Mouths of Babes

by Stella Duffy

  Sally was simply doing as she had promised, her turn to do the dare, face the task. Everyone else had a task when it was their birthday and now it was her go. Just turned sixteen and old enough to accept the group’s challenge, whatever that might be. For Will it had been a shagging thing, Daniel’s choice. Even though Andrea had already started going out with Will, she still agreed with the dare, it would be a way at getting back at a few girls she’d hated for ages anyway. And it wasn’t really fucking around if she knew about it, so Will agreed. He shagged three different girls from their year in the same weekend, let each of them think he was cheating on Andrea just for her, told each girl he was going to drop Andrea Browne. And then laughed at all three of them together in front of the whole class on the Monday morning, loads of tears in the girls’ loos at lunchtime, and a big fat smile on Andrea’s face all afternoon. For Ewan it had been a break-in, into his father’s own practice. That one was Sally’s idea. Drugs and needles nicked, then Daniel’s cousin sold them on somewhere else, and they all got pissed on the proceeds. For Andrea it was another sex thing, Will said it was only fair and Andrea couldn’t disagree. Though afterwards she hadn’t seemed quite as cheery about it as Will had. Afterwards she wondered if Will’s dare had been that much of a hardship at all really.

  Daniel’s dare had been really hard to set up. It was all drink and drugs. Ewan’s idea, typical. As many types of alcohol and as many different drugs as Daniel could down in an hour. It took the other four more than a week to get everything together, and even then no one managed to score anything harder than speed. No matter, Daniel had got really sick anyway. Sally thought the hash cake followed by Andy’s famous Baileys – vodka – cointreau cocktail was what had done it. Ewan blamed the speed-laced spliff. Whatever, Daniel hadn’t even had a beer for almost a month after-wards. So they all took on their allotted assignment and now it was Sally’s turn. The youngest of the group, last to take a task, most eager to prove she wasn’t a baby anymore. And Janine Marsden just happened to be the passing person the dare was played out on. Sure, she was someone who annoyed them all, who they liked to have a go at, she was a bit of an idiot. But it wasn’t anything more than that. It never had been with Janine, she just annoyed them so they let her know it. Like any of the other dares, like those girls Will shagged, the guys Will picked for Andrea’s blowjobs, like Daniel’s poor liver, and breaking into Ewan’s father’s surgery, Janine Marsden was just some nobody, important only for the act of doing it. Nobody important at all.

  Except that it was working. Sally knew it was working, she could feel Janine’s surprise and then the yield and then, simply and easily, she felt pleasure. Sally could feel Janine’s pleasure because it was what she felt herself. Exactly what she felt herself. And this was different to that French guy she’d got off with when they were away on that school trip. Different to getting off with that older bloke her sister was going out with too, when he came round and Cassie was out and he’d come on to her, and Sally only was thirteen, so she figured she might as well see what all the fuss was about. Which was nothing much as far as she could see; his mouth had tasted like stale cigarettes and his tongue was really big and slobbery and she’d thought it was crap, worse when his hands where bloody everywhere and her mum had come home just in time. Though probably that was just because she was young, just thirteen, maybe she would like it now. She liked this now. She liked snogging Ewan, the few times it had happened, and the little bit of touching they’d done. Not much, not enough to count, but some. Sally had always kind of fancied Will too, a bit at least, and she reckoned he sort of knew it, though of course Will Gallagher thought everyone fancied him anyway. Part of what she liked about fancying him secretly was that Will was Andrea’s boyfriend, and sometimes she really wanted to give Andy a hard time, though she’d never dare do it to her face. Andy was way too tough to get into a scrap with. This one happening now felt different again though, like a whole new feeling. It was working on Janine. And it was working on Sally. And it wasn’t playing.

  She got up to go. Too quick, too hurried, knocked over a half-empty coffee mug. Half-full coffee spilled all over the table. The script wasn’t quite done, Sally had not yet gone as far as they’d wanted her to, gone far further than she’d known she could. Sally was somewhere she didn’t know she could go to.

  “Don’t go.”

  Looked at Janine Marsden and saw someone else. Saw herself kissing Janine Marsden and saw herself liking it.

  “What?”

  “Don’t go yet. My mum won’t be back for another hour, my brother doesn’t get home from judo until late. You don’t need to go.”

  “Yeah, I do. My … my mum will be wondering where I am … I’ve got go home. Sorry.”

  Janine’s face went tight again, that flinch across her forehead. “Yeah. No. Of course.”

  Sally remembered her script, bad actress, faltering at the lines, not wanting to say them, too much truth in the playing, “Really, Janine, I do have to go. But maybe … we could meet up again later? We usually go over to Will’s place on a Thursday night, his dad’s out then.”

  “All of you?”

  “Yeah. Sooner rather than later? I do think we can make up, all of us. Make it better. I’ll come and pick you up if you like? We can walk over together? You can come in with me. Seven-thirty?”

  “OK then. If you’ll come and get me,” Janine smiled, face raised, dark blue eyes clear and bright, “if you like.”

  Sally picked up her school bag and ran out of the front door. Ran away from Janine. Ran back to the group.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The report was a press conference, an interview, a tribunal. Five of them gathered again in Ewan’s parents’ sitting room and a speeding slam of questions for Sally.

  “So you kissed her?”

  “Not at first.”

  “But you did.”

  “After a bit. Yes.”

  “Oh God! Gross.”

  Andrea thought it was vile. Even though she’d agreed and smiled and approved all along, she still thought it was gross. Would never have done it herself, so she said now. Though Sally wasn’t quite sure how snogging Janine Marsden could be so much worse than giving blowjobs to five of the guys in their year, five guys they’d known since they were just little kids. But then Andrea’s view of what was gross was slightly different from Sally’s. Sally probably wouldn’t want Will sitting there with his hand halfway up her shirt either. Probably. At least not while Daniel was paying such close attention.

  “Yeah, but who kissed who?” Ewan wanted to know.

  “Well, I did what Will said.”

  “Arm round her back, looking at her lips … ”

  “All of that, just like you told me. And then we kissed. I don’t think it was me or her. We just kissed. Each other.”

  “And?”

  “I really don’t want to know.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Andy, we do.”

  The boys did want to know. Understood from their reading of cheap porn and Daniel’s cousin’s movie collection that they were supposed to care. Hot girl-on-girl action, the fastest way to a red-blooded boy’s heart. Actually Will wasn’t so interested in the kissing or any fumbling touch Sally was about to describe, he wanted to know where Janine was now, what she was thinking, feeling now. The lezzie part of it was irrelevant as far as he was concerned, it just made for better prospects in the longterm, moved them on a little further to the next point.

  Ewan didn’t really care either. Well, he did, but only in so far as he would have wanted to kiss Sally himself. Wanted to be the one kissing Sally. Wanted to be the one snogging Sally, shagging Sally, fuck knows, maybe even loving Sally. Not that he’d say so here or now, but he had hopes. Daniel, however, did care about the girl sex thing. Someone had to. “OK, so real kissing, proper snogging, tongues and all?”

  “Tongues and all.”

  “And then?”

  And then Sally had felt something, something she didn’t mean to feel,
hadn’t expected to feel – except maybe she had. Maybe she had known that was what she would feel and that was why she was so scared to do it and that was why she was so interested in the line of Andrea’s breasts and the way Andy’s Aunty Jane laughed with her head pushed right back and her neck so exposed and how Mrs Stirling looked when she smiled in the kitchen and how she liked Will’s Nana Tilly’s army stories, all those women working together and no boys hassling them, goading them, and how his nan had said it was one of the best times of her life. The best time of her life. And maybe that was why, when Will first suggested the dare and Andy had said she was going to throw up at the thought and the other guys had just laughed so loud, maybe that was why Sally had said yes, OK, she’d do it. Please. Maybe she wanted to do it. Back then, years ago, when it had been playing kissing and again now. Maybe she still did want to do it. And now she felt sick too. Sick the others would be able to see, sick she’d have to tell them, sick that maybe Janine knew and understood and had found her out. When Sally had only just found herself out. So much going on in her brain, mouth opening slowly, one word at a time, careful now not to implicate herself. Listening to the question and giving the right answer.

  “Then nothing really.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing really … much. Sorry, I freaked. It was too weird. I took off, went home for my tea and then came here. Like we agreed. Thursday night, it’s what we do.”

  “Well, thank fuck for that.”

  Big sigh from Andrea, relieved that her only proper girl friend, the only girl she could bring herself to hang out with, and then mostly because it meant she got to be with all the guys without looking like a total slut, wasn’t really such a fucking dyke after all. Andrea so scared of guilt by association. Sally guilty by association.

  “No, hold on, Andy. That definitely wasn’t the deal. You were supposed to do a bit more than that, Sally.”

  “Do something anyway.”

  “And snogging is not something.”

  Sally worried they’d send her back, make her try again, force her to feel it again. “Yeah, OK, well, it was a bit more than snogging.”

  All ears, all eyes, hands poised on jeans-knees. “What?”

  Sally chose to tell them what they wanted to hear. Told them what she had imagined before now. Pictured and not even dared to tell herself she was thinking. Seeing herself fucking Ewan, who she certainly would, she’d thought about it often enough, though usually she imagined he was softer, smoother. Girlier. More girl.

  “We … touched.”

  “Yes?”

  “What?”

  “Where?”

  “How?”

  The who was a given.

  “Well, you know. I sort of … we just did stuff. I did, I mean. And then she did stuff back.”

  “Stuff?” A giggle and a snort, eyes rolled, lips licked.

  “You started it?”

  “You guys told me to. But Janine did more, way more. Like she knew what to do, I mean, of course I didn’t know what to do. You know that. That’s the whole point of all this, right? But she did. She touched me.”

  “Where?”

  “Here.” Points. Lies. “And here.” Indicates, physical untruth. “And … you know … there.”

  Will smiled, Andrea was disgusted, Daniel enjoyed the demonstration, wished it had been his idea, wished he’d though of it before Will, wished he thought of anything before Will, except that he kind of had, started it all that day in the playground, it was just Will had taken it further, always took it further. Ewan was unsure, waiting, worried about what next.

  And then Will moved them on, giving orders. “Right then. And she’s coming over later?”

  “Yeah. She said she would.”

  “That’s good enough for me. Phase Two, kids. Ewan, go get some juice.”

  “What?”

  “Orange juice or something. Your parents have juice in the fridge, don’t they?”

  “Um, yeah … fresh. For the Vitamin C.”

  “Whatever. Get juice. Andy’s got vodka and I … ” rummage in his back pocket, sleight of hand and proud flourish “ … have speed. Phase Two.” Another burst of his favourite song, Andrea and Daniel exchanged irritated glances, and Will patted himself on the back at his own brilliance.

  Later that night, fucking Ewan in his father’s surgery, smell of alcohol wipes in the room and vodka-and-orange on their breath, acid stomach from the couple of speed balls they’d each taken, Sally opened her eyes wide against the picture behind her lids. She’d completed the task, achieved her dare and so she got to have Ewan after all. Sally was sixteen now and her first fuck was well past its due date. Ewan was her coming-of-age gift from the group, her extra prize for completing the birthday task. Sally didn’t want to think about Janine, not now, not again, and brought her mind back to the present. To what she was doing and where she was doing it and how she really did like Ewan. She thought about where she was and why she was and she also wondered if this was it. If, after all this time of pretty much liking Ewan, this was it. At sixteen Sally knew a great deal about how much she didn’t know. And now, in the surgery, grinding away at each other, she had to ask herself if this was it. Even with the weirdness after what had happened earlier and knowing most people had a pretty routine first time – her sister had, even Andy said she had – she did wonder. If perhaps that hadn’t been it, this afternoon, at the formica table, that moment with Janine. Sally didn’t know, but she kept her eyes open anyway.

  Later that night, fucking Sally, Ewan delighted to be fucking Sally, delighted to be here and now and so glad to take his mind off everything else, all the other shit that had brought them here. This was where he wanted to be. But then again, right now he wasn’t really thinking about Sally or Janine or any of the others. Nor did he know that Sally wasn’t really with him, Ewan couldn’t tell her thoughts were so far away, he was too scared and surprised and uncertain himself to notice her all that much. He hadn’t said, of course, how could he tell that lot his truth? He’d told a story ages ago about some girl on their family’s French holiday two years back, but this time was his first too. Terrifying, this first. And just odd really. Ewan hoped it was going to get better. Practise maybe, that might help. He wondered if Sally would want to try again. Later. Sooner.

  Much later that night, Janine Marsden wondered to herself about how things worked out. How nice this afternoon had felt, how hopeful she’d been, waiting for Sally to come back and pick her up. Pleased and hopeful and then unsure, all over again so unsure. Janine covered her mouth with her hand, balled fist, tight fist, and held it all in and wondered if she really was what they said she was and if so, perhaps all she needed to fix it was to shag some bloke, every bloke. She wondered what made them think she was such a lezz, when all she’d ever done with another girl was kiss, just kiss, soft kiss, slow kiss. Janine wondered about it all, where it had started and who had started it and if it was all her fault as they said it was. She was hurting and sad and lonely and so tired of it all. Her mouth opened and closed again, and no words came out, she didn’t know how to say them anyway and the day and night were running through her head and then it was too much and then she stopped thinking. It was easier that way.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Will was too famous to risk meeting with the others in public during the day, so they all went to Saz’s for coffee instead. In Will’s words, a quick meet and greet just to be sure they were coming from the same place. Saz didn’t imagine that would ever be the case, but she couldn’t be bothered explaining why not to him. And the sooner they met, the sooner it would all be over. She sent Molly off to work with assurances of a nice cosy day for stay-at-home mother and child, kisses at the door and random text messages of love. Then mother and child went out shopping for three people whose tastes, the taste of whom, Saz had known intimately at fifteen and sixteen and now she realised she didn’t even know if they had milk in their tea, let alone skimmed or full fat. Though she thought it was fai
rly safe to assume all four could put up with organic semi if they had to. She bought coffee, milk, fat chocolate chip biscuits and apricot cake. They lived in the grownup world now, surely no one was going to want marmite soldiers instead. Or cold fried egg sandwiches, Ewan’s favourite. She picked up a couple of bottles of wine as well, if they didn’t drink them at lunch she was fairly certain she’d need them by the time Molly came home in the evening. Then she grabbed a third. Just in case it turned really bad. Or good.

  What it got was the same. Same and different, then and now. Four of five adults with their young selves slowly seeping out from under new haircuts and better makeup and considered clothes and ageing skin and careful phrasing and knowing how to do it. How to meet people, to greet them, the tricks to play, words to say. Their youth selves shaped and moulded and formed into the acceptable adult version, public face showing itself to the private past. It was a good act, an ordinary act, anyone could do it, everyone did. Saz looked around the room and saw how well the four of them had managed. Teenage rebels to adult variations on the success story.

  Will with his televisual good looks and the CV all of them had watched, none of them needed to ask. Daniel’s mask of cynical over-achiever turned nice teacher, helpful mentor, secret shagger. Andrea with photos of the husband and children first out of her bag; her honed body dressed in the regulation pastels her good wife image required. And Saz herself, classic example of the lesbian baby boom, forcing her triangular peg into a square hole and determined to make it work. All of it. Relationship, motherhood, work, family, friends, and this. This old-new thing that had forced its way into her life. Will greeted the others at the door like it was his flat. Andrea was comfortable with him, her wealth and his provided an easy meeting place. Daniel came into the room all arrogance and uncertainty – though Saz noted he eased a little when he saw Andrea. Saz was holding onto the photos for now, she didn’t know when she’d use them, but figured it couldn’t be that long coming. She showed off her daughter to the guests and then she opened the wine.