What if there was a way?
5
Jude: The Storeroom
I don’t have a chance to check the locker until that evening, after every other student has left campus. I collect the letter, with its angular scrawl, and wait by the back of the school, which is where the staff carpark is located and where I always meet Mum before we drive home.
F,
Your letter made me blush. Literally. I’m glad you were so forward because I don’t know if I’d have the guts to say what you said. I’m attracted to you, too. Well, duh. That’s obvious. But I wanted to let you know.
And I also want to do it again.
And...
I don’t want to scare you off. I’m pretty nervous just writing this. But…maybe we could? I’ve thought about it all day, and all we need is a dark room. As for our voices, I’ve tried to think of a way to disguise them, but short of using voice-changers — which would be terrifying, I don’t want to feel like I’m making out with Darth Vader — the only idea I have is to not speak at all.
As in, not speak actual words. We can make noises, of course. I don’t think we’ll be able to identify each other based on hums and other noises.
I wouldn’t want it to be dead silent, after all. I want to hear your breathing change the way I did at the party.
…And now I’m blushing again.
This might be a dumb idea, and I hope I haven’t horrified you. You seem to be an expert about our school — you thought of Locker 99. If you have any ideas about a dark room where we could meet…
But if you don’t want to, that’s totally fine too! I just hope that you’ll be happy enough to keep writing to me. I don’t want you to disappear.
-R.
The difference between R and me is that reading this letter doesn’t make me blush. It’s worse. Mortifyingly, my dick has started to swell in interest, and I pray to god it goes down before Mum arrives and suspects I’m reading handwritten erotica.
I want to hear your breathing change the way I did at the party.
I want to hear him, too. When he kissed me, lips hard against mine, he’d make these low grunts. And at other times, he’d let out the tiniest moans, barely audible and higher pitched than his usually deep voice.
I want to touch him again, the desire filling my body with enough adrenaline to start running around school, searching for an unused room. But I can’t act impulsively. I can’t do anything that, in a few weeks or month's time, will have Mum yelling and screaming at me the way she did at Winona.
I came to Easton Grammar with one goal in mind: attract no attention, cause no trouble, graduate with amazing marks, and move back to Melbourne as soon as I can.
There’s one thing that could ruin all of that: if Mum caught me making out with a boy in a janitor’s closet, our shirts half-unbuttoned, and our hair messy and our lips pink and swollen —
Even the image of it is enough to make me start breathing a little heavier.
But I can’t get caught.
So, I shouldn’t.
Or…
I could be careful. Exceedingly careful. I’d need to think of a perfect plan where there’s no chance of angering my mum or exposing either of our identities. If I could think of it, and if it worked…
I imagine the feel of R’s soft hair under mine. The way he sounded when I tugged on it.
Usually, I’m rational, but I’ve been living in this town in the middle of nowhere since January, and I’ve been so bored. R fell right into my lap. And he wants to kiss me again. He wants it, too.
Letting such an opportunity go to waste would be a crime. And I know I said I didn’t want any drama, but kissing R and touching him will make me happier. This will make me perform better at school, and then I’ll be more likely to win a lucrative scholarship, which’ll make everything easier when I move to Melbourne.
Yes. Laid out like that, meeting R again makes perfect sense.
