‘Have you seen the size of the tits on the new receptionist? They’re bigger than her head!’
‘Go pretend you’re sick, you’ll get to sit and stare till your mum picks you up and slaps you over the face with her handbag!’
Natalia sat back at morning form, watching the boys’ raucous pantomime from behind a flap of her fur collar, as though London was a secret tropical rainforest carried against her as a ward against sleazy teenage laughter as well as winter’s desolate melancholy. She’d glimpsed the London stagecoach outside, but didn’t expect that a busy Monday would see much of the reinsman, who’d likely entered the same vortex her mum had disappeared into - emitting all but a grunt and shuffle when she’d returned last night.
‘Wow, nice coat,’ Laura took her hand to Natalia’s sleeve. ‘It’s so soft. Is it real?’
‘No, it’s just very… brushed, groomed quality,’ as Natalia drew her arm away. ‘Who’s this new receptionist then?’ …knowing full well it was Tank Tits; a smirk growing on her face as she imagined Neill welcoming the big-busted bozo into what was fast becoming a sexual tragicomedy of a school.
‘I haven’t seen her, but Dean came in late and keeps perving on about it. It’s awful I think—’
‘They’ll just get reported to the Head.’
Laura scoffed. Natalia eyed her in profile: her hook nose, lacklustre skin; thin lips now bleating on about sexism. Drive her to the human waste disposal, Neill had said, and as the class fell into silence upon Mrs Williams entering and handing out a large pile of National Record of Achievements, Natalia stared into space, basking in how she had been proclaimed by that sexist sexpot to be gorgeous, stunning, beautiful, the most desirable woman-in-the-making in the whole school! Put that in the first page of her Achievements: the seal of approval, the endorsement, not just by Grotbag in the Grotto but the French-fluent, London-gallivanting, sex fiend Richard Neill himself! The validation that she, as much or even more than the Aishas and Alanas, was as worthy a girlfriend as a daughter as a pupil… to be looked at, listened to, kissed and caressed, spoilt rotten.
A revelation was upon her, that the walls of her Leeds prison were permeable, rippling; a confirmation had been granted that she can, and will, escape it one day, for she’d passed the pre-flight check she’d bungled at Temple Newsam but then soared with flying cookie colours at Hyde Park Corner.
She’d won his lips upon hers to the point he lamented ‘I wish’ upon her ‘oh fuck’ …oh, fuck, she hadn't stopped thinking about that, what was ‘supposed to be a peck goodbye’ - he adores her more now! - so much he eschewed lewd sex tales about Joan so he could pull his rascal into his lap all weekend with birthday cake, cokes and ice creams! Who was the luckier one? She wasn’t quite sure. One day she might be with him, when she’s a bigwig college girl? Meanwhile tease and tantalise him as his Russian sable-coated, giggling minx he agonises to fuck but you’re so young, Veruca, darling?
25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEtxsf2trkH
Ryan’s eye fell down her fur coat on the way out from French, then back up to a wink on her face that surprised them both. He stared, as Natalia strutted close to utter - bypassing pleasantries in a way that impressed herself - the words:
‘Cinema. This weekend.’
25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqJ9xr6WWmm
*
Slipping off her coat into her arms at the bottom of the stairs, the living room door opened.
‘Oh… hi mum!’
‘So you had a good 16th did ya?’ said Mary standing in her dressing gown.
‘Yes! Everything ok here?’
‘Same as usual.’ She cast her eyes down Natalia. ‘Bloody hell, you’re 16 now. I guess I should be glad you’re not one of those teens on heat like Becky’s lot.’
Natalia frowned. ‘Is that the Gipton way of saying happy birthday?’
‘Her lasses can’t even wait to 15 to get their knickers off to copy the older ones,’ as her arms folded wryly. ‘I shouldn’t worry about you coming home preggers any time soon.’
‘Mmph.’ Natalia began up the stairs.
‘New coat?’ Mary nodded to her bundle. ‘Looks posh.’
‘Sarah treated me,’ as she stopped mid-stairs. ‘Well, Sarah’s mum.’
‘From an expensive London shop wer’it?’
‘Just one of those markets,’ Natalia smiled, knowing that the label was since safely - if not a little regrettably, cut off - into many pieces, into the outside bin.
‘Aye, posh enough to squirrel it away upstairs though, in’t it? And I see you’ve a new bag. Alright for some. This Sarah’s not got a divorced dad going anytime soon, by any chance?’
‘No,’ she replied, coming slowly back down, ‘but speaking of dads I’ve got a question about my own before I forget, and while you’re… you know… comprehensible.’
‘You what? I’m about to put the dinner on,’ Mary said as she turned to the kitchen.
‘Wow that worked fast. I should use that line every night.’
‘Excuse me?’ Mary frowned at a tin in her fingers as Natalia came toward her. ‘What’s yer question?’
‘Was dad’s name Molova, or Molov?’
Mary’s eyes shot to hers. ‘You what?’
Natalia sighed. ‘Molova, or Molov. Dad’s name, which was it. When I was looking him up on Facebook that time, you didn’t say it was Molov.’
‘Why would it beMo-lov?’
‘Because his parents were in Russia weren’t they… and they say, unless they’ve been over for a good few years… well, that’s what I’ve heard.’
Mary set the tin down on the worktop. ‘Heard off who? Who’ve you been talking to? Has he, he ‘ant…?’
‘No. What do you mean? I haven’t heard from him. I’m just asking.’
‘Well er, yeah, yeah, it were Molov.’
‘You don’t sound so sure!’ scorned Natalia.
‘Molov, Molova! Palav, palaver, what does it bloody matter?’
‘Well it does, in bloody Russian!’
‘And since when are you so bloody interested in Russia?’ her mum spat now. ‘You’re always pooh poohing anything to do with it on’t telly!’
‘Learning from the best, obviously. You don’t even correct people who call you Moldova—’
‘Well it shows how much I care about one letter’s difference! If you were searching for him on Facebook and you put in Molova, it would’a come up anyway, if he were called Molov…’
‘Well, probably.’
‘Anyway, like I said, he’s not around. Who knows what might have happened to him.’
‘What, he might be…’ Natalia stared, ‘…dead?’
‘I din’t say that,’ Mary shrugged. ‘But who knows. He were an alky after all.’
‘Not as bad as you!’ Natalia exclaimed. ‘So much an alky you don’t even know where he is or what his name was even though you were married to him!’
‘I was… I didn’t say—’ Her mum went red and flustered. ‘Oh, you bloody cheeky cow. You can make your own dinner.’ She slapped the tin back into the cupboard and bustled back to the living room.
25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCTdeO1lF82
*
Angie - she was sure that came on as she fell asleep. Emotional Rescue - oh yes - she remembered watching the signs for Cobham Services whilst sweating cobs over Jagger hailing himself ‘your knight in shining armour!’ Coming to your emotional rescue, straight from Assembly! Although I did get you, didn’t I?
Tapping through Rolling Stones songs trying to identify the notes that brought her back to Neill’s dashboard, she grew her playlist for her daily rides on the peasant bus, so she could bathe in the same notes that had pricked that hot liquid of exhilaration in her every gland from armpit to groin, and christened those new wild feelings like the first time she swam without armbands.
She found the Relax track, and relived the blush and the weak feeling in her pelvis on that mortifying part where she’d sat with a flaming face whilst the singer shrieked about coming.
She turned it off.
Then she heard Darren’s stupid ‘Aye up!’ downstairs at the front door, and turned it back on again.
She listened, smiling now. Then again, laughing. And again, with a growing smirk. That’s my girl, he’d watched proud indignation zap her coyness. This is a new kind of revision: learn to be confident and outrageous like her biggest role model of all. Let me give you some new perspective, ma bichette! Bichette is an affectionate name which literally means little or young doe, an adored woman (oh, thank you for the butterflies, Google.)
Flipping open WhatsApp, she’ll gear up Ryan for the weekend when she’ll use her new skills on her protégée. He was cute enough, and he liked her. She liked his green eyes and thick bronzed fingers, and the look of his mouth - at least when his lips relaxed, all cool-boy - before they opened into a tight aperture of shyness around uneven teeth.
‘Hey, how was your day?’
No reply. No reply, for long enough to get out her diary from under her mattress, where peeping out from between the pages were the ‘Darling Natalia’ Christmas note and ‘Natalia, honey’ cock contract she could now laugh fondly at, after her fears on the trip had been dispelled: the man who she fantasised about mercilessly fucking her, most thankfully didn’t mercilessly fuck her - nor even touch her breast - and this made her fantasise tenfold about him mercilessly fucking her.
Ryan buzzed back. She stuffed away the diary and notes.
‘Hi good thanks, how was your weekend with uncle?’
- ‘Great thanks! How’s things?’
‘Not great, been trouble with mum.’
Yeah yeah. Let’s stop these boring pleasantries about your boring mum and her boring cancer. Let’s meet somewhere so I can kiss you like Neill, pretending you’re a smaller, less intimidating Neill so I can be ready one day to seduce the real Neill.
‘Sorry to hear. Still up for this weekend? x’
- ‘Hopefully yeah x’
She yawned at the wet chat. She’ll go downstairs and eat that tin of ravioli her mum didn’t bother opening, then return upstairs for a yawning wet chat of another kind, oh yes. Natalia! Have you been playing with my fags as well as yourself? She’ll be his little wanker alright. Now that is my girl!
25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr2f0DVqW3r
25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPC7Wf17gBE
*
It was not until Wednesday she got even a glimpse. On her way down from English, holding open the double doors with a Kodak smile for a trail of pupils, her heart rattling as she saw that he saw that she lagged to the end… his eyes falling down her coat and then back to her face with a knowing gleam that seemed to say ‘I made that sight.’ And as she approached the doorway, he cleared his throat and promptly shifted into the space.
She found her face up against his tie, his cologne right up her nostrils, blinking up his stubbled jaw, his breath upon her forehead; he, impertinently wordless; she, whispering:
‘Let me past.’
‘Go then.’
She pushed, but again he blocked her.
Her clitoris pulsed like the zit on her chin last week.
‘You do realise,’ he said quietly, ‘this is highly inappropriate bumping against your Headmaster like this?’
Oh god, he smelled delicious. She could barely look up.
‘After what we said, hmm?’ he added.
‘But do you?’ she murmured back.
‘Of course. Have you smoked your London souvenir yet?’
‘Maybe.’
She hadn’t dared, yet.
His eyes shot to someone behind her, as he stepped aside and pushed the door open wide.
‘Dinkey, just the man I wanted to see!’ as he passed on through.
Shaking her head to herself at Neill’s delicious hypocrisy, she sat down in French dreamily sighing that she could feed off that moment all evening. Until five minutes into verb conjugation, her cardigan pocket hummed.
‘So how are you?’
Oh, twice a gold nugget! Her face blazed that she must be preying on his mind, that he wouldn’t let the pretend-girlfriend thing fizzle away like a done-and-enjoyed bathbomb. Texting her in lessons? Quiet day in the office?
She was typing a reply, when suddenly, Mrs Williams thundered:
‘Natalia! Stand up!’
She rose, mortified, as all the class turned to gawp.
‘Hand me that please.’
Natalia fumbled with the side switch to turn the phone off. She wasn’t going to have Hawk Eye reading that.
‘Yet again I see you on that thing. I’ve had enough. Come with me,’ Williams beckoned her to the door.
The class tittered.
‘Quiet!’ Williams frowned. ‘I shall be two minutes. Copy the words on the board by the time I’m back.’
Natalia grabbed her things. She wasn’t having her new bag and coat as fair prey too.
‘It’s a joke. Kids constantly tapping away on these things!’ Williams grumbled as she ushered Natalia up the stairs. ‘I’m taking you to see the Head. I need to tell him once and for all.’
To see the Head! Oh, what a reward for bad behaviour!
Behind Neill’s door, they could hear him in blustering laughter as Williams knocked.
‘I’m on the phone, bugger off!’
Natalia tried hard not to burst out laughing herself.
‘Unbelievable!’ Williams frowned. ‘The manners!’ She knocked again.
‘I told you to bugger OFF!’
Natalia’s hand was at her mouth trying hard to compose her face as Williams huffed, lip wobbling with mustered courage to call firmly:
‘Neill! I need to drop something off!’
‘Oh for heavens’ sake!’
The door flung open to a frowning Neill, staring first at Natalia, then swivelling an eyebrow to her chaperone.
‘What’s going on Anne? Is this what you’re dropping off?’
‘May we come in please.’
Neill duly stood aside as Williams stepped in, his breath wafting onto Natalia’s neck as she brushed past, smirking.
‘Neill, I’d like you to take this please,’ Williams handed Natalia’s phone over to Neill as he walked to stand at his side of the desk. ‘This is the third time I’ve seen her on it in lesson.’
Neill took it with a mock-cock of his head at Natalia, who was biting her restless lip.
‘Really Neill, I plead with you again, phones need to be banned completely in school.’
‘Oh?’
‘Telling the pupils to turn them off or put them on silent is not good enough. These devices are a blatant disruption,’ implored Williams. ‘Also, this coat,’ she gestured at Natalia’s arm, as she stared back indignantly. ‘Fur is not on the dress policy, as you kn— ’
‘The policy’s changed, Anne. On grounds of cultural discrimination. Didn’t you hear from the board?’
‘Er, oh.’
‘Yes. Well I appreciate your very helpful suggestion on phones, I’ll keep this for now.’ He glanced haughtily to Natalia. ‘I’ll speak with this young lady and send her back down shortly.’
‘Oh, ok, thanks Neill.’
Williams left and the door clicked closed.
‘Well well,’ Neill whispered, ‘Miss Goodie Two Shoes gets hauled up to the Head.’
Natalia’s head was lowered, her face twitching in amusement.
‘This phone’ - she looked up to see him cynically holding it aloft - ‘I recognise this?’
‘No it’s all mine, sir. Christmas present.’
‘Oh? And who were you texting in lessons, Miss?’ he said, still holding it up.
‘No-one special sir.’
‘Really?’ he said with a quick sternness. ‘Then you definitely need to learn a lesson.’
He lowered with a creak into his chair, but as she bent to sit too, he added:
‘I didn’t say you could sit.’
She stood back up, rubbing her hand across her huge grin.
‘So how do you think you should be punished?’
‘Punished?’ she blinked.
‘You know when my dad was a boy,’ he smiled smugly, rocking his chair side to side with his ten fingers interlinked, ‘they would have bad-behaving pupils over the Principal’s desk for a good caning. Or a smack on the bottom across his knee. Do you fancy partaking in a trial of its return?’
Her face went from pink to red. ‘I thought I was your top pupil?’
‘Top to bottom.’
‘Er…’
‘You’ve gone from top to bottom. You’re going to write lines for me. Sit.’
‘Neill, I thought from now on you were going to be serious?’ she whispered.
‘Oh, I am,’ he said smoothly.
She plopped into the chair as he slid her phone over the desk.
‘Put that away and never let your beautiful birthday presents get into the grubby hands of Wally Williams again.’
She grinned as she pocketed it. ‘Aren’t you going to ban phones?’
‘I’m not fucking doing anything she says. That rump-fed ronyon is on her last strike here as far as I’m concerned.’
She chortled. ‘Cultural discrimination,’ she mocked, ‘of what? Eskimos at Thornwood?’
He frowned. ‘And as for you…’
He pulled up an A4 ruled pad, scrawled and pushed it over with the pen on top.
It read:
‘I will NOT be rude to Mr Neill!!!’
‘Oh god, what?’ She glanced round nervously at the door.
‘Fill the page.’
She sighed, staring at it closer. ‘Do I have to do all those superfluous exclamation marks?’
‘Indeed.’
‘Will you make me tea to do it?’ she said slyly.
‘If you finish the page before the kettle boils.’ He reached to flick the switch.
‘Oh god—’
‘Better get writing, Miss.’
He watched her hurriedly take pen to paper, as he smiled and sniffed, returning to his emails whilst Natalia’s arm robotically squirrelled across the page. The kettle mounted its boil; intermittent, mock-serious glances were exchanged as it reached its boiling point… she finishing the last line with a lip-biting squint and throwing down the pen just as the kettle clicked off.
‘Mmm… done!’
‘Well that was timely.’ He turned to pour the kettle. ‘Now, do the other side while it brews.’
‘What!’
‘Sore wrist beats a sore bottom.’
She coughed. ‘I didn’t know you wanked that much.’
He yanked back the A4 pad, tore off the page, scrawled a new line and pushed it over.
It read:
‘But I will always be rude WITH Mr Neill!!!’
She gasped. ‘Oh god! I can’t write this ribald statement! What if someone walks in?’
‘Ribald,’ he repeated sarcastically. ‘Just for being a smug little smart alec, you can write twenty synonyms for ribald instead.’
‘What!’
‘Better hurry before the tea’s cold.’
She glanced back at the door, then began:
Naughty. Lewd. Smutty. Obscene. Salacious. Crude. Crass. Unladylike. Bawdy. Raunchy. Risqué. Offensive. Saucy. Indecorous. Filthy. Suggestive. Dirty. Vulgar. Coarse. Indelicate. Malapert.
‘Here you go. Twenty one synonyms for Mr Neill, literally.’
He pulled it over and gazed through, as though it were a list of old friends, then whistled impressed.
‘Twenty one and you didn’t even put lubricious,’ he growled.
‘Sorry, St Nicholas.’
‘If only you were twenty one,’ he sighed. ‘And Nicholas.’
‘Nichol—? …Oh!’
‘Malapert?’ he squinted. ‘By heaven, brat, I’ll plague ye for that word. Oh for an ounce or two of your malapert blood!’
‘Should end in a V for you, really.’
‘Well, you’re back to the top of the class,’ as he fingered out and squeezed her teabag, splashed in milk and slid it over.
‘I did it faster than you could,’ as she took a complacent sip.
‘Oh I can do it fast, Natalia.’
‘You want a race?’
‘What, writing lines?’
She pulled the pad back, ripped off the top page and wrote on a fresh one:
‘Mrs Williams is a big fat CUNT!!!!’
She tore it off and pushed it over, as he chortled to read it, watching her rewrite the line on another page for herself, and announce:
‘Ready?’
‘You little—’
‘Go!’
He grabbed a pen and they both began scrawling at record speed, with growing and bursting smiles, their writing becoming ridiculously wide and illegible halfway down; he grabbing at her pen to stall her - and in return she scrawling back over his - and soon he was laughing as much as she was, as she exclaimed ‘I win!’ - ‘No no, I beat you, those last two lines don’t count’ - then he pulled the pad from her, as she seized his sheet into a scrunch, squalling ‘you didn’t do all the exclamation marks, you grammatical hypocrite!’ - ‘No, but I added synonyms!’ - she read it, laughing: ‘Bitch, whore, twat,’ just as they were both stunned into silence by a knock on the door.
Neill hurriedly scrunched all the papers into a ball, tossing it under his desk as he called out:
‘Come in!’ and added in a low mutter: ‘Natalia, compose yourself!’
She cleared her throat and sat up straight, whilst Neill’s eyes still wearing a glint of naughtiness roamed to the boy behind her.
‘Hi sir.’
‘Adam Letchworth,’ he said with oozing disdain. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Mrs Williams is asking about Natalia coming back to lesson?’
‘We’re just going through some mock papers. She’ll be down imminently.’
Natalia turned to see Adam looking confused.
‘Er…’
‘Shoo. Vamoose. Scram.’
‘Wh-what?’
‘Go.’
‘Oh.’ The door clicked closed.
Natalia turned back to Neill and scoffed.
‘How do you get away with it?’
‘What?’
‘Being so irreverent.’
‘I’ve told you before, it’s because I’m…’ as she mouthed along with him: ‘…the Head, darling.’
‘Good, you got it,’ he smiled. ‘Now for Physics. Let’s set fire to these papers quick.’
‘What! Isn’t that a shredder you’ve got there?’
‘But it’s not as fun though, is it?’
He leaned to pick up and toss the ball of papers over into the same metal bin where her report card had once perished.
‘Neill, surely we need to be sensible…’
‘Fire engages the senses better than a shredder.’
‘Yeah, and the fire alarm…’
‘Don’t worry about those,’ he waved vaguely, as he watched her sigh, pluck the brandished lighter from his hand, pad over to the bin and push the window open wide.
After glancing back at the door, she clicked and held the lighter to the papers.
They watched the paper ball glow orange before shrivelling into grey strands.
‘Very good,’ he intoned. ‘My little firestarter.’
She leant to slip the lighter back deep into his trouser pocket. His hand shot to his thigh.
‘Jammy, too!’
‘I know where you keep it.’
‘Hmm.’
‘So much for not taking risks, sir,’ she said sitting back down, ‘I don’t think it’s possible for you not to be rude.’
He sighed and reclined in his chair. ‘What you don’t realise is that you’re one of the few out of these lily-livered apes of idleness who actually comprehend how rude I am - crude, coarse, or any of your twenty synonyms - unladylike,’ he laughed. ‘Adam, just now, was as conscious of my irreverence as a hamster would be to someone pulling faces at its cage.’
‘Hmm,’ she frowned, ‘there’s pulling faces, and there’s putting your hand in the cage and poking the thing till it squeals…’
He stared.
She blinked back, a blush growing.
‘I mean—’
‘Oh, you said it Natalia. Clearly you do want another subject, so here’s Maths. Take another sheet of paper and divide the total of naughty synonyms by the number of times you’ve tickled your own hamster since you got back from London—’
‘Oh my god, fuck off…’ she stared incredulous.
‘Or I’ll drink your tea myself.’
‘My tea is too sweet for you.’
‘Really.’
She didn’t know whether to laugh or glare. ‘There’s no way I’m doing that sum.’
‘Why, because you can’t do minus figures?’
She hesitated. ‘Twenty one divided by zero…’
‘And what’s the answer?’
‘Well, twenty one? It’s not divided by anything, so…’
‘Ahh. A bad mathematician and an outright lying little puritan all over again. I guess we’ll have to call a friend. Let’s see if your clit-throb Ryan Welsh can help you out, shall we?’
‘No way!’
‘Now, which lesson is he in…’ He clicked on his computer.
‘Don’t you dare!’ she glared, half rising out of her seat.
‘Why, haven’t you picked a film for the cinema yet? Do I have to help you with everything?’
He sighed and picked up his phone receiver, his hand hovering over the buttons, as Natalia lunged over and grabbed at it - just as Neill swiftly stood up, with receiver in one hand - and seized her wrist in the other, twisting her round with it and pulling her tight against him, as she buckled forward at the waist, kicking back at his shins; her ribs and pelvis throbbing in a sudden deluge of sensation, and barely had she gasped and squealed him to stop before he’d already dialled and uttered into the receiver, cool as a cucumber:
‘Can you send Ryan Welsh up please?’
He replaced the phone set, and let her go.
She turned and stared, rubbing her arm as he sat back down, cricking his neck and straightening his tie.
‘Are you kidding? Did you call him?’
‘Boldness be my friend! Arm me, audacity, from head to foot!’ His fingers resumed over his keyboard.
‘What?’
‘Shakespeare.’
‘Fuck him - is Ryan coming up? Neill?!’
‘I will knead him, I will make him supple.’
There was a knock at the door.
‘Enter!’ called Neill.
Natalia’s eyes almost fell out of her head as Ryan walked in, his face drained as though he was in trouble.
‘Hi sir?’
‘Ah, Ryan! How dost thou?’
Natalia’s face drained paler than Ryan’s, as she marched to pick up her things and walk straight out.
Ryan turned confused, as Neill called, ‘Natalia!’
She was halfway down the corridor and looked round to see Ryan pacing after her.
‘Nat! The Head said you’ve forgotten this.’
‘Oh. What?’
It was an envelope, warm fresh from being lick-sealed.
‘Oh yeah, thanks,’ as she took and pocketed it.
Ryan plodded back to the office, whilst Natalia opened the note around the corner to see the scrawled words:
‘I reeeeeally wanna snog you!! R 4 N!!!! XXXX’
She shook her head. She couldn’t believe how far Neill was playing today’s antics. Returning for the last five minutes of her French lesson, Mrs Williams raised her chin to her as she slunk back into her chair with a face as composed as possible. If Neill was going to be so brazen, her flinching, flustered pubescent body needed to learn, fast, something of the ‘audacity that armed him head to foot’!
25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIn8UkZ8lR8
Coming out at the end of French, she bolted back up to Neill’s room.
‘Come in!’
He was putting on his jacket, and flinched at the scrunched paper ball she tossed at him.
‘That was really risky and embarrassing calling Ryan up earlier. I could hit you.’
‘Go ahead.’
He stood, stout and indefatigable against his desk, his jacket corners hooked behind his pocketed hands, looking all the world like he would relish her trying. Her midriff lurched as she recalled him pinning her arms in the wrangle earlier. Blinking and clearing her throat:
‘So what did you say to him?’
‘Nothing. Except…’
‘What?’
‘I think she likes you.’
‘What! And what did he say?’
‘Asked me what you taste like.’
‘Like an ashtray by the time you’d finished.’
‘Ha. But I didn’t finish,’ as he leaned down for his bag. ‘There was at least a minute left. I’ve donated it to Ryan. Told him exactly how to handle you,’ as he heaved the bulging satchel over his shoulder. ‘And keep this,’ he handed back the paper ball. ‘It’s Valentine’s Day soon, you can pin it up on your bedroom wall and go all girly and giggly imagining you’re back in the Bentley Hotel.’
‘Thinking of Ryan?’ she said sarcastically.
‘Thinking of whoever you want.’
‘Bugger off, Richie,’ as she walked out, half smiling.
‘Come for tea again!’ he sing-sang behind her as he locked up his office. ‘When you wanna come, come!’
25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡijgjpdYjYV
25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCTP3X12B4u
*
Natalia caught up with Ryan in the canteen.
‘Hey! Sorry about that weird stuff with Neill earlier. What did he want you for?’
‘Oh, nowt. Just asking if I’m getting on with work alright, and I were telling him about me mam.’
‘Can you make the cinema then? Insidious: The Last Key starts at 6.30.’
‘Auntie Jackie’s with my mum, so yeah.’
Bernard, Luke and Adam Letchworth jeered from the next table.
‘Ryan and Natalia in the canteen! N, o, b, b, i, n, g!’
‘Shurrup—’
‘You spelt knobbing wrong, you twats,’ Natalia scoffed.
‘The K doesn’t fit in the song!’
‘He’s still after the teacher’s pet! Probably to cry with her cos he’s a big fucking melt these days!’
Natalia glared. ‘Wow, are you fucking kidding? You would mock someone for their mum being ill?’
‘Nat, don’t— ’ Ryan began, as Natalia continued incredulous.
‘No, I’m sorry Ryan, but that’s unacceptable!’
Luke laughed. ‘Ooh, they’d mock you, it’s unacceptable!’ he bleated. ‘Proper fucking spoff she is.’
‘She should go back to Russia, Mo-loner!’
Natalia shook her head. ‘Do you really put up with that?’
Ryan was squeezing his fists, eyes on the floor. ‘Just leave it. I’ll see you on Saturday at 6, yeah.’
25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6FRhSHglVv
*
Rattling pans behind her like the Saucepan Man, Natalia brewed a cup of chai tea from Borough whilst her mum muttered about the weather. Stirring in three sugars, trying to make it taste as good as the woman made it in the market, Natalia wondered if she should say something to Neill about Bernard, Luke and Adam teasing Ryan? Get him to plant weed in their pockets, when he’s probably already supplied them with it? Start an amnesty for all the troubled pupils till every bad egg was gone and there was no-one left in the school?
‘Accidentally made a cuppa with a teabag of yours there,’ her mum breathed over her shoulder. ‘Tasted like a fucking curry!’
‘Oh please. It’s cardamon and cinnamon.’
‘Poncey Sarah got you into that?’
‘Shut up. I like it.’
Cradling the hot mug in her hands she sat back on her bed thinking of Neill ordering her to write lewd lines over tea earlier. Him joking about spanking, then the physical wrangle with him that had her body pulled up against him like some kind of sexy wrestle, that in the midst of her genuine indignation, settled a fine dust of lurid intoxication upon her as the hours went by.
She pulled out the scrunched note from her pocket - ah, another for the collection - its hastily scrawled hoops signed off like a time-starved celebrity, sent to her in an envelope like an early Valentine’s card. Ah yes, she can go all girly and giggly now thinking about any Rs, arse, or backwards arse - oh god she can hear Darren downstairs - whilst she pokes her hamster till it squeals…. oh, fuck! …I wish!…
His crude jokes about her wanking both irked her and perked her. She couldn’t quite decide which, so she let her hand do the talking. Oh, but he wanted her to be Nicholas, knickerless… I think if you were my girlfriend I’d have you do everything I say, so she slipped them off now. His favourite pupil, top to sore bottom. Oh, she wished she had those other papers too: you will always be rude to Mr Neill, her malaperv, for whom she can’t be twenty one. But she can flick herself off twenty one times. Oh, I can do it quick, Natalia - and oh, she can too - here’s another, twenty two! She could keep going till she catches up to his age. An hour later she lost count, flowing with sweet tea. She’ll keep going to forty just to be sure. Oh, my little jammy firestarter. So unladylike.
25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfkMOzAhxBi
*
‘Friday 9th February will be Thornwood’s Valentine’s fundraiser,’ announced the London Lord in Friday’s Assembly, ‘which is in three weeks’ time. All proceeds go to fund my own, real Valentine’s Day which falls the following week in half term.’
The school laughed.
‘You’ll plan your ideas in RSE this morning. And whether you have a real girlfriend or boyfriend, or a pretend one,’ he continued, as Natalia bit her lip watching, ‘use the lesson wisely, and before long we’ll be making soup, finger puppets, and buttered bagels - all raising beans for a good cause!’
Making soup, that’s a new one, she pondered in lessons. What was this bizarre life she lived where the Headmaster was sending secret signals out in school Assembly right at her own clit?
25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ56FgnbYhW8
*
5.30 on Saturday she stood for the bus in the drizzle for The Vue. After a dark ride looking out at grim Leeds to Jagger’s Shattered prognosis of how ‘the crime rate’s going up! To live in this town you must be tough, tough, tough!’ she was in the queue with Ryan for popcorn, slipping her hand into his, to his look of surprise.
‘I don’t often watch horror. I might need moral support.’
‘It’s only a 15,’ he grinned.
Thirty minutes in, Natalia already weary from the onslaught of surround-sound slams and frenetic horror lighting, Ryan’s hand finally comes over to squeeze her kneecap. And then with an unconvincing yawn and stretch, his arm comes around her.
Natalia looked away from the screen as a girl’s eyes flash white and demonic, turning to Ryan’s white grin flashing almost as demonically in the dark.
‘Are you alright,’ came his sweet popcorn breath at her cheek.
‘Do you want to leave and share some weed instead?’ she whispered.
‘You got weed? I don’t mind. If this is too scary for ya,’ he chuckled.
‘Nah, just giving me a headache.’
25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡExAyGAalXq
She slipped her hand into his to cross the road, as she smiled to herself at the squeeze he gave it in return, arriving shivering at wheelie bins behind the Merrion Centre.
‘Here we go,’ as she slipped out the squashed joint. ‘Come forward into the light of things… oh, fuck, have you got a lighter?’
‘Lucky I ‘av.’
He watched her drag, and laughed. ‘Is this how you’re so good at work? You get stoned all the time?’
‘Creatives world over through history have used it,’ as she passed it to him.
As she tossed and stubbed it out with her foot, she leaned forward into Ryan and to his astonishment, wrapped her arms around his waist.
‘You look gorgeous in that coat,’ he murmured down at her face at his chest, whilst she gazed up all doe-eyed… rigid virgin, oh no, don’t think of that right now… do not laugh…
‘You’re really sexy,’ he added.
Those words, uttered in slow conviction, were the ticket.
‘Kiss me—’ Just as she leaned up to his lips, she caught a glimpse of his closed eyes and opening mouth coming forward like a sleepwalking mental patient, as she squeezed her own closed, thinking she wasn’t sure who was leading this. She can’t even feel her high yet; just her heart racing like it had three cups of tea.
But this is not bad at all: moistness of a boy’s smoking mouth against hers; young, virile. His hand clutches hers; strong, male fingers. She flexes her mouth open to ape passion. She hears him moan right into her tongue. She giggles amorously. Then she feels a popcorn kernel and her stomach lurches. Withdraw lips. He’s looking at her dreamily. She might have even made him hard, somewhere down there under his Umbro jacket. Did he have to wear sporty gear all the time?
‘That was nice,’ his breath came at her nose. It was just a bit sweet, a little sickly. Maybe a few more fags to roughen it up, come back when he’s 37?
‘Yeahhh,’ she finds herself rejoining in coquettish pretence.
‘Well, I gotta get back. Is your bus stop up that way?’
‘No, down the hill.’
‘I’ll walk ya.’
Ah, chivalry: check. A good first date. Or was it second? Could London be called a date? More like an out-of-body experience. But for a raising of the bar in her real, teenage Leeds life, and certainly by the standard of her life four months ago BC, that really was alriiight. But mostly she wanted to brag to Charisma that Miss Goodie Two Shoes had both smoked weed and kissed Ryan. It was probably only about thirty seconds of the minute he ‘donated,’ but maybe she was feeling ribald enough to track Neill down at school and give him the rest? Ha! She would show him who’s a little puritan. Boldness be my friend!
25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBG0mt9Wgqu
25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdZdBNU1zrt
Follow The Headmaster's Flame on Instagram at @headmastersflame
25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqfwMk6Cu89
