When Laura was young, she was obsessed with Barbie dolls. She’d had seven or eight of them, and she spent all her time mixing and matching their outfits, styling their hair. She’d been friends with a girl called Mindy Heller back then. Mindy had a Star Wars Luke Skywalker figurine, plus two Action Men. Mindy was the kind of girl who preferred to climb trees than style hair, but at the time Laura was the complete opposite. When they were seven, Mindy told Laura all about sex, by demonstrating as graphically as she could using Luke and the Action Men and her Barbies. She described the whole thing in great detail, and Laura hadn’t realised until a few years later, when they’d started biology at school, that Mindy’s descriptions had been so accurate. Mindy had moved away after her parents split up, and Laura had often wondered what happened to her and how it was that she’d known such explicit, accurate details about sex at such a young age. Laura’s own mum hadn’t told her anything until she was nearly eleven.
‘You know about how to make babies yet?’ Laura’s mum had asked, casually stirring a saucepan of Bolognese sauce. Laura was setting the table, glad that her back had been turned when her mum said the words all pre-teens dread.
‘Yes,’ Laura said quietly. ‘I know about periods, about intercourse and about giving birth. Is there anything else?’
Laura’s mum laughed. ‘You seem to have it covered, love. You know I’m here if you’ve got any questions.’
Laura took glasses out of the cupboard and laid them on the table. She wondered if her brother had already had sex. She wondered if he’d tell her about it. Mindy Heller had told her that it hurt. She wondered how she knew that, if it was just something she’d been told.
Blinking away the memories, Laura lies back on the blanket. Mark is lying flat out, one arm thrown behind his head. His eyes are closed and he’s snoring gently. The sun casts speckles of light across his cheeks. He was up all night playing something on his PS4 that Laura had never heard of. He’s been dozing for half an hour, while Laura has been sitting looking out at the river, daydreaming. The place is so still, so quiet. The noise of the weir is a faint burble in the distance. The leaves on the trees barely ruffle, except for the occasional flutter of a bird in the trees or something scurrying in the undergrowth.
Was it going to happen today?
Laura’s stomach flips, thinking about it. She’s looked stuff up online, making sure she used the incognito window on Google so that her search wouldn’t get saved. ‘Does it hurt the first time?’ ‘Can I get pregnant the first time I have sex?’ ‘How long does sex last for?’ ‘How long should I wait before having sex?’ ‘What does spunk taste like?’
Laura wanted to ask Hayley these questions, but she wasn’t sure she could trust her not to go and tell the rest of the school. Laura has changed since her days of Barbies and her sex education from Mindy. When Mindy left, Laura gradually became more like her – more tomboyish, less girly – as if trying to replace the friend who was missing. Doing karate meant she mixed with boys a lot, but in a different way – she didn’t spend her time obsessing over pictures of celebrities and pop stars in magazines. She could throw a boy twice her size and weight onto the ground with a hand on an elbow and a simple flick of her wrist.
But something else changed inside her when she saw Mark looking at her that day across the assembly hall. His eyes seemed to burrow deep inside her; the small smile on his face had made blood rush to her head. Then someone had nudged him in the ribs and he’d turned away. That was it, until that night at Karen’s party, when she’d been too shy to talk to him. She was glad he wasn’t so timid that day he’d come up to her in the park and asked if she fancied a walk. And then a few days later when he’d been hanging around at the bottom of her street, and they’d ended up at the Marchmont Lodge and the shows . . . Had he been waiting for her? She was too nervous to ask.
Laura leans across Mark’s sleeping form and takes a can of drink from the rucksack. She pops the tab on the Fanta and takes a swig. The noise wakes him up.
‘Hey you . . . Have I been asleep? Why didn’t you wake me?’
‘You looked like you needed the rest. Besides, you’re no use to me if you can’t stay awake.’ She flips a leg over, straddles him, pins him to the ground. She shuffles her body down until her pelvis is aligned with his; she leans forwards, staring down at him, her long hair trailing down either side of his face. He grins, and she feels him growing hard beneath her. She shifts slightly, and he wriggles beneath her.
‘Am I hurting you?’
He laughs. ‘Not in the way you think.’ He places his hands on her bare elbows. ‘Take your T-shirt off. Go on. There’s no one here, and we’re away from the path, if anyone turns up.’
Laura’s heart starts to race. She lifts her arms above her head, crosses them back down, taking hold of her T-shirt at both sides. She pulls it slowly over her head, drops it at her side. She hears Mark take a breath. Feels him shift beneath her. His hardness is becoming uncomfortable.
‘Fucking hell,’ he whispers. ‘Your body is . . . You’re beautiful.’ He curls up, pulls her down on top of him. The kiss is frantic, deep. He pushes her back up, his hands on her breasts, flips the cups of her bra down, just enough. His fingers are on her nipples and she hears herself moan. He pushes her off, climbs on top of her. She lets him slide a hand up the leg of her shorts, inside her knickers. His fingers explore her, gently, tantalisingly, until she can’t take it any more. It’s happening so fast. Faster than she imagined. Her face burns, her breath is coming out in small, jagged gasps.
‘Can I . . . Are you ready?’ Mark says. His voice is thick with lust.
‘Yes. Please, yes. Have you . . . ?’
He pulls himself up onto his knees and takes a square foil packet from the pocket of his shorts, yanks her shorts down, her knickers going with them. She feels exposed, wants to cover herself up – but only for a moment. Then it passes. He looks down at her, and the look in his eyes is dark and delicious, and Laura thinks she might melt into the blanket. He pulls down his own shorts and his boxers . . . and he springs out. She’s surprised at the size of it, at the colour of it . . . He rips the condom packet with his teeth, and rolls it in his fingers. Pulls it down in one swift, practised move. She knows he’s done this before, but she doesn’t care. She wants someone who knows what he’s doing . . .
He leans forwards, places his hands at either side of her head, and kisses her again. She feels the tip of him pushing against her. He pulls away, just slightly, says, ‘Are you ready? Are you sure?’
She makes sure she says it clearly, definitely: ‘Yes.’
She’d thought she was ready, but she doesn’t expect it to feel like this – like something too big for a small space, pushing through layers and barriers into a place it’s not meant to go. There’s a sharp pain, and then he pulls back a bit, slowly, carefully, before pushing back in. Then it’s a delicious, numbing pain that sends her senses into overdrive. The movement, the feeling that she’s doing something so intense, so . . . carnal. She lifts her legs and wraps them around his back and the feeling changes to something that she could never have imagined.
Mindy Heller hadn’t told her about this.
It’s over too soon. She was just warming up.
‘Give it a few minutes, then we can do it again,’ Mark says, panting. He’s lying behind her, spooning her, a hand draped across her breasts.
Laura drops her hand down behind her, in between his legs.
‘You sure you’re not ready again, now?’
He leans in closer and starts to kiss the back of her neck. ‘You’re a wee nympho, aren’t you? I fucking knew you would be.’
Laura flinches slightly at the change in his tone, but she’s enjoying herself so she lets it pass.