Selling the Drama (8 page)

"I want you to tell me what we will be doing
together."

"What we did last night. What we did in the
pool last year when I first got here." His voice was tinged with
frustration.

Charlotte pressed on, pushing him further,
confident in doing so now that she knew she had him. "Is that all
you want to do?" She wanted him to say it, the 'girlfriend' word,
but it would seem for now that he was not intending on making that
sort of commitment to their 'thing'. Not even in secret, just with
her.

"No. Obviously. Will you stop asking me all
of these questions?"

Charlotte sat up and turned to face him,
changing tactics, stretching her legs out to his chair and placing
her feet up onto the side. "Toby, I want you to be able to tell me
what you want me to do to you. So that I know. Because I'll happily
tell you what I want you to do to me, but you need to be able to do
the same back. I want you to be able to talk freely with me.
Because that makes me want you even more."

Toby rested his hand onto the tops of her
feet. "Charlotte, you can do whatever the fuck you like with me.
You want me to tell you what I want. I want you. I want you all
over me and I want to be all over you and I want it to happen right
now because ever since last night I haven't been able to get what
we did out of my head but you've wasted so much time asking me
questions and trying to get me to talk that you just missed our
first opportunity to actually have sex because in five minutes your
mother will be home. Less talk, that's what I want." He stood up
and winked. "I'm going to get changed. I've got training. I'll see
you later when I'm hot and sweaty."

Charlotte smiled as she watched him go. He
would see her later. He could count on it.

The ink on the letter was smudged in places,
as though water had been dripped over it. It was only as Charlotte
continued to read, did she realise the marks had most likely been
made from tears, just like the ones that were dripping off of her
own face right now. Poor Jenna. Her poor, sweet, Jenna.

Dear Charlotte,

I have to leave Ireland. As soon as possible. I
can't stay here anymore. Dermott thinks that everything is okay,
that you can just pop over to England and abort your baby one day
and then go back to work the next. He pretends it didn't even
happen. And I can't do that because it's all I think about, day and
night, and I know now, now that it's way too late, that I should
not have done it. I should have thought more and waited. I should
have just come straight home.

I hate it here now. I hate him for not
understanding, and I hate myself for being so weak and stupid. I
can never forgive myself for this. I'm sorry to do this to you, but
can you please ask your mum for enough money for a ticket home? I
have nothing left to get me back and I can't put myself out there
to her, I just haven't got it in me. You'll explain it all to her
in a way that will make her help me. If I ask, she'll punish me for
being so reckless and stupid and I can't deal with that right
now.

I just want to come home. Charlotte, don't ever make
this mistake I have. I can't even begin to tell you how bad I feel.
It was the worst thing I could have done, and I did it to keep
Dermott, but here I am after, and I don't even want him anymore.
How ridiculous is that? So I've lost everything. For nothing.

Instead of sending me money, can you just buy the
ticket, the first available one, and then ring me with the time and
date? Please? It will be much quicker that way.

I love you,

Jenna xoxox.

Charlotte thought for a few moments,
calculating the total of her bank balance combined with what she
had stuffed under her mattress. It would depend on how much a
ticket from Dublin to Brisbane cost at such short notice, but there
was a good chance that she might be able to swing it without
involving her mother at all. To save Jenna that humiliation, it
would be worth being totally poor for a while.

She waited until the house was quiet, until
the creaking above her had ceased and she could detect no further
movement. Easing out of her bed, she slipped out of her room and
into his, locking the door before crossing to his bed. He was lying
on his back, his hands behind his head, waiting for her.

"I saw your note."

She said nothing, hoping he couldn't see her
blush in the darkness.

"It's very deep."

"I'm a very deep person," she replied, only
partly in jest.

He reached out and took hold of her hand. "I
know." Tugging lightly, he pulled her down to lie beside him. She
curled up in the way she had wanted to that night she'd crept into
his room so long ago.

When he next spoke, Toby's voice held a
confessional tone. "I haven't done anything more than what I've
done with you. Anything I've done with anyone else has been much
less."

Charlotte stilled. She had not thought of
him as being a virgin. Both times they had been together he had
seemed to know exactly what to do with her. "Really? You seem
pretty confident with your hands for a novice."

"It's not rocket science. Instinct is a
powerful thing. And maybe you're not the only one who reads those
books." His hand found its way into her hair and he sifted through
it, letting the strands fall from his fingers before gathering it
back up to repeat the entire process. "You have beautiful
hair."

"You've read one of my books?"

"Not just one. Bits of a few. I've seen you
reading them, when you don't know anyone's around. I've seen what
you do to yourself, as you read them. You think I wasn't going to
try and find out what they had in them? I've been reading them for
ages." His hand continued to play with her hair.

Charlotte laughed lightly. "Sneaky. I never
would have guessed."

"I'm nothing if not resourceful. There's
some freaky shit in some of those books."

"I know. Some of it's kind of…uncomfortable
to read. The stuff about pain."

"Yeah. That didn't do much for me. And I'm
not that big on the homo shit either. Well, the women together
worked for me, but not the blokes."

Charlotte laughed quietly at that and he
joined in. They lay there together, listening to each other's
breaths. Charlotte could not think of any other time when she had
felt this content. "Can I sleep with you? All night?" The minute
the words left her mouth, she wished fervently that she could take
them back. The neediness of the question appalled her.

But his response was easy. "As long as you
wake up before your dad."

"I will." Charlotte exhaled deeply and found
Toby's free hand with her own, threading their fingers together.
"Toby, do you miss your parents?" He was quiet for a long time, so
long she suspected he wasn't going to answer and she began to
regret even asking him the question in the first place. "I'm sorry.
I shouldn't have asked."

"No, it's okay. I don't mind you asking." He
paused, as though searching for the right words. "I don't miss
them. There isn't much to miss."

She turned slightly, stretching out her body
against his. "Really?" She found this so hard to believe. Her
parents, particularly her father, were the foundation of her
existence. She couldn't imagine life without either of them, much
less both of them.

"Really. Charlotte, my father used to beat
my mother. Badly. And I'm not talking about the occasional smack.
He was a doctor. He knew what a body could take and he'd beat her
down until she couldn't take anymore. Then he'd fix her up, make
her feel grateful for the attention, buy her something pretty and
expensive, and tell her how much he loved her and how he couldn't
possibly ever live without her. She didn't have much left in her
for me. I tried to make her leave him but she wouldn't. There's not
much more to it than that. I don't like to talk about it and I
don't want other people to know. I'm a different person here. My
parents, they don't exist here. And that's the way I want it to
stay." He had stopped playing with her hair and had instead settled
his hand into the curve of her back, wedging his fingertips into
the waist band of her pyjama shorts.

"I would never tell anyone."

"I know that. I never thought you would. But
I don't want to talk about it again."

"Okay." She gave his hand a squeeze and was
relieved when he returned the gesture, secretly worried she had
overstepped the mark with him.

"This is the best my life has ever been. I
have a real chance at a future that is not all shades of fucked up.
I never thought I'd have that."

She understood him so much more now. His
resistance to her initially, his continued determination to not do
anything that would risk getting himself in trouble with her
parents. She felt slightly ashamed of her efforts at trying to
force him, for being so narrow sighted and vain. He had not been
rejecting her. He had been rejecting risk. Two entirely different
constructs.

"Why change your mind then, about us?"

Toby sighed, reaching his hand down further
into her shorts so he could squeeze her backside. "I'm sick of
jerking myself off." Then he laughed and Charlotte could not help
but laugh along with him. "Go to sleep. It's late and I'm really
comfortable right now, lying here with you just like this."

"Be careful, Toby, I might get the wrong
idea and think you like me for more than just sex." Despite her
teasing, hope filled her. This was good, the two of them connecting
like this, as if they were, dare she even think it, beginning a
relationship.

"You'd be right, I do like you for more than
just sex." He stretched and rolled toward her, hooking his leg over
her entire body and crushing her against him. "You're incredibly
soft and warm, just like a pillow that moulds itself to me." She
gave him a shove but it was a useless effort, crushed against him
as firmly as she was. He kissed her on the forehead. "Go to sleep.
And wake me up with a blow job."

She shoved at him again. "Did you just say
that out loud?" Disbelief, combined with humour, warred inside of
her. She pinched him on the inside of his arm. "Unbelievable!"

He laughed at her obvious outrage. "You said
you wanted me to tell you what I want from you! And I am seriously
curious about that piercing on your tongue."

"I take it back."

"Yeah, it's out there now. Too late." He
pressed his lips against her forehead again before moving down to
her mouth, kissing her so slowly and thoroughly, she thought she
might just pass out from the thrill of it. It was so completely
different to any other kiss he had given her, yet at the same time,
he felt so familiar it wrought a feeling deep inside of her that
almost made her want to weep.

Charlotte pressed her face against his
chest, breathless in its wake. "I meant what I wrote in the note."
Her whisper was so light she couldn't be sure he would even hear
her; she was not entirely sure that she even wanted him to.

After a pause that seemed to stretch out far
too long, he whispered back to her, "I feel the same way."

Charlotte was sitting with a group of her
friends in the stands overlooking the school oval. They were there
to lend their support for the home game of an interschool rugby
league match, at least, that was the official story. In reality,
they were perving on the players and scouting for fresh faces to
try their moves on. This used to be a particularly enjoyable past
time for Charlotte, football teams from other schools never failing
to deliver on at least a few promising prospects. She feigned
interest today in the conversation though, keeping her gaze fixed
on Toby, who had taken to rugby league as though it were his true
calling. As Charlotte watched him on the field, her desire to
completely have him increased exponentially. She had been content
these last few weeks with just fooling around after dark. Toby was
quite skilled at fooling around and the thought of delaying the
inevitable had become deeply thrilling.

For some unknown reason, Charlotte had
always found hulking, sweaty footballers the pinnacle of desirable
males and right now, one in particular was giving her reason to
squirm in her seat. Over the course of the afternoon, he had taken
to glancing in her direction during idle moments, appearing as
casual as possible, giving Charlotte a cautious grin and just now,
being a little bolder with a wink as he caught her eye.

A sharp elbow jabbed her in the side. "Did
you just see that?" Ellie, her best friend, screeched in her
ear.

Charlotte dragged her eyes from Toby,
turning to Ellie in surprise. "What? See what?" She had no idea
what Ellie was on about, having totally tuned her out about ten
minutes previous.

Ellie leaned closer, a pleased expression on
her face. "I think Toby likes me!" She clapped her hands with
excitement. "He keeps looking up in this direction and he just
winked at me! He is so hot, I am totally going for him
tonight."

Charlotte stared at Ellie with a growing
sense of horror. No! No, no, no! This was bad. Very bad. She felt
her palms grow moist as her heart rate increased, the makings of an
angry flush creeping up her throat. She did not want to slap her
best friend down, but if Ellie so much as attempted to lay a single
fingertip on Toby, then she would know about it. This was the
problem with having a secret relationship! Being forced to listen
to your best friend pant over your boyfriend.

"You live with him. Do you think he likes
me? Has he asked about me?" Ellie leaned forward eagerly, her eyes
now following Toby all over the field.

Charlotte wanted to scream. Instead, she
smiled, giving Ellie a look that belied her inner rage. Putting her
hand on Ellie's arm, she put her head close to her friend's ear.
"Oh, Ellie, I don't how to say this without disappointing you, so
I'll just blurt it out. I'd hate for you to make a fool out of
yourself. Best friends need to stick together, right?"