Beautiful Mess

by Claire Christian

  While I’m busy mulling all of this over in my head he gets up and turns off the light. It’s now pitch black.

  ‘Gideon, what are you doing?’

  ‘Being brave.’

  ‘What? Are you scared of the dark?’

  ‘No.’ He pauses. ‘Of you.’

  ‘You’re scared of me?’

  ‘Yup.’

  So I stand up. The room is dark and I can barely see him at all; come on, eyes, hurry up and adjust, but it’s taking too long, so I reach into my pocket and get my phone.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ I say.

  The torch on her phone flicks on, pointing at the ground. I can just make out her silhouette as the light moves with each step. I’m pretty sure she’s saying something, humming something, but my heart is beating in my ears and I can’t really hear anything. So much for being brave.

  Ava is right in front of me. She rests the phone on the bed, then one of her hands grabs my wrist as the other hand pads its way up my arm to my shoulder and my neck. She gently places two hands on my face.

  ‘Gideon,’ she whispers.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘You should kiss me now.’ She stops for a second. ‘If you want.’

  Oh, how I want.

  So I do. And she does. We don’t stop for what feels like my entire life up until this point and I don’t want to ever stop. I kind of just want to melt into her, into the floor, into this moment and have it never end. It is exactly like it has been in my head the billion times I’ve played it out and also nothing like it at all.

  And as it turns out, I don’t need to be brave, because it all just kind of happens, like if you turn your brain off for just a second your body actually knows what to do. My hands are on her hips, under her shirt, touching the skin on her back, which is soft, so soft that I stop touching her and just look at her face. She looks kind of shy. Ava is never shy, so that makes me smile too.

  ‘What?’ she says.

  ‘Just—’ is all I can manage and she laughs and we stop and my heart is beating and I can feel her heart beating and my hands are shaking and our breath synchs up.

  In.

  Out.

  In.

  Out.

  Ava hugs me. Squeezes me even, and I squeeze her back. Tight and desperate, like if I let her go she’ll disappear and this moment will be over. She pulls back just enough to run one hand through my hair and onto my cheek and she kisses me again. It’s urgent and fast and our tongues dart around each other’s mouths and I’m clinging to her. One hand on her lower back, one hand on her neck, pressing her into me as close as I can, and she moves her hands over my cheeks, my shoulders my chest, she moves her hips into me and when we next break for air I’m positive my skin is actually tingling. Like fruit tingles when they first hit your tongue, but better. A billion times better.

  I peel her top off over her head and we step and kiss and shuffle our way in the direction of the bed except we stumble and trip on something, trip over each other and we fall. This, I think, is fitting because I have. Fallen. For Ava. I’m sure of it.

  I land on the floor with her on top of me and she laughs with her whole body; it shakes against mine as she laughs, her eyes crinkling shut as she lands her head on my chest and exhales a loud sigh. And it smacks me for a moment that this is the first time that I’ve heard her laugh like this. Seen it. Felt it. Like she can’t help it. Like something has cracked and is pouring out, and it’s catching because I can’t help but laugh too. Laugh till tears well in my eyes and I can’t get my breath. Then it smacks me that I’ve not heard myself, felt myself, laugh like this in the longest time either.

  ‘I can’t remember the last time I felt this —’ Ava stops herself, but I know exactly what she’s going to say.

  I know exactly what she means, too. Except I’ve never been this happy. Ever.

  I pull my mouth away from his but stay close to his face. ‘Do you want to?’

  He kisses me. Nods. Pulls back his mouth but remains close enough to reply.

  ‘Yes.’

  Good.

  I pull his shirt up over his head and kiss his neck. As I’m kissing his skin I remind myself that this is his first time. That when he talks about losing his virginity this will be the moment he will talk about. I’m the girl he’ll remember, and so I make a quick promise to myself that, yes, I will make it happen. And, yes, I will do everything in my power to make sure that this becomes a memory he’ll be stoked to talk about.

  I AM HAVING SEX. I’M ACTUALLY HAVING SEX.

  It is exactly like I thought it would be and nothing like I thought it would be all at the same time. It feels so fucking amazing. My eyes are shut tight and I’m so aware of my breath, shallow but deep at the same time. I can feel Ava’s hands on my chest as she manoeuvres up and down and I’m just in. I am in it. In the moment and a girl and OH MY FREAKING GOODNESS. It’s so obvious to me now why people lose their shit about sex because it’s quite possibly the best thing ever invented.

  Ava leans into my neck and murmurs, ‘We need a condom.’

  OH SHIT A CONDOM. YES. I immediately tense as a wave of disappointment washes over me. I don’t have any condoms.

  ‘I don’t have any,’ I whisper.

  ‘What?’ She stops moving but we stay connected.

  ‘I’m on the pill. But,’ she replies.

  ‘But?’

  She exhales disappointment. ‘We better. We better not. You know.’

  ‘Yes. Sure. Yes. Of course.’

  She kisses me again and we move together but I push her away. ‘Okay, okay, we need to stop.’

  Ava smiles and manoeuvres her body until she’s lying next to me.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispers in my ear.

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘That’s so disappointing,’ and she starts to laugh, and I start to laugh and we can’t stop laughing until we start kissing again and Ava’s hand moves down my body, past my belly button, and everything feels incredible and then I can’t think at all, because OH MY GOD YES.

  I sit in the shower. The hot water powering over me. I cross my legs and close my eyes and take deep breaths. If I get calm enough I can conjure her in my head, imagine what would happen if she was still alive.

  She’s lying across my bed, her pink bandana tied in a knot on her forehead, and she’s smiling at me as I kneel on the floor and squeal into the bed, giddy.

  ‘Tell me!’ she screams, laughing.

  ‘It’s embarrassing.’

  ‘It’s not embarrassing. Did you do it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because he’s a—’

  ‘I forget he’s a virgin.’ She pauses. ‘So what did you do?’

  I look her in the eye and smile, I feel my face flush. She jumps to her knees and grabs my face with both hands. ‘Did you have a—?’ she asks, madly searching my face and smiling wide. I nod and my smile cracks and she squeals, ‘Shut up. Really? Tell me everything.’

  ‘Oh my god. It was so good, Kels.’

  ‘This is the best!’ she screams, lying quickly back and kicking her legs in the air and laughing.

  ‘How?’ she asks.

  ‘He did it, with, you know,’ I hold my hand up and wiggle it in the air. I’m so embarrassed and happy and find all of this so hilarious but if I didn’t share this with her I feel like I might just have burst.

  ‘Really? Who’d have thought that white boy had moves.’ She’s taking the piss, laughing. ‘This is so good. So. So good.’ She laughs as I lie next to her and hold a pillow tight to my chest.

  ‘Have you ever before?’ I ask and I can’t believe that Kelly and I have never talked about orgasms, or that we have in a larger metaphorical Cosmo-type way but not about each other specifically.

  ‘Not with someone else. On my own, yeah. Heaps,’ she mumbles.

  ‘I hadn’t,’ I tell her, and wait.

  ‘Not ever?’ She spins, looking at me as I shake my head and hide my f
ace under the cushion.

  ‘WHAT?’ she screams. ‘Ava! That’s terrible.’ She whacks me again with the cushion. ‘And now that just makes this even more awesome.’ She lies next to me. ‘You really like him, don’t you?’

  I nod. Yeah.

  Then she’s gone and I’m in the shower and the water is cold and I feel giddy and sad all at the same time. God. I miss her. For the past two days these flashes of things with Gideon will sweep into my brain and make me feel nervous and flushed. Like when I’m washing up, or at TAPs or brushing my teeth and then wham some kind of memory from the last few times we’ve hung out will take over my brain and make me blush. In the past these moments would make me feel embarrassed, but not now, I just feel a burst of excitement. It’s weird knowing that we’re the only two people in the world who know what’s happened between us.

  And I can’t help it, I just end up thinking about everyone else having sex. Not picturing them or anything. Just thinking that there are all these people in the world who know these completely secret things about each other, and they’re the only two people in the world who know them. I just think it’s fascinating.

  I’ve had sex before. With three people. I’ve kissed thirteen boys and two girls. There’s something different about making out with Gideon, though: I don’t think. All the other times you kind of have those moments where you stop thinking, but they’re just fleeting, you know? Some thought will eventually wander in, about how you look or the light or about weird things the other person does or just feeling desperately fat and dumb. I always feel so nervous. Not that I’d ever say that to any of the others. I guess because I spend most of the time in my head. Another memory collides with the present and my smile is so big it forces my eyes shut as I think about our conversation.

  ‘How did you know how to do that?’ I asked him, sweaty and a little embarrassed, but totally relaxed.

  ‘I googled it,’ Gideon says under his breath.

  ‘What? You googled it? What did you google?’

  ‘That’s between me and Google.’

  ‘So your internet ban is lifted?’

  ‘No. But I thought this was a particularly important exception.’ He is shirtless, lying on his side next to me. I’m lying on my back and I glance up at him. There’s a silence. Gideon smiles at me; his eyes don’t move from mine. He looks so different, so chilled. It’s weird.

  ‘You look so proud of yourself.’ I cover my eyes with my hands, feeling oddly shy.

  ‘I am so proud of myself,’ he laughs.

  After the condom incident we haven’t attempted it again; it’s like we’re both too nervous to bring it up. Which I don’t understand, seeing as other parts of our bodies have touched private parts of each other’s bodies, but for some reason talking about condoms suddenly seems too huge or like actually admitting the fact that we’re going to have sex. It’s not like you make out and then talk about making out.

  It feels like we’re sitting on the edge of an aeroplane that’s thousands of feet in the air and we’re about to jump out of the plane but we’re both waiting for the other person to jump first. Someone has got to do something.

  ‘I don’t know why you need me here,’ Minda asks. We’re at Coles, in the aisle with the condoms.

  ‘I’ve never bought them before,’ I mutter, pretending I’m staring at the men’s razors while trying to sideways-glance at the different packets. Minda marches straight up to them and starts quite loudly reading out the descriptions on the packets. ‘Thin, regular, flavoured, large.’ She looks at me. ‘Does he have a large penis?’

  I am mortified. I feel my cheeks flush bright red as I look at her and my eyebrows plead with her to stop.

  She just smiles wide. ‘Feather-lite, ribbed…oooh, glow in the dark?’ She picks up the box and starts reading. ‘These freak me out. Why do you need them to glow in the dark?’ She shakes her head and I continue to stare at the men’s hair-growth shampoo with such intensity that the image may very well burn my retinas. Minda picks up a box and passes it to me. ‘Buy these.’

  So I do and am grateful when the whole ordeal is over.

  ‘Who is this guy?’ Minda asks as we eat fries in the food court.

  ‘We work together.’ I smile. I don’t want to be one of those girls who lose their brain over a guy. ‘He’s thoughtful and lovely and sweet and funny. He cracks me up,’ I say, leaning my head in my hands and looking at Minda.

  ‘You’ve had sex before, yeah?’ she asks, and I nod. ‘Then why are you so nervous?’

  I think about it. ‘He’s the first guy that I’ve actually really, really liked. It feels different.’

  ‘It is different.’ Minda’s green hair flicks across her face as she quickly responds.

  ‘It is?’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong—the mechanics are exactly the same,’ she says, ‘and it can be pretty good when you don’t like them. But when you do and it’s good, then it’s really good.’ Minda smiles to herself, and I bite on the end of my straw.

  ‘Just do it, already.’ She throws a chip at my face and I look at her, pretending to be pissed off.

  Fine. I think I just will then.

  I put the record on and turn to look at him sitting on the edge of the bed, jotting words into a notebook. Biting his lip, his eyebrows furrowed together as his hand loops around the page trying to catch whatever thought he’s had. His brown curls sit loosely on his forehead, kind of bouncing with the movement of his hand. He makes my insides feel like they’re all squished together and pulsating some kind of liquid joy through my body. I wonder if this is what it feels like when you’re in love. I stride over and take the book and pen out of his hand.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ he murmurs as I straddle him and grab his face to kiss him. His hands are on my lower back.

  The kiss is slow and sweet but within seconds it quickens, it’s like we can’t get close enough and I can feel his hands move under my shirt and touch the skin at my waist. I kiss his neck and run my hands down his sides and back up over the front of his chest until I get to the top button of his shirt. I undo it. I undo all of them, one by one, but we don’t stop kissing. We are so close together and we’re both breathing fast. I pull his shirt open and he shimmies it off and throws it on the floor. I go to kiss him but he stops and just looks me straight in the eye. I’m kind of amazed by how good it is.

  His hands trace the line of my jaw to my chin, down my neck and onto my chest and he stops at my first button. Still looking at me, smiling. His breath is hard in his chest as he undoes each of my buttons slowly. Running his fingers in a line and kissing each spot as he goes. He slips my shirt off and it drops to the floor and we fall back onto the bed rolling over so Gideon lies on top of me. I rub my fingers up and down his back, tracing the line of his waistband.

  He undoes his shorts and tries to fling them off but the angle is weird. I start to giggle and he laughs, frustrated, as he shifts his body and pushes them all the way down and kicks them off. He is naked, we laugh as I straddle him again, kissing his neck and his chest. Unhook my bra and fling it onto the floor. Gideon shakes his head, kind of stunned.

  Then his hands glide up my hips over my boobs and across my shoulders to the back of my neck, where he pulls me into him and we kiss, then I undo my skirt and we pull it over my head, laughing when the button gets stuck in my hair and Gideon has to help me untangle it.

  I kiss his chest and his nipples, and his head rolls back as he breathes out loudly. I kiss across his shoulder and the line of his arm muscle. I kiss his forearm. He tenses a little so I look at him as I run my lips over the skin—all the little scars—and he lets me do it for a moment before pulling me back towards him as we kiss quick and urgent and push our bodies into each other. It’s the hottest thing ever. How much I want him.

  I HAVE HAD SEX. I HAVE ACTUALLY HAD SEX. FULL AND COMPLETE AND FINISHED SEX. WITH A CONDOM. I HAVE HAD SEX WITH A CONDOM.

  I don’t really feel different, though. I thought I might. But I don�
�t. I feel like when someone tells you to watch a really good TV show and it ends and you are deeply satisfied but also a little disappointed because now it’s over and the mystery and anticipation of watching the awesome TV show is now over. It won’t feel that way ever again. Even if you watch it all over again it won’t be the same. It’s how I feel now.

  Although that feeling is being quickly replaced by a whole swirl of other more important thoughts, such as:

  1. I’ve never realised how small our shower is; I’m realising this now because Ava and I are both in our shower.

  2. Shower heads are not made to wet two people at the same time.

  3. Ava is hilarious. She has washed her wild hair and stuck it up like a troll doll and asked me if I liked her new hairstyle. Of course I do. I like everything about her.

  It turns out that Ava and I both had condom-buying adventures and I laugh as she tells me about her experience in the Coles aisle. Mine was similar, except I did a very, very purposeful tactical trip up the aisle as reconnaissance to ensure I knew the exact location of the condoms. I then waited by the milk until it became relatively empty and marched back up the aisle with one hand outstretched to grab the first box I could. I did not slow down as I walked straight up to the self-checkout. I was in and out of the place in four minutes and twenty-seven seconds total. I timed it.

  Ava and I are kissing and I get soap in my eyes, and it becomes a thing as I try and get it out. Then there’s a double-tap knock on the door.

  ‘Gids, we’re home,’ my mum yells.

  ‘Shit,’ Ava mouths.

  I shriek, ‘Okay,’ and we stare at each other, wide-eyed. All of a sudden I’m desperately aware of how naked I am. I turn off the shower and grab a towel and throw one to Ava.