It’s good to get it done.
Although the dogs are barking and there’s the sound of a car idling out in the driveway, Aden changes position, takes off his shirt and has her lie on her back in the middle on the bed. He makes sure she’s comfortable, and then kneels and guides himself inside her again, glancing at her face. ‘Does that hurt?’
She shakes her head.
‘Does it feel good?’
She wets her lips and answers yes, and, strangely, having said that, it does feel good for a second.
He says Fuck between his teeth, puts his bare chest against hers, slides his arms around her and holds her from underneath, tucks his face into her neck and her hair.
Missionary position.
She discovers he likes it best when she moves, that he has a rhythm, and that he increases the speed and penetration when she grips his back and arches against him. He groans and mutters things, tells her it’s good, tells her she feels good, touches her breasts, kisses her neck and jaw.
Keen to learn, taking mental notes, Rebecca watches him come on her belly, his chin to one side, face screwed up, strange final strokes she wouldn’t have thought would make a man come, not the big wank, wank , they go on about but something more efficient and precise, interesting, leaving her feeling as though she’s witnessed something special.
He opens his eyes and looks at her, blinks and smiles lazily, makes a low growl in the back of his throat.
As aggressive as he sometimes seemed during the height of it, he is gentle and grateful after it. He curls in behind her and hugs her, says again that she’s beautiful, that she’s got the best body, Great tits , he whispers in her ear.
When they go out, Nigel is in the yellow hatchback, motor running, radio on, the seat back and his feet up on the dash. He winds down the window and eyes them.
He says, ‘That’s disgraceful, Aden! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!’
Aden turns to Rebecca. ‘I’ll come and get you in the morning. If they find her during the night, do you want me to ring you?’
‘Yes.’
‘God, that’s filthy,’ Nigel goes on. ‘Really lowbrow stuff. I’m insanely jealous. How’s it going anyway, Rebecca? Lost any more local identities tonight? I got a couple in mind you could make go missing for me.’
‘Do you want your jumper?’ Rebecca asks Aden.
‘Looks better on you, you keep it.’
He is in two minds on the step, caught between leaving or leaning in to kiss her. He looks over at the car.
‘Shit, Rebecca,’ he says, and she can’t help but smile.
Shit, Rebecca seems to be her lot in life. Boys will forever be saying that to her, with that regretful expression on their face: wishing she was someone else, a few years older, anything but exactly what she is. It’s understandable. It hurts.
‘Why,’ he says as though reading her mind, ‘can’t you be older?’
‘I’m old enough.’
‘Nigel’s right, you know – I am a bastard.’
‘What’s that mean?’
‘I’ve never had a girlfriend longer than two weeks. I probably should have told you that. I’ve got a really bad track record.’
‘I’ve got a really bad reputation – is that the same thing?’
‘Sort of.’
She shrugs. He grins. He pulls her into a kiss. ‘So we make a good pair,’ he says.
Nigel heckles them from the car.
After he’s gone, Rebecca thinks how Joanne Kincaid might find it inspirational , or a coming together of good energy . At the very least she wouldn’t think of it as boring.
12
Zach is up before dawn, not having really slept. Unlike his aunt Belinda, who he suspects sleeps soundly in her old bed, who was quick to turn up on the doorstep last night, who probably revels in the absence of his mother. He catches her in his father’s room laying out his clothes – her grey hair and sloping shoulders, backside sliding away into her legs. She asks, ‘How are you today, Zach?’
His father is in the shower and Zach is able to answer, ‘How the fuck do you
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