FIC: i can't get out of love ;; part 5
i can't get out of love (a love i had a grip on; now it's gripping me)
Author: Eskimo Jo
Rating: 18
Warning: language, sexuality, substance use.
We met it seems, such a short time ago. You looked at me, needing me so. Yet from your sadness, our happiness grew. Then I found out, I need you, too. I remember how we used to play. I recall those rainy days, the fires glowed, that kept us warm. And now I find, we're both alone. Goodbye may seem forever, farewell is like the end. But in my heart's a memory, and there you'll always be.
- Widow Tweed, Disney's “The Fox & The Hound”
For weeks, it works. Just like the old days. Better days. Exciting days. Comfortable days. Days she knew well and felt alive in. The perfect love. It's everything Naomi had hoped it would return to, and everything Emily seemed to have hoped for as well, and she's not disappointed. Not at first.
Change begins to seep in not long after. At first they're small things, like how since Katie and Emily now share a small flat in Cotham, Naomi's had to adjust to being the guest in the twins' abode and all the unfortunate consequences of Katie pounding on the otherside of the bathroom door in the mornings as she and Emily try to sneak a shower together. Also, Katie had rules about food. Mostly cos she's on some sort of celebrity diet that she really thinks will work this time, and so there's very little Naomi can snack on without asking Katie first. Or at least checking with Emily. Then there's Emily's bedroom which is barely larger than a closet and shares a very thin wall with her sister's equally-sized bedroom. While Naomi couldn't care less about what Katie has to endure, she doesn't appreciate male orgasmal groaning waking her (and Emily) at half 4 in the morning.
And when she suggests that maybe Emily come stay a while at Gina's, the offer is politely refused. As a guest, an escape, sure. But not on any sort of long-term basis. They're playing it carefully now. Never moving too fast. The hesitancy is new to their relationship... and it feels off. But maybe it's a good change after all. They've grown up. Learnt from past mistakes. And really, it never is a problem exactly cos Emily is still Emily, she's still so bursting with ideas and promise, and she's so warm and open. Her eyes still sparkle with excitement when Naomi surprises her with a sneaky kiss in the kitchen and her lips still curve ridiculously upwards when she takes Naomi's hand. So, really, Naomi doesn't actually mind too much things being a little awkward and slow if it makes Emily happy, and it obviously does.
But it's also a change having Emily in university during the days, and sometimes evenings. Naomi hadn't expected that at all, but as it turns out, last year, Goa, that whole experience had been merely a gap year and she's since started classes in September at UWE. The blonde had always thought she'd be the one to go to university over Emily, especially with their respective grades and ambitions. She hadn't wanted university. It had been Naomi who'd been set on that idea. It was precisely that divide, the incongruity that lit the fuse. It had been what set in motion the betrayal with Sophia last year. Now, it's strange not being in lessons with Emily and knowing she's there, in a lecture hall with a hundred other people, starting over and embracing a new life beyond the confines of Roundview. It's all very backwards. She remembers clearly the displeased look Emily had given her that first time Naomi had laughed at the redhead's insistence that she couldn't be late; that she had lecture to get to. For Naomi, the idea had been a joke, at least she had thought it was Emily being silly. But it wasn't. There's a definite feeling of being left out. She wants suddenly to do all that too.
The changes come faster and more noticeably the longer they keep at it. Maybe these things had always existed and Naomi's just noticing them for the first time, but she reckons not. She surely would have seen them the first time around. And really, some of them simply didn't exist back then, like her lazy days with Effy or Michelle whilst Emily's at school. She knows Emily's not entirely pleased with either friendship but she never actually mentions anything, never pushes the issue. Regardless, Naomi has culled the number of hours she sees either girl. After all, that's what happens in relationships, isn't it? Time becomes divided up and the more important things are given a bigger allotment. She senses Effy is particularly irritated by the brush off and Naomi fully expects to pop round one day to be handed another disturbing collage of dismembered body parts. (It's good then that Katie seems to be keeping Effy occupied more often now.) And Michelle? Well, she barely remembers the night at Blue Mountain, but she still obviously recalls the park incident and as long as Maxxie had still been in town, she hadn't minded the distance, the time-off from their friendship. But when he'd left back to London, she still needed a friend, especially as she and Tony are pretty much down to occasional fuck-buddies, or so it seems. The love is gone for good.
She remembers telling Michelle about her and Emily through a text message of all things. For some reason, she'd been terrified of saying it in person and having to watch the reaction. Michelle had responded with a bland, “That's great.” and nothing more was said about it for quite a while. However, every so often, the older girl would drop hints, about how people never really change and nothing can be like it was before. She's obviously talking about herself and Tony, but Naomi guesses there's a double entendre in there too.
It doesn't matter though because Emily is perfect again. A little jaded, of course, but they're happy together. They joke and smile and laugh and shag and kiss. They're good again. Fuck cynicism about the past and future. Sometimes things can work out if you give them enough chances.
The change that throws Naomi off the most is when Effy doesn't bother to ring her on the weekend. After two weeks of successfully turning down invitations to parties, her best mate has apparently given up. There's a cold slice of loneliness and something close to regret that cuts through Naomi's chest when 9 PM rolls around on Saturday night and she realises that she's had no call. Katie's on her way out the door, dressed to pick up another vaginal infection if all goes well, and cuts her eyes at Naomi accusingly. The blonde isn't sure why. The flat door slams behind the twin without an explanation. Emily sighs beside her, turns the volume up on the TV two notches and curls into Naomi's side. They watch the film in near silence, then shag quickly before drifting off to sleep. She can't help the nagging feeling that Emily's mind is elsewhere, and really hers isn't quite right either.
The morning after, she stumbles sleepily to the small kitchen only to find Katie already alert and making toast. The twin hasn't changed out of her clothes from the previous night and her make-up is smudged and worn off in places. She obviously hasn't even been to bed yet. Naomi can only imagine the mood she's in.
But Katie remains eerily quiet as she goes about buttering her toast and pouring a steaming mug of Lady Grey for herself. In fact, she appears to be going out of her way not to acknowledge Naomi at all. The blonde putters around the kitchen aimlessly as she waits for Katie to leave the toaster and kettle alone. Finally the younger girl picks up her plate of toast and steps towards the sitting room. But she pauses in the doorway, sighs, places her mug down again and fishes something from her jeans pocket. Thrusting her hand out, she waves it around for Naomi to take it from her.
“She wanted you to have this,” Katie says, her voice flat and tired. Without waiting for a response, she grabs her tea and saunters away.
Naomi unfolds the piece of notepaper.
pg. 174, is all it says.
It takes 4 days for Naomi to figure out that she has to go round to Effy's. Texts hadn't been returned. E-mails ignored. Phonecalls left to ring through to a full voicemail, over and over. So much for being best mates.
The walk takes a little over an hour from Emily's place down to Effy's and the time alone (something that had been in short-supply lately) had given Naomi far too much time to contemplate the current state of her life. Worse, she couldn't seem to concentrate on just one thing. Everytime she got to thinking about Emily, something would remind her of Michelle. Then that would remind her of some other random thing like constellations or JJ or Effy or Tony, all of whom would in turn, switch her focus to school or work or back to Emily again. It became circles upon circles of tangled thoughts and by the time she turned the corner at Elvaston, nothing had been made any clearer whatsoever. Maybe that's really why Effy's mad: too much time with her own thoughts. It would certainly drive any normal person to the brink of insanity, she reckons. And that's why the parties and the drugs helped. They created noise. They created distractions.
Coming up to the red door, she doesn't even bother to knock or ring the bell. If Effy's attitude towards any other sort of attempted contact was indicative of a pattern, likely she wouldn't even answer the door anyway. First she tries the knob, locked. So she lets herself in with the spare key again.
“Eff?” she calls into the quiet house. There's no response from the blank walls. Sneaking upstairs, all the bedrooms are empty, with Effy's bed immaculately made and untouched, as if no one's slept in it for ages. Pato slumps against the pillows, keeping watch over the sparsity. There aren't even any of the usual scraps of paper scattered around the carpet that signalled that she'd been working on her art. The only noticeable difference is that there's a discarded box collecting dust on the floor that had once held a spiffy new dSLR camera. High-end by the looks of it. Effy's got herself a new hobby then.
It's uncomfortable snooping around her mate's room like this so she meanders back downstairs and out towards the back garden, hearing voices wafting in through a cracked kitchen window. She hesitantly pushes open the door and steps into the sunshine and unkempt overgrowth that embodies the Stonems' wild garden. In the midst of the weeds, saplings and shrubs, there are two camp chairs unfolded and in one sits Effy, with her new toy in hand. And in the other, Michelle is leaning back, eyes closed under her sunglasses and soaking in the sun. Everywhere Naomi goes, Michelle seems show up. Inescapable. Aggravating. But she too pays the intruder no mind. An ashtray full to the brim of cigarette butts sits between them, as well as a half-empty bottle of vodka.
Without acknowledging her presence, the skinny brunette spins in her seat and there's a distinctly mechanical click as the shutter snaps on her new camera. Naomi glares at her friend menacingly for a moment, incredibly displeased to have become a reluctant model.
“Hi, Naomi,” Effy drawls as if she thinks something is funny about the situation. At the sound, Michelle draws her sunglasses onto her forehead and cranes her neck to peer at the visitor. Interestingly, she says nothing and only offers a small smile before pulling her shades back down and returning to her sun worship. “You got the note?”
Naomi groans and steps deeper into the garden. “Of course I did. I've texted you a hundred times about it.” She's really not in the mood for Effy's stupid games and comes up to stand over the thin girl, attempting somehow to be intimidating. As if that has ever worked on a Stonem before. She's met with a shrug and the echo of another click of the camera. “Stop it, Eff.”
Effy gazes up, nonplussed, and her blue eyes seemingly wider than normal. It's her best clueless, innocent look but that sad fact is that like a clear, blue ocean, Effy's eyes are almost transparent at times. She can't quite make out what precisely is going on in her head (no one can), but she can practically see the wheels and gears spinning themselves into a constant frenzy. It's a bit of a contradiction maybe that they appear so clear yet remain so defiantly impenetrable. Like a reflection in a mirror, or glassy lake. Moreover, models supposedly had that 'smiling with their eyes' thing going on; Effy Stonem had 'arrogantly smirking with her eyes' happening instead. Bitch.
Reaching under her canvas chair, the brunette pulls out a small stack of photos printed from a home printer and holds them up to Naomi who takes them cautiously. “What are these?”
“Photographs.”
Naomi sighs. “Thanks.” Even just a single word drips with excessive sarcasm.
Effy pauses, motions for her friend to flip through them then laughs. “Tony bought me a camera. So the rest of the world can see it as I do, or some bollocks.” The blonde knows better. Effy's trying to play it off as if it's a silly idea, the same as she does with her meds or therapy or art or anything of substance she creates. But the message must have sunk in cos the photos are surprisingly well-composed and the subject matter the exact representation of what she'd expect the inside of Effy's mind to look like. Mostly black and white: rubbish bins, tangled bramble patches, decrepit sheds, industrial complexes, council estates, half-rotten children's toys, roadkill, dead trees, long empty expanses of motorway. There's colour too: graffiti, homeless men, stormy skies, the dirty harbour, rusted out lorries, half-sunken barges, abandoned heroin needles. It all paints a depressing picture of a dreadful, post-apocalyptic England. But then, there's more. There are candid portraits of familiar faces: Tony asleep, small and fragile-looking in his bed, a fatigued Anthea reading the morning paper with a cigarette burnt down to the filter dangling forgotten between her fingers, random partygoers in varying states of ecstasy and inhibition, blasts of lasers, smiling faces, artificially or ephemerally friendly faces - all within the confines of dark clubs. And then there's a gravestone with a painfully familiar name, a police wagon on its was to a jail, an airplane flying low, the woods, Tony again concentrating intensely on something in a book, Michelle hunched on the sofa in their living room, alone, with a vodka bottle in hand. And Katie, in black and white, startlingly expressive, halfway between anguish and anger wearing the same outfit she'd had on this morning and screaming at someone out of frame. It's a beautiful shot, although Katie herself likely would abhor being caught at such a time. They're all beautiful actually, even in their abandon, decay and misuse. And then a breathtaking landscape of sunrise from what looks to be Ashton Court. It's odd to feel so much of Effy's thoughts so intensely and to have them displayed in such striking translations. They may seem like ordinary photos, many of which a 1000 other hipsters or wannabes could have taken just the same, packed a decent portfolio full of these clichés, but putting them together with the girl in front of her somehow feels incredibly invasive, like she's breached some unspoken barrier. On their own, they're lovely and disturbing, but in connection with Effy, they're powerful and obtrusive. Something she's not meant to see; something Effy hadn't really meant to share.
“Wow, these are...”
“Don't.” She snatches them back, tossing them carelessly under her seat as if suddenly they're just meaningless pieces of paper. “It's all Tony's idea anyway.”
And like that, clues to Effy's psyche are stowed away like hidden treasures. It draws Naomi's stare once again to the vodka bottle between the two girls; she prods at it with her toe.
Michelle glances over lazily and waves a hand in the air. “You can have some, if you want,” she says sounding uncharacteristically disinterested. “Out of fags though.”
What is this? Why is Effy lounging around with Michelle of all people, drinking at noon on a Monday? If Naomi's honest with herself (and she really doesn't like to be if she can help it) the idea is sparking hints of jealousy in her chest, something toxic is bubbling out of the half-digested cereal she'd had for breakfast before coming over here. Was the milk off? Indigestion, perhaps. But likely more psychological in origin. Idly passing the daylight hours was supposed to be her thing, wasn't it? With both of them. But they weren't supposed to do it with each other and just leave her out of it. She could expect this sort of thing from Effy but it's Michelle's attitude that is twisting that knife between her ribs.
“Is Emily busy then?”
Oh.
Yeah. Michelle certainly does not sound pleased. She can't hide her feelings nearly as well as the emotional-Houdini in the other chair. It's sort of bitter maybe but flimsily covered by a feigned indifference. Naomi merely mumbles yeah and kicks at the dirt around the ashtray absently. It's terribly confusing how at times Naomi can't seem to tell the truth at all, and other times can't seem to lie. Surely if you're good at one or the other, you should be skilled enough to control it. It strikes her that maybe she's not actually talented, she's just shit at both things. How unfortunate. Although it sure would explain a lot.
“Page 174,” Effy drones and Naomi's ears perk up at the mention. Finally, an answer.
“Yeah, what's that even mean?”
Effy nods towards the house again. “It's in there.”
Just as Naomi turns to seek out whatever riddle Effy's devised for her this time, Tony appears in the doorway. He leans casually against the frame and smiles at the girls. “Ready to go, Nips?” Oh. So they haven't broken up. The romance isn't quite dead yet. He doesn't wait for an answer; he just turns and fades back into the dimness of the indoors.
Michelle rises slowly, almost reluctantly really, and moves towards the house herself, brushing a little too close to Naomi in the process. She pauses as if she has something to say, but her eyes, shielded by the dark plastic of her sunglasses, give Naomi no hint as to what it is. Instead, she just sighs and continues her trek to meet Tony. It was a close call. Naomi realises that for some odd reason, she'd felt the urge to apologise but she has no idea for what or why on earth she should. Shaking her head, she listens for quiet voices as they move into the front of the house, and then the slam of the door. They're gone. For now. Believing the coast to be clear, the blonde glances back at her mate one more time. Effy's not paying any attention.
On the kitchen table is a book. It's the same bloody book that Effy had shown to her before, and the same one that Katie had been perusing when Naomi had found them on Effy's bed. It's dog-eared on what she presumes in the page in question. Flipping it open impatiently, she notes that it is page 174. There's a small illustration of a fox and a hound. Immediately she thinks of JJ. Paranoia trickles through her mind, wondering if maybe just everyone else was in on some cosmic joke and she's the butt of it. There's no way JJ and Effy would devise some sort of maniacal scheme, is there? No. She calms herself with the assertion that while Effy was an enigma at times, she certainly would have let it slip had she been chatting with JJ. Sober Effy was not the same creature as drugged-up Effy, and really, it was much easier to get the truth out of her if she'd dabbled in any kind of enactogen during the night. Lovely illicit substances. Who needs that wonky Stun shit when decent MDMA will do just as well?
It doesn't take much to see why Effy's marked this page as a whole passage of text is high-lighted in bright yellow.
LAELAPS (Λαῖλαψ) , “hurricane-dog” (Κυον Λαιλαψ) or “storm-wind” was a mythological dog who never failed to catch what he was hunting. In one version of Laelaps' origin, he was a gift from Zeus to Europa of Krete. The hound was passed down to King Minos. Minos had been cursed by his wife; he ejaculated scorpions and spiders that would devour the genitals of those he slept with. Because of this, he called Prokris of Athens to his aid. When she cured him he gave her Laelaps and a javelin that never missed its target. Prokris's husband, Kephalos of Athens, decided to use the hound to hunt the TEUMESSIAN FOX that was laying waste to the countryside around Thebes and could never be caught. This was a paradox: a dog who always caught his prey and a fox that could never be caught. Zeus, pondering the dilemma of the uncatchable fox being chased by an inescapable hound, as Istrus says, turned the pair to stone, or else placed them in the heavens as the Constellations Canis Major (Laelaps) and Canis Minor (Teumessian Fox). In so doing he froze their contest or set it to play out for eternity in the heavens.
Alternately, in some stories the dog overtook the fox, but Zeus changed both animals into a stone, which was shown in the neighbourhood of Thebes.
What the fuck, Effy?
Naomi slaps the book closed and marches purposefully towards the back garden again. She's going to demand an explanation. And moreover, demand to know if Effy's spoken with Emily or JJ. The coincidence is too convenient.
The walled-in garden is empty.
It's not the first time Naomi seriously wonders if Effy is only a figment of her imagination.
It's only a few blocks and she's home again, safe to dwell on the meaning alone in her room without interference from anyone. Effy would have been nice to talk to since the point of the story still doesn't quite fit with anything she herself can come up with. A hint would have been nice. But instead she's left to consider it all for herself. Ugh.
Who is the fox and who is the hound? And the hunter who controls it all? Effy. But who is her hound? Naomi thinks maybe she's the hound but that doesn't work. She's not chasing anything, although she had chased Emily, right? Well, not really. So, is Emily the hound? That doesn't seem right either, but it would make Naomi the fox. There's a lot to be said about foxes: they're cunning, clever, quick - and she certainly does not consider herself any of those things. However, they do spend their lives on the run... She glances up at a small plush fox on a bookcase that she had received from the League Against Cruel Sports for helping with an anti-foxhunt campaign ages ago in Year 11, when she was still idealistic, loud-mouthed and determined to fight for her future. Back when she had a life outside of Emily Fitch. She thinks maybe people don't really know about foxes much at all.
While granted with an instinctive sort of foresight, they aren't truly as clever as they're made out to be in literature. They are diggers, buryers, hiders. Keeping watch on their secrets. In the good months, as few people seem to realise, foxes don't eat all the prey they manage to catch. An unlucky songbird may be covered with dirt in a hole in the ground as the fox hides away his snack for the longer, harder winter months. Like chipmunks and squirrels more than fearsome predators of livestock, he tucks away quite a few contingencies. Because even more like squirrels, he often forgets where he's hidden his emergency rations. His secrets become lost even to himself. So he buries more and more out of necessity. If he's lucky, he'll find some again but there's also the chance he'll forget, or when he does find a treasure, it's rotten from neglect. But in the worst case, and the most common one, something else has discovered his secret and uncovered it. It's no longer his alone.
And really, they may be fast runners, but not as swift as people think. Horse and hound can keep up until eventually the fox tires. A fox can't run forever. He'll try; his life depends on it. Zig-zagging through forests and tunnels, drainage pipes and culverts, up and over dales, in and out of ditches, he will try. He'll run out of fear, out of self-preservation and the anxiety will mount, but truly panicking only as he finds each of his holes, his rare safe-havens, blocked up by the hunters in prior anticipation of his escape. He will continue to run. There's a sort of gruesome inevitability to the chase most times, and the ending that makes the fox wonder what the point of running was in the first place perhaps. If he isn't torn apart by dogs, shot to death or collapsing from the stress-caused haemorrhaging, he has escaped only momentarily. A fox then may be free, but so exhausted that he cannot carry on. Run to death.
Naomi wonders if there's a subtle precautionary tale here.
Still, she can't accept the idea that one should accept the seemingly inevitable without a fight. There may be a large percentage of her 16-year-old self that has been lost to the formative and tragic years beyond, but she will not settle for the ridiculous notion of fate. She knows running, she knows the fight. Passivity had not been in her vocabulary until that final year of college. She fought tooth and nail against social injustices, ignorant people and loving red-haired Emily Fitch. She'd only truly conceded to one of those. The others just fell out of her sight in the blinding glare of teenage love. And now, she has accepted that part just as a fox likely must recognise the futility of the chase when it nears its end. There's still a disturbing rumble deep down when she's left along for too long with her thoughts. It echoes with the same kind of resistance that had seemed so familiar when she was younger, the inability to swallow a particularly hard truth. It sounds as if her heart hasn't ceased running yet, as if the constant pitter-patter of its beats are actually desperately fleeing footsteps against the damp earth of a dark and lonely forest.
Memories of the seemingly infamous Park Incident float to the forefront of her mind unannounced and startlingly crisp against the fog of foxes, hounds and Greek myths. It's Michelle's voice.
Once you're in it, no matter who it's with, you can't get out of love.
All the uncertainty and introspection fades almost as quickly as it had begun and within a week, Naomi has virtually forgotten the visit to Effy's, and her cryptic dense hidden messages. It's easy when Emily is around, and especially when she's lying on her bed, topless on her stomach flipping idly through an unnecessarily large textbook. Naomi grins and pushes down the rumble that was starting to irritate her more and more often these days. Draped in a very loose-fitting t-shirt, she's not much more clothed than her girlfriend. Together they possibly could make a single outfit. Almost. Cos, well, Emily's only got one sock on and the other is nowhere to be seen. She sighs loudly, running a finger across a glossy and colourful graph on the page and Naomi's not sure what to make of it.
She considers it amongst Emily's “New Sounds”. There previously were a whole arsenal of sighs, breaths, groans, moans and chuckles that Naomi could translate without much difficulty. That knowledge had come out of experience but somewhere along the line, a transformation took place. Perhaps it was in college, but definitely also afterwards. Now only about half of Emily's sounds are familiar and the remainder are foreign and lack a recognisable meaning. So far, Naomi reminds herself. So far. She'll eventually learn these too. It's just difficult at times like these cos she's never exactly been the most gifted of conversationalists and lately when she suggests or asks a question after one of these New Sounds, she's met with awkward silences or confused gazes. She's not idea what to say any longer, unsure if Emily is frustrated, tired, bored, amused, or any host of other emotions. She usually guesses wrong now. It makes her feel like there's a missing piece somewhere, a loose connection between them.
So instead she's resorted to waiting for Emily to say something to belay her real feelings. It's a time-consuming pastime but far more risk-adverse. She tiptoes with caution around sharp edges now.
The twin sighs again with a slightly different cadence than previously and slides the book away from her, turning to stare up at her blonde girlfriend instead. “We should go out this weekend. Like properly.”
Naomi's taken aback. “A date?” They'd never really dated, not properly. Like, ever and it seems odd to start now but it's not something she's not totally opposed to either. Emily stares blankly at her as if the suggestion doesn't quite compute. So Naomi tries again, “To the lake or something?” It's worth a shot. They haven't been back there since their return from Goa and at that time it was late-February and horribly wet and cold. Nothing like it had been in the past. Nothing seemed to be anymore.
Emily shakes her head and smirks. “No, no. Like with everyone else. A party.” She lowers herself against the pillow and groans, burying her face and mumbling. “I miss going out.”
It hurts.
More than it should maybe.
The respite from that scene couldn't have come at a better time, as Naomi had grown terribly weary of it all. These weeks away from the groaning bass music, dark crowded rooms of strangers and illicit drugs had been something of a breath of fresh air. They had replaced cocaine with sex, and dancing with lounging about in their jim-jams and watching films. She didn't mind the domesticity too much, and ignoring the pang of resentment she sometimes feels from Effy's lack of interference these days, it had been a much needed break. Now Emily wants a break from the break. Emily of all people. A year ago this would have been everything she dreamt of. Fuck change.
“All right,” Naomi eventually sighs. She feels a finger trailing down the inside of her arm, thinks of ants, and shudders. The touch vanishes.
“Great, cos I've got this friend from Soc Foundations who's throwing a full-on massive at his on Saturday and loads of people from uni...”
Naomi tunes the rest of details out and lets Emily continue cos it's obviously something she's very excited about. Not really fair to rain on that parade this soon. Nodding or humming every so often, she wonders about Goa and how well they worked there and when they became such vastly different people. Maybe they should move to Goa permanently, play pretend forever.
Darlin', forever is a long long time. And time has a way of changin' things.
- Big Mama, Disney's “The Fox and the Hound”
The party is shit.
Of course it is. Why would it be any different? Because it's Bishopston instead of Redcliffe? Because it's being put on by a fresher instead of some college twat left home alone for the weekend? It's the same fucking awful dubstep coming from the speakers and the same cheap lager stowed in the fridge. It's the same morons throwing themselves unabashedly at each other in the same sadistic and often times embarrassing type of modern mating ritual. It's the same drugs, same spirits, same hopelessness and apathy. She spots Tony's mates every so often. And then there's Emily's own friends from uni who she seems to be quite swept up with at the moment, giggling and generally carrying on like she's in sodding Disneyland without a care in the world. What happened to the days when they were instinctively connected, catching each other's eye in crowds, across distance, unable to look away? There's the other ones too: the uni sorts from U Bristol, Bath Spa and UWE; the layabouts and those who work dead-end jobs; and of course, the young ones: Roundview, Filton, Colston's, ugh, all the posh school wankers and whores. Christ, she hates these kinds of house parties.
After necking a few cans of lager she sneakily nicked from an admittedly rather attractive boy's stash, that he and his mate “Spence” seemed to be watching guard over (not very well obviously), Naomi feels slightly better. Not much, but a little bit. Especially when she watches the boy check Emily out, up and down, smirking to himself in the process and running his tongue along his bottom lip. It's times like this she wishes Cook hadn't “done the right thing, yeah, Naomikins” and turned himself in after the mess with Effy's doctor. She could use a buddy, plain and simple, no strings attached, no serious thinking involved. But he's not and that's the unchangeable reality. He won't be around for a very long time. Fuck, she misses him terribly and the enormity of the emotion seems to knock her sideways suddenly. She'd thought her heart was finally finished breaking.
Leaving Emily to catch up with her friends, the blonde steps out into the garden. It's quieter but not empty. A few partygoers are wandering around, sitting on the grass and relaxing. Against the wall is that metalhead kid she sees at half of these things. One leg props a huge boot against the stucco as he leans casually and draws on a cigarette. He appears harmless enough and she shuffles near and fishes her own smoke from a battered pack. He barely gives her a glance before holding out a lighter without even looking at her. She takes it, lights up and hands it back.
“Thanks,” she mutters.
He shrugs and his shoulders fall like his leather jacket actually weighs a tonne. “Don't mention it.”
And she doesn't. They don't say anything cos this is supposedly a safe haven, a chill out spot where all the fake niceness of the inside doesn't need to exist. People can sulk and smoke and have raging internal debates in peace. It doesn't stop her from peering over at him every so often. He seems familiar, and not just because of his face and generally sullen demeanour.
Halfway through her cigarette there's a whirlwind of activity and Naomi immediately recognises that little posh girl who looks like she's possibly forgotten which generation she belongs to. She's classy, refined even despite her bounding energy and bright, cheery smile. The complete opposite of him. She breezily throws her arms around his neck, stands on tip-toe, planting deliberately wet kisses against his cheek as he pretends to hate the attention.
“Trying to smoke here,” he grumbles half-heartedly, pushing away.
She pulls back and pouts theatrically, hands on her hips like a disapproving school-teacher. “How many times have I said those horrible little sticks are bad for you, Richard?” She grins though dissipating any seriousness she'd had on her side. He shrugs again, rolling his eyes in an impressive way Naomi hasn't seen since catching her own reflection in a shop window once. Taking a deliberate step closer, she wrinkles her nose at him playfully. “Fine. Be that way.” After a pause she continues even more. “Mini and the girls want a picture with all of us to commemorate the start of term.”
“I don't do those gay group photos, Grace.”
“Liar, liar pants on fire!” she sing-songs at him, giggling as she finishes. “Now come along, please, Rich. For me?”
The nod as he finally concedes to her wishes is almost undetectable and his eye roll this time is merely bashful. There's a crack of a smile on his face. “I guess.”
It's all she needs as she grins in delight and skips back into the fray. Naomi takes a drag and stares at the boy who is nearly finished his own smoke. She can't help it. She has to break the unspoken rule of the quiet smoking wall.
“Your girlfriend?” The older girl is still a little shaken that two such completely different people can work together in such a frankly adorable way. It's like everything shouldn't mesh but somehow it is totally complimentary. Opposite charges; magnetic plus and minus. She quickly reminds herself that they're people and worn-out metaphors about magnets are stupid... but her mum's words echo in her memory: The people who make us happy are never the people we expect.
He side-eyes Naomi quickly and shrugs for the hundredth time in so many minutes. “Yeah.”
“She's so... different from you.” Not the most diplomatic approach and she can sense his irritation at the statement. In honesty, if she were him, she'd be pretty pissed off about some random stranger commenting on her relationship too.
“Yeah. And?” His eyes narrow at her as if expecting some disparaging commentary.
It's Naomi's turn to shrug. “Nothing,” she mumbles and studies the crumbling ash on the end of her fag. If the message wasn't clear enough, he pulls up his headphones from around his neck and covers his ears. She can hear the tinny sound of music being played far too loud even with all the other noise around them. One last pull on his cigarette and he tosses it to the pavement, loping off without a second glance in her direction.
There's something about the incident that bothers Naomi, like in the pit of her stomach. It hadn't been his attitude cos Naomi's had her share of people like that. She considers those types more of kindred spirits rather than obstinate and irritating. Something about the way the two kids work. They just... coexist in this perfect kind of reciprocity. Human nature (especially that of the under-25 world) would define them as foils, perhaps even enemies. But instead, it's like the lamb dancing fearlessly with the lion. She drops her own cigarette on the ground and slips back into the party and searches for Emily who seems to have vanished somewhere in the throngs of idiots.
Water. Water would be good.
She navigates down a short corridor and finds the bathroom empty. Closing the door softly behind herself, she drinks quickly from the tap, allowing the cold water to flush her system with relief. Looking up, her reflection appears pallid and blue in the light of the stranger's bathroom mirror. Sweeping a finger under eyes, she attempts to fix up some smudged mascara come loose by the incessant habit of running her hands tiredly over her face. It takes a lot less time than she would have liked to touch up her eyes and the knowledge that she can't stay here in her quiet den and put off getting back to mixing with drunk strangers momentarily angers her. She shouldn't have to do this any longer. Wasn't the point of these things to pull? To stumble home (or elsewhere) completely smashed at the end of the night, get sloppily shagged, maybe get ill and then walk home full of shame and surrounded by the tasty aroma stale cigarette smoke and liquor the next morning? Naomi wants none of that. She has a girl. She has a home. And she's not nearly drunk enough. Tipsy, maybe. But not drunk enough for the pantomime.
The tired face in the mirror stares back impassively. It has no mind of its own, no worries. She wishes she could swap places. Bracing her hands on the sides of the sink basin, she breathes out a deep sigh and peers down the black drain.
Her whole body seems to fly back against the wall, causing the cheap plastic towel rod to break and fall to the ground, as the door flies open. Her solitude is shattered against her will.
“The fuck!” she yells as what feels like a heart-attack begins to dissipate. The visitor looks up then, as if she hadn't expected anyone else to be in the room.
“Sorry.” And then there's the pause as recognition switches on. “Christ, sorry, Naomi.”
“Fuck's sake, Chelle.” Naomi pulls herself off the wall, glancing down at the broken rod and heap of dirty handtowels and tries to ignore the idea that once again, this girl has randomly shown up where she is. Inescapable. Michelle has carelessly propped her Mulberry bag up on the wet countertop and is digging through its endless depths for make-up presumably. She pulls out a tube of mascara and leans over closer to the mirror, as if this situation isn't even remotely odd. Like they're just girlie mates having a little chin wag in the toilets, just like any other perfectly normal girl friends. Specifically the kind of stuck-up bitches that Naomi detests and the kind that give her stink-eye when she enters the bathroom at a club and awkwardly interrupts their preening and squawking as she darts around them to the toilet.
Her lashes darken with each sweep. “Didn't think you'd be here,” she says casually between strokes.
Naomi looks at her with mild disbelief. “In the loo?”
Michelle chuckles and twists the cap back on her mascara, batting her eyelashes at her reflection. “No, at this party.” She pauses and looks over with an unreadable expression. “You haven't been around much at all lately.”
The blonde hums noncommittally and offers only a lazy shrug of her shoulders as she watches Michelle pull out a stick of lip-gloss from her black hole of a purse, studies it briefly and finally pulls it open. A very distinct scent of candy apple wafts towards her nostrils as Michelle presses on the gloss. Entrancing is probably not the right word for the action, Naomi muses to herself, cos she definitely should not be entranced by anyone other than her girlfriend. But there's something about apples, or maybe the way Michelle is sliding the lip-gloss around her lips that prevents Naomi from looking away. How many girls watch their friends do this all the time? And none of them get very mildly turned on by the action, she reckons. Michelle smacks her lips together a few times, leans into her reflection again and dabs at errant bits of candy apple goo.
What was that bollocks her mum said about apples and snakes? Something about naked people running all willy-nilly around the woods and some talking animals, then eating fruit that made them evil and some angry ghost yelling at them? Sounds like some acid-trippy Harry Potter shit to Naomi honestly, and all she can recall for sure with her mind this foggy is her mum ranting about figs instead of apples and the damnable errors of Western religious history.
Satisfied with her touch-up, Michelle smiles at herself in the mirror. Reaching down, she pulls on her bra and top, nonchalantly adjusting her tits so they are even more noticeable. “It's nice to see you out is all,” she says to her reflection before turning to the younger girl. She grins at Naomi like one of those cartoon lions in films, her green eyes narrowing as they focus on their prey. “Can't hide away forever.”
Naomi's nostrils flare as the aroma of apples hits again. She meets the irresistible force head on.
It's bad, this kissing business. It's very, very bad. Horribly bad, in fact. Because somewhere on the other side of what is a moderately thin wooden door, her girlfriend is laughing with her friends, innocent and unaware of any flurry of recurrent betrayal. Somewhere on the other side of that same door, a lanky, magnetic sort of blue-eyed devil is lying in wait for Michelle too. But at the moment, the door is enough assurance of safety, or of secrecy. She sees that sullen Rich bloke with his hilariously mismatched girlfriend and two different worlds colliding into one. She wishes she could use that as justification for her actions but she's well aware that there isn't an excuse in the universe that could make this anything but bad.
The only good news is that she's not entirely sure if she completely instigated it. She reckons that Michelle played her part too because Naomi finds herself stumbling backwards, crashing into the mess she'd created earlier as she greedily swallows candy apple lip-gloss. But still, it's Naomi whose hands stray beyond the boundaries of a simple kiss first sliding from their grasp in now-tangled chestnut hair, and down further.
She's never touched Michelle in this intimate way and it's ludicrous that -- now when she's actually in a relationship -- she deems it the ideal time to take this step. Her desperate fingers graze over the soft curves of perfect breasts before her palms take notice and press harder, her hands full and moving and Michelle's small moan reverberating against her lips. In response, warm fingers slide up and under her own top, racing around her waist and trailing up the indent of her lower spine. The resulting goose-pimples must be terribly noticeable and the shudder only amplifies the feeling.
This is nothing like the park. It's not gentle, it's not lazy, it's not even remotely innocent; it's pushy and frenzied More obviously desperate than the first time they kissed, less friendly than the last. But at least it's equally as thoughtless. Not premeditated. The bracket of the broken towel rack digs into her back but she's too preoccupied with lips and hands and breasts to pay much mind to how she'll have to explain away that angry purple bruise to Emily. Truthfully, the idea of Emily in any sense never manages to break through the haze of lust, especially not when Michelle writhes against Naomi, moans quietly and strangled in her ear, as the blonde fumbles with the button on insanely tight jeans.
The rush is exhilarating really, like being let out out of a cage that had been all too confining and unnatural and now running free again. It's like bounding over hills at full speed in a tornado, wind whipping and streaming over her body. Caught up in a tiny hurricane. (A little too much like a certain word beginning with “l”.) She doesn't really think too hard about much in these energized moments and instead allows the momentum to carry them wherever it may go. Michelle's lips glide over exposed skin as if she knows exactly what to do, though really, if Effy is to be trusted, that's not very surprising as the older has a bit of a reputation of being a slag, to put it bluntly. And if she's seeing Tony Stonem, all's fair in love and war, yeah? Naomi manages to push denim away just as a hot hand reaches up under her bra and she bites down on her bottom lip, huffing out a pant through a clenched jaw.
It falls apart not longer after Naomi slips nimble fingers into delicious wetness. Michelle's a screamer probably cos she's definitely a moaner. Naomi knows they're good sounds, of course, she's not retarded but they're completely novel. She can tell Michelle wants to get off as badly as she does. It's bloody well undeniable at this point and Naomi feels the desire coursing through every fucking capillary now, her body pulsing in complimentary need. But when the moment comes and Naomi shifts back just a bit to look the other girl in the face, she doesn't see familiar dark brown eyes gazing back at her. They're dilated green (so, so green in this light) and her breath catches painfully in her throat. It must be the same for Michelle: the blue eyes that she expects are different and a hell of a lot more feminine. It's as if someone has bluntly just froze time in that exact second.
Fear and regret seem to bubble to the surface simultaneously but it's Michelle who pulls back her hands from up Naomi's bra first. A millisecond later, Naomi's freed herself from her own snare. They say nothing; it's awkward enough as it is.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuckfuckfuck.
The brunette rapidly adjusts her clothes and snatches her bag up, scrambling through it for her lip-gloss again. Naomi slithers around behind her, trying to make her escape as one nervous hand flattens her hair and wipes over her mouth, removing all evidence of candy apples. She makes it almost to the door of the tiny room when Michelle sighs. It's an incredibly sad sound and something in Naomi's chest tightens. It's painfully familiar.
Tentative fingers dangle out and snag on Naomi's own hand. The tug is almost imperceptible but she's drawn closer nonetheless and for the briefest of moments, there's a brush of soft lips against her own.
“Sorry.”
And then reality snaps back and Naomi's left staring at Michelle who's now gazing at herself in the glass and dabbing on lip-gloss again. “Sorry,” she repeats quieter to her reflection and Naomi slips out of the bathroom without a word.
In the corridor, all she can hear is thudding music and a chorus of chaotic voices. She breathes deeply once, twice. Five times actually before she wills herself down the passageway and back towards the party. She grinds down the luscious, woolly feeling that has risen in her chest right where guilt is supposed to be flailing about in full-force. It is strangely subdued this time. Naomi refuses to consider what that means.
<< PART 6 >>
PART 1 || PART 2 || PART 3 || PART 4 || PART 5 || PART 6
Author: Eskimo Jo
Rating: 18
Warning: language, sexuality, substance use.
We met it seems, such a short time ago. You looked at me, needing me so. Yet from your sadness, our happiness grew. Then I found out, I need you, too. I remember how we used to play. I recall those rainy days, the fires glowed, that kept us warm. And now I find, we're both alone. Goodbye may seem forever, farewell is like the end. But in my heart's a memory, and there you'll always be.
- Widow Tweed, Disney's “The Fox & The Hound”
For weeks, it works. Just like the old days. Better days. Exciting days. Comfortable days. Days she knew well and felt alive in. The perfect love. It's everything Naomi had hoped it would return to, and everything Emily seemed to have hoped for as well, and she's not disappointed. Not at first.
Change begins to seep in not long after. At first they're small things, like how since Katie and Emily now share a small flat in Cotham, Naomi's had to adjust to being the guest in the twins' abode and all the unfortunate consequences of Katie pounding on the otherside of the bathroom door in the mornings as she and Emily try to sneak a shower together. Also, Katie had rules about food. Mostly cos she's on some sort of celebrity diet that she really thinks will work this time, and so there's very little Naomi can snack on without asking Katie first. Or at least checking with Emily. Then there's Emily's bedroom which is barely larger than a closet and shares a very thin wall with her sister's equally-sized bedroom. While Naomi couldn't care less about what Katie has to endure, she doesn't appreciate male orgasmal groaning waking her (and Emily) at half 4 in the morning.
And when she suggests that maybe Emily come stay a while at Gina's, the offer is politely refused. As a guest, an escape, sure. But not on any sort of long-term basis. They're playing it carefully now. Never moving too fast. The hesitancy is new to their relationship... and it feels off. But maybe it's a good change after all. They've grown up. Learnt from past mistakes. And really, it never is a problem exactly cos Emily is still Emily, she's still so bursting with ideas and promise, and she's so warm and open. Her eyes still sparkle with excitement when Naomi surprises her with a sneaky kiss in the kitchen and her lips still curve ridiculously upwards when she takes Naomi's hand. So, really, Naomi doesn't actually mind too much things being a little awkward and slow if it makes Emily happy, and it obviously does.
But it's also a change having Emily in university during the days, and sometimes evenings. Naomi hadn't expected that at all, but as it turns out, last year, Goa, that whole experience had been merely a gap year and she's since started classes in September at UWE. The blonde had always thought she'd be the one to go to university over Emily, especially with their respective grades and ambitions. She hadn't wanted university. It had been Naomi who'd been set on that idea. It was precisely that divide, the incongruity that lit the fuse. It had been what set in motion the betrayal with Sophia last year. Now, it's strange not being in lessons with Emily and knowing she's there, in a lecture hall with a hundred other people, starting over and embracing a new life beyond the confines of Roundview. It's all very backwards. She remembers clearly the displeased look Emily had given her that first time Naomi had laughed at the redhead's insistence that she couldn't be late; that she had lecture to get to. For Naomi, the idea had been a joke, at least she had thought it was Emily being silly. But it wasn't. There's a definite feeling of being left out. She wants suddenly to do all that too.
The changes come faster and more noticeably the longer they keep at it. Maybe these things had always existed and Naomi's just noticing them for the first time, but she reckons not. She surely would have seen them the first time around. And really, some of them simply didn't exist back then, like her lazy days with Effy or Michelle whilst Emily's at school. She knows Emily's not entirely pleased with either friendship but she never actually mentions anything, never pushes the issue. Regardless, Naomi has culled the number of hours she sees either girl. After all, that's what happens in relationships, isn't it? Time becomes divided up and the more important things are given a bigger allotment. She senses Effy is particularly irritated by the brush off and Naomi fully expects to pop round one day to be handed another disturbing collage of dismembered body parts. (It's good then that Katie seems to be keeping Effy occupied more often now.) And Michelle? Well, she barely remembers the night at Blue Mountain, but she still obviously recalls the park incident and as long as Maxxie had still been in town, she hadn't minded the distance, the time-off from their friendship. But when he'd left back to London, she still needed a friend, especially as she and Tony are pretty much down to occasional fuck-buddies, or so it seems. The love is gone for good.
She remembers telling Michelle about her and Emily through a text message of all things. For some reason, she'd been terrified of saying it in person and having to watch the reaction. Michelle had responded with a bland, “That's great.” and nothing more was said about it for quite a while. However, every so often, the older girl would drop hints, about how people never really change and nothing can be like it was before. She's obviously talking about herself and Tony, but Naomi guesses there's a double entendre in there too.
It doesn't matter though because Emily is perfect again. A little jaded, of course, but they're happy together. They joke and smile and laugh and shag and kiss. They're good again. Fuck cynicism about the past and future. Sometimes things can work out if you give them enough chances.
The change that throws Naomi off the most is when Effy doesn't bother to ring her on the weekend. After two weeks of successfully turning down invitations to parties, her best mate has apparently given up. There's a cold slice of loneliness and something close to regret that cuts through Naomi's chest when 9 PM rolls around on Saturday night and she realises that she's had no call. Katie's on her way out the door, dressed to pick up another vaginal infection if all goes well, and cuts her eyes at Naomi accusingly. The blonde isn't sure why. The flat door slams behind the twin without an explanation. Emily sighs beside her, turns the volume up on the TV two notches and curls into Naomi's side. They watch the film in near silence, then shag quickly before drifting off to sleep. She can't help the nagging feeling that Emily's mind is elsewhere, and really hers isn't quite right either.
The morning after, she stumbles sleepily to the small kitchen only to find Katie already alert and making toast. The twin hasn't changed out of her clothes from the previous night and her make-up is smudged and worn off in places. She obviously hasn't even been to bed yet. Naomi can only imagine the mood she's in.
But Katie remains eerily quiet as she goes about buttering her toast and pouring a steaming mug of Lady Grey for herself. In fact, she appears to be going out of her way not to acknowledge Naomi at all. The blonde putters around the kitchen aimlessly as she waits for Katie to leave the toaster and kettle alone. Finally the younger girl picks up her plate of toast and steps towards the sitting room. But she pauses in the doorway, sighs, places her mug down again and fishes something from her jeans pocket. Thrusting her hand out, she waves it around for Naomi to take it from her.
“She wanted you to have this,” Katie says, her voice flat and tired. Without waiting for a response, she grabs her tea and saunters away.
Naomi unfolds the piece of notepaper.
pg. 174, is all it says.
It takes 4 days for Naomi to figure out that she has to go round to Effy's. Texts hadn't been returned. E-mails ignored. Phonecalls left to ring through to a full voicemail, over and over. So much for being best mates.
The walk takes a little over an hour from Emily's place down to Effy's and the time alone (something that had been in short-supply lately) had given Naomi far too much time to contemplate the current state of her life. Worse, she couldn't seem to concentrate on just one thing. Everytime she got to thinking about Emily, something would remind her of Michelle. Then that would remind her of some other random thing like constellations or JJ or Effy or Tony, all of whom would in turn, switch her focus to school or work or back to Emily again. It became circles upon circles of tangled thoughts and by the time she turned the corner at Elvaston, nothing had been made any clearer whatsoever. Maybe that's really why Effy's mad: too much time with her own thoughts. It would certainly drive any normal person to the brink of insanity, she reckons. And that's why the parties and the drugs helped. They created noise. They created distractions.
Coming up to the red door, she doesn't even bother to knock or ring the bell. If Effy's attitude towards any other sort of attempted contact was indicative of a pattern, likely she wouldn't even answer the door anyway. First she tries the knob, locked. So she lets herself in with the spare key again.
“Eff?” she calls into the quiet house. There's no response from the blank walls. Sneaking upstairs, all the bedrooms are empty, with Effy's bed immaculately made and untouched, as if no one's slept in it for ages. Pato slumps against the pillows, keeping watch over the sparsity. There aren't even any of the usual scraps of paper scattered around the carpet that signalled that she'd been working on her art. The only noticeable difference is that there's a discarded box collecting dust on the floor that had once held a spiffy new dSLR camera. High-end by the looks of it. Effy's got herself a new hobby then.
It's uncomfortable snooping around her mate's room like this so she meanders back downstairs and out towards the back garden, hearing voices wafting in through a cracked kitchen window. She hesitantly pushes open the door and steps into the sunshine and unkempt overgrowth that embodies the Stonems' wild garden. In the midst of the weeds, saplings and shrubs, there are two camp chairs unfolded and in one sits Effy, with her new toy in hand. And in the other, Michelle is leaning back, eyes closed under her sunglasses and soaking in the sun. Everywhere Naomi goes, Michelle seems show up. Inescapable. Aggravating. But she too pays the intruder no mind. An ashtray full to the brim of cigarette butts sits between them, as well as a half-empty bottle of vodka.
Without acknowledging her presence, the skinny brunette spins in her seat and there's a distinctly mechanical click as the shutter snaps on her new camera. Naomi glares at her friend menacingly for a moment, incredibly displeased to have become a reluctant model.
“Hi, Naomi,” Effy drawls as if she thinks something is funny about the situation. At the sound, Michelle draws her sunglasses onto her forehead and cranes her neck to peer at the visitor. Interestingly, she says nothing and only offers a small smile before pulling her shades back down and returning to her sun worship. “You got the note?”
Naomi groans and steps deeper into the garden. “Of course I did. I've texted you a hundred times about it.” She's really not in the mood for Effy's stupid games and comes up to stand over the thin girl, attempting somehow to be intimidating. As if that has ever worked on a Stonem before. She's met with a shrug and the echo of another click of the camera. “Stop it, Eff.”
Effy gazes up, nonplussed, and her blue eyes seemingly wider than normal. It's her best clueless, innocent look but that sad fact is that like a clear, blue ocean, Effy's eyes are almost transparent at times. She can't quite make out what precisely is going on in her head (no one can), but she can practically see the wheels and gears spinning themselves into a constant frenzy. It's a bit of a contradiction maybe that they appear so clear yet remain so defiantly impenetrable. Like a reflection in a mirror, or glassy lake. Moreover, models supposedly had that 'smiling with their eyes' thing going on; Effy Stonem had 'arrogantly smirking with her eyes' happening instead. Bitch.
Reaching under her canvas chair, the brunette pulls out a small stack of photos printed from a home printer and holds them up to Naomi who takes them cautiously. “What are these?”
“Photographs.”
Naomi sighs. “Thanks.” Even just a single word drips with excessive sarcasm.
Effy pauses, motions for her friend to flip through them then laughs. “Tony bought me a camera. So the rest of the world can see it as I do, or some bollocks.” The blonde knows better. Effy's trying to play it off as if it's a silly idea, the same as she does with her meds or therapy or art or anything of substance she creates. But the message must have sunk in cos the photos are surprisingly well-composed and the subject matter the exact representation of what she'd expect the inside of Effy's mind to look like. Mostly black and white: rubbish bins, tangled bramble patches, decrepit sheds, industrial complexes, council estates, half-rotten children's toys, roadkill, dead trees, long empty expanses of motorway. There's colour too: graffiti, homeless men, stormy skies, the dirty harbour, rusted out lorries, half-sunken barges, abandoned heroin needles. It all paints a depressing picture of a dreadful, post-apocalyptic England. But then, there's more. There are candid portraits of familiar faces: Tony asleep, small and fragile-looking in his bed, a fatigued Anthea reading the morning paper with a cigarette burnt down to the filter dangling forgotten between her fingers, random partygoers in varying states of ecstasy and inhibition, blasts of lasers, smiling faces, artificially or ephemerally friendly faces - all within the confines of dark clubs. And then there's a gravestone with a painfully familiar name, a police wagon on its was to a jail, an airplane flying low, the woods, Tony again concentrating intensely on something in a book, Michelle hunched on the sofa in their living room, alone, with a vodka bottle in hand. And Katie, in black and white, startlingly expressive, halfway between anguish and anger wearing the same outfit she'd had on this morning and screaming at someone out of frame. It's a beautiful shot, although Katie herself likely would abhor being caught at such a time. They're all beautiful actually, even in their abandon, decay and misuse. And then a breathtaking landscape of sunrise from what looks to be Ashton Court. It's odd to feel so much of Effy's thoughts so intensely and to have them displayed in such striking translations. They may seem like ordinary photos, many of which a 1000 other hipsters or wannabes could have taken just the same, packed a decent portfolio full of these clichés, but putting them together with the girl in front of her somehow feels incredibly invasive, like she's breached some unspoken barrier. On their own, they're lovely and disturbing, but in connection with Effy, they're powerful and obtrusive. Something she's not meant to see; something Effy hadn't really meant to share.
“Wow, these are...”
“Don't.” She snatches them back, tossing them carelessly under her seat as if suddenly they're just meaningless pieces of paper. “It's all Tony's idea anyway.”
And like that, clues to Effy's psyche are stowed away like hidden treasures. It draws Naomi's stare once again to the vodka bottle between the two girls; she prods at it with her toe.
Michelle glances over lazily and waves a hand in the air. “You can have some, if you want,” she says sounding uncharacteristically disinterested. “Out of fags though.”
What is this? Why is Effy lounging around with Michelle of all people, drinking at noon on a Monday? If Naomi's honest with herself (and she really doesn't like to be if she can help it) the idea is sparking hints of jealousy in her chest, something toxic is bubbling out of the half-digested cereal she'd had for breakfast before coming over here. Was the milk off? Indigestion, perhaps. But likely more psychological in origin. Idly passing the daylight hours was supposed to be her thing, wasn't it? With both of them. But they weren't supposed to do it with each other and just leave her out of it. She could expect this sort of thing from Effy but it's Michelle's attitude that is twisting that knife between her ribs.
“Is Emily busy then?”
Oh.
Yeah. Michelle certainly does not sound pleased. She can't hide her feelings nearly as well as the emotional-Houdini in the other chair. It's sort of bitter maybe but flimsily covered by a feigned indifference. Naomi merely mumbles yeah and kicks at the dirt around the ashtray absently. It's terribly confusing how at times Naomi can't seem to tell the truth at all, and other times can't seem to lie. Surely if you're good at one or the other, you should be skilled enough to control it. It strikes her that maybe she's not actually talented, she's just shit at both things. How unfortunate. Although it sure would explain a lot.
“Page 174,” Effy drones and Naomi's ears perk up at the mention. Finally, an answer.
“Yeah, what's that even mean?”
Effy nods towards the house again. “It's in there.”
Just as Naomi turns to seek out whatever riddle Effy's devised for her this time, Tony appears in the doorway. He leans casually against the frame and smiles at the girls. “Ready to go, Nips?” Oh. So they haven't broken up. The romance isn't quite dead yet. He doesn't wait for an answer; he just turns and fades back into the dimness of the indoors.
Michelle rises slowly, almost reluctantly really, and moves towards the house herself, brushing a little too close to Naomi in the process. She pauses as if she has something to say, but her eyes, shielded by the dark plastic of her sunglasses, give Naomi no hint as to what it is. Instead, she just sighs and continues her trek to meet Tony. It was a close call. Naomi realises that for some odd reason, she'd felt the urge to apologise but she has no idea for what or why on earth she should. Shaking her head, she listens for quiet voices as they move into the front of the house, and then the slam of the door. They're gone. For now. Believing the coast to be clear, the blonde glances back at her mate one more time. Effy's not paying any attention.
On the kitchen table is a book. It's the same bloody book that Effy had shown to her before, and the same one that Katie had been perusing when Naomi had found them on Effy's bed. It's dog-eared on what she presumes in the page in question. Flipping it open impatiently, she notes that it is page 174. There's a small illustration of a fox and a hound. Immediately she thinks of JJ. Paranoia trickles through her mind, wondering if maybe just everyone else was in on some cosmic joke and she's the butt of it. There's no way JJ and Effy would devise some sort of maniacal scheme, is there? No. She calms herself with the assertion that while Effy was an enigma at times, she certainly would have let it slip had she been chatting with JJ. Sober Effy was not the same creature as drugged-up Effy, and really, it was much easier to get the truth out of her if she'd dabbled in any kind of enactogen during the night. Lovely illicit substances. Who needs that wonky Stun shit when decent MDMA will do just as well?
It doesn't take much to see why Effy's marked this page as a whole passage of text is high-lighted in bright yellow.
LAELAPS (Λαῖλαψ) , “hurricane-dog” (Κυον Λαιλαψ) or “storm-wind” was a mythological dog who never failed to catch what he was hunting. In one version of Laelaps' origin, he was a gift from Zeus to Europa of Krete. The hound was passed down to King Minos. Minos had been cursed by his wife; he ejaculated scorpions and spiders that would devour the genitals of those he slept with. Because of this, he called Prokris of Athens to his aid. When she cured him he gave her Laelaps and a javelin that never missed its target. Prokris's husband, Kephalos of Athens, decided to use the hound to hunt the TEUMESSIAN FOX that was laying waste to the countryside around Thebes and could never be caught. This was a paradox: a dog who always caught his prey and a fox that could never be caught. Zeus, pondering the dilemma of the uncatchable fox being chased by an inescapable hound, as Istrus says, turned the pair to stone, or else placed them in the heavens as the Constellations Canis Major (Laelaps) and Canis Minor (Teumessian Fox). In so doing he froze their contest or set it to play out for eternity in the heavens.
Alternately, in some stories the dog overtook the fox, but Zeus changed both animals into a stone, which was shown in the neighbourhood of Thebes.
What the fuck, Effy?
Naomi slaps the book closed and marches purposefully towards the back garden again. She's going to demand an explanation. And moreover, demand to know if Effy's spoken with Emily or JJ. The coincidence is too convenient.
The walled-in garden is empty.
It's not the first time Naomi seriously wonders if Effy is only a figment of her imagination.
It's only a few blocks and she's home again, safe to dwell on the meaning alone in her room without interference from anyone. Effy would have been nice to talk to since the point of the story still doesn't quite fit with anything she herself can come up with. A hint would have been nice. But instead she's left to consider it all for herself. Ugh.
Who is the fox and who is the hound? And the hunter who controls it all? Effy. But who is her hound? Naomi thinks maybe she's the hound but that doesn't work. She's not chasing anything, although she had chased Emily, right? Well, not really. So, is Emily the hound? That doesn't seem right either, but it would make Naomi the fox. There's a lot to be said about foxes: they're cunning, clever, quick - and she certainly does not consider herself any of those things. However, they do spend their lives on the run... She glances up at a small plush fox on a bookcase that she had received from the League Against Cruel Sports for helping with an anti-foxhunt campaign ages ago in Year 11, when she was still idealistic, loud-mouthed and determined to fight for her future. Back when she had a life outside of Emily Fitch. She thinks maybe people don't really know about foxes much at all.
While granted with an instinctive sort of foresight, they aren't truly as clever as they're made out to be in literature. They are diggers, buryers, hiders. Keeping watch on their secrets. In the good months, as few people seem to realise, foxes don't eat all the prey they manage to catch. An unlucky songbird may be covered with dirt in a hole in the ground as the fox hides away his snack for the longer, harder winter months. Like chipmunks and squirrels more than fearsome predators of livestock, he tucks away quite a few contingencies. Because even more like squirrels, he often forgets where he's hidden his emergency rations. His secrets become lost even to himself. So he buries more and more out of necessity. If he's lucky, he'll find some again but there's also the chance he'll forget, or when he does find a treasure, it's rotten from neglect. But in the worst case, and the most common one, something else has discovered his secret and uncovered it. It's no longer his alone.
And really, they may be fast runners, but not as swift as people think. Horse and hound can keep up until eventually the fox tires. A fox can't run forever. He'll try; his life depends on it. Zig-zagging through forests and tunnels, drainage pipes and culverts, up and over dales, in and out of ditches, he will try. He'll run out of fear, out of self-preservation and the anxiety will mount, but truly panicking only as he finds each of his holes, his rare safe-havens, blocked up by the hunters in prior anticipation of his escape. He will continue to run. There's a sort of gruesome inevitability to the chase most times, and the ending that makes the fox wonder what the point of running was in the first place perhaps. If he isn't torn apart by dogs, shot to death or collapsing from the stress-caused haemorrhaging, he has escaped only momentarily. A fox then may be free, but so exhausted that he cannot carry on. Run to death.
Naomi wonders if there's a subtle precautionary tale here.
Still, she can't accept the idea that one should accept the seemingly inevitable without a fight. There may be a large percentage of her 16-year-old self that has been lost to the formative and tragic years beyond, but she will not settle for the ridiculous notion of fate. She knows running, she knows the fight. Passivity had not been in her vocabulary until that final year of college. She fought tooth and nail against social injustices, ignorant people and loving red-haired Emily Fitch. She'd only truly conceded to one of those. The others just fell out of her sight in the blinding glare of teenage love. And now, she has accepted that part just as a fox likely must recognise the futility of the chase when it nears its end. There's still a disturbing rumble deep down when she's left along for too long with her thoughts. It echoes with the same kind of resistance that had seemed so familiar when she was younger, the inability to swallow a particularly hard truth. It sounds as if her heart hasn't ceased running yet, as if the constant pitter-patter of its beats are actually desperately fleeing footsteps against the damp earth of a dark and lonely forest.
Memories of the seemingly infamous Park Incident float to the forefront of her mind unannounced and startlingly crisp against the fog of foxes, hounds and Greek myths. It's Michelle's voice.
Once you're in it, no matter who it's with, you can't get out of love.
All the uncertainty and introspection fades almost as quickly as it had begun and within a week, Naomi has virtually forgotten the visit to Effy's, and her cryptic dense hidden messages. It's easy when Emily is around, and especially when she's lying on her bed, topless on her stomach flipping idly through an unnecessarily large textbook. Naomi grins and pushes down the rumble that was starting to irritate her more and more often these days. Draped in a very loose-fitting t-shirt, she's not much more clothed than her girlfriend. Together they possibly could make a single outfit. Almost. Cos, well, Emily's only got one sock on and the other is nowhere to be seen. She sighs loudly, running a finger across a glossy and colourful graph on the page and Naomi's not sure what to make of it.
She considers it amongst Emily's “New Sounds”. There previously were a whole arsenal of sighs, breaths, groans, moans and chuckles that Naomi could translate without much difficulty. That knowledge had come out of experience but somewhere along the line, a transformation took place. Perhaps it was in college, but definitely also afterwards. Now only about half of Emily's sounds are familiar and the remainder are foreign and lack a recognisable meaning. So far, Naomi reminds herself. So far. She'll eventually learn these too. It's just difficult at times like these cos she's never exactly been the most gifted of conversationalists and lately when she suggests or asks a question after one of these New Sounds, she's met with awkward silences or confused gazes. She's not idea what to say any longer, unsure if Emily is frustrated, tired, bored, amused, or any host of other emotions. She usually guesses wrong now. It makes her feel like there's a missing piece somewhere, a loose connection between them.
So instead she's resorted to waiting for Emily to say something to belay her real feelings. It's a time-consuming pastime but far more risk-adverse. She tiptoes with caution around sharp edges now.
The twin sighs again with a slightly different cadence than previously and slides the book away from her, turning to stare up at her blonde girlfriend instead. “We should go out this weekend. Like properly.”
Naomi's taken aback. “A date?” They'd never really dated, not properly. Like, ever and it seems odd to start now but it's not something she's not totally opposed to either. Emily stares blankly at her as if the suggestion doesn't quite compute. So Naomi tries again, “To the lake or something?” It's worth a shot. They haven't been back there since their return from Goa and at that time it was late-February and horribly wet and cold. Nothing like it had been in the past. Nothing seemed to be anymore.
Emily shakes her head and smirks. “No, no. Like with everyone else. A party.” She lowers herself against the pillow and groans, burying her face and mumbling. “I miss going out.”
It hurts.
More than it should maybe.
The respite from that scene couldn't have come at a better time, as Naomi had grown terribly weary of it all. These weeks away from the groaning bass music, dark crowded rooms of strangers and illicit drugs had been something of a breath of fresh air. They had replaced cocaine with sex, and dancing with lounging about in their jim-jams and watching films. She didn't mind the domesticity too much, and ignoring the pang of resentment she sometimes feels from Effy's lack of interference these days, it had been a much needed break. Now Emily wants a break from the break. Emily of all people. A year ago this would have been everything she dreamt of. Fuck change.
“All right,” Naomi eventually sighs. She feels a finger trailing down the inside of her arm, thinks of ants, and shudders. The touch vanishes.
“Great, cos I've got this friend from Soc Foundations who's throwing a full-on massive at his on Saturday and loads of people from uni...”
Naomi tunes the rest of details out and lets Emily continue cos it's obviously something she's very excited about. Not really fair to rain on that parade this soon. Nodding or humming every so often, she wonders about Goa and how well they worked there and when they became such vastly different people. Maybe they should move to Goa permanently, play pretend forever.
Darlin', forever is a long long time. And time has a way of changin' things.
- Big Mama, Disney's “The Fox and the Hound”
The party is shit.
Of course it is. Why would it be any different? Because it's Bishopston instead of Redcliffe? Because it's being put on by a fresher instead of some college twat left home alone for the weekend? It's the same fucking awful dubstep coming from the speakers and the same cheap lager stowed in the fridge. It's the same morons throwing themselves unabashedly at each other in the same sadistic and often times embarrassing type of modern mating ritual. It's the same drugs, same spirits, same hopelessness and apathy. She spots Tony's mates every so often. And then there's Emily's own friends from uni who she seems to be quite swept up with at the moment, giggling and generally carrying on like she's in sodding Disneyland without a care in the world. What happened to the days when they were instinctively connected, catching each other's eye in crowds, across distance, unable to look away? There's the other ones too: the uni sorts from U Bristol, Bath Spa and UWE; the layabouts and those who work dead-end jobs; and of course, the young ones: Roundview, Filton, Colston's, ugh, all the posh school wankers and whores. Christ, she hates these kinds of house parties.
After necking a few cans of lager she sneakily nicked from an admittedly rather attractive boy's stash, that he and his mate “Spence” seemed to be watching guard over (not very well obviously), Naomi feels slightly better. Not much, but a little bit. Especially when she watches the boy check Emily out, up and down, smirking to himself in the process and running his tongue along his bottom lip. It's times like this she wishes Cook hadn't “done the right thing, yeah, Naomikins” and turned himself in after the mess with Effy's doctor. She could use a buddy, plain and simple, no strings attached, no serious thinking involved. But he's not and that's the unchangeable reality. He won't be around for a very long time. Fuck, she misses him terribly and the enormity of the emotion seems to knock her sideways suddenly. She'd thought her heart was finally finished breaking.
Leaving Emily to catch up with her friends, the blonde steps out into the garden. It's quieter but not empty. A few partygoers are wandering around, sitting on the grass and relaxing. Against the wall is that metalhead kid she sees at half of these things. One leg props a huge boot against the stucco as he leans casually and draws on a cigarette. He appears harmless enough and she shuffles near and fishes her own smoke from a battered pack. He barely gives her a glance before holding out a lighter without even looking at her. She takes it, lights up and hands it back.
“Thanks,” she mutters.
He shrugs and his shoulders fall like his leather jacket actually weighs a tonne. “Don't mention it.”
And she doesn't. They don't say anything cos this is supposedly a safe haven, a chill out spot where all the fake niceness of the inside doesn't need to exist. People can sulk and smoke and have raging internal debates in peace. It doesn't stop her from peering over at him every so often. He seems familiar, and not just because of his face and generally sullen demeanour.
Halfway through her cigarette there's a whirlwind of activity and Naomi immediately recognises that little posh girl who looks like she's possibly forgotten which generation she belongs to. She's classy, refined even despite her bounding energy and bright, cheery smile. The complete opposite of him. She breezily throws her arms around his neck, stands on tip-toe, planting deliberately wet kisses against his cheek as he pretends to hate the attention.
“Trying to smoke here,” he grumbles half-heartedly, pushing away.
She pulls back and pouts theatrically, hands on her hips like a disapproving school-teacher. “How many times have I said those horrible little sticks are bad for you, Richard?” She grins though dissipating any seriousness she'd had on her side. He shrugs again, rolling his eyes in an impressive way Naomi hasn't seen since catching her own reflection in a shop window once. Taking a deliberate step closer, she wrinkles her nose at him playfully. “Fine. Be that way.” After a pause she continues even more. “Mini and the girls want a picture with all of us to commemorate the start of term.”
“I don't do those gay group photos, Grace.”
“Liar, liar pants on fire!” she sing-songs at him, giggling as she finishes. “Now come along, please, Rich. For me?”
The nod as he finally concedes to her wishes is almost undetectable and his eye roll this time is merely bashful. There's a crack of a smile on his face. “I guess.”
It's all she needs as she grins in delight and skips back into the fray. Naomi takes a drag and stares at the boy who is nearly finished his own smoke. She can't help it. She has to break the unspoken rule of the quiet smoking wall.
“Your girlfriend?” The older girl is still a little shaken that two such completely different people can work together in such a frankly adorable way. It's like everything shouldn't mesh but somehow it is totally complimentary. Opposite charges; magnetic plus and minus. She quickly reminds herself that they're people and worn-out metaphors about magnets are stupid... but her mum's words echo in her memory: The people who make us happy are never the people we expect.
He side-eyes Naomi quickly and shrugs for the hundredth time in so many minutes. “Yeah.”
“She's so... different from you.” Not the most diplomatic approach and she can sense his irritation at the statement. In honesty, if she were him, she'd be pretty pissed off about some random stranger commenting on her relationship too.
“Yeah. And?” His eyes narrow at her as if expecting some disparaging commentary.
It's Naomi's turn to shrug. “Nothing,” she mumbles and studies the crumbling ash on the end of her fag. If the message wasn't clear enough, he pulls up his headphones from around his neck and covers his ears. She can hear the tinny sound of music being played far too loud even with all the other noise around them. One last pull on his cigarette and he tosses it to the pavement, loping off without a second glance in her direction.
There's something about the incident that bothers Naomi, like in the pit of her stomach. It hadn't been his attitude cos Naomi's had her share of people like that. She considers those types more of kindred spirits rather than obstinate and irritating. Something about the way the two kids work. They just... coexist in this perfect kind of reciprocity. Human nature (especially that of the under-25 world) would define them as foils, perhaps even enemies. But instead, it's like the lamb dancing fearlessly with the lion. She drops her own cigarette on the ground and slips back into the party and searches for Emily who seems to have vanished somewhere in the throngs of idiots.
Water. Water would be good.
She navigates down a short corridor and finds the bathroom empty. Closing the door softly behind herself, she drinks quickly from the tap, allowing the cold water to flush her system with relief. Looking up, her reflection appears pallid and blue in the light of the stranger's bathroom mirror. Sweeping a finger under eyes, she attempts to fix up some smudged mascara come loose by the incessant habit of running her hands tiredly over her face. It takes a lot less time than she would have liked to touch up her eyes and the knowledge that she can't stay here in her quiet den and put off getting back to mixing with drunk strangers momentarily angers her. She shouldn't have to do this any longer. Wasn't the point of these things to pull? To stumble home (or elsewhere) completely smashed at the end of the night, get sloppily shagged, maybe get ill and then walk home full of shame and surrounded by the tasty aroma stale cigarette smoke and liquor the next morning? Naomi wants none of that. She has a girl. She has a home. And she's not nearly drunk enough. Tipsy, maybe. But not drunk enough for the pantomime.
The tired face in the mirror stares back impassively. It has no mind of its own, no worries. She wishes she could swap places. Bracing her hands on the sides of the sink basin, she breathes out a deep sigh and peers down the black drain.
Her whole body seems to fly back against the wall, causing the cheap plastic towel rod to break and fall to the ground, as the door flies open. Her solitude is shattered against her will.
“The fuck!” she yells as what feels like a heart-attack begins to dissipate. The visitor looks up then, as if she hadn't expected anyone else to be in the room.
“Sorry.” And then there's the pause as recognition switches on. “Christ, sorry, Naomi.”
“Fuck's sake, Chelle.” Naomi pulls herself off the wall, glancing down at the broken rod and heap of dirty handtowels and tries to ignore the idea that once again, this girl has randomly shown up where she is. Inescapable. Michelle has carelessly propped her Mulberry bag up on the wet countertop and is digging through its endless depths for make-up presumably. She pulls out a tube of mascara and leans over closer to the mirror, as if this situation isn't even remotely odd. Like they're just girlie mates having a little chin wag in the toilets, just like any other perfectly normal girl friends. Specifically the kind of stuck-up bitches that Naomi detests and the kind that give her stink-eye when she enters the bathroom at a club and awkwardly interrupts their preening and squawking as she darts around them to the toilet.
Her lashes darken with each sweep. “Didn't think you'd be here,” she says casually between strokes.
Naomi looks at her with mild disbelief. “In the loo?”
Michelle chuckles and twists the cap back on her mascara, batting her eyelashes at her reflection. “No, at this party.” She pauses and looks over with an unreadable expression. “You haven't been around much at all lately.”
The blonde hums noncommittally and offers only a lazy shrug of her shoulders as she watches Michelle pull out a stick of lip-gloss from her black hole of a purse, studies it briefly and finally pulls it open. A very distinct scent of candy apple wafts towards her nostrils as Michelle presses on the gloss. Entrancing is probably not the right word for the action, Naomi muses to herself, cos she definitely should not be entranced by anyone other than her girlfriend. But there's something about apples, or maybe the way Michelle is sliding the lip-gloss around her lips that prevents Naomi from looking away. How many girls watch their friends do this all the time? And none of them get very mildly turned on by the action, she reckons. Michelle smacks her lips together a few times, leans into her reflection again and dabs at errant bits of candy apple goo.
What was that bollocks her mum said about apples and snakes? Something about naked people running all willy-nilly around the woods and some talking animals, then eating fruit that made them evil and some angry ghost yelling at them? Sounds like some acid-trippy Harry Potter shit to Naomi honestly, and all she can recall for sure with her mind this foggy is her mum ranting about figs instead of apples and the damnable errors of Western religious history.
Satisfied with her touch-up, Michelle smiles at herself in the mirror. Reaching down, she pulls on her bra and top, nonchalantly adjusting her tits so they are even more noticeable. “It's nice to see you out is all,” she says to her reflection before turning to the younger girl. She grins at Naomi like one of those cartoon lions in films, her green eyes narrowing as they focus on their prey. “Can't hide away forever.”
Naomi's nostrils flare as the aroma of apples hits again. She meets the irresistible force head on.
It's bad, this kissing business. It's very, very bad. Horribly bad, in fact. Because somewhere on the other side of what is a moderately thin wooden door, her girlfriend is laughing with her friends, innocent and unaware of any flurry of recurrent betrayal. Somewhere on the other side of that same door, a lanky, magnetic sort of blue-eyed devil is lying in wait for Michelle too. But at the moment, the door is enough assurance of safety, or of secrecy. She sees that sullen Rich bloke with his hilariously mismatched girlfriend and two different worlds colliding into one. She wishes she could use that as justification for her actions but she's well aware that there isn't an excuse in the universe that could make this anything but bad.
The only good news is that she's not entirely sure if she completely instigated it. She reckons that Michelle played her part too because Naomi finds herself stumbling backwards, crashing into the mess she'd created earlier as she greedily swallows candy apple lip-gloss. But still, it's Naomi whose hands stray beyond the boundaries of a simple kiss first sliding from their grasp in now-tangled chestnut hair, and down further.
She's never touched Michelle in this intimate way and it's ludicrous that -- now when she's actually in a relationship -- she deems it the ideal time to take this step. Her desperate fingers graze over the soft curves of perfect breasts before her palms take notice and press harder, her hands full and moving and Michelle's small moan reverberating against her lips. In response, warm fingers slide up and under her own top, racing around her waist and trailing up the indent of her lower spine. The resulting goose-pimples must be terribly noticeable and the shudder only amplifies the feeling.
This is nothing like the park. It's not gentle, it's not lazy, it's not even remotely innocent; it's pushy and frenzied More obviously desperate than the first time they kissed, less friendly than the last. But at least it's equally as thoughtless. Not premeditated. The bracket of the broken towel rack digs into her back but she's too preoccupied with lips and hands and breasts to pay much mind to how she'll have to explain away that angry purple bruise to Emily. Truthfully, the idea of Emily in any sense never manages to break through the haze of lust, especially not when Michelle writhes against Naomi, moans quietly and strangled in her ear, as the blonde fumbles with the button on insanely tight jeans.
The rush is exhilarating really, like being let out out of a cage that had been all too confining and unnatural and now running free again. It's like bounding over hills at full speed in a tornado, wind whipping and streaming over her body. Caught up in a tiny hurricane. (A little too much like a certain word beginning with “l”.) She doesn't really think too hard about much in these energized moments and instead allows the momentum to carry them wherever it may go. Michelle's lips glide over exposed skin as if she knows exactly what to do, though really, if Effy is to be trusted, that's not very surprising as the older has a bit of a reputation of being a slag, to put it bluntly. And if she's seeing Tony Stonem, all's fair in love and war, yeah? Naomi manages to push denim away just as a hot hand reaches up under her bra and she bites down on her bottom lip, huffing out a pant through a clenched jaw.
It falls apart not longer after Naomi slips nimble fingers into delicious wetness. Michelle's a screamer probably cos she's definitely a moaner. Naomi knows they're good sounds, of course, she's not retarded but they're completely novel. She can tell Michelle wants to get off as badly as she does. It's bloody well undeniable at this point and Naomi feels the desire coursing through every fucking capillary now, her body pulsing in complimentary need. But when the moment comes and Naomi shifts back just a bit to look the other girl in the face, she doesn't see familiar dark brown eyes gazing back at her. They're dilated green (so, so green in this light) and her breath catches painfully in her throat. It must be the same for Michelle: the blue eyes that she expects are different and a hell of a lot more feminine. It's as if someone has bluntly just froze time in that exact second.
Fear and regret seem to bubble to the surface simultaneously but it's Michelle who pulls back her hands from up Naomi's bra first. A millisecond later, Naomi's freed herself from her own snare. They say nothing; it's awkward enough as it is.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuckfuckfuck.
The brunette rapidly adjusts her clothes and snatches her bag up, scrambling through it for her lip-gloss again. Naomi slithers around behind her, trying to make her escape as one nervous hand flattens her hair and wipes over her mouth, removing all evidence of candy apples. She makes it almost to the door of the tiny room when Michelle sighs. It's an incredibly sad sound and something in Naomi's chest tightens. It's painfully familiar.
Tentative fingers dangle out and snag on Naomi's own hand. The tug is almost imperceptible but she's drawn closer nonetheless and for the briefest of moments, there's a brush of soft lips against her own.
“Sorry.”
And then reality snaps back and Naomi's left staring at Michelle who's now gazing at herself in the glass and dabbing on lip-gloss again. “Sorry,” she repeats quieter to her reflection and Naomi slips out of the bathroom without a word.
In the corridor, all she can hear is thudding music and a chorus of chaotic voices. She breathes deeply once, twice. Five times actually before she wills herself down the passageway and back towards the party. She grinds down the luscious, woolly feeling that has risen in her chest right where guilt is supposed to be flailing about in full-force. It is strangely subdued this time. Naomi refuses to consider what that means.
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