Lean On Me (Take My Hand) (13 page)

That
was when the call came…

“I’ve
got to go into work. Overtime,” Jess explained after a quick hello.

“Convenient,”
I said wryly. “You can’t put this off forever you know. You’re going to start showing
soon enough.”

“I
know that, shit brain. I’m just… not ready yet. I need a few more weeks to get
my
own
head around the idea before I
have to start convincing
them
it’ll
be okay.”

Hmm.
Makes sense I suppose.

“Well
I’m available whenever you’re ready. You don’t have do it on your own,” I
assured and then I heard her sigh gratefully down the phone. “So how are you
feeling?”

“Sick.
Moody. Terrified. How about you?”

“Determined,”
I answered, knowing she would have no clue what I meant.

“Well,
um, good luck with that,” she said, baffled. “I’ve got to go. I really
am
heading into work.”

“Love
you, Jess,” I said, and then I heard a sniffle.

“Jesus,
you can’t say stuff like that while I’m pumped full of these hormones! I was
aiming for
one
day where I didn’t cry
and you’ve just totally screwed that up for me.”

“Um,
sorry?
” I couldn’t help laughing at
her dramatics.

“You
should be. But, I guess I should say, I kinda love you too. I’ll call you in
the week.”

With
that, we said our goodbyes and I sat down on my white-leather sofa while I
thought up a new plan for the day. It took me less than a second to know who I
wanted to spend the rest of my day with. But seeing as Angelina Jolie was
unavailable, I grabbed my car keys and made my way to Rachel’s.

Rachel

I’m
seriously pissing myself off. Ever
since what I’ve been referring to as my ‘jealous psycho bitch moment’, things
have been…
different
between Jared
and me. It’s nothing he’s done. He’s been nothing but his usual attentive,
funny and goofy self. It’s me. It’s
all
me.

I
don’t know what the hell is wrong with me! He tells me he loves me every single
day and has even started having it printed on the little cards that accompany
the rose petals. So why can’t I say it back? I’m sure I feel it too. But in the
same breath I can’t help wondering if loving someone should be this
complicated… this
terrifying
.

I’ve
sailed through my life in my own little bubble – playing by
my
rules. I’ve always been happy being
the loud, over-opinionated, looks no further than tomorrow friend who gets to
kick people out before the door is sealed. I’ve never wanted, or even weirder…
needed
to feel ‘accepted’ before. But
Jared has opened something within me that I just can’t seem to close. It’s
almost like he is making me
face
my
future, face
myself…
and it scares
the living shit out of me.

“Knock
knock!” Jared yelled, almost startling the piss from my bladder as he strolled
into my flat. “Sorry.” He so wasn’t. If he were, the nobhead wouldn’t have been
laughing. “Didn’t mean to scare you, saffy.”

“What
are you even doing here? I thought today was the big revelation at your
parents’ house?”

“Jess
chickened out. Says she needs time to adjust to the idea herself first.”

“That’s
understandable,” I agreed. “I can’t wait to meet her. We’ll have to arrange
that soon,” I added, genuinely curious to meet such an important part of
Jared’s life.

“She
feels the same. She can’t believe I’ve finally managed to catch someone and
more to the point, hold on to them,” he admitted with a small laugh. “So, I’ve
got eight hours before I need to be in work. What are you going to do to
entertain me in that time, huh?”

“I
know what you’d
like
me to do,” I
teased, “but I’m afraid all you’ll be getting is the view of my hands working
on this piece for Uni.” I motioned my hands over the mass off wire coat-hangers
in front of me.

“And
that is?”

“A
pile of coat hangers, cum stain,” I mocked. “But it
will
be a figure of a naked woman by the time I’m done with it.”

“I
can’t even imagine how that’s possible,” he said, staring at the pile of
tangled metal wires in utter bafflement. I smiled wryly and started sorting
through the pile. “Can you hand me those wire cutters?” Jared followed my gaze
to the floor and picked up the cutters, still seeming confused as he stared at
them like they were talking to him.

Much
to my surprise, Jared spent the afternoon patiently – and
quietly
– watching me from the
sofa. He only tried to feel me up once and made just two suggestive comments
before giving up and realising the only thing that would be getting his dick
out of his pants this afternoon was the need to take a piss.

Every
so often I would look up to meet his curious eyes. They were locked onto my
hands as I worked the metal wires into shape and when he caught me staring he
would flash me an impressed smile.

“You
look so fucking
hot
when you’re doing
that.”

“Doing
what?” I asked, puzzled.

“Your
art shit.”

“My
art shit
?”

“Yeah,”
he said with a satisfied sigh. “You have so many different expressions while you’re
doing it. When you’re concentrating you pull your top lip into your mouth and
wrinkle your nose up. It’s so cute. And then when it’s not doing what you want
it to, you give it the evil eye as if you’re threatening it in your head.”
Do I?
“But the best one? Your smile. You
never look as happy as when you’re faffing around with some old junk and trying
to make it look pretty.”

“That’s
not true,” I protested, giving into the warm sensation Jared had just ignited
in my chest. “I’m never as happy as when I’m with
you
.”

“Are
you coming on to me, my ravenous little sex bunny?”

“Fuck
you,” I spat playfully. “I was trying to be mushy and crap! I don’t know why
but I thought you deserved it. Turns out, I may be happy when I’m with you, but
I’m also never more frustrated than when I’m in your company. Arsewipe.”

“You
say frustrated… sexually by any chance? Because I could remedy that within
minutes.”

“You’ll
be late for work.”

“The
boss is my uncle. Being late is a perk of the job.” He winked and we both knew
I was about to cave. “Come on, saffy,” he encouraged – his voice dripping
with lust as he strolled over to the armchair I was sitting on and dropped to
his knees. “Sex is good for you. It lowers your cholesterol.”

“I’m
pretty sure my cholesterol is fine,” I said, laughing at him. The laughter
turned into a sharp gasp however when Jared sneaked his hands under the hem of
my dress and along my thighs.

“You
can never be too safe,” he whispered, smiling deviously as he tucked a finger
behind the elastic of my knickers. “Wouldn’t want you having a stroke on my
conscience,” he added, this time plunging the same finger inside me.

“Fuck,
Jared…” I groaned. I hadn’t planned to give in so easily but it seemed my trembling
body had other ideas.

“I’m
sorry, Rach, I didn’t quite hear that. Do you want me to stop?” The teasing
bastard asked, pulling his finger out of me excruciatingly slowly.

“No.
Don’t st-” I didn’t get a chance to finish before his finger was back inside of
me, only this time it wasn’t slow. It was fast. Hard. Perfect. He pumped, first
one and then two fingers into my aching core over and over again. Then I
sighed, frustrated when he removed his hand from my body.

“Lift
yourself up for me.” I did as he asked without question. From the intense look
of pure craving in his bright green eyes, I knew it was going to be worth my
while. So, bracing my hands on the plush arms of the chair, I lifted my bum up.
Jared slipped his thumbs into the waistband of my knickers and yanked them down
with an impatient growl. Then, once I’d lowered myself down, he placed his
hands behind the back of my knees and lifted my legs over the sides of the
chair.

I
was just about to make a smartarse comment about feeling like I was being
prepped for a vaginal exam in such a position… but then he made me forget where
I was and
who
I was, when he nuzzled
his face between my legs.

“Holy…
fuck,
” I squealed in a pitch that was
surely inaudible to humans. Jared kept his hands on the inside of my thighs the
whole time, supporting them so they didn’t fall off. He teased, licked and
dipped his hot tongue in every different direction until I was trembling so
violently I thought I might take off into the fucking air. “Oh FUCK!” I cried
when he bit down on my swollen clit. He
literally
bit me! Not hard enough to hurt, but firm enough to make me lose my fucking
mind…

“Take
me to the bedroom,” I panted breathlessly.

“Too
far,” he said throatily, tugging his jeans down and letting his raging hard-on
spring free. Bending down, he plucked a condom from the pocket in his discarded
pants (convenient eh?) and I took a moment to wonder how this was going to
work. I was sitting, spread-eagled over a small armchair, still fully clothed
with the exception of my knickers, and I was surely too low or too high for him
to get where I so desperately wanted him to be depending on whether he stood or
kneeled.

Too
busy trying to figure out the technicalities, I hadn’t even noticed he had
rolled down the condom and removed his shirt until his premeditated lips were
coming for mine. I closed my eyes, waiting to feel his tongue skim over my own…
but he pulled away.

“No
time for that, baby. You don’t want me being late remember?” he teased with a
devilish half-smile. Then he positioned one knee on the tiny triangle of
exposed cushion between my legs and braced his strong body with one hand on the
back of the chair behind my head. “Put your hands on your legs.” I did, even
though I wondered why.

However,
the second he rammed himself into me, I knew
exactly
why.

Jared’s
unforgiving hips thrust into me like his life depended on it and if I hadn’t
have been holding onto my legs, the intense speed of him would’ve knocked them
straight down. He wasn’t slow, sweet or sensual. He had the end in sight. He
wanted to come and he knew exactly how to make it happen.

“You close,
saffy?” he growled, pounding me so hard the chair had literally moved across
the floor by a good few inches. “Because
I’m
close. So. Fucking. Close.” He kept up his relentless assault on my body
until I was a quaking, starving mess beneath him. No matter how much he was
giving me… I wanted
more.

“
Harder,
Jared,” I demanded through
gritted teeth.

“Oh yeah?”

“FUCK!” I
yelled as he rocked his hips so forcefully towards me my neck jolted back and I
banged my head on the hard ridge at the back of the chair.

“You want
harder, saffy? I’ll give you fucking harder.”

All I’ll say
is… he wasn’t kidding.

“Now, Rach…
come on, baby. I need to
feel
you,”
he ordered like it was possible for me to come-on-demand. But damn if the sound
of his voice – the deep, throaty,
desperate
tone – didn’t have me clenching and trembling in all the right
places. “Now, Rachel!”

And then it
happened. Jared took the hand that’d been gripping my waist and slid it up the
front of my dress before pinching my incredibly hard nipple and I came with a
loud cry as my whole body went into spasm.

“Fuck,
Rachel. Fuck,” were Jared’s last words before he too found the place he had
been driving towards. Feeling the delicious sensation of Jared’s cock pulsating
inside of me while he came down from his high, he leaned into my neck and
whispered breathlessly in my ear. “I fucking love you, Rachel Mason.”

I
love you too.

Say
it. Go on… tell him.

“No time for
soppy shit,” I teased as the world continued to spin around me. “You’re going
to be late.”

Ugh. What the
hell is wrong with me?

Rachel

Two months later…

“
Happy
birthday to you! Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday, dear Rachelllll… Happy birthday to youuuuuuuu!” Holly sang,
waltzing into my flat at 7AM with a pink box, a purple balloon and a card.

“Is
it?” Christ I’ve been a grumpy fucker lately. “Sorry,” I felt obliged to say when
I saw her eager face melt. “I see a present,” I teased, rubbing my hands
together and trying to summon some birthday spirit.

“Here
you go!” she enthused with that girly giggle she has down to a fine art as she
handed me the pink box. Tucking the edge of my fingernail into a loose opening
in the pink paper, I teased open a small flap before ripping the lot off. Inside
was a white cardboard box, and inside there was a chunky charm bracelet.

“I
love it, Hol!” And I meant it. It’s not your traditional piece of dainty
jewellery. The bangle was adorned with smooth, polished beads and dangling from
the centre were two charms – a turquoise (my birth colour) gem encased in
a small heart, and one in the shape of the word ‘friend’. “It’s perfect,” I
added, slipping it on my wrist and stretching my arm out to admire it.

Next,
Holly tied the purple helium balloon to the back of my wheelchair while I read
her card. I did the obligatory smile as I read through the soppy words and then
stood it proudly in the middle of the coffee table.

“So
what are your big plans for today? I’m still waiting for an invite to a
surprise party so I’m guessing Jared’s arranged something different?” she said
like a question.

“As
far as I know we’re just going out for a few drinks and bringing a takeaway
back here.”

“So
just a regular night for you guys then?” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Well
they’re my favourite kind of nights,” I disputed and my heart began to flutter.
God, how mushy was that? I swear I can’t keep up with my mood swings lately.
“But before that I’ve got work,” I said with a genuine smile.

Oh
yeah – I have a job! Can’t believe I forgot to tell you that. And it’s
not just
any
job either. It’s not one
of the crappy shop assistant or telecommunications jobs… it’s my
dream
job. Or at least it could be one
day.

I
applied for the part-time tour guide position at Smithyll’s Gallery of Fine Art
and Antiques without any hope or expectation of getting it. Applying was
genuinely just a way of getting my name out there for the future, in the belief
if I applied to enough galleries over the years, one day my name might be
familiar enough to chance offering me an interview.

So
the day the call came for an interview, I almost peed my pants. As for the day
they offered me the job? My legs were only a second away from coming to life
and running me round in circles screaming and cheering.

After
completing a three-week training programme, I have been an official tour guide
and all round dogsbody for nearly a month now. My hair doesn’t seem to be an
issue but I was asked to keep my tattoos covered and take out any visible
piercings while I was at work. Fair enough I suppose. I know too well the world
is full of judgemental prick warts, but while I’m working, those prick warts
are essentially paying my wages so I just have to suck it up and spit it back
out when I get home.

While
I’m there on Wednesday and Thursday evenings and all day Saturdays, it’s my job
to lead bookings of small groups around the building, explaining the various
pieces of art we come to and answer any questions. Sometimes people request a
personal tour and then I have to do those too. I think I prefer those actually
– you can engage in ‘real’ conversation with just one or two others.

The
only part of the job I don’t particularly enjoy is helping out with weekend
auctions. If you’ve ever been to an auction, I’m the one stuck at the front
holding an old teapot in the air with a fake smile, being bored as fuck while
old people with too much money and not enough sense wave their numbers in the
air.

Today
was one of those days. Ugh.

“You
don’t seem too happy. I thought you loved your job?” Holly pressed, making
herself comfortable on the sofa.

“I
just hate auction day.” Oh shit. Were those…
tears?

“Whoa,
Rach…” Holly fussed, moving to the edge of the sofa so she could reach my knee.
She put her hand on it and squeezed gently. “What’s happened? You
never
cry. And… well you’ve not seemed
right for a few weeks.”

“I
don’t know!” I yelled as if it was all Holly’s fault. “I just feel like shit.
I’m so fucking tired all the time. I keep worrying about
everything
. Like the fact Jared keeps doing a disappearing act when
we’re supposed to be meeting up. He’s up to something I
know
he is. Except I don’t
actually
‘
know’. In fact it’s probably just the fact my head is all over the fucking
place but because I can’t stop thinking about it I keep being a bitch to him.
But then what if he is and what if-”

“Calm
down, hon,” she soothed, interrupting my freaking out session. “Do you think
he’s cheating on you?” she asked disbelievingly.

“No.
Yes. Maybe. No. I don’t know!”

“You
know you should just ask him. I mean… look what happened the last time. And
that was all
my
fault. But at least
it taught me not to read into anything before I get the facts. Maybe you should
do the same.”

“Maybe,”
I said sulkily, sniffing in my tears.

“You
sure that’s all it is?”
No. I miss Emily
like fucking crazy and I can’t get hold of her. But I can’t tell
you
that in case you think you’re not being a
good enough friend.

“Yeah.
Like I said, I just feel like…
fuck…
”
Clamping my lips closed, I speed-wheeled to the bathroom like I was competing
in the Paralympics before throwing up the entire contents of my stomach and
maybe part of a kidney into the toilet.
Ugh
.

“
Rachel
?” Holly said carefully, rubbing
my back while I rinsed the vile taste from my mouth in the sink.

“Uh
huh?” was all I could manage.

“Do
you think you could be…
pregnant
?”

The
water didn’t do shit to get rid of the nasty taste in my mouth so I plucked my
toothbrush from the holder and squeezed a generous dollop of toothpaste onto
it.

“Rachel?”

If
you ever catch me trying to buy this mega whitening toothpaste again, slap me.
It burns the fuck out of my tongue.

“Rachel?”
Holly demanded, tapping my shoulder.

“
WHAT
?” I snapped with a mouth full of
foam.

“You
know what! Do you think you could be pre-”

“No!
Of course not.” For Christ’s sake, what a ridiculous idea. Jared and I
always
use condoms. Well… except when
occasionally
he puts it in and whips it
out before the main event. And I just got my period last… well, a few… no wait
it might have been…

Holy
fuck.

“
Rach?
”

“I
can’t be pregnant. His sister is pregnant. She’s fourteen weeks pregnant and
still
hasn’t told their parents. So I
can’t be pregnant too. That’s just too much pregnant to be real. Pregnant?
Me
? Nah… no way. I’m not being pregnant.
I refuse.”

“I
think you need to calm down a little.”

“I’ll
calm down when I…” I didn’t get the chance to finish, but it seems the rest of
that statement should’ve been ‘I’ll calm down when I’ve spewed a few more
organs up’.

“You
want me to go and get you a test.”

No.

Yes.

No.

Fuck.

“I’ll
pick one up on my way home from work.”

“Maybe
you should call in sick. It’s not exactly a lie,” Holly suggested, nodding
towards the toilet bowl that had my face buried in it a few seconds ago.

“I
can’t. They know it’s my birthday and are already letting me go after lunch. If
I don’t show up, they’ll think I’m taking the piss.”

“Well
at least let me take you to work and pick you up. It’s quicker than waiting
around for a taxi.”

“Thanks,”
I agreed. That’d be great.”

“Are
you going to call Jared? Maybe he should be here when you do it.”

“No,”
I said determinedly. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It might be a false
alarm. I want to know what, if anything, I’m dealing with first. But you’ll
stay with me, right?” Since when did I become so needy? Oh yeah, about three
months ago when I started seeing Jared and may well have stupidly got myself up
the snuff. For weeks now my mood has been slipping up and down more often than
a whore’s knickers, and I’ve been blaming that, along with the insecurity and
psycho jealous bitch girlfriend moments on the unfamiliarity of being in a
relationship - but now it was looking like it could have all been down to…

No.

I
refused to go there. Yet. As it stood it could all be a big fuss about nothing.

Oh
hell… what the fuck am I going to do?

**********

For
the first time since I started at Smithyll’s nearly eight weeks ago, I was
grateful to be the smiling teapot holder. It requires no thought you see
– no conversation and no actual skill. With a stomach threatening to
spill if I dared move too fast and a brain that would explode if it had to
coordinate anything more complex than a smile, sitting pretty and holding up a
cracked turn of the century vase was probably the perfect role for me today.

As
promised, my boss George let me go at lunchtime after wishing me a happy
birthday. George is hilarious. I swear he makes David Dickinson look macho
– the guy is camper than Christmas on acid.

I
checked my phone when I went to fetch my coat from the break room and I had
four text messages. Scrolling through them I noticed the latest was from Holly
telling me she was waiting outside, and the rest were ‘what he planned to do to
me tonight texts’ from Jared. I replied sounding as upbeat as I could manage
and then found myself checking through my texts one last time in case I’d
missed any.

But
no. There was nothing from Emily. Just like there hadn’t been for weeks now.
Hey, did I forget to tell you she’s back in England? Well she is. Though she
hasn’t had the decency to tell me that herself. I got a phone call from her
brother Chris last week saying she’s left Dexter behind to deal with his family
troubles and she seems to be in a bad place and can’t face coming back to
London just yet.

Well
guess what, Em? I’m in a bad fucking place too.

Dammit.
I’m being unfair and I know it. I can’t even begin to compare my problems with
hers. She doesn’t ‘do’ new places and people yet she travelled half way across
the world to support Dexter only to find out he shot his mum when he was
practically a kid, then have his mum
die
right in front of her and
then
have
his twisted arsehole of a father show up and start threatening them all. I
wonder if I’ll ever know how that turned out…

Jeremy
Kyle would come in his pants if he got his hands on their story.

Truth
is, I’m really pissed off with her for
not
needing me. She’s always needed me and I’ve always needed her. And now…
nothing. She must have been through hell and yet I’m the last person she wants
to talk to. And yet she’s the
only
person
I want to talk to right now and it’s like she’s disappeared off the face of the
fucking earth.

But
I’m also worried and more than a little curious. Emily adores Dexter. I saw
such a change in her when she met him. Her confidence grew, she was more sure
of herself, and she did that pathetic thing us girls do when we’re into someone
– she sighed every time she heard his damn name. She put aside all the
qualms and insecurities that make her
her
to follow him – to stand by him. I just don’t believe she would leave him
unless he’d really hurt her. And if it were for any other reason, she would’ve
come home. She would’ve told me. She wouldn’t be hiding out in Manchester just
minutes away from the parents she couldn’t wait to get away from this time last
year.

I’m
telling you though, whatever’s going on between me and Em right now… if that
fucker’s hurt my girl I will rip his dick off with my bare hands before
pickling it and giving it pride of place on my mantelpiece.

“I
picked this up for you,” Holly announced once I was settled in the front seat
of her red Fiat Punto. She thrust a white paper bag in front of my face and when
I took it off her, I didn’t need to look inside to know what it was.

“I
don’t want to do it,” I said, shaking my head like it would make everything
disappear. “This box has the potential to change my whole life. I’m fucking
terrified, Hol.”

“I
know you are,” she tried to console. What else could she say? “Come on,” she
added, twisting the key in the ignition. “The faster we get to your place, the
quicker we’ll know for sure.”