Summer's Edge (22 page)

Alice was a few minutes late, and when she showed up she was wearing her tennis gear. "I’ll join you guys in a while. I have something to do first."

"Oh god you are not doing what I think you are doing. I thought you were joking about it," Jules said.

Alice grinned. "It’s the last time I’ll ever be wearing this, so it may as well get a send off."

"Does he actually know what you have planned?"

"Maybe. He’ll soon find out anyway."

Everyone else was so absorbed by the thrill of finally finishing school that there weren’t any more questions and Alice slipped away.

As she had expected, Stewart was over by the nets preparing for the afternoon’s cricket practice. His eyes widened when he saw her. "Is that what you wore to your Economics exam?"

"I thought I should say a final farewell to the pavilion," Alice said.

"Do you need some assistance with that?"

"I think so."

He went inside with her and locked the door behind him. "Christ those skirts are distractingly short," he said as he turned her to face him.

Alice felt inexplicably nervous. Even though she couldn’t really be expelled now, and there was little chance of anyone trying to get in the pavilion anyway at this hour, it felt like a huge transgression of the rules.

Here they were once again, in the dark cool of the pavilion, with its musty smell of summer and sports. Her last taste of school.

He cupped his hand on her rear, his fingers reaching under the edge of the fabric. He stopped, and then moved his hand a little further. "You’re not wearing anything under this?" He was shocked but desire flickered in his eyes. She felt him caress around the curve of her rear, feeling her bare skin.

"Not exactly."

"A fine sight for Mr Francis if the wind blew it up in front of him." He was clearly as amused as he was turned on by her lack of underwear. He drew his hand between her legs as he put his other on her shoulder and brought her to him.
 

She could never get enough of kissing him. His lips were firm and warm, he knew just the pressure to use to tease her own lips and gently bite down her neck, into the sensitive hollows above her collarbone.

She reached for his own clothes, trying to undo his fly, but he stopped her. "I won’t last more than a few minutes as it is."

"You want it that badly?" she asked, delighted by his desire for her. She felt the same. The ban imposed by Mr Francis on any contact between them for the past few days had only made her obsess with longing for him.

"You walk in here like every man’s fantasy, half-naked in that outfit, how long do you expect me to last?"

She laughed and then shuddered as his fingers slipped inside her, where she was already unbelievably wet for him.
 

"Seeing as you’ve made yourself so conveniently accessible…" he turned her round and pushing up her tennis skirt she felt him position himself between her legs. He was rock hard. He had her facing the wall, and she put her hands against it for balance.

He pushed into her and she caught her breath. She felt the warmth of his chest against her back, his hands slipping beneath her shirt feeling for her breasts. She loved him touching her body, how his hands felt caressing her. Strong and warm. Knowing just how much he wanted her.

She felt him inside her: the perfect fit. He felt it too. "We fit so well, you’re perfect." Hearing him say this made her body ring with pleasure and increased her own desire for him.

"Do you want me as much as I want you?" he asked.

"More. Endlessly."

He laughed, out of breath. "I can’t go forever, it’s hard holding off at all given what you do to me."

This inspired Alice to try and make him lose control. She writhed her hips back against him, loving how the change of angle felt, trying to draw him in even more.

"You do that again and I won’t last another second." His hand stroked down her stomach and his fingers slid to her most sensitive place. This made her arch involuntarily. "You’re going to come with me," he told her.

His fingers kept up the pressure, firmly and relentlessly moving over her. She cried out and squirmed against him. He had complete control of her body.
 

Here she was, her last day of school, with the school cricket coach screwing her in the pavilion. The forbiddenness of it and the thought of what the Headmaster would do if he knew sent a momentary thrill through her.

But he wasn’t just a cricket coach. He was hers. She didn’t know if she could call him her boyfriend but she was with him, properly. They didn’t have to hide any more.

The rhythm of his fingers and his thrusts inside her were exactly right. She needed this and she needed him. She nearly cried out how she felt - that she loved him, that she was in love with him, that she could never imagine anyone else making her feel this way - but she didn’t quite dare yet.
 

Instead she bit her lip and tried to muffle her own sounds as he brought her over the edge and the pleasure radiated out of her from where he was touching her, inside and outside.

She heard and felt him orgasm too, triggered by her own climax. He was saying her name and gripping her against him.

Then he pulled her upright and around to face him, and his lips were on hers, passionately and tenderly. "You are the best. You’re like an addiction," he told her between kisses.

She didn’t know if she really was the best but she loved that he said it.

"So now the ban on contact with you is lifted, when am I seeing you next?" he asked.

She wanted him to come to the restaurant with her. But with half the First Eleven there it would likely be awkward. He would still be coaching some of them even after exams were over as there were several matches left before the official end of term.

"Tomorrow night there’s the leavers’ party…" She knew he couldn’t come to that, but she didn’t think she could wait another whole day to see him.

"Can you come round afterwards?"

"It might finish late." She looked at him expectantly, hoping the invitation would still be open.

"If I’m asleep you can wake me up." His eyes told her all she needed to know. He wanted to be with her.

She answered him with a kiss, moulding her body against his and feeling the wonderful hard planes of his chest and the muscles of his back. She could feel him start to grow hard again.

"I could make love to you all afternoon but at some point we’ll have the Second Eleven banging at the door for nets practice. They might prefer a show but I’m not planning on giving them one," he said.

Alice laughed. "OK. I’ll leave you be."

"And you’d better put something on under that," he said, feeling her bare flesh under her skirt again. "I want you open access to me, but not the whole world."

No one had ever expressed anything like possessiveness to her before. While Alice knew he was joking, she loved the sense of being his and his alone.
 

He kissed her again and she slipped back to the main school to shower and change. She no longer cared what anyone might think of her being in her tennis gear in the middle of the day. She was free and she could do what she liked.

* * *

The others were still on drinks and hadn’t ordered food yet when she arrived at the restaurant. There were about twenty people there from school including Becky and Jules. It was an American diner themed outlet with a huge cocktail and beer menu.

"What took you so long?" someone asked. "Get a last minute detention?"

"Something like that." She was feeling incredibly happy.

"A detention in the pavilion," Jules said. She was already half wasted, there were huge communal jugs of Long Island Iced Tea on the tables that had no doubt contributed.

"In the pavilion?" Oh god, Maddy Pullen was there, her ears instantly pricking up.

"Yeah. Alice had a sporting engagement." Jules was grinning, she no longer cared what Maddy knew or thought. In her drunken state anything that annoyed Maddy was a score worth making.

Alice did care. She kicked Jules under the table though she doubted it would do much good.

"What do you mean?" Maddy asked. She wasn’t going to let up.

"Are you taking up cricket?" a boy asked, getting the wrong end of the stick.

"No, I just had something to do. But I’m here now and ready to get some drinks in," Alice said, hoping to change the subject.

But cogs were turning in Maddy’s mind. "You weren’t with him, were you? Don’t tell me you went and flung yourself at him. There’s no way he’d be interested in you."

"You said that before," Jules reminded her. "And you were wrong then just as you are now. Because he is interested in her, and they’ve been together for some time."

"Jules!" Alice hadn’t bargained on being exposed by Jules’ drunken defence. She wished Becky would help her out but Becky seemed even less sober than Jules and was barely communicating.

Maddy didn’t want to believe it. "There is no way. There is just no way," she kept saying.

"What’s going on?" someone else asked.

Maddy turned to him. "Jules is trying to claim that Alice is seeing Mr Walker, but it’s bullshit."

"Seriously? The coach?"

Everyone was now fixated on the conversation and Alice was blushing red.

"You’re going out with Stewart Walker?" It was one of the First Eleven. There was no hope of keeping it under wraps now. Not that Alice needed to but she hadn’t quite been ready for some huge announcement either.

"Not exactly." She was she supposed, but it hadn’t quite been put into those terms. She caught Mike Jackson’s eye and felt a twinge of guilt. He hadn’t said anything but he clearly knew something about the situation, doubtless from Joe.

"He’s old enough to be your dad, isn’t he?"

"If Francis found out he’d go ballistic!"

Maddy was furious. "You are such a slag."

Without warning a half-full jug of cocktail was tipped over Maddy’s head. "What the hell?" she said, turning round in a fury, liquid streaming from her hair and slices of fruit all over her.

It was Becky. Quiet little Becky, liberated enough by alcohol to reach the end of her tether.

"You are the slag, Maddy. You slept with that guy from Malvern High and that’s why Paul Sutton dumped you," Becky.

Maddy swore at her.

But now it was Becky who wouldn’t let up. "I’m so sick of you having a go at all of us all the time when you are the biggest hypocrite out there."

Someone started chanting "cat fight!" but Maddy took one look at a fairly aggressive looking Jules sitting next to Becky, and a sober but angry Alice, turned on her heels and marched off.

"Good riddance," Becky said. Alice then wanted to laugh. Anyone else would have said something far stronger.

The row and the sight of a drenched Maddy and her exit fortunately reset the mood and took the focus away from Alice’s love life. Someone slammed an empty jug on the table and shouted "drinks!"

"I will kill you later," Alice said to Jules under her breath.

Jules grinned again. "No you won’t. Who cares about this lot, we’re free. At least that bitch finally got it. And from Becky too."

It was probably true that there wasn’t really any damage left to be done. Alice’s parents already knew, the Headmaster knew, what did it matter if the whole world knew? Someone would probably see them out on the town sooner rather than later anyway. After all a teacher had already spotted them the one night they had gone out together.

"I owed you one," Becky said. "You got a detention for my sake."

Alice thought back to the clean-up. "I probably owe you for that, given how it turned out."

Gas was a thick fug of sweat, cigarette smoke, beer and bodies when the three of them arrived for the leavers’ party. The music pounded so loudly that conversation was nearly impossible from the moment they were through the door.

At Becky’s suggestion they were all dressed up. Half the people there were in jeans and Doc Martens and half in club wear. "We might be able to queue jump if we look really glam," she said.

"I don’t think the bouncers will care tonight, given it’s all school leavers and ticketed," Jules pointed out.

But Becky was right. The queue stretched around the block by the time they arrived so they marched up to the door. "Priority tickets," Becky announced.

"Let’s have a look," the bouncer said, but he paid more attention to Becky’s skin-tight dress than the regular ticket she held out to him. He waved them through to the scowls of some gothic looking people still waiting at the front of the line.

"What has got into Becky? What a score," Jules said.

But Alice knew why Becky had changed. It was Brett. She was happy and secure and it made her more confident. Becky had also got used to being given priority entry to places when she was with him. Being county cricketers made them minor celebrities in the places they tended to frequent.

"To the bar then. We get one free drink with this ticket."

There was a real spirit of camaraderie in the club that night, both with people from school that they’d not really been friends with before, as well as with people from other schools. Old differences were forgotten. Everyone was upbeat. Everyone was celebrating. It reminded Alice of the euphoria at Castlemorton.

The rave scene had cooled sharply since the illegal festival had eventually been broken up. There had been several arrests and some people were talking about moving over to Europe, according to Kate.
 

Glastonbury was in a couple of weeks but many travellers were complaining that it was getting too commercial. This inclined Jules to go, since it meant Leafy wouldn’t be there, but fifty quid for a ticket was a bit heavy when they were saving for their overseas trip.

"I wish you were coming backpacking with us Becky," Alice said, not for the first time.

"I almost would, I think, except for going to Australia with Brett."

"We could all meet up for Christmas. We should be in Australia by December," Jules said. "Brett can get us tickets for the Boxing Day test. My dad would never forgive me if I was in Melbourne and didn’t go."