Spiralling Skywards: Falling (Contradictions #1) (6 page)

“He called me
Sash and told me to fuck off. We’re best friends already. That could be problematic when the wedding happens, should I be
his
best man or
your
bridesmaid?”

I stared at her blankly, showing no amusement with my glare. “Get out and close the door behind you.”

“But these things need to be considered, they take a lot of planning.”

“It’s our first date, Sash. Now please leave unless you want to watch me shave my fanny?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Nothing I haven’t helped you out with before.”

This was true. Sash and I had booked a last minute holiday to Greece a few years back, and I didn’t have time to get waxed, so being the best, best friend that she was, Sash had obliged.

“Why you shaving the vag, don’t tell me you’re actually gonna let him get near it?”

I tilted my head to the side and let out a long breath. “Of course I’m not gonna let him get near it, it’s our first date. It’s just habit. Legs, vag, and armpits all get shaved before a night out. Now please leave.”

She leaned against the doorframe and bit down on the corner of her bottom lip. Knowing my friend the way I did, I waited to hear what words of wisdom she had for me.

“Go out and enjoy tonight, Sares. Don’t overthink things, it’s a date, you’re doing nothing wrong. It might lead to more dates, it might not. Just go with the flow, yeah?”

I swallowed down the lump in my throat. Sasha was the only person in the world that knew my issues and insecurities when it came to men. Well, the issue wasn’t with men, it was with me.

I chose not to speak and just nodded my head.

“I love you, now go defuzz that bush.”

She closed the door behind her and left me bending over to look between my legs. There was barely anything there. The upside of being a fair-skinned strawberry blonde was that I didn’t have a lot of body hair, so grooming was easy. I didn’t like the fashion of going completely bare down there so I just shaved once every couple of weeks to maintain the landing strip I had going on.

As I stood under the hot water, rinsing conditioner from my hair, I tried not to think too much about what I was doing that night.

A date.

A date with Liam Delaney. Apart from the fact that he was my brother’s business partner, I really knew very little about him.

He was hot, Australian, had a great smile, blue eyes that crinkled when he offered up that great smile, and yeah, did I mention he was hot?

All of that aside, it felt so good to be excited about a date. I wanted to see him again, in fact I couldn’t wait. I usually dated only because I was twenty-two and that was what was expected of single women of my age, when the truth was, I didn’t care. Sure, it was nice to meet new people, try new places but I wasn’t interested in sex, or any other kind of relationship, but Liam, he’d sparked something in me last night. Something that made me want to dress up, look pretty, and go out to have a good time.

Was it sad that I’d never experienced that level of excitement for a man until that point?

Some of the issues I had were caused by my well-meaning but over protective big brother, others were all my own doing.

Even when I was little, Luke had seemed like an adult. I was never asked out at school because all the boys my age were terrified of my brother and his mates. It wasn’t until I was in college that I started seeing Darren, and when I said seeing, that was about all we did. We never went out. Darren was the typical college boy stoner and not one of my better life choices. He skipped most of his classes, campaigned or demonstrated for anything with a cause, and sold weed for a living. He was nothing that I ever wanted, which in my eyes, made him safe.

We’d listen to music at his place. He’d get stoned, and because drugs had never been my thing, I would just leave quietly once he passed out.

I decided after a pint of home brew at a party one night that I was going to let him pop my cherry. I was eighteen and the only person I knew holding on to my V card, and for some reason, I thought that was a bad thing. I wanted it gone, and as Darren was the only thing on offer, I decided he would do. He led me to a bedroom at the party after I’d whispered into his ear that I wanted to go somewhere private. I knew if we waited until we got home, he’d be too stoned or drunk, or both.

We pushed the pile of coats that were lying on the bed to the floor and I laid down.

There was no foreplay, he pulled up my skirt, pulled down his jeans and boxers, spat in his hand and began stroking himself as he swayed and looked down at me. I heard the tear of foil, but I didn’t watch what he was doing. I stared over his shoulder, off into the darkness of the room.

He pulled my knickers to the side and pushed himself inside me.

I felt a pain like no other. Like I was being ripped in half.

“Fuck you’re tight, Sarah,” he groaned.

“I’m sorry. I’m a virgin,” I whispered.

“What? Fuck, Sarah. Why the fuck didn’t you . . . ah, oh fuck. Oh God, fuck, I’m sorry, baby.”

He was done. He then proceeded to lean over the side of the bed and throw up all over the pile of coats we’d just moved to the floor.

I winced as he groaned and slid out of me. I left him face down, out cold, in a pile of his own vomit and went to the bathroom to clean myself up. There was more blood than I expected, so I rolled up some toilet paper and put it inside my knickers before leaving to walk home by myself.

I didn’t feel dirty. I didn’t feel ashamed. I felt nothing, and I certainly had no desire to ever do it again, which at least proved one thing, I wasn’t like
her.
I
wasn’t
like my mother.

When I was about fourteen, I’d overheard my brother and my nan talking. Nan was saying that I was the same age my mother had been when she started to go off the rails. Staying out all night and getting involved with older boys, drinking, and taking drugs. Luke had told her that was the reason they needed to be so strict with me, otherwise I would end up just like her.

I was ashamed that they thought that of me. I’d always tried my best to be a good girl, I went out of my way to try to make my grandparents and brother proud of me. I’d never smoked, I’ve never tried drugs, and until the night I lost my virginity, I’d never had more than a few sips of beer. I did well at school, even better in college. I knew the sacrifices Nan and Grandad had made when they took us in, and I knew that Luke had always had my back. He was an exceptional big brother, but when I heard them talking, I felt hugely disappointed in their opinion of me and became determined to prove them wrong. It also left me emotionally paranoid.

What if I was like her? Exactly like her? I think I chose Darren because I knew that emotionally, I’d be safe. I had no desire for him, no interest in a long-term relationship, I just wanted to prove that I wasn’t anything like my mother. I wanted to prove to myself that once I’d tried sex, I wouldn’t suddenly become a nymphomaniac like she apparently was. I didn’t have sex again for another three years, and when I did, it was with a complete random, but the motive was still the same. It was all about proving to myself that I could take it or leave it.

I met him in a club in London, took him back to the flat I shared with Sasha, and experienced the same three thrusts and a squirt that I’d experienced with Darren. He tried to tell me it was all my fault, and it had never happened to him before. It was because I was too beautiful, my tits too perfect, my pussy too tight. He’d not even gotten my top off, so how did he know what my tits looked like? And he barely broke the seal on my pussy, so how the fuck did he know how tight I was?

I asked him to leave, showered, and swore off men for life, or at least until I was in a long-term relationship with someone I loved. As I couldn’t see that happening for the foreseeable future, sex with anything other than Ronaldo my Rampant Rabbit or Adam my Aquarius Vibe, was not an option.

I stepped from the water, wrapped my hair in a towel, and wiped the tears that thoughts of her always evoked from under my eyes. I didn’t know why I got so emotional when I thought about the woman that gave birth to me, but it pissed me off. She didn’t care about us and she didn’t deserve the title of “Mother”. I knew very little about her and that’s exactly the way I wanted it to stay. I’d seen photos and I had a vague recollection of long auburn hair but that’s where the memories stopped. I’d been told more than once that I looked just like her, and I hoped that was where any similarities between us ended.

I cleaned my teeth, rubbed some moisturiser over my skin, and gave myself a wink in the mirror.

Let’s do this
.

I was nothing like my pill-popping excuse of a parent, and I never would be.

***

I ended up booking a table at Semplicemente Il Meglio for nine o’clock. It was in the next town over, so hopefully there would be no chance of running into my brother or any of his friends. I’d spoken to him earlier, just to be sure of his plans, and he’d told me he was nursing a major hangover and staying in with a curry and a few of the boys.

“Hope you don’t mind cabbing it, I had a fair bit to drink last night and was worried that just one tonight might put me over the limit.”

A strange sensation travelled from my belly to my chest. It was like a little wave of panic at the thought of him getting in trouble with the police.

“Not at all. I didn’t expect you to have a car anyway, you being a foreigner and all.”

I watched as he appeared to fight a smile.

“I’m actually not.”

“Not what?” I asked, frowning in confusion.

“A foreigner. I have a British passport.”

“Oh, how come?”

“My dad was born here, well, Ireland. He moved to Australia when he was two. I have dual nationality, so I carry both a UK and an Australian passport. That’s why I’m able to work here without having to worry about a visa.”

Well that was a relief. At least he wouldn’t get thrown out of the country for breaking any laws. I let out a long breath, which I’d apparently been holding as I mulled that over. Liam mistook it for a sigh.

“You disappointed?” he asked. His blue eyes sparkling as they danced all over my face. I felt my cheeks burn. Fuck me, he was good-looking. His hair was slick with some kind of product and pushed back from his face, he still hadn’t shaved, and the stubble from last night was now almost a beard.

He was wearing a black shirt, which was open at the collar, and I could see a few hairs sitting at the base of his throat. The thought of how far down they travelled, and where they actually ended, made me physically shudder.

“You cold?” he asked, sliding his arm across the back of the seat and pulling me in closer to his side.

He smelled amazing.

“No? Nothing?” His eyes flicked over my face, and I just stared. I knew that he’d asked me two questions, I was totally aware of that fact, but my brain simply didn’t want to relay that information, or any kind of response to my jaw muscles or voice box.

He chuckled and pulled me in closer. That definitely garnered a response, mostly from my nipples, which were hard enough to cut glass.

“Well, you look gorgeous and smell even better, even if you haven’t got a lot to say for yourself right now.” He spoke with his lips pressed against my ear. Goose bumps immediately radiated from the point where his breath touched my skin to every piece of flesh covering my body. I was both too hot and too cold all at once, if that were even a possibility. The satin and lace of my bra now felt rough and scratchy, what a totally inopportune moment to discover that I had sensitive nipples.

Before I could get a grip on the sensation overload hitting me, I gave another shiver. What the fuck was wrong with me?

“If you keep shivering like that I’m gonna get paranoid that you’re scared of me.”

“I’m not scared
of
you, I’m scared of
me
and
my
reaction
to
you.”

My mouth had finally gotten fed up with waiting for instructions from my brain and just gone with whatever it wanted without any filter or regard for whether the words were appropriate. My cheeks burned with embarrassment, and I was grateful for the partial darkness inside the vehicle that hopefully concealed my blush.