Chapter Nine
Then…
Kissing, I have found, is a very good thing. Be it the reassuring goodnight kiss from your mother (up to a certain age, of course) or the full blown first snog from a prospective sexual partner (and everything in between), kissing tends to be a nice experience. There are exceptions, but this is mainly when the kiss tends to be of the Glasgow variety, or when your partner in the deed seems more interested in devouring as much of your head as is possible than having a good old smooch. At the early stages in anyone’s kissing education, (something which really has to be self taught, as you really don’t want your mum to show you various techniques), the big question is to tongue or not to tongue. If you decide not to tongue, you might appear to be an inexperienced (whisper it) virgin. If you decide that the tongue is the way to go, where do you put it? It’s all very well diving in and seeing if you can work out what she had for breakfast, but if all she likes doing is sort of wiggling the tips together, she’ll think you’re an alien after her brain stem or something.
At fifteen, I was, I will admit, not the most experienced kisser in the world. I certainly got a few good ones in with Carolyn Thomas, but since then had sort of gone off the idea. As Kaz and I watched Americans destroy the subtlety of HG Wells’ brilliant socio political novel, albeit with some cool explosions, I was struck with the age old tongue/no tongue conundrum.
We had left the plough holding hands, which was a good start. Intimacy should never be underestimated, no matter how slight it is. The act of holding hands is possibly one of the most intimate things a couple can do, as it screams to the world “Look at us! We actually like each other, and are not afraid to show it!” Kissing, however, is not always a well appreciated spectator activity, depending on just how sloppy the kissing is. A romantic peck and a dewy eyed look into each others’ eyes will have passers by cooing and feeling all romantic themselves, whilst a full blown snog accompanied by a quick crotch grope or three will result in shouts of “Get a room” and rocks being thrown.
Sensibly, me and Kaz kissed in the cinema, away from prying eyes, mostly because there was hardly anyone there. My tongue/no tongue dilemma was nicely solved by the girl in question as I felt her tongue gently probing between my lips, allowing me to drift off and go to a happy place where tongues were not, as many think, slobbery, moist things you wouldn’t want to touch if your life depended on it, but lovely sensual organs with the hidden promise of future licking in nice places. I am not ashamed to admit that we paid almost no attention whatsoever to the film. In fact, I am quite proud of it, because it means that I was a young stud copping off with a fine filly. It’s always nice to get reassurance that you are attractive to the opposite sex, and things don’t get much more reassuring than a tongue sandwich and a good feel when you’re fifteen, so I was a happy chap indeed.
When we got out, holding hands that bit tighter now, it wasn’t even half nine, and I was at a total loss as to what I should suggest.
“So, um,” I faltered, unable to finish my sentence.
“You are such a silver tongued devil,” she remarked playfully. “Have you actually ever taken a girl out before?”
I looked appropriately indignant. “Of course I have.” My whole bearing was geared towards implying that not only had I taken many girls out, but I was doing this little country wench a favour by spending time with her instead of one of the many beauties in my harem.
“Okay,” she said. “More than one?”
Obviously I would have to work hard on my body language.
“Including you?” I asked, smiling as we walked along.
“Including me.”
“Yes.”
“How about not including me?”
“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds it may make me look a bit sad and lonely, unless you are irresistibly attracted to sad and lonely guys.”
“I love them. With a passion.” Her eyes bored into mine like lasers. I was not used to girls being this forward, and wasn’t really sure how to respond.
“Unm…” I stalled again, totally unsure of what to say. I had my moments, but in general I was more of a lead tongued devil that one of the silver variety. Fortunately, Kaz didn’t seem to mind this, and took my hesitation as a cue to kiss me deeper and more passionately than she had so far that night.
“Yum,” I said afterwards, a huge grin superglued to my face. “So, um, where do you want to go now? Is there anything to do around here?”
She thought for a second. “Well, we can’t go to my place, as my Nan would have a fit. We could go to a pub – I can get in most places round here.”
“Anything else?”
“Are you trying to get me to suggest we go back to you room or something?”
“What? No!” I was telling the truth here. Getting her back to my room was being reserved for a later fantasy, one in which I had the balls to ask her, she said yes, and there was sex. I had a lot of these fantasies, but would never dream of actually trying to make one come true.
“Shame,” she said simply, then let go of my hand and walked on ahead.
I stood doing fish impressions for a second, then jogged up to her, confused.
“Have I done something wrong?” I asked, and I would like to note that this was the first time I ever said those words to a member of the opposite sex, but certainly not the last.
She looked at my forlorn face, and I’m sure that I looked somewhat like a puppy who had shat on the sofa, then just grabbed me and hugged me, laughing.
“Of course not, you dick! I was just taking the piss.”
“So you’re not mad?” Slow on the uptake as ever.
“Duh!” she said with feeling. We carried on walking, hand in hand once again, and I realised that we were heading back to the Plough, and my room.
One of the lessons my Mum drilled in me when I was young was “If you don’t ask, you don’t get”, even though most of the time we didn’t get even when we did ask. I knew in my heart and my head (okay, and in my trousers) that this was my moment. I’ve never been the best at picking up on subtle signals from women, and even today require a woman to come up to me, flop her puppies out and say “Excuse me, would you like a shag?” Even then I would be struggling to comprehend exactly what she wanted, so imagine what I was like at fifteen,
“So,” I said nonchalantly, as if I was going to ask her to speculate on tomorrows’ weather. “Do you want to come up to my room then?”
She didn’t even look at me, just carried on walking. I couldn’t say anything else, as it had taken all my adolescent courage to just ask her in the first place, so assuming I had blown it I carried on walking with her, saying nothing. A few minutes later, we reached the Plough, which looked like it was having a busy night judging by the cars in the car park. Kaz stopped, then turned towards me, holding both my hands as we faced each other.
“Ask me again,” she said, softly.
To my credit, I did not say “Ask you what?” because I had been thinking of nothing else since I first asked.
“Do you want to come up to my room?” I said evenly, looking her straight in her eyes.
She leaned in and kissed me softly, before moving her lips to my ear, as she had done earlier in the restaurant.
“Sure,” she said, almost too softly to hear.
Oh. My. God.
I suppose now would be a good time to gently cut away, leaving you with subtle hints of romance and gentle uninterrupted lovemaking, of two souls meeting like the proverbial ships in the night and making sweet beautiful music together. If you’ve made it this far, you will be aware that things just don’t go that way for me. As the saying goes, if I fell in a barrel of tits I’d come out sucking my thumb.
The main logistical problem was, of course, my Mum. I knew full well that it didn’t matter whether she was awake, asleep or in a deep coma – the moment I set foot in my room she would be at the door, making sure I hadn’t done anything stupid like enjoy myself. Luckily, I had seen plenty of carry on films, and even a bedroom farce once at the local theatre.
“In the what?” asked Kaz incredulously.
“The wardrobe. It’s the classic hiding place.”
“And why am I hiding, exactly?”
“Don’t you remember? Evil woman, kitchen inspection and all that?”
“So what? Why don’t you just tell her to mind her own business?”
That stumped me. Why didn’t I tell her to mind her own business? Okay, so I wasn’t sixteen yet, but surely I was old enough to live my life without having to look over my shoulder all the time. We were at the bottom of the stairs that led to the rooms, and for some reason I was worried that my Mum would catch me with a girl! I was a strapping (ish) fifteen year old boy, a man even, and I decided there and then that I would stand up to my mother, and damn the consequences!
Starting the next day.
“Did you have a nice night, love?” my Mother asked, standing in my doorway.
“Yeah, it was fine,” I replied as naturally as possible, worried that “I have a girl in the wardrobe” was written all over my face.
“Did you enjoy the film?”
“Yeah, it was fine,” I said again, as this had worked the first time. She looked tired, and had obviously been woken up by me and Kaz creeping into my room. Now she knew that I was okay, and hadn’t fallen into a threshing machine, she would be able to go back to a proper sleep, hopefully.
“That’s nice, dear,” she said with a yawn. “Well, see you in the morning.”
“Night Mum,” I said as she left. When the door closed, the wardrobe opened and Kaz stepped out, an evil grin on her face. I held my fingers up to my lips and she came over to sit beside me on the bed. I don’t mind telling you that at this point I was rather excited.
“What would happen,” she whispered, “if I moaned in ecstasy right now?”
“For one, I’d wonder what you just sat on,” I whispered back. “And two, she would be in here and throwing you out in about, and this is just a guess, four seconds.”
Instead of moaning in ecstasy, she just kissed me, and I enthusiastically kissed her back. I risked an experimental hand wander, and was mildly delirious to find that she not only allowed it, but reciprocated in such a way that would allow her to realise just how excited I was.
Sometimes, just occasionally, I come out of that barrel not sucking my thumb…
Now…
“That was nice,” I say to Kate, meaning it.
“I think you’re right,” she agrees. “You’re much better at it than Wayne, you know. It’s all over in a flash with him. You just take your time, which is nice.”
I flush with embarrassment at the unexpected praise. I mean, all we’ve done is share our first kiss, and I’m already better than Wayne. Being better than Wayne may not be much of a target to aim for, but it’s nice to know I’ve hit the bullseye on the first go, and I wasn’t even trying to impress her. Kissing Kate is something I’ve been fantasizing about lately, and when the reality presented itself I couldn’t help but enjoy it and want to make it last. Just to show her how brilliant and better than Wayne I really was, I kiss her again.
“This is probably not the best place,” she says afterwards, looking at the same time happy and sad, which is quite a trick.
She has a point, as the lad himself is just through the door. I am sorely tempted to go through the door and dance around him chanting “I’m better than you, Wayne” in a silly voice, but realise that this may be seen as slightly immature, so I keep the impulse in check.
“What do you want to do?” I ask, hoping that the answer is “Go upstairs and perform exhausting sexual antics with you, studmonkey”, but suspecting it might not be.
“I have to break up with him.”
I don’t reply to this, just nod and stand back so she can go into the bar to do what amounts to kicking a man when he’s down. Naturally, I follow her, because I enjoy watching that sort of thing.
Inside the bar, Wayne is cradling his broken guitar and wiping away a few tears from his eyes. I do feel sorry for him, even though he brought all this on himself. In his defence, he did it with the best of intentions, even if those intentions were coupled with the smallest of brains. I do my best to hover at the bar and be as invisible as possible as Kate goes and sits down beside him.
“Wayne,” she says. “We need to talk.”
When a normal man hears these words, he knows that he’s going to be dumped, but to Wayne it just means she wants to talk, possibly about how brilliant he is.
“Sure babe,” he says, wincing as he speaks because of a nasty little cut on his lip. “What’s up?”
Kate looks him straight in the bloodshot eyes. “I’m up, Wayne. I’m sorry to bring this on you at this point in time, what with you having just been given a good kicking and all, but I don’t think I can be your girlfriend any more.”
Everyone is, of course, listening to all this, and we wait with traditionally baited breath to see if Wayne will cry or explode, the two main options in situations like this.
Instead, he just says “Okay babe. No worries.”
“Is that it?” she says incredulously, her brow well and truly furrowed. “No worries? Is that all I’m worth to you?”
I can’t believe that she’s the one getting upset here. She came in here to break up with him, and he was brilliantly okay with it, and now she’s the one getting upset, presumably because he didn’t break down in floods of tears and offer to top himself in his grief. I do not, and will not, understand women. If breaking up was always this easy, I’d certainly have been able to do it more often in the past, instead of having to rely on the tried and trusted male method of making the other person so miserable they dump you, thereby allowing you to be free of them and also letting you take on the role of wounded dumpee.
“I think you’re brilliant babe,” says Wayne. “But let’s face it, you’re a bit of a brain and you make me feel a bit stupid sometimes.”
Not the most difficult task, making Wayne feel stupid, one would think. I think the only way he can avoid it in the future is to go out with an amoeba. A particularly stupid amoeba from the slow reading class at amoeba school.
“To be honest,” he continues, “I was going to split up with you anyway, so you’re doing me a favour.”
Kate looks furious now. “Well I’m glad I could do you a favour, Wayne.” She puts the same love and affection into the word Wayne as George W Bush does into the word Terrorist. “Maybe I’ll just find myself someone who doesn’t think I’m too bloody brainy for them.”
Wayne seems to mull this over for a few seconds before answering. “There’s always Dave here,” he suggests to my utter astonishment. This is not how stealing someone’s girlfriend should go. At the very least, there should be an element of sneaking about.
“Maybe I will, Wayne!” snaps Kate, then she marches over to me, grabs me and kisses me hard. It’s not very romantic, but then again it’s not supposed to be. “Come on, Dave,” she says to me loudly, very much in performance mode. “Let’s go upstairs and have wild sex. You can show me what a normal sized penis looks like.” Then she flounces out of the bar and stamps up the stairs, leaving me rather dazed and confused.
“Right…” I say, not wanting to look at anyone else in the room. “I’ll just be off to bed then.”
“Dave,” says Wayne, and I turn to him, ready for whatever he has to offer. At least he can’t attack me physically. “I may be a bit dopey mate,” he says, “But I’m not blind. Go on, have a blast. She’s too bloody good for me. Maybe you’ll make her happy.”
I just nod, and leave, thinking that Wayne is not such a cock after all.
I trudge up the stairs, not knowing what to expect. I fully realise that Kate’s sexy suggestion was purely for the benefit of Wayne, and don’t expect her to be in my room in a slinky negligee with a ‘come and shag’ me look on her face. When I open the door I am surprised to see that she is in my room, although unfortunately without the sexy nightwear. In this sort of situation, however, I’m very happy at one out of two. She’s not sitting on the bed, but is instead standing at the window with her back to me. I walk over to her and put a hand softly on her shoulder.
“You okay?” I ask simply, feeling her shoulder shaking beneath my hand. I hate it when girls cry, as I feel like a useless waste of space because I am never any good at cheering them up.
She doesn’t reply, but I hear a little squeaking noise coming from her which doesn’t sound like any crying I’ve ever heard. Is she laughing?
“Kate?”
She finally turns around, and she is indeed laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“Look in the car park,” she says, pushing me towards the window, which faces said car park.
“Wow!” I exclaim, because it’s definitely a wow moment when you see two blazing vehicles, both now rather blackened where once they were adorned with Idiosyncratic Routine logos. I turn back to Kate. “Is this a funny thing then?” I’m confused, because without the vehicles we’re rather stuck.
“No,” she says, still laughing. “It’s a terrible thing, but I think I’ve reached the point where if I don’t laugh I’ll have to kill myself, so I’m just going to laugh. If you feel like joining in, please do.”
I just stare at the burning wrecks, then look at Kate, then the flames again, then Kate again, and something clicks in my brain. This actually is pretty funny, and I start to laugh, then laugh a bit more, then join Kate in full blown hilarity as she comes over and we watch the flames get higher with an arm around each other. In the distance we can hear the sirens of fore engines, and Kate waggles her mobile phone at my quizzical look. For some reason I feel happier than I have in years. Okay, so it’s not exactly candlelight, but it’s much more memorable for a first date.
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