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  “So, Annabelle, I s’pose you’re going to see Ben again, are you?” Lucy called. Her voice dripped with sweetness but it was insincere so I was cautious.

  “Don’t know. We didn’t make any definite plans.”

  “How far did you go with him, anyway?”

  “We only kissed.”

  The older girls sniggered, their hands covering their mouths as I turned to find Lucy standing behind my back, shoving her fingers down her throat in a vomiting motion, signifying her true thoughts about the relationship. Seeing my face, she stopped, her patronising grin daring me to question her actions.

  “Didn’t he try to feel you up or anything? Did he stick his tongue in when he kissed you?”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “I guess that means he didn’t. In my opinion, you don’t need to worry about him calling you again. He’s far too mature for you. Boys like him can get any girl they want and they usually want girls who put out. He won’t come back again.”

  Chapter 5

  LOVIN’ YOU

  Lovin’ you has made my life so wonderful

  And every time that we kiss, I’m more in love with you

  Minnie Ripperton

  Having a boyfriend is difficult to deal with when everyone is against you, but having an older boyfriend was worse. Ben was so much more experienced at everything than me. I was a ninny and I don’t know why he continued to see me. The odds were greatly stacked against us. On our first real date without Mum’s supervision, I was so nervous I thought I was going to hyperventilate. Had I been a regency maiden, all blushing and swooning and begging for air or the smelling salts because my corsets were too tight, I could have been forgiven, but my only excuse was fear. I was drowning in it.

  I had selected my outfit carefully, under the guidance of Prue, but as I stood in front of the mirror, I remained unsure about the skintight yellow skirt with buttons up the side and royal blue polished cotton shirt tucked in at the waist. If this was the start of something serious, I had to make a good impression, yet my new high-heeled sandals, which had looked so sophisticated in the shop, were all wrong and I was sure I was getting a huge pimple on the end of my nose.

  “The skirt shows off your body,” Prue said.

  “I’m not sure, it makes my stomach stick out…”

  “Oh for God’s sake! You look fantastic. Come and spend a week in my body and then we’ll talk about your stomach. Quit whining.”

  “Sorry. It’s just that I want everything to be perfect. I mean, I like Ben so much. I don’t want to muck things up.”

  Boldly, Prue reached over and unbuttoned the shirt to the second button, showing the place where my cleavage would be if I had one.

  “There,” she said. “Now you’re perfect.”

  I was in two minds. I thought I looked like a hooker ready for a night at work.

  ***

  We arrived at the party a little after 8pm. Ben rapped on the door twice and we went inside. The house was darkened and people milled around in corners leaning against walls up and down the hallway. I’d never seen so many people at a party before. The parties hosted by our gang were much quieter affairs. There was never any drinking, only the occasional cigarette and a kiss on the lawn. This party made us look like the nerds, not the cool girls. Sensing my uncertainty, Ben clasped my hand and led me through the crowd towards his friends. The gentle smile on is face told me he understood. He would protect me.

  “You alright, Bella?”

  I clutched at his hand. “Yep. There’s just so many people.”

  We approached the group. A beer was thrust into his hand.

  “You wanna a beer too, Bella? We’ve got cider, if you prefer that,” Paul said.

  I gave him a small smile. It was comforting to know that there was one more friendly face in the mass of people, but his breath smelt like apples that had begun to ferment in the bottom of my school bag and I wasn’t sure how long I could stand next to him without dry reaching.

  He handed me a glass filled with cider and I stared into the reflection of the liquid. I wasn’t allowed to drink alcohol unless Mum and Dad agreed. If I had a drink I’d be cool, but Mum would be sure to be waiting at the door with the breathalyser when I got home and I’d be cast into my room for life. No more Ben. Ever.

  “How about I get you a soft drink?” Ben whispered. He was such a gentleman. Other boys would have been throwing cider down my throat, hoping to get me drunk to take advantage of me, but not Ben.

  “Cider’s fine.” It was only one drink after all. One drink wouldn’t tip me over the edge and Lucy was always telling me I was too straight.

  One by one, beer in hand, Ben introduced me to his other friends. For the next two hours, I laughed along with the jokes they made about him and I fluttered my eyelashes at them like I’d seen Lucy do. I sipped my cider and finding it wasn’t so gross, I gulped it down and asked for a refill. I wanted Ben to be proud of me and think I was grown up enough to be with his mates. I didn’t want them to remember me as the mousey fifteen year old who couldn’t have a bit of a laugh. And it seemed to work. With Ben beside me, and a few glasses of cider under my belt, I was no longer invisible. I had the look, the personality and the outfit. I was hot. In fact, all of Ben’s friends were flirting with me. Oh my God. I wasn’t just channeling Lucy. I was Lucy!

  Then something changed. Ben suddenly became more protective, pulling me closer to his side. His arm was tighter around my shoulder as he bent to whisper in my ear.

  “Let’s get out of here. I think you need fresh air.”

  “But…”

  Taking the glass from my hand, he put it on the counter and all but grabbing me, led me out the back door into the garden.

  “What the hell was that all about?” he asked as he dragged me along.

  “What?”

  “That performance in there.”

  I stopped. We were in the middle of the garden. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “It was like I didn’t know you. How much cider did you have?”

  “Your not my father, Ben. And I’m not drunk.”

  “Then why were you being all weird and flirty?”

  I looked at him. So that’s what this was all about. He was jealous. I decided to ignore him.

  “Where’re we going? I don’t need a hike to get fresh air.”

  “You’ll see.”

  A sense of urgency seemed to drive Ben as he strode through the shrubs flanking the path, my hand gripped in his. The heat from his fingers seared my palms; I barely noticed the cool in the air, the night engulfing me in its darkness or that fact that I felt nauseous from the cider. He was jealous. Ben really did like me.

  ***

  In the shadows of the garden, Ben led me towards a little room, a studio of sorts. With a finger to his lips, he opened the door and ushered me inside. I stood in the darkness, my hand on the edge of an old sofa that stood under the window covered in rugs.

  “Did you know this place was here?”

  “I went on a bit of a fact finding mission…” he replied, as he calmly stepped towards me and pulled me closer, “while you were entertaining my mates and drinking cider. Do you feel better yet?”

  “Mmm. Better when I’m with you. Did we really have to leave?”

  We stood facing each other in the semi-darkness, with the moonlight streaming down on us through the window. There were no parents, no boys to flirt with; nothing could save me now. Soon I would be melting in his arms and he knew it.

  “You’re such a flirt.”

  “What’ve I done now?”

  How could I be a flirt, I was invisible to the male population, remember? The idea seemed as improbable as to be laughable. It was only Ben and I. In the shed. Alone. I wound my arms around his neck.

  “I watched you tonight. You tease. You’re just like every Lucy in the world and I’m not sure I like it.”

  Reaching up to my tiptoes, I placed a tiny peck in the crook of his nec
k. “I was only talking. You were there the whole time. I wanted you to be proud of me, not think I was some baby.”

  “But you’re doing it again. Right now.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You don’t have to pretend to be someone else to make me happy. Just be you.”

  “Oh.”

  Well.

  Pulling away, Ben sat on the sofa. He looked up into my face. “If I wanted someone else I would never have asked you out in the first place. Now get your butt over here,” he grinned and patted a spot beside him. I sat down close. The promise of his kisses invaded my head and swam in the longing already there. His warmth radiated into me. The smell of the soap from his body filled the air. Slowly, I reached across and touched the smooth skin on the side of his jaw. I could tell he’d only just shaven. It felt so soft. This was what I had waited for. The chance to be alone with him.

  Then, holding my palm against his cheek, he leant and kissed me, pressing his lips against mine but not in that tender way I was used to. The kiss was hard, bruising my lips, revealing more to me than he would ever say in words. And in that moment, I was gone. With that one kiss, I was his forever, as my senses exploded into a million pieces and flew away, drifting upwards to the heavens.

  “You taste like cider,” he said, as he ran the tip of his tongue across my mouth.

  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “Oh, it’s good. It’s doing things to me that you’re far too young to know about.”

  He placed my hand on his jeans. “See…”

  I stopped breathing. He was right. My hand was on his penis and it was hard. Very hard. As worldly as I wanted to be, I was way too young to know about that.

  The next second Ben’s lips were on mine, again. His kiss was hot and fast. I felt feverish and confused. I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe but I didn’t want him to stop, either. Every nerve in my body was alive with longing and wrestling with utter confusion. He kissed me again and his hand slid around from my back towards the edge of my breast. It rested there, feeling my heart beating wildly, beneath it. I moaned, a small husky sound, hardly audible, yet encouraging to him all the same. He kissed me harder.

  “Slow down, Ben, please. Please. You’re going too fast.”

  His voice echoed into the darkness. “I don’t want to slow down, I’ve waited all night. I want to kiss you until the stars fall out of the sky.”

  His lips were at my ear. “You’re so beautiful…the most beautiful girl in the world.”

  Throwing my head down against the back of the sofa, I closed my eyes. The feeling of his lips upon the skin of my throat was intense. I have to stop him, I thought. His hands were affecting me in a way I knew to be wrong. Good Catholic girls didn’t enjoy making out. Sex was a sin. But how could I refuse him when I didn’t want to? How could I tell him he should respect me, when his hand was sliding over my body like a sensual snake?

  His hand fluttered across my breast and moved to unbutton my shirt. I sighed again. Could I be allowed to enjoy this small pleasure without the Catholic alarm bells sounding inside my head? It appeared not for they were ringing as if evacuation was imperative to survival and my conscience had no intention of jumping ship without me. As if by remote, I sprang from his embrace.

  “God. Stop. What are you doing?”

  “I thought it was obvious,” he said, his hands falling away. He sat up straight. “Do you want me to stop? Really? I won’t do anything you don’t want me to.”

  “No. No. Oh God, I don’t know. It was a surprise, that’s all.” I couldn’t let him know he was doing things to me I had no experience of. I had to be mature. So, I looked up into his eyes and smiled, willing him to kiss me again. And he did.

  This time his kiss was insistent, as he edged my body across the sofa until I was almost lying flat, partially pinned beneath him. He searched my face for any sign of anxiety, and finding none began again to tease me with his lips upon my face and throat and his hands up and down my body.

  “Please, let me touch you.”

  I lay still.

  Tentatively, he nudged my shirt open, exposing my chest, it’s flesh dotted with goosebumps from the cold night air. His fingers played across my skin, leaving an imprint that made me tremble and I sucked in a breath.

  He smiled, blowing his hot breath along my neck and my collarbone until he reached the small indentation where his hand lay. He teased me unsparingly, never touching me with his lips because his breath alone, against my skin, was enough to drive me crazy.

  “You’re an angel, Bella, a beautiful angel.”

  And I shimmered in his arms, a glittering angel, never to belong to another.

  ***

  For the remainder of the weekend I walked on the clouds. My heart was bursting with happiness. Mum and Dad watched, dumbstruck, as I mooned around the house with a look of utter bliss all over my face, humming ‘Loving You’, a song I loathed with a passion.

  My rapturous state continued well into Monday morning as I leapt out of bed, showered and dressed quickly for school. I rushed down a coffee and a couple of pieces of toast with vegemite, humming dreamily all the while. Minnie Ripperton was still messing with my brain, turning it to mush, and I didn’t even care. Makin’ love with Ben was all I wanted to do.

  As I walked into the kitchen, Dad glanced up is from his newspaper and frowned. His face looked bewildered, as if he had no idea what was occurring in his house, or who the amiable young girl was. His own daughter Annabelle was never chirpy on a Monday morning. Shaking his head, he went back to his newspaper, probably thinking that he would never understand women.

  “Bye, Dad,” I said, kissing him on the cheek and running out the door with a grin from ear to ear.

  ***

  At lunchtime I lolled, legs crossed, on the ghastly coloured lounge in the corner of the common room. I’d arrived fifteen minutes earlier to find Lucy holding court, the group’s attention riveted by her latest exploits from a disco she had been to on Friday night using her fake ID. It didn’t take a great deal of imagination to picture her in the pink and mirrored den of iniquity she had been frequenting of late, doing her best impression of Stefanie Mangano in ‘Saturday Night Fever’. I wondered if her parents had any idea where she was or who she was doing ‘The Hustle’ with.

  “So, his name’s Damien and he’s twenty-two and drives a red sports car,” she said. “He’s going to take me out for dinner soon.”

  The other girls ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’ but I was unconvinced. I turned to Prue. “Any normal man wouldn’t be seen dead with a sixteen-year-old, even if she does have big boobs and a great smile.”

  Prue shrugged, “Maybe she didn’t tell him she was sixteen. It smells a bit fishy to me.”

  “That would be the anchovy. Girls apparently smell like that after lots of sex!”

  Prue choked on her sandwich. “You’ve become quite bawdy of late. That Ben is a bad influence on you.”

  And he was. I was learning so much more than naughty jokes. The only trouble was, I was a shit of a student, or so he said. I could have taught stubbornness to donkeys, he’d said. He was getting so frustrated he’d have to start wanking again, he’d said. I’d just laughed. Sex wasn’t everything.

  “What was the party like?” Prue asked.

  “Excellent. My clothes were just right. Thank your mum for the shirt, by the way. It was perfect. You know, some kids at the party were smoking dope.”

  Jen went goggle eyed. There was a high probability that neither her nor Prue had smelt or even seen marijuana. Before the party, I certainly hadn’t.

  “You didn’t, did you?”

  “Don’t be silly, I would never do drugs.”

  “But I don’t understand? Weren’t there any parents?”

  “Nope. It was an adult party. And there were people everywhere drinking and throwing up into bushes in the garden.”

  “Our parties sound pathetic compared to that,” Jen said.

  I lowe
red my voice further. “I was going to the toilet at one stage and got a wrong door. Oh God, I don’t know if I can tell you it’s too gross…” I paused, trying to clear the image from my mind. It was revolting but I knew I had to share. We had made a pact to tell each other everything.

  Lucy coughed. Having finished her story she had one ear on what I’d been up to. “Oh for God’s sake, it can’t be that bad. Were people doing it on the lawn or something? Come on.”

  “Well, there was a boy sitting on the bed with his pants down. A girl was kneeling on the floor between his knees and…and she was sucking on his penis.”

  A collective gasp went through the group as they screwed up their faces in repulsion.

  Jen covered her mouth with her hand, “That’s disgusting. Are you sure?”

  “Saw it with my own eyes, Jen.”

  “But that’s gross. How could anybody do that?” Prue said. It was mind-boggling enough to think that her parents had sex, she had interrupted them once, but that was too much.

  “I asked Ben and he said that everybody does it and it’s called a head job or something. He said it’s fun and he ALSO said that boys do it to girls too. It’s meant to be very exciting.” Jen’s face dropped as she flopped against the back of the lounge. “You must be kidding. No boy will ever be putting his head between my legs. He didn’t make you do it, did he?”

  “Of course not. I couldn’t do it, it’s gross.”

  Lucy stood up, towering over us in her domineering way and shaking her head as if we were the saddest, most pathetic cases in the world. “Well, it sounds as if you had a very informative evening, Annabelle. Of course, I could have told you all about those things if you had asked me. I thought you were too immature. It appears I was correct.”

  “I don’t believe you Lucy. If you had known, you wouldn’t have been able to stop yourself from telling us. You know it as well as I do. You’re just jealous because I went to a party you weren’t invited to. I don’t know why you have to be mean all the time. You should be pleased for me, now that I have a boyfriend.”