The Suicide Club Read Online Free Page B

feet because I thought it looked cool.
    â€˜Hey,’ I said.
    â€˜Why have you got your door locked?’
    â€˜Because I was—’ I almost said something really crass but I hemmed it back in just in time. It would have been inappropriate. We always said shocking things like, ‘Jesus Christ, I hope your parents get cancer,’ but we didn’t mean it. We’re just pushing against a tide of political correctness. When you can’t say anything at all, sometimes it all comes flooding out when nobody’s around. Floodgates and all that. But saying something crass then seemed out of place.
    We were lying on my bed, her head on my chest, and I was playing with her hair. We always did stuff like this – it didn’t mean anything. We were watching television on silent whilst listening to Damien Rice. It was like a perfect moment in heaven.
    â€˜I saw the way you were looking at me in the yard today,’ she said softly. She’s got a brilliant accent. Quite posh, but also lazy, like she doesn’t care.
    I didn’t reply.
    She turned her body over and in an instant, like she had been there all along, she was straddling me. Her face came in towards mine, her black hair blocking out the light, and she kissed my cheek.
    This was strange. Clare was very capable of playing cruel games with boys and I didn’t know what she was doing. All I really knew at that moment was that my body was tellingme that it wanted to have sex with her. That was my base feeling.
    Her hair was touching my face. She kissed my forehead, and then my nose, and then my lips. Gently, softly, like in a novel. But it was real. She brought her hand up and, with index and middle finger, placed her flopping hair expertly behind her ear, tracing the line from her temple to the back of her neck. Silhouetted against my bedroom light was the outline of an out-of-focus landscape – a jawline leading to a dark, blurry ear.
    She wasn’t getting off with me, she was just kissing me. She pulled back a little and her eyes were massive with dark-purple eye liner that was simply perfect. And then she said something in a quiet voice that came out just right.
    â€˜You’re gorgeous,’ she said.
    I couldn’t bear it if she was playing with me. I had no reason to think it, but something at the back of my mind was saying, You be careful now, Rich.
    She started kissing my face again and with her right hand she grabbed the top of my arm, sliding up underneath my T-shirt. I started thinking about the birthmark on the back of her neck that nobody ever mentioned – the aesthetic taboo. I loved that she had it because it meant that she was vulnerable and I love that in people, especially girls. Her touch was amazingly smooth.
    This wasn’t my first time with a girl. I’d been with a few girls to varying levels of sexual activity which I don’t like to divulge because it’s crass, but I had never actually had sexual intercourse. And I knew that I wouldn’t be having it tonight either. It just wouldn’t be right.
    I didn’t kiss her back, I just lay there. With her free hand she went for my belt but I grabbed her wrist.
    â€˜What?’ she said, her eyes closed. ‘I want to see what I’m doing to you.’
    I turned my head dramatically to one side. The truth is, I didn’t want her to see what she was doing to me. We were friends.
    â€˜I don’t think I can do this with you,’ I said.
    Her eyes opened and I thought she was going to take my face off with a cleaver. She would have if she’d had one. And then, with extreme undercurrents of violence, she stabbed at the air with her finger, pointing at me.
    â€˜You are a . . .’ She mouthed the next two words as if to emphasize her anger. ‘
Fucking prick
.’ There was a noise actually, but it was so quiet you could barely hear it.
    And then she did something that I could not believe. It had never