I know, in some vague part of my brain that has not joined the rest of it on permanent vacation, that it shouldn't be getting dark this early. The curtains are closed, but I can see the colours fading behind them. She's still asleep, I can tell because she's not talking. It's slightly too warm under the duvet and in her sleep she has kicked some of it off, I can see her leg and her back, her head turned away from me and her hair all over the pillow. I'm tempted to reach out and touch it, but for now I just stretch out, enjoying the pleasant post sex tingle that passes from my head to my feet whenever I move. The shift in my weight must have woken her, because she rolls over to face me, eyes blinking open sleepily.
"What time is it?" Her tone is slightly anxious, she has always been the great romantic.
"Relax, it's only just five." Memories of the very recent past keep sneaking up behind me, making it hard to concentrate. She rolls over lie on her back and stares up at the ceiling.
"Ok." The urge to touch her is almost unbearable, but I'm holding on.
"Don't worry. I told you I'd wake you in time." She grants me a look, unfortunately it's the kind that could freeze lava.
"Trust your timekeeping Thompson? You turn up so late half the office thinks your early for the next day." She only calls me Thompson if she's angry; or if I've done something that unnerves her so much she has to push away from me. I can't say this is exactly how I saw this conversation going. To be honest, this wasn't how I saw this entire thing going either. Don't get me wrong, Lynda Day's got enough get up and go to break orbit, but even when she turned up outside my class and her eyes lit up like a cat that's seen a bird, I still didn't see her getting up and going this way.
"How was English?" She asked as we walked through the first years.
"That was English?" It wasn't a complete joke, I'd spotted her hovering through the glass half way through the lesson and the rest of it was a bit of a blur.
"Fancy and afternoon off?" I was so startled I had to style out tripping over my own shoes.
"Skipping class for me? Miss Day, I'm a bad influence on you."
"We need to talk." Some deep rooted male instinct always raises my heart rate when I hear those words.
"Ok..." My voice was filling in while my brain tried desperately to figure out what I had done.
"Great. Your house, two o'clock?" It was like she was scheduling a meeting, bright and efficient. I turned to look at her but she was gone from my side.
"Some guys get girlfriends, I get a short Houdini." I muttered to myself.
She was already standing at my gate by the time I got there. She wasn't tapping her foot, but I was pretty sure it was taking all of her willpower not to. I wasn't quite clear why we couldn't walk here together, but she had gone from school before I could find her again.
"You're late." She said as she stood back to let me open the door, suddenly her hand reached out to stop my arm. "Is your Dad in?"
"Probably, it's daylight hours." She looked worried for a second and then stepped in front of me as I opened the door.
"Upstairs." She murmured and disappeared.
"Dad?" I called out, wandering into the hall. "Dad?" I climbed the stairs and opened the door to my room. "Must be pork and beans day at the Crown. He's not here." She was sitting on my bed with her feet tucked under her, looking up at me.
"I think we should have sex." It was a good thing I was still holding on to the door handle, my legs went from under me at that.
"Why?" I've got to say, it wasn't my smoothest moment ever. "I mean, right now? Here?" A voice at the back of my head was telling me I was beginning to babble.
"Don't you want to?" She sounded hurt and quickly working up to angry. I took a breath and tried again before she could start speaking.
"Of course I want to. I'm a guy and you're..." I gestured wordlessly, "you." Her eyebrow was beginning to rise and panic was setting in. "I was just surprised."
"Surprised at the idea of having sex with me?"
"Surprised at the idea of you having sex." Obviously my brain was too busy thinking about this new idea to control my mouth.
"Forget it." She was halfway across the room before I grabbed her arm to stop her. "Let go." I did, but I started talking at the same time.
"Look, I'm sorry." She was staring at me, her eyes wide and furious, but she wasn't moving. "It was just a bit unexpected. Why now?" She shuffles a bit but holds my eyes.
"I just thought we should get it out of the way."
"Get it out of the way? Now you've lost me."
"You want to and I want to. We both keep thinking about it. Lets just do it and then we can concentrate on something else." I had to sit down, holding onto the duvet as if it was the reality that was clearly slipping away.
"Lynda, have you had sex with someone before?" Her eyes shifted from mine for the first time.
"Not exactly."
"Not exactly?"
"Well me and James..."
"No penetration doesn't count." It even sounded harsh to me, but I really didn't want to think about James Armstrong right now.
"No then." She sounded almost defiant.
"I have y'know." I said softly.
"Everyone knows Spike. The school dance, remember?" It had begun to feel like a ruined moment, but she walked over to me and sat down on the bed.
"I'm not looking for some virginal romantic fantasy." Her hand hovered over mine until I held it. "It just seems like the next logical step." My mind was still reeling but at least it had stopped getting in the way.
"Ok." And that, Y'honour, is when she jumped me.
He's looking at me. I'm across the room with my back turned but I can tell. I heard his breath quicken when I got out of bed and now I'm standing at the window, peeking at the world through a gap in the curtains, feeling his eyes glued to my back. Everything is quiet, I saw the sky was dark when I woke up and now I can see the cast iron clouds building against the sky, feel the closeness in the air of a storm coming in. I turn to face him, start speaking before the silence can become poignant.
"How's your elbow?" He flexes it experimentally and grimaces.
"I think my tennis career might be over."
"You shouldn't have fallen out of bed then." His look is a mixture of affection and irritation and is uncomfortably like a mirror.
"I was coming. It's not great for my balance." He's smiling now, at me or the memory I'm not sure.
"There's going to be a thunderstorm." An unnecessary comment, but it steers the conversation away.
"Come back to bed then, it's warm in here." I think that's supposed to be a suggestive look, but he's too rumpled to pull it off.
"Humidity causes thunderstorms Spike, or have you never noticed?"
"Sorry, I don't pay as much attention as you in Geography."
"I don't do Geography!"
"It's hard to keep track." He's grinning now, this is good and normal. I feel, well, sore primarily. It's almost a pleasant kind of sore, it hurt a little more and then a little less than I had expected. I also didn't expect him to fall out of bed though. Or to have a nicely developing bruise where his bony hip caught my thigh when we shifted position. I told him I wasn't expecting a romantic fantasy, I told him and I meant it. I just didn't expect it to involve quite so much... negotiating. He's gone quiet again and I turn back to the window. I really don't want to turn round again and see his face.
I thought this might help sort some things out in my mind. Looking back, I'm not quite sure how the logic of that idea worked and I've got a horrible feeling I've been tricked by my own brain. It's happening more and more recently, the more I try to show I know what I'm doing the less it feels like I do. Nothing has ever scared me as much as that thought. He has a lot to do with it, I could hate him for it if I didn't want him so much. I thought this might help to rationalise that, satisfy an urge based on instinct and hormones and stop my skin from screaming for him. On the scale of one to spectacular, that plan appears to have excelled as a failure. I'm sore, I want him. I'm terrified, I think I need him. I'm not sure what any of that means. To spare myself a few more seconds before I turn around I glance out of the curtains again. The storm still hasn't broken, although the clouds seem impossibly heavy for the sky.
"Come back to bed Lynda." There's a soft command in his voice, something I would normally have railed against, but I find myself turning to walk towards him. I slip back under the duvet and his arms find my waist. I wasn't expecting it to be so clumsy, or so addictive.
She's come back, but I can feel the stiffness in her as she curls up against me. I've learned to take my victories where I can find them, and she has come back. My brain is still as little hazy, my muscles feel soft all over. But I can feel the inevitable conversation weighing down on me.
"You ok?" She turns a little and her eyes meet mine.
"I'm fine."
"It's just, y'know, an important step. It's a pretty big thing." She arches an eyebrow.
"Not that big." I'm offended and relieved at the same time, insults are much better than silence.
"I've never had any complaints."
"You've never had a very discerning audience." There's even a hint of a smile there.
"I'll have you know I've dated some very discerning women."
"That's a contradiction in terms."
"I'm dating you."
"I like to think I'm aiming low."
"That's definitely true." I thought I was too tired for this, but I'm actually starting to enjoy it. Screw cigarettes, post coital arguing is clearly the way to go. She's smiling properly now, her body twisted towards mine. My eyes drift away from her face on autopilot.
"Hey, look at me when I'm insulting you."
"Oh I am." She tackles me for that one and we're both breathless and laughing, it's awkward and I almost get an elbow to the face. She's all edges and angles to me, I've studied her at a distance for so long and learnt so little. She finishes on top of me and for a second I have to check this is real. The gap she made in the curtains is spilling light through it, the sun must be behind the clouds because the light is an unnatural yellow. It reflects off her hair and frames her face. She follows my gaze and she stops smiling, a curious expression forms on her face as she watches the storm outside the window. She seems to deflate and lies down again, her body partially covering mine. Her hand is idly tracing patterns on my stomach, the movements too relaxed to be conscious.
"What would the office think?" She murmurs quietly.
"What?" For the millionth time today she startles me.
"If they could see us now, what would they think?"
"That you need a bigger desk?" She sighs and her hand stops moving.
"We're not going into that one again Thompson."
"Not even if I ask nicely?" Her eyebrow quirks and her face holds an expression that tells me the next thing I say had better be the right answer. I wish I has a clue what she was talking about. "That I should invest in another wall for my bedroom?" If you can't be right, be smart. My Dad taught me that and the way she's looking at me now, I understand what happened to my parents.
"Never mind". She rolls off me and turns away. The haze is beginning to wear off and slowly I'm remembering how to be infuriated with her.
To be fair to him, even I'm not sure what I'm trying to say. Never going to admit that though. It's easier to be away from his body, gathering my thoughts. I don't like this, the idea was to regain my balance and I'm feeling more precarious than ever. It's something to do with expectations, my expectations of him, of myself, of this. What he expects now, what they would all expect if they knew. Do they know already? Worse, have they already assumed it to be true, even when it wasn't? There is something in the assumption that terrifies me. If I cared about people's opinions of me, logically I'd be nicer to them. So why do I spend so much time worrying about it? In between setting this insanity in motion and counting my steps to Spike's door I met Chrissie coming back across the car park. She gave me a quizzical look but she didn't question me. I turned and watched her as she walked away, although I don't know why. I felt almost envious of her, which doesn't make any sense. I don't want to be in my thirties still writing personality pieces for the local paper. But there was something in the way she walked, as if she knew where she was going. For a second I wanted to be walking with her. I can feel Spike shifting beside me, his eyes are darkening, clouds drawing over them like they are over the sky outside. We've balanced on a point between anger and admission and it's a very narrow pivot and I can't say anything else without breaking something already cracked. Instead I reach for him and he accepts me, eyes softening, encouraging me to ignore the treacherous voice asking how long we can balance on this point.
She's in my arms when the rain finally comes. There is a crack of thunder that shakes the windows and the drops hammer like stones. She buries her head in my chest, escaping something I would like to think is the noise. I can smell her hair, see the pale skin on the back of her neck and somewhere, some nerves tell me she is very warm. There is peace in the storm and I know suddenly that I can cope with this, because I'm going to have to. It's nothing like normal, but it's enough. For now.