Sixteen
Attempting to prepare a rebuff in her head, Beth was comforted by his next sentence. ‘We, my lovely, shall lie and gaze at the stars, and I shall educate you on their names.’
With this, he led her over to a patch of grass, where he lay down and patted the ground next to him.
Of course, the night sky in the southern hemisphere is entirely different to the night sky in the northern hemisphere, and the truth was, he had not a single clue what was what. However, they passed the time with him telling stupid stories about the names of the stars and her giggling as much as her injured face would allow. Every so often he would stop and look at her. Once, he gently stroked her face and asked, ‘Is it still sore?’ Slowly he began to melt the ice she’d allowed to form around her heart since the loss of Mandy.
They lay there for well over an hour. Beth completely lost track of the time. James was funny and kind and, more importantly, he made not a single sexual move towards her. After a while, they both began to complain they were achy from laying on the grass and, glancing at James’s watch, she noted it was probably safe for her to return to her room.
‘OK, sweetheart. Take care.’ He lightly tilted her chin and stared into her eyes.
Beth began scrabbling around, trying desperately to get up.
James seemed unfazed by her actions. With the most tender of pecks to her cheek, he offered his hand and helped her to her feet, asking in a silly voice, ‘Shall I walk you home, madam?’
Her ‘home’ was, of course, a matter of steps away. ‘I’ll be fine. But …’
His eyes sought hers again. ‘Yes?’
‘Thanks.’
‘For the astronomical lecture?’
‘For being a gentleman.’ She returned the peck on his cheek, feeling a touch of bristles on her lips.
Entering their room, Beth found Michelle sleeping alone. There was no sign of Andrew, and she was glad of that, whatever had gone on in their bunk was over, and she was delighted not to have been privy to it.
Their days were spent on the beach (Beth made sure to wear a large hat and plastered factor 50 on her face). Their evenings passed in a variety of bars and clubs with their new friends. In the two weeks since they’d arrived, James had become a firm favourite for Beth. Unlike the girls, he had a working visa, he’d been in Australia for months and currently had a job cleaning cars. But he was always free in the evenings.
One night a group of them decided to pool their money and cook a meal in the hostel kitchen, for all the gang. The planning of this event took the few of them without jobs the entire day to complete. Michelle was the most verbal regarding what they should and shouldn’t eat. In the end, they produced the largest tuna pasta bake anyone had ever seen. It spanned at least five casserole dishes of all shapes and sizes. As the workers slowly returned to the hostel, weary and hot from their variety of jobs, they were told to report to the kitchen at 7 p.m. James came ‘home’ at about five. His clothes were soaked, as always, and Beth admired the way his wet T-shirt clung to his rather pleasing abs. Nothing further had happened between them since the night they’d lain gazing at the stars. He’d been lovely towards her. He was friendly and, on occasion, playfully affectionate. But whilst the entire hostel seemed to be breaking out into a hedonistic pleasure dome of sex around them, he’d not made one suggestion that she might like to take things further. She’d therefore concluded from this that he liked her merely as a friend. Initially, she’d been pleased about this. It meant there was to be no embarrassing incident when he attempted to have sex with her, and she had to politely turn him down. However, more and more frequently, she was beginning to find his tight muscly stomach somewhat distracting, and it occurred to her, fleetingly, that maybe, just maybe, sex with James wouldn’t be such a huge let down as it had been with Mario. After all, half the inhabitants of the hostel were at it every night, and the other half wanted to be, it simply couldn’t be as awful as she remembered, could it?
‘This is nice. You lot did a good job.’ James was shovelling tuna pasta bake in to his mouth at speed. They were all eating in the largely overgrown garden at the side of the hostel.
‘You like it?’
‘Definitely.’
‘You’re not just being polite?’
‘No way. It’s kind of nice to come back to a home cooked meal. It makes us like family. Don’t you think, sweetheart?’ He’d taken to calling her sweetheart or love, and she found it gave her a warm feeling.
‘Yes. It was fun cooking it today, although I didn’t have a great deal of say in what went on. It was homely, you know?’
With a big grin on his face, James declared, ‘I love it here. It’s very different from my life before.’ His teeth glowed white next to his tanned face. Without giving it much thought, Beth reached up and touched his cheek. It was warm and, as before, slightly bristly. Embarrassed, she snatched her hand back. ‘Sorry.’
His response to her apology was to carefully place his plate of food down on the grass next to him, and take hold of her hand. Gently, he rubbed it against his cheek. ‘No need to apologise, love.’ With his other hand, he gently stroked her own cheek, which was mercifully no longer as dry as an old leather purse. Then, just like that, he dropped her hand back into her lap and resumed eating his tuna pasta bake.
Beth was left with major flutters in her stomach. Intimacy was not something she was familiar with, but her hand longed to return to his face. If only she could be as confident as Michelle. She was nothing but a clumsy teenager, with no idea what to say or do. All she knew was, for the first time ever, she wanted to explore the possibilities.
The next day, Beth was wondering if she ought to talk to Michelle about James. She was ridiculously inexperienced when it came to things like this, and she knew there was no point asking Lisa. She would either say – go ahead and shag him or – what would he see in you? Depending on what kind of mood she was in.
When Beth next bumped into Michelle though, she wasn’t alone. She was chatting in the garden with Sabine. Sabine was a German girl who’d been at the hostel for about a week. Michelle had gotten friendly with her, and they’d begun spending a lot of time together. Beth didn’t like to judge or be unkind, but she thought Sabine was rather promiscuous. She’d observed Sabine disappearing off to the old abandoned laundry room on three separate occasions already, and she was never accompanied by the same man twice. Beth had the experience of Mandy in her heart to remind her sex was a dangerous thing, and she just couldn’t help it, as far as she was concerned, Sabine was not a good person to befriend.
As soon as Sabine left the garden, Beth found herself saying, ‘I worry about you, Michelle. I don’t want you to get a reputation like Sab … um … some of the other girls.’
‘PARDON?’ Michelle had been trying to make a friendship bracelet, but at Beth’s statement she halted.
‘I just mean … you know? With men. I think you should be careful.’
‘You’re not serious? A reputation? There are loads of people having sex in this place. Why would people worry about what I’m doing?’
Realising her mistake, Beth tried to stop the conversation. ‘Sorry. I just … oh, forget it.’
But Michelle was angry. She didn’t want to let it drop. ‘Are you calling me a slag? Because I’ve only slept with Marcus and … what was that ginger bloke called?’
‘Andrew.’
‘Right. Exactly. Two blokes and you’re ‒’
‘To be fair though,’ Beth tried a smile, ‘you couldn’t remember the name of fifty per cent of them!’
Luckily, Michelle saw the funny side. ‘OK, you’ve got me,’ she laughed. ‘But … seriously, I’m not a slag. It’s different here. You know that, right? You’re sleeping with James, aren’t you?’
‘We’re just friends.’
‘What a waste.’
‘It’s complicated for me, I’m … um.’
Michelle absent-mindedly began twisting the coloured threads.
Beth reached out. Placing her hand on top of Michelle’s, she asked, ‘Are you listening to me?’
‘Of course!’ Michelle discarded the bracelet, and gave her full attention to her friend.
Checking they were still alone in the garden, Beth continued, ‘I just don’t like all that stuff.’ Her face flushed.
‘What stuff?’
Beth could see her friend was going to make her explain it in full. ‘You know. I know you do.’
‘How do you know I know? I don’t know.’ Michelle pulled a face.
‘She bloody well does know,’ Lisa exclaimed.
Beth took a deep breath and blurted it out. ‘I don’t like sex, OK?’
‘But … um …? No, sorry. I’ve got nothing. I don’t get it.’
‘Well, I don’t get why you do like it. It’s not exactly pleasurable, is it?’ Beth struggled to stop the tears of humiliation from falling. ‘It wasn’t when I did it with Mario, that’s for sure.’
Michelle took her into her arms. ‘I’m sorry. Don’t get upset. Have you only ever slept with him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, right. I suppose I hadn’t thought. I assumed you’d just start sleeping with James … Well anyway, don’t base it all on one person. A bit of a shit shagger, was he?’
Too embarrassed to reveal to Michelle that she was basing her entire knowledge of sex on one disastrous incident, Beth merely nodded.
‘Right well, Mario was obviously rubbish. Don’t worry about him, he’s in the past. I assure you, sex is well worth bothering about. But you need to be safe!’ Michelle raised her eyebrows, knowingly.
‘You should listen to her,’ Lisa advised. ‘She clearly knows what she’s talking about.’