seven years later,’

  ‘Really! What was she doing?’

  ‘Well,’ Vince smiled, ‘that’s a very interesting question.’

  September 1993

  Lost Cat

  Nine

  Magda pulled the thermometer from under Vince’s tongue and held it up to the light.

  ‘Hmm… ‘ she said, angling it slightly towards her, ‘no temperature. Is it possible you might just have a cold?

  ‘Give that here.’ Vince snatched the thermometer from Magda’s hand, squinted at the silvery sliver of mercury and handed it back with a grunt.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I feel fluey.’

  ‘Well, if you feel fluey, then I suggest you stay at home. But I’m not calling your office. You can do that.’ Magda pulled herself off Vince’s bed and ruffled his hair. ‘OΚ – I’m out of here.’ She flicked her shiny black hair over her shoulder and jangled the keys to her branch of Warehouse in her hand.

  Vince glanced at the unseemly hour displayed on his radio alarm.

  ‘Staff training,’ she said, by way of explanation.

  Vince pouted. ‘But I’m ill,’ he said. ‘Can’t you stay and tend to me?’

  ‘No, I can’t! I’ve got staff to train. Clothes to sell. Money to make. Cheer up, though. You can spend all day watching daytime TV, you lucky bastard. And you can always ask Jeff to come in and mop your brow for you if you’re desperate.’

  She leaned over him and dropped a lipsticky kiss on to his forehead. ‘Will you live?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘Do you want me to come round later?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  She smiled at him, blew him a kiss and pulled the bedroom door closed behind her.

  Vince listened to her leaving and turned to look out of his bedroom window. Some of the trees in the distance were starting to go bald, the sky had that watery, nondescript look of a season in flux and he had a cold.

  Summer was well and truly over.

  He wandered into the kitchen where Jeff was ironing a white shirt in his underpants. ‘Thought you were supposed to be ill,’ he muttered, his eyes yo-
yoing between the breakfast news and the sleeve of his shirt.

  ‘I am,’ said Vince, sniffing loudly for dramatic effect. ‘Just getting some toast.’ He pulled a loaf of Mother’s Pride out of the fridge. ‘I’m thinking about finishing with Magda.’ He hadn’t expected to say that. He hadn’t even really thought it until that precise moment.

  ‘Right,’ said Jeff, turning his shirt upside down. ‘Why?’

  Vince shrugged and took a tub of St Ivel Gold out of the fridge. ‘Just, you know, where do we go from here? Five months. What? Move in together? Get married?’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ said Jeff.

  ‘And she’s such a sweet girl, you know. I mean, you know what she’s like.’

  ‘Sweet,’ said Jeff, ‘sweet girl.’

  ‘So, what do you think? Do you think I should? Do you –’

  ‘Sshhhh… ‘ Jeff shoved the palm of his hand in Vince’s face and pointed at a man in a loud suit on the TV. ‘Markets.’

  ‘Sheesh,’ said Vince, ‘I don’t know why you bother. It’s not as if there’s any money in them. It’s not –’

  ‘Christ, will you shut up, Vincent.’

  Vince tutted, scraped butter as noisily as he could across his toast and sat down heavily at the breakfast table. He was sure that Jeff used to be a laugh. They’d met as flatmates in another place in Lewisham a year ago and had got on so well that when they’d got fed up sharing a draughty, poky house with three annoying girls from South Africa they’d decided to bail out and get a place together.

  They’d found this place in Loot – it wasn’t exactly luxurious, but it had enough classy features like bare floorboards, high ceilings and intricate plasterwork to make them feel as if they were living the sophisticated London dream. The kitchen was rickety and unfitted, but it had a huge sash window at one end overlooking Blackstock Road, an enormous old range and a battered farmhouse-style work surface. It was a cool flat. And Jeff was a cool guy. Way too cool. Cool to the point of a cold shower. Vince used to like the fact that Jeff was cool, but that was when Jeff was only cool with other people – now he was cool with Vince, too, and it was like sharing a flat with a slow-moving glacier.