It was the night before my nineteenth birthday, and, hell, had I waited long enough.
And I’m babysitting. Kids snoring in bed; me, alone watching a film downstairs when the door opens and the guy, hmmm, we’ll call him, hell, we’ll call him ‘you’ and his missus walk in. Home early. Her not well… Overindulged (hic), maybe… She goes straight upstairs, barely acknowledging me, and I hear her crash down onto the bed in the room above me. Small houses these. No secrets here,
The guy, you, you say I can stay and finish the film, pours a drink… Asks if I fancy a cider… Yeah, yeah, at almost 19 I’ve been drinking for four years or more already… And you hand me a can, cracking it open as you do so… Sit down next to me. Close enough. Far enough away.
I can smell you. Sweet, rum maybe, but my nose ain’t as refined as it’s going to be, smoky. And, not meaning to, I chew my bottom lip and pour a swig of cider down. You, I can feel you next to me, dark, moody, and I think you might be looking at me, but when I peer discreetly out of the corner of my eye, nope, your eyes are staring at the TV screen, not noticing me, now talking. Indifferent. And I push my arse back into the cushion behind me and relax.
It’s a bog-standard rom-com, a 90s film I just caught on the TV. I’ve got work tomorrow and I should be going but the cider slips down nicely, and you, though not watching get us both another drink, picking up a DVD on the way. Waving it at me, you ask if it’s okay to change, and I say cool as I take the can. Now I’m watching you, openly, just curious. You, still no interest in me, in talking, you sit down, a little closer. Warm.
I pluck up my courage and ask what we’re watching. You shrug. You don’t really know. A buddy leant you it, and then you just wink, all casual, told you to watch it with a girlfriend sometime. And I’m a girl, hell, a woman, aren’t I, and we both smile, laugh, and I take a sip.
Now you aren’t, this I know, the kind of guy to lure your babysitter into watching hardcore porn, because, baby that would be bad, you a married man and all. But something just a bit softer, a storyline slightly above, Chloeville and her amazing turkey baster. Something with a bit of story, tension… And we sit and there’s a tension all right. Tangible. Fucking tangible.
(more…)