So, firstly and most importantly, SJ was well enough to email me herself this week, and I literally cried with happiness. It was so amazing to hear from her directly again. The experience doesn't seemed to have dampened her spirit and her sense of humour any. She is amazing, and so are all of you for your support.
Quite a long chapter here, but it might have to keep you going for a while as I am off to France in a couple of days. The things I do for you guys in the name of research, eh?
And finally there is a new story, which caught my attention this week. It's called The Skins Games by Tobiko, and is based on the Hunger Games. I've never even read the Hunger Games and I found it fascinating. Definitely worth checking out I think (and the fact that it features a rather fabulous Effy has not influenced me at all, honest).
Anyway that's it for now. I wish you joy.
Hypes xx
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8. The Silent Language Of Her Eyes
Effy
I find myself waiting for her. Katie comes over every few days, and from the moment we say goodbye I find myself hungry for the next time I will see her. Even though we're not doing anything particularly spectacular, just drinking tea and having random chats, the day seems so much brighter when she is there. She hasn't even really asked me about the pyro yet, though I know she's been talking with all the boys. I suspect she is trying to avoid being alone with me, trying to make things seem more normal. I don't blame her. I seem unable to control myself around her, and will always end up making some flirty comment if I think I can get away with it, even though I know it's wrong. Sometimes I catch her looking at me, and I know that's not the only side of the story. Both of us are struggling, caught between our desire for friendship and the lust that simmers away beneath the surface. But there are genuinely lovely moments too. I don't know of anyone who makes me laugh quite as much as she does with her forthright, uncompromising and alarmingly down to earth humour. Those beautiful brown eyes don't miss a trick and she never fails to pull us up on our foolishness with some clever comment or other. Her constant sparring with Cook is hilarious, and the more she rebuffs him the more it sparks his interest, and I am torn between wanting them to get together, and my fear of the all too revealing jealously that might unleash.
This morning I found her in the fusing room with Thomas. We have a festival gig at the weekend – one show a night over three nights. It's a fairly confined space without much of a fallout zone, which makes it a challenge. More of a performance type piece with some of Cook's kinetic dragons, and not so much aerial material, but a complex design with lots of fast sequences and intricate rigging. Thomas needed a hand, but Cook was finishing off some pieces for the show, and Freddie had his ear glued to the phone as usual, so I figured it was time to get stuck in. When I saw Katie there, a devilish idea rose from the depths of my mind.
"You should learn how to do fusing," I told her.
"What?" she said, looking back at me incredulously.
"You know, if you really want to understand us, you should try your hand at everything we do," I smiled sweetly.
"Oh yeah, like you're really going to let me fire some shit," she scoffed.
It was an effort to retain my composure at the thought of Katie with all that firepower at her fingertips. Visions of her hitting the Go button in some fabulously inappropriate outfit threatened to overwhelm me. Only years of practice at appearing unemotional could save the day.
"I might do," I said, in a teasing tone that I probably should not have been using in front of Thomas.
"Loser," Katie mouthed towards me silently, indicating that I had been the first to break the no flirting rule today.
"Qu'est-ce que tu en dis Thomas?" I said. "Tu penses que Katie devrait se salir les mains comme nous tous?"
"Qui n'aime pas voir une belle femme se salir un peu?" he grinned.
"Oi, bitches," fumed Katie. "It's one thing ganging up on me, but quite another ganging up on me in French. Cut it the fuck out."
"Seulement si tu me laisses t'apprendre." I said.
"I said cut it the fuck out," she frowned, but her curiosity got the better of her. "What did you say?"
"Only if you let me teach you," I repeated.
She closed her eyes, and I could see she was trying to stop herself from smiling. The illicit thrill of knowing I could affect her like that with nothing but words burst through me like a flash flood after a drought. When Katie opened her eyes again they were ablaze with challenge.
"Reckon you've got something to teach me, do you?" she shot back at me.
Oh the things I want to teach you, beautiful Katie. Toutes les choses que les mauvaises filles font, cachées par la nuit. My mind could have run away with me again, taken me to a wonderful nirvana where Katie and I were free to express the things we felt, but I caught Thomas raising a curious eyebrow at me behind Katie's back, and I knew it was time to cool it down.
"Come on, it's not that hard," I said, grabbing a copy of the rigging plan. "The main firing system is linked to a series of slave modules which are set out across the site. Each slave module has a number, and then thirty-two lines coming out of it. So this number here is the box number, and this number is the line number. All the fireworks have been pulled out of the store and labelled over there."
I pointed to a bunch of boxes in the corner.
"But they need to have igniters put in them, and we do that in different ways depending on the firework and what we need it to do in the show, and then we need to make sure each one is labelled up with the correct address for when we're rigging on site. The best way to learn is just to do it."
"Ok," shrugged Katie noncommittally.
"Let's start simple," I said, grabbing a bundle of single shot candles. "These things fire one load, and I use them for timed chases so each one needs its own igniter."
Thomas had gone back to his own work and put some tunes on, whilst I showed Katie what to do. The candles were fairly small calibre cardboard tubes, with a small hole at the base covered with sellotape. You pierce the sellotape and push the igniter in so that it makes contact with the firing charge at the bottom of the tube, then seal it up again with parcel tape, covering the base and the top of the tube to make them waterproof. I showed Katie a couple of times, and then asked her if she understood. She looked at me with a thinly disguised cynical amusement.
"So you pierce the protection, shove it in hard, make sure it's secure and then wait for the explosion?" she smirked. "I think I can manage that."
"You'd be surprised how many people cock it up," I said, to cover the unwelcome surge of warmth between my legs.
"I'm not just anybody, darling," she said in a low soft voice.
It seemed that once the no flirting rule had been broken for the day, there was little we could do to stop ourselves. Maybe it was better just to let it out, flush it all out of our systems instead of bottling it all up and leaving it there to fester.
Fusing up was normally one of the most tedious parts of our business. It was repetitive and boring, but if it was done badly it could be costly, messing up the timing of sequences or even meaning they failed to fire altogether. Things needed to be connected securely so they didn't pull apart under the force of the previous lift. They needed to be properly sealed so that water didn't get into the joints. And things needed to be neat so that we didn't waste time on site. All of which needed just the right amount of care and attention to stop your mind from drifting too far from the task, but were sufficiently tedious not to fully engage your brain. Normally I hated it, leaving it to the boys if I possibly could, but that morning seemed to pass in a flash as I worked and joked and bantered alongside Katie. It was lovely just being with her, showing her new stuff and watching her work. With Thomas in the room, it was safe and we were able to relax into each other's company without the pressure of wondering which of us might overstep the mark. To be honest, when I first suggested she do some fusing it was more of a joke than anything else. I never imagined she'd have the patience for it, and expected her to be throwing foul-mouthed tantrums within half an hour.
But once again she surprised me, showing an incredible aptitude for the work. I moved her up from the simple shit through to the more complicated sequences, and she seemed to have an instant grasp of the way things were put together. She had an incredibly neat style, and Thomas came over and joked about how she was putting me to shame. To be fair, I was trying to teach her well, and not show her the shortcuts and bad habits I had gotten myself into over the years. She listened intently to what I had to say, and seemed to ask really intelligent questions. I had to smile to myself when I caught her checking a series of shells she had just linked together with quick match and delays. Quick match is black powder in a plastic coated paper tube which can burn at up to a hundred metres a second making a virtually instantaneous fuse. Delays are set to burn at a defined number of seconds, so putting them between each shell in an array means you can fire a timed sequence from one igniter. Obviously getting them in the right order is important, and I watched as Katie mentally traced the path of the fire, making little noises to herself as she went.
"Jzzsh, bang, jzzsh, bang, jzzsh, bang," she muttered under her breath, flicking her fingers outwards at each imagined explosion.
In that moment, every dirty thought I'd ever had about her was buried by a mountain of affection. To my logical brain this should have been a worrying development. Though difficult, lust can be contained, but this was uncharted territory. Les émotions que suscitait la presence de Katie étaient méconnues et dangereuses. I didn't dare to name them in either tongue, for to do that would be to give them a power I did not want them to have. But my logical brain was a weak little soldier in the face of Katie's army of awesomeness, and all I could do was stare at her with a stupid little grin on my face. She finished her fantasy firing sequence, and glanced up catching me red-handed. She blushed slightly as she realised I'd been watching her.
"I just wanted to make sure I got it right," she said shyly. "I wouldn't want to let you down."
"It was cute," I said unashamedly, convinced that Thomas wouldn't hear me over the music. "Only you could make fusing cute."
It wasn't just the coy little smile, it was the way it was the way it lit up her eyes that undid me. Katie's eyes would be the end of me. Peaceful or furious, there was always so much life in them, but the innocent joy that my half arsed flattery had inspired made me shiver. I wanted to reach out and touch her face. Not to possess her, but just to feel the shape of that smile cupped in my hand. She was beyond beautiful. Elle m'avait sous son charme.
"Cocksucking bitchfuck arsefucker!" suddenly erupted from her mouth so violently I was almost knocked over backwards by its force.
"Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?" I asked in alarm.
Katie was dancing around clutching one hand in the other, and grimacing in pain.
"Stings like a motherfucker," she spat.
"Let me see," I said, trying to take her hands.
"Nicked myself with the sodding scissors on that last run," she whined.
"Did you get black powder in it?" asked Thomas, coming over. "That stuff is a total bastard in a cut."
I managed to get a look at her cut. It was only small, but was indeed coated with black powder residue, and I knew from bitter experience how much that hurt.
"Shit that hurts," said Katie, the beginnings of a tear in her eye.
"Come on, let's break for lunch," I said. "And then we can get this cleaned up.
I didn't let go of her hand all the way across the yard, and through the workshop to the kitchen. I ran the tap and tried to remove the gunpowder as gently as I could without hurting her. Her other arm wrapped loosely around my back as I worked, and it felt natural to want to take care of her. For the first time since the Old Library, I felt no guilt at the intimacy. She was my friend and I wanted to look after her, just like I looked after my boys. The delicious aroma of something cooking filled the kitchen, and I felt proud to have her in my home.
"What's up?" asked Cook, coming into the kitchen.
"Black powder," replied Thomas.
"Ouch," said Cook. "That stuff'll get ya every time. Never mind, eh. You'll be right as rain after a bit of feedin'."
"What's for dinner?" asked Thomas enthusiastically. My army certainly marched on its stomach.
"CookieMonster soup," replied Cook.
"That will make you feel better, Katie," smiled Thomas. "Cook est le roi de la soupe."
I dried Katie's hand, and couldn't resist pulling her into a friendly hug. She slipped into my arms so easily. I just wanted to keep her there.
"Guess you're a proper member of the gang now Katie," said Cook. "Now that Effy's taken you under her wing."
I felt her smile against my neck, and a sensation overtook me that it took me several moments to recognise. J'etais contente.
Cook dished out soup and bread and we all sat down and tucked in together.
"You're not wrong Thommo," said Katie. "This soup is gorgeous."
I watched Cook's chest puff out with pride, but before he could take advantage of the compliment Freddie came stumbling into the kitchen.
"How's it going?" he said. "Sorry I couldn't help you with the fusing. I had to finish the proposal for that National Trust gig."
"It's ok," said Thomas. "We have a new secret weapon. Effy taught Katie how to fuse, and she's like a pyro machine."
"Really?" said Freddie, unable to contain his surprise.
"She's a natural," I told him.
"It's just cutting and sticking," said Katie dismissively. "Ok, it's cutting and sticking with explosives, but essentially it's cutting and sticking."
"You'd be surprised at how many people cock it up," said Freddie, echoing my earlier words.
"What can I say?" shrugged Katie. "I got skills."
"You should come with us," blurted Cook excitedly. "To the gig, I mean. Then you'd be able to see some of your handiwork going off."
I felt my stomach tighten in alarm. It wasn't that I didn't want to spend time with Katie. Some days that was all I wanted to do. But this was a festival gig. And festivals meant drugs. And drugs meant uncaged Effy. And we certainly hadn't finished that 'getting each other out of our system' thing yet. I glanced over at Freddie, hoping he'd say he wouldn't be able to get us another ticket.
"Um, I don't know if that's really possible…" he said hesitantly, much to my relief.
"Oh don't be a funsponge, Freddie," said Cook. "I'm sure we've got room for a gorgeous woman."
"Umm," Freddie dithered, causing my eyes to cloud with anger. He was such a useless cunt sometimes.
"Have you got a tent, Katiekins?" asked Cook. "Cause you know you'd be more than welcome to share mine."
"A tent? As in camping?" said Katie with a look of horror on her face.
"Yeah," said Cook. "It's a festival, like."
"Like with mud? And no showers?" she frowned. "And hippies?"
Oh Katie, you gorgeous little diva.
"I take it that's a no then," I smiled.
"Have you seen the fucking weather forecast?" she said scathingly.
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The weather was apocalyptic, and I stood in the pissing rain, staring at the sorry excuse for a tent that Freddie had brought with us and wondering where the hell I could go to smoke a fucking cigarette. Outside our fenced off compound the grass was already churning up into mud as the weary looking festival goers trampled their way in search of a place to pitch. The day had been a grim one. We had spent all day working in the rain. It wasn't like we had a choice, the first show was tomorrow night and we had to construct the site ready to drop in the live tomorrow. I cursed myself that I had made the show so complex, with all this extra infrastructure to build as well as the regular pyro kit. My eyes scanned my near horizons still looking for a refuge from the wet. The back of the truck was out of the question, we still had all the live in there, and though it was boxed and sealed and it would have been perfectly safe for me to smoke in there, it was obviously frowned upon, and if any festival safety officers caught me we'd be stuffed. My gaze fell jealously on the canvas palace in front of me. Large and sturdy, and looking smugly water repellent I had hardly expected it to come along with the woman whose response to the idea of camping had been to look as if we had asked her to swim through sewage.
Yes, Katie was here. Halfway through the week, Thomas had received the sad news that his uncle had fallen seriously ill, and he had had to take his mother back out to the Congo to see him. There was no question of not letting him go, but that left us needing a replacement at very short notice. Once again it was Cook that suggested Katie. At first I was reluctant, thinking we should at least try to get someone with some experience, but as Freddie pointed out, I had already called her a natural and she had fused half the shows. In the end I gave in and asked her, fully expecting her response to be another scathing rebuttal. I hadn't expected concerned face. Concerned face made me feel all warm and cared for. I liked concerned face.
"Are you up shit creek?" she asked me softly.
"Pretty much," I shrugged. "I suppose we could manage, but it would be pretty tough, what with the rain and everything."
I bit my lip at that last comment. I was supposed to be trying to persuade her, not putting her off. But rain was the fucking enemy. It made everything twice as slow and three times as difficult.
"Then I'll do my best to help," said Katie willingly.
Although I was massively relieved, there was a dark part of me that had been secretly looking forward to watching Katie trying to cope with the conditions. I had expected tirades of wonderful swearing, some stellar sulking and more than a few tantrums, but out of all of us I think Katie was the least whiny of the lot, knuckling down and getting on with the jobs in hand without complaining.
"Well I'm here now," she shrugged when I called her out on it. "There's no point in making things any more miserable for myself. Besides you needed me, so what could I do?"
Her voice made it clear that she meant me, Effy, rather than the company as a whole, but in my head they were one and the same thing. Either way, I was glad that she was here. She coped admirably with the weather, but then again, she had made sure she had the stuff for it, starting with that classy assed tent. Of course she had barely had to lift a finger to put it up, what with Gentleman Cook making a sudden reappearance and practically doing the whole thing for her. And then while the rest of us were slobbing about the place in tatty boots and mud-caked old waterproofs, Katie was a vision in fitted Barbour and Gortex, her feet adorned in glossy red Hunters decorated with fake buckles and even a hint of a wedged heel. Topped off with a classy Russian style hat, she looked more like she was off to an outdoor fetish party than a scuzzy pyro site. I wouldn't have been at all surprised if she'd had rubber underwear on underneath all that lot.
Ok, mind back from the dark place Effy, you've got smoking to do. I wrote my mental lines for the day as I headed off for the crew-catering tent. We weren't supposed to smoke in there, but what were they gonna do? The need for nicotine was becoming urgent as I filled my imaginary blackboard and failed miserably at its instructions.
I must not think about Katie in rubber underwear.
The rain pounded on throughout the evening. We had managed to find ourselves a nice little cabaret tent to hide in, and passed the evening with a few beers and spliffs to enhance the entertainment. Nothing too crazy mind, we had a big day tomorrow and I needed to be on form, especially with a man down and only a welly-booted princess as his replacement. Freddie was being sweet and funny and affectionate, and it was a relief to be able to focus most of my attention on him without the underlying feelings of resentment that were becoming more and more common these days. It was nice to be able to look back into the love swollen eyes of my boyfriend and be reminded of why I had finally let him in, in the first place.
"You're looking lovely tonight, Eff," he said as he came back from the bar with another couple of beers.
"Seriously?" I said, gesturing down at my multiple layers of work clothes.
"You always look lovely to me honey," he smiled and kissed me.
"You soppy bastard," I said, and pulled him back for a deeper exchange of lips.
"That's the way love is," he smiled looking ever so pleased with himself. "Speaking of which, it's nice to see those two getting on so well, isn't it?"
I followed his gaze over to where Cook and Katie were laughing and flirting together, obviously enjoying each other's company. No Freddie, that's not how love is. Love is a bastard. Love is brutal and nasty and indiscriminately cruel. L'amour est un tyran vicieux. Love can shred soft and fluffy feelings in an instant, and abandon your miserable beaten carcass, laughing its fucking head off. I shouldn't have cared. I know I shouldn't have cared. I had my man, and was it so fucking wrong for Katie to find hers too? Even if they didn't turn out to be love's young dream, at least she'd get a damn good shag out of him. But I did care. I fucking hated it. I had no right to hate it but I did. I watched as he cleverly slipped a hand onto her knee, and my blood boiled within my veins at the amount of time she left it there before giving him one of her stares. Cook withdrew the offending body part, but his eyes were smiling as he knew he'd sneaked a little closer to the treasure he was hunting. And Cook was a very fine hunter. He'd seduced me all those years ago with that boyish smile and that 'fuck the world' attitude. I knew him. I knew the way he worked. I knew how effective his seemingly apeish methods could be. I also knew he wouldn't give up.
Freddie had turned his attention back to the stage. He didn't care that I was staring at them. Staring was what I did. He probably figured I was trying to work out what was going on between them, which to be fair was exactly what I was doing. What he didn't know was that my discoveries would release such toxic venom in me. My only hope had been that Katie was impervious to Cook's charms, but I saw it in her eyes when she smirked at him. She fucking fancied him. Maybe not as much as she fancied me, but she was looking for distraction and Cook was a natural entertainer.
My eyes were dragged back to the stage as the next act was announced. It was a tongue in cheek theatrical burlesque routine, where the dancer was playing some kind of space heroine who had been captured by aliens, and her dance was a way of distracting them so she could escape. It was funny as well as sexy, and the dancer was attractive, which needless to say had both of the boys staring bug-eyed at the show as she worked her way through the strip. To be fair, I would have been watching too had I not felt the presence of a pair of curious brown eyes burning scorch marks into the side of my head. I turned to face her and found her smirking at me. Ok, so she had caught me looking. I may be good, but I am not a fucking saint. She flicked her gaze down to our enraptured boys and rolled her eyes at their Pavlovian drooling. It made me smile, but I knew I wasn't much better. I let my attention drift back to the stage, and then shrugged as if to say I couldn't exactly blame them. The dancer was down to bra and knickers now, and there was no denying she was fit. Katie grinned and gave her a thorough checking out, nodding her head in approval. But when she turned back, she allowed herself the luxury of doing exactly the same thing to me. She let her eyes drift slowly over ever inch of me, a heavy glint of desire radiating from her irises turning them into small brown suns. Even covered in thick boots and jumpers, I felt naked under her gaze. The air in the tent seemed to turn dry and hot, despite the conditions outside, and I had to open my mouth to take a few quick gasps of much needed oxygen. My traitorous pulse started dancing to its own beat, and that beat was nosebleed techno. Katie looked between me and the nearly naked performer, who had just revealed a fabulous set of fluorescent pink nipple tassels, before settling on my face. She broke into a delicious self-effacing smile. I had no difficulty in deciphering the silent language of her eyes. That girl might be beautiful, she said. But she's not as beautiful as you. Ok, so maybe love wasn't such a bastard after all, cause in Katie's mind a scantily clad erotic performer was nothing compared to a mud-caked Effy in a baggy jumper and waterproofs.
Later that night I woke up screaming. I'd been having a nightmare where ugly looking fish monsters were trying to smother me with their slimy wet webbed hands. As I fought my way back to consciousness I screamed again against a sloppy wet material that was covering my face.
"Jesus, Effy. Are you ok?" came Freddie's concerned voice through the darkness.
"Bordel de merde! Qu'est-ce qui se passe, putain?" I yelled, flailing my arms to try to get this shit the fuck off me.
"Relax honey, it's just the tent," he said soothingly, and I felt him peeling the canvas off me.
"What the fuck is wrong with it?" I spat.
"It kinda collapsed," said Freddie sheepishly.
Outside I could hear the repetitive thudding of yet more heavy rain and the scream of a vicious wind. Fuck's sake, I could hear it inside as well, for our cheap and nasty piece of canvas had ceased to be a shelter, and had become a slimy clinging coffin. I felt a panic start to grip me and I shoved Freddie out of my way as I frantically tried to find the exit.
"Calm down, Eff…" he started, but quickly shut up when my elbow connected with something that felt like his face. I didn't stop to see if he was ok, I just needed to get out of there. I finally found the zip and yanked it open crawling out into the mud in desperation. I sat there on my haunches taking in great lungfuls of air, and trying to calm my racing senses as the rain relentlessly finished its job of soaking me to the skin. Freddie emerged from the wreck of our temporary home moments later.
"Are you ok, babe?" he asked.
"Do I look fucking ok?" I yelled at him.
He knew better than to take me on, and simply dived back into the chaos to retrieve our bags. Thankfully I hadn't gotten round to unpacking, so my clothes were mostly dry, but our sleeping bags were a sodden mess.
"Fucking great," I snarled. "What are we supposed to do now?"
Freddie reached out to touch me, but I batted his hand away aggressively.
"I told you that piece of shit wasn't up to it," I spat.
I don't normally lose my temper like that, but I was still shaken up from the nightmare.
"It's just rain," he said reasonably. "It feels shit now, but we've been through worse and survived it. We just need to find somewhere to sleep, and we can sort it all out in the morning."
I narrowed my eyes at his logic, but he was right. Screaming at him in the mud wasn't going to solve anything. I span around and weighed up our options. Cook's tent was sturdy but it was small, and I didn't fancy trying to get changed in there, let alone being squashed between the two boys. Then there was Katie's gleaming edifice. When I'd asked her where she got it she merely shrugged and said her dad was 'outdoorsy'. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in that moment. It had a porch, a living area and a whole separate bedroom. It seemed to laugh in the face of the wind and the rain, and it was almost as if it was singing to me. I hesitated for a moment. Would it be too much of an imposition? But then I thought of the reverse position. If I was faced with a wet and bedraggled Katie, it would be impossible for me to turn her away.
I dragged myself upright and walked over there, calling her name as I went. It didn't take long before a light went on inside and I heard the sound of the zip being opened. Light poured out into my miserable darkness, and Katie knelt before me in a long vest and a pair of shorts. I don't think I had ever looked at her as hungrily as I did right then. Not because I wanted her, but because she was soft and warm and dry and she cared about me, and all I wanted to do was throw myself into the comfort of her arms and stay there till the storm had passed, and the sun could kiss my body again.
"Jesus Eff, what happened to you?" she said taking in my drowned rat appearance.
"Our tent kinda fell down," said Freddie, appearing at my side.
"Well don't just stand there, come on in," she said warmly.
The inside of Katie's tent looked like she camped professionally. She had all the right gadgets and cooking stuff, a little table and chairs, proper little camping lanterns and shit, as if she had learned to do camping from a book. Hell, she even had a fluffy rug down at one end of her living space. I threw myself down next to it and searched roughly through my bag for stuff to change into, wanting nothing more than to collapse onto its welcoming surface, but not daring to deface it with my filthy clothes. Katie disappeared into her bedroom bit, before re-emerging with a massive pink towel, which she wrapped around my shoulders.
"Do you think we might be able to stay here tonight?" said Freddie. "There's not much left of our tent."
"Of course," she said warmly. "It's not like I don't have the room."
"I'll go back and get our sleeping bags," offered Freddie. "And then we can sleep out here."
"What's the point?" I huffed. "They're fucking soaked. We'll just have to try to sleep under our coats or something."
"Don't be daft," said Katie, lowering her eyes slightly. "I have a double airbed. I'm sure we can all squeeze in."
"If you're sure," said Freddie.
"No problem," she shrugged. "I'll let you guys get changed, and then just come and join me when you're ready."
Freddie and I got changed in silence until I caught him rummaging around in his rucksack until he extracted a tin.
"Goodnight spliff?" he said, shaking it in my direction.
"No, I don't want a fucking spliff," I said, shaking my head. "I just want to get some fucking sleep."
What I wanted to do was get in there first to make sure I was the one sleeping next to Katie. Of course I didn't sleep a wink. How the fuck was I supposed to do that with her just lying there so close to me? I lay on my back in between them listening to the twin sets of breathing of my boyfriend and the girl I was sexually obsessed with. I had to keep telling myself that. That this thing with Katie was all about the sex. Just a manifestation of my old self, coming out and wanting what I couldn't have. Yes, I loved being around her. Yes, she made me laugh and forget myself sometimes. Yes, we enjoyed perfect silences together. And yeah, so we seemed to be able to communicate without speech. And her smile could make me feel good for the rest of the day. And yes, I missed her when she wasn't there. And ok, so I found her eyes endlessly fascinating. Admittedly, although I did spend an inappropriate amount of time wondering what it would be like to fuck her, there was another inappropriate amount of time just spent imagining lying in her arms whilst we listened to music or read to each other. But surely these were just the trappings of friendship. A really cool and amazing friendship. And the sex thing was kind of separate from that.
And I was just a stupidly bad liar, wasn't I? I rolled onto my side and stared at her sleeping form as the beginnings of the day threw a gloomy light through the canvas. She was so fucking beautiful. Twice already tonight I had used the word love when I thought about the way she made me feel. Fuck me, I was falling for her. And not comfortable safety net love like it was with Freddie either. This was dirty love. The kind of love that could rip your head off. And I didn't know what the hell I was going to do about it. Staring at her face didn't offer me any solutions either, but it was like I was hypnotised. I couldn't look away. I abandoned myself to it. I made a study of her face in the slow emergence of daylight. I made a note for myself of every tiny detail each time she shifted in her sleep, like we were locked in some elaborate time based art installation, the sleeper and the observer, where every second was as important as the next. Was it minutes? Or maybe over an hour? I was locked into my role, barely able to even blink, when suddenly I got the shock of my life.
Her eyes shot open and locked with mine. Not in a sleepy falling back into consciousness way, but clear and already focussed, as if she had been awake the whole time. Had she been aware of the way I'd been looking at her? The slightest of smiles curved its way across her lips, but her eyes remained unwavering. The depth of her study was every bit as profound as mine had been. We watched each other silently, not touching, but the lack of it did nothing to assuage the feeling of intense intimacy. I felt exposed. In all of my endless physical encounters, I had never communicated this closely with another human being. Usually I observed others, learning their secrets, their hopes and their fears, discovering their lies without the need for words, but this was the first time anyone had ever done it to me. It was terrifying, but at the same time, I felt a release of something I'd kept walled up inside myself for years. Some people thought they got the measure of me in an instant. Some people spent a little longer before they formed their opinions. Personne n'avait jamais regardé assez longtemps et d'assez près pour découvrir la verité. Katie looked like she was learning me, discovering things that I would never reveal in the normal course of the day. And it looked as though she liked what she found.
She rolled herself onto her front, and propped herself up on her elbows, continuing to stare down at me with that same beautifully calm half-smile on her face. My heart should have been racing, my body fizzing with lust at the proximity and the intensity of her gaze. But instead all the sexual tension seemed to dissipate from my body. My limbs grew relaxed and my breathing steady. This moment wasn't about that. This moment was about something else. It was electrifying and yet peaceful at the same time. Katie's eyes flickered, as she seemed to reach some kind of decision. She leaned down slowly and pressed her lips ever so softly and gently against mine, keeping her eyes open the whole time. There was the briefest of movements as she brought them together turning it into an active kiss, but almost before I could even register it, she had pulled away again. I closed my eyes for barely a second trying to recall the sensation, but by the time I opened them again she was already turning over to lie with her back to me. With Freddie sleeping on obliviously behind me, I knew what I had to do. It was imperative that I did not let this moment go. Tentatively, I shifted my own position and slipped my arm gently around her waist. She didn't push me away. She shuffled herself backwards until I could feel the heat of her all the way down the embrace, and I knew that something profound had shifted between us. Tomorrow would be a different kind of day. And finally, nourished by something I had been unwittingly starving for my whole life, I fell peacefully and blissfully into sleep.
.
.
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What Effy and Thomas say…
1. "Qu'est-ce que tu en dis Thomas?" I said. "Tu penses que Katie devrait se salir les mains comme nous tous?"
"What do you think Thomas?" I said. "Do you think Katie should get her hands dirty like the rest of us?"
2. "Qui n'aime pas voir une belle femme se salir un peu?" he grinned.
"Who doesn't like to see a woman getting dirty?" he grinned.
3. "Seulement si tu me laisses t'apprendre."
- "Only if you let me teach you," I said.
4. Toutes les choses que les mauvaises filles font, cachées par la nuit.
All the things the bad girls do in the depths of night.
5. Les émotions que suscitait la presence de Katie étaient méconnues et dangereuses. - The feelings that were starting to accompany the presence of Katie were unknown and dangerous.
6. Elle m'avait sous son charme. - She was simply enchanting.
7. "Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?" - "What's wrong?"
8. "Cook est le roi de la soupe." – "Cook is the king of soup."
9. J'etais contente. – I was happy
10. L'amour est un tyran vicieux. - Love is a vicious bully.
11. "Bordel de merde! Qu'est-ce qui se passe, putain?" - "Fuck's sake. What the fuck is this fucking shit?"
12. Personne n'avait jamais regardé assez longtemps et d'assez près pour découvrir la verité.
No one had ever looked long enough and hard enough to find the truth.