THE IT GIRL – WILL’S SCENE

It was April who suggested playing strip poker after the first bottle of champagne had disappeared. I wasn’t exactly surprised, it had been her party trick at school – a slow strip tease with enormous panache, all the way down to some very fancy underwear. I remembered her at Liv’s sixteenth birthday party, Closer by Nine Inch Nails coming on Liv’s iPod, and April getting up on the dining room table and beginning to unbutton her top while all the boys in the room whooped and hollered.

It was… I mean, I’m not going to pretend. It was hot. April was hot. Ok, I was with Liv at that point, but I could still look. Actually, I couldn’t help but look. No-one could. When April took the stage, you pretty much had no choice. She drew the eyes of everyone in the room, whether you wanted to watch her or not.

No, it was the others who surprised me. Not so much Ryan, he looked like he played a lot of football and would have abs he wasn’t shy about showing off. And Emily, well, she didn’t seem the type to bow to peer pressure, but she also didn’t seem like someone who would be embarrassed about taking off her bra. But Hugh – Hugh was a surprise. Actually a shock. Stiff, prudish Hugh was the last person I would have imagined agreeing to this. He tried to get out of it of course – muttering something about being tired, but April barked at him, and to my amazement, he sat back down.

The other surprise was April’s room mate. Hannah. Hannah Jones. Her name tasted sweet and clean in my mouth, like an apple – a little bit of bite to it. I knew nothing about her, really, apart from her name, but I was still surprised when she said yes. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it was because she didn’t look… well, I don’t know, really. I had put her down as shy, I think. Maybe it was her clothes, which were plain and kind of buttoned up – jeans and a cardigan done up almost to her throat, with just one tiny mother-of-pearl button open, showing the dip of her collar bone. Maybe it was the fact that she was so quiet at dinner, letting April do all the talking. Or maybe it was the way her eyes kept meeting mine and then darting away.

Whatever it was, she gave out an air of… reserve, I suppose would be the word. But she still said yes. And, I had to admit, she was one reason why I agreed to play. Maybe the reason. There was something about her – about the curve of her cheek, about the creamy hollow of skin I could see just underneath that open top button of her cardigan. About the way her eyes met mine, and then looked away, and then when I let my gaze steal back to her, I would find her looking again. It was like an itch under my skin, the way I kept wanting to look, and look. And then our eyes met, it made something inside me quicken in a way it hadn’t for a long time, probably not since I met Liv, if I was being honest.

Now, a couple of hours later, we were down to the final hands of the evening. Looking around the circle, I realised that someone was about to get naked – properly naked. And it might be me.

At least… that was what I thought. Until I picked up my cards and saw all four queens gazing back at me.

Hugh folded first thing, and took off his jeans, clearly mortified. I shot him a look of sympathy, and he gave a resigned shrug as if to say what can you do. Emily and Ryan had good hands, both of them, and both had a garment to lose, and now they were bantering with the comfortable certainty of two people who know they’re not going to be the ones getting naked this round, at least. As Ryan laid down his flush, April’s eyes went to me and then, meaningfully, down at my lap, a wicked grin spreading across her face. But I didn’t rise to it. Instead I smiled back. She might know that I had nothing left to lose but my boxers, but she didn’t know what I had in my hand. Whoever was going to lose this round, it wasn’t me.

And that’s when I realised.

Hannah was down to her underwear too. If she lost, she was taking off her bra.

She looked across the circle at me, and although she was trying to keep a good poker face, I could see something like panic in her eyes. They were huge and dark, dilated with a mix of the joints we had smoked and trepidation about what was about to come.

She held the fan of cards out in front of her, and I could see that the tips were trembling, ever so slightly, and suddenly I knew. I knew that whatever she had, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t going to beat Ryan’s flush. It wasn’t even going to beat Emily’s three of a kind. And it definitely, definitely wasn’t enough to beat the cards that I was holding.

Was she really going to do this? Were we just going to sit here and watch while she took off her bra?

I shifted, wishing suddenly that we’d never started this game.

“Hannah?” April said, a little purring note of mockery in her voice.

Hannah swallowed, I saw the convulsive movement of the muscles in her throat, and then she lifted her head with a kind of gallantry and tossed her chestnut-coloured hair back over her shoulder. The lace trim on her black bra was trembling with every heartbeat.

One by one, she began laying her cards out.

One three.

I felt sick.

Another three.

She opened her mouth. I knew what she was about to say – that that was it. That she had lost.

And then suddenly I knew. I knew I couldn’t do this. I wanted – oh god I wanted it – to see Hannah Jones unclothed, but not like this. Not her naked and mortified in front of a roomful of other students, with Ryan grinning in the corner and Hugh’s eyes out on stalks. It would have been different if she were into it – loving the drama and the attention of the strip tease as April so transparently did. But Hannah clearly didn’t want this end to the evening any more than I wanted it for her.

“I’m out.” The words came out of my mouth before I could think better of it. I let my cards drop to the floor, face down. “I guess I’ll be removing these.”

I looked down at my boxers, and felt the heat rise to my cheeks.

“Hokay.” Across the circle Emily stood up, brushing down the creases of her shirt. “Well, that’s quite enough of that as far as I’m concerned. I have no desire to see anyone’s meat and two veg.”

I could have kissed her. If she hadn’t been clearly far more interested in Ryan, I think I might have done it, out of pure gratitude..

“What?” April was clearly pissed off. “You must be joking!”

But Emily was already getting dressed, and now Ryan stood too, obviously intent on getting as close to Emily’s bedroom as he possibly could, or getting her as close to his, one or the other.

As I searched around for my jeans and belt, I could hear them bickering away, April calling everyone party poopers, Hugh making awkward small talk. I had only one goal in mind, getting my trousers safely back on, so I could check that Hannah Jones was ok.

“I guess I’ll call it a day too,” she said now, rather softly. “Night everyone.” I looked up, and my heart skipped a beat. She had said everyone, but she was looking directly at me.

Everything seemed to stop. My heart was thumping painfully. I want you. I want you, I thought, desperately. Did she like me too? Was she trying to convey something with that clear, direct gaze? Or had she just realised what I’d done, the fact that I’d folded to save her? Was she trying to say thank you without dropping me in it, without saying outright that I’d cheated?

“Night, Hannah,” I managed. My mouth was dry with nerves, and the words seemed to stick in my throat. Fuck. Fuck. Say something else, idiot. Say something clever. Keep her talking. Don’t let her go.

Too late, I realised that Hugh was speaking.

“… you coming, Will?”

“In a sec,” I said, tersely, trying desperately to communicate my predicament to him. Leave me alone with her, but don’t make me spell it out so I look like a total loser. “You head over, I won’t be long.”

My hands were shaking with nerves, my fingers stupid as I tried to do up the buckle of my belt. What was I going to say to her? Do you want to go for a coffee some time? But then what if she thought I was literally just asking for coffee? Did that matter? Or should I spell it out more clearly? What I wanted to say was, please let me kiss you, please come back with me to Cloade’s, you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met, I haven’t stopped thinking about you all night, and I think I might be falling in love with you. Ok, not the last part. That would be unbelievably stupid. But if I said any of that, even without the last part, she would probably chalk me up for some cheesy pick up artist. And if I said the last bit, she’d have me arrested for a stalker. I just – I had to get rid of April somehow. If I said anything in front of her she’d make it into a joke, and I didn’t want that.

Night April,” Hannah said now, and my heart began to beat faster. Yes, go to bed, April, I thought. I tried to catch Hannah’s gaze, but this time she wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at April, and her dark eyes looked sad, almost pleading, somehow.

“Night Hannah.” April’s tone was cross and terse.

At her words, Hannah seemed to deflate. She turned and began walking towards her room, her crumpled shirt still clutched across her chest like a shield.

Fuck. No!

I took a step towards her. I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know what – and somehow the sight of her walking away, her long bare legs, her dark hair swinging, the delicate furrow of her spine beneath the slim black strap of her bra – it was too much. The words dried in my throat.

“Ha-” I began, my hand outstretched but either she didn’t hear me, or she’d had enough of the evening and just wanted to escape. She didn’t stop. She didn’t turn. Instead the door of her room slammed in my face.

I felt all the breath drain from my body. Fuck. I had missed it. I’d missed my chance. And yet she did like me, I was almost sure of it. Didn’t she? Surely she did – wasn’t that what all those missed glances were about, all those times I looked across to find her eyes already fixed on my face? Didn’t that have to mean something?

But then – if she liked me, why hadn’t she stayed? I had stayed for her – wasn’t that clear enough in the way I had sent Hugh away? If she wanted something to happen, why had she run?

“Subtle, darling,” April said a little sourly from behind me. “Very subtle.”

“What do you mean?” I turned back round, feeling a sudden rush of irritation at – at everything, really. At April, at the evening, most of all at myself. Why was I such a dick? Why hadn’t I just come out and said it in front of April. I like you. Will you have coffee with me? Why did I make this stuff so difficult?

“What do I mean? I can see your boner through your jeans.”

In spite of myself I laughed, not least because I knew it wasn’t true. There had been a couple of nasty moments earlier in the evening, true, but I was more pissed off than turned on right now.

“Liar,” I said, but she could see I was smiling.

She came over to me, her hips swaying, still in her turquoise underwear, and in spite of myself I felt something quicken in the pit of my stomach.

“Sure?” She put her hand down between us, the palm flat and against the buckle of my belt, sliding downwards. “Do you want me to check?”

“Ok, I like her. So what? We’re not in prep school. You don’t get to chase me round the field singing K.I.S.S.I.N.G. Is she available?”

“I’m not completely sure,” April said, thoughtfully. She was pressed up against me now, the stiff, nubbly embroidery of her turquoise bra rubbing against the bare skin of my chest. “I think she said something about a boyfriend back home.”

I was surprised at the stab of disappointment that her words provoked. A boyfriend. Of course. That explained everything – the frisson of chemistry – and then the firmly closed door. Anyone could feel temptation, I knew that myself from my days with Liv, but clearly Hannah wasn’t about to let herself do anything about it.

“I could be wrong,” April was saying now, but her hand was slipping inside my belt, her fingers cool against my warm skin, and I was finding it difficult to concentrate on her words. “It might have been just a friend. I don’t think she specifically said a boyfriend…”

I shut my eyes, feeling her soft fingers seeking, seeking… and then finding. A breath shuddered out of me.

“Why?” April was saying. Her lips moved against mine as she spoke, and I could smell the sourness of the champagne on her breath. It was April’s fingers that had closed around me, but the picture in my head wasn’t April, it was of Hannah, Hannah’s back as she walked into her room, and shut the door. Something inside me ached.

“You don’t need her,” April was saying, and now my arms were around her, feeling her warmth, her presence, the heat of her skin. “You’ve got better things to do than worry about her, darling.”<

From somewhere far away, I heard the creak of a door, and for some reason my mind went to Hugh, but I remembered he had already left. It was probably just someone out in the corridor. I half tried to turn my head, but April’s free hand was in my hair, bringing my lips down to hers, and now her tongue was in my mouth.

I gave in.

So what if Hannah Jones wasn’t available, April was, and that was enough for tonight.

She twisted the handle of her bedroom door open behind her, and then she led me inside.