The report was a press conference, an interview, a tribunal. Five of them gathered again in Ewan’s parents’ sitting room and a speeding slam of questions for Sally.
“So you kissed her?”
“Not at first.”
“But you did.”
“After a bit. Yes.”
“Oh God! Gross.”
Andrea thought it was vile. Even though she’d agreed and smiled and approved all along, she still thought it was gross. Would never have done it herself, so she said now. Though Sally wasn’t quite sure how snogging Janine Marsden could be so much worse than giving blowjobs to five of the guys in their year, five guys they’d known since they were just little kids. But then Andrea’s view of what was gross was slightly different from Sally’s. Sally probably wouldn’t want Will sitting there with his hand halfway up her shirt either. Probably. At least not while Daniel was paying such close attention.
“Yeah, but who kissed who?” Ewan wanted to know.
“Well, I did what Will said.”
“Arm round her back, looking at her lips … ”
“All of that, just like you told me. And then we kissed. I don’t think it was me or her. We just kissed. Each other.”
“And?”
“I really don’t want to know.”
“Shut the fuck up, Andy, we do.”
The boys did want to know. Understood from their reading of cheap porn and Daniel’s cousin’s movie collection that they were supposed to care. Hot girl-on-girl action, the fastest way to a red-blooded boy’s heart. Actually Will wasn’t so interested in the kissing or any fumbling touch Sally was about to describe, he wanted to know where Janine was now, what she was thinking, feeling now. The lezzie part of it was irrelevant as far as he was concerned, it just made for better prospects in the longterm, moved them on a little further to the next point.
Ewan didn’t really care either. Well, he did, but only in so far as he would have wanted to kiss Sally himself. Wanted to be the one kissing Sally. Wanted to be the one snogging Sally, shagging Sally, fuck knows, maybe even loving Sally. Not that he’d say so here or now, but he had hopes. Daniel, however, did care about the girl sex thing. Someone had to. “OK, so real kissing, proper snogging, tongues and all?”
“Tongues and all.”
“And then?”
And then Sally had felt something, something she didn’t mean to feel, hadn’t expected to feel – except maybe she had. Maybe she had known that was what she would feel and that was why she was so scared to do it and that was why she was so interested in the line of Andrea’s breasts and the way Andy’s Aunty Jane laughed with her head pushed right back and her neck so exposed and how Mrs Stirling looked when she smiled in the kitchen and how she liked Will’s Nana Tilly’s army stories, all those women working together and no boys hassling them, goading them, and how his nan had said it was one of the best times of her life. The best time of her life. And maybe that was why, when Will first suggested the dare and Andy had said she was going to throw up at the thought and the other guys had just laughed so loud, maybe that was why Sally had said yes, OK, she’d do it. Please. Maybe she wanted to do it. Back then, years ago, when it had been playing kissing and again now. Maybe she still did want to do it. And now she felt sick too. Sick the others would be able to see, sick she’d have to tell them, sick that maybe Janine knew and understood and had found her out. When Sally had only just found herself out. So much going on in her brain, mouth opening slowly, one word at a time, careful now not to implicate herself. Listening to the question and giving the right answer.
“Then nothing really.”
“What?”
“Nothing really … much. Sorry, I freaked. It was too weird. I took off, went home for my tea and then came here. Like we agreed. Thursday night, it’s what we do.”
“Well, thank fuck for that.”
Big sigh from Andrea, relieved that her only proper girl friend, the only girl she could bring herself to hang out with, and then mostly because it meant she got to be with all the guys without looking like a total slut, wasn’t really such a fucking dyke after all. Andrea so scared of guilt by association. Sally guilty by association.
“No, hold on, Andy. That definitely wasn’t the deal. You were supposed to do a bit more than that, Sally.”
“Do something anyway.”
“And snogging is not something.”
Sally worried they’d send her back, make her try again, force her to feel it again. “Yeah, OK, well, it was a bit more than snogging.”
All ears, all eyes, hands poised on jeans-knees. “What?”
Sally chose to tell them what they wanted to hear. Told them what she had imagined before now. Pictured and not even dared to tell herself she was thinking. Seeing herself fucking Ewan, who she certainly would, she’d thought about it often enough, though usually she imagined he was softer, smoother. Girlier. More girl.
“We … touched.”
“Yes?”
“What?”
“Where?”
“How?”
The who was a given.
“Well, you know. I sort of … we just did stuff. I did, I mean. And then she did stuff back.”
“Stuff?” A giggle and a snort, eyes rolled, lips licked.
“You started it?”
“You guys told me to. But Janine did more, way more. Like she knew what to do, I mean, of course I didn’t know what to do. You know that. That’s the whole point of all this, right? But she did. She touched me.”
“Where?”
“Here.” Points. Lies. “And here.” Indicates, physical untruth. “And … you know … there.”
Will smiled, Andrea was disgusted, Daniel enjoyed the demonstration, wished it had been his idea, wished he’d though of it before Will, wished he thought of anything before Will, except that he kind of had, started it all that day in the playground, it was just Will had taken it further, always took it further. Ewan was unsure, waiting, worried about what next.
And then Will moved them on, giving orders. “Right then. And she’s coming over later?”
“Yeah. She said she would.”
“That’s good enough for me. Phase Two, kids. Ewan, go get some juice.”
“What?”
“Orange juice or something. Your parents have juice in the fridge, don’t they?”
“Um, yeah … fresh. For the Vitamin C.”
“Whatever. Get juice. Andy’s got vodka and I … ” rummage in his back pocket, sleight of hand and proud flourish “ … have speed. Phase Two.” Another burst of his favourite song, Andrea and Daniel exchanged irritated glances, and Will patted himself on the back at his own brilliance.
Later that night, fucking Ewan in his father’s surgery, smell of alcohol wipes in the room and vodka-and-orange on their breath, acid stomach from the couple of speed balls they’d each taken, Sally opened her eyes wide against the picture behind her lids. She’d completed the task, achieved her dare and so she got to have Ewan after all. Sally was sixteen now and her first fuck was well past its due date. Ewan was her coming-of-age gift from the group, her extra prize for completing the birthday task. Sally didn’t want to think about Janine, not now, not again, and brought her mind back to the present. To what she was doing and where she was doing it and how she really did like Ewan. She thought about where she was and why she was and she also wondered if this was it. If, after all this time of pretty much liking Ewan, this was it. At sixteen Sally knew a great deal about how much she didn’t know. And now, in the surgery, grinding away at each other, she had to ask herself if this was it. Even with the weirdness after what had happened earlier and knowing most people had a pretty routine first time – her sister had, even Andy said she had – she did wonder. If perhaps that hadn’t been it, this afternoon, at the formica table, that moment with Janine. Sally didn’t know, but she kept her eyes open anyway.
Later that night, fucking Sally, Ewan delighted to be fucking Sally, delighted to be here and now and so glad to take his mind off everything else, all the other shit that had brought them here. This was where he wanted to be. But then again, right now he wasn’t really thinking about Sally or Janine or any of the others. Nor did he know that Sally wasn’t really with him, Ewan couldn’t tell her thoughts were so far away, he was too scared and surprised and uncertain himself to notice her all that much. He hadn’t said, of course, how could he tell that lot his truth? He’d told a story ages ago about some girl on their family’s French holiday two years back, but this time was his first too. Terrifying, this first. And just odd really. Ewan hoped it was going to get better. Practise maybe, that might help. He wondered if Sally would want to try again. Later. Sooner.
Much later that night, Janine Marsden wondered to herself about how things worked out. How nice this afternoon had felt, how hopeful she’d been, waiting for Sally to come back and pick her up. Pleased and hopeful and then unsure, all over again so unsure. Janine covered her mouth with her hand, balled fist, tight fist, and held it all in and wondered if she really was what they said she was and if so, perhaps all she needed to fix it was to shag some bloke, every bloke. She wondered what made them think she was such a lezz, when all she’d ever done with another girl was kiss, just kiss, soft kiss, slow kiss. Janine wondered about it all, where it had started and who had started it and if it was all her fault as they said it was. She was hurting and sad and lonely and so tired of it all. Her mouth opened and closed again, and no words came out, she didn’t know how to say them anyway and the day and night were running through her head and then it was too much and then she stopped thinking. It was easier that way.