6-6Everyone who has been bullied dreams that, when they leave gamy school, everything will deepen. Everyone lives in hope and ilk feel good narration where the grind gets the girl in the end. As we say at Victims Anonymous, “ My public figure’s Sam, and here’s my story ” :

My last year at high school was a shit year. I wasn’t popular to begin with, wasn’t good looking, wasn’t trendy, had zits. And on top of that, I had lots of dickhead happen in my lifespan, all in that like class. My mum walked out. Well, it felt like she was abandoning us, but really it was dad and I who got chucked out and she kept our flat and her new lover. We moved to a small mid terrace in a rougher neighbouring borough. And because it was my stopping point year, I couldn’t swap schools so I had a really long walk to and from school day all through that last winter and spring. I wore all this nuisance on my arm and became grouchy and unpopular and drifted away from what friends I had, and none of the girls were interested in me. And I had zits.

But despite all that shit, I did well enough at my O-level exams to get into six-form in my new borough. My dad, who wasn’t a big juicer really, put some effort into being social and got friendly with some detergent builder in our new local pub and that got me a summer job mixing poultice. It was back-breaking work but a few week real heavy Labour Party sinew you up in room a gym never will and the builder charm and confidence really rubbed off on me too. It was always an too soon start, on web site by 7, but with a “ liquid lunch ” down at the pub and, because I was with a bunch of builders, I was served and cipher let on & mdash ; they thought it was a funny secret that that their scrawny labourer was under-age. I spent a good component of my wage on troll but I learned a lot of ego authority doing it. So you can terminate impression sorry for me now ; I did. You know where this is going. I’m going to go to a six-form where nobody knows me, and as a man not a boy.

Around rolled the first day of six-form. I left the house and went to the end of the row and turned right. The bigger road was full of a steady flow of kids, some in groups and some alone, in the same undifferentiated drift towards my new school. I slotted myself into a gap in the stream.

Basically I noticed all the girls. I couldn’t help it. No boy can avail it. I was addicted to looking at girls. In front of me, for example, was a girlfriend. I carefully kept tempo so I wouldn’t catch up. She had really toned long pale legs and a forgetful mini-skirt. Her blouse was loose-fitting and she had a impenetrable satchel over one shoulder joint. British capital kidskin always carried their bags over one shoulder, even if the bag had two shoulder strap. She was clutching a big binder. She looked weighed down. She was quite tall and I guessed she must be in the six-form. She had long blurred blond fuzz. It was a very weak blonde, almost white.

I kept my head down and tried to prevent a changeless aloofness from her long legs and wiggly little bottom.

The new school day was quite nearly and we were soon there. I got out the petty map I had received in the spot and tried to work out how to get to the conformation elbow room. It wasn’t surd, and I didn’t hold back to talk to anyone. The quad was to the full of nipper chatting and catching up, waiting for the gong, but I didn’t know a somebody so I went straight to feel my new form room.

The classroom was in a portacabin on the side of the games field. well-nigh of the six-form was in a clustering of portacabins near the secret plan line of business, away from the mellow school. We only had to go up to the master school day building for science subjects.

Feigning confidence, I went straight in. It was half entire. I made a bee line for the liberate seat in the far hind corner. mass watched at me. Everyone else had been to the high school together, and I was the sole new boy.

Some chatty giggly girls came in and sat down in the back row. The girl who sat down beside me turned and introduced herself as Helen of Troy. Helen had favorable curly hair, probably permed. She had an undefendable smiley human face and burnished chocolate-brown eyes and a gap between her two straw man dentition. She wore a tight blouse over her stroll heart and her schooltime tie was wanton and her blouse top button undone to establish generous cleavage. As she lent towards me to talk my middle were sucked in and she basked in my attention. She started to place out and identify everybody as the room filled up.

In high school the bad male child had sat at the back, as a rule, if it was free seating room. Some teachers decided who sat where but mostly it was free seating and so there was a pecking order. I had never sat in the plump for row before. But not a lot of bad male child went on to six-form so the bad miss were promoted to plunk for row brood hen and I, the new boy, the unknown quantity with the sureness of individual who had been shoveling sand and cement all summertime, had gone and sat myself there. I had been advertising my presumed trust and laterality. interior, if I’d stopped to remember about it, I’d have been petrified.

Helen was mostly concerned in introducing me to all the girls in the bet on row. But I saw that, sitting up the boundary away from the window in the seating area reserved for the nerds and misfits, was some fuzzy blonde hair I recognised. Was that the delicious wiggly bottom I’d followed to school ? My curiously was piqued and I overcame my shyness and pointed and asked who she was.

Helen said dismissively “ that’s Alice. ” and was going to go back to telling me all about the little girl in the support row.

Katie, the little girl beside Helen who was trying to connect in, giggled loudly and said “ Flat Alice you mean ! The Ice faggot ? ”

Katie was just a loud indiscreet kind of girl. Helen seemed a bit pain, and brushed it away “ she’s very just at skating. She competes, ” to which Katie, obviously enjoying the gossip, giggled and said even louder “ No, it’s because she’s a gelid cunt ! ”

I was scared everyone could hear us. I sensed that everyone was listening. My spike burned. So I asked who our form teacher was going to be.

I got my answer pretty spry. In take the air Mr Davis. He was a light but powerful man with thinning hair. He effortlessly commanded respect. The totally room hushed. He put down a slew of report on his desk, turned to the class and, in a pass Scottish accent, welcomed us to the six-form. He looked around and his eyes settled on me. He told me to stand up, which I did, but I didn’t have to introduce myself and say anything because he did all that for me. Everyone then chorused “ hello Sam. ” and I sat down.

I was glad I hadn’t had to peach ; I don’t think I’d have been able to talk flashy enough for anyone to hear.

Mr Davis was also our maths teacher. Those not taking mathematics & mdash ; you picked you subjects for A-levels & mdash ; left and some new child from other forms came in. I stayed put in my recess seat. Then we had our first maths lesson, which went until lunch. That was unlike from heights school ; at A-level you only took three theme but the lesson time slot were often a lot longer.

My first dejeuner was pretty lonely. I found the cafeteria using my map. I didn’t have any friends to hang out with. This was uncomfortable, but not half as uncomfortable as being at my old school surrounded by bullies. There were so many youngster everywhere that it was concentrated to blob anyone. I didn’t see Helen nor Katie’s gang, nor apartment Alice nor anyone else who might be in the six-form. I probably wouldn’t have dared go up to them anyway. It was a nice day and I sat outside, waiting for the good afternoon deterrent example on physics to start.

That night my dad took me down the topical anesthetic to lionise my initiative day at six-form and ask how it went. I told him it went great. He told me it’d take time to make supporter and work out who the shits were. I guess he saw through me a bit, but being in the pub with the builder and my dad really kept my heart eminent. I wasn’t going to be a push over so drop out feeling sorry for me.

The future day I went to school again, slipping into the stream of kids between two groups. I went straight to the rachis corner of the manakin schoolroom, realising that the cluster of boys who sat in straw man of me didn’t look so favorable. I guess they didn’t like that I was getting in with Helen and Katie and the back row ?

Helen of Troy seemed really prissy. indisputable she liked me ogling her tit, but she liked that variety of attention from all the boys. She was a prickteaser, but she was also kind and considerate. She didn’t have a mean off-white in her body. She was way out of my conference, but I guess she didn’t know that on account of nobody knowing my history. The back row girls knew all the other male child who had gone on to six-form from the high school schooling and they weren’t really their type. almost of the backwards row girls had boyfriends who were a twelvemonth or two senior and had left school and were working or looking for it. I think Helen of Troy had a boyfriend, although she carefully kept it equivocal. But Katie kept gleefully implying it.

That lunchtime I looked at my map for somewhere to explore as something to do. I went to the library. The depository library was in the primary old school building and had high stained glass windows. It was almost deserted. I went along the rows of shelves, full of boring books.

And there she was. That brilliant long bleary blonde hair. It had to be Flat Alice. She was sitting hunched over her open binder, writing. I walked around her table and stood in battlefront of her and cleared my throat. She looked up. She had small delicate features and high cheekbones, eyebrows so blonde they almost didn’t show and very igniter blue heart. She had a few hickey but real girlfriend do. So do boys. pit, I had some zits.

I could sense she was unlike. I could sense she was special. She seemed accessible, she seemed echt. It was a vibe she gave off. We were two outsiders.

I introduced myself and asked if we were in the Saami descriptor. Then there was silence. She hadn’t said anything. She hadn’t answered my question. She was looking at me like I was mad. Finally she reached out a hand to shake mine, saying “ Hi, I’m Alice. Yeah we’re in the Lapplander material body. Is there anything I can help you with ? ” She said it in that tone she’d use when showing first-years around on an open-day. She looked just the type of honorable teen who’d be asked to evidence first-years and their parents around on open-days.

My builder bluster kicked in.

“ Yeah, actually, there is. Can you show me where the cafeteria is please ? ”

She kicked up the responsible scholar posture a notch and looked seriously concerned, muttering soothingly about how it was awful I hadn’t been shown around properly. She started to have directions, but I played dumb and pleaded “ Can you just record me, please ? It’ll be easier. ”

Easier ? Who was I kidding ? She didn’t seem easily convinced but in the end the responsible student closed her binder and stood up, hugging it.

“ Follow me. ” she said and I did.

We marched position by face across the quad towards the cafeteria. The charge had died down and it was only half good. She was about to wrench away when we reached the doorway, but I asked her if she wanted to eat with me. She just stood there, saying null, until I pleaded “ Please ? ” She caved in, and she went sat down at an empty board while I got my lunch of sausage, baked dome and chips.

I sat down across from her. She sniffed her poke up at my photographic plate. “ How can you eat that muck ? ”

I started to excuse the mechanics of knifes and forks like I was some kind of wit. I asked what she was going to eat. She opened her bag and plucked out some neatly wrapped sandwiches. She started to describe the schooling docket as we sat there. She just talked and talked. I figured it was her kind of justificative mechanism. I listened to her, hanging on every word.

Wednesday morning I had to run past a twosome of grouping of small fry to catch up with Alice who was walking alone to schooltime. She didn’t pay any care as I caught her up, but when I said “ Hi Alice. ” she turned, alarmed, saw it was me and calmed down.

She seemed justificatory, but at to the lowest degree she talked back. I said we must live quite tightlipped, and she smiled weakly and didn’t offer any hints of where exactly she lived. And by now we were at school and we headed together to our build room.

Helen of Troy was bubbly and chatty as always and we talked telly, with Katie and the others trying to chime in.

Then that lunch metre I rushed off to the library. It was empty. I was a bit gutted and was a bit overpower with a loneliness. But, zip better to do, I stood extraneous by the doorway and waited. Alice was coming across the quadriceps towards me.

“ Are you stalking me ? ” ” she asked.

From the feel and neutral face I couldn’t recite if she was joking. I asked if she wanted to eat with me.

She countered coolly “ You aren’t going to hazard you can’t commend where the canteen is again, are you ? ”

I fished some sandwiches out of my bag and held them up swinging in front line of her face. She suddenly cracked an unwilling small grin as though she couldn’t avail herself.

“ Oh ok. ” she surrendered, sounding exasperated, like I was a naughty puppy, and she led me off across the game field to some benches on the far side.

We walked in well-heeled secrecy. When we sat and ate, I started to ask her about herself. And little by lilliputian she dropped her guard. Alice is actually Norwegian, although her mum had moved to London when she was very slight and she didn’t remember much. Although she spends all her summertime in Norway visiting family and loves it, London is ‘ home’now. Her real name is Erika, but Alice is her English epithet and she likes it substantially ; I should call her Alice. Her mum was a Young mother and her dad didn’t stick around and that’s one of the big reasons why they moved to England, for a new scratch line. That and that the English really need dentists ! Alice’s mum was a trained alveolar nursemaid. Alice’s hobby is ice skating, which comes naturally on account of her being Norwegian, and her mum is the instructor in the local anesthetic rink. I just kept asking questions and Alice kept answering and all this came tumbling out. I don’t think that we ate any sandwiches.

Then Alice looked at her watch and said we had to get to example. It was a bit other I thought, and I said there was no rush. But Alice jerked her pollex over her shoulder joint, indicating towards a copse at the bum corner of the games field, and said “ The posse comitatus will be finishing their pouf and coming back soon and it won’t be skilful for us to be seen together ” as explanation.

Obviously the hard kids went and smoked in the coppice at lunch fourth dimension. We hurried across the field towards the six-form portacabins.

I rushed to the school gates at home time too, thinking Alice would let to hand through them to go home. Yes I was forcing my company upon her. No I didn’t think about it that way. All I could think about was Alice. I was already infatuated. And so we walked home together too.

I had a crush on her and alone with her I was feeling brave. I worked up the guts to make a motion : I asked her if she wanted to go down the high street after schoolhouse tomorrow. She tentatively agreed. It was all going so fast. At senior high school day I had been so Helen Wills, bullied and socially awkward that I had never ever spent any prison term with any missy ever. And yet now I was coming out of my plate so fast I was at peril of doing something really stupid. I should have been thinking about things from Alice’s angle, knowing how it is to be an outsider on the edge of school day life story being pursued by a horny new boy, but I couldn’t. But luckily it was turning out ok & mdash ; I think she was warming to me, warming to having a friend.

We agreed to bring a alteration of clothes to school so we wouldn’t be in uniform. Then we got to the top of my route and I pointed out where I lived, but she didn’t offer focus to hers and I didn’t really want to pry. Alice seemed on her safeguard and note value her privacy. But it kind of felt like we had a date. At least, in my creative thinker, we had a date.

So, of course, that evening and at school the next day my mind was only on going down the high street with Alice.

And then after schooling came. We met at the school Bill Gates but then ducked back into the sportswoman block to change out of our uniforms. There were carve up changing rooms. Alice came back international in a dilute baggy rusty red wooly jumper, a tartan mini-skirt and black legging. She was wearing vivid red lipstick. She was transformed ! Still carrying a bag and hugging a binder, she looked every bit a mature college lady friend easily.

I steered her towards dwelling house. She pointed out that it wasn’t the way to the town meat, but I assured her I knew that. She seemed dubious, half distrusting, half spooky, but she followed with me anyhow. I stopped outside our local. I don’t know really why I did this, why I’d brought Alice there. Now Alice looked really nervous. She bit her ass lip. She looked invitingly vulnerable. She looked gorgeous.

I opened the doorway and she stepped inside. It took a duad of seconds to align to the iniquity. rightfield in front of the door was the bar where the landlady Brenda stood, cleaning glasses. I went up to the bar and ordered a pint. Brenda was still cleaning a glass “ And what will your lady friend be having, Sam ? ”

Alice said sharply “ We’re just friends ! ”

Brenda didn’t overleap a beat and asked again “ And what will your friend be having, Sam ? ” Brenda thought it funny.

Alice asked for a coke. Brenda asked me if that would be a rum and C. I nodded. Alice seemed a bit shocked, but she kept calm down. I put it on my dad’s tab and we took our drinks around the side into the salon. It was mid afternoon and it was quite quiet, almost empty.

We sat in a Booth next to each other on a bench seat sipping our drinks. Alice asked me if I drank a lot, and asked how the landlady seemed to know my gens. I variety of talked myself up a little bit, but a bit of me never wanted to lie nor overdo to Alice, so I kept it real.

Alice’s cheeks flushed almost immediately ; this was very clearly the first alcohol she’d ever drank, and the first pub she’d ever been in, and the first naughty matter she’d ever done !

Suddenly Alice looked up across the salon and froze. She looked shocked. I followed her gaze. It was Mr Davis and a lady admirer sitting in a Booth against the opposite paries, kissing.

“ That’s Miss Brady, the geography teacher ! ” Alice whispered.

“ They are enjoying themselves. ” I laughed, disinterested.

“ But they’re married ! ” Alice whispered back indignantly.

“ Well that’s ok then ! ” I couldn’t see the problem.

“ Not to each other ! ” Alice clarified.

Ah.

At that moment Miss Diamond Jim Brady glanced up, saw us watching them, and pushed Mr Davis away. They hurriedly tried to adjust and straighten their clothing. I raised my dry pint to them in salutation, brave on the alfresco and panicking on the inside.

So here were two under-age school kids caught drinking in a pub by two instructor caught having an affair by two schooling nestling in a pub... I now realised that neither duet wanted this to turn populace. I pointed this out to Alice, and she seemed ever-so slightly reassured, but she was still really uncomfortable. I think she was more occupy what the teacher thought of her than what she thought of other people I guess.

To break the tenseness I suggested to Alice that we play puddle. She hadn’t ever played puddle before so I promised to teach her. So we got up and took our shabu over to the pool tabular array, slotted in ten pence and racked up. Then I broke and, when it was Alice’s become, I stood behind her and reached around her to prove her how to prevail the cue and line up and work stoppage. The smell of her shampoo was intoxicating. The beer I’d drank, and it being my topical anaesthetic, was giving me my a mega Cupid's itch of my cocky constructor appeal, at the same time as I was so sensitive to every docile ghost of our bodies, thicket of her hair, as I guided her.

Our game was going slowly. That suited me. I forgot about the teachers. And then Alice needed to go powderize her wind and I pointed out where the ladies was.

After Alice left another movement in the bar made me call back we were not alone. missy Mathew B. Brady was following Alice to the toilets and Mr Davis was heading heterosexual for me. Obviously they were taking this chance to straighten us out one-on-one.

Mr Dwight Filley Davis came over and asked if I came here often. I nodded. I had my builder bravado and it was my local and it was outside school hours and I had only been at the schooling a couple of Clarence Day so I didn’t have any ingrain fear of him. He seemed to be casting around for something to say.

“ Nice to see you with Alice. ” was all he came up with.

I grinned.

“ Nice to see you with miss Brady. ”

Mr Davis sucked in his impudence. He didn’t know how to say whatever it was he needed to say.

I guess this inapt conversation was taking longer that it seemed, because the girls were already heading back towards us. girl Brady and Alice arrived at the Sami time. They had obviously been chatting but when they reached us there was another pregnant pause. And then my detergent builder bluster kicked in and I suggested a game of doubles.

Alice tried to escape by pointing out she couldn’t play. Mr Davis tried to say they really ought be going. And Miss James Buchanan Brady jumped up and down with fervor and said it was an excellent idea and so it was settled. It turned out girl Mathew B. Brady had never played either, so a reluctant Mr Miles Dewey Davis Jr. had to coach her too ! I guess Miss Brady had been watching Alice and I intently earlier. I swear young woman Brady was wiggling her tail and pressing back into Mr Davis and doing everything to taunt him. Even Alice was lightening up, the danger over and the rum and coke working their magic.

I figured I had pushed our lot far enough for one day and, as soon as the game finally finished, I said to Alice that we’d better be off. Alice reluctantly agreed, and we left the pub and turned towards home.

Alice suddenly stopped dead in her tracks and looked really scared. “ My mum is going to smell locoweed ! She is going to need to know where I’ve been ! ”

Alice seemed distraught. I cast around for a solution. Suddenly, quick as a flash, I saw a way out. I suggested she change back into her school clothes at my house, and she could preserve her trendy clothes at mine ready for our next outing. Alice jumped at the chance.

So I let her into my mansion. Dad and I live in a tiny mid-terrace sign, two up two down. The front door opened straight into the aliveness way which had a sinister and Patrick White TV and tired old couch and a pair of armchairs. The wall were chocolate brown in best 70s style.

As soon as we were in the hallway Alice thrust the binder at me. “ Here, hold this. ” Then she asked where the toilet was.

I told her and she took her bag and went and changed. She emerged a six-former again. She came up to me, grabbed her binder and hugged it, and stood in front of me, a foot apart.

“ Thanks for today, it was, eh, interesting. ” she said with a lop-sided grin.

“ Don’t draw a blank you’re wearing lipstick. ” I said as she turned and let herself out.

I should feature kissed her ! Was she waiting for it ? Should I receive tried ? What had she meant with Brenda, ‘ Just protagonist ?’I beat myself up and shouted at myself all evening.

The next few days we went to and from school together and lunched together. I was in heaven. I fancied Alice so much and I was spending so a great deal meter with her. I loved watching her, I love hearing her talking. We’d sit on a judiciary at lunchtime and I’d just keep back asking silly query and she’d downslope for it every time, flowing into long detailed response whilst I just drank greedily from her aura.

It was Fri, the end of my first week, and we were walking household together. I asked her what she was doing on the weekend. She was training ice skating. Suddenly she got shake as though the melodic theme had just come to her : would I like to come ice skating with her ? I said I couldn’t skate. She said it was ok, she’d teach me. And so, my heart skipping, we arranged to fulfill the following day after luncheon at the rink.

We met by the entrance. With the Holocene epoch success in the Olympiad, ice skating was in the democratic eye again, but that warm Aug day it wasn’t very democratic in my town and the rink was almost empty. An old man sat in the ticket power and greeted Alice and talked to her like good friends. He let me slip in for free.

Alice was wearing another thin out baggy wooly sweater, mini-skirt and leggings. She had her own skates at the rink. She helped me put my loanword twosome on and led me out onto the ice.

Immediately my feet went in antonym directions and I almost collapsed. Alice found it all very funny remark. Very slowly she led me around the rink. She would stand in front of me, holding each bridge player, and drag me forwards by wriggling her rear so she moved backwards. Her long foggy blonde hair was like a annulus around her smiling beaming case and I was mesmerized by the pattern her wiggling freighter traced, its zig zagging path burned into my retina.

Suddenly Alice let go of me and turned. She accelerated instantly and was off around the skating rink with an elegance and efficiency that made it count effortless. As she reached the far street corner furthest from me she did a simple jump and twirl without slowing down and was onwards around the rink until she came up behind me again and skidded to a stoppage exactly where she’d started seconds before. Her cheeks were flushed from the sudden sweat in the cold air. And then she grabbed my hand and tried to get me to skate some more. She did these lick every so often. She said she was keeping strong. I was in awe.

After our skating we walked back and before she realised it she had led me back to her house. She was giggling, saying I was more like Bambi than James Dean. I was a bit put out and embarrassed. Everyone was talking about Torvill and Dean. She stopped, pointing out that she lived here. This terrace was a bit posher than my terrace and the houses seemed a little bit bigger. She squeezed my hand and thanked me for skating with her. She laughed and called me Bambi again. My brass must have fallen. She lent in and whispered in my ear “ Don’t bury, Bambi was a stag don’t you know ? ” in a fit of giggles and then she turned and bounded up her steps to her front door, various at a time.

I walked home elated and lost. Had she been giving me steer and boost ? Were we still ‘ just friends ?’It wasn’t so far home.

On Mon I had to look by the end of my row for Alice to come into mountain. We walked together, side by side, close but not touching. Alice said matter-of-factly that I was invited around to dinner Tuesday dark. Apparently the old man at the rink had told her mum about me and Alice’s mum had thought it would be decent if I came rung for tea. ‘ Just as a champion & rsquo ;, Alice added. I went from elation to devastation in a split second. But I tried to put a brave human face on it.

At six-form you normally take only three field of study. Some take four. And so you have several discharge slots on the outline. You are supposed to drop these empty slots in the six-form field rooms where you sit and workplace, or talk quietly and act to work, and there’s a teacher there to convey the register so you can’t skip it. I had a abandon slot and I sat in the sun on the benches outside the study room waiting for that instructor to arrive.

This time it was Mr Bette Davis supervision. He saw me sitting alone extraneous and paused on his way in.

“ No Alice today ? ” he asked conversationally.

I said she had biological science. I stood up to follow him in but he put his arm around my shoulder and joked “ ah, you just serve her with her biota homework eh ? ”

I stifled a giggle and he laughed loudly at his own put-on and at my superfluity, and I joined in. So we went into the study room with his arm around my shoulder, laughing.

After discipline period it was dejeuner time and we tumbled out into the quadruplet temperateness. Helen and Katie and their crowd & mdash ; they called themselves Katie’s Posse & mdash ; cornered me. Katie, always loud, asked how I was so pally with Mr Davis.

“ Oh I’ve met him down the pub. ” I said, my chest puffing out at the boast that I went to a pub !

Almost as quickly I got this sinking feeling that this was a rumour that could easily get me into bass problem. But The Posse cooed ; I was a bad boy and that excited them.

Helen asked what I was doing for lunch. I looked around ; Alice was heading straight for us.

“ Alice ! ” I called, as a good deal to draw in Alice’s attention as to answer Helen.

Katie smirked incredulously “ Flat Alice ? Why the fuck do you waste your metre with her ? What’s she do, muff you ? ” and The posse fell around laughing like that was the amusing jocularity in the world.

I looked wildly around. Where was Alice ? Had she heard ? I couldn’t see Alice anywhere. One minute she was almost with us, the next she had disappeared.

I heard a pipe down voice, Helen’s voice, asking “ Do you bang her ? ”

I think Helen had a romantic English and liked to meet Amor. It was the kind vox of a friend, of an ally.

I felt sick. I pushed my way through The posse comitatus ignoring Katie’s grabbing effort to nurse me back. I went searching for Alice but I couldn’t find her. I guess she’d had eld of disappearing and hiding at schooltime and was expert at it.

We met at the school Bill Gates at nursing home fourth dimension. Alice’s center were puffy. I went to put my arm around her but she pulled away as though stung. But she seemed a bit pleased that I’d waited for her. On the way home she told me she’d skipped lessons and hid all good afternoon in the fun pulley. I was placid. I wasn’t really equipped for comforting her and didn’t have it away what to say.

Tues we went to schooling, lunched and came household from school together as pattern. It was routine now and Alice would look for me out. I was really enjoying having a proper ally, which kind of complicated affair as I also had the most tremendous crush on her and it was growing all the time. I wasn’t sure if she thought about me like that, if she noticed me like that, if she liked boys, if she wanted anything. I was getting an unquiet feeling that we were ‘ just friends’and that I was destined to follow her around forever, watching her date other boys and try and comfort her each metre she was dumped and always being in agony inside. I don’t think a boy and a girl can be just friends. One or the other always wants more. I wanted more. I wanted it all.

As we parted on the way menage Alice smiled and reminded me to be at hers at 6. It wasn’t like I’d blank out. I had been nervously looking forward to it all day !

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

I walked slowly up the footprint to her front door and band the chime. Alice opened the door and invited me in. She was wearing a very short fiddling halterneck blackness wearing apparel with fatal netting blazon embroidered with black roses. Alice was so lithesome but the wearing apparel hugged her like a glove. Her breast pushed out like two little Christmas Day pud. Her whisker had been brushed and tamed a bit and she was wearing eye shadow and vivid red lipstick. I think the pink flush in her impertinence was unfeigned, not blusher. She looked absolutely completely stunning. She looked so mature. She looked like a beautiful young lady. She was smiling nervously, her head slightly cocked and her eyes sparkling. She was so alluring.

The planetary house was so different from mine. There was no rug, only a herringbone wooden tiled floor and strategical rugs. The breast door opened into a Hall with the front room off to one side of meat and ahead at the end opened into the kitchen-cum-dinning room. Alice’s voice came from the kitchen “ Is that Sam ? Show him through. ”

It wasn’t Alice, but it sounded just like her.

Alice walked towards the kitchen and I followed. Her bantam little bottom wiggled like I’d watched on that foremost day. I hadn’t thought about it much since as I’d started to walk beside her rather than behind her, but I was powerful reminded of it now. She had a wonderful tail. I was infatuated with her, every bit of her, and somehow being behind her gave me a chance to ogle more blatantly than if she could see my face and where my eyes roamed. It was liberating to get the chance to watch her walk from behind.

The kitchen was brightly lit and forward-looking looking, and the dinning area beyond only lit by standard candle. The olfactory sensation of food was wonderful. And there, chopping a salad on the slope, was Alice’s mum.

Alice’s mum was similar to Alice in so many ways. She was the same height and build with blond haircloth and blue eyes. And yet in so many manner, she was slightly different. Her hair was ever so slightly darker and straighter, and her brow ever so slender Sir Thomas More pronounced. She looked so young, like she was Alice’s older sister. She was dressed quite normally in tight dungaree and thin baggy wooly jumper. She introduced herself as Anita. She sounded just like Alice.

Alice was all dressed up, looking very girly. Her mum looked completely casual. There were wax light. Her mum was with us. I wasn’t sure as shooting if this was a date or not. I sure felt romantic. It felt like Alice was making a limited effort and I was excited. Was this more than just friends ?

We sat, the three of us, on a lowly mesa and ate. Alice and I sat opposite each other and Anita sat on the end, between us. Anita sipped red wine-coloured. The lasagna was absolutely wonderful. Anita’s cheeks went red like Alice’s had when she had the rum and coke, and I guessed that Anita wasn’t a regular toper either. The mood was so light. Anita got me to tell all about how I lived with my dad and what I was studying and what I wanted to do for a job and everything, and Alice tried her hardest to change the issue and differentiate her mum off for asking embarrassingly personal questions. I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed seeing Alice so comfortable and alive and joining in the conversation. Anita was playful. I thanked Anita for the dinner, and Anita laughed and said I should thank Alice as Alice had cooked it ! I was floored. Alice looked so embarrassed. Not knowing what to say next, I gathered up the plates and started washing them up.

Alice and her mum started talking quietly. It was like they were singing. I couldn’t understand a Word of God. It was, I now know, how it sounds when they talk Norwegian. It sounds like singing. From their consistency spoken language, Alice was telling her mum off for embarrassing her. They sounded so happy when they were singing but their body language said they were were arguing and Alice was trying to dissuade her mum from doing something rash.

Anita suddenly broke off their conversation and looked up and said loudly in English language “ Sam, Alice and I were wonderin... ”

At that point Alice tried to breed her mother’s mouth up with her deal. They struggled for a bit and Anita batted away Alice’s arms and carried on despite the protest.

“ We were wondering if you would like to dine with us on Thursday too ? ”

My philia stopped ! There was nothing I wanted more !

“ And perhaps your dad would like to join us ? ”

Alice tried to close her mum up again but it was too former, Anita had said it. And so it was. Anita looked triumphant.

After I’d rinsed the home plate Anita came over and told me to just depart them. I tried to insist, but Anita plucked the material out of my bridge player and that was that. Alice shyly came and asked if I wanted to see her room.

Alice led me upstairs. I had dreamed of being led upstairs by Alice, but in very living it was a million sentence more shake. Her bottom was so airless I just wanted to make out and touch her. There was another landing, with a bathroom Midway and a presence and a vertebral column chamber. The back chamber was Alice’s. She gently pushed open the ajar doorway and flicked on the light.

“ What do you recall ? ” She asked nervously, biting her fanny lip.

“ I think you are a beautiful ma'am and the best cook in the public and I want to marry you ! ” I don’t know where that answer came from. It tumbled out so flying I hadn’t had time to even conceive it before it blurted out.

Alice blushed really deeply.

“ Not me, silly, the room. ” she said meekly, gesturing around.

But I could tell the compliment had landed. I was elated. I had just proposed to the girl I fancied. The only girl in the world I fancied. The solely girl in the all existence I ever thought about.

I looked around the room. It was quite small, and very clean up and very Alice. It had been her room a long fourth dimension. The wallpaper was still pink. There was still a poster of a sawhorse tacked to a closet doorway. And then here were things that seemed more like the teenager Alice such as a makeup desk with mirror and a K tiny coloured jars and equipment, and a bill sticker of The Who. There was a tape recording actor with twin decks. There was a ledge along the bulwark over the minuscule bed with caboodle of tapes and Holy Writ on. I moved closer to see what kind of music she liked. They were all intermixture recorded off the radio receiver, with band name calling in Alice’s tiny tidy handwriting down the spines. And then at the rest end there were some Book. I moved closer. They seemed to all be Mills and boon and Jane Austen.

I reached out to pluck one from the shelf. Alice launched herself at me, grabbing for my outstretched arm to pull it back away from the shelf. I variety of instinctively sweep my arm away from her but she had grabbed my cuff and I carried her with me. She spun, tipped, overbalanced over the edge of the bed, and landed on her back spread eagle on her duvet with me tumbling down on top of her.

She was giggling “ You can’t read my diary ! ”

I guess her diary was on that shelf. She suddenly stopped smiling, her optic searching mine. Her fuzzy light up blonde fuzz was spread out like rays of the sun on her pillow. I forgot what we were talking about. I lent in and we kissed.

Our lips touched. It was electrifying. I had closed my eyes. We just stopped, paused, our lips pressed lightly together, not moving, thinking about the sensation of our touching. I’m not certainly how many Clarence Day we just laid still, joined at the lips.

There was a gaudy cough, like someone deliberately clearing their throat, from the doorway. Alice and I sprang apart as though electrocute. Anita was standing in the door way, leaning on the door frame.

“ So you’re ‘ just friends’are you ? ” she said stifling a laugh.

Alice was beetroot red.

“ No, mum, it’s not what it looks like ! ”

That form of hurt me a slight bit.

“ I haven’t got you into trouble, have I, Alice ? ” I asked her.

Suddenly Anita was loud and aggressive from the doorway.

“ You’d easily not get her into hassle, Brigham Young man ! ”

Alice looked shocked.

“ Muummm, that wasn’t the variety of worry he meant ! ”

Alice pushed me right off her and got off the bed.

Anita said “ I think we’d meliorate all go down stairs. I’m not sure I trust you two alone. ” and winked. She said it with a playful tranquil nice voice that completely defused the situation.

We all went down stairs and sat and watched their colour telly. Anita sat in an armchair and Alice and I shared the lounge but sat at polar ends. I wasn’t about to try anything with Anita there. I didn’t dare say anything or do anything. Alice stared solidly at the telly. I tried to see what she was looking at without seeming to be staring.

Then at 9 Anita said I’d better be getting household and she went into the kitchen leaving Alice and I to say goodbye. Alice seemed embarrassed. We both started to apologise together. I asked her if I was still invited to lunch on Thursday and Alice said she thought I was. She looked like she wanted the lounge to eat up her up. I told her I had had a great fourth dimension and she was an splendid cook. I didn’t presume say she was beautiful again. I got up and let myself out, leaving Alice sitting still on the sofa still staring at the telly.

I had kissed Alice ! But she had pushed me away afterward, disowning me. So many mixed messages. I was gutted. But I was infatuated and I wasn’t about to quit.

On Wed in the form room waiting for roller call the boy sitting next to Alice started asking her if she was going out with me. His name was Roy. He was taunting her, bullying her. All the relief of the class were laughing at Alice’s irritation. I jumped up to go thump him but Helen of Troy instantly intercepted me, grabbing my arm and pulling me back down into my seat.

“ I’ve got this. ” she said quietly.

The whole classroom hushed and fell completely silent as Helen rose and walked up the aisle, stopping between Roy and Alice. She leaned down to whisper in Alice’s ear. Alice shook her head but Helen of Troy whispered more and Alice got up, her bag on her shoulder, clutching her binder, and came back down the gangway to sit in Helen’s position. I could see the tears welling in her eyes. Alice looked distraught. I wanted to hug her but all my limbs were switched off and I couldn’t move. With Alice seated, Helen turned very slowly and deliberately to look the boy. The unscathed stratum was silent, watching and waiting for the storm that was about to demote. Helen, diminutive trivial Helen of Troy, pointed a finger accusingly at the boy and said “ If you ever fluff Alice again I will make sure no girl in the forth ever sucks your tiny footling peter ever again ! ” There was a spiteful sure thing in her voice.

Then Helen spun around sharply and sat down in Alice’s seat. The course of study erupted into hand clapping and whistling and laughter and Mr Davis walked in. It took a few bit for everyone to realise he was there and the racket to die down. He looked around the elbow room, noticing the agitation from the boys and the changed seating room arrangements. Everyone was now bushed silent. He just said “ settle down, settle down ” as though we were still talking and then carried on as though nothing had happened, but his centre lingered on me, searching, as roll call ended.

So now the all schooltime thought we were going out, and we went to and from school together and ate lunch together and laughed and had a respectable time but I was scared that Alice just wanted to be friends. We hadn’t talk a Word of God about our kiss. We hadn’t touched or anything since. She seemed to be saying “ We’re just friends ” in every movement. I was gutted, sad, alone.

On Thursday my dad was dressed up in a suit to come with me. He seemed to think this dinner thing was a great theme. I wasn’t so sure. I tried to order him that Alice and I were just admirer. He just smiled.

The door was opened by Anita. She was wearing a short Shirley Temple halterneck dress with netting arm. Her belittled knocker stood out like two Yuletide pud. She was wearing Alice’s dress ! I was a bit shocked. We were ushered in and dad was introduced. Anita led the way through to the kitchen and dad went ahead of me, saving me the anguish of watching Anita’s sexy minuscule butt wiggle as she walked like Alice.

Alice was slicing the salad. Alice was wearing a thin baggy jumper and very pie-eyed jeans. Her hair was tamed and she was wearing eye shadow and lustrous red lip rouge, and her nerve were naturally blushed.

We sat and talked. The grown-ups sipped red wine. The Spaghetti Bolognese was antic. It was mostly the grown-ups talking. Anita’s vocalization subtly changed and sounded Sir Thomas More and more Scandinavian, more and more seductive, as the meal progressed. My dad complemented Anita on the cooking. Anita said that Alice had cooked. My dad gathered the dishes. It was deja-vu !

Alice tugged me into the front room. She slumped onto the sofa giggling. I whispered our parents seemed to be getting along really well.

“ wellspring my mum has a terrible track record. ” Alice joked and giggled some more.

I asked about the wearing apparel and Alice confided that it was actually her mum’s dress and she’d borrowed it on Tuesday but her mum wouldn’t let her take up it again this time. They were a bit curt in the dress department ; they only did thin baggy wooly jump shot normally. They had contemplated buying another dress but Thursday had come so quickly.

There was the scraping strait of professorship being moved in the dining room. The noise of conversation and laughing came closer. Anita and dad paused in our doorway, looking in like they were checking up on us. They explained they were just going down to the pub, they’d be back very soon, they promised. Anita and Alice sung something in Norwegian. It was their secret language. And then dad and Anita left, the room access swinging shut loudly behind them.

Alice and I turned to each early, our center sparkling. I asked what they’d said. Alice giggled as she told me how they’d reminded each other to be good young lady. I wasn’t sure if they needed reminding or if they were having a naughtiness contest.

Then there was silence. There was distance between us. I tried to conceive what to say or do. I wanted to inch along the sofa towards her. I wanted to be near her, snog her, contain her. Alice was staring fixedly at the telly, which was off.

I said hesitantly, “ Alice, I really like you... ”

“ I like you too, Sam. ” Alice said quietly.

Were we more than ally ? Did I have a chance ? I didn’t want to lose Alice and fuck this up. I’d invested so much time and energy into befriending Alice and I was scared that if I scared her off I’d be left with nothing and no-one and be alone again. There was silence.

“ Everyone at school thinks we’re going out. ” I said.

It was just a statement of fact. Alice nodded, a bantam nod almost invisibly small.

“ Eh, would you care to ? ” I said so quiet I could hardly hear it myself.

“ Like to what ? ” asked Alice.

I guess she knew but was just wanting to make doubly certain there was no misunderstanding.

“ Would you like to go out with me, Alice ? ” I asked meekly. I was dead nervous. I felt a cold lather. Everything hinged on her answer.

Alice nodded, a bantam nod almost invisibly small.

“ Was that a yes ? ” I asked meekly. I just wanted to be make doubly certain there was no misunderstanding.

Alice shifted in her chair and we were suddenly much closer. She looked really nervous and uncertain.

She said “ I’ve never done this kind of affair before. ” and started making quiet excuse. Her nervousness was infective, my builder bluster was ebbing away.

“ Can I kiss you ? ” I stammered.

Alice nodded, a tiny nod almost invisibly humble. I leaned in and pecking her on the oral fissure. She stopped talking and we sat quite still, our eyes locked on each early and our sassing just an in apart. I don’t think she knew what to do. She suddenly lent in and pecked me quickly on the mouth back.

We kissed and cuddled all evening. Eventually Alice sat straddling my lap facing me as we kissed and kissed. The kiss were just locking of lips, no tongues, but they were intense. Alice’s leg musculus were so strong it felt like she was pulling me into her even though she was sitting on me. My erecting must ingest been pressing into her crotch the altogether meter. I could feel it. Alice must have been able to palpate it. She didn’t say anything.

Alice leaped off my lap when the door clicked. It was late ; dad and Anita had been down the pub until close time. They kind of almost fell through the door, giggling and shushing each other.

I wasn’t sure if dad had just made a really risible joke or if Anita was just drunk. Either way, I’m for sure Anita was drunk. They looked from my face to Alice’s and back again. Anita asked if we’d been unspoiled, and Alice brazenly lied and said we’d been watching Top of the Pops.

“ Oooh, did Alice show you her terpsichore relocation Sam ? Alice always dances to Top of the Pops. ” and then Anita did some swaying sensual dancing that was actually very good. Alice was getting even more embarrassed.

My dad took me home. He asked me on the way home if Alice and I were still “ just friends ”.

I played it sang-froid and didn’t let on. He commented on how I was washing Thomas More regularly, had started shaving, had been keeping the house tidy, as though these were random unrelated things. Of course it was because I was preparing in case Alice ever came to reclaim her clothes she’d left at my sign. When I got house I looked in the mirror and saw my face plastered with pretty perfect tense little red lip rouge pucker marks ! Dad and Anita must have seen them ; they must know.

I didn’t wash my face that night. I lay arouse all nighttime, still, on my back, my eyes all-inclusive open, reliving the cuddle and kissing. My erection was desperate but I couldn’t bring myself to relieve it ; it felt so short and impure to touch myself alone now that I had Alice.

I tried to hold in manus with Alice on the way to school but she shrugged me off and said we’d better keep all video display of heart private. She had been hiding from the world for so long that was the solely way she felt well-to-do. I went along. At least it was clear that she wasn’t going to profess that death dark never happened, tell me that we were still “ just friends ”.

That was the day it came to a head with the male child. That good morning when I got to the contour room the boys were already there, and I had to push my way past their outstretched legs to reach my prat at the back. The room fell silent, watching, as I slowly fought my way through. Alice and I were sitting apart in our pattern chairman again today. I was feeling horrendous for Alice, but I couldn’t reckon Helen sacrificing her back row backside indefinitely.

Just as I reached my seat Helen put her hand out to forget me sitting down. She said clearly, and the room was utter silent so everyone heard, “ They’ve put tacks on your chair. ”

I looked down. It was subtle, but there were needle-like spikes sticking up. I looked around asking who did it. There was just mirth and laughs.

Deep down high school came flooding back. I was scared, alone, cornered. And then a small part of me snapped. I wasn’t a push button over any More. I’d spent the summer mixing plaster and I had some heftiness now. I walked deliberately up the aisle towards Alice. The silence took a new deathly depth. The leg across the aisle instinctively shrank back as I approached ; the bystanders suddenly didn’t want any function of this fight. Alice looked really scared. The boy sitting beside her, Roy his gens was, tried to seem brave. But I had a strange sensation. I could enjoin he was shitting himself. I’d never had that feeling ever before. I’d never had anyone scared of me. I moved like nothing would contain me. Nothing dared check me. I reached Roy and grabbed him by the tie. He just sat still, not moving. He was staring straight ahead. I suddenly didn’t know what to do. But I was furious, really wild. The row, the threat, just came spilling out without thinking, “ I’m going to find you, alone, and sound off your egg off. ”

Mr Miles Dewey Davis Jr. walked in. I don’t think he learn my threat, but he saw me gripping a petrified Roy. He saw the pale white affright faces of the residue of the class. He saw Alice crying. I think in that moment he saw everything, how it really was. I just pushed Roy back into his seat and, still fuming, walked slowly deliberately threateningly back to my keister and sat down gingerly on the bound of the chairman. Everyone was watching me. Mr Davis was watching me. He didn’t say anything. There was a recollective scared quiet and then he did roll out call.

That lunchtime the whole school was abuzz with the fight. The Posse were all gathered around me like cheerleaders. The crowd was pushing me inexorably towards the centre of the quad. I could see Roy being pushed by the other male child towards me. Everyone wanted to see the battle. The whole school, all twelvemonth, seemed to replete the quad. Everyone was chanting quietly, insistently, together, “ fight ! scrap ! scrap ! ” Except Alice.

I couldn’t see Alice anywhere, no matter how hard I looked and stared around.

And then there was a clearing in front of me, with Roy on the former side. I realised this was it. I had to oppose. If I bottled out now, I was sunk forever. And I could smell Roy’s fear. I was now the top dog, and Roy had already lost the competitiveness in his brain. I went in for the killing and punched his lights out. It was all over so suddenly that there was just silence and muddiness. Roy dropped to the soil as though he was thinking it a merciful chance to cease the scrap at the soonest potential opportunity.

Suddenly everyone dispersed. There was no excitement and prevision now ; the battle had happened, almost nobody had actually seen my rapid punches, and now everyone felt vulnerable and didn’t want to be around when the instructor intervened.

I looked around me. Roy was being dragged off by the boys, and The posse comitatus had closed in around me. Suddenly I felt very very dash and vulnerable. But Katie was bucking the trend and cooing, and Helen of Troy was determinedly dragging me to safety from flop under Katie’s nose.

We found Alice on our bench on the far face of the games field of honor. The posse were with me, them heading to the coppice in the corner as they always did.

“ Oh you should have got seen your man, ” they cooed, “ he knocked out Roy with one lick ! ”

They all talked at once and gave conflicting accounts of the C I’d given. Alice seemed shocked and horrified.

I sat down beside her. Katie was telling everyone how future time we should defend here on the games flying field where the teacher wouldn’t see so I could really finish Roy properly. Only Helen asked how I was feeling. I asked The posse to leave us. It was unearthly being the only when boy, surrounded by so many aroused girls. But I was secretly scared. I was scared there would be more fighting. I was scared because this could end up with me having my head kicked in. As Katie’s posse strutted off towards the coppice I heard Katie telling them, “ She must be blowing him ! ” and cackling.

Alice couldn’t believe what I’d done. She was a strong pacifist. I tried to explain that I’d been bullied enough at luxuriously school day and now I’d snapped. I tried to appeal to her, but she couldn’t see that this fight had to come about. She pointed out we didn’t actually acknowledge it was Roy who had put the tacks through my chair.

She said she didn’t like ‘ this Sam’; she didn’t want to go out with ‘ this Sam’.

I cried. I sat beside her and sobbed and apologised. She put her arm around me, comforting, and I think this was the only public exhibit of heart and touching she ever showed me in public. Perhaps The Posse were watching.

I didn’t feel like a hero when Alice and I went solemnly nursing home from school.

It was Fri night and dad took me down to the pub. Fridays and Saturdays were always a bit busier and rowdier in public house. A topical anaesthetic pub is like a communal living way the rest of the week, but Friday and Saturday nighttime are party nights.

We were sitting in a booth with some topical anaesthetic when dad, just lifting a crank to his oral cavity, glances up and sees something that makes his cheek light up. He nudged me and, having my care, nodded his head in the direction of the bar. I followed his nod. There, standing by the bar with glasses of coke in their hand, were Alice and Anita ! They were both wearing sparse baggy wooly jumper, eye shadow and red lipstick. Alice had a miniskirt skirt and leotards and Anita was wearing very miserly denim. Alice looked grown up. They looked like babe. They both looked so hot. The whole pub was inspecting them, expectant, wannabee. They were looking around for somewhere to sit.

Dad got up and hurried over to them, pointed out our table, and guided them to me. He got the local anaesthetic to displace to make quad for the ladies. The pub slowly got noisy again. We sat for a moment in silence, but it was a well-heeled secrecy. Then Anita, with a slight Scandinavian accent mark which is always more pronounced when my dad is around, tells the story of how she brought Alice to a pub for the first prison term tonight, bringing her to the pub that she’d only been to once and that was last night with dad, and when they’d got in the landlady had asked Alice if she wanted her usual !

Alice was now so red she was going to die. Dad and I laughed like waste pipe. Then Anita asked how come the land dame knew her and Alice sang something in Norwegian and it was their clip to laugh. Dad asks them what they are drinking and Anita says “ Two of the usual. ”

She then sipped hers and almost ptyalize it out.

“ It’s alcoholic ! ” she spluttered, looking at Alice shocked and almost angry.

Then, realising the fatuousness in expecting anything else in a pub, we all had a dependable laugh again.

I heard my name “ Sam ! ” being called out from the street corner and there were the constructor, raising their ice in toast to me. It was my turn to deform Beta vulgaris rubra red. I guess to the quietus of the pub it looked like my dad and I had brazenly picked up two random attractive single vernal females, or something like that.

We walked the girls home plate at close time but they left us on the corner and there were no kisses. My dad whistled as we walked the last bit household. He was as in love as I was. It’s kinda Weird for dad and son to be dating mother and daughter. It was convenient, but also embarrassing. And what if they split up, fall out, conflict ? Will I still be allowed to engagement Alice ? I was full of doubt, but I was also too busy thinking about the softness of Alice’s pelt, the way her center sparkled when she laughs, the scent of her hair, to think too far ahead.

I heard later that something else happened that nighttime in the pub. A couple of older tike recognised Alice from high-school and were slagging her off and debating whether to tell on her being under-age when one of my builder buddies overheard them. He pushed between them, ‘ lent’on them, and gave them a ‘ word to the wise’talk. They drank up and left. That was Gus’s affair, ‘ leaning’on masses. He even did it to friends. He liked to put his gorilla arm around you and then gently let you take his weight so your ramification started to buckle. It was kinda lucky I hadn’t overheard them instead ; I don’t think I’d have solved things, rather made them worse and probably got a beating and lost Alice in the procedure. That thing with Roy was a one-off and I wasn’t really equipped for fighting.

Saturday I knew Alice’s skating times and I slipped in to watch from the stand just as her practice session was drawing to a close. She was doing laps with jumps and pirouettes in each corner. It was very repetitive but also very elegant and casual and beautiful.

Anita was standing with a cluster of tike down one end. She was obviously giving them a lesson. After a while she looked up and saw me in the base. Anita waved at me, and then called Alice over to her. She pointed up at me in the stand and Alice left the ice and clambered up to me. She pecked me on the sassing and asked what I was doing. I told her I was watching the most beautiful girl in the globe skate. She pretended to read the ice looking for that miss. I asked her if she wanted to go down townsfolk after practice and she said yes. So that’s the get-go prison term we managed to actually go down the Town pith together.

I had one-half a mind to buy her a dress, and we went into the big department stock. We were looking around dresses but she was hard to delight ; they were mostly not her size of it, and I was secretly out of my profundity and out of my pocketbook. I suspected that the Yuletide pudding binge in Anita’s dress was mostly padding. I didn’t care. Alice did pick out a tee shirt that she told me I just had to buy. I couldn’t see how it was any different than any of the jersey I already had, but Alice was indisputable it looked a lot better on me so I really didn’t have a choice.

We approached the boulder clay. We had to go near the lingerie plane section to get to them. I jokingly asked, “ if I brought you underwear, would you weary it ? ”

Alice giggled. She found discussing underwear with a boy embarrassing. My detergent builder bravado was fending off my overplus so I pushed the point. Alice conceded she might, although she wouldn’t promise. I pointed out an entirely random G-string, it was just the item of underwear nearest to hand. I asked Alice if she’d wear that. She giggled to routine and went very red and said “ maybe, ” very quietly.

We got closer to the tills. Suddenly, Alice stopped laughing. She looked shocked and scared, like a deer in headlights. She was staring at the tills and the cashier was staring at us. Alice pushed the t-shirt into my hand and said she’d fulfill me outside. She turned and fled. I guessed she knew the bank clerk. Not many the daughter from high shoal had gone on to six-form. Or perhaps it was a Saturday job ?

I wasn’t too bothered. I was feeling bold. With Alice gone, I quickly went back and grabbed the lash. Then I went to the till.

The girl was young. She was our age. She seemed very professional. She asked if I wanted the thong gift wrapped and I said yes. She asked me if I was going to buy a matching bra ; I looked a bit uncertain, and she laughed and said Alice wouldn’t need one. Then she seemed to realise the enormity of what she had just said and went very pale and started to sputter an apology. Then she shut up, wrapped the thong and I paid in silence. I went out of the shop tone wild, but managed to calm myself before going back to Alice.

Billy Sunday I watched Alice skate again. Skating competitively was a lot of repetitious pattern. But I was infatuated and wanted to check all I could. Alice wanted me to learn to skate so we could vie in the brace categories together, but it was a empty-headed idea. The secure bit about Alice’s drill though was that she would hear to her walkman on the way to and from the skating rink. She never brought the walkman to schooling, it was too valuable. But Alice needed the walkman when she trained so she could hear the medicine she was dancing and skating to. And so, on the way to and from the rink, she would hold the headphones between us so we could both listen to her mix tapes. We were almost touching. Sometimes we brushed together. It was almost open philia in public and my warmheartedness raced.

On Monday I asked Alice if she wanted to go play syndicate after school. So we finally went back to my sign of the zodiac where she’d left the change of dress. She went into my bedroom to change. It was the beginning time she’d properly been in my planetary house & mdash ; and the first off time she’d been in my bedchamber & mdash ; and she went in and shut out the door with the knock. I had washed everything ; washing was one of my chores now I lived with dad and I had put Alice’s clothes through with the rest so they were squeamish and refreshed and neat. In fact I’d generally tidied the whole house and kept it light, expecting Alice to see it some prison term soon. It wasn’t nearly as Bodoni as Alice’s nor as impudent, but at least it could be clean.

I’d already slipped the gift-wrapped thong into the bag too. I stood outside the room access waiting to see what happened.

I heard a squeal from inside my bedroom. The threshold banged open and Alice flew out and hugged me. It took me a instant or two to necessitate in what she was wearing. She was wearing a skillful clean and jerk thin rusty red wooly pinny and... nothing else ! Alice had jumped into my sleeve and wrapped her strong slender legs around me. My hired man were holding her up, one hand on each butt cheek. I was in heaven. I was in shock. I asked her what she was wearing.

“ My new flip-flop, silly ! ” was her answer.

I moved my hired man around a bit more as we kissed and, indisputable enough, there were the flimsy lean shoulder strap of the thong. She wasn’t completely naked. The part of me that was getting braver asked “ if I buy you underwear, will you wear it ? ” to which she replied “ yes ! ” and covered my case in small pecking candy kiss. I continued “ and if I don’t buy you any underwear, will you wear any ? ” and she just giggled and pushed away from my thorax and said “ slow down, I’m not that kind of girl ! ”

She was setting limit and I was taking eminence. Alice hopped down and went back in to end changing. I realised how little attention I had paid to the feel of her cheeks, the tautness, the sexiness. I had been too engaged looking for cloth to dowse in the feeling.

I forget who won pool. Alice wore the clothes dwelling ; there was nil to blot out from Anita any more. That evening, as I masturbated, I tried to remember the feeling of her wriggling bottom but it was just a blur of indistinct memories.

schooling was going better. There was no repercussions from the fight. Roy and the boys kept well away from us. The Posse accepted that Alice and I were an detail and let us be. Alice and I were gently getting closer. As fall dragged on we were on cloud nine, young, soft on, first love.

One thing that was not racing along though was the sex parting. Alice was extremely reluctant. She was a keen kisser and we discovered tongues. She was a keen cuddler, and we discovered that she could hold herself to me while I stood using just her long strong skating legs wrapped around my waist. But I never got my manus inside her clothes, never got to partake her breasts, never got to get closer than a dilute wooly pinny away from the forbidden fruit that beckoned me. As proud as she was to display her legs, her near assets, she was equally embarrassed by her thorax, and her dress stayed resolutely on. She sometimes whispered enticingly that she was wearing ‘ the thong & rsquo ;, but I never saw nor touched her lovely arse impudence again. My balls were permanently blue. We’d snuggle and wriggle on the bed, our men roaming each others backs, and each time she felt my erecting pressing into her for too long she’d giggle and labor me away, accusing me accurately of just thinking about one thing.

Then one day after schooling she brought me back to hers because she wanted some help with some ‘ research’. She was all coy and giggly when she asked me. We didn’t normally go to hers. We’d been going to mine after shoal regularly, and kissed and cuddled on my bed before dad got home, but never to hers.

She let me in and led me through to the kitchen for a looking glass of weewee. Then, looking more reinvigorated and courageous, she led me upstairs to her room.

The way was unchanged from our first kiss. She bent down and opened the rump draw. She took out a girly cartridge holder. Not that kind of girly powder magazine ; I mean the kind of magazine that teenage girls subscribe to. It contained the rule tame relationship advice that Danton True Young female child who read Mills and Boon and Jane Austen want to read.

Alice opened it on a bookmarker. She was always very organised, even this kind of ‘ inquiry’. It was an article describing how to estimate the length of the male pipe organ from former body measuring. There was even a little scheme of a man with labeled lengths and formula you could plug measurements into. The diagram of the man was missing any real genitalia.

Alice fished out tape measure and asked if she could value me. I told her it would cost her a kiss. I wasn’t quite certainly what she was going to measure out exactly, but I was very excited. I figured this could be the showtime footfall towards some physical intimacy.

Alice measured my forearm. She wrote the issue on the diagram. Then she kissed me. Only she didn’t osculate my sass, she kissed my forearm. Then she tried to measure my upper arm, but my school shirt was kind of in the way. So I took it off, bearing my chest. She measured my upper arm, wrote down the routine and then kissed my berm. Then she measured around my chest, wrote it down, kissed me on the dresser, and so on. She took all form of measurements. Distance from ear to shoulder, then a peck on the neck. Distance from arm to waist, then a kiss. She started to tug my pant. I was extremely surd and we had trouble getting my denim down because my y-fronts were tented. She measured the distance of understructure, and kissed it ; the distance of my lower leg, and a kiss. She was working her way up towards my middle.

I was terribly excited. She measured and kissed my inner second joint. I was laying, almost defenseless, on her bed, and she was leaning all over me taking measurements and placing light pecking kisses.

I looked at her diagram. It was obvious about of these measurements were not required, that she was making this up.

She got to my groin. My member was so intemperate I could feel a muster where the material was pushed away from my pegleg making a gap she could surely see through.

And then she poked it. She prodded my penis. It swayed and she laughed.

She stood up. She told me I could put my dress back on now. She thanked me for assisting her with her inquiry. I asked her if she wanted to measure my dick. I was so excited, so hopeful, I really wanted to display myself for her. I wanted her to measure it, and then kiss it !

She laughed like it was the funniest trick in the world. She pointed out that that was the one matter she didn’t need to measure, she could generalize its sizing from the length of my forearm and feet ! She got up and threw my dungaree at me and told me to get dressed before her mum came home.

But we did kiss extra passionately after that. I felt a lot closer to her, even if we hadn’t yet shown each other everything. She had kissed my inner second joint ; she had prodded my willy !

I asked her how big she thought I was, and she did some sums but wouldn’t tell me. She started teasing me that boys were so insecure about that and that we should reach to be loved even if we were diminished. I felt a bit belittled ; I didn’t think I was that small, but I actually had no idea first how big I was and second what was pattern. I expect Alice’s cartridge clip had all the details.

Dad would often go out in the evening. He was dating Anita. I don’t know where they went or what they did, but he was very well-chosen. I hadn’t seen him this happy ever before. Alice wasn’t going to let me spend my evenings with her entirely though ; she knew what I wanted and she kept telling me to do my prep instead.

The last affectionateness of summer had lasted into the autumn and it could still be cheery and warm in the day, even if the evening were colder as the nights drew in. Dad surprised me one Saturday by declaring that him and I were going off for the weekend. He got his minibike out of the lockup and I rode pinion to the coast.

Dad had booked a room at a slight inn on the slide route overlooking a little beach. One room, two separate beds and, luxury, an on-suite little gutter and cesspit. It was lunchtime so we went down to the bar for food.

And in walk Anita with Alice in tow ! The moment I saw the girls a incandescent lamp lit in my headway. Of line ! Dad and Anita had arranged a Nice little risque weekend and Alice and I were along as a double date !

It wasn’t quite like that. Dad and Anita were trying to keep matter clean and rubber. The inn only actually had two way and the girls booked into the early, sharing. The theme was more a relaxing time together by the sea. It must have been quite confusing to the topical anaesthetic, trying to work out if we were a family, whether Anita could be the mum, who Anita was the mum of, and were Alice and I brother and sister.

Alice was just as surprised as I was. She hadn’t been told it was a repeat engagement weekend either. She looked very happy though. We went for a amble on the beach. It was too cold to swim but the sun shined and, despite the duck soup, we didn’t really need coats. I tried to slip our hands together but Alice kept pulling away. Even here she was embarrassed to hold custody in world, to buss in populace. But I found that if I walked really close so our blazonry just brushed together, our manus just touched accidentally the whole time, she let me get away with it and didn’t pull away. She kept looking at me from the corner of her eye and smiled all the time, fighting back a giggle like we were sharing a secret joke.

The village was basically just a airstrip of mansion, the inn and a post agency and grocers on the seacoast road by a the beach. It was lovely and placid and we had it pretty much to ourselves. Dad and Anita also walked on the beach but went in the diametric direction, away from us. I noticed they were holding hands but nothing Sir Thomas More than that.

That evening we ate at the inn. I brought the first base bout and got pints for dad and me and rum and cokes for the girls. Anita and dad seemed a bit uncertain about the beverage angle and warned us to take it leisurely. We got along great.

By the end of the evening dad and Anita had kissed clumsily a couple of clock time and Alice had felt so uncomfortable being around them that she had dragged me off to the pool table. She could play consortium now and, like everything she did, she did it really well. But tonight she needed coaching and I lent over her and helped her descent up the shaft and draw back the cue. We were quite giggly.

When the final stage game was over, and our methamphetamine hydrochloride were empty, metre had already been called at the bar. It was time for us to head to bed. Anita and dad had already gone up. We followed.

On the landing it was clean-cut that something was going on. You know what was going on. There was muffled dear making phone coming from the missy room and the ‘ do not interrupt’sign was on the door. Alice was panicking. Where was she going to log Z's now ? Even I, with drinks inside me, knew this wasn’t planned ; this wasn’t what dad and Anita had had in psyche at all. They had just lost dominance and not thought this through.

I suggested Alice stoppage in my room with me. She was defensive, shy. I pointed out there were two separate beds. I found myself promising that nada would hap. I guess I meant I wouldn’t make her do anything she didn’t want to do. Finally, she agreed.

There was an asexual anticlimax as we got ready for bed. Alice insisted that I turn around and not watch as she slipped out of her wooly-haired jump shot and jeans and jumped quickly into one of the beds. Then I stripped down to my y-fronts and got into the other bed. I hadn’t insisted she sprain around, but she had looked away anyway. Then we turned off the bedside lights and it was serenity and nighttime. I was listening for the slightly sound, the little movement.

A few sec later I realised that we hadn’t said upright Nox. So I said ‘ full night’. A muffled drowsy ‘ good night Sam.’came from the former bed. And then, suddenly, Alice asked for a good night buss ! I was really taken aback but very willing. At first we tried to lean out of our bottom and meet across the water parting between them. But we couldn’t compass. So I seized the enterprisingness and jumped out of bed and went over to Alice. She was under the cover charge and I was sitting on her bed leaning over her from outside the covers. The dear nighttime kiss was long and involved tongues. I caressed her hair. I didn’t want it to end. Alice rubbed my shoulder joint and asked if I was cold. I said it was alright. She told me not to be silly and pulled back her covers so I could slip in with her. And so we were now sharing a narrow down bed, underneath the binding together and kissing the farsighted most passionate good dark kiss ever.

My hired man slipped down and felt her naked tail end cheek. I asked disbelievingly if she was wearing anything. Alice giggled and said she was wearing the thong. I felt around and found the flyspeck lose weight straps and we kissed even more passionately.

I was actually depicted object to let things be. I was prepared to do anything to spend the nighttime in the same bed as Alice even if the price of that was to do zip. I was so joyful and happy. We pressed together. We ended up me laying on my rachis with Alice cuddled up tucked up under my arm with one leg across my groin. She must consume felt the tent in my y-fronts. It had often come between us before while we cuddled and we’d never mentioned it, just ignored it and pretended it wasn’t there.

We weren’t that stock. We became wide of the mark awake. We talked about what might happen if my dad came back to his bed and found us in it. Alice giggled when I quickly nipped out of bed to put the ‘ do not interrupt’signal on our door handgrip. We talked a bit more, speculating if dad and Anita would get married, and how eldritch that would be for us. My hand cupped an fanny nerve and I was content.

Somehow the conversation came around to the thong again. I asked again “ if I buy you underwear, would you endure it ? ” She giggled and said of course and that I was silly. She declared she’d only wear underwear I brought her. Perhaps she hadn’t realised what she had just said ? For some cause I just did the softheaded thing that I was always thrifty to avoid : I slipped both hands up inside her T-shirt and quickly unclipped her bra ! She was shocked and asked me what I was doing. I said that I hadn’t bought it for her. She laughed. The mood lightened and she let it lay there unclipped. I ran my helping hand up and down her back, on the outside of her jersey, excited to finger the new genius of no bra shoulder strap intervening.

I asked her if it was a decent bra. I asked her to name it. She played along, and before farsighted she gently lifted her shoulders and then, pulling one strap through each arm cakehole in twist, took the bra off without taking off her jersey. I couldn’t quite understand how she’d managed that. She dangled it above me. I could just about make out its schema in the faint bootleg filtering in around the curtains.

I reached up and felt it. It was a very hard thing with padding and intricate fancywork. I said it felt nice. I was intrigued by the padding. But all the time I was really trying to feel Alice’s queer breasts pressing against my chest of drawers through her tee shirt. Alice threw the bra onto the other bed. We settled down snug, sighing contently. But we couldn’t eternal rest. We were too arouse, being so close and so naughty.

Alice asked me if I would wear underwear she brought me. I told her I would. Then, bravely, I started to tug down my own y-fronts. Alice’s hired man flew to her mouth to stifle a screaming, and she asked me incredulously what I was doing. I told her that I couldn’t wear them because she hadn’t brought them for me. She giggled and kissed me to stifle her laugh. She was playing along so I slipped up her t-shirt. She raised her fountainhead so I could take it off. She was giving me permission. Now Alice was topless and I was naked and we were laying under the cover in a flyspeck bed in a seaside inn and our mum and dad were bonking in the former room and we could still sometimes hear their muffled moaning.

I was running my helping hand up and down the side of her torso. Alice liked that. I could feel a flimsy supernumerary softness at the top of the stroke where her breasts were. The position of her titty. I was so raw to every contact and so was she. I moved my hand slightly so it came inwards at the top of the stroke to impact to a greater extent of her titty, but she immediately moved my hand to its previous way. Her bosom were off-limits. So after some more stroking I focused on heading due south and squeezing the cheek at the bottomland of each slash. Alice was really enjoying it and our kissing grew in intensiveness. Without breaking the kiss I half sat up and Alice rolled onto her backrest and I came back down on top of her. She wrapped her legs around me as my willy jabbed into her knickers. She came up for breath and said I was going to ruin the lash. I solved that by sitting up and pulling her bloomers off. She put her legs together and lifted her bottom to assist me. And that’s how, in so many gradation, we ended up naked.

I laid her back down and positioned myself on top of her. Her breaths were hurried. I hugged her shoulder joint and she held my face in the palms of both hands, holding my brim off hers. In the faint light I could just clear out the glistening scintillation of her eyes as she looked into my aspect. She said, hearse and nervous “ I haven’t done this sort of thing ever before. ”

“ Me neither ” I said. Then I added “ Alice, I love you. ” I meant it.

What I really meant was that if this was as far as we got, I wasn’t going to abandon her. She grinned and said “ I know, silly. ” and we kissed with sass so wide undefended they hardly touched, our tongues entwining in the undefendable air as we gulped in hurried breaths.

My pecker slipped between us up onto Alice’s stomach. I pulled back my rose hip slightly, trying to get the head back and down for another attempt. I wasn’t thinking. I was acting instinctively.

Then I was struck by a sudden fear : what if I got Alice pregnant ? Alice could somehow feel my sudden vacillation. She asked me what was wrong. I asked her if I should run downstairs to the lad and buy a prophylactic ; I knew there was a simple machine there.

Alice laughed. She explained in hasten whisper that, the day after we had first kissed on her bed and her mum had caught us, her mum had taken her to a clinic to get on the contraceptive pill. Anita was worried cat that Alice would construct the same mistake that Anita had made. Not that Alice was a misapprehension, of path, but that really babies had to look for a serious long-term relationship and commitment and thing and Anita wasn’t going to let Alice take any risks.

That schmoose had form of killed the humour slightly, but more kissing and stroking brought back the passion and Alice slipped her hand down between our tummies to guide my penis in. It was the number 1 clip she had touched my member and it was a wonderful esthesis. Lined up, Alice suddenly squeezed her powerful thighs and pulled us together, connected. The head of my phallus was in Alice. It was wonderfully warm up and wet. It wasn’t in very deep. We were still, holding each other tight, watching each others faces in the dim moonlight.

I asked Alice if she was alright. She was. It seemed the most raw matter in the humanity to be talking as we lost our virginity together. I asked if she was prepare. She was. I pushed. She pulled her headway up off the pillow to kiss me and, as I pushed her psyche back down into the pillow she squeezed my tail with her legs again and pulled me in even further, screaming into my mouth. And we were now still, pulling each other together as tightly as possible, connected as deeply as possible. Our foreheads were pressed together and I could feel the knot in her brow. Her finger pick up dug into my shoulder blades. I kept still. Our spit found each other and we kissed and then, breaking, both started to giggle.

Then I slowly started sliding in and out. It felt exquisite. We started necking as I pumped slowly in and out. Alice ran her hands through my hair and pulled my head tight into her neck. Her rosehip were rocking in time to my shot and we moved together, coupled, as though one animal. I could feel how plastered she was. I could feel how she seemed to acquire to let the chief past tense and then declaration behind it to hug it and defend it in tight. I felt how wet she became. I felt how warm it became. I sped up. Alice was moaning. I was panting. It was actually difficult work. There was no way I was slowing down, no way I was stopping. And then, quickly, my balls began to prickle and I had the growing elation of pending coming. Alice could say things were climaxing and she started to pump me in and out using her legs wrapped around me. My men were cupping both her arse cheeks. We were pulling ourselves as close together as humanly possible on every in stroke. And the tingling grew and the sperm surged and fired again and again deep into her. Alice gripped my backside so tightly with her wooden leg I couldn’t move. Every pulse of my penis fired Thomas More sperm cell oceanic abyss into her.

We giggled. And we kissed again. We lay there, our foreheads pressed together, saying cypher, listening to each others panting breathing space and feeling our hearts beat so fast. She just held on tight, not letting go until eventually I’d diminished so much it slipped out with a plop. Alice giggled again and said ‘ mmmmm’.

We shifted around so I was laying on my back again with Alice tucked under my arm with her leg up across my limp willy. There was so practically oozy succus from both of us leaking and seeping everywhere that we got stuck together as we fell into a oceanic abyss substance sleep.

It was quite betimes in the aurora when I awoke. Alice was sitting up in the narrow bed beside me, looking out of the window at the sea in the morn sunrise. She had opened the curtains. She had the binding covering her upright piano chest so I could only see her pale violin-shaped spine and the gently impertinent shock absorber of her arse cheeks. My bar pectus felt cold. That was probably what woke me up. I sat up beside her. She turned, grinned, and kissed me. I pushed her shoulders back so she was laying on her backrest. She had instinctively brought the concealment back with her to enshroud her chest. She complained with a smiling that she’d been watching that sunrise. I pulled down the covert to expose her bosom. They were magnificent. They were petite but they were intoxicating. I loved them. I instinctively put my read/write head down to suckle on them. She pushed me away giggling. I loved her giggle. She reached out past my headway and cupped it and pulled it back up to her face. Alice laughed and told me to proceed my eyes up here, on her own cheek. Then she lunged up to plant life a sight kiss on my mouth and, laying down again, said “ I love you Sam. ”

I just replied “ I know that, silly. ”

I pulled the binding right off, exposing us both. She went to attain for them but then gave up. We then looked each other over for the first meter ever. Her breasts drew my eye like attractor. I wanted to meet them, cup them, pet them, snog them. I held back. I looked at her flat little tummy, her knoll, her soft light blond hazy public hair, the maroon skin of her puss bend visible through the low-cal fuzz. She was staring at my cock. My shaft was rock hard, gently slapping my potbelly in prison term with my heartbeat.

I turned back to her case and we kissed and embraced and, with her hired man for guidance, I nestled back between her peg and found her twat and slipped in. I think the prevision had been foreplay enough. We slipped together quickly effortlessly painlessly.

We smiled at each other. We just studied each others faces as we pumped together, getting faster and faster, closer and closer. Alice’s legs wrapped around me and held me loaded, crushing my articulatio coxae and smashing us together. Alice’s head flew back and her vertebral column arched and she shuddered. Then she shuddered again. Then, gulping for breath, she lent back into me and we kissed deeply. She let one of my handwriting seek out and cup her smooth delicate breast briefly. We started to shake together again and I felt the tingle building and then I was shooting rophy after roofy of sperm deep into her. We smiled and smiled as we sucked in atomic number 8. She cupped my face in the palms of her hands and we just kept kissing and parting, kissing and parting until I had gone hobble and we slipped out with a slurp.

That morning at breakfast we met dad and Anita. The girls sat at the table and Panax quinquefolius excitedly in Norse as dad and I went up to get the plates from the bar. Anita was holding her men out with her index things apart, rather like a fisherman describing a minuscule catch. Alice was giggling and trying to quieten her mum and make her stop. Dad and I were repose, walking with a silly saltation in our step and grin on our faces. We went back to the tabular array carrying the full English Breakfast on the plates. Anita looked up and, as way of explanation, said they were just ‘ comparing notes’. It was obvious to dad and Anita that Alice and I had ‘ done it’too death night. They had seen the star sign on our door. They saw our overplus, our luminescence, our stuffiness, our glances at breakfast. It was obvious.

I stole the ‘ do not disturb’house. We could really use it when we got home.

That gay Sunday sunrise dad took Anita for a tour along the slide road on the motorbike. Alice and I took a walk along the beach and stopped in a sand dune draft, sheltered from the confidential information and quite alone. We just lay there in the weakly sun knowing we were unlikely to cut so late in the year. Alice took her jean and jumper off and lay on our wheat mat with just a t-shirt pulled down over her knickers to save her modesty. Luckily I had shorts with me, and lay there with my shirt off. I lay there watching Alice, knowing what was under the t-shirt, knowing that she was mine and I was hers. We were too tired to do anything, too content, too sated to have the uncontrollable urge. And besides, Alice wasn’t into world displays of affection.