Flick (7 page)

Afterwards we stay as we are for a while, holding each other, letting the gravity of what we've just done sink in.
Wow
, my brain remarks, in a kind of surprised way.
You've just had sex.

Yeah, I say back. I know. I smile and kiss her short hair where it ends at her neck, smelling her perfume, still there through the scent of salt and sea. Then I feel fingers stroking tentatively under my armpit, and let out a completely not suave and very girly giggle as the fingers suddenly dart right under my arm and tickle me.

“Oh, well! It's like that, is it? Two can play at that game, darlin'!” I dive underwater and tickle her stomach, and she replies by kicking me in the head. I tug her legs gently so she goes below surface and she swims down to my level, grabs my cheeks in her fists, smooshes up my face, then pushes me away, laughing.

We kiss and fight and swim after each other and she dunks my head under and we scream and shout and I try to go down on her and come up choking on salt water. People walk past and stare at us, then one of us will pop up and they'll look quickly away again, at the sight of my dick or Rainbow's tits.

RAINBOW TIME

We walk to Rainbow's place to dry off. It's a fifteen-minute walk along the beach towards Ness, and then about five minutes inland. The house is detached, probably Georgian, and made of huge stones painted in soft yellow. The inside is large and bright and covered everywhere with framed kids' drawings in pinks and oranges, inspirational quotations from famous historic people, maps of the solar system. Every bit of wall space is filled, and I hear my mam's voice mutter darkly in my head: “There'll be Blu-Tack marks.” Rainbow points out the wooden floor they've redone themselves and pads about, showing me around, proudly gesturing to the decoration, which has all been done in the two months since they moved in.

There are photos of them everywhere, Rainbow in her school uniform a few years ago; Tim, her brother, at about the age of seven running a race with a load of other kids; her mums standing with the kids at some sort of rally, the Houses of Parliament behind them, the two kids in their early teens. I realize there aren't any baby photos, then think, Of course, 'cause two women can't make a baby. I guess I'd just presumed Rainbow belonged to one of them, maybe from a previous marriage or something. Feeling a bit awkward, I say, “So did one of your mums . . . you know . . .”

She raises an eyebrow at me and laughs. “Give birth to me?”

I grin. “I was gonna say ‘push you out,' but yeah, that's probably a nicer way to put it.”

Rainbow shakes her head. “Nah, they adopted me. They fostered me for a while first, but we pretty much knew we were meant for each other right away.”

She's smiling, like it's a happy memory, but I still don't know what to say to that. “Huh,” I manage. “How old were you?”

“Eight when they started to foster me, eleven when we made it formal. Pretty old really. But they wanted to adopt an older kid.”

“Yeah, babies are a lot of work.”

She gives me a look. “I think it was more to do with the fact that a lot of people don't want to adopt older kids, so they get left in the system.”

“Oh. Shit. I mean, yeah, of course. Sorry.”

She laughs and walks into the kitchen. It's bright because it's in an extension and the roof and walls are all glass. Bow opens the fridge and takes out a carton of chocolate soy milk. “It's okay. You want one?”

“Is it like Nesquik?”

She frowns. “I guess. We're not allowed stuff like that.”

“Stuff like what?”

“Powdered milk, Pop-Tarts. You know, junk.”

I splutter. “Junk?”

“You don't think they're junk?”

“I eat Pop-Tarts like they're a food group.”

She hands me out a glass and we toast, grinning.

“So what about Tim?” I ask, gesturing to a picture and getting milk on my arm. I suck it off my sleeve. “Is he adopted?”

“Yeah, he's three years younger than me and they fostered us both around the same time, so he was five years old. They adopted him pretty much immediately though, 'cause his parents are dead.”

“Ah, I see, and they wanted to wait with you 'cause you might have turned into a troublemaker?” I nod and wink at her. “I get that.”

Rainbow grins and pokes my stomach in a sexy way. “Well, you have to be available to be adopted,” she says softly, which I don't really understand, but then she floors me with a suggestive eyebrow lift and I forget what we were talking about, how to ask questions, my own name, etc. Bow murmurs, “Shall we go upstairs?”

I down the rest of my milk. “Hell yes.”

We head up to her bedroom with no adult interference as no one else seems to be home. Probably, I think somewhat jealously, out at art galleries or some shit like that. As soon as she opens her door I'm hit by the enclosure of floor-to-ceiling bookcases covering two entire walls, packed full of meaty volumes with titles like
The Kennedy Tapes: Inside The White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis
and
September 11, 2001: Feminist Perspectives
. I scan the shelves and try not to stare as Rainbow throws her bag on her multicolored duvet and peels off her still-sopping jeans. Notably cool CDs in Rainbow's homemade library include
Make Yourself
by Incubus,
Is This It
by the Strokes and what looks like every single album ever made by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Notably intimidating DVDs, the titles of which I have no idea how to pronounce, include
Y tu mamá también
,
Volver
,
Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain
,
La mala eduçación
,
La cité des enfants perdus
and, intriguingly,
Lucía y el sexo
.

I pick up the book about the Cuban missile crisis and thumb through it. “It's quite cool having all these here, isn't it?”

“Pardon?” Rainbow's fluffy hair springs out the neck of a bright blue top.

“Ah, that looks soft.” I stroke it. “I mean, you'd think it would be claustrophobic being surrounded by all these books and that, like the library in school, but it must be quite freeing, having the power to visit foreign countries and go to different times in history and . . .” I realize how dumb what I'm saying sounds and trail off. She's clearly intelligent and I clearly sound like a retard. Should have fucking read something growing up. Anything. But I swear to God I didn't even really know about books until I was about ten. It just never crossed my mind that anyone would read for pleasure. And then I discovered some comic books in my dad's closet while looking for porn and obsessively read his entire collection, spanning the years 1975 to 2000. But since then I've not read much besides
Men's Health
magazine and a couple of books on Banksy. I'm not a fan of lads' mags because all the women in them look stupid and pretty much like porn stars with ginormous plastic tits and inflated lips (no, I really,
really
wouldn't), so I'm kind of proud I've avoided that cultural stereotype, but I haven't exactly progressed to Brontë or anything if you know what I mean. I point at a stonker of a book that pronounces itself “the definitive authority on contemporary art, globally, now,” and finish my sentence clumsily, losing faith in myself, the volume dropping off my voice, “. . . to know about art in Guatemala.” I shrug uncomfortably. I know Rainbow's not making me feel so small and undeserving beside her on purpose, because she's not like that. It's all in my head. I know this, but it seems I can't help myself. I poke some books on the floor with my shoe, fake nonchalance and raise my voice, acting the cock. “I just meant that it's all at your fingertips, surrounding you when you're asleep. It's insane . . . but, y'know, pretty cool.”

Rainbow smiles innocently, unaware of my inner monologue, and nods to the book I'm unknowingly still holding, the transcription of the Kennedy tapes. “You can borrow that if you want.” She roughly dries her hair with a hand towel. “I've got an idea for this afternoon. Let's order pizza and watch
Y tu mamá también
, it's an awesome film, d'you want to?”

“Yeah, sure, okay.” I shrug.

She slips her hands round my waist and I stand stiff for a moment, but then I fall under her spell, fold my arms about her and drop my head onto her shoulder, enveloping this tiny and wonderful human being, glad she hasn't noticed my awkwardness. We relax with huge sighs into this overwhelmingly deep and comforting hug.

“Rainbooooow,” I let out involuntarily, and burrow my face into her hair with embarrassment.

Then, unanticipated, soft and warm into my chest: “Will.” And my insecurities slip away and my mind and everything in me shakes with excitement and happiness. I'm such a soft twat. Don't tell on me.

WANKING

No story of my life would be complete without attention paid to my most voraciously pursued hobby. Wanking. Spanking the monkey. Teasing the weasel. Buffing the banana, jackin' the bean stalk, applying the hand brake, squeezing the cream from the flesh Twinkie, choking the chicken, checking for testicular cancer, wielding the flesh baton, and my personal favorite, slap-boxing the one-eyed champ. I could go on. I've thought about it a lot. While wanking.

It is a warm day in early May, about a week after my first time with Rainbow, which, in retrospect, was perfect. Unfortunately, I've spent all my time dreaming and wanking about it, and not much time revising. Our exams are only a month away and Jamie, myself, Ella and Mike have a maths paper to take first (Josh, Daisy and Ash take the lower-tier paper, so while they do have an exam at the same time as us, it's basically questions like “If I have three beans and add two, then I have five beans, don't I?” so this hardly counts). To make a long, boring story about inept teaching and apathy on my part short, I'll just put it plainly: no one knows a thing. No teacher seems to help when I ask and no one can tell me where I'm going wrong or what a quadratic equation is. I look for Mr. Banbury, the maths dude, and find him smoking behind the bike sheds. I give up. I go home. I couldn't care less. All I can think about these days is . . .

“Rainbow.” Her name tastes like strawberry on my lips and I think of her breath in my ear. I think of the gorgeous scent of her beautiful cunt in my mouth. “Rainbow . . .” The North Sea, freezing, salty, swirling around us as I fuck her. “Rainbo-oh—yeah—oh . . .”

“WILL?” Three staccato bangs on the door follow. “Is that you wanking to the word ‘Rainbow'?”

I open my eyes and lean up on the bed with my mouth open in indignation. I'm fucking annoyed if I'm honest. “Fuck off, Mum!”

“Calm down, I were only letting you know there's fish fingers, chips and peas on table.”

Fish fingers, chips and peas. Because I'm five years old.

“Thank you.” There's a pause.

“D'you want ketchup?”

“Fuck off!”

Retreating footsteps and an “Oh
fine
,” as if I'm being unreasonable to want to wank without simultaneously discussing dinner with my mother through the door. I begin to rant in my head but take a deep breath and decide not to let it ruin my thoughts of lovely Rainbow and her lovely smile and lovely breasts.

I'm pulling at my dick again with my eyes closed and for some reason I hear the voice of my French teacher, a staunch feminist, say, “Oh, all right, cite only her physical attributes! You're shallow, that's what you are, Will Flicker, shallow!”

No, I argue back, her intelligence and mind make her sexy and make every part of her more attractive, thus enabling me to wank in part about her physical attributes, yes, but also imagining them acting in a way that corresponds to Rainbow's personality and innately deep and sincere beauty. So fuck you, Madame Dubois.

I start up again. Jesus. Now I can't get my French teacher out my head.

Then, worse, an image of Jamie appears, saying, “Well . . . why not?” and hunkering down happily to jerk off to the old bitch. Fuuck!

I give up and roll over onto my tummy. It's Thursday at about five thirty. I think about ringing Rainbow, but she'll be having dinner and probably talking about something very clever, like one of her books, or politics, or the mating habits of rhinoceroses . . . rhinoceroes . . . rhinoceri. Yeah, rhinoceri. I could go down and get my dinner, skin my fish fingers and chat about
CSI: Miami
with Mam and her friend Tina, who comes around to share her Weight Watchers double chocolate brownies and lose at rummy, and who'll no doubt have been warned of my “self-pleasuring,” as Mam says in company.

Rainbow . . . I wish I could be with you all the time. To chat about your day . . . and discuss the single currency . . . and slip my fingers inside you . . . hot and wet around me . . . and pull them slowly out . . . and then . . .

Wait . . . yeah, maybe I can wank. Let's put some lipstick on this pig.