stared into hers, mesmerising her, making her lips open so that he could …
Every reasoning faculty she possessed was suspended beneath the sensations rocking her. She had seen people kissing like this in films and on television, and privately she had always thought it faintly yucky, but now that she was experiencing it for herself … She clung to him eagerly, letting his mouth tutor hers, quivering in eager excitement when his tongue stroked hers. That same peculiar ache she had felt in her breasts before was back, and it seemed as though Luke knew about it, too, because he stopped kissing her, briefly, to take her more fully into his arms, so that her breasts were pressing against his chest. When he kissed her his whole body moved and it made her want to rub herself against him.
She had forgotten why she had asked him to kiss her; she had forgotten everything but the sweet surge of passion flooding through her body, her eyes dark and heavy with the force of it, her lips moist and swollen. She wanted him to kiss her again, and again, but suddenly his body was tensing and he was drawing away from her, his chest expanding and contracting rapidly as he drew in air.
‘Luke.’ She reached out to touch him but he moved away from her.
‘I think you’ve learned enough for one lesson.’ He was looking at her as though he was angry with her. ‘Although I warn you, if you react like that to every boy who kisses you, soneone’s going to have to pin a notice on you warning them that you’re under sixteen.’
It took a few seconds for his meaning to get through to her, but, when it did, she flushed blood-red, and stumbled clumsily to her feet. Suddenly everything seemed all wrong; the magic of those moments in his arms was spoiled and sullied, and she wanted to run from him and hide herself away. He was telling her that she had behaved wantonly. The reason for the tension she had felt in her body and her innocent desire to get as close to him as she possibly could suddenly became unpleasantly clear to her.
He saw the expressions chase one another across her face, and frowned. ‘Gemma …’
It was too late for him to apologise now. He had ruined everything between them; he had made her feel … dirty, she thought, choking, moving slowly back from him as he got up and came towards her, holding out his hand.
‘Gemma, listen to me.’
‘No.’ Her voice sounded strained and shocked. ‘I think I hate you, Luke,’ she said bitterly. ‘And I don’t want to see you ever again.’ She turned round and ran from him to where she had left Bess tethered before he could stop her, loud sobs tearing at her throat. She knew that he had followed her, and when she scrambled up on to Bess’s plump back he reached for her.
‘No … No, don’t touch me.’ She hit out at him wildly, tears streaming down her face. He had spoilt something that had been unbearably precious to her, something that her developing instincts told her was rare and special, and she couldn’t wait to get away from him.
Wisely he let her go, sensing that to try and talk to her in her present state of near hysteria would do no good at all.
By the time she was close to home, she had herself under proper control. She stopped once to scrub at her damp face with a grubby handkerchief, and luckily when she got back her mother was still out.
All the anticipation and excitement with which she had viewed the evening was gone. She prepared for it with a feeling of resignation rather than pleasure, and, irrationally, it was Luke she blamed for her change of heart. Luke had spoiled it all for her by being so nasty to her.
She couldn’t let herself think about those moments in his arms. Half of her wanted to pretend that they hadn’t really happened, because she knew, even if she didn’t want to admit it, that now that they had, they had changed everything between them, and she didn’t want things to change, she wanted them to go on being friends. But how could they be friends when she knew that secretly Luke despised her? He must despise her, mustn’t he? Girls didn’t go around asking people to kiss them, did they?
All through the rest of the afternoon she goaded herself with recriminations and contempt.
After dinner she and the boys went up to their rooms to change. Defiantly she decided that she might as well wear her jeans. It was, after all, a barn dance, and so what if everyone mistook her for a boy? She didn’t care.
She wasn’t allowed as yet to wear make-up, and she looked miserably at her reflection in the mirror once she was ready.
Her jeans were old and worn, the denim soft and faded. Used to her mother’s condemnation of her tall, slim body, she didn’t see the way the denim followed the long lines of her legs, and the smallness of her waist.
David banged on her door as he and Tom went downstairs, and knowing that she couldn’t delay any longer she hurriedly brushed her hair and went after them.
‘Gemma, you can’t go out looking like that! I thought you were going to wear a dress.’
Both her parents were looking disapprovingly at her, and Gemma hovered on the verge of saying that she had decided she didn’t want to go after all, but to her surprise David came to her rescue, saying lightly, ‘It’s a barn dance, Mum. All the others will be dressed casually. She looks fine.’
Both boys were also wearing jeans, and although Gemma could see that her mother wasn’t pleased, she made no further comment.
Since Tom had already passed his driving test, it had been decided that on this occasion he would drive. Gemma sat in the back of her brother’s small car, wondering why she did not feel more excited as they drove towards their destination.
The dance was being held in the village hall. Several cars were already parked outside it, and they could hear the noise from the group as they got out of the car.
Inside the hall was hot and busy with gyrating bodies. The atmosphere was very smoky, and stung Gemma’s eyes. David found them a table while Tom went to the bar and got them all a drink. Gemma had asked for an orange juice and she noticed when he came back with their drinks that Tom wasn’t having anything alcoholic either.
When David laughed at him, Tom reminded him that he was driving.
Gemma couldn’t help noticing that more than one girl looked across to their table, and she tried to contain her feeling of desertion when David tapped Tom on the arm and drew his attention to a couple of girls standing watching the dancers.
‘You’ll be OK here on your own for a while, won’t you?’ David asked her as they got up. And, as he and Tom moved away, to her chagrin Gemma heard her brother saying to his friend, ‘I’m sorry that Ma was so insistent that we bring her with us.’
So Tom hadn’t wanted her company at all, she thought miserably. It had all been arranged by her mother.
She watched as the hall filled up and her brother and Tom kept on dancing with the same two girls. She was so engrossed in her own feeling of misery and self-loathing that she didn’t even look up when the shadow fell across her line of vision.
It took the sound of her name to drag her attention away from the dancers and to the person standing in front of her.
‘Luke!’ The unexpectedness of him being there, coupled with the fact that he had no doubt witnessed the humiliating fact that she was on her own, put the final seal of misery on the evening.
‘Enjoying yourself?’
He
