Apples Read online

  I stammered around on the dancefloor, then erupted into full-blown dancing as the place filled up. The drinks were starting to feel quite whirly, and I managed to drag Rachel off Danny boy and get her for a boogie – she was just about to perk her tits up in the gold top. We kissed him goodbye very competitively.

  Where are the others? Rachel yelped, getting about as excited as me as she finished off her Bacardi. I pointed to the balcony where those three were intentionally looking sour-faced, probably booing and hissing while we span each other round and round. But I didn’t want them being sad on a Friday night. In the end I grabbed Rachel’s hand and we had to go collect them – we were too mature for any stupid attitude like that. We fell up the stairs.

  What youse doing?

  Jenni just looked at me, but she was pleased we trekked up. I was blistering in new heels, but the girls were worth it. Jenni had an overbite and one boob bigger than the other, and I always figured that’s why we fell out so much – sometimes it was over boys, sometimes it was over outfits and doing things at breaktimes, but she’d been jealous of me since Beechwood Juniors. I was sheer perfection. But it turned out the girls weren’t even that cross with us – Jenni had poppers in her bag and they were all getting whacked- out while me and Rachel were dancing. I took it off them – me, Debbie and Brandon often had laughs in that sex shop down Boro, giggling at the horse sex and fetish videos then getting the Turkish guy to score us nitrate. He always had the real gayboy types like Hard and Liquid Gold, but that made it funnier and we tended to sniff them on the way back to Brandon’s, him driving while me and Deb floated in zero gravity.

  Woo, I said, getting a hot flush as the bottle kicked in. For a second I forgot we were in the Empire – everything got a bit vibrant and I laughed in the girls’ faces. Before you knew it the rush was over, and I passed the poppers back to Jenni all shaky. We spent the next twenty minutes enjoying it Hard on the balcony, keeping very surreptitious sniffing it up. I got the bottle back from Rach, nearly dropping the dinky lid as I came up again. It was like a half-minute of joy and glazing over then back to normal. The third time, I couldn’t stop touching the banister with the wood sensation going through me, and I knew I was staring into space with a dossed grin on my face but I was enjoying myself. We were killing ourselves. Then our heads started throbbing, and we decided to go downstairs to laugh at the lights. I ended up with the poppers in my handbag, weaving my way around all the lovely people.

  Time felt like a rollercoaster, a really fun one. You could tell we were all yearning for the poppers again but me and my girls formed a circle somewhere on the stage, and we danced like angels coming down from heaven. If only we’d scored some ecstasy – poppers were amazing and disappointing. We were all up and down but it was so funny – Rach and Debbie stomped on needlepoints and Gracie nearly boinged out of the white dress. It was heating up, and I started to feel sweaty as loads of men gathered around again. Occasionally I said sorry when I bumped bums into someone else, but it always happened to be a horny lad who tried to grope me straight after. For a breather we kept going to the loo for more Hard, me and Debbie taking it up really fast then charging back to the dancefloor in the hope it lasted. All we ended up doing was smiling in everyone’s way.

  This is Ben; he used to babysit us, Gracie said to me when we got back. At first I thought she’d pulled the fine specimen – he was older than us, with a scruffy sort of haircut and a very nice jawline. He was quite the honeypot.

  Hi, how’s it going, I said, trying to play it cool but staying up close and personal so Rachel or Jenni couldn’t get a look-in. They both had Bacardis (not sure if they were from Breezer Person again), crushed in one spot surrounded by boys’ heads. I stuck my dimples out, then accidentally-on-purpose touched Ben’s sides and he was saying, Are you having a good night? You look dead familiar. Are you same age as Grace?

  Nah, I’m like eighteen, I said, and I lied. It’d probably put him off if I seemed like a little baby, or maybe it’d turn him on but he didn’t seem the type. I was only fifteen. He bared loads of teeth and told me he was twenty-two, which was partly scary but when we started dancing together I felt so grown-up. I didn’t go in for the kill straight away – I kept a good distance from his lips even though our bodies were pushed right up, and I tried to feel for that thing in his jeans on my skirt but I couldn’t tell. He was a good dancer – we had a laugh spinning each other about and being daft, and I was glad Gracie had the other girls to boogie with so she didn’t feel isolated. I said something corny to Ben, then that thing happened where your faces hang for a bit in the air then drift together – it’s called a kiss. And you could tell from the dancing and tonguing he’d be ace in the sack. I figured I’d take him back – the poppers told me that. He kept coming in and out for snogs, but I kept the secret to myself.

  Ben’s lips were strawberry bootlaces. I got the impression there hadn’t been much action in Ben’s life recently since he was so dirty with me, but he could’ve been wrecked and all that. Eventually he was quite the gentleman and got us both a drink. We squirmed through bodies bopping and I pecked my friend Ste’s cheek, asking him how he was quickly before me and Ben made it to the bar. He was okay I think. In the queue Benjamin asked me where I lived and what I did – I mentioned something about Beechwood and the name of a college. He worked for some firm in Middlesbrough, and it sounded a bit shit but at least he’d have money and good prospects. I didn’t even know what I wanted to do when I grew up – I did model for Sugar magazine once the year before, and I started to regret not saying I was a model. I tucked my fingers in his shirt and gazed at him buying us vodka and Cokes which came to about six pound. He was a keeper.

  After the petrol Cokes I began to feel shit. All the colour fell off my face, and I didn’t know if the tight feeling inside was lack of food or poppers but it was quite obvious I’d had too much bevvy. And once you think that, there’s no going back. I tried my hardest to keep kissing Ben, feeling my tummy churn up all the shit and crap and my head felt like it was splitting. I couldn’t carry on dancing – I was a wobbly mess. I forced one more peck on his lips, then chickened out and said, I’m just nipping to the loo.

  Then I stormed quickly as I could to the bathroom, pushing through bunches of lasses and getting all the brutal looks off them. They were jealous little bitches, but I was in a desperate state of affairs. I almost cried as I locked myself in the white cubicle, then nervously retched a few times before sicking all over the toilet. It was brownish, and I wasn’t sure why. I should’ve eaten something. I burped up a bit more spew, then tried to wipe off the rim and flush it. All my energy whirlpooled down the toilet, and all I wanted to do was fall asleep or pass out – I checked the love-heart and it said after one, but the girls always wanted to stay til three and I wasn’t sure I could take it. I chucked the cover down and sat for a while, deep breathing and trying to stop my head spinning. I knew from experience not to shut your eyes – when we used to go to Millennium in about Year Nine, once upon a time we got the all-inclusive drinks and I got thrown out for throwing up and passing out on the sofas. I wondered for a second who had to clean up the sick after a night out. I sighed on the bright tiles – my mam was wrong; you don’t automatically feel better after puking up. I rubbed wet out of my eyes, and just when I thought I’d forgotten about Mam’s cancer it came thundering back to haunt me. The night was a black hole – I hoped she wasn’t lonely. When I finally summoned the energy to get out of the cubicle, there was a bunch of girls complaining about the wait but I don’t think it was aimed at me. I put on more blush as two girls squeezed in my cube, and I started not to look too bad in the pocked mirror. I was suffering though, half wanting to go back and shag Ben and half wishing I’d stayed home with Mam. I was blowing my nose in the sink when I realised I needed to pee. My head was whizzing round, and it felt like someone was battering me with a blunt object. I waited cross- armed for another stall to empty, all cold with nothing in me whatsoever. Eventually a d
oor opened and I took the girl’s place on the toilet – the seat had been completely hacked off; if I wasn’t in a state I would’ve put down paper but who really cares. I dropped my undies then dropped my head. I cried til I wiped. I got out the poppers again to cheer me up, but all they did was crack my head open and make me feel paranoid. I realised I’d been more than half an hour in the loo, and when I walked through the busy club everything seemed misty and back-to-front.

  Now Eve, this boy named Johnny said, and I hugged him slightly. You feeling alright?

  I shrugged and I nodded – he got the idea. We whisked each other onto the dancefloor but without much conviction – Johnny was quite cute, but he knew my sister Laura and apparently he fucked loads of girls and forgot all about them. We didn’t say anything for a while so I left him by the DJ box – I felt so crap about my mam, I thought I’d say something stupid to him and wake up with more stuff to worry about. I always wanted to know if he shagged Laura. Swanning round the dirty floor, I tried to find Ben or my friends but I just got stared out by random men and it annoyed the hell out of me. Some advice to boys: don’t sleaze us. I felt arms go round me like spider legs and octopuses, and it was scary. I tried to shrug them off, tried not to break down on the dancefloor, kept my eyes peeled for Rachel’s gold porn top and everything else. Tried not to cry when I spotted Jenni kissing Ben’s head off. I turned away. Back upstairs I searched for Rach or Gracie or any old shoulder to cry on, but my eyes blurred too much. Wow, look how twinkly the lights look. I tried to do more poppers, but instead of making me electric I was a burst fuse – I was devastated. I could see slightly clearer in the dark, and I checked from the balcony it was really Ben and Jenni and it was. I raced back to the ladies’ toilet, stopping on the way to look for the girls or the boy named Johnny at the DJ box.

  Chapter Two

  At the Traffic Lights

  Adam

  I had to shut things several times before I felt they were really closed. For example, that afternoon I had to shut the book we were reading, Romeo and Juliet, eight times before putting it in my bag, or else the school blows up. Miss Moore clocked me doing it, this mad grimace on her face as I heart-massaged the paperback, and I never went to another library lesson again. But worse than that, she once caught me slamming and reslamming the English door on the way to the toilet, and a little bit of piss did pop out. I saw this programme the other week about obsessive-compulsive disease, but I couldn’t be bothered going to the doctors.

  Since Friday I had all those fannies in my head, and I couldn’t stop staring at Eve and Debbie. We had to draw self-portraits in Art after dinner – my page had on it hollow eyes, sunk cheeks and skeleton bones; what a sexy bastard. Mr Gray said it was abstract; I thought it was pretty heartbreaking. I had a sigh. I was always depressed. I pressed really hard into my eye sockets, accentuating the lifelessness and staring. Eve had drawn a cute blonde girl in crayon, slim with curvy lines in all the right places. The Prick scribbled a musclebound hunk with a massive bulge – did I mention he was also a total twat. Burny was a charcoal mess, but in real life everyone liked him – he had a bit of Italiano blood in him, and he was in the football team and all that shite. Donna was his trophy girlfriend but she wasn’t drop-dead amazing – she always wore a red jumper with black tights, and she’d drawn a ladybird in colour pencil. I was positive they’d done all the rude stuff together – the Prick reckoned he shagged someone at Butlin’s a year back, but it was probably his five fingers. He was a knob – as soon as he found out about sex off the Personal Development video he went round name-dropping 69s and creampies as if he did them every breaktime. But I was positive his only sex experience was pulling girls’ pants down when we were young, and even now he was a pervy little cunt with a permanently smarmy fucked-up face.

  Saying that, I was trying not to be seedy but something about Eve had my eyes magnified. She was by far the prettiest girl in any of my classes – gold highway hair, eyes like butterflies, and thighs to die for. I often fantasised drilling a wonderwall in the girls’ shower but I didn’t really have the tools for it. In her purple skirt Eve kept crossing her legs over and over, sometimes flashing a bit of skin underneath and I was getting ruffled. Her Lycra shorts reminded me of Razzle, but she was miles superior to those daft bitches. Whenever she looked over I pretended to be watching out the window, Marton Road all grey and green and I tried to see the trees slowly dropping all their leaves. When I pop my cherry the world will be a sunburst of petals. I hope it’s me and her.

  I imagined us quaffing wine in the finest restaurant; I’d have to swish it round my mouth and spit it in the bucket, and now and again Eve would touch me under the table while we twizzled our spaghetti. We’d suck it up together til we kissed in the middle, all the birds outside tweeting us a lovesong. I’d say all the right things and make her throw her head back with laughter. Then I’d take her to the cinema, holding hands and rubbing legs all through her favourite chick flick thing. We’d come out around ten o’clock, proceed to a club and dance rumbas til the lights come on – I’d buy all her drinks, and we’d kiss and I’d get that feeling in my stomach like a thousand lit candles. She’d introduce me to all her friends, and they’d fall in love with my sharp wit and charm and insist we marry and have lots of kids. I’d phone for a taxi at about 1:30, letting her have my coat as we walked in the cold to the rank. We wouldn’t have to wait long, and I’d offer her a coffee at mine and she’d accept. We’d laugh at the innuendo and keep kissing until Easterside. After tipping the driver we’d watch the taxi soften in the distance, and I’d hug and whisper a sweet nothing in her ear. Bubbling inside I’d take Eve’s hand, quietly unlock the front door, taking care not to rush or make her nervous. We’d kiss in the hallway, and kiss on the landing and all the way into the bedroom. She wouldn’t laugh at all my crap lying around. I’d light incense, the dim light illuminating rose petals strewn across the four-poster bed. Instead of coffee I’d pop open a champagne bottle, sitting Eve down on the scented covers. Pouring a glass, we’d talk for hours about love and life until we both felt comfortable. I’d caress her smooth sumptuous skin like moonlight brought to flesh, and I’d put on two condoms if she wanted. Her bra would ping off without any trouble. And her knickers. I’d ask politely if she wanted me on top, taking care not to slather on her neck or bite her nipples or thrust too hard or not do any foreplay or anything else men always get slated for. I’d put on the Stones’ ‘She’s a Rainbow’ or ‘Let’s Spend the Night Together’ and she wouldn’t take it the wrong way, a rainbow being where the man gets period in his mouth and the girl gets cum in hers and they kiss. We’d writhe around to the humming guitars, our bodies like Plasticine slowly getting pushed together. As the room fills with flower smell, we’d slowly build momentum and climax completely simultaneously. Naturally, once she reaches orgasm twenty more times we’d stay up talking and cuddling til daybreak. And then the bell went.

  Eve

  My ex-boyfriend crashed at the traffic lights that dinnertime. He didn’t explode like in the movies – Fairhurst accelerated into the back of the 63 Arriva, and the bus driver got slightly angry with him. Me and Jenni had nicked off school to get a sandwich from Greggs and a couple of Panda colas, and we were stood quietly in the frost when Fairhurst pulled up in his reddy Citroën. I still hadn’t forgiven Jenni for stealing Ben at the Empire but I couldn’t be cross for ever – I’d come to realise Jenni was a selfish cow ever since she stole the My Little Ponies from my fifth birthday bash. I yawned and blinked in the rain. It was your typical drizzly afternoon, and there was no point making it worse. Sniffing, I pulled my blue Duffer sleeves over the love-heart watch and bracelet, waiting patiently for the little green man.

  Girls! Fairhurst shouted over the trancey sound-system; I didn’t think he’d recognise me and Jenni in the middle of town with his windscreen-wipers working so fast. I wondered if I looked good with two black streaks across me.

  How’s it going, I said simply. I picked some
cucumber out of my sandwich then popped it in my mouth, munching while I stared at his car, remembering those nights driving round Beechwood and Easterside with him on sex and wacky pills.

  We found ecstasy in Year Nine. Me and the girls started getting it on a small scale from Fairhurst every other week, to take round someone’s house and mess around or hang about the street. Everything changed – all at once we weren’t fighting any more, we kissed each other, we said we loved each other and we had the best fun of our lives. The boys were that much sweeter, and depending on what night you did them school was a lot easier to bear. We knew something about being happy that our mams and dads and the other kids at school wouldn’t understand.

  It was about a year back when I lost my pill virginity, and I went and lost my other virginity and all. I remember Fairhurst picking me up early from Brackenhoe when I was meant to be in English with Miss Moore, the reddish Citroën bopping away on the side of Marton Road. Fairhurst used to love me in the sexy uniform, but I felt dead young to be going out with him, and I felt bad about missing lessons but I was no star at punctuation anyway. You alright? he asked me. I scampered down the school drive then jumped in the front, and Fairhurst was the kind of boy who gave you whiplash every time he put his foot down. I got pushed back in the racing seat as he spun the Citroën into the other lane. We headed for Belle Vue shops, and while Fairhurst talked to me about dance music and the dole, occasionally he touched my thighs and I smiled. Sometimes he went a bit further up than expected, but so what. I wasn’t sure whether to touch him back – we were zooming round the roundabout at 40 mph, and there was no point doing it just for the sake of it. The music was blistering and we could hardly hear each other. I had to fake laughter at some things he said, and I was pretty blank-faced when he brought up going to Whinney Banks for pills. I guessed he meant drugs but I didn’t want to embarrass myself – all I’d done before was tac at this girl’s house; everyone said I was laughing and then I went white. Fairhurst took us down Keith Road near where my house was, but we carried on past the church and everything and ended up in Acklam and hit a right. Sometimes he liked showing off with wheelspins and stuff when we turned corners, but it got boring after a bit and I had to pretend I was impressed. Screech! I’d say in a dead girly voice, to humour him. Fairhurst brought the Citroën into Whinney Banks, through the bits with the run-down houses, and we stopped on the corner of Sydney Close or somewhere. I loved the name Sydney – if I ever got pregnant, I’d want to call the kid that. Sitting in the front with the heater blowing, Fairhurst left me and went to one of the doors down the close, walking like a daft arrogant monkey. He didn’t look hard at all. There was a big fuss with a lot of shouting at each other from the upstairs flat, and I tried not to stare when the front door unbolted and Fairhurst bolted in. Those days in Middlesbrough they were doing a Dealer-A-Day – you had to put a block of wood between the lock and the stairway to stop policemen coming in. I tried to occupy myself while Fairhurst got his prescription, flicking through his cassettes and pretending I knew the names of DJs he scrawled on the boxes. Me and the girls had seen Judge Jules at Empire before, but who the hell was Laurent Garnier? He sounded like a perfume. A few young lads were prowling around while I stopped in the car – I hoped they didn’t try to steal it with me inside. A few weeks before Fairhurst let me have a drive – we went to the incinerator, and I had a go with the biting-point and the blind-spot and the mirror-signal-manoeuvre thing and it was a good laugh. Supposedly the Citroën had been lowered and it had OZ alloys and a full-bore exhaust, but it wasn’t any easier to drive. At least I didn’t stall in front of my boyfriend, and if I had to I knew how to make a quick getaway from Whinney Banks. I’d be Ayrton Senna by the time I was seventeen, or someone else good at driving who wasn’t dead. Whatever, Fairhurst came back in a minute, and we shot off again. He seemed a little uptight, but he stroked my leg once we were back in the Acklam Road traffic. I wanted to stop for a Twix at the shops, but I didn’t want to take the piss. I shut my mouth and we drove all the way back to Easterside with the stereo blaring that little bit louder. Fairhurst slung a clear teeny bag on the dashboard, and I saw these tiny white pills with the picture of an apple on the sides. He asked if I’d ever done ecstasy before; all I could think of was all those girls it killed on the news. But it was exciting too, and we swallowed one down. Within ten minutes Fairhurst was parked up by Saltersgill field, and I was starting to feel a bit funny. I got him to switch off the blowers, and in a bit I had the dry mouth and the tingles we learnt about in Biology. It was exhilarating – Fairhurst stroked my skin and I shivered him up my spine. He turned down the music, and for once I felt I could really talk to him – we joked about a load of crap, me getting all flustered and dreamy and open-mouthed. It was a beautiful school day – everything started to get more colourfuller, and everything felt like kitten’s fur. Fairhurst looked so gorgeous I wanted to bite his face off, and I wasn’t afraid to. Oh! His hands got quite flirty with me, but he checked I was feeling alright and I started rambling how amazing it was. I think he agreed; he was almost foaming at the mouth, and he popped another like they were Jelly Tots but I think he was showing off. He was beginning to go for my booby, and I knew he wanted to go further and I started saying how much I really cared for him and how we were meant for each other and all that shite. I had a few nerves even though the pill was unreal, but I just slid my legs open. He was grunting loads, and I watched as he unzipped and saw a knob for the first time. My mind was whizzing like a crazy person, but I took a hold of it anyway. When Fairhurst got those fingers in my knicks he didn’t do the stabbing motions like Dan in the star tent; he was much softer, deeper and smooooth. What a star! I decided to take the bull by the horn – which other girls in Brackenhoe had ever lost their virginity on ecstasy? I tried to wank Fairhurst for a bit then we had oral sex, which is where the lady puts her mouth on the gentleman’s rude bits. The end of his willy got a bit drippy, but none of that white gloop came out, thank god. I thought they were like water pistols? Looking back my technique in those days was crap – I thought you had to wank the shaft thing when in fact it was the end they all went mad for. Fairhurst slipped off my pants and said get on top of him. That meant I had to do all the work, and I shit myself for a second because I didn’t want a baby with him. Maybe Fairhurst would’ve nailed me anyway if I hadn’t mentioned it, but he seemed alright rolling on a Durex. It felt like shagging a plastic bag. At first I didn’t want all of him in at once, but Fairhurst was obviously in ecstasy and I couldn’t blame him for wanting to shag the arse off me. I remembered people like Claire taking the piss out of certain girls for just sitting like a corpse on their boyfriend’s dicks, so I made a point of riding him like a cowgirl. My heart was banging. I started grinding my teeth as my skirt hitched up my belly, and my miaow was throbbing. It hurt in a nice way, but I had to stop him after a measly five minutes. Fairhurst seemed alright but I could tell he wanted more – there was no point ragging ourselves to bits though.