Oh god. Look, I know what you’re thinking, OK?
1. SHE’S A LESSSSSBIAN.
2. That slut’s meant to be with Nico.
Yeah, I know, on both counts. It sounds so, so hollow but sometimes things really do JUST HAPPEN. This was one of those things. It was like we had magnets for mouths. I know this wouldn’t hold up in court but it really did feel out of our control.
Another true thing is that if something is a little bit taboo or naughty or exotic it is automatically, I’d estimate, a hundred times more appealing. In that moment, with her lips brushing mine, I couldn’t not kiss her. I’d never felt a rush of electricity like it. You could have charged your phone off us.
And you know what? It was hot. Sort of different and sort of the same. Her full lips, even her tongue, were softer somehow, although the kiss was no less hungry than Nico’s. It was weird. I was so used to Nico’s stubble. Her skin was so, so smooth; it was like double cream.
A trapdoor in my tummy opened and my heart plummeted straight through to my feet. In a split second I was high on the kiss: the whole cubicle spun like a waltzer and I had to grip the graffiti-strewn wall for support.
The second or two the kiss lasted for felt like years, like one of those parallel worlds in every science-fiction book ever where time moves more quickly. We lived a lifetime in that moment and that was the time it took for me to snap out of it and realise what I was doing.
Flowery prose over. The smell of bleach dragged me out of it. I was snogging Polly on a toilet. Clearly a no-no.
I pulled away. I couldn’t find any words so I just half smiled, half grimaced. Polly, thank the baby Jesus, had her shit together. ‘Wow,’ she said with a broad grin. ‘Mancini’s a lucky guy. You’re a great kisser.’
Was that it? I didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.
‘Thank you?’
Polly rose and offered me a hand up. ‘Relax, Toria, I don’t think you can catch gay off a toilet seat,’ she said with a wink. ‘You were the last of my friends I hadn’t snogged. Glad I did though!’
She was lying, I could tell. That girl had more front than Brompton Pier. She was playing it down, playing it safe. Reducing the kiss to a game or a dare made it harmless fun. Well, it didn’t feel harmless to me. Already guilt was corroding my insides.
‘Come on,’ she said. She checked herself over in the mirror to make sure it looked like she hadn’t been crying. The cutting, the kiss – all forgotten in an instant. Polly Wolff is a typhoon – she hits hard when she hits but blows over in minutes. ‘I’ve had an amazing idea. Will you come into town with me?’
I didn’t want to be all BUT WHAT ABOUT THE KISS? WHAT DOES IT MEAN so instead I said, ‘Sure.’
‘No! Polly you CAN’T!’ I said, jaw hanging open.
‘I can. They won’t even ask how old we are. I’ve got the money, why not. If I’m going to **** with my skin, I might as well get something pretty to show for it.’ We were standing outside Jack of Hearts, the local tattoo and piercing parlour. The whir of the needle from within was far too like the dentist’s drill for me to be comfortable. ‘I mean look at me. This was bound to happen sooner or later. Cliché, remember?’
‘But don’t you think you should think about it? It’ll be on your skin forever. What’ll it look like when you’re eighty?’
‘Which part of me do you imagine will look good when I’m eighty?’ It was a valid point. ‘And I’ve wanted a tattoo for ages. It’s just that now I know what I want. Something that means something.’
‘Are you sure? What will your parents say?’
‘They won’t know. And my dad might be able to take away our crazy golf, but he can’t do **** about my body.’
‘OK … if you’re sure.’ We entered and a little bell jingled over our heads. I’m not going to lie, I was pooping myself a little. I had never felt younger or more out of place. Aside from my ears, I’d never even had anything pierced, and I had those done at Claire’s Accessories.
An incense stick smoked from the wall but failed to entirely mask the smell of disinfectant. A girl who was more tattoo than skin popped up at a reception desk. ‘OMG, Polly! Hi, babes! How are you, darling?’
‘Oh my god! Bree! I didn’t know you worked here.’
God, how small was this town? The pair of them chatted away and I wondered, I confess, if they’d got it on. Any worries I had about us being underage melted away: clearly Bree wouldn’t challenge her.
‘What are you having done?’ Bree asked finally.
‘I want a daisy,’ Polly said.
I sat at her side as she had it done. She had to take off her bra and sat with her T-shirt pressed to her chest for modesty. For someone who had spent a significant amount of time cutting herself, Polly wasn’t great with pain and clutched my hand until it went numb. The artist, Pablo, didn’t speak brilliant English, so he worked diligently and the tattoo quickly took shape. It was quite, quite incredible. In my head tattoos weren’t art, but this was almost photorealistic. I couldn’t believe it. It was a simple pink daisy with a single green stem. It grew alongside Polly’s ribcage. The detail was unbelievable. As a final touch, a single petal fell from the flower, dancing free on some imaginary breeze. A petal representing our Daisy.
‘Do you like it?’ Polly said after we were finally finished – three hours later. She looked a little woozy and I thought we should probably get her a cup of very sweet tea. Pablo was smearing some ointment on the tattoo. The skin looked red and sore but the tattoo was beautiful.
‘It’s really, really gorgeous,’ I said, and I meant it.
I couldn’t sleep that night, my head full of the kiss. Well, that and some bloody earworm novelty song I couldn’t purge. I was too hot. I kicked the duvet off and sprawled across my bed like a starfish. Nico hadn’t texted to wish me goodnight either and that made me sad. Busy, busy mind. Niggly Noos.
One thing at a time. The kiss. Thinking about it made … let’s just say there was a physical reaction. I was not gay. I didn’t think being gay was a bad thing … I don’t want to be all like ‘some of my best friends are gay’, but some of my best friends were gay! It didn’t make sense. I loved Nico’s boy chest and big shoulders and good arms and I especially liked his willy.
What? I really did.
Did one urgent toilet-based kiss make me bi? I suddenly understood Polly’s loathing of labels. Putting a name to myself wasn’t making the weirdness go away, so what was the point? I can honestly say I’d never looked at another girl and thought PHWOAR, but I similarly couldn’t deny the kiss had … aroused me. There was no other word for it.
I thought about Scarlet Johansson and Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, actively trying to get myself going. Although I liked the idea of smooth hairless skin and soft curves, it wasn’t the same as the idea of a square, hard boy body. It occurred to me for the first time how much I like to feel smaller and more delicate than the people I get it on with. But wasn’t that true of Polly? Thinking back to the toilet cubicle, to how much further it could have gone … it made me feel wild. Wild in a good way, wild like standing naked in the garden in the middle of a storm.
Wide awake, blinkers off. Sleep was miles away.