Curve Ball
Date: 2013-01-21 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Romance; Contemporary; Contemporary Romance; Erotica; Novella; Short Stories; Adult; Erotic Romance; Humor; sports
Description: When Judy Myers is offered a relaxing vacation to get away from her latest heartbreak, she can’t say no. A cruise on her brother’s yacht sounds like heaven...until she realises her brother’s best friend has been invited along for the ride. Steven Stark is big, he’s loud, and he’s obviously not interested in the plump, plain little sister he used to tease unmercifully. In fact, he’s still quite happy to tease her – until she turns the tables on him. Now Steven can’t seem to keep his thoughts, or his hands, to himself. And worse, Judy’s not sure she can resist the attraction she’s kept buried fo
Publisher: Xcite Books

CURVEBALL

An erotic novella

Charlotte Stein

Published by Accent Press Ltd – 2013

ISBN 9781909520677

Copyright © Charlotte Stein 2013

The right of Charlotte Stein to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

The story contained within this book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be copied, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers: Xcite Books, Suite 11769, 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London EC1V 4PY

Contents

Chapter One |
Chapter Two |
Chapter Three |
Chapter Four |
Chapter Five |
Chapter Six |

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Chapter One

The trouble with this holiday is the heat. I just didn’t think of the heat. It’s unrelenting and raw, turning everything a blinding white while it roasts me to an embarrassing shade of red. I step out in it for two seconds and my shoulders lose a layer of skin. I can’t lie out on the slippery surface of my brother’s yacht, because the heat tries to eat me. But I can’t go below deck either, because down there it’s a suffocating, stifling cave.

Even at night, I have the urge to lie on top of the covers, stark naked. Only I can’t, I can’t, because of the other trouble with this terrible holiday: Steven bloody Stark, and the fact that his door is three feet from my bed. He could open it at any time and find me like a great unclothed wedge of flesh, sprawled out on top of my duvet. He wouldn’t even have to go through another door to stumble across me, seeing as how my room doesn’t have one.

I don’t actually have a room, at all. I just have this open space between the kitchenette and my brother’s boudoir, and when I’m done sleeping my bed turns into a table. My wardrobe is more typically known as a suitcase, and every night I doze off to the scent of whatever we cooked three hours prior, for dinner.

I really don’t need to be told that this was the worst idea in the history of the world.

Though, in my defence, it sounded nice when my brother and his wife invited me. They didn’t even turn it into one of Jason’s patronising “so you won’t be alone” sorts of sermons. He’d made it sound, instead, like something that would take my mind off things – help me get over yet another failed relationship.

And in all fairness, it has achieved this. I’m no longer thinking about Frank, at all. I can barely remember his face, in fact – though I’ll admit that probably has more to do with the Mediterranean heat and its ability to melt my brain, than anything else.

Not to mention the effect of Steven Stark, and his ability to be absolutely everywhere, all at once. I turn around and he’s right there, like the Incredible Hulk. Only bigger. Oh God, he’s so big that his presence everywhere is practically a law of physics. He has to be in ten places at once, just to cram in his massive pecs.

Because honestly, I’ve never seen pecs like his in all my days. I almost asked my brother about it, once – after we’d had that pool party and Steven had turned up wearing a T-shirt so tight it almost qualified as a secondary layer of skin. But of course, I’d chickened out at the last minute. What sort of person asks their brother about his best friend’s manboobs? Not a normal person, that’s for sure.

And besides … What did I really think he was going to say? “Ah well, he developed those rock hard bosoms with a strict regimen of daily squeezings?” That’s just me, hoping for something daft, in my head. When really it’s something awesome and sweaty and sexy, like 17,000 push-ups using just one hand.

He probably does them half-naked. He probably does them half-naked, while covered in baby oil. And then when he’s done, he goes out to a nightclub and laughs at girls like me, for being so fat and awful and useless – because that’s the other problem with being in close proximity to Steven Stark. It’s not just his size, or his fast-talking-always-moving mouth. It’s not just his face, which tends to haunt my dreams a bit.

It’s his ability to make me feel like nothing. Like less than nothing.

And he just does it so effortlessly too. I’m there, busy minding my own business, book in hand. I’m not even paying attention to the conversation going on next to me, in all honesty. I’m still mad at my brother for springing a surprise Steven on me, for reasons I really don’t want him to go into.

So I’m doing my best to keep to myself. I’ve reduced my presence down to almost nothing, in fact. You’d barely know I was there, if it were not for the half-eaten slice of pizza on my plate and the two-thirds of a bottle of wine that’s now missing, thanks to me. I’m slightly woozy and nicely relaxed, when Steven blunders in with his size 57s.

‘So I picked up this cute little fat chick,’ he says.

And suddenly every inch of skin on my body is prickling and bristling. My armpits feel like an alarm has gone off inside them, and the already unbearable heat intensifies. If it gets any hotter, my face is going to melt right off the bone beneath – and all because he said that one magical word.

Fat , I think, and then I’m picturing myself beneath it in Steven Stark’s dictionary. I’d definitely qualify as that very thing – it can’t be denied. Anything over a size two would likely make the grade, in his eyes, and I passed that stage around 12 levels ago. You could times his ideal size by seven and still not get where I’m at.

So of course this story is going to apply to me. I can feel how much it’s going to apply to me. It might even be aimed in my direction – you know, like one of those helpful passive-aggressive tossers who talks loudly about Weight Watchers around you in the hopes you’ll get the hint.

Though I don’t know I’m right until he gets to this part:

‘And I mean, she was a big girl. I could hardly get my arms around her waist.’

That’s definitely me. Even though he could wrap one of his massive arms around my waist twice and still have room for half a rugby team.

‘And her arse … Man, her arse was the size of a small planet.’

He’s practically reading my bio!

‘But the best part was these thighs she had … These big, billowing thighs.’

Oh God … My thighs billow? I didn’t think they were that bad. They’re actually quite smooth and cellulite-free, in truth, and up until this point I’d almost dared to wear a swimsuit a couple of times, because of them. My legs are quite short, but I definitely didn’t think they were this horrible.

Until right now.

Until Steven Stark, and his almighty gob of horrendous awfulness. He just keeps going on and on about this poor girl who’s probably really me, every word punctuated by a snigger as though he’s the most hilarious person in the world. And what’s worse – my brother agrees with this assessment. So does his wife, Kimberley. They’re both laughing away at Steven’s nightmarish tale of soul-crushing cruelty, while I quietly die inside.

Seriously. I want to die. I don’t know why no one will let me. This wasn’t just the worst idea in the world – it was the worst idea for several solar systems. Aliens are busy wondering what the fuck I was thinking, agreeing to this holiday. Hell, aliens are busy wondering why I haven’t killed my brother, for allowing this to happen.

And I can’t find a flaw in their logic.

My brother is currently guffawing, over this:

‘It was like an avalanche of flesh, on top of me. At one point, I was genuinely afraid for my life – one false move and I could have been crushed.’

While something like mild anger brews in my belly. And of course, once I’ve let the mild anger take root, it starts mutating into more than that. Before I know where I am, it’s become a small bonfire lowdown in my body – which is never a good thing, when the outside temperature is already akin to the surface of the sun. The two problems just mix together until they’ve made some sort of natural napalm.

So really, it’s not a surprise to me that I do what I do.

It’s just a surprise to my brother, and to Steven, and to Kimberley. In fact, I think it would be a surprise to anyone who knew me, considering my inability to say anything to anyone ever. But it’s not unusual to my suddenly scorching soul, which practically combusts when he ends on this doozy:

‘But then it turned out that she was a total maniac who liked to eat paint. Thank God she was heavy … I didn’t have to run all that fast to get away from her.’

I swear I barely know what happens to me. Great gouts of burning debris blaze through the rational centres of my brain, and suddenly I’m saying this:

‘Yeah, because all fat chicks are so desperate for a man they just can’t wait to chase after you, right? Give me a fucking break. I’d sooner catch gonorrhoea than you – which would probably happen, if I was ever stupid enough to touch you.’

And naturally, it’s only after the words are out that I realise the mistake I’ve made. In fact, I realise several of the mistakes I’ve made. For a start, I just yelled while on a yacht, in the middle of the ocean. The silence out here is so total and dream-like that anything above a whisper sounds loud.

So this … This sounds really loud.

And then of course there’s the fact that I said all of this to Steven. Steven, who was my brother’s best man. Steven, who once fixed my scooter for me when I rode it right off the kerb and into my Dad’s car, at the age of 13. Steven, who’s now looking at me with a face like a deflated balloon.

Oh God, why is he looking at me with a face like a deflated balloon? Isn’t he meant to be massive and impervious to all attacks? I was certain he was. At the very least, I was certain that nothing I could ever say would make the slightest bit of difference to him. He’s like a glorious golden god, and I’m like …

Well.

I’m a flesh avalanche. I’m a nothing. I’ve long since accepted that the kid he used to pay attention to grew up into the kind of person he looks right through, now, and that he grew up into the kind of person that no one can look right through, ever. A mole would mysteriously find its eyeballs drawn to his presence.

He’s magnetic.

So why does he seem so horrified, now? Was the thing I said really so bad? I mean, true. I implied that he has gonorrhoea, and that no sane person would want to chase after him. But everyone in the world knows that this cannot be true. Just look at that mouth of his – I’ve seen Angelina Jolie look less pouty than that. And of course it’s even more pronounced, now, because he’s so deeply saddened by my terrible words.

Plus, he keeps slicking the thing with some kind of sunblock stuff. I could slip and slide across the surface of his lower lip no problems at all, and worse … I think I’d like it. Anyone would like it. His mouth suggests so many sinful, sensuous possibilities – as do those sleepy blue eyes of his.

The ones that rival the ocean, on any normal day.

But now best it, in this slightly wounded state. It’s like someone has pulled a skein of smoke over them, and for a second I’m actually hypnotised. I’m completely drawn in, to the point where I almost apologise. In fact, the words are on the tip of my tongue, when he finally breaks the silence.

With a laugh.

A big, booming, careless laugh, as though none of this matters at all. It was just me imagining that he had things like feelings, when really he wouldn’t know one if it punched him in the face. I don’t why I let myself feel guilty, if this is all he’s got to say about it.

‘Well, you’re probably right,’ he tells me, and that’s the end of that.

Only it’s not the end of that. I see the look he gives me, and I know what it means. I’ve seen the same look in the eyes of all kinds of arseholes, as they plot their slow and silent revenge. Then, just as I think I’m safe, they pounce.

But I’m not going to let that happen. There will be no pouncing, between Steven and me. I’m going to avoid him with all the ruthless efficiency of a piece of cotton, avoiding the eye of a needle – or at least, that’s what I bank on, before I realise two very important things:

a) I am not very good at being a piece of cotton. and
b)It’s almost impossible to avoid anyone on a yacht the size of a shoebox.

I’d never previously realised how small my brother’s boat is, until I’m trying to escape someone on it. But its tiny size cannot be denied, once Steven Stark sets his mind on having a conversation with me.

Because that’s definitely, definitely what he’s trying to do. I can tell. I can feel it. It’s in the air whenever he’s close to me – that sense of things left unsaid. He wasn’t casual and full of laughter, like he claimed. He was bitter and angry about that gonorrhoea crack, and now he’s just dying to tell me off for it.

Or possibly worse.

Oh God, what if it’s worse? It certainly seems worse, as he follows me around a small Spanish town like some rather more laidback version of The Terminator. We parked the boat at some port whose name eludes me, and now I can practically sense his eyes pressing into my back as I make my way through the cobbled streets. And then again, just as I almost buy a scarf that’s way out of my price range.

It’s like he’s stalking me, despite my total lack of stalkability.

So I have to do a little test. I have to see if he’s really on my case, or whether it’s just my imagination – because on the boat, it’s sort of hard to tell. On the boat he could be hovering near me, wanting to talk. Or he could simply be expanding, to fill every available nook and crevasse. One morning I’ll wake up to find his bulging bicep wedged against my face, even though he’s sleeping in a completely different room.

But out here, it’s easier to figure out what he’s up to. I just have to go somewhere really, really boring, then see if he follows me there too – because if there’s one thing Steven hates, it’s dullness. In fact, that’s probably part of the reason why he no longer likes me: I’m not Club 18-30. I’m not cool, or hip, or flashy enough to catch his attention.

Like the ruins I stroll my way down to. The ruins that don’t have any food to be purchased, or weird cocktails to be consumed, or girls to be partied with – unless you count the elderly hippy backpacker with the odd, tubular boobs.

Which I really don’t. For a start, her hair’s at least 30 per cent weirder than mine. Mine at least attempts to remain in the plaits I’ve made of it, on either side of my head – but I can feel it kind of trying to escape, as the day goes on. The humidity simply gets a hold of it, and suddenly my whole hairdo is bulging. It’s thick enough on its own, but now I can feel it puffing out against the restraints.

Whereas hers is much more wispy and flyaway. And it’s this really strange shade of grey too – kind of like a dull spoon, or a tarnished teapot – though even as I’m considering where she lies on the colour chart, I’m aware of why I’m really doing this.

I’m nervous, I think. I’m nervous, because Steven has definitely followed me. There’s simply no denying it, now. I turn a corner around the ruins of an old post office, or something similarly boring, and he’s right there about ten yards away from me. I have to stick with the old lady just to afford myself some protection, despite the insanity of such a move.

She’s not going to help me, if Steven decides that right now is the time to shout at me for being a dick. She might encourage him to keep his voice down, but I believe that is the extent of her powers. And in all honesty, I’m not sure if she’s capable of that much. I look around and she’s suddenly disappeared, leaving me alone in this maze of crumbling sandstone.

With the Minotaur.

Oh God, I wish I hadn’t thought of him as a Minotaur. Now I’m just imagining him sweating and stripped to the waist, stalking me around this place on his big, heavy, ominous-sounding feet. Seriously – it’s like Paranormal Activity over here. All I can hear is “dum dum dum” as he clods his way through the maze, only without the blissful comfort of cool darkness to keep me unawares until the final hammer falls.

Instead, I have to do this in bright white daylight, while sweating uncontrollably. By the time he’s got me cornered behind the right-angled edge of a house that no longer exists, my upper lip has a film on it. Hell, it has an ocean on it. Every item of clothing I have on – and there are far too many of them, I know – is clinging stickily to my body, no matter how much I try to waft air onto it.

And as I’m doing so, I realise something even more appalling. I realise it the way the heroine realises that the call is coming from inside the house, halfway into the movie:

My overall moistness has turned the material of my blouse see-through. Oh good God, my top is transparent. It’s almost completely transparent, and he’s going to see me about 30 seconds from now. He’s going to see my boobs encased in this too tight-bra, like twin overflowing flesh mountains.

Unless I do something about it. And by “do something about it”, I mean I put both hands over my boobs like Barbara Windsor in a Carry On movie.

Before I remember there’s an actual gesture human beings can do to disguise their bare boobs, without seeming like they’re trying to disguise their bare boobs. You might have heard of it. It’s called crossing your arms over your chest.

I hear it’s quite popular. And appropriate too, given the circumstances. He’s turned into some kind of crazed Minotaur-like stalker, so I’m well within my rights to step out from behind this wall like a schoolmarm. And I’m also totally OK to say the following:

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

Even though I kind of regret it, once I have. I let myself forget the whole gonorrhoea thing, in my rush to be righteously indignant about the stalking.

Now I’ve made a mess. I know I’ve made a mess. He’s going to kill me, for daring to be the outraged one in this situation. I mean, he was probably going to kill me anyway. I did insult him, after all – in a way he’s probably never been insulted in his entire life. But once he’s heard me actually raising my voice …

It’s going to be death by squeezing, I can tell. He’s going to make me stand against one of these crumbling walls, and then just puff himself out until one of his giant biceps crushes my head – though I’m not really sure what’s worse about this idea. That ten tons of sweaty, heaving flesh is going to murder me, or that it’s the closest I’ll have come to sexual contact in 5,000 years.

I’m actually kind of looking forward to it.

I bet he’ll taste like rare beef, in that moment before his muscles suffocate me.

‘Uh, well …,’ he says, which isn’t what I’m expecting. I’m ashamed to say I’m almost cringing, waiting for the worst. If he said those things about a girl he actually had sex with, what on earth is he going to say about me?

And how pathetic am I, that I’m willing him not to say it? I’m even thinking of ways I can backtrack, carefully. As though he’s a tiger, and I just jammed a stick in its eye. If I move away slowly, will he be more preoccupied with his missing eyeball than he is with me? Hopefully. Hopefully.

‘Look,’ I start, because look is such a pleasant, neutral word. It’s the kind of thing you say to a kid when you see something cool. “Look, Steven, a butterfly that isn’t me being a jerk to your enormous, probably aggressive self!”

I don’t get to voice the rest of that sentiment, however. Alarmingly, he kind of cuts me off at the pass. He makes this expression I’ve never seen before and completely don’t recognise on his amazing face, and kind of leans down towards me as he delivers it.

‘What did it seem like I was doing?’ he asks, which I don’t understand at all. And then I remember the outraged question I asked 30 seconds earlier, and everything completely doesn’t slot into place whatsoever.

Why is he asking me that?

And more worryingly … I’m kind of starting to fathom out his expression. I’ve seen it before, on the faces of lesser human beings who don’t think half as much of themselves as he probably does. In fact, I’ve seen it on my own face, before today. Usually it happens when I style my hair a different way and then look in the mirror.

At which point, it always blooms across my features:

Uncertainty. Maybe even a kind of – anxiousness. “Just how bad do you think I am?” that expression seems to say, but he has to know I can’t answer that for him. I’m not even sure if he’s really asking it. It seems so out of character for the Steven I’ve turned him into in my head, and besides …

The real response to his actual question sounds absurd.

Following me, I think, but even thinking it makes my face go all red. Why would someone like him follow someone like me? It’s absurd. He’ll laugh, when I say it.

So I go with something safer, instead.

‘I don’t know. I just know that you were doing it.’

Safer and stupider.

‘And you’re – angry at me for doing the thing you don’t know about?’

Ugh. Look at him, being all cute while trying to tease me. It’s like I’m 12 again and just fell off my bike. Only instead of skinning my knee, I mooned him right in the face.

‘Don’t play clever mind games,’ I say, even though I know his mind games aren’t clever at all. It’s just that I’m an idiot. I’m a total idiot. Apologise for saying he has gonorrhoea, my mind screams, but I can’t seem to do it. Speaking the word will just draw attention to what I did, and then he’ll think it’s open season on insults. Or what if … What if he really does have gonorrhoea?

Oh God, then I’ve just made fun of someone’s terrible, debilitating disease. I’ll be brought up before The Hague for infringing on his human rights. I’ll be tried as a war criminal. I’ll be hung in front of a jury of my peers.

And yes, I realise this flight of terrible fantasy has taken a turn for the ridiculous. In all honesty, it was probably ridiculous right around “debilitating disease”. I’m pretty sure you can get a cream for it, now – though this doesn’t help me.

I can’t offer him a cream.

Not when he’s about to kill me. I’m sure he’s about to kill me. I even brace myself for the blow, features arranging themselves into a wince before wincing is even necessary. And then he delivers it, and for a long moment I imagine I’m dead.

I must be, because I think he just said sorry.

That’s right. Steven Stark, creator of the game Fire Monkey, wearer of “boob inspector” T-shirts, constant puncher of my shoulder, just said sorry. Though even after he’s spoken the word aloud, I’m not sure that’s what it is. I could have easily misheard. Maybe he’s a fan of large road vehicles, and just saw one go by – despite how insane “I am lorry” sounds, once I’ve thought about it.

God, I wish I didn’t have to think about it.

Or ask him about it.

‘What did you just say?’ I try, and am proud of myself for managing to keep the incredulity down to around 40 per cent. I needn’t be, however. He catches it, all the same.

‘You don’t have to sound so surprised.’

‘I’m not surprised.’

‘Then why is your face all scrunched up like that?’

‘This is just my face. I can’t help it if it’s crinkled.’

‘Your face isn’t crinkled.’

He laughs as he says those words, just to give them an extra layer of insanity. Usually I’d hate him for making me feel weird, but in this instance I kind of like it. My face is smooth, apparently. So smooth he snorts, when I suggest otherwise.

‘OK, so maybe I’m a little bit surprised.’

Another expression crosses his features. This one is even less recognisable than the last, but he doesn’t give me any time to decipher it. It’s gone as swiftly as it arrived, and is replaced by his usual laidback half-smile.

‘Because I’m not exactly known for being contrite?’ he suggests, though the moment he has I know that’s not the case. It’s true that he isn’t, and there have been many occasions when I’ve wished that was one of his many qualities … But it’s not the reason why I’m surprised.

It’s more like this:

‘Because I’m not sure what you think you should be contrite for.’

And it’s true too. I’m really not. I didn’t think he’d understand he’d hurt my feelings, or if he did understand I didn’t think he’d care, particularly. At the most, I expected something along the lines of “stop being so sensitive”, because really it’s what I’ve been thinking ever since it happened.

I let things get to me too much. He probably wasn’t even referring to me.

‘For probably insulting you second-hand.’

Or maybe he was referring to me, and he’s a gigantic arse.

‘You didn’t insult me.’

It’s a lie, but what else can I say? Somehow, him tending to my wounded feelings is even worse than sudden biceps death. I can feel my face getting hot, despite it already being at critical mass. I bet astronauts could see this thing from space, which doesn’t bode well for me. If the Russians are up there wondering what that red beacon is all about, then Steven is definitely going to have noticed this.

My only hope is his inability to understand emotion.

‘Really? Because you were kind of shaking with rage on the boat … And now you’re sort of – turning purple with indignation.’

Dammit. Where has he learnt how to be sensitive?

‘OK, so you kind of insulted me. But it’s not a big deal.’

It is a big deal. My insides are still aching.

‘It seems like a big deal.’

How is he doing this? Is he reading my mind? Surely the only explanation is that he’s suddenly developed telepathic powers. He’s never been this insightful before, I’m certain of it, and even if he has he’s definitely never directed it at me. The last time I saw him someone joked about us dating, and he laughed as though the idea was the most hilarious thing to ever grace his hearing.

He’s never shown any awareness of how much stuff like that hurts me.

Hell, I try to never show awareness of how much stuff like that hurts me. I pretend he was never my friend, or maybe that he’s a stranger, or a mortal enemy, or an alien from the planet What-the-Fuck. Anything but what he is: a man I once loved. A man I once loved with all the painful gawkiness of a girl who still believes in romance.

But of course, I don’t believe any more.

So why am I still blushing? Why am I still stunned by a crumb of kindness from him?

‘I shouldn’t have told the story like that,’ he says, and my stupid, stupid heart goes pitty-pat. ‘I didn’t realise how it sounded until after I’d made you want to kill me.’

‘I don’t want to kill you, Steven.’

I want you to stop making me go all weird inside.

‘You kind of want to kill me.’

‘OK, I kind of want to kill you. But it was just a passing fad. Now I’m much more into shaking your hand and forgetting all about it,’ I say, and even manage to hold out said hand for him to do just that. It’s kind of sweaty and shaking, and I’m hoping he won’t touch it for long, but it’s there, isn’t it?

I did it.

I just wish I’d thought about what would happen after I did it. Because of course I have to drop my arms to make the handshake happen. And I don’t even think about it, either – I’m so focused on making this all go away that I barely know what I’ve done, until his eyes automatically drop.

Then I understand.

I understand that I’ve just shown him my barely covered boobs beneath my see-through top. Now not only have we had this huge, ugly misunderstanding, he’s seen my nearly naked breasts. And even worse, he can’t seem to stop looking at them. Of course I cover them back up immediately, but covering them back up immediately makes no difference. He just stares at the place they once were, as though the whole thing was an optical illusion that needs some deciphering.

Did he really see what he thinks he saw?

And more importantly: does he honestly think I’m going to answer that?

‘Shake my hand, Steven,’ I tell him, in a cold and deadly voice. And to his credit, he does just that – despite how awkward it is to achieve. He has to get really close to me to shake, because now my hands and arms are glued to my body.

It must be akin to greeting a T-Rex.

Plus, he’s still staring at the place my boobs were. Only now, he’s staring while his face turns a rather unfamiliar shade of red. It’s not an embarrassed colour, as my face always is. It’s more of a sort of – excited flush. Like on Christmas morning when you know you’re getting something good, and you’re just so giddy at the thought of ripping those presents open …

God, I hope he’s not giddy at the thought of ripping me open.

He can’t be giddy at the thought of ripping me open. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. A moment ago he was talking about his fear of jiggling flesh avalanches, and that’s definitely what’s going to happen if he removes my clothes. It’d be like yelling the words to Staying Alive halfway up Mount Everest.

Though I accept it’s weird that he seems unable to make sentences, currently. This is his best effort:

‘Um … what … were … words?’

And call me crazy, but it lacks a few things. Like sense, and structure, and meaning.

‘Huh?’

The second he sees my disbelieving expression – nose wrinkled, eyes wide, the works – he snaps out of this daze he’s sunk into. But by that point, it’s a bit too late. His big, hearty laugh sounds hollow; his waving hand like a gesture he thinks he should make.

But he doesn’t really believe in it. And he follows it with this:

‘Who knows? Come on, let’s go back to the boat.’

I confess I don’t want to go back to the boat with this Steven. I’m even more afraid of him than I was of the Terminator version. He’s too big and boisterous, even though he was already pretty enormous in those departments, and everything seems calculated to cover something over. At one point, as we’re walking through a street that looks like something out of Victorian England, he actually puts one massive arm around me and squeezes. He squeezes so fiercely I don’t think the Spanish Victorians would approve.

Hell, I don’t approve.

My heart is still hammering really hard, and I’ve no idea why.

Chapter Two

I know I should feel better about everything. And yet somehow, I feel worse. I’m used to put-downs and veiled insults, and numbing myself to all of them. I’m not in the least bit used to weirdly solicitous behaviour, of the kind he is now exhibiting.

He keeps putting his arm around me. And when he’s not putting his arm around my shoulders or my waist or disturbingly much lower than my waist, he’s saying nice things about me. Of course, most of the time he fails at the nice things – I’m fairly sure “your hair is really big today” isn’t a compliment – but the point is he’s trying. The really insane point is that Steven Stark, owner of a fart machine, is really trying.

And I just don’t know what to do with that. I feel like I should be nice back, but everything I think of would only make it seem as though I fancy him. You can’t tell a handsome man that his eyebrows are amazing, because the first thing he’ll do is assume you have an enormous crush on him.

Lord, I don’t want Steven to think I have an enormous crush on him.

So instead, I go with awkward silences and loads of blushing, which is probably only making everything worse. He keeps looking flummoxed, like he’s failing at complimenting me, and that’s why I don’t know how to respond.

And so he tries harder. He tries really hard. I’m starting to dissolve under the pressure of his impossible trying. Over dinner, he actually strokes my hair back from my face. Though naturally, I’m not sure that’s what he’s done, at first. It’s like with the apology – I suspect it’s just something else, masquerading as a tender sort of touch. Really, he found a spider in my hair and thought he better pluck it out.

I swear to God I almost scream – and I don’t think I do it because of the imaginary spider. I think I do it because his fingers are so massive, and suddenly they’re all over my face. He aims for somewhere around the ear area, but fails, miserably. He could probably touch France and stretch one finger over to England, so it shouldn’t be a shock.

But it is. It makes all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. For a second it’s all I can feel: the heat from his hand, the unintentional pressure of his big fingers, the feel of them sinking briefly into my hair … All of it combines to make me breathless, though I can hardly blame myself for that.

I’ve never been touched like this before. I’m not used to this kind of intimacy – not even from actual boyfriends. Certainly not from Frank. He had a very firm view of what was appropriate between life partners, including that they should always refer to themselves as life partners. Public physical contact was a complete no-no, though I guess we’re not exactly in public right now. Jason and Kimberley aren’t paying the least bit of attention to what Steven may or may not be doing, and besides – he does it far too quickly for anyone to catch.

So it doesn’t really count, on that level. It just counts on the other level Frank wasn’t a fan of: making my insides go woo-woo. He felt that any sort of woo-wooing was rather unseemly, and he had a point. I want to make a big blarting noise, the second Steven does it. And for ages afterwards I can feel the aftershock of what he’s done. My body is practically vibrating with it, in a way I definitely don’t want anyone to see.

Just pretend it never happened, I think at myself, but myself doesn’t want to obey. Myself has been starving in the desert of affection for 7,000 years, and feels like I deserve a long, long drink. In fact, I think myself might be about to do something very stupid – like maybe fondling his hair in return.

Would he really mind if I fondled his hair in return?

He probably wouldn’t, all things considered. I mean, what can he say? “I just played with yours but you can’t play with mine?” That seems grossly unfair, and I’ve never known Steven to be grossly unfair. He hardly ever cheats when we play Monopoly.

Though I realise that’s a flimsy reason for touching him. Too flimsy, I think. Too dangerous. No matter how weirdly intimate he gets with me, I’m never going to do the same in return. The fear of Crush Knowledge is just too great.

So rather than continue into this, I get up in a big blunder – knocking over my glass and flinging pizza into Jason’s lap as I do so. And though I know I should then say sorry for my klutziness, I don’t do that either. Instead, I talk really loudly about feeling tired and wanting to read and basically anything, anything at all to get me out of this situation.

To my eternal embarrassment, I actually think I mention needing the toilet.

But at least I get to escape. I avoid the biggest embarrassment of all: randomly throwing myself at Steven Stark because he plucked a spider out of my hair. And downstairs on my table bed it’s so much quieter and darker and cooler. The boat has a little air conditioning unit, and once I’m being blown on by it I can actually think. The heat stops making me do crazy things.

Because that’s obviously the explanation for all of this:

The terrible, terrible heat.

And me, slowly going insane.

I know why I’m in the water – I’m trying to hide from him. But I’m pretending it’s for a good, normal reason, like snorkelling. Even though I can’t snorkel. I try, I really do, but it’s a bit beyond me. All I can manage is sort of peering down into the water while my body remains as straight as an arrow, so that I look kind of like a fish hook. I’m dangling over the sea bed, with my goggles just glancing the surface of the water.

It almost works, though I know it’s not how you’re supposed to do it. You’re supposed to go further down, but whenever I try loads of water goes in my tube and by the time I’ve managed to sort that out I’m bobbing back up to the surface.

Apparently, it’s really hard to stay down – which seems like the opposite problem to the one everyone else has. Other people sink the minute they step into the water, and then have to paddle frantically to remain afloat. Whereas I appear to be so naturally buoyant I’m surprised gravity is able to hold me down. I should shoot off into the atmosphere the moment I leave the house.

All of which is embarrassing enough on its own, without Steven seeing me do it. Despite his massive size, he’s become really stealthy. He’s gotten creeping up on me down to a fine art, and this is no exception. I stop staring down at my toes and some random things that could possibly be fish, and am greeted by the sight of him, somehow suddenly in the water with me.

I didn’t even hear a splash. Possibly he’s a champion diver, and I just didn’t know it – after all, there are a ton of other things I didn’t know about him before this holiday. I didn’t know he could be sensitive, and apologetic. I hadn’t realised that he enjoys having conversations with me, or at least is getting good at pretending he does.

And most of all, I never knew that he had such a hairy chest.

Because he does. It’s utterly and completely hairy in a way I’ve never imagined before – even though I haven’t been imagining, honest to God. It’s just that in most of my totally innocent mind wanderings, his chest is usually completely smooth. As though men as muscular as he is can’t possibly have body fur.

They have to be waxed. It’s in the Mr Universe handbook.

Only Steven doesn’t abide by the Mr Universe handbook. He’s not even into his body in that way – he just enjoys doing stuff that makes him all massive, like extreme rock climbing or doing that long walk Stephen King talked about. So I’m not sure why I assumed he was down the waxing place daily, getting stripped and buffed and coated in fake tan. He’s actually pretty pale.

And very manly. Extraordinarily manly. Oh Jesus, he’s so manly I’ve lost the ability to greet him in a normal fashion. I just bob there for a long, long time, instead, thinking about his personal grooming regimen. Then, once everything’s turned weird and the silence is like a gong going off between us, the pressure to say something just overwhelms me.

I can’t speak because I didn’t speak before. I’m relying on him, but he’s not speaking either. We’re just floating around in the brilliant blue Mediterranean, staring at each other in a way that’s starting to make my face heat, again. The cool water should be keeping me at an even temperature, but apparently it has no control over my disobedient cheeks.

I’m so relieved when he finally breaks this bizarre tension and speaks.

Even though he says the following:

‘I’ve never seen you in a swimsuit before.’

Now I’m not only aware of this weird heaviness between us, but how bare my body is too. I thought I’d be safe because he was still sleeping when I got up, and I assumed he’d never come looking for me in the water.

But I can see now how stupid that assumption was. I based it on the old feeling of Steven isn’t interested in me. Instead of the new feeling of Jesus Christ, he’s interested in me all the fucking time. He’s so interested that he’s bobbing about a foot from me at six in the morning, and the first thing he chooses to say is about something I’m wearing.

And then he looks at the thing I’m wearing. He’s looking at me everywhere, in fact. His eyes feel like hands, slowly discovering my cheeks and my lips and my shoulders, in tiny sections. As though he’s somehow gone blind and needs to feel me out, despite the fact that his sight is perfectly operational.

He can see me. It’s just that I’ve never been seen like this, before.

This is intense. I want to tell him to stop, but he isn’t actually doing anything wrong. I can’t tell him to stop when he isn’t doing anything wrong. It will only draw attention to something that’s only in my imagination, as with the spider in my hair and the boob-looking and the feeling that I’m being crushed by a sexual tension that doesn’t actually exist.

It’s best to just keep avoiding it. Keep avoiding it. Here, look at me, avoiding it!

‘I was just snorkelling.’

‘Is that what you call the thing you were doing? Huh.’

‘Don’t insult the thing I was doing! Making a dangling hook of your body is really hard, OK? As is barely touching the water with your goggles.’

He laughs for that, and I’m grateful. Until I remember that spontaneous laughter and bantering like this has all the hallmarks of flirting. Dear God, are we flirting?

‘How are you even holding your body like that? I’m betting you have secret muscles in your boobs. I’m right, aren’t I?’

‘Dude, that’s you. You have boob muscles. Look at them: you could model a Wonderbra with those things. They could double for pillows.’

Yeah, this is definitely flirting. I can tell, because it’s the opposite to whatever me and Frank used to do. Once, we had a conversation about whether or not peanuts are really legumes. It seems hard to believe, now, as I fall down some internal stairs and into the mess of Steven Stark.

Did I just talk about his boob pillows?

I think I did.

‘I genuinely can’t tell if that’s a compliment, an insult, or a by-product of your manboob terror. Either way, I’m probably going to smush them against your face, now.’

‘No you’re not.’

Oh my God, I think he is.

‘Just hold still. You’ll barely feel a thing.’

‘Is that what you told your last one-night stand?’

‘OK, you’re seriously going to get it, now.’

‘No, don’t. Don’t, I take it back. I take it back!’ I say, but it’s too late. My efforts at deflecting him with semi-insults only make him more determined – as though I enraged a bull. I questioned his manliness and now he’s going to get me in a kind of headlock.

No, really. That’s what he does. He jumps on me and gets me in a headlock, like he used to do when I was 12 and deserving of noogies. I almost expect him to start knuckling my hair, even though I know this version of playground antics is not quite as innocent as it should be. I can’t really tell myself otherwise, when he’s practically humping my cheek with his gigantic chest muscles. A nipple nearly pokes me in the eye. Below the surface, our legs tangle briefly.

And then after a while he’s just kind of – hugging me. Only it’s a strange, breathless sort of hug. I can feel his chest rising and falling, and deeper down, the crazy thud of his heartbeat. Of course, I’ve no clue why it’s crazily thudding – I don’t think he wrestled with me that hard. But it’s an oddly comforting sound, either way.

It makes my own rattling heartbeat feel less insane.

‘Yeah, you like my chest now,’ he says, and then I realise what I’m doing: I’m just sort of resting on him, even though we’re both upright. And even stranger – I don’t really care all that much. He started it, anyway.

‘I did admit that your pecs are like pillows. What do you expect me to do?’

‘Nothing. I’m glad you’re doing this.’

He sounds so excruciatingly sincere for a second that I almost ask “are you really?” Before I catch myself, and throttle back. “Are you really?” is a much too timid question to go with. It sounds so full of daft hope, in my head.

I can’t do it.

But I can at least remain where I am, which is definitely progress. It’s not flinging a pizza at people, or shaking his hand as though I’m a T-Rex. And I don’t feel weird when he does some other nice thing.

‘Want me to help you snorkel?’ he asks – which is lovely of him, even if I now have to explain that the problem isn’t exactly snorkelling.

‘It’s not that I can’t do the breathing stuff. It’s the diving I have trouble with. I don’t seem to want to go down.’

‘Oh, that’s so disappointing,’ he says, and at first I don’t get it. It’s only after he’s laughed and swiftly changed the subject that my face burns and my body turns to goo – he meant the other implication of going down. He made a euphemistic sex joke in my presence, even though he has to know how little I’m built to cope with that.

I think I go stiff in his arms, about a second before he rushes on:

‘I mean, uh, yeah. That’s not a problem,’ he says, then in a way that suggests he can’t stop himself, ‘I’ll help you go down.’

Of course, he hesitates for a while before he goes with it. He obviously felt me get all nervous, and thought I needed a grace period. But in the end I’m kind of glad he decides to keep this euphemism stuff up. It means, at the very least, that he thinks I can take it. And maybe eventually it will start to be more fun, and light hearted – like we’re becoming friends again.

Only now we’re adult friends, who tell risqué, adult jokes.

Jokes that make me tingle, in place I shouldn’t be tingling.

‘Here, climb on my back.’

Did he just say “climb on my back”? I really wish he’d stop with the stuff I can hardly believe he’s letting out. It’s like he’s talking another language. I can’t possibly obey him, because I don’t understand Stevenish. I just have to rely on him guiding me into whatever he wants, though that’s hard enough on its own.

He sort of … slides me around his body, as though I’m a hula hoop. A really clingy hula hoop. And once he’s finished rubbing me all over himself – because that’s essentially what this manoeuvre amounts to – he takes hold of both my hands, and makes me link them around his neck.

And yes, I realise that none of this should be sexy. My nether parts shouldn’t be tingling again, because he’s now holding me to his back like a slippery, fleshy rucksack. Yet somehow, it’s happening anyway. I’m very aware of various parts of myself that keep rubbing against various parts of him – like my nipples over his shoulder blades. And there’s something about his hips being between my thighs, even though we’re the wrong way around for that sort of thought.

I mean, it’s not like I’m going to pound him.

Or that the idea of pounding him gets me even more excited.

‘OK, link your legs around me.’

He can’t be serious with this stuff.

‘Why do I need my legs linked around you?’

‘Because I get off on feeling your vagina pressing into my lower back … Come on, Jude. So I can dive without you falling off.’

‘You’re going to dive with me on your back?’ I actually let out a little incredulous laugh, in spite of my current stupefied state of arousal. ‘I don’t think that’s going to work out.’

‘You don’t?’

‘Definitely not.’

‘You holding on?’

‘Well, yeah, but –’

‘Take a deep breath.’

‘What? Steven –’

‘Deep breath!’

Of course I do it, but even as I’m gulping down air I don’t really expect him to succeed. I’m pretty sure I’ll get my face splashed and maybe thrash around in the water with him for a second, before he realises it’s impossible – though I’m not exactly averse to this scenario. He can thrash me any time, and especially after actually mentioning my unmentionables.

I mean, he did say vagina, didn’t he? And if he did, then how come it sounded so exciting? Vagina is pretty much the least exciting word in the world. It’s something your doctor says to you shortly before he invades it with what looks like a weapon from our robotic future.

It’s not sexy.

I’ve just gone insane. And I go more insane when he strikes into the water like a seal, towing me with him. He just does it as though it’s nothing, while I marvel over everything like a moron. I can feel his muscles working against my body, and see his arms making these great, muscular arcs through the water. I’m not even paying attention to the things I’m supposed to – such as fish, and other aquatic wonders – because watching him is almost hypnotic. To be honest, I’m not sure if I’d notice a fish, if it floated by.

The lesser spotted Steve Stark has my undivided attention.

And though I know I should feel weird about that, for the first time I actually don’t. The cement seal over my crush has cracked and given way, a little, but I don’t mind. He’s the one letting me put my arms around him. He’s the one diving with me like this. I’m allowed to show a crumb of affection towards him, when that’s the case.

Aren’t I?

At the very least, he doesn’t seem bothered by my excitement. In fact, he’s the opposite of bothered. When we break the surface and I let out a little giddy yelp, he briefly puts his hands behind himself, so he can give me a squeeze. And he laughs too. He laughs and tells me “ready to go again”, in a way that reminds me keenly of the fun we used to have. A pang goes through my body to hear it, a second before he plunges us into the water again.

But it’s a good pang. And it gets easier as we wile away this time, talking in the same way we used to – like friends, I think, like good friends. We’ll never be anything more – I know that now – but I’m happy with nothing at all if nothing at all is this. For a good few hours it’s akin to being in a movie, swimming through water as blue as Steven’s eyes, with him as my own personal merman.

He dives down deeper when I ask him to, to the point where his fingers almost graze the rolling hills of sand below. And when I pat him he surges back up again, through streams of suddenly startled fish and onward, to the surface. Then once we’ve broken through, the first thing he always does is ask me, ‘You OK? You still breathing?’

Like it matters to him.

‘Just let me know when you want to stop,’ he says, and I answer him in my head:

Never. Never never never. Just let me stay in the movie Splash, for ever.

Chapter Three

I can’t deny that, from this point on, the holiday is awesome. It was already going that way around the time he touched my hair, but after the gender-switched version of a Tom Hanks film, I’m practically stuffed full of happiness. I feel as light as he made me seem, while diving through the Mediterranean waters. A weight I wasn’t aware of has been lifted.

We’re friends again, I think. I have my buddy back. I don’t have to worry that he’s going to say something cruel, because now he’s aware that I have feelings. And I’m not in any danger of touching him in a way that screams something other than friendship, because he keeps touching me like that first.

He can hardly make fun of me for having a crush on him, when he’s busy grabbing my hand and giving me piggyback rides. By this point, I’d pretty much have to climb on his dick to meet the criteria for unusually affectionate behaviour. I’m safe, I think. I’m totally safe. I get to hang out with him without fear of reprisals, secure in our friendship.

It’s wonderful.

If somewhat confusing, on occasion. Like now, when he comes up behind me as I’m stood making drinks. Kimberley wants a Screwdriver and Jason is after some whisky on the rocks, and I’m thinking I’ll have something chockfull of fruit with 17 umbrellas, and right in the middle of all of this normality Steven is suddenly really, really close to me in a darkened room.

Because now he’s here, it does seem very darkened. There’s only a bit of sunset light coming in through the porthole over my bed, and everything else is practically pitch black. I’m not even sure why I was attempting to make drinks in this gloom – though I accept that his presence is making everything a bit more shadowy and fraught.

Why is he just stood there? Why hasn’t he said anything? He usually says something to announce himself, like “hey, look at me being all massive and funny!” But right now he’s very quiet, and even closer than I initially imagined. It’s just that he’s behind me so I couldn’t quite see, but now that I’m paying attention I can feel the material of his T-shirt brushing my bare shoulder blades.

I wish I hadn’t allowed my shoulder blades to go bare. I went with this little light sundress due to no longer being afraid of what he might say – but it seems like a hideous mistake, at the moment. It’s putting me on high alert, even though he probably means nothing by this sudden closeness. He just came down to help me with the drinks, I think.

And then he puts his hands on my waist.

He puts his hands on my waist.

Suddenly, that rational voice in my head is speaking in a panicked squeak. He’s just being super friendly, it cries. Don’t read anything into this. You’re friends, now, best friends for ever no take backs oh God please no take backs.

But I think it might be wrong.

I mean, granted. The sundress is very thin, and is probably making his touch far ruder than it should feel. The fine, near-slippery material rubs against my over-heated skin with very little movement from him, at all. Plus his hands are really massive, so when he touches you in one place, it kind of feels like he’s touching you everywhere.

It could just be my sex-starved imagination, working overtime.

And yet somehow, I know it isn’t.

Something is weird and different here, in a way I shouldn’t be able to recognise. I’ve never had someone just spontaneously make a pass at me like this, and I’m not used to the feeling. There’s all of this strange tension, to the point where my hair is actually bristling on the back of my neck. I’m excited before I’m sure I should be excited.

But that’s OK. Because a second later he makes it really, really clear. He simply slides one of those big hands right up to cup one of my breasts, and just when I’m able to process that little move, he tugs at the material until the buttons pop open, and pushes his hand inside.

Then by way of explanation, he tells me this:

‘Why did you have to wear a dress like this, huh?’

Which should be sort of aggressive, and rude, and not arousing at all.

So how come it is? How come a burst of arousal goes through me to hear it – so thick and intense I actually stop breathing, momentarily. I mean, I think I pretty much gave up on normal bodily activity back when he put his hands on my waist.

But now it’s really getting bad. I’m afraid that I might pass out due to oxygen deprivation, at any moment. I keep trying to force my lungs and throat to operate properly, only they’re not obeying. They just hitch and stick and refuse to be calm – though I can’t really fault them.

They’re just following suit. The rest of me is doing the exact same thing. I’m all fizzy and electric, from the tips of my toes to the roots of my hair, and I suspect it’s only going to get worse as this thing continues. I don’t even know what this thing is, so at the very least I can predict some apprehension.

However … I don’t predict the moan I make, when he finds and pinches one stiff nipple. Of course I don’t. How could I ever? I was unprepared for him standing this close to me, so suddenly slipping his hand beneath my bra to fondle my bare breasts has to be right out. It’s completely off the charts of anything I’ve ever expected.

As is everything he keeps saying. Oh God, I never imagined him saying stuff like this – not even during actual fantasies about having sex with him.

‘Oh yeah, you like that,’ he says, only it’s not a question. Naturally it’s not a question. I just told him I like it with my absolutely ridiculous moan. I’ve confessed to enjoying my nipples being teased without really meaning to, and now he’s got some kind of green light. He’s going to do more, I think, loads more, and worse …

I don’t mind at all.

I’ve no idea why he’s doing this, or where he got the idea that this is the next logical step, but my body couldn’t give a flying fuck. My body is screaming in delight even as my mind says hey, hang on a second, let’s just see if you accidentally spiked his drink with a sex drug that’s made him crazy, and I know it’s my body I’m going to listen to.

I don’t really have much of a choice. He puts his hot mouth against my throat, and all other considerations are rescinded. I even arch back into it, because God it feels amazing – oh man, just the pressure of those soft lips, and then oh then the shocking slipperiness of his tongue …

He’s actually touching me with his tongue. Steven Stark, childhood friend and long-held crush, is squirming and rubbing his slick tongue against the already crazily sensitive skin of my throat.

I think I might have died. This definitely feels like heaven, at any rate. He keeps making this rough, impatient sort of sound as he mouths his way over to my shoulder, and the tension rolling off him is just incredible. It’s as though he’s holding himself back, despite how little he seems to be holding himself back.

I mean, we’re quite a bit past chaste friendship, here. It wouldn’t be that shocking if he let go of all restraints and ripped my clothes off – the way he seems to want to. Oh, I’m pretty sure he wants to. He’s pulling at the middle of my dress without popping any more of the buttons, but when I glance down I can see how much he’d like to do just that.

His hand has made a big red fist, and it’s sort of shaking.

I can sympathise, however. I’m shaking too. I started right around the time he put his hands on his waist, and I don’t think I’m about to stop any time soon. He’d have to go back about a thousand paces to make me stop, and I know he’s not going to do that.

I can tell, for several reasons:

a) That’s not a misplaced melon he’s touching.

b) He can never pretend he didn’t pull open my dress, because I’m now missing a button. Of course he could probably sew the button back on and act like nothing happened, but I don’t think he’s much of an arts and crafts sort of person. Plus, that whole scenario is insane.

c) There is something pressing into the small of my back, and I’m pretty sure it isn’t a tube of Rolos. And if it is, he really needs to tell me where he bought such an enormous packet.

I love Rolos.

Though I confess, I also love knowing it’s his penis. Just the feel of something so heavy and hot and insistent pressing into me … It’s enough to make me clutch at that hand he’s fondling me with. But of course, once I’ve clutched him, the green light explodes in a shower of glory. All of my barriers drop, like hot rocks.

So it’s a shame, really, that he chooses this moment to stop touching. And it’s not just a shame either. It’s a great yawning chasm of disappointed, so large I’m almost afraid to find it inside me. What sort of person likes being silently manhandled for vague, inexplicable reasons? I should at least be asking for his motivations behind this.

And yet, somehow, it’s just better without. It’s almost a relief without. I don’t have to wonder and worry and get into a big internal debate about this.

Or at least I didn’t, until those hands dropped. Now I’m going to have to deal with him coming to his senses, in the worst possible way. He probably felt my love handles and suddenly remembered he’s allergic to fat. In a second he’ll start sneezing, and swelling up, and when the ambulance men sadly stretcher him away he’ll say the words that every girl dreads:

‘How come you murdered me with your flab?’

And worse, I won’t have an answer for him.

Because the question is the stupidest thing I’ve ever let my neuroses imagine. It’s so stupid, in fact, that I’m almost laughing and shaking my head at myself, when those hands suddenly find their way to my thighs. And then I wish I hadn’t almost laughed at all. It’s quite a leap to go from rueful amusement to oh God OK this is still happening.

Only somehow, it’s even more intense and confusing than it was before. I can sort of feel him ruffling my dress on the outsides of my thighs, but my brain won’t process why. It has to wait until he’s managed to get the material all the way up to my hips, before I get it.

He’s lifting my dress. He’s lifting it, while I remain stalled five steps behind. By the time I catch up, his fingers are hooked around the waistband of my panties, and naturally I know what happens next. It’s just that I can hardly believe what’s going to happen next.

So much so that I actually gasp when he slowly starts working them down my legs.

Is he going to fuck me? Is he going to just fuck me here, like this, with the unmade drinks still in front of me and Jason and Kimberly barely 30 steps away? They could probably look through the porthole and see this happening, though oddly the thought doesn’t scare me.

Probably because I’m already terrified of the strange, heavy silence, and Steven’s rough breathing, and my own body – so thick, suddenly, with sensation. My blood feels as though it’s turned to glue in my veins, hot and sticky. It clings to everything as it passes through, including nerve endings I didn’t know existed.

And of course my heart has to pound really hard, to make sure this adhesive blood keeps flowing. It has to pound so hard I can hear it in my fingernails, and my elbows, and definitely, definitely in all the places that Steven is currently touching.

He’s made it to my knees with those panties. My knees are alarmed to suddenly hear my heartbeat. They want to buckle, but I swear to God I will never let them - not even when he brushes the insides of them with that material and a lightning bolt of pleasure shoots through me.

In fact, the lightning bolt just strengthens my resolve. It’s all new and mysterious, and I desperately want to feel another one – just to see if the first was a fluke. I’m itching to say to him “go on, go on then”, but the truth is I don’t know where he’s planning on going on to. What if it’s Up-the-Butt City?

He’s definitely the kind of man who’d be into that. In truth, I’m almost bracing myself for it – for sudden rough sex I’m not quite ready for – when he urges me to part my legs. Only he does it in this really gentle, easy sort of way, smoothing over my thighs as he goes. And his voice, when he speaks, is soft and persuasive.

‘Come on, baby,’ he says. ‘Open up.’

Not that he needs to be soft and persuasive. While I’m busy shuddering with shock and another sudden gush of excitement, my legs simply obey him. They spread without a second thought. My brain is jealous of their ability to not over-think things – though not for long.

My brain stops thinking too, a moment later. It just shuts down the second I feel his hands on my backside, stroking and stroking and finally … Oh Lord, finally he sort of spreads everything, so he can see. He’s definitely doing it so he can see. He’s looking up at my completely bare and very exposed sex, and once he’s done stunning me with that, he caps it off by letting me feel something even more brutally exciting.

His hot breath, ghosting over the slippery place between my legs.

Because I’m definitely slippery, by this point. I’ve never been so aroused in my life, so really it’s a given – but even if it wasn’t I’d know. I can make out the slow, agonising slide of it against my flesh, every time I move. And after a while of this torture – of his mouth just inches from the most sensitive part of my body, each whisper of air so soft and heated – I know my wetness is starting to trickle over the insides of my thighs.

I know this, because he tells me.

‘Oh man, you’re like a river,’ he says. ‘How come you’re so excited, huh?’

How come he expects me to answer that? Is he mad? I forgot how to make words 17 hours ago, even though we haven’t been doing this for 17 hours. It’s so intense that time has folded in on itself, causing an eternal loop of him almost kissing me between my legs.

Then he actually does it, and the time loop bursts into flames.

I burst into flames. I thought I was shocked by everything before, but it turns out I didn’t know what shocked was. This is in an entirely different dimension, where I have to actually say his name out loud in a voice that isn’t mine. ‘Steven,’ I say, as though I’m some old lady at a WI meeting and he’s a flasher who’s just run into the room.

And I go up on tiptoes too. I don’t want to, because going up on tiptoe means I’m moving further away from him. But sadly, I don’t have much of choice. My hands even grab at the bar in front of me, to help me get as high as possible. I’d probably be over it and halfway to China, if he wasn’t so strong and massive.

He employs both weapons to keep me right where I am. Worse – he seems to anticipate that I’ll immediately bolt for the hills. His arms loop around my thighs before the first syllable of his name is out. I can feel his biceps tensing against my leg, as he exerts enough pressure to immobilise a rabid wildebeest.

Which is, let’s face it, an accurate description of my current state.

Not that Steven seems to mind. Quite the opposite, in fact. Once he’s cemented me in one place, he isn’t content with some light, tentative licks and maybe a kiss for good measure. He buries himself between my legs. He rubs everything he’s got against everything I’ve got, and when he’s done with one weird face-rut he just starts all over again at the beginning – as though he likes it.

No … No … Correct that.

As though he loves it.

And just when I’m on the verge of laughing at myself for believing such a thing, he makes it 500 per cent clearer. He lets out this helpless groaning sound, right into my spread sex – so loud I actually feel it vibrating through my over-sensitised flesh and up through my trembling body. His fingers clench too tightly around my thigh; his biceps gets tauter, tenser.

And, best of all, I can feel him shaking.

Whatever this crazy thing is, it’s making him shake. The taste of me, the feel of me … Something on me is making him shake. He has to take a small break, I think, and oh God I really want to see what that looks like. I’m so eager to check if that’s what he’s doing I almost fall over him, while trying to glance behind myself.

But nothing is clear. All I can see is the top of his dark head, and that one killer biceps – after which, my priorities shift somewhat. They go from trying to see him and how much he’s enjoying this, to something much more quantifiable.

Like how it feels to have Steven Stark lick you.

And the answer is, of course: oh my God oh my God.

‘No don’t,’ I say, though I don’t really mean to. The sensation is just so intense it’s all I can come up with. I’m frightened of a sensation like this one, so he should really stop making it happen.

Though naturally he doesn’t. He just licks again, so I can get the full benefit of his insane skill. I wasn’t able to process it before, because the back of my head came off. But now that I’m more reasonable I can appreciate a thousand weird nuances – like how wide and flat his tongue feels. Is that because he’s doing it like this, all back to front and from below? Or is it just that his tongue is infinitely superior to most other men’s?

I’m going to go with the latter, though there’s something to be said for technique too. He holds me tight to him, so I have to experience every single sensation fully. And the way he strokes through my folds in this weird, darting flicker … Ohhhh yeah that’s so good.

It’s too good.

I think I’m going to come, and he’s barely been doing this for 30 seconds. He’s only just warming up to some of the truly amazing stuff: like the way he eases his fingers into my clenching pussy, just as I’m aching for something more. And the sensation of his tongue rubbing and rubbing over my clit, soft and slow then quick and fierce.

It totally shouldn’t be possible.

But either way I know it’s happening. I’m holding my breath the way I always do, when I’m close. And once I’ve fully processed everything he’s doing, it’s kind of hard to stop the out of control car that is my orgasm. The idea of him doing this is exciting enough – then coupled with the solid, driving sensation of his fingers and those long, slow laps around my clit … It’s just too much.

I can’t hold myself accountable.

Though I can hold myself accountable for the words I speak, when it hits. Oh, I know I’m going to pay for those, later. There are years of humiliation ahead of me, and all because I lose control at the last second. Just when I’m almost safe and out of this, I let that strange silence – the silence that has wrapped around me for as long as I’ve known him – drop completely, and I tell him exactly what I want to:

‘I adore you,’ I say, as I drown in pleasure. ‘Oh God, I adore you, I do.’

Chapter Four

I think I could have gotten away with it if I hadn’t said that “I do”. Those two words not only confirmed that I’d just said what he probably feared I’d said, they also hit some rather unfortunate notes. Like the notes that sound during the wedding march, for example.

It’s really no wonder he ran away the second he had the chance. He practically leapt for the stairs when Jason called down to ask us if we’d died while making drinks, and I don’t blame him. I wanted to leap for the stairs too, only I couldn’t.

It’s hard to make sudden moves, when you’ve still got a pair of panties around your ankles. And it’s even harder if you’ve just been punched all over your body by an enormous orgasm. I think my hands somehow melted to the bar in the middle of it all. At the very least, they refuse to come unstuck for a good five minutes or so.

And even after I’ve managed to get them free, the rest of me doesn’t want to follow their example. My shoulders have locked into place. My knees are frightened to bend, in case bending collapses the fabric of my body and turns me into some kind of unspeakable gelatinous mass.

The word “stunned” doesn’t really cover what just happened. “Immobilised by Steven’s insanity-venom” would be more accurate, even though I’ve no idea what that means. It makes no sense at all. It just seems to fit much better than any other explanation.

He’s a supernatural lizard who briefly went nuts, and then attacked me.

He is not, under any circumstances, a good friend who just administered oral sex.

Mainly because I don’t know what to do if that’s the case. I don’t know how to explain it. A week ago, he voiced his very loud and unfortunate opinion about less than slender women. And though I still kind of hate him for that, I can’t completely erase it from the insides of his head. I don’t have that kind of access.

So what, then?

Was this some sort of oral sex based apology? Maybe he felt his attempts at making me feel better – through ordinary means like swimming and conversation – had failed, and something more robust was in order.

He threw me a pity-lick.

Which sounds even more insane than the lizard theory, I have to say. There’s no such thing as a pity-lick. Nobody does this to say sorry and help validate someone. At a push, they might have really sad, slow, creepy sex on a creaking bed, while crying.

But they don’t do this big exciting thing, all in a mad jumble. No jumbling is allowed when you’re just quite sad for someone. He didn’t seem quite sad for me when he was busy grunting that I should get my legs open, and he definitely wasn’t melancholy in the middle of all that groaning.

Oh God, his groans. Even if I do my utmost to forget all of this, I know those groans will come back to haunt me. They’re haunting me now as I slowly fumble my way back up on deck. I have to grab onto the rail around the boat just to keep myself upright, and each step is interesting, to say the least.

Is it possible for a vagina to suddenly triple in size? Because that’s what it feels like has happened, between my legs. The whole area is swollen and slippery and way too hot, and of course every time I remember the sounds he made the problem intensifies. By the time I get to the table I’m a shivering wreck, glassy-eyed and completely gone.

And of course Steven is just sitting there, as though nothing ever happened. In fact, his nothing ever happened stance is so convincing that for one long, horrible moment I actually wonder if I just imagined the whole thing. He’s got his arm spread out over the rail and this laidback, lopsided expression on his handsome face … He could have just finished telling an off-colour joke after a leisurely lunch.

He doesn’t even look my way, which pretty much seals the deal. I hallucinated it. The heat and the apologies and the hair touching sent me round the twist, and now I’m living out a sex life that didn’t happen with a man who’s currently talking about biscuits.

No really. I swear to God, he’s talking about biscuits. They’re not even euphemistic biscuits, either, with a secret code-like hint of what he just did to me. A Kit-Kat would have said so much, here, but he’s discussing custard creams.

Custard creams! The least sexy of all the teatime treats.

‘I always think they taste like pineapple,’ he says, even though they totally don’t. Their subtle custardy flavour has probably just been altered, by something else he recently ate – like the half-demolished paella still on the table, or the warm crusty bread they’ve eaten with it, or I don’t know … Maybe my vagina.

Does my vagina taste like pineapple? It could be that this is the code word, I think, though if it is he’s being very guarded about it. He’s still not looking at me, and now he’s talking about something even less related to random sex.

‘Remember that time we blew up your grandma’s toilet?’ Steven’s saying, which is practically a double whammy of non-eroticism. There’s an elderly person in that sentence, and a device that whisks away your waste.

It’s of no use to me whatsoever, so I just sit back and half-listen to a story I’ve heard a thousand times before. Steven had found some fireworks stuffed in a skip, and convinced Jason they should set them off in our grandma’s massive cast iron bathtub – for reasons they still don’t seem clear on.

‘It was because it seemed safer,’ Jason says, but Steven disagrees.

‘No no no. It seemed cooler.’

‘So you just lied about it being the only way to contain the explosion.’

‘Of course I lied about it. When have I ever wanted to contain an explosion?’

He has a point. He’s always the one shaking the champagne bottle, instead of gingerly easing out the cork. When someone needs a fork jamming into a plug socket, Steven will be there for them. I’ve seen him blow up hair dryers while trying to fix them; I’ve watched him fire himself out of a cannon that wasn’t designed to fire people out of it.

Yeah, that’s Steven, all right. Raring to get things started, ready to plunge into danger, always wanting to drag my brother with him. And of course my brother is all too willing to go along with it. Of course he is – without Steven, he’d just be a boring bank manager now, with a mortgage and a middle-class wife.

And then it hits me, in a large unsettling jolt.

That whole scenario I’ve just described … It could equally apply to me. It all sounds very familiar: timid little mousy Judy, and Steven seeing how far he can push things, how far he can take things, before I break just like my brother. He certainly pushed things to the limit down there in front of the bar.

Or did he? Maybe that was just a taster – the warm-up before the big challenge. Because that’s what it looks like to me, now. Like he saw a challenge, and couldn’t resist going for it. In fact, that idea makes so much sense I’m momentarily giddy with it – I almost blurt it out to him right there in front of polite little Kimberley and the brother who almost definitely believes I’m still a virgin.

‘So that’s why you buried your face neck-deep in my vagina!’ I want to cry out, like I’m suddenly Miss Marple and he’s the master criminal.

Only much weirder and more sex-based than that.

Lucky, really, that I manage to restrain myself. Instead of shouting bizarre accusations that don’t make any sense, I nibble on a bread stick and stew inwardly, while they continue with this conversation about nothing that actually matters.

God, if only Jason knew.

I don’t think he’d be laughing it up with Steven about Gran chasing them around the living room with a frying pan if he did. He once went deathly pale when a high school boyfriend accidentally brushed my bottom with his coat, so I doubt he’d be happy and carefree about this.

Especially after Steven has turned the conversation on to other things.

Namely:

‘I just wanted to impress the 17 girls I was dating.’

And all right, he doesn’t say 17. But everyone knows that Steven is a revolving door of women, which is bad on a number of levels, here. The first level is that Jason is never going to like the idea of a revolving door of women being anywhere near me. And the second level is that the door is probably not going to be near me for long, because it’s already swung around to the next 17 girls.

Any way you look at this whole situation, I am totally screwed.

‘My favourite of your many conquests is always and forever Melanie Martin.’

‘Meeee-laaaanie,’ Steven says. He even closes his eyes in memory of Melanie’s flawless face – those pouty lips, those blue eyes, that raven hair! It’s really no wonder I spent that summer trying to apply Clairol Number 47 to my own dull brown mess. ‘Man, she was a peach.’

Ugh, does he have to talk about fruit, now?

I’m already aware that I’m a mouldy potato, Steven, all right? You don’t have to start talking about other women to convince me that five minutes ago was just some terrible mistake. I get it. A blind, feeble monkey would get it, by this point.

And yet still, he continues.

‘Or what about Donna Lincoln?’

Ah, Donna Lincoln. I once found him making out with her in my Dad’s shed, right smack in the middle of me feeling like I was totally over any crush I’d ever had on him. I’d just started college, and was full of adult, college sorts of things. He was still a laddish loser, working at the local swimming pool, drifting from this to that.

Whereas I … Well. I was refined, and intelligent, and classy. I didn’t have time for men like him, in their silly T-shirts with their ridiculous hairdos and their terrible taste in anything.

And then I’d seen him with someone else, and eaten my own heart out like it had a honey centre. I’d chomped on that fucker until there was nothing left – or at least, I’d assumed there was nothing left, at the time. But apparently it’s grown back in the intervening years, fatter and fuller and more prone to him than ever.

And worst … I suspect he knows. I think he knew. He waited until the perfect time, and then he struck like a cobra. Now I’m just as much a mess than ever, only it’s even more painful than it was before. How can it not be? This time I’ve had a little taste of him, a little hint of what it could be like, before he snatches it away with things like this:

‘Dear, dear Donna. She had legs up to her face.’

I do not have legs up to my face. I barely have legs up to my hips.

‘And lips like pillows.’

In fairness to me, my upper lip is pillow-like. It’s just my lower one that’s letting the side down – though I suspect he doesn’t care. This is a very pointed “I made a mistake” sort of speech, and I know it.

He couldn’t have made it clearer if he’d drawn a diagram.

‘Not to mention her arse.’

He doesn’t need to say what made her arse so special. I can see it in my mind’s eyes, so much perkier – and more importantly – smaller than mine. And even if I couldn’t, my idiot brother is here to make things worse for me.

‘I too would mention her arse, if I was not sat next to the most beautiful posterior in the history of the world,’ he says. And though I know, rationally, that he’s just paying Kimberley a compliment – probably because she’s been rolling her eyes for the last five minutes – I can’t help seeing it as a dig.

My brother loves me, and wants to protect me, but he’s never understood what it’s like to be less than svelte. He once bought me a rowing machine for my birthday, in all earnestness. He thinks being plump is a character flaw, and right now I agree.

I feel so flawed I could fall through the floor.

‘Kimberley would concur, if she’d only seen it.’

‘I probably would,’ Kimberley says. ‘Was it akin to two apples in a plastic bag?’

Both men laugh, of course. I’m wondering what my arse would be equivalent to. Two melons? Maybe some oddly shaped potatoes? I lean back against the canvas chair I’m in and let my eyes drift closed – as though I’m tired. But really it’s just so I can better picture the fruit and veg aisle in Asda. And maybe eventually manage to tune this conversation out.

‘Oh, it was better than two apples.’

‘More like – tennis balls,’ my brother says, now that he’s got the green light to discuss another woman’s bottom in front of his wife. He’s really lucky to have someone like her – someone so restrained and refined and yet still willing to have a laugh.

Who could ask for more than that?

‘Tennis balls?’ Steven says, and then he’s laughing. They’re both laughing. ‘Your arse metaphors stink.’

‘Actually it’s arse similes.’

‘Well, excuse me. I don’t have a degree in literature – just the degree in how to describe a woman’s body. And I’m pretty sure tennis balls never come into it.’

‘Then what does come into it?’

‘Anything round and soft. Clouds, marshmallows …’

‘So she had an arse like a marshmallow?’

Steven’s laughing so hard now he can’t speak, which is perhaps my favourite state of his. His eyes always crinkle into these perfect little cartoon-a-like stars, and usually he actually squeezes some tears out. I used to live for those tears.

But I’m already crossing him back off my “things I’m crazy about” list. It’s going to be hard this time, I can see it. Maybe even harder than it was when I first realised we were in two different leagues, and that he would never see me as anything other than his friend’s sister.

But I know I can do it. I just have to focus on other things – like the lights over the harbour, so pretty in the darkness, and the gentle lap of the water against the boat. I’ve had a good time, I think. I should see all of this as a positive, as a little taste of heaven.

Things can get back to normal, now. They can return to reality. All I have to do is keep tuning and tuning and tuning things out, and in truth I’m almost there. I’m just a millimetre away from it, when he speaks again.

‘Seriously, though … All the girls, all of those clouds and marshmallows … None of it really matters to me any more.’

‘So you’re turning a new leaf for the tenth time?’ Jason asks, as though we’re momentarily one person. We think the same thoughts and voice the same questions and roll the same eyes.

Steven Stark will never change, and we both know it.

‘Nah … I’m just finally admitting the truth, to myself,’ he says, and I can’t help it then. In spite of everything – the running away, the ignoring me, the butt talk – he has my attention again. I suspect he’ll always have my attention, no matter what I try to tell myself.

But for once, it’s OK.

It’s OK because Jason asks in this quiet voice what that might be, and Steven replies, ‘That there’s only ever been one girl for me.’

Before looking directly into my eyes, as though he’s never looked away.

Chapter Five

I can’t afford to read too much into his stare. But I’m unable to think of anything else either. My brain absolutely refuses, on pain of death. I threaten it with books by John Grisham and rusty forks inserted into the ear, and all to no avail. It carries on bothering me with Steven Stark’s heavy and pointed look well into the middle of the night, and beyond.

It’s four in the morning before I get any sleep, and even then it’s not the normal kind I’m used to. My head is full of weird, unsettling dreams about massive men with searchlight eyes, and really obvious metaphors. For example, in one of them I’m trying to run away from a monster that looks exactly like me, only bigger, but I can’t because the ground is made of jelly.

I don’t think I need Freud to decipher that one. But I’d be happy if he were around, because at least then I’d have someone to tell me to snap out of this – probably in a really angry German accent. No one can carry on making a mess of things when someone’s telling them not to in an angry German accent.

Unfortunately, all I’ve got is this suffocating boat and my blundering brother’s voice calling down from the deck, just as I’m nodding back off. God only knows what time it is now, though I’m guessing it’s far too early to either a) sound so cheery or b) be enthusiastic about sightseeing.

‘I’m going to buy a hat,’ he declares, as though hat buying is the most exciting enterprise in the entire world and I should really know about it, while I groan and try to bury myself under the pillows.

Of course, doing so only makes me hotter. But hotter is preferable to conscious, and I persevere. I burrow and swaddle and generally turn myself into a suffocating, half-sleeping mess, and eventually I doze. However, it’s a strange and fitful sort of thing – so I suppose it’s no surprise that I don’t know where I am or what’s going on, when I turn over and see Steven standing there. For one brief, dream-addled moment I’m sure he’s escaped from my unconsciousness, and is about to attack me with his searchlight eyes. And then some sense filters back in – though sense isn’t much better.

It suggests I must have sleepwalked into his bedroom, despite all evidence to the contrary. I’m laid down and he’s stood up; I’m still tangled in my own sheets; I can see the bar behind him. And yet I’m almost certain that’s what must have happened. Why else would he be standing so close to me while I’m half-unconscious? I can almost feel his thigh touching the back of my hand.

I must have done it. In fact, I’m so sure for a second that my face flushes. Or at least, it would have flushed if it were not already so full of heat and colour. It’s almost like a fever, I think – this fire-y feeling, pressing against the insides of my cheeks. Though I sort of know, even in this dazed state, that it isn’t just because of the sun. It isn’t even embarrassment.

It’s something else. Something about the way he’s looking at me, as I lie sprawled all over my bed. I’m only wearing a thin little vest – an item of clothing I found adequate, when there was no danger of him ever coming in for a closer look. But it now seems appallingly immodest, almost completely transparent and barely-there. The straps are like spider’s webs, and they don’t contain the swelling curves of my breasts. I know they’re spilling out the sides and over the neckline.

And worse – in the night the whole thing has twisted and ruffled up. He can see my stomach – a pale curve in the gloom – and probably a bit too much of my right hip. I’m sort of half on my side and half on my back, so the winding shape of my body is pretty easy to make out. It’s made even easier by how far my little sleep-shorts have slid down.

I must be a horrifying sight.

It’s just that he doesn’t look as though I’m a horrifying sight. He looks like he’s just seen a ghost, if ghosts were known for being really arousing. And I know that arousing is the right word too, because while I’m still in this stupor I grope him with my own eyes in return, and I see a lot of things I don’t know how to process.

He’s breathing very hard, for a start. And his face is like mine – his cheeks are bright with a kind of fever. They almost make me want to jump up and get us both a cold compress and some Calpol, followed by some vigorous lying down, maybe.

Though I suspect childhood cures for mild illness won’t cure a massive erection.

Because he has that too. He’s just kind of stood there, over my bed, with a massive erection. He doesn’t even try to hide it, the way I probably would if I were in his position. I feel like I should hide something now, even though it’s impossible to see what I’ve got. Ladyboners aren’t a real thing, I tell myself frantically.

And then I’m calm.

Or at least as calm as I can be, with a gigantic ladyboner.

‘Steven,’ I start to say, but then it’s like before. It’s like before when he did – that. I’m almost afraid to form complete sentences, in case it breaks this strange spell. This is what it must be like to be attracted to someone, and feel they’re attracted back, I think, but that seems so crazy I don’t want to disturb it.

He’s not attracted to me, I know it.

He’s just touching my bare hip with the tips of his fingers because I had a smudge there. He wanted to rub it off, and in all honesty he’s doing a great job of it. After a while, he puts his whole hand into the effort.

While I forget to breathe, briefly.

I have to forget to breathe, briefly. Firstly because I’m kind of terrified, but also because I’m sort of afraid that if I do take in oxygen, I’ll somehow disturb the insane trance he appears to have fallen into. And though I am many things: nervous nelly, complete weirdo, owner of a self-esteem so low it could pass for a potted plant, I’m not so foolish that I can tell myself I don’t want this.

In fact, I’m currently telling myself the opposite. I really want this to go further, and apparently I want it so much that I’m willing to reach up and grab his T-shirt – you know, just in case he decides to run away again, before I get what I’m after. Basically, if this is going to be my only chance at fucking Steven Stark, if tomorrow he’s going to be ashamed and embarrassed, then quite frankly I’m going to make the most of it.

Thankfully, he seems to like this idea.

He seems to like this idea a lot.

The second I get a fistful of that T-shirt, he does something I’ve only previously never imagined happening in any of my daydreams about him – mainly because it seemed so unbelievable it wasn’t actually worth picturing in my head.

So it’s a thrill to have it actually occur. It makes my insides leap 50 feet in the air, just to feel those soft, soft lips pressing gently against mine. Then pressing harder against mine. And then oh God then he parts them, a little bit, and everything is so slippery and warm and full of this desperate kind of fever.

He kisses me like this is the last time he’s ever going to kiss me. He kisses me like he’s been starving in the desert, and I’m a drink of ice cold water – complete with these breathless sort of groans that make all my hair stand on end. I must look like Billy Idol by the time he’s done, but if I do he doesn’t make a note of it.

He just keeps on kissing me in other places. Like in that sensitive spot just below my ear, and that even more sensitive spot where my throat slides into the curve of my shoulder. It’s almost unbearable to feel something so soft and wet just easing over the skin there, but obviously he knows how to make things worse.

Because then he bites that said same skin, and I think I kind of go nuts. At the very least, my two hands turn into reflexive claws. I dig my nails into places I do not mean to dig my nails into, like the meat of his upper arm, and some other innocent parts of him, and … OK, OK, maybe my other hand is somewhere around his arse. I do not know how it got there and after I’ve punctured it with my talons I’m somewhat regretful.

But what does he expect? He just bit me in a place I apparently really like to be bitten. Of course I’m going to squeeze him all over with angry, angry hands, when that happens. The fact that he seems to like it is just a bonus, really, on the end of my lustful need to explore him all over.

This is my only chance, I think, and then I squeeze that glorious arse all the harder. I actually slide my hand inside his shorts, just so I can feel how smooth his skin is – oh so very smooth – and how exciting it is to experience him all bare like this. Newsflash: it’s very exciting. It’s so exciting that I don’t even register his response, until it comes to me that he’s been very silent, for a good long while.

Maybe I crossed a line? Erections in the face are fine, as is random biting. But bare arse squeezing is right out? It’s possible, I suppose.

Though his expression doesn’t exactly read that way. It reads more like a really filthy book that’s missing pages four to 50. Suddenly, everything jumps from “oh hello, how are you?” to threeway anal – and he just wasn’t prepared, I don’t think. I’m pretty sure he thought things would be like they were last time, with me passively accepting his gracious bounty.

And now that they’re not, well …

‘Ohhhh yeah, baby, do what you want with me.’

Now that they’re not, everything is really awesome.

He lets me pull his T-shirt over his head. And it’s not like when we were in the water, and I had to be all careful in case I accidentally gave away a sexual feeling or a sense of delight at the feel of his bumpy parts. He seems to be actively encouraging my delight, in this instance. I squeeze his left pec and he makes a noise like a wounded animal, even though I don’t do it in any sort of normal, sensuous way.

I just fucking go for it, because he feels amazing.

And then, quite shockingly, he goes for me in the same manner. As though I feel amazing too. Of course, I know it can’t be true. I know I’m a massive flesh avalanche, according to him. But I can’t shake the feeling that him getting a handful of my right boob is a positive sign.

Especially when he follows it with, ‘Oh my God, your breasts are insane.’

I mean, call me crazy. But I don’t think that’s an insult. The word “insane” almost tilts things in that direction, but the throaty, groaning way he says it pulls it back. As do his absolutely frantic efforts to see more of them. He actually tears the material of my vest when it decides it doesn’t want to bend to his will, and suddenly I’m trapped with half of it around my right arm and the rest of it around my neck.

While he buries his face in my bosom.

And just when I’m wondering if he simply likes giant breasts, he does the same thing to the curve of my hip and the soft swell of my belly. He swamps himself in me until I’m afraid for his life. Any more of this and he could suffocate, but he doesn’t seem to care.

Neither do I. It feels so much more exciting than it probably sounds. I get the glancing edge of his teeth on every inch of my flesh, followed by long licks that turn me boneless. By the time he’s worked away around to the dimples just above my arse, I’m near beside myself. I’m not even ashamed of the sound I’m making.

Or of the things I’m doing to him, in return.

He’s completely naked, now. He’s not even wearing half his T-shirt or most of his shorts. I got the latter off around the time he made those long, slow circles around and around the dip of my belly button with his tongue, and his underpants went the same way. I just ruffled them down with my feet, until I could feel what I wanted to most:

His stiff cock, against the inside of my thigh. And then against the palm of my hand. And then in my mouth, before my brain or his vocal chords can summon a single protest. He jerks a little, like he’s stunned that I’m doing it, and he kind of makes a grunting noise that could be a word, if you squint hard enough.

But mostly he just does what my brain is currently doing:

He gives in to it, utterly. He revels in it, in a way I never thought he’d revel in anything I ever did. His back actually arches off the bed, and when I manage to glance up in between long, greedy licks, I can only make out the curve of his throat. He’s pushing the rest of his general head-area into the pillow, as though it’s all just a little too much.

And he’s right. It is. He tastes like heat, if heat can actually have a flavour, and he’s so thick it’s hard to take him all at once. I have to sort of work up to it, licking and kissing around the swollen head until I think I can do it, and then, just as I’m ready for him, his hips jerk up. His cock fucks into my mouth, too rough and too much, briefly.

Or at least, my head says it should be too much. My body is busy going nuts over the idea that Steven Stark is so excited he just accidentally shoved his big, swollen dick past my lips. And even better – he apologises, once he realises he’s done it. He says sorry!

I don’t know what turns me on more. The fact that he did it, or the fact that he strokes a hand through my hair and expresses regret, afterwards. Plus, his regret is really awesome.

It ends on this:

‘You just feel so fucking good, baby. Seriously, that hot little mouth of yours is getting me real close, embarrassingly fast.’

Which is perhaps the dirtiest, most excellent thing anyone has ever said to me during sex. I’ve never heard a man talk so frankly about getting close, or what might cause him to be close – though I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that Steven does it. He has a big mouth about everything else.

Why not this?

At least in the bedroom, it’s an utter and unmitigated delight. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Just take me, nice and easy.’ And I think I momentarily lose consciousness. A great swell of arousal destroys most of my lower body, and a good deal of the rest of me. The way he goes about urging me into sucking him simply finishes the job.

He keeps that hand in my hair, and just sort of rubs me into doing it. Then when I let him have a little lick, quick and sharp, he angles his cock with his free hand, to make it easier. He eases himself into my mouth, and, even better, he strokes himself while I do it.

Though I’m not sure if that’s out of necessity, or because it feels so good and looks so sexy I could die of it. I’m not even sure why, really – but it’s there just the same. This heated pulse of pleasure, every time he works his hand over his swollen shaft.

And another one, when I see how he’s looking at me as this goes on. Or more: how he’s looking at himself, as he masturbates and I suck him. After all, that’s kind of what he’s doing. He’s watching my mouth on him through slitted lids, and when he’s not watching that he’s watching his hand and his tensing thighs, and yes, I know I should find this vain or weird.

But somehow it’s not either of those things. It’s utterly hot and kind of like he can’t believe this is going on – which is probably why it’s hot. Apparently, I really like men who get so into sex they can’t stop looking at everything and touching everything, like it’s the first time they’ve done this.

Even though it can’t possibly be the first time he’s done this. I’ve actually seen him doing it with other people – but I’ll admit, it didn’t really look as intense as this does. For a start, he’s not eating a sandwich while it happens. And then there are also his words, his glorious, magical words.

‘Jesus, you’re sexy,’ he says.

And then he adds, ‘You make me fucking crazy.’

Which I might frame after this is over. I don’t have time right now, though, because apparently he’s tired of blowjobs, and wants to fling me around like a football. Or, more accurately, he pulls me up for a kiss that makes me think of a thousand things, like how sweet he might taste in his own mouth, and how satisfying it is to be so wanted that someone actually does impatient things that say they want you.

And then he pushes me back on the bed, and drags me tight to him with one big hand.

I wonder if I can frame that too. I particularly enjoy the way his palm slaps into the meat of my thigh – like he fucking loves the sound it makes, the feel of it, the way I gasp in a far too excited sort of way. And I love the way he yanks me.

So much so that I blurt out, rather embarrassingly, ‘Yes please.’

And of course he takes full advantage.

‘Please? What are you saying please for, huh?’ he asks, which is pretty much standard Steven practice. Once, I accidentally said hello when I meant goodbye, and he made fun of me for hours. He’s definitely going to make fun of me for this.

Thankfully, however, it comes in a much more exciting form.

‘Please, Steven, could you run your hands all over my body?’ he guesses, but he doesn’t wait for me to confirm or deny. He just tries it out, in one long, slow slide all the way from my collarbone, down to the underwear I’m still somehow wearing.

My favourite bit is the slalom around my breasts, which lingers long enough to cup both of them in a rough, can’t-help-himself sort of manner.

‘Or maybe it’s please, Steven, fondle my pussy. How about that?’

‘That’s … I like that.’

‘Uh-huh. Take those little shorts off for me, then.’

Oh God. Oh God. He’s too good at this game. This is supposed to be what I’m saying please for, but I’m pretty sure it’s exactly what he wants. And then I jolt beneath the weight of this theory – this revelation – because in truth I’ve never been sure of anything he wanted, before. Not when it comes to me, anyway.

But for once, I really know.

He wants to touch me there. He wants to see me. He can’t even wait for me to do as he’s asked – he just rips the shorts right off, when they’re at the halfway mark. And then once I’m completely naked – once I’m spread open for him – he sits back on his heels and takes everything in, in a way that should make me feel acutely self-conscious.

It doesn’t.

I’ve no idea why.

‘Ohhhh yeah. Look at that beautiful cunt.’

OK, maybe I have some small idea why.

‘You usually get this wet when you fuck someone?’ He pauses, closes his eyes. ‘Don’t answer, don’t answer. Lemme just think it’s all for me.’

It is all for him, but sadly I can’t say, now. Mainly because he’s told me not to answer, but also because he’s currently sliding one thick thumb through my slippery folds, stroking and exploring and just generally making me utterly mute.

When he sinks one finger into me, I move my lips around a sound that won’t come.

But that’s about it, in terms of vocalisation.

‘Ah, man. That’s so, so good. You like it, huh? You like me fucking into you, like this?’

I nod in reply, though I can see it’s not going to be enough for him.

And I’m right too – if in a really scary way.

‘Tell me you like it. Tell me you want me.’

For a second, I feel like the room has revolved. Like he is me and I am him. How many years have I spent aiming those same words at him, in my head? Too many to count. Too many to ever admit to, consciously or otherwise.

And now he’s saying them to me, as though they were on the tip of his tongue, all along. It almost makes me angry – like I should pay him back, for all the times I’ve longed to hear it and never have. But then, when I think about it, what am I paying him back for?

He never knew.

He still doesn’t know.

He’s just holding his breath, waiting for a no I’m never going to give. But it’s that possibility in his mind – that I might not, that I don’t, that I’m uninterested – that makes it easy to answer.

I’m not some fat chick he’s taking for granted. I’m something else. Something I’ve never even contemplated before.

Something worthy.

‘I want you so much,’ I tell him, and the look of insane relief on his face opens up a whole world for me. A great big worthy world where I’m beautiful and desirable and not the one who has to wait, or pretend I don’t have feelings.

It might just be for now, but I don’t care.

I’m taking it with both hands.

‘Do you want me?’ I ask, without the slightest doubt that he’ll answer me in a way that doesn’t hurt. It’s a startling sensation – this lack of fear, this ability to say whatever’s on my mind – but it’s a welcome one. It rubs against all the excitement and the arousal, until I’m a dirty-mouthed ball of flaming fire.

When he nods in this deliciously desperate, near mute-way, I counter with this:

‘Do you want my hot little cunt around your cock?’

Even though I’ve never used the word “cunt” before. I don’t think I’ve ever spoken it aloud, and it sounds alien and near-brutal in my mouth.

But brilliant, at the same time. It makes his eyebrows jump almost into his hair, and his body does this little weird jerking thing. As though the word came out of me and punched right into him. And once he’s processed what I’ve just said, he shoves out his own words.

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Fuck yeah.’

Though that doesn’t quite cover how he sounds, when he says it. He sounds like he would punch a bear, if a bear got in the way of this happening. He sounds so fierce I’d be frightened, if I wasn’t so turned on.

As it is, all I can manage is more lusty rambling.

‘Come on then, baby,’ I say. ‘Come on and have me.’

Though I’m not sure I expect him to actually do it. It feels like a dare, I think – until he produces 700 condoms from the back pocket of the shorts I recently yanked off him. And then it feels more like something that’s really going to happen. He’s going to fuck me, I realise.

I’m going to fuck Steven Stark.

But first, I get to watch Steven Stark put a condom on – which is actually much sexier than it sounds. Usually I get one in the eye before the whole thing’s done, or maybe the guy’s too anxious, and three hours of wrestling with latex sort of puts him off a bit.

This isn’t the case with Steven. Of course it isn’t. He’s some sort of condom expert, obviously. He’s put on so many of the things in his long, lurid sex life that he could do it blindfolded during a doomsday countdown. I think he actually does it one-handed, and so quick I’m not sure it’s happened.

I have to hold him off with one foot on his chest, just to double check.

Though doing this has some unintended consequences. Let’s put it this way: he isn’t pleased that I stop him in his tracks. His lips part and those eyelids of his get even heavier, until he’s looking at me like I’m a gazelle trying to leap away from him, on the plains. And then he says, ‘Oh, so you want to play it like that.’

Which isn’t all that good for my libido.

I think my libido swoons, and slides right off the bed.

‘What do you want me to do? Beg you?’

Oh God, wake up, libido, wake up! He’s saying things you’re gonna want to hear!

‘Maybe.’

‘Please, baby,’ he says, but oh, that’s not the best part. The best part is when he turns his head on the word baby, and bites at the ankle that’s far too close to his mouth. He bites at it, and then he works his way further down and licks.

The inside of my knee goes absolutely insane.

‘Just let me touch you …,’ he says, and as he does he runs a hand across my hip, and down over my leg. ‘Let me kiss you …’ For that one he presses his mouth to the inside of my thigh, though I confess I have no idea how he got there. Aren’t I supposed to be holding him at bay? I think I am, but I’ve completely forgotten why.

‘Let me make love to you …’

It’s hard to remember, when he says things like that. I mean, I know he probably says it to all the girls. He’s likely got business cards, with make and love written all over them. But for right now, I can easily pretend that he means it. The kiss I eventually let him have says he means it. And the way he holds me in his arms … That says it too.

He holds me so tight I can feel his heart, thudding through his chest and into mine – like in the water. His hands seem to span every part of my body, all at once … But that’s not the best part. The best part is that he does these things right the way through this long, slow slide into my body, and well into the sex, which isn’t like any other kind of sex I’ve had before.

It’s so easy, for a start. So soft and syrupy and easy. I’m used to fighting for every bit of pleasure and comfort I can find, but the only thing he makes me fight are the various parts of his body that pin me in place. I strain against the heavy weight of his chest, and the push of his amazing thighs.

And when it’s so good I can’t quite take it, he makes me take it with arms like iron bars. ‘No, no,’ he says. ‘Stay with me, stay with me.’

He can’t possibly know that staying with him is all I want to do. I might squirm and gasp and be unable to believe that something can feel this good, but the sane part of me knows I don’t really want to escape.

I’ll never have it better than this. He doesn’t plough into me. He rocks, in this insistent, deliberate sort of way. Like he knows just where all of my sensitive parts are. He knows how to fuck harder when I don’t want him to and grind to a halt just when I’m desperate for him to give me more, until I’m such a fucking mess I’m incoherent.

‘That good, huh?’ he asks me, and I answer by waving my hands.

I just hope he understands me.

‘Or maybe you need a little more of this …’

I don’t think he understands me. I definitely don’t need a little more of his thumb, on my clit. It’s bad enough that he’s fucking me with his enormous cock, while looking the way he does – practically gleaming with perspiration and absolutely covered in taut, flexing muscles – but to touch me there, to touch that little swollen too sensitive thing …

‘No not that,’ I tell him, but of course he does it anyway. He kneels over me like some golden, glowing god, face a picture of heat and excitement, cock still thick and swollen inside me … And then he just eases his thumb over my stiff clit.

Just a little. Just enough to make me cry.

‘Oh yeah. That’s it, baby. Give it up.’

He’s such a bastard, honestly.

‘You gonna come on my cock, huh? Yeah, do it. Do it. I want to feel it.’

So do I, in truth. I don’t think I’ve ever come on anyone’s cock, before. I’ve come on other things, of course, like my own fingers, or a vibrator, or the contents of the salad drawer in my fridge … But never a cock.

It’s a brand new experience for me – one in which I feel compelled to say his name, over and over again, and maybe struggle to get away for the second time. Luckily for me, however, he keeps right on holding me in place. He’s got one hand on my hip, and that’s pretty much all it takes to glue me to him.

While my orgasm rattles through my body like a runaway freight train.

Seriously, it’s the most intense sensation of my life. I think I kick him, in the middle of it. I know I try to squeeze the mattress into a pulp, with my forehead. And my back arches at such a funny angle I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to walk again.

But the best bit … Oh, the best bit is just what he talked about, a moment ago: the feel of him fucking me, through it. The feel of his big, fat cock easing in and out of my pussy, as my pussy shivers and tightens under the pressure of it.

It’s unbelievably good. Like squeezing a stress ball or punching an arsehole in the face.

And even better: he totally agrees with me.

‘Ohhhhh God,’ he says, followed by a bunch of other things that aren’t really words. And then he spreads himself back over me, and gives in to whatever he’s feeling in a great rush of fucking and feeling me and hot wet kisses that drive me insane.

He’s close, I think, then thrill at that thought. I’ve never known something like that so clearly, before. I’ve never seen it on someone’s face – in the way his brow is furrowed and his eyes are half closed and his mouth, oh God, his mouth – or felt it in the frantic way they’re fucking me.

And, most of all, I’ve never heard them gasp it in my ear, after the hottest 30 seconds of sex of my entire pathetic life.

‘I’m gonna come so hard,’ he tells me. ‘Baby, you make me come so hard.’

He says the last bit like a sob, like he can’t believe it … But that’s fine, because I can’t believe it either. He actually digs his nails into my hip, when it happens. And he groans, oh Jesus he groans so loudly. It’s almost like he’s panicking, though I can’t say I’m in any rush to calm him down.

I want to remember this for ever, and remembering it for ever means grinding the memory of him choking his way through orgasm right down into my mind. I want it so deep I can never dig it back out again, and as it turns out, that instinct is the correct one.

Because a second after he’s done with the sex and the seemingly sincere and oh so tender kiss at the end … The second he’s stroked my hair and started to say something I’m sure I’m going to treasure for ever … He hears a sound from up on deck, and does exactly what he did the last time.

He throws on all his clothes like a stripper in reverse, and darts for the exit.

Chapter Six

He doesn’t talk to me for the whole of the next day, so I know the way this is going to go. I think things almost went that way after the surprise oral sex, which makes it a little easier to take. I’d nearly gotten used to the idea. Now I just have to push myself the whole way. Pack up the evidence of my fling with Steven in a box marked that was awesome, thank you, and then go on with my life.

I can do that. I’m accustomed to doing that. Marvellous things I really want almost never come my way, and if they do they’re usually only doled out in half measures. If I want a promotion, I get a small end of year bonus, instead. If I’m expecting a surprise birthday party, I’ll come home to find the dog has pooped on the carpet.

Everything kind of works out in the end, in my tiny life of almost pleasures.

So it surprises me a little, how bitter I feel when he sidles up to me on the deck. Of course he waits until Jason and Kimberley are in the town centre, watching the fireworks decorating the night sky – probably so they won’t witness the scene he thinks I’m going to make. After all, there’s no point in secretly fucking someone if you have to discard her in public. Then everyone will know you did this terrible, disgusting, shameful thing.

God, why is it surprising me that I’m so bitter?

I should be more than bitter. I should kill him with the laser eyes that I don’t have.

‘Hey,’ he says, as though everything is cool. Like he just went for a jog on top of me the other day, and now we can vaguely hate each other again.

We can’t even get back the friendship we once had, as I’d been hoping. Now it’s all smashed to smithereens because he’s an arse and I’m an idiot who really wanted some sex. Lord, why did I want sex so badly with him? And brain, don’t you dare answer “because he’s hot and you love him and also he’s fantastic at it” either.

It just makes you sound like a 16-year-old girl.

As I still am, inside.

‘Everything OK?’

Ugh.

‘Sure.’

Why am I saying sure? I should noogie him.

‘Good, because if it wasn’t I probably couldn’t do this.’

In all fairness to him, the above piece of speech is some warning. The word “this” implies something is coming, so I should be prepared. And yet, somehow, I’m completely not. It’s really the last thing I expect him to do, despite the past week and all of its really obvious clues. I mean, he’s kissed between my legs.

Why is it a shock when he kisses me on the lips?

He doesn’t do it like it’s going to shock me. He just leans in as though it’s the most natural thing in the world, and presses his mouth to mine. His arm goes around my shoulders; his hand goes into my hair. It’s the real thing, even if I spend the next 30 seconds trying to tell myself otherwise.

Maybe he fell, I think, but if he did then why aren’t I helping him up?

He’s probably skinned his knees on my lip. I should definitely do something, but what? I can’t do anything while he’s still attached to me in this gentle, heated sort of way. I have to wait until he’s finished, but even after that happens I’m finding it hard to know what the best course of action might be. Now he’s looking at me in this confusing, unfamiliar manner. And touching my face.

And he’s saying things.

‘You look so beautiful, tonight.’

I’m wearing a poncho, and I plucked one eyebrow more than the other eyebrow.

I think he might have gone insane.

‘Steven …,’ I start, because I’m going to have to say something to him about this whole insanity thing. He needs to hear it from a friend, before they cart him away. ‘Here’s the thing …’

‘Oh God, there’s not a thing, is there?’

He looks genuinely disgusted by this idea. He even winces, like he tastes something bad.

‘Well …’

‘Is the thing that you’re still in love with your ex?’

‘What? No!’

‘Is it that you’ve realised I’m not boyfriend material, and you want to let me down gently?’

‘Oh my … That’s even more bizarre than your first question, just –’

‘It’s the sex, isn’t it? You hated the way I did the sex. I did it weird. Was it the noises I made? I know I make a lot of noises, but I swear I can tone them down for the next time.’

‘The next time? Steven – please, stop guessing. You’re hurting my brain.’

I can tell by his eyes that he’s deeply amused by all of this, but he at least has the decency to fold his hands one over the other, and appear in general like someone who’s taking everything seriously. He even gets the corners of his mouth to turn down.

And he says this:

‘Guessing totally stopped.’

‘Good.’

‘Unless you want to hear the one about you being an alien who needs to return to her home planet.’

‘I don’t.’

‘You sure?’

‘Positive.’

‘It has aliens in it. You like aliens, right?’

‘I do, but that’s beside the point – Steven, you just said, like, a million things that make no sense whatsoever. We can’t talk about aliens, right now.’

It’s true. We can’t. Talking about aliens is almost impossible, when your heart is trying to beat out of your chest and your best friend just kissed you and there are goddamn fireworks bursting over your head like a giant sign: This is a Romantic Moment.

The sign is wrong, however. People like me don’t have romantic moments, and even if they did, I doubt they’d contain snippets of conversation like the following:

‘Right, but it’s awesome when they come out of the ceiling, huh? I mean, you can admit that much. When she’s all like “oh my God the bleepy thing says they’re in the room” and then suddenly blargh rargh!’

I don’t know what’s worst about all of this: that he makes angry alien hand gestures when he says blargh and rargh, that he does Sigourney Weaver’s voice when he talks about the bleepy thing, or that I really want to join in and have a fun conversation with my best friend about the movie Aliens.

Like we used to.

In fact, he’s the person who introduced me to my deep love of that film. Or more: he told me it was about happy space pirates, and then let me hide behind him for two and a half hours while the whole horrifying plot played out.

He laughed a lot, at my trembling terror.

He’s laughing now, as I look at him like I want to kill him.

‘What?’ he asks, through an amusement so deep and total I can’t actually be angry at it. I don’t know how to be angry at Steven. He’s too happy go lucky, too fun, too everything I want to be all of the time.

I don’t want to work in a bank.

I don’t want to live this life.

I want to be awesome.

‘What is it, baby? Why do you always look like you hate me, now?’

I can’t stop the words that then come out of my mouth. They’ve been building for the better part of ten years, and he’s just popped the force-field around them. Now they’re big, and angry, and on the loose.

They make me raise my voice. They make me throw up my hands.

‘Because I do! Of course I do. You make me feel all of these feelings, and then you just fucking cut out on me, every single time. And that was OK, when it was just cookies and movie marathons, Steven, but it’s not OK when you fancy screwing me.’

‘Hold on a second – when have I ever cut out on you?’

I count all the occasions off on my fingers, one by one.

‘At my graduation ceremony, when you saw a duck that looked like a monkey, when I made you that pie and you ran out and ate 12 pizzas, after the – ’

‘OK, well, maybe I was a massive jerk all of those times – but when have I ever cut out on you after sex? Because honestly, I think I would have remembered that.’

I want to squeezes his head until it explodes. So much so that I get pretty close to his temples, with two claw-like hands. Only my need to continue with this conversation from hell stops me from getting all the way there – though my hands remain fixed in rigid, angry shapes.

‘It happened the day before yesterday, you dolt,’ I say, and discover to my dismay that my mouth is rigid and angry too. My words come out like toothpaste, squeezed from a dried-up old tube that’s almost done.

‘Huh?’

‘Oh my God, you can’t be this dense. You were right there with me when you flung on all your clothes,’ I say, but I can tell he isn’t getting it. So I elaborate. ‘You know – before anyone could catch you do something as awful and embarrassing as sex with a fat chick.’

The answering expression on his face is priceless, absolutely priceless. I think his eyebrows take off over the top of his head. His eyes get so big they could double for the moon – and then he explodes. He explodes into incredulity the size of the South of France.

‘You think that’s why I rushed out of there?’

I’m kind of hoping that’s why, now, though I suspect I may have been wrong on a few of my calculations. In fact, I’m getting this really sinking feeling that I may be a total idiot, in about a billion different ways.

‘Who exactly did you want to catch me, Judy? Your brother? Did you want your brother to come down and see you orgasming all over my cock? Because I tell you what, I sure don’t want my best friend anywhere near me while I’m making love to his sister.’

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Oh no.

‘Do you have any idea what your brother would do to me if he knew I’d been violating you all holiday?’

He pauses, but only for a second. I can tell he’s really on a roll, now. He’s using violent hand gestures, frantic nods … I’m never going to live this down. I mean, I knew this was a possibility. I even imagined it happening myself.

I just didn’t apply it to Steven’s Houdini routine.

Because I am an enormous idiot.

‘And that’s what he’d call it too – violating,’ Steven continues, and I know he’s right. He’s right on all of this, horrifyingly. ‘I’m not even sure if he lets himself believe you have a vagina. The other day, he asked if I thought a girdle would be a good birthday present for you. Of course I flee at the first sign of him noticing my angry manly feelings towards you.’

I have absolutely no idea how to answer these charges. So after he’s composed himself a little – or at least controlled his crazy breathing – I go with the first thing that comes to hand.

‘You have angry manly feelings towards me?’

I sound too quiet, and disbelieving, and I know it. But there’s nothing I can do about it. My heart is taking up so much space in my body my vocal chords are struggling just to get words out. They’ve been squeezed down to nothing.

‘Seriously, it’s like you’re talking another language. What sort of feelings did you think I was having, when I put my penis inside you?’

‘Pitying ones?’

It’s the wrong thing to say. He actually punches a person who isn’t there.

‘Pitying ones? What the fuck are you talking about?’

I think I might stay calmer, if he wasn’t kicking at nothing and making huge circles with his hands in the air. The circles make me feel like an even bigger idiot than I already do, and I just have to counter them with something of my own.

So I jab in the general direction of his chest.

And maybe say some words I will later regret.

‘Hey, man – this misunderstanding isn’t all my fault, you know. You’re the one who talked trash about some poor fat girl you fucked,’ I tell him, in a big satisfying rush of pent-up anger. Now he’s going to get the full force of my disapproval, instead of some polite bullshit handshaking. ‘Ha. Yeah. You thought I’d forgotten about that, didn’t you? Well, I haven’t, and I hold it up as undisputable proof that you don’t really like me at all. This is all just some weird game you’re playing.’

Let’s see how you deal with that, I think, but after a second I’m sorry I have.

His answering expression is very un-Steven-like. It’s old, almost, and kind of weary, and I’m not quite sure how to deal with it.

‘Judy, I didn’t realise I was talking trash about “some poor fat girl”. All that stuff I mentioned … I like that stuff, other than the part where she turned out to be a total maniac and I had to run away from her. But then, the reason I was willing to put up with her various other flaws is because I like curvy girls. I really like curvy girls.’ He pauses, right before the kicker. Then he delivers it, with all the punch he can muster. ‘Probably because of you.’

I think the world just tilted on its axis. Everything is sliding sideways, including me. All I can see is fireworks, and I’m not even looking up. I’m just rolling with the earth as it slowly turns upside down and inside out.

‘Are you OK? Do you … Do you need to sit down? It’s kind of hot out here … I’ll get a fan. Or do you want a cold drink? Maybe a cold drink will –’

‘Stop talking about cold drinks.’

‘OK.’

‘I want to talk about this.’

‘Are you sure? Because I think it’s really disturbing you.’

Honestly, they should call him the amazing Steven Stark. How on earth did he guess a thing like that, when I’m barely able to hang on to planet earth?

‘It is, but I still want to know: what do you mean by probably because of you?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’

‘If it were obvious, Steven, I wouldn’t be crouching a little bit because my knees no longer want to hold me up.’

He nods, with something like sudden understanding.

‘Oh, that’s what you’re doing. I thought you needed the bathroom.’

‘Shut up.’

He tries to smother his resultant laughter behind one hand, and fails. Which seems more like an intentional thing on his part, seeing as how massive his hands are. Surely if he wants to keep his laughter down, he could manage it?

Or at the very least, he could manage to not blow my mind.

‘OK, OK,’ he says, in such a simple way. We could be talking about him giving me a ride to the cinema, if it were not for his follow-up comments: ‘It’s just … You know. You drive me crazy. You’ve always driven me crazy.’

I think my mind is now all over the floor.

‘And you don’t think it might have been a good idea to maybe tell me this? I’ve spent the last ten years pining for you like an idiot, you idiot.’

It’s easier to say it with the two idiots in there. But it doesn’t look easier for him to accept. He stops laughing almost immediately, and then goes one further than that – his face sags, like one of my punches finally connected.

‘You’ve pined for me?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Don’t say maybe if the answer’s yes.’

Now he’s put me in a pickle. The safety of maybe is calling to me, but if I go with it the terrible expression on his face might deepen. He looks heartbroken, I think, and that’s what ultimately decides me. It’s like seeing myself over the last ten years, and wanting more than anything to erase all of those aching, lonely feelings.

I can do it, if I reach out now.

I can take them away from him.

‘Then the answer’s yes.’

‘You pined for me?’

‘Of course I did … Steven, you must have been aware, on some level, that this little doof following you around had a crush on you,’ I say, but even I don’t believe this now. He clearly had no idea, and even more frightening: I think he might have felt the same way, all this time.

In fact, I now know that he felt the same way, all this time.

It’s why the world revolves, and he is me and I am him.

It’s why he says things like this:

‘Honey, until you got mad at something I possibly implied I had no clue that anything I said had any effect on you at all. Mostly when I say things, you smirk, roll your eyes, or blank me.’

Oh God, it’s true. I do. But how was I supposed to know these reactions were bad? I thought it was of vital important to seem indifferent to him, at all times. If he’d found out that I secretly adored him, he might have … He could have …

OK, now I realise that he would have probably just dated me.

But the point is I didn’t know this before. I thought he was indifferent to me.

‘But then you got so mad and I thought … I don’t know. Maybe you did like me, kinda. And I wasn’t about to pass that up. I got tired of passing you up, for various probably stupid reasons: you seemed to hate me, your brother might kill me, I knew you when you were pretty young and that’s kind of creepy …’

I don’t want to tell him that those are probably really excellent reasons. He might take all of this back, if I do. And besides, I completely don’t hate him and I’ll kill my brother if he tries to kill Steven, so that’s two out of three.

The third is slightly weirder.

‘What do you mean, kind of creepy?’

‘Well … You know. You were just this little gawky kid and I was like your other big brother. And then suddenly … Suddenly you weren’t a little gawky kid any more.’ He hesitates, but this time I really hate him for it. Because I’m holding my breath, and any delay could potentially mean the end of my life.

And then he speaks, and all I can think is it would be worth it, to die on this note.

‘You threw me such a curveball when you turned into this amazing woman, overnight. I didn’t know what to do with myself around you, any more.’

I know what he did. He told a lot of fart jokes, and got me in a lot of headlocks. He played the fool for the better part of ten years, and worse: I believed him. I let him keep me at arm’s length for so, so long, just so I didn’t have to be scared of myself and how I look and what he might think of me.

And now that I know … Now that I know, I’m still too afraid to speak.

So I guess it’s good that he says it all for me.

‘But I think I have an idea, after all this time. At the very least, I know I should start by telling you that I’m not embarrassed to be with you. I don’t care who knows that I’m crazy about you, even if it’s your brother and he kills me. And most of all, you should definitely be aware of the one thing that made me come here – that always makes me want to come to the place where you are. I love you, Judy.’

Did he really say that? He can’t have really said that.

‘I love you so much.’

I think he did just say that.

‘I love you to distraction.’

He said it so hard that I really need to say it back, only I can’t because of the ten years and the catalogue of errors and my heart, which feels so bruised and battered I don’t know if it will ever beat again. I’m still stuck in Frank mode.

I can’t get into this gear, where I suddenly get everything I’ve always wanted.

Life doesn’t work that way, I think.

Until he takes my face in both his hands, and kisses me, kisses me, kisses me. He doesn’t kiss me with half of his strength, or part of his feelings, or with some tiny bit of something which is all I’m ever allowed. He kisses me with everything he’s got.

And I give everything I’ve got back.

I don’t have to live half a life, any more.

‘I love you,’ I say, with every ounce of strength I have. ‘I love you, Steven Stark.’

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