Innocents (6 page)

I hopped for a few steps. I'd cut my leg. The cold rain stung the wound. I didn't care.

I ran and I ran. The streetlights made weak puddles of light, which I avoided instinctively.

I wasn't looking for your house. When I saw a looming dark ark to my left, some beast's instinct told me to seek shelter there. I must have recognised your car parked in the driveway.

And that's how you found me, doubled over as though I'd been punched, hammering hysterically on your door with one muddy fist.

A light went on somewhere away behind the door, and then it was open. Light flooded out all over me, and you stood there, the silhouette of an angel.

‘Oh, my God!’ you said. Or something like that.

I couldn't speak.

You took me by one wrist and led me inside.

I was, suddenly, in some kind of beige haven, with soft gentle carpet underfoot and a reassuring sofa in the corner. There were tribal artifacts arrayed on some of the shelves, and books on others. Totem masks with big hollow eyes stared down from the walls.

I'd woken you up, of course. You were still blinking away sleep. Your hair was
everywhere
. You'd thrown on a T-shirt and a pair of boxer-shorts.

What I mostly remember is you holding me gently at arm's length, one hand on each shoulder. You stood in front of me, just peering down intently into my face, with your big green eyes.

I had snot running down my chin. I was still shuddering with fear and strange hiccupping tears. I was conscious, now, of being very cold. I was all covered in little stings and aches. You seemed to sense this, and propelled me over to the sofa and sat me down.

Turning away, you found a tissue and wiped my face carefully. The tissue quickly became sodden with rainwater and tears and snot. You screwed it up into a ball and dropped it unceremoniously on the floor. Then you wiped, very tenderly, at the corners of my eyes with one finger.

‘What's happened?’ There was a reddening at the corners of your eyes, and a fine glaze of tears.

I must have looked pretty pathetic. You must have thought I'd been the victim of an assault.

I couldn't say a word.

I tried to speak, and couldn't. I let out one frenzied sob. I sucked the next sob in, with a slurping noise. I wiped my eyes with the back of one hand.

‘Oh, you poor little …’ Your face split open with pity.

Then you did a strange thing. You took my wet teary hand in your two hands, and you pressed it to your lips. You inhaled deeply through your nose, and gave a sort of angry sigh. ‘Come on.’

When I didn't move, you stood up, and replaced my hand carefully into my lap, like a man returning a valuable item he has been lent. ‘We'd better get you cleaned up.’

And then you picked me up, one hand under my knees and the other behind my neck, the way a father picks up a sleepy toddler. It was such a relief not to have to
run
anywhere any more, to let my tired legs dangle uselessly over your arm. Your skin on mine felt hot. I shivered. My leg hurt.

‘You're freezing!’ you said, as we went off down the hall. Passing under the hall light, I scrunched my eyes shut, dizzy with distress. I had a headache.

When I opened my eyes again, we were in a bathroom where everything was bottle-green or gleaming white. It was very clean and smelled of aftershave. You sat me on a wicker basket (it must have been your dirty-laundry basket) and stroked my face and arms and muddy legs with a hot wet flannel. Spots of blood dimpled the white floor. They smudged across the flannel as you moved it.

Exhausted, I leant my head on the towel rail. Grabbing a green towel, you proceeded to pat dry my arms and legs. You said, ‘I'm going to get you some of my pyjamas. I want you to take
this
off.’ You tugged significantly at the hem of my uniform. It was filthy. Soaking wet, splodged with mud and spattered, near the bottom, with tiny droplets of my blood.

I stood up as you left, and obeyed. I had to tug quite hard to get the obstinate, clinging thing over my head. Instinctively, I turned my back on the mirror.

In a few moments, you returned with some blue flannel pyjamas, looking at the floor as you handed them to me.

I got dressed. You stood with your arms folded and your back to me, a determined gentleman. When you turned around, you smiled.

‘I think you might need to roll those up a bit. Here.’ Kneeling down, you rolled the sleeves up and up, until you could see my hands. Then you bent right down, your broad back level with my knees, and did the same with the legs, until my pale scratched feet were exposed to the air.

Racked with tiny after-sobs, I smiled wanly.

You squatted by me. I saw the white arches of your bare feet. ‘Now,’ you said carefully, looking into my face, ‘have you got anywhere you can go tonight?’

I shook my head.

Carefully still, you asked, ‘Do you want to stay here?’

I supposed so. I nodded.

‘All right then. Come on.’

As though I were blind, you walked behind me, one hand on each arm, guiding me. We went awkwardly up the stairs and into a bedroom.

‘This is the spare room,’ you explained. ‘My brother and his wife sleep here, when they come.’

There were cardboard boxes in rows on the floor, flaps open, spouting books. Against the window there was a double bed, like a display in a bedding shop. You tugged back the covers until a welcoming triangle of sheet showed. ‘Hop in.’

I did, sinking back onto the piled pillows. Gently, you covered me up, pressing the blankets down against my shoulder.

There was a wicker-backed chair by the foot of the bed. Yanking it across the floor, you planted yourself by my head.

Clearing your throat, you said, ‘Right.’ You sat by my bed like a man constrained by an uncomfortable duty. You were restless. Your knees jigged up and down, up and down. I saw the dense yellow hairs foresting over your thighs.

‘Something's obviously …’ You nodded at me, at my battered self. ‘Well, you wouldn't be…’

I watched you wrestle with words and then speak in plastic banalities. These cliches, you hauled painfully up out of the depths of your concern.

To me, a fugitive in someone else's pyjamas, they seemed like jewels.

You battled yourself, a man wrestling a boa constrictor. You forced your eyes on me.

Like a man confessing his sins, you said, ‘In some ways I wish you hadn't come here … to me, alone like this.’

You stammered: ‘I mean, I coucoucouldn't ever hurt you …’ Then: ‘If I find out who's hurt you, I'll bloody well kill them!’

So then you felt obliged to explain yourself: ‘I've always liked you, ever since I met you … You seem like a pretty amazing girl.’

Silence.

It wasn't enough. Your scruples demanded a clearer revelation. Your voice tore on ‘very’ when you said, ‘You're a very beautiful girl.’

I saw you squirming before me like a insect pinned to cardboard.

My darling, such an appeal to my vanity was impossible to ignore. I saw your midnight bird's-nest hair, and those big eyes, and nervous fingers.

A new desire woke in me.
I wanted you
.

I wanted you at that moment, when I understood how desperately you wanted me. I wanted you when I saw how you dreaded to touch me, fearing me broken. When I saw you pinching violently at the skin of your own wrist, leaving an angry red weal. I recognised the gesture. I'd done that to myself, trying to distract myself from the images I made.

It seemed to me that you were punishing yourself for the most innocent of passions. You were charmingly, naively presuming yourself guilty of lechery, debauchery, debasement.
How could you have the faintest clue?
It was laughable that you should be parading your shame before me—a good man like you.

So I, newly sainted, newly made innocent, reached for that agitated pinching right hand of yours, and I took it in mine.

‘Thank you so much,’ I said. The words and the gratitude were sincere. The virtuous big eyes I made were not; or at least they did not occur naturally. I put them there. ‘I really appreciate you doing … all this—’

‘Oh, don't be stupid!’ you pooh-poohed me. I had every right, it seemed, to expect your help.

‘No, I … it means a lot to me.’ The back of your hand glowed with blond down. I stroked it gently, with my thumb. Your hand tightened involuntarily around mine. It was almost a spasm. ‘
You
mean a lot to me.’

Dismissing my affections as unnecessary, you exclaimed, ‘Oh, be quiet!’

‘No.’ I was a petulant little girl, with her lower lip protruding. ‘I do …’ I made the easy declaration seem difficult, pretending to fumble for words that were readily available, ‘… care about you too. I really do.’ Big eyes again.

I saw you swallow, a snake gulping a guinea pig. You didn't take your hand back. Instead you left it to sweat gently on mine.

This was the moment. Biting my lip, making my face tentative, I asked out of the blue, ‘Will you kiss me?’

You jumped as though stung. ‘Oh!’ It could have been a gasp of physical pain, or surprise, or shock. Flustered, you shook your head; let your hair flop down over your face; avoided my gaze. But you betrayed yourself: you did not snatch your hand away. You left yourself in my grasp.

‘Please?’ The little girl, saccharine, insisted upon her own way.

With a deep breath and a saint's stern gathering of composure, you explained: ‘It wouldn't be right … There are some things a teacher and a student just
can't
… however he might feel … however
I
might feel …’ Your voice was level, but I saw your knees quake. I saw you tighten your legs, bend forward—oh, so slightly—to hide your erection.

I dug about for your pity. ‘Don't you fancy me?’

You exhaled by way of a laugh, shaking your head: ‘Oh, my
dear girl
—’ savouring those words, as though often in your mind you had said them to me—‘
you have no idea
.’ And you shook your head again.

With one swift flowing movement, like a snake doing ballet, I knelt up, so as to have my face close to yours.

You would not look at me. You kept very still. Your breath shivered in and out. I put my fingertips against your cheek. You yielded under the tiniest pressure, and turned to face me.

I crouched tense, a predator in the long grass. Once I had your eyes in mine, you were my creature. You couldn't hide your passion—indeed, you presented it to me, showed me with your face:
This is how much I want you
. Your eyes, seeing me, shouted,
Oh, please!
I coasted forwards, and in a single long, smooth motion, placed my lips on yours.

You yelped—then surrendered. Kissed me back, hot mouth on mine, tremulous breath on my tongue. Then wrenched your head backwards, away, shaking it from side to side in slow bewilderment.

I didn't pursue you. Your face was stark, panicked, your eyebrows knotted together in terror. ‘We can't,’ you said. ‘We mustn't.’

I hoped your scruples were not so strong in you that you'd relinquish me. I worried that you'd leap to your feet, run from the room, slamming the door behind you. You dug your top teeth into your bottom lip, shaking your head. Your face was red.

‘I'm sorry. Have I embarrassed you?’

But none of this was my fault. ‘Don't be silly … it's me,’ you told me gently. I gazed at you, eyes wide, lips a sensuous half-inch open, suddenly aware of the marvellous, theatrical effect of the tear streaks on my cheeks, the blood-red scratches on my thin hands. You saw all this, and I saw you melt. Looking old, filled with pity, you said, ‘Oh, you poor little thing, you should be able to come to someone for help without him…’

‘What?’

‘
I'm
sorry,’ you said, firmly.

I played an ace, and started to cry.

I wasn't hysterical; not hiccuping with anguish, as I had been when you opened the door to me. I shot you a look of distress, confusion, loneliness, abandonment, and let the water come sliding down my cheeks.

These silent, helpless tears left you no choice but to swivel your body to face me, to come closer, to put your arms awkwardly around me.

‘Come here. Come on. It's okay. It's all right. I've got you. Don't cry.’

I put one hand on your shoulder and buried my face in your neck, trembling with tears. ‘Don't cry. It's okay. Don't cry.’

You rested your chin on the top of my head. I sensed that you were savouring that touch, my soft hair against your face. I took a deep, shuddering, sorrowful breath. Pulling back, turning my face up to look at yours, I wiped my eyes impatiently with the heel of my hand, and begged to know: ‘Don't you like me?’

‘Of course I like you!’

‘But you don't fancy me?’

Silence. Your hands tensed against my back. ‘I do,’ you admitted, levelly.

I grinned for joy through my tears. ‘Well, that's okay then!’

‘No, my dear, it isn't—’

‘Please?’ Leaning forward, I kissed your cheek affectionately. ‘Please?’

You took a breath, looking for a moment as though you were trying to frame complex, rational arguments in your mind. You wanted to spout pros and cons, tick things off on your fingers. Then, with a funny, tragic little half-smile, you brushed the fingers of one hand down my cheek.

Again, we kissed. You slid your hand onto my neck. We kissed like proper lovers. I pressed close into you. I liked the feel of your warm body.

I wanted your hand on my breast. I reached behind, took your hand, showed it. ‘Oh, darling—’you said, your hand hovering half an inch above—‘are you sure?’

‘Yep,’ I confirmed, fiddling with the unfamiliar pyjamas. Forcing them through the holes, I delicately wrenched the top two buttons open. My small breasts were there, just below the flannelette. I took your hand again, and introduced them. ‘Is that nice?’

You cupped my breast, your cheeks ticking with the effort of your surrender.

Seeing the fresh-red five-fingered bruises on my collarbones, you whined, ‘Oh, angel…’

‘It's all right.’ I was Orphan Annie, dismissing my difficulties with a grin. ‘Come on,’ I said, shuffling over, patting the bed beside me. ‘Please?’